Rita Herron - McCullen's Secret Son

Brett clasped her arms and forced her to look at him. “Don’t worry about me, Willow. I can handle whatever happens. But we can’t go to Maddox yet. We have to play by this bastard’s rules, until we find Sam.”

How could she argue with that? She’d give her life for her son’s.

And if Brett knew that Sam was his, he’d do the same.

He probably would anyway, just because he was a McCullen. Joe McCullen had taught his boys old-fashioned values, that men were supposed to protect women and children.

Brett moved over by the bed. “I need to get him in the back of my pickup.”

“Why? Aren’t we going to bury him in the backyard?”

“No,” Brett said. “You live in a neighborhood. And if anyone comes asking about Leo and is suspicious, this is the first place they’d look.” He glanced down at the floor and indicated the braided rug. “Let’s wrap him in the sheet and I can use the rug to slide him outside.”

“But what if a neighbor sees us?”

Brett’s jaw tightened. “Your house is set far enough back from the road, so unless someone is in the drive, we should be all right. But I’ll move my truck up to the garage and we can go through there just to be safe.”

Willow agreed, although she knew what they were doing was wrong. Illegal . That they could both be charged.

But nothing mattered now except saving Sam.

* * *

BRETT HATED THE FEAR in Willow’s eyes. If he had hold of the bastard who had hurt her and taken her little boy, he’d pound his head in.

He started to roll Leo in the sheet, but doubts hit him. He’d seen enough crime shows to know that as soon as he touched the man or the bedding, he was contaminating evidence. Evidence that could lead to the killer and the person who had abducted Sam.

Besides, he’d gotten in a sticky situation once. Had been accosted by the jealous lover of a rodeo groupie he’d dated, a man who’d tried to make it look as if he was the guilty party. He’d seen how the police handled the situation. If it hadn’t been for a savvy detective who paid attention to detail, Brett might have gone to jail.

Maybe he should call Maddox.

But the kidnapper’s warning taunted him. Willow’s little boy was in danger.

He couldn’t take the chance on that child getting hurt. Pain tugged at his chest. He’d once thought he and Willow would have a family together.

But he’d left and she’d met Leo, and their lives had gone down another path.

Still, her little boy shouldn’t suffer.

He removed his phone and snapped some pictures of the man, the wounds to his chest, the blood on the sheets, and the room.

“What are you doing?” Willow asked.

“We’ll be destroying evidence here,” Brett said. “I should document how we found Leo to show Maddox when we tell him.”

Willow’s face paled. “I can’t believe this is happening, Brett. I...don’t know why anyone would want to kill Leo.”

Brett clenched his jaw. “We’ll talk about that once we take care of him.” He studied the scene again, then snapped a picture of the bullet hole in Leo’s chest. “Do you have plastic gloves?”

She nodded and hurried to the kitchen. Seconds later, she returned with two pairs of latex gloves and they both pulled them on. “Let’s roll him in the sheet onto the floor. Then I’ll wrap him in the rug and drag him outside.”

Tears glittered in Willow’s eyes, but she jumped into motion to help him. The man’s shirt was soaked in blood, his eyes wide with shock, his mouth slack, one hand curled into a fist as if he might have been holding something.

If he had, the killer had taken it.

“Did Leo own a gun?”

“What man in Wyoming doesn’t?” Willow asked.

“What kind?”

“A pistol and a shotgun,” Willow said. “But he took them when he moved out.”

“Look around for bullet casings. Maddox will want them to help with the case.” Willow walked around, searching the floor and the bathroom, but shook her head. “I don’t see any.”

“How about you? Do you have a gun?”

Willow shook her head. “No, I didn’t want weapons in the house with Sam.”

Good point .

“When did you learn about crime scenes?” Willow asked.

Brett shrugged. He didn’t intend to share the story about that debacle with the rodeo groupie. “Television.”

She frowned as if that surprised her, but he wrapped the sheet around Leo, gritting his teeth as Willow’s husband stared up at him in death.

Blood had dried onto the sheet and soaked through to the mattress. Rigor had set in and Leo was a deadweight. Willow gasped as he eased the man to the rug.

“Strip the rest of the bedding,” Brett said. “And bag it. We’ll keep it to give to Maddox later.”

Willow looked ill, but she rushed back to the kitchen and returned a moment later with a big garbage bag.

While he wrapped the top sheet tighter around Leo, she stripped the fitted sheet and comforter and jammed it in the plastic bag. Her ragged breathing rasped between them as she added the pillowcases, then she stood and stared at the bed for a moment as if she’d never be able to sleep in it again.

Brett wanted to comfort her, but he needed to get rid of Leo’s corpse before anyone discovered what they’d done.

* * *

THE SCENT OF the blood on her sheets and the image of Leo lying dead in her bed made Willow feel ill.

She didn’t know how she’d ever sleep in this room again.

“What should I do with these?”

“We’ll bury them with Leo.”

The thought of digging a hole for her husband sent bile to her throat. But as Brett dragged Leo’s body on that rug into the hall, she glanced in Sam’s room again, and determination rifled through her.

That empty room nearly brought her to her knees.

Determined to bring her son home no matter what, she followed Brett with the garbage bag. He pulled Leo through the hallway to the kitchen. She opened the garage door, and he left Leo in the garage, then backed his pickup around to the exterior garage door, which faced the side of the drive.

Anger at Leo mushroomed inside her.

Leo had a temper, was manipulative and secretive and...he had gotten rough with her more than once. But the day he’d put his hand on Sam, she’d ordered him to leave and told him she wanted a divorce.

Nobody would hurt her baby.

Except Sam might be hurt now... All because of the man she’d exchanged vows with. She leaned over Leo and stared at him, a mother’s temper boiling over. “What did you do to get my son kidnapped?”

Of course he didn’t answer. He simply laid there with his mouth slack and his eyes bulging. If possible, his face looked even paler beneath the kitchen lights.

Brett appeared a second later, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve. He planted his hands on his hips and looked down at Leo, then up at her.

“Are you okay, Willow?”

A sob caught in her throat, and she shook her head. “How can I be all right when Sam is missing? When he might be crying for me right now?”

Silence stretched full of tension for a minute. “Then let’s get this done.”

Brett sounded resigned, and Willow questioned again whether she should have called him. But what else could she do?

Brett knelt and grabbed the end of the rug, and Willow decided she couldn’t allow him to do this alone. She set the garbage bag down, flipped off the garage light so they couldn’t be seen through the front window, then grabbed the opposite side of the rug and helped Brett drag Leo through the garage.

She was heaving for breath by the time they reached the threshold of the exterior door. Leo’s body was so heavy that she didn’t know how Brett would lift him.