Twelve-Gauge Guardian

It wasn’t long before he heard voices out in the hallway, both female. He knew without hearing all the conversation that the young woman driving his brother’s truck had conned the maid into opening Cyrus’s room for her.

He heard the door open, then close and lock. For a moment, she stood perfectly still as if listening, as well. Then she quickly moved to Cyrus’s overnight bag on the end of the bed.

Cordell had a good view of her backside from where he was hidden. The woman appeared to be five-six or seven, slim with an athletic build and enough curves to fill out her jeans nicely. Had this woman been in trouble, Cyrus would have jumped to her defense without a second thought.

She unzipped the bag and hurriedly rummaged through it. He wondered what she was looking for. She definitely hadn’t come to get something for his brother. So what was she doing with his pickup?

That was when he got a glimpse of the pistol stuck into the back waistband of her jeans. It peeked out from the hem of her jean jacket as she bent over the bag. Was that what she’d gotten out of the car?

Cordell moved swiftly, knowing the minute she heard the closet door roll back, she’d reach for the weapon.

She was fast, faster than he’d anticipated. Just not as fast as he was. He came out of the closet, diving for her and the weapon. At the sound behind her, she spun around, her hand going for the gun and coming out with it in her left hand.

As she swung toward him, leading with the weapon, he grabbed her wrist, driving her back and onto the bed. He wrenched the gun from her hand, tossing it across the room. It skittered to a stop near the door.

The woman got in a kick that only missed his groin by a couple of inches. Her right hook, though, caught him squarely in the jaw, surprising him by the force of her punch, before he could grab both her wrists and pin them and her to the bed.

Her eyes widened in alarm. “You?!” she cried, looking at him as if she’d seen a ghost and confirming that she’d at least seen his twin before she took his pickup.

“Where is my brother?” he demanded, holding her down on the bed.

“Your brother?” She stared at him as if dumbfounded.

“You’re driving his pickup. You’re in his room going through this stuff. Where is my brother?”

“I thought you—”

“I asked you a question.” He knew what she thought. Few people could tell him and Cyrus apart.

Cordell pulled her arms up over her head, secured both wrists with one hand and reached for his cell phone. “You want to tell me or the sheriff? Your choice.”

“Could you get off me? I can’t breathe.”

He studied her face. She was pretty but she hid it well with too much eye makeup along with a small silver nose ring and dyed black hair cut in a sleek bob that made her pale porcelain skin even paler.

“Come on. You’re hurting me. Let me up and I’ll tell you everything.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, seeing something in her blue eyes that warned him this woman couldn’t be trusted. “Let me say this again. My brother, where is he?”

As he started to dial 911, she said, “The last time I saw him, he was being taken to the hospital.”

“The hospital? What happened to him?”

“I’m not sure. I think he was struck by a vehicle in the parking lot last night,” she said, motioning with the snap of her head toward the back of the hotel.

The open drapes, the spilled coffee, Cyrus’s cell phone on the table and the 911 call to the sheriff’s department. Cordell felt his heart drop. “Is he all right?”

“I don’t know.”

Cordell shook his head in confusion. “Why did he go down there unless … You! You didn’t just witness this. You were involved somehow. How else did you get his pickup?” He could only assume his brother had rushed downstairs to save her. But from what?

She seemed to relent. “I was crossing the parking lot. I stopped, surprised to see that I had a flat tire on my car. Just then I heard an engine rev and this van came roaring out of the darkness.”

“My brother saved you.” It was the only thing that made sense. Cyrus must have seen the van and realized it was waiting for her.

“He shoved me out of the way. I fell. When I came to, a man who looks a lot like you was lying nearby.” Her gaze skidded away. “I heard sirens. I didn’t know what had happened. I was afraid the van would come back. I saw your brother’s keys lying next to him and took his pickup.”

“The sirens—”

“It was an ambulance,” she said.

“Did you happen to notice while you were taking his keys if he was still alive?” Cordell asked with sarcasm that she seemed to ignore.

“He was still breathing from what I could tell.”

Cordell couldn’t hide his relief. “Nice of you to stick around and make sure he was all right.”

She glared at him. “I’d had a scare. I didn’t know your brother from Adam. For all I knew he was with the guys in the van.”

He studied her. This whole mess sounded just like Cyrus. Maybe he’d even seen the driver of the van flatten her tire. The moment the man went back to his van to wait for her to come out of the hotel, Cyrus would have started to call 911. How, though, had the man in the van known she would come back out again last night?

“You’d just returned to the hotel? Wasn’t it late?” he asked her. She looked surprised he’d figured that out. “So why leave again so soon?”

“I came back to check out. I’d changed motels.”

“Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I didn’t like the feel of this place, too far from town and it’s old and crumby.”

Maybe she was telling the truth, though he had his doubts. He was still shaken by the news that his brother had been taken to the hospital after possibly being hit by a van to save this ungrateful woman’s neck.

Fortunately Cyrus was tough. He would be all right. He had to. And yet that foreboding feeling was still with Cordell.

“So my brother saves you, first you take off and just leave him lying there and then you come back here to go through his belongings?”

“I’m not a thief,” she snapped, her blue eyes darkening.

“What’s your name?”

Again her gaze shifted away. “Raine Chandler.”

“I’d like to see some identification.”

She shot him a disbelieving look that said she’d couldn’t show him anything with him on top of her.

He eased off and she reached as if to get something out of her hip pocket. The blow took him completely by surprise, knocking him back. As her fist connected with his nose, the pain radiating up through his skull, she wriggled out from under him. His vision blurred as his eyes filled. Blood poured from his nose as he reached for her.

But she was too fast. Through the film of tears, he saw her vault over the bed to the spot where he’d tossed her pistol by the door. She came up with the gun.