Lone Defender (Love Inspired Suspense) (16 page)

Afraid.

But maybe not too afraid to try.

The thought filled her mind as Jonas pulled onto the highway and headed for the sheriff’s department.

FOURTEEN

I
t took Jonas two seconds to choose the perp off a printed sheet that showcased twelve mug shots. Perp and victim. The guy had hung with the wrong crowd, and the crowd had turned on him. Maybe because he’d missed an opportunity to take out Skylar, or maybe because he’d only been a small piece of a very large picture.

Expendable and expended.

“That’s him.” He pointed to the third face in the second row, wondered if Skylar was pointing out the same one to the sheriff. The picture on the sheet showed a man who was gaunt, worn, with a vague look in hazy eyes. A drug addict or alcoholic. The guy had taken a wrong turn at some point in his life, and it had led to an open grave in the desert.

“You’re sure?” Chief Deputy Mitchell asked, and Jonas nodded.

“It was too dark to see eye or hair color, but I got a good look at his bone structure, the shape of his nose and the angle of his jaw. It’s him.”

“Josiah Stanley, you really did it this time.” Mitchell tapped the man’s face with his finger, and shook his head.

“You’ve had dealings with him before?”

“Enough to know he was more interested in where he was
getting his next drink than having a lot of stuff. He committed crimes to feed the need for booze.”

“You think he was a lackey, then?”

“Yeah. He had a reputation as a tracker an eon ago. Used to make some money taking people on desert excursions. Got drunk one too many times on the job, and that was that.”

“So, someone might have hired him to find Skylar.”

“That’s my guess. It’s hard to say, though, seeing as how he can’t tell us the story.” Mitchell steepled his fingers together, and eyed Jonas across the desk.

“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I figured if you had, he’d have a bullet through the heart and his throat intact. What I’m wondering is if he knew who you were. If he did, he might have panicked, decided to cut his losses and take off on his own.”

“I’ve never met the man.” Jonas lifted the photo.

“People in the same industry keep tabs on each other, right? And when someone’s really good at what he does, news of it travels. You were raised in the area, you came back to it, and not quietly. Most people in the community knew why you’d returned, what you’d been doing while you were gone. More than likely, Stanley knew, too.” He shrugged. “Not that it matters. For whatever reason, he’s dead.”

“And we’re no closer to answers than we were before you found his body.”

“No, but two executions in a couple weeks…that’s a big deal for our department. We’re digging, and we’re going to find out who is responsible.”

But would they do it before another victim died?

The thought of Skylar lying in a shallow grave, her throat slit, a bullet in her head, had Jonas up and pacing across the room. “The hits were typical gang-style killings. What gangs are active in the area, Deputy?”

“What gangs aren’t, is a better question. We get gangs
from New Mexico and California, and a few coming up across the border from Mexico. Much as I hate to say it, drugs are a big business in these parts.”

“How about word on the street? Anyone taking credit for the killings?”

“It’s quiet as a tomb. Our snitches say they haven’t heard anything, and no one else seems to be talking.”

“People don’t talk when they’re afraid. What are the main gangs? The big players?”

“You know, Sampson, I’m beginning to feel like I’m the one being interviewed here.” Mitchell poured coffee from a carafe that sat on a corner of the desk. “Want some?”

“No. Thanks.”

“In answer to your question, the bigger gangs are Phoenix based. The big players call the city home, and I doubt they’d put much effort into cutting down a small time player like Stanley.”

“What about Redmond?”

“Now that’s another question entirely. Redmond traveled a few times a month. Went away for a couple days and then came back. No one seems to know where he went. We’re checking the contents of his house, trying to figure that out.”

Someone knocked on the door and it opened.

Jonas felt Skylar’s presence before she stepped in the room. Every nerve sprang to life, his body hummed, his palms itched to reach out, tug her to his side. Cheeks chapped from her week out in the sun, her hair pulled back into a tight braid, she crossed the room, dropped into a chair near the desk.

“Well, that was fun.”

“Glad one of us enjoyed it.” The sheriff followed her in, his steely gaze resting on Jonas. “I hear there was trouble out at your place this morning.”

“That’s right.”

“And you still think your girlfriend should stick around?”

“I’ve told you seventeen
thousand
times, Sheriff, I am
not
his girlfriend, and I’m not leaving town.”

“That’s a lot of times to fit into…” Mitchell began as he glanced at his watch, not even trying to hide his amusement, “twenty minutes.”

“It was a long twenty minutes,” the sheriff responded, and Jonas wondered how many times he’d tried to insist Skylar leave town and how many times she’d refused. “But we do have a confirmed ID on the remains. How’d you do in here?”

“We got a match, too. Stanley was working with the posse that tried to take Skylar down.” Mitchell handed the sheriff the photo.

“That’s what I was afraid of.” The sheriff raked a hand down his jaw, stared at the picture.

“Afraid of?” Jonas asked, and the sheriff met his eyes.

“I was hoping we had separate incidents. That maybe Redmond and Stanley’s death didn’t have anything to do with Skylar. She’s a private investigator. She could have enemies she’s unaware of.”

“So, you wanted her to go home and take them with her?”

“I want this town to be safe, Sampson. However that happens, I’ll be happy. I’d also have been happy to think Stanley and Redmond were taken out by a gang. That’s simple and straightforward. The fact that Skylar came here looking for Redmond and found a boatload of trouble means we’ve got trouble in town. Trouble someone is working very hard to keep quiet.”

“I was thinking the same, Sheriff,” Mitchell spoke up. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to hide Redmond’s body, then Skylar came to town and started asking around, insisting on answers. She stirred something up for sure.”

“And if she’d died out in the desert, people would still be assuming she went out there sightseeing and got lost. Hap
pens all the time, and whoever set up everything knew it. Take her out to the middle of nowhere. Make it look like she ran out of gas. Let the elements do the rest. With her out of the picture, Redmond’s body might have been under that cement slab for centuries. I don’t like it, and I want answers.” The sheriff scowled and stood. “I need to get back to work. Call me if anything comes up.”

He walked out, and Mitchell turned to Skylar. “He’s right, you know.”

“About me stirring up trouble?”

“About you leaving town. Whatever trouble we have here, there’s a good chance it won’t follow you home. Too much distance, too much effort and too much of a chance of being caught.”

“I disagree. If this is gang related and drug related, there’s plenty of money to throw around, and it’s easy enough to throw it at a hit man.” She touched the arrowhead that still hung from her neck, her fingers dancing along the turquoise beads to either side of it.

Long, strong fingers. Fingers that were as calloused as Jonas’s, as capable. She could take care of herself, no doubt about that. But Jonas wanted to take care of her anyway. Wanted to bundle her up and ship her out to some place where she’d be safe. Too bad she wouldn’t cooperate.

“To quote the sheriff, she’s your girlfriend, do you think she should stick around? Or do you think maybe you can talk her into leaving town?” Mitchell shot Jonas a smile. He must have sensed what was in the air. The energy that pulsed between Skylar and Jonas when they were together.

“I’m not—”

“Don’t ruin the moment, Grady.”

“What moment?” she scowled.

“The moment when I acknowledge that you have a will of steel and tell Chief Deputy Mitchell that I’m not going to
waste my breath trying to get you out of town.” He pulled her to her feet, ignoring the heat that spread through him at the contact.

“So, I win?” She grinned, but he wasn’t amused.

“No one wins, if you die.”

“I’m not going to.”

“From your lips to God’s ear. Let’s hope He’s in a listening mood,” Mitchell said as he led them outside.

“He always listens. He just doesn’t always give us what we want,” Skylar responded, her words twisting Jonas’s gut, making him think of all that he’d wanted, of his fruitless prayers lifting up to the heavens.

Please, save my wife. My son.

Over and over and over again until the doctor had come to give him God’s answer.

He’d prayed again as he and Skylar climbed the mesa, his fear pushing him back to a place of faith he hadn’t been sure he’d ever return to.

The answer had been different, then.

Better.

But that didn’t mean all his prayers would be answered the way he wanted them to be. It didn’t mean assurance that the future would be bright and wonderful and free of trouble.

“What’s wrong?” Skylar put a hand on his arm, as he got into the truck.

“Nothing.”

“Something.”

“Just thinking that you’re right. God doesn’t always give us what we want. Sometimes, that’s for the best. Sometimes…I wonder.”

“Yeah. Me, too. There’s a bigger plan, I know that. Some huge tapestry that God is weaving, and I’m only a tiny part of it. He knows the colors and the patterns that work best, and He chooses carefully to make me fit. It’s still hard, though,
to accept the things that tear us up inside.” She squeezed his hand as he started the truck, her rough palm pressed to his, pulling him back from the brink of all the memories that haunted him. Pulling him back to the moment, the woman, the gift that he was just beginning to believe God was giving him.

“I wish we had more to go on,” she said, as he pulled away from the station, and he nodded.

“Me, too. The more answers we get, the more questions I have. You said Redmond worked at a local diner. How about we head over there and get some breakfast, see if anyone there has new information?”

“I’m not sure the sheriff would approve.”

“When has disapproval ever stopped you?”

“Never.” She laughed, and he imagined her in twenty years, laugh lines bracketing her mouth and fanning out from her eyes, age only adding to her beauty. Imagined himself beside her.

“Take the third left. It’s about a half mile away. It surprised me that he worked so close to the sheriff’s office, seeing as how he’d been shirking his obligation to pay child support for two years.”

“A cop in Arizona isn’t likely to know about a guy from New York who owes child support.”

“I know, but it still surprised me that he’d risk it.”

“Maybe he liked flaunting his ability to elude the authorities.”

“That’s the thing. He didn’t change his identity, didn’t go to any effort to hide. I’m not sure he thought of himself as eluding anything. The way his ex-wife put it, he had delusions of grandeur, and thought he was a whole lot more important than he was. I can’t figure out why he wound up in a little town like Cave Creek, working as a line cook at a
diner. He had two doctorates. He should have been able to get a job doing something else.”

“He’d been kicked out of a university position for cheating. Most employers wouldn’t look kindly on that.”

“True, but, based on everything his ex said, I’d think Redmond would have gravitated toward big cities and more important jobs. Why here? That’s what I keep wondering. If he had connections before he came to town, they might be the key to finding out who killed him. Here it is.” She gestured to a fifties-style diner, its faded neon signs shouting that the place had the best burgers in town.

“Classy place,” he said as he parked the truck.

“Exactly my point. A university professor with a big ego working here? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Let’s go see what his coworkers have to say.” Jonas got out of the truck, glancing around, checking for trouble. He didn’t think there’d be an attack so close to the sheriff’s office, but what he thought wouldn’t matter if bullets flew and Skylar was hit.

“Are we in a race, Jonas? Because you’re going to win. Your legs are a whole lot longer than mine,” Skylar panted as they hurried to the door.

“Sorry. I want to limit our time out in the open as much as possible.” He urged her inside, stepping in behind her, the scent of bacon and coffee filling his nose, mixing with the scent of Skylar.

“Howdy, folks. Getting an early start on your day, huh?” A skinny blonde sashayed toward them, her kohl-rimmed eyes settling on Skylar’s face. “I know you, right?”

“I was in here a week ago, asking about Daniel Redmond.”

“Thought so. Also, saw you on the news. Couldn’t believe it when they found you alive out there. I had a friend once. Went out into the desert to take some pictures. Never came out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Skylar offered, and the woman shrugged.

“He should have known better. He lived here his entire life. You? You’re city. Guess you can be forgiven getting stuck out there.”

“Thanks.” Skylar’s wry response didn’t seem to register. The waitress continued to speak as she led them to a small booth near the kitchen.

“Me? I’d have a month’s supply of water and food, plus a flare gun if I went out there. I won’t. Don’t much care for the desert even though I grew up here. Can I get you some coffee?” She tossed menus onto the table.

“Actually, I was hoping to speak with your manager.”

“About Dan, right? We had cops in here all day, yesterday. Wouldn’t tell us what it was about, but I have my suspicions.”

“Do you?”

“Heard a body was pulled out of his backyard. My guess is it’s him.”

“Is there a reason why you think someone would murder him?”