Page 47 of Lone Star Wanted
Cassidy’s phone buzzed in her lap. And she saw the name on the screen. Marlene.
“Marlene, are you okay?” she blurted the moment she answered.
There was a brief pause, then, “Yeah. Why?”
Cassidy blinked. “Because I thought you might be in trouble.”
“I’m fine,” Marlene replied, voice even. “Why?”
She glanced at Ginny in the back seat, who had her eyes closed but was still breathing steadily. “We found your mother,”Cassidy informed her. “She’s alive but bruised. We’re bringing her to the county hospital now.”
There was another beat of silence. “I’ll be there soon,” Marlene said, and the line went dead.
Cassidy slowly lowered the phone from her ear and stared at the screen. “She didn’t even ask how her mom was.”
Kincade’s jaw flexed as he reached for his phone again. “We’ll need to keep Ginny under guard. No telling who else might want her quiet.”
He used the hands-free to compose another text, and Cassidy knew he was looping in Ruby or one of the Maverick Ops teams. She was beyond thankful for Maverick Ops’ vast resources, but there could soon be a fly in this particular ointment.
“If Sheriff Becker’s part of this,” she whispered to Kincade, “he could pull jurisdiction. Force your people to walk away from the scene.”
Kincade locked eyes with her. “Then we don’t let him. We stay ahead of him. And we keep Ginny safe so she can tell us everything she knows.”
Cassidy nodded slowly and turned in her seat. She leaned over, brushing a hand across Ginny’s shoulder. “Marlene’s okay,” she murmured. “She’s on her way here now.”
Ginny’s breath caught, and her face crumpled with emotion. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks as she let out a shaky sob.
“Thank God,” she whispered. “Thank you. I—I was so afraid something had happened to her.”
Cassidy’s attention shifted back to Kincade when he stepped out of the SUV and jogged toward the emergency entrance. He disappeared through the sliding glass doors. Moments later, a pair of nurses and a doctor pushed through with a gurney, moving quickly toward them.
The back door opened, and Cassidy stepped aside as Kincade returned to help ease Ginny onto the stretcher. The nurses took over immediately, one checking her vitals while the other steadied her head and shoulders.
“We’ve got her,” one of them said.
They rolled Ginny into the ER, and Cassidy and Kincade followed close behind as the team directed her into an exam room.
Ginny clutched Cassidy’s hand tightly, her voice raw. “I’m so thankful Marlene’s safe. I know I haven’t always… I haven’t always been the mother she needed. But I never wanted her hurt. Never.”
Cassidy squeezed her hand back, heart aching at the truth in her voice. “You’re here now. That matters.”
Ginny nodded weakly, her bruised face streaked with tears. “Why did this happen? Why would someone take me?”
Cassidy hesitated, unsure how much to say. “We’re not sure yet.”
But inside, her stomach twisted. Because they were sure. It all came back to Alisha’s murder. To Travis digging too deep. To Daniel Harlan winding up dead.
And the deeper they got, the closer they were to cracking a truth someone would do anything to keep buried.
A nurse in pink scrubs entered the room, her demeanor calm but efficient. She glanced at Cassidy and Kincade and then moved to Ginny’s side.
“I’m going to check your vitals and do a quick assessment,” she explained to Ginny.
She wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Ginny’s arm and slid a pulse oximeter onto her finger. After jotting down the readings, she leaned in slightly. “Can you tell me where it hurts most?”
Ginny gestured weakly toward her right side.
The nurse carefully lifted the edge of her shirt to examine the bruising, her eyes narrowing as she noted the deep discoloration spreading along Ginny’s ribs.
