He helped her into his truck, and she winced when she pressed his shirt against her head. Egan considered just driving her to the hospital, but the ambulance could arrive soon, and he could hand her off to the medics while staying behind to have a look at her vehicle. Specifically, that window. He wanted to see if the damage had indeed been caused by a bullet, and if so, then he could call out a CSI team.
“Yes, I am making sense,” Jordan snarled. “Two of the recipients are already dead, and I think I’m next.”
“Recipients?” he questioned.
She looked up at him. “You hadn’t heard?”
No. But Egan was 1,000 percent sure he wasn’t going to like what Jordan was about to say next.
“Breanna Culver, who got Shanna’s liver. Cordell Minter, who got one of her lungs. They’re both dead. Murdered.” Jordan’s last word didn’t have much sound. It was mostly breath.
Hell. If that was true...well, Egan didn’t want to go there just yet. “It could be a coincidence.” Though it would be an eerie one. “You’re positive they were murdered?” he challenged.
Jordan’s forehead bunched up. “Yes. Their organs were...missing. The organs they got from Shanna.”
Egan felt as if someone had punched him. “If that’s true, why didn’t someone tell me?”
“Because I only made the connection today. I knew the names of the recipients. I got them because, well, I don’t know why exactly. Maybe I wanted to know who else was alive because of Shanna. I thought it would give me some peace.”
Egan’s mind was reeling, but he wanted to tell her that she didn’t deserve peace. Neither of them did. “You’re positive about those two people? Positive they were murdered and their organs taken?”
She nodded and motioned to her head. “And now this. Someone shot me.”
No way could he just accept all of this just yet. “Your injury could have been a prank gone wrong. Or a hunter. It could have even been caused by a rock going through the window. A rock that maybe a passing truck kicked up from the road.”
Her expression let him know she wasn’t buying any of this. “What about the break-in at my house?”
He was clueless about that, too, but then he hadn’t kept up with Jordan.
“I was supposed to be home,” she continued. “But I’d left only about five minutes before to go into San Antonio to meet one of my old criminal informants. I wanted to ask him about the other two deaths. Anyway, while I was gone, someone broke in and set fire to the place.”
Again, that didn’t mean anyone was trying to murder her—though the “coincidences” were stacking up.
“That means there are only three of us left,” Jordan added a moment later. “Tori Judd, Irene Adair. And me.”
Egan hadn’t known the names of the people who’d gotten Shanna’s organs. He hadn’t wanted to know. But was it possible someone was going after these people. And if so, why?
One name instantly came to mind. Drew Paxton.
The man who’d put a lethal bullet in Shanna. A bullet that Drew had fired during a botched hostage situation that had killed Shanna.
“Drew Paxton is in jail on death row,” Egan heard himself mumble.
Jordan made a sound of agreement even though Egan hadn’t been talking to her. “And he hasn’t had any unusual visitors. You know, the kind of visitors he could have hired to kill people.”
Egan was well aware of that because while he hadn’t kept tabs on Jordan, he had done just that with Drew. It wasn’t a morbid curiosity, either. Shanna had been Drew’s parole officer, and the snake had developed a fixation on her. So much so that he’d broken into Shanna’s house in San Antonio and taken her hostage.
Jordan had been one of the responding officers. A hostage negotiator. And she’d failed big-time. So had Egan. Because he hadn’t been able to save Shanna, and he’d lost the woman he loved.
“I ruled out Drew because all of his calls and correspondence are carefully monitored,” Jordan said a moment later. “And that’s why I thought you might be doing this. I thought maybe you’d snapped or something.”
Egan had come close to doing just that, but even if he had snapped, he wouldn’t have gone after the people who’d gotten Shanna’s organs. He would have gone after Drew.
And maybe Jordan.
But he hadn’t snapped. And wouldn’t. However, there were a couple of things that didn’t fit here.
“If you thought I’d gone crazy, why were you heading out to the ranch?” Egan asked. “Weren’t you afraid I’d gun you down once you got there?” Egan didn’t bother to take the sarcasm out of his voice.
“I was going to see your brother, Court. I called dispatch, and they said you were still at work so I thought I could talk to Court alone.”
Court was at the ranch all right, and his brother was not only a deputy sheriff, he would have also been more open to having a conversation with Jordan. Court probably didn’t have the raw nerves that Egan still had about Shanna’s death. Plus, Court and Jordan had been friends once, too.
“Look, I dismissed all of this at first,” Jordan continued. “I’m a private investigator these days, and I know how to look at things objectively. Most things anyway,” she added in a mumble.
Egan figured that was meant for him. Maybe Jordan hadn’t been able to get past the hurt and emotions of Shanna’s death, either, and that was why she’d thought Egan might be a killer.
“Have you been keeping an eye on Drew’s brother, Kirk?” Egan asked.
Jordan nodded. Then, hesitated. “Well, as much as I can. He’s a cattle broker, and he travels a lot. And yeah, he’s still riled that his brother is on death row. He could be willing to play into Drew’s sick fantasies of making sure every part of Shanna is dead.”
Definitely a sick fantasy. And riled was putting it mildly for the way Kirk felt about his brother. Kirk thought Egan had provoked Drew into that hostage standoff. Kirk wasn’t exactly specific about how Egan had managed to do that, but he blamed Egan for the situation. Maybe Kirk had decided to spread the blame around now and include Jordan. And those other recipients.
Still...
“What’s the name and number of the SAPD officer who investigated the break-in and fire at your house?” he asked.
She paused several moments as if she might not tell him. That whole lack-of-trusting-him thing might be playing into this, but Jordan finally handed him her phone. “It’s Christian Abrams. He’s not the cop I contacted to come out here, but his number is in my recent calls.”
It was. In fact, Jordan had called the man three times in the past two hours. And there were six missed calls from Christian to Jordan. It did make Egan wonder, though, why she hadn’t phoned this guy after she had gotten injured. Or taken any of those six calls.
While Egan kept watch for the ambulance, he pressed Christian’s number, and he answered right away. “Where the hell are you, Jordan?” the cop snarled.
“I’m not Jordan. I’m Egan McCall.”
“The sheriff over in McCall Canyon,” Christian said after a short pause, and Egan didn’t think it was his imagination there was some venom in the man’s tone. “Jordan went to you after all. I told her that wasn’t a good idea.”
Egan skipped right over that and went to the reason he’d wanted to speak to the man. “Is someone trying to kill Jordan?”
Christian certainly didn’t