Chapter Five
Luca set the bag of baby supplies on the floor next to the sofa in the break room of the sheriff’s office where Coral was feeding Gabriel a bottle. Bree was right there, clearly not wanting to take her eyes off their son, but Luca also knew she would soon have to do that. Because there was no way she would miss her mother’s interview.
Bree, her siblings and every cop in the building—including Luca—wanted to hear what Sandra had to say. It could be critical for not only the events of the past eleven months but also for what’d happened today. Bree being run off the road, Sandra taking Gabriel.
And the shooting.
That was at the top of Luca’s list of things he needed to know. Since Duncan and Slater hadn’t been able to find the shooter, it meant there was a possibility it could happen again. This time, they might not get so lucky, and someone could be hurt. Luca didn’t intend to let that happen, and it was the reason he hadn’t let Bree and Gabriel out of his sight since those shots had been fired into the barn.
Of course, he’d have to allow it eventually because he didn’t want the baby in the interview room where tempers might flare, but Coral would stay just up the hall with Gabriel. No baby monitor, not after what’d happened to the one at Bree’s. But if there was any trouble, Luca would be able to get to Gabriel in a matter of seconds.
“It’s time?” Bree asked him.
Luca nodded. After they’d all arrived at the sheriff’s office, Duncan had told them to take thirty minutes so they could get Coral and the baby settled. So they could settle their own nerves, too. That would also give Duncan time for an EMT to come in and give Sandra a quick exam. Other than some cuts and bruises and the sore ankle, Bree’s mother hadn’t seemed injured, but if she was telling the truth about being held captive for eleven months, then she needed at least a cursory exam that would no doubt be followed by a complete physical once she’d given her statement.
“Your mother, Slater, Joelle and Duncan are already in the interview room,” Luca added. He knew that because he’d glanced in the room after he’d retrieved the baby supplies from Carmen, who’d picked them up from Bree’s place. Everyone was sitting and waiting for the EMT to finish. “Ruston is on his way from San Antonio, but he said for us not to wait for him.”
Since Ruston was a San Antonio detective, he understood the urgency of getting any and all info. In this case though, there were plenty of emotions mixed with that urgency. Yes, Sandra could possibly give them answers, but she was still Joelle, Bree, Slater and Ruston’s mother. A woman who’d been missing for almost a year.
A woman who, despite her denial, could have murdered their father or at least have knowledge of that murder.
Yeah, no way to take the emotions out of that.
Bree brushed a kiss on the top of Gabriel’s head. Luca did the same. And after giving their son one last look, they left to go to the interview room. Luca stopped just outside the closed door and looked at Bree to gauge how worried he should be about her.
Worried, he decided.
She looked exhausted and no doubt was. Spent adrenaline was a bear to deal with and sapped plenty of energy. Added to that, she still had those stitches from her car crash. There’d been way too little time for her to process that before they’d realized Gabriel was missing. Then, the gunshots had added to the hellish day.
And it wasn’t over.
Bree still had to deal with her mother, and the nightmarish memories the woman’s reappearance would stir up for her. Then, there was the part he’d go ahead and tell her now.
“I’m staying with Gabriel and you,” Luca spelled out. “You can consider it protective custody, but I’m staying.” He steeled himself for an argument where she could point out that one of her siblings could provide that protection.
But no argument came.
“Good,” she muttered. “No one will protect Gabriel better than you.”
“I feel the same way about you,” he assured her.
Their gazes connected. Held. He saw the faith she had in him about this. And he hoped she saw the same in him. They would indeed do whatever it took to keep their son safe. But like a hit of adrenaline, there’d be a price to pay. The close quarters were going to test barriers that Bree likely didn’t want tested. Still, no price was too high to pay for their little boy.
The door opened, breaking their connected gazes, and Luca and she stepped back so the EMT, Shaun Gafford, could come out. Luca knew him well since they’d been in the same grade at school.
“She’s got some bruises on her arms, hands and legs,” Shaun explained, “but other than that, she’s good.” He paused, looked at Bree. “How about you? You got meds in case those stitches start to throb?”
Bree nodded. “Dr. Bagley phoned in a script.”
At the mention of Nathan’s name, Luca remembered the call Bree had gotten from him shortly after they’d found Gabriel and her mother in the barn. Maybe Nathan had just been concerned about Bree and Gabriel, but after what Bree had revealed about the doctor’s stalking, Luca made a mental note to keep tabs on Nathan to make sure he didn’t resume those stalking attempts.
They stepped into the interview room that was a decent size, but usually there weren’t this many people present. Duncan, Slater, Joelle, Sandra, Bree and him. Then again, there was nothing “usual” about this situation. Sandra was seated with Joelle by her side, but Duncan and Slater were standing. Bree and Luca stayed on their feet as well.
“I just got a call about the silver truck,” Duncan said. “Woodrow and Carmen found it where Sandra said it would be. And they saw paint flecks on the bumper. It’s being taken in now for processing. According to the plates, the vehicle belonged to a man named Alan Smith, but Woodrow says the guy’s been dead for nearly a year now, and that his son sold the truck to a woman who paid cash for it. Woodrow has the buyer’s name. But it’s Ann Wilson so it’s probably bogus.”
Probably. But it was something Luca would check for himself.
“Still no sign of the shooter?” Bree wanted to know.
Duncan shook his head, and the frustration of that was all over his face. “But there were other tire tracks on the trail so it’s possible the shooter parked there and then escaped after he or she fled.” He made eye contact with Luca. “There were some indications that someone had tried to set fire to the silver truck.”
Hell. Luca hoped no evidence had been destroyed. They needed anything and everything in that vehicle to help them make sense of what’d happened. He was hoping though that the making sense would start right now with Sandra.
“I’m going to Mirandize you,” Duncan said, shifting his attention to Sandra.
Sandra didn’t object. She only sighed as Duncan recited the warning. He followed that up by stating his name, the time and the names of others who were present. All very official, but it didn’t mean Duncan was anticipating that he might have to arrest Sandra for anything. This was just a legal formality and a way of covering themselves.
“I didn’t kill my husband,” Sandra said the moment that Duncan had finished. Her voice cracked, and more tears filled her eyes. Joelle handed her mother a box of tissues that she took from the table. “Cliff was alive the last time I saw him,” Sandra insisted.
“Start from the beginning,” Duncan instructed as he took the seat across from her. “You said you were kidnapped. When and how were you taken?”
Sandra gathered her breath. “It was November first of last year. Cliff had already left for work, and I went to my home office to try to do more searches on Brighton. She’d been dead for four years by then, and Cliff was frustrated that he hadn’t been able to find her killer. He wanted me to search through old social media posts to see if I could come up with something.”
Cliff had asked Bree to dig as well. And Luca. So, Luca could attest to his former boss being frustrated. It was understandable, too, that he would ask his wife to help since Sandra and Brighton’s late mom had been best friends.
“Someone knocked at the door while I was working,” Sandra went on. “At first, I thought it was Cliff, that maybe he’d locked himself out or forgotten something since he’d only been gone about twenty minutes so I opened the door without looking. A woman wearing a ski mask jabbed me with a stun gun. She dragged me out of the house and into a car, and then she gave me some kind of injection in my arm that knocked me out.”
Luca thought back to the scene of Cliff’s murder. There’d been no signs of a struggle. No signs of Sandra either, and her purse and phone had been missing.
“Describe the woman and the car,” Duncan said.
Sandra nodded, but then paused for a couple of seconds. “Like I said, she wore a mask so I never saw her face. But she was tall, maybe five foot ten, and she had an athletic build. She didn’t have any trouble dragging me to the car. She just put me in and drove off.”
“But she took your purse, keys and phone?” Luca questioned.
“Yes. I had my phone in my pocket, and she got that right away and took out the SIM card. But she also grabbed my purse, and it had my keys in it.” She paused again. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about that, and I think she took my purse to make it look as if I’d voluntarily left. I didn’t,” she insisted. She repeated that while she made direct eye contact with Joelle, Bree and Slater.
“What happened after this woman kidnapped you?” Duncan pressed, clearly anxious to get some answers.
“I’m not sure how long I was unconscious,” Sandra admitted. “When I woke up, I was in a bedroom with log walls, and it was attached to a small bathroom. There was a window in the bedroom, but it’d been boarded up.” She stopped, shook her head. “Believe me when I say I tried to tear off those boards, but I was never able to do that.”
“Where was this place?” Duncan asked.
Sandra pulled in another of those long breaths. “I didn’t know at the time, but after I escaped in the silver truck, I realized the cabin was only about twenty-five miles from here. It’s off an old farm road between Bulverde and the Guadalupe River.” Her eyes went wide. “It’ll be in the GPS. I didn’t know where I was, but the GPS was working so I told it to navigate to Bree’s address.”
Duncan took out his phone and made a quick call to Woodrow, instructing him to check the truck’s GPS right away and then to have local cops go out to the scene immediately.
“Okay,” Duncan said to Sandra when he’d finished with the call. “Go back to the kidnapper. You’re sure you never saw her face, never got any indications as to who she was?”
“I’m sure,” Sandra insisted. She stopped, and it seemed as if for several moments, she got lost in the memories of what’d happened. “She only came in every three days or so, and one time she brought me a newspaper with the article about Cliff. That’s how I learned my husband was dead.” Her voice broke. “I read about in a newspaper that horrible woman brought me. Did she kill him?” Sandra asked.
Most of them shook their heads. Bree went with a verbal response. “We don’t know. We’re all investigating it. Did the woman ever say anything about Dad?”
“Nothing. Just that article. I asked...no, I begged her for more information. I begged her to let me go, to tell me why she was holding me. She never answered.” There was a world of genuine heartbreak in her words, and Luca didn’t think any part of it was fake.
“Did your captor stay there with you the whole time?” Duncan asked, obviously shifting the interview back to the abduction.
Sandra shook her head. “No, she wasn’t around that much. Like I said, she’d come every two to three days and always had on a mask. She’d put a bag of groceries in my room. Sandwich stuff and chips mainly. Toiletries, sometimes.” She wiped away more tears. “A couple of times, I tried to jump her when she came in, but she always had the stun gun with her and would hit me with it.”
“Not this last time though,” Luca reminded her.
“No,” Sandra murmured. She stopped when Duncan’s phone dinged with a text.
“Woodrow called the county sheriff’s office, and they’re sending out deputies now to check the cabin,” Duncan relayed after he read the message.
Good. The sooner they got there, the better, and with any luck, the kidnapper would still be there so they could arrest her.
“You were telling us about how today’s encounter with your captor was different from other times,” Duncan prompted.
“Yes,” Sandra verified. “A couple of times before today, I’d heard her talking on the phone to someone. It sounded as if she was getting instructions or orders because she said things like, ‘I can do that’ and ‘Understood.’ The call I heard today though was different.” Her voice cracked again.
“How?” Duncan pressed.
“She said she was worried about someone noticing the damage to the truck, that she didn’t want to be pulled over by some local yokel when she went after the kid. Then, I heard her say Bree’s address, like she was repeating it to make sure she had it right.” A bite of anger trickled into her voice. “She said she’d get out there and get the kid before Bree was back from the hospital.” Sandra shifted her gaze to Bree. “I didn’t even know you’d had a baby.”
Bree nodded. “Gabriel. He’s two months old, and Luca’s his father.” She didn’t add more, but Luca could see for himself that Sandra was working this out in her head. Especially the fact that Gabriel had been conceived shortly after Cliff’s murder.
“Duncan and I have a daughter,” Joelle said. “Elizabeth Grace. We call her Izzie. You can meet her after, well, after,” she settled for saying. “For now, we need to know how you ended up at Bree’s and anything else you can tell us about what happened to you.”
Sandra stared at Joelle for a moment, and there was another flood of emotions. One that looked as if it might cause Sandra to lose it, but she reined herself in and continued. “When I overheard the woman saying she was going to take Bree’s baby, I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t let my grandbaby be taken and locked up like I was.”
Now the rage flared in Sandra’s eyes. Luca had rarely seen any show of temper from her over the years, but it was there now.
“I crammed everything I could into the last plastic grocery bag she’d dropped off two days earlier,” Sandra explained. “My shoes, toothpaste, even the bar of soap, and when she came in, I bashed her upside the head with it. She fell, the stun gun clattering to the floor so I used it on her. While she was jittering and flopping around, I ran. The truck was parked out front, and the keys were in the ignition so I got in and drove away as fast as I could.”
“You didn’t think to take off her mask and see who she was?” Duncan asked.
“No. I just ran. I had to get to Bree’s. I had to save her baby.”
Duncan shook his head. “But if you took your captor’s truck, then why did you believe she would still come after Gabriel?”
“I thought once she was able to move, she’d call her boss or partner and that he or she would rush to Bree’s and take Gabriel. I couldn’t risk that.” Sandra stopped again to wipe away more tears. “If she killed Cliff, I didn’t want to think what she could do to a baby.”
Neither did Luca, and if all of this was the truth, then Sandra had stopped something horrible from happening. Luca was beyond thankful for his son’s safety. But without the identity of the kidnapper, there could possibly be another attempt to take him.
But why?
Did someone want to use Gabriel for leverage? If so, that brought Luca right back to another why? It was possible someone wanted to use him to sway the outcome of an investigation, but at the moment, there were only two unsolved murders on the books. Cliff’s and Brighton’s. So, did that mean one of them was connected to this?
“Why do you think this woman kidnapped you? Why did she want Gabriel?” Bree asked, taking the questions right out of Luca’s mouth.
“I don’t know,” Sandra said through a hoarse sob. “I’ve obviously had plenty of time to think about it. To think about losing my husband, too. Did he suffer?” she asked Slater. “Did your dad suffer when he was killed?”
Slater shook his head. “The ME said death was almost instantaneous after he was shot.”
Almost. Like Slater and the rest of his family, Luca had read the ME’s report countless times, looking for anything that would lead them to his killer. So far, all they had was that someone had gunned down the sheriff, and he’d bled out.
“If the woman kidnapped me,” Sandra went on, “she must have had something to do with Cliff’s murder. Did she try to frame me? Did she do something to make me look guilty?”
“With you missing, you became a suspect,” Duncan admitted. “But we also had to consider that the killer had murdered you as well.”
Sandra flinched a little. “But she didn’t kill me. Why?”
Again, the big question. Too bad they didn’t have a good answer. But maybe there’d be clues in the cabin where she’d been held. Maybe in the silver truck, too.
“You said you used the stun gun on the woman who kidnapped you,” Duncan continued. “So, she would have been incapacitated for a while. For at least five minutes. Was there another vehicle at the cabin that she could have used to come to Bree’s and fire those shots?”
Sandra’s forehead bunched up. “Maybe. I didn’t look behind the cabin. I guess a car or motorcycle could have been parked back there. You think she’s the one who tried to kill us?”
Duncan shrugged. “I’m considering it.” He glanced down at a notepad. “Tell me about Manny Vickery,” Duncan threw out there, obviously trying a different angle. “How well did you know him?”
“Not well at all. In fact, I’ve never met him. I just knew the name because I talked to Brighton a couple of weeks before she was killed, and she mentioned she’d been going to the Hush, Hush. She was upset, but the only thing she’d say about it was that things weren’t going well with some man she’d been seeing. She was very upset,” Sandra emphasized. “So, I went to the bar to see if I could find out what was going on.”
“That’s how you ended up on the video outside the Hush, Hush,” Luca commented.
“Video?” Sandra questioned.
“Several people posted recordings of a fight, and I saw you on one of them,” Bree explained. “I saw Brighton on another. It’s possible though you weren’t there at the same time, that Brighton left before you showed up.” She stopped, gathered her breath. “Did you find out what was going on with Brighton when you went there?”
Sandra shook her head. “No. I talked to a couple of people, just to get a sense if anyone there knew Brighton. I talked to a bartender, Tara...”
“Tara Adler,” Bree provided. “I spoke to her, too,” she added when her mother gave her a questioning look. “She said she didn’t know Brighton.”
“She told me the same. I tried to talk to Manny, but he had Tara tell me he was too busy to see me. And there was that fight. A regular brawl, and it scared me so I left.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “If I hadn’t, if I’d stayed and found out what was going on with Brighton, she might still be alive.”
“Wait,” Sandra said a moment later. “You think Manny’s the one who had me kidnapped? You think he had something to do with your father’s murder?”
“We’re looking into that,” Duncan assured her. “We’re looking into a lot of things. But in light of what happened to Bree and to you, I want you in protective custody. I could arrange for a safe house.” Now it was Duncan who paused, and he looked at Joelle as if maybe confirming—or questioning—something they’d discuss.
Joelle nodded and turned to her mother. “You can go home if you’d like. Duncan, Izzie and I live there now.”
What Joelle didn’t spell out was that it was the place where her father had been killed. If Sandra had read the article about his death, she would know that, and it might not be easy for her to deal with it.
There was another side to this situation though. Luca believed Sandra was telling the truth about her abduction, but there were still plenty of blank spots as to what had happened. And why.
Especially why.
Sandra apparently wondered that as well, and she came up with the same concern that Luca and Duncan had. “I want to be there with you. All of you,” she amended, glancing at Slater, Duncan, Bree and Luca. “But what if that woman comes after me again? It’d put you in danger.”
No one could dispute that. As long as her captor was at large, the threat was there. And not solely for a kidnapping either. Those shots were proof that this person could and would kill. If the woman hadn’t been the shooter, then the likely suspect was the person she’d been talking to on the phone. So, two people who could come at them anytime, anyplace.
“We’d have to take precautions,” Duncan said. “Lots of them.”
“One possibility is that Slater and I could be at the ranch with you,” Joelle explained. She glanced at Slater, and he nodded, indicating this was something they’d already discussed. No doubt when Bree had been in the break room with Coral, Gabriel and him. “We could also ask one of the reserve deputies to stay with us as backup.”
Duncan’s attention shifted to Bree. “But you’re in danger, too. Which means so is Gabriel.”
Yeah, Luca had already gone there. Obviously, so had Bree because she made a quick sound of agreement.
“We could all be at the ranch,” Joelle spelled out. “All,” she emphasized, glancing at Luca. “We could conduct the investigation from there while putting security measures in place.”
Luca thought of the McCullough ranch and the house. It was big, with five bedrooms, but there were a lot of adults and two babies. Added to that mix would be Sandra, a woman he wanted to trust but wasn’t sure he could.
Bree turned to Luca, and she lifted her eyebrow. “Well?”
“I’ll be wherever Gabriel and you are,” he assured her.
Bree nodded. “All right. Then, we’ll all go to the ranch.”
He heard the worry in her voice. Saw it even more on her face. And he knew something else. Bree hadn’t been back there since her father’s murder so this was going to be an emotional avalanche. Then again, the same could be true for Sandra.
Slater took out his phone. “I’ll make arrangements for Gabriel’s baby things to be moved to the ranch.”
Luca would need to pack a few things as well, but before he could even consider a mental list, the door opened, and Ruston came in. His gaze fired around the room and landed on his mother. Unlike Joelle though, he didn’t rush to pull her into his arms.
“Does she know anything about Dad’s murder?” Ruston immediately wanted to know.
“No,” Sandra said at the same moment Bree, Duncan and Joelle indicated with headshakes that she didn’t.
The disappointment seemed to wash over Ruston. Obviously, he’d hoped his mother would be able to give them that closure.
“We have a lot to fill you in on,” Bree said, going to Ruston and giving him a quick hug. Their gazes met. “There’s trouble.”
“Yeah, I heard. Are you all right?” Ruston asked.
“I’ve been better,” Bree muttered. She took in a breath through her mouth. “I’m going to check on Gabriel.”
Luca moved to go with her, but before they made it to the door, Duncan’s phone rang. “It’s Woodrow,” he relayed, taking the call. He didn’t put it on Speaker, but after just a couple of seconds, Luca knew Duncan was getting bad news.
“What?” Duncan asked the caller. “You’re sure?” He paused and a moment later muttered, “Hell.” Duncan scrubbed his hand over his face and repeated the single word of profanity when he ended the call.
“The local cops went to the cabin,” Duncan explained, “but it was on fire. The fire department’s on the way, but they won’t get there in time.”
Luca groaned, and it blended with the other negative reactions in the room. With the cabin gone, they’d lose any critical evidence that might have been inside.
“There’s more,” Duncan added a moment later. “Woodrow checked, and the cabin was on a two-year lease to someone local.” His gaze met Bree’s. “Dr. Nathan Bagley.”