by Gayle Wilson
And what the hell did you expect?
He rapped on the window again, louder this time. Almost before he could lower his hand, it opened.
“What?” The tone of the question—hostile, demanding and too loud—made it clear his actions last night had destroyed any rapport they might have established the day before.
What did he want? To warn her about what Mapes had said, of course, but more importantly, to try and restore the trust he’d squandered when he’d kissed her. If that was possible.
Besides, he needed Nicki Carson. He needed her knowledge of how this place worked. That was the reason he had felt he had to come tonight, despite the danger.
“To say I’m sorry, for starters,” he whispered, hoping she’d follow suit. “And to promise you that won’t happen again.”
He didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but judging by her face it had clearly not been that.
“What made you think you had any right to touch me?”
A straightforward question about an action he had hoped to gloss over with an apology and his promise not to make that same mistake again. She didn’t intend to let him off that lightly.
“Bad judgment?” he suggested. As he said it, he realized it was so obviously the truth that he had to work to keep any hint of amusement out of the question. “Come out and let me explain. All I’m asking is five minutes. It’s too dangerous for us to talk here.”
Without giving her a chance to refuse, he stepped back into the darkness, making his way into the heart of the thicket. He had no idea whether or not she’d come. He couldn’t blame her if she didn’t.
When the light inside the trailer went out, he took a breath, enormously relieved. He didn’t want to have to talk to her in any of the public areas of the ranch, but if she hadn’t agreed to meet him, he would have had to. She was too important to this investigation for him not to make the effort to set things right.
Although she made as little noise as possible, he had a few seconds warning of her approach. “Over here,” he whispered, stepping out of the shadows to allow her to locate him.
She had dressed as she usually did, in those baggy, masculine garments. The subtle play of moonlight over her features made him wonder again how she’d ever carried this off. They were delicate, so obviously feminine he felt like a fool for having been taken in, even briefly.
“Bad judgment I’ll buy,” she said, picking up without any preliminaries the conversation they’d begun under her window. “What I want to know is what happened between yesterday afternoon and last night to change your judgment. You didn’t try anything like that then, not even when we were…”
She didn’t finish the sentence, clamping her lips closed as if she were embarrassed by what had happened yesterday afternoon. He understood what she meant, of course. He hadn’t tried to kiss her, not even when he was lying on top of her. Last night, after talking to Colleen, he had.
Maybe she deserved to hear the truth about why he’d done that. Or maybe he just wanted to know what she had to say about the things his sister had told him.
“I found out why you left Washington.” More of that rip-it-off-and-damn-the-pain mentality.
“I told you why I left Washington.”
“And then I heard a different version.”
“From who?”
“The people I work for.”
A beat of silence.
“I don’t think you ever told me who those people are.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And you aren’t going to now,” she said, reading his tone.
“That’s something I’m not at liberty to disclose.”
“How convenient.” The words were edged with sarcasm.
“Actually, I was thinking that right now it’s pretty damned inconvenient.”
“Okay, if you don’t want to talk about who you work for, why don’t we talk about their version of my departure. Since it seems to have made such a difference in your attitude.”
Get it over with. Maybe she really does have some explanation.
“According to them you had videotapes of some of Washington’s power brokers in compromising situations, and you threatened to use them. That’s why you had to leave town without a forwarding address.”
“What kind of situations?” she asked, going straight to the salient part of the accusation. “Something criminal? Like taking a bribe?”
He could read nothing in her voice but curiosity. No guilt. No evidence of discomfort at the introduction of what he’d expected to be a highly uncomfortable topic.
Of course, it was possible she wasn’t bothered by what she’d done. Or, as unlikely as it seemed, maybe Colleen’s memory had been faulty. When he’d called his sister from the pay phone in Granby, she hadn’t yet heard back from any of the people she’d contacted about the sources of that story.
Despite the seed of doubt Nicki’s reaction was creating, he didn’t see any option but to finish this. If she had lied to him, no matter the reason, it would adversely affect their working together. There seemed only one way to find that out.
“Situations of a sexual nature,” he said.
She said nothing for a moment, but her lips parted in what looked like genuine shock.
“Let me get this straight. According to the people you work for I’m supposed to have had videotapes of influential people in sexual situations?”
The tone was exactly right. Not outrage, but confusion. Puzzlement. A hint of disbelief.
“Tapes which you threatened to use.”
“For blackmail.” Clarification rather than a question.
“That was the implication in the stories after your disappearance.”
“Are you saying this was in the papers?”
“Most of them.”
She closed her mouth, swallowing hard. That bothered her, which made him wonder for the first time about her family.
Maybe that was something Colleen should check out. Nicki Carson’s family.
“And where, supposedly, did I get these tapes?”
“Supposedly,” he said, picking up her word and emphasizing it even more, “you were part of a call-girl ring that operated at the highest levels in Washington.”
She laughed. From shock, maybe. It was devoid of amusement in any case. “Then I have to tell you—I don’t think much of your sources.”
With her denial, the tightness in his chest eased. He had wanted her to deny it, he realized. And now that she had, he wanted to believe her. That was something else that had never happened to him before. Being unable to judge whether someone was telling the truth, simply because he very much wanted them to be.
“They’re very reliable,” he said aloud.
“Not in this case. I told you what happened. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s what happened. That’s all that happened. This other—” She shook her head, the swing of cropped hair visible in the darkness. “They’re making it up. Or they’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
Was that a possibility? he wondered. What if this were all some kind of misunderstanding? Colleen had warned him she didn’t remember all the details, and yet he’d gone off half-cocked. That wasn’t like him. For some reason, he hadn’t been able to discount emotionally what his sister had suggested. Despite that lack of certainty.
“That’s possible.”
“Thank you for the concession,” she said. There was no doubt her gratitude was less than sincere.
“If I was wrong, I’m sorry. At the time I had no reason to doubt my sources. They are reliable.”
“You know, I don’t really give a damn what you choose to believe, but if that is what was reported in the papers, at least it proves one thing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I worried that I was wrong. Worried that maybe the man who attacked me wasn’t trying to kill me. That it was just another mugging. But if people thought I was doing that—blackmailing people with videotapes—then I guess there
’s nothing very mysterious at all about why someone would want me dead, is there?”
“ORBOCK. GENE ORBOCK. I remember him,” Nicki said, picturing in her mind the hand Mapes had mentioned. “He and Ralph did seem to be friendly, as unusual as that is around here. Then one morning he just wasn’t here. You shouldn’t make too much of that, by the way. That’s not unusual.”
“A lot of turnovers?” Michael asked.
They were sitting on a rocky outcropping halfway up the ridge behind the trailers. Michael had chosen a spot high enough that their voices wouldn’t carry through the clear mountain air to the occupants below.
Nicki wasn’t sure why, after the way he’d acted last night, that she felt safe enough to come here alone with him. Maybe because she believed him. Both his apology and the explanation. Just as she had believed his promise to help her. Maybe that made her a fool, but she couldn’t help it.
“Quarrels fires them,” she said, “or they get tired of his harassment or tired of this place.”
She might have done the same thing, had she had anywhere to go. In spite of everything, however, she had hoped to find something on the ranch that would explain what she believed Gettys had done. Now, with the information Michael had received from his sources, she was beginning to wonder if the senator had had anything at all to do with that attack.
“Orbock didn’t say anything to you about a run-in with Quarrels.”
“If he were going tell somebody, it would have been Ralph.”
She hadn’t dared strike up any friendships. That had been the worst part of these long months on the Half Spur. The lack of human contact.
She acknowledged that was a large part of the reason she’d been so ready to believe what Michael told her yesterday. Ready to confide in him. Maybe it was even part of the reason she was out here tonight.
She was vulnerable to what he offered in a dozen different ways. Not the least of which had to do with her own sexuality, she admitted. Something she had been forced to deny for almost a year.
She was a woman, longing to be a woman again. And whatever else Michael Wellesley might be, he was a very attractive man. A man who also professed to want to help her. Who claimed to have the skills and the connections that would make that possible. She would have a hard time walking away from all that.
“Then he didn’t mention finding any kind of lab facility to you either, I suppose?”
“Here?”
“Mapes says there’s a lab on the ranch. That Orbock stumbled across it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think we exchanged a dozen words. I do remember that he liked to shoot. Target practice. He’d go off on his own. On his time. Quarrels didn’t like it, but he couldn’t come up with a good reason for objecting. Not that something like that stops Quarrels. Anyway, I overheard him warn Orbock not to go past the substations.”
“Substations? As in…power stations?”
“Utility trailers. They’re stocked for emergencies. Medical supplies, blankets, water. The people assigned to the flock use them. I don’t know why they call them substations. I got the idea from the conversation I overheard that they are near the boundaries of the ranch. Maybe the lab Ralph mentioned is, too, and Quarrels didn’t want Orbock to get too close to it.”
“Mapes said he left abruptly.”
“Everybody leaves abruptly. Either Quarrels gets mad at them and throws them out or they just pack up and take off.”
“Except you and Mapes.”
“At his age, Ralph would have a hard time getting hired somewhere else. And I get the impression he doesn’t have any resources to tide him through the times when he can’t get a steady job. You’ll never see Ralph buck Quarrels, no matter what he does. I’ve always felt sorry for him. Quarrels treats him like dirt because he’s figured out that he isn’t going to leave.”
“Mapes said the same thing about you.”
“That Quarrels can’t run me off?”
“That he treats you like dirt.”
For a second or two, hearing his voice, deep and quiet in the darkness, she imagined that he cared how she was treated. Then she put that notion down to more wishful thinking.
“Quarrels needs to control people. I’m used to that. After all, I survived Gettys for more than two years.” The thought that followed was sudden and illuminating. “Did they say he was one of them?”
“They?”
“Your sources. Whoever told you that story. Was Gettys supposed to be one of the people I had a video of?”
She still couldn’t figure how it was all connected. The ranch. Gettys. Those ridiculous allegations. The attack.
“I don’t know,” Michael said.
His voice had changed. Maybe it was easier to hear the nuances because she couldn’t see his face. No longer filled with concern, his tone seemed cold. Because he was uncomfortable with her question? Or because…
“It isn’t true,” she said. “What they told you. I don’t know what was in the papers, but I wasn’t involved in anything like that. I swear to you.”
For a long time there was no response.
“I’ve requested verification,” he said finally.
Not exactly a rousing endorsement of her honesty, but maybe that was too much to expect. After all, they were strangers, and from what he’d said, he had a long-term relationship with whoever told him that story. It wasn’t surprising that he’d take their word over hers, but that didn’t keep it from hurting.
“Can you take me to those substations?”
Obviously, he didn’t want to respond to her claim of innocence until he’d gotten the confirmation he’d requested.
“I’ve only been to one of them. Quarrels likes to keep me here to do the sampling, so I’m seldom assigned to the flock. However, when the lambs are born, everybody rotates duties. Sometimes they need a little help. A night or two some place that’s warm. Extra nourishment. Assistance for the mother if something goes wrong.
“Instead of coming back and forth throughout the season, we occasionally spend a night in the substation. I can take you to the one I used. Actually it isn’t that far from the pasture where we took the flock yesterday.”
Yesterday. Had those terrifying moments during which she’d believed her nemesis had found her happened only one short day ago?
“And the other one?”
She shook her head, forgetting that he couldn’t see the gesture. “I don’t know. On the opposite side of the property, I guess. There’s bound to be a map somewhere. Maybe in the office.”
She’d never seen it, but surely the foreman would have one somewhere, if for no other reason than to be certain about the property lines. Knowing how secretive Quarrels was, he probably wouldn’t put it up for everyone to see, but he might have stashed it in that huge, old-fashioned desk or in one of the filing cabinets.
“Maybe,” Michael said, seeming to dismiss her speculation about the map as unimportant. “We need to get our hands on some of the blood samples.”
Since they were the ones who drew that blood, it was obvious he wasn’t being literal. He wanted them in his possession.
“They’re numbered. I don’t know how you could take one without it being missed.”
“Draw extras,” he suggested. “Don’t label them.”
“That might work, except Quarrels watches the whole process very closely. There are just enough vials for the part of the flock that’s being sampled. Sometimes we may be a couple over or a couple—”
“What is it?” he asked when she stopped abruptly.
“He keeps them in the office. He has boxes of them on one of the shelves. Syringes, too.”
“Then we take some while we’re looking for the map.”
As she realized what he intended to do, a sense of alarm flared in her stomach.
And that’s exactly why you haven’t accomplished anything in the time you’ve been here, she chided herself. She’d been afraid to look. Afraid of getting caught. Terrified that someone wo
uld take a closer look at her face or her background.
In short, she had been a coward. She still was.
“There’s no time when someone isn’t there.” She repeated all the arguments that had prevented her from doing what he’d just proposed. “They sleep in that building at night. The cook’s inside most of the day. Quarrels works in the office when he isn’t supervising. I don’t see how we can just waltz in and start searching.”
“And stealing,” he said dryly.
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed that he seemed amused by her objections.
“What do you suggest?” She had wanted to add some derogatory appellation to that question—something like smart-ass, maybe—but she’d refrained.
He was the one who had all this experience in clandestine operations. Or so he claimed. Let him worry about the “hows” of what he wanted to do. And then let him do it.
“There’s always a risk,” he said. “You just have to take it.”
If she had, maybe this would all be over. She’d be back home and everything that had happened would be explained away. If she’d only had the guts to do something. This was her opportunity. Michael’s presence was a huge part of that. Support. Help. Expertise.
A final chance. And this time, she was determined to take it.
Chapter Eleven
“I know this may not be what you wanted to hear, but Canton’s sources don’t have any doubt about Nicki Carson’s involvement.”
It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Less now than when Colleen had first told him. It had taken her long enough to get the information that he didn’t doubt she had carefully vetted it before she’d passed it on.
In the past four days as he’d waited for this, he had tried to put questions about Nicki’s past out of his mind, concentrating on what he had been sent to the Half Spur to do. Hoping that when he talked to his sister again, something would have changed.
“You do any independent checking?” he asked, knowing he was grasping at straws.
“She’s got no criminal record, if that’s what you’re asking. Not even a parking ticket.”
“If your sources are right about the level at which that ring operated, they would have had protection—discreet and powerful enough to keep any problems like that concealed.”