of him having an affair.”
“He and Hadley kept it secret. Not just for Emerson’s sake but for Hadley’s. Hadley and I had the same mother, but her father, my stepfather, wouldn’t have approved.” Actually, Laney hadn’t approved, either, but it was impossible to sway Hadley once she’d had her mind set on something.
Owen stayed quiet for a moment, his expression hard, ice-cold. “You have proof of this?”
“I heard Hadley talking to him on the phone, and I saw them together once when they were at a restaurant.”
Of course, that wasn’t proof she thought Owen was just going to accept. And she was right. Owen’s scowl only worsened.
“Hadley told me they were having an affair.” She spelled it out for him. “She also told me that she got very upset when he broke things off with her. In anger, Hadley threatened to tell his wife and, less than twelve hours later, she was dead.”
“And you think Emerson killed her.” It wasn’t a question.
Owen wasn’t believing any of this. Neither had anyone else she’d told, but Laney had plenty of proof that she was pushing the wrong buttons with her investigation.
She tipped her head to the dead man. “He came here after me. Why else would he do that if I weren’t getting close to proving what Emerson did?”
Owen didn’t roll his eyes, but it was close. Then he huffed, “If you’re really a PI as you say you are, then I suspect you’ve riled some people. You’ve certainly done that to me.”
“Yes, but you don’t want me dead. Emerson does.”
However, she had to mentally shake her head. Someone wanted to kill her and the most obvious suspect was the one she was investigating. But there was someone else and her expression must have let Owen know that.
“Remembering something else?” Owen snapped.
No way did she want to lie to him again, but before Laney could even begin to answer him, she heard footsteps outside the barn. That gave her another shot of adrenaline and she crouched again with Addie.
“It’s me,” someone said.
Kellan.
Not the threat her body had been geared up to face. However, like Owen, Kellan was scowling when he came into the barn. He glanced at his brother and niece. Then at the dead man. Then at Laney. She didn’t think it was her imagination that she got the brunt of the scowl he was doling out.
“We got the second intruder,” Kellan explained. “He’s alive.”
Laney released the breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. “Who is he?” she blurted. “Has he said anything?”
“Oh, he’s talking a lot,” Kellan grumbled. “He’s demanding to see you. He says he’s a friend of yours, that you’re the one who hired him.”
“No.” Laney couldn’t deny that fast enough. “He’s lying.”
Judging from the flat look Kellan gave her, he wasn’t buying it. Apparently, neither was Owen because he walked closer and took Addie from her. He immediately moved next to his brother.
“There’s more,” Kellan added a moment later. “The intruder says that you hired him to kill Owen.”
Owen hadn’t wanted to spend half the night in the sheriff’s office, where he spent most of his days, but he hadn’t had a choice. This was not just a simple B and E, and with the shooting death of one of the intruders, it was a tangled mess.
One not likely to be resolved before morning.
That was because Laney had denied hiring the intruder, and the intruder was insisting he was telling the truth. That put them at a temporary stalemate. Or at least it would have if Owen had any faith in the intruder. Hard to trust someone who’d come to his home and broken in while his baby daughter had been there. Of course, the reason the intruder had come was Laney.
That meant this was another stalemate.
One that he hoped to break soon.
There was an entire CSI team going through his place, which meant he wouldn’t be going home tonight. The only silver lining was that Francine had taken Addie to her place. Not alone, either. Owen had sent Gunnar with them just case this “mess” got another layer to it with a second attack.
In the meantime, Owen had been in the mind-set of collecting as much information as he could through phone conversations and emails. He hadn’t done all of that under Laney’s watchful eyes and alert ears, either. He’d left her in his office for some of those calls and was now trying to process everything he’d learned.
Laney hadn’t been idle, either. She’d made a call, too. With a cheap, disposable cell phone, he’d noticed. And Owen had made sure he kept his ears alert during her conversation. She’d spoken to someone she called Joe and told him to be careful.
That was it.
The chat had lasted less than five seconds and then Laney had immediately surrendered the phone to Owen. Not that it had been of any use to him since Joe hadn’t answered when Owen had tried to call him. Laney had briefly—very briefly—explained that Joe Henshaw was her assistant, and that she didn’t know where he was. Neither did Owen or the San Antonio cops helping him look for the guy.
“I didn’t hire that man to kill you,” Laney repeated when Owen finished his latest call, this one to the medical examiner.
Declaring and redeclaring her innocence was something Laney had been going on about during the entire five hours they’d been there. He suspected she would continue to go on about it until the intruder either recanted or Kellan and he were indeed able to prove that he was lying.
Owen figured proving it wouldn’t be that hard.
However, they couldn’t even start doing that because the guy had lawyered up and they now had to wait for the attorney to arrive from San Antonio. Until then, they were holding not only the intruder but also Laney. Owen had not yet decided if she was a suspect, but he was pretty sure Laney—or rather Elaine—was going to be the key to them figuring out what the hell was going on.
“The guy you shot and killed was Harvey Dayton,” Owen told her. He’d just gotten the ID during his call with the ME. “Ring any bells?”
“No,” she answered without hesitation. “And I’m sure I’ve never seen him before, either. His prints were in the system,” Laney added in a mutter. “That’s how you got the ID this fast?”
He nodded. “Dayton had a record,” Owen settled for saying.
What he didn’t spell out for her was that the rap sheet was a mile long, and yeah, it included a couple of assault charges with a pattern of escalating violence. Along with a history of drug use, which made him a prime candidate for becoming a hired gun for people who wanted cheap help.
