Cowboy Above The Law

“No, it’s not.” Egan groaned, scrubbed his hand over his face. “I think someone tried to set Rayna up.”

Court opened his mouth to say that wasn’t true. But then Egan took out his own phone and showed him a picture.

“A few minutes after you stormed out of the hospital,” Egan continued, “Eldon Cooper, the clerk at the hardware store, found this.”

“This” was a blond-haired woman wearing a red dress. An identical dress to the one in the photo the waitress had taken. But this one had one big difference from the first picture.

In this one, the woman was dead.

Chapter Two (#udea1731e-d63d-5247-ac0e-9699744a5aca)

Rayna slowly walked toward Egan so she could see the photograph that had caused Court to go stiff. It had caused him to mumble some profanity, too, and Rayna soon knew why.

The woman in the photograph had been shot in the head.

There was blood. Her body was limp, and her lifeless eyes were fixed in a permanent blank stare at the sky.

Rayna dropped back a step, an icy chill going through her. Because Court had been right. The woman did look like her. The one in the first picture did, anyway. The second photo was much clearer, and while it wasn’t a perfect match, the dead woman looked enough like her to be a relative. But Rayna knew she didn’t have any living relatives.

“Someone killed her because of me?” she whispered.

Neither Court nor Egan denied it.

She felt the tears threaten. The panic, too. But Rayna forced herself not to give in to either of them. Not in front of Court, anyway. Later, she could have a cry, tend to her wounds and try to figure out what the heck was going on.

“Who is she?” Rayna asked.

“We don’t have an ID on her yet, but we will soon. After the medical examiner’s had a look at her, then we’ll search for any ID. If there isn’t any on her body or in the car, we’ll run her prints.”

It was so hard for Rayna to think with her head hurting, but she forced herself to try to figure this out. “Why would someone go to all the trouble of having a look-alike and then leave a car behind with bogus plates?”

Egan shrugged again. “It goes back to someone setting you up.” He sounded a little skeptical about that though. “Unless you hired the woman in that photo to pose as you. You could have gotten spooked when something went wrong and left the car.”

Even though she’d braced herself to have more accusations tossed at her, that still stung. It always did. Because this accusation went beyond just hiring an impostor. He was almost certainly implying that she had something to do with the woman’s death, too.

“No. I didn’t hire her,” Rayna managed to say, though her throat had clamped shut. “And I didn’t shoot your father. I haven’t been in town in weeks, and that wasn’t my car parked near the sheriff’s office.”

Egan nodded, glanced at Court. “She’s right about the car. The plates are fake. I had one of the deputies go out and take a look at it. It’s still parked up the street from the office. Someone painted over the numbers so that it matched the plates on Rayna’s vehicle.”

Again, Egan was making it sound as if she had something to do with that. Good grief. Why was she always having to defend herself when it came to the McCalls?

Of course, she knew the answer.

She’d made her own bed when it’d come to Bobby Joe. She had stayed with him even after he’d hit her and called her every name in the book. She had let him rob her of her confidence. Her dignity.

And nearly her life.

But Egan and Court—and their father—hadn’t seen things that way. Bobby Joe had kept the abuse hidden. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, and very few people in town had been on her side when Warren McCall had arrested her for Bobby Joe’s murder.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree—again,” Rayna added. “I didn’t have anything to do with this. And why would I? If I were going to shoot anyone, why would I send in a look-alike? Why would I pick a spot like Main Street, which is practically on the doorstep of a building filled with cowboy cops?”

Egan shrugged. “Maybe to make us believe you’re innocent and knew nothing about it.”

“I am innocent,” she practically yelled. Rayna stopped though and peered at the mess in the living room. “But maybe my intruder is behind what happened in town and what happened to that woman, as well. He could have arranged to have your father shot, killed her, and then he could have come out here to attack me. His prints could be on the lamp. It’s what he used to bash me over the head.”

Court looked at her, and for a split second, she thought she saw some sympathy in his intense gray eyes. It was gone as quickly as it’d come, and he stood there, waiting. Maybe for an explanation that would cause all of this to make sense. But she couldn’t give him that.

Rayna huffed. “If I was going to do something to fake an assault, I wouldn’t have hit myself that hard on my head or cracked my ribs. And I wouldn’t have broken my grandmother’s lamp.”

It sickened her to see it shattered like that. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a huge deal, but it felt like one to her. It was one of the few things she had left of her gran. And now it was gone—much like what little peace of mind she’d managed to regain over the past year.

“Who do you think would have done something like this?” Court asked, tipping his head toward the living room.

“Bobby Joe,” she answered without thinking. She knew it would get huffs and eye rolls from them, and it did. “You think he’s dead, that I killed him. But I know I didn’t. So, that means he could still be out there.”

Court didn’t repeat his huff, but she could tell he wanted to. “So, you think Bobby Joe set you up for my father’s shooting and then came out here and attacked you? If he’s really alive, why would he wait three years to do that?”

Rayna gave it some thought and didn’t have an answer. However, she wouldn’t put it past Bobby Joe. At the end of their relationship, he’d threatened to kill her. Maybe this was his way of doing that. Bobby Joe could be toying with her while also getting back at Warren McCall, who hadn’t managed to get her convicted of murder.

But there was something else. A piece that didn’t seem to fit.

“Tell me about the waitress,” Rayna insisted. “Who was she, and why did she take the picture of the woman in the parking lot?”

“Her name is Janet Bolin,” Court answered. “She said she took the photo because she thought you...or rather the woman...was acting strange.”

Egan groaned. Probably because he was agreeing with her theory of an ill-fitting puzzle piece. “I’ll get a CSI team out here to process the place.” He pressed a button on his phone and went onto the porch to make the call.

“You know this waitress?” Rayna asked Court.

He shook his head. “She’s new, has only been working there a week or so, but I’ve seen her around. We’ll bring her in for questioning.”

Good. Because it meant Rayna was finally making some headway in convincing Court that she hadn’t fired that shot or had anything to do with that woman’s death.

She hesitated before asking her next question. “How’s your father?” Warren was a touchy subject for both of them.

A muscle flickered in Court’s jaw. “He’s out of surgery but still unconscious. We don’t know just how bad the damage is yet.”

He might have added more, might, but a sound outside stopped him. Sirens. They were from the ambulance that was coming up the road. Since her house was the only one out here, they were here for her.

“I don’t want an ambulance,” she insisted. “I’ll go to the hospital on my own.” And it wouldn’t be to the one in McCall Canyon. She would drive into nearby San Antonio.

“That’s not a very smart thing to do.” No pause for Court that time. “We’re not sure what’s going on here. Plus, your ribs could be broken. You don’t need to be driving if they are.”

She couldn’t help it. Rayna gave him a snarky smile before she could stop herself. “Worried about me?”

That earned her another glare, but this one didn’t last. And for a moment she saw something else. Not the sympathy this time, either. But the old attraction. Even now, it tugged at her. Apparently, it tugged at Court because he cursed again and looked away.

“I just wanted to make sure I didn’t hurt you when we fell on the floor,” Court said.