Losing Ladd (27 page)

The nurse left the room as Nick
wheeled her chair to the space where he had been sitting. It made
her feel like a heel. She should get up and walk, march herself
right over there and be strong—for him, for her mom. For Travis. If
she could have moved the first muscle in her body, she would have.
But every shred of muscle, every ounce of energy had been sapped.
The reality of what happened on the roadside was sinking in.
Jeremiah and his friends had tried to kidnap her. They had forced
her into their truck. If it hadn’t been for Travis, Felicity would
have been who knew where right now in unthinkable danger. Instead,
she sat nestled in the safety of Nick’s protective watch. She
closed her eyes as guilt poured into her. Travis was lying on a bed
in an operating room because he tried to protect her. Without any
regard to his own safety, Travis charged Jeremiah and been shot
because of it.

“
Can you tell me what
happened?” Nick asked, his voice a slip of velvet. Warm, soothing,
his presence enveloped her.

“
Jeremiah shot
him.”

“
What
?”

“
Jeremiah shot Travis.
From ten feet away, he pulled the trigger and shot him straight in
the chest.”

As he stared at her in silence,
Felicity could feel something change inside him. The line of his
jaw hardened, his gaze lost its compassion. It was flinty and cold.
Dead. It was like the soul had left him, leaving icy hatred in its
place. He didn’t ask another question. He didn’t say another word.
Nick simply took her hand in his and cradled it with a tenderness
unimaginable. He would take care of her, of them. With Nick, all
things were possible. They were lucky to have him.

A fresh wave of fear blindsided her.
She was lucky to have Travis.

Hopefully it wasn’t too late to let
him know.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Nick rose the minute he saw Malcolm
and Lacy walk into the waiting room. Cutting the distance in
seconds, he said, “Thanks for coming.”

“
We would have been here
sooner but with everything going on—”

Nick silenced him with a hand.
“Understood.” Glancing down at Lacy and the baby, he felt a pang of
guilt. “Don’t feel like you have to stay if the baby needs to go,”
he said. “Ashley said she’d come once she got Albert settled. Said
it shouldn’t be too long.” Albert had a doctor’s appointment this
morning, and she was shuffling him back and forth between there and
home and planned to come as quick as she could to be here for
Felicity.

“
Oh, poo,” Lacy said,
dishing out a mock frown. “Ashley can come if she wants but I’m
staying put for the duration.”

Nick smiled. Leave it to Lacy’s
spitfire personality to ease his mind. Malcolm had married an EF5
tornado packed into a beautiful, petite package. Shiny black hair,
ivory skin and big blue eyes, the woman rivaled any Southern
California beauty. Leaning down, he kissed her cheek.
“Thanks.”

He’d been running out of options.
Casey was helping her mom with Emily, while Cal tried to work
between visitation with his daughter and the investigation going on
at the hotel. Troy was occupied with the business of getting the
horses right. From what Malcolm said, the fire had caused horrific
trauma to the animals, and if it weren’t for Troy, they might have
lost a few. Considering the brothers hadn’t been getting along of
late, it wasn’t a complete surprise to learn Troy chose the horses
over sitting vigil for Travis. His parents were here. That was
enough.

Lacy’s big blue eyes latched onto
Felicity. Sitting in a chair, the girl continued to stare numbly at
the wall as she had for the last few hours. She barely spoke to
Travis’ parents. The couple sat two seats over, their hands locked
together, yet neither party spoke a word. “How’s she holding up?”
Lacy asked.

Nick followed her gaze. “As expected,
she’s pretty stressed. At least we got some good news on her
mother. Turning away from Felicity, he said, “Doctor came out a
little while ago with an update. The procedure was a success and
they’re taking her to recovery but Travis...” Nick’s voice drifted.
“He’s not so good.”

“
You said the bullet hit
him in the chest?” Malcolm asked.

“
Missed his heart by four
inches.”

Lacy flung a hand over her mouth, her
eyes widening in horror. “You said Jeremiah did this?”

Nick nodded, uncertain how much of his
animosity to release, considering it was Lacy who ran off with the
man to Atlanta. According to Malcolm, they’d never been intimate
but still... If she’d been willing to run off and live with the man
in a strange city, she must have had feelings for him. “Yes, and he
had two men with him.”

“
Does she know who they
are?”

“
No. But we have photos.
Travis took them of Jeremiah and the men downtown. They’re in his
camera.”

“
Do you know where that
is?” Malcolm asked.

“
No. Could be with his
personal belongings here at the hospital. Could be in his
truck.”

“
That was towed from the
scene,” Malcolm said. “We saw it on our way over.”

“
We’ll get it,” Nick said.
“As it stands, I hold Jeremiah responsible for the shooting. He
pulled the trigger.”

Malcolm nodded.

“
If the boy dies, I’m
going to see that Jeremiah meets the same fate.”

“
Nick!” Lacy hissed,
swiping a glance toward Felicity and the Parkers.

“
I still believe in an eye
for an eye,” he said, avoiding the reproach in her gaze. “Not to
mention it’s the law.” Shaking the darkness that was beginning to
fill him, Nick shrugged it off. “Travis is going to be in there for
a while.” And he needed to go. Nick wanted to stay with Felicity,
see her through this crisis, but at the same time he felt compelled
to do something. He couldn’t sit idle any longer while the people
who did this roamed free. With Delaney stowed away in ICU, he
needed to get productive. “I have to get back to the
hotel.”

“
I don’t think that’s a
good idea,” Malcolm cautioned. “Jillian has an alibi. The phone
belonged to Jeremiah. Let the police handle it.”

“
I don’t care about her
alibi,” Nick growled under his breath. “There’s a young man lying
in there fighting for his life. Delaney, too. Jeremiah might be
responsible for Travis, but I know damn well Jillian had something
to do with the fire.”

“
You’re forgetting about
Jeremiah’s two accomplices.”

“
No.” He ground his jaw.
“I’m prioritizing. I’ll see to
them
after I take care of the viper and the
vixen.”

Malcolm stared at him, hard. Nick
understood. Malcolm would prefer he handle the situation through
the proper channels, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t stand by and
watch Jillian and Jeremiah walk away scot-free because the police
believed their bogus alibis. They were guilty and he needed to
prove it. “I can’t let it go.”

Malcolm placed his arm around Lacy’s
shoulders and nodded, reluctance pulling in his pale blue eyes. “I
know. Be careful, will you?” He glanced over at Felicity, adding
quietly, “I don’t want to come back here for a visit to your
bedside, next.”

“
Don’t worry. You
won’t.”

Jeremiah whipped open the front door
to the boys’ rental house, inflamed by the turn of events. Anger
pulsed through his brain as his mind wrapped around the situation
with a white-knuckled grip. They had failed. A simple
straightforward kidnapping of a teenage girl and they’d botched it.
Because her stupid boyfriend had bad timing. Unbelievably horrible
bad timing and now Jeremiah might have to answer for a dead body.
Already on the police radar for a cell phone call in connection to
arson, the addition of a murder charge would send him away for
life. “Damn it!” he yelled, slamming a fist against the wall as he
passed into the living room. There was no way he was going back to
jail. No way he was taking the fall for shooting that kid. It was
self-defense. He had two witnesses. It was his word against
hers.

Swiping a bottle of
whiskey from the kitchen counter, Jeremiah opened it and slugged
back a long swallow, cringing against the burning sensation.
Licking his lips, he took another. He should have shot the girl. He
should have shot her cold.
Leave no
witnesses
. Wasn’t that the deal? Leave no
witnesses, erase all connection and make a clean getaway. Smacking
the bottle to the Formica, Jeremiah looked around the rat hole of a
kitchen as he soaked in the gradual numbing sensation spreading
through his limbs. The alcohol was working its way through him, the
effect slow and gradual.

There was no way he was
going to jail. He wasn’t
ever
going back to jail. Taking another swig, Jeremiah
stalked back into the living room. Both brothers stood in the
center of the room.

“
Hey, gimme that!” the
younger hollered at him. “Don’t you go drinkin’ all my
liquor!”

Jeremiah’s first instinct was to whack
the guy over the head with the bottle, easing the tension riddling
his body. But darting a glance to the elder, Jeremiah thought
better of it. Rob didn’t need an excuse for a fight—a diversion
Jeremiah didn’t need at the moment. Setting the bottle on a dining
table, he needed to plan, not fight.

Rob looked at him, sullen and
brooding. “Now what?”

“
Now I’m thinking,”
Jeremiah shot back.

“
Don’t take too long. The
cops are gonna be out lookin’ for you.”

“
Me?”

Rob didn’t look away but instead iced
his gaze. “The girl don’t know me from Adam.” Tapping a brief gaze
to his brother, he said, “We pack up and leave, we’re gone.
Disappeared.”

Fury wound deeply through
Jeremiah as the significance of the statement sunk in.
Son of a bitch
. Rob was
gonna hang
him
with crime? He was the one who yanked the girl from her
vehicle! Jeremiah never touched her! Visions of Clem Sweeney swam
in his mind, another dirtbag from his past. Jeremiah recalled he
was sitting in jail for the very same crime. Fool had used two
idiots to help kidnap Delaney, and look where it got him. Jeremiah
glanced between the brothers. Two bumbling idiots, kinda like these
two.

Except Rob. He might not
be the sharpest tool in the shed but he was meaner than a rabid
possum. What he lacked in brain-power he made up for in
temperament. Turning from them, he stuffed his anger away. He
wasn’t going down for this one. Clem might be rotting in jail but
not
him
. Jeremiah
was a hell of a lot smarter than old Clem and planned to stay one
step ahead of the law
and
everyone else—including these two. Rob was wrong.
At the moment time was on his side. Jeremiah couldn’t be sure, but
he’d made a clean shot to the chest, up close and personal. If the
Parker punk wasn’t already dead, he’d be in surgery for hours—if
the blood loss didn’t wipe him out first. A thought that would have
brought a smile to Jeremiah’s face if he weren’t so damned mad.
“We’ve got to do something.”

“
Like get out of town?”
posed the younger of his cohorts.

Jeremiah wheeled. “No,
you
idiot
. I’m
not walking away from here without making it hurt.” Someone was
going to pay for his loss. The gold was gone. The safe had been
fruitless. Sure, the pendants brought in twenty grand, but split
three ways it amounted to nothing. Squat. “I’m talking about giving
them a little token of our appreciation.”

The brothers stared at
him, not a clue between them. Jeremiah scowled. Fools. What the
hell did they know—it wasn’t their property that had been stolen.
It hadn’t been their father’s name on the deed. It had been
his
. Ernie Ladd had
owned this property and he alone. As his only child, the entire
tract of land should have reverted to Jeremiah when the bastard
died, but it didn’t. It went to Delaney and her daughter because
they conned a bitter old man into giving it to them. They played on
his senility and conned him into believing they deserved it and
Jeremiah didn’t. What they
deserved
was to suffer. Vengeance snaked through his
heart. Delaney didn’t understand what it felt like to live in
rot-gut conditions, to get by on the power of your cunning and wit.
She’d never been abused by her parent, tossed out to the curb
without a care as to how she’d provide for herself.

No. Aunt Susannah had been the only
bright spot in Jeremiah’s life. Delaney’s mom had soft smiles and
kind words for him and everyone around her, while his father met
him at the door with a belt and a beating. It wasn’t fair that
Delaney lived in a loving home while Jeremiah had to endure a
hell-hole.

Resentment cut him raw. Jeremiah
despised his father. Ernie Ladd was nothing more than an animal, a
sorry excuse for a human being, his brother Albert no better. As he
honed in on the brothers, something shifted in his gut. Ladd
Springs belonged to him. Jeremiah deserved the property as payback
for all those years he’d had to endure living under the same roof
as his old man. Delaney might think she had taken it from him, tied
her life up into a nice pretty package with a big fancy bow, a new
husband, new hotel and probably a brand new home, same as Annie.
Wicked pleasure licked at him as he imagined Delaney’s world going
up in flames around her. “I know what we’re going to do. We’re
going to burn the place to the ground.”