Behind the Shield

by Sheryl Lynn

  It hit her what he meant and she gasped. “My father buried thirty million dollars? That’s not possible. Oh! What if it burned up?”

  “Investigators would have found some trace of it.”

  “I never really checked the back rooms. There were so many mice I worried about snakes and hantavirus.”

  “Trust me, if thirty million dollars was laying around the house, someone would have found it long before the fire.” He pushed the plate away and leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. His forearms were corded with muscle and burned dark by the sun. He smiled and for a moment concerns about hijackings and money and her father disappeared. The entire world focused on how the lines in his forehead eased and his eyes sparkled with warmth.

  Her belly thumped a warning.

  “An anonymous tipster told Bannerman that Shay buried the money before he went to prison. The insurance company is offering a finder’s fee to whoever helps them recover the money. I suspect Bannerman is back in Las Vegas concocting some kind of lawsuit to force your cooperation.”

  “Oh, great.” She sighed. “Just what I need.”

  “Seems to me if the money is buried on your land, you ought to be the one to find it.”

  “What am I supposed to do with thirty million dollars?”

  He stared, for a moment befuddled, his lips parted. He burst into laughter. A hearty, booming laugh that echoed against the tall ceiling. Madeline bristled at being the butt of a joke at the same time a warm tingling spread through her torso, loosening her hips and knees.

  His laughter trailed off, leaving his chest hitching. He swiped at an eye with a knuckle.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I don’t know. You are. I doubt there’s another human being in this whole damned country who’d have said what you said.”

  “Well pardon me,” she said tartly.

  “You’re not supposed to keep the money. You turn it over to the insurance company and they pay you the finder’s fee.”

  “Oh.” She chewed her lower lip. “Really?”

  “Getting their money back will have those insurance folks dancing in the streets. I imagine they’ll be generous.”

  “How generous?”

  “Reckon it’s easy enough to find out.”

  She didn’t need much. Beads and beading supplies were her biggest expense, and she had enough to finish her projects for the show. Two or three thousand dollars would pay rent and buy food through the summer. For a few thousand more she might be able to replace her van.

  “So if I let Mr. Bannerman search the ranch, he’ll pay me?”

  “You find it. I have a problem with a jailbird getting everything. At least part of the reward should go to you.”

  The ranch spread out over hundreds of acres of rocks, scrub, prickly pear cactus and snakes. She wouldn’t know where to begin looking. Besides which, the more she thought about it the less she wanted anything to do with stolen money.

  “You don’t seem very enthusiastic,” he said.

  “Even if I wanted a case of heatstroke digging in those hills, profiting from my father’s crime turns my stomach.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with profit. And like I said, it won’t take long before folks figure out the ranch is a good place to start looking. Your land will be crawling with treasure hunters. Finder’s fees bring out the pros, too.”

  “Pros?”

  “Bounty hunters. Folks who make their living recovering stolen goods.”

  She laughed absently. Her world was so narrow.

  “There’s one small problem.”

  Her life was a series of problems, small and otherwise. “What’s that?”

  “Some think you knew about the money all along. That you conspired with your father.”

  Hurt rushed in. First her mother and now Carson. Her face froze in an impassive mask. Her shoulders and spine straightened.

  Carson cocked an eyebrow. “That bothers you.”

  “Of course it does,” she said, putting ice in her voice. When he kept quiet and the silence felt like a void, she added, “I get sick of being blamed for things I don’t do. Maybe that’s why people turn into criminals. As long as they’re getting slammed for being related to drunks and whores and thieves, they might as well be what everybody thinks they are.”

  “If I thought you were involved, you wouldn’t be sitting at my table.”

  She studied his pale eyes and suntanned face, seeking any sign of a lie. He sat still for her perusal, his gaze steady. “It means a lot you saying that,” she said quietly.

  “I’m not worried about law enforcement or the insurance company going after you. I’ve been on the phone with the FBI. They know you’re here, they know your story, and they don’t consider you a suspect. My worry is there could be an eighth hijacker.”

  “The paper said there were seven. Why do you say eight?”

  “Bannerman says so. Shay was scared of the ringleader. He was supposed to die in Utah, but he got away. If true, he might come looking for you.”

  A frisson of fear ripped down her spine. Then came anger. She lived an honest, sober life, refusing to fall into the trap of booze and hopelessness that ruined so many lives on the reservation. She learned young to keep to herself, to not arm potential enemies with insights into her vulnerabilities. She’d never been arrested—never had so much as a speeding ticket. By virtue of being her father’s daughter, and no other reason, she’d been burned out and now risked being stalked by a killer.

  What was the point of being good?

  “I’m not trying to spook you.” He laid his hand atop hers.

  “I am spooked!” She jerked her hand away. “All I want is to be left alone. I never asked for any of this.”

  “The sooner the money is found, the sooner you can put this behind you.” He rose. “With the weekend and all I doubt anyone who knows anything about the finder’s fee is working. I’ll give the company a call on Monday.”

  There was nothing more to say. She cleared the table.

  “I’m going to watch some TV. Might be something on the news.”

  Washing dishes, she couldn’t put Carson from her mind. Maybe the money was the reason Carson had helped her. She doubted the town of Ruff paid him what he was worth. It felt funny thinking of him as a mercenary, but at least it let her know exactly where she stood.

  MADELINE SLID the coffee cake into the oven. The kitchen was plain, functional, but pure luxury to her. If the beads hadn’t called to her, she might have become a baker or chef.

  She heard Carson moving around the house earlier. She guessed he was out in the barn. Last night she had thought about what he said. She knew how to reward his kindness and pay her debt.

  Madeline entered the barn in time to see Carson pick up a baseball cap, slap it against his thigh and settle it on his head. He shoved the neck of the black mare. She turned a playful circle in the spacious stall. When he pushed a pitchfork into a pile of soiled straw, the mare snatched the cap and shook it the way a puppy shook a toy.

  Madeline clapped her hands and laughed.

  “Darned old horse thinks she’s a pet dog,” he said. He retrieved his cap and shooed the mare outside. He closed the half door.

  Madeline watched the horse amble across the corral to a water trough. Tall and leggy with a long, elegant neck, she was friendlier than any horse Madeline knew. “Is she a Thoroughbred?”

  “Through and through. Back in the day she was a hell of a jumper.”

  Madeline rested her arms on the stall door. Carson resumed cleaning.

  “Hard to picture you on a jumping horse,” she said.

  “Hard for you, impossible for me. I prefer horses with sense enough to keep their feet on the ground. Rosie is Jill’s horse.” His eyes turned distant and sad. “Jill competed in show jumping and man oh man, she and Rosie were a pretty pair. Rosie all decked out in red ribbons and her tack gleaming like wax. Jill wearing a velvet jacket with her grandma’s cameo at her throat.” />
  “I saw the photographs of her. She was beautiful.”

  Muscles swelled in his jaw and his throat worked. He jammed the pitchfork into the dirt floor. Eyes blank, so stiff his arms and legs seemed made of iron, he pushed open the stall door and strode past Madeline. The door slapped against the wooden post and the latch clattered but didn’t close. Madeline watched him leave the barn, walking fast, and knew she’d said too much.

  She fastened the latch then headed back to the house to finish breakfast.

  She found him in the kitchen. He rested a hand on the edge of the sink and held a glass of water. His eyes were red. He looked the way he had looked that day on Crossruff Creek, as if hoping lightning would strike him dead. She knew of no apology big enough, sincere enough to ease his pain. She had never let herself love anyone enough to feel that much pain over loss. She couldn’t begin to imagine how terrible he must feel.

  She pulled a package of bacon from the refrigerator and a skillet from under the stove. She needed to get out of here.

  The bacon began to sizzle. The oven timer buzzed. She opened the oven door. The coffee cake was nicely browned.

  “I never talk about her.” He poured a cup of coffee. He looked puzzled. “I want to. I want to remember her. I want others to remember. But it hurts.”

  She focused on turning bacon strips. “I imagine so.”

  “First month or so after it happened I was numb. No thoughts in my head, no feelings in my heart. Just numb. It was like all the sound was sucked out of the air. Everything was gray. When it hit home, everything hurt. Everything reminded me that Jill was never coming back. I want to remember the good things, but it makes the hurting start all over again.”

  Madeline wished for the power to heal his heart.

  She finished making breakfast in silence. They ate in silence. He returned to the barn. She cleaned the kitchen then sat down to work. Sorrow weighed her mind. Black wasn’t really the color of sorrow, she decided. Sorrow was brown, parched like the desert. Fiery red for the rage over unwarranted loss. Deep, dark, muddy blue like a weary heart too worn-out to beat. A hunched shape formed, low and closed, shutting out the world, trying to fold upon itself, to make as small a target as possible for the pain.

  Unable to concentrate on the phoenix, she rummaged through her supplies for a sketchbook. With quick pencil strokes, she drew a sad little demon with dull eyes, its spines limp from being battered, its skin pocked with neglected sores. She brought out her colored pencils.

  She searched for hope. A ray of sunshine, a touch of faith, the tiniest promise that pain wasn’t forever.

  At the sound of a woman’s voice, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Breath lodged in her throat like a ball of cement. Pencils clattered on the tabletop.

  “Carson? I brought some groceries. We need to talk.”

  A blond woman, holding several plastic grocery bags, stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. Her eyes went so wide the whites showed all the way around the irises. Her mouth formed a shocked O. She looked from Madeline to the side of the sink where dishes were drying to the plate of coffee cake squares covered with plastic wrap.

  The blonde sucked in a breath. “Who the hell are you?”

  Rude, Madeline thought and clamped her lips to keep from making a comment. It hadn’t occurred to her that Carson had a woman. It was tough to imagine, though, he found this angry creature attractive. She looked too young for him. She wore a very short denim skirt and a white blouse knotted so her belly showed. Her hair was teased and her makeup looked more suitable for a nightclub than for a grocery delivery.

  “Hello?” the woman said sarcastically, implying Madeline wasn’t merely not where she belonged, she was stupid, too. “What are you doing in Carson’s house?”

  “I’m visiting.”

  The woman narrowed her eyes, peering at Madeline as if through a microscope. “Are you a cousin or something?”

  Madeline didn’t like this woman’s suspicious tone, didn’t like her questions and most especially didn’t like her proprietary air. The woman waited a beat for Madeline to answer, then sniffed and swished across the floor to deposit the grocery bags on the counter nearest the refrigerator. She tottered on strappy sandals as if she never wore such high heels. The way she put the food away spoke clearly of her familiarity with the kitchen.

  She whirled about and pointed a finger at Madeline. Her gasp was practically a shriek. “Oh my God! It’s you!”

  The back screen door slammed and Carson strode inside. He came to an abrupt stop. His shoulders were rigid. He clenched and unclenched his hands. “What are you doing here?”

  The woman gaped in horror at Madeline. “I don’t believe she’s here. In your house!”

  “Listen up now, Judy, this isn’t what you think.”

  “Everybody knows she’s the reason your wife got shot!”

  Carson grabbed Judy’s shoulders. She tensed up, her face scrunched and fearful. “Damn it, Judy, you shouldn’t have come here.”

  Her chin quivered. “I—I guess I made a mistake.”

  “Yes, you did. Now you’re going to fix it, understand?”

  She nodded, but to Madeline it looked less like agreement and more like terror.

  “No one, not your mother or your daddy or the preacher, absolutely no one can know Madeline is here. It is a matter of life and death. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Judy whispered.

  Madeline stood. “Carson, you’re scaring her. Please stop.”

  He let go and she staggered on those ridiculous shoes.

  “I’m sorry for scaring you, Judy.” He stared into her face until the blonde nodded. “It is very important that you understand. Madeline is in protective custody. If you go telling people she’s here then I’m going to have to break the town budget in order to give her a police guard. That would be a bad thing, but not nearly as bad as letting someone hurt her because you can’t keep your mouth shut.”

  Judy swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Seeing how you’re the only one who knows she’s here, if word gets out I’ll know who told. I will charge you with endangering a witness.”

  “I won’t tell,” Judy whispered.

  “I’ll walk you out.” He gave Madeline a worried look as he took the blonde’s elbow and walked her out of the kitchen.

  Madeline picked up a pencil but couldn’t stop listening. A car door slammed and the engine revved. A few moments later he returned to the kitchen. He scrubbed his hands in the sink.

  “I’m sorry,” Madeline said. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble with your girlfriend.”

  Carson groaned. “She is not my girlfriend.”

  Judy sure looked and acted like a girlfriend.

  “She kept house for me. I let her go. If she opens her big mouth…”

  “Did you fire her because of me?”

  He plucked bits of straw from his T-shirt. “No.” His ears turned red.

  “You did, didn’t you?”

  “She’s a lousy cook.” He heaved a long breath. “Okay, I did fire her because of you.” He clapped a hand to his forehead. “God, I didn’t mean to scare her, but I hope I did. Judy Green is the worst gossip in the whole county.”

  Chapter Eight

  Madeline jabbed the pencil at her sketch. She had to get out of this house, get out of Carson’s life before she destroyed him. Maybe Nona would let her live in her house until she returned from her tour. Nona Redhawk was revered on the reservation, deemed one of the finest artists the Apache tribe had ever produced. No one bothered Nona’s property—it was treated as sacred land. One light pencil tic gave the sorrow-demon a hint of a smile. She wished she could do the same for Carson. He slumped on a chair, his nose practically in his coffee cup, giving new meaning to the word “bummed.”

  She stretched an arm across the table and touched Carson’s hand. “I am so sorry I got you into this.”

  To her bemusement, he smiled. “Not a person living can make me do anything I don�
��t want to do. I’m glad you’re here.”

  His words were so warm her fierce determination to leave faded. A warning thumped her belly.

  “Do you have some kind of form I can sign that gives you permission to search the ranch? I want you to find the money. You keep the finder’s fee.”

  He sat straighter and cocked his head.

  “I mean it. Considering all the bad luck the ranch has brought me I can only imagine what would happen with the finder’s fee.”

  He laid a big hand over hers. His palm was pleasantly rough. “Jill was an artist of sorts. Weaving wool and making her own dyes and such. She was nutty, too. I guess it’s an artist thing.”

  She had no idea what he meant, but who cared when his hand was warm atop hers. His gray eyes locked with hers. His smile was a treasure. “You’re saying I’m nutty?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am. No such thing as curses. Money is just money.”

  “I never said a word about curses. I mean, well, you know what I mean. It can’t be a good thing to profit from my father’s crimes. It would bug me. I’d rather you had it. It seems right that way.”

  His thumb stroked the tender inside of her wrist. He didn’t seem aware he was doing it, but she was more than aware—she was alive with the sensation.

  “Then we have a problem. As an officer of the law I can’t accept monetary gifts, rewards or bounties.”

  “Oh.” The sensation of his absent caress was snaking up her arm and getting perilously close to her heart. She gently withdrew her hand. “I guess that leaves Mr. Bannerman.”

  “Or the FBI. If they find it, nobody gets a reward. You need the money.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Before you decide, let’s find out what the finder’s fee actually is.”

  “No amount of money will change my mind.”

  “Let’s check anyway.” He nodded at the empty coffee cup beside her sketch pad. “How about a fresh pot?”

  “I can do that.”

  “Keep working. Coffee is one thing I never screw up.”