The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy

by Pauline Baird Jones

  Without regret, she had discarded everything but her shoes. They were too comfortable to toss aside and were a reminder of a happier time with her real time friend, Kelly Kerwin.

  Happy reminders stacked on top of each other put a desperately needed wall between her and the images of Peg’s bloody death.

  Her black power suit was short enough to be distracting, yet conservative enough to blend. She’d bought and applied cosmetics, but opted for a smart little hat rather than give her hair into the care of a strange hair stylist. She was desperate, not crazy.

  She looked at her watch, then assembled the stuff she was taking with her. She’d already been in one place too long. She could almost hear her hunters, lawful and unlawful, baying in the distance.

  If Hollywood was even half right, public accommodations were easy to check. If they failed to pick up the scent, they would head straight for anyone she was known to be acquainted with. Thanks to the inventors of the Internet and Spook, they shouldn’t find the ones that mattered.

  Under the impression he was helping her research a book, Spook had been tutoring her via email about the byways and sly-ways of the hacker milieu. Reputed on the boards to be former CIA, Dani “met” him shortly after going into hiding. A lucky find, possibly even a life-saving one.

  Dani smiled slightly, thinking about the cyber-pass he’d made last month. At the time, she’d thought it a funny coincidence that he actually lived in the Denver area, but she didn’t plan to contact him unless she had to. She wasn’t working on a romance plot this time.

  Before calling Rosebud, she’d taken the time to gather information about the city. She had to be able to move around quickly. Hesitation could be fatal.

  The hardest part of her exercise in independence, besides not getting killed, would be finding ways to fill the long days and longer nights. She had to polish up the last two chapters of her book, but that wouldn’t take long. If necessary, she could play tourist, her hunters wouldn’t expect that.

  She packed her computer in the briefcase she had bought to go with the suit. The thumb drive containing her book and the personal items she had bought followed. The list of friendly strangers and places went into the pocket of her suit.

  One thing remained.

  She’d almost left it where it fell when Peg went down. She still didn’t know why she had picked it up. Now Dani extracted it from her backpack, the metal of the hand gun striking a chill to her heart and her palm. Tears burned the back of her eyes, but they failed to cleanse away the hard reality of why Peg and the others died.

  Betrayal.

  It had always been there. She would have realized it before now if her senses hadn’t been dulled by the waiting. What other reason was there for the sense of foreboding that had hung so palpably over the safe house? Or her nightmares dripping with blood? The killer had known Peg was supposed to be gone or he would have looked for Dani and found her.

  No, Dani didn’t wonder if she had been betrayed. She wondered who had betrayed her. Neuman who had loved Peg? How could she not wonder about Peg’s sudden illness or forget he didn’t know Peg had come back?

  What about Niall, with his shy, dark eyes and his high society fiancé in New Orleans planning their fancy Christmas wedding? The differences in their income bothered him. He had talked about it a lot. Asked Dani if she thought it would be a problem—in the mistaken impression that romance writer was synonymous with advice columnist.

  She couldn’t put a traitor’s face on them or trust them until she did.

  Weighted with that awareness, she studied Peg’s revolver, turning it in the light, adjusting to the feel of it in her hand. It was weightier than she’d expected. Could she point it and pull the trigger? Could she do it knowing the bullet would explode from the chamber, flying straight and true to the target? Watch it enter without mercy, tearing through skin, flesh and bone, spilling blood.

  So much blood.

  She shuddered. Was violence the only defense against violence?

  Moral musings fragmented when she saw the safety. It was “off.” Of course it was. Peg had been ready to use it. No hesitation in her mind about bullets flying into bodies.

  Dani’s hands shook as she changed the setting, then tucked the weapon in her briefcase. She sank back on her heels and thought about her mad dash from the burning safe house. The backpack with the unsafe gun bouncing against her back.

  Everyone had always said irony was her strong suit.

  She’d picked a bad time to almost prove them right.

  * * * *

  Although Matt’s case wasn’t the only ongoing operation, most of the desks surrounding Matt were empty. Some people actually thought weekends were for play. Not Matt. Courts and judges still needed protection. Prisoners still had to be transported, and fugitives always required rounding up. The wheels of justice ground twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.

  Maybe that’s why justice was so screwed up.

  Paper drifts covered his desk, getting worse as reports began to filter in from the various tentacles of the investigation. He read each one. Unlike movies, most breaks came from the boring grunt work. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t glamorous. The waiting was the hardest.

  In his youth he’d dogged cows and ridden broncs to the buzzer. Getting repeatedly tossed on his butt had taught him how to keep a rein on impatience. Now it took all his honed-under-pressure control to keep reading and making notes when he wanted to be out hunting a woman who read Louis L’Amour and may or may not be dead.

  When Alice’s call finally came, he barked into the receiver, “Talk to me, Alice.”

  “It’s not her, Matt. Coroner double-checked, then checked again.”

  “Get back in here.” He dropped the telephone back in the cradle and leaned back.

  She was alive.

  Regret for Peg Oliver tempered his elation. She’d died knowing she’d been betrayed by her own. If she was watching somewhere, he hoped she knew she’d kept her witness alive. Surely there was a special place in the next life reserved for the line of duty dead. And one in hell for the people who sent them there.

  Matt jumped up, unable to sit now that he knew she was out there. That soon he would see her, not her picture. Soon he’d know if her eyes were a trick the photographer had played with the light or—what was wrong with him? He was acting like a hormonal teen in the throes of his first crush.

  He couldn’t do this. He had to stay detached, stay focused to be effective. Neuman had made a lot of mistakes with his op, but the biggest, in Matt’s opinion, had been getting involved with Peg Oliver. Neuman should have moved Gwynne first, not taken his girlfriend to the hospital. Shouldn’t have lingered to hold her hand while she threw her poisoned guts up. If he had, his girl and his men might be alive and Gwynne wouldn’t be missing. No way he’d be following Neuman’s primrose path to failure.

  He spun around in his chair. Neuman would have to be told about Oliver, but not yet. Not a good idea to let a suspected rat in the woodpile know the cheese was still out there for the taking.

  “Matt?”

  Matt hadn’t noticed Henry approaching. “Yeah?”

  “Jogger saw someone answering to Oliver’s description sitting in that park at the entrance to the subdivision early this morning.”

  Matt muttered an expletive. They probably drove right by—while she sat and watched.

  “Did he see where she went?”

  “Said she headed down the road towards the bus stop. Riggs has got the PD checking transportation and hotels. We heard from Alice?”

  Matt nodded, said as if it didn’t matter, “We still got a witness.”

  “Holy—”

  “She could still get dead if we don’t reel her in fast. Let’s do our thing. Contact known associates, check her finances. Does she have walking around money? If so, how much?”

  Henry looked up from his notes. “What about phone taps?”

  Matt hesitated. “We shouldn’t
need ’em, but let’s get the warrants just in case. Get on the horn to Anderson.” The complex process of witness protection wasn’t Matt’s purview, but he knew Anderson. A good man and honest, he did protection better than anyone Matt knew. No surprise Hayes made his move before Gwynne got tucked under his wing. “Tell him his protection detail isn’t a bust after all. I’ll let Sheridan know.”

  Henry grinned. “How did our esteemed Attorney General take the loss of his witness?”

  “With the trial starting Monday morning? Same way Democrats took losing Congress. On a long, slow whine.” Matt grinned, then turned it to a frown. “About our boy Neuman—”

  “You’re not letting him back in the loop, are you?”

  “We need to let him know about Oliver, but not until Gwynne’s safely back in the nest.” And then? A spurt of eagerness was firmly flattened. “Let’s keep him and his guy on hand, just in case we need them.”

  Henry looked up with a frown. “Why would we need them?”

  “Hayes will have to complete his contract or he’ll have his employer on his butt.” It was as inevitable as death and taxes that the mob punished failure quickly and permanently. Local mob boss, Bates, the man suspected of footing the bill for Richard Hastings, was not known for making exceptions to this rule.

  Henry arched his thin brows to his receding hairline. “Andersen ain’t gonna let you set his witness up as a clay pigeon. Or our excitable attorney general.”

  “She’s already a pigeon.” Matt shrugged. “And Anderson’s got a wife and kids he’s gonna want to see again.”

  “Hayes is that good?”

  “Read his file again. Show me where he’s ever missed his mark and then tell me he’s not that good. Besides, we don’t have to put Gwynne in harm’s way, just make him think she is.”

  “You think he’ll decoy twice?” Henry looked doubtful.

  “If we control his source and Bates keeps the pressure on him, what are his options?”

  Henry looked thoughtful. “It could work.”

  “Anderson needs to take a good, hard look at the logistics of the place they had on tap for Gwynne. And we need to find something like, well—”

  “A web?”

  Matt smiled. “Yeah. A web.” He leaned back in his chair, his body tense with the anticipation of action. Hayes was so close, he could almost reach out and touch him. The beauty was, they wouldn’t even have to hunt for the bastard. Hayes would come to them. Once they had Dani Gwynne.

  The romance writer and the hit man. Now there was a title for a book.

  Hayes was a man with a mission. He had to find Dani Gwynne and finish the job and he had to do it quickly. Bates did not like failure. Hayes didn’t like what Bates did to failures. Not that Hayes knew how to fail, even if Bates weren’t in the picture. He couldn’t let Dani Gwynne escape her death. Each piece in the puzzle of his existence fit into the other. Remove one piece and the whole came apart.

  She was his missing piece.

  * * * *

  “There is a passion for hunting…deeply implanted in the human breast,” Hayes murmured. With every fiber of his instincts he knew that hunting her was about more than a death. He needed her death. As long as her blood pumped through her veins he would be in pain. He had to kill her if he was to survive.

  He worked with calm intensity, marshaling all his resources, all his will, using his pain to fuel his drive and directing it toward tracking Dani before she could go to ground or be picked up the by Marshals.

  He had tapped his sources inside law enforcement and knew she was on her own. It pleased him to have her so. Took out the middle men. Made the hunt just between them, the way a good hunt should be.

  Hayes looked through her financial accounts, his fingers stabbing the keys as he put a trace on her bank and credit card accounts, a “cc” on her email. If she tried accessing her money, he would know when and where as soon as the Marshals did and he could mobilize faster than they could. Bureaucracy was a bitch.

  Not that he thought it likely she would use them. He studied her bank account on his screen. Either her agent was stealing from her or she was carrying a lot of walking around money. A whole lot.

  “Money’s a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.” He looked forward to that meeting.

  The first instinct of a hunted animal was to go to ground. He turned his search to local hotels. Child’s play to look through their systems for a recent registration by a female paying with cash. On the fifth try he hit pay dirt. Louise? He made a note of the name and room number she was using. As in Thelma and Louise, he wondered with a grin. He noticed she had made some telephone calls, all of them to numbers he recognized as Internet lines.

  What was she up to, he wondered, then shrugged it off. Whatever it was, he would soon put an end to it.

  A message that he had email came up on his screen. Hayes glared at it. He knew who it was, was tempted to ignore it. Bates, the man behind Richard Hastings, the man footing the bill, had a hair trigger temper. If he thought Hayes couldn’t complete the contract, if he lost his fear, then he would put everything he had into hunting Hayes down. He would give Gwynne’s contract to someone else. Hayes couldn’t let that happen. So Bates must be placated. For now.

  He pulled up the email, and read the short, vituperative message, then stabbed the response button and typed a kiss-ass reply. When it had been sent off, he logged off. He had an appointment to kill.

  * * * *

  Where would she go? Matt stood next to Alice, studying a map of the city. A few meager push pins marked the places Dani had been spotted. Around the room there was an assortment of electronic surveillance equipment. Faxes, printouts, and the remains of breakfast, lunch and enough Styrofoam coffee cups to breech a land fill littered the massive conference table.

  When Riggs’ call came in, Matt settled near the speaker telephone, rubbing the chin he had obviously shaved too fast this morning and said, “I hope you have good news, Riggs.”

  “Some. We got a trail. She surfaced downtown at Saks Fifth Avenue, bought some clothes.”

  Matt looked at Alice. “Shopping?”

  She arched her brows. “It’s been six months.”

  “A new laptop, had a makeover…”

  “A makeover? No…” He held up a hand as Alice opened her mouth. “I don’t want to know.”

  She grinned as Riggs said, “Hold on. I think we got something.” There was a muted rumble of voices, then Riggs came back, “She checked into the Hilton.”

  “We’ll meet you there.” Matt was out of his chair and halfway to the door before he finished the sentence. “Come on, Alice. I’m sure I’ll need your insight into the weird workings of the female mind when we get there.”

  * * * *

  Hayes felt the emptiness of the room hit him before he shut the door. He fought back the pain disappointment sent through his skull and reached out, trying to find her essence. He felt her fear first. Smiled as it spread a healing balm over his pain. It connected him to her more than any of his other kills. He frowned, suddenly uneasy about it.

  What was so different about her? Why did she disturb him? He had only to close his eyes to see her here, moving about, thinking, planning, trying to escape him.

  Yes. She felt him hunting. How curious.

  He followed her scent into the bathroom, picked up her discarded towel and breathed her in. The idea that she could sense him unsettled, while it intrigued. It was also dangerous. To him, to his future with Willow. He hesitated. Maybe he should disappear. Let Bates find someone else to complete the contract. Bates would come after him, but he know how to disappear.

  It would be the sensible thing to do.

  He knew, before he turned to leave, that he wasn’t going to be sensible. He had to keep going. He had to kill her or die trying. The pattern required her.

  It was that simple.

  He had his hand on the door knob when he heard someone outside the door.

  * * * *
>
  The drive seemed to take forever. Matt held excitement in check, but it wasn’t easy. They were close. So close, he could almost smell her coconut shampoo.

  He stalked into her hotel room, pushing aside the manager with the key, felt death’s visit before he saw the leg protruding from the bathroom.

  Behind him Alice inhaled sharply.

  Matt paced forward, dread fading, to be replaced by anger, when he saw the white stockings and comfortable shoe on the foot. He pushed the door open.

  “It’s not Gynne.” He stared down at the sprawled body, fighting back the anger. Too late for that. “Call some cops, Alice.”

  Matt stalked to the center of the room and looked around with a frustrated sigh. “You got the list of what she was wearing, Riggs. See if she made any calls or somebody saw her leave.”

  “Right.” He slid out the door with his characteristic slouch.

  While Alice made the call, Matt made a restless circuit of the room. The bed had clearly not been slept in, though the cover was rumpled. Otherwise the room looked undisturbed, phone books, paper and pens still neatly stowed in the desk drawers, the closet bare of occupancy.

  “Well, look at what we have here.” He crossed back to the desk and crouched down, lifting up the telephone line lying free of the wall plug. He fingered it for a moment, remembering the laptop in the safe house plugged into the telephone line. She had bought a fully loaded lap top. That meant it had a modem.

  Pretty high tech for a romance writer. He would expect her to know more about bubble baths and aphrodisiacs than computers. He didn’t give voice to the thought. Alice had strong opinions on stereotyping, even of romance writers. He showed the line to Alice. “Is the other phone line in or out?”

  Alice checked. “In.”

  Matt stood up. He had one of their computer people going over Gwynne’s safe house lap top, but had considered it a footnote in her file, something that might dot some “I’s” or cross some “T’s.” Apparently Gwynne didn’t see it that way or she wouldn’t have moved so quickly to replace it. “She had her notebook modem hooked up at the crime scene.”