Six-Gun Showdown
Delores Fossen
“I’m not dead.”The voicemail rocks deputy sheriff Jax Crockett to his core. A year ago, Paige was murdered by the Moonlight Strangler. Yet his ex-wife just showed up at his ranch–out of options and out of time. There are only two reasons Paige would come back to Texas with a killer hot on her heels: Jax and their toddler son. Faking her death was the only way to keep them alive. But now it’s Jax who’s risking everything to protect his family. The cowboy lawman is also reawakening a powder keg of desire. A desire that's primed and ready to explode. Giving in will up the ante, igniting the embers of a love they may not live to claim.
“Please hold me.”
That was the only warning Jax got before Paige was in his arms.
Instant jolt of memories. His body reminding him that it’d been way too long since he’d had her in his arms.
And in his bed.
Jax didn’t push her away, though. She was falling apart right in front of him, and he felt his arms close around her before he could talk himself out of it.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
The latest apology put his teeth on edge. No way could an apology erase what she’d done. For nearly a year, he’d grieved for her. Cursed her. Because he’d believed she had caused her own death. Now he was cursing her for lying to him. Cursing her because of this blasted attraction that just wouldn’t die.
Six-Gun Showdown
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Delores Fossen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
DELORES FOSSEN, a USA TODAY bestselling author, has sold over fifty novels with millions of copies of her books in print worldwide. She’s received a Booksellers’ Best Award and an RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award. She was also a finalist for a prestigious RITA
Award. You can contact the author through her website at www.deloresfossen.com (http://www.deloresfossen.com).
Contents
Cover (#uec4a6cdb-d563-5f88-af5a-cf07affaaa20)
Introduction (#u1a657482-bf96-5c6a-98a0-12cf7889532f)
Title Page (#u40b0d482-3b43-5368-b5c9-b67accbae433)
About the Author (#u780fe09b-6546-5fef-95cf-db6d33bebb33)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u1dc77271-84a1-5bb5-87af-07f708569b2b)
I’m not dead.
The voice mail message caused Deputy Jax Crockett to freeze. He stabbed the replay button on his phone and listened to it again. Three words. That was it.
But it felt as if a stick of dynamite had just gone off in his chest.
Paige.
Oh, mercy. It was his ex-wife, Paige.
That was her voice, all right. He was sure of it. But it couldn’t be her because he’d buried her a year ago.
Jax listened to the message again. And again. Then, he checked the name and number of the caller.
Unknown.
Which meant the person might have blocked him from seeing it. But it’d come in a half hour earlier when he’d been on the back part of his ranch looking for a calf that’d strayed from the herd. No phone reception was back there, so the call had gone straight to voice mail.
Was that fear he’d heard in her voice?
Or maybe fear that someone else was pretending to feel?
This had to be some kind of sick prank. That was it. Maybe someone who sounded like Paige.
But his gut didn’t go along with that notion.
He knew his ex-wife’s voice, and that’d been her on the other end of the line. Of course, that didn’t mean someone hadn’t used an old recording of her voice, perhaps piecing together words from other conversations to come up with that one sentence.
I’m not dead.
“You okay, boss?” he heard someone ask.
Jax dragged his thoughts back to reality and noticed that one of his ranch hands, Buddy Martindale, was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind.
Heck, maybe he had.
After all, he was standing in the barn while he repeatedly punched the voice mail button on his phone.
“Did anybody call the ranch in the past hour or so?” Jax asked him.
Buddy lifted his cowboy hat enough to scratch his head, giving that some thought. “Not that I know of. Maybe you oughta check with Belinda, though.”
Yes, Belinda Darby would know. His son’s nanny was inside the house, and since it was coming up on dinnertime, Belinda would be close to not only Jax’s son, Matthew, but also near the house phone. She would have been able to hear the line ringing in Jax’s home office, too, if someone had tried to reach him there.
Someone like a dead woman.
Get a grip.
Paige had been murdered by the serial killer known as the Moonlight Strangler. And there had to be some reasonable explanation for the call.
Jax handed off his horse’s reins to Buddy, something he wouldn’t normally do. Tending the horses was a task he enjoyed. Not today, though. Not after that message.
There were a good thirty yards between the barn and the back porch, so while he made his way to the house, Jax listened to the recording again. Hearing it for the fifth time didn’t lessen the impact.
The memories came, slamming into him.
Nightmares of the violence Paige had suffered. Folks often reminded him that she’d only died once. That she wasn’t suffering now, that she was at peace. And while that was true, Jax couldn’t stop himself from reliving every last horrifying moment of Paige’s life.
Their marriage had fallen apart several months before she was killed, but it didn’t matter that their divorce had been finalized only days before that fateful night. Paige sure hadn’t deserved to die, and their son hadn’t deserved to lose his mother.
Before Jax reached the back porch, the door opened, and Belinda stuck out her head. Even though the sunset wasn’t far off, it was still hot, the August air more humid than cooling, and the breeze took a swipe at her long blond hair.
“You look like you saw a ghost,” she said, smiling, but that smile quickly vanished. “Is everything all right?”
Heck, he must have been wearing his emotions on his face and every other part of him. A rarity for him since, to the best of his knowledge, no one had ever called him the emotional type.
“Have there been any calls since I’ve been out?” he asked.
“No.” Unlike Buddy, Belinda didn’t even hesitate. “Why? What’s wrong?”
Jax waved her off. No need to worry her. And she would be worried if he told her about the voice mail. Belinda took care of Matthew as if he were her own and would have done the same for Jax if he’d let her. Anything that bothered the two of them would bother her.
“Can you stay late tonight? I need to go back to the sheriff’s office and look over some reports,” he lied.
Well, it was sort of a lie, anyway. He was a deputy after all, and there were always reports to read, write or look over. He’d maybe work on a few while he was there.
But what he really wanted was to have the voice mail analyzed.
He’d saved the old answering machine with Paige’s recorded message on it. Jax had figured when Matthew got older, he might want to hear his mommy’s voice.
Or at least that’s what Jax had told himself.
But now, the recording could be compared to the one on his voice mail, and he’d have the proof he needed that this was some kind of a sick hoax. Maybe then the knot in his stomach would ease up.
“No problem. I can stay as late as you need,” Belinda assured him.
He hadn’t expected her to say anything different. “Thanks. And don’t hold dinner for me. I’ll be back before Matthew’s bedtime, though.”
Belinda nodded and went back inside. But not before giving him another concerned look. She would believe his lie because she wanted to believe it, but she knew something was wrong.
Jax was within a few steps of the back porch when he caught some movement from the corner of his eye. Just a blur of motion in the open doorway of the detached garage. Since Buddy was still in the main barn, Jax knew it wasn’t him, and none of the hands from his family’s ranch had come to help him work today. Still, that didn’t mean his sister or brothers hadn’t sent someone over to get a vehicle or something.
Except it didn’t feel like anything that ordinary.
Probably because of that voice mail.
He was armed, his Glock in his waist holster, and Jax slid his hand over it and started toward the garage.
There.
He saw the movement again.
Someone was definitely inside.
He’d made some enemies over the years. That came with the territory of being a lawman. But if someone had decided to bring a fight to his ranch, then the person could have already ambushed him.
Not exactly a thought to steady his nerves.
“Who’s there?” he asked. Not a shout.
Jax kept his voice low enough so that Belinda or anyone in the house wouldn’t necessarily hear him. But a person in the garage should.
He got no answer, and he glanced back at his house to make sure Belinda was still inside. She was. Jax considered firing off a text to warn her to get Matthew and herself away from the windows, but it might be overkill.
Or not.
He got another glimpse of the shadowy figure and decided to confront this head-on. Literally. Jax drew his gun and hurried to the entry. It was dark inside, but not so dark that he didn’t see the person lurking behind the back end of one of the trucks.
“Paige?” Jax whispered.
He could have sworn everything stopped. His heartbeat. His breath. Maybe even time. But that standstill didn’t last.
Because the person stepped out, not enough for him to fully see her, but Jax knew it was a woman.
“You got my message,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
Paige. It was her. In the flesh.
Jax had a thousand emotions hit him at once. Relief. Mercy, there was a ton of relief, but it didn’t last but a second or two before the other emotions took over: shock, disbelief and, yeah, anger.
Lots and lots of anger.
“Why?” he managed to say, though he wasn’t sure how he could even speak with his throat clamped shut.
Paige cleared her throat, too. “Because it was necessary.”
As answers went, it sucked, and he let her know that with the scowl he aimed at her. “Why?” he repeated.
She stepped from the shadows but didn’t come closer to him. Still, it was close enough for him to confirm what he already knew.
This was Paige.
She was back from the grave. Or else, back from a lie that she’d apparently let him believe.
For a dead woman, she didn’t look bad, but she had changed. No more blond hair. It was dark brown now and cut short and choppy. She’d also lost some of those curves that’d always caught his eye and every other man’s in town.
“I know you have a thousand questions,” she said, rubbing her hands along the outside legs of her jeans. She also glanced around. Behind him.
Behind her.
“Just one question. Why the hell did you let me believe you were dead?” But Jax couldn’t even wait for the answer. He cursed. “I saw pictures of you after the Moonlight Strangler had gotten his hands on you. There’s no reason you should have let me believe that’d happened to you.”
“It did happen.” She stepped even closer, and thanks to the sunlight spearing through the door, he saw the scar on her cheek.
The crescent-shaped knife cut that the Moonlight Strangler had given all his victims.
There were marks on her throat, too. Scars from the piano wire that had sliced into her skin when the killer strangled her.
“Yes.” Paige touched her fingers to her neck. “It’s healed now. For the most part.”
She was wrong. It would never heal. Never go away. Not in his mind, anyway.
“But clearly you’re not dead,” he snapped. And he didn’t want her to be, but he damn sure wanted some answers. “I’ve been through hell for the past year. Hell,” Jax emphasized. “You didn’t just put me through this, either. Matthew went through it, too.”
Even though his son had been only a year old when Paige died, it’d broken Jax’s heart to hear his son call out for his ma-ma.
“Matthew.” Her breath hitched, and tears sprang to her eyes. “I did this for him. For you.”
“You didn’t do anything for me.” There was no way for him to rein in the anger in his voice or any other part of him. “You let me believe you’d been murdered.”
She nodded, came even closer. So close that he caught her familiar scent. But she also glanced around again. “Because if I hadn’t let you believe that, the Moonlight Strangler would have come after me again. And I was afraid he’d use Matthew and you to get to me.”
He cursed again, dismissing that. “I’m a deputy sheriff.”
“And that didn’t stop him from getting to me,” Paige reminded him just as quickly.
Good grief, she might as well have slugged him with a two-by-four. Because it was the truth. And it was a truth that Jax had struggled with for the past year.
He hadn’t managed to save her.
But someone obviously had.
“What happened?” he demanded.
She paused, gathered her breath. Maybe her thoughts, too. “By the time the San Antonio cops got to the crime scene, I was barely alive. In fact, the first cop on the scene did report me as dead. That’s the report that went out to you and everybody else. But the paramedics managed to revive me in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I knew if word got out that I was alive, the killer would just come after me again.”
He mentally went through all the details and saw one big question at the end of that explanation. “Who helped you come up with this stupid plan?”
“I came up with it.” She glanced around again. “And I convinced a cop at SAPD who knew about me to go along with it.”
Jax didn’t miss the glancing around, nor the hesitation in her voice.
“Who helped you?” he pressed.
She dodged his gaze. “Other than the cop, Cord Granger helped.”
Jax would have cursed again if he could have gotten his jaw unclenched. Cord Granger, a DEA agent. Also the biological brother to his adopted sister, Addie.
Cord and Addie’s father was none other than the Moonlight Strangler himself. Though the law didn’t have the actual identity of the vicious serial killer, they knew from DNA comparisons that both Cord and Addie were his biological children. Children the killer had abandoned when they were a little more than toddlers, and neither had any recollections of the man.
Too bad.
If they had a name, then they could find and arrest the piece of slime.
Something that Cord had made his top priority.
Jax had never cared much for Cord. And this wouldn’t help. Because Cord was much more concerned about catching his birth father than he was with the safety of the people around him. Jax wouldn’t have put it past the man to actually use Paige to draw the killer out. And now he’d apparently put Paige up to lying to him.
Not just any old lie, either.
But one that’d crushed Jax and the rest of his family.
“You were a fool to trust Cord,” he finally managed to say. Jax shoved his thumb against his chest. “You should have trusted me instead.”
She huffed. Not an angry sound, but more like stating the obvious. “We weren’t exactly in a good place, Jax.”
That was the wrong thing to say. A new wave of anger came. “You’re sure you didn’t die because you didn’t want to face the divorce?” Or maybe because she hadn’t wanted to face him?
Her eyes narrowed when their gazes connected again. “No. It was to save Matthew and you.”
Jax didn’t have time to figure out if he believed that or not. Because he heard something he didn’t want to hear.
Belinda’s voice.
“Jax, are you all right?” the nanny called out.
Belinda was on the back porch, peering into the garage. She could almost certainly see him, but probably not Paige. Paige kept it that way by stepping into the shadows.
“Tell her to go back inside,” Paige insisted.
Jax opened his mouth to ask why, but because he was watching Paige so closely, he saw the urgency slide across her face.
And the fear.
“I’m fine,” he told Belinda. “Just checking a few things before I head to the office.”
He waited to see if that’d be enough or if he truly would have to tell her to go inside. But thankfully, it worked. Belinda went back in and closed the door.
“What happened?” Jax asked Paige. And he didn’t need his lawman’s instincts to tell him that not only had something happened...
Something had gone wrong.
“What made you come back now?” he pressed.
The fear in her face went up a significant notch. “I think the Moonlight Strangler is on his way here to draw me out.”
All right. That upped his concern, too. A lot. “And how exactly would he do that?”
Paige’s mouth trembled. “The Moonlight Strangler is coming after Matthew and you...tonight.”
Chapter Two (#u1dc77271-84a1-5bb5-87af-07f708569b2b)
Paige stood there and waited for Jax to react to the news she’d just delivered.
And he reacted all right.
He turned, ready to bolt inside the house. To protect Matthew, no doubt. But Paige took hold of his arm to stop him.
“Just listen to what I have to say,” she insisted. “I don’t want to give the Moonlight Strangler a reason to fire shots into the house.”
He slung off her grip. “Neither do I, but I’m not going to stand here while he goes after my son.”
Our son, she nearly corrected, but Paige figured that was a different battle for a different time. They had to survive this one first.
“The killer likely knows I’m here,” she explained, hoping it would get Jax to stay put. “I figure he’s watching me. Somehow. Maybe with cameras. Maybe he’s out there somewhere in the woods with infrared equipment. He’s been watching me for the past three days, though I haven’t spotted him yet.”
Jax’s eyes narrowed. “And even though you knew he was watching, you brought him here, to my doorstep?”
She had no trouble hearing the anger in his voice. Or seeing it on his face. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” he snapped.
They weren’t just talking about her being here now, but all the other things that’d happened between them. Again, another battle, another time.
Paige stopped him again when he tried to bolt. “The killer would have come here no matter what I did because he knew he’d be able to use Matthew and you to get to me.”
He went still. Not in a good way. But in that calm, almost lethal way of a lawman who’d just heard something he didn’t want to hear. “And how the heck do you know that?”
“Because he’s sent me several texts. And, yes, I’m certain they’re from the Moonlight Strangler because he knew details about my attack that hadn’t been released to the press. In the last one he sent, he said if I didn’t meet him tonight at 9:00 p.m., then he’d go after Matthew and you.”
That was still nearly two hours away.
Not much time to pull off a miracle. But it might be enough time to bring all of this to an end. An end that would keep Matthew and Jax out of danger.
Jax stood there, obviously processing that, and cursed again. Glared at her, too.
She deserved the profanity and the glare. Deserved every drop of rage that he wanted to sling at her. Because he was right. She had turned his life upside down. Her precious little boy’s, too.
“If you knew the killer was watching you, following you, then why hide here?” Jax asked.
She’d known that question was coming. Others would, too. “Because I didn’t want to pull Belinda or your ranch hands into this. I’m not hiding from the killer. I’m hiding from them. That’s why I parked by the creek and walked here.”
Paige was thankful no one on the ranch had spotted her. Even though she’d altered her appearance, someone could have recognized her. Especially Belinda. They’d known each other since childhood, and a change of hairstyle wasn’t going to fool anyone for long.
“At the time I faked my death,” she continued, “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was trusting the right people.”
“You mean Cord,” he snarled.
Paige hated that Jax was aiming his venom at Cord. Because Cord was the one person she was certain had kept his promise to make sure Jax and Matthew stayed out of harm’s way.
But someone else had betrayed her.
Paige hoped she got a chance to discover who’d done that and deliver some payback. First, though, she had to protect Matthew—and Jax if he’d let her.
“After the attack, I went to a safe house in the Panhandle,” she said. “Not an official safe house,” Paige corrected, “but it was a place for me to recover and get back on my feet. Then, I moved to an apartment in Houston. That’s where I’ve been, where I probably would have stayed, if I hadn’t started getting those texts from the Moonlight Strangler three days ago.”
“And those texts just appeared without any kind of warning or sign that the killer knew you were alive?” His voice stayed a snarl.
“Yes. I’m still trying to figure out how he learned that.” She gave a heavy sigh. “Look, I know you have a lot of questions, but they have to wait. We have to put Matthew’s safety first.”
He couldn’t argue with that, but mercy, she was dreading those questions. Dreading even more that she didn’t have the answers that Jax wanted to hear.
Jax cursed again before he glanced around the garage, the yard and the back of the house. “I don’t want you inside. I don’t want Matthew seeing you yet.”
“Agreed.” Though it broke her heart to say that.
Jax’s eyebrow lifted, and he got that look, the one that condemned her as a mother.
“I want to see him and hold him more than I want my next breath,” Paige clarified. “But if I go inside, it might give the killer a reason to try to get in there, too. He warned me not to try to hide behind my son.”
As if she’d do that.
But she would have to draw Jax into the middle of this. Paige couldn’t see a way around it.
“If I’d thought I could make Matthew safer by going inside with him, I would have already been in there,” Paige added.
That stirred Jax’s jaw muscles, but thankfully he didn’t try to bolt toward the house again. However, he did take out his phone, and he moved into the shadows of the garage, his attention nailed to the house.
“I’m texting Belinda to tell her to lock the doors and set the security system,” Jax relayed to her. “I’ll tell her it’s just a precaution, that a prisoner has escaped. And then I’m calling for backup.”
Paige didn’t stop him from sending the first text. She wanted the house locked down. But she did stop him from texting his brother Jericho. Jericho was the sheriff, and while he would ultimately get involved in this, now wasn’t the time. Ditto for Jax’s other two brothers, Chase and Levi. They were both lawmen, too, and having them here could make a bad situation worse.
“Hear me out before you involve your brothers in this,” she said. “After I got those messages from the Moonlight Strangler, I knew he wasn’t going to back down until he had me. I’m the one who got away, and he wants me dead.”
“I’m listening,” Jax said when she hesitated.
Paige hadn’t hesitated because she thought he wasn’t listening, but rather because she wasn’t sure how to say this. Best just to get it out there. “If I’d thought it would keep Matthew out of danger, I would have just surrendered to him. Would have let him finish what he started.”
Jax cursed again. “Do you hear yourself? You’re talking about suicide. What you should have done is gone to the cops. Or to me.”
“I did come to you, tonight,” she whispered. “You won’t be thanking me for that, though, but it was the only way. I want this monster dead, and I want you to kill him for me.”
He gave a crisp nod. “Tell me where he is, and I will,” Jax said as if it were a done deal.
It was far from being a done deal, though.
“He wants me to meet him tonight at nine on the bridge at Appaloosa Creek. I’m sure he already had the area under some kind of surveillance before he told me it was the meeting place. He said if I show up with anyone but you, then he’ll start a killing spree. One that will involve our son.”
She gave him a moment to let that sink in. It didn’t sink in well. The fire went through his already fiery blue eyes. Actually, plenty of things about Jax fell into the fiery category. All cowboy, even with that badge clipped to his belt. Hot cowboy, she mentally corrected.
Even now, after all this time and water under the bridge, Paige was still attracted to him. Something she shouldn’t be remembering. Not when she had more important things to deal with.
“That’s why you can’t involve your brothers,” she added. “If they go rushing to the area, he’ll know.”
“How?” he snapped.
“I’m not sure. Like I said, I suspect long-range cameras. Of course, that means he has the resources to set up something like that without being detected.”
His stare drilled into her. “Who is he?”
A heavy sigh left her mouth. “I honestly don’t know.”
No one did. The Moonlight Strangler had murdered more than a dozen women before he’d finally made a mistake and left his DNA at a crime scene. There’d been no match for the DNA in the system, but there had been a match of a different kind.
To Jax’s adopted sister, Addie.
“As you know, Addie doesn’t remember her father,” Paige said.
Of course, Addie had been just three when she’d been found wandering around the woods near the Crocketts’ Appaloosa Pass Ranch. When no one had come forward to claim her, Jax’s parents had adopted her and raised her as their own along with their four sons: Jax, Jericho, Chase and Levi.
“As fraternal twins, Cord was the same age as Addie when he was abandoned, and he doesn’t remember anything, either,” she went on.
Something Paige had in common with Addie and Cord since she, too, had been left at the hospital when she was a baby. Of course, she hadn’t been abandoned by a serial killer.
He got quiet again, but not for long. “Did you see the Moonlight Strangler’s face when he tried to kill you?” Jax asked.
This was one of the other questions she’d expected, but Paige had to shake her head and hope she could say the words without having flashbacks or a panic attack.
“He hit me with a stun gun when I was getting into my car in the parking lot of the CSI office in San Antonio,” she said. Her words rushed together, spilling out with her breath. “He was wearing a mask so I never saw his face. He said some things to me...cut me and strangled me until I lost consciousness.”
Jax pressed his lips together for a moment. “What things did he say?”
That required her to take a moment. Things that were hard to repeat aloud, though they repeated in her head all the time.
And in her nightmares.
“He said if he hadn’t managed to get to me, then he would have kidnapped Matthew to draw me out.” There. That was the worst of it. The absolute worst. “The next thing I remember after that was waking up with a San Antonio cop leaning over me.”
“The cop who helped you fake your death,” he mumbled. “Along with Cord.” Jax took the venom in his voice up a notch.
Probably because Cord was obsessed with finding and stopping the Moonlight Strangler. But Paige thought maybe she heard something else in Jax’s voice. Perhaps a little jealousy. She recognized it because she felt that same ugly emotion when Jax said Belinda’s name.
“It’s not like that between Cord and me,” she volunteered.
His glare didn’t soften any. “Then how is it exactly? Why don’t you tell me?”
Well, this was a can of worms that she’d hoped to delay opening. The emotions of it were still too raw, and Paige wasn’t sure she could tell him without choking on the words. But Jax had to know. Because it was hearing this that would hopefully get him to cooperate with her dangerous plan.
“When the killer was strangling me,” she said, but then had to stop to fight back the images of that nightmare. Always the images. “He told me my birth mother was one of his first victims and that he was killing me to make sure her spawn didn’t live another second.”
Judging from the way his eyes widened, Jax hadn’t expected that. “And you believed him?”
“No. But the DNA test I took later proved otherwise.” That required another deep breath. “According to the test, my birth mother was Mary Madison. Her body was found just a few days after I was abandoned in the hospital. I didn’t learn any of this until after I’d faked my death.”
“His victim’s daughter,” Jax said. He did some deep breathing, too, and she could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “That’s why he came after you?” But he didn’t wait for her to answer. “Then why hasn’t he gone after the children of his other victims?”
She had to shake her head. “Maybe my birth mother’s murder was more personal to him? Or he could believe I know something about him that the others don’t.”
“Do you?” he asked, and it sounded like some kind of accusation.
With good reason.
Cord wasn’t the only one who’d become obsessed with finding the Moonlight Strangler. She had as well, and even though Paige had dismissed it as part of her job as a crime scene investigator, it’d been more than that. She’d felt it bone deep.
And she’d been right.
She wasn’t just searching for a killer who had eluded the cops for nearly thirty years. Now she knew that she’d been looking for the man who’d murdered her mother so she could stop him from killing again. Of course, the obsession had come back to haunt her and just might cost her everything.
“I don’t know anything about his identity,” she continued, “but I do know how to stop him.”
However, it would cost her big-time. The trick was not to have that cost spread to Matthew and Jax.
Paige checked the time. The minutes were ticking away. “I heard you tell Belinda that you were going to the sheriff’s office, so she’ll be expecting you to leave soon. I suspect you were going to analyze the voice mail I left you.”
Jax nodded. “I thought maybe it was a hoax.”
Of course he had. Because he hadn’t thought she was capable of doing something like faking her own death. “I left the message because I thought it would lessen the blow of you seeing me.”
He looked her straight in the eyes. “Nothing could have done that.”
True. But she’d had to try. Just as she had to try now.
“So, your plan is to...what?” he asked. “Go to the Appaloosa Creek Bridge and meet a killer who’s hell-bent on finishing you off?”
Hearing it spelled out like that didn’t help, but Paige tried to push her fear aside. “I’m sure he’d like to finish you off, too. I can’t think of another reason he would say I could bring you along.”
Jax stayed quiet a moment. “But you’re thinking I can kill him before he can get to me?”
Bingo.
He gave her a flat stare. “Of course, the only way I’d get a chance to do that is for him to get close enough to murder you.”
Yes. There was no way around that.
“He’s never shot anyone before.” Not that Paige knew of, anyway. “He’ll want an up-close-and-personal kill, like the others.” Something that tightened the knot in her stomach. A knot that’d been there for nearly a year since the Moonlight Strangler attacked her.
Jax’s next round of profanity was even worse than the others. Before he could tell her a flat-out no, that there was no chance this was going to happen, Paige interrupted him.
“If I could think of another way out, one that didn’t involve you, I’d take it. But I can’t risk him coming after Matthew. And neither can you.”
Jax didn’t agree with that. Didn’t argue, either.
“He said we’re to leave our guns by the side of the road before we approach the bridge,” Paige explained. “He has to know that you’ll be carrying some kind of backup weapon. That’s why I believe he’ll use a thermal scan.”
“He wouldn’t be able to see a gun on thermal scan.” Jax closed his eyes for a second, shook his head. “But he would be able to see the outline of one.”
“That’s why it can’t look like something he’d recognize as a weapon.” She took the plastic syringe from her pocket. “Hopefully, it’ll look like an ink pen, but it’s filled with enough sodium thiopental to incapacitate him in less than thirty seconds.”
“Sodium thiopental,” he repeated, no doubt knowing that it was a powerful drug that would stop the Moonlight Strangler from moving. It could also kill him, since it was the same drug used in lethal injections for those on death row.
“I would just try to use it on him myself,” Paige added, “but he left specific instructions that’ll prevent me from doing that.”
She took her phone from her jeans pocket and handed it to Jax so he could read the text message for himself. Everything was there. The time and place of the meeting. The offer for her to have Jax and no one else to drive her. If anyone else did show up, the meeting was off, and Jax’s house would be attacked. There was also the demand for them to leave their weapons on the side of the road twenty yards from the bridge and then walk there.
And one final demand.
“He wants you to strip down to your underwear so he can make sure you don’t have a weapon,” Jax read.
She nodded. “Obviously, he doesn’t trust me.”
“He won’t trust me, either,” Jax reminded her just as quickly.
“No. He might even have a hired thug hiding nearby to try to take you out. That’s why you’ll need to wear Kevlar. Do you still keep a vest in your truck?”
Jax nodded. “Kevlar won’t stop him from killing you, though.”
“No, but it’ll stop him from killing you. We can take other precautions for me, like using our own thermal scan of the area.” She tipped her head to the small equipment bag she’d stashed behind the truck. “There’s a handheld one in there so we can see if anyone’s lurking nearby before we surrender our guns.”
And there it was. All spelled out for him. Paige just waited to see what he was going to do. Part of her wanted him to refuse. That way, he’d be safe.
For tonight, anyway.
But she didn’t believe the killer was bluffing. If he couldn’t have her, then he would come after Matthew and Jax and make her suffer a million times more than she would with just her own murder.
Jax looked up at the ceiling as if asking for some divine advice. They needed it. But when his gaze came back to her, he handed Paige her phone and took out his own. He fired off a text and within just a matter of seconds, he got an answer.
“Jericho will be here in five minutes to guard Matthew,” he relayed to her.
Jericho’s house was less than half a mile away, and she’d hoped he would be able to come right away. Not to try to talk them out of this plan but to help in a way that wouldn’t spur an attack at the ranch. Even though Jericho wouldn’t be happy to see her, he would do everything humanly possible to protect Matthew. Not just tonight. But forever.
Good thing, too.
This could be the worst mistake of her life. The worst mistake of Jax’s life, too. Because this meeting could make their son an orphan.
“Unless we kill the Moonlight Strangler tonight, you’ll have to make sure everything here is secure, that he can’t get to Matthew,” she reminded him.
Of course, they couldn’t shut their little boy away for the rest of his life, and that meant one way or another, someone would have to stop the killer.
“Does Cord know about this plan?” Jax asked.
Paige nodded. “He’s in one of the trees across the road with a long-range rifle. He’s Jericho’s backup. He would have gone with me to the bridge, but the Moonlight Strangler said I could only bring you. Anyone else, and Matthew could be hurt.”
Jax’s teeth came together. “That’s not going to happen.”
It was the exact reassurance she needed. One that only a father could give. Yes, Cord would fight to the death for her, but Jax would fight to stay alive so he could keep their son safe.
“Once Jericho is here, we’ll come up with some additional security measures,” Jax insisted. “He might be able to get a deputy to pose as a hunter so we can scan the woods around the creek before we even get there. That way, we’d still be here if he’s detected.”
It was a risk, but everything was at this point.
“I saw him,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word.
Jax’s gaze slashed back to hers. “The killer?”
“Matthew. Belinda had him on the back porch earlier.” Mercy, just the memory of seeing him nearly brought her to her knees. “They were on the porch swing, and she was reading to him. He’s gotten so big.”
No longer a baby. He was a toddler now, almost two years old. Walking and talking. Every second seeing him was like a precious gift that Paige had never thought she’d get.
“I’ve missed so much.” She hadn’t meant to say that last part aloud, and it caused Jax to mumble something. She didn’t catch exactly what he said, but it was clear he believed that “dying” had been a choice she’d made.
It was.
And at the time it had been her only choice.
She saw the slash of headlights coming toward the garage. Jericho, no doubt. But just in case it wasn’t, Paige drew her gun from the back waist of her jeans.
A gesture that had Jax doing the same, along with raising an eyebrow.
Paige had never been much for guns, especially after witnessing her adoptive parents’ murders when she was just sixteen. The result of a botched robbery attempt. Since then, guns had always made her squeamish.
“You know how to use that?” Jax asked.
She was about to assure him that she’d learned, but her phone dinged, and Paige saw the text from the unknown sender.
“It’s from the killer,” she said. Paige’s heart went to her knees when she glanced through the message.
“‘Change of plans,’” she read aloud. “‘You and Jax start walking to the end of the road now. If you bring anyone with you or don’t follow the rules, I’ll start shooting. The first bullet will go into the house, and I’ll aim it right at your son.’”
Chapter Three (#u1dc77271-84a1-5bb5-87af-07f708569b2b)
Jax’s mind was already spinning. He’d been hit with way too much tonight, but all of those whirlwind thoughts flew right out of his head. He pinpointed his focus on the one place it should be.
His son.
His first instinct was to run into the house and hide Matthew and Belinda, but that could turn out to be a fatal mistake. The killer might see it as a violation of his demand and start firing. If the killer was close enough to be capable of doing that.
Jax just didn’t know.
And it was too risky to find out.
“Oh, God,” Paige mumbled, and she repeated it several times. “We don’t have everything in place yet.”
No, and Jax figured that was part of the killer’s plan. To keep one step ahead of them; to keep them off balance. But Jax didn’t intend to let this snake hurt his little boy.
“Text him back,” Jax instructed. “Tell him we need more time and that we want the meeting place moved back to the bridge.”
It was a long shot. Really long. And a moment later he realized it was no shot at all. “He’s blocked me,” Paige said.
Of course he had. The killer had delivered his orders, and he wouldn’t have them challenged, because he would have almost certainly known that they’d try to negotiate with him.
Jax sent a text of his own. To Belinda. It would terrify her, but again there wasn’t much of a choice. He instructed her to take Matthew into the main bathroom and get in the tub. The room was at the center of the house and would be the safest place for them to wait this out. Jax added that he would explain everything later and hoped he was around to do just that.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” he heard Jericho ask before his brother even reached the door to the garage.
“I don’t have time to get into a lot of details,” Jax said, motioning for him to come inside. “Paige is alive, and the Moonlight Strangler is possibly nearby, ready to attack.”
Jericho came in, put his hands on his hips, his gaze volleying from Jax to Paige. Jax could tell his brother had plenty of questions, but he also saw the moment when Jericho pushed all those questions aside and the sheriff part of him kicked in.
“What do you need me to do?” Jericho asked.
Jax wasn’t sure just yet, but he soon would be. He looked at Paige. “Where’s Cord exactly?”
She pointed to a cluster of trees across the road and on the far right side of one of the pastures.
“Text him,” Jax ordered her again. “Let him know what’s going on and ask if he can see anyone approaching the house.”
While she did that, Jax went to her equipment bag and took out the thermal scanner and handed it to Jericho. “I don’t know the range on this thing, but I need you to try to see if we’re about to be ambushed. Also, call the others for backup.”
By others, he meant their brothers, Levi and Chase. Both were lawmen with lots of experience.
Jax also considered having Addie’s husband, Weston, come down, but Jax didn’t want to leave his sister alone. They had a baby and would be in a very vulnerable position if the Moonlight Strangler wanted to make Addie a target instead of Paige. It’d be a first, since the serial killer had never gone after Addie, but it was too big of a risk to take.
“Cord doesn’t see anyone other than us and the ranch hands near the house,” Paige relayed to them after reading the response she’d gotten from him. “He wants to know if you trust all your ranch hands.”
Jax nearly snapped at that since he didn’t like an outsider like Cord questioning men he’d known all his life. But Cord didn’t know them, and it was exactly the kind of question a good lawman should ask.
“I trust them,” Jax assured her. “Tell him to text us if he sees anyone or anything out of the ordinary.”
While she did that, Jericho stayed just inside the doorway, out of range so he wouldn’t be seen, and he started up the scanner.
“The Moonlight Strangler wants Paige and me to walk to the end of the road,” Jax explained to his brother. He went to his truck and took out the Kevlar vest, tried to hand it to Paige, but she shook her head.
“He’ll still want me to strip down,” she argued, “so he can make sure I don’t have any weapons. And because it’s a way of humiliating me. He might let you keep on your clothes, though, because he doesn’t plan to let you get close enough to him to use a gun or anything else. That’s why the vest is better on you. Put the syringe in your pocket so you can easily get to it. When he’s attacking me, you go after him.”
Jericho glanced at them as if they’d lost their minds. “Let me see if I’m understanding this. You two are going out there, with a serial killer? One who’s already killed Paige once. Or rather, nearly killed her. And she’s going to let him attack her again?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Jax assured him.
Well, maybe they didn’t.
The situation was moving so fast that it was hard to think, but Jax didn’t need a totally clear head to know that this could turn out to be a huge mistake—no matter what they did.
“Do you see anything on the scanner?” he asked his brother.
Jericho shook his head. “I don’t even see Cord.”
“He’s wearing some kind of thermal blanket,” Paige explained. “The kind hunters use. It’ll make it harder to be seen on infrared.”
That meant the killer and/or his henchmen could have done the same thing. And probably had. After all, this killer had gotten away with murder for years, so he wasn’t an idiot.
But what was he exactly?
Deranged? Obsessed? Or was this more personal for him?
Then it hit him. The Moonlight Strangler had gone after Paige because he considered her a spawn of his victim and believed she didn’t deserve to live. The killer probably wouldn’t want the victim’s grandson to live, either. It sickened Jax to think his little boy had any connection to something like that.
“I guess I also don’t want to know why Cord was in on this little plan and I wasn’t?” Jericho asked.
“Jax didn’t know about the plan until a few minutes ago,” Paige informed him.
“And yet you’re still going along with it,” Jericho mumbled. “Yeah, nothing could go wrong with trusting your ex-wife who let you believe she was dead.”
Jax ignored his brother’s sarcasm and double-checked the Glock in the back waist of his jeans. It’d likely be detected right away, but he might get lucky and be able to keep it.
“You see anyone?” Jax asked him.
“No. But like you said, we don’t know the range on this thing. Somebody could still be out there, hiding under a thermal wrap. Somebody who’ll kill you. That vest isn’t going to protect you from a head shot.”
Nor a shot that would incapacitate him in some other way. “I don’t think he wants to kill me. Just Paige. And he doesn’t want to put a bullet in her.”
Damn, that sounded ice-cold. But it was the truth. The Moonlight Strangler would want his hands on her.
Paige went closer to his brother. She was ash pale now, and her hands were trembling. “I know you don’t owe me any favors, Jericho, but if something goes wrong, stay here to protect Matthew.”
Jericho doled out a glare to her as if he might confirm the no-favors part, but he nodded. “I’ll protect him.”
Jax knew his brother would. And Jax would do the same for him. “When Levi and Chase get here, tell them what’s going on. Don’t have them follow us, but if they can position themselves in front of the house and closer to the road, they might be able to give us some backup.”
“Cord might be able to do that, too,” Paige added. “He’s got sniper training.”
Good. Jax would take anything he could get at this point, but he really didn’t want bullets flying near the house. Too bad he couldn’t guarantee that wouldn’t happen, and that meant Paige and he needed to put as much distance between them and the house as possible.
“We need to leave now,” Paige pressed, already starting out of the garage.
Jax knew she was right, but he still took a moment to look around, to see if there was anything he could do to make this plan safer.
There wasn’t.
He could see more headlights coming from the road that led to the main ranch and to his brothers’ houses. Chase and Levi, no doubt. Jericho would have to explain to them what was happening and get in the best positions to protect Matthew.
In the meantime, all Jax could do was get moving toward this showdown with a killer.
Since there was no truly safe position for Paige, Jax fell into step beside her. However, he did maneuver her to his right.
“If someone fires shots, drop down into the ditch,” he instructed, pointing at the ground. It wouldn’t be ideal protection since it was only a few feet deep, but it was better than nothing.
He glanced back at the house to make sure Belinda wasn’t at the window. She wasn’t. Hopefully, she would stay put with Matthew in the bathroom until she got the okay from him.
Hell.
He hated putting his son through this. Matthew was too young to understand the danger, but he had to sense something was wrong. After all, he should be getting dinner about now, followed by reading time with his daddy. He shouldn’t have to be holed up in a bathtub, hiding from a serial killer.
“I’m so sorry,” Paige whispered.
“Don’t,” Jax warned her. Any apology she attempted would be useless right now and might mess with his head. “And keep watch.”
Of course, she was already doing that. Her gaze was firing all around them. Jax couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard her mumble a prayer. Good. Because he was certainly saying a few of them, too.
Paige took out her phone, checked the screen. No doubt for an update from Cord or the killer. But there was nothing on the screen. Ditto for his own phone. No word yet from his brothers. Jax decided to believe that was good news, because if they’d spotted someone in the area, Jericho would have certainly let him know about it.
The road wasn’t long, less than a quarter of a mile from his house to the highway that led into town. It wasn’t a straight shot, though. It’d once been an old ranch trail, and it coiled around massive oaks and other trees that dotted the acres of land. Those deep curves in the road would no doubt prevent Cord or his brothers from being able to see what was going on.
There were no lights out here, but it wasn’t pitch dark yet. Soon would be, though.
And there was a moon.
Since the killer had struck only on nights with a visible moon and left the crescent shaped cuts on his victims’ cheeks, that’s how he’d earned his nickname. Maybe he wouldn’t add another victim or two to his list tonight.
“Still no text from him,” Paige mumbled, checking her phone again.
No text from his brothers, either, but Jax did spot something. So did Paige because she stopped, and they both stared at the truck ahead. It was parked right where the ranch road met the highway. The lights were off, and it was positioned so that it blocked any vehicle from getting on or off the ranch. Unfortunately, this made it impossible for Jax to read the license plates, although they were probably stolen, anyway.
“You see anyone inside?” Paige asked.
Jax had to shake his head. Too dark, and the windows had a dark tint, too. He fired off a text to Jericho. Try to use the scanner. You might not be able to see it, but there’s a truck parked at the end of the road.
Then he turned to Paige to tell her to text Cord and ask him to do the same thing, but Paige was already in the process of taking care of that.
Nothing, Jericho texted back. I got a glimpse of the truck through the trees, but it’s too far away for the scanner.
Yeah, that’s what Jax figured, and he also figured that’s why the killer had parked it in that particular location.
“Cord’s not getting anything on his scanner,” Paige relayed to Jax when she got a response. “He’s too far away to see the truck and is going to try to move closer. He’ll be careful,” she added.
No doubt. But careful might not be nearly good enough.
Jax didn’t draw his gun, but he kept his hand over it, and he started toward the truck again. Still no sign of anyone inside, and Paige and he were still a good fifteen yards away when her phone dinged with a text message.
Not Cord this time.
“It’s from the killer,” she said, showing him the screen. “‘Guns down on the ground,’” she read aloud. “‘Paige, you know what to do.’”
That was it, all the instruction they were going to get, but Paige did indeed know what to do. She shucked off her top, dropping it on the ground next to where Jax placed his Glock. He kept the backup gun in the back of his jeans.
Her shoes and jeans came off next, along with her gun.
“Sorry,” she repeated.
It took Jax a moment to realize the apology was aimed at him. And another moment to realize why. That’s because he was gawking at her in her bra and panties, and she was apologizing for putting him in this awkward situation.
Talk about bad timing, but Paige always had grabbed his attention. A half-naked Paige could grab it even more.
“He must be somewhere in or around the truck,” Paige said. She took a deep breath, then another, and started walking.
Jax could only imagine what was going through her head right now. The Moonlight Strangler had nearly killed her, but here she was, ready to face him head-on.
Part of him admired that, especially since she was doing this to save Matthew. But another part of him remembered how they’d gotten to this point in the first place. She’d become the killer’s target because she was obsessed with finding him.
As a lawman, it was hard for him to fault her for that.
As a father, he hated that she’d put Matthew on this monster’s radar.
Her phone dinged, and she held it up for Jax to see. Good girl, the killer taunted. Put your hands on top of your head and keep walking. Deputy Crockett, you stop where you are. Don’t make any sudden moves, or I’ll put bullets in both of you. And if you’ve got a gun hidden away, the best way to get Paige killed would be to try to use that gun on me.
Not good. They were still five yards away. Not nearly close enough for him to lunge at a killer.
“Why don’t you come out so we can talk face-to-face?” Jax called out. He didn’t expect a response.
That’s why he was shocked when he got one.
“Talking won’t help,” a man said. Jax didn’t recognize his voice because he was using a scrambler device. Didn’t see him, either. “Paige, turn around a sec so I can make sure you don’t have a gun tucked in those panties. Nice color, by the way. Would you call that pink or peach?”
This wasn’t just a killer, but a sick one.
“Pink,” she said through clenched teeth when she finished circling around.
“Nice. Now, do what you know you have to do.”
She looked at Jax, their gazes holding, and even in the darkness he had no trouble seeing the fear.
And her surrender.
“Just make sure you kill him,” she whispered. “He can’t walk out of here alive.”
Yes, because he would try to hurt Matthew. Jax knew what he had to do.
Paige took another step toward the truck.
“I told you to stay put, Deputy,” the man warned him when Jax moved, too. “I want you to watch.”
Definitely not good.
That’s the reason the killer had allowed him out here, just so he could witness Paige’s murder. Jax had to do something, and he had to do it fast.
“I want to tell Paige goodbye,” Jax said.
Paige froze, glanced back at him, no doubt questioning what the heck he was doing. What he was doing was trying to bargain with this fool. Or maybe distract him. Anything that would prevent him from getting his hands on Paige again.
With that stunned look still on her face, Jax went to her, positioning himself between the truck and her, and he pulled her into his arms. She was board-stiff and trembling, but that didn’t stop Jax from dropping a kiss on her mouth.
While he slipped the syringe into the elastic of her panties. He made sure the protective plastic cap was secure enough so that she wouldn’t accidentally stab herself with it.
“I’ll get to you as fast as I can,” Jax whispered in her ear, hoping it was a promise he could keep.
Paige nodded. Started walking away.
But she’d barely made it a step when Jax heard the rustling sounds to his right.
And to his left.
The dark shadowy figures were wearing ski masks, and they came out of the ditches, fast, barreling right at them. Jax didn’t even have time to react. One of them plowed right into him and knocked him to the ground.
Before he could even grab his backup weapon, the man put a gun to Jax’s head.
Chapter Four (#u1dc77271-84a1-5bb5-87af-07f708569b2b)
From the corner of her eye, Paige saw the man go right at Jax.
She screamed for him to look out, or rather that’s what she tried to do, but the sound didn’t quite make it to her throat. That’s because the hulking man crashed right into her, throwing her to the ground and knocking the breath right out of her.
The pain burst through her.
The fear and dread, too.
She’d failed, and these two goons would almost certainly try to kill Jax and her. Was one of them the Moonlight Strangler? Or were these just his henchmen? If so, they would no doubt deliver them to the Moonlight Strangler so he could finish them off and then go after Matthew.
That couldn’t happen.
Even though she was fighting to regain her breath, Paige slammed her elbow into the man’s stomach. It felt as if she’d hit a brick wall. He didn’t even react to the blow, but he did latch on to her hair and yank her to a standing position with her back against his chest. He put a gun to her head.
And that’s when she got a good look at Jax.
Her heart went to her knees. No! Jax was being held at gunpoint, too. She’d prayed that he had managed to get away, but like her he was now a captive.
“Move and your ex dies,” the man growled in her ear.
That stopped her, but then Paige realized the other goon had likely told Jax the same thing because Jax wasn’t fighting. He was looking at her and shaking his head, no doubt trying to remind her not to do anything stupid. Of course, she’d already done something stupid by allowing the danger to get this close to Matthew and him.
“I’m sorry,” she mouthed.
However, that only earned her another one of Jax’s glares.
“What now?” Jax asked, and it took her a moment to realize he wasn’t talking to her but rather to the thug who had his arm hooked around his neck.
Neither of the men jumped to answer, but Paige did hear some chatter. She glanced back and saw that it was coming through a tiny communicator fitted into the man’s ear. No doubt the voice of the Moonlight Strangler, and he was almost certainly doling out instructions.
Instructions on how he wanted them murdered.
She’d been a fool to think she could outsmart him. A fool to involve Jax in this. She should have just come to the meeting alone. Yes, the Moonlight Strangler would have just finished what he’d started all those months ago, but at least Jax would be inside his house where he could hopefully be protecting Matthew.
The chattering sound stopped, but Paige heard something else. Movement to her right, in the direction of the Crockett ranch. Maybe Jericho or Cord. Unfortunately, the hired thug must have heard it, too, because he dragged her back to the ground. Across from her, the guy holding Jax did the same to him.
The road was still hot, though the sun had already set, and the small rocks and debris dug into her skin. So did the syringe. It hadn’t cracked when she fell, thank God, but she might have a hard time getting to it now that the goon had her on her stomach. However, she had managed to keep hold of her phone, and while it wasn’t an ideal weapon, she might be able to bash him with it.
“Come any closer, and they both get bullets to the heads,” the brute holding her called out when she heard the sound of more movement.
She doubted Jericho or Cord would just come charging in there, but maybe one or both of them could get into a position to have a clean shot.
More chatter came from the earpiece, and this time Paige caught three words. Her own name and a simple sentence that chilled her from head to toe.
She’s mine.
Paige knew exactly what he meant by that. He wanted to do the job himself.
“Shoot the deputy if anyone fires at us or tries to come closer,” the hired gun told his comrade. “Hear that?” he said in a much louder voice, no doubt to Cord, Jericho or whoever else was approaching. “Jax Crockett pays the price if you try to save her.”
The man hauled her back to her feet, and he shoved the gun even harder against her temple. Even in the darkness, Paige managed to make eye contact with Jax. Brief eye contact. Enough for her to see his gaze drop to her panties. Or rather to the syringe he’d put there.
“Use it,” Jax mouthed. Even though he didn’t make any sound when he spoke, his captor must have realized Jax was trying to communicate with her because he tightened the chokehold on Jax.
Paige wasn’t even sure she could get the syringe without either of them getting shot, but she had to try. And she didn’t have much time, either. The man started moving her toward the truck. Once he had her inside the vehicle, there wouldn’t be any reason for them to keep Jax alive. Probably the only reason they hadn’t already killed him was to get her to cooperate.
And that’s what Paige did—she cooperated.
Or rather that’s what she pretended to do. She let the man maneuver her away from Jax, and she looked for her chance to make a move. That chance came when she spotted a rock on the road. It wasn’t big, but when they reached it, Paige stumbled, pretending to trip.
She would have fallen if the man hadn’t yanked her back by her hair. That hurt, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to the pain that exploded through her head when the man bashed the butt of his gun against her temple.
Paige dropped down again, but there was no faking it this time.
Mercy. She was able to choke back a scream but couldn’t stop the groan of pain that tore from her throat.
Jax must have heard the groan because he shouted something. Something she didn’t catch because both her head and ears were throbbing. She couldn’t hear much of anything, but thankfully her hands worked just fine.
Fueled with the anger from the attack and the fear that Jax would get killed trying to save her, Paige yanked out the syringe and used her thumb to flick off the plastic tip from the needle. In the same motion, she stood, spun around and jammed the syringe right into the man’s neck.
The shot blasted through the air. And it took her a moment to realize he hadn’t shot her. He’d pulled the trigger all right, but his shot had slammed into the road. Thank God. She didn’t want any bullets going anywhere in the direction of the house.
The thug staggered back, reaching for her, but Paige shoved him to the ground. Too bad the drug didn’t immediately cause him to lose consciousness, because he tried once again to shoot her. However, Paige grabbed his wrist and held on.
“Paige!” Jax shouted.
She wasn’t sure exactly where he was or what he wanted her to do, and Paige didn’t have time to find out. The man tried to take aim at her, and even though his hands were as wobbly as the rest of him, she didn’t want him to get off another shot. They might not be so lucky this time.
The man cursed her, his words slurred, and his head dropped back a little. Paige took advantage of that and used his own gun to knock him in the head. When that didn’t work, she hit him again. And again. Finally, he slumped to the ground, his eyes closing and his body going limp.
One down, at least two to go.
Paige snatched up the gun and glanced in the direction of the truck to make sure the Moonlight Strangler or another attacker wasn’t taking aim at her. But she saw no one. However, when her gaze slashed toward Jax, she spotted something that put her heart right back in her throat.
Jax, in a fight for his life.
Both Jax and the goon were on the ground, and the goon still had control of the gun. As she had done, Jax was trying to get control while also trying to keep the guy’s aim away from the direction of the house.
“Cord, watch the truck,” Paige called out, though she was certain that if he was in position, he was already doing that.
Paige didn’t waste a second. She ran toward Jax. She didn’t want Jax and her to be ambushed while her back was turned, but he was unarmed and outsized. If she didn’t help, this could turn even more dangerous than it already was.
Paige was just a few feet away when she heard a sound she didn’t want to hear. Another blast. Her stomach and muscles were already in knots, but that tightened her chest so much that she couldn’t breathe. Jax couldn’t be hurt. He just couldn’t be.
And he wasn’t.
It took her a moment to fight through the panic, especially when she saw the blood. Thankfully, it wasn’t on Jax. It was on the thug, and spreading across the front of his shirt. Now Jax had the man’s gun in his own hand.
Jax cursed, moved away from the man, but he didn’t lower the gun. He kept it aimed at him while he volleyed glances between the truck, the other man and her.
“You’re hurt,” Jax said.
Was she? Paige wasn’t sure of anything right now except the relief of seeing Jax unharmed.
“Is one of them the Moonlight Strangler?” someone called out.
Cord.
She didn’t spot him right away, but Paige followed the sound of his voice. He was in the pasture, moving toward the truck.
Jax spared Cord a glance, too. And a glare. Before he yanked the ski mask off the man he’d just shot. There was just enough light from the silvery moon for her to see his face.
A stranger.
And he wasn’t nearly old enough to be the serial killer. The Moonlight Strangler had been murdering women for three decades, and this man appeared to be in his twenties.
He was also dead.
Paige could tell from his now-lifeless eyes, which were fixed in a permanent blank stare.
“Is the other one alive?” Jax asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not sure.” Paige looked back at the guy, but he hadn’t moved since she’d bashed him with the gun. “But he’s got some kind of communicator in his ear. I think he was talking to the Moonlight Strangler.”
Jax hurried toward the man but then almost immediately stopped. Paige did, too, when she heard the sound of the footsteps. She got another slam of adrenaline. Followed by relief when she saw that it was Jericho.
Good. Well, maybe.
It was possible the Moonlight Strangler was in that truck and was ready to gun them all down. Of course, Cord was racing toward it no doubt to try to prevent that from happening.
“Call an ambulance,” Jax told his brother.
Probably in case the second thug was still alive. But she rethought that when Jericho looked at her and cursed. And when she felt the blood sliding down the side of her head and face. She wiped it away but felt a new trickle follow right behind it.
God knew how bad she looked right now or even how badly she was hurt. Her head and body were throbbing, but Paige wasn’t getting in the ambulance. She had to stop the Moonlight Strangler once and for all.
Jax cursed her, too, when he realized she was trailing after him, and he automatically adjusted his position so that he was in between the truck and her. Protecting her. Despite the bad blood between them, that didn’t surprise her. It wasn’t just the lawman in him that made him do that. Jax had always had this cowboy code about protecting others.
Even if she probably wasn’t someone he wanted to protect.
Jax approached the second man with caution. His gun aimed, his gaze still firing all around them. He reached down, pulled off the mask and put his fingers to the man’s neck.
“He’s alive,” Jax relayed. “Barely.”
Paige leaned in, hoping this would be the Moonlight Strangler. But he wasn’t. Like the other man, he was much too young. And that meant the killer could indeed be in the truck or nearby.
“Be careful,” she called out to Cord.
Whether he’d listen was anyone’s guess. Unlike Jax, Cord didn’t have that whole protection code. He had one goal. Just one.
To catch his biological father, no matter what the cost. That included sacrificing his own life.
Paige had been driven by that kind of justice after her parents had been murdered. That was the reason she’d become a CSI. But justice didn’t drive her now. She only wanted to keep Jax and her son safe. That might finally happen if the Moonlight Strangler was in the truck so they could catch him.
But if he was there, why hadn’t he driven off when he’d seen that his thugs had failed?
A possible answer popped into her head. An answer she didn’t like one bit.
This could be a trap.
Jax must have realized the same thing because his attention went straight to the truck. And to Cord.
“Watch out!” Jax shouted.
However, the words had hardly left his mouth when the blast thundered through the air. And the truck burst into a ball of fire.
Chapter Five (#u1dc77271-84a1-5bb5-87af-07f708569b2b)
Jax cursed when he read Jericho’s latest text message. More bad news. Just what he didn’t need right now since he’d already had enough of that tonight.
Both men who’d attacked Paige and him couldn’t be interrogated. One had died at the scene from the gunshot wound Jax delivered to the guy’s chest. The other one, the man Paige had injected with the syringe, was in the hospital but hadn’t regained consciousness. Until he did, he couldn’t give Jax answers about the snake who’d hired them.
The only good thing to come out of this was that Matthew was safe and only the one hired gun was dead. Of course, not everyone had come out of it unscathed. He had proof of that right in front of him. Both Cord and Paige were side by side on examining tables in the ER while nurses stitched them up.
Plus, the ER looked like a top-secret facility, what with two security guards standing in the doorway of the room. Anyone coming into the building was being searched for weapons, and everyone was on alert to make sure more hired guns didn’t try to come after Paige and him.
“What’s wrong?” Paige asked, no doubt because she’d heard his mumbled profanity over the text. No doubt, too, because she was watching him so closely. But then, he was watching her, too.
Paige was alive.
And now that the dust had partially settled from the attack, Jax would need to deal with that. He’d have to deal with a lot of things, and he started with Matthew.
His brothers Chase and Levi were at Jax’s house standing guard. The ranch hands were patrolling the grounds and had already searched the perimeter for snipers. Added to that, the road leading to the ranch was a crime scene now and was crawling with Texas Rangers, CSIs, the bomb squad, firefighters and even two of Appaloosa Pass’s own reserve deputies. With all those people on the grounds, Jax’s house was on lockdown and would stay that way until he could get home and move Matthew to a safer location.
Wherever that would be.
Belinda certainly wanted to know that, too, because she’d called twice and then left a voice mail when Jax hadn’t answered her third call. He knew the nanny was worried, as well she should be, but right now he wouldn’t be able to do much to calm any of her fears.
Jax walked closer, though he already had Paige’s attention. Cord’s as well because he ended his latest phone call and stared at Jax.
“There wasn’t a body in the truck,” Jax explained. “The bomb guys have cleared the CSI team to go in and start gathering evidence, but the explosive device inside the truck appears to have been on a timer.”
Paige released the breath she’d obviously been holding, and despite the fact that she was getting stitches near her hairline, she shook her head. “They didn’t find the Moonlight Strangler,” she said. Not a question. Probably because she knew Jax wouldn’t be scowling if they’d managed to nail the SOB.
“Somebody drove that truck to the ranch,” Cord snapped. He had two nurses working on him, and they were stitching up his head, arms and even his left leg. They’d cut his jeans to get to the wound. “That means he escaped.”
Jax nodded. Then shrugged. “But we don’t know for sure the Moonlight Strangler was even there. Do we?” And he made sure there was displeasure in his tone. Plenty of it. Because Jax was still riled to the core that he hadn’t been included in this stupid plan before it’d turned deadly.
“He wants to kill me,” Paige stated. “He would have been close enough to make sure he could do that.”
No displeasure in her voice, but there was plenty of frustration and pain, both physical and otherwise. She winced when the nurse added another stitch.
“Sorry, Paige,” the nurse apologized. She was Misty Carlton, someone Jax and Paige had known their entire lives. Ditto for the other nurses working on Cord. With all the other folks coming in and out of the ER, Cord figured it was already all over town that Paige was alive.
He’d have to deal with that, too.
The other members of his family would have to be told. And Matthew, of course. His son was too young to remember Paige, but Jax doubted he could keep Paige from Matthew. Well, not forever, anyway. But for now, he pushed that problem aside and went with the most obvious one.
Jax shifted his attention to Cord. “You couldn’t talk Paige out of going through with this plan to meet with your birth father?”
Cord’s jaw muscles flickered and tensed. No doubt because of the birth father reference. Yeah, it was a petty dig, but Jax was pissed off that a trained DEA agent—supposedly a top-notch one, too—had allowed a victim to arrange a showdown with a serial killer.
“Have you ever been able to talk Paige out of anything?” Cord countered.
That was a petty dig, as well. But it was the truth. To say that Paige was hardheaded was like saying the sky had a little bit of blue in it.
“Don’t blame Cord for this,” Paige spoke up. “If he hadn’t come with me, I would have done it alone.”
Jax was certain that tightened some of his own jaw muscles. “Of course you would have, and look where it got you.” His gaze went back to Cord. “Have you tried to find a personal link between Paige’s biological mother, Mary, and the Moonlight Strangler?” Especially since Mary was one of the Moonlight Strangler’s first known victims.
“Of course,” Cord snapped, clearly insulted that Jax had asked the obvious. “I haven’t found one yet. And yes, I did alert the FBI when Paige’s DNA test came back as a match to Mary’s.”
“Any reason you didn’t tell me?” Jax pressed.
“Because I asked him not to,” Paige volunteered before Cord could say anything. “I thought if too many people were trying to make the connection between Mary and me that the Moonlight Strangler would suspect I was alive.”
Jax was already riled six ways to Sunday, and that didn’t help. “I’m not ‘too many people.’” He nearly added he was her husband.
But he wasn’t. Not anymore.
However, he was still a lawman and the father of her son. That alone should have earned him a place in the inner circle of information.
“The FBI decided to keep it secret, too,” Cord went on. “Until they can look for a possible link. The lead investigator said there were already too many hands in this particular case.”
No surprise there. The FBI had been keeping lots of things about this close to the vest. Not that it’d helped. The Moonlight Strangler always seemed to be in the know.
Especially when it came to Paige.
Jax was on the verge of questioning her about that, but his phone buzzed before he could say anything. Not Jericho this time, but it was another family member. Or rather a soon-to-be family member. Levi’s fiancée.
“It’s Alexa,” Jax relayed to Paige.
That didn’t help Paige’s already pale color, and Jax didn’t have to guess why. Alexa Dearborn and Paige had been best friends, and Paige had even worked for Alexa’s security company when Alexa had been investigating the Moonlight Strangler. It was Paige’s involvement that led to her nearly being killed.
Jax answered the call but didn’t put it on speaker. “Is it true?” Alexa asked right off. “Is Paige really alive?”
Even though Paige couldn’t have heard her old friend’s voice, she no doubt guessed what Alexa had asked. “Tell her I’ll call her first chance I get,” Paige said.
“She’s alive,” Jax told the woman. “And she’ll call you later.”
Silence. For several long moments. Followed by a hoarse sob from Alexa. No doubt a sob of relief. Later, she’d have questions, but for now Alexa was likely glad that the past months had been just a nightmare and that her friend was alive.
Jax ended the call and slipped his phone into his pocket. “Alexa’s engaged to Levi now.”
More surprise went through her eyes. Then approval. Alexa and Levi had always had a thing for each other, but until recently Levi—and Jax—hadn’t been able to get past Alexa’s connection to what’d happened to Paige.
Or rather what they had thought had happened to her.
“Alexa’s been beating herself up about your ‘death.’” Jax hadn’t said that to make Paige feel any guiltier about what she’d done.
All right, maybe he had.
Hell. This sliced into him like a knife, and Jax wasn’t sure where to aim these old and new feelings. Old because he remembered the obsession that’d torn them apart. An obsession in part because of Alexa’s investigation into the Moonlight Strangler.
The old attraction was still there between Paige and him, too. Jax had gotten a reminder of that when she’d stripped down on the road. Thankfully, she was dressed now in the jeans and shirt she’d been wearing when she had first arrived at the ranch.
And she was also sporting that pained look on her face.
That’s where the new feelings played into this. He’d never seen Paige afraid and in pain. But she was now.
Their gazes held, and things passed between them. Unspoken things that only former lovers could share.
“I need to see Matthew,” Paige said.
Well, that took care of any reminders of the old attraction. “It’s not safe.”
“Make it safe.” Her voice broke. Tears sprang to her eyes. “Please.”
Until she’d added that please and he’d seen the tears, Jax had been ready to flat-out refuse. He still might. But the trouble was, Paige had a legal right to see their son. Well, unless he could force Paige into protective custody with the marshals. Or he could whisk Matthew away to a safe house out of her reach. Either or both of those things might happen, but Jax was a long way from making that decision.
Since Jax couldn’t figure out what to do right now, he turned back to Cord.
But Cord didn’t appear to be in a conversing kind of mood. Even though he was still getting stitched up, he stood when his phone rang. He only glanced at the screen but didn’t answer the call.
“I have to go,” Cord insisted. He looked at Paige and added, “I’ll be in touch. And remember, don’t do anything stupid.”
The nurses and Paige looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “We’re not finished,” one of the nurses pointed out, but she was talking to the air because Cord started for the door. He would have just walked out if Jax hadn’t stepped in front of him.
“You might want to take this drive for justice down a notch,” Jax advised him.
Cord met his gaze head-on with eyes that Jax recognized because they were a genetic copy of Addie. It was strange to see Addie’s usually loving eyes stare back at him with this raw intensity.
“My birth father’s a serial killer who’s targeted your wife,” Cord said like a warning. And Jax doubted Cord was stating the obvious to hear himself talk. This was a reminder that Jax had no say in this as far as Cord was concerned.
“Ex-wife,” Jax automatically corrected, and hated that it was nitpicking.
Cord continued to stare at him. “He’s targeted Paige and God knows who else. I want him stopped.”
Jax did his own stating the obvious. “Everyone wants him stopped. But you need to take some precautions. You nearly got yourself killed tonight.”
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