The Marshal's Hostage - By Delores Fossen Page 0,68
He didn’t dare tell her that it’d taken a dozen years off his life when he thought she’d been hurt. So instead of words that were pretty much useless, Dallas leaned over and kissed her.
Clayton made a sound of amusement. Harlan grunted.
Dallas ignored them and kissed Joelle anyway.
When he eased back, he saw a little heat mixed in with all the worry.
“I had help,” Joelle said, repeating what she heard Sarah say. “What do you think Sarah meant?”
“You’re sure you understood her correctly?” Dallas asked.
“She did,” Clayton said. “I heard it, too.”
Great. That was not the verification Dallas wanted. He needed this put to rest. Sarah had killed her abusive husband. End of story.
But maybe it wasn’t.
“You believe Sarah had an accomplice?” Joelle’s voice was tentative. Clearly, she didn’t want that to be true, either.
“I don’t know,” Dallas said. But there were some things that didn’t fit right in this. “According to the blood the CSIs found, it looks as if someone dragged Webb down a flight of stairs. And he was buried over a mile away from Rocky Creek.”
“Webb was a big man,” Clayton added. “It would have been next to impossible for a woman Sarah’s size to do that all on her own.”
“Next to impossible,” Dallas repeated. “But still doable.”
Maybe.
Harlan made a hmm sound that rumbled in his chest. “I’m thinking we shouldn’t be borrowing trouble. Especially that kind of trouble.”
Before Dallas or the others could agree with that, Wyatt appeared in the doorway. “You all right?” he asked to no one in particular.
“We are now,” Clayton mumbled. “Kirby, too.”
Dallas was about to demand to know what was in those reports they were waiting on, but he frowned when his gaze landed on Wyatt.
Like Harlan, Wyatt was tall, around six-four, and right now he looked more than a little imposing since he had a busted lip, a butterfly bandage over a mean-looking cut above his eye, and blood all over the front of his shirt.
“You all right?” Dallas repeated, eyeing the blood. “I thought you were on prisoner transport duty before Saul called you back in to help with this Webb mess.”
“I was. The prisoners didn’t exactly cooperate. Don’t worry, they look a lot worse than I do,” Wyatt joked. And despite the busted lip, Wyatt flashed Joelle one of his killer smiles. “How about you? My brothers taking good care of you?”
She nodded, and her mouth quivered as she tried to return a smile, but it didn’t quite happen. “We’re just anxious to hear what’s going on.”
“Yeah, well, be prepared to hear a lot. Saul’s still tied up with the locals, but he gave me the go-ahead to start things off.” Wyatt sat on the edge of Saul’s desk and added a where do I start? huff.
“All of you have been checked out by the medics, right?” he asked.
They nodded, one by one. Joelle and Dallas had some bruises, one particularly bad one on Joelle’s right cheekbone that made Dallas want to punch the daylights out of the person who’d put it there. But he knew it could have been much worse.
“Saul’s orders are that Dallas, Clayton and Harlan will take a few days of paid leave while he sorts through all this,” Wyatt explained. “Declan, Slade and me will be on other duties out of the county. In other words, they don’t want us within smelling distance of the wrap-up.”
“You’re still thinking we did something wrong?” Dallas asked.
Wyatt shook his head. “I’m thinking you did a lot of things right, including catching a killer. But there’ll be a mess of paperwork. And Saul doesn’t want anyone saying that any of you had a hand in giving it the right kind of spin to benefit Kirby or anyone else.”
That wasn’t an unreasonable request. Besides, Dallas didn’t mind having a few days off to settle things with Joelle. He hoped that would mean coaxing her back to his bed. He’d been damn lucky to get her there the night before, but that luck might not hold.
“First of all, Sarah Webb isn’t dead,” Wyatt went on. “But she did go into cardiac arrest during surgery and is in a coma. The docs aren’t sure if she’ll come out of it, but things aren’t looking good.”
That punched at Dallas harder than he thought, and Joelle gave his hand another gentle squeeze. He’d never shot a woman before, and he prayed he never have to again.
“I understand Sarah confessed to her husband’s murder before Dallas had to shoot her.” Wyatt wasn’t