Jericho’s happy meter was at zero, and he was so not in the mood to deal with Laurel’s father. Yet, here he was.
“You can wait in my office,” Jericho said to Laurel. She didn’t, of course. Not that he’d thought for one second that she would.
She was exhausted. Still unsteady on her feet. But Herschel’s mere presence seemed to give him a jolt of energy and put some fire in her eyes.
“What do you want?” she snapped at her father. Definitely not a trace of affection.
Not that Jericho could blame her. Herschel was a snake of the worst kind. A man who’d destroy, or maybe even kill, his own child, to get what he wanted.
“You managed to delay the arrest warrants,” Herschel said. “Clever. But not clever enough. Tomorrow morning, those warrants will be served.”
“Predicting the future now? Clever,” Jericho repeated. “And please don’t tell me you came all the way here to toss that puny threat at us.”
“No.” That’s all he said for several moments. “A little bird told me Theo and Dorothy were just here.” Herschel’s gaze slid from Jericho and her to the papers that Levi was holding. “What did they give you?”
“Evidence to prove you’re lying so you can frame Laurel,” Jericho quickly answered.
There was a moment, just a moment, when there was some uncertainty in Herschel’s body language, but it vanished, and he became the dirtbag father again.
“Whatever Theo gave you is a lie,” Herschel insisted.
Jericho took a step toward the man. Hopefully, the look on his face was as mean-spirited as Jericho felt. “Oh, yeah? Why would Theo do that?”
“To cover his tracks, that’s why. He’s behind all of this.”
“Really?” Laurel took a step closer to her father, too. “Theo has nothing to gain from having me committed to a mental hospital. Or nothing to gain from being tossed in jail. And he certainly has no solid reason to want me dead.”
Herschel huffed. “Ever hear of revenge? Payback? Laurel, the man’s obsessed with you. He’d rather see you dead than with someone else. Especially Jericho Crockett.”
Theo was indeed obsessed. Furious, too, about the broken engagement. Add to that the money he had lost in the broken business deal with Rossman and Cawley, and yeah, that all added up to motive. But Herschel had the same motives. And more than that.
He wanted custody of his grandson.
“And you’re obsessed with getting Maddox,” Jericho spelled out for him. “Why, exactly? Is it to get back at Laurel? To put the screws to me? Or did you just wake up one morning and decide you wanted to be a bigger jackass than usual?”
Herschel had to do another quick wrestling match with his temper, but as he’d dealt with the surprise of Theo’s evidence, he quickly corralled it. “I love Maddox. You know that.”
“Do I?” Jericho asked. “Because you’ve said the words, but I’m just not feeling it. Maybe because you’re not capable of love.”
“I’m capable!” No corralling that time. Oh, boy. That was a little temper tantrum that Jericho was pleased to see. Pissed-off people usually said a lot more than calm ones. “And I don’t want you or any Crockett raising my grandson.”
There it was. In a nutshell. Despite the fact Herschel had almost certainly ordered Sherman Crockett’s murder, it still wasn’t enough. He wanted the rest of them to suffer, too.
And why?
All because Jericho’s father had made it his business to put a stop to Herschel and his scummy dealings.
“I’m tired of talking to the two of you,” Herschel grumbled. “And now I see you’re married.”
Jericho hadn’t seen the man even glance at Laurel’s wedding ring. Or maybe he’d heard the news from his little bird source. Probably some idiots he had spying on the sheriff’s office.
“If you think a marriage will stop me from getting custody,” Herschel added, “think again.”
“The marriage alone might not,” Jericho countered, “but I have a legal right to take custody of my son.”
“Not if you’re in jail. And I’ll do anything to make sure you join my daughter behind bars. Anything!” Herschel took a huge risk by smiling, and Jericho had to do some temper corralling of his own so he didn’t beat the man to a pulp.
“I’ll add that threat to the evidence I have here,” Levi said. He clicked off the tape recorder he was holding. There was no temper in his brother’s voice. Just a calmness with the edge of the dark storm brewing beneath it.
Oh, Herschel didn’t like that, either. “You can’t just record me.”
“Sure he can,” Jericho argued. “This is an interview of a potential suspect. It’s procedure to record it.”
Levi nodded. Smiled, too. “I can turn it over to the Dallas PD so they know the real Herschel Tate.” And as if it was a done deal, Levi picked up his phone.
Herschel volleyed some nasty glares among all three of them. “Trust me. You don’t want to cross me.”
Jericho went closer. Not quickly. He made sure Herschel heard each step. “Too late. The crossing’s already been done. On my part. And yours.” He leaned in, violating a lot of personal space. “Big mistake, Herschel. I will bring you down.”
And it wasn’t a bluff. Somehow, someway, Jericho would make it happen. Apparently, Jericho got his point across, because Herschel whirled around and left.
Jericho immediately turned to make sure Laurel was okay. She wasn’t trembling, but he had no trouble seeing the worry in her eyes.
“This has to end,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
It wasn’t a smart thing to do, but Jericho pulled her into his arms again. He was doing that a lot lately.
Wanting to do it, as well.
He didn’t bother to curse the attraction. Or their situation. Hell, Laurel and he just seemed to end up together, no matter what.
“Let me make some calls, finish up a few things here, get you something to eat,” Jericho told her, turning her toward his office, “and I’ll get you to another safe house. Not with Maddox,” he added. “It’s clear Herschel has someone watching the place, and it’d be too risky for you to go there.”
She nodded. Blinked back tears. And just like that, she was back in his arms. Good grief. He hated seeing her put through the wringer like this. She was still in his arms, too, when Levi cleared his throat.
“I just got a call about Rossman and Cawley,” his brother announced.
That got Laurel and Jericho moving apart, and they made their way to the desk Levi had been using. Levi put the call on speaker.
“This is Detective Mark Waters from the San Antonio PD on the line,” Levi explained to them. “Mark, why don’t you tell my brother what you just told me.”
“Cawley’s dead,” Waters immediately explained. “He was killed in a car accident yesterday.”
“Accident?” Jericho questioned. Because the timing of it sure was suspicious.
“That’s what it’s being called for now. Dallas PD is investigating since it happened in their jurisdiction. If they come up with anything, they said they’d call.”
Jericho figured if Cawley had been murdered, there wouldn’t be any evidence to find.
“What about Quinn Rossman?” Jericho pressed.
“Plenty of shady deals as Levi suspected, and the FBI’s getting ready to arrest him for money laundering. I did find something interesting, though. Levi mentioned that Cawley and Rossman had lost a boatload of money from some failed business deals. One involving Laurel and Herschel Tate.”
Beside him, Laurel pulled in her breath. Maybe because she thought this detective had found something else to incriminate her.
“Well, it turns out that Cawley and Rossman didn’t lose a cent in those deals,” Waters went on. “They moved what they’d planned to invest into something else and made a bundle. Turned out to be a very good thing for them. The only ones who lost money in that deal were Herschel, Theo James and his mother, Dorothy.”
Bingo. That wasn’t proof of which one was behind these attacks, but it did help Jericho narrow down his suspect pool from five to three.
“I need to talk to Rossman,” Jericho insisted. “Even if it’s a phone interview.”
Because if he could get Rossman to admit that Laurel hadn’t known anything about the money laundering, it could negate the charges against her. It would keep Laurel out of jail and go a long way to putting Herschel behind bars for orchestrating this.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Waters assured him.
Jericho thanked him and then stepped away when his phone buzzed. Laurel moved quickly to look at the screen. Probably because she thought it was from Jax. But it wasn’t. The call was from his other brother, Chase. Since Chase was a marshal, Jericho hoped that something else hadn’t gone wrong.
“I don’t want any bad news,” Jericho greeted him.
“Sorry.”
Even without the sorry, Jericho knew something wasn’t right. “Are you hurt?”
“Some. I’ll be fine.” But Chase’s voice said otherwise.
“What the hell happened?” And a lot of bad possibilities started going through his head. Laurel’s, too, since she gasped and pressed her fingers to her mouth.
“Jericho,” Chase finally said, his voice sounding even weaker. “There’s been a murder.”
* * *
OH, MERCY.
The fear roared through her head like a piercing scream. “Maddox?” Laurel managed to say.
“Not Maddox,” Chase answered. “This wasn’t family.”
That helped, but the fear already had her by the throat, and Laurel couldn’t just turn it off. Jericho put her in the chair next to the desk, turned down the volume on the speaker function of his phone and continued the conversation with Chase.
Levi stayed right there next to him, listening, no doubt to see if there was something they were going to have to buffer for her.
But Laurel didn’t want a buffer.
If this murder had something to do with her or this situation she was in, she wanted to know. Too bad she could only hear snatches of the conversation, thanks to her own heartbeat throbbing in her ears. However, she did hear something that sent her pulse racing even more.
The Moonlight Strangler.
She prayed he didn’t have anything to do with this. The man was a vicious serial killer. More than a dozen victims. And he was very good at murder, because he hadn’t been caught in over thirty years. No one knew his name, but Laurel did know he was the biological father of Jericho’s adopted sister, Addie.
He’d also murdered Jax’s wife.
Had the Moonlight Strangler gone after Chase now?
His victims were usually young women, but maybe he’d made an exception.
“Read it to me,” Jericho said to Chase.
Again, Laurel couldn’t hear, but whatever Chase said to them had Levi and Jericho exchanging puzzled glances.
“Go ahead and get in the ambulance,” Levi added, still talking to Chase. “I’ll see if I can get there to check on you soon. When you can, tell one of the officers on the scene to fax us a copy of that note.” He paused. “Hell, don’t do that—
“He hung up,” Levi said, adding some profanity. “Talk about being hardheaded. He’s bleeding like a stuck pig, and he insisted on taking a picture of the note. Said he’ll text it to you.”
That had Jericho repeating Levi’s hell.
Laurel wanted to curse, as well. What the devil was going on?
The moment Jericho finished the call, Laurel stood, faced him. “Is Chase all right?”
“I’m not sure,” Jericho admitted. “The Moonlight Strangler clubbed him on the head and then knifed him in the chest. He’s on his way to a San Antonio hospital right now.”
This was bad. An injury like that could be fatal. “Levi, you’ll need to go to him.”
Levi nodded. “I will. After things are settled here.”
She was about to remind him that might not happen, that he should be with his brother, but Jericho’s phone dinged, indicating he had a message. Most likely from Chase.
“I’ll get someone over to the bank,” Levi told Jericho, and he stepped away to make a call, leaving Jericho to explain what the heck was going on.
“The Moonlight Strangler left a typed message on his latest victim’s body,” Jericho said. “It’s about your father.”
Of all the things she’d been expecting Jericho to say, that wasn’t one of them. “My father? Why would the killer do that? And what did it say?”
Jericho shook his head. “I’m not exactly sure of the why part. Maybe because I’m Addie’s brother, and he feels this warped family connection. Maybe he just hates your father as much as I do.”
Laurel still didn’t understand, but she got a better idea when Jericho handed her his phone so she could read the note for herself.
Doing you a little favor here, Sheriff Crockett. Not the dead body. Guess you wouldn’t see that as a favor since you’re one of the good guys. But you might want to hear a secret or two about the man who’s after your honey and you. Herschel Tate. Funny, I got the label of a killer and he doesn’t. Sometimes, the law doesn’t have a long arm, after all, does it?
Laurel frantically scrolled down to read the rest. What would the Moonlight Strangler possibly know about her father?
She soon found out.
A little over thirty years, Herschel-boy was involved in a little gunrunning operation with me. You know all about it because you investigated it a couple of weeks ago.
Jericho had. Laurel knew all about it because it had been on the news. A man named Canales had tried to kill Addie because he’d been afraid she would remember he’d been involved in that gunrunning operation. An operation she might have witnessed as a child before being abandoned by her murdering birth father. But now, Canales was dead.
There are photos and such to prove Herschel was involved, Laurel read on. You can find that in a safe-deposit box rented to Wilbur Smith at the First National Bank over in Sweetwater Springs. Now, that’s not my real name, so don’t go off half-cocked. Just use what’s in there to create a little justice for Herschel-boy. You’re welcome, Sheriff Crockett.
Laurel read it again to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood. “You really think there’s proof?”
“We’ll know soon,” Levi answered. “I’ve got the bank manager and the Sweetwater Springs sheriff headed over there right now. The bank manager agreed to open the box because it could be connected to the Moonlight Strangler.”
That was good since there could be other evidence in the safe-deposit box. But then she went through the details again. “A gunrunning operation over thirty years ago? The statute of limitations plays into this. My father can’t be arrested for the crime even if there’s proof.”
“Unless he murdered someone,” Jericho corrected. “No statute of limitations for that.”
True. And the killer hadn’t mentioned any proof of murder. Still... “Maybe if the evidence is strong enough, we can present it to a judge. It would go a long way toward preventing my father from getting custody of Maddox.”
On its own, it wouldn’t be enough, and they’d have to find a judge who wasn’t in her father’s pocket, but coupled with the info Theo had given them, then maybe they could use it to stop him.
Jericho glanced around as if trying to figure out what to do next. His gaze finally settled on Laurel. “I need to take you someplace safe so I can free up Levi to go check on Chase, and I’ll get someone to cover the office. Don’t tell Mom about any of this,” he added to Levi. “Not until we know just how badly Chase is hurt.”
Iris would no doubt be frantic once she heard about the attack, and she, too, would likely want to go to her son.
“With your mother gone, I’ll need to be at the safe house with Maddox,” Laurel insisted.
She expected Jericho to argue, to tell her that Jax and the two deputies could manage it. And they probably could. But Laurel wanted the three lawmen guarding her son to focus on protecting her son, not taking care of him.
“We have some time,” Jericho finally said. “And if Chase’s injury isn’t that bad, we can keep the arrangement as is. If not, well, we’ll just have to be careful when I take you there.”
Part of Laurel was happy that she might soon be with Maddox again, but she didn’t want Chase’s injury to be so serious to make that happen. Plus, there was the risk of going to the safe house.
“Is it possible to find the people my father has watching us?” she asked.
Jericho went to the window, lifted one of the slats on the closed blinds and looked out, though he already knew what was out there.
Buildings. Lots of them.
Not just across the street but on each side of the sheriff’s office. Her father’s spy could be on the roof of one of those or maybe even inside. With long-range equipment, the spy could be anywhere on the street.
“Herschel probably has someone watching the roads, too.” Jericho shook his head. “We could probably flush out someone nearby, but there’s no telling how many people he hired.”
True, and it wasn’t as if her father was lacking for money.
Levi’s phone rang, and he glanced at the screen. “Sheriff McKinnon from Sweetwater Springs.” Thankfully, he put the call on speaker.
“It’s here,” the sheriff greeted. “Some old photos of what appears to be the sale and transfer of arms. There are also some notes with dates, names and such. And yes, Herschel Tate’s name is included on them.”
“But is he in the photos?” Levi asked.
“Hard to tell for sure, but it could be him. I’ll have to send them to the lab, of course, but I’ll fax you some copies.”
“Thanks. I’m at the sheriff’s office in Appaloosa Pass.” Levi thanked him, ended the call and looked at his brother. “I’ll wait here until you get someone to cover the office. It isn’t a good idea to keep Laurel here much longer, though.”
No. Because if her father’s little bird told him about the contents of the safe-deposit box, then he might get desperate. There could be another attack.
Jericho nodded, took out his phone, but it buzzed before he could even make a call. Laurel figured it was an update on Chase.
It wasn’t.
Quinn Rossman’s name appeared on the phone screen.
“Sheriff Crockett,” Rossman said the moment Jericho answered. “I understand you want to talk to me about Laurel and the money laundering charges against her. Well, let’s talk. I’ll be at the sheriff’s office in just a few minutes.”