Page 26 of Lone Star Protector

Caroline cleared her throat and had a huge gulp of coffee. “Where’s Eddie?” she asked since she figured Nash had gotten an update on the man as well. Plus, this would get them off the topic of Jordana for a while.

Nash blew out a long, frustrated breath. “Not in jail where he belongs. His lawyer was able to convince the cops that he wasn’t aiding and abetting Bodie, that he was merely trying to find him so he could talk him into surrendering. However, both Eddie and Leland will be interviewed by Detective Malley within the hour, and Malley’s offered to let us watch the feed live.”

“Oh, I want to watch,” Caroline said. “I’m guessing Eddie has the money for a good lawyer?”

“Not at all. He’s flat broke because his rich parents disowned him years ago, but someone paid top dollar for his lawyer. Ruby’s looking into who did that.”

Info like that might come in handy if it turned out Eddie was indeed helping Bodie.

“There was an update on the incendiary devices used on your house,” Nash went on a moment later. “The bomb squad thinks accelerant pods were set around the perimeter of the back of your house. They were on timers. And there was a second one outside your workshop.”

Well, damn it. That caused her heart to jump to her throat. “Did my workshop catch on fire?”

He shook his head. “The fire department disabled it.”

That was something at least. All her work and equipment hadn’t been destroyed like her house.

“The CSIs, who all survived the fire by the way, have also managed to find bits and pieces of what was left in your bedroom,” he continued a moment later. “Everything will be examined.”

His phone rang, cutting off whatever else he’d been about to say.

“Nash,” Oz’s voice said, pouring through the speaker on his computer. “Video call from Ruby. Should I put it through?”

“Absolutely.” And Nash sat up straighter in his chair as her mother appeared on the large screen mounted on the wall.

“Nash,” Ruby greeted. “Caroline. Any trouble there?”

“No,” they said in unison.

“Good.” She paused, looking at Caroline as if she had something else to say, but then she shifted her attention to her own laptop screen. “I just got some updates that I wanted to let you know about. As expected, Leland is pulling out all the stops to find Jordana, but so far, his team of PIs has come up with nothing. However, he told the cops that Bodie might kill Jordana so he can inherit her estate.”

Nash cursed. “She didn’t do a prenup?”

“Nope. And she’s worth millions. Millions minus the two hundred thousand she withdrew yesterday,” her mother tacked onto that. “If Jordana dies and if Bodie isn’t convicted of her murder, then he’ll become a very rich man.”

“So, that might be the reason Bodie escaped,” Nash muttered.

“Yes, and all the stuff that went on at Caroline’s could have been a ruse. Something to cover up his real intentions of offing his wife and inheriting her estate.” Ruby paused. “Though that would still leave Bodie with a big problem of having to go back to jail. Even if he wasn’t convicted of Jordana’s murder, he’d still have to face charges of escape and assaulting the nurse.”

“Maybe he’s planning on getting out of the country,” Caroline suggested. “He could do that with the money Jordana’s already withdrawn, and then he could try to tap into the rest later on.”

Ruby made a sound of agreement and brought up something else on her laptop screen. A picture. But the angle was wrong for Caroline to make out who was in it. She hoped it wasn’t another photo like those left in her bedroom.

“Another update,” her mother said. “I’ve had some people scouring social media, traffic cams, and such for anything related to the investigation, and this popped up. It was taken at a party about six months ago and posted on social media. It’s grainy because the photo wasn’t focused on the couple but some other people. Still, facial recognition was able to pick it up, so I’m sending it to your screen now.”

Seconds later, the image appeared, and, yes, it was indeed grainy. But Caroline had no trouble figuring out who the man and woman were.

“Crap,” she spat.

“That was my reaction, too,” her mother said. “And now, the question is, why was Jordana kissing Eddie Mulcrone less than a month before she married Bodie?”

Chapter Nine

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“Jordana and Eddie,” Nash muttered, trying to wrap his head around that.

When Ruby, Caroline, and he were in the woods with Eddie, the man hadn’t had favorable things to say about Jordana. Then again, Eddie had also claimed he’d been there to talk Bodie into turning himself in.

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