The Marshal's Hostage - By Delores Fossen Page 0,58

call. Still leaning over her, Dallas hit the answer button, and without actually picking up the phone, he put the call on speaker. “What the hell is wrong now?” he greeted.

Joelle hoped that a miracle would happen and that Lindsey would say she had good news. That their names had been miraculously cleared. But Lindsey didn’t answer at all. Not with words, anyway. The woman was sobbing.

Dallas rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why the tears?”

Lindsey said something, but Joelle couldn’t make out what. The woman’s sobs got worse.

“Lindsey?” Joelle tried. “You have to tell us what’s wrong.”

“It’s Owen.” Joelle heard that part loud and clear, but it took several more moments of loud crying for Lindsey to continue. “I went to his place, and he was packing. He was planning to run out on all of us. On me.”

Dallas grumbled more profanity, got off the bed and started to dress. Joelle did the same, though the only thing she had in the room was her nightshirt. Still, she’d have to dress because it was apparent that Owen was about to skip bail.

“Did you call the sheriff or the marshals’ office?” Dallas asked.

“No,” Lindsey answered. “I shot him.”

Dallas had been about to step into his jeans, but he froze. So did Joelle. “Who did you shoot?” he demanded.

“Owen.” The sobs turned to hysterics now. “I shot him, and he might be dying.”

Joelle looked at Dallas to see if he believed what Lindsey was saying. He apparently did. So did Joelle. It was possible that Lindsey was faking all the crying, but it seemed genuine. Plus she suspected that Lindsey wasn’t exactly emotionally stable right now.

“Where are you?” Dallas asked. He continued to dress while he waited for Lindsey to answer.

“Owen’s house in town. I didn’t know what to do. Who to call.”

“An ambulance would have been a good start,” Dallas answered. “Hang up right now and call 911. Tell them exactly what you just told me.”

“I will.” She paused again, and Joelle could hear someone mumbling in the background. “You should come out here. Owen says he has some things to tell Joelle and you.”

“What things?” Dallas demanded.

“Something about Jonah Webb’s murder.”

And with that, Lindsey ended the call. Hopefully so she would phone an ambulance. However, Dallas didn’t trust her to do that because he motioned for Joelle to get dressed, and he made the call himself and then asked the dispatcher to give him an update on Owen’s condition as soon as possible.

Joelle hurried, and she tried to focus just on getting dressed, but the thoughts racing through her head slowed her down. She had to consider that this was some sort of ruse by Lindsey. But what if it wasn’t?

What if Owen really was dying?

After everything he’d done and tried to do to Dallas and to her, Joelle despised the man, but she truly hoped that Lindsey hadn’t murdered him.

She was still dressing when Dallas appeared in the doorway. “I told Kirby’s nurse what’s going on. Harlan is walking over here now to stay with them while I’m gone. I’d like for you to stay here, too.”

Harlan was Dallas’s foster brother and a fellow marshal. A man she trusted as she did all his brothers. From what she’d learned in her background checks, he lived in a house on the grounds of the ranch, which meant it shouldn’t take him long to arrive.

Joelle shook her head. “I want to go with you. I want to find out what’s going on.”

He gave her a flat look, then lifted his cell. “That’s what phones are for.”

Since he looked ready to leave without hearing her argument, Joelle caught his arm. “If Owen’s alive, I’d like to hear what he has to say. By the time we get into town, he’ll be at the hospital anyway.”

“But I’ll want to question Lindsey,” he argued. “And I don’t want you anywhere near her, especially if she tried to murder Owen.”

“Fine.” Joelle wasn’t exactly thrilled to be near Lindsey, either. “Talk to her. You can do that after we see Owen and after the sheriff has taken her into custody.”

She braced herself to continue the argument, but Dallas glanced at the time on his phone. The seconds were ticking away fast.

And Owen could be dying while they debated this.

Joelle wasn’t sure the man had any revelations about Webb’s killer, but at this point, he was their best shot at learning the truth. Because she was almost positive that Owen had either murdered Webb himself or