by Gayle Wilson
“I can ask,” Colleen said, sounding doubtful.
“Not your sources in the media. They wouldn’t have access to the kind of information I’m talking about.”
“You want some kind of official inquiry?”
“If the people involved in the scandal were as high-profile as you’ve suggested, there will already have been one.”
Even rumors of a call-girl ring and blackmail in that stratosphere would have set off national security alarms. Somebody would already have looked into it, probably the FBI.
“I can try to find out,” Colleen said.
“If you get stonewalled, call Landry Soames at the Bureau. Tell him I’m asking.”
“Okay.”
“And see what you can find on a Gene or Eugene Orbock.” He spelled the last name into the satellite phone. “I’m particularly interested in his current whereabouts. And I’m going to be sending you some blood samples from the flock here. We draw new ones tomorrow. I’ll drive into town on Saturday and overnight them to you. Have someone take them to the CDC in Ft. Collins.”
“Any idea what they should be looking for?”
“Not a clue. There’s always the possibility this is a legitimate research project. Given the dynamics of the place, I’ll be surprised if that turns out to be the case. Whoever these samples are ultimately intended for, they’re picked up here and transported by helicopter. That hardly sounds routine to me.”
“You think there’s some kind of time factor involved that would necessitate that?”
“Maybe, but that’s sheer speculation. Sorry I can’t get the ones I’m sending you there as quickly as that.”
“I’ll pass the information on to the CDC with the sample, just in case that might make a difference in the results. Anything else I need to know or do?”
“Somebody searched my trailer. I went into town last Sunday. It must have happened while I was gone.”
The search had been fairly inept. A dozen small, telltale signs had been left behind. He would have known, even if the hidden traps he’d laid for just such an eventuality hadn’t been sprung.
“Anything around for them to find?”
“Not where they looked.” The heater where he’d concealed the phone had not been disturbed. “I’d gone up on the ridge the night before. I’d heard the chopper that picks up the samples come in and decided to investigate. The foreman had brought one of the dogs along on the exchange. The collie alerted them I was there.”
She might as well know everything, he’d decided. Colleen was now his boss. She had a right to an accurate report about what he was doing.
“But they didn’t see you?”
“No, but since I’m the newest hand, I’m probably the prime suspect. Maybe now that they found nothing suspicious in the trailer, they’ll put the dog’s barking down to some wildlife in the vicinity.”
“And maybe they won’t. Maybe they’re planning to pay more attention to what you’re doing.”
“Nothing very constructive. This past week I’ve nosed around everything up here. And I have to tell you, I’ve seen nothing that seems to relate in any way to the Langworthy kidnapping.”
“It was a long shot. We knew that from the first.”
“Maybe, but the Gettys connection still bothers me. It seems too coincidental.”
“His connection to the ranch or to Nicola Carson?”
He took a breath, determined to be in complete control before he attempted to answer that. Colleen’s next question interrupted that process.
“Did you ever think that the scandal with Nicola could have been a setup?”
“Meaning what?” Even he could detect the strong thread of interest in his voice.
“Maybe the attack represented Gettys’s first choice—to permanently silence Nicki in order to do away with any danger her knowledge about his connection to the ranch might represent. Whoever he sent to do that screwed up, and in the aftermath she disappeared. Gettys can’t find her, so killing her is no longer an option. He turns to the next best thing. What better way to discredit anything a woman might say than to brand her a blackmailing prostitute?”
It made sense. Maybe because he wanted it to, he acknowledged, but it did.
If Gettys feared Nicki might know something dangerous about the ranch, and he hadn’t succeeded in putting an end to that threat by killing her, he might very well try something else. Knowing Gettys, it could be something just that slimy.
“You find evidence of anything like that?”
“Not yet,” Colleen admitted. “I haven’t really had time. I was late in considering other possibilities.”
“What made you decide to consider them at all?”
“Something in your voice.”
He let the silence expand because he couldn’t think of anything to say in response. He hadn’t wanted to believe what Colleen had told him. And he knew why.
He also knew that emotion shouldn’t play any part in a decision like this. Besides, where there was that much smoke, in his experience there was usually a flame or two.
“I think that until you find something concrete to support the idea of a setup,” he said carefully, “we’ll have to take the other information you were given into consideration.”
“There is such a thing as personal judgment.”
Which can always be influenced by other factors. In this case, he knew too well what those were.
“You should get the blood samples in a few days,” he said, shifting the conversation back into safer territory.
“Don’t do anything to acquire them that will make someone more suspicious of you,” Colleen warned. “Even if this isn’t related to the kidnapping, it’s obvious something’s going on there. Something they don’t want made public.”
That was the same conclusion he’d come to.
“The biggest danger here is slow death by boredom,” he said reassuringly. “Or maybe by food poisoning.”
Not exactly true, but the other threats he faced were all of the emotional sort. And they weren’t something he was about to admit to his sister.
“YOU OKAY?” Michael asked, adding his efforts to those of the old man in getting the recalcitrant ewe out of the enclosure.
Ralph Mapes looked up in surprise at the question. His eyes were bloodshot and more rheumy than when he’d begged a ride into town last weekend. Despite the dryness of the mountain air, a fine dew of perspiration covered his skin, which looked sallow beneath his tan.
“Me? I’m fine. Why you asking?”
“I don’t know. You seem quiet. Maybe…a little tired.”
After a week on the ranch, Michael had found that the physical demands of today’s sampling were far less trying than the first one had been. He and Nicki worked smoothly together, quickly falling back into the pattern they’d established last Friday.
Today Mapes had been assigned to handle the removal of the sheep from the sampling pen after the blood had been drawn—the same job Sal Johnson had handled last week. Despite Michael’s help, the old man was struggling with it.
A couple of times he’d let one of the sheep he was supposed to be sending through the exit shoot back into the enclosure, endangering the contents of the table where the sampling equipment had been set up. Even after he managed a successful and relatively uneventful release, he leaned against the fence as if exhausted.
In addition, Ralph had been far less talkative than at any other time in their brief acquaintance. The difference had been marked enough to cause Nicki to raise her eyebrows in inquiry when she’d noticed Michael was watching him.
“Ain’t tired. I just got work to do,” Mapes said shortly. “And Charlie don’t like no talking.”
As he made that observation, the old man glanced toward the outer fence where the foreman was standing, beefy forearms propped on the top rail, his chin atop them. Michael’s gaze followed to find Quarrels was indeed watching them.
“Not under the weather, are you?” he asked, ignoring the
foreman and shifting his attention back to Mapes.
“Not enough so’s I can’t do my job. You just do yours and leave me alone.” It was obvious the elderly cowboy not only was reluctant to talk, he resented the possibility that Michael’s attempt at conversation might call him to the boss’s attention.
To be fair, Quarrels had ridden him all afternoon. Maybe no harder than he had anyone else, but as Nicki had observed a few days ago, Mapes was probably the only one of them who couldn’t afford to be sacked.
Michael walked back to the table, prepared to signal Frank Meadows, who was working the other end of the enclosure, to let in the next animal. As he passed by her, Nicki whispered to him, her head down so Quarrels couldn’t see the movement of her lips, “I think Ralph’s sick.”
Maybe he was, but Michael knew the old man wouldn’t appreciate interference, fearing the foreman would use any excuse he could find to fire him. Knowing Quarrels’s reputation, Ralph was probably right. All either of them could do was to keep a watchful eye on the elderly cowboy.
Just as Quarrels was, Michael verified, sneaking a sideways look at the foreman while he caught and positioned the lamb that had just come through the entry shoot. Maybe if Quarrels was focusing all his attention on Mapes, however, he wouldn’t be watching the rest of the operation too carefully.
He turned back to find Nicki’s eyes on his face. She shook her head, the movement slight. A warning?
If so, it was one he didn’t intend to heed. Quarrels’s attention was divided because he was trying to watch both Mapes and the operation. He’d already assigned Johnson and Dawkes to take this part of the flock back up to the pasture tomorrow, leaving Michael with a dwindling number of options for acquiring the blood samples he’d promised Colleen. And none of those were good.
He could palm a couple of the vials now or he could come back down to the pens tonight when the dogs were on guard. Of course, that would only work if there were extra vials and syringes left on the table today. Or if he wanted to try to steal some from the cabin, right out from under Quarrels’s nose.
Any way he did it, there was risk, but he was a risk taker. He always had been. If they ran short of vials at the end of the sampling because he’d palmed a couple, he could always claim they’d been short when they began.
He thought briefly about saying a few had been trampled in the melee after one of the animals got away from Mapes, but he quickly discarded that excuse as unacceptable. He wasn’t willing to chance getting the old man sacked, not even for Colleen’s investigation. Especially not if the foreman’s fuse was as short as everyone claimed.
Maybe if he really believed whatever was going on here had something to do with the Langworthy baby’s disappearance, it might have made a difference in that decision. He didn’t.
If suspicion fell on anyone about the missing vials, it had better fall on him. After the incident with the helicopter, he was probably already on Quarrels’s shortlist to watch. If he got canned, he’d simply take Nicki with him to the Royal Flush. Despite everything, he had already decided there was no way he could leave her here without his protection.
While he was reaching those decisions, thoughts ricocheting through his brain, Nicki had been preparing the syringe to take blood from the lamb. Michael glanced again at Quarrels, who was still concentrating on the old man.
“Draw two,” he ordered under his breath, his eyes again lowered to the small wooly back. “Don’t look up,” he warned.
She didn’t, but she did hesitate before she turned away from the table and toward the lamb. She bent, adroitly slipping the needle into the vein in the neck. From this angle he could see the extra vial cupped in her palm.
“He’s not watching,” he assured her, the words a breath, his gaze flicking back and forth between the foreman and what Nicki was doing.
The first vial was almost full. He raised his eyes to study her face. No one looking at its calm serenity would have had any hint she was up to something other than doing her job.
With a minimum of movement she changed out the vials, palming the full one and slipping the other into its place. The dark crimson blood flowed through the syringe, filling the second one as the seconds ticked by.
When she finally turned back to the table, she was still holding both samples cupped in her hand. Michael openly focused on the table now as he waited for her to prepare the label for the sample.
While she did, he looked up and met Quarrels’s eyes. They seemed intent on what the two of them were doing. The foreman still hadn’t said anything, however. Surely if he knew what was going on, he would attempt to stop them.
Michael’s fingers, trembling slightly with tension, found the lamb’s identification tag. He read out the numbers, thankful his voice seemed steady. Using a thin-line marker, Nicki jotted them down on one white label and then another. She peeled one off the sheet and affixed it to a vial.
One vial. At least that’s all he saw.
Her voice perfectly natural, as was her demeanor, Nicki nodded. “Okay.”
Normally Michael would have picked the lamb up and carried it by hand over to Mapes. Instead, acting deliberately, he simply released it.
The tiny creature took off with a shake of its tail, loudly bleating its displeasure with the entire procedure. Mapes tried to catch it, but his lunge managed to frighten the animal into a U-turn. Michael moved away from the table, hoping Quarrels’s eyes would follow him rather than remaining on what Nicki was doing. And hoping she would be smart enough to take advantage of the distraction he’d just arranged.
When the lamb had finally been corralled and forced through the shoot, Michael walked back to the table. He allowed his eyes to meet those of the watching foreman, careful not to convey any kind of challenge in his glance.
Quarrels’s expression appeared considering, but he didn’t say anything. After a moment, he turned his head, seeming to concentrate on Frank Meadows, who was in the process of releasing the next sheep into the pen. This one was a good-sized ewe that seemed totally unconcerned about what was going to happen to her.
“Take one more,” Michael instructed sotto voce as he passed Nicki.
She gave no outward sign that she’d heard him, but he had no doubt she would manage the next pilfered vial as smoothly as she had the last. And when she had, all he would have to do was get them into town and into Colleen’s hands. Maybe then they’d be able to figure out some part, if only a small one, of this puzzle.
“YOU CAN’T BE SHORT,” Quarrels said. “I counted them out myself.”
When she’d realized she was going to run short, Nicki had planned to fake drawing blood from the last two animals, but the foreman had unexpectedly entered the enclosure while the sampling was still going on. She couldn’t remember that ever happening before.
Of course, they’d been running late because of the trouble Mapes had getting the sheep into the exit shoot. The delay had exacerbated Quarrels’s always uncertain temper, so that he’d been yelling at everyone during the past half hour.
His proximity had reduced the old man to trembling ineptitude, so that Michael had done most of Mapes’s work as well as his own. It had also narrowed Nicki’s options for hiding the glaring reality that two vials were missing.
“Maybe you miscounted—” she began.
“Like hell. They was all there when we started. Now they ain’t. What the hell’s going on?”
She shrugged. The foreman’s mud-colored eyes shifted from her face to Michael’s, where they rested for several seconds. It was almost as if Quarrels were waiting for him to confess.
“I didn’t count them,” Michael said finally, although he hadn’t been asked for an explanation. “Maybe a couple rolled off the table and got broken.” He bent, pretending to look for the nonexistent vials on the ground.
“Strange that they ain’t never done that before,” Quarrels said sarcastically.
Michael’s shrug echoed her own. It didn’t pacify the foreman. The red flush i
n his thick neck was beginning to deepen, and veins pulsed at his temples.
“You two better find ’em or else,” he threatened.
Quarrels was the classic bully. He intimidated and then fed on the fear that intimidation produced. Just as he had with Ralph today.
Nicki had always given in to his demands before because not calling attention to herself had been more important than anything he might say or do to her. Maybe if she stood up to him this time, it would be such a shock that he’d back off. That, too, would be typical of that kind of personality.
“We were short from the first,” Nicki said again, working on keeping her voice deep and completely assured. “We can’t find what was never here.”
She had the satisfaction of watching shock invade the foreman’s eyes at the boldness of the answer. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long.
“What the hell makes you—”
“I’m the one who took them off the table,” she said, looking him straight in the face. “One vial for each animal that came through. We’re two short.”
She was aware that she’d surprised not only Quarrels, but Michael as well. He had turned to look at her, making her wonder if he thought she was taking too great a chance. After listening to Quarrels browbeat Ralph for the last hour, standing up to him was almost worth the risk.
There was a pregnant silence. During it, she steeled herself for the foreman’s anger and heard instead the distinctive thromp of a helicopter rotor.
Quarrels’s gaze left her face, tracking toward the sky behind the cabin. His mouth had already opened, maybe in preparation of dressing her down. Now it widened, literally dropping, cartoonlike, as he watched the chopper’s approach.
The black craft passed over their heads, flying low enough that the penned sheep milled in panic and dust swirled upward before it headed toward the ridge behind the trailers. There was nothing clandestine about this visit.
“Get this finished now,” the foreman ordered, pivoting to maintain sight of the helicopter. He began to hurry to the gate that led out of the enclosure.
