Page 43 of Lawman’s Witness

“He suspended me.”

“It’s all my fault,” she cried, and found herself voicing what had been bothering her all morning. “I already feel responsible for Robert Baker getting killed, too. If I hadn’t followed Liz to the house and told her everything—”

“Amy Sue, you can’t blame yourself for Robert’s bad decisions, and you certainly aren’t responsible for me getting suspended. I investigated because it’s my job.”

“But you did it because you believed that I saw a murder.”

“You did see a murder. Everything I’ve learned since has convinced me of that. You saw Jack Marshall kill Whitney Clark.”

They both fell silent for a few moments. “Are you giving up, Russ?”

“No,” he said slowly. “But I need to go up to the ranch. I usually go on my days off.”

“But lately you’ve been working instead,” she said, knowing that it was no longer just about doing his job as a detective. While he wanted justice, he wanted to see this through because of her.

“I was thinking you might want to come with me.”

The invitation didn’t take her completely by surprise. But what really surprised her was how badly she wanted to go. After everything that had happened, she wouldn’t mind taking a step back for a couple of days.

That, however, wasn’t the real reason her pulse had taken off at his invite. She wanted to spend more time with him in his other element, the cowboy part of the cop. She also wanted to see where these sparks between them might lead.

“It would just be Saturday night and come back Sunday,” he was saying. “You’d have your own room. My parents and brother are there.”

She smiled to herself. Russ, the perfect cowboy cop gentleman. “I’d like that.” She heard his relief.

“I know they’d like to meet you.”

Amy Sue felt her eyebrows shoot up. “Have you told them about me?”

“I never talk about my cases with them, but I might have mentioned you.” He sounded shy and maybe a little embarrassed. “How about I pick you up at your hotel in an hour? Will that work?”

“I’ll be ready,” she said, and felt a shiver of excitement at the thought of an entire weekend with him. She’d barely disconnected when her cell phone rang.

Even before she answered, she’d feared something bad had happened when she saw who was calling. “Liz?”

“I can’t do it,” the redhead said without preamble. “I’ve tried. I thought I could let him get away with it after I took his money.”

“Took his money? Marshall’s money?”

Liz continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’m just so angry every time I think about him getting away with murdering Whitney, not to mention Robert, because you know it was him.”

“Wait, you took his money?” She listened as Liz told her what she’d done, blackmailing him into giving her fifty thousand dollars.

“He paid, didn’t even put up a fight. I guess that shows how little fifty grand means to a man like him.”

“Great, except he seems more like the kind of man who will get even with you for it. Liz—”

“It just proves that he’s guilty.”

“You do know that blackmail is against the law, right?” As shocked as she was by what Liz had done, Amy Sue had to agree about the guilty part. But the woman had stepped over a line she shouldn’t have crossed. Marshall wouldn’t take this lying down, she was sure of that.

“You know he’s not going to confess no matter what we do,” Liz was saying. “I’ve decided I’m going to tell his wife. She’s the only way to get any justice for Whitney.”

“I hate for you to get your hopes up. I had considered doing that, but Liz, what if she already knows?”

“But what matters is that he doesn’t believe she knows,” Liz said. “He forked over 50K without a fight so I wouldn’t tell his wife everything.”

It was a strange kind of reasoning. Amy Sue felt sick to her stomach. She was even more worried about Liz after hearing this. “This could get you killed, Liz.”