“You don’t have to babysit me,” Rayna added.
He did indeed have to do just that, and Court didn’t bother to pull any punches when he looked at her.
“Oh,” she said, and Rayna looked even more unsteady when she sank into the chair across from the desk.
“It’s not personal,” he added because he thought that might help. Help who exactly, Court didn’t know. It certainly felt personal. And it couldn’t. He couldn’t let their past—either the good or the bad parts—play into this.
He made the call to the lab, promptly got put on hold, so while he was waiting, Court took a copy of her statement that he’d printed out and passed it to her.
“Look this over and try to fill in any gaps in details,” he instructed. “For instance, do you remember hearing the sound of a vehicle when your attacker fled?”
“No.” Rayna sounded steady enough when she said that, but when Court gave her a closer look, he saw that she was blinking back tears. Waving them off, too, when she realized he’d noticed.
“I hate this,” she said. “I’ve spent three years rebuilding my life, and now it feels as if it’s falling apart again.”
Court had no idea how to respond to that, so he stayed quiet, fished out a box of tissues from the bottom drawer and passed them to her.
“I took self-defense classes,” she went on. “Firearms training. I installed a security system and don’t go anywhere without a gun. Except here, of course.”
He would have liked to have told her there was no need for one here, that she was under the roof with two deputies, but since his father had been shot just yards from here, he doubted his words would give her much assurance. Plus, there was the part about her not trusting him.
“You did all of that because you were afraid of Bobby Joe returning?” Court tried to keep his tone neutral. They already had enough battles to fight without his adding some disbelief to that.
“Not afraid,” Rayna said in a whisper. “I wanted to be able to stop him if he came after me again. I learned the hard way that I can’t rely on others to help me with that.”
Court couldn’t help himself. It was a knee-jerk reaction, but he went on the offensive, something he usually did with Rayna. “I arrested Bobby Joe after you’d had enough of him and decided to press charges,” he reminded her.
“Yes, and he spent less than an hour in jail. After that, he threatened to kill me, stormed out and then faked his death to set me up.”
If that had truly happened, then Court felt bad that he hadn’t been able to do more. But that was a big if. Most folks had liked Bobby Joe and gotten along with him just fine.
Court wasn’t one of those folks.
Bobby Joe and he had always seemed to be bristling at each other. Maybe because Rayna and Court had dated through most of high school. Bobby Joe could have been jealous, and Court figured his own bristling stemmed from the fact that Rayna had crushed his heart when she’d broken up with him.
But that was water under a very old bridge.
“Are you ever going to at least consider that Bobby Joe could be alive?” Rayna asked.
He didn’t have to figure out what his answer would be because Clyde Selby, the lab guy, finally came back on the line. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Clyde said. “I wanted to see what we had on the second woman before I spoke to you. Anyway, the first woman, the blonde, is Hallie Ramon. She is, was, a college student. She was in the system because of a drug arrest when she was eighteen. But she didn’t have any gunshot residue on her hands, so I don’t think she’s the one who shot your dad.”
Court felt the slam of disappointment. Whoever had done this was still out there.
He immediately pulled up everything he had on her. There wasn’t much. No record other than the drug possession. The woman was twenty-four and didn’t even have a traffic ticket. But then something caught his eye.
“She was a drama student.” Court hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but it certainly caught Rayna’s attention.
She moved to the edge of her seat. Court hated to disappoint her, but there likely wouldn’t be anything else from the lab. Any new info now would come from working the case, and that meant talking to Hallie’s friends to find out how she was connected to what had happened in McCall Canyon.
“You mentioned the second woman,” Court prompted Clyde.
“Yes. Janet Bolin. Egan sent me her prints, and there’s no match for her. Don’t know who she is because unlike the first woman, she’s not in the system. No driver’s license, nothing.”
Court groaned. That meant she’d lied when she’d applied for the waitress job. Had probably even used a fake ID. That was going to make it a whole lot harder. Because until they knew who she was, they wouldn’t be able to figure out how she was connected to this.
“Is she here?” someone yelled. “I want to see her now!”
Court instantly recognized the voice and knew this would be trouble. It was Mitch Hawley, Bobby Joe’s brother. And the she that he was yelling about was almost certainly Rayna.
She got right up out of the chair and whirled to face Mitch. And not just face him. She went straight out into the squad room. If she was the least bit afraid of him, she didn’t show it.
But she should have.
Unlike Bobby Joe, Mitch was not well liked, and he had a nasty temper. Court had had to arrest him on several occasions for fighting. That was why Court hurried to get between them. He didn’t mind arresting Mitch again, but he didn’t want the man hitting Rayna. Mitch was a big guy, around six-two, and he was heavily muscled. A build that suited him because he worked with rodeo bulls, but his fists could do a lot of damage.
“Why isn’t she locked up?” Mitch snarled.
“Because I haven’t done anything wrong,” Rayna answered.
“Right. You killed my brother, and now you shot his dad.” His gaze flew to Court. “Please tell me you’re not covering for her.”
“No need. There’s no GSR on her, and at the time of the shooting, someone was attacking her. What do you know about that?”
That put some fire in Mitch’s already fiery brown eyes. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“Not at the moment. Right now, I’m asking a question. Depending on how you answer it, I’ll make an accusation or not.”
Rayna shook her head, maybe asking Court not to fight her battles, but he wasn’t. With everything else going on, he hadn’t had time to work on who’d attacked Rayna, but because of their history, Mitch was an automatic suspect.
“No. I didn’t go after her. Didn’t have anything to do with this hell-storm that hit town today.” Mitch snapped toward Rayna as if ready to return some verbal fire, but he stopped, smiled. “Looks like somebody worked you over good.”
“Was it you who did it?” Court pressed, getting Mitch’s attention back on him.
The man had to get his teeth unclenched before he could speak. “No. I wouldn’t waste my time on a killer. But I can’t believe you’d just let her walk. She had motive to shoot your father.”
“Yeah, and so do you,” Court reminded him. “In fact, I seem to remember you pressing my dad and the rest of us to put Rayna behind bars. We did, and she was acquitted. End of story.”
“No, hell, no. It’s not the end.” He flung his index finger in her direction. “If she’s capable of killing my brother, she’s capable of anything.”
“Apparently not,” Rayna spoke up. “I’m not capable of convincing