by Diana Palmer
“Sir, your handwriting is hands-down, without a doubt, the worst I ever saw in my life,” she muttered as she pushed numbers into her cell phone.
“Hear, hear!” Rourke said over the phone. “I have to go. I’ll let you know about Ballenger’s son as soon as I have word.” He hung up.
Carlie held her breath as the phone rang once, twice, three times...
“Hello?”
Carlie recognized the voice. It wasn’t Carson’s. It was hers. Lanette’s.
She swallowed, hard. “I want to speak to Carson,” she said.
“Oh, do you? I’m sorry,” Lanette said in a silky sweet tone. “I’m afraid he’s indisposed at the moment. Really indisposed.” She laughed out loud. “I can’t have him. But, now, neither can you, you little backward country hick! And you can spend hours, days, just watching him die!” She cut off the connection.
“She’s with him,” Carlie said with an economy of words. “You have to get someone to him, quick!”
Cash was already punching in numbers.
While her boss worked to get a medical team to Carson, Carlie hovered, tears running down her cheeks.
“You sit down,” Fred said softly. “They’ll get there in time. It will be all right. Everything will be all right.”
She just looked at him, her face that of a terrified child. It hit him in the heart so hard that he let out a breath, as if it had been a blow to his stomach.
He put down his coffee, got up, picked her up and sat down with her in his lap, wrapped up in his big arms, sobbing her heart out on his broad shoulder. He patted her back as if she were five years old, smiling. “It’s okay, honey,” he said softly. “It’s okay.”
Cash watched them and mentally shook his head. What a waste. That man had a heart as big as the world, and he was going to take the fall for that crooked politician unless Cash could find him a way out. That might just be possible. But first he had to save Carson. And that mission had a less hopeful outcome.
* * *
THE PARAMEDICS HAD to wait while San Antonio PD broke down a door to get inside, on Lieutenant Marquez’s orders. Once the way was clear, they rushed in with a gurney. They found Carson in the kitchen, facedown on the floor. He was unconscious and bleeding from a wound in his chest. There was a lump on his head, as well.
One paramedic looked at the other and winced. This was not going to be an easy run. He keyed his mike and started relaying medical information. It was complicated by the fact that the victim apparently had no ID on him.
* * *
BECAUSE FRED BALDWIN could make all the right connections to Matthew Helm, and because they knew about the fate of the former failed hit man, Cash Grier refused to turn him over to the authorities in San Antonio, where Helm would have to be arrested and tried.
“You’ll get him over my dead body,” Cash assured Rick Marquez on the telephone. “I’m not risking his life. He’s too valuable. You come down here and take a deposition, bring all the suits you need and add your district attorney to the list. I’ll give you free access. But he is not, under any circumstances, leaving Jacobsville!”
Rick drew in a breath. “Cash, you’re putting me in a tough spot.”
“No, I’m not. My cousin is still the state attorney general. He’ll pull some strings for me if I ask him,” Cash added. “Besides that,” he said with a whimsical smile, “I have a few important connections that I don’t talk about.”
“You and my father-in-law would get along,” Marquez chuckled. “All right. I’ll get the process started. But I’m going to need that watch.”
“No way in hell,” Cash said pleasantly.
“It’s state’s evidence!”
“Yes, it is. And evidence doesn’t walk out of my property room,” he added, emphasizing the “my.”
“Rub it in,” Rick muttered. “Carson already did, in fact.” He sobered. “They have him in intensive care.”
“I know. My secretary is up there with him. Or as close as she can get,” Cash said heavily.
“So I heard. She’s parked in the corridor next to the emergency room surgical suite and won’t move.”
“Stubborn.”
“Yes, and very much in love, apparently,” Rick replied solemnly. “It won’t end well. I know the type, and so do you. Even if he makes it out of the hospital, he’ll never settle down.”
“Are you a betting man?” Cash mused.
“Why?”
“Because several years ago, you’d have laid better odds that I’d never marry and live in a small Texas town. Wouldn’t you?”
Rick laughed. “Point taken.” He hesitated. “Well, can we at least see the watch and photograph it?”
“Mi casa es su casa,” Cash said smugly. “My house is your house.”
“I’ll bring an SUV full of people down. May I assume that the state crime lab has already dusted the watch for prints?”
“Our own Alice Jones Fowler did the job herself. She does still work as an investigator for state crime,” Cash reminded him, “although she lives here with her husband, Harley, on their ranch. She’s not only good, she’s unforgettable.”
“Nobody who ever met Alice would forget her,” Rick agreed. “She even makes autopsies bearable.”
“No argument there. Anyway, the watch is adequately documented, even for a rabid prosecutor. And you’re going to need the best you’ve got for Helm,” he added quietly. “The man is a maniac, and I don’t mean that kindly. He’ll sacrifice anybody to save himself. Even assistant district attorneys.”
“You don’t know how much I’d love to tie him to that murder,” Rick said. “The watch is the key to it all. Good luck for us that it wasn’t destroyed.”
“Even better luck that the man wearing it decided to also turn state’s evidence. He can put Helm away for life.”
“You’ve got him in the county jail, I hope?”
Cash hesitated. “Someplace a little safer.”
“Safer than the lockup?” Rick burst out laughing. “What, is he living with you and Tippy and Tris?”
“Let’s just say that he’s got unique company. I’ll give you access with the D.A. when you get down here.”
“This is going to be an interesting trip,” Rick predicted. “See you soon.”
“Copy that.”
* * *
THE HOSPITAL WAS very clean. Carlie noted that the floors must be mopped frequently, because when she got up to use the ladies’ room, the back of her jeans didn’t even have dust. She knew she was irritating the staff. Security had talked to her once. But she refused to move. They could throw her out, but that was the only way she was leaving. Her heart was in that intensive care emergency surgery unit, strapped to machines and tubes, fighting for his life. They could put her in jail, after, she didn’t care. But she wasn’t moving until they could assure her that Carson would live. And she told them so.
13
THE NEUROLOGIST ON Carson’s case, Dr. Howard Deneth, paused at the nurses’ station in ICU, where they’d taken Carson an hour ago, and glanced toward the cubicle where Carson was placed.
“She’s still there?” he mused.
The nurse nodded. “She won’t leave. The nurses called security, but she said they’d have to drag her out. She wasn’t belligerent. She just stared them down, with tears rolling down her cheeks the whole time.”
“Unusual in these days, devotion like that,” the doctor remarked. “Are they married?”
“Not that we know. Of course, we don’t know much, except what she was able to tell us. He doesn’t carry identification.”
“I noticed. Some sort of covert work, I imagine, classified stuff.”
“That’s what we thought.”
Dr. Deneth looked down at the nurse over his glasses. “He’s det
eriorating,” he said heavily. “The wound was superficial. There was minor head trauma, but really not enough to account for his condition. However, head injuries are tricky. Sometimes even minor ones can end fatally.” He pursed his lips. “Let her in the room.”
“Sir?”
“On my authority,” he added. “I’ll write it on the chart, in case you have any flak from upper echelons. They can talk to me if they don’t like it.”
The nurse didn’t speak. She just smiled.
* * *
CARLIE HELD HIS HAND. She’d been shocked when the nurse came to tell her that she could have a comfortable chair beside Carson’s bed. One of the other nurses had been curt to the point of rudeness when she tried to make Carlie leave the hall.
She guessed that nurses were like policemen. Some were kindhearted and personable, and some were rigorously by-the-book. She worked for a policeman who’d thrown the book away when he took the job. He believed in the rule of law, but he wasn’t a fanatic for the letter of it. Case in point was big Fred Baldwin, who was now living in a safe but undisclosed location, so that he didn’t end up dead before he could testify against his former boss.
No arrests had been made yet, that she was aware of. She did know that they had an all points bulletin out for the blonde woman who’d left Carson in this condition. She really hoped the woman resisted arrest, and then she bit her tongue and said a silent apology. That wasn’t really a wish that a religious person should make.
Her father had come to see Carson a few minutes ago. The nurses had at least let him into the room. But when he came out he was somber and although he tried to get Carlie to come home, he understood why she wouldn’t. He’d done the same when her mother was in the hospital dying. He’d refused to leave, too.
Carlie supposed he’d seen cases like Carson’s many times. Judging by the look on his face, the results had been fatal. He reminded Carlie that God’s will had precedence over man’s desires. He wanted to stay with his daughter, but she reminded him that having two people in the corridor to trip over would probably be the straw that broke the camel’s back for the nursing staff. He went home, leaving Carlie’s cell phone—which she’d forgotten—with her so that she could keep him posted.
Unknown to her, one of Rourke’s buddies was nearby, posing as a family member in the intensive care waiting room. Just in case Helm had any ideas about hurting Carlie. It was a long shot, but nobody wanted to leave anything to chance.
Meanwhile, the forces of good were coalescing against Matthew Helm. He knew they had Baldwin in custody, and the man was probably spilling his guts. But his attorney could take Baldwin apart on the stand. The man had a criminal record, which is how he was pressured into taking Helm’s jobs in the first place. He had a conviction for assault when he was a cop in Chicago. That could be used against his testimony.
After all, Helm’s hands were clean. He’d never broken the law. They might have Baldwin and a lot of hearsay evidence, but there was nothing that could connect him to the murder of the assistant D.A. He’d made sure of it.
So now he was free of that worry, and he could concentrate on the Senate race. He was in Washington, D.C., of course, learning his way around, making contacts, making use of all the connections that Charro Mendez had in the country’s capital. He liked the power. He liked the privilege. He liked bumping elbows at cocktail parties with famous people. Yes, he was going to enjoy this job, and nobody was taking it away from him in that special election in May!
What he didn’t know was that Fred, like Carlie, had an excellent memory for dates and places. With it, the authorities could check telephone records, check stubs, gas receipts, restaurant tickets, even motel logs to see where Helm was at particular times and with particular people. They could now connect him directly to the assistant district attorney’s murder through Richard Martin because of the theft of the watch. It went from the assistant D.A.’s body to Richard Martin, who worked for Helm, to Fred Baldwin whom Helm had sent to retrieve it, right back to Helm himself.
The San Antonio D.A.’s office put together a network, a framework, that they were going to use to hang Matthew Helm from. The watch was going to put Helm away for a very long time. Added to Baldwin’s testimony, it would be the trial of the century. It had all the elements: intrigue, murder, politics, kidnapping—it was almost a catalog of the deadly sins. And now, with Rourke ordered to set up Calhoun Ballenger’s youngest son—with cocaine provided by Charro Mendez—a concrete link between the two men had been formed. The trap was about to spring shut.
Fred had been kept in the dark about Rourke’s true allegiance. What he didn’t know, he couldn’t accidentally let slip.
* * *
“TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT,” Rourke told Cash Grier on a secure line. “Seven o’clock. Helm himself ordered the plant and I have it on tape.”
“Sheer genius,” Cash announced. “We’re going to catch you in the act.” He groaned. “Calhoun Ballenger is going to use me for a mop when he finds out that his son was the bait.”
“I’ll save you,” Rourke promised. “But it’s what we need to make the case.”
“Good thing we spoke to Blake Kemp about this before you agreed to do it,” Cash added.
“Yes, the Jacobs County D.A. should be in on such matters. Just to keep yours truly out of the slammer,” Rourke chuckled. “Don’t be late, okay? I’m not absolutely sure that Helm won’t assign backup in case I get cold feet or he suspects I’m not reliable.”
“No worries. We’ve got one of Eb Scott’s men watching you, and one with Carlie up in San Antonio.”
“How is he?” Rourke asked.
“No change,” Cash said heavily. “Well, one change. They finally let Carlie into the room with him.”
“Probably because they got tired of tripping over her in the hall,” Rourke remarked. “Stubborn girl.”
“Very.” Cash’s voice lowered. “It doesn’t look good. Head injuries...well, you know.”
“Any luck turning up that deadly blonde?” Rourke added coldly.
“Not yet, but I’m told they have a lead. She ordered the kidnapping. That’s a federal offense. It means my brother gets involved.” There was real pride in his tone. “Nobody gets away from Garon.”
“Maybe they’ll hit her over the head and shoot her while she’s lying helpless,” Rourke said icily.
“In real life, it doesn’t go down like that.” Cash sighed. “Pity.”
“Yeah. Okay, I’ll see you later.”
“Be careful,” Cash cautioned.
“Always.”
* * *
CARLIE HELD CARSON’S hand tightly in both of her small ones. He had beautiful hands, the skin smooth and firm, the nails immaculately clean and neatly trimmed. No jewelry. No marks where jewelry might ever have been. She remembered the feel of his hands on her skin, the tenderness, the strength of them. It seemed like an age ago.
The neurosurgeon had come in to check Carson’s eyes, and how his pupils reacted to light. He was kind to Carlie, telling her that sometimes it took a little time for a patient to regain consciousness after a blow like the one Carson had sustained. If they were lucky, there wouldn’t be too much impairment afterward. He didn’t add that the head trauma didn’t seem damaging enough to account for the continued unconsciousness. That bothered him.
The head trauma being the predominant condition, Carson was in the ICU on the neurological ward. The gunshot injury, by comparison, was far less dangerous and had a better prognosis. That damage had been quickly repaired by the trauma surgeon.
She only half heard him. She wanted him to tell her that Carson would wake up and get up and be all right. The doctor couldn’t do that. Even he, with his long experience, had no guarantees. At the moment, they weren’t certain why he was still unconscious.
Carson had been in shock when
they transported him, but now he was still breathing well on his own, his levels were good, BP was satisfactory. In fact, he should be awake and aware. But he wasn’t. They’d done a CT scan in the emergency room. It did not show extensive brain injury. There was some minor bruising, but nothing that should account for the continued unconsciousness.
Blood had been sent to the lab for analysis, but it was a busy day and a few patients in far worse shape were in the queue ahead of him.
The doctor asked, again, if Carson had any next of kin in the area. She shook her head. Carson was from the Wapiti Ridge Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, but she didn’t know anything about that part of his life. Neither did anybody else locally.
He suggested that it might be wise to contact the authorities there and inquire about relatives who might know more about his health history. So Carlie phoned Cash Grier and asked him to do it. She was too upset to talk to anyone. His medical history would certainly be useful, but he was fighting for his life from a set of circumstances other than illness. She prayed and prayed. Please let him live, she asked reverently, even if he married some pretty sweet young woman from his hometown and Carlie never saw him again.
She whispered it while she was holding Carson’s hand. Whispered it over and over again while tears ran hot and salty down her pale cheeks.
“You just can’t die,” she choked, squeezing his hand very hard. “Not like this. Not because of that sick, stupid, beautiful blonde female pit viper!” She swallowed, wiping tears away with the tips of her fingers. “Listen, you can go home and marry some nice, experienced girl who’ll be everything you want, and it will be all right. I want you to be happy. I want you to live!” She sniffed. “I know I’m not what you need. I’ve always known it. I’m not asking for anything at all. I just want you to live until you’re old and gray-headed and have a houseful of kids and grandkids.” She managed a smile. “You can tell them stories about now, about all the exotic places you went, the things you saw and did. You’ll be a local legend.”
He shifted. Her heart jumped. For an instant she thought he might be regaining consciousness. But he made a soft sound and began to breathe more deeply. Her hands tightened around his. “You just have to live,” she whispered. “You have to.”
