Six-Gun Showdown

Jax approached the second man with caution. His gun aimed, his gaze still firing all around them. He reached down, pulled off the mask and put his fingers to the man’s neck.

“He’s alive,” Jax relayed. “Barely.”

Paige leaned in, hoping this would be the Moonlight Strangler. But he wasn’t. Like the other man, he was much too young. And that meant the killer could indeed be in the truck or nearby.

“Be careful,” she called out to Cord.

Whether he’d listen was anyone’s guess. Unlike Jax, Cord didn’t have that whole protection code. He had one goal. Just one.

To catch his biological father, no matter what the cost. That included sacrificing his own life.

Paige had been driven by that kind of justice after her parents had been murdered. That was the reason she’d become a CSI. But justice didn’t drive her now. She only wanted to keep Jax and her son safe. That might finally happen if the Moonlight Strangler was in the truck so they could catch him.

But if he was there, why hadn’t he driven off when he’d seen that his thugs had failed?

A possible answer popped into her head. An answer she didn’t like one bit.

This could be a trap.

Jax must have realized the same thing because his attention went straight to the truck. And to Cord.

“Watch out!” Jax shouted.

However, the words had hardly left his mouth when the blast thundered through the air. And the truck burst into a ball of fire.

Chapter Five (#u1dc77271-84a1-5bb5-87af-07f708569b2b)

Jax cursed when he read Jericho’s latest text message. More bad news. Just what he didn’t need right now since he’d already had enough of that tonight.

Both men who’d attacked Paige and him couldn’t be interrogated. One had died at the scene from the gunshot wound Jax delivered to the guy’s chest. The other one, the man Paige had injected with the syringe, was in the hospital but hadn’t regained consciousness. Until he did, he couldn’t give Jax answers about the snake who’d hired them.

The only good thing to come out of this was that Matthew was safe and only the one hired gun was dead. Of course, not everyone had come out of it unscathed. He had proof of that right in front of him. Both Cord and Paige were side by side on examining tables in the ER while nurses stitched them up.

Plus, the ER looked like a top-secret facility, what with two security guards standing in the doorway of the room. Anyone coming into the building was being searched for weapons, and everyone was on alert to make sure more hired guns didn’t try to come after Paige and him.

“What’s wrong?” Paige asked, no doubt because she’d heard his mumbled profanity over the text. No doubt, too, because she was watching him so closely. But then, he was watching her, too.

Paige was alive.

And now that the dust had partially settled from the attack, Jax would need to deal with that. He’d have to deal with a lot of things, and he started with Matthew.

His brothers Chase and Levi were at Jax’s house standing guard. The ranch hands were patrolling the grounds and had already searched the perimeter for snipers. Added to that, the road leading to the ranch was a crime scene now and was crawling with Texas Rangers, CSIs, the bomb squad, firefighters and even two of Appaloosa Pass’s own reserve deputies. With all those people on the grounds, Jax’s house was on lockdown and would stay that way until he could get home and move Matthew to a safer location.

Wherever that would be.

Belinda certainly wanted to know that, too, because she’d called twice and then left a voice mail when Jax hadn’t answered her third call. He knew the nanny was worried, as well she should be, but right now he wouldn’t be able to do much to calm any of her fears.

Jax walked closer, though he already had Paige’s attention. Cord’s as well because he ended his latest phone call and stared at Jax.

“There wasn’t a body in the truck,” Jax explained. “The bomb guys have cleared the CSI team to go in and start gathering evidence, but the explosive device inside the truck appears to have been on a timer.”

Paige released the breath she’d obviously been holding, and despite the fact that she was getting stitches near her hairline, she shook her head. “They didn’t find the Moonlight Strangler,” she said. Not a question. Probably because she knew Jax wouldn’t be scowling if they’d managed to nail the SOB.

“Somebody drove that truck to the ranch,” Cord snapped. He had two nurses working on him, and they were stitching up his head, arms and even his left leg. They’d cut his jeans to get to the wound. “That means he escaped.”

Jax nodded. Then shrugged. “But we don’t know for sure the Moonlight Strangler was even there. Do we?” And he made sure there was displeasure in his tone. Plenty of it. Because Jax was still riled to the core that he hadn’t been included in this stupid plan before it’d turned deadly.

“He wants to kill me,” Paige stated. “He would have been close enough to make sure he could do that.”

No displeasure in her voice, but there was plenty of frustration and pain, both physical and otherwise. She winced when the nurse added another stitch.

“Sorry, Paige,” the nurse apologized. She was Misty Carlton, someone Jax and Paige had known their entire lives. Ditto for the other nurses working on Cord. With all the other folks coming in and out of the ER, Cord figured it was already all over town that Paige was alive.

He’d have to deal with that, too.

The other members of his family would have to be told. And Matthew, of course. His son was too young to remember Paige, but Jax doubted he could keep Paige from Matthew. Well, not forever, anyway. But for now, he pushed that problem aside and went with the most obvious one.

Jax shifted his attention to Cord. “You couldn’t talk Paige out of going through with this plan to meet with your birth father?”

Cord’s jaw muscles flickered and tensed. No doubt because of the birth father reference. Yeah, it was a petty dig, but Jax was pissed off that a trained DEA agent—supposedly a top-notch one, too—had allowed a victim to arrange a showdown with a serial killer.

“Have you ever been able to talk Paige out of anything?” Cord countered.

That was a petty dig, as well. But it was the truth. To say that Paige was hardheaded was like saying the sky had a little bit of blue in it.

“Don’t blame Cord for this,” Paige spoke up. “If he hadn’t come with me, I would have done it alone.”

Jax was certain that tightened some of his own jaw muscles. “Of course you would have, and look where it got you.” His gaze went back to Cord. “Have you tried to find a personal link between Paige’s biological mother, Mary, and the Moonlight Strangler?” Especially since Mary was one of the Moonlight Strangler’s first known victims.

“Of course,” Cord snapped, clearly insulted that Jax had asked the obvious. “I haven’t found one yet. And yes, I did alert the FBI when Paige’s DNA test came back as a match to Mary’s.”

“Any reason you didn’t tell me?” Jax pressed.

“Because I asked him not to,” Paige volunteered before Cord could say anything. “I thought if too many people were trying to make the connection between Mary and me that the Moonlight Strangler would suspect I was alive.”

Jax was already riled six ways to Sunday, and that didn’t help. “I’m not ‘too many people.’” He nearly added he was her husband.

But he wasn’t. Not anymore.

However, he was still a lawman and the father of her son. That alone should have earned him a place in the inner circle of information.

“The FBI decided to keep it secret, too,” Cord went on. “Until they can look for a possible link. The lead investigator said there were already too many hands in this particular case.”

No surprise there. The FBI had been keeping lots of things about this close to the vest. Not that it’d helped. The Moonlight Strangler always seemed to be in the know.

Especially when it came to Paige.

Jax was on the verge of questioning her about that, but his phone buzzed before he could say anything. Not Jericho this time, but it was another family member. Or rather a soon-to-be family member. Levi’s fiancée.