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?"

As expected, Ruby replied right away. "She knows. That's the reason she lawyered up. You might not get anywhere talking to her, but I thought you'd want to try anyway."

He did indeed, and after he texted his thanks to Ruby for the info, he located the contact number for Hattie and called her. Presley figured there was a good chance the woman wouldn't even answer, so he was surprised when she took the call on the first ring. However, she didn't say anything.

"Hattie," Presley greeted after a couple of moments, and he put the call on speaker. "I have Billie Cooper here with me, and we'd like to ask you a few questions."

The woman cursed, and it seemed to him that she'd been expecting a call. Just not from him. But from whom? And did it have anything to do with Victoria's kidnapping?

"What the hell do you want, Detective Nolan?" she snarled, making his surname and former rank sound like some kind of nasty rash.

Presley jumped straight to the heart of the matter. "Craig Dumfries," was all he said.

Silence, followed by a single curse word. "What about him?"

"I'm betting you know exactly why I'm calling about him," Presley countered.

Hattie huffed. "I don't, and if you're wanting to play cat and mouse, then you're wasting your time and mine."

He thought she might hang up. She didn't. But Hattie huffed again.

"Did you tell that sheriff I had teamed up with Craig and his brother to kidnap that rich bitch?" Hattie snapped. "Are you the reason he's hauling my ass into an interview?"

"No, your association with Craig is the reason you've been called in," Presley was quick to remind her. "That's what happens when you hang around with known criminals."

"Well, I had no part in what that asshole did," Hattie insisted. "When your former friends get into trouble, are you responsible?" But she didn't wait for an answer. "I didn't help Craig in any way, and I don't appreciate being dragged into this shit. Haven't you and Lieutenant Cooper done enough to ruin my life? Do you have to keep going after me like this?"

"Funny, that was a similar to what I was going to ask you," Presley said. "Did you have Victoria Wessington kidnapped so you could try to get your pound of flesh from Billie and me?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Hattie insisted.

"You're sure about that because Craig was definitely involved with the kidnapping. If he wasn't working with you, then who would have helped him put something like this together?"

"His brothers," she spat out. "They could have helped him. Ellis and the other one…uh, Damon. Yes, that was his name. They were tight. So, call him and quit pestering me."

And this time, she did hang up.

"Well, that was productive," Presley muttered. It was sarcasm with a side order of frustration.

Billie made a so-so motion with her hand. "She hesitated when she answered the phone. If she's connected to the kidnapping, maybe she's not actually the person in charge. Maybe she was waiting on a call from the boss."

"True," he admitted. "And she mentioned Damon."

Presley searched through the reports and located the latest update on him. Sheriff Bonetti still hadn't been able to find him. According to his landlord, Damon had moved out a week earlier, right before he was due to be evicted. Like his brothers, he, too, had a criminal record.

And something else.

Known ties to a militia group. Bingo. That could have been where Craig and Ellis got their weapons.

He was about to fill Billie in on what he'd just read, but an incoming call cut him off. For a moment, he thought maybe it was Hattie phoning him back.

But it was Angel.

Presley couldn't answer it fast enough. "Is Victoria all right?" he immediately asked.

However, it wasn't Angel who answered.

"It's me, Victoria," she said in a whisper. "Angel was kind enough to let me use his phone since I don't have mine."

"Are you all right?" Presley repeated after he fumbled around with what to say to her. Hell, this was awkward.

"I'm healing," she said after a short pause. Victoria cleared her throat. "Presley, I need to see Billie and you. Because, uh, I think I know who was behind my kidnapping."