Page 2 of Maverick Detective Dad
“I got a box, too,” Noah said, his gaze connecting with hers again. “It was delivered to the ranch this morning. That’s why I was at the sheriff’s office when Grayson got your 9-1-1 call.”
The ranch, as in the Rylands’ sprawling Silver Creek Ranch where Noah, Grayson and many other members of their family lived. Now her own concern went up another significant notch. Not because it’d been delivered to the ranch but because it’d been delivered at all.
“Who left it and what was in it?” she managed to ask.
Noah dragged in a long breath, and he glanced around. Another cop move. Both Grayson and he were keeping up a steady surveillance of the area.
“A courier from San Antonio delivered it,” Noah explained. “He’s being held at the sheriff’s office, but it appears he was just doing his job, that he didn’t have any part of what was inside.”
The icy chill sparked. And spread. “What was inside?” she muttered.
“You should get Everly into the cruiser,” Grayson insisted before Noah could answer. He took out his phone and fired off a text. “The county bomb squad is still here in town, and I’ll have them come over and take a look.”
“A bomb?” Everly blurted out. That icy chill got even colder and went straight through her entire body.
“There wasn’t any kind of explosive in the box left for Noah,” Grayson quickly assured her. “But we should check, especially since it appears yours was delivered more than an hour after his.”
Even though her mind was still whirling and she was close to panicking, Everly had no trouble following that. The person who’d sent these boxes would have had plenty of time to add a bomb to hers as a way to escalate this.
Whateverthiswas.
She was about to press Grayson on what was in the box, but he glanced at Noah and then tipped his head to the cruiser again. Everly also had no trouble interpretating that. The person behind this could still be around, and they were all standing out in the open.
“Maybe you should get inside, too,” she murmured to Grayson as Noah and she headed to the cruiser.
“In a minute,” the sheriff said, and he started walking closer to the porch.
“Sara Cordova from the day care called Grayson just as we were pulling into your driveway, and she said you’d asked them to go on lockdown.” Noah threw that out there. He opened the back door of the cruiser, got her in and followed, dropping down on the seat next to her. “Is Ainsley all right?”
That got her attention off Grayson and back on to Noah. It shouldn’t surprise her that he knew her daughter’s name. In a small town, everybody knew pretty much everything, but the fact he’d brought it up made her wonder if there was something more she should do to make sure her baby stayed safe.
“Sara said Ainsley was okay. Why?” Everly pressed, and her heartbeat was starting to thud in her ears. “Did something bad happen at the day care?”
“No.” He was quick to answer, but his forehead bunched up. “But when Grayson learned your daughter was there, he sent a deputy just in case.Just in case,” he repeated when he no doubt saw the panic in her eyes. “The day care is locked down, and once the bomb squad arrives and has a look at that box on your porch, I can drive you over to see your daughter. I can’t do it now because I don’t want to leave Grayson here without backup.”
“Because backup might be needed,” she stated, letting the full effect of that sink in. Still, she had to make sure her baby was okay. “I need to see my daughter.”
“And you will. Soon,” he assured her. His voice was calm, cop-like, but she could see the emotion stirring in his eyes. “Is there anyone else Sara will contact about the lockdown? Ainsley’s father, I mean,” he clarified a heartbeat later.
Going back to that small-town deal again, Noah likely knew the answer to that was a Texas-sized no. Ainsley’s father and her ex, Philip, had left Silver Creek, and Everly, shortly after she’d told him she was pregnant. He’d moved in with a girlfriend Everly hadn’t known about, and Philip had then filed for a divorce that’d been finalized while Everly was still weeks away from delivering their daughter.
“I just figured Ainsley’s father might be alarmed if he gets a call from Sara,” Noah added.
“Philip’s not in the picture,” Everly settled for saying. “And there’s no one else for Sara to call. As you know, I don’t have any family other than Ainsley.” She paused and tried to prepare herself for any answer she might hear to her question. “What was in the box delivered to you?”
Noah hesitated a moment. “Bloody clothes. Specifically, a dress and women’s shoes. They’re on the way to the crime lab, but they seem to match missing items from a murder I’m investigating.”
Everly hadn’t been able to stop herself from coming up with a mental list of what might have been the contents of the box, but her first guess sure wouldn’t have been bloody clothes. In some ways it was a relief since she’d imagined all sorts of things, including a dead animal.
“A murder that happened in San Antonio?” she asked.
He nodded. “Five days ago. Her name was Jill Ritter, age forty-two, and she had a sheet for child neglect and drug-related charges. She went missing shortly after finishing up a shift at a diner in San Antonio where she worked, and her body was found yesterday on the side of a rural road miles away from where she lived.”
Everly’s stomach jolted at hearing those details, but she needed to know more. Because it would help her understand why a box had been left for her.
“Jill Ritter’s cause of death?” she asked.
“She bled out from a gash to her femoral artery.” He motioned to his thigh to show her the location of that particular wound. “She’d been drugged and her clothes removed, but there were no signs of sexual assault.” He stopped, sighed. “No evidence left at the scene. No suspects. No contact from the killer. Until now, that is.”
