Page 18 of Outlaw Ridge: Shaw (Hard Justice: Outlaw Ridge #5)

───── ? ────

Ava was hungry, and her arm was starting to fall asleep, but she didn’t want to move. That’s because she was snuggled up next to Shaw in his bed. They were naked, warm, and very sated, and she didn’t want to do anything to disturb that.

His body was molded to hers, her back against his chest, and his arms were curled around her.

It was an amazing sensation, filled with equally amazing memories of the sex they’d had on his kitchen floor.

Of the second round they’d had when they had finally made it to his bed.

Now the fatigue had mixed with all of that pleasure, and she wanted to hold onto it for a little while.

Of course, having sex twice, even amazing sex, didn’t fix everything. Well, other than that raging need that had been in her body. It had temporarily fixed that, for sure. But even with this mind-numbing slackness settling over her, Ava knew they still had obstacles to face.

Big ones.

There was a killer still out there. The one who had been pulling Molly’s strings and forcing her to come at them with guns blazing. That person had to be found and put away. Then and only then could she focus on what the future might hold for Shaw and her.

It crushed her heart a little to think that the future might hold nothing for them.

That they might just walk away from each other at the end of this.

But that worry was for another time, another place.

For now though, the moment and the hum of her body still had her in its grips, and she wasn’t going to do anything to nudge that away.

“Your stomach is growling,” Shaw muttered.

It was, and her arm was past the point of falling asleep and had gone into the full pins and needles mode. Still, she didn’t want to give this up. But she did turn to him and felt the fresh tugging of lust when her breasts slid against his chest.

And when she saw his face.

Hard not to be filled with lust while looking at him. He’d had her hormonal number seven years ago, and he still had it now.

She kissed him. Long and deep. French. Her favorite with Shaw because she got to sample his taste. That taste flooded through her on the wave of that lust, and she would have continued to kiss him if her stomach hadn’t growled again.

Shaw laughed, making her laugh as well. Mercy, it was so easy to be happy while in this little bubble with him. But, of course, they couldn’t stay here. They had to eat and then face the world.

Or rather the investigation.

That’d been the plan when they’d returned to his house.

Eat, rest, investigate, and while they’d sort of managed a little of the second one, the others hadn’t been touched.

Even if the food could possibly wait, it wasn’t a good idea for them not to at least check and see if there were any new updates from Owen.

Since it was going on midnight, it was possible there were reports in from the CSIs who’d processed the scene at the depot. Perhaps something about Taylor, too. In other words, information that Shaw and she needed.

Groaning, Ava moved away from him. Her body did a quick protesting whine at the loss of heat.

The loss of her feeling his body against hers.

But she did get a bonus by seeing a naked Shaw climb out of bed and head to the bathroom.

That peepshow turned up the lust some more, but this time she did push it aside.

Ava went into the kitchen, located her clothes that were scattered all over the floor, and she started getting dressed. She had barely finished that process when Shaw came in.

Naked.

She felt her pulse go wild. Pretty much the rest of her did, too, but again, she had to push those reactions aside.

“Eat, rest, investigate,” she murmured, going to the fridge and taking out the stuff for sandwiches. She began fixing them while he put on his clothes, covering himself inch by inch.

“Gus, do I have any new email reports?” Shaw called out to his security app while he dressed.

“Two,” the app promptly replied. “The CSI team reports they’ve found no fingerprints or trace evidence at the depot, but that Molly’s clothes are in the process of being tested.”

Good. Maybe they’d find something there.

“Report two is from the medical examiner,” the app continued as Shaw stepped over to help her with the sandwiches. The moment they were done, they both started to eat. “Molly appears to have been injected several times with an unknown substance. Tox screen results should arrive by 0600 hours.”

“Thanks, Gus,” Shaw said, and he looked at Ava. “Sounds as if she was drugged. Any idea what she could have been given to make her more…compliant?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Just a guess but maybe a psychoactive drug like heroin could alter her thoughts, mood, and behavior.”

Ava paused, sickened at the possibility of Molly being injected with something like that. “Of course, the drugs could have been used to sedate her while the prep was being done for the attack at the depot.”

That seemed more likely to her since the killer probably wouldn’t have wanted Molly “strung out” during the attack. Best to have her functioning and desperate to save her child. Unless…

“What if the killer’s goal wasn’t to have Molly gun us down but to have Molly dead so it would appear that she was the one who’d done the murders?” Ava threw out there for Shaw to consider.

Of course, there was the problem with Molly’s ex and daughter having been taken, but it was possible the cops wouldn’t have believed that the abduction had happened. But it had.

Hadn’t it?

Ava let that question settle in. And she didn’t care for a possibility that popped into her head. “Taylor could have covered for Molly by faking the abduction,” she suggested. “And now the question is, why would he have done that?”

She didn’t expect Shaw to have a quick answer but was surprised when he did. “Maybe to save his daughter from being branded as the child of a killer.”

Yes. It could have played out like that, but then she had to come full circle back to why Molly would have murdered.

Did it have something to do with Grant? Or had Molly truly believed that Dell was innocent?

Ava didn’t know the answers to those questions, but they were a reminder of how important it was for them to continue investigating until they got to the truth.

Shaw and she had just finished the sandwiches when his phone rang. Everything inside Ava automatically tensed. At this hour, this likely wasn’t good news.

“It’s the dispatcher at the station,” he relayed to her, and he put his phone on speaker.

“Lorelei Kane just called the station about three minutes ago,” the dispatcher, Aaron Sanchez, was quick to say. “She’s no longer on the line, but the call was recorded. I’ll play it for you.”

That only increased the tension in her body, and Ava held her breath, waiting and hoping this bad feeling in her gut was wrong.

“I’m Lorelei Kane,” the woman blurted, her recorded voice shooting through the room. “I need to speak to Shaw and Ava right away.”

“I can take a message and pass it along to them,” Sanchez said.

Lorelei groaned, and it sounded as if she made a hoarse sob. “No. I have to talk to them now. I need their phone number.”

“I’m sorry I can’t give you that,” the dispatcher explained, “but I can try to transfer your call to one of them.”

“Do that,” Lorelei snapped. “Do it now before it’s too late.” There was panic in her voice. Maybe real. Maybe not. Ava couldn’t tell. “Make it fast,” Lorelei snapped after only a couple of seconds.

The dispatcher didn’t get a chance to respond. Or put the call through. Because there was a horrific sound. A blood curdling scream from Lorelei before the line of her phone went dead.

“That’s it,” Sanchez said. “I tried to call her back, but I got no answer. It went straight to voicemail. Should I alert the sheriff?”

“Yes,” Shaw told him. “And I’ll try to trace the call. What’s her number?”

After Sanchez rattled that off, Shaw ended the call and hurried into his home office where he booted up a laptop.

He entered the number and tapped it into the program that Ava thought would triangulate the location of Lorelei’s phone.

Normally, the police would need a search warrant for something like that, but Lorelei’s scream could indicate she was in danger.

This could also be some kind of ruse.

No way would Ava trust anything Lorelei said or did. Not after those venomous posts she’d made about those connected to her sister’s death. But that wasn’t absolute proof that Lorelei was guilty of, well, anything. And that’s why her call and that scream had to be checked out.

Shaw’s phone rang again, and Ava saw Owen’s name on the screen. He answered the call on speaker and then continued to do the computer search.

“Anything yet?” Owen immediately asked.

“Give me a second,” Shaw muttered. “Yeah, the call came from out on Sadler Road, a stone’s throw from the depot.”

“What the hell was Lorelei doing there?” Owen asked, and Ava was wondering the same thing.

“Is the crime scene secure?” Shaw asked.

“Should be. I have a deputy posted out there. Hold on. Let me check on her,” Owen added. “It’s Lily Oliver, the newbie.”

That spiked Ava’s worry. If Lorelei had gone to the depot to maybe plant something incriminating or retrieve something that would incriminate her, she could have had a run-in with the deputy.

And maybe killed her.

Ava hated to think the worst about the woman, but she had equally serious doubts about Valerie and even Grant. Yes, Grant had been one of the victims, that was true. However, with everything else they knew about him, he could have perhaps faked his abduction to deflect blame from himself.

“How experienced is this newbie?” Ava had to ask.

“Very,” Shaw assured her. “Former military, former Strike Force. Owen convinced her to take the deputy position.”

“Lily’s fine,” Owen said several moments later after he came back on the line. “And she hasn’t seen Lorelei or anyone else tonight.”

That was good. And bad. Because the woman was near there, and if a killer was truly after her, she could bring that danger right to the deputy.

“I’m going to try to track Lorelei’s phone again,” Shaw insisted. “I might be able to figure out where she’s going.”

“Do that,” Owen agreed, “and I’ll get some backup out to Lily just in case.”

The moment Owen ended the call, Shaw’s phone sounded with a text. Ava’s heart went to her knees when she got one as well. She hated to look at the screen. Hated to see what she feared would be there. But she made herself look.

And she saw the words that were the start of another trip to hell.

Let’s play a game .

───── ? ────