Six-Gun Showdown

Jax cursed again. “Do you hear yourself? You’re talking about suicide. What you should have done is gone to the cops. Or to me.”

“I did come to you, tonight,” she whispered. “You won’t be thanking me for that, though, but it was the only way. I want this monster dead, and I want you to kill him for me.”

He gave a crisp nod. “Tell me where he is, and I will,” Jax said as if it were a done deal.

It was far from being a done deal, though.

“He wants me to meet him tonight at nine on the bridge at Appaloosa Creek. I’m sure he already had the area under some kind of surveillance before he told me it was the meeting place. He said if I show up with anyone but you, then he’ll start a killing spree. One that will involve our son.”

She gave him a moment to let that sink in. It didn’t sink in well. The fire went through his already fiery blue eyes. Actually, plenty of things about Jax fell into the fiery category. All cowboy, even with that badge clipped to his belt. Hot cowboy, she mentally corrected.

Even now, after all this time and water under the bridge, Paige was still attracted to him. Something she shouldn’t be remembering. Not when she had more important things to deal with.

“That’s why you can’t involve your brothers,” she added. “If they go rushing to the area, he’ll know.”

“How?” he snapped.

“I’m not sure. Like I said, I suspect long-range cameras. Of course, that means he has the resources to set up something like that without being detected.”

His stare drilled into her. “Who is he?”

A heavy sigh left her mouth. “I honestly don’t know.”

No one did. The Moonlight Strangler had murdered more than a dozen women before he’d finally made a mistake and left his DNA at a crime scene. There’d been no match for the DNA in the system, but there had been a match of a different kind.

To Jax’s adopted sister, Addie.

“As you know, Addie doesn’t remember her father,” Paige said.

Of course, Addie had been just three when she’d been found wandering around the woods near the Crocketts’ Appaloosa Pass Ranch. When no one had come forward to claim her, Jax’s parents had adopted her and raised her as their own along with their four sons: Jax, Jericho, Chase and Levi.

“As fraternal twins, Cord was the same age as Addie when he was abandoned, and he doesn’t remember anything, either,” she went on.

Something Paige had in common with Addie and Cord since she, too, had been left at the hospital when she was a baby. Of course, she hadn’t been abandoned by a serial killer.

He got quiet again, but not for long. “Did you see the Moonlight Strangler’s face when he tried to kill you?” Jax asked.

This was one of the other questions she’d expected, but Paige had to shake her head and hope she could say the words without having flashbacks or a panic attack.

“He hit me with a stun gun when I was getting into my car in the parking lot of the CSI office in San Antonio,” she said. Her words rushed together, spilling out with her breath. “He was wearing a mask so I never saw his face. He said some things to me...cut me and strangled me until I lost consciousness.”

Jax pressed his lips together for a moment. “What things did he say?”

That required her to take a moment. Things that were hard to repeat aloud, though they repeated in her head all the time.

And in her nightmares.

“He said if he hadn’t managed to get to me, then he would have kidnapped Matthew to draw me out.” There. That was the worst of it. The absolute worst. “The next thing I remember after that was waking up with a San Antonio cop leaning over me.”

“The cop who helped you fake your death,” he mumbled. “Along with Cord.” Jax took the venom in his voice up a notch.

Probably because Cord was obsessed with finding and stopping the Moonlight Strangler. But Paige thought maybe she heard something else in Jax’s voice. Perhaps a little jealousy. She recognized it because she felt that same ugly emotion when Jax said Belinda’s name.

“It’s not like that between Cord and me,” she volunteered.

His glare didn’t soften any. “Then how is it exactly? Why don’t you tell me?”

Well, this was a can of worms that she’d hoped to delay opening. The emotions of it were still too raw, and Paige wasn’t sure she could tell him without choking on the words. But Jax had to know. Because it was hearing this that would hopefully get him to cooperate with her dangerous plan.

“When the killer was strangling me,” she said, but then had to stop to fight back the images of that nightmare. Always the images. “He told me my birth mother was one of his first victims and that he was killing me to make sure her spawn didn’t live another second.”

Judging from the way his eyes widened, Jax hadn’t expected that. “And you believed him?”

“No. But the DNA test I took later proved otherwise.” That required another deep breath. “According to the test, my birth mother was Mary Madison. Her body was found just a few days after I was abandoned in the hospital. I didn’t learn any of this until after I’d faked my death.”

“His victim’s daughter,” Jax said. He did some deep breathing, too, and she could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “That’s why he came after you?” But he didn’t wait for her to answer. “Then why hasn’t he gone after the children of his other victims?”

She had to shake her head. “Maybe my birth mother’s murder was more personal to him? Or he could believe I know something about him that the others don’t.”

“Do you?” he asked, and it sounded like some kind of accusation.

With good reason.

Cord wasn’t the only one who’d become obsessed with finding the Moonlight Strangler. She had as well, and even though Paige had dismissed it as part of her job as a crime scene investigator, it’d been more than that. She’d felt it bone deep.

And she’d been right.

She wasn’t just searching for a killer who had eluded the cops for nearly thirty years. Now she knew that she’d been looking for the man who’d murdered her mother so she could stop him from killing again. Of course, the obsession had come back to haunt her and just might cost her everything.

“I don’t know anything about his identity,” she continued, “but I do know how to stop him.”

However, it would cost her big-time. The trick was not to have that cost spread to Matthew and Jax.

Paige checked the time. The minutes were ticking away. “I heard you tell Belinda that you were going to the sheriff’s office, so she’ll be expecting you to leave soon. I suspect you were going to analyze the voice mail I left you.”

Jax nodded. “I thought maybe it was a hoax.”

Of course he had. Because he hadn’t thought she was capable of doing something like faking her own death. “I left the message because I thought it would lessen the blow of you seeing me.”

He looked her straight in the eyes. “Nothing could have done that.”

True. But she’d had to try. Just as she had to try now.

“So, your plan is to...what?” he asked. “Go to the Appaloosa Creek Bridge and meet a killer who’s hell-bent on finishing you off?”

Hearing it spelled out like that didn’t help, but Paige tried to push her fear aside. “I’m sure he’d like to finish you off, too. I can’t think of another reason he would say I could bring you along.”

Jax stayed quiet a moment. “But you’re thinking I can kill him before he can get to me?”

Bingo.

He gave her a flat stare. “Of course, the only way I’d get a chance to do that is for him to get close enough to murder you.”

Yes. There was no way around that.

“He’s never shot anyone before.” Not that Paige knew of, anyway. “He’ll want an up-close-and-personal kill, like the others.” Something that tightened the knot in her stomach. A knot that’d been there for nearly a year since the Moonlight Strangler attacked her.

Jax’s next round of profanity was even worse than the others. Before he could tell her a flat-out no, that there was no chance this was going to happen, Paige interrupted him.

“If I could think of another way out, one that didn’t involve you, I’d take it. But I can’t risk him coming after Matthew. And neither can you.”

Jax didn’t agree with that. Didn’t argue, either.

“He said we’re to leave our guns by the side of the road before we approach the bridge,” Paige explained. “He has to know that you’ll be carrying some kind of backup weapon. That’s why I believe he’ll use a thermal scan.”

“He wouldn’t be able to see a gun on thermal scan.” Jax closed his eyes for a second, shook his head. “But he would be able to see the outline of one.”

“That’s why it can’t look like something he’d recognize as a weapon.” She took the plastic syringe from her pocket. “Hopefully, it’ll look like an ink pen, but it’s filled with enough sodium thiopental to incapacitate him in less than thirty seconds.”

“Sodium thiopental,” he repeated, no doubt knowing that it was a powerful drug that would stop the Moonlight Strangler from moving. It could also kill him, since it was the same drug used in lethal injections for those on death row.

“I would just try to use it on him myself,” Paige added, “but he left specific instructions that’ll prevent me from doing that.”

She took her phone from her jeans pocket and handed it to Jax so he could read the text message for himself. Everything was there. The time and place of the meeting. The offer for her to have Jax and no one else to drive her. If anyone else did show up, the meeting was off, and Jax’s house would be attacked. There was also the demand for them to leave their weapons on the side of the road twenty yards from the bridge and then walk there.

And one final demand.

“He wants you to strip down to your underwear so he can make sure you don’t have a weapon,” Jax read.

She nodded. “Obviously, he doesn’t trust me.”

“He won’t trust me, either,” Jax reminded her just as quickly.

“No. He might even have a hired thug hiding nearby to try to take you out. That’s why you’ll need to wear Kevlar. Do you still keep a vest in your truck?”

Jax nodded. “Kevlar won’t stop him from killing you, though.”

“No, but it’ll stop him from killing you. We can take other precautions for me, like using our own thermal scan of the area.” She tipped her head to the small equipment bag she’d stashed behind the truck. “There’s a handheld one in there so we can see if anyone’s lurking nearby before we surrender our guns.”

And there it was. All spelled out for him. Paige just waited to see what he was going to do. Part of her wanted him to refuse. That way, he’d be safe.

For tonight, anyway.

But she didn’t believe the killer was bluffing. If he couldn’t have her, then he would come after Matthew and Jax and make her suffer a million times more than she would with just her own murder.

Jax looked up at the ceiling as if asking for some divine advice. They needed it. But when his gaze came back to her, he handed Paige her phone and took out his own. He fired off a text and within just a matter of seconds, he got an answer.

“Jericho will be here in five minutes to guard Matthew,” he relayed to her.

Jericho’s house was less than half a mile away, and she’d hoped he would be able to come right away. Not to try to talk them out of this plan but to help in a way that wouldn’t spur an attack at the ranch. Even though Jericho wouldn’t be happy to see her, he would do everything humanly possible to protect Matthew. Not just tonight. But forever.

Good thing, too.

This could be the worst mistake of her life. The worst mistake of Jax’s life, too. Because this meeting could make their son an orphan.

“Unless we kill the Moonlight Strangler tonight, you’ll have to make sure everything here is secure, that he can’t get to Matthew,” she reminded him.

Of course, they couldn’t shut their little boy away for the rest of his life, and that meant one way or another, someone would have to stop the killer.

“Does Cord know about this plan?” Jax asked.

Paige nodded. “He’s in one of the trees across the road with a long-range rifle. He’s Jericho’s backup. He would have gone with me to the bridge, but the Moonlight Strangler said I could only bring you. Anyone else, and Matthew could be hurt.”

Jax’s teeth came together. “That’s not going to happen.”

It was the exact reassurance she needed. One that only a father could give. Yes, Cord would fight to the death for her, but Jax would fight to stay alive so he could keep their son safe.

“Once Jericho is here, we’ll come up with some additional security measures,” Jax insisted. “He might be able to get a deputy to pose as a hunter so we can scan the woods around the creek before we even get there. That way, we’d still be here if he’s detected.”

It was a risk, but everything was at this point.

“I saw him,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word.

Jax’s gaze slashed back to hers. “The killer?”

“Matthew. Belinda had him on the back porch earlier.” Mercy, just the memory of seeing him nearly brought her to her knees. “They were on the porch swing, and she was reading to him. He’s gotten so big.”

No longer a baby. He was a toddler now, almost two years old. Walking and talking. Every second seeing him was like a precious gift that Paige had never thought she’d get.

“I’ve missed so much.” She hadn’t meant to say that last part aloud, and it caused Jax to mumble something. She didn’t catch exactly what he said, but it was clear he believed that “dying” had been a choice she’d made.

It was.

And at the time it had been her only choice.

She saw the slash of headlights coming toward the garage. Jericho, no doubt. But just in case it wasn’t, Paige drew her gun from the back waist of her jeans.

A gesture that had Jax doing the same, along with raising an eyebrow.

Paige had never been much for guns, especially after witnessing her adoptive parents’ murders when she was just sixteen. The result of a botched robbery attempt. Since then, guns had always made her squeamish.

“You know how to use that?” Jax asked.

She was about to assure him that she’d learned, but her phone dinged, and Paige saw the text from the unknown sender.

“It’s from the killer,” she said. Paige’s heart went to her knees when she glanced through the message.

“‘Change of plans,’” she read aloud. “‘You and Jax start walking to the end of the road now. If you bring anyone with you or don’t follow the rules, I’ll start shooting. The first bullet will go into the house, and I’ll aim it right at your son.’”

Chapter Three

Jax’s mind was already spinning. He’d been hit with way too much tonight, but all of those whirlwind thoughts flew right out of his head. He pinpointed his focus on the one place it should be.

His son.

His first instinct was to run into the house and hide Matthew and Belinda, but that could turn out to be a fatal mistake. The killer might see it as a violation of his demand and start firing. If the killer was close enough to be capable of doing that.

Jax just didn’t know.

And it was too risky to find out.

“Oh, God,” Paige mumbled, and she repeated it several times. “We don’t have everything in place yet.”

No, and Jax figured that was part of the killer’s plan. To keep one step ahead of them; to keep them off balance. But Jax didn’t intend to let this snake hurt his little boy.

“Text him back,” Jax instructed. “Tell him we need more time and that we want the meeting place moved back to the bridge.”

It was a long shot. Really long. And a moment later he realized it was no shot at all. “He’s blocked me,” Paige said.

Of course he had. The killer had delivered his orders, and he wouldn’t have them challenged, because he would have almost certainly known that they’d try to negotiate with him.

Jax sent a text of his own. To Belinda. It would terrify her, but again there wasn’t much of a choice. He instructed her to take Matthew into the main bathroom and get in the tub. The room was at the center of the house and would be the safest place for them to wait this out. Jax added that he would explain everything later and hoped he was around to do just that.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” he heard Jericho ask before his brother even reached the door to the garage.

“I don’t have time to get into a lot of details,” Jax said, motioning for him to come inside. “Paige is alive, and the Moonlight Strangler is possibly nearby, ready to attack.”

Jericho came in, put his hands on his hips, his gaze volleying from Jax to Paige. Jax could tell his brother had plenty of questions, but he also saw the moment when Jericho pushed all those questions aside and the sheriff part of him kicked in.

“What do you need me to do?” Jericho asked.

Jax wasn’t sure just yet, but he soon would be. He looked at Paige. “Where’s Cord exactly?”

She pointed to a cluster of trees across the road and on the far right side of one of the pastures.

“Text him,” Jax ordered her again. “Let him know what’s going on and ask if he can see anyone approaching the house.”

While she did that, Jax went to her equipment bag and took out the thermal scanner and handed it to Jericho. “I don’t know the range on this thing, but I need you to try to see if we’re about to be ambushed. Also, call the others for backup.”

By others, he meant their brothers, Levi and Chase. Both were lawmen with lots of experience.

Jax also considered having Addie’s husband, Weston, come down, but Jax didn’t want to leave his sister alone. They had a baby and would be in a very vulnerable position if the Moonlight Strangler wanted to make Addie a target instead of Paige. It’d be a first, since the serial killer had never gone after Addie, but it was too big of a risk to take.

“Cord doesn’t see anyone other than us and the ranch hands near the house,” Paige relayed to them after reading the response she’d gotten from him. “He wants to know if you trust all your ranch hands.”

Jax nearly snapped at that since he didn’t like an outsider like Cord questioning men he’d known all his life. But Cord didn’t know them, and it was exactly the kind of question a good lawman should ask.

“I trust them,” Jax assured her. “Tell him to text us if he sees anyone or anything out of the ordinary.”

While she did that, Jericho stayed just inside the doorway, out of range so he wouldn’t be seen, and he started up the scanner.

“The Moonlight Strangler wants Paige and me to walk to the end of the road,” Jax explained to his brother. He went to his truck and took out the Kevlar vest, tried to hand it to Paige, but she shook her head.

“He’ll still want me to strip down,” she argued, “so he can make sure I don’t have any weapons. And because it’s a way of humiliating me. He might let you keep on your clothes, though, because he doesn’t plan to let you get close enough to him to use a gun or anything else. That’s why the vest is better on you. Put the syringe in your pocket so you can easily get to it. When he’s attacking me, you go after him.”

Jericho glanced at them as if they’d lost their minds. “Let me see if I’m understanding this. You two are going out there, with a serial killer? One who’s already killed Paige once. Or rather, nearly killed her. And she’s going to let him attack her again?”

“We don’t have a choice,” Jax assured him.

Well, maybe they didn’t.

The situation was moving so fast that it was hard to think, but Jax didn’t need a totally clear head to know that this could turn out to be a huge mistake—no matter what they did.

“Do you see anything on the scanner?” he asked his brother.

Jericho shook his head. “I don’t even see Cord.”

“He’s wearing some kind of thermal blanket,” Paige explained. “The kind hunters use. It’ll make it harder to be seen on infrared.”

That meant the killer and/or his henchmen could have done the same thing. And probably had. After all, this killer had gotten away with murder for years, so he wasn’t an idiot.

But what was he exactly?

Deranged? Obsessed? Or was this more personal for him?

Then it hit him. The Moonlight Strangler had gone after Paige because he considered her a spawn of his victim and believed she didn’t deserve to live. The killer probably wouldn’t want the victim’s grandson to live, either. It sickened Jax to think his little boy had any connection to something like that.

“I guess I also don’t want to know why Cord was in on this little plan and I wasn’t?” Jericho asked.

“Jax didn’t know about the plan until a few minutes ago,” Paige informed him.

“And yet you’re still going along with it,” Jericho mumbled. “Yeah, nothing could go wrong with trusting your ex-wife who let you believe she was dead.”

Jax ignored his brother’s sarcasm and double-checked the Glock in the back waist of his jeans. It’d likely be detected right away, but he might get lucky and be able to keep it.

“You see anyone?” Jax asked him.

“No. But like you said, we don’t know the range on this thing. Somebody could still be out there, hiding under a thermal wrap. Somebody who’ll kill you. That vest isn’t going to protect you from a head shot.”

Nor a shot that would incapacitate him in some other way. “I don’t think he wants to kill me. Just Paige. And he doesn’t want to put a bullet in her.”

Damn, that sounded ice-cold. But it was the truth. The Moonlight Strangler would want his hands on her.

Paige went closer to his brother. She was ash pale now, and her hands were trembling. “I know you don’t owe me any favors, Jericho, but if something goes wrong, stay here to protect Matthew.”

Jericho doled out a glare to her as if he might confirm the no-favors part, but he nodded. “I’ll protect him.”

Jax knew his brother would. And Jax would do the same for him. “When Levi and Chase get here, tell them what’s going on. Don’t have them follow us, but if they can position themselves in front of the house and closer to the road, they might be able to give us some backup.”

“Cord might be able to do that, too,” Paige added. “He’s got sniper training.”

Good. Jax would take anything he could get at this point, but he really didn’t want bullets flying near the house. Too bad he couldn’t guarantee that wouldn’t happen, and that meant Paige and he needed to put as much distance between them and the house as possible.

“We need to leave now,” Paige pressed, already starting out of the garage.

Jax knew she was right, but he still took a moment to look around, to see if there was anything he could do to make this plan safer.

There wasn’t.

He could see more headlights coming from the road that led to the main ranch and to his brothers’ houses. Chase and Levi, no doubt. Jericho would have to explain to them what was happening and get in the best positions to protect Matthew.

In the meantime, all Jax could do was get moving toward this showdown with a killer.

Since there was no truly safe position for Paige, Jax fell into step beside her. However, he did maneuver her to his right.

“If someone fires shots, drop down into the ditch,” he instructed, pointing at the ground. It wouldn’t be ideal protection since it was only a few feet deep, but it was better than nothing.

He glanced back at the house to make sure Belinda wasn’t at the window. She wasn’t. Hopefully, she would stay put with Matthew in the bathroom until she got the okay from him.

Hell.

He hated putting his son through this. Matthew was too young to understand the danger, but he had to sense something was wrong. After all, he should be getting dinner about now, followed by reading time with his daddy. He shouldn’t have to be holed up in a bathtub, hiding from a serial killer.

“I’m so sorry,” Paige whispered.

“Don’t,” Jax warned her. Any apology she attempted would be useless right now and might mess with his head. “And keep watch.”