24/7

by Joanna Wayne

  Jack took the photograph Kelly had found in Hal’s closet from his shirt pocket. “Is this the woman Nick Warner wanted you to kill?”

  “That’s her. Same picture, in fact.” Billy reached in his pocket and pulled out a duplicate of the photograph.

  “What did the husband look like?”

  “Just like he does on TV.”

  “And you talked to him personally?”

  “Hell no. You think big-shot movie stars talk to people like me? They got flunkies for that. He talked to me on the phone to set up the deal, but when he come to bring the earnest money, he sat in a limousine with his tinted windows all rolled up.”

  “It’s hard to identify a man behind tinted windows.”

  “He rolled the window down and hollered at his flunky when he wasn’t quick enough getting back to the car. Guess big movie-star man was getting nervous down here on the streets.”

  “Did you take the money?”

  “I checked to see if it was all there, but then when he mentioned the woman’s kid might be with her, I threw it back at him. I figure a man might have reason to kill his wife, but what kind of monster would let his own kid go down with her?”

  What kind of monster? The kind who had fathered Alex. This was going to tear Kelly apart. Jack pulled the payoff from his back pocket. “I appreciate the help, Billy.”

  “I ain’t killing no woman with a kid. I got a few scruples.”

  Nick Warner had even fewer.

  “One other thing,” Billy said as Jack was walking away. “Another twenty-dollar bill and I’ll give you the real kicker to this story.”

  “Better be worth it.” Jack pulled another twenty from his pocket.

  “The guy wanted me to break in on his wife one night before I killed her. He said shake her up a little, but don’t hurt her, just act like I was looking for him. A decoy he said. What the hell was that about?”

  A decoy so that Nick wouldn’t be the first suspect they looked at. He’d thought of everything, only someone had got to him first.

  Jack called Lenny on the way back to PPS to give him a heads-up. Lenny filled him in on what Kelly had learned.

  Sonofabitch! She’d completely settled in on Hal as the one who’d tried to kill her. Now he had to tell her that it had been Nick who’d put a fifty-thousand-dollar price on her head.

  “I need one more thing, Lenny.”

  “I know. Insurance. I’m already checking it out.”

  “And don’t mention what I found out to Kelly.”

  “No, that ugly job is all yours.”

  Good thing Nick Warner was dead. If he hadn’t been, Jack might have killed him with his bare hands.

  Chapter Twelve

  Monday, 1:30 p.m.

  Road to Single S

  Kelly was still talking excitedly as they turned on the narrow road that led to the back entrance of the ranch. Jack saw no reason to burst her bubble until he had to, which would be any minute now. He wouldn’t want to give her that kind of news with Alex around.

  This would hit her hard, though her resilience and determination over the last few days had been nothing short of spectacular.

  “Gotta hand it to you,” he said, when she finished telling of her morning’s activities, “you’re something else.”

  “Thank you, Agent Sanders. I was thrilled to finally be doing something useful instead of watching everyone else work while I wallowed in guilt, grief and fear.”

  “What could you possibly feel guilty about, surely not our kiss? You said you and Nick haven’t been intimate in years, that you lived separate lives.”

  “No guilt for the kiss. But the guilt is about Nick. I keep thinking about what Mitchell said. You know, how I’m not showing the proper grief. I guess maybe I’m not, but I do feel terrible that Nick was murdered. Even if I had hated him—which I didn’t—I’d never wish anything like that on Alex’s father.”

  Here she was beating herself up for not grieving appropriately for a man who’d paid to have her killed. Now Jack was even more worried about what his news would do to her. All her efforts to spin Nick into a decent person and a good and loving father would go down the toilet.

  “It’s starting to snow again,” she said. “Have you heard a recent weather forecast?”

  “They’ve backed off a bit from the severe blizzard conditions, but they are expecting heavy snowfall tonight, and they’re recommending that you be off the roads by dark unless you have urgent business.”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a blizzard. What do you do when you’re snowed in?”

  “I’m usually snowed in at headquarters. I work.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Have to have agents in the facility to take care of emergencies. I’m Single Sanders with no family, so I volunteer with the other lonely hearts.”

  “Single Sanders? Is that where the name of your ranch comes from?”

  “Exactly. It has a nice ring, don’t you think?”

  “No. What if you get married, then what? Will you call it Married S?”

  “I figure that’s a bridge I can cross when and if I come to it.”

  Kelly leaned back and pulled one foot into the seat with her, the way she did when she was ready to get comfortable. He was learning all her little idiosyncrasies. The way she bit her bottom lip when she worried, the way she hugged her coffee mug instead of using the handle, the way she sucked on her spoon when she finished a bite of something cold.

  So many memories to haunt him when she was gone. Newer, fresher memories of a grown-up Kelly to add to the ones from Lake Tahoe and Canyon Road.

  “Why did you never try to get in touch with me after that night on Canyon Road?”

  Her timing was uncanny, as if she’d been reading his mind again. He could never be as honest about his emotions as she was. She said what she thought and put her feelings right out there to be trampled on by men like Nick. Jack kept his tamped down, roped in, so that they didn’t get trampled by anyone. Maybe that’s why he was Single Sanders.

  “I left for boot camp the next day,” he said, coming up with an answer that was pure avoidance even though it was true. “While you were sunning in that little sky-blue bikini, I was doing push-ups and marching under a blazing sun.”

  “Did I have a sky-blue bikini?”

  “Now who has the better memory?”

  “You still could have written—or called?”

  As if he hadn’t thought about doing either or both a thousand times a day. “Why didn’t you get in touch with me?”

  “I think I was afraid.”

  “Smart thinking. I was a dangerous boy,” he teased.

  “You were, but that wasn’t what frightened me. I was determined to become an actress, and I was afraid if I got too entangled with you, I’d end up married and pregnant.”

  “Actress-married-pregnant. Now you’ve done them all.”

  “And failed at two out of three. Not a great record.”

  “Ah, but you have your passions.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “Is Drake Patton one of them?”

  “Hardly, whatever gave you that idea?”

  “The way he looked at you at the premiere Friday night.”

  “That’s his sultry screen look. It means nothing. We’re just friends, but he has voluntarily done some promotional videos for Chance for Children, and that is one of my passions. The other is Alex.”

  Jack was relieved to hear that Drake was just a friend, but it didn’t change anything. He was too much a realist to think he and Kelly could ever make it together long term. It was as evident now as it had been back then. “You were out of my league in those days, Kelly. I knew that and so did your dad. He would have hanged me if he’d known what we did that night. You never told him, did you?”

  “Are you crazy? I haven’t even admitted to him that you’re my bodyguard and I’ve been out from under his roof for fourteen years. But I’m not looking for his approval anymore,�
� she said, “just in case you were worried about that.”

  He wasn’t. His biggest worry right now was her reaction to what he’d learned about Nick. But it was better coming from him than someone else. His other worries weren’t as pressing but the unanswered questions in this case bothered him nonetheless.

  Karen Butte’s murder and the fact that she’d seemed desperate to talk to Kelly about Nick. Nick’s dying words about a list that might or might not be the list that linked Kelly to the hit men. The unaccounted-for two million dollars from the Puerto Escondido deal which might have triggered Nick’s trying to tell Kelly something about TCM.

  He might never find the answers to all of them, but he had a nagging suspicion they were going to come back into play.

  They pulled up to the back gate and he released the lock with the control on his key ring. The same control told him that neither the front nor the back gate had been opened since they’d been gone.

  “Home again,” Kelly said. “I can’t wait to see Alex, and then have a glass of wine by the fire without having to fear when and where the man with the assault rifle will show up next.”

  He couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. He stopped the car in the middle of the dirt road and killed the engine.

  “We need to talk.”

  ONE LOOK INTO JACK’S dark, troubled eyes, and Kelly knew something was seriously wrong. Her apprehension swelled. “What is it?”

  “I found out some new information today about our man with the assault rifle.”

  “What else can there be? Hal hired him to kill me. You saved our lives. Hal’s dead. It’s over and done with.” She was talking too fast, letting the sentences spill over her lips like a waterfall. But it was over and done with and she didn’t want him complicating things again.

  “Hal probably killed Nick, just as you said, but he didn’t hire the hit man. That was all arranged before you arrived in Denver.”

  “No. It was Hal. He had a motive. You said all my theory was missing was his motive, and I found it.”

  Jack stretched his arm across the back of the seat and laid his hand on her shoulder. “I know this will be hard to take, but I have to tell you the truth. It was Nick who hired the hit man, Kelly. He made a trip to Denver a week before the film festival and made a deal for your rented house to be broken into and for you to be killed.”

  “I was the one who insisted he rent the house. He wanted to stay in the hotel.”

  “When did you make that decision?”

  “A few weeks ago…” Which didn’t disprove anything. “The killer fired on us with Alex in the car. Even if Nick had wanted me dead, which is ludicrous, he would never have made an arrangement that could possibly harm Alex. He adored her.”

  But Jack believed differently. It was there in his eyes. She started to shake. “Who told you these things?”

  “A man Nick approached to do the job.”

  “He could be a psycho like Bates. He might have been lying about being approached.”

  “He wasn’t lying.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “Because it’s my job to know. And because the man he approached still had a duplicate of the photo you found in Hal’s room.”

  “See? That proves it was Hal.”

  Jack massaged her shoulder with his fingertips, but even Jack’s touch wasn’t helping to calm the quaking now.

  “It wasn’t Hal who hired the hit man, Kelly, but I think he was in it with Nick. That’s why he had the names of possible hit men and why he had your picture. It may have even been his idea, but it was Nick who offered the money.”

  “How much?”

  “That’s not—”

  “I want to know how much, Jack. How much money was Nick willing to pay to have me killed?”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  “He was in debt to his eyeballs. Why would he spend that kind of money to have me killed when I’d asked for a divorce six months ago? I wanted out of his way, out of his house, out of his life. He’s the one who begged me to stay.”

  She threw up her hands. “Why? Why, Jack? You keep harping on motive. What was Nick’s motive? I didn’t have a legal claim to one penny of his money. All he’d have to give me was child support, and that would have been a lot cheaper than the clothes he wanted me to wear to his stupid Hollywood functions. So tell me why he wanted me dead.”

  “He took out a three-million-dollar life insurance policy on you five months ago.”

  “Wouldn’t that make him a logical suspect in my death?”

  “Which is why he concocted the story of the stalker and had someone break into the rented house. It would have transferred suspicion from him to a phantom stalker.”

  “No wonder he left me in his will. That made him look good, too. And as for this being Hal’s idea, that only makes it worse. I’d been with Nick five years, helping to quell the rumors, giving birth to and raising his daughter, smiling at the ever-present paparazzi.

  “Hal waltzes into Nick’s life six months ago, tells him to have me killed, and Nick does—or at least he would have, if it hadn’t been for you. I can’t believe he hired you in the first place.”

  “More reason not to suspect him in your death.”

  “You said the hit man you talked to turned Nick down. Did he say why?”

  Jack looked away, clearly not wanting to answer the question. But she’d heard the worst, she might as well hear the rest. “Tell me, Jack. What was it? Was I too risky? Did Nick have too many rules? Was that not enough money?”

  Jack finally let their gazes meet. “Nick made it known that you were almost always with Alex, and that killing you might necessitate killing her, as well.”

  Kelly went ballistic. “How could he? He was her father. He loved her.” Quick, hot tears squeezed from her eyes. “Oh, Jack, how could he pay someone to kill my precious Alex?”

  Jack tried to pull her into his arms but she jumped from the car and started running down the road, running as hard and as fast as she could. She didn’t want to be comforted. She didn’t want to cry. All she wanted was to keep running until she passed out from exhaustion. Run until she couldn’t think about Nick or murder or how much she hated him right now.

  She didn’t stop running until she’d burst through the door of Jack’s house and swept Alex up in her arms. She swung her around, holding her tight, and not letting her go until she fell with her to the leather sofa.

  “That was fun,” Alex squealed. “Do it again.”

  “In a bit.” Kelly snuggled Alex and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Your nose is cold, Mommy.”

  “I know.”

  “Were you out making a snowman?”

  “No, just jogging.”

  “Cameron and me made a snow dog, kind of like Stormy, but his tail kept falling off. And Cameron let me have three gooey marshmallows in my chocolate.”

  “Three. Wow!”

  Alex heard Jack come in the back door and ran to tell him about the snow puppy and the three gooey marshmallows. Kelly huddled by the fire, out of breath and cold to the bone.

  Jack came into the den where she stood shivering by the fire. “Your mother called on your cell phone while you were running back to the house. I answered and took a message. She wants you to call her.”

  “I don’t want to talk to her right now.”

  “I think you may have to. She and your father are in Denver and they want to see you.”

  “I told them not to come.”

  “Do you think you’d stay away if you thought Alex was in danger, no matter how old she was?”

  Kelly sighed, took the phone from his hand and made the call. “Hi, Mom.”

  “You don’t sound like yourself. Have you been crying?”

  “No. I think I may be coming down with a cold.”

  “Drink lots of orange juice.”

  “I thought we agreed that you and Dad wouldn’t come to Denver.”

  “We’re worried about you and
Alex.”

  “You don’t have to be worried anymore. Everything’s taken care of. The danger’s over and done with.”

  “Did they arrest the man who killed Nick?”

  “I’ll explain it all later.”

  “Then you don’t need a bodyguard?”

  “Right.”

  “Thank God! Your father has a rental car. We’ll come get you and Alex and you and can spend the night here in the hotel, with us.”

  “Hold on a minute, Mom, I may be able to save you the trip out here.” She caught Cameron just as he was leaving. “Are you going back into town?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got some things to check on at headquarters.”

  “Could you stand having company for the drive?”

  Monday, 2:15 p.m.

  Single S Ranch

  KELLY STOOD JUST OUTSIDE the door, watching Alex wave from the backseat of Cameron’s car. She was excited about spending the night with her grandparents at the hotel, and they were thrilled she was coming. It had soothed their disappointment that Kelly had refused their invitation.

  She wasn’t up to talking to her parents, so Jack was stuck with her and her terrible mood for the night. The Single S had been her haven of safety. Now it had become her refuge from the storm, both literally and figuratively.

  Nick and Hal had plotted to have her killed even if it meant killing Alex. It was horribly sick and twisted. But both Nick and Hal were dead and that news must have surely reached the paid killer by now. He’d be on the run, fifty thousand dollars richer even though Jack had foiled the attempt on her life. The danger to her and Alex was over.

  The snowfall was still light, but the tempest inside Kelly was raging. She went searching for Jack and found him at his computer.

  “Will you saddle the sorrel I rode Saturday? I’d like to take a ride before the weather worsens.”

  “Sure. Am I invited to go along?”

  “You can go if you like. I’ll be lousy company.”

  “We don’t have to talk.”

  She went to change into warmer clothes without saying more. Her muscles were tight knots, it hurt to breathe and she felt as if she might throw up any minute. She’s always heard that decent, everyday people could be driven to the kind of rage that made them take someone’s life.