A Promise to Protect (Logan Point Book #2): A Novel (20 page)

He reached under his seat and pulled out a black box. From it he removed a disposable cell phone and synthesizer. After punching in the code required to block the number of the cell phone, he dialed her number and waited for it to ring. When it went to her voice mail, he hung up. He’d try again later.

L
eigh was going to drive him crazy. Ben didn’t want her to move out of his parents’ house. He hooked his phone on his belt and opened his office window to let out the acrid scent of burnt roofing. Maybe he could change her mind when he saw her at the hospital.

What he wouldn’t give right now for a thirty-minute nap. He was way past the days of staying up all night and functioning the next day. Even with his door shut, the whine of the cleaning service’s shop vac made a nap impossible. At least the electrician had rerouted wiring and restored power. He massaged the muscles in his neck, and his gaze settled on his dad’s box of papers. He set it on his desk and removed the top. Might as well go through it now.

There wasn’t much. A couple of advertisement letters and an email joke his dad liked enough to print. He picked up another email from some sheriff in Texas. There was a long list of people it had been sent to, and his dad had scribbled a note in the margin. MI with a question mark.

At the bottom of the page was a photo of an assault rifle. He backtracked and read the email. Seems the gun in the photo had been found in a drug raid and had no serial number stamped on it. The sheriff who had sent the email was trying to track down the maker of the gun.

A knock startled him and he laid the email on his desk. “Come in.”

The door opened, and Taylor Martin walked in, waving her hand in front of her nose. “This smells as bad as when I burned my biscuits.”

“Taylor! You got my message.” Dressed in green shorts and a white T-shirt with “Walls of Jericho” printed across it, the psychology professor looked more like a student and certainly not like a crime scene profiler.

“Yep. What’s going on around here?” she asked.

He motioned for her to shut the door. “Someone set fire to the jail last night. Used a bow and arrow. Sit down.” He pointed toward a leather chair. “How’s Nick? And your mom?”

“Busy. Nick is working on edits and finalizing the plans for the boys’ camp. Walls of Jericho should be accepting boys by next summer. And Mom’s okay. We’re all grieving Jonathan.”

Ben nodded. Earlier this summer her uncle had died from wounds received when a madman tried to kill Taylor. It’d been a complex case covering three jurisdictions, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Washington State. The Tennessee state judge appointee who attempted to kill both Taylor and her mother had been killed by the man he hired. That man, now awaiting trial, was obsessed with the professor. “I hear the University of Memphis has hired you. Congratulations.”

“It was time to come home. I won’t start teaching until the winter session.”

“Why not the fall?”

She held her left hand up. An emerald-cut diamond glittered on her third finger. “I have a December wedding to plan.”

“Nick popped the question!”

Color rose in her cheeks as she nodded. “Last week.”

“Congrat—oops, I think that’s supposed to be ‘best wishes’ for you. I’ll congratulate Nick when I see him. He made a good choice.”

She blushed again and glanced around the office. “Enjoy working this?” She picked up the Rubik’s Cube on the corner of his desk.

“About as much as going to the dentist. I just can’t grasp the concept.”

She tilted her head and studied the cube, then began twisting. When she turned the face to him, she said, “Always remember the center color defines the color for the side you’re looking at. And I always start with this.”

The face of the cube had a white cross.

“From there it’s just a matter of memorizing a few logarithms.”

“Logarithms? No wonder I can’t learn how to do it. I almost failed trig.”

She laughed and set the Rubik’s Cube back on his desk. “You didn’t call me down here to teach you how to do that. What’s up?”

Ben handed her a folder he’d compiled as soon as the electricity had been restored. “That’s a file on three crimes. The fire at Leigh Somerall’s house—she’s probably more familiar to you as Leigh Jackson, Tony Jackson’s sister—that one just came back from the fire marshal today. He discovered a broadhead arrow point in the rubble.”

It’d been pure diligence on the fire marshal’s part that the arrow tip had been found. Ben had driven by once when he was literally sifting rubble through a sieve. “Then we have the five snakes let loose on one of the ball fields at the park last night, and now, the fire here at the jail.”

“I remember the Jackson family. Terrible about Tony.” Taylor took a pen from her purse then opened the folder and scanned the documents. “Three victims?”

He pressed his lips in a thin line. “Three victims, but I’m beginning to wonder if there’s just one target—me.” He leaned forward. “I thought maybe you could tell me if someone is out to make me look incompetent, or am I crazy?”

“Why do
you
think someone would do that?”

“I filed to run in the special sheriff’s election last week. There
are a couple of other candidates, but no one who’d resort to what you see there. Still, they may have friends who would.”

“Leigh Jackson.” She looked up from the file. “Don’t you have a history with her?”

Everyone knowing your business—one of the benefits of living in a small town. If Taylor remembered their relationship, who else did? Ben licked his lips. “That was ten years ago.”

“Some people have long memories.”

That was what he was afraid of. What if the shooting the morning after Tony’s murder was connected to the other three crimes? He turned to a stack of files behind him and took the top one and made a copy. “Add this one to your files.”

Taylor scanned it. “Billy Wayne Gresham? I read about this in the paper. Didn’t he die in an accident leaving the scene?”

“Yeah. And we found a .38 Smith and Wesson at his house, but Livy hasn’t gotten the ballistics report back, so right now he’s only a person of interest in Tony’s murder.” Ben fingered the original file. “Do you ever get a gut feeling about a case? That everything isn’t what it seems?”

She chuckled. “All the time. What’s your gut telling you?”

Ben sighed. “It’s hard to put my finger on. No denying Billy Wayne was the one who pulled the trigger that morning at Leigh’s. Bullets matched the Sub-2000 found in the saddlebag on his cycle.”

Taylor traced the pen along her jawline. “Is there a connection between you and Billy Wayne?”

“Yeah. I let his brother drown three years ago.”

The words dropped into the room, creating a ripple of silence. She stilled her pen. “I remember now. Mom mailed me the newspaper clippings—every month she sent an envelope filled with newspaper articles she thought I’d be interested in. But what I remember is an accident, not you letting someone drown.”

“He died all the same.” He hoped she didn’t try to psychoanalyze him. He waited as she scribbled in her notepad. Ben looked over
his notes. “There’s one more angle. Leigh has only been working in the ER for six weeks, and she suspected abuse in one of the cases she treated. A two-year-old boy with cigarette burns on his arms and legs put there by the mother’s live-in. She reported it to Social Services, and when the mother’s boyfriend was arrested, he threatened Leigh.”

“Have you questioned him?” Taylor asked as she made notes.

“Unfortunately, he disappeared after he made bail.”

“I don’t think he’s—” She stopped writing and winced. “Forget I said that. I make it a practice to wait until I’ve studied a case before I offer any opinion. What seems obvious on the surface isn’t always what it seems once I get into the case, and I might send you investigating in the wrong direction. I’ll work on this and get back to you.”

“Can we afford you? The county only pays standard rates.”

A twinkle gleamed in her eyes. “And I only charge standard rates.”

“Yeah, right. I appreciate any help you can give me.” As Taylor stood, Ben did likewise. “Any idea, time wise?”

“Give me a day or two.”

He’d have to make do with that. His cell rang as he extended his hand.

“You better get that,” she said. “I’ll see my way out the back.”

“Thanks again.” Ben glanced at his phone. U.S. Marshal Luke Donovan.

“Luke, glad you could get back to me so quickly,” he said as Taylor shut the door behind her.

“Figured it was important,” replied the marshal. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve discovered a dogfighting ring in Bradford County.” It made him sick to think anything that repulsive was happening in his county.

“Proof?”

“Saw it with my own eyes last night. Just didn’t have enough man power with me to do anything about it—it was only my chief deputy and me. Wade recognized a couple of the men involved, and I’m having to rein him in—he wants to go undercover, try and buy a dog from one of them. Can we get together today and discuss a strategy?”

“How about my office around five? I should be able to pull in an FBI agent as well.”

Forty minutes to get to Luke’s downtown office. That wouldn’t leave him enough time to reason with Leigh about moving out of his parents’ house. But these men were busy. “I’ll be there. And my chief deputy will be with me.”

“Good deal.”

Ben broke the connection and called Wade to fill him in on the plan. They made arrangements to meet at Ben’s house at four, and then he checked his watch. Almost twelve-thirty. Maybe he could get in a couple hours of sleep before he picked Leigh up at three.

Leigh glanced at the oversized clock on the wall at the nurses’ station in the ER as the minute hand crept to three o’clock. She’d completed the report to the night shift doctor and had made rounds with him.

Ian had dropped by around noon with the key to the house on Webster and a promise of dinner delivered personally to the house. No sight of Ben, though. Maybe she’d go ahead and leave. She didn’t look forward to arguing with him about moving. One thing for sure, he couldn’t stop her.

As she strode through the steel ER doors, her heart caught when she saw Ben entering from outside, dressed in his uniform white short-sleeved shirt and jeans and looking none too happy.
Gird
your loins.
Leigh couldn’t keep from chuckling at the expression her grandmother always used when Granddad came looking for
an argument. But her grandmother had been equal to the task, outtalking her grandfather in almost every skirmish. And they’d had plenty.

“We’ll talk when we get to your parents’ house,” she said, breezing by him. No way was she having this discussion in the hospital parking lot. Leigh rehearsed her argument all the way to the Logan house and lobbed the first volley as she stepped out of her car.

“Ben, there is no reason we can’t move into the house on Webster. The Oaks is a gated community with a guard on duty twenty-four hours a day.”

“Whoa.” He held up his hands. “For most people it would be, but you’re not most people. A subdivision just isn’t as safe for you and TJ.”

She glanced around. “There’s no difference. Both are gated, and truly, the Webster house might just be safer because it has a guard.”

When he didn’t respond immediately, she took a second look at him. He looked really tired as he rubbed his forehead. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Nothing a little sleep won’t cure.” He rolled his shoulders. “I have a meeting I have to get to, and I don’t have time to argue with you about this. We’ll talk tonight.”

Leigh crossed her arms, and Ben walked to his truck and opened the driver’s door. He hesitated, and for a second, she thought he was going to say something. Instead he climbed inside the truck and drove away. She hadn’t promised not to move, and she would still talk to him about it . . . after the fact. Leigh hurried inside, looking for Sarah . . . and Marisa. She found Marisa in the kitchen.

“How was work today?” Ben’s mom patted a mound of dough then covered it with plastic wrap.

The smell of yeast filled the sunny room. She’d miss the homemade bread. “Busy. But everyone was fixable.” She took a deep breath and shoved the words out. “Ian Maxwell has offered a house on Webster for us to stay in, and I’ve accepted.”

Doubt filled Marisa’s face. “But Leigh, I thought Ben—”

Leigh planted her feet. “I can’t keep imposing on your hospitality. TJ is quite the handful 24/7. I’m going to ask Sarah if she’ll stay on for a couple of days until I settle in at the clinic.”

Marisa rinsed her hands and wiped them with a paper towel.

“It’s in the Oaks, and it’s a gated community with a guard.” Leigh chewed her bottom lip. This was harder than she’d thought it would be. And she still had to tell TJ.

“Leigh, you’re a grown woman, and I can’t tell you what to do . . . but I do wish you’d stay here. At least until Ben catches whoever is setting these fires.”

“My house fire was caused by lightning, or the fire marshal would have told me.” She squared her shoulders. “It’s very important for me to stand on my own two feet. I’ve been doing it all my life.”

“You’re resilient, I’ll grant you that. But there’s not just you to think about. How about TJ? He’s happy here. He has the twins, and he’s actually making a difference with Tom. Why take him away from all of this?”

Tom was what Leigh was afraid of. Maybe now was the time to tell Marisa she was moving to Baltimore. A cough from Sarah stopped her.