One Night Standoff - By Delores Fossen Page 0,50

hospital lawyer. That might get him to back off.”

“Agent Britt could be the one who hired the guy you just operated on,” Clayton warned Dr. Landry. “Be careful around him.”

“I will.” The doctor looked at the position of Clayton’s hand and then Lenora’s stomach. “If you want, I can arrange for you to have an ultrasound. For your own peace of mind,” she quickly added, probably because she saw the alarm in Lenora’s eyes.

Lenora nodded, thanked her again. With everything that’d happened, it might help if she could see her baby. The other checkup the doctor had given her hadn’t included one.

“The nurse will call me if our guy wakes up.” Dr. Landry went to the door, opened it and then froze. That’s because someone was standing there.

Clayton automatically reached for his gun and stepped in front of Lenora. Harlan pulled the doctor behind him, and both he and Declan drew their weapons, as well.

Quentin was in the doorway.

The man laughed nervously and held up his hands in mock surrender. “Jumpy, aren’t you?”

Lenora groaned at the joking tone and the fact he was there at all. “Nearly being killed will make anyone jumpy,” she mumbled, and despite Clayton’s attempts to stop it, she stepped out from behind him.

“What the heck are you doing here?” Lenora demanded.

Quentin lowered his hands, lifted his shoulder. “I just wanted to speak to you.”

Clayton moved in front of her again. “Not going to happen. The last time we spoke to you at the ranch, someone tried to gun us down.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” he huffed. “Look, there’s no way I would hire someone to kill Lynnie. I want to save her.”

“Not very convincing,” Clayton fired back.

Since it was clear that Clayton wasn’t going to let her face down Quentin, Lenora peered over his shoulder so she could make eye contact with him. She didn’t want him to miss her glare.

“How’d you know I was here?” she snapped.

“I guessed.” Quentin snapped, too, but some of the anger and tension melted away. “It’s all over town about the man the marshal shot, and I figured he’d come here to check on the guy. Didn’t figure he’d let you out of his sight.”

“I’m not,” Clayton verified. “And that’s your cue to leave.” He moved to shut the door, but Quentin blocked it with his foot.

“Move or you’ll be sorry,” Clayton said.

She didn’t have to see his expression to know that every muscle in his face had turned to iron. She could hear it in his voice.

But Quentin didn’t move. He reached in his pocket, causing all three marshals to train their guns on him.

“It’s just a piece of paper,” Quentin snarled. He stared at Clayton. “If you want proof of who’s trying to kill you, call off your trigger-happy kin.”

Clayton didn’t say a word, and none of them lowered their guns. After several long moments, Quentin cursed, and using just two fingers he extracted a single sheet of paper from his pocket. Maybe because Harlan was the closest one to him, Quentin handed him the paper. However, before Harlan could even read it, the doctor’s phone beeped. She looked down at the screen.

“Our patient is awake,” she said.

And that meant they had to wrap up this conversation—or whatever the heck it was—with Quentin.

“Are these numbers for some kind of account?” Harlan asked, and then he handed the paper to Clayton. Lenora looked as well, but they weren’t familiar.

“One of Riggs’s offshore accounts,” Quentin supplied. “If you do a little digging, I think you’ll see that Riggs had twenty-five thousand dollars transferred the day before those gunmen showed up at the church.”

“How did you get this information?” Harlan asked at the same moment that Clayton asked, “Who received this money?”

“A friend of a friend told me about this,” Quentin said, looking at Harlan first. Then he turned to Clayton. “I can’t prove it, but my guess is your daddy was on the receiving end of the money. I haven’t been able to get access to his accounts, but I’m thinking Melvin hid the cash he got from Riggs in his business. Wouldn’t be hard to do.”

Not with an import business, it wouldn’t. All it’d take would be to falsify some orders. Like on silver watches.

“I’ll start looking,” Harlan volunteered, and he took the paper back from Clayton. “Should I take Mr. Helpful here into custody?”

“For what?” Quentin howled. “I’m trying to save your butts.”

Clayton made a yeah-right sound. “Or maybe trying to help yourself by