by Joanna Wayne
“Anybody out there?”
The only answer to his call was the hooting of an owl overhead and the howling of a coyote in the distance. Clint’s hand settled on the butt of his pistol, his feet shuffling the dry leaves under his feet and crunching them into the dry earth. Likely an abandoned vehicle, but this was not a time to leave possibilities unchecked.
He made his way to the truck, listening for any sound of movement. Close enough now to see the full outline, he knew the pickup hadn’t been abandoned for lack of value. The truck was black, expensive, the new millennium model. Just like the one McCord had been driving around town for the last couple of weeks. Apprehension stretched Clint’s control, and his finger coddled the trigger of his .44. What could McCord be doing out here and why—
A weak moan killed his speculation. He spun around in time to see a woman step from the bushes and slump to the ground. He crossed the ground between them, gun drawn. The woman’s clothes were torn and wet with blood, and it wasn’t likely she’d done that to herself. Meaning someone else might still be lurking behind any tree.
He stooped, getting down to her level, yet keenly aware of everything about him. “I’m not going to hurt you, miss. I just need you to tell me what happened.”
She shook her head, never looking up, but her hands trembled as she pulled a light jacket tighter around her chest.
“Who hurt you?” Clint leaned closer and tilted her face so that he could look into her eyes. “Darlene.” The name shook from his lips, and his stomach rocked violently.
She stared at him through frightened eyes, and without thinking, he wrapped his arms about her and hugged her to him. She went limp in his arms, and for one horrible moment he thought she might have stopped breathing. For one awful instant, his own heart and lungs ceased to function. But she moved again and struggled to push away from him.
He released his hold on her. Even hurt and in danger, she wanted no part of him.
“I’m just trying to help,” he said, his voice more in control than his emotions. Gingerly, he pushed back strands of blood-matted hair and examined the wound on her head. There was a knot the size of Texas, and a gash that dipped over her left eye.
“Does anything hurt besides your head?” he asked, checking her pulse.
She shook her head. Wincing, she cradled her head in her right palm. “Just my head, I think. Where am I?”
“On Glenn Road. But we’re getting out of here.” He lifted her in his arms and started toward his truck. She was light, and even through her skirt and jacket he could tell she was still way too thin. “Want to tell me who did this to you?”
“I...I can’t.” Her voice was weak, unsteady.
He let her answer ride, but he suspected won’t would have been a far more accurate word choice than can’t.
He trekked the path back to his own truck and settled her gently into the passenger seat, so as not to start the wound bleeding again. She moaned softly, and he clenched his hands into fists, wishing he had a woman-beating man to plow them into.
“We’ll be at the hospital in a few minutes,” he said, striving for a reassuring tone. “The doctor will check out that head wound and give you something for the pain.”
Jerking the car into gear, he jammed his foot down hard on the accelerator and attacked the night with his flashing lights and screaming siren. No need to call for an ambulance. He could make better time. Clutching his radio phone, he contacted the hospital, letting them know he was bringing in a victim with a trauma to the head.
A victim. The word tasted metallic on his tongue. He reached across the seat and clasped her hand in his. It was cold, almost lifeless. He squeezed it gently, fighting the emotion that stormed inside him. For all the promises he’d made himself, he knew that the years that had passed had changed nothing between them.
FEAR SWAM THROUGH her mind, shaking her awake in a cold sweat of panic. She opened her eyes and looked around. The walls were dark and shadowy, lit only by the dim glow of a light above her bed. Her head was pounding, and there was an ache in her left arm.
She tried to touch trembling fingers to her head. They scraped the rough edge of a turban. Bandages. But where was she, and who had applied them?
“About time you woke up.”
The male voice cut through the quiet. She tried to swallow past the wad of dryness that clogged her throat and burned the back of her mouth. “Where am I?”
“In the hospital. Don’t you remember my bringing you here?”
She circled the room with her gaze and then brought it back to the man standing over her. He looked rumpled, unshaven, worried. She ran her tongue over her scratchy lips while she tried to make sense of her surroundings. The fog didn’t lift from her mind. “Could I have a drink of water?”
“Coming right up.” The man poured water from a pitcher on her bedside table. He tucked a hand under her neck and lifted her head from the bed as he held the glass to her lips. “Slow and easy. You’ve had a rough night, thanks to the man—or men—you tangoed with.”
“Tangoed?”
“Sorry. Cop talk. Someone banged you over the head real good.”
“That explains the bandage.” She touched her fingers again to the gauzy turban.
The man resettled the water glass on the table, and let his fingers rest on her pillow. “Dr. Bennigan must have given you some great drugs. Feel no pain, remember no evil.”
She twisted in the bed, trying to scoot up a little higher. The move sent new spasms of pain shooting through her head. “The drugs aren’t as good as you think,” she said, fighting back a moan.
“Then you should be alert enough to give me a few details. What happened out on Glenn Road last night?”
She searched her mind for the details he requested. Her search came up empty. “I wish I could tell you.”
The man stared at her, intimidation pulsing from every muscle. Fear trembled along her nerve endings, culminating in a new series of jagged darts of pain in her head.
“Look, Darlene, don’t pull that FBI secrecy routine on me. You’re playing in my backyard. I deserve explanations. Especially since your buddy isn’t here to answer my questions.”
Darlene. The name skirted the corners of confusion that clouded her mind. This man thought she was someone named “Darlene” and that she had something to do with the FBI, but she was just...
Just who? The drugs. That had to be it. The man said the doctor had given her drugs. That’s why she couldn’t remember anything. That’s why the fog wouldn’t lift.
“Who are you?” she asked, straining to focus on the man and to concentrate on his answer. She could be in trouble, and she needed to get a handle on things quickly.
“Who am I?” He stared at her, his brows peaked. “You know damn good and well who I am. Don’t put me on, Darlene. I don’t know who you’re trying to protect, but I’m not about to play dangerous guessing games with you.”
The man was insistent, apparently used to calling the shots. She stared him down. Her bravado was false, but it was the only shield she had. “You didn’t answer my question. Who are you, and why are you in my hospital room?”
Concern flickered in his steely gray eyes as he backed away from her bed. “I’ll get the doctor,” he said, his voice edgy, his hands clasping the brim of a cowboy hat as if it might fly away at any time.
“Wait. Do I know you?”
“You did once.”
Before she could ask more, he’d all but run out the door, leaving her alone with a million unanswered questions.
Someone had hit her. She tried to think, to piece together facts. Her head spun with the questions and with new pain, but the fog only grew thicker.
The drugs. It had to be the drugs. They’d wear off soon, and she’d be her old self—whoever her old self was. In the meantime, she had to hope whoever had worked her over last night wasn’t planning on a return engagement. If he showed up again, she wouldn’t even know enough to call for help.
C
LINT PACED THE HOSPITAL HALL. Dr. Bennigan and the staff neurologist had both examined Darlene and come up with the same diagnosis. Temporary amnesia brought on by trauma to the head.
Amnesia—the fodder of soap operas and novels. Of course, Clint had heard of amnesia occurring in real life, but he’d never encountered a true case, though he’d had several run-ins with the fake variety. Criminals were frequently experts at pretending they didn’t know or couldn’t recall.
But Darlene Remington was no criminal. She was an agent with the FBI. She’d been found beaten on a deserted road, and the only clue to what had happened was the truck he’d found parked nearby. A truck belonging to Senator McCord.
Senator McCord was like a father to her, she’d always claimed. Only why were she and the senator parked on a dark road in his truck? The setting seemed a little isolated for a fatherly chat. The obvious possibility ground in Clint’s gut. Darlene and the senator. Parked on a lonely road. Intimate.
Acid pooled in his gut. He had to quit thinking like this. No matter what Darlene did with her life, it wasn’t his concern. Not anymore.
His job was to find out what had happened last night. He’d had no luck contacting McCord, but a license check had proved the truck in the woods was his.
A senator who was on the fast track to becoming the next president of the United States, and a female FBI agent found near his truck with an amnesia-producing wound to the head. Clint had about as much chance of keeping this story under wraps as he did of stopping old ranchers from spitting tobacco on the streets of Vaquero.
Worse, somewhere out there, the man who attacked and almost killed Darlene would be walking around, probably waiting for his next opportunity. Which meant he’d have to work with Darlene, find a way to make her remember what happened last night. In the meantime, he’d have to keep her safe.
Even the thought of working with Darlene filled him with dread. If he had his druthers, he’d walk away from this case—leave it to someone with less to lose. But he’d never walk away. He was a lawman first, a man second.
Funny, that was one of the several accusations Darlene had hurled at him when she’d told him she was leaving him to seek a career of her own, one a long way from Vaquero, Texas.
Now she was back. Only this time it was the lawman she needed.
Chapter Two
“It looks like two distinct sets of footprints to me, Clint, not counting the petite ones that match the riding boots Darlene Remington was wearing.” Randy Franklin stuck his thumbs in his belt loops and studied the pattern of clues in the dirt, the piece of spearmint-scented chewing gum in his mouth taking a vigorous beating.
“Yeah.” Clint made a few more notes in his ever-ready pocket notebook. “One pair of western boots and one set of prints that looks like rubber-soled sports shoes.”
“The western boot prints could be McCord’s. I’ve never seen him in anything else, though I ’spect he has some fancy street shoes to prance around in at those Washington high-society functions.”
“We don’t know for sure yet that McCord was even out here.”
“No, but we know his truck was. And that aide-slash-bodyguard who follows him around like a deranged Doberman is making some pretty flimsy excuses as to why the senator hasn’t responded to your request to come in for questioning.”
Clint stooped to examine a trail of footprints and broken grass blades that led into the bushes. “Still, all we have is speculation regarding McCord.”
“Geez! If I didn’t know better I’d think you were trying to protect the senator.” Randy scratched a spot over his left ear and hitched up his khaki trousers so that they rode a little higher over his lean hips. “What do you make of all this?”
Clint considered his response. He had a few ideas, but he wasn’t ready to share them with his deputy yet. Especially with most of them so far-fetched that he was having trouble giving them much credence himself in the bright light of the morning after.
“No clear indications,” he said, sticking to the bare truth.
Clint aimed his camera at a bloody rock and snapped the shutter. A rock big enough and the right shape to have cracked the top of Darlene’s head, and sharp enough to have caused the gash.
He took a couple more color shots to get the location documented before packing the rock in plastic. He needed to gather all the information he could—and fast, before the place crawled with unauthorized snoopers.
“Do you think all this blood was from Darlene’s head wound?” Randy stooped and pointed at a pattern of bloodstains that led back and forth from the truck into the brush. “If it is, she must have been walking in circles.”
“That’s entirely possible. I found her right near that scrawny pine over there.” Clint motioned to the tree. “She was dazed and dragging, but, like I said, some woman saw her at the side of the road before that.”
“Might have been another bloody woman they saw. Who knows what really went on out here last night?”
“No one, at this point, but the other footprints appear to belong to men. My guess is Darlene was running away from someone. She got turned around and ended up back here where she’d started.”
“So you think it could all be her blood.”
“We’ll know soon enough. I called for a forensics team out of San Antonio. They’ll lift the prints from the truck and take blood samples.”
“That’s a little extreme, isn’t it? I mean, investigations like that are usually reserved for murder cases.”
Clint batted at a gnat that was courting his eyebrows. “An injured FBI agent found in a U.S. senator’s truck. One who can’t remember how she was attacked or by whom. That’s extreme enough for me.”
“Yeah.” Randy rocked back on his boots. “And more than enough to rock the news-starved media.”
“If the story breaks. Which it won’t, if I have anything to say about it.” Clint slid his camera back into the pouch he had slung over his shoulder.
“Do you buy that amnesia story, Clint? It sounds a little too convenient to me.”
“The doctors appear to buy it. I’m withholding judgment until I have a few more facts.”
“Like whether or not the senator is really involved in all of this. And what he and Miss Remington were doing out here five miles past nowhere in the pitch-dark?” Randy kicked at a bare root with the toe of his boot. “Of course, the senator’s not married and neither is Darlene Remington. He wouldn’t be the first man to succumb to the charms of a sexy lady half his age.”
Clint swallowed hard, angry at Randy for saying out loud what already plagued his own mind. Still, assumptions like that weren’t fair to either Darlene or McCord. “There are legitimate reasons the two of them could have been together.”
Randy’s gaze focused on Clint. “Legitimate reasons for a man and a woman to be having a secret rendezvous in the woods. Such as?”
Clint thrust one finger against the upper edge of McCord’s truck door and shoved it, as always careful to avoid destroying any prints that might be on the handle. “Darlene works with the FBI, and McCord’s got lots of political irons in the fire, and, no doubt, his share of enemies. There are plenty of reasons for them to be working together.” His voice took on a sterner edge than he’d intended.
Randy didn’t miss the intonation. “Hey, I’m not throwing stones. The woman’s a looker—that’s all I’m saying. And hanky-panky is not a crime in this county or any others in Texas that I know of.”
Clint tugged his Stetson low over his forehead. “Okay, let’s just drop it. The truth is, I don’t know what they were doing and I don’t care. Not unless it affects the investigation.”
Randy stared at Clint, his eyes narrow slits in the bright morning sun. “Geez! I almost forgot. You used to date Darlene yourself before she took off for Quantico. You’re not still nursing a thing for her, are you?”
“A thing? You’ve got to work on building your vocabulary, Randy. But don’t worry. I barely remember her.” His conscience balke
d at the enormity of the lie he’d just told. He barely remembered her the same way he barely remembered food or sleep.
Clint walked off, following a trail of blood that led down to the creek, his mind whirling. Last night he’d been too concerned with getting Darlene to the hospital to investigate fully. Besides, last night he’d thought Darlene would be able to explain what had happened out here as soon as she recovered enough to give him answers.
And last night he didn’t know that James Marshall McCord and Darlene had left McCord’s ranch together in his fancy new pickup. Now both his bodyguard and his ranch foreman were making excuses as to why the man couldn’t talk to Clint.
Clint’s guess was that McCord wasn’t around to talk. So where was he?
“Hey, Clint. Come over here a minute. I found something.”
Clint turned toward the sound of Randy’s voice and started walking in that direction, knocking the low branches of a tree out of his way as he went. “What is it?” he asked, talking to his deputy’s stooped back.
“A wallet.” Randy opened the bill compartment and held it up. “It’s been picked clean. No identification, credit cards or photos left, either.”
“Just our luck.”
“Not as bad as it sounds. The leather’s engraved. Take a look.” Holding the corners between two fingers, he handed the wallet to Clint.
Clint studied the mark. McCord’s brand, engraved in the leather the way the larger version was in the tough hide of the senator’s cattle on his Altamira ranch.
“I guess we can pretty well rule out the possibility that McCord’s truck came here last night without him,” Randy said.
“Looks like.”
“A man don’t leave his wallet behind if he has any say-so in the matter. This is big, Clint.”
“Yeah. Real big.” Clint pulled another plastic bag from his pocket and dropped the wallet inside. He’d been searching for a find like this and dreading it all at the same time. The stakes had just taken a gigantic leap. The senator might well be kidnapped or...
