Free WANTED by Delores Fossen

added. But he took her by the arm and got them running back toward the stairs. Billy and the others were right behind them.
    “The evidence,” Lyla reminded the Ranger. This could be an attempt to get them away from that blood spatter so that someone could tamper with it.
    “I’ll secure the building once everyone is out,” Ranger McKinnon assured her.
    They barreled down the stairs, with Wyatt still gripping on to her arm, but he stopped when he got to the front door, and he looked out. Only then did Lyla realize this could be a trap to lure them out into the open.
    “Stay behind me,” Wyatt insisted, and he drew his gun.
    He maneuvered them to the porch and then made a beeline for his SUV. The others scattered toward their vehicles, as well. However, they’d barely made it inside the SUV when there was the horrible sound that shook not just the truck but the ground itself.
    The sound of the blast.
    “Get down!” Wyatt ordered, but he didn’t wait for her to do that. He pushed her onto the seat and followed on top of her, shielding her with his body.
    Lyla caught just a glimpse of the explosion as it ripped through the building and sent a spray of bricks and debris right at them. It pelted the SUV, but somehow the window held.
    Cursing, Wyatt took out his phone while he kept his gun ready. “You need to get the fire department and bomb squad out here now,” he said to whoever he’d called. No doubt one of his brothers. “Someone just blew up Rocky Creek.”
    Lyla lifted her head a little, praying that some part of the building was intact. And it was. But it wouldn’t be for long.
    The blast had made a gaping hole in the center of the bottom floor, but it’d also created a fire, and it was spreading fast. The fire department could likely save some of it if they got there in a hurry. But the smoke and the blast would almost certainly destroy or compromise any evidence inside.
    “We’re getting out of here.” Wyatt moved back behind the steering wheel and started the engine.
    He spun the SUV around and hit the accelerator. Lyla looked behind them at the wreckage, and her heart sank. Not for the lost evidence, but for how close they’d come to dying. Again. They’d barely made it out of that building before the blast.
    Wyatt hit Redial and then the speaker on his phone, and she heard Declan answer. “Who phoned in the bomb threat?” Wyatt asked.
    “Anonymous call to the marshals’ service from a disposable cell. Did everyone get out all right?”
    “I think so. Who knew about the evidence that’d been discovered?”
    “I’m checking on that now. You’re thinking that was the motive?”
    But Wyatt didn’t answer. His attention was fixed on the road ahead, and when Lyla followed his gaze, she spotted the truck.
    Not the justice of the peace.
    But judging from Wyatt’s profanity, it was someone he recognized. And didn’t want to see. His grip tightened on his gun.
    “I’ll call you back,” he said to Declan. “Travis Weston just showed up at Rocky Creek.”
    Oh, mercy. Travis was their prime suspect in this mess of an investigation.
    Lyla studied the man, but she didn’t think she’d ever met him. Tall, wide shoulders, and even though his hair was iron-gray, he didn’t look old.
    He looked formidable.
    Wyatt brought the SUV to a stop because he had no choice. There were deep ditches on each side of the road, and Travis had parked his truck at an angle so they wouldn’t be able to get by.
    “Stay down,” Wyatt warned her.
    But he didn’t take his own advice. With his gun ready, he stepped from the SUV and took aim at Travis. “What do you want?”
    Travis pulled back the side of his coat to reveal a gun in a shoulder holster. “Marshal McCabe, I understand we have a score to settle.”

Chapter Seven
    The last thing Wyatt wanted was this confrontation. Yeah, he would love to interrogate Travis and force him to talk, but he sure as heck didn’t want to do that with a bomber in the