Page 42 of Lone Star Witness

The shots continued, and the pace felt frantic to Slade. Probably because the shooter could also hear the sirens getting closer and closer. Of course, if the fire department arrived first, the shooter could just attempt to gun them down, but it was possible there’d be a cruiser full of cops close behind.

Slade crawled another ten feet or so before there was enough of a break in the line of shrubs for him to see the vehicles.

And the shooter.

Shit.

It was Julian.

And the asshole was indeed using a car for cover. He’d parked directly behind Slade and Jericho, which would have put him close to the side entrance. Julian had no doubt then sneaked in with the gasoline, poured it on the floor, and tossed on a match.

He hoped he got the chance to ask Julian if he was doing all of this on Stephanie’s orders or if this was his plan. But Slade wouldn’t make getting that answer a priority. Nope. He was taking this piece of shit out.

“Hey, asshole,” Slade called out, knowing that Julian would almost certainly pivot in the direction of the sound of his voice.

He did.

Julian turned, moving to take aim at Slade. But Slade was already in place. He fired, sending two shots directly into the asshole’s chest.

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Chapter Fourteen

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Marise sat in Slade’s hot tub, submerged all the way to her chin, and she let the hot water go to work on her muscles. It was a lot to ask of the well-placed jets since it felt as if her body were one giant knot, but she thought the soaking was at least taking off the edge.

Slade had obviously sensed how tense she was because as soon as they’d made it back to his place, he’d given her a glass of her favorite wine and ordered her into the hot tub. She’d gone in because she had hoped it would help and also because there was the chance Slade would join her. Not full emersion because of his stitches, of course, but at least he might keep her company.

No luck on that so far.

He was all the way across the room in the sitting area of the spa-like hot tub space where he was having yet another phone conversation. There’d been many of them over the past half hour, but she thought he was now in the process of talking to Ruby.

She sipped more wine, listening to the soothing sound of Slade’s voice, and tried to focus on the positive.

And there was certainly a lot of that.

They’d survived the fire, and the house, including Stephanie’s office had been saved. That was huge. Another huge was that none of them—Jericho, Colonel Rosa, Jace, Angel, Slade, and her—had been seriously injured. Just some bruises and scrapes, and Slade’s arm had had to be restitched, but overall they’d gotten very lucky.

Julian not so much.

He was dead, killed by the two gunshot wounds to the chest.

The shooting and the man’s death had prompted Slade and her to being interviewed yet once again, but since Angel had recorded most of the incident, including Julian’s gunfire, that had sped things along. Obviously, the investigation was still ongoing, and there were still a lot of questions, but at least Slade and she weren’t in a burning house with a gunman hellbent on killing them.

Or rather killing Rosa.

The odds were the colonel was the primary target, but Julian had perhaps decided to take them all out. That would eliminate witnesses to the blood they’d seen in Stephanie’s office. If Julian had indeed managed to murder all of them and burn the place down, it wouldn’t have closed the investigation, but it would have seriously hampered it. It might have taken the cops a while to piece everything together, and while doing that, Julian could have been in the wind.

Perhaps permanently.

And maybe that’d been the plan all along. Cover up the evidence in the office and leave the country to save himself from ending up in jail.

Slade finished his call, and he made his way toward her. Despite the hellish night, she smiled because watching him was always a treat. There was always that dark and dangerous edge to him, all mixed together with those incredible looks.

Right now though, his looks were slightly hampered with that exhaustion on his face.

“I’m not going to ask you if you’re okay,” she said, offering him the rest of her wine, “But you should talk to someone about what happened with Julian.”

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