Finger On The Trigger. Delores Fossen
but it was obvious Griff had something else to say.
“Marlon’s ex-girlfriend from a year ago took out a restraining order against him because he was stalking her,” Griff continued. “Sheriff Ryland said Marlon also hit her, but she wouldn’t press charges against him. There are rumors that he hit his last girlfriend, Taryn Harrison, too. That’s the woman you saw with Marlon while you were staying at the inn.”
Yes, and Marlon blamed her for the breakup. Rachel felt the chill slide through her. Here, she’d left McCall Canyon to escape, and instead she’d crossed paths with a bully. One who might be unhinged if he was indeed into stalking.
Brad turned toward her. “See? This is why you should have never left,” he snapped. “Did that man touch you?”
“No. He just said I should mind my own business.” She stopped, thought of something else. “But the next time we crossed paths, he seemed to know who I was. I mean, I was using an alias. I’d told everyone there at the inn that my name was Margaret O’Malley.”
“Mom’s middle and maiden names,” Court supplied, looking up from the laptop. Egan kept his attention planted firmly on the screen.
She nodded. “I lied and told them I didn’t have any ID because my wallet had been stolen. I used cash to pay for the room.”
“Cash that you withdrew from your bank account right before you left town,” Brad said.
So obviously he’d checked on that. That wasn’t a surprise, not really. They’d probably all been looking for her. It was ironic that Griff had been the one to find her.
“What made you think Marlon knew who you were?” Griff asked.
She almost dismissed it, but that would mean dismissing the knot in her stomach. After what’d happened, it was best if she listened to it.
“When I was paying for my room last week, Marlon was in the office, and he wrote the receipt,” she explained. “He started writing my name with an R, then he quickly scratched it out and wrote ‘Margaret’ instead. I think he’d been about to put down ‘Rachel.’”
Brad made a sound to indicate he was giving that some thought. “Maybe he saw you on the news. After Warren’s shooting,” he clarified.
It was possible, but Griff didn’t look as if he was buying it, either. Good. She wanted him and her brothers to dig into Marlon’s activities and see if there was something to find.
“Hell,” Egan said. “There’s someone on the footage.”
Brad hurried behind the desk to have a look, but Griff stayed right next to her. Egan turned the screen so they could see, and it didn’t take long for her to realize they were looking at the man who’d been in the alley.
A man she instantly recognized.
Oh, God.
What the hell was Warren doing on the Silver Creek surveillance video?
That was the question Griff was very anxious to ask the man. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who had an urgent need to know, because Rachel whipped out her phone and pressed in her father’s number. Since Griff had been about to do the same thing, he just waited for Warren to answer.
But he didn’t.
After a few rings, the call went to voice mail. “Call me now,” was all that Rachel snapped into the phone when she left her father a message.
Since Warren was worried about Rachel and had spent the past month trying to find her, he would no doubt do just that. Well, he would unless he’d done something stupid.
“It appears you’ve got a new person of interest,” Brad said, his mouth tight and his eyes narrowed as he stared at the screen.
Griff didn’t like that Brad had jumped to the worst-case scenario. Of course, he’d never been a fan of Warren, because they, too, had clashed when Warren had been sheriff.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Griff said to Rachel. “Warren wouldn’t hurt you. He wouldn’t hurt any of his kids.”
“Not unless he was finished with me,” Rachel quickly pointed out. But even she had to wave that off. “No. He wouldn’t hurt me. Not intentionally, anyway.” She pointed to the screen. “So why is he there?”
Griff had a theory, and this was going to be a good news/bad news kind of deal. “Maybe Warren found out where you were and went to check on you.” That was the good news. “And maybe while Warren was watching you, he could have gotten caught up in the attack.”
After everything she’d been through tonight, Griff hated to point that out to her, but Rachel was smart and would have soon come to the same conclusion. Plus, that was still better than thinking Warren could have had any part in that explosion or the shots being fired.
“I’ll call the Silver Creek sheriff,” Egan volunteered, taking out his phone, as well.
“And it might be jumping the gun, but I’ll see if I can have Dad’s cell phone traced,” Court added. He stepped away as if to start doing just that, but then volleyed glances at Brad, Griff and his sister before his attention settled on Griff. “Why don’t you go ahead and get Rachel out of here so she can get some rest?”
Since Rachel was no doubt on the verge of an adrenaline crash, that was a good idea, but judging from the way her forehead bunched up, it was going to be hard for Griff to sell her on doing that. He definitely didn’t want to use her epilepsy to get her to leave. Over the years, he’d learned that she didn’t want any special considerations because of it. Still, the stress might trigger a seizure. He’d been with her once when that’d happened. They’d been teenagers then, but he’d never forgotten it.
“I can take Rachel to my place,” Brad suggested. “I’ve got a great security system, and it’s not somewhere that the gunman would expect her to go.”
Griff wanted to nix that suggestion right off, but had to admit that was because he didn’t like Brad. He didn’t want Rachel under Brad’s roof at any time, but especially not when she was so vulnerable.
Of course, that might be his own guilty conscience at work. Rachel had certainly been vulnerable after learning of her father’s affair, and that hadn’t stopped Griff from sleeping with her.
Apparently, Rachel had her own concerns about Brad, however, because she shook her head. “Thanks, but your place is over a half hour’s drive from here. I don’t want to be that far from the sheriff’s office in case they catch the shooter. I want to be here if they get a chance to question him.”
Griff figured there was no way to stop her from observing the interview. No way to stop him, either, since this idiot had nearly killed Rachel and him. But first they had to catch the guy, and he was most likely long gone by now.
“If you don’t want to ride all the way out to the ranch,” Griff suggested to her, “my house is closer.”
She looked at him, and he saw the concern she had about that. Rightfully so. The last time she’d been at his house, they’d landed in bed. No way would that happen again. Not now, maybe not ever.
“The Silver Creek cops haven’t seen Dad,” Egan relayed when he got off the phone. “But they’ll look for him while they continue their search for the shooter.”
Maybe they’d get lucky and find both. Griff just didn’t want the cops to find Warren and the gunman together. Because if that happened, it meant Warren was either a hostage or had been involved in some way. That involvement might not necessarily be of his own doing, though.
“There’s nothing else you can do here,” Court chimed in, glancing at Rachel. “Griff could drive you to the ranch or his place, and I could follow to make sure you