Well, nothing that he could immediately see anyway. It wasn’t a large room, but there was a dark red sofa and two chairs. Not easy hiding places, but he checked anyway. Then he checked for what could pose the most immediate danger.
Lyla Pearson herself.
“Are you armed?” he asked, but didn’t wait for her to answer. Wyatt shoved his hand inside her coat and gave her a quick pat down.
She gasped and tried to push him away, but Wyatt held his ground. “I don’t carry a gun,” she insisted.
“Maybe not, but you have one registered to you.”
Her eyes widened. “How’d you know that?”
Wyatt just tapped the marshal’s badge clipped to his belt.
Lyla still looked confused by all of this. Heck, maybe she was. After all, if she’d truly set up the gunman pretense, she would’ve had to have known that Wyatt would be there at that exact moment. He’d kept this visit secret. Not even his five foster brothers knew, and they were all marshals, too. He hadn’t wanted to tell them anything until he’d figured out what was going on.
The figuring out started now.
“Back door locked?” he asked. He pulled her inside, keeping her against the jamb.
“I’m not sure.”
“Stay put,” Wyatt snarled, and he hurried into the kitchen. If anyone was hiding, they would have to be in the fridge, because the pantry door was wide-open and he could see inside. He turned the dead bolt on the door to lock it.
She didn’t ask why he’d done that, but he could feel her fear go up a notch. Or maybe she was faking that, too. At any rate, she was breathing through her mouth, and the pulse on her throat was skittering a mile a minute.
Wyatt went back to her, waited. Listened. But he didn’t hear anyone inside, or out, for that matter. So, he grabbed the cordless landline phone and handed it to her. “Call 9-1-1 and request backup.”
Her hand brushed against his when she took the phone, and for just a split second, their eyes met. Hers were brown, just as her file had said, but what wasn’t in her file was they were deep and warm.
Oh, man.
He didn’t need to be thinking of her eyes. Or anything else, for that matter. She could be one of the most conniving criminals he’d ever met.
Or maybe an innocent pawn.
Until Wyatt knew which, her eyes and the rest of her were off-limits.
While she made the call, Wyatt got her all the way inside and kicked the door shut. He locked it. But he didn’t move. He stayed put, waiting to make sure they were indeed alone. Waiting, too, to see if she’d make some kind of move.
She didn’t. Lyla called 9-1-1 just as he’d asked.
The window on the east side of the room was both a blessing and a curse. It allowed Wyatt a decent view of the back side of the barn. The last place he’d spotted the guy with the gun. But that window was also a danger, since the gunman could see them and shoot right through the glass.
“A deputy’s on the way,” Lyla relayed once she’d finished the call.
Good. But the nearest town, Bulverde, was a good thirty minutes away, and he was on his own until then.
“Who’s out there?” she asked.
“You don’t know?”
Her breath rattled in her throat. “I have no idea.” She shook her head and caught onto the door, maybe because she didn’t look too steady on her feet. “He can’t shoot me. I’m pregnant and he could hurt the baby.”
If this was an act, she was damn convincing.
Wyatt glanced around, looking for the safest way to approach this—for both him and her. “Get down on the floor in front of the sofa.”
It wasn’t a perfect location. Not by a long shot. But it would get her out of direct line of fire of that window, and with her on the floor, she wouldn’t be able to attack him.
She moved to do just that but then stopped and stared at him. “What’s going on?”
He didn’t have to lie about this. “You’re going to tell me that after I take care of the guy by the barn.”
Her stare tightened into a glare, and with that glare aimed at him, she eased down onto the floor.
That freed him up to hurry to the hall entry, where he spotted three doors. Probably two bedrooms and a bath. All the doors were open, but unlike with the pantry, he didn’t have a clear look inside any of them.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “How did you know there’d be a gunman at my house?”
Tricky questions, both of them. If she didn’t truly know the answers, then they were both in some Texas-sized trouble.
“I’m involved in an investigation, and you might have something to do with it,” he settled for saying.
“I don’t understand. What investigation?”
Wyatt knew he couldn’t dodge her questions for long, but he really had to make sure another gunman wasn’t inside the house. “Don’t get up,” he warned her, and he hurried into the hall for a quick check of the bedrooms and bath.
“What investigation?” Lyla repeated.
Even though he’d stepped into her bedroom, Wyatt had no trouble hearing her. “Jonah Webb’s murder.”
She mumbled something he didn’t catch, but Wyatt ignored her, had a look under the bed and in the closet. Everything was neat and in its place. Definitely no smoking-gun evidence that he could use to arrest her on the spot.
When he was satisfied they were alone and there was nothing immediate for him to find, he hurried back to the living room and met Lyla’s glare. It was worse than the other one she’d aimed at him.
“Jonah Webb,” she repeated. “He was the man from the orphanage who was murdered years ago.”
Sixteen and a half, to be exact.
She studied his face. Then his badge. “You’re one of the marshals who were raised at the orphanage.” Again, he couldn’t be sure if her surprised tone was fake or not.
“Rocky Creek Children’s Facility,” he supplied.
He tried not to go back to those bitter memories. Failed. Always failed. But bad memories weren’t going to stop him from doing his job. Wyatt went back to the center of the living room so he could keep watch to see what the bozo with the gun was going to do.
“Webb’s body was found, what, about six months ago?” she asked.
“Eight. The Rangers are still investigating it.” He paused,
