Gin Fling (Bootleg Springs, #5)(101)

“Hey, Jonah,” I said.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Thanks for making me so fast.”

“You scared the hell out of me, Shelby Thompson,” he whispered in my ear, gently brushing my hair back from my face.

“Scared me a little bit, too. Henrietta saw me. She broke the window. Then you saved me.”

“Gibs almost ran you over.”

“Wouldn’t that have been ironic? Survive a kidnapping and murder attempt, a bear, and then get taken out by a pickup truck.” I gave a half-hearted snort-laugh.

“That’s not gonna be funny for the next thirty years or so. So don’t be trying to joke about it.”

“Excuse me, sir.” A burly woman in uniform came into my line of sight. She set an official-looking medical bag down next to me.

“I’m a ma’am,” I insisted.

Jonah gave a weak laugh. “She’s talking to me, Shelby. She wants me to give her a little room so she can get a look at you.”

“Don’t leave me,” I demanded, clinging to him.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Where is he?” Sheriff Tucker sounded weary beyond his years, and I realized there was a whole heck of a lot we had to tell him.

“He’s over there,” Jameson said. “He’s not goin’ anywhere.”

“Is he…” I didn’t want to finish the question. I didn’t really want the answer.

“Just let the nice lady look you over, Shelby. We’ll worry about everything else later,” Jonah advised.

I thought that sounded really smart.





57





Jonah





I rode with Shelby in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The EMTs assured me about fifty-six times that she was okay. That the blood was mostly from her head wound. That the cut on her throat was not life-threatening.

But my hands were still shaking.

They bandaged my raw knuckles, and Shelby and I sported matching ice packs over blooming black eyes.

I didn’t know if I’d ever stop seeing that moment when the man tore out of the woods and fell on her. Intent on removing the woman I loved from this world. That was going to take a long time to get past, to not see every time I closed my eyes.

But it helped to look at Shelby smiling up at me like I was her hero.

I’d pulled him off her, dragged him away, and unleashed the rage I was feeling on him.

He’d got in a few lucky shots, but it wasn’t an even match. Jameson dragged me off him, though I wasn’t happy about it at the time. But Christian was still alive and now in police custody.

He wasn’t answering questions like how he found Shelby, but I had a suspicion that I wanted to run by Sheriff Tucker.

They wheeled Shelby into a room in the emergency department, and I planted myself in a chair in the corner while the staff poked and prodded her and asked her a million questions. I held her hand between tests.

The verdict: A concussion, a ton of bruising, and residual soreness from her triathlon.

“Shelby!” James and Darlene paused in the doorway, looking at their daughter on a gurney.

“Hi, guys,” she said cheerfully.

While the Thompsons fussed over Shelby, I spotted Sheriff Tucker outside and excused myself.

“Had a long conversation with your mother about an hour ago,” Sheriff Tucker said mildly, handing me a cup of coffee. “She had some interesting theories regarding an ongoing investigation.”

“I’ve got a few theories of my own,” I said, taking a sip. “It was a sealed record,” I told him. “How many people have access to sealed records?”

“Shelby got into a sealed record,” the sheriff reminded me. “Can’t be that hard.”

“But add it to the rest. Someone took out Abbie Gilbert. Someone scared Cece Benefiel enough to make her recant her statement and now leave her house. Those remains are not Callie Kendall, but someone changed the report. Harrell said a man sent him. I think that man was Judge Kendall. Maybe he didn’t do his own dirty work,” I said before the sheriff could argue. “Maybe he has people who don’t mind getting dirty.”

Sheriff Tucker peered into his coffee as if he were looking for the answers. “The kid was off his meds. Hallucinations and delusions are common for his diagnosis.”

Frustration brought my blood to a simmer. “Look, I know that we have a mountain of suspicion without a scrap of real evidence. But that’s your job. You connect these dots. He screwed up somewhere, and you need to catch him.”

“If any of this is true—” The sheriff leaned in and lowered his voice. “Any one piece of it, we’re dealing with a very dangerous individual. And I am counting on you and the rest of your family to stay real quiet while I look into this. If we’re going to get this bastard in a cage, it’s gonna be because we crossed every T and dotted every I. We’re not getting a confession out of him. We’re building a case piece by piece until that cell door slams shut, got it?”

Sheriff Tucker believed us. He believed my mom. And for the first time, I believed that everything was going to be okay.

Unbelievably grateful, I nodded. “I give you my word. My family won’t throw a wrench in this. We’ve got a lot riding on the truth.”