managed to dance away from touching the blood on his arm. She latched on to his wrist instead.
“What’s going on?” she tried. “I’m with the sheriff’s department. I can help.”
The man reacted like she’d stung him. Suzy felt his arm muscles coil a split second before he pulled out of her grip. The sudden momentum, plus the fact that she was unaccustomed to wearing heels, threw her off balance enough that she was forced to let go or fall.
“Get away from me,” he hissed. “Where’s Mr. Callahan?”
He turned back to the house, eyes wild, but that didn’t mean she was done with him. Suzy took one step closer, pivoted enough to bring her back leg forward and kicked out at the man. The sound of fabric splitting was followed by a grunt as her foot connected with his stomach. She wasn’t trying to hurt him, but she was trying to control him.
He toppled over and hit the ground. Suzy didn’t wait for him to get his bearings. She flipped off her shoe and pressed her foot against his shoulder to keep him down.
“I’m Chief Deputy Simmons,” she announced. “You will tell me what’s going on and you will do so in a calm manner.”
The man’s eyes widened and flicked toward the house before coming back to her.
“I need to talk to Mr. Callahan,” he said. “Right now!”
He bucked up against her foot, but Suzy wasn’t having it. She applied enough pressure to keep him down.
“What you need is medical attention,” she pointed out. “You’re covered in blood.”
The man twisted beneath her weight. “No, I don’t,” he managed around his squirming. “What I need—is to—talk to—Mr. Callahan.”
Suzy’s curiosity overrode her caution. She leaned over, careful not to press against him too hard, and fixed the man with a stare he couldn’t misinterpret as something he could ignore. Even in the darkness.
“Tell me why, or I’m calling in the cavalry right now.”
This time he didn’t fight back. That didn’t mean he was calm, though—not by any means.
“They found him,” he practically yelled. “And now they’re going after him!”
Suzy tilted her head on reflex, but she never got to ask another question. Someone else beat her to it.
“Going after who? Me?”
Suzy’s hand was at her holster in a flash. The cool night air moved across her upper thigh, confirming that she had, indeed, already ripped the dress. She didn’t let up off the man as she turned to the new voice. Though it wasn’t new to her at all.
“Going after who?” James repeated. His expression was hard, but Suzy couldn’t read what emotion made it so.
The man struggled against her foot again, but this time Suzy let him up. She kept her hand on the butt of her gun.
“I don’t know,” he started, with eyes only for James. “But—but Sully gave me this address to get to you.” He fumbled a hand into his pocket. If he hadn’t been wearing tight jeans, showing he wasn’t carrying a gun, Suzy would have pounced. But now that James was here, her captive’s earlier feistiness had seemingly vanished. When he pulled out a paper and handed it to James, his hand shook. “He said it’s what you’re looking for. New information. I don’t know who they are or who they’re going after. He didn’t have time to tell me.”
Suzy didn’t have to know the situation to understand that the stakes had just risen. James looked over the paper. His eyebrows threaded together.
Maybe he didn’t know the situation, either. Confusion blanketed his expression.
“What happened to you?” he asked. This time, she heard the concern before she saw it. It was familiar in nature. James knew the man. “And who did it?”
Suzy half expected the man to remain silent, as he had with her, but again, having James there seemed the key to unlocking answers. The man took a deep breath.
“You were right,” he said. “It was too dangerous.” He raised one hand up toward the little light they had. Blood. Some was dry. Some wasn’t. “It isn’t mine,” he said. “The blood isn’t mine.”
Suzy glanced at James. He still looked as confused as she felt.
“Whose blood is it?” she had to ask.
The man’s gaze stuck to his hand.
James crouched down so he was at eye level with the other man. “Queso, whose blood is it?” Suzy didn’t have a chance to question the name. She was holding her breath for an answer. “Queso?”
James reached out and grabbed his shoulder. It did the trick in focusing him.
“It’s Sully’s,” Queso finally answered, voice low. “I don’t even know if he’s still alive. He made me run when the shooting started. He told me that getting you that address was too important.” He let out an exhalation. It deflated him. “Padre, he said you’re already running out of time.”
“Okay, I’ve heard enough.”
Suzy placed her hands up in defeat. She wasn’t about to let this show go on any more. The story was lost on her, everyone’s motivations just as hazy. She’d made a promise to herself not to willingly walk into situations exactly like the one she’d just walked into. Having a powwow with a man who had just confessed the blood he was covered in was not his own? A man who had limped from the dark of night to James Callahan’s estate instead of to the police?
It was too much.
“I’m calling this in.”
“You can’t,” Queso said hurriedly. His haze had been replaced with sheer panic in seconds. It hit every syllable in his words. “If anyone knows I talked to the cops, I’m done for.” He shook his head and turned to James. “And you’ll be out of even more time. Please, Padre, don’t let her call them in.”
Suzy grabbed her discarded high heel and tried to cool her mounting anger before it came to a head.
“I am the law,” she reminded him. “And no amount of money is going to erase that fact. Now, can you walk to the house or do we need to carry you?”
Queso flapped his mouth open and closed. James answered for him.
But not with what she wanted to hear.
“Maybe we should go inside and take a moment to think this through, Suzanne.”
If there was one thing Suzy disliked more than a man trying to tell her how to do her job—or when not to do it—it was a man calling her Suzanne.
“Either call me Suzy or Chief Deputy Simmons,” she snapped. “And there’s nothing to talk through. Something is going on, you’re in the middle of it and I’m going to get answers this time around. Honest ones.”
She grabbed Queso’s wrist and pulled up. James helped but kept talking.
“I need to go see what’s at this address. Now, not later,” he tried. “You heard him. I’m running out of time.”
Suzy whirled around as the side door banged open. The man James had been talking to before he’d gone upstairs had a towel in his hand.
“Listen, Suzy, this is my head of security, Douglas. Let him watch Queso until we know what’s here.” He shook the paper with the address on it. “Then we can do whatever you feel we need to do. Please.”
All three men looked up at her.
“You’re out of your mind,” she exclaimed. “A bloody guy limps to your party and gives you an address, and then you want to go off without anything else to go on? Even if I wasn’t law enforcement, I would think that’s crazy.”
Then