The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “We have a theory on that,” Alice said soberly. She extracted a folder from her briefcase and held it out.

  Matt shook his head and wished he hadn’t. He wasn’t sure he could read yet. “Just give me the important stuff.”

  “As soon as Sebastian penetrated the first layer of information on Heywood, red flags started flying. It’s a bogus, Matt. Not even a deep cover bogus, though good enough for a cursory examination. Once he knew it was a fake, it was easy to find a death certificate for the infant Joshua Heywood.”

  “A bogus.” Matt rubbed his aching head, not liking the direction his thoughts were heading. “Birth year?”

  A crease of worry put a sharp line between her brows. “The same as Hayes.”

  He didn’t have words, profane or otherwise. Times like this he really envied Sarge from the Beetle Bailey cartoon. He had a whole keyboard of symbols to use. All Matt had was the dictionary. It wasn’t enough. “Hayes is Heywood. Heywood is Spook. Spook is…”

  “The man Dani thinks is her friend and is planning to meet,” Alice finished for him with an air of calm. She had had more time to get used to the idea.

  “Is it a coincidence?” Matt asked, then answered himself, “How could it be?”

  The implications were staggering and sobering. If Hayes was chatting with Dani online, then it was entirely possible she had inadvertently engineered the compromise of the safe house. Which meant that Neuman and his team might be in the clear, except for being too stupid to know what was going on under their noses.

  “Coincidence doesn’t seem likely,” Henry agreed, stopping for a red light.

  “When’s the meet?” Matt asked. “And where?”

  “High noon. Looks like they suspected their mail might be monitored. They both allude to a favorite place of Dani’s, but no mention of where that might be. I put some people on to reading through her posts again, for any reference to a place they could meet.” Alice looked at her watch. “But we’ve got less than two hours.”

  “We tried to warn her by email?” Matt tapped out a beat on his knee, it hurt, but the movement kept time with thoughts twisting and turning for a viable plan of action.

  “Yeah, but if she’s on the move, she’s not likely to risk logging on, particularly since she’s found out what she needed to know.”

  Matt gave an unamused laugh. “What she needed to know. Where to meet her killer. What a mess.” Hayes was running true to type. Nothing he was involved in was ever simple or easy.

  “This is it,” Henry said, pointing to an open gate. Beyond the gate, visible through the trees that partially shielded the house, red lights flashed a warning of a new problem. “Looks like someone beat us to the punch.”

  “No, this something else,” Matt said, looking at the coroner’s wagon parked among the police cars. They flashed their ID’s to the uniform guarding the open gate. “Bates?”

  “Bates and David, sir.”

  “Bang goes Richard Hastings plea bargain,” Alice said.

  At least there was some good news. He asked the cop, “Fire?”

  He shook his head. “Throats slashed.”

  “Really?” Matt frowned. He had been sure that Orsini hired Hayes to do the hit. Orsini was heavy into that kind of irony. “Anything else unusual?”

  “Well,” the man hesitated, then added, “there’s talk they found a message pinned to Bates’ chest.”

  “Message? What’d it say?”

  He looked almost embarrassed. “Not worthy.”

  “That’s it?” Matt frowned.

  “Fraid so.”

  Not worthy? What…he looked at the cop. “Were the bodies moved and arranged?”

  He looked surprised. “How did you know that, sir?”

  “Just a wild guess,” Matt said grimly. If this was his handiwork, why hadn’t Hayes done his usual torch job? What were Bates and David not worthy of?

  * * * *

  His pattern was screwed. Totally screwed. Dani as Willow made his head explode with pain and hope. He had wanted to deny it. How could he live with the knowledge that he almost killed Willow? It didn’t fit the pattern. Still he could not deny it. It made sense. It was entirely logical. It explained why he had felt her, seen her in his dreams. His heart had known what his mind did not. Had tried to warn him. It broke the pattern. When he had Willow, they would fix it. Or make a new pattern.

  “Order eventually restores itself, by psychic equilibrium.” He had to believe this to survive. Together they would forge a better pattern. One that couldn’t be screwed up by anyone.

  First he had to make her safe. There were too many players in the game. That’s why he had taken Bates and David out of the equation. Only hours after they would put the contract out on his head. The irony of it pleased him, soothed the itch to kill and keep killing again until all who threatened his future with Willow were dead.

  The meeting at the mall was complicated. He hadn’t dealt with all of her enemies yet, but he couldn’t ignore her summons. He knew how much she needed him to keep her safe. So he came. It was as simple as that. She would be frightened, but when she realized he was on her side, she would accept him. Accept his heart. His protection. She would recognize, as he had, that they were meant for each other. He would finish making her safe and they would start creating the new pattern by climbing his mountain together.

  With her his pain would go away. Not just until the next kill. Forever. Willow was the cure. The final solution. Nothing must stop their coming together.

  * * * *

  “I can’t believe what I’m about to say,” Kelly said, stopping her rental car at the mall’s entrance and turning to look at Dani. “It goes against my deepest shopping beliefs, but…don’t go into the mall.”

  Dani grinned, amusement momentarily diffusing her own unease. It was certainly a first. It tracked with her feelings. Right now the last thing she wanted to do was go inside and meet another person she knew by words, but not by sight. Her mind was total goo. She had passed tired days ago. Even pissed off had faded, leaving behind a thick exhaustion that made even one step at a time too hard to contemplate, let alone do. It would be so easy to stay in the car. Drive off with Kelly. Go to the convention. She belonged at writer’s conventions. Not going off to meet an ex-CIA agent in a mile high mall.

  Every decision she had made, except for hooking up with Kelly, had ended in disaster. If she stayed with Kelly, disaster could catch up with them both. How could she live with herself if something happened to her best friend? Practically the only friend she had left? All because she didn’t go into a mall? She couldn’t. She opened the door and lifted one, then the other foot out. Now all she had to manage was standing up.

  To postpone it, she looked at Kelly. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

  “I don’t buy swamp land in Florida, the Brooklyn Bridge, or desert in Arizona. Do you seriously think I’m gonna buy that?” Kelly asked. Dani didn’t answer, just looked at her. Kelly sighed. “Look. I can’t believe I’m saying this either, but how about I wait out here for, say half an hour? If the spook turns out to be a drip, you’ll have a fallback position.”

  Dani smiled her relief. “Sounds good to me.”

  Too good, but she didn’t have the energy to fight her, especially when she was on Kelly’s side. What she knew about Spook seemed okay. He was smart and funny, but so sensitive it was hard to believe he could be for real. This wasn’t a good time for unpleasant surprises. All she needed or wanted from Spook was help in getting into court this afternoon.

  “Why don’t you circle around? We’re meeting in center court. If he doesn’t look promising, I’ll just walk straight through without stopping.”

  “Works for me,” Kelly said. “Let’s synchronize our watches.” She grinned. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

  “There’s too many things you’ve always wanted to say and do, girl.” Dani slid out and stood up. Her legs wobbled, then held. She looked doubtfully at the cowboy boots Kelly had talked
her into buying. They were so shiny she felt like a real greenhorn, especially with the cowboy hat and western stitched shirt. You’ve gone to Mardi Gras dressed like a romance novel bookmark, she reminded herself. How can you possibly feel ridiculous? The stiff leather did seem to help steady her ankles. Hopefully they wouldn’t remove yards of skin in the process.

  She took a deep breath. “Half hour. If I don’t come out, save yourself.”

  She opened the door, stepped into mall air and music. It was her spiritual home. So why did the door swishing closed behind her sound so final?

  FOURTEEN

  It was like watching lines of Dominos going down in every direction, Matt decided. He had to figure out which one would lead him to Dani using a brain that was still ringing from the explosion. Just in case that didn’t make it hard enough, all they knew for sure was that she and Spook had a “place” and they were going to meet there at noon. A relentless search of their common online posts had failed to hint at a place, let alone turn up a mention of it. Nor had their APB on Kelly Kerwin’s rental car turned up her or her car.

  No wonder he had a headache.

  “It has to be some place public,” Alice said, pushing aside her share of posts and arching her back. “She’d never meet someone she didn’t know anywhere but in public.”

  “Wouldn’t she?” Let’s see. There was the biker, Meathook. She had showed up at his place unannounced, then spent the night with he and his neon mama. What about that waitress from the greasy spoon that she followed to the tenement like a lamb to slaughter? Or the male stripper-obsessed romance writer. Sure she was going to be sensible.

  He didn’t share his reservations with Alice. She would think he was being sexist. Which said all that was needed about the contradiction that was female logic.

  Matt exchanged pointed looks with Henry and Sebastian—who obviously were on the same page he was—behind Alice’s back. They all knew they were right, but if she caught on, they would pay for it.

  He shoved back his chair and stalked over to the coffee machine for some chemical energy. He added three sugar cubes above normal, stirring them in while he tried to stir up his thinking. He should be able to think his way through the problem. Should be able to take available information, add equal parts experience and intuition. Let simmer until a conclusion formed. Then act on it. End of situation. Move on to the next problem.

  Only it wasn’t working in the case of the romance writer and the hit man. She wasn’t reacting the way she should. When he tossed in Hayes, who wasn’t in the same universe as normal, it was a recipe for disaster. Hayes must be in high cotton. Dani was coming right to him. She wouldn’t know it until it was too late.

  Matt lifted the cup and tossed half of it down his throat. The coffee was as bitter as his thoughts. He paced back to his desk, slopping coffee with each frustrated step. “There must be something we can do to stop the meet!”

  Alice opened her mouth. Closed it. Then she frowned. He recognized the look. Her wheels were turning. If anyone could figure out what the woman was thinking, it was another woman.

  While he waited for her wheels to spin the right way, a clock ticked in his head, getting louder the closer it got to high noon.

  “Maybe,” she finally said, “we’ve been looking at this the wrong way.”

  “What do you mean?” Henry asked.

  “Well, we’re acting like their original meeting was this intrigue thing they were trying to hide,” she said, thoughtfully.

  “Oh?” The puzzled crease in Sebastian’s brow deepened.

  Alice ignored him. “Hayes couldn’t afford to come off mysterious unless he wanted to arouse Dani’s suspicions. When he made his offer, it was just a pass between a guy and a girl. Let’s meet for drinks.”

  Henry sighed. “She doesn’t drink.”

  Matt stiffened. “Chocolate chip cookies. The only perfect food.”

  That earned him blank looks from both men, but an approving one from Alice. “Good for you. We might just turn you into a sensitive guy yet.”

  “Why does a compliment from women always come off sounding like an insult?” Sebastian asked.

  “I don’t get it.” Henry frowned. “Are you saying, they’re meeting for cookies?”

  In unison Matt and Alice turned toward each other.

  “The mall.”

  * * * *

  The closer she got to center court, the more uneasy Dani got. The question was, why? She was taking an on line friendship into real time. She had done it with Caro and Meat. That neither of them had made a pass at her was a slight, but unimportant difference? What mattered was that Spook was someone she liked. Someone she trusted. Someone who liked her. Not her face, her body, her testimony, or her ability to die. That he was ex-CIA was a positive, sort of. If she didn’t think about it too much.

  She didn’t have to make contact with him. If she didn’t, the problem of how to get into court today remained. She was fresh out of good ideas. Running out of time. The trial was scheduled to resume at one. She could be called any time after that. She had to be there or all this was for nothing. Richard would win by default.

  An ex-spy would know how to get into all kinds of places, wouldn’t he? She hesitated, her hand sliding into her pocket to the sheet with the addresses Matt had sent her. The Marshals or the Spook, Dani? Which is it to be?

  She checked her watch. Five minutes to twelve. She hesitated. She had asked him to come. It would be rude to leave without a word. Just ahead of her was the bright, high dome of center court. She had to go through it get to Kelly anyway. Couldn’t hurt to check him out. This was her chance to find out what a honest-to-goodness sensitive guy looked like.

  * * * *

  She was late. Hayes looked at his watch again. Found it one minute later than the last time he looked. Sometimes the waiting, the anticipation that went with it, was the better part of the hunt. He wasn’t hunting now. He was waiting for Willow. He had waited too long to be face to face with her. Now she was coming. He couldn’t wait anymore.

  Why didn’t she come? She said she would. Willow didn’t, couldn’t lie. It wasn’t in her nature to lie. He scanned the center court area again, then turned toward the cookie counter where they were supposed to meet.

  In Willow’s Book of Life, chocolate chip cookies are the perfect food group. .

  He smiled. He would have to cure her of her obsession with chocolate. It was so unhealthy. If it brought her to him, he could live with it. For now. His smile turned to a frown when he saw the empty counter. She wasn’t there either. He could feel their window of opportunity shrinking with each passing second. Could feel the ripples of pursuit coming their way. He couldn’t let them get trapped here.

  Why didn’t she come?

  Willow. Her name whispered across his mind and became an ache of longing. Henry Miller wrote that “the aim of life, is to live life, aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

  He was aware. It was her turn. Once she was aware, she would understand. She had to.

  * * * *

  Matt ejected from the car before it came to a complete stop. Police cars, lights flashing careened into a ragged circle around the mall entrance, releasing a flood of uniformed officers in SWAT gear. No one was taking Hayes possible apprehension lightly. The SWAT commander intercepted Matt before he reached the door. Matt wanted to sweep the man aside.

  “Alice, handle this, I’m going in.”

  Both of them said, “Not a good idea.”

  “Don’t try to stop me,” he snapped. “I have two minutes to stop them meeting, maybe less. I have my radio. I’ll stay in touch.”

  The commander looked at Alice, who hesitated, then nodded. They both stepped back and Matt sprang forward, like a spring released. He jerked the door open, aware on some level that he was acting out of character. It wasn’t like him to be out of control, to go in without careful thought, without a plan.

  He hadn’t felt like himself since he got mixed up with the
romance writer and the hit man.

  * * * *

  Dani stood in a shadowy area just outside the bright reach of skylights cris-crossing the ceiling. The area was a typical mall milieu. The artificial trying to look natural. Bright, open counters, lots of stone tile. Green and growing things and scattered wooden seats breaking up the traffic patterns so shoppers couldn’t take a straight line through, but were directed toward possible impulse purchases.

  The scent of cookies drifted past on recycled air. Dani turned towards the smell like a flower to the sun. That’s where he would be. By the cookies.

  She almost did it. Almost stepped out into the light. Something stopped her. No, not something. A feeling that someone was looking for her. Someone?

  Him. Dark Lord. Here?

  She shrank back against the wall. How could that be? The only people who knew where she was were Spook and Kelly. She was getting paranoid. Not too surprising when she counted up how much sleep she hadn’t had…

  Across from her a man moved around the perimeter toward the cookie counter. Was this her Spook? With his loose-limbed body and bland face he kind of looked like what she thought a CIA agent would. Weird if he actually did look like she would expect him to.

  He bent down, a natural enough action when you have just dropped something. But the movement, the way his head angled as if listening, his eyes sweeping the area with probing insistence, was almost a mirror for Dark Lord when he’d crouched over Peg’s fallen body. All that was missing was the knife.

  And the blood.

  She pressed back into the wall, but the hard stone refused to yield even an inch. She wanted to run, but she was back in her nightmare. Afraid to run. Afraid to breathe.

  He stood up, tossed what he had picked up in the air, and caught it with a fluid ease that made Dani flinch. He tucked it in his pocket, left his hand there as he strolled in the direction of the cookies.

  He was a chameleon. She had seen him become Dark Lord with her own eyes. Seen him vanish into normal. How could she believe her eyes now? He looked so innocuous, so much a part of the mall scene it was almost eerie. She would be hard pressed to pick him out of a line up.