Текст книги "Cold Hearted"

Автор книги: Beverly Barton

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

“I should have known this was a bad idea,” Jordan said. “Apparently there are people in Priceville who actually believe I killed Dan.”

“Why don’t you go to the car,” Rene said. “I’ll run up the street to the Cream and Sugar and get us something to drink. What do you want?” She glanced from Jordan to Maleah.

“Iced tea,” Jordan said.

“Sounds good to me.”

“When I get back, why don’t we drive over to Chattanooga and spend the day?” Rene suggested. “Not as many people will recognize you in a big city.”

“Why not?” Jordan forced a smile. “I’ll wear my sunglasses all day and look mysterious.” Her words projected a bravado that she didn’t possess. But she’d be damned if she’d let these people force her back to the prison that Price Manor had become.

While Rene went up the street to the Cream and Sugar, Priceville’s alternative to Starbucks, Jordan slid in behind the wheel of her Navigator while Maleah opened the back door and took the seat behind the passenger side. People passing on the street glared at Jordan, some even stopped, stared, and pointed fingers. A few actually hurled insults at her. She yanked down her sunglasses from where she’d hung them over the visor, put them on, and slouched down in the bucket seat.

The sooner Rene returned with their drinks, the better. Escaping to Chattanooga for the day couldn’t happen soon enough.

Suddenly, Rene reappeared, a frantic expression on her face, and without their drinks. Clutching a folded magazine of some sort in her left hand, she grabbed the door handle with her right hand, yanked open the door, and hurled herself into the front seat beside Jordan.

“God, just when we thought things had finally settled down,” Rene said, practically shouting. “Now this!” She snapped open the newspaper and slapped it across the steering wheel in front of Jordan. “No wonder the whole town is staring at you and whispering behind your back. While I was waiting in line to order our tea, I saw this on the magazine rack.”

Jordan’s heart hammered turbulently as she read the headlines on the front page of this week’s issue of The Chatterbox.

“Oh, Lord, have mercy.”

MÉNAGE À TROIS: SENATOR DAN PRICE, HIS WIFE AND HIS MALE LOVER.

Rick hurriedly read the titillating short article on the Web site, its purpose to induce readers to rush out and buy the weekly newspaper-style magazine.

Find out all the details in this week’s issue of The Chatterbox, on sale today. Just what went on behind closed doors at Price Manor? Who was the father of the child Jordan Price recently lost? Did the senator’s wife and his lover plot his death?

“How the hell did this happen?” Rick asked.

“I’ve placed some phone calls,” Griff told him. “It’s apparent that someone close to Jordan Price sold this story about the private details of the senator’s life, including the well-kept secret of his homosexuality.”

“We need to find out who betrayed her confidence and deal with them,” Rick said.

“Unless she and Devon Markham can prove this—” Griff pointed to the computer screen “—is slander and not a word of it is true, neither the person who sold this story nor the magazine are liable. You can’t sue someone for telling the truth. Our main concern now is some type of damage control.”

“Does Jordan know about this?”

“Not that we know of,” Nic said. “We haven’t heard from her or from Maleah. We didn’t know ourselves until about five minutes ago when Cam Hendrix phoned Griff.”

“We have to warn her,” Rick said.

“I’ll call Maleah,” Griff said, “while Nic contacts Claire and Ryan. Do you want to call Mrs. Price, or should I—” Griff’s phone rang interrupting him mid-sentence. He checked caller ID, then flipped it open. “Maleah?”

Rick could tell by the frown on Griff’s face and the way he nodded his head that more than likely Maleah was telling him that she knew about the article in The Chatterbox; and if Maleah knew, then Jordan knew.

“Call the sheriff and have him send some deputies to clear the road for you,” Griff said. “I’ll send as many agents as we have available right away.” Griff closed his phone, pocketed it, and turned to Rick.

“Maleah went with Jordan and her assistant into town this morning. They didn’t know anything about The Chatter-box article. As soon as they found out, they headed back to Price Manor, but it seems word leaked out that Jordan was in downtown Priceville. They’re now being chased by a horde of reporters.”

“Are they all right?” Rick asked.

“For now.”

“Exactly where are they?”

“About halfway between Priceville and Price Manor.”

“If I find out who did this, I’ll break their neck. If anything happens to Jordan, I’ll…” Rick took a deep breath. “I want to take one of the choppers. It’ll get me to Priceville faster.”

“Is your license up to date? If it’s not, get Jonathan to take you.”

“It is.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Go.”

Chapter 24

Fear surged through Jordan as she sped down the country road, at least five vehicles in hot pursuit. The one riding her bumper was a van carrying a news crew from a Chattanooga television station. An SUV behind the van kept careening over the yellow line, trying to pass. Casting a glance in her rearview mirror, Jordan noted the logo on the SUV and knew it belonged to a local Dalton, Georgia TV station. The other cars, vans, and SUVs following behind these two were probably reporters from various newspapers and maybe even someone from The Chatterbox.

“This is total insanity.” Rene turned as far around in her seat as the safety harness would allow and watched the caravan of vehicles following them. “They’re like a pack of vultures that got a scent of rotting flesh.”

Maleah was on her cell phone, her voice low, so that Jordan could make out only a word or two now and then, but she got the impression that her bodyguard was speaking to someone at the sheriff’s office.

“Of all days, I chose today to venture out and go into town as if all was right with the world,” Jordan said.

“You had no way of knowing that The Chatterbox was going to print an exposé on your and Dan’s personal life.” Rene gasped. “Oh, God, Jordan, what about Devon? He’ll be absolutely devastated when he finds out.”

“Call him,” Jordan said. “Tell him what’s happened and what’s going on here. Explain that I’ll talk to him as soon as I can.”

One horn honked, and then another and another, creating a godawful racket that only added to Jordan’s stress level. Just as Rene placed the call to Devon, a small, black sports car behind both the van and the SUV swerved onto the opposite side of the road, sped past them, and then came up alongside Jordan’s Navigator.

“Crap!” Rene muttered under her breath. “That guy’s crazy.”

“Gun it,” Maleah ordered. “Put some distance between us and them.”

“If I go any faster, I don’t know if I can control—”

“Do it!” Maleah practically shouted. “If you don’t get ahead of them, they’re going to try to surround you and block us in.” Then into the phone, she said, “Yes, damn it, we need help now!”

Jordan gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled fierceness, pressed her foot down on the gas pedal, and prayed. The Navigator charged into high gear and shot down the road like a small rocket.

When her cell phone flew out of her hand and landed on the floorboard, Rene grumbled an unladylike obscenity. “Hell, just let it lay there. Devon didn’t answer. It went straight to voice mail.”

“He may have his phone turned off,” Jordan said, her gaze riveted out of the windshield, the scenery zipping by at lightning speed as she pushed the Navigator up to ninety.

The massive gates of Price Manor loomed in the distance. She could just barely make them out, but even a long-range glimpse offered her hope that they could make it to the estate before being overrun by their pursuers. Once behind the gates, they would be safe.

“We’re almost there,” Jordan said.

“Good,” Maleah replied. “That black sports car is gaining on us.”

As Jordan approached the entrance to the estate, her heart in her throat and her pulse pounding like war drums inside her head, she all but cried out when she saw what lay ahead – four vehicles effectively blocking her path. The Powell agent whose name she couldn’t remember was talking to the woman who had parked her Toyota Camry directly in front of the closed gates.

“Now what?” Jordan knew their choices were limited to two, stop at the gates and be overrun by reporters or keep going and hope she could outrun them.

“Is there a side road somewhere around here?” Maleah asked.

“Yes, there’s an old gravel road that leads to the back entrance of the estate, but it’s at least a mile from here,” Jordan said, then suddenly drew in a gasping breath. “Wait, there’s a dirt road that cuts through the Landaus’ cotton field or what used to be a cotton field. We’ll have to go through the woods and I’m not sure how clear that old lane is.”

“Keep going,” Maleah told her. “Turn off on that road and disappear as quickly as possible. There are two sheriff’s deputies on their way here right now. They’re not more than three miles away. We just need to buy some time.”

Jordan didn’t even slow down as she passed the entrance to Price Manor. The Navigator shimmied just a little when it reached ninety-five. She didn’t ease her foot off the gas pedal until she saw the partially hidden dirt lane where she would have to turn.

Dear God, help me turn this truck off the road without wrecking us.

“Hold on,” Jordan yelled.

She turned the steering wheel sharply, almost fishtailing the SUV, but she got it under control just before running over several small shrubs that lined the grassy path into the woods.

“Dear God!” Rene clutched the dashboard.

When they were through the woods and on the old road leading into what had once been a cotton field, Maleah alerted them to bad news.

“The black sports car is behind us.”

“Only the one car?” Jordan asked.

“As far as I can tell.”

When the path abruptly ended, Jordan stopped and slowly, carefully turned the SUV around, heading out.

“What are you doing?” Rene asked.

“I’m going to run over that damn little sports car, if that’s what it takes,” Jordan said.

“Who do you think you are, Mrs. Rambo?”

“No, I’m Jordan Price and I’m sick of being hounded, of being made to feel like a prisoner in my own home, sick of being tried and found guilty in every newspaper, magazine and television newscast in the country.”

Rene laughed. “You get ’em, girl.”

The tension inside Jordan boiled over, released like steam from an overheated kettle. She laughed and laughed; then she buried her face in her hands.

“Are you all right?” Rene punched Jordan’s shoulder.

She lifted her head and smiled. “I’m okay. We’re all alive and that’s a miracle, don’t you think?”

“Before you run over this guy, let me see if I can talk to him.” Maleah opened the back door and stepped down and out of the SUV.

“Now she’s playing Mrs. Rambo,” Rene said.

As Maleah walked toward the approaching car, she dialed her cell phone and spoke to someone. The sports car pulled to a halt a good twenty feet from the front of the Navigator and the driver opened his door and got out to face Maleah. The man was tall, slim and dark-haired, probably in his early thirties. He wore tight jeans, a cotton knit sweater, and a pair of aviator sunglasses. From the way he moved, it was obvious that he was more than comfortable in his own skin.

Jordan and Rene waited while Maleah carried on a conversation with the man. He kept shaking his head and looking toward the Navigator. Once, when he tried to sidestep Maleah, she reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. They squared off, as if on the verge of fighting.

“Listen,” Rene said. “I hear a siren.”

Jordan heard it, too, and within minutes she saw the sheriff’s car driving up behind and to the side of the sports car. Two uniformed deputies emerged. Maleah spoke to one of the deputies while the other talked to the reporter. After arguing heatedly with the deputy, the guy finally gave up and got in his once clean and shiny, now filthy, black sports car. He shifted into reverse, backed into the field, turned around, and sent a cloud of dust into the air as he ripped off toward the highway. Maleah walked over to the Navigator and opened the driver’s side door.

“I want you two to go with the deputies,” she told them. “They’ll take y’all home. I’ll follow in the truck.”

Jordan gladly did as Maleah suggested, relieved to have a police escort. But her relief was short-lived. When they arrived back at the entrance to the estate, they found not only more news people in their cars, trucks, and vans, but a small crowd of what she assumed were curiosity seekers. The deputy driving stopped in the middle of the road and the other deputy got out and shouted orders to the horde assembled in the road, along the road, and even across the road. Some people were actually standing in the shallow ditch. A few of the onlookers carried binoculars.

Clearing all the vehicles out of the way took at least ten minutes, but eventually, they unblocked the route to the entrance. One deputy remained at the gate with the Powell agent while the other eased the patrol car up to the entrance, and then gave the signal for the Powell agent to open the gate. The minute he did, the deputy sped through and onto the drive, but not before some idiot threw himself onto the hood. With his face pressing against the windshield, he glared at Jordan and shouted a string of damnations. As the gates closed behind the car, the deputy stopped, got out and peeled the man off the hood.

“Murderess! Whore! Infidel!” he shouted. “There is a special place in hell for women like you.”

The deputy handcuffed the man, marched him to the guardhouse, and handed him over to the other deputy.

Rene draped her arm around Jordan’s shoulders. “Don’t let what he was saying bother you. He’s obviously crazy.”

“Yes, but there are people who aren’t crazy who think the way he does. And there are others who believed in my innocence before today, who will now condemn me, just as they’ll condemn Dan and Devon.”

“Then they’re cold, heartless bastards. They have no right to judge you. Your arrangement with Dan and Devon was nobody’s business. You three were happy with the way things were.”

“Were we?”

Jordan hadn’t realized she had voiced her thought until Rene stared at her, obviously surprised by her comment.

Thinking back over the past few years, Jordan admitted to herself that she had not been happy. Not really. Nor had Devon and Dan. They had each settled for less than they should have. She had escaped into a bogus marriage believing it could protect her from ever being hurt again. Devon had loved Dan enough to give him what he’d wanted – a secret love affair and a marriage to Jordan that had been in name only. In the beginning, their arrangement had seemed quite logical and it had worked for all of them. But only for a while. Their having a child together, her undergoing artificial insemination, her being pregnant with Devon’s baby, had been a mutual decision, one they all thought would cement the cracks in their unique three-way relationship.

Rene didn’t say a word; she simply sat there in the backseat of the patrol car and kept her arm around Jordan’s shoulders. By the time the deputy drove up in front of the house, Maleah was right behind them in the Navigator. Before either vehicle came to a full stop, the residents of Price Manor swarmed around them.

Jordan emerged to arms reaching for her and voices clamoring their concern. She hugged Tammy, who had shoved her way to the forefront, then came Roselynne and then Darlene, each in need of comfort and reassurance.

“How long have you been here?” Jordan asked Darlene.

“I got here before the hordes descended,” Darlene replied. “Oh, my dear girl, are you truly all right? Just when we thought things were finally getting better, this had to happen.”

“I’m fine or I will be. I just want to go inside, get a stiff drink and pull myself together.”

“Yes, of course. Just know that I’m here and I’m staying. I won’t leave you again no matter what you say.”

Maleah came up behind Jordan, curved her hand over Jordan’s shoulder and said, “I want y’all to step back and give Jordan a little breathing room. I’m sure she’ll want to see y’all again later, but right now, I’m taking her inside where she can catch her breath.”

Grateful to have Maleah as a buffer between her and her loved ones, Jordan allowed the Powell agent to lead her into the house.

“Would you like to go up to your room or—”

“I wasn’t joking about that stiff drink,” Jordan said.

Tobias and Vadonna stood in the foyer, both staring at Jordan, each obviously concerned. She turned to them and smiled.

“Miss Jordan, if there’s anything Vadonna or I can do for you…” Tobias said.

“Thank you. The only thing I need right now is some time alone. And, Tobias, would you bring me a bottle of that fig vodka I like so much? I’ll be in my study.”

“A whole bottle, ma’am?”

“Yes, the whole bottle.”

His eyes widened, but he nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

While the others entered the foyer and watched her as she escaped down the hall and into her study, Jordan realized that only Maleah’s hard glare kept her distressed family at bay.

Half an hour and several drinks later, Jordan had spoken to Devon, who was an absolute basket case. She hated that he was there in Bethesda, all alone, when the news of his true relationship with Dan became public knowledge.

“Just stay put for the time being. Hole up there in the townhouse until you hear from me. I’ll arrange with Powell’s to send an agent to D.C. to escort you home.”

“Who would have done such a thing? Only a handful of people knew the truth about Dan and me.”

“As much as I hate to even think it, we both know it was someone in the family.”

After a lengthy conversation with Devon, she sat quietly, trying to make sense of what had happened, and not just what had happened today with the vicious story in The Chatterbox, but with the events in her past as well.

Just as she was considering pouring herself another drink and dulling her senses even more with alcohol, someone knocked on the locked study door.

“Yes?”

“It’s Maleah.”

When she stood, she realized she was slightly tipsy. Steadying herself, she walked to the door, unlocked it, and said, “If it’s bad news, I don’t want to hear it.”

“One off Powell’s helicopters has just landed in the south field behind the house,” Maleah said. “Rick Carson has come back.”

Jordan couldn’t breathe for a couple of seconds. Every cell in her body responded to the thought of her seeing Rick again.

“If you’d like, I’ll go with you to meet him.”

“Yes, I’d like that very much,” Jordan said.

Chapter 25

The helicopter created a thunderous roar and a rotating wind surge that flattened the grass and swayed the nearby bushes and treetops. Maleah and Jordan watched from a distance as Rick landed the chopper in a wide open field on the Price estate. Sunlight danced off the blades as they slowed and finally stopped. The quiet stillness of the green meadow, the only sounds those of nature, seemed all the more pronounced once the chopper engine shut off. Jordan raised her hand as a visor to block the blinding sun. The chopper door swung open and Rick emerged.

Jordan’s heartbeat accelerated with anticipation.

She wanted to run to him. She didn’t. Instead, with Maleah at her side, she walked briskly toward Rick as he threw up his hand and waved at them.

With her thoughts centered on Rick’s return, on what it would mean to have him back in her life, Jordan didn’t hear, see, or sense anything else. Her entire being was centered on this one moment and this one man.

And then, without warning, the distinctive resonance of a rifle shot rang out, terrifyingly clear. Before Jordan had a chance to react, Maleah shoved her forward behind a clump of tall bushes and then onto the ground, coming down over her like a protective shield. It took Jordan half a minute to realize that someone had shot at them and a full minute to realize that she had screamed.

Maleah grunted. “Are you all right?”

“I – I think so.”

“Stay down,” Maleah told her.

Jordan felt something wet and sticky dripping onto her neck. She managed to maneuver her hand up so that she could run her fingers over the substance. She looked at her fingertips and gasped when she saw that they were smeared with something red. Oh, God. She had blood on her fingers, blood she had wiped off her neck. Had she been hit? She hadn’t felt the impact of a bullet entering her body.

“You two all right?” Rick shouted.

“Jordan’s okay,” Maleah replied. “But I’m hit.”

“Stay put,” Rick told her.

“You’ve been shot?” Jordan asked her bodyguard, who at that precise moment was literally protecting Jordan’s body with her own.

“It’s a shoulder wound,” Maleah said. “It won’t kill me.”

Jordan managed to turn her head just enough to peer through the bushes and get a glimpse of Rick, gun in hand, carefully canvassing the area as he made his way toward them.

Fully expecting to hear more gunfire, Jordan uttered a prayer. Please, God, don’t let the shooter fire again.

With her pulse pounding rapidly, the sound drowning out everything else, all sense of time and place distorted by fear, she wasn’t sure how long it took Rick to reach them. He hunched down, reached out, and hauled Maleah away from Jordan. When Maleah rolled over onto her side, Jordan did the same, so the two faced each other. It was then that she saw the hole in Maleah’s blood-soaked blouse. She clamped her teeth together to keep from crying out.

“Did you see where the shot came from?” Rick asked as he visually examined Maleah’s wounded shoulder.

“From the left,” Maleah told him. “Left, into the woods, and a little in front of where we were, not from behind.”

“We need to get you to the hospital.” Still holding his gun in his right hand, he used his left hand to pull his cell phone from his pocket. He hit a pre-programmed number. “Yeah, Maleah’s been shot. Put in an emergency call and get some men over to the field where I landed the chopper ASAP.”

Jordan watched as Rick ripped apart Maleah’s blouse and checked the entry wound, then looked for an exit wound. He frowned. “The bullet went straight through, but it left a hell of a mess.”

She grunted. “Yeah, and it hurts, too.”

Rick grinned at her, then still holding the gun, shrugged off his jacket and tossed it to Jordan. “Fold this into a thick, compressed square and use it to apply pressure to Maleah’s shoulder. We need to stop the bleeding.”

Silent and dazed, Jordan followed his instructions.

He glanced at her. “How are you holding up, honey?”

She couldn’t manage to speak, so she simply nodded.

“Help’s on the way,” he told them, but his attention was focused elsewhere. He watched and listened, apparently preparing for a second attack.

“Don’t pass out on me,” Maleah told Jordan. “You’re white as a sheet.”

“I – I’m okay. Just – just worried about you.”

Maleah grimaced. “It’s probably not as bad as it looks.”

If only she could stop trembling, but she couldn’t. Jordan knew without anyone saying it – the bullet Maleah took had been meant for her. She had been the target, not her bodyguard.

Jordan had wanted to go to the hospital with Maleah, but Rick had quickly nixed the idea. He knew that Jordan was concerned, that she cared, that she felt responsible for what had happened to her bodyguard; but her staying put was the safest course of action.

“You’ll be easier to protect, here, inside the house,” he had explained. “Since we have no idea who the shooter was or what his or her motive was, you’ll need twenty-four/seven personal protection. I’m taking over as your bodyguard and the only time you’ll be alone is in the bathroom. Got that!”

When he had landed the Powell Agency helicopter, he’d been anticipating seeing Jordan again. Although he’d done his level best to put her out of his mind the past nine days, she had never been far from his thoughts. The rifle shot had rung out only moments after he left the chopper, and in that defining moment, all that had mattered to him was Jordan.

Once they arrived back at the house, he’d had a hell of a time keeping Jordan’s leeches off her. He supposed thinking of family and close friends as bloodsucking sycophants said something about his view of the world. A negative view. Even if they all truly loved Jordan and their concern for her well-being was genuine, why didn’t they realize that they were drawing the life out of her with their need for constant reassurance? Why couldn’t they see that their concerns were self-centered, that each of them was imagining what would happen to her without Jordan?

Once they had convinced everyone that Jordan was unharmed and simply needed some breathing room, he took her to her study, which seemed to be where she felt the most comfortable. He closed the plantation shutters and ushered her away from the windows.

“Sit down. I’ll get you a drink.”

“No. I don’t want to sit down and I don’t want a drink.” She looked at him. “I had several drinks earlier. I want a clear head right now.”

“You’re trembling.”

“I know. I can’t help it. I guess realizing that someone actually tried to kill me shook me up just a little.”

“Jordan…” When he reached out to her, she sidestepped him, avoiding his touch.

“Don’t try to convince me that whoever shot Maleah wasn’t aiming at me.”

“I won’t,” he said. “Whoever shot Maleah may have been aiming at you. But if they wanted to kill you, they weren’t much of a shooter. They not only missed you, but they didn’t fatally wound Maleah.”

“Thank God.”

“Yes, thank God. And thank Maleah’s quick action.”

“She saved my life.”

“Possibly.”

“What do you mean possibly?”

“Come on, honey, sit down before you fall down.” He reached for her and once again she avoided him. “You look like you might pass out any minute now.”

“I’ll sit down like a good little girl, if you’ll tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Agreed.”

She chose one of the chairs instead of the sofa. Had she chosen the sofa to prevent him from sitting beside her? Why didn’t she want him to touch her? Was she angry with him or afraid she’d fall apart in his arms?

“Talk,” she said.

He pulled a ladder-back chair away from the wall, dragged it across the room and placed it in front of Jordan. She eyed him suspiciously as he sat.

“We don’t have long to talk, just the two of us,” he told her. “Your brother-in-law and Sheriff Corbett are on their way here now. When they arrive, we’re going to discuss a couple of theories about what might be going on. Why someone outed Dan and Devon. Why someone shot at you today. Who really killed Dan and possibly killed the other men in your past.”

She stared at him, her eyes round with surprise and interest. “Do you finally believe that I’m not a killer?”

His instinct was to reach out for her hands in a reassuring manner, but considering how she’d been avoiding his touch, he kept his hands to himself.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said.

“You don’t sound very certain.”

“Chalk it up to my pessimistic, negative view of people in general,” he told her. “A psychiatrist would probably say that I have trust issues.”

“Probably. And more than one therapist has told me that I have fear-of-abandonment issues.”

“Wonder why?”

Although her lips didn’t lift upward, her eyes smiled. “Life experiences have a way of molding us, don’t they? If we’re lucky, we start out as happy, carefree children with loving, protective parents. We’re little soft, sweet lumps of clay. And then somewhere along the way, we get our first hard knock and the process begins.”

He searched her face, looking deep into her eyes. “You know that I want to hold you right now, don’t you?”

She took a deep breath. “Oh, boy, is my life screwed up or what? I want you to hold me, but I’m afraid. Maybe it’s just a matter of knowing you might be the right guy, but this is definitely the wrong time.”

A loud rap on the door interrupted any further personal admissions.

“Yeah?” Rick called.

“It’s Ryan Price. And I have Steve Corbett with me.”

Rick got up, walked to the door, and undid the lock. He shook hands with Ryan, who then hurried to Jordan. Rick and the sheriff nodded cordially.

“Before we get started, I need your word that this discussion won’t go beyond these four walls and the four of us,” Rick said.

“I’ve given Ryan my word that everything short of a confession to a crime will be strictly off the record,” Steve said.

Ryan pulled Jordan to her feet and hugged her. Rick felt a tinge of what he figured was jealousy. She would let her brother-in-law give her a comforting hug, but she wouldn’t let him touch her. Yeah, sure, he understood her reasoning, but the primitive male in him didn’t give a damn.

Jordan pulled away from Ryan. “I really am all right.”

“Claire sends her love. She said to tell you if you need her, need anything…”

“Please, thank her for me, will you,” Jordan said.

“Why don’t we all sit down,” Rick suggested and waited until the others were seated before he explained why he’d initiated this gathering.

“I’m going to toss out some theories. One is possibly the right one, but we won’t know which. I need everyone to listen without getting on the defensive. Just hear me out. And if we’re going to find Dan Price’s killer, you need to keep an open mind.”

“What sort of theories are you talking about?” Ryan asked.

“Theories about why someone might have wanted to kill your brother and several other men in Jordan’s past.”

“Then you believe all those deaths are linked to Dan’s?” Steve asked.

“All of them, maybe. Some of them, definitely.”

“Let’s hear your theories,” Steve said.

“Okay, the first and presently most popular theory is that Jordan is a black widow who murdered both of her husbands and her fiancé for profit. Also, it’s likely she killed her father, her former boss and a co-worker. Her father for profit, her former boss so she could get his job, and a co-worker because he sexually harassed her. DA Ander-man and your deputy, Lt. McLain, prefer this theory and either one or both of them is behind the leaks to the press, first Jordan’s past and then about Dan Price and Devon Markham’s relationship.”