Twice A Target (Task Force Eagle)

by Susan Vaughan

  He stood up and turned them around. Lifting her curvy backside onto the stove top, he shuddered. She wanted him, as much as he wanted her. Feverishly, he kissed her with his mouth, his teeth, his tongue, savored her textures, her taste.

  Control, restraint, you’re no teenager. But control had already burned away in the furnace of passion. She’d leave him before long, and he needed the feel and the scent of her branded into him.

  “Holt.” She writhed against him. Her hand tortured him where he strained against his fly. She slipped a foil packet from her jeans pocket and handed it to him.

  “Oh, yeah.” He skimmed one hand beneath her shirt to cup a firm breast. He tugged away the offending fabric to give him access to those strawberry-pink nipples, taut and eager for his attention. So sweet.

  He fumbled with her zipper, and in a flash, he had her naked and her sexy long legs wrapped around him. Her breath hitching, she started on his clothing, snapping off buttons in her haste.

  “Let me, sweetheart. I don’t want to have to explain ripped-off buttons to Espie.” When his shirt fell open, the pleasure of her breasts pressed against his chest had him gasping. She shuddered, her mouth seeking his.

  Once he’d understood the danger he’d placed her in, he’d been terrified for her. Covering her with his body, joining with her held panic at bay, reassured him in a way he scarcely comprehended. His fingers found her, wet and sleek and ready. As she welcomed him into her body, his soul expanded.

  Chapter 21

  When he entered her, Maddy arched and sighed with the satisfaction she felt only with him. Her body was on fire, her pulse scrambling. She bent to taste his lips, salty with passion, as the deep thrill sparked within her, rocketed her to white-hot stars. She may never feel this soul-deep connection again, and she wanted it to last forever.

  He bucked against her, pulled her closer as he let go and joined her in a cascading release.

  Long moments afterward, Maddy stirred, squirmed against Holt. “It’s hard.”

  He chuckled. “Not at the moment. But give me a little while.”

  She erupted in giggles against his chest. “No, silly, the stove. It’s very hard. And cold.”

  “Oh.” He separated them and lifted her to her feet.

  After they rearranged their clothing, she kissed him. “I’ll take you up on the offer—later. Hear the Bobby Alarm?”

  Intermittent fussing squawks emitted from the nursery, indicating the baby was cranking up.

  “I’ll go.” He stuffed his shirt into his jeans. “I haven’t seen my little buddy all day.”

  While he tended the baby, Maddy sat at the table. She felt contented and sated and smug. He wanted her. And he cared enough to ensure her pleasure before he brought her to climax and sought his own satisfaction. Sex had never been a priority for her, but maybe that was because no one had ever made her feel the way Holt did.

  Maybe it was because she loved him, but he dazzled her with a mix of tenderness and sensuality that thrilled her from the deep recesses of her soul to her fingertips. Heat crept through her at the thought of the approaching night. She had time to make a few more memories. More than that, she wouldn’t let herself hope.

  Banishing further romantic dreams, she began examining the prints of the crime scene photos. One by one, she pored over each square inch. The close-up of the shooter’s hiding place, an angled shot of the roadway, the steep hillside showing the mangled trees—none of them betrayed a hint of a clue.

  She slumped in the chair. Even if Holt hadn’t dared to hope, she had longed to find something. Anything.

  She peered closer at the two blow-ups of the landslide aftermath. Those weren’t for evidence, but to indulge herself. The composition of the shadows and textures in the jumble of boulders had intrigued her at the time and still did.

  Frowning, she peered at a section of the rock slide. What was the odd-looking object protruding from the rocks? A branch? She rooted in her camera case for a magnifying glass.

  When the wide convex lens framed that section of the picture, what Maddy saw skittered a shiver down her spine. She opened her laptop, on the kitchen table where she’d been checking e-mail. A few clicks took her to the same photo. She framed and cropped the section showing the jutting object.

  A few adjustments with the resolution clarified what she’d suspected. She could only stare, heart pounding like a tom-tom, at her discovery.

  “If you find anything important in those pictures, I’ll eat it,” he said, cool derision in his voice. “Right, Bobby?”

  Bobby wore a one-piece pajama patterned with bucking broncos. He waved his arms happily. The duck down that passed for his hair made him look like a surprised angel. He gave a juicy lip-smacking reply.

  “Did you ever see that old movie Blow-Up?” she said.

  Holt adjusted the baby to a more upright position and dangled a stuffed cow in front of him. “You mean the one where the photographer blows up his pictures and finds a—” Shock, then steely concentration hardened his features.

  “Body.”

  Gripping the baby tightly to him, he sat down heavily beside her. “Show me.”

  “I thought this was a stick at first.” She slid the laptop over to him. Clamping her lips together, she waited.

  Removing a tasty hand from his mouth, Bobby voiced a complaint at the tension he clearly felt in the adults.

  Holt rocked him and edged the computer out of reach of chubby, wet digits. He leaned closer to the screen. When he looked up at her, his eyes were hard with determination and bright with triumph.

  “It’s an arm.” He threaded a hand through his hair. “Or what’s left of it. Someone is buried under that rock pile.”

  *****

  After a phone call to the authorities, discussing the possible meanings of a body beneath the landslide calmed Maddy’s nerves to a manageable level but she still picked at her dinner. Holt, on the other hand, concentrated on the lamb stew with all the fervor of a restaurant reviewer. What that meant she had no idea.

  Afterwards, he gave Bobby his bath and put him to bed. When he returned to the kitchen, she was just stowing the leftover stew in the fridge.

  “There’s enough for another meal,” she said. “I don’t cook often, so I tend to overdo. You don’t mind leftovers, do you?” She smiled, her heart tripping on itself at his lean, sexy body and brooding eyes.

  He rubbed his jaw, the only betrayal of emotion he seemed to allow himself. “Leftovers? No, I don’t mind. Thanks for the great dinner. Sorry I teased you about it earlier. Give Espie that recipe. Maybe she can make it after you leave.”

  A frisson swept through her. She watched his expression harden. What was going on? Was it the body beneath the rocks or something else? She stepped closer, held out a hand. “Holt, I’m not leaving until this is over.” Not even then if you want me to stay.

  His gaze fixed, he held up his hands. “I believe you. And I appreciate it. But let’s not let sex make us pretend this marriage is more than a pretext. Because you will be leaving.”

  Heart sliding downward, she could think of no good reply to that frank statement.

  He plunged his hands into his pockets as if avoiding touching her. “I’m damned beat. Gonna turn in now. I need a solid night’s sleep.”

  With those words, he turned and strode down the hall to his old room, not the master bedroom where the king-sized bed awaited the newly-weds.

  Maddy stood in the kitchen, her heart torn and bloody at her feet.

  The door clicked shut behind him.

  *****

  Sheriff Foley’s crime scene crew kibitzed by two DEA agents uncovered the body beneath the slide. Foley wouldn’t permit Holt to be present, but under pressure from the Denver DEA office, conceded his participation in a strategy meeting on Thursday morning.

  Holt and Maddy were the first to enter the Rock County Sheriff’s Department conference room. Wanted posters and yellow sticky notes peppered a nicked cork bulletin board. A photogr
aph of the governor on the far wall completed the room’s limited décor. He held out a wooden chair for her at the long metal table, then took the next seat.

  She sat silent and stiff beside him. Mouth tight, she stared straight ahead at the jumbled bulletin board as if it held the answer to their problems. The sheriff and the DEA agents might not approve of her presence, but Holt wouldn’t be the one to deny her. In her present mood, she’d probably flay more than one strip from his hide.

  He didn’t blame her for being ticked off. After their spectacular kitchen fireworks, he’d been as smooth as an earthquake at dousing the flames. He hadn’t come up with the right words, but hell, how could he have stated his case? That preoccupation with sex interfered with their real problems? That it made him feel guilty? Nothing would have sounded any damned better than what he did say.

  That prissy iron bed felt even lonelier now that it held her scent. Damn. A shaft of sunlight filtered through the conference room’s dusty window and glinted on Maddy’s wedding ring. Double damn.

  After two restless nights alone, he was primed for a fight if the DEA and the sheriff tried to keep him on the fringes of their investigation. He meant to make fucking sure they got this hired killer and protected Maddy and Bobby. He’d feel a hell of a lot better if El Águila would come out in the open and fight him instead of stalking innocent bystanders.

  In the hallway a murmur of voices superimposed by the sheriff’s booming intonations announced arrivals.

  Jarvis Foley entered first, a bulging file beneath his arm. While the others streamed in and ranged around the table, he stopped to shake Holt’s hand and greet Maddy.

  “Ms. McCoy, I’m right pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “It’s Mrs. Donovan now, Sheriff,” Holt said. “We were married the other day.” Apparently the deputies investigating the fire and the break-in hadn’t apprised their boss of that news tidbit.

  “My congratulations to you both,” Foley inserted smoothly. “Burglary and bullets don’t make an auspicious beginning for a marriage, Mrs. Donovan.”

  “Call me Maddy, Sheriff.” She flashed the man a warm smile.

  “You just make yourself comfortable.” Beaming from his bushy eyebrows to both ends of his handlebar mustache, he took her proffered hand and made a small bow over it.

  Chris Hawke entered bearing a tray with a carafe and paper coffee cups. He wore his customary Anasazi amulet at the neck of a denim shirt and topped with a corduroy jacket. In deference to the meeting’s gravity, Holt surmised.

  Luke Rafferty, seated already near the sheriff, snorted a laugh. “Didn’t know the Legal Eagle moonlighted as waitress.”

  Chris spread his lips in a smile as cold as a rattler’s. He eased the tray onto the table and sat on Maddy’s other side. “Sheriff, your secretary seemed hassled, so I offered to bring in the refreshments. I can take them back if Rafferty here objects to the quality of service.”

  “Foley, I asked Mr. Hawke to join me in case Maddy or I needed counsel,” Holt put in. The Denver SAC probably wised up his agents to the enmity between these two. Maybe it had nothing to do with murder, but he wanted all bases covered.

  “Of course.” The sheriff gave his deputy a pointed glare.

  Luke shrugged and reached for the carafe and a cup. “Appreciate your help, Hawke.”

  Foley stood at the end of the table and made a production of arranging his documents. “Teller County had those escaped Texas convicts awhile back, but this is the most excitement Rock County’s seen since the Indian Wars. No offense meant, Hawke.”

  “None taken.” Cold-blooded smile smoothed to a neutral expression, Chris extracted a yellow legal pad from his briefcase and set it on the table before him.

  Foley’s barrel chest expanded with such self-importance, he looked like a courting pigeon. He introduced the two DEA agents seated opposite Holt and Maddy.

  Special Agent Georgia Bonnyman’s red hair and freckles made her look too young for her senior status. Big boned and rangy, she gave a stern and efficient impression. Probably an effect cultivated to offset her baby face.

  Special Agent John Salazar was his partner’s physical opposite. Dark and of average height, he would blend in anywhere. He smiled congenially. “We’ll catch this killer before El Águila can extract further revenge, Mrs. Donovan.”

  “I hope your plan suits the confidence of your words,” Maddy said.

  Although her features were composed, Holt detected a waver in her voice and saw her hands gripped tightly in her lap. He wanted to reach out to reassure her, but he didn’t think she’d welcome the gesture. When Chris covered her hand with his, Holt suppressed a spurt of anger.

  He turned his attention from his friend and his...wife. “Sheriff, what can you tell us about the body you dug up yesterday?”

  Foley folded himself into his chair and donned reading glasses. He lifted one of the reports before him. “First time I ever heard of a rock slide uncovering a body.” He shook his head. “Lab and autopsy reports won’t be ready right away, and decomposition makes visual ID difficult.”

  “Any credit cards, driver’s license?” Holt asked.

  “No papers of any kind. No wallet. Nothing. The general build, coloring and clothing fit the description of that drifter who disappeared from the Circle-S back in March.”

  “K.C. Riggs?”

  “As it turns out,” Bonnyman said, “that’s one of the names used by a professional hit man who’s been working out of California. The FBI has been on his trail. The suspect got careless, whacked innocent bystanders who crossed him. Very unprofessional. The FBI lost track a few months ago, and now we may know why. They’re sending more information.”

  Luke Rafferty nodded thoughtfully. He looked up from the doodles and notes on his small notebook. “Pro, huh? That makes a strong case for him being the one who killed Rob and Sara.”

  “If K.C. Riggs, or whoever he was, was the one who shot out Rob’s tires, what happened to his camper?” Holt asked. “Sheriff, how did the man get under those rocks? In March that area was snow covered and frozen.”

  Casting Maddy a glance, the sheriff shifted in his chair. “Looked like he was buried deliberately. Wrapped in a tarp. Someone worked their butt off to hide him good.”

  Chris Hawke leaned forward, as intent as Holt. “I suppose it’s too much to ask for the high-powered rifle used to shoot at Rob Donovan.”

  Foley pushed his glasses to the end of his nose, a move that made him resemble a beardless Saint Nick. “There’s nothing near the body. I have some men digging around, but the hillside’s shaky.” He sighed. “Even if he’s ID’d as this hit man, we still have nothing solid to connect him with the crash. Merely the coincidences that he disappeared the next day and was found in the same location as Rob’s truck.”

  “Two coincidences too many, Sheriff.” Holt caught Special Agent Salazar’s eye. The genial man wasn’t smiling anymore. “The cause of death, then. Any educated guesses?”

  “It was clearly murder.” Foley frowned at his papers.

  “Was he shot?” Maddy asked.

  Her knotted fingers were white-knuckled with tension in her lap. This time Holt enfolded her hand. She cast him a wisp of a smile.

  “I think the sheriff’s aiming to shield you,” Bonnyman said to Maddy. “Considering your profession, I reckon you’re tougher than you look.” The agent’s stern expression softened. “The man’s abdomen was sliced open from sternum to pelvis. Whoever killed him was making a definite point.”

  Color drained from Maddy’s cheeks as if imagining herself the victim. “Because he might tell who hired him?” She gripped Holt’s hand.

  Foley cleared his throat. “That’s one viable theory. I’d prefer not to speculate until we have more information. My concern now is stopping the second man before he makes another attempt on Mrs. Dono—Maddy’s life.”

  Holt rotated his jaw. “We’re thinking alike, Sheriff.” He had more faith in the DEA agents, however. Even if t
hey hadn’t included him in their information loop. The toughest cases Foley was used to handling consisted of the occasional cattle rustler and Saturday-night rowdies at the Ski and Saddle.

  “Maddy, you’re photographing the shooting matches on Saturday,” Luke said, his gaze keen with speculation.

  Holt bolted to his feet. “She’s not going, Rafferty. You’re not setting her up as bait. In a crowd like that? Too risky.”

  Maddy placed her hand firmly on his forearm. “There may be no other choice. How else can we trap this guy?” Her voice was calm, her chin tilted with bravado.

  “No way, not an option.” He sat down and curved his arm around her.

  “Mr. Donovan,” Bonnyman began, “we can have a team of agents undercover in the crowd. I’ll look pretty good as Annie Oakley.” She patted her auburn waves.

  The discussion grew more heated as plans bounced around the table. Holt dug in his heels awhile longer but knew he’d lost as soon as Maddy’d declared her willingness. He might be her husband, but he’d squandered what little influence he’d had on her by ignoring her these past two days. Hell, Maddy McCoy—Donovan—was her own person anyway.

  But what she was planning was damned dangerous.

  How the hell could he keep her safe in a mob of more than a hundred people armed with six-shooters and shotguns?

  Chapter 22

  “Take one of these, jefe. You will feel mejor.” The man handed his employer a glass and a large yellow capsule.

  “Better? No, it is too late for that...and other things.” The gray-faced man reclining on the chaise swallowed the capsule. “Eliminating the woman is taking too long. Exacting vengeance is taking too long. There is not enough time.”

  “Then perhaps it is wise to let the quest end.”

  A muscle in his jaw leapt. “Let it end? No, I shall end it. Holt Donovan took from me. I shall take from him. Myself.”

  The fierce brow and cold glint in the hooded eyes reminded his employee why he was the Eagle. “What do you want me to do, jefe?”