Page 94 of Proof of Guilt

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER ONE

Theo Canton wished there was a better way to stop a killer. Anything other than coming here to the Beckett Ranch to disrupt wedding plans. But if his intel was right, there could be another murder—tonight.

Maybe Ivy Beckett’s murder.

Hell, maybe her entire family and Theo’s sister, since they would possibly all be under the same roof for the cerem

ony. A ceremony that was to take place tomorrow.

Theo definitely didn’t want a repeat of what had happened ten years ago when two people died at the hands of a killer. Just the thought of it put a knot in his stomach, along with bringing back old memories. He had to shove those memories aside, though, because they would only cause him to lose focus.

He had enough Beckett blood on his hands without adding more.

Theo took the final turn to the ranch and spotted the decorations already on the pasture fences. Blue satin ribbon flapping in the hot May breeze. There were no ranch hands out and about. No signs of a killer, either, but the snake could already be there, waiting to strike.

His phone buzzed, and he saw the name flash on the screen. Wesley Sanford, a fellow DEA agent who’d alerted Theo that there could be a problem, that a killer could be headed to the ranch. Theo kept his attention on the road, on his surroundings, too, but he hit the answer button to put the call on speaker.

“Anything?” Wesley asked right away.

“No, not yet. How about you?”

“I’ll be at the Blue River sheriff’s office in just a couple of minutes. I’ll tell the deputies what’s going on. I might even get the chance to speak to Gabriel himself.”

Gabriel, the sheriff of the ranching town of Blue River as well as Ivy’s brother. Well, one of them, anyway. Her other brother, Jameson, was a Texas Ranger.

“But I’m guessing that the sheriff won’t be working this late the night before his wedding?” Wesley added.

Theo had no idea. He hadn’t kept up with news on the Becketts. They were more of those old memories, and wounds, that he hadn’t wanted in his life. Besides, the Becketts wouldn’t want him keeping up with them. Or even want him around, for that matter. They’d made that crystal clear ten years ago. Theo had had no choice but to come tonight, though. Once the danger was over, however, he’d get out of there as fast as he had a decade ago.

“If Gabriel is at his office,” Theo told Wesley, “remember not to say anything in the police station. Take him outside to talk.” If their criminal informant had been right, the killer could have managed to plant a bug in the building. And in the sheriff’s house. “I don’t want this clown to know we’re onto him. I want to catch him.”

Wesley hadn’t especially needed that reminder, but the stakes were too high for either of them to make a mistake. The last time Theo had made a mistake with the Becketts, Ivy’s parents had been murdered. Maybe by this same killer who was after them now.

Or maybe by Theo’s own father.

But if his father had actually been the murderer ten years ago, then tonight Theo was dealing with a copycat. Because his father was miles away behind bars in a maximum-security prison. Still, a copycat could be just as lethal as the original one had been.

Too bad Theo couldn’t just sound the alarm and alert Ivy’s brothers and the ranch hands, but that possible bug in Gabriel’s house meant the only secure way for Theo to contact the Becketts was outside, face-to-face.

“Whether the sheriff is here or not, I’ll let someone know there might be a bug,” Wesley assured him. “Call me when you can.”

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