Wyoming Bold wm-3

by Diana Palmer

  Carson assumed a surprised expression. “Who, me? I have wings. You can’t see them, but they’re there.”

  “Angelic, you ain’t,” Tank said.

  Carson made a face. “I know. But as far as she’s concerned—” he jerked his head toward the hospital bed inside the room “—I am. You’re one lucky man.”

  Tank flushed. “I know it.”

  “I’ll keep her safe. Nobody’s getting past me this time,” he added.

  “If you need help, call.”

  Carson nodded. “Tell Rourke what I said in the room. He’ll take it from there.”

  “I’m telling Cody, too.”

  “The more the merrier.” He smiled enigmatically. “Isn’t it fun, putting a burr under the saddle of a murderer like this guy?”

  “You know, it actually is. I just hope we can catch him before he comes after her again,” he voiced his fear. “He meant her to die this time. And there are poisons we couldn’t detect.”

  “I am now your new food taster,” Carson said. “I’d prefer to test steaks, but I’ll do gelatin in a pinch. She’ll be fine.”

  “Watch your own back, too,” Tank said.

  “Always.”

  * * *

  HE CALLED CODY and met him in a grocery store parking lot.

  “I don’t even trust my own damned phone anymore,” Tank said. “I think everything’s bugged.”

  “It might be. No cause to apologize for being careful. What’s up?”

  “Carson mentioned in the hospital room that we were looking toward Texas for answers in this case. His idea is that the man’s plan to kill Merissa flubbed, so that’s put him off his stride. Now, he knows we suspect a Texas connection, although he can’t know just how much we’ve already found out. That’s going to panic him.”

  Cody nodded. “Not a bad strategy, so long as everyone’s properly guarded. It could go down hard, if he loses himself in revenge.”

  “I know,” Tank said heavily. “I don’t want her hurt. I don’t want anybody hurt.”

  “Neither do I.” Cody was pensive. “What if it turns his attention back to Texas and he leaves town, though? It does lessen our hopes of capturing him.”

  “It also lessens Merissa Baker’s chances of meeting a sudden and terrible death,” Tank added grimly.

  Cody relented. “Yes. It does. My idea would be to alert the authorities in Texas and mention this to them.”

  “That’s a very good idea. I’ll do it as soon as I get home.”

  “If I can help, in any way...”

  “You’re already helping, as a lawman and a friend,” Tank said, clapping the other man on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

  “Hey, you’re my buddy,” he teased.

  “And I’m yours. You can have anything on the place except Diamond Bob.”

  Diamond Bob was the famous herd sire who had his own air-conditioned, heated barn.

  “Aww, darn,” Cody said, snapping his fingers. “And I do love a good steak...”

  “You bite your tongue,” Tank retorted.

  “Just kidding.” Cody laughed. “Drive safely.”

  “I always do. See you later.”

  * * *

  TANK CALLED HAYES Carson in Texas and told him what was going on. Hayes approved.

  “It just might do the trick,” he told Tank. “If this is the same guy who tried to have both of us hit, and who put your woman friend in the hospital, panicking him in this direction would be mostly fatal for him. We know what to look for this time.”

  “I just hope we can catch him,” Tank said heavily. “It wears on the nerves, especially when a woman’s involved.”

  “I know that feeling. If we can do anything on our end, let me know. I’ll fill Rick Marquez in on what’s happening. He told me about the direction the case is taking and the connections. He’s still chasing down leads on the prosecutor’s murder, now that you’ve given him a new angle to look at. He said he loves the chance to solve that case. He knew the guy from when he was a public defender. Damned shame.”

  “Yes. Too many people have been hurt already. Thanks for the help.”

  “I haven’t done much, but you’re welcome. Keep us in the loop.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  * * *

  THEY’D PUT AS many safety precautions into effect as they could. Clara still insisted on staying at the cabin, and they couldn’t move her. But Tank did have a cowboy stay in the spare bedroom, with a gun, just in case.

  Merissa got better very quickly. She and Tank had a nice meal together in the hospital for Christmas, complete with turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce. Clara joined them for it. Two days later, the doctor agreed to release her, and Tank and Carson drove her home.

  She and Clara had a tearful reunion. “Oh, it’s so good to be home!” Merissa almost wept as she hugged her mother.

  “So good to have you here, my darling,” Clara enthused.

  “I wish I hadn’t messed up Christmas for us,” Merissa said miserably.

  “We’ll have a late one. I haven’t even taken the tree down.” Clara laughed.

  “I guess I can go home now?” the cowboy, Rance, asked.

  “No!” several voices echoed.

  Rance put up both hands and laughed. “No problem! I like it here. She—” he pointed at Clara “—can cook!”

  “So can Merissa,” Tank said with a smile. “She’s in a class of her own.”

  “I’ll prove that to you in a day or two, when I get stronger,” she promised him.

  He grinned and bent to kiss her warmly. “Don’t get off your guard. We have to talk.”

  She nodded, her eyes full of wonder. “As soon as you like.”

  “Just a few loose ends to tie up first,” he said. He motioned to Carson to go with him. “I’ll see you first thing in the morning. If you need me...”

  “I’ll call,” she promised.

  He stared at her with such passion that she blushed. He walked back, scooped her up gently and kissed her. “See you in the morning.”

  She laughed. “Okay!”

  One thing he was certain of as he walked out the door. That woman was his. And she knew it.

  * * *

  HE PHONED ROURKE as soon as he finished telling the family about how things stood at the cabin now that Merissa was back home.

  “I was going to call Marquez myself, but we’ve had a lot going on, with Merissa being released from the hospital. I did tell Hayes Carson, but Marquez should be briefed on everything, too. Since you know him,” he asked, “do you think you could give him a call for me?”

  Rourke chuckled. “I’ll call him right now,” he added.

  “Let’s hope there’s some good news.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  * * *

  ROURKE CALLED BACK a few hours later, from near the Baker house. The cowboy who’d been watching Clara had returned to the ranch. Rourke had released him, and he was anxious to get back to his regular chores, despite Clara’s wonderful cooking. Carson was working around the Kirk ranch, keeping an eye on the family.

  “Sorry it took so long. Marquez was in court,” Rourke said.

  “I figured he wasn’t available or I’d have heard from you sooner. Are Clara and Merissa okay?”

  “They’re fine. They were having lunch just before I left to check the surveillance units Carson put up. If I get back in time, I’ll get homemade chicken salad.” He laughed. “Okay, here’s what Marquez was able to find out...”

  “Is that line secure?”

  “Is it ever,” Rourke said grimly. “I’m halfway up a tree talking on a throwaway phone. Yours is a prepaid. No way he’s got access to these. And just in case he does, I’m running a scrambler on the line.”

  “Devious.”

  “I work in covert ops,” Rourke reminded him. “This is what Marquez told me. That watch was made by a Swiss manufacturer. It’s a custom one-of-a-kind watch. It was a birthday present to the assistant D.A. from his very wealthy wife
.”

  “So the guy couldn’t fence it,” Tank guessed.

  “Very good. It could have been disassembled, jewels removed, gold melted down, but the watch was unique. My guess, and Marquez’s, is that the killer liked the prestige of wearing a watch that was worth more than the price of a new custom Jaguar XK. Same thing for the shirt, which was couture, hand-painted and cost a mint. So he likes the shirt and the watch and starts wearing them. It’s stupid, but brilliant people do stupid things. He wears them to Hayes Carson’s drug bust and is photographed wearing them. Later, he wears them to your ambush and you saw him wearing them. Somebody, probably his employer, goes nuts when he realizes his man has been advertising a killing that could put them both in the slammer for life and there’s a photograph to prove it. So the repentant employee goes after Hayes, tries to have him killed, but hires the wrong man and the gunman misses. Thus the kidnapping, which would certainly have led to Hayes’s murder except for some great escape work by Hayes’s fiancée, whom he just married.”

  “The photograph would have been on the computer that was in Hayes’s office that was erased by a cohort of the would-be killer,” Tank finished for him.

  “Most likely the woman accomplice was the one who worked for the so-called surveillance tech who bugged the houses up here,” Rourke guessed. “Then when they realized the photograph could be recovered, they took the computer and killed the techie who was trying to do the recovery.”

  “Sloppy, messy job all around,” Tank muttered.

  “Isn’t it, though?” Rourke mused. “To continue, then he realizes that you got a great look at him and you’re another loose end he can’t afford to ignore. Our guy is a pro. He’s great at disguises, knows his poisons...knows his way around the underworld. But I’ve worked with some guys like that who were skilled at covert ops but lousy at strategy and tactics. Maybe in the past he’s had someone else telling him what to do and how to do it, and he was great at it. Now, maybe he’s on his own and finding that he’s not covering all his bases like he used to. Or maybe he has a drug habit and it’s getting out of control, so he’s sloppy all of a sudden.”

  “He didn’t try to hit the two federal agents or Cash Grier’s secretary,” Tank pointed out.

  “They may have been further down the list. Take out the biggest risk first—Hayes Carson and his computer. Then you, because you could actually connect him with Charro Mendez and lead you back to his boss if you talked to the right people.”

  “Lot of maybes there,” Tank pointed out.

  “True.”

  “What else did Marquez tell you?”

  “They’ve tentatively traced our would-be assassin to a sleazy politician with purported ties to a drug cartel. He’s a state senator. But he’s running for a high political office. The elderly senior U.S. senator from Texas has died suddenly of what they assumed were natural causes. That’s being reinvestigated as we speak. There’s also a serious rival for the unexpired term who just landed himself in the hospital with an undiagnosed illness.”

  “Did they look for poison in his bloodstream?” Tank drawled.

  “They hadn’t, but thanks to Marquez, they’re going to.”

  “You think there’s a tie to this politician?” Tank asked.

  “Now, there’s the really interesting thing. Among the cases the prosecutor was investigating was one involving this sleazy politician. Bribery, misuse of funds, drug distribution connections, that sort of thing.”

  “Did he have evidence?”

  “I think he might have. But the data in his computer was destroyed. And I mean destroyed. The hard drive was shattered. All the paperwork on the case disappeared. Seems the prosecutor had hired a temp to sub for his sick secretary just before he was killed and all the records went missing.”

  “There would have been police reports, investigator’s notes,” Tank began.

  “I’m coming to that. All vanished. It’s just the word of the police officers and detectives. Know what that’s worth in court without a paper trail?”

  “Damn!”

  “Marquez’s language was much more colorful,” he said. “Anyway, there’s nothing that can connect the politician to any of this. Except...”

  “Except?”

  “It seems he has an enforcer with expensive tastes. The enforcer, a man named Richard Martin, was seen wearing a paisley shirt just like the one the prosecutor’s wife gave him.”

  “Don’t tell me—he was also wearing a watch that plays Joan Jett.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Now what’s the bad news?”

  “Same as before. No paper trail. Nobody who saw him could identify him except maybe you and Hayes Carson and the feds. He’d have to be nuts to go after the feds, by the way. Or maybe he thought about importing some overseas talent for those. Oh, and Cash Grier’s cute little secretary with the photographic memory—she saw him. They’re still trying to tie in her father’s attempted murder with the poisoned would-be assassin.”

  “Somebody had better be watching her back, just in case,” Tank said grimly.

  “I know things about her father that I can’t tell you,” Rourke said.

  “The minister?” Tank asked.

  “He wasn’t always a minister. Leave it at that. Besides, she works for Cash Grier. I know career criminals who’d think three times before they even considered tangling with him. He may be a small-town police chief now, but those old skills aren’t rusty. He also has a network of, shall we say, off-the-radar friends and associates. Some of them are reputedly wanted by a number of world governments.”

  “Very interesting.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” Rourke’s voice became serious. “Marquez said that the sleazy politician’s enforcer has a reputation for extreme violence, especially in tight corners. We can’t let our guards down for a moment.”

  “Clara and Merissa have to come over to the house and stay with us,” Tank said firmly.

  “I told them that. Merissa was willing at first. Now, she’s not. She thinks they’ll be all right at the cabin. Clara says if Merissa wants to stay, so will she.”

  “Don’t even let them argue with you about it. Pick them up and carry them out to the car if you have to.”

  “It’s a truck, but I take your meaning.”

  “Get Merissa’s computer and any sentimental items you can carry, as well. Just in case he has any ideas about making a bad situation worse.”

  “I’ll do it right now.”

  “Watch yourself.”

  “I always do. Take your own advice. Talk to you later.” He cut the connection.

  * * *

  TANK TOOK HIS brothers into the kitchen, turned on the mixer in spite of Mavie’s exasperation, shooed her out of the room and told them what had happened.

  “Things are getting very dangerous,” Cane remarked.

  “Yes, they are,” Mallory agreed. “Carson set up his system to do facial recognition, and we pinpointed a man today with a criminal record who ran when we tried to question him.”

  Tank felt the danger. “I wouldn’t have put you two in the middle of this, or the wives, or your son,” he told Mallory, “for anything.”

  “It’s worth the danger if we can keep you alive,” Cane said tightly.

  “It’s Merissa I’m most worried about,” Tank confessed.

  “She’s safe for now, though,” Mallory told him. “Rourke won’t let anything happen to her or her mother.”

  “That’s not all.” Tank shoved his hands into his jean pockets. “Something’s got me worried.”

  “What?”

  “The trail he left in the snow, the one that led to the highway.”

  “Old hunter’s trick is to double back on a trail,” Mallory mentioned.

  “If he was laying a false trail deliberately, he’d make sure we saw it. So where do you think he’s been hiding?”

  Mallory’s face was hard as rock. “In the cabin itself.”

  Tank felt his breath catch in his
throat. “Merissa and Clara!” he exclaimed, fear in his expression.

  * * *

  HE OPENED HIS cell phone and called Rourke. The phone rang and rang. But Rourke didn’t answer.

  “Something’s wrong,” Tank said. “I’m going over there.”

  “So are we,” Cane and Mallory said together.

  “No,” Tank replied emphatically. “You stay here. I’ll call all the cowboys to stand around the house with loaded weapons. Carson’s going with me.”

  “Be careful,” Mallory said tautly.

  “You’re the only little brother we’ve got,” Cane added and tried to smile.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Tank started out the door. He had Darby Hanes on the line before he reached it, slinging out orders as he headed to his truck.

  “Carson!” he called to the dark-haired man on the porch.

  Carson looked up from his laptop.

  “Let’s go. Right now!”

  Carson put the laptop down and ran to the truck. “What is it?”

  “You can eavesdrop.” He phoned Cody Banks. “I’ve lost communication with my man who’s guarding Merissa and Clara. How soon can you get there with a couple of deputies?”

  “I’ll meet you at the front porch,” Cody said, and hung up.

  “We think he laid a deliberate trail away from where he was,” Tank said through his teeth. “He’s in the damned cabin! Probably in the attic. We never even checked it!”

  Carson groaned. “What a damned lack of foresight!”

  “I just pray we’re in time,” Tank said, and stood down on the accelerator.

  * * *

  WHEN THEY GOT to the cabin, the sheriff’s car, a state police car, an ambulance and a fire truck were sitting on the road that led to it, sirens and lights just dying down.

  “What happened?” Tank asked, trying to fight down terror as he joined Cody Banks at his squad car.

  “He’s got the women,” Cody said in a hunted tone. “He won’t negotiate. He says he’s through trying to do it covertly. Now he’s just going to kill them.”

  “They aren’t dead?” Tank asked.

  “Not yet,” Cody replied.

  Tank let out the breath he’d been holding. “Then what do we do?”

  “I don’t have a hostage negotiator,” Cody told them. “The police department in Catelow has one, but he’s back East on a long Christmas holiday with his folks. The state police sent us a man who did it for Houston P.D. a few years back.” He indicated the man, who nodded. “Right now we’re waiting for the utility companies.”