Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Everyone came running toward them after debris stopped raining down from the explosion. EMTs loaded Tuck onto a stretcher and double-timed it back to the road, while Willow was still pushing herself up off the ground.
Jeremiah, already upright, reached down a hand. She looked up at him and ignored it, getting up on her own, brushing off her jeans.
“Thanks. I’d have got him out, though.” She started for the road and the others, who’d slowed their approach now that they saw them both upright and walking toward them.
“Willow—”
“I’m workin’.”
“You’re two days out of the hospital yourself.”
“And one day out of bein’ called a liar and dumped. I think I’m doin’ pretty well, all things considered.”
“I didn’t call you a liar.”
“You didn’t believe me, either. Which means you don’t trust me.”
“And you trust me? You can’t see past my time served.”
“That’s not true!” She whirled as she said it, then stood there facing him. She was out of breath and her heart was pounding. Their backdrop was the Barker boys’ burning yellow truck.
He said, “I’m sorry.”
And she said, “I’m workin’.” Then pivoted and stomped the rest of the way to the road.
Now, Willow was sitting beside Tuck Barker’s hospital bed waiting for him to come to. They’d crashed in Quinn County, so she didn’t need to worry about stepping on some other department’s sensitive boots. The docs told her there was no reason Tuck shouldn’t come around soon.
Uncle Garrett was questioning his brothers, of course, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. She hadn’t read them their rights before they’d blurted their confessions, so the department was gonna need fresh ones.
As she sat there beside the bed, she wondered how the hell Jeremiah had shown up when he had, and why he’d risked his life just because she was risking hers. She was the law. It was her job. It wasn’t his.
Tuck had leads taped to his head and his chest. They’d shaved parts of both. There were monitors showing his brainwaves, heart rate, temperature and a bunch of stuff she didn’t know about. The beeps were overlapping and incessant.
There was a tap on the door. She turned to see Jeremiah standing there. He said, “He talking yet?”
“Still unconscious. So I’m still workin’.”
“Yeah, I got that. I’m not here about…that. I um…I got you this.” He held out a large yellow envelope.
She frowned and took it. “What is it?”
“A photo of Elena, walking into an attorney’s office with her husband the day they filed to contest the will. It’s grainy, from a surveillance video.”
“And how did you get it?” she asked as she slid the print from the envelope.
“I know people. Some still owe me favors.”
She looked down at the photo, then frowned. “That’s not Elena.”
“Nope.”
“That is her husband, though.”
“Yep.”
She lifted her head slowly. “She never contested the will. She was tellin’ the truth when she said she knew nothin’ about it.”
He nodded. “I think her husband and his accomplice…”
“Lover,” she said. “Look at the way she’s lookin’ at him.”
He looked at the photo again. Something came and went in his eyes.
She saw it, wondered about it even as she fit the pieces together. “As soon as he got word that they’d won their case, and the money was deposited, he tried to have Elena killed, so he’d get all of it. Problem is, he hired the most incompetent trio of criminals Quinn County has to offer.”
“I wonder how much he paid ‘em.”
“A hundred thousand,” came a weak and hoarse voice from the bed.
Willow returned to her spot beside it. “Hey, Tuck. I gotta tell you your rights, okay?”
He nodded, and she recited the Mirandas, then explained what they meant and asked if he understood. He said he did.
“So I need you to tell me, if you still want to,” Willow said. “who offered you money to hurt Elena Montrose?”
“Mr. Montrose. Elena’s husband. He said he wanted her dead fast, and we’d get paid soon as it was done.” He shook his head. “We done a lot of shit for him, my brothers and me. Bustin’ out windows and stuff. The pharmacy, and even Montrose’s own house one day.”
“And the WTD,” Willow said, “on a stolen motorcycle.”
“No ma’am,” Tuck replied. No hesitation, no forethought. “That wasn’t us. That one he done himself. Then he asked us to take the motorbike and hide it somewhere near the bunkhouse over on the Texas Brand.” He shrugged. “But we know better’n that.”
They’d better, she thought.
“We never kilt anybody before. I said no way. So did Tank, but you know, just with his eyes.”
“With his eyes.”
Tuck nodded.
Jeremiah was riveted, wondered if Willow was getting it all down, and saw her phone in her hand. She was recording.
“Tell me how it happened,” she said.
“We was in the truck, the three of us. Stu wanted to go for a ride, maybe get some beers. But he drove past the Bend, way the heck out past the county line, and there she was, out jogging on the street. I saw the look in Stu’s eyes.
He knew she’d be there, I’ll tell you what.
And he just…he just stomped it, turned the wheel and he hit her.
” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “She flew, man, I never saw nothin’ like it.
Landed like a rag doll. I was sure she was dead.
” He lowered his head, shaking it hard. “I was some relieved when you told us she wasn’t. ”
“Then what happened?” Willow asked.
“We went home. Later on, Tank and me, we talked about it some. Tank said Stu took it too far this time and he was fixin’ to land us all in prison.” He sighed heavily. “And he was right, wasn’t he?”
“Maybe not if you tell the truth. Maybe Tank won’t either, if he cooperates. Right now, all you’ve confessed to is vandalism. But Stu’s gonna do some time, I gotta be honest with you about that.”
Tuck nodded slowly, sniffled twice, and then knuckled tears away from his pooling eyes.
“You’ve followed your big brother all this time,” Willow said. “This is gonna be a chance for you to see what kind of a man you are without him leading you by the nose. This can be a fresh start for you and Tank both. Stop bringin’ your poor ma heartache and make her proud for a change, huh?”
He nodded at her. She got up out of the chair and her knees went a little weak, but she caught herself. Jeremiah came nearer, took her arm to support her. His touch burned her straight to her toes, just like it always did.
He felt it, too, she knew it when his eyes shot to hers and held on.
Jeremiah said. “I want to be with you when you tell Elena it was her husband who tried to kill her, okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. She sent the recording to Garrett, so he could send someone out to arrest Richard Montrose, then left the room.
She and Jeremiah headed down the hall to the elevator and up a floor to where Elena’s room was.
It was only one floor up, a very short ride in very close proximity.
It was stupid that she wanted to lean into him and feel his arms come around her, and turn her face up toward him, and then he’d kiss her, and then—
The doors opened with a ping. They stepped out. He was looking at her every few seconds, but she was trying not to look back. She just kept walking to the end of the hall where Elena’s room was, to find its door open. They stepped inside.
There was a blonde woman in Elena’s bed, with a nurse nearby holding a tiny cup with pills in it.
“Excuse me,” Willow said, “where is the patient who was in this bed? Elena Montrose?”
“Oh, Elena was released this morning,” the nurse said. “She was so relieved when her husband arrived to pick her up.”
Jeremiah’s brain went dark and his heart sank to his stomach.
Willow said, “Where’s the cop who was on the door?”
“His captain called him off when Dr. Montrose was released.” She looked suddenly worried. “What’s wrong, Deputy?”
“Who walked her to the exit?” Willow asked.
“Helen did. Her shift just ended, you want me to—?”
“I need Helen,” Willow said loudly. She was wearing her uniform and striding to the nurses’ desk. “Is Helen still here? Helen?”
A door opened and Helen came out shushing, then stopped mid-shush when she saw Willow in uniform.
“You walked Elena Montrose to the exit. Did you see the vehicle?”
“Sure did. Corvette,” she said. “Red with the sparkles, you know?”
“Metalflake,” Jeremiah muttered, his brain coming back on line one function at a time.
Willow pulled out her cell phone and started tapping while walking. It was all he could do to keep up with her. “I’m having Garrett look up the ‘Vette registered to Richard Montrose and put out the call. We’ll head to their house in case he took her home.”
She was tapping her phone again. His own phone chimed in his pocket. Frowning, he pulled it out, and saw the Brand clan text loop. He’d been added. The freaking thing had way too many people on it.
There was a new message from Willow.
Willow: Jeremiah and Ethan’s sister Elena in danger from hubs who just picked her up from hospital. Metalflake red Corvette, Garrett has plate and home address.
The Montrose’s home address followed.
Jeremiah frowned at his phone, and then at Willow, but she was focused dead ahead, walking as fast as she could’ve run.
He just looked at her while keeping pace, and avoiding collisions with carts and trays and goosenecked devices and people in scrubs until they were crossing a lobby into the hospital parking lot.
She jumped into her truck and he jumped in beside her. She turned and looked at him sitting there and opened her mouth to tell him to get out.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked before she could speak. “Let’s go!”
So she went.
She didn’t need the address. She’d been to the Montroses’ before, when the Barker boys had thrown a brick through one of the tall, gorgeous windows. The Corvette was in the driveway.
“At least we know they went home.” She drove by slowly, still not in her police SUV, and maybe that was a good thing. She didn’t want to do anything to set Montrose off. “Did you get Elena’s number when you met?”
“Yeah,” Jeremiah replied.