Skylar’s spoon clattered to the tabletop and she clasped her pendant tighter. “You didn’t.”
Trinity hid a grin and gave a solemn nod instead. “Up at that place you called your hideaway. There’s a cave hidden behind some bushes. I was curious and hid out there and watched you guys.”
“Oh. My. God.” Skylar slowly shook her head, an expression of disbelief on her features. “I can’t believe it.”
“Let’s just say it was a real education for a teenage girl.” Trinity stuck her spoon into the ice cream that had softened to the point of turning into a mudslide instead of Rocky Road. “Better eat up. It’s melting.”
Laughter escaped Skylar and she raised her hands in an I give up gesture. “Well, I sure don’t feel so bad walking in on you and Luke now.”
Trinity snorted and giggled and then in the next moment the sisters collapsed into fits of laughter. Tears rolled down their cheeks, and Trinity laughed so hard that her stomach ached.
God, but it felt good to laugh.
And even with all the stress, even with all the craziness in Douglas and at the Flying M, it felt really good to be home.
Chapter 27
In the near darkness, the Bar F looked like a kicked beehive full of flashing lights. When Luke got there, he counted half a dozen law enforcement vehicles, marked and unmarked, and more were coming up fast behind him. Floodlights had been set up in the yard, making the sidewalk and porch bright as noon. Crime-scene tape marked an area to the right, leading to an outbuilding where Luke presumed Bull Fenning kept his meat locker.
Luke got out of his truck and put on his black Stetson, and made his way to Clay Wayland, who was standing by the front door making notes on a pocket-sized pad. Clay Wayland’s deputies were already leading Bull Fenning away from the massive stone ranch house in handcuffs, and the big man had his head down so low his chin seemed to be part of his chest.
“Damn shame that boy from Mexico had to die.” Clay Wayland lowered his pad and adjusted his tan Stetson as he greeted Luke. “I’d like to get my hands on the fucking coyote who cut that poor kid loose and sent him wandering across Bull’s land in the middle of the damned night.”
“Something has to change.” Luke watched as the deputies helped Bull into the back of a marked car.
He knew stopping fuckheads like Guerrero was key to ending scenes like this. Before the American people and the people of Mexico would ever embrace immigration reform, the drug lords had to be put out of business. Everything along the border, all the issues—sooner or later, they meshed together. Couldn’t fix one without fixing the others, too. Not really. Sometimes it felt a lot like shoveling shit out of a manure pile the size of Canyon de Chelly.
Wayland rubbed the corners of his dark moustache. “We talked to Fenning about Guerrero, and Fenning thinks his oldest son might step up to the plate with the Bar F after all. He signed a quitclaim to transfer the property to him, and he gave Brad Taylor the cash to wire his son what he’d need to cover this year’s taxes and operating expenses.”
“Damn.” Luke whistled from surprise. “That’s a lot of capital to have lying around.”
Wayland’s mouth twitched into something like a smile. “The old man had it in waterproof safes, sunk down in his well. Eve heard tell Fenning’s father was like that—but you know, after the market crash bullshit and all the failed banks, they don’t seem that crazy after all.” Luke thought about how the federal government and other nations were busy busting up tax havens in Swiss banks and offshore accounts. He thought about all the hours of forensic accounting the DEA hired and paid for, day after day and week after week. They got a ton of intel from watching where the money moved, but there would always be a Bull Fenning somewhere, burying—or drowning—his cash off the radar.
A few seconds later, Cruz Rios came out the front door, hustling Brad Taylor in front of him. Luke was relieved to note the lack of cuffs on Taylor, and he pulled off to the left with Wayland and Cruz, away from the growing crowd of officers and technicians, to talk to the man.
As they reached a clutch of pines near the edge of the yard, Taylor’s brown eyes looked wide and wild, hunted, not unlike his sister’s when she’d come to Luke’s cabin earlier that evening. Luke felt a twinge of guilt, especially when Taylor smashed his fist against a pine tree trunk, then wheeled on him.
“You should have listened to me, Rider—if that’s even your name.”
Luke didn’t volunteer anything about his cover. “You should have told me the whole story, Brad. Especially if you suspected I was law enforcement.”
Cruz and Wayland stayed silent, obviously realizing Luke had enough of a relationship to pull off defusing the situation and getting Taylor where he needed to be.
“Christ, I may never see her again.” Taylor rubbed his bruising knuckles against his jeans and stared at the gray dawn sky. “And Lola—they’re really on their own now.”
“I tried to get her to go to some of my friends,” Luke told the man. “She wouldn’t do it.”
“I sent Levi Thorn after her,” Wayland said in his quiet, matter-of-fact voice, surprising Luke and Rios, too, by the look on Rios’s face. “I had him headed out to question her at the K and K based on the info the DEA had received. When he found her and her daughter gone, Levi tracked her to the Flying M.”
“Not bad,” Rios muttered, giving Luke a look, no doubt about the Flying M connection.
Luke quickly explained about his encounter with Gina, and how she’d come to the Flying M to ask him to help Taylor.
Taylor’s mouth came open, and his already red face got a little darker. “Your deputy won’t ever catch up to my sister, Sheriff Wayland. She’s good at running. She has to be.”
“Don’t underestimate the man,” Wayland said. “Levi’s former special forces, and he worked for the U.S. marshalls for his first four years out of the service. Last I heard from him, he’d picked up her trail again, on the edge of Cochise County, heading north and east.”
Taylor shook his head and smacked his damaged hand against his leg. “Call him back. How do you know you can trust Thorn not to get Gina killed like these DEA assholes almost did?”
Rios winced, and Luke didn’t even try to defend himself. A crime syndicate hit man working for the FBI wasn’t anything he could have prepared for.
Wayland’s reassurance came out smooth and simple, and completely convincing. “Levi’s got plenty of money—his own, and from his family. Trust me, he doesn’t owe anybody anything, and he’s not corruptible. He’ll take care of your sister and niece.”
That seemed to help Taylor settle down, at least a little bit. Luke had to admit he felt better, too, thinking that Gina and Lola had a good man like Levi Thorn on their side. Seemed like they’d need that help—and a lot more—to escape Gina’s past.
“When we’re sure all of this is settled,” Wayland added, “when we’re positive Gina’s ex can’t do her any harm, Levi will bring Gina and Lola home.”
Luke picked up the cue from Wayland’s voice and the glance he fired in Luke’s direction. “Taylor, we want you to wait for them at the K and K, keep it fixed up for them.”
Wayland looked at Rios, who brought it home with, “And we want you to give us whatever information we need, whenever you hear or see anything related to Francisco Guerrero.”
Taylor cut his gaze in the direction the squad car had taken, the one that had carried Bull Fenning off to jail for murdering the UDA, then trying to cover up his crime.
His non-response let Luke know what Rios and Wayland no doubt saw, too. Taylor understood his position, that he was staying out of jail for Gina’s sake—and to be useful to the DEA and local law enforcement. He didn’t yet know what they’d be asking him to do, or all of what they’d demand, but whatever it was, Taylor would do it. For himself, and for his sister.
Luke didn’t much like this aspect of his job. Cultivating informants was one thing. Conscripting them—another. But in its own way, the border situat
ion was a war, after all. And Taylor’s other options weren’t viable for him, or for Gina.
“All right.” Taylor rubbed his knuckles again.
“Better let me get somebody to look at that hand,” Wayland said, right about the time Luke’s phone buzzed.
Luke pulled out the little cell and glanced at the display before answering.
“Denver?” Noah Ralston’s tense voice boomed across the sensitive connection.
Shit. This already doesn’t sound good.
“Em here,” Luke said, motioning for Rios to take Taylor out of earshot.
“Is Wayland with you?” Ralston asked as Rios led Taylor back toward Fenning’s big stone house.
“Yeah, and half the county’s resources. We’ve got a situation at the Bar F—”
Ralston cut him off without so much as a wait-a-sec. “I’m at the Rocking B. You and Clay—get over here. Now.”
“I’m sorry, Noah.” Clay Wayland’s green eyes had a grim, dark cast as he studied the destroyed ranch house with Luke. “I know Joyce meant something to you.”
Ralston said nothing as Wayland turned away and got on his phone, and Luke couldn’t blame the man. Ralston barely had his temper and reactions under control.
Joyce Butler had gone missing.
Somebody had really trashed her place, and apparently taken her with them when they left.
Everywhere Luke looked, he saw busted furniture, walls with big smashed holes, no glass intact—like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to every inch of the place. The walls that hadn’t been knocked to smithereens contained a variety of messages and slurs, painted in garish red that Ralston had already determined to be paint, not blood.
Ptita had been used most often, but Luke saw a fair number of chingada madre and chocha, and some death threats.
At first blush, the whole scene could be taken for vandalism, maybe even a random attack by a group of delinquent UDAs. The more reactionary racists in Douglas and along the border would no doubt take this crime for exactly that.
Luke knew better, and so did Wayland and Ralston.
This attack had been deliberate, and planned, and designed to leave a powerful message for any enemy of the Guerrero drug cartel.
This is what happens to people who cross us.
Ralston must have been right all along. Joyce Butler had gotten in over her head with Guerrero, and now she had paid the price. He hated to think what her body might look like when they found her—if they found her at all.
Even though Noah Ralston’s interest in Joyce Butler had been purely the loyal-old-friend variety, it had to kill him inside, knowing what the woman was probably going through right now.
“Her father’s given permission for us to search every inch of border dirt he owns.” Wayland snapped his phone shut. “He’s kicking in equipment and volunteers. If there are any corridors or tunnels on this land, collapsed or still standing, we’ll find them.”
A little too late, Luke thought, and cursed their lack of resources. Every agency, from local to federal and everything in between, needed more technology, more people, more money, and they just didn’t have it.
“I’ll head straight to the field office,” he told Ralston. “You know the DEA will be in this eyeball-deep, right beside you, like we have been.”
When Ralston turned to face Luke, Luke saw a full version of the flash of hot, steely rage he had first seen from Ralston at Nevaeh’s. “Guerrero’s going down. If you and your people don’t take the bastard out, Denver, I will. Count on it.”
Chapter 28
Trinity hadn’t gotten to play out her fantasy in the mountain caves with Luke. In fact, she hadn’t gotten to spend much quality time with Luke for days now, not since Bull Fenning got arrested. Skylar and Zack kept telling her how Luke was helping Brad Taylor on the Fenning spread, and at the K & K, too, since Gina Garcia had to leave town suddenly.
When she’d actually gotten to see Luke, he was so covered with dirt and exhausted, she could swear he’d been helping to dig up half of Cochise County.
I’m sorry, sugar, was the best he could do. Sometimes, this is my life.
As for Zack, he’d been absorbed with the rest of the world, in the hunt for Joyce Butler. Which is why he’d interrupted her work again after her morning shower, to go over her analysis of the unrelated prints at the Fenning crime scene.
“I still don’t know who this would be,” Zack said, his gray eyes tired as he evaluated the printout and her theories that the prints could have originated from the direction of Fenning’s house, or from Gina Garcia’s K & K. “Maybe a female UDA in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“The prints are my size.” Trinity rubbed her hair with her bath towel, glad she’d already been dressed when Zack came banging on her door. “The woman would have to be about my height.”
Zack actually gave her a grin—rare these last few days. “Other than you and Sky, that leaves, what, half the females in Douglas? If we don’t count Bisbee.”
“But this woman knew where she was going, I think. Or what she was doing. Not much hesitation.” Trinity pointed to her list of print depths. “See? She didn’t press in and turn often. She just walked up, stopped, then walked away.”
Zack folded up the printout to take to the ICE field office, and share with the other agencies searching for Joyce. The prints were her size, but like Zack pointed out, that didn’t mean much.
“Sky’s going to town for a feed run since Luke’s tied up,” Zack said as he got up to leave. “You’ll be okay?”
Trinity knew that was code for, Is your gun loaded?
“Fine,” she told him, glancing at the zippered pouch on her nightstand where she kept the pistol.
They hadn’t had any trouble on the Flying M since all the chaos at Fenning’s Bar F, and Guerrero wasn’t even in town. Trinity figured the drug lord would keep himself way past quiet until all this died down, but she supposed he might have henchmen, or minions, or whatever the hell she was supposed to call his hired help. She knew she couldn’t be too careful.
“Rider’s here today, by the way,” Zack said as he reached the door to her room, sounding almost casual even though his smile told Trinity he knew how that news would affect her. “He’s, ah, taking the day off, and he asked me to tell you he’d meet you at noon in front of Dancer’s stall, if you’re still up for a ride.”
Zack took off down the hall, leaving Trinity standing there with her hair in a towel and her heart racing.
Luke...
Day off...
Ride into the mountains...
Trinity’s entire body seemed to catch fire at the same time, a slow delicious burn that touched her everywhere. The ache she’d barely been ignoring for days took her over, and she wanted to run straight to Luke’s cabin, beat down the door, and climb on top of him.
But... she’d promised to make them lunch for the trip, back when they first planned it.
Crap!
She didn’t have much time.
Dressed in a comfy pair of old blue jeans, a jade-green T-shirt, Nikes, and a jacket to keep out the chill, Trinity hurried from the ranch house toward the barn to meet up with Luke. She’d French-braided her hair to keep it out of her face and had kept her makeup light. After all, she was hoping he’d be kissing off all her lipstick anyway.
Flutters stirred in her belly in anticipation of seeing Luke. She shrugged the lunch bag higher on her shoulder and entered the dark recesses of the barn. The acrid smell of smoke from the fire was finally starting to fade, but it still surprised her every time she entered the barn, reminding her that their little world wasn’t as safe as she’d always thought it to be.
Except today.
Today, she refused to think about Guerrero or Joyce or DropCaps or decisions or anything at all, save for Luke, and spending time with him.
As she walked past Satan’s stall, she caught the sound of Luke’s voice at the same moment she saw him ahead, standing next to Dancer’s stall. The mare
was already saddled up, and Tequila, Luke’s sorrel mount, was right beside Dancer.
Trinity’s pulse rate picked up and those flutters in her belly magnified. Lord, oh lord, he looked good wearing his black duster, black Stetson, jeans, and boots. Dark and dangerous-looking, that was her man.
“... if you don’t hear from me in four,” Luke was saying into a cell phone as she got closer. “Just stay back.” He caught sight of Trinity as she drew closer. She saw a flicker of something in his eyes, and then he gave her a brief smile and a nod as he listened to whoever it was on the other end.
“Uh-huh,” he said into the phone, his gaze focused on Trinity. “Gotta head on out,” he added and then took the phone away from his ear and punched it off before stuffing it into his duster pocket.
Trinity wanted to ask who he’d been on the phone with, but she knew it was none of her business. Instead she placed her palms on her hips and gave him a teasing look. “Cowboys and cell phones... somehow that just seems wrong.”
With one finger, Luke beckoned to Trinity to come closer. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong, sugar.” When she reached him, his eyelids lowered as he settled his hands at her waist and brought her hips flush with his. “Waking up every morning without you in my bed where you belong... that’s a serious problem in my book. The world needs to get sane again, in a hurry, so I can give you the time you deserve.”
Trinity realized he sounded worried. That he looked worried. “It’s okay, Luke. I miss you—but I understand. I’m not a preschooler you have to amuse or anything. I do have other things to keep me occupied.”
He pulled her closer, and closer still, his gaze doubling in intensity. “I don’t want to lose you,” he murmured. “Now, or ever.”
The lunch bag fell to the dirt floor of the barn as Trinity sucked in her breath. She moved her palms to his chest, feeling the tenseness in his muscles through his denim shirt. “You won’t. Not like that.”
Luke (Armed and Dangerous Book 2) Page 19
