Delores Fossen - Lawman With A Cause

Yeah, she was definitely talking crazy. Egan had a look at her wound and saw the gash on her shoulder. He eased her hair aside so he could see if there were other injuries, and she also had a bump on her head. She’d need stitches and might even have a concussion.

“What happened?” Egan repeated.

“You tried to kill me,” she said without hesitation.

Even though Jordan was hurt, it was still hard to keep the scowl off his face. He tapped his sheriff’s badge in case she’d forgotten that he was the law around here and not prone to murder attempts. “And why would I do that?”

There were tears in her pale green eyes when Jordan looked up at him. “Shanna.”

Everything inside Egan went still.

Shanna Sullivan. His late fiancée. Shanna was also the reason Jordan was no longer someone he wanted to see. Even now after nearly two years, he still felt the ache. It ate away at him, and sometimes, like now, the ache felt just as fresh as it had when Shanna had died less than an hour after a man had shot her.

He leaned in, sniffed Jordan’s breath to make sure she hadn’t been drinking. She hadn’t been. “Focus,” he demanded. “I didn’t try to kill you and neither did Shanna. She’s dead. So, what the hell happened here?”

She touched her fingers to her head and looked at the blood that was on the sleeve of her shirt. “I...uh, was driving to your place to talk to you, and someone started to pass me. At least I thought that’s what he was doing, but then he shot me. Someone driving a blue pickup identical to yours.”

Egan pulled back his shoulders. He hoped like the devil that none of that was true. He definitely didn’t want someone firing shots into a vehicle. Especially someone who might be posing as him. But then he reminded himself that Jordan hadn’t made much sense with anything else she’d said.

He had another look at that gash on her shoulder. It was possibly a deep graze from a bullet. Possibly. But it could have also happened if she’d hit her head and shoulder on the steering wheel. Of course, her accusation would mesh with the broken window. Not with anything else, though.

“After he shot me, my truck stalled. I couldn’t get it started,” she continued a moment later. “So, I got out to try to fix it. That’s when I passed out and landed here on the ground.”

Egan didn’t bother to tell her it’d been stupid to try to do engine repairs while injured. “You should have called nine-one-one.”

Despite being dazed, she managed to give him a flat look. “Right. Call the local cops when I thought it was a local cop who shot me. I called someone from San Antonio PD instead.”

He supposed that wasn’t really a surprise about her not wanting to alert the locals. After all, Jordan lived in San Antonio, where she’d once been a cop. She almost certainly still had friends on the force there. But it was a long drive, nearly an hour, from San Antonio to McCall Canyon, and it’d likely be a while before her friend made it out here.

“And your cop friend in San Antonio didn’t convince you to call me?” Egan asked.

“No.” Again, she didn’t hesitate. “Not after everything that’s happened.”

She was talking about Shanna now. Specifically, Shanna’s murder. But Egan had no intention of getting into that with Jordan tonight.

“Come on,” he said, helping her to her feet. In case she was still thinking he would try to kill her, he took her gun and put it in the back waistband of his jeans. “We can wait in my truck until the ambulance gets here.” Which should be in about only twenty minutes or so.

If Jordan was right about having been shot, Egan didn’t want them to be out in the open in case the shooter returned. Of course, he doubted that would happen. The bullet—if it was indeed a bullet—had probably come from someone out hunting.

“Hold my shirt against your shoulder to slow down the bleeding,” Egan instructed.

Jordan went stiff when he tried to get her moving, and she looked at him as if debating if she could trust him.

Egan cursed again. “I don’t know what you think happened here, but I didn’t shoot you. I have no reason to kill you.”

“Yes, you do.” She lifted the side of her top to show him something he didn’t need to see. The scar. The one from her surgery two years ago.

“So?” he snapped. “Did you think I’d forgotten you had a kidney transplant?” It wasn’t a question because there was no way he could have not remembered that. After all, the donor kidney had come from Shanna.

Hell. More memories came. Jordan had been shot that day, too. The bullet had gone through her side and damaged both her kidneys. It’d been somewhat of a miracle that Shanna had been a match. Of course, that miracle came with a huge price tag since Shanna was dead.

“No. I didn’t think you’d forgotten at all.” She swallowed hard. “In fact, that’s why I thought you wanted me dead.”

“You’re not making sense.” He hooked his arm around her waist and forced her to get moving again.

He helped her into his truck, and she winced when she pressed his shirt against her head. Egan considered just driving her to the hospital, but the ambulance could arrive soon, and he could hand her off to the medics while staying behind to have a look at her vehicle. Specifically, that window. He wanted to see if the damage had indeed been caused by a bullet, and if so, then he could call out a CSI team.

“Yes, I am making sense,” Jordan snarled. “Two of the recipients are already dead, and I think I’m next.”

“Recipients?” he questioned.

She looked up at him. “You hadn’t heard?”

No. But Egan was 1,000 percent sure he wasn’t going to like what Jordan was about to say next.

“Breanna Culver, who got Shanna’s liver. Cordell Minter, who got one of her lungs. They’re both dead. Murdered.” Jordan’s last word didn’t have much sound. It was mostly breath.

Hell. If that was true...well, Egan didn’t want to go there just yet. “It could be a coincidence.” Though it would be an eerie one. “You’re positive they were murdered?” he challenged.

Jordan’s forehead bunched up. “Yes. Their organs were...missing. The organs they got from Shanna.”

Egan felt as if someone had punched him. “If that’s true, why didn’t someone tell me?”

“Because I only made the connection today. I knew the names of the recipients. I got them because, well, I don’t know why exactly. Maybe I wanted to know who else was alive because of Shanna. I thought it would give me some peace.”

Egan’s mind was reeling, but he wanted to tell her that she didn’t deserve peace. Neither of them did. “You’re positive about those two people? Positive they were murdered and their organs taken?”

She nodded and motioned to her head. “And now this. Someone shot me.”

No way could he just accept all of this just yet. “Your injury could have been a prank gone wrong. Or a hunter. It could have even been caused by a rock going through the window. A rock that maybe a passing truck kicked up from the road.”

Her expression let him know she wasn’t buying any of this. “What about the break-in at my house?”

He was clueless about that, too, but then he hadn’t kept up with Jordan.

“I was supposed to be home,” she continued. “But I’d left only about five minutes before to go into San Antonio to meet one of my old criminal informants. I wanted to ask him about the other two deaths. Anyway, while I was gone, someone broke in and set fire to the place.”

Again, that didn’t mean anyone was trying to murder her—though the “coincidences” were stacking up.

“That means there are only three of us left,” Jordan added a moment later. “Tori Judd, Irene Adair. And me.”