Conard County Revenge

by Rachel Lee

  “Good idea,” Jack said judiciously. “What you did already was radical. Amazing.”

  She turned to face him directly. “I did my job. Keep that in mind, Jack. I just did my job. If you get into ATF, that could be your job sometimes, too. Nothing radical about it.”

  He nodded. “But I’ll never get there. My dad wants me to ranch.”

  “You never know,” Darcy said. “You never know.”

  Then the agents came out of the house. Hargreaves was evidently the spokesman for the three. “He’s heading for Casper. There are two VA offices there, one state and one federal. He had a map of the area in his drawer. Our guess is he plans to set the bombs tonight.” He looked at Alex. “Your evaluation?”

  Alex’s mouth tightened. “I agree. You want my assessment?”

  “Whatever you can with as little as we got.”

  “I think he wants to plant those bombs late tonight when nobody’s likely to see. He plans to detonate them in the morning after the employees come to work. Maximum carnage, maximum message. You’ve got one thing going for you, Hargreaves.”

  “Which is?”

  “This guy doesn’t want to kill anyone he doesn’t have a grudge against. Maybe he won’t consider you and the cops to be bureaucrats. On the downside, Trimble doesn’t care if he dies as long as he can trigger his bombs.”

  “Thanks.” Hargreaves paused. “You ought to come back, Jansen. We’re still talking about you. We could use your talent.”

  Then Darcy pulled on her ATF windbreaker and climbed into her truck to make the trip with them. Alex could hear Casper law enforcement already being radioed.

  Before she pulled away, Alex put his hand on her arm through the open window. “You coming back?”

  She bit her lip and looked at him. He felt the sizzle pass between them and wondered if she did, too. It would be a perfect time for her to make a clean break with him. So perfect that he doubted he should have even asked the question. Places inside him, long put on ice, had thawed. This was going to hurt.

  “Yes,” she said after the briefest pause. “As soon as we get this tied up.”

  Then she drove off, leaving him and Jack in a cloud of dust. He wondered if he’d ever see her again.

  Alex looked at Jack. “Think I can hitch a ride home?”

  Chapter 12

  Even though the investigation was ongoing and Alex, lacking any official capacity, had no right to any information, Gage Dalton shared the important items with him. Warren Trimble had been caught around midnight outside the federal VA office in Casper. Since he possessed a string of ANFO bombs, they didn’t need anything more to take him into custody. He’d probably spend the rest of his short life in a jail hospital.

  Alex spent his free time setting up a shop room at the junior college where the high school had been lent the use of facilities until their own building could be repaired. He also helped Jack deal with his parents, who were pretty horrified by what he’d done.

  At least all his training in psychology proved useful there. He was also bugged by Hargreaves’s suggestion that he return to the FBI. After what had happened with the bicycle killer, he didn’t want a rerun and wasn’t sure he’d pass the psychological testing anyway. He’d gone around the bend once. Not in any way that harmed the case, but it had ripped his marriage apart. Maybe they’d overlook that, maybe they wouldn’t. But he still had his nightmares.

  But mostly when he was busy with his hands, his mind free to roam, he thought about Darcy. She’d shown incredible courage in rescuing Jack. In checking the house for more bombs. Not everyone could do that. Most people would probably head the other way as fast as their legs could carry them.

  She was admirable, but she was also beautiful, and when she allowed her guard to drop, she was warm and sexy. He wouldn’t mind having her around a lot.

  But each time that thought danced through his mind, he shoved it away. She had a career she apparently loved, and she showed no signs of missing him at all. Not even a phone call.

  He figured he’d never see her again. No reason he should. No promises had been made, and she’d get swept up into the Trimble investigation and then into another investigation somewhere. From the sound of it, ATF was so shorthanded she probably couldn’t expect even a vacation anytime soon.

  He wondered where she’d be off to next. The Georgia bombings? Or some new case? Then he wondered if she only worked bomb cases or if she was involved in other operations. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms covered a lot of territory.

  There was so much he hadn’t had a chance to learn about her, and now he wondered if he ever would. A kind of heavy acceptance filled him as he admitted he’d allowed another woman to take up residence in his mind and heart, and that she could inflict the very kind of pain he’d wanted to avoid forever after his marriage broke up.

  He’d taken a risk with Darcy, maybe foolishly believing that he could prevent himself from caring deeply. After all, he claimed to have learned his lessons. He should have built some nice psychological protections against involvement. He was a psychologist, damn it. He knew how easily walls could be erected, creating an emotional fortress. He’d tried to knock down a few for patients during his clinical days. It wasn’t easy. Yet here he was, knowing better, and already in it up to his neck. As if it had happened behind his back. Maybe it had.

  * * *

  Ten days later, shortly after dark with a surprisingly crisp spring wind blowing, he was standing on his porch, watching the spring leaves on the trees toss and rustle. Summer was around the corner, but lately the weather hadn’t felt like it. Astonishing when he thought about how warm the last few years had been.

  He heard a vehicle approaching and thought he recognized the engine. No, he was deluding himself. Lots of people drove trucks and Darcy hadn’t even phoned.

  A neighbor’s car passed by, the driver waved, and he experienced a sense of deflation. At times over the last ten days, he’d been either amused at himself or angry. Apparently he’d given more than he should have to a woman who was passing through. Or any woman for that matter, he thought when he remembered his ex. How many times did he need a mule to kick him in the head before he learned his lesson? For a lot of people once was enough.

  But he hadn’t intended to invest so much in Darcy. Hell, he hadn’t even realized he was doing it until she drove away. Now it was time to pick up and carry on.

  But the engine was growing closer, right down the street now, and he couldn’t make himself turn and go inside.

  He waited, his heart accelerating, until the big black truck pulled up right in front of his house. For an instant he closed his eyes, hardly daring to believe, but then he heard the engine switch off and a door slam.

  When he looked, the only thing he could see was Darcy.

  She walked briskly toward his porch, a smile on her face. “Sheesh, it’s chilly,” she said. “Am I still welcome? I don’t have long—a case I need to get to but... Alex?”

  He threw caution to the winds. When she reached the bottom step, he bent, caught her in his arms and lifted her until she was pressed tightly to his chest.

  “Why the hell didn’t you phone?” he demanded roughly, then, without waiting for an answer, he kissed her as if he wanted to devour her.

  At some level he knew he was opening himself up again, giving someone all they needed to gut him once more, but he didn’t care. Not at all. He was past caring about anything except the woman he held so snugly in his arms.

  “Alex...”

  He had to let her go. He had to. He had no right to trap her in a hug. But even as he started to loosen his hold, he felt her arms snake around him.

  “Let’s go inside,” she murmured huskily.

  Yeah. Inside. It was cold out there. More privacy in there. If she was about to tell him she’d never see him again, a visit was certainly kinder than a phone c
all or a text message. Internally his heart warred, fearing crushing disappointment, hoping for a fairy-tale happy ending.

  Inside he tried to offer her coffee, something to eat, but she wasn’t having it. She drew him into the living room and down on the couch beside her.

  “I’m sorry I was gone so long,” she said before he could speak again. “I know I could have called but there was nothing I could really say because of the investigation, and then they were briefing me on my next job, and I feel lucky to have got a couple of days to come back.”

  “I’m glad you did,” he managed, bracing himself to hear that she was leaving for good but just wanted to say good bye.

  “You told me to,” she said, her smile crooked. “Did you mean it, Alex? Did you really want me back?”

  “I meant it.” What was she driving at? “I’ve learned not to say things that I don’t mean.”

  She nodded, her expression growing serious. “When I was away I spent my nights thinking about how... If you want me, Alex, could we make it work? I’d be in and out but could we still have...something?”

  He drew a long breath, getting ready to take a plunge he’d sworn never to take again, yet as eager to do it as a kid standing on a diving board for the first time. “We could have something. We could have more than something if you want to try. In my marriage...my job dictated everything. Do you think I’d be unwilling to give your career the same respect?”

  He watched her eyes brighten, and as they did so he felt his heart begin to lift. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  “So you could live with me coming and going?”

  “I could live with my wife coming and going.”

  Her entire face transformed, beaming with joy. That smile brought an amazing warmth and peace to his heart. “Seriously?” she asked.

  “Seriously. I don’t know how it happened, Darcy. It must have happened when I wasn’t looking, but I fell in love with you. So... All or nothing. I don’t want to be a layover. I want to be your husband. I’ll tend the home fires. You save the world.”

  She laughed then, such a happy sound that he couldn’t help joining in as his heart leavened in a way it hadn’t for so many years.

  “Marry me, Alex?”

  “Hell, yeah, but I’m not going to grow my hair long.”

  They were both laughing when he swept her up and carried her back to the bedroom. Joy had come home with her.

  It might prove to be a balancing act, but the happiness would more than make up for it.

  * * * * *

  Don’t forget previous titles in Rachel Lee’s

  CONARD COUNTY: THE NEXT GENERATION series:

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  Killer Secrets

  by Marilyn Pappano

  Chapter 1

  October 15 was a Thursday, three days after my eleventh birthday. My father came home from work, smelling of cigarette smoke and booze, wearing that big goofy smile that was normally reserved for strangers. He kicked off his shoes, threw his Yankees cap at the hook next to the door and missed, then announced that he was taking me to the mall on Saturday to celebrate.

  As with all of his grand pronouncements, he waited for me to show excitement at the prospect, maybe even a little joy, but my face remained in its usual dull set. The idea didn’t excite me. It made the hairs on my arms stand on end, churned in my stomach and sent sour little bubbles that burned into my throat. Malls were his favorite hunting grounds: all those shops, all those people, all those escapes. I would gladly give up birthdays and celebrations for the rest of my life if only I never had to set foot in a mall again.

  He waited, and I tried to summon a smile, a hint of appreciation, any bit of emotion that would satisfy him, but nothing would come. I just felt sick. I couldn’t do it. Not again.

  Of course he knew my thoughts. He always did. His jovial mood vanished in a heartbeat, his smile turning to a snarl. His right hand came up automatically, poised to strike my cheek the way he’d done a hundred times before, but with a muscle twitching in his jaw, another at the corner of his eye, he stilled the motion.

  He wasn’t sparing me. I knew it, and the evil gleam in his eyes showed that he knew I knew. The punishment would come, just not before we went to the mall. He needed me to attract the kind of victim that excited him, and that attraction was always based on sympathy. Poor little waif, separated from her father, big brown eyes, trembling lower lip, fear in her voice—just the thing to kick maternal instincts into high gear. A bruised cheek, a split lip, a black eye—they earned sympathy, too, but not the kind he wanted. Needed.

  Though I’d spent my entire life shrinking away from him, tonight I didn’t. Not this time. I stood tall and sullen and staring, but inside the shivers had started, and they wouldn’t stop for a long, long time. Saturday was only two days away. Some woman whose only fault in life was catching my father’s attention was going to suffer horribly and then she was going to die.