The Marshal's Hostage - By Delores Fossen Page 0,11

any sign of Owen or his men. Joelle tried to check, too, but her main focus was getting Dallas through what she was about to tell him.

It would change everything.

“Owen has a knife locked away in a safe-deposit box,” she said. Dallas made a mild sound of interest and scooped her up, taking her toward the shed. “He said he got it from Webb’s office the night he disappeared,” she continued. “That it was lying on the floor and he took it.”

“Good, now I can add petty theft to the charges I’ll file against Owen,” Dallas mumbled. He opened the shed and climbed onto the four-wheeler with her, positioning her in his lap.

“The knife has Webb’s blood on it,” Joelle added. “And fingerprints. Yours.”

That stopped him from starting the engine. Even though everything was still swimming in and out of focus, Joelle tried to catalog every bit of his reaction. He blinked, drew in his breath and then shook his head.

“Owen’s lying,” Dallas concluded.

Joelle had had the same reaction when Owen had first dropped the bombshell on her. “He’s not. Not about this, anyway. I had the knife tested. It’s your prints, all right. Webb’s blood, too. His DNA was in the database because his wife had provided a hair sample to the cops when he went missing.”

With her arm and shoulder against his chest, she could feel his heart thudding. Hers was, too. But she could also see the wheels turning in his head, and Dallas no doubt knew what conclusions she’d reached.

She hadn’t wanted to go there, but the evidence was pretty damning.

“I had a friend run the tests,” she explained. “It’s all under wraps, and it’ll stay secret—”

“Owen somehow faked the prints,” Dallas interrupted. “Maybe the blood, too.”

Joelle shook her head. “My friend was thorough, and the prints were badly smeared, but they have the pressure impressions consistent with the knife being in your hand.” She had to pause again. “And the blood, well, it’s consistent with the blade being plunged into Webb’s body.”

She didn’t have to remind him that there had indeed been knife marks found on Webb’s ribs.

Dallas cursed. “You think I killed Webb.”

Joelle hated that she even had to ask the question. “Did you?” But she didn’t wait for an answer, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it anyway. “Webb was a horrible excuse for a human being. He deserved to die, and if he’d lived, he would have eventually killed you or one of the others.”

Dallas grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her up so they were facing each other. “I did not murder Webb.”

Everything inside her went still, and she stared at Dallas, trying to figure out if that was true.

“I have no reason to lie to you,” he added.

He did indeed have a reason because she would be duty bound to report his confession to the authorities. But she saw nothing in his eyes, his expression or his body language to indicate he’d killed Jonah Webb.

“Oh, God,” she mumbled.

“Yeah. Let me guess—Owen said if you married him that he’d keep the knife hidden away, that I wouldn’t be arrested for murder.”

She managed a nod.

But Dallas only managed a stare. He looked at her as if the moon had just come crashing down on her head. “Why the hell would you have done that for me?” he asked. But as she’d done, he didn’t give her a chance to answer. “You left me sixteen years ago without so much as a word as to where you were going or why I was no longer good enough for you.”

“It wasn’t like that,” she blurted out.

He waited, obviously hoping she’d explain further, but Joelle just shook her head. This was not the time to rehash the past, but she owed him something. “I just wanted you to have a fresh start.”

That didn’t ease the anger in his eyes. “And that couldn’t have happened if you’d stayed?”

“No.” And Joelle had no doubts about that. “You always talked about making something of yourself. About how important that was—”

“I could have made something of myself without you breaking things off.”

“Not true,” she argued. “You would have given me the time and energy you needed to devote to getting your life together. You’d been at Rocky Creek for nearly five years, you were about to turn eighteen and you’d just gotten a scholarship to college. I had another year of high school that I’d spend with a foster family over a hundred miles from where