Page 93 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
“A little attempted murder,” Willow said. “What did you do with Jeremiah?”
He shrugged and started to raise the gun that had, up to then, been hidden by his sweater. But Jeremiah appeared behind him, his head all bloody on one side. He poked Montrose in the back of the head with something and said, “Put. It. Down.”
Montrose lowered the gun to his side and Jeremiah took it from his hand. Other booted feet came up the stairs, then, Uncle Garrett and Lash leading the way.
Jeremiah turned Richard Montrose around toward Garrett, and Willow saw what he’d been poking him in the head with. The metal handle of a kitchen spatula.
Behind her, Baxter was gathering Elena Montrose up from the bed, speaking softly to her.
Willow looked from the spatula to Jeremiah’s eyes and he smiled with one side of his mouth, then dropped to the floor like his bones had all dissolved.
Chapter Sixteen
Jeremiah was beside his sister’s hospital bed for the second time in as many days. His own head was bandaged up, thanks to Richard Montrose hitting it with the jagged end of a meat hammer.
Willow and her relatives from the Quinn County Sheriff’s Department were taking care of logistics on one end of things, and he figured he had to take care of them on the other. But not until things settled down.
Elena opened her eyes to gaze at him sleepily, then, frowning, she looked around the room. “Why am I back in the hospital?”
A throat cleared. Ethan had come in, and he walked over to the chair on the opposite side of her bed.
“There’s no easy way to tell you this,” Jeremiah began.
And she said, “It was Richard, wasn’t it? He did something to me.”
“Injected you with insulin,” Ethan said, real softly. “But we got to you in time.”
“Willow did, really,” Jeremiah added. “And Baxter, and then the whole dang clan.” He shook his head in wonder yet again. Yes, he’d heard about this sort of thing but he’d never seen it.
“Why did he do it?” she asked, her throat tight. “Why did he want me dead? Wait, the hit and run, was that him, too?”
“He hired some local troublemakers,” Ethan said. “The Barker boys. One of ‘em’s in jail, awaitin’ trial, and he’ll do serious time. The other two will testify against him. They claim they objected to what he did to you, but they were in the truck when it happened.”
She swallowed hard and looked at Jeremiah. “What else?”
“It was about the will,” Jeremiah said. “My fa—our father’s will. Your husband had some woman pose as you, go to a lawyer with him, and contest it. The court awarded you half.” Jeremiah said, “And I’d have given it to you anyway, I want you to know that. And I want you to have half. You were his daughter, too.”
“What about you?” she asked, looking at Ethan.
“I signed off on it,” he said. “He killed my mother.”
“And drove mine to suicide,” Jeremiah said.
“And drove mine to give me up,” Elena added.
“The judge made the decision the same day as the hit and run,” Ethan told her.
She lowered her head, closed her eyes.
“Listen, Elena,” Ethan said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You have family now. A lot of family, most of whom were traipsin’ through your house to save your life earlier today.”
“They’re not my family?—”
“Yeah, they are,” Jeremiah said, like Eeyore would have said it. “I’m not related to ‘em by blood, either, but I’m Ethan’s brother, so they’ve done claimed me. They’ll do the same to you. It’s not optional.”
“Listen to this guy, pretendin’ to hate it.” Ethan clapped his brother’s shoulder.
Jeremiah shrugged. “It kind of grows on you, actually.” He leaned in close and gave his sister a hug. “I’ll be back in the morning, little sister.” He grinned because it felt absurdly good to say those words. “Right now, I have a mission.”
