Page 3 of Outlaw Ridge: Shaw (Hard Justice: Outlaw Ridge #5)

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While he waited for Owen to finish his latest call to the hospital, Shaw was having a fierce battle with himself. One he felt that he was on the verge of losing.

He could still feel the adrenaline pumping through him. It was causing his heart to race and his breathing to rev up. That meant there was a stew of sensations and emotions whirling around inside him, and they were coming at him so fast that it was hard to tamp down much of anything.

Ava was standing in the corner of Owen’s office opposite from Shaw, and he had no doubts, none, that she was dealing with the same hurricane of sensations. The memories mixed with the fresh fear.

And the realization that this wasn’t a hoax.

Dell might not be at the actual helm for this latest riddle, but someone sure as hell was. Which meant Ava and he were dealing with a batshit killer.

Again.

Owen finally finished his call, and he immediately made glances at both of them. Immediately cursed, too.

“You both looked wired,” Owen remarked. “If sitting down will help, do it. Try to level out.”

Neither Ava nor Shaw moved. “What’d you find out in that phone call?” Shaw asked.

“Declan and Aiden are both there at the hospital, and they managed to get an ID on the man. His wallet was still in his pocket.” Owen paused. “It’s Donovan Carrick.”

Well, hell. Shaw hadn’t expected that. Why had the former homicide detective been targeted?

“Donovan visited Dell,” Ava spoke up. “Lorelei, too. It was on our to-do list to contact them and ask them why they went to the prison.” Fresh alarm shot through her eyes. “Someone needs to get in touch with Lorelei now to make sure she’s safe.”

“On it,” Owen said, taking out his phone again. Shaw listened as he contacted Reed to tell him that they needed to speak to Lorelei ASAP.

But Lorelei was just the start.

“Since this asshole has pulled Ava, Donovan, and me into this,” Shaw told Owen once he was finished with Reed, “then everyone connected to the original investigation needs to be alerted.”

Owen sighed, made a sound of agreement and fired off a text. “I’ll put some Strike Force guys on that,” he explained as he typed.

That was one of the huge advantages of owning a multi-million dollar security agency and being a small-town sheriff. Owen, just by being Owen, had resources that most police departments didn’t have.

“All right,” Owen said after he’d sent the text. “The original case files are on the way, but go ahead and give me a thumbnail of each of the riddles from seven years ago.”

Ava and Shaw exchanged a glance, and so many things passed between them.

This moment filled with the hot racing adrenaline.

The past jammed with all the details that neither of them could forget.

Shaw knew that, like him, Ava could dole out a whole hell of a lot more than mere thumbnails.

They had memories galore when it came to Dell and his crimes.

“The first was seven years and one month ago,” Shaw started.

“It was when Lorelei and her sister, Melissa, were taken to the art exhibit. Lorelei lived. Melissa didn’t.

” He paused. Had to. “The second riddle was I wear a thousand faces, but never my own. You can see through me but never know me. What am I? ”

“The answer was a mirror,” Ava said, taking up the explanation.

“Needless to say, there are a lot of mirrors, but with plenty of behind the scenes help from Strike Force and Donovan, we managed to pinpoint the location as what was advertised as the largest fun house mirror in Texas. It was at an amusement park in downtown San Antonio. The park was closed for renovations, but Dell had gotten in, and the victim, Adam Fischer, had been taped to the back of the mirror.”

Shaw got the motherload of all flashbacks.

Of Adam’s distorted face in that mirror.

It’d looked like something straight out of a horror show.

And was. Dell had removed enough of the reflective backing of the mirror so that Adam had been clearly visible the moment Ava and he had stepped into the place.

“Adam was dead,” Shaw supplied. “And so was the next victim. Sandra Hernandez. Her riddle was I can bring back the past, but I can’t change it. I can hold the future, but only for a moment. What am I?”

“The answer was time,” Ava said. “And we found her shoved into a grandfather clock that was in the antique store that Sandra owned. The shop name was Clocks, and there’d been a break-in reported there earlier in the day.”

Of course, Ava and he hadn’t made that connection right away. It’d taken them two days to find the right “time” clue. Two days of what had to have been hell for Sandra before she’d finally died.

“The next riddle was I am not alive, but I grow. I do not have lungs, yet I need air. I have no mouth, and yet I roar. What am I?” Ava went on.

“Fire was the answer. We found Nathan Belmont, a retired school teacher, buried beneath the rubble of a fire that’d destroyed a couple of warehouses. He was alive,” she added.

Owen had been jotting down notes, but he looked up. “Any idea where Nathan Belmont is now?”

Shaw shook his head, and Ava indicated the same. That prompted Owen to send another text. No doubt to prioritize locating the man.

“The next riddle was about darkness,” Ava continued. “That led us, eventually, to one of those trendy restaurants where people eat in the dark. Dell’s fourth victim, Amy Draper, had been stuffed into a seating bench.”

Where she’d apparently been for nearly three days. Amy was dead, bringing Dell’s death tally to four.

“Then, the final riddle was Ava,” Shaw spelled out, hoping he didn’t have to speak the details of that.

Owen stayed quiet a moment, maybe processing everything they’d just told him. “Do you know why Dell targeted these people?”

“They’d all slighted or wronged Dell in some way,” Shaw said.

“Minor ways. Flunking him in high school algebra. Turning him down for a date. Being rude to him. Giving him a speeding ticket. After Dell was arrested at the scene of Ava’s rescue, the cops searched his place and found all sorts of sick notes and plans. ”

“Yes,” Ava agreed, the strain obvious in her voice.

“His next victim would have been a prosecutor, Grant Huxley, who had put Dell’s sister in jail.

Ironically, he ended up putting Dell there, too, where I hope he’ll stay for good.

” Her gaze met Shaw’s. “Have you heard that Dell’s lawyers are pressing hard for a new appeal? ”

“No,” Shaw admitted. But it didn’t surprise him. “From the very start, Dell has clamored on about being set up for Ava’s kidnapping,” he explained to Owen.

“Any doubts about his guilt?” Owen wanted to know.

“Not after what we saw in his house, and the fact that his DNA was found at the scene where Ava was taken,” Shaw said. And he cursed that little niggle of doubt. Cursed that Dell could have possibly been set up. “If he was set up,” he amended. “Then, this might not be a copycat.”

“Yeah,” Owen muttered, then added, “Shit.”

“I don’t know if it means anything,” Ava said, breaking the silence that had settled over the office, “but this last riddle was much easier than the original ones. Anyone who knows me would have understood that I would instantly recognize what was on my grandmother’s grave.”

True. But Shaw didn’t know what to make of that. Had the killer given them something easy to start round two of the game?

“Since Grant Huxley was the next name on Dell’s list,” Owen said, “we’ll make sure he gets a heads up about what’s happening. Is he still a prosecutor?”

“Yes,” Ava verified, and Shaw realized she was searching that on her phone. “And he just announced that he’s running for the state senate.”

Shaw didn’t get a chance to give that much thought because Deputy Lexa Mullen stepped into the doorway of the office.

“You have a visitor,” Lexa said not to Owen but to Shaw. “And she says it’s important, that she needs to talk to you right away. Her name is Lorelei Kane.”

That tightened every muscle in Shaw’s body. “I’ll see her,” he couldn’t say fast enough.

Shaw’s gaze fired back to Ava’s, and he could see she was just as surprised and unnerved by this visit as he was. The timing meant…well, he didn’t know what the heck it meant yet, but it couldn’t be good.

Several moments later, Lexa ushered the tall brunette into the room.

It was Lorelei all right, and the seven years obviously hadn’t been kind to her.

Before Dell, her sister and she had been martial arts instructors.

Top-notch shape and confident. That had perhaps been the reason Dell had hit on Melissa and had gotten seriously pissed off when Melissa had turned him down.

Shaw saw little of that confidence in Lorelei’s tense brown eyes now. Saw little of the young woman she’d once been. But then, Dell had left his mark on everyone he’d touched.

“Ava, Shaw,” Lorelei murmured in a pseudo greeting before she held up her phone. “I got a text. A riddle.”

Shaw groaned. Hell. What was this about? The killer hadn’t sent riddles to previous victims in the past.

He stepped closer. So did Ava and Owen. And they looked at the screen. It was the same text Ava had gotten—the riddle with instructions to go to Outlaw Ridge PD.

“I had my phone turned off for training sessions,” the woman said, her voice a tangle of those nerves that had gotten to Ava and him, too. “When I saw the text, I drove straight here. Is Dell after me?” she blurted.

“We don’t know,” Shaw had to admit, and he went with something that could be crucial. “Tell us about your visit to Dell in prison.”

Alarm shot through her eyes. “I went to see him to try to find some peace. I recently joined a victims’ support group, and the therapist suggested that I try to confront my fears. My past.”

Going to see Dell was like a baptism by fire. A worthless one. Because Dell wasn’t the sort to dole out any peace.

“Is my visit what set him off?” Lorelei’s voice took on a high pitch, and her words practically ran together. “Is that why he’s after me? He wants to finish what he started seven years ago? He wants me dead like my sister?”

Shaw would have attempted to answer those questions, but Lorelei crumpled, sagging down to the floor, and she broke into a sob.

Ava and Shaw went to her, stooping down to try to soothe her just as Owen’s phone rang. Owen didn’t put the call on speaker, but one look at his boss’ face told Shaw that whatever he was hearing wasn’t good.

And it wasn’t.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Owen said to the caller, and he took a deep breath before he shifted his attention to Shaw and Ava. “That was the hospital. Donovan Carrick is dead.”

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