Four
“Yes, I have dispatched deputies to your location.” The woman’s calm voice should have helped ease her fear. But that was impossible. Especially since she could hear Jackson returning fire. His handgun sounded different from the automatic gunfire from the bad guys’ weapons.
“Please hurry!” she begged, feeling desperate. What if Jackson got hurt? How long would it take for the gunmen to find her to finish what they’d started?
Swallowing hard, she wished she understood what was going on. A meeting with her Uncle Mark shouldn’t have started all of this! As more gunfire pummeled their motel room, she quickly decided she couldn’t simply sit there.
She needed a weapon! Spying the toilet tank cover, she reached over and grabbed it. It wasn’t much, but it was heavy enough that she thought it might do some good.
Creeping out of the bathroom, she rounded the doorjamb, spotting Jackson positioned near the window.
After a moment’s hesitation, she moved toward him.
Then had to duck behind the bed as more gunfire rained down on them.
Jackson must have caught her movement, because he scowled at her, jerking his head to the side in a clear indication he wanted her to go back and hide in the bathroom.
Ignoring his directive, she moved toward him, using the toilet seat cover as a shield. Not that she was convinced it was thick enough to stop a bullet. Yet she pushed forward. If Jackson was going to risk his life for her, then she needed to be there with him.
In a brief lull of shooting from the assassins, Jackson popped up and quickly returned fire, before ducking back down again. The grim expression on his face made her worry they were running out of time.
“Deputies are on the way,” she whispered.
Jackson nodded, but didn’t say anything in response as more shots blasted the room. She huddled beside him, setting the toilet tank cover on the floor as she realized it would only be in Jackson’s way as he returned fire.
Hurry, hurry, she silently thought. The deputies needed to get there and fast!
Then as abruptly as the shooting had started, it stopped.
Jackson used the opportunity to quickly fire several more rounds. She risked a glance up over the sill of the broken window in time to see a large truck retreating from view. In the distance behind the truck, she could see red-and-blue swirling lights.
Finally, the deputies were on the way.
“Thank You, Lord Jesus, for keeping us safe!” Jackson’s reverent statement caught her off guard.
She hadn’t realized he believed in God. Especially since Jackson had a reputation for being a player.
Obviously, rumors could be grossly exaggerated and even false, but she’d known Jackson had dated several women in the past.
Not that she’d been interested in being one of them. Especially after she’d dated a ranger named Sean, who had been seeing other women on the side.
Still, it made her curious about Jackson. She’d been raised by her adoptive parents to believe in God but had stopped attending church after they passed away.
After being shot at several times now, she wondered if it wasn’t time for her to go back.
“You should have stayed in the bathroom.” Jackson glared at her with a dark scowl. For the first time, she noticed the trickle of blood running down the side of his face. Had he been struck by a bullet? No, more likely shattered glass. “What if these guys had gotten inside the motel room?”
“You’re hurt.” She reached up to touch the side of his face.
“I’m fine.” Jackson dodged her touch, looking annoyed. “It’s a scratch. You’re the one who risked your life for no good reason.”
“I couldn’t leave you out here alone.” Maybe it was silly to think she could have been any help to him, but she didn’t care. “Maybe I need to have a gun, too.”
That only made his eyebrows arch. “Do you have any experience with firing a weapon?”
“Not really.” She shrugged. “But even I should be able to point and shoot.”
“I’m not sure about that.” He turned away and slowly rose to his feet.
The red-and-blue lights were clearly visible now as the squad rolled into the parking lot.
“It’s not good that we don’t have a vehicle to get out of here.
I’m not sure I want the cops to give us another ride.
Maybe the bad guys followed the squad somehow. ”
She stood and gasped in horror as she surveyed the damage to the room. The wall across from the window sported more holes than Swiss cheese. Dazed, she realized that some of the bullets had gotten all the way through the two sheets of drywall to reach the bathroom.
A shiver snaked down her spine. Much like the damage to Jackson’s SUV, this was so over-the-top destructive that she had trouble coming to grips with it. It seemed impossible that a twenty-eight-year-old murder had spurred this on.
But it was the only conclusion that made sense. Her Uncle Mark had been killed, and now these men wanted her dead, too.
And they didn’t seem to care if they took a Texas Ranger down with them.
“Looks like our pals are back,” Jackson drawled.
She turned to look outside. Deputy Green and Deputy Sewell stood outside their respective vehicles, staring at the damaged motel in apparent disbelief.
“Well, at least now they know we weren’t lying earlier,” she murmured.
“Yeah. This place looks even worse than my SUV.” Jackson sighed and pulled out his phone. She watched his expression as he listened to the other end of the line. “Hey, Captain. We have big trouble. Nina is a target and as one of our own, we need to get on top of this as quickly as possible.”
She couldn’t hear their boss’s comments on the other end of the phone, but it didn’t take long for Jackson to fill Captain Owens in on the recent events.
A moment later, Jackson said, “I need your approval to take over this case. And I’d like some assistance.” He paused, then said, “Great. Thanks.” He lowered the phone and punched in another number.
“Who are you calling?” Nina asked.
He held up a finger. “Hey, Creed. I need your help. Can you get to the Sunset Motel in Swan, ASAP? We’re on a case, and I’ll give you the details when you get here. Thanks.”
Nina knew Creed Ramsey was another Texas Ranger. When Jackon finished the call, she asked, “How far away is Creed?”
“An hour away in Dallas.” Jackson gestured to Green and Sewell, who were making their way toward them. “We’ll be here for a while, but then we’re getting out of here.”
She nodded, thinking about the photograph of her mother she still had tucked in her pocket. She didn’t dare bring it out now as Jackson opened the door for the deputies, but she knew she needed to confess about taking it from her uncle’s crime scene very soon.
Maybe having her mother’s identity would help them figure out why this was happening.
“What in the blazes happened here?” Sewell demanded. His bald head was shiny with sweat.
“Same thing that happened to my SUV,” Jackson replied. “Two gunmen in a black or dark gray truck drove in and fired shots at us.”
“Did you get a better look at them this time?” Green asked.
Jackson shook his head. “They had me outgunned in a big way. My goal was to hold them off long enough for you guys to get here.”
“Yeah, I guess I can understand that,” Green admitted. He shook his head slowly. “These guys are serious about their intent to kill you. I’m just glad you’re both okay.”
“Thank you.” Nina was happy to see the deputies seemed more sympathetic about their plight. “Did the crime scene techs find out anything new at my uncle’s cabin?”
“Not yet,” Sewell said. “There was no phone on the body, so we think for sure the real shooter took it. The guy didn’t have any ID on him, but the techs took fingerprints. We’ll run them through the system once we’re finished processing this crime scene.”
“Get them through the system ASAP,” Jackson said in a firm tone. “We need that ID verified.”
Green looked as if he wanted to argue. But his fellow deputy spoke up first.
“Wait, are you taking the case away from us?” Sewell demanded.
“Yes.” Jackson didn’t look the least bit apologetic. “This is officially a Texas Ranger case. We’re not staying in town and if the bad guys keep finding us, the case will cross jurisdictional lines anyway, which makes it our problem. I want those prints put through the system ASAP.”
Sewell and Green exchanged a long glance. Nina wondered if they’d continue to protest, but they didn’t. Despite their obvious annoyance, Sewell spoke up. “I’ll still need your statements for our report. Even though the report will end up in your hands.”
“I understand.” Jackson quickly described how they’d arrived at the motel. He informed them the room was booked under her name, which made the deputies glance at her again. “I think it was only about twenty minutes, give or take a few before the shooters arrived.”
“And you have no idea how they found you?” Green pressed.
“No. Unless they followed you and saw us get dropped off here.” Jackson leveled Green with a solemn glare. “You’re not involved with them, are you?”
“How dare you?” Green thundered. “How dare you insinuate…”
“Hey, I had to ask,” Jackson interrupted calmly.
Green scowled and turned away. She heard him using his radio to inform the techs there was a second crime scene that needed to be processed. Sewell glared at Jackson, then moved over to stand beside Green. The two deputies were clearly upset with Jackson.
When they were out of earshot, she asked, “Do you really think they’re involved?”
“No, but I plan to keep an open mind moving forward.” Jackson’s gaze lingered on the two deputies before turning to her. “From this point on, we only trust Creed and our boss. Nobody else.”
She nodded in understanding, feeling oddly humbled as she remembered his words to their boss. She is one of our own…
Whatever was going on here, she wasn’t alone. Jackson and Creed would stick close until the gunmen were arrested and thrown behind bars.
* * *