The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy

by Pauline Baird Jones

  Jake chuckled, surprised that he could. “You’d like her, I think. And she’d like you but probably wouldn’t admit it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Getting her to admit anything is near impossible.”

  “Is she the one you have in custody?”

  Jake nodded. “Mom says if it’s meant to be, it will be.”

  “You don’t believe her?”

  “It’s not that.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and scowled at the future.

  “You want it to be but don’t see how it can?”

  “You’re good.”

  “I’m a romance writer. I have to be.” She slid her arm through his and started him back toward the house. “Does she feel the same about you?”

  “I think so, but—”

  “No buts.” She stopped, forcing him to look at her. “You’re a fixer, like Matt, so this is driving you nuts. My advice, for what its worth is, you do your job and let love find the way.”

  Right. He managed to smile at her, as if she’d helped, as they started up the steps. “Okay.”

  She laughed. “You don’t believe me. Let me ask you a question then. How did you catch her? Matt didn’t seem too optimistic about that prospect yesterday.”

  Jake stopped halfway up. “You know, that’s a good question.”

  An offhand comment Sebastian had made while securing the computers at Smith’s came back to him now. “I wonder why she didn’t phone in the wipe?” he’d asked, as he unplugged the computers from the phone line.

  At the time, Jake had assumed there’d been physical evidence she needed to destroy and let the comment pass, but why hadn’t she done that before the heist? So far Sebastian hadn’t found anything on the drive. It was almost as if it had already been wiped. Matt had put someone on to piecing together her few shredded papers and hadn’t found anything of interest there either. If she was Pathphinder, how had she made such a rookie mistake?

  “A…very good question.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to find a way to you.”

  Or, it was part of the plan?

  “Matt is luckier than he deserves.” He grabbed Dani and kissed her on the mouth.

  The screen door opened, framing Matt in the opening. “When you’re through kissing my wife, I’d like to take her home.”

  Jake grinned. “I’m almost done.” He kissed her again, this time on the cheek. “Thanks.”

  She patted his cheek. “I can’t wait to meet her.”

  Jake rubbed the back of his neck. Maybe romance writers couldn’t help being optimistic.

  EIGHTEEN

  It seemed like a long time since the cell door had closed behind her with a final-sounding clang. She wouldn’t be here for long, her mind said, but her heart wasn’t so sure. She was alone in this part of the jail. There were no sounds besides her breathing. No window to the outside world, no way to track time or assess its passing after being stripped of her belongings and all contact with the outside world.

  Of course they wanted her to be anxious. She was more likely to make a mistake if she was on edge. They didn’t have much time to crack her before she was out on bail.

  Despite the unrelenting stare of the surveillance camera, she wasn’t as uncomfortable as she’d expected to be. It was kind of a relief to be alone, her options narrowed to so few and nothing to do. Nothing she could do. Wouldn’t be too great for the long haul to have her world narrowed to three walls and a row of bars, but right now the breathing space was nice. There was nothing to distract her. Nothing to remind her of anything familiar.

  She was tired, she realized, and not just in the physical sense. Her soul was weary, too. She stretched out on the narrow iron bed, the odor of the same disinfectant they’d used on her engulfing her. Would it hurt them to add a little lemon scent to it?

  At some point she fell asleep, her dreams spent in a fruitless search for a coat. When she woke and found she was chilled, she knew why. The orange jumpsuit, besides not being even close to her color, wasn’t warm. A coarse blanket was folded at the foot of the bed, so she wrapped up in it, feeling the first stab of homesickness for her lost house in Estes Park.

  To her surprise, they hadn’t taken her harmonica, so she pulled it out. It seemed natural to do, since she didn’t smoke—the only other logical solitary prison activity. Sad, plaintive tunes suited her surroundings, suited her new role as prisoner. Something to put her in the right mood.

  She didn’t try to think or plan. Planning would come later, when she had a better sense of what moves had been made by the other players in the game while she slept. Right now she didn’t care. Drifting from song to song, she felt suspended in time, in space, even in identity. Who was she?

  She didn’t know and wasn’t sure she cared. That was for later, too. She’d been so many different people, she didn’t know who to be now. As if her soul had been set adrift. Or maybe—she paused in her song—she was like the chemical ice pack she’d given Dewey, waiting to be twisted by this final game, waiting for all the people she’d been to mix into someone entirely new.

  She liked that idea. Why not blend all the whos she’d been? The past, the present, all the roles she’d played in all their games? Maybe when this was over she could put all those pieces together and be a single, whole person. Maybe, just maybe, she could lay her burden down and have, if not a real life, something that looked and felt real if not examined too closely.

  Someplace warm. She wrapped the blanket more tightly around her and tried to think of warm things. Like how hot it felt up there on the tiny stage at JR’s when she was performing.

  She’d miss being Phoebe. Miss the bar, the guys, and the music. If she left Phoebe behind, would she also lose her feelings for Jake? What she felt with him, for him, made her feel more alive than she’d ever felt. She didn’t want to go back to her former dormant state.

  In playing the game, in keeping her distance, she hadn’t lost touch only with other people. She’d lost touch with herself. In a way, she’d given her stepfather a partial victory. She didn’t know the psychology of his need for power over her and Kerry Anne, his need to destroy lives, but her gut was telling her, if she retreated from these feelings, he’d win, even if they managed to take him down.

  Love, she was coming to understand, could heal even as it hurt. That’s what Kerry Anne had been trying to tell her the night she died, but Nadine hadn’t understood. Maybe she couldn’t have understood without meeting Jake. Maybe love’s lessons could only be learned in its furnace.

  And maybe she was heading just a tad too far into the philosophical zone? At this rate, she’d be a pathetic puddle of pure angst by the time they made their move.

  Time to lighten up.

  She played a jazzy riff, then stopped when she felt him watching her.

  She looked up. He wasn’t alone. A couple of guards were with him. One had two chairs, one a small table and another what looked like bags of…Chinese food? She held back a grin. The boy did not know when to give up.

  Jake saw her half grin as he signaled for the guard to open the door, then waited outside until the table was set up. The guard locked him in with her. A sudden case of stage fright held him by the door, but she looked so ordinary, so innocently pleased as she got up to investigate the cartons of food, he relaxed.

  “I didn’t even realize I was hungry.” She smiled. As soon as her gaze met his, a current of heat did an end run around his resolve before he could close the circuit. His first thought was he was glad his back was to the camera and the people at its other end. His second was this was going to be much harder than he’d expected it to be. His third, had he really expected anything to do with Phoebe to be easy?

  He returned her smile, holding back as much of himself as he could. He sat down opposite her and watched her help herself to the sweet and sour pork. She chose chopsticks instead of the plastic fork, wielding them expertly.

  “Am I allowed to know what time it is?”

  Jake looked at his
watch, even though he knew exactly what time it was and how many hours he had left. “It’s after midnight.”

  “No wonder I’m awake. I’m usually singing right about now.” She tried her drink. “Diet Coke. You remembered.” Her lashes lifted, and for a moment something intimate arced between them.

  “Yes. It’s a gift, or a curse. Haven’t decided which. It’s useful in my line of work. It’s the little details, unnoticed habits, things people can’t give up, that trip them up.”

  “So if I wanted to say, disappear, I should probably give up Diet Coke?”

  “If you don’t want to get caught.”

  She looked thoughtful but didn’t say anything more until she pushed the carton back and patted her tummy.

  “That was great, thanks.” The spark of mischief in her eyes gave him a brief warning the games were about to begin. “Interesting interrogation technique.”

  “What?” Jake cleared the debris, setting it on the floor by the table.

  “Let the suspect get rest and food.” Her accent was getting more Southern. “You trying to kill me with kindness, cowboy?”

  Jake grinned, gave a half shrug. “I knew the typical wouldn’t work with you, Reb.”

  She laughed, a throaty sound that sent quivers through his mid-section. Knowing Bryn and others were watching him kept his blood supply moving up instead of down.

  With a smooth motion, she got up, reversed her chair and straddled it. She did that, Jake had noticed, when she was on the defensive.

  “Are we waiting for Calvin to join us? You weren’t going to question me without my lawyer present, were you?”

  “I’m not going to question you at all.” Her eyebrows shot up. Seems he’d finally managed to surprise her. “This little session is off the record.”

  He turned toward the camera and made a slicing motion across his throat. After a pause, the red light went out.

  “Interesting opening gambit, Cowboy. Unexpected. Curious.” Her smile was all mischief reminding him of that morning in her kitchen.

  It was a good diversionary tactic. He’d been more than curious in her kitchen. His mouth twitched with a suppressed grin as he took a file folder out of the briefcase he’d brought with him and laid it on the tabletop.

  “I’ll begin with a broad outline of what I know.”

  “The facts, just the facts, ma’am?” She propped her chin on her elbows and gave him her attention with a look that shouldn’t have made his toes curl in his shoes. “By all means, put the rest of your pieces in play—or would that be cards on the table? Are we playing chess or poker?”

  “Might be blind man’s bluff.” This was either a brilliant strategy or the dumbest thing he’d ever done.

  The lift of one eyebrow acknowledged the hit. A slight nod gave him tacit permission to begin.

  “You were born Nadine Beauleigh, formerly of Valdosta, Georgia. We were able to match your fingerprints with a set done at a mall, in one of those protect-our-kids-from-abduction booths. Possibly the same day you choose the red shoes over that boy?”

  If she could lob personal-moment bombs, so could he, although he wasn’t immune to the collateral effects of them. What would she choose today? Would he be able to reach her? Her eyes gave away nothing, though a tiny pulse beat in her neck.

  “When you ran away from home following the suicide,” Her eyelashes flickered at this, “of your sister, Kerry Anne, your stepfather, Montgomery Justice, turned over your prints. Your mother took a fatal tumble down some stairs not long after, and Justice seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.”

  He paused, but she didn’t fill the silence, just stared at him as if what he was saying, while interesting, had nothing to do with her.

  “We found Dewey Hyatt’s fingerprints in your home and at Smith’s, where you were apprehended.”

  For a moment, he thought she might speak. He admired her control. He knew the flaws in his case as well as she did. Suspicions without proof were just sound and fury.

  He moved on, detailing the links they’d made between her and Dewey Hyatt. Why he believed they’d both been present during the heist at TelTech. Touched on areas of investigation he believed were vulnerable for her, like the answering machine tape they’d taken from Ollie Smith’s crime scene.

  “You’re Pathphinder, Phagan’s strategist.” He watched her for a long count, then said, “We could probably uncover all your secrets, given enough time and attention. You haven’t been under the big microscope yet. Once you are, there’s no turning back. If we put the time and resources into investigating you, we will press charges on anything we turn up. And we’ll make them stick. This could be the beginning of a long incarceration.”

  “I’m not a lawyer, but—”

  “—you’ve played one,” Jake inserted.

  Her gaze met his without flinching, but it did narrow to wary. “Which makes me think you’re being overly optimistic about your chances of linking me to anything substantial.”

  “We could find out.” He waited a long beat, then said, “Or…”

  Against her will, Phoebe felt her curiosity rise. There was danger in listening to him, because she wanted a way out.

  “What if I told you that you’re not our…primary interest?”

  She arched her brows. “I don’t know whether to be pleased or offended.” She’d been expecting this and knew her next line. “What—or is it a who—do you want?”

  “What and who.” Jake relaxed in his chair, giving her plenty of space. “You’ll have to give RABBIT back, of course.”

  “Rabbit?”

  He ignored this. “And you’ll have to be debriefed on Phagan and Hyatt, tell us what you know about their organization. Tell us if you know where they are.”

  This she also expected. Her freedom for theirs—some choice.

  “And we want Harding—or whoever it is you’re after at TelTech.”

  She hadn’t been expecting that.

  “We’re not stupid, Phoebe.” She noticed he didn’t call her Nadine. “We know what you’ve been doing. Believe it or not, we are the good guys. If it is Harding, if he’s done something to you or someone you know, it needs to come out. Not only has he been working on a sensitive military contract, he’s making a run for governor.” He gave her a crooked grin. “Call it the public’s right to know.”

  “I can’t see that the public cares or wants to know what their leaders are up to in private.” Phoebe felt bitterness slip her leash for a moment. She reined it in. “Is that it?”

  “You will, of course, cease and desist all illegal activities. If you work with us, I think we can arrange a sentence that doesn’t include jail time. You’d probably have to do some community service.” He hesitated, as if he wanted to say more, but didn’t.

  She didn’t know why, but she had a feeling that what he hadn’t said was the one thing she wanted to hear.

  “I don’t know, cowboy. Your deal seems pretty lopsided. Lot of maybes there. And, frankly, I think I could get a suspended on what you’ve got, with a good lawyer and a bit of remorse.” She fluttered her eyelashes.

  “But you might not get Harding. The game will be over for you.” He hesitated again, then said, “People with your skills are in demand in law enforcement. It’s not uncommon for, say, really good hackers to be…recruited after being caught. I can’t promise anything, but Internet criminals are tough to catch. Why not try justice on the right side for a while? Come out of the shadows?”

  This she hadn’t expected either. Before she could stop it, hope tried to get a foothold in her heart. He was good, dangling a bright and shining new world in front of her and the offer to help her take out Harding. All she had to do to get it was betray the two men who’d saved her life all those years ago.

  He must have a real high opinion of her integrity.

  If only he understood the irony. She didn’t know where Dewey was. Didn’t know Phagan’s real name or location. And once he got word she’d been taken, no informati
on she had would lead to him. He’d already have moved to make sure of that. As for Montgomery Justice a.k.a. Peter Harding, she knew what he’d done to her sister, but any physical evidence—as well as Justice’s face—were lost in the past.

  That left RABBIT. Yeah, that piece of crap would buy her a bright, new future.

  She was cool, but Jake could see her inward struggle playing out in her eyes.

  Do your job and let love find the way. He’d given her a chance, now she had to have the courage to take it.

  “If I were this…Pathphinder,”—she smiled as if the notion amused her— “do you seriously think I could, or would, betray my friends? For any reason?”

  It was the opening he’d been waiting for. Her hand, the one not gripping the chair back, trembled before she could pull it out of sight. Poor baby. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her it was going to be all right. That she wasn’t alone anymore. He was there and he’d always be there for her, but she had to help him.

  “I have to have something…”

  “I can’t give you what I don’t have.”

  Her voice resonated with certainty. He frowned. What was she trying to tell him? She didn’t have RABBIT? Had the other thieves beaten them to it? He was tired of move and countermove. Why couldn’t she just tell him?

  “Then why are you here?”

  A pause. “Because you arrested me?”

  “You let yourself get caught, Phoebe. What is it you want from me?”

  * * * *

  Harding wanted a drink more than he wanted a girl. He couldn’t have either. Not tonight. He needed to keep his wits about him. Couldn’t afford to let his guard down now, or Stern would take him out. He wasn’t going to win this one. No one screwed his pooch and got away with it.

  He rubbed his aching head, realized his hand was shaking. He was used to telling others what to do and having them do it. He was a leader, a director of events, not some stupid peon. Stern was already suspicious. He’d seen it in his eyes when they ran into each other outside the building.

  “Any action?” Stern had asked.

  Harding had shrugged, all the while wanting to leap on the man and pound his face to a bloody pulp. Only no one pounded Stern, not without immobilizing him first. He’d have to take him out quick. Shoot him in the back, or drug him?