Page 2 of Deputies Under Fire (Renegade Canyon #2)

Hell.

That was the one word that kept repeating through Rory’s head. And he was certain it would keep repeating as the night dragged on.

A woman was now unconscious and barely clinging to life. His father’s ex-girlfriend. Rory would need answers about that. Answers, too, as to why Brenda had been left here in this barn, where Mellie’s body had been found.

Were the two attacks connected?

The odds were yes, they were. It was too much of a coincidence for it to be otherwise. And that meant the connection would lead straight back to his father, Ike.

So, yeah.

That hell would be echoing in his head for a while.

With Eden right by his side, Rory kept watch around them as the EMTs eased Brenda into the ambulance. The moment they had her secured inside, they hit the sirens and started for the hospital.

Fast.

Because every second was going to count now. The woman was hanging on by a thread.

He and Eden hurried to the cruiser that they’d left off the old ranch trail and jumped in so they could follow.

If they got lucky, Brenda would regain consciousness and be able to tell them who’d attacked her and put her in the barn.

If she named his father… But Rory stopped and decided he’d cross that bridge once he came to it.

For now, he drove toward the Renegade Canyon Hospital, glancing around to see if there were any indications of who’d brought Brenda here.

The CSIs would arrive soon and do a thorough check, but the scene had already been disturbed, first with Eden’s and his arrival, and then with the EMTs and ambulance.

Maybe potential evidence hadn’t been destroyed that would help them ID Brenda’s attacker.

He glanced at Eden, who was pulling up some info on her phone, and he saw the slight tremble in her hands. A tremble she wouldn’t want him to notice. She was a tough cop.

A damn good one, too.

But that didn’t mean she could tamp down the basic human emotion of grief. She’d basically just relived one of her worst nightmares by walking into the barn and seeing another bleeding woman. At least this time the woman was alive. That hadn’t been the case with Mellie.

“I figure you’re about to ask me if I’m okay,” Eden murmured while the cruiser bobbled over the seriously uneven surface of the ranch trail. “Please don’t, and I won’t ask you the same.”

Good. Because neither of them was anywhere in the okay range right now. She was fighting those traumatic memories, and he was dealing with the firestorm he was about to face. He got started on that firestorm by giving the voice command to make a call to his father.

As usual, Rory had to steel himself for any kind of contact with his dad. Things hadn’t been civil between them for a long time.

Rory supposed if he had to put his finger on when the rift started, it would have been when his mother transferred ownership of the ranch to Rory’s older brother, Dutton, when he turned twenty-one.

Rory had been just sixteen then, but he’d had no trouble choosing his brother’s side over their father’s.

Ike hadn’t taken that well at all.

Of course, Rory had known that Ike could be a vindictive, mean-as-a-snake SOB. Those traits hadn’t improved over the years, and they’d escalated big-time when Rory had become a cop. Then, Ike’s venom had gone up even more when Rory’s mom had died nearly a year ago.

And again, when Eden had given birth to Rory’s baby.

Ike hadn’t learned that news until the day Eden had given birth since neither Eden nor Rory had felt the need to tell him sooner. No way did Ike approve of Rory having a baby with one of Mellie’s foster-home kids. Or “brats,” as Ike was fond of calling them.

The call to his father connected, and it rang and rang and rang. Just when Rory thought it would go to voice mail, Ike finally answered. “What the hell do you want?” he snarled, obviously seeing Rory’s number on his caller ID.

“I need you to come into the police station,” Rory answered, making sure he sounded exactly like the cop that he was. “Be there in one hour.”

That should give him enough time to check on Brenda, arrange for a reserve deputy to guard her, get a search warrant for Ike’s house and vehicles and then prep for what would be the interview from hell.

Ike laughed, and it wasn’t from humor. “And why would I do that?”

“Because someone tried to kill Brenda Watford. She’s alive and talking.” Yeah, the last part was a lie, but he wanted to rattle Ike. Or rather, it would rattle him if he’d been the one who had actually attacked her. “Be at the police station in one hour, or I’ll be out to arrest you.”

With that, Rory ended the call, figuring that Ike might just try to ring him right back. He didn’t. So he was probably calling his lawyer instead or trying to find out anything he could about Brenda’s condition.

“I’ll text the hospital chief to put a lid on any and everything about Brenda’s condition. Or anything she might say if she regains consciousness,” Eden explained, already typing the message. “You know Ike will probably show up there.”

“I know,” he agreed.

No way would he let Ike get anywhere near Brenda, but it would mean a showdown of sorts at the hospital. Then again, just about every face-to-face meeting with his father qualified as a showdown.

Rory heard the swooshing sound to indicate she’d sent the text to the hospital, and Eden continued typing on her phone. Like him, she was also keeping check around them in case Brenda’s attacker was still in the area.

But there were no signs of anyone or anything out of the ordinary.

“All right, here’s the background on Brenda,” Eden said, reading from the report she’d obviously just accessed.

“Brenda Elise Watford, no police record. Owner of Watford Real Estate in San Antonio. Blond hair and blue eyes. Five-three, one hundred and twenty pounds, according to her driver’s license.

Divorced, no kids. Aged forty-one.” She stopped, looked at him.

“That’s a big age difference between Ike and her. Ike’s what…seventy?”

Rory nodded. “He will be in a few weeks.”

But it was hard for him to think of Ike as a senior citizen since he was a big, imposing man who still had a lot of muscle on him.

Ike was plenty strong enough to have lifted a woman Brenda’s size and carried her into that barn.

Then again, Brenda could have been lured there and attacked, which would have meant that no carrying had been involved.

“Ike’s girlfriends are usually a lot younger than he is,” Rory added on to that. “And, yes, he had those girlfriends even when he was married to my mom. His relationships don’t last long, though, because the women seem to grasp his true colors soon enough and dump him.”

She stayed quiet a moment. “You said the last time you saw Brenda that Ike threatened to kill her.”

Rory had known this was coming, and what he had to add to that comment was going to make Ike look even guiltier. “About six weeks ago, I went to the ranch to visit Dutton.”

No need for him to explain that while Dutton owned Towering Oaks, he didn’t live in the main house. Dutton had had his own place built, and it was as far away from Ike as possible, while still remaining on the actual ranch.

“I have to drive past the main house to get to Dutton’s,” Rory went on, “and that day, I saw Ike and Brenda in the driveway. They were clearly arguing, and I stopped when I saw Brenda slap and push him.”

That put some fresh alarm on Eden’s face. “Did Ike slap and push her back?”

“Not that I saw. But I don’t know exactly what went on before I arrived.

” He paused, gathered his breath. “Ike told me to get lost.” Of course, his father had added a lot of profanity to go along with that barked order.

“I stayed put and talked to Brenda. She was fuming and said that Ike was turning her clients against her, that he was doing a smear campaign to ruin her name and that he’d even leaked some risqué photos of her on the internet. ”

“Did he?” Eden asked.

“Someone did. Brenda was in her underwear, doing what I guess you’d call a drunken sexy dance.

Maybe for Ike.” Though Rory definitely didn’t like to think about that.

“Maybe for someone else. But Brenda was convinced Ike had been the one to post them. I didn’t get the chance to question her more on that because Ike and she got into a shouting match with some name calling and threats. ”

“Threats?” Eden repeated. “Like Ike saying he would kill her?”

“That and other things. Brenda said she was going to start her own smear campaign and that when she was done with him, Ike would regret he’d ever met her.

” Rory recalled the rage he’d seen on the woman’s face.

Then again, there had been fury on Ike’s face, too.

“That’s when Ike said she’d better back off or she’d end up dead. ”

Eden didn’t seem the least bit surprised by that.

Then again, she’d heard Ike issue similar threats to Mellie when they’d gotten into disputes, usually when Ike accused one of Mellie’s brats of trespassing on the ranch.

Of course, the irony was Ike didn’t own the ranch, and Dutton would have never caved to file trespassing charges against anyone in the foster home.

“Did Brenda back off?” Eden asked.

“I’m not sure.” Hopefully, that was something they’d soon find out from the woman herself.

They finally reached the end of the trail and got onto the main road. The ambulance was able to pick up some speed. So was Rory, and he knew it wouldn’t be long now before they reached the hospital.

“All right,” Eden said, typing on her phone. “I’ll start a deep dive on Brenda and go through all her social media.”

That was one of Eden’s specialties—data mining to come up with info and insights into victims, suspects and persons of interest. She’d no doubt honed that skill while working as a detective at SAPD, but she’d also developed some solid investigative expertise there as well.

And she would go at Ike with both barrels loaded.