Dr. Jenkins hurried back into the room, and he stepped between Jesep and Victoria. “Your wife was severely injured. She can’t leave.”

  Jesep seemed ready to gear up to dispute that, but Olivia took him by the arm and eased him back. “Why don’t you arrange to have Victoria transported to a hospital in San Antonio? That way, she’ll be close to home, and she’ll get the medical care she needs.”

  Jesep glanced around as if figuring out if this was a battle he could win. He must have decided the answer to that was a no because he backed down, and he released a slow breath.

  “I’m sorry,” Jesep muttered to no one in particular. “I’m just very worried about my wife. She just survived what had to have been a horrible ordeal. We went through a trauma, too, not knowing if she was alive. Not knowing if she’d be allowed to come home.”

  Billie hoped that wasn’t lip service, a spiel meant to get the doctor to let down his guard. No way would Angel fall for it though, and with Victoria confirming that she wanted a bodyguard, then at least she would have some protection even if she was transferred to another hospital.

  “Billie, Presley,” Victoria said, shifting her attention to them. “Thank you again for rescuing me. I’ll be in touch.”

  It was clearly a goodbye, but they didn’t budge.

  “I’ll be all right,” Victoria tacked onto that, glancing at Angel.

  Presley stared at her for several long moments before he finally turned and walked away. Billie was right there with him, and she seriously doubted he was ready to face his boss and the cops, who were no doubt still in the ER waiting area. She spotted the sign for a breakroom just ahead, and she took hold of his hand to pull him inside. Thankfully, it was empty, but so they’d have a little privacy, she moved him to the corner away from the door.

  “Feel free to vent,” Billie offered.

  She thought he was going to take her up on that. That riot of emotions was still there in his eyes, vibrating in every part of him. But he didn’t vent. He sighed, closed his eyes and leaned against the wall.

  “Shit,” he finally said.

  “That expresses my sentiment, too.”

  She didn’t pepper him with questions about how he was doing or what he was feeling. Billie just waited him out, and little by little, she felt some of the tension melt away.

  “After my mom was killed,” he finally said, “I, of course, gave some thought to my bio-mom. But I never wanted to find her. I always figured if she abandoned me that she wanted nothing to do with me.”

  She heard the hurt that was still there over that abandonment. It likely always would be. Billie had felt some of that when her own dad had stepped out of her life after her parents had divorced. It was one of those little holes in the heart that never healed.

  “I don’t know what to do about Victoria,” Presley said. “I don’t know what to feel.”

  “You don’t have to work it all out now,” Billie assured him. “It can be a process with no timetable on it.”

  One that would likely involve learning who his bio-dad was, too. Victoria had seemed to be on the verge of spilling that when Jesep and her stepkids had burst into the room.

  “Thanks,” he muttered, opening his eyes and meeting her gaze. “I’m sorry you got dragged into all this personal crap.”

  “No need to apologize.” Yes, it’d been a shock when she had first been pulled into this, but as Billie looked at him now, she was glad she had been here with him for this ordeal. They weren’t besties by any means, but there was a connection between them that made her care about him.

  And want him.

  But for now, she was focusing on the caring part when she pulled him into her arms for a hug. He immediately slid his arms around her and pulled her to him.

  And he kissed her.

  It was long and slow. A no pressure kind of kiss. Or at least it would have been had it come from anyone else. But with Presley, the heat was always going to create an urgency even when the kiss shouldn’t even be happening.

  They were hardly in a private place. Someone could come walking in at any moment. Added to that, Presley likely wasn’t in the right frame of mind for this since less than two hours earlier, he’d had to rescue his own mother.

  Still, they didn’t stop, and the kiss raged on.

  Presley snapped her closer to him, until they were body to body. Pressed against each other. Until everything else except this faded into the background. Until Billie had to force herself to step back and regain, well, everything. Her breath, her composure. Her sanity. Because Presley and that scalding kiss had certainly muddled her brain.

  They stood there, breaths gusting, hearts racing, and stared at each other. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but she yanked herself out of the kiss trance when she heard the footsteps. A moment later, Olivia appeared in the doorway.

  “Oh, sorry for interrupting,” Olivia muttered. Even though Presley and she were no longer touching, Olivia had clearly picked up on the vibe in the room.

  Billie picked up on a vibe, too, from Olivia, and it was one of concern.

  “Is Victoria all right?” Billie asked.

  “Uh, yes. Well, I guess as okay as can be expected. I can’t imagine the hell those two men put her through.”

  The words were right, but Billie had the same thought she had with Jesep—she hoped it was the real deal and not some façade.

  “They cut off a piece of her finger,” Olivia muttered, and she went to the vending machine. She used her credit card to buy a bottle of water. Once she had it open, she took a long drink. “My father’s not as much of an asshole as he appears to be,” she went on. “He uses anger to mask his fear.”

  Neither Presley nor Billie responded to that. Since it seemed as if the woman was in a talking mood, Billie just decided to hear her out and listen to what she had to say. Maybe she would spill something that would help them ID the person who’d hired those kidnappers.

  Heck, it could even be Olivia.

  “I need to know something,” Olivia went on, still guzzling that water as if she’d just crossed a desert. “Why did those men ask for the two of you to deliver the ransom? How are you connected to my stepmother?”

  Oh, that was a question Billie figured Presley wouldn’t answer. And he didn’t. Well, he didn’t give a truthful answer anyway.

  “We don’t know why they pulled us into this,” he said. “But it’s something we’re investigating.”

  Olivia stayed quiet a moment. “So, it’s possible that choosing you had nothing to do with Victoria, that the kidnappers could have been after you instead?”

  Presley shrugged. “We don’t know,” he repeated. “Trust me though, learning that is the top priority. The cops, Maverick Ops, and Strike Force are all investigating. If someone hired those men to take Victoria, we’ll find him or her and bring them to justice.”

  It sounded like a warning. Or a threat. And Olivia seemed to grasp that they were looking at her. At her entire family.

  “I see,” Olivia muttered. “Well, good.” She recapped the bottle and tossed it in the trash before she added a barely audible goodbye and walked out.

  Presley didn’t move. He stood still until they could no longer hear Olivia’s footsteps, and then he went to the trash to retrieve the bottle.

  Billie raised an eyebrow. “You have plans for that?”

  “I do. Jesep, Ari, and Olivia still haven’t given the cops DNA samples. This is a start. The CSIs are already processing the clothes and belongings of our dead guys, and I’ll give them this. If there’s any Wessington DNA on them, then that’ll give us some ammo so the cops can make an arrest.”

  ───── ✩ ────

  Chapter Eleven

  ───── ✩ ────

  Working his way through his third cup of coffee, Presley sat at his desk in his home office, fighting hard to tamp down the firestorm of thoughts and emotions that kept burning away at him.

  Something he’d done throughout the night.

  And it was the reason he hadn’t gotten much sleep. Billie probably hadn’t either in the guestroom just up the hall. Still, they’d been exhausted when they’d arrived at his house and had gone off to their respective rooms.

  Alone.

  Because, hey, exhaustion and so very much to process.

  Presley was still doing the processing thing, but he didn’t want to deal with how he felt about Victoria being his bio-mother. Or about the shit the kidnappers had put her through. He didn’t want to deal with the mental exhaustion from hell that he was having right now. Or keep thinking about that scalding kiss that Billie and he had shared at the hospital.

  He just needed to focus on the investigation.

  On finding who’d hired those kidnappers. That was it. Nothing more.

  But it was impossible to shut out everything else, and at that moment, he felt like a hamster on a never-ending wheel. He suspected Billie was having a similar experience as she worked on a laptop on the sofa.

  Since they’d gotten up shortly after sunrise and jumped straight into work, hardly more than ten minutes had gone by without an alert from incoming texts and emails. Some were from Angel to let them know that Jesep was still pushing to get Victoria released. And was thankfully failing at that. Mainly because Angel and Ruby were pushing right back to keep her where she was. Simply put, they weren’t sure Victoria was going to be safe in the loving arms of her family.

  Another ding to indicate a new email. This one was an update from the CSIs who were processing the creek. So far, they’d found squat that would help. Still, Presley was glad they were in the loop because that squat could turn into something big in a blink if the kidnappers had managed to leave any clues behind to prove someone had hired them or if they’d worked alone.

  He’d barely finished reading that one when another came in from the Outlaw Ridge sheriff, Marty Bonetti. He was friends with Owen, so Owen had convinced him to copy Billie and him on any and all of the developments in the investigation. That’s why they were also getting preliminary reports from the ME who was dealing with the dead brothers, Craig and Ellis Dumfries.

  This latest report, however, was to give a summary of the death notification to Craig and Ellis’ next of kin.

  Again, squat.

  Their mother was dead, and their dad had apparently left when the boys had been young. The mother had remarried, and their stepfather, Joe Malloy, had said he hadn’t seen neither Craig nor Ellis in nearly two years, that the brothers had cut off communications with him when he’d refused to bail them out of jail for what would have been a third time.

  According to one of the deputies, the stepfather had been visibly upset when questioned about the kidnapping, but he hadn’t been able to offer them any info on anyone that his stepsons might have been working with. However, Joe had given them the name of Craig and Ellis’ older brother, Damon, and Sheriff Bonetti was trying to track him down.

  Of course, reading all of that had put Presley right back on the hamster wheel, where he couldn’t shut out his thoughts about how Victoria had reacted when she’d abandoned him.

  “Abandoned,” he muttered. He swiveled his chair around to face Billie. “Victoria seemed surprised, or something, when I mentioned being left at the fire station as a newborn. Or was that my imagination?” He wasn’t sure of pretty much anything when it came to Victoria.

  Billie shook her head. “Not your imagination,” she confirmed. She set her laptop aside and went closer to him. “And I’ve been looking into that.”

  That got his attention. “How?”

  “With Strike Force’s data mining program.” She sighed. “Yes, I know some of the data in it was obtained through hacking, and that Ruby wouldn’t approve.”

  “No, she wouldn’t,” Presley agreed, and then he immediately asked, “Did you find something?”

  “Maybe. I believe when Victoria had you, she used the name Melissa Williams. The date fits anyway with your birth. Melissa Williams didn’t exist six months prior to your birth and disappeared shortly thereafter.”

  That meshed with what Victoria had told them.

  “There are no medical records, so maybe her parents had them destroyed. Or she could have done that herself. Maybe she didn’t want Jesep to know she’d had a child as a teenager.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “But that surprised look in Victoria’s eyes make me believe…” He had to stop because there were just too many possibilities. Too many questions.

  Billie eased her hip on the desk, took out her phone and pulled up a photo. “Those are Victoria’s late parents, Markham and Laura Beaumont.”

  “Late,” he repeated.

  “Yes, they both died when Victoria was still in college. Private jet crash,” she explained.

  Presley studied the stone-faced man and the blonde-haired woman beside him in what was a posed shot at some kind of fancy party. He wanted to curse when he recognized some of his own features in them. His black hair. Hell, even Markham’s eyes.

  “They look like rich snobs,” he concluded.

  “They were. And after reading about them, I totally believe there’s no way they would have approved of their teenage daughter getting pregnant.”

  “Yeah, especially getting pregnant by someone not in their social circle.” He looked at Billie. “I don’t suppose you found any photos of Victoria with a boyfriend or a date.”

  She shook her head. “But part of the data mining program is connected to the genealogy sites. I could dig around in those. If you find your bio-dad, he might be willing to give you answers that Victoria won’t.”

  He considered it and then said, “No. This feels like a let sleeping dogs lie situation.” Presley paused. “Besides, it doesn’t matter why I was left at the fire station.”

  “Maybe.” Billie paused, too. “But the kidnappers requested us for a reason, and your bio-parents might have played into that.”

  Hell. He hadn’t even considered that angle. That was even more reason to try to clear his head and get off this blasted hamster wheel. He’d been trained to look at things objectively, and that’s what he had to start doing.

  “We’ll need to talk to Victoria again,” Presley said. “An actual interview. And we need all the pieces to this puzzle.”

  Billie nodded again. “I’ll put in a search through the genealogy sites and let it run since it could take a while. I can also call someone at SAPD and get them to lean on Jesep and Ari for DNA samples. Olivia’s sample from the water bottle is at the lab, and we should be getting something back on that soon.”

  Good. That might not give them any useful info, but Presley wouldn’t know that for sure until they had the results. Not just from Olivia but from the clothes Victoria had been wearing while she was kidnapped. In one of the reports that Presley had read, the lab had said the findings on that would be back no later than tomorrow morning.

  He reached out, his gaze connecting with Billie’s. Both of them sighed at the same time, and that caused Presley to smile. Why, he didn’t know. There wasn’t a hell of a lot to smile about.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Her eyebrow rose. “For what?”

  “For thinking straight when I can’t,” he settled for saying. “And for not telling me that kiss at the hospital was a big-assed mistake.”

  “It could have been a mistake,” she countered but then shrugged. “But it wasn’t. If we didn’t have this investigation hanging over us, then we might be able to do more of it and see where it takes us.”

  No way could he blow that off. Presley stood, and in the same motion, he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her to him.

  And he kissed her.

  He instantly felt the rush of heat. The rush of pleasure, too, and there were much better things to feel than the worry about the case. Billie must have thought so, too, because she sure as heck didn’t put a stop to it. Just the opposite. She wrapped her arms around him, dragging him even closer.

  In a blink, they deepened the kiss, and even though Presley had tried to steel himself up for the punch he got from tasting her, he failed big time. The punch came. A welcoming flood of sensations that went right along with the heat.

  Of course, her taste and kiss created the urgency that came with the lust. His body instantly wanted more, and he took that more by sliding his hand over the front of her shirt to her breasts. He kept his touch gentle there, aware of the bruise she had to be sporting.

  He could have kept touching, kept kissing, too, if there hadn’t been another blasted ding. This one from his phone, and it was a text.

  Billie slipped out of his grip, easing her arms and her body away from his, and Presley was muttering a bunch of profanity when he checked his phone.

  “It’s Ruby,” he relayed to her, and while the heat was still pressing for the more with Billie, he knew it was going to have to wait.

  “Hattie went to school with one of the dead kidnappers. Craig Dumfries,” Presley summarized. “They even dated for a while, and according to social media, they’ve stayed in touch over the years despite Craig’s criminal history.”

  Billie nodded. “That might be the connection we’re looking for, and it would explain a lot of things.”

  Yeah, it would. Hattie could have known that Victoria was his bio-mom, and along with Craig and Ellis, she could have orchestrated the kidnapping. Possibly to make Presley suffer if he had been unable to save the woman who’d given birth to him. Maybe to set up a scenario where Billie and he would be killed by the Dumfries brothers. That way, she wouldn’t come under suspicion for the murders.

  But if that was true, Hattie had left a very sloppy thread with her association with Craig.

  “Sheriff Bonetti has already had a phone interview with Hattie,” Presley continued to summarize. “Or rather he tried, but Hattie lawyered up in the middle of it so he had to schedule her to come into the Outlaw Ridge police station. Bonetti thinks we should call the woman as well, that she might say something to us in anger that she wouldn’t say to him.”

  “Agreed,” Billie was quick to say.

  Presley was on the same page, but before he made that call, he fired off a text to Ruby. “Does Hattie know we’re aware of her connection to Craig?”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16