to anything Quentin wanted. “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” she said.
Quentin cursed again. “I can tell a put-off when I hear it, and you’re making a big mistake.”
That sounded like a threat, and Clayton’s glare heated up.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Quentin went on. “You’ve got a dirty agent on your trail, and you’re trusting a man you shouldn’t trust.”
Lenora definitely didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”
“Marshal Clayton Caldwell,” Quentin spat out like profanity.
She looked at Clayton to see if he knew what this was all about, but he only shook his head. “What about him?” Lenora asked.
“He’s trouble. The worst kind of trouble that can get you killed the hard way.” Quentin punctuated that with more profanity. “Lynnie, you weren’t the target of the shooting at the diner in Maverick Springs. Clayton Caldwell was.”
And with that, Quentin hung up.
Chapter Nine
Lynnie, you weren’t the target of the shooting at the diner in Maverick Springs. Clayton Caldwell was.
Quentin’s words repeated through Clayton’s head, and even though he wanted to dismiss it as the ranting of a jealous man, it wouldn’t be wise to do that.
Because it could be true.
With the triggerman dead and no proof of who’d hired him, Clayton could have indeed been the target. And worse, it might not even be connected to Lenora or Jill’s murder. He’d been a marshal long enough to make plenty of enemies who would want to see him dead.
But how could Quentin be so sure that triggerman had been gunning for him and not Lenora? Or for both of them?
Clayton silently cursed. He was tired of not having answers. And he was especially tired of seeing that worried look on Lenora’s face.
She had that look now while she was watching him set up the computer in the office for the interview with Riggs. Even though she wouldn’t be in the same room with Riggs, just seeing him would no doubt trigger nightmarish memories of Jill’s murder.
Bad for her.
Maybe good for Clayton, though.
Because it might jog his memory, too. A lot of that night was still a blur. Bits and pieces of things. He remembered seeing the gun in Riggs’s hand, the shot fired and Jill collapsing on the ground. Broken pieces, but pieces that he could still mesh together. But then the memories stopped.
Riggs’s lawyer would use those memory gaps to try to discredit his testimony, and while it wouldn’t be needed to convict Riggs of murder, his legal team might continue to chip away at the evidence and witnesses. All it took was a little reasonable doubt, and the jury might not convict Riggs of murder.
Yeah, getting his memory back was critical.
Not just for the trial, either.
He looked at Lenora’s stomach. In just a few months she’d give birth, and while he would love the child no matter what, he wanted to remember the sex that had resulted in the pregnancy. It was one gap he didn’t want to live with for the rest of his life.
“What is it?” he heard Lenora ask.
And Clayton realized he was staring at her. Not just her stomach, either. Her body. He got a split-second image of her naked and in bed with him.
But maybe that was wishful thinking. After all, he was attracted to her, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to picture her as his lover.
“Nothing,” he said.
Her left eyebrow lifted a fraction, but she didn’t have time to press him for a real answer, because at that moment, there was a beeping sound to indicate that Riggs was in place at the prison for the interview.
Clayton had already taken some precautions by making sure there’d be nothing on the screen that Riggs could use to identify their location. The dark curtains were drawn, and he’d positioned the desk so that the only background visible was a now-bare wall. Of course, that didn’t mean Riggs wouldn’t guess where they were, but Clayton didn’t want to give the killer any kind of confirmation of that.
“Ready?” he asked Lenora.
She nodded, and more concern went through her eyes, but she faced the screen head-on. So did Clayton, and he pressed the button.
Riggs’s face instantly came into view.
“Marshal Caldwell,” Riggs greeted, flashing a smile. He was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit and his slumped-forward posture indicated that he was cuffed at the ankles and wrists. “And Lenora’s here, too. To what do I owe the pleasure of this interrogation?”
“It’s not an interrogation,” Clayton corrected. Not officially,