Twelve-Gauge Guardian Read online

  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 dumb-founded.

  “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.

  For a split second he thought she’d turn it on him. But then she was out the door.

  He didn’t try to stop her. A few moments later he heard her rev his brother’s pickup engine and tear off, tires spitting gravel. No reason to give her chase. He was more concerned right now with getting to the hospital and seeing his brother.

  Cyrus could deal with retrieving his pickup, Cordell thought as he went into the bathroom to clean himself up. He couldn’t wait to hear his brother’s side of the story. Downstairs, the hotel clerk gave him directions to the hospital.

  “They’re in the process of moving from the old hospital to the new one,” the clerk told him.

  It wasn’t hard to find since the entire town of Whitehorse was only about ten blocks square. The new hospital was on the far east side of town in the opposite direction from the hotel where Cyrus had gotten a room he hadn’t used.

  When Cordell walked into the small reception area, the nurse behind the desk looked at him as if she’d seen a ghost. He’d gotten used to being an identical twin and often forgot about the effect it had on other people.

  They always did a double take when he and Cyrus were together.

  When they were younger they played tricks on their teachers and even their girlfriends. The tricks often backfired, landing them in hot water.

  Now as private investigators in Denver, he and Cyrus used being identical to their benefit. It was almost as if they could be in two places at one time.

  Their grandmother had never been able to tell them apart, he remembered, then chastised himself for letting her creep into her thoughts. He knew he was just trying not to worry about Cyrus.

  “I’m Cyrus Winchester’s brother. Twin brother,” he said to the nurse now as if that wasn’t obvious.

  “Oh,” she said, both hands going over her heart. “You did give me a start when I saw you standing there.” She patted herself as if trying to still that heart. “I thought, ‘It’s a miracle.’”

  His stomach dipped. “A miracle?”

  She seemed to realize what she’d said. “I’m sorry. Hasn’t anyone told you? Of course not. Until you walked in here we didn’t know the patient’s name so we haven’t been able to notify his next of kin. Your brother is in a coma and has been since he was brought in last night.”

  SOMEONE HAD BEEN in her room.

  Raine realized it the moment she opened the motel-room door and saw the tiny piece of car
dboard from the coffee cup she’d stuck in the jamb lying on the floor.

  She froze, her gaze taking in the cheap motel room. She’d put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and it was clear that the maid hadn’t been in.

  The bed was rumpled from the few hours of sleep she’d managed to get the night before and her towels were on the bathroom floor where she’d dropped them after a quick shower this morning.

  She glanced behind the door, then at the open closet. She didn’t like surprises and almost laughed out loud at the thought as she stepped cautiously in, pulling the pistol and closing the door and locking it silently behind her.

  The room was small. Lumpy double bed, bathroom, closet. Not a lot of places for a person to hide. She checked under the bed, in the closet and behind the bathtub shower curtain. Empty.

  Tucking the pistol back into the waist of her jeans, she checked her overnight bag. Someone had gone through it. What had they been looking for? Evidence, she thought. Or identification? She’d left neither in the bag.

  Walking over to the window, she saw how they’d gotten in. The latch was broken on the sill. She’d planned to go to another motel tonight anyway. The window looked out on the alley, a stand of trees and an old house that had once been painted white.

  Raine felt her pulse thrum in her veins and her heart began to pound at the sight of the aging house. She could almost smell the rank mustiness. She hated old houses.

  Closing the curtain on both the window and the past, she quickly packed up the few belongings that she hadn’t put in storage when she’d left home, then placed a call to a local car repair shop and made arrangements to have her flat tire fixed and her car brought into town, saying she would pick it up later.

  She knew it was just a matter of time before that cowboy came looking for her. She was still shaken by her run-in with him at the hotel. He’d looked so much like the man she’d seen lying in the parking lot last night that it had taken her completely off guard.

  Glancing around the room, she made sure she hadn’t left anything, then walked to the door with her overnight bag in hand. She opened it a crack to look out. The hallway was empty.

  She pulled the gun from her waistband and, unzipping her overnight bag, laid it on top, making the weapon more accessible should she need it.

  As she pushed open the outside door, she scanned the parking lot. The lot was empty except for the pickup she was driving and a large, luxury car with Texas plates parked at the opposite end.

  Trying not to hurry, she walked to the pickup, tossed in her bag and climbed in after it. For a moment, with the doors locked and the gun handy, she just sat, not sure what to do next.

  Run. Just drive in any direction and get the hell out of here. She could dump the pickup somewhere down the road. Early this morning, she’d dug in the pickup’s glove box looking for information on the man who’d shoved her out of the way of the van last night and had pulled up short when she’d seen who the truck was registered to. Cyrus Winchester of Winchester Investigations of Denver, Colorado.

  What were the chances that the man who’d come to her rescue just happened to be a private eye?

  She started the pickup but still didn’t hit the road. She was kidding herself if she thought she could leave. Even if she had her car and had left this pickup where Cyrus’s twin brother could find it, she couldn’t run. She’d hate herself the rest of her life if she didn’t follow through with this. Wasn’t it time she learned the truth—not to mention got the justice she deserved?

  Last night the parking area behind the old hotel had been too dark to see the person driving the van. But Raine figured he had to be the same one who’d slashed her tire. He’d been waiting for her.

  You were set up, girl.

  It certainly looked that way. But why had someone gone to the trouble of luring her to Whitehorse? Surely not just to run her down in the hotel parking lot. They could have killed her in L.A. since at least one of them obviously knew where to find her—and where to send the messages that had gotten her here in the first place.

  Why, after all these years, try to kill her? It made no sense. They had no reason to believe anyone was after them. But now the sheriff’s department would be looking for the dark-colored van because the driver had put Cyrus Winchester in the hospital.

  And his brother would be looking for Raine. Finding her in a town the size of Whitehorse would be child’s play—for both the cowboy and the attempted killer.

  Any woman in her right mind would hightail it out of town and not look back.

  But Raine Chandler wasn’t just any woman, she thought with a curse.

  Chapter Three

  Cyrus looked pale, his head bandaged and a series of tubes and cords running from his lifeless body.

  Cordell took his brother’s limp hand in both of his and sat down hard on the chair next to the hospital bed. No wonder he’d felt the connection broken between them.

  “Cy, I’m here,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m going to find out who did this to you and take care of it. In the meantime…” He glanced away from his brother’s face, trying to compose himself. He didn’t want his brother to hear the fear in his voice. “I just want you to rest so you can wake up soon.”

  He heard the scuff of a shoe sole behind him and turned to see the doctor standing in the doorway. He squeezed his brother’s hand and, reluctantly letting go, rose.

  “Tell me about my brother’s condition,” he said, motioning for the doctor to come out into the hallway with him. He didn’t want to talk about it in front of Cyrus. He’d heard that comatose patients could hear what was being said to them and around them, and from the doctor’s grave expression the diagnosis wasn’t good.

  “I’m Dr. Hanson,” the elderly man said, searching Cordell’s face. “Identical twins. You certainly gave my nurse a start.” He grew more sober. “As she told you, your brother is in a coma. He was already comatose when he was brought in so we were unable to get any information from him.”

  “What caused the coma?”

  “Blunt force trauma to the back of his head. There was also some bruising around the hip and left leg as if he’d been struck.”

  “Like being struck by a vehicle?” Cordell asked. “Apparently he pushed a woman out of the way of a speeding van. She didn’t see what happened to Cyrus, but found him lying on the pavement.”

  The doctor nodded. “That would be consistent with his injuries.”

  Cordell had thought he would get the whole story from his brother once he reached the hospital. Now he saw that if he wanted to know any more about the accident he’d have to ask the woman. But first he had to make sure Cyrus was going to be all right.

  “What can we do for him?” he asked the doctor.

  “There appears to be no bleeding or swelling of the brain that requires surgery, but we will continue to monitor your brother closely. Right now he is stable, his vital signs strong. A coma rarely lasts more than two to four weeks.”

  Others last for years, Cordell thought. “I know my brother. He’s a fighter. He’ll come out of this.” Soon, he prayed.

  The doctor gave him a sympathetic smile. “We certainly hope so. Some patients recover full awareness. Others require some therapy.” His look said some were never the same. “We won’t know the full extent of your brother’s injury until he regains consciousness.”

  If he ever does. Cordell kept hearing the words the doctor didn’t say. He felt helpless. But there was one thing he could do while he waited for his twin to come back and that was to get the bastard who’d done this to him.

  That meant finding Raine Chandler, and getting the truth out of her.

  AS RAINE DROVE THROUGH a residential neighborhood in Whitehorse, she pulled out her cell phone and hit a speed dial number, realizing she was calling in late.

  “I was just about to call out the cavalry,” Marias drawled.

  “Sorry, I’ve been a little busy.”

  “Uh-huh.” Her friend had been agai
nst her coming to Whitehorse from the get-go. “What happened?” Marias knew her too well.

  “I ran into a little trouble last night, but I’m fine.”

  “They know you’re there already?” Marias let out an unladylike oath. But then there was nothing ladylike about the biker-turned-cop-turned-P.I.

  “Not a huge surprise under the circumstances. I’m not sure where I’m going to be staying so I might not be able to get Internet or cell phone coverage. Seriously,” she said when Marias snorted in disbelief. “Whitehorse is in the middle of nowhere and once you get outside the city limits, all bets are off when it comes to high-tech devices.”

  “You’re leaving?” Just like Marias to latch on to that.

  “No, just maybe staying outside town if I can find a place.” Up the block, Raine spotted a tan sedan like the one she’d seen behind the hotel this morning. The car was parked in front of the new hospital. Of course he would go see how his brother was doing and his brother would tell him everything.

  He would find out she’d been telling the truth. She hoped that would be the last she’d see of the cowboy.

  Unless, of course, he and his P.I. brother were somehow involved. What if the plan last night hadn’t been to kill her but to save her? She would have been indebted to Cyrus Winchester. Maybe something had gone wrong and instead of saving her, he’d ended up in the hospital.

  And now his identical twin was putting the strong arm on her.

  A little paranoid, are you?

  No, just covering all her bases, Raine thought. “I promise to try to stay in touch.” She hung up before Marias could argue that this trip was nothing more than a suicide mission. If she only knew how complicated this had become.

  Raine pulled over under a large tree next to a house just down the block from the hospital. This might be the perfect opportunity to check out the car—and the man driving it.

  She was about to get out of the pickup when she saw the twin come out and climb into the tan mid-size sedan. It had rental car written all over it. At least she’d been right about the car being the same one she’d seen parked behind the hotel this morning.