Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
L acy heard the shot and the breaking glass simultaneously. She dove off the bed as the window to her right slid open with a screech like someone was prying it with a tool. Lacy crawled toward the door, staying low, and hoping she wouldn’t be seen.
Connor whipped open the door, almost hitting her, and flooding the area in light. His gaze searched the bed as his mouth dropped open. “Lacy?”
She’d never heard him sound so scared.
“I’m here,” she said from the floor.
He reached down and helped her up even as he aimed his gun at the window. “Show yourself,” he commanded.
Lacy wasn’t one to hide behind Connor in most cases, but this was one where she wasn’t taking any chances. She let him shuffle her behind his body, giving him full access to the room and whoever was breaking into it.
The movement at the window immediately stopped.
Randy called from the living room. “You might want to come out here.”
Connor paused, waiting for the person on the other side of the window to make a move.
“Connor?” Randy’s voice had become urgent.
He took her hand and led her out to the living room. Randy pointed outside and Lacy rushed to the window as Connor yelled at her not to. Something inside her wouldn’t let her stop. A lump lay in the middle of the front yard. One that looked suspiciously like a person. “No . . .” It couldn’t be. Her heart constricted as she headed for the door.
Connor’s arms wrapped around her in the next instant, holding her tightly and preventing her from leaving.
“Let me go! I have to see if that’s Melinda. I have to know.” Tears welled in her throat, choking her words.
“I know. Let me call an ambulance. He’s going to try to pin this on you. Do not play into his hand. I don’t know what he hopes to gain by this, but it’s obvious he’s obsessed with seeing her dead. I’m not letting him get to you, too. He will not lay a hand on you. Ever.”
His arms squeezed tighter for a moment, lifting her fully off the floor. “Please. Just stay in here until we can call help for her. This feels like a trap.”
She didn’t want to admit he was right. If that was Melinda and she was still alive, she might need immediate help. Sitting safely inside was like saying Lacy was more valuable. “It’s not fair.”
“I know, hun. I know.” He held her as he gave Randy a nod. Since there was still the possibility someone could come in the bedroom window, she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t going to let a phone call distract him. Especially when there was someone else around who could do the calling.
“I’m on it.” Randy dug his phone out of his baggy jeans and pressed in the number.
Her heart split in two, half remaining there in Connor’s arms and half wanting to help her friend.
“I want you to stay right here, between the living room and kitchen, far away from all the windows. I’m going outside to see if our little intruder left clues behind or is still there for me to follow. Do not come after me. Understand?”
She blindly nodded, wanting to stay with him but understanding why he wouldn’t want to have his attention divided. In the next instant, he kissed her for a second then was gone. She gripped the counter to steady herself.
Where had that come from? She’d kissed his cheek when he’d been healing from his gunshot wound, but she was fairly sure he hadn’t realized she’d done it. He’d kissed her like the last ten years hadn’t happened.
Randy’s voice made it through the fog in her brain. “Yes, we’ll be right here inside. We’re not sure if the intruder is still out there. There are three of us here, myself, Lacy and Connor Kincade.”
Connor had told her to wait right there, not to move. She couldn’t go to the window and watch for the ambulance because whoever had shot out the front window could still be sitting out there. There was no way to know if the bullet had been from a pistol or a high-powered rifle, at least, not without finding the bullet.
She glanced around the area from where she stood and noticed a dark hole in the wall right above the television. Carefully, she shifted her weight to look around the wall that led back to the bedroom. Between her bedroom and the kitchen was a bathroom where she’d showered earlier. Was the bullet stuck in the wall or had it penetrated further into the house?
Randy was busy talking and Connor was nowhere to be seen so she quickly shuffled to the bathroom and turned on the light. A few inches from the top of the tub surround, the plastic bulged out in a nub. The bullet had finally lost enough velocity in the plastic tub surround. Whoever shot at them had to have been using a pistol.
Sirens screamed from down the street and Lacy left the bathroom, ready to tell the police when they got there that she knew where the bullet had ended up. Randy hung up the phone and looked at her. “I hope she’s alive.”
She knew from his tone that he was doubtful. “I do too. If she’s not, I will stay and fight. She never would’ve killed her aunt, and I was with her the whole time, so she couldn’t have.” There had to be a motive, greater than abuse. Women were often the victims of domestic violence because their spouse was controlling, but this went beyond that.
“Has Cal ever mentioned anything to you about Melinda?” She angled her body so she could watch the EMTs working on Melinda even as Randy answered her.
“They had both talked about an insurance payout, but they made it sound like it was property, like a house, that was going to burn.”
“A friction fire?” She’d heard her parents joke about people doing that when interest rates on homes were too high to pay mortgage payments. Home owners would take out two insurance policies, pay as long as they could, then a ‘fire’ would burn the house down. They had said it was the friction of two insurance policies rubbing together.
His brow went up. “You know about those, huh? I assumed so. They’ve been talking to insurance guys on and off for the past year.”
Connor came down the hallway as he holstered his gun. “I looked all over. Our guy was gone before I got outside.”
“Ambulance is here and so are the police.” Randy pointed at the window.
Lacy looked to Connor, and he nodded, then followed her outside. She kept telling herself that they wouldn’t be working so hard on Melinda if there was no hope. The two men and one woman on the team were surrounding Melinda, whose face was ashen and her body lifeless.
Lacy wanted to cry. Why would anyone do this? An officer approached her, and she recognized Officer Bakersfield from when they’d made the report the day before.
“Ma’am, can I ask you a few questions?”
“Will I need a lawyer?” She didn’t want to hurt Melinda by saying something that could be twisted.
“You probably don’t need one.”
Which meant she absolutely needed one. “I want Connor with me.”
“Is he an attorney?” the officer asked.
“No, but he knows the system better than anyone I know. We can stand right here, I’ve got nothing to hide.”
He nodded and took out some paper. “Do you know of anyone who wanted to harm Melinda McFarland?”
“The only one she told me about was her husband, Tod. Though his brother may be part of it too. Tod threatened me when I arrived in town, so he is capable.”
The officer jotted down a few things. “And where were you for the last twenty-four hours?”
She squinted at him in the dark, trying to read his expression. “I was here for the last fifteen or so hours. Before that, I was at the hotel with Melinda. We saw you after that though.”
He nodded as if he remembered her. “How well do you know Melinda?”
“We weren’t in contact for years. After she married, she left town, and no one heard from her. Before that, we were very good friends since we attended the same small-town church and were close to the same age.”
He wrote down more information. “Is there anyone else locally who might have more information about her?”
“Her aunt would have, if someone hadn’t murdered her.” How convenient. The more Lacy thought about it, the more she was sure the insurance policy Randy had mentioned was a life insurance policy on Melinda. That was the only way all of this made sense. It explained why they’d targeted her right away. Lacy was trying to take away their get rich quick scheme.
“If you’re looking for a motive, you might want to look into insurance policies taken out by Tod or Cal McFarland with them as beneficiaries.”
The slam of the ambulance door made her jump, and she watched as the driver quickly climbed in and drove off with sirens screaming. Lord, please let her be okay. She turned back to the officer. “Is there anything else you need from me? I want to go to the hospital so I can be there when she wakes up.”
He sighed and frowned at the same time. “If she wakes up. It didn’t look good.”
Connor drove the quiet group to the hospital after the police had told him where to find it. Randy had called his father to come and board up the front window. He’d been angry at Randy over the phone for waking him and even less happy about the task. Connor had made sure they left before he could arrive. That stress was the last thing Lacy needed right now.
She sat tucked between him and Randy in the truck as they drove down quiet streets. She hadn’t said much of anything since they’d finished talking to the police. He couldn’t blame her. The cop hadn’t given her much hope. He’d wanted to remind her that no one was there to give her that, she needed to look to God.
He parked the truck and Lacy waited while Randy climbed down, then got out on the passenger side. She waited for him while he came around the front, then took her hand. The report Randy had made to the ambulance and what she’d said to the officer would help establish an alibi. One Tod would have difficulty disputing.
The Emergency Department waiting room was the only one open at that hour. The rest of the hospital seemed dim and even more unwelcoming than usual. No one was in the halls and only one person sat at the registration desks in the front.
After spending a month in the hospital, even the smell of the building made his stomach churn. What was it about that particular disinfectant that made every single hospital smell the same? He sat in a chair next to Lacy and took out his phone. If they were safe anywhere, it was there.
Lacy sat staring at the door to the Emergency Department as though she could make the door open with news just by thinking about it. He leaned closer to her, letting her know he was there. She would be too jumpy for any contact to make her feel better. Lacy would want to be able to stand and walk around. If he offered to hold her hand, she’d just get up soon anyway.
“I hope we get word soon.” She glanced at Connor. “The waiting is awful.”
She’d told the front desk that they were here to see Melinda, so hopefully they would come out with news when they had any. Just as he suspected, Lacy stood and paced back and forth in the waiting room. Her anxiousness seemed to have no effect on Randy, which was proof that he’d told the truth about his feelings for Lacy. There was nothing growing between them, even from his side.
A doctor came out of the locked door, pulling her mask down as she did. She looked at all three of them, then turned to Lacy. “Why don’t you have a seat, and I can tell you what’s going on with your friend, at least what I can.”
Lacy sat and this time, Connor threaded his fingers through hers as a show of support. “What can you tell us?”
The doctor sat on the edge of the chair and took a moment to look each of them in the eyes. “I can tell you that she is touch and go right now. She has a pretty serious head injury, and she has only been stable for a short time. She is still critical. The issue I have is that she has a health directive on file from a little over a year ago and it states no resuscitation. We hadn’t looked at that before we started working.”
Lacy shook her head slowly. “That doesn’t sound like her at all.”
Connor hated to look at it from a victim’s perspective, but he had to. “It’s possible she did if she knew that it was a way out of her situation.”
Lacy shook her head harder. “No, you don’t understand. Melinda wouldn’t have asked me to drive all the way down here to save her life if she was looking to die.” She frantically looked from the doctor to Connor.
“I believe you. I just wonder if something didn’t change between a year ago and now.”
Lacy firmed her jaw. “Her husband has been taking out insurance policies. I think you should compare her signature on the health directive to her other signatures before you follow it.”
“Health directives are still fairly new and the only time we follow them without checking with family is if it is signed in front of a notary. I just wanted you to know what was happening. We’ll keep working on getting her stable, then she’ll move to a hospital room.”
“Her husband has threatened her. How safe is she in the hospital?” Lacy scooted to the edge of her seat.
“Unfortunately, unless we have some documentation that says he can’t be admitted in to see her, we have to let him. If you can come up with a restraining order or something like it, then the hospital can work with you. I’ve got to get back now. I doubt she’ll be in her room for a while. If you want to stay, you can. If you want to leave your number with the front desk, they’ll contact you when she is moved.”
He didn’t want to usher Lacy out before she had a chance to see her friend, but staying in the hospital for hours would be uncomfortable at best. Then again, with the window blown out of her rental and Melinda’s husband knowing she was there made it pretty lousy for resting and keeping safe. The town was small, Tod had probably found them by looking for any vehicle with
WY plates.
Lacy looked around the waiting room, then back to him. “I don’t know where else to go. There’s only the one hotel in town and it’s closed until they get it cleaned up. We can’t stay at Randy’s dad’s rental.” She bit her lip. “This is turning into a lot more than I bargained for, but I can’t abandon Melinda now.”
“No, you can’t, and neither can I.” Because if he did, Lacy would question his willingness to do what was hard for the rest of their lives. When this was over, he wanted her to know that he was with her no matter what. Things that were important to her were important to him. He wouldn’t let his own worries get in between them like he had the first time.
“What should we do? I want to be here, but . . .” Her voice trailed off as she looked around at the room around them. Her nose wrinkled. “I’m not fussy, but staying here for hours isn’t optimal.”
Randy stood and clicked the side of his phone to turn off the screen. “I’ve got a friend or two who would let us stay with them until you can get Melinda. I’m guessing you’ll leave town as soon as the police say you can?”
Lacy nodded her head even as Connor shook his. “We can’t.” He hadn’t told her the danger at Wayside. No matter how much he missed it, he couldn’t add another person for his team to protect at the ranch.
“Why? Because of Viceroy?” Lacy’s voice went up an octave.
“Yes, he got free which means you would be in even bigger danger there, plus Melinda would need protection from a completely separate threat. I can’t spread my team that thin.”
Lacy hung her head. “Then we need a home base. Somewhere we can stay for a while.”
Connor pulled Lacy into his arms, then looked to Randy. “I’m sorry about your dad’s rental. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
Randy brushed off the comment. “He has insurance, and he charges a lot for the house, enough that he has the money for a window and to fix the wall. He’ll be mad at me for letting people stay there who would bring trouble, but that’s all that will happen.”
Connor didn’t know the area, so trying to pull a solution out of thin air was impossible.
Randy snapped his fingers. “I have an idea. What about Melinda’s aunt’s house? It was cleared and Tod would never expect you to go back there because she wasn’t related to you. It will give you a place to rest and check in with your team back home and we can wait to hear from the hospital.”
Lacy shivered. “There’s a garage there too, to hide the truck. I’m okay with it. As long as I don’t have to see that bathroom ever again. That was the stuff of nightmares.”
Which meant Tod, if he’d done it, was able to be violent enough to kill someone face-to-face. That took a special kind of evil, one that Connor wasn’t looking forward to meeting.