Lone Star Justice (16 page)

***

Maddie breathed a sigh of relief when Brandy walked out of the theater with Linda and Missy.

"Mom! What are you doing here?"

"Rand and I decided to pick you up." She watched as Rand drew Linda aside to explain what was going on.

"Has something happened? Did you figure out who's after us?" Brandy twisted her hair around her fingers, a sure sign that she was nervous. She'd worked hard to break that habit a couple of years earlier, but she relapsed under stress.

Maddie put an arm around Brandy's shoulders and walked her to the car. "Yeah, we have a pretty good idea. Now all we have to do is catch him."

"We? Mom, you're not going to try to catch him, are you?"

"No, I'll let Rand do that. But we're going to do whatever we can to help him. Starting with sticking together. No more going off with any one else, okay?" At the look of dismay on Brandy's face, she said, "It's just for a couple of weeks. Then it will all be over."

"How can you know that? What if they don't find him? I don't want to hide forever. I miss my friends. God, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I even miss my school." A tear rolled down her cheek and she swiped it away with one hand. "I want to go home."

Maddie understood how Brandy felt. She'd wanted to go home for years after she'd run from Greendale. And finally, she
was
home. But she didn't tell Brandy she was seriously thinking about staying. For a young teenager, a small town could feel isolated, boring, if you didn't have lifelong friends to hang out with. But Rand was here, and Maddie was beginning to feel like she couldn't bear to leave him again.

"Okay, Linda's going to follow us back to town. I need you two to hang out at the station for a while until I get things organized, then I'll either take you out to the ranch, or…" He raised an eyebrow at Maddie's expression. "Or, I'll stand watch at your house. Either way, I'm not leaving the two of you unprotected for even a minute."

"If it's okay with you, I'd feel safer in town where there are other people nearby. The ranch is too isolated and it would take too long for help to arrive if something did happen." It was the truth, though maybe not all of it. She still didn't want to go in that house, even though it was now Rand's and his parents could no longer hurt her. She knew she'd have to force herself to do it at some point, but not until this whole thing was over and she felt strong again.

"Good point. Okay, I'll line up deputies to guard you twenty-four, seven. And I'll be around most of the time, too. But I also need to be able to help find Aaron. With you in town, I won't be more than two minutes away. Now," he said, ruffling Brandy's hair, "let's go catch us a bad guy."

CHAPTER SEVEN

It didn't take long for Brandy to get bored at the station. Cody tried his best to keep her entertained, taking her on a tour of the offices, introducing her to several of the deputies, even fingerprinting her and taking a mug shot. But as the hours wore on, she became restless and begged to go back to the rental house. She refused to call it home.

"Cody, maybe you could go to the house and get Brandy's computer? That would give her something to do." Maddie gave him the key and he hurried out, obviously relieved to have something to do besides babysit a sulky teenager.

When he came back, he asked, "Did you leave the front door unlocked?"

Maddie thought back to the morning. They'd left very early, before daylight. Had she forgotten to lock the door? No, she was positive she had. She'd even locked the bolt, which had to be done with the key. She shook her head. "I'm positive I locked it. Why? Was it unlocked?"

"Yeah. I'd better go find Rand. You stay here. We'll go check things out."

"Uh-uh. I'm going with you. You wouldn't know if anything was missing or out of place anyway."

She followed Cody to Rand's office. He was talking on the phone and typing on the computer at the same time, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Hang on, Detective Thacker," he said into the phone when he saw Cody and Maggie. "What's up?"

Cody told him about finding the house unlocked. Rand cursed and picked up the phone again. "I have to run out to Maddie's place. Something's up. Can you fill the FBI in for me? I already have things lined up with the highway patrol and the sheriff's department from Smith county is going to help out for a few days. I'll check in with you as soon as I get back."

He grabbed his hat and headed for the door. He turned to Maddie. "You stay here with Brandy. No one's going to hurt you here."

"Not a chance, Rand. I already told Cody I was going with you."

He sighed. "Were you always this stubborn? Or did you learn it in law school?"

Maddie smiled. "I like to think it's a developed talent."

"Fine, but Brandy stays here. I don't want to try to watch you both."

"Not a problem. Now that she has her laptop, she'll be fine. She's set up in Linda's office."

Rand entered the house first, gun drawn. Cody stayed on the front porch with Maddie, standing behind her as though to protect her from anyone on the street. When Rand came back, he gave them the all clear and they stepped into the house. Rand locked and bolted the door behind them. "Take a look around and see if anything's out of place."

Maddie followed him through the house room by room. Everything seemed fine. Domino slept peacefully on Brandy's bed, barely opening one eyelid to acknowledge their presence. They looked everywhere, including in closets and under the bed. Nothing. The back door was locked securely from the inside, as was the door to the garage.

There was only one room to check. Rand had already looked in the kitchen, but Maddie wandered in there anyway, though she couldn't imagine why anything there would be missing. People who left televisions and computers untouched weren't too likely to steal the cheap silverware she'd purchased.

The first thing she noticed when she stepped through the door was a rose on the countertop. Not a long-stemmed, florist-style rose, but one that looked as though it had been cut from the bush in the back yard. She smiled at the thought of Brandy doing something so sweet and picked up the rose, lifting it to her nose to smell its sweet scent. When one of the thorns pierced her finger, she yelped and automatically stuck her finger in her mouth. Seconds later she started to feel weak, and her limbs grew heavy. She swayed on her feet and grabbed onto the counter for support. Then everything went black.

***

Rand saw her as soon as he stepped into the kitchen. Maddie lay crumpled on the floor by the bar, her skin as pale as the white linoleum tile beneath her head. "Maddie!"

She didn't move or open her eyes. What the hell had happened in the two minutes she'd been out of his sight? There's been no one else in the house. He'd stake his life on it.

Cody skidded into the room. "What happened?"

"I have no idea. Call an ambulance." Rand barked out the order as he checked for a pulse. Then he checked for injuries or wounds, but found none. That was strange. Maybe she’d just fainted. But that didn’t sit right with his gut. Her skin was clammy, her breathing labored.

It was when he picked up her hand that he noticed the puncture wound on her finger. He wouldn’t have paid any attention to it under normal circumstances, but the angry red mark put his hackles up once again. Scanning the area, he noticed the rose on the counter. "Son of a bitch. He got to her again. I'm going to kill this guy when we catch him. There won't be any need for a trial."

The ambulance pulled up out front and the paramedics quickly assessed the situation, started an IV, and loaded Maddie onto a stretcher. "I'm going with her," Rand said. "Cody, go pick up Brandy and bring her to the hospital"

"Which one?"

"Mother Francis. They have the trauma center and we have no idea what we're dealing with." He carefully picked up the rose using a pot holder to protect his hands and dropped it into a paper bag he found under the sink. "Send this to forensics and tell them we need to know what's on it ASAP."

***

When Cody got back to the station, Linda was frantically searching the offices. "Brandy's gone. Did she go with you?"

"No. Oh shit. Rand's going to be fit to be tied. We left her here, in your office. When did you notice she was gone?"

"Just a few minutes ago. She asked if she could have a soft drink, so I left her in here while I went to the break room. I wasn't gone more than a couple of minutes. She has to be here somewhere."

"Did she somehow hear about what happened to her mother? Maybe she talked one of the other deputies into giving her a ride to the hospital." Cody raced from room to room, Linda right behind him, but there was no sign of Brandy. They checked with every clerk, secretary, and deputy, searched every bathroom, and closet, and even the jail. No one had seen her.

"I'm calling Rand. He'll know what to do." Linda dialed Rand's number, braced for the explosion she knew would come when he found out she'd lost Brandy.

But although his voice shook, he remained calm. "Start making calls to everyone you can think of. Tell them Brandy's missing and that we're looking for Aaron Myers in connection with her disappearance. "

"Aaron, boss? Are you sure? He hasn't been back to Greendale in years. What would he want with Brandy?"

"I'll explain later, but yes, I'm sure. But first, call Detective Thacker. Tell him what's happened and ask him to contact the FBI. And call the highway patrol. And put out an Amber alert."

"Don't we need a vehicle description or license plate number for that?" Linda wrote notes to herself, with Cody looking over her shoulder and already calling the highway patrol.

"Technically, but since we have reason to believe her life is in danger, they'll do it. You got all that?"

"Yes sir. We'll get right on it. How's Maddie?" Linda felt awful. She should have made Brandy go to the break room with her, but she'd been typing so intently on the laptop since Rand and Maddie had left that she didn't think the girl would even notice she was gone.

"I don't know. She's not conscious and we don't know what we're dealing with. Some kind of drug or poison, but no idea what kind. I'll let you know when I find out more. Call me if you hear anything about Brandy. Please. I don't want to lose my daughter now that I've found her."

Well, at least he finally knew Brandy was his. Linda had known the moment she first saw her, but it wasn't her place to tell him. She just prayed they could find Brandy before something really awful happened.

She couldn't get over Aaron Myers as a suspect. She remembered him as an awkward child, a social misfit in high school, but she'd never heard a word about him after he left Greendale. Doc never mentioned him unless someone asked about him, and then he always said that Aaron had chosen to remain up north where he had a thriving practice and was just too busy to visit.

So, was Aaron really a successful doctor, or had Doc been lying all these years? As soon as she'd finished making the calls Rand had requested, Linda headed for her computer to see what she could find out about the elusive Aaron Myers.

***

Rand paced the emergency waiting room, too wound up to sit for more than a minute or two. Worried about Maddie, frantic to get out and find his daughter but stuck at the hospital until Maddie was out of danger, he used his time to make phone call after phone call. Every law enforcement agency in the area had been alerted, the churches in Greendale were calling every member of their congregations, BOLOs were posted in a three state area. There was nothing more he could do besides get out there and start looking himself.

He still couldn't believe how much his life had changed in just a few days. Maddie was back, he had a daughter, and some psychopath was after them both. It had to be Aaron. There were just too many coincidences, it all came together when he put what Maddie had told him together with her father's insistence that he was innocent, that Rand's parents were already dead when he got there. And all these years, Doc had covered it up. There was no other explanation. Doc had known the truth but had chosen to protect his son.

He made one more phone call. "Cody, find Doc Myers and bring him in for questioning. And whatever you do, don't let him leave before I get back." He cut the call short when the desk clerk motioned him over.

"The doctor would like to talk to you. Down the hall, third door on the left."

To his relief, the doctor was smiling.

"How is she?"

"She's going to be fine. We don't know what it was, but she woke up on her own with nothing more than a headache. We'll watch her for a while to make sure there are no lasting effects, but she should be able to go home in a couple of hours."

"Thank God. Can I see her?"

"Sure. She's in room 3." The doctor shook his hand and left. Rand found the room, but paused outside the door. Should he tell her about Brandy's disappearance? Would it cause a setback? But if he didn't tell her, she'd never forgive him. He took a deep breath and opened the door, already dreading having to tell her that once again he'd failed her.

***

Maddie knew something was terribly wrong as soon as Rand stepped through the door. She'd never seen him look so unsure of himself before. Was he worried about her, or…