Page 44 of Targeted in Silver Creek

That earned Jesse a brief scowl from Bull, but obviously the man wanted to get on with his account. “I couldn’t confide in Shaw because I thought maybe he’d made some side deals with the militia. There was talk that an insider was looking out for them. Things like making sure they were warned of a raid before it happened. That sort of warning could have come from someone in the ATF.”

“It could have come from other people, too,” Jesse pointed out. “But you zoomed in on Shaw. Any proof of one of those side deals?”

“None. I was trying to get the truth when Arnie went off the deep end and stormed out to your family’s ranch.”

“A ranch where I just happened to be,” Hanna remarked. “What made Arnie go after me and pull me out of my car?”

Bull hesitated again, but he didn’t seem to be trying to come up with a story she’d buy. Then again, he was a trained federal agent, a deep cover one, so he had been trained to lie.

“Did it have anything to do with my mother?” she straightforwardly asked.

She carefully watched Bull for his reaction, and what she didn’t see was surprise. “Arnie mentioned that he’d talked to your mother,” Bull finally said. “He didn’t say about what.” He stopped again, stared at her. “You think your mother had something to do with Arnie shooting you?”

“Do you?” she countered just as fast.

“No.” But there was doubt in his voice. “Did Isabel have anything to do with what happened?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “What did Arnie say about the talk he’d had with her?”

Bull shook his head in a gesture to indicate he was thinking about that. “Nothing specific. He said something about Isabel having called him and he went over to see her. They had drinks. Gin and tonics,” he added. “He said they were strong, and he was woozy when he left.”

Hanna glanced at Jesse and saw that he had the same question she did. Had Isabel drugged Arnie? Of course, she wouldn’t have actually had to hide the drugs since Arnie was a user, but maybe Isabel had given him enough booze, drugs, or a combination of them, in the hope that he’d go after Jesse.

And that was what he did.

The theory fit. Well, it did if she could actually wrap her mind around the image of the prim and snobby Isabel setting up something so sinister. Hanna wasn’t quite able to do that, but it didn’t mean she believed Isabel was innocent. At a minimum, she’d provoked Arnie. It was possible she’d incited him so that he’d no longer known what he was doing.

“Other than Arnie, I never heard any of the other militia members talk about Isabel,” Bull volunteered. He was still staring at her. “But if you think she was connected, then I need to know.”

“Who did the militia members talk about?” Jesse asked Bull before Hanna had to answer. Good thing, too, since she hadn’t been sure what to say.

Bull huffed and adjusted his position on the floor. He continued to keep his hands tucked behind his head. “You’ve arrested the big guns of the operation, and I’ve already given you Hector’s name.”

“But you haven’t given us the biggest name,” Grayson interjected. “You haven’t told us who’s actually running it.”

“Because I don’t know,” Bull snapped. He repeated it, but this time there wasn’t anger in his voice but rather frustration.

Hanna didn’t want to empathize with the man she’d feared and hated all these months, but she did on that one point. Until they knew the identity of the person running this deadly show, none of them would be safe. Bull included. Because she believed him when he’d said that someone would try to kill him. The head of the militia would want him dead for sure. Maybe a dirty agent like Shaw would as well.

“Go over the rest of what happened that night,” Jesse prompted when the room fell silent. “You and Arnie arrived at the gate to the ranch, and you saw Hanna. Why’d Arnie take her from her car?”

“Did I say something to provoke him?” Hanna added, and that caused Jesse to look at her. He was silently assuring her that she hadn’t been responsible in any way, but Bull’s expression said differently.

“I don’t know for sure,” Bull admitted. “You said something to him when he threw open the passenger’s-side door, but I suspect you just asked him what the heck he was doing. Or something along those lines. Before that, he was ranting and carrying on, and then the next thing I knew, he bolted out of his truck and ran to your car. He pulled the gun and had you in a chokehold before I could stop him.”

Since those were the images on the security camera, Hanna had no problem reliving those moments, and even though her mind had blocked out the actual memories, she could sense down to the bone the fear she’d felt. She had been terrified for her baby.

“Then what?” Jesse insisted. There was fresh anger in his voice now, no doubt because he was reliving all of this right along with her. He’d been terrified for Evan, too. And her. She didn’t need memories to know that.

Bull took a long breath before he answered. “Arnie tried to take Hanna back to his truck, but he dropped his keys. He was mumbling and cursing, and when we heard someone from the ranch coming to the gate, he said we had to get the hell out of there. I didn’t think he meant to drag Hanna along. I figured he’d just start running for the woods, but he took her.”

“And you didn’t stop him,” Jesse snapped.

“It happened fast, and I didn’t want to get into a struggle with him because I was afraid the gun would go off. Hell, by then Arnie had it aimed at her head.”

“The gun did go off,” Hanna noted pointedly.

Bull nodded, sighed. “Within seconds after we got into that thick cluster of trees. It was dark, so I don’t know if the shooting was an accident. I think it was,” he added, not sounding convinced of that either. “You fell, and Arnie went into a full panic. He was going to pull the trigger again, he said so you wouldn’t be able to tell anyone he’d been the one to shoot you. That’s when I shot and killed him.”

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