Delores Fossen - Landon

Where had that come from?

“That’s right,” Dade said, exchanging an uneasy glance with Landon. “Emmett and Annie are both dead.” As Landon had done earlier, Dade knelt down, checking the baby. Then Tessa. Specifically, he looked into her eyes. “She’s been drugged,” he added to Landon.

“Yeah,” Landon readily agreed.

The relief rushed through her. That was why she couldn’t remember. But just as quickly, Tessa took that one step further.

Who had drugged her?

The drug had obviously messed with her head. And maybe had done a whole lot more to the rest of her body.

She had a dozen bad possibilities hit her at once, but first and foremost was that if someone had drugged her, they could have done the same to the baby.

The panic came again, hard and fast. “Did they give the baby something, too?”

“I don’t think so,” Dade said at the same moment that Landon demanded, “Tell me about the baby.”

Tessa latched on to what Dade said about the baby, but she had to be sure that the newborn hadn’t been drugged. It was something they’d be able to tell her at the hospital.

It’s not safe there.

The words knifed through her head, and she repeated them aloud. And something else, too. “Don’t trust anyone.”

They weren’t her words but something someone else had said to her. Important words. But Tessa didn’t know who’d told her that.

Or why.

Obviously, that didn’t make Landon happy. He said some more profanity. Added another glare. “She keeps dodging questions about the baby.”

That caused Dade to give her another look. This time not to her eyes but rather her stomach. Not that he could see much of it, because she was holding the baby, but he was no doubt trying to see if she had recently given birth.

“Did you set this fire?” Dade asked her, easing the baby’s legs away from Tessa’s belly.

Tessa flinched, and Dade must have thought he’d hurt her, because he backed off. But that wasn’t the reason she’d reacted that way. She’d winced not from pain but from his question.

“Someone set the fire?” she asked.

Landon didn’t roll his eyes, but it was close. “Take a whiff of the air.”

She did and got a quick reminder of the smoke. The breeze was blowing it away from them now, but Tessa could still smell it. And she could also smell something else.

Gasoline.

“Someone, maybe you,” Landon continued, “used an accelerant. Based on how the fire spread, I’m guessing it was poured near the front of the barn and was ignited there.”

And the person had done that while the baby and she were still inside.

Oh, mercy. That was a memory that came at her full force with not just the smells but the sensation on her skin. The hot flames licking at her. Her, running. Trying to get away from...someone.

She also remembered the fear.

“Someone tried to kill me,” she said.

Dade didn’t argue with that, but it was obvious she hadn’t convinced Landon. Well, she didn’t need to convince him. There weren’t many things Tessa was certain of, but she was positive that she’d just come close to being murdered. Or maybe the person who’d set that fire had been trying to flush her out.

But why would she have been hiding in that barn?

Tessa didn’t get to say more about that, and maybe she wouldn’t have anyway, because the ambulance came driving toward them. The moment the vehicle stopped, two paramedics scrambled out, carrying a stretcher, and they headed straight for her and the baby.

She studied their faces as they approached, trying to see if she knew them. She didn’t, but then, no one looked familiar. Well, except for Landon, and she didn’t have enough information to know if she could trust him.

Don’t trust anyone.

But if she hadn’t trusted Landon, why had she landed in bed with him?

After cutting his way past Dade and Landon, one of the medics checked her. The other, the baby. And they asked questions. A flurry of them that she couldn’t answer. How old was the baby? Any medical history of allergies? Were either of them taking medications?

“She claims she doesn’t remember anything,” Landon snarled. “Well, almost nothing. She knows Emmett’s dead.”

Yes. She did know that. But that was it. Heck, she wasn’t even sure who Emmett was, but even through her hazy mind, it was obvious that these two lawmen believed she knew a whole lot more than she was saying.

Or maybe they believed she was the reason he was dead.

While Tessa kept a firm hold on the baby, the paramedics lifted them both onto the stretcher. “Will you be riding in the ambulance with them?” one of them asked Landon.

Landon stared at her, nodded. “Please tell me once these drugs wear off that she’ll be able to remember everything.”

“You know I can’t guarantee that. She’s been injured, too. Looks like someone hit her on the head.”

Landon glanced back at the barn. “She could have gotten it there. When I got here, she was on the ground moaning. Maybe something fell on her.”

The paramedic made a sound of disagreement. “It didn’t happen today. More like a couple of days ago.”

“Around the time when Emmett was killed,” Landon said under his breath, and he looked ready to launch into another round of questions that Tessa knew she couldn’t—and maybe shouldn’t—answer.

However, one of the firemen hurried toward them, calling out for Landon before he reached him. “You need to see this,” the fireman insisted.

Landon cursed and started to walk away, but then he stopped and stabbed his finger at her. “Don’t you dare go anywhere. I’m riding in the ambulance with you to make sure you get there.”

It sounded like some kind of threat. Felt like one, too.

The paramedics lifted the stretcher, moving the baby and her toward the ambulance, but they were also carrying her in the same direction Landon was headed. Tessa watched as the fireman led him to the front of what was left of the barn.

Whatever the fireman wanted Landon to see, it was on the ground, because both men stooped, their attention on a large gray boulder. Dade did the same when he joined them.

She saw Landon’s shoulder’s snap back, and it seemed as if he was cursing again. He pulled his phone from his pocket and took a picture, and after saying something to Dade, he came toward her. Not hurrying exactly, but with that fierce expression, he looked like an Old West cowboy who was about to draw in a gunfight.

“What do you know about this?” Landon demanded. “Did you write it?” He held up his phone screen for her to see.

With everything around her swimming in and out of focus, it took Tessa a few seconds to make out the words. When she did, she felt as if a Mack truck had just slammed into her.

Oh. God.

Chapter Three

While he waited on hold for Dade to come back on the line, Landon glanced around the thin blue curtain to check on Tessa again. Something he’d been doing since they arrived at the Silver Creek Hospital. She was still sitting on the examining table, feeding the baby a bottle of formula that the hospital staff had given her.

Tessa was also still eyeing Landon as if he were the enemy.

That probably had plenty to do with the message that’d been scrawled on the boulder back at the barn. This is for you, Landon.

The same words as in the message that’d been left on Emmett’s body. Except this time, there was a little more. Tessa’s dead now because of you.

Reading that obviously hadn’t helped lessen the fear he’d seen in Tessa’s eyes. Hadn’t helped this knot in Landon’s stomach, either. He had to find out what was going on, and that started with Tessa.

She’d insisted on the baby staying with her, so they had both been placed in the same room, where the doctor was checking them now. Maybe the doc would be able to give her something to counteract whatever drug Tessa had been given.