Page 43 of Tracking Down the Lawman's Son

It was that suspicious tone that no doubt had Slater responding the way he did. He cupped his hand over his mouth and muttered something that was indistinguishable.

“I can’t hear you,” the woman said, punctuating that with some raw profanity. “This is a bad connection. Where are you?” she repeated.

Slater did more of the muffled muttering.

“Hang up and call me back,” Aubrey instructed. “And make it fast. We’re already running a half hour late, and we’re not going to get paid if we screw this up.”

Luca held his breath, hoping that Aubrey was about to say who was paying them. And for what? But she merely added. “Call me right back.”

Slater hung up, hit Redial, and waited for Aubrey to answer. She did. “This better be a good connection. Are you still out there in the sticks?”

Slater repeated some muttering, causing Aubrey to curse some more.

“All right, just meet me at the ranch,” Aubrey said. “We can...” She stopped, and a few moments crawled by. “Shannon?” shequestioned. She paused again, doled out some more profanity, and Luca could hear her suspicions skyrocketing.

Not for long though.

Because Aubrey hung up.

Duncan whipped out his phone to call Austin PD. He didn’t have to spell out that they had to stop an attack on the ranch. They needed to find Aubrey now.

BREEKNEWEVERYTHINGpossible was being done to find Aubrey, but that didn’t help settle her nerves one bit. Aubrey’s words kept racing through Bree’s head. Words that tightened and twisted every muscle in her body.

We’re already running a half hour late, and we’re not going to get paid if we screw this up.

Aubrey had made it crystal clear that Shannon and she had plans to come here. Maybe to try to kill Luca and her. Maybe to try to kidnap Gabriel. It was possible Aubrey would carry through with it even if Shannon wasn’t with her.

Bree had considered taking Gabriel and just leaving in a cruiser with Luca. But that could be a huge risk, too, since Aubrey could attack them on the road. At least here they had a security system. And now that they knew Aubrey was coming, they could watch for her.

That was the reason Bree had come back to the guest room so she could be with Gabriel and keep an eye out the upstairs window. Thankfully, Luca had come with her. Just having him nearby was a reminder that they were a united front there to keep their son safe.

Luca was on the phone, getting updates from Duncan, but he was practically whispering so Bree couldn’t hear what he was saying. The low voice was no doubt so he wouldn’t wake upGabriel, who’d just been fed and was now asleep in Bree’s arms. Since she very much wanted those updates, she eased him into his crib and went closer to Luca.

“I think we need to move another of the hands to the back part of the ranch near the pond,” he said to whomever was on the other end of the line. “One is already patrolling that area now, but it’s a weak spot. There’s a trail there with easy access to the road.”

There was. And it was a trail where Luca and she had parked and done some heavy making out when they’d been teenagers. It probably wouldn’t be an easy place for a nonlocal like Aubrey to find, but the woman could and probably had researched such things.

Luca ended the call and slipped his phone into his pocket. “That was Slater. We’re working out where to put the hands and the deputies who are keeping watch.”

“Good,” she muttered. And it was. Any and all security measures could keep Gabriel safe. But Bree knew there were plenty of weak spots where Aubrey could get through. “I read her background. She’s had a lot of firearms training.”

He made a sound of agreement. Then he sighed as he pulled her into his arms. “If she decides to do this mission solo, we have more than a dozen hands and deputies to spot her. It’s my guess though that she’s gone on the run. Or maybe run back to her boss because she was suspicious of the two calls she got from an unknown number.”

“Yes,” Bree said. She had to figure that Aubrey would at least contact her boss. Whoever that was. Perhaps Manny since Shannon had doodled the man’s name along with Aubrey’s. No matter who it was though, during that call Aubrey might learn Shannon was dead.

“Unless Aubrey was putting on a really good act, I didn’t get the sense that she was the one who’d murdered Shannon,” Bree added.

“Neither did I,” he said.

Bree was certain that Luca had been through every one of the woman’s words many times. For such a short one-way dialogue, they’d learned a lot. Shannon and Aubrey were basically hired guns, and they were supposed to have arrived at the ranch well over an hour ago. Added to that, Aubrey must have been accustomed to having Shannon call her on a burner with an unknown number since Aubrey didn’t question that. She’d simply answered Slater’s call and had assumed it was Shannon.

“If Aubrey goes to her boss, he or she could kill her, too,” Bree pointed out, but she figured she was voicing what Luca already knew.

His nod confirmed that, and while neutralizing such a potential threat would be good for the here and now, it wouldn’t be good in the long term. If they could make contact with Aubrey, they stood a chance of learning who’d hired her. If, like Shannon, she was killed, or simply vanished, the boss could just end up hiring other would-be killers to come after them.

At that thought, she had to close her eyes for a moment. Had to try to rein in the panic that was starting to slide through her. Luca helped with that.

By kissing her.

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