The Lady's Man

by Linda Turner

  And she didn’t for a second doubt that whatever was in the package was a problem. Why else would it be wrapped in brown paper, with not so much as her name or a return address to indicate who it was from? No, this had trouble written all over it, and her fingers trembled just at the thought of opening it.

  Approaching it cautiously, as if it was a bomb that would go off any second, she gingerly picked it up. It was light and couldn’t have weighed much more than a pound. She almost carried it inside to open it, then thought better of it. No, whatever it was, she wasn’t taking it into her house, not yet. Not until she knew what it was.

  Her heart thumping wildly in her breast, she tore away the paper to reveal a small box. With trembling fingers, she lifted the lid...and found herself staring down at a mangled, blood-stained radio collar.

  “Oh, God!”

  Later, she never remembered snatching her hands back as if she’d been burned and dropping the collar, box and all, to the porch floor. A sob lodging in her throat, she stared down at it and desperately tried to convince herself it couldn’t be Napoleon’s. But his identification tag, still etched with #8 on it, was attached to the collar just as it had been when it was first locked around his neck months ago in Canada when he was captured. Specifically designed for this particular project and virtually unseen by the public, the tags couldn’t possibly be duplicated. It had to be Napoleon’s.

  Which meant he was dead.

  She’d known in her heart that he had to be, but still she’d fought the truth, demanding proof, and now she had it right there in front of her. He was dead. He had to be. Even though the collar had obviously been cut off with some kind of wire cutters, there was no way anyone could get it off his neck without killing him first. He would never have stood for it.

  She waited for the anger to hit her then, the grief, but all she felt was a numbness that left her cold all the way to her soul. Shivering, she started to pick up the collar and box, only to remember that killing one of the wolves in the project was a federal offense. A crime had been committed, and Zeke and Nick would need to examine all evidence. The less she touched it, the better.

  Leaving the items where they lay, she unlocked her front door and immediately went to the phone in the kitchen. Before she could reach for it, however, her gaze locked on her answering machine and the red blinking light that indicated she had a message.

  She shouldn’t have listened to it. She knew who it was from, knew that he had called to taunt her about Napoleon’s death. The bastard really got off playing mind games, and if she replayed the tape, she would only be participating in her own torture. Zeke and Nick were handling the investigation—they could listen to it.

  But the monster had already killed one wolf. What if he found a way to go after the others? Her heart stopping at the thought, she reached over and hit the play button.

  “I told you one of them would die,” the caller said in the same cold, flat voice that had haunted her dreams. “You just didn’t think it would be the big guy, did you? How does it feel knowing he’s dead because of you? Because you wouldn’t listen? You’re the one who shot him, who sent that bullet ripping through his heart. You should have been there, should have seen the way he dropped right in his tracks. It was no more than the killing bastard deserved.”

  With sick, vicious enjoyment, he proceeded to give her a step-by-step accounting of how he not only killed Napoleon, but gutted and dismembered him, then scattered what was left of him for the coyotes. Bile rising in her throat, Elizabeth could do nothing but stand there, frozen, as the vile words washed over her.

  “This is your last warning,” he told her icily. “You either cancel the program and get those damn killers of yours out of Liberty Hill, or you’ll be the one left for the coyotes next time. And if you don’t think I can do it, you’re stupider than I think you are, lady. I could have pushed you off that cliff today. Oh, yeah, I was there. But you knew that, didn’t you? That’s why you stuck like glue to your lover boy all afternoon. But he can’t always be there for you, so you think about that the next time you’re alone. I’ll be out there, waiting. Who knows? I could be watching you right now. And when I’m ready, I’ll put a bullet through your heart just like I did that pet wolf of yours.”

  It was his night to cook, and Zeke was in no mood for anything that took time. He was tired and hungry and just wanted something hot. So he threw some hot dogs in a pot of water to boil, opened up a can of chili and had dinner ready in fifteen minutes flat.

  Joe took one look at it and said, “I wonder what Mom’s having.”

  “Tuna casserole,” Zeke retorted with a grin, knowing he despised it. “Your favorite.”

  Without a word, Joe forked a hot dog onto his plate. When the phone rang, he didn’t even look up as he reached for the chili.

  “That’s for you.”

  His stomach grumbling and his mouth already watering, Zeke scowled at him. “Oh, no, it’s not. This is your house, remember? I’m just a guest. You get it.”

  “A guest my ass,” Joe snorted, grinning. “And let you grab my hot dog when I’m not looking? Not on your life. There’s only six of them, and you can down those without even swallowing.”

  That he could. But so could Joe—and he’d do it in a heartbeat if he got the chance. As kids, their mother had never had to worry about what to do with leftovers—there weren’t any. They’d always had ravenous appetites and had competed to see who would get the last bite. Now they fell back into the game as easily as if they were still eight and nine. The phone rang again, and they both just sat there, eyeing each other speculatively and waiting the other out.

  The answering machine would eventually get it, but neither of them was going to let that happen and spoil the game. “You sure you don’t want to answer it?” Zeke asked finally, craftily. “It could be a woman.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that,” Joe retorted, amused. “Half the female population of Falls County has been calling here ever since you got back. But it’s you they’re calling for, not me.”

  “Well, maybe if you showed a little interest instead of holing up here like a crusty old bachelor—”

  “Oh, no you don’t. Don’t even think about going there. A smart man only has to get burned once to know to stay away from the fire. The last thing I want is a woman. Unless you can say the same thing, the phone’s for you.”

  He had him there and he knew it. Because there was one particular woman he wanted, more each day, and he couldn’t deny it. Joe took one look at his face and reached over and snitched the last of the hot dogs from the pan.

  “Hey!”

  “Phone’s ringing,” he said with a grin. “Better get it.”

  Neatly outmaneuvered, Zeke conceded defeat. But when he rose to answer the phone, he took his plate with him. “Hello?”

  “McBride?”

  At the sound of Elizabeth’s voice, he nearly dropped his hot dog. “What’s wrong?” he asked immediately, knowing there had to be some emergency for her to call. She’d danced in his arms, kissed him until he didn’t know what planet he was on, but she’d never, ever called him. “Are those damn reporters bothering you again? Did they follow you home?”

  “No. But Napoleon’s collar was on my front porch when I got home, and there was a message on my answering machine.” Calmly and succinctly, she gave him a quick rundown of the threat left on her machine. “I think you’d better come over here.”

  Zeke didn’t need to hear more. She sounded fine, but he wasn’t fooled. He knew her now, knew how much that damn wolf meant to her and how hard she’d fought to cling to the hope that he was somehow still alive. Now that hope was gone, and she was not only hurting, but had every right to be scared out of her mind.

  “I’ll be right there,” he growled. “Lock the door and turn on all the outside lights so you can see if anyone approaches the house. I’m on my way.”

  Slamming down the phone, he turned to find Joe rising to his feet, his food forgotten. “That w
as Elizabeth, wasn’t it? What’s wrong?”

  Grabbing his coat, Zeke quickly slipped it on. “Napoleon’s killer has been there and left his collar. She thinks he’s gone, but he left a threatening message on her answering machine. Call Nick and tell him to get out there right now.”

  She lived thirty minutes away. He made it in fifteen. It was the longest fifteen minutes of his life. Racing up the private drive to her house, he prayed that the bastard hadn’t come back, that he hadn’t been there all along, hiding in a bedroom, while she was making the call. Because if he had, she could be dead by now.

  His heart rolling over in his chest at the thought, he saw that she’d turned the outside lights on just as he’d told her to. Jerking open his car door, he hit the ground running.

  “Elizabeth? It’s me! Open up!”

  Over the thunder of his heart, he heard the scrape of the dead bolt, then she jerked open the door and he could see that she was unharmed. Pale as a ghost, her green eyes dark with pain, but unhurt. “Are you all right?” he asked hoarsely.

  Without a word she stepped into his arms.

  He could have held her just like that forever. He knew this feeling might keep him up nights, but for now all he cared about was that she was safe. His heart beating at twice its normal rhythm, he was still standing in her doorway with her wrapped close when Nick came racing up in his patrol car, lights whirling and siren blazing. Reluctantly Zeke let Elizabeth ease out of his arms.

  His lean, angular face carved in harsh lines, Nick strode up to the porch. “What happened? Joe said Napoleon’s collar was found?”

  Elizabeth nodded to the spot where she’d dropped the collar. “Over there,” she said huskily. “It was wrapped up in brown paper and waiting for me on the porch when I got home. Once I realized what it was, I didn’t touch it again.”

  Hugging herself, she watched from six feet away as the two men examined the collar, as well as the box and brown paper that it had been wrapped in. Careful not to touch anything with their hands, they used tweezers to lift everything to a nearby wicker table, where they thoroughly searched each piece. And all the while, the message Napoleon’s killer had left on her answering machine played in Elizabeth’s head.

  “He beat the hell out of the thing trying to silence the radio signal,” Zeke said as Nick slipped the collar into an evidence bag.

  “He used a sledgehammer,” Elizabeth said flatly. “The same one he used to pound Napoleon’s brains out.”

  Both men’s heads snapped toward her at that. Swearing under his breath, Zeke said, “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I couldn’t,” she said simply. “It was too vile.”

  Confused, Nick frowned. “You talked to the bastard?”

  “He left a message on my answering machine.” Just thinking about it turned her stomach. “He took great satisfaction in telling me how he mutilated Napoleon’s body. He’s going to do the same thing to me if I don’t leave town and take the rest of the wolves with me.”

  Nick quickly bagged the rest of the evidence, then headed for the front door. “I think I’d better hear this.”

  Elizabeth would have given anything not to listen to it again, but she deliberately forced herself to. Someone out there intended to kill her. She needed to know every vicious, unspeakable act he was capable of

  She couldn’t, however, hear that familiar ugly voice again without her blood running cold. Agitated, she put a pot of coffee on to brew, then restlessly moved around the kitchen, setting out cream and sugar and the thick, dinerstyle mugs she loved to drink coffee out of. And all the while the tape droned on, the foul, sinister words that were already indelibly etched on her brain every bit as horrible as she remembered. By the time it finished playing, both men were cursing.

  A muscle clenching in his jaw, Zeke swore. “So the bastard thinks he’s going to hurt her, does he? Like hell! I’m warning you right now, Nick, if he even tries to mess with her, I’ll take him down personally.”

  “You won’t get any argument out of me,” his friend retorted, his brown eyes black with anger. “He’s a smug son of a bitch, I’ll give him that. And he’s really starting to irritate me. Dammit, who the hell is he? This isn’t your average antigovernment fanatic looking to blame somebody because he can’t secede from the union and make his own country. This jerk’s twisted. He’s not just making idle threats. He really wants to hurt her.”

  Glancing over to where Elizabeth puttered with spoons and napkins at the table, he gave her a hard look. “Was he out on the ridge today, Elizabeth? He said you knew he was there. Did you?”

  “I don’t know. At the time, I thought he was, but the fog was so thick, it was hard to be sure of anything.” Her fingers not quite steady, she stared unseeingly at the spoons she’d lined up. “I got separated from everyone else, and suddenly I could feel someone watching me. I couldn’t see anything, but there was this...rage...”

  She shivered at the memory of it and reached to pour herself a cup of coffee. But as she wrapped her fingers around the mug, its heat did nothing to warm the cold that chilled her inside. “I thought I heard someone take a step toward me. I was scared. I turned to run and ran right into Zeke.”

  “She was so upset, she was headed right for the damn cliff when I caught her,” he growled.

  “And neither one of you said anything?” Nick said incredulously. “Dammit, we could have caught him right there!”

  “How?” Elizabeth asked simply. “I was fairly sure it wasn’t my imagination, but I had no proof. No one touched me, no one threatened me. I didn’t see anything. What was I supposed to say? ‘I can feel one of the searchers watching me...he wants to kill me’?”

  Even to her own ears, it sounded ludicrous. If she’d so much as hinted at such a thing, she would have not only sounded paranoid, she would have offended everyone who had, out of the goodness of their hearts, turned up at the crack of dawn on a miserable morning to search for Napoleon.

  “The problem is, we can’t even be sure it was one of the searchers,” Zeke told him. “Everyone in the county knew about this morning’s search. Anyone who wanted to could have driven up there, blended in with the searchers and used the fog and trees for cover to get close to Elizabeth. If he’d have wanted to kill her then, he could have...as long as the fog held.”

  “Once it lifted, he knew he’d blown his chance for the day and decided to terrorize her with the collar instead,” Nick said, putting the pieces of the puzzle together in disgust. “He smashed it, then came straight here to plant it on the porch while she was still up on the ridge. And the devil of it is, he didn’t even have to worry about anyone seeing him. Half the town turned out for the search, and this place is so deserted, no one would have seen him anyway.”

  Leveling a somber look at Elizabeth, he scolded, “You really do need to see about finding a place closer to town. You’re just too vulnerable way out here by yourself.”

  That was something she’d already decided for herself. “Believe me, I’m not any more thrilled about it than you are,” she told him. “But this is Liberty Hill, not Denver. There’s just not a heck of a lot of rental property to choose from. The only decent place I know of is the Aikman house on Main, and it’s as big as a barn. Even if I could afford the rent—which I can’t—just heating it would cost me a fortune. But I’ll look around,” she said quickly when both men started to scowl. “If nothing else, I may be able to find someone who would be willing to rent me a room.”

  Considering the lateness of the hour and the lack of any kind of hotel in the area, there was little else she could do for the moment, but neither man was satisfied with the arrangement. “I’ll make a few phone calls when I get back to the office and see what I can come up with,” Nick promised as he popped the tape out of the answering machine and slipped it into the evidence bag. “In the meantime I’ll send this stuff off to the lab, but I’m not holding my breath that the lab boys’ll find anything. There’s no doubt that this guy’s a real sick p
uppy, but he’s no idiot. He knows how to cover his behind.”

  Zeke agreed, and it was driving him crazy. As a special agent for Fish and Wildlife, he’d handled everything from a lovesick moose who mistook a Texas longhorn for one of its own kind to a poacher who killed bald eagles because he needed the feathers for an aphrodisiac. He knew all about animal behavior in man and the wild kingdom, and there was usually nothing he enjoyed more than investigating a crime with few, if any, clues. He liked the challenge, the thrill of the hunt, of chasing down the bad guys and figuring out what the creeps were going to do next before they knew themselves.

  But this time Elizabeth was involved and in danger, and he didn’t like it, dammit. He didn’t like it at all! She was scared and hurting, and he’d never felt so helpless in his life. The bastard gave him nothing to work with, then taunted him by walking right up to her front door and terrifying her. And there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do about it—except stay close and wait for the jackass to make a mistake.

  There was no doubt in Zeke’s mind that it was only a matter of time before that happened—he hadn’t run across a perp yet who didn’t get cocky with his own success and end up shooting himself in the foot. And when this one screwed up, he could count himself lucky if the worst he’d done to Elizabeth was just scare her. If he so much as laid a finger on her, he’d have to pay.

  “That’s all right,” he told Nick. “He can’t keep this up forever. Nobody’s that clever. He’s going to outsmart himself, and when he does, we’ll nail him. In the meantime let’s check out the rest of the house. I want to make sure he didn’t leave any other nasty surprises.”

  They searched the entire house, inside and out, and found nothing. All the windows and doors were locked, they snow around the house free of any footsteps. Satisfied that the jerk had just left the collar on the porch, then departed, the two men returned to the kitchen to find Elizabeth still at the table, her hands cupped around her coffee mug as color gradually seeped back into her cheeks.