He cleared his throat. He might be weaponless but he could still negotiate—although he’d never tried to close a deal when a gun was pointed at him. But he had no choice. “What happened?” Such a simple question. He could only hope it wouldn’t get him shot.
Her lips curled up into a feral smile. “How nice of you to ask, but how unnecessary. You’ve seen the pictures. You helped Cecil set them up. Made sure that Thrasher got a good shot of my face and my…” Her eyes scrunched shut, like she was trying not to see something. He thought he saw her bite her inner lip.
Pictures? Oh, damn. He’d screwed up. He hadn’t set her up, but that was immaterial. He’d promised Rosebud he wouldn’t let anyone scare her. But he hadn’t been able to protect her from his uncle and Thrasher. He’d let her down and, given the drop she had on him, he might not get the chance to apologize, much less make it right.
He made sure to keep his voice level, hoping that some part of his calm would get through to her. “I didn’t set up anything.”
“You made me think I could trust you—that you cared about me.” She sniffed then. He had no idea if she was crying for herself, or for what she was about to do to him.
“I love you.”
“Words,” she spat out. The gun jumped an inch, and he fought the urge to take cover. “Lies.”
“The truth.” She hadn’t shot him yet, so he had that going for him. “When the dust settled and we got this dam thing figured out, I was thinking about asking you to marry me.” It struck him as funny that it was the truth, but it was.
“You don’t want a wife.” He could see the tears that were just starting to spill over the edge. “You said so yourself.”
“You would never be just my wife, darlin’. You will always be my equal.”
She softened, and the gun barrel dipped a good half foot. “Dan…”
Keep talking, he prayed. The more she talked, the better chance he stood.
“Whatever he did—whatever pictures he took—I’ll make him pay. Believe me, he’ll get what’s comin’ to him.”
She trained the gun back on his face. “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…” She cocked the hammer.
Dan’s cell phone rang from deep in his pocket. The unexpected noise made them both jump, and she eased the hammer back down.
“This is important,” he said as he slowly dug the phone out of his pocket. She barked out a harsh laugh, but didn’t stop him. Yeah, he agreed. What could be more important than being held at gunpoint? But he thought he knew who was calling him. “Armstrong.”
“Dan Armstrong?”
“Yeah.”
“Carlson here.”
“James Carlson?” At the mention of his name, Rosebud jolted with enough force that her horse skittered a step away from her.
“Special counsel for the Department of Justice. Thomas Yellow Bird said you might have something I want.”
“Depends on what it is you’re looking for.”
“Do you know Rosebud Donnelly?”
Dan looked at the woman who was currently not acting in the capacity of a lawyer. “She’s here with me now.” Rosebud jumped again, the confusion plain on her face. “She contacted you some time ago about her brother’s death and a possible connection to my uncle, Cecil Armstrong.”
“You sound like a man up-to-date on the situation. Do you have something I can use?”
“Use for what?”
“You tell me what you’ve got, and I’ll let you know if I can use it.”
What the hell was this—a game? The arm he was still holding over his head was beginning to tingle. Time to lay his cards on the table. “I found a box of my uncle’s. It’s got plans for a waterfront resort, as well as lists of names, dates and dollar amounts. I think Tanner Donnelly’s dog tags are there, too.”
Both women gasped, and Emily broke into tears.
“Dollar amounts?” At least Carlson no longer sounded like he was playing a game of chess.
“I think he bought off some judges to make sure things went his way. I didn’t recognize any of the names.”
“Mr. Armstrong, you should know that we at the DOJ are pursuing an indictment of Cecil Armstrong and Armstrong Hydro on RICO charges. Your information will be invaluable.”
Wait—Armstrong Hydro? It was hard to think straight, what with the gun and the phone and the sobbing aunt and the zombified Indian princess. “What do I get in return?”
Carlson didn’t say anything at first. “What do you want?”
“Leave my company out of this. Cecil left Texas five years ago and has been operating independently ever since.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.”
“Then I burn the box.”
“That’s uncalled for, Mr. Armstrong.”
His hand was completely asleep now, but Rosebud still had the gun trained on him. “I’ll give you all the evidence I have if you leave my company out of it. And you have to leave Rosebud out of it, too.”
Another pause, this time longer. Dan wondered if the call was being recorded or traced. “Now why would I have to do that?”
“I think Cecil’s trying to blackmail her.” She jabbed the gun in his direction again, but this time he saw past it. Her face—blotchy and red and furious and hurt—told him he was spot-on. “I think he’s got photos of her—compromising photos. I want them destroyed. No one else sees them. No one.”
“Who else is in them?”
Dan swallowed the last shred of his pride. “Me.”
Carlson said nothing for a painful minute. “You said she’s there?”
“Yes.”
“What’s she doing?”
“Well, right now, she’s got a gun pointed at me.”
Carlson whistled. “Those must be some photos. Let me talk to her.”
“James Carlson wants to talk to you,” Dan told Rosebud. Moving as slowly as he could, he held out the phone.
Maybe her hand was getting tired, too, because the gun was anything but steady. In one quick motion, she reached out and snatched the phone from him. “It’s me.”
Me? Something about the way she said it hit Dan as more than just two lawyers talking, but he was in no position to get his nose bent out of shape about it.
“No, I—yes.” She scrunched her eyes shut tight, and for some reason, Dan was reminded of the first time he’d recognized her in the parking lot. She looked miserable, but her voice didn’t waver at all—just like when she’d lost it after the bar fight and told him she hoped crying didn’t affect his opinion of her in the courtroom. “They’re awful, James. Everything. Everything.”
Thrasher must have found the cabin. That was the only logical explanation. He must have found the cabin, and them in it.
One box of shotgun shells wasn’t going to be enough.
“He said—” Here she hiccupped, but had herself back under control in a second. “Cecil said that if I showed up in court tomorrow, he had a website that was going to go live. He has…he has video.” She managed to get the last bit out, but finally the sobs had started.
Hot rage filled him. It was one thing to have pictures of him—but what Cecil was doing to Rosebud was beyond the pale. He had to pay—him and Thrasher.
“But I—yeah. Yeah. Do I have your word?” In no great hurry, she lowered her weapon. “I know. I understand. I will. No, I won’t. Promise.” Gun finally pointing at the ground, she held the phone out to him. “He wants to talk to you again.”
Dan’s first instinct was to get the gun, but sudden movement seemed like a bad idea right now, considering the fingers on one hand had completely fallen asleep. “Carlson?”
“Here’s the deal, Armstrong. You give me Cecil, and you can keep your company. The company will plead no contest to bribing public officials and will be fined for an amount equal to, but not greater than, the amount of money paid in bribes.”
“And Rosebud?”
“I can’t destroy the photos—yet. I explained to her that blackmail is a seri
ous charge. But I’ll hold them under lock and key, and I promise they will never be made public.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“Didn’t she tell you about me?”
The lightbulb went off. “James—from law school?”
Rosebud nodded.
“I promise you—I won’t let this out. But we need the site to go live, at least for a few minutes. She’s got to go to court tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking. Five minutes, and we’ll have enough to put him away on blackmail alone. She’s already agreed.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked Rosebud.
“I made a mistake,” she said. Her voice was as flat as three-day-old soda. “This is the price I’ve got to pay.”
“Oh, and I told her not to shoot you,” Carlson added as an afterthought. “You’re a material witness now.”
“Thanks. What about Cecil?”
“Yellow Bird is on his way to get the evidence. The moment the site goes live, we’ll arrest Cecil. Yellow Bird thinks a man named Thrasher is our hit man, so we’ll pick him up then, too.”
Damn it. He wouldn’t get the chance to make Thrasher beg for his life. He could only hope Yellow Bird would do it for him. “What do you want me to do?”
“Humor the old man—and don’t kill him, okay? This is bigger than just your uncle. Yellow Bird has the details.”
Chief Judge, that one entry had said. “You’re going to roll him?”
Carlson exhaled into the phone, a man tired by a long fight. “I’m going to try. Either way, I need him alive. Can you do that, or do I need to send Yellow Bird to pick you up, too?”
Not killing Cecil was asking a lot of a man, but Rosebud was staring at him. “I get the company, Rosebud stays out of it and you get Cecil. That’s the deal?”
“That’s the deal.”
“Done.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“What happened?” Emily had managed to right herself. She edged toward Rosebud. “Dear?”
“I…” Rosebud looked down at her hand and seemed to notice she was holding a gun. “Oh. I’m—I said I wouldn’t do that again.”
Considering the circumstances, he wasn’t sure if an incoherent Rosebud was such a good thing or not. “It’s all right.”
“It’s not! I— Oh, my God. I messed up. I messed up everything.” Unexpectedly, she whirled, leaping onto her paint’s back with surprising agility, considering the horse wasn’t even wearing a saddle. The horse reared back, just enough that Dan could see she still had the gun in her hand. Then the two of them took off down the road before cutting through some tall grass and disappearing behind a low hill.
Something clamped down on his arm. It was only then that he realized he’d tried to run after her. He looked down to see Emily’s strong hand gripping him. “No,” she said again. “It’s not safe for you.”
“Not safe for me?” As if the last ten minutes had been a picnic? He shook her off—but not so hard that she lost her footing. “You tried to set me up.”
Her eyes went wide in alarm. “We didn’t know—”
His phone rang. Giving Emily a final glare, he walked away and did the only thing he could.
He answered it.
Seventeen
Cecil’s yahoo lawyer said something and the old man laughed. It took every last bit of Dan’s self-control not to crack those two heads together, and he was running low in the self-control department right now. He was operating on less than two hours of broken sleep. Every time his eyes had closed last night, he’d seen Rosebud’s face, flitting between dangerously blank and shattered. He’d started awake, and then lain there, wondering where she was and if she was okay. She wasn’t answering her phone, and he’d stopped checking with Emily at midnight.
He was having a hard time figuring out where to look in the courtroom. If he looked straight ahead, he’d be staring at Cecil, and he couldn’t look at Cecil without the world getting red around the edges. He was real proud of the fact that, when Cecil had asked him yesterday evening how his meeting with “that Donnelly woman” had gone with a sick smile on his face, Dan had come up with some load of bull about her not feeling well. Thomas Yellow Bird had said to be clueless, so Dan was doing clueless. So far, Cecil was buying it.
If Dan looked to his left, he’d be forced to look at Thrasher, making a whole hell of a lot more than just the edges of the world go red. Dan wanted to reach across the divider and rip that slime-filled smile right off his face. Slowly.
If Dan looked to his right, he’d see the spot where Rosebud was supposed to be preparing for her court case today. The table was empty. No one from the tribe was here. Not even Councilwoman Emily Mankiller.
He’d desperately wanted to go after Rosebud, but Yellow Bird had called. Dan had to hand over the box and be convinced not to go all vigilante on the assholes sitting less than two feet in front of him. He wasn’t supposed to alarm Cecil, so he’d been forced to have dinner with the man, forced to fake mild confusion at Rosebud’s sudden “illness” right before the big day and forced not to sneak out and go looking for her. Hell, it had been hard enough answering his cell phone without spooking Cecil.
Cecil and Thrasher would be taken care of by the justice system. His company was in the clear and the tribe would keep their land. This was supposed to be the big victory. It didn’t feel like it, though. Not yet. How was he supposed to fix the mess still between him and Rosebud when he couldn’t even find out where she’d gone? He got that she was upset. Hell, he was furious about the whole thing. She’d taken a big risk by trusting him, and it had blown up on her. But she had to know it wasn’t his fault. He had to prove to her that he was the man she’d fallen in love with, the man she could still trust.
He wanted them to leave here, get away from the memories they were both desperate to forget and make some new ones, untainted ones. They could go back to his estate in Texas. He’d introduce her to his mother, and Rosebud would see then that Dan wasn’t an Armstrong like Cecil, but one like his father and his mother, someone better. Someone who would honor her as long as they both lived.
But he couldn’t apologize, much less propose, if he couldn’t find her.
Aside from a few local reporters, Yellow Bird was the only other person in the courtroom. He was sprawled out on a bench three rows behind Dan. Yellow Bird had found the one spot in the courtroom that streamed sunlight, so he had on his shades. Dan couldn’t tell if Yellow Bird was watching him or Cecil, but he was pretty sure Yellow Bird had orders to shoot either of them if the setup went south.
“All rise,” the bailiff intoned. “The Honorable Royce Maynard, presiding.”
Dan did a double-take as he stood. Royce Maynard? Damn it all. Dan should have immediately realized that the judge on Cecil’s list was the one presiding over the trial today. That meant that Rosebud would have lost her case today, no matter what. They wouldn’t have been able to stop Cecil if Maria hadn’t found the lockbox of evidence.
Dan had no idea what to think about Rosebud’s disappearance. On the one hand, if Rosebud made it, the site would go live. He didn’t want her to have to go through that, but he wanted to see her again. He needed one more chance to convince her that he’d do anything for her.
On the other, if she didn’t show, they’d lose the blackmail charge, what Carlson had called the kind of insurance money couldn’t buy. There was a small chance Cecil would go free without the blackmail charge as backup. If that happened, Dan would have a very hard time stopping the construction that was ready to begin. But at least Rosebud’s public humiliation level would be a hell of a lot lower.
“Court is now in session,” the bailiff said as Judge Maynard settled his considerable girth onto the bench.
“Be seated.” Maynard glared at the lopsided courtroom. “Where is the attorney for the Red Creek tribe?”
Dan kept his face as benign as possible. On the take, but putting on a
hell of a show. This country didn’t need crooks ruling on matters of life and death, because that’s what this was. A matter of life and death for her tribe. If she didn’t show up…
“Here,” a thin voice called out from the back of the courtroom. “I’m here, Your Honor.”
Dan spun in his seat. Rosebud stood in the doorway, wearing her one-and-only suit. She had a white-knuckle grip on her briefcase, but her face was unreadable, betraying no emotion of any kind. She had her game face on, that much was clear as she walked into the room with the same confidence he’d been confronted with when he’d first accused her of shooting his hat. She could do this, he realized. Pride swelled in his chest as he watched her walk down the aisle.
She was the most amazing woman he’d ever met.
As she passed him, however, he got a better look at her. Her confidence didn’t reach her eyes. In fact, her eyes didn’t move. They didn’t see him, Cecil or even the judge. Dan wasn’t sure she was even in there. It might not be obvious to anyone except him, but she was operating on autopilot.
He saw blood red again as his gaze swung back to Cecil. At least he didn’t have a gun—and he was sure Rosebud didn’t, either. She couldn’t have gotten one past the metal detector—he hoped.
Cecil snorted as Rosebud sat down at her table. He leaned over and whispered something to Thrasher that made him laugh out loud before Cecil pulled out his cell phone and made the all-important call.
“You’re late, Ms. Donnelly.” Judge Maynard’s voice boomed into the room.
“My apologies to the court,” Rosebud said. Her voice was strong and confident. Despite it all, she was still one hell of a lawyer.
“Mr. Armstrong, court is in session,” Maynard boomed even louder. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”
“Of course, Your Honor.” Cecil snapped his phone shut and sat there looking smug.
Dan wasn’t going to make it without punching someone. That phone call was obviously related to the site going live, just like Cecil had promised. Everything was going according to plan, but Dan wasn’t sure how much more of this plan he could take. He wanted Rosebud back. He wanted to show her that he hadn’t set her up. He wanted Cecil and Thrasher to pay.
A Man of His Word Page 15
