51
TAOS
SEPTEMBER 16
1:18 A.M.
One police unit stood off from the front gate and down the block. The siren was silent, but the blue-and-red light bar flashed a message of urgency. An officer with a bullhorn sent curious neighbors back inside their houses the instant they appeared.
A fire truck’s big diesel engine revved as the driver switched power to the internal pumps. Behind a starburst of water from the hose, two firemen in turnout jackets and helmets advanced on the burning car. Water hissed on hot steel and vaporized, adding white steam to the roiling black smoke. Another fireman dashed forward with an axe and swung, shattering the safety glass in the side windows.
The flames began to die back, quenched by water. Very quickly the rental car became a sullen, hissing wreck. The air stank of chemicals and steam. Part of the fire still smoldered stubbornly.
Jill heard Zach leading med-techs through the house at a run. Since she had been working by the dying firelight, she flipped on the hall lights. Without the flames to give his skin color, Frost looked almost transparent. She stood and got out of the way of the med-techs.
The first tech, a woman, kneeled beside Frost to examine him. The second tech established a radio link with the hospital and began relaying vital signs as the first tech called them out.
For an instant Jill felt light-headed. Smoke, adrenaline, fear, or all three. Zach’s arm came around her waist, steadying her.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Just taking a deep breath.”
“You’ve got blood on you.”
She looked at her hands and rubbed them absently against her jeans. “Frost has a lot more on him.”
Zach led her down the hall and into the parlor. “The cops who are chasing the shooter will give up real quick and come back here to question us. If they’re any good, they’ll separate us to get our stories.”
“So?”
“Tell them everything except what we believe about your paintings,” he said softly. “We were just getting an appraisal from Frost. Got it? Just an appraisal. No St. Kilda, no death threat, no suspicions about your great-aunt’s death, nothing but paintings and an expert appraiser.”
A woman’s voice called from the hall, “Are either of you this man’s family?”
Zach went back into the hall. “He has a daughter in Santa Fe, last I heard. I’m an old friend. What do you need?”
“The patient is weak, but he wants to talk to you,” the woman said. “Better do it before we move him.”
Zach understood what the woman wasn’t saying. This could be his last chance to talk to Garland Frost.
As Jill came out to the hall, she saw Zach kneel at Frost’s side. The older man reached out with a feeble motion. An oxygen cannula rested beneath his nose and partially covered his mouth. His lips were moving.
Zach took the shockingly cool fingers between his warm palms. He leaned over and placed his ear close to Frost’s mouth.
“…stn…um…nt…on…tm.”
Frost repeated the sounds again and again. His hand twitched inside Zach’s palms.
Zach felt Frost’s thumb poke at him weakly. He released Frost’s hand. The older man’s hand shook as he thrust his thumb up beneath Zach’s nose.
“Are you saying you’re okay?” Zach asked.
Frost’s head rolled in a negative. He mouthed a word.
“More oxygen?” Jill guessed.
Again the painful negative movement of his head. Groaning, he jabbed upward with his thumb, staring into Zach’s eyes like he wanted Zach to read his mind.
Suddenly Frost went slack.
“No,” breathed Zach. “Damn it, no!”
He put his fingers over Frost’s jugular and felt a pulse. Weak, but it was there.
“Get him to the hospital,” Zach said to the med-tech. “Now.”
No sooner had he spoken than the second med-tech called out to the firemen. Two men leaped for the truck and ran toward the house, litter basket at the ready. They loaded Frost aboard and took him past the ruined car to the ambulance.
“We’ll go to Holy Cross Hospital,” the female med-tech said. “If you can find the daughter, tell her to get over there quick.”
Zach’s lips flattened with what hadn’t been said. “I’ll do that.”
“We’d like to ask a few questions about this shooting,” said a cop as he walked in the open front door.
“Talk to her first,” Zach said, jerking his thumb at Jill. “I’ve got to call the next of kin.”
52
TAOS
SEPTEMBER 16
2:30 A.M.
Zach started up Frost’s old Travel-All. The engine fired with a smooth rumble. Frost still kept his vehicles in good repair.
“Do you think the cops believed us?” Jill asked.
It was the first time they’d been alone since the guesthouse.
“Close enough,” he said.
“I got real tired of repeating the same answers to the same cop, over and over again.”
“Standard. The cops have a shooting and an arson to solve.” Maybe a murder, too. But, God, I hope not. “A prominent citizen is involved. Until Frost corroborates our story, we’re as close to a suspect as the cops have.”
“Why would we call them if one of us shot Frost?”
“Why wouldn’t we?”
Jill opened her mouth, then closed it with a sigh. “Forget I asked. My brain isn’t in top form.”
He lifted his right hand and ran it down her cheek. “You did fine, Jill. Better than I had a right to expect of a civilian. You kept your head and helped instead of getting in the way.”
“With that and four hundred dollars…” She made a sound that could have been laughter, but probably wasn’t. “Do you think Frost will make it?”
“He’s tough.” Way too much blood. Damn near bled out in the hall. “If they get blood into him quick enough, he’ll be up and swearing in no time.”
“What did his daughter say?”
“She’s on her way. It will be two hours, maybe more.”
Jill watched streetlights slide by either side of the windshield. There were few people out, and fewer still were sober.
“Why?” Jill asked after a minute.
Zach knew what she was asking. “It wasn’t a hot prowl gone wrong. The car was the target, which meant the shooter was after the paintings.”
“They’re in the house.”
“The shipping cartons were in the car. Add paraffin, gasoline, and light it off. Step back before it explodes in your face.”
“But why shoot Garland Frost?”
“He was home,” Zach said grimly. “And he’s a maverick. The thought of Lee Dunstan pissing all over his appraisals wouldn’t bother Frost a bit. Hell, he’d enjoy it.”
“Then you think Frost was actually the target?” Jill asked, her voice strained.
“I’ll ask the shooter just as soon as I get his neck between my hands.”
She looked at Zach’s profile. In the random illumination of streetlights and dashboard lights, he looked like a bleak stone carving. He might have argued a lot with Garland Frost, but he still cared about him.
“How did the shooter know we were here?” she asked.
“That’s the problem with flight plans and rental cars. You leave a paper or electronic trail that any decent computer hacker can follow.”
“All the way to Frost’s house?”
“That’s what I said to Faroe. He’s trying to get through to the rental company, find out if our rental had a locater beacon in it, and if so, was it active.”
“Why would they-never mind, Mexico.”
“Yeah. A short run to the border and the thief is several thousand bucks richer.”
“You think the shooter is still around here?” she asked uneasily.
She didn’t like thinking about how close Frost and Zach had come to dying a few hours ago.
“We’ve got guards on Fr
ost. And I’m going to stay with him until his daughter gets here. I want you with me.”
He turned into the hospital parking lot and stopped close to the emergency entrance.
Jill saw two patrol cars and hoped the questions wouldn’t start all over again. She didn’t know if she had the patience for it.
When Zach saw the plainclothes unit next to the patrol cars, he wondered who had been assigned the case. The answer came as soon and he and Jill walked through the automatic doors into the hard-shelled sterile waiting room. Three uniformed officers were conferring with a tall, redheaded man in jeans, boots, and a hooded sweatshirt.
“Well, there’s a break,” Zach said under his breath. “Alton Corrigan is still in town.”
The redheaded man turned and looked at them, then shook his head wearily. He crossed the waiting room, hands in the belly pocket of his sweatshirt.
“Zach, you should have stopped by to say hello before you got yourself involved in a shooting,” Corrigan said. “It would have saved me a lot of trouble. Now I can’t even shake your hand until my men have cleared you.”
Zach nodded. “Sorry about that. How’s Frost doing?”
“Surgery,” Corrigan said. “One of the nurses came out a minute ago to tell us that the bullet nicked an artery. If you hadn’t gotten him here quick, he would have died.”
“That’s her doing,” Zach said, nodding toward Jill. He introduced her and added, “Alton used to be chief detective, but if he’s talking about ‘my men,’ I’m guessing he made chief of police.”
Corrigan looked hard at Jill, then back at Zach. “You two are both friends of Frost?”
“She’s my client,” Zach said. “We were researching some family paintings she owns. Frost was an obvious place to start.”
“First time you’re back in, what, five years?” he asked, looking at Zach.
“Something like that.”
“And Frost didn’t kick your ass right out on the street?” Corrigan shook his head. “Must be pretty special pictures you brought him.”
“That’s what we were trying to find out,” Zach said.
“Are those pictures related to the fire-bombing of your car?”
“One minute I was asleep and the next I heard a gunshot and was up and running,” Zach said. “That’s all I know for sure.”
“Why do I feel like you aren’t telling me everything?” Corrigan asked.
Zach’s smile was as weary as it was real. “Because I’m not. I’m working as an investigator for an attorney named Grace Silva Faroe. Ms. Breck is Judge Silva Faroe’s client, so there’s privilege attached to some of this.”
Corrigan grunted.
“I’ve told the cops everything I know for a fact,” Zach said.
“What do you suspect?” Corrigan shot back.
“Last time I checked, New Mexico law doesn’t require that I tell you any or all of my speculations. But I can guarantee that I want to find out who shot Garland Frost even more than you do.”
“I don’t much care for it,” Corrigan said bluntly, “any more than I care for hard-assing you or Ms. Breck. But if I have to, I will.”
“No news there.”
“Do you really think you shot the perp?” Corrigan asked.
“Not enough to send him to a hospital.”
Corrigan grunted again. Then with a curt nod to Jill, he went back to his men.
53
HOLLYWOOD
SEPTEMBER 16
8:00 A.M.
That’s right,” Score said into the phone. “The six shipping cartons are charcoal, and so is anything that was inside them.”
“Stay with them anyway.”
Score bit down hard on his temper. He really didn’t have the patience for stakeouts, short sleep, and twitchy clients.
“How long?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Until after the auction.”
“It’s your money.”
“Keep that in mind.”
He looked at the dead phone and slammed it into the cradle in disgust.
“Yo, boss,” a voice said from outside his locked office door.
Score hit the button to release the lock. “Get in here.”
“You look like hell,” Amy said as she walked in. She tossed a printout on his desk.
I should fire the mouthy bitch.
“I work hard on it,” Score snapped.
But not as hard as Amy did. Today her hair was pink and silver.
Score tried not to notice. He was used to the studs and rings she wore in painful places, but the ever-changing hair colors still threw him. It was like employing a chameleon.
“I was up all night with a client.” He rubbed grainy eyes and tried not to wince. His right biceps felt like he’d been branded. Nothing burned like a kiss from a bullet.
Wish that auction was over. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since the bloody JPEGs went out.
He flicked a finger at the printout. “Anything good?”
“Something went down at the other end of the bug. Heard sirens, shouting, what sounded like gunfire.”
Score swallowed a yawn. “Yeah? Anyone hurt?”
“Either it’s real cold there or a dude named Frost bit the big one. The name came up a lot.”
“Huh. He die?”
Amy didn’t bother to hide her yawn. “The last time I heard anything, the female subject was on the way back from the hospital. Frost was stable, but drugged to the max. It’s all in the printout.”
Left-handed, Score flipped through the printout. “Looks like the bug is picking up more than it did before.”
“Yeah. Must have taken the phone out of whatever was wrapped around it. But it’s on and off. The subject doesn’t exactly wear her sat phone as a fashion statement.” Amy yawned again. “Oh, there was some talk about being followed.”
Score’s hand hesitated, then resumed flipping through the printout. “Who?”
“They don’t know. Or if they had any ideas, they didn’t discuss it in range of the bug. All they talked about was how easy it is to get flight plans and if the rental car had some kind of locater system since New Mexico is so close to that great chop shop south of the border.”
Score read the section, frowned, read it again, and decided that Amy was right. So far nothing had happened to the subject that couldn’t be explained by something other than a personal bug.
“Okay,” he said.
“Does that mean I get some time off?”
“I’ll let you know after I talk to the client. Until then, stay with the bug.”
“Hell.”
“It could be worse,” Score said.
“How?”
“You could be looking for a job in a traveling freak show.”
54
TAOS
SEPTEMBER 16
9:00 A.M.
Even though the last cops were gone, Garland Frost’s circular driveway remained off limits. The arson investigators wanted to work with a “clean” scene. Zack looked out the front door of the house and was grateful the paintings hadn’t been inside the rental car. It looked even worse in daylight.
He heard the back door open.
“Zach?” Jill called.
He shut the front door. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen. Coffee should be ready by now.”
“There is a God.”
Zach smiled and rubbed at the beard that had overtaken his face. I really should have shaved before I got in bed with Jill.
But she hadn’t complained. In fact, she’d enjoyed rubbing her palms against his cheeks. And other parts.
When he got to the kitchen, Jill was yawning and rummaging in the cupboards for coffee mugs. Her cheeks looked chapped. Her neck looked nibbled.
“Any word on Frost?” she asked.
“Same old same old.” Zach got the mugs, poured the dark, lethal brew, and handed one over to her. “I wish I knew what he was trying to tell me.”
“You can ask him when he wakes up.” S
he took a sip, said “Hooyah!” and took a bigger swallow. “Now, that’s coffee.”
Zach smiled slightly. “According to the procedure the docs outlined, Frost won’t wake up until the auction is over. They’re pretty much keeping him in a coma.”
“He survived a nicked artery, the random damage of a bullet in his midriff and a long surgery.” Jill said. “Not many men his age would have made it.”
“Silencer.”
“What?”
“A silencer slows down the velocity of the bullet when it leaves the muzzle,” Zach explained. “That’s why Frost survived a hit from a 9 millimeter.”
Jill shivered.
“Cold?” Zach asked. “I could light the fire.”
“This coffee is better than any fire.” She noticed the open computer on the kitchen table. “Working already?”
“Just checking in. Where’s your sat phone?”
“In the guesthouse. Did yours finally die?”
“Thinking about it,” he said. “Singh checked yesterday’s flight plans on all charters out of Salt Lake to Taos.”
“Good news?”
“Depends on your definition of good. Somebody took off from Salt Lake about an hour after we did and landed at Taos about eighty minutes after we did.”
Jill’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying we were followed?”
“Not like a tail,” he said. “They were too far back. Our flight plan was easy enough to get. The car is on a rental agency’s computer, which sure can be hacked. Faroe’s checking to see if the rental has a locater unit aboard. This close to the border, it’s pretty common.”
“I…” Her voice died. “I’m not used to a road with this many switchbacks.”
“Yeah, some real neck twisters. And the fun would really get started if somehow, someway, we’ve been bugged. On the other hand, it could be a real break.”
“Bugged?”
“Yeah. If we have one, and we can find it, we turn it into an asset.”
“How?”
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Faroe and I are arguing about that.”
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