by Helen Conrad
“No judge is going to issue a warrant without some reasonable justification. Your say-so won’t do it.”
Michael spread his arms wide, then clenched his hands. “I’ll go with you to the judge. I’ll tell him what I’ve seen.”
A sardonic smile twisted Bob’s face. “You’re not what I’d call the most credible witness around.”
Frustration ripped through Michael. He came up against the same thing everywhere he went, every time he opened his mouth. “I’m telling you the truth,” he ground out.
A curious look of satisfaction settled on Bob’s face. “You’ve got to see this from an objective point of view. It’s your word against his.” He shrugged. “And you’ve spent time in prison for embezzlement. Who’s going to believe you?”
Michael’s eyes were hard as flint. “You are,” he said coldly, fixing Bob with his steely stare.
For the first time, the other man’s gaze flickered uncertainly. He tried to face Michael’s glare, couldn’t, and glanced down at a paper on the desk in front of him. “Maybe you’d better take a look at this,” he murmured, shoving the paper toward Michael. “It came in just before you did.”
Michael looked down, taking the form in his hand. “Arrest warrant” was the heading. “Michael Drayton” read the filled-in portion. “Wanted for embezzlement of funds from Matthews Aviation over a period of two years. Wanted for the theft of a valuable heirloom diamond necklace, taken from the Matthews home.” Sky Matthews had signed the complaint. His daughter, Vanessa Matthews, had cosigned.
Michael felt the room fall away. The pounding in his head crescendoed. Prison. He wouldn’t go back to prison. Nothing...and no one...was going to put him back there.
It took a moment for him to regain control. Dropping the paper, he met Bob’s gaze and tried to smile. “Sky works fast,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse in his ears. “I was just with him an hour ago.”
“You realize what I’m obliged to do.”
Michael nodded. “Sure, Inspector.” His tone was sarcastic, his gaze fierce. “You going to put the cuffs on me yourself, or are you going to call one of your boys in blue to do it for you?”
The two men stared hard, their gazes each filled with anger, question. Adrenaline was coursing through Michael’s veins. Should he make a run for it? Would he get out the door without a bullet in his back? Would he rather go to prison?
“Let me go, Taylor,” Michael said softly. “Just give me a chance. For old times’ sake.”
Bob’s face didn’t change.
“Come on,” Michael urged. “Just give me a few days. Let me try to get hold of Kerry Carter. Let me talk to him, convince him to come back and tell you what he knows. I’ll get this cleared up. I swear it.”
Bob stared back for a long moment, and then his eyes narrowed. “For old times’ sake,” he murmured. “I remember old times, Michael. How much do you remember?” He grimaced. “Darlene Peterson,” he went on slowly. “That was her name. Remember Darlene, Michael?”
Michael’s mind spun, trying to dredge up a picture. Blond hair, he thought vaguely. A nervous giggle. Persian Melon lipstick. Prep school. A thousand years ago.
“I was crazy about Darlene Peterson when we were at Oxfield,” Bob continued. “She even wore my ring for a while. Until she saw you make the winning touchdown in the Benton Hills game. Remember that?” He laughed shortly. “Yeah, you were always making winning touchdowns, weren’t you? Darlene saw that, and suddenly I became nothing but a way to meet the great Michael Drayton.”
Michael didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “Bob, listen,” he began, but Bob was on a tear.
“Winning touchdowns, winning girls, winning state finals with the swim team,” the other man mused. “There were times I hated you. And then there were times I wished I were you.” A slow grin crept over his face. “And then there’s now.” He shook his head. “Life’s funny, isn’t it?”
This was obviously a mistake. It had been a mistake from the first. He should have run while he’d had the chance. He should have left town. Bob Taylor had him where he wanted him. Revenge was sweet, they said.
Michael wouldn’t know. Revenge was being denied him at every turn.
He glanced to the side, quickly judging the distance to the door, and then to the stairs beyond. At the same time he took a survey of how many police officers were milling between him and freedom. Too many. But he would have the advantage of surprise.
Bob was watching him, probably reading his mind, but he couldn’t help that. A man could only do what he could do. Michael was tensed, ready to run, when Bob spoke again.
“Want to know something else that’s funny?” He leaned back in his chair. “I married Darlene. We’ve got three kids and a Saint Bernard. And she still talks about you to this day.”
Michael met Bob’s gaze helplessly. What could he say? To his surprise, Bob grinned and looked pointedly at his watch. “Whoops,” he said, “Look at the time. My coffee break.” He rose from behind the desk. “I’ll be back in about ten minutes. You want me to bring you something?”
Michael stared at him, not yet sure. “What?”
“Don’t you go anywhere,” Bob said softly. He paused, then chuckled. “You bastard,” he murmured. “This one’s for Darlene.” A moment later he was gone.
It took Michael a few seconds to fully absorb what had happened, but by then he was up and walking swiftly toward the door. Down the stairs, out through the lobby and into his car—it all took under sixty seconds. Turning on the engine, he roared toward the freeway. He didn’t have to think about what he would do. It was all laid out in front of him, as though he’d been planning it for weeks.
The salesman at the car showroom wasn’t surprised to see him again. He’d been in to look at the new Mustangs the week before.
“I’ll take that one,” Michael said without preamble. “The black-and-gold.”
“You’ve made a wonderful choice.” The man’s eyes gleamed. “If you’ll step this way, we just need a bit of your time for the paperwork.”
“I don’t have much time,” Michael returned sharply. “I believe you’ve already checked out my credit references. Anyhow, I’ve decided to pay cash.” He pulled out his checkbook. “Call my bank, if you like. I’ll make out a check.”
Twenty minutes later the car was his. He parked it next to his old Camaro, glancing around to see if he was being observed. He then removed his tool kit from the trunk, selected a screwdriver and began to remove the cover to the stereo speaker in the new car. Working quickly, he took it apart, laid the cover on the seat, then went back to the Camaro. The car door squeaked as he opened it, but no one looked over. Glancing around once more, he slipped his hand into a slit in the upholstery and pulled out a strand of jewels that sparkled in the afternoon sun. He stuffed them into his pocket and stepped back to the new car, transferring the necklace into the open speaker. It coiled inside the black box like a snake, and he stared at it for just a moment before he clamped the speaker cover back again and began to screw it into place. Going back to the Camaro, he took a few more things out of the trunk and shifted them to the new car.
Moments later he was testing the power of his new Mustang on the freeway. Destination: Arizona.
CHAPTER ONE
Blow My Love To Me
A BLUE NORTHER HAD BEEN BLOWING all day. The winds were finally tapering off, but it was cold, colder than usual, and Jessie had been out seeing to the few head of cattle she had left. She came in the back door of the seedy little truck stop, stomping her boots on the back stoop, pulling off her leather gloves, but keeping on her fleece-lined jacket. She could tell right away Harley hadn’t been able to get the furnace going. The only relief from the cold came from what little heat the greasy cookstove could generate. And every time someone came in the door of the Bar None Cafe, that went out.
One lone customer sat at the counter. He was hunched over his coffee as though it were a camp fire and he needed all the warmth he could get.
>
Just looking at the man gave Jessie the shivers. There was a curious hardness to his face, as though he’d just been hit and was steeling himself not to flinch. He appeared to be in his mid thirties. His dark hair was combed back off his face, emphasizing a distinct and jagged streak of silver that ran from the right temple. His eyes were silver blue, like mountain lakes on a frosty morning, but they were shifty. He spent as much time glancing out the front window to see who was going by on the highway as he did looking down at his coffee cup and eating his day-old Danish.
Jessie saw she didn’t know the man, and stayed where she was back in the kitchen. She didn’t want to get caught up in a conversation with someone who was just passing through. Tourist, probably, she thought. They asked too many dumb questions. Such as, “Did any of your folks ever know Doc Holliday down there at Tombstone?” as though the nineteenth century were last weekend or something.
“Hey, Harley,” she said as her father lumbered in to clean the hamburger grease off the griddle. “Cold in here.”
He grunted. “Damn furnace” was all he said, not wasting a glance on his only offspring.
Big and raw-boned, Harley Carrington had fought in Viet Nam and come back fixing to take over his father’s little ranch, marry his childhood sweetheart and raise a passel of kids. The marriage worked out okay, but the only kid he got was Jessie, and ranching on a small scale just didn’t seem to pay, so he’d tried to get out of that. Only Jessie, more than grown-up now and with a strong will of her own, wouldn’t let him.
She poured herself some steaming coffee and wrapped her hands around the hot mug, watching her father work. “Faye didn’t come in?” she asked at last, because she knew he was waiting for the question.
“Nope.” He turned and fixed her with a glare. “And I sure could have used some help about an hour ago. I had five twelve-wheelers stacked up outside and ten hungry men asking for omelets with their burgers, and me with no one to help in here.”
Jessie hid her smile in the coffee mug. You had to boil down everything Harley said, since he had a real knack for embellishment. The truth was probably closer to two pickups and a station wagon, but she knew that didn’t diminish his frustration at the fact that his only daughter refused to work the truck stop with him.
Jessie had married young, but it hadn’t worked out, and she’d moved back home. Now she and her father lived together in the old ramshackle ranch house Harley’s father had built in the fifties, but Harley went to work in the morning, and Jessie rode the range.
The cafe had been his idea from the start. “Maybe I just wasn’t meant to be a cattle rancher, sugar,” he’d told Jessie five years earlier. “Ever since your mother died, it’s been one disaster after another. I don’t have the will to try again. I’m going to open me a nice little restaurant out on the highway.”
Jessie had hated it. You might as well move to the city as open a restaurant. Serving food to passing truckers had nothing at all to do with ranching. Working with horses and cattle out in the open was all she’d ever wanted to do. She wasn’t about to let anyone take that away from her.
“You want a restaurant, you run it,” she’d told him. “I’ll take care of the ranch.”
And that was how things stood. Jessie hired on boys from town to help her, and Harley hired girls from town to help him. Neither venture was much of a success as yet. It all came down to no money.
Harley could have used a nice little nest egg to clean up the cafe, put in some modern equipment and really make it into a nice place where people would want to stop. Jessie could have used a bankroll to get the herd up to numbers that would be cost-effective. Unless they struck gold on their property, or maybe sunk an oil well, Jessie didn’t know where either one of them would get it. Lately it seemed they were both sliding backward. But neither was ready to give up.
“When do you think you’ll be able to get the furnace working again?” she asked as he walked past, carrying cardboard boxes of supplies.
He grunted and didn’t speak as he arranged the boxes on the shelf. Then he turned and glowered at her. “It’s a goner,” he said roughly. “I’m gonna need a new one.”
She put down the mug, knowing without asking that there was no money for it. “Maybe you’d better pray for an early summer, instead,” she said dryly, but her dark eyes were full of sympathy. It was one darn thing after another.
“Maybe... maybe once we get that new sign up, the union truckers will start stopping along with the independents and then we’ll have a lot more spending capital." His voice trailed off and he gestured with his hand, a helpless motion that broke her heart.
She forced herself to look away before her eyes filled with tears and she made a damn fool out of herself. “We’ll get by,” she muttered. There wasn’t much else to say.
Harley sighed. “You know, we could sell the place. Pick up stakes. Move to the coast. We’ve got family in California. Destiny Bay, maybe.”
Jessie shook her head. This was what he always said when he was just about out of hope. There was no way she was moving to California.
“You’ve only got one customer now,” she noted, craning to get another look at the man. At least he’d do for a change in subject. “Who is he, anyway?”
Harley shrugged, turning away, as embarrassed as his daughter. “Tourist.” That was their name for anyone passing through who wasn’t a trucker. He went into the back room to get out more supplies and Jessie went on looking at the stranger.
Wide shoulders, she noted. But his hands were white and soft. Well, not soft exactly, but uncallused. She was used to making a quick appraisal of a man’s ability for hard manual labor because she had to hire men for just that all the time. This one worked at a desk, she’d wager. And from the look of his suit and long, dark overcoat, he was straight out of the city.
She glanced out through the front windows, looking for his car. The black-and-gold vehicle sported California plates, with San Francisco stamped on the plate holder. She grinned to herself, pleased with her own perceptiveness. But then she looked back at the man, watching his wariness, his restless unease. Damned if the guy wasn’t scared of something, she thought, nodding to herself. “Hey, mister,” she whispered. “What are you running from?”
Harley went out and started wiping the counter around the stranger. “Anything else I can get you?” he asked.
The man shook his head. “No, thanks. But you could tell me if there’s somewhere around here I could camp for the night,” he said.
Harley glanced at the man’s suit and overcoat doubtfully. “There’s a motel in town,” he said.
“I’d rather camp.”
Harley shrugged. “Well, then, you can just about take your pick, son.” He leaned on the counter, and Jessie grinned, watching him go into his favorite role— local expert and helpful guide to southern Arizona. “There’s plenty of land between here and Tucson—if that’s the way you’re headed?”
The stranger nodded.
“As I say, there’s ample opportunity and plenty of land, mine included. In fact, I’d say you could find a likely looking canyon anywhere along the highway over the next few miles, and you’d be right on my land. Just go ahead, pull off and find yourself a spot. Ain’t nobody going to bother you tonight.”
Jessie grimaced, throwing out what was left of the coffee, which had gone cold. Darn that Harley—he’d give away the ranch if she afforded him half a chance.
It was a wonder he didn’t give away the food when people stopped by.
Harley talked to the stranger for a few minutes more, then came back into the kitchen and began filling the sink with sudsy water. Jessie lingered. She’d only meant to stop for hot coffee, then be gone, but something about the man at the counter seemed to hold her there.
“Get out of here, mister,” she whispered. “Let me get back to work.”
As though he’d heard her, he rose abruptly, throwing money down on the counter and striding for the door. He stopped right in the d
oorway, looking up and down the highway. Jessie watched. He was taller than she’d expected, filling the opening. There was something dangerous about him, some barely leashed potential for emotion or violence that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It gave her the shivers again. A moment later he was gone.
“You’re down to nobody,” she told her father as the bell sounded and the door closed behind the stranger.
“Good,” he grunted. “You want to clear up his mess for me?”
She put the coffee mug down in the sink and grinned as she began to pull on her leather gloves. “You want to come muck out Smoke’s stable for me?” she asked in return.
The only answer she got was unrepeatable, and she left, laughing.
She was back two hours later, stomping off the mud on the back stoop again and swearing as she came in the door. The place was empty and her father was in the dining area, stretched out on two chairs he’d shoved together, watching a game show on television.
“Harley, will you look at this?” She grabbed a walkie-talkie unit from its place on the shelf next to the coffee filters and shook it in his face. “I yelled at you on this thing for ten minutes, and I never got one bit of response.”
Harley took off the glasses he wore for television viewing and looked at the radio in her hand. “You been trying to get ahold of me?” he asked a bit sheepishly.
Jessie let out all her breath in an exasperated sigh, reached over to turn down the blaring television and faced her father. “Yes sir, I have. I thought we got these things so we could use them in cases of emergency! But if you never even pay any attention when the thing is screaming at you...”
Harley looked contrite. “I didn’t hear it. Guess I had the TV turned up too loud.”
She groaned and put the unit back on the shelf, throwing him an angry look. “Another good idea sabotaged,” she grumbled. “I might as well go back to the cell phone that never has coverage.”
Harley never let anything get him down for long. He shrugged away her anger. “What happened, anyway? Somebody throw a shoe or something.”
