Chapter Thirty-one – Softly #2
More, I wasn’t letting her give in to some fucker who thought he could manipulate her into getting what he wanted.
I reached for her, and she stepped back.
“I won’t risk everyone’s lives, Beckett. I can’t!”
“You’re not leaving, Maisey. I. Won’t. Let. You.”
“So, everyone just dies so I can stay?”
I shook my head, brushing aside the fear that still remained at the idea of losing her, even as another idea took hold—one that gave me a sense of hope. “No one is dying. No one is leaving. The truth is, they screwed themselves over by demanding it.”
Her brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“All we have to do is figure out who benefits from you leaving, and we’ll know who this is. They tipped their hand.” I reached out and hooked her pinky with mine. My chest loosened another hair when she didn’t pull away this time. “Were those their exact words?”
She frowned. “Which ones?”
“Another fire?”
Realization dawned. “Yes.”
“So, the fire at your dad’s house was them. That happened before I heard about the chief retiring and we told folks we were engaged. This gives us even more information. This is someone who would benefit from you being gone and the house burning down.”
She met my gaze, both of us thinking about how Carter had been pushing us to sell. The story unfolding was an old one—if the owners wouldn’t sell, you threatened them, burned them out, or found another way to get them to leave.
Before we could talk about it further, a loud knock on the bathroom door was preceded by Cleaver’s voice. “Maisey, the doctor wants to talk to you.”
More doubts pummeled me. Cleaver hadn’t made any progress on any of the notes and attacks.
Was it on purpose? Carter was his cousin—their mothers were sisters.
Were they working this together? I didn’t want to believe it.
Cleaver had all but threatened my life at the idea of me even hurting Maisey. But had it been an act?
She took a step toward the door, and I stopped her. “We’re in this together, Maisey. Together. You and me. You’re wearing my ring. You promised me forever. I’m holding you to it.”
She didn’t respond, and fear spiked its ugly head, but I did my best to force it down and away.
Opening the door, Cleaver’s face was grim, and Maisey panicked, thinking the worst. “Dad!”
Cleaver shook his head. “No. They stabilized him for now.”
Maisey broke away from me and rushed down the hall.
In her absence, Cleaver and I stared daggers at each other. I was the one to break the silence. “You’ve done a shit-poor job at finding out who’s doing this.”
Cleaver’s jaw tightened. “I’ve been working my ass off to follow the leads. The problem is, we just don’t have enough of them.”
“Well, good for you, then, because this has given you a bunch more to follow.”
And then I shared everything Maisey had just told me with him.
“Carter wants our land. He’s been pressuring Lewis and me to sell. I didn’t really think of it before because this person has been targeting Maisey and not her dad or me.”
Cleaver’s face darkened, and that eased my doubts about him, but only by a hair.
“I’ll get the phone records for Lewis’s phone and hers. Plus, the phone they left in the tower will lead us back to them as well.”
“Parker has a pal on the SEALs who has a way with tech. If you don’t have the resources or your team doesn’t have the skill, I’m sure we could get his help.”
Cleaver bristled. “We know what we’re doing.”
“You may know what you’re doing, but will you follow through?” I demanded.
“What are you trying to say, Romero? Just spit it out.”
“If this is Carter, your cousin and friend, will you still put the cuffs on him?”
“You think I’m working with him? Screw you. If he committed these crimes, he’ll do the time.”
I spun around and started down the hall after Maisey, tossing back over my shoulder, “Forgive me if I withhold judgment until you actually do something to stop this asshole.”
When I joined Maisey in the hospital room, it was to find Wylee with her.
The doctor was giving them a rundown on the blood work.
Lewis had been given heroin laced with fentanyl—a deadly combination in a lethal amount.
The doctors had placed him on a ventilator because his breathing hadn’t returned fully, and he hadn’t woken up.
“No one can know he’s made it through,” Wylee said sternly.
“There’s a good chance he still won’t make it,” the doctor responded and then grimaced as she met Maisey’s stricken face.
“You gave him the naloxone as fast as you could, Maisey. We can hope he regains awareness and starts breathing fully on his own. We can hope the side effects will be minimal, but with what his mind has already been through in the last month, it’ll be touch and go. ”
Desperate to somehow comfort her, I pulled Maisey up against my chest and wrapped my arms around her. If nothing else, I could make sure she felt loved and protected for the moment.
“We need to register him under a fake name and change rooms. I’d really like to move him over to the county hospital, if you think he’s stable enough,” Wylee told the doctor. “Call Bob with hospital security. Get him down here so we can discuss it.”
The doctor and the sheriff stepped out of the room, and Maisey pushed away from me to take a seat at her father’s bedside. She pulled his hand to hers, kissed the palm, and then held it tight.
I sat across from her, where I could see the door and the nurses’ station outside. I watched as Cleaver and Wylee talked with the doctor, and a man in a suit joined them. Eventually, another deputy arrived, carrying several evidence bags.
The sheriff grabbed one and stalked back into the room. “Maisey, you don’t happen to know your dad’s passcode, do you?”
She reached for the bag and typed the code in through the plastic. As the sheriff was adding the code to his notes, Maisey brought up her dad’s messages and then stilled.
Her voice, already raw with emotions, trembled when she said, “There’s a text from…
me…asking him to meet me on the back porch of Lauren’s place.
It’s not my number, but it’s labeled as Maisey in his contacts.
How is that possible?” She was pale as she continued to scroll through the messages.
“Yesterday. Someone texted him and said it was me. That I’d gotten a new phone as a security measure. ”
Sheriff Wylee leaned over and gently took the phone away.
“Don’t feel guilty, sweetheart. None of this is on you, but it might lead us back to the bastard.
The phone number will lead somewhere. Even if it’s a burner phone, we can trace it to the store where it was bought.
They’ll have security cameras. People forget it’s almost impossible not to leave some kind of digital trail these days. ”
Silence descended, making the sounds from the ventilator scream.
“We need to look at your phone and trace the calls you received as well,” the sheriff said.
Maisey’s gaze met mine, and for a moment, panic flitted over her face. “You’ll read my messages?”
Wylee’s brows drew together. “We’ll keep it to the ones from the unknown number Beckett told Cleaver about, but I want to have the phone checked for tracking software and cloning apps.”
Maisey’s cheeks turned pink, and I realized what she was worried about. It brought the first spark of amusement I’d felt in hours. “Darlin’, don’t worry. I’m sure Wylee here has sent similar messages to his wife.”
My comment didn’t help. Maisey flushed even more.
The color spread down her neck, and I knew exactly what it would look like all over her body now.
I’d watched the delightful red coat every inch when I’d whispered words of encouragement to her last night before she’d come apart under me and over me repeatedly.
The sheriff finally caught on to what the issue was and hid a smile behind his hand.
“Ah. Yes. Well. No need for us to look at those. We’ll concentrate on the texts you got today and use a keyword search for anything else we think is relevant.
We’ll do our best to maintain your privacy while also ensuring the phone is safe for you to use.
I’ll try to have it back to you by the end of the day, tomorrow morning at the latest.”
Maisey’s throat bobbed again before her shoulders went back, and she dragged her phone out of the pocket of her jeans. “Whatever it takes.”
Wylee combined hers with her dad’s phone and then said gently, “Now comes the hardest part, sweetheart. I need you to leave the hospital.”
“What? No!” She shook her head vehemently, grasping her dad’s hand. “He needs to hear my voice. He needs to know I’m here waiting for him, so he’ll fight harder.”
The sheriff patted her shoulder and then squeezed. “If we want the bastard to believe they won this round, they need to think your dad is gone. You wouldn’t stick around if that were the case.”
Sadness rippled across her face. “You’re right.” She rubbed her eyes, the glassy look in them worse than it had been before. She glanced from me to the sheriff. “I should leave town too, right? Like they asked? To protect everyone?”
“No,” I insisted.
She ignored me. “It’s not just me. If I stay, it puts Beckett and Fallon and Lila at risk too.
The entire ranch. Think of all the people staying there right now and all the people from our community who will be there tomorrow for the Fourth.
It’s stupid to endanger everyone when I can easily do what they want and leave. ”
I made some inarticulate noise of objection, and her face softened. “Just until the sheriff catches whomever this is, Beckett. You know this is the smart play.”
“You’re not leaving. I’m not letting you out of my sight, Maisey. Not for one damn minute with some whack-job out there targeting you,” I growled.
Wylee dragged a hand over his white beard. “Let’s all take a breath. Truth is, we might get more out of whomever this is if you stay, Maisey. They’ll be pissed if you don’t follow through, but it also puts you at greater risk.”
Maisey pressed a hand to her stomach. “I won’t be responsible for someone else I love getting hurt…or worse.”
“We can count on Steele to protect his wife, family, and the ranch,” the sheriff said.
“He’s done a mighty good job of it in the past. Once he knows about this threat, he’ll increase the security there, even more than he normally does for the holiday.
Anything suspicious will raise a flag with his team and mine.
And when you don’t leave, the bastard will reach out to you again, and we can trace the calls or texts in real time. ”
Every fiber of my being hated the idea of her staying and being bait for a killer as much as it did the idea of her leaving. But I wouldn’t let her out of my sight, and we had a retired Navy SEAL at my house, with even more SEALs at her father’s place, where Parker had placed them.
As long as Maisey didn’t run off again, we could protect her.
Uncertain, she stood, kissed her father on the forehead, whispered something in his ear, and then squeezed his hand. I met her at the foot of the bed and tucked her close to me once again. At the door, she looked back, and tears pooled once more.
“It hurts to leave him.” Pain rippled through the words.
“I know, Maise. I know.”
As we left the room, Cleaver stepped in beside us, and Wylee said, “Steele told me about his teammates hanging out at your dad’s and Beckett’s.
I’m sticking Deputy Cleaver outside your place too.
We’re also trying to get a hold of the Helmers to see if we can move their renters out and put in an undercover unit there.
I’m hoping we’ll have them situated by tonight. ”
The four of us exited the hospital together, and by the time we did, the tears were traveling down Maisey’s face unchecked.
While I’d always hated her tears, this time they served a purpose more important than emotional release—one I wasn’t sure she’d even realized. If this asshole was watching, they’d see a distraught Maisey leaving the hospital, just like they’d expect if her dad had really died.
Still, my chest tore at her anguish.
I desperately wanted to hand some pain back to the person who’d done this to her. I wanted to hand them hours of torment for every second they’d caused her. If I had my way, they’d never escape pain again. They’d live with it until they took their very last breath.