Read The Texas Lawman's Last Stand Online

Authors: Delores Fossen

Tags: #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Man-Woman Relationships, #Texas, #Police, #Suspense, #Twins, #Single Fathers, #Infants Switched at Birth

The Texas Lawman's Last Stand (6 page)

BOOK: The Texas Lawman's Last Stand
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“The dark green car,” she whispered. “It’s parked up the street, about fifteen feet from mine.” Mattie was surprised at how calm her voice sounded when inside there was a hurricane of emotions and fear. Especially fear.

My God. Had Kendall sent someone after her here?

“Does the car belong to one of your neighbors?” She prayed the answer would be yes, but Bo shook his head.

“Could you run the license plate?” she asked Bo, but he was already dropping the DNA bags onto the foyer table and taking out his phone.

He called someone and a moment later rattled off the plate numbers. He also drew his gun. And they stood there together while they kept watch. There was a street-light, but because the car windows were tinted, Mattie couldn’t tell if there was anyone inside. She did know the vehicle hadn’t been there earlier.

“You’re kidding,” Bo mumbled a moment later.

His answer surprised Mattie a little, but there was certainly no humor in that remark. Worse, she saw the car door swing open.

Mattie lifted her gun and waited with her breath frozen in her lungs. The stranger kept his head down, so that she couldn’t see his face. But the tall, thin man who stepped from the vehicle had dark hair.

He was also armed.

Even in the darkness she could see the familiar bulge beneath his coat.

He eased his car door shut, as if he didn’t want to alert anyone to his presence, and he fired glances all around him. Mattie stepped back from the window so she’d hopefully be concealed, but she didn’t take her eyes off him.

Finally, she saw his face.

And she gasped.

No. This couldn’t be happening.

But that thought barely had time to register when the man whipped out a handgun. He didn’t stop there.

He came straight toward the house.

Chapter Five

Bo pushed Mattie aside so he could see what had just caused her to gasp.

Hell.

A man was walking full speed ahead toward the house. Bo didn’t have to guess who he was or what he wanted.

He wanted Mattie.

Bo had been able to figure that out from what Sergeant O’Malley had just told him. Now the question was, would Bo just hand her over?

As a cop, he was duty bound to do just that, but he was positive Mattie wouldn’t go without a fight, and he didn’t want a fight in his house with his kids just a couple of rooms away.

This was turning into being one hell of a night.

Bo positioned Mattie behind him, and he opened the door. However, he had no intention of just letting the man barge in. “The car is registered to the federal marshals,” Bo let her know. “Witness Protection.”

No gasp this time. Mattie groaned and no doubt understood why he’d responded with “You’re kidding” when Sergeant O’Malley had told Bo about the license plates.

“I know,” she mumbled.

“Larry Tolivar. U.S. Marshal,” the man said, pulling back his coat so that Bo could see the badge attached to his belt.

Bo still didn’t fully open the door.

“You know him?” Bo asked Mattie.

“Yes. He was the man in charge of my case. And I don’t trust him.”

That went without saying. Bo wasn’t sure he trusted the guy either, but he didn’t know exactly why.

Looking all around as if he expected an ambush, Tolivar came to a stop on the porch and reached for the door. Bo held it in place so the marshal couldn’t open it any farther.

“Lieutenant Bo Duggan,” he said, identifying himself. “How can I help you?”

“You can let me talk to Mattie Collier.”

The guy had the attitude of a fed, all right. Some arrogance mixed with an air of authority. Well, Bo had his own damn air of authority, and he didn’t exactly want to examine why he felt this stupid need to protect Mattie.

He wanted her out of his house. Away from the kids, especially Holly. And here he had the opportunity to do just that, but he couldn’t forget that Mattie had nearly been kidnapped and killed while in protective custody.

“Why would you think Mattie Collier was here?” Bo demanded. It was a reasonable question, especially since he’d bet his paycheck that Mattie had taken some serious security precautions before coming to his house.

Well, he hoped she had anyway.

“She’s here,” Tolivar insisted. He fired another glance over his shoulder. “And you’re to release her to my custody immediately.”

“I’m not going with you,” Mattie insisted right back.

Bo couldn’t fault her for speaking up, but he would have preferred to take care of this himself. He could have sent Tolivar on his merry way and then five minutes later done the same for Mattie. Now he was in some kind of jurisdictional contest with a federal agent.

Or was he?

Tolivar had apparently been an agent at one time, but Bo had no idea if that were still true.

Bo kept his gun ready and took out his phone again. He called Sergeant O’Malley and asked for verification. Before Tolivar could give him an outraged look, Bo used his phone to click the man’s picture, and he fired the image off to O’Malley.

“Just double-checking,” Bo remarked.

“Check all you want, but the bottom line is that Mattie Collier is coming with me. She’s in danger and needs protection.”

Mattie moved to Bo’s side. “Don’t make me laugh. The closest I’ve come to dying was when I was in your agency’s custody. I entered the program voluntarily, and now I’m voluntarily leaving it.”

She glanced at Bo, and the confidence that had been in her voice wasn’t in her eyes. Those green eyes looked to be on the verge of spilling some tears. She also seemed to be asking for his help. Great.

Now they were playing allies, when both of them knew they were enemies at heart.

“You can’t leave the program,” Tolivar insisted. “You’d be dead within an hour.”

“I’ve done pretty well on my own for the past nineteen months.”

“But there’s a new threat.” Tolivar huffed and switched his attention back to Bo. “You have to convince her to come with me.”

“Maybe I will if you can explain how you knew she was here.”

The arrogance returned to his lean expression, but then he glanced around them again. “Look, it’s not a good idea to be standing out here in the open.”

“Then talk fast,” Bo suggested. “Because I’m not letting you in unless I have confirmation you’re who you say you are.” He glanced down at his phone. “No confirmation yet. So start talking.”

Tolivar’s mouth twisted, and he mumbled some profanity. “We’ve been keeping tabs on Mattie. And you.”

Bo went still. “Me?”

The marshal nodded. “We were able to follow Mattie the day she went into labor. We were in the process of dispatching someone to return her to our custody and stay with her while she was in the hospital. Then the hostage situation happened, and we couldn’t get to her.”

“You knew I was at the hospital?” Mattie asked, her voice trembling a little now.

“We knew.” No tremble for Tolivar, but he certainly wasn’t as cocky as he had been earlier. Especially when his gaze came back to Bo. “We got access to the security feed, and we deduced that Mattie had been with or near your wife.”

Bo let each word sink in.

“We caught just a glimpse of Mattie when she was sneaking out of the San Antonio Maternity Hospital,” Tolivar continued.

“How?” Bo demanded. “Because I studied the surveillance tapes, and I didn’t see when or where she left the building.”

Tolivar glanced away. “I was there, and we had several agents watching. We thought she might try to get out before anyone could find her. And we were right. We got just a glimpse of her coming out of the service entrance.”

Bo shook his head. “The cops were watching that entrance.”

“Not by then. The gunman had just driven off with a hostage, and most of the other officers, including you, had raced into the building.”

Later, Bo would make this moron give an official statement as to why a federal marshal had seen a possible witness escape and hadn’t alerted the police.

“As I said, we got just a glimpse of Mattie as she was leaving, but we lost her soon afterward,” Tolivar added. “And because we didn’t know where she’d gone, we kept looking for flags. You, Lieutenant, were one of those flags.”

That hung in the air a few seconds before it hit Bo like a heavyweight’s fist. Mattie had a similar reaction, because she gasped and elbowed her way in front of Bo.

“Are you saying—” But she couldn’t finish.

Bo, however, could finish. He pushed Mattie back behind him and grabbed on to Tolivar’s lapels, pulling the man closer so that Bo was right in his face.

“You knew Mattie had been in the room with my wife?” Bo clarified, though he couldn’t stop the anger from raging through him.

“We deduced it after reading through all the notes of the investigation and eyewitness reports.” Tolivar’s breathing suddenly became uneven. “We knew Mattie and your wife had been in labor rooms next to each other and that they disappeared before the gunmen could round them up with the other hostages. We didn’t know exactly what went on between the women, but we thought that eventually Mattie would come to you. Maybe because of something that…happened when she was with your wife.”

Bo had to get his teeth unclenched. “Say it, you SOB. Say that you knew Mattie was pregnant when she went in the hospital but didn’t have a baby with her when she came out. Say it!”

“We didn’t know for sure what had happened,” Tolivar insisted.

But they sure as hell had guessed. “You waited, watching, for her to come to me.”

Tolivar didn’t deny it, and even if he had, Bo wouldn’t have believed him. He cursed and wanted to ram his fist into this man’s face. And he might have done just that if Mattie hadn’t pulled him back. She couldn’t have done that unless Bo had allowed it, but he was so riled that he didn’t trust himself to settle for just one punch. He wanted to clean his porch with this guy.

“Just leave,” Mattie told the marshal.

Good idea. That way, Bo could try to deal with what he had just learned. Hell. Everything he’d believed about the past thirteen months had been a lie.

Tolivar shook his head. “I can’t leave, not until I convince you to come with me.”

“You’re wasting your breath,” she assured him. She reached for the door to slam it shut.

“There’s an assassin after you,” Tolivar said, blocking her attempt to shut the door.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” And Mattie tried to shut the door again.

“An assassin who was hired today,” Tolivar continued. “This afternoon, as a matter of fact. We have reason to believe he knows about your connection to the lieutenant.”

Bo just stared at the man and didn’t know whether to laugh or curse again.

Mattie’s gaze met Bo’s, and he saw the fight in her eyes turn to pure, raw frustration. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“And you still don’t,” Bo quickly assured her. “The marshal here could have made up the assassin story to get you to go with him.”

Why the heck he was volunteering that, Bo didn’t know. He probably needed his head examined, but by God, he didn’t want this swaggering fed to ride roughshod over a woman who had already had enough people run over her.

While he was at it, Bo decided this bozo could be lying about the baby situation, as well. He didn’t believe anything that came out of Tolivar’s mouth.

“You’ll be sorry, and dead, if you don’t come back into our protection,” Tolivar warned Mattie.

That was the last straw. Bo slammed the door in the marshal’s face, locked it and set the security system.

“Is everything okay?” Rosalie called out.

Since Bo didn’t know the answer, he settled for saying, “Just stay put. I’ll be in there soon.”

First, he had to figure out how to diffuse a very big bomb.

Bo kept an eye on Tolivar. The marshal did indeed return to his vehicle, and he sped away. Bo didn’t think for one minute that this was the last they would see of him. Tolivar would likely go to his office and return with backup.

Well, maybe.

Legally, there was no way anyone in Witness Protection could force Mattie to return, since she wasn’t under any obligation to testify. But that meant Bo had to figure out what to do with her.

“Keep an eye out. See if Tolivar comes back,” Bo told Mattie.

She went over to the window, freeing him to keep an eye on the area where his children were. He also took out his phone, and this time he called his boss, Captain Shaw Tolbert. Since Shaw’s own wife had also been a maternity hostage, the captain had personal knowledge of what had gone on that day.

Hopefully, not too personal.

Hell. No one in SAPD better have known about Mattie leaving her baby behind while she went on the run.

“Bo,” Shaw answered, obviously seeing his name on the caller ID. “I just got a call from a marshal over in Witness Protection.”

They worked fast, and that meant Bo had to play catch-up. “Mattie Collier,” Bo started. He walked down the hall toward the nursery. “She’s here at my house. You happen to know why?”

“If I’m to believe what Marshal Tolivar said, Mattie gave birth to a baby girl and left the newborn with Nadine.” The captain paused. “Is it true?”

Bo cracked open the nursery door and peered inside. Rosalie was seated in the rocking chair and had a baby in the crook of each arm, much the way Nadine had been holding them when Bo had found her in the nurses’ lounge after the end of the hostage incident.

Rosalie glanced up but continued to read a Dr. Seuss book to Jacob and Holly. There was nothing unusual about that. Rosalie and Bo both read to them a lot. It was part of their nightly routine.

Tonight, it caused his heart to ache.

He’d taken moments like this for granted. He had thought that because he’d endured Nadine’s death, there wouldn’t be any more nightmares to face.

Well, he might be facing one now.

He couldn’t lose his little girl. He just couldn’t. It would be like losing Nadine all over again.

“Bo?” the captain said. “Is it true?”

“I’m not sure,” he whispered. Bo stepped back and closed the door so his conversation wouldn’t disturb story time or alarm Rosalie.

That obviously wasn’t the answer Shaw wanted to hear, because he cursed. “What do you want to do about it?”

BOOK: The Texas Lawman's Last Stand
2.84Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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