Page 6 of Tracking Down the Lawman's Son

“I don’t recall Mom ever mentioning going to a bar in Austin,” Slater muttered.

Nor had Bree. And their mother hadn’t seemed to be the bar-going type. Then again, maybe she hadn’t actually been in theHush, Hush. It was possible she had just been walking by and had been filmed.

But it didn’t feel like that.

This felt like some kind of important clue. But what? This had happened five and a half years ago, long before Bree’s father had been murdered and her mother had disappeared.

“This morning, I went back through Mom’s old credit card statements,” Bree added. “No charges to the bar or anywhere else in Austin. And since Mom’s not around, I obviously can’t ask her about it.”

“You’re not thinking Mom had something to do with Brighton’s death?” Slater questioned.

“I can’t think that,” Bree admitted in a whisper.

She couldn’t wrap her head around her mother committing a crime of any kind. But then, Bree knew she wasn’t impartial about this.

“I’d like to check on Gabriel now,” she murmured.

Luca stared at her. And stared. She wasn’t immune to that look. Nor to him. And that caused her to silently curse. She couldn’t handle another on-off with Luca. No bandwidth for it. Even though she couldn’t deny that the heat would always be there between them.

“You two can go in and see Gabriel,” Slater suggested. “I’ll drive the cruiser to the crash site and look around. And I want to check out Bree’s car. After I get back, we can figure out how to handle the rest of this.”

Yes,handlingwas indeed required, and it wouldn’t be just the three of them for long. They’d need to brief Joelle and her husband, Sheriff Duncan Holder. And Bree’s other brother, Ruston, who was a San Antonio cop. All of them would want to know what’d happened and if it was connected to Brighton’s and her father’s murders.

Luca drove along the driveway to the house and parked near the porch. A reminder that he didn’t want her to be out in the open any longer than necessary. And that was a reminder that she could be in danger. Bree wanted to hang on to that “could be,” but she didn’t plan on taking any unnecessary risks either. That’s why she hurried into the house after she used her phone to unlock the front door.

“It’s me,” Bree immediately called out to let Coral know she was there.

As soon as Luca and she stepped in, Bree closed and relocked the door. Moments later, Bree heard footsteps coming from the laundry room.

“Didn’t figure you’d be back this soon,” Coral said, coming into the entry. She was carrying a clothes basket, and the baby monitor was on top of the folded pile of laundry.

As usual, Coral was wearing loose sweatpants and a T-shirt that was equally loose, and she’d pulled up her dark blonde hair into a messy ponytail. She had one of those faces that made her look a good decade younger than her thirty-eight years.

“Oh, hi, Luca,” Coral greeted. “Gabriel’s still napping,” she said, smiling. At least she was smiling until she saw Bree’s face.

Coral gasped. “You’re hurt.”

“A minor car accident,” Bree was quick to say. “I’m fine, really.”

But she would need to say plenty more because she wanted Coral included in that better-safe-than-sorry mode. It sickened her to think of that truck driver coming here, but it was too risky not to prepare for it. That meant locked doors and using the security system. The house was rigged with one, but normally Bree only turned it on at night. That would change.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Coral pressed.

“Yes. It’s just a few stitches.” Which were starting to sting now that the numbing meds were wearing off.

Bree glanced at the baby monitor and checked the time. Since she’d put Gabriel down for his morning nap before she’d left, that meant he’d been asleep for nearly three hours. That was slightly longer than his usual, but then his sleep pattern was nowhere near consistent.

“I was going to put this laundry away and go take a peek at him,” Coral explained, and she handed Bree the camera monitor.

Gabriel was indeed still asleep in his crib, and just seeing that precious face performed some magic. Bree felt some of her nerves start to melt away.

“He’ll probably want a bottle soon,” Coral remarked. “You want me to go ahead and fix that so Luca can feed him?”

That had more or less become their routine. Luca had been coming over daily to give Gabriel at least one bottle, sometimes two. Bree hadn’t been able to nurse because of a nasty bout of mastitis when Gabriel had only been a week old, so that meant she hadn’t needed to be in the nursery during those feedings.

A good thing.

She’d learned the hard way that too much time with Luca triggered the memories of their last night together, which in turn triggered memories of her father’s murder. It was ironic that her son didn’t have that same effect on her despite Gabriel being the spitting image of Luca.

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