Chapter Eleven

Two dead bodies .

Hearing Luca say that had given Joelle an initial hit of adrenaline. But that had been six hours ago. Now she was just wiped out and had to force herself to stay alert and focused as Duncan read the latest update he'd just gotten from Woodrow and the CSIs.

"Two males," Duncan said. He was standing behind his desk, reading from his laptop. "Both were identified through prints since they had criminal records. Darrin Finney, forty-two, from San Antonio, has a sheet for B&E, assault and drug possession. Troy Oakley, thirty-six, from Austin, has a nearly identical sheet, minus the drugs. The deaths were set up to look like a murder-suicide with Troy being the killer."

Joelle, who was seated in the chair, looked up at Duncan. "Set up?" she questioned.

Duncan nodded. "There was a note left at the scene, but the CSIs said the angles of the kill shots were wrong for it to have gone down that way."

He turned his laptop so she could read the note that had been photographed. The handwriting was basically a scrawl so it took her a moment to make out what it said. "Too many cops after us," she read aloud. "This is better than going to prison. We were wrong to go after that deputy and the other woman."

Even without the wrong angles of the kill shots, Joelle would have suspected the murder-suicide was a ruse. Sometimes, criminals did do things like this, but the truth was the cops weren't on the trails of these two. Their names hadn't even surfaced so far during the investigation.

"Both men had GSR on them," Duncan continued. "And Darrin Finney had some cinnamon gum in his pocket."

Continuing to fight the fatigue, Joelle considered that a moment. Molly had said one of her kidnappers chewed that particular flavor of gum so that probably meant these two were the ones who'd taken her.

"The truck they were in was reported stolen earlier today," Duncan added a moment later, "and there doesn't seem to be a connection between the owner of the vehicle and either of these two dead men."

Molly had also mentioned she believed they had transported her in a truck. So that matched as well.

"These two took Molly," Joelle summarized. "Maybe they did, anyway. Since Willie Jay ended up at the ranch with Molly, he could have been one of her initial kidnappers." She paused. "And that would mean the two worked together with someone else to cover both her kidnapping and the attack aimed at me. The someone else could be just one person. Or two."

"Probably two," Duncan said. "Because I don't believe they'd see going after a cop as a one man job. So, with two dead and one in custody, there's almost certainly someone else out there we need to find."

"You're thinking the fourth man might be this Arlo Dennison Hamlin told us about?" she asked.

Duncan shrugged and then sighed. She wasn't exactly sure the reason for the sigh until he closed his laptop and walked around the desk to take her by the arm.

"I'm taking you to my place," he said, lifting her from the chair.

Part of her wanted to argue, to try to continue to push through the avalanche of information they'd gotten on this investigation. But the baby moved just as she opened her mouth to insist she had another couple of hours in her. She didn't. And the baby was a reminder that she had already had too much stress on her body today and she needed rest.

Duncan let go of her arm once they got moving out of his office and into the bullpen. Slater, Woodrow and Luca were all there. All still working. And that gave Joelle some fresh guilt over leaving when they hadn't. Still, the exhaustion wasn't giving her much of a choice about this.

Slater and Woodrow were both on the phone so Duncan turned to Luca. "Could you follow Joelle and me to my place?"

Luca's nod was quick. "You want me to stay there with you tonight?"

Duncan considered that for a moment and nodded. "Three of the attackers are out of commission, but I believe there's a fourth one and their boss are still out there. Let's go in one cruiser."

Luca nodded as well, and after mouthing the plan to Slater, he grabbed his laptop and went out the door first with Joelle and Duncan right behind them. Following their recent travel patterns, Duncan rode shotgun and Joelle took the back seat.

It wasn't far to Duncan's house, only about two miles, but travel anywhere wasn't exactly a breeze because of the attacks. All three of them knew any time out in the open could lead to another one. Added to that, it was dark now so someone could be lying in wait.

While Luca drove and they kept watch, Joelle tried to recall if Duncan had more than one guest room. Even though Duncan had owned the small ranch for five years now, she hadn't been to his place that often. Mainly because they'd spent a good chunk of those five years keeping their distance from each other.

Clearly, they'd ultimately failed since she was carrying his baby.

From the handful of visits she had made to his ranch, she recalled the house being fairly large, but even without guest rooms, she figured they'd all end up getting some sleep somewhere in the house since they had all been going at this for way too many hours.

Duncan's phone dinged with a text. A sound that instantly put Joelle on alert in case it was a message about an attack being imminent. She tried to hold onto the hope, though, that it was good news.

"It's from Slater," Duncan relayed to them. "SAPD uncovered something interesting on Kate. About three months ago, she accused Brad and Shanda of drugging her. She talked to a detective about it, and he investigated, but nothing came of it since there were no drugs in her system when Kate came in to report it."

Joelle worked that through in her mind. "I can see this playing out two ways. Either Brad and/or Shanda did, indeed, drug the woman. Or else Kate was laying the groundwork to set them up for the attacks she was planning on Molly and me."

Duncan made a sound of agreement. "And that takes us back to Kate's motive. If the attacks are to set someone up, why not do that to Hamlin? That would get him off her back."

"True," Joelle admitted. "But maybe her motive is about getting revenge for what happened to Shanda. I know she hated Shanda," she quickly added, "but the arrest and miscarriage ultimately caused a rift between Kate and her son. Kate would want to get back at Molly and me for that, and in the process she could end up with two babies to sell."

The thought of that sickened Joelle. Kate could possibly want to use her baby and Molly's to settle an old score.

It didn't take long, less than five minutes, before Luca took the turn into Duncan's driveway, and Duncan used his phone to open his garage door. He also turned on some security lights. Lots of them at both the front and sides of the house.

Unlike her place, Duncan had neighbors—a small-time rancher directly across the road from him and another about two hundred yards to his right. Not exactly right next door but close enough that the lights from those two places also provided some illumination as well.

Luca pulled into the garage, and they all stayed inside the cruiser until Duncan had shut the garage door behind them. "I have a security system," he said, checking his phone. "And I would have gotten an alert had someone gone into the house. Still, I want to do a sweep of the place just in case someone hacked into the system."

That wasn't exactly a comforting thought, but Joelle was glad Duncan had even considered it. The problem with being so tired was that it could cause a loss of focus on something critical like this.

Duncan got out, and he searched the garage first before he went into the house. Luca and she sat in the cruiser, waiting and hoping that all was well. They'd already been through way too much. Ditto for Molly, but Joelle had talked to the woman about an hour ago, and the baby and the new mother seemed to be doing well.

"Have you heard from Bree?" Luca asked, drawing Joelle's attention back to him.

"Yes. She's planning on coming home soon." Though now that she'd given that some thought, Joelle would try to talk her sister out of it. Saddle Ridge just wasn't a safe place to be right now.

Luca made a sound that could have meant anything, but Joelle thought she detected some kind of undercurrent. And she knew why. At best, Bree usually managed to come home three or four times a year and then for only a week or two.

The exception to that "coming home" pattern had been five months ago when their father had been murdered and their mother had disappeared. Bree had then stayed in Saddle Ridge for just over five weeks. Joelle knew that Bree and Luca had seen each other then, but there seemed to be some kind of rift between them and then Bree left. Luca might be wondering if he could fix that rift and go back to the way things had been.

That was a reminder for Joelle that she needed to have a conversation with Bree. Maybe soon if the fourth gunman wasn't caught and his boss arrested. Willie Jay could speed up the possibility of that if he'd just start talking. Arlo Dennison might be able to do that as well if the cops managed to find him. So far, that hadn't happened, which led Joelle to believe that he, too, might be dead.

Duncan finally appeared in the doorway that led into the house and motioned for them to come in. That helped ease some of the tension in Joelle's body. So did Duncan rearming the security system the moment they were inside.

"All the doors and windows have sensors," Duncan explained. "Normally, I keep the alarms at a soft beep since I'm a light sleeper, but I'll change that to a full sound. If someone tries to get in, we'll hear it."

Good. That was one less thing to worry about, especially since Molly's kidnappers had broken into her place despite her having a security system.

"This way," Duncan instructed. He led them through a kitchen with stainless appliances and white stone countertops. "Help yourself to anything in the fridge. Sorry that it isn't better stocked, but I hadn't counted on... Well, I hadn't counted on this."

Since Duncan had been steadily feeding her throughout the day, Joelle wasn't hungry, but she figured she would be by morning.

Duncan continued to lead them through the living and dining rooms and toward the hall. He stopped outside the first door. "It's my office, but there's a sofa sleeper," he said to Luca. "Bathroom is there." He tipped his head to the room directly across from the office.

Luca muttered a thanks, one weary with fatigue, and went in while Duncan continued with her to the next room. "Guest room," he explained, walking in with her. The walls and the comforter on the queen-size bed were both pale blue. "I'll be right next door. The walls are thin enough that I'll hear you if you call out."

Joelle sighed, hoping there'd be no need for her to call out, that nothing else would go wrong tonight.

Duncan stayed put, studying her for several moments. "This is probably going to sound wrong, but we can sleep together if that'll help with the tension that I can practically see coming off you in waves. Sleep ," he emphasized.

Even though it was the worst reaction, Joelle smiled. She should have instead given him a firm look to let him know she'd be fine in here alone. But she was out of firm looks for the night. She sighed again, then shook her head.

"Tempting, but I'll be okay," she muttered. She hoped. It was possible she was too tired and had too much firing through her head to actually sleep.

The corner of Duncan's mouth lifted. Apparently, he was going for his own worst reaction . He compounded that by pulling her into his arms.

Her body landed against his. Familiar territory for both of them. Bad territory, too, because it instantly spurred some memories that shouldn't be spurred right now. Their defenses were down. They were both vulnerable. Yet, neither one of them pulled away from each other.

Joelle actually moved in closer, sliding her arms around his waist and dropping her head onto his shoulder. Mercy, it felt good. Not just because of the heat but because of the comfort this gave her. She wasn't a weak woman. Definitely wasn't a coward. But it felt good to be this close to someone who had her back.

She felt Duncan brush a kiss on the top of her head. Not really any kind of foreplay per se, but anything they did at this point would qualify as foreplay. Again, that was a good reason for her to move away from him,

But she didn't.

Joelle lifted her head, came up on her tiptoes and kissed him. It wasn't an especially heated kiss, but it shouldn't have happened at all. Nothing about this could stay at the comforting level. It never would between Duncan and her. The heat that stirred between them would never allow a comfort level. It would only demand to be sated.

That didn't stop her from fully kissing him. Nor did it stop him from returning the kiss and tightening his arms around her, pulling her even closer to him. Until they were touching in all the wrong places.

Duncan used his foot to shut the bedroom door, and he was the one who deepened the kiss. Joelle didn't do anything to stop that, either. In fact, she welcomed it. Needed it. She needed him, and that made the situation even more dangerous. This kind of need wouldn't just rip down barriers, it would put a permanent end to them.

That still didn't stop her.

She slid her hand around his neck, pulling his mouth down to hers so she could deepen the kiss as well. So she could take. And burn. Oh, yes. She was burning all right, and the heat continued to skyrocket when he dropped his grip to her bottom and aligned them in just the right way.

Of course, the baby bump didn't allow for the usual direct body to body contact in their midsections, but it was plenty enough for Joelle to recall in perfect detail just how good this could be between Duncan and her. Good but with serious consequences. Remembering those consequences gave her just enough steel to ease her mouth from his.

Duncan stared down at her and blinked as if trying to clear his head, and then he muttered some profanity. "I didn't think," he said. "I didn't think of the baby."

He had created a wonderful steamy heat inside her head so it took a moment to cut through that and realize what he meant. She had to smile again.

"Pregnant women are allowed to kiss," she pointed out. "And have sex."

That last part flew right out of her mouth before she even knew she was going to say it. Stupid, stupid, stupid . Of course, it made Duncan smile again, and Joelle gave up and smiled right along with him.

The moment seemed to freeze. Their gazes certainly did while they were locked with each other. And the heat came at them like an out-of-control train. Cutting through what was left of any common sense.

There was a ringing sound that cut through as well, and it had Duncan and her flying apart. For one horrifying moment, Joelle thought it was the security system alerting them that someone had broken in. But it was Duncan's phone.

"It's Slater," he said when he looked at the screen and put the call on speaker. She started to move away from him, but Duncan kept his arm around her waist.

"Hope I caught you before you crashed for the night," Slater greeted.

"You did," Duncan said. "Did you get something?"

"Yes." Slater stopped, cursed. "Shortly after you left, Willie Jay got a phone call. From Kate Moreland."

"Kate?" Duncan questioned. "What did she want?"

"She wouldn't say, but I told Willie Jay she'd called and tried to get him to tell me why she wanted to talk to him. He stayed clammed up. So, I went back to my desk to see if I could get the answer from Kate. She clammed up as well and said she had to go, that the doctor ordered her to rest."

Clearly, Duncan and she would be having a chat with Kate first thing in the morning.

"I dug deeper, looking for a connection between Willie Jay and Kate," Slater went on. Joelle could hear some chatter in the background at the sheriff's office. "When I got nothing, I went to check on Willie Jay, to see if he'd changed his mind about talking to us. He was unconscious when I found him." Her brother cursed again. "Duncan, Willie Jay's dead."