Page 20 of Lone Star Showdown

Then, Paulie’s eyes went wide, and he started shaking his head. “Hey, you’re not thinking I put Boddie up to killing people.”

“Did you?” Bree countered.

Paulie did more cursing, and he jumped to his feet. “This interview is done. You said I had a right to a lawyer, and I want one. I want one right now, this fucking minute.”

Bree calmly stood as well, and she moved to block the door where Paulie was heading. “Call your lawyer,” she instructed. “Let him or her know you’re being detained on suspicion of murder.”

“Detained?” Paulie yelled. “For how long?”

“Legally, I can hold you for forty-eight hours.” Bree checked her watch. “Which means you have another forty-seven hours and forty-three minutes to go.”

Bree stepped out of the interview room, shutting the door while Paulie continued to curse. However, he also took out his phone, maybe to make that call to a lawyer.

Jericho and Rachel stepped out into the hall to see Bree before she went in to interview Manson. “Well, that’s a solid connection,” Bree said, and she looked at Jericho. “You think you can give me some deep background checks on Paulie and Bodine so I can see how they intersect?”

“Already on it,” Jericho said, typing something into his phone. He’d just fired off a text though when he got an incoming message.

Almost at the same time, Bree’s phone sounded with a text as well.

Jericho and Bree both looked at the messages they’d just received. And both cursed. Everything inside Rachel went still, and she tried to steel herself up for the worst.

It was the worst, all right.

Jericho looked her straight in the eyes. “There’s been another murder.”

Chapter Eight

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Jericho drank more coffee and hoped the caffeine would kick in enough to clear his head. That was asking a lot though of mere caffeine since it would need to overcome one very restless night of very little sleep.

Hard to sleep when the killer had gotten to number three.

Or rather number four on the list.

Rachel was three. But apparently, the killer had skipped her for now and had taken aim at Judge Edward Gonzales.

Literally taken aim at him.

The judge had been gunned down, the shots going through his bedroom window and killing him instantly. It’d happened when he had been on the phone with Ruby and while she’d been telling him that he was in danger.

Jericho wished like the devil that Ruby had managed to contact Gonzales just a few minutes earlier, but according to the judge’s wife, her husband had silenced his phone and had missed both a call from Ruby and Marco. On Ruby’s second try, Gonzales had finally answered the house phone.

And then had been shot.

There hadn’t been much that Rachel or he could do after getting the news about the murder, so he’d finally convinced her to go back to his place. Jericho had armed every feature of his security system and had shown Rachel to his guestroom.

That’d taken plenty of willpower.

Jericho had wanted to take her to his bed, but she hadn’t needed sex. She’d needed sleep. Or at least needed some rest so she could try to cope with the adrenaline crash from hell that’d hit both of them. Still, he’d heard her toss and turn while he was doing his own tossing and turning.

So, yeah, not much sleep for either of them.

That hadn’t stopped them though from being up at the butt crack of dawn to start going over the bits and pieces of information they were cobbling together. Cobbling and drinking enough coffee for an entire police squad while they both sat at his kitchen counter, using two of his many laptops.

At least Jericho had managed an actual shower to wash off the stench and grime of the previous assignment and the attack at Stronghold. Rachel had showered as well and still carried the scent of his soap. Also, thanks to a really late-night delivery of some of her clothes, she had been able to change into clean jeans and a top. A delivery made possible because Ruby had sent a couple of the bodyguards to Rachel’s apartment to collect the items and bring them to Jericho’s.

“Chase,” Rachel said, getting his attention. Not that it’d strayed too far. It was both comforting and unnerving to have her this close to him.

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