by Diana Layne
“Yeah. Chicken’s good.”
She shook her head. He was a tough sale on junk food in a can. “I’ll take your meds with us.”
They opted to eat at a dine-in restaurant, seems Ben truly had a thing against all junk food. Taking their phones inside, it was quick draw McGraw on who had them up to their ears at the ready once the waitress seated them at a cozy booth and took their drink order.
MJ noted she had a text message but delayed checking it until she called Angelina. While she was talking, Ben excused himself. After she hung up, Ben was still outside on the phone so she checked her text message. She stared in puzzlement. It was a picture of an old guy, who looked to be sleeping.
But MJ knew without reading the accompanying message that the man wasn’t sleeping at all. No, he had to have been quite dead when the picture was taken.
“MJ.”
She snapped her gaze up to Ben, who stood at the table, a grim look on his face.
She knew then. The picture. A senator.
“Another one?” she asked.
His head barely moved. “Dead.”
Chapter 13
“Cy, get back in the car. It’ll be safer for you there.” Talking to a dog. Tasha shook her head and wondered how she got through her days before the little mutt. After his potty break, she helped him into the car, poured water into his personalized ceramic bowl, set it on the floorboard and fluffed up his pillow. When he settled on the pillow, she covered him with his fuzzy blanket. The temperature outside hovered below freezing. Unseasonably warm this time of year for southern Montana, but the little dog would still get chilled without his warm blanket.
With a pat on his head, she said, “Sorry, boy, Matt’s not going to want to see me. I have no idea what he’d do with you.” With the dog settled, she pulled on her hiking boots and strapped her Bowie knife to her belt under her down jacket before checking the clip in her pistol.
She’d tucked her car under low-hanging tree branches off the main trail leading into Matt’s property. No doubt Matt knew the second she drove onto his property. Although she hadn’t seen a camera, he would have some sort of alarm system rigged. Probably had other surprises rigged, too, which was another reason it was best Cy stayed in the car. She didn’t want him skewered on a sharp stick from some booby trap.
No, she’d parked the car out of sight in case she’d picked up a tail or if someone was smart enough to figure out she might pay Matt a visit. Doubtful, but it never hurt to be too safe. Using her knife, she hacked down a skinny sapling and trimmed the branches to use as a walking stick. It would also be good to probe for triggers for booby traps.
The trail went up. Not straight up, but a sharp enough incline that hiking for twenty minutes in the thin, cold air had her working harder to breathe. After a sharp turn in the road she found the first trap. With steep hills growing to small mountains on her left side and thick underbrush and trees on the right, there wasn’t much of a chance for a vehicle to miss driving into the pit trap.
Ed used a pit trap when he trained them. Easy enough to avoid if you were alert to the signs and were on foot or horseback. If you were on foot, like she was, you could stay alert for traps. And if you were riding, horses, intelligent creatures, tended to sense danger. But vehicles couldn’t, and someone driving along this road would drive right into the trap.
Gingerly, she knelt at the edge, pushing debris aside so she could peel back the heavy plastic sheeting. Unlike Ed’s, which was simply a hole dug in the ground to use for training, Matt’s pit followed the original design with sharp pointy sticks at the bottom. Most likely covered with animal dung so if you fell in and the sticks didn’t kill you, the infection would. Not surprising. After their last encounter, there was no doubt Matt would become quite the recluse. And who could blame him?
The next trap she found was known in the biz as a Malaysian Hawk. A heavy log hidden and tied back among two trees. Once triggered it would swing down to smash into the person standing in its path. Anticipating the trap, she triggered it with her walking stick and flung herself on the ground. Had she been standing in the log’s path, she’d have been flattened against the mountain. Nothing like near-death, even though she’d been expecting it, to get your heart pumping to burn away the chill.
Her progress was slow as she constantly scanned the area for more triggers, plus she was tired and her vision blurry so she constantly double-checked herself. She worried about the time as the sun sank lower in the west. Would it be dark before she found Matt’s cabin? She knew better than to try to speed up or let down her guard. And yet it was tempting. She walked another mile without finding another trap, until the hairs raised on her arms. She stopped. Danger.
A person or a trap?
She pulled her gun out of the holster and did a slow three-sixty turn. No sign of a person. Still holding her gun at the ready, she peered into the underbrush, on the side of the trail, looking for triggers for another trap. There, ahead, a rock propped by a tree. It looked innocent enough, maybe one that rolled down the mountain, but if her hunch was right, there’d be a couple of sticks under it to make it into a fulcrum. She moved forward and cautiously examined it and yep, found two sticks. She looked up. She bet up close to the top there was a pile of rocks on a platform that was set to slide down the side of the hill and crush whoever was on the trail. Wouldn’t be her. Not this time.
But she was irritated enough that she ought to set that rock slide in motion anyway. She expected Matt to already be there, was he not paying attention? Was he gone? Otherwise, why string this out? She had things to do. And she was freaking damn tired, her head was spinning, and her body was ready to crumple into an exhausted heap. She’d driven thousands of miles in less than a week, and she had over a thousand miles to go before she met up with MJ.
Irritation raveling through her, she moved forward and stomped on the two sticks and skipped backward as a precaution. If her guess was right, he’d rigged the rocks up ahead to slide down so a person walking forward on the path would be in the right place to be caught unaware in an avalanche.
A rumbling on the side of the hill drew her eyes up. Just as she thought. A nice huge pile of rocks sliding, rolling and crashing down to the trail in front of her. It was quite a sight.
“Did you have to trip the rock slide? Do you know how many days it took me to haul those rocks up that hill?” The question was accompanied with the barrel of a .357 at the base of her neck. Not that she could see it, but she knew what Matt liked, knew that he liked to handload his own ammo for the revolver.
She was too tired to jump at his sudden appearance. As a precaution, she slowly raised her hands. Didn’t want to give him a reason to shoot. “It’s not like you have anything else to do, you can rebuild. If you didn’t want me to trip it, you should have shown up sooner.”
“I kept hoping you’d get the hint you’re not wanted. Stubborn as ever, I see.”
As tempted as she was to turn and face him, she didn’t move. He did have that gun aimed at her, and as angry as he was at her the last time they’d been together, she wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t pull the trigger.
“What do you want?” he added, his tone abrupt, annoyed.
No, ‘why are you here?’ Of course, the way they last parted, he figured she wouldn’t be here unless she wanted something. Being a hermit hadn’t dulled his brains.
She’d been debating how to best approach him, and nothing had come to her. Which was irritating, she wasn’t used to not being in control, not having command of every situation. But this situation was unlike any she’d ever experienced. Best just to blurt out the truth.
“I need your help.”
He holstered his gun. She lowered his hands, hopeful he’d at least consider her plea.
Until he said, “No. Thanks for stopping by. Sorry you couldn’t stay longer.” He spun her around to send her back the same way she came.
The quick spin was too much for her body. Her vision turned black, her hea
d felt like it was floating, detached from her body. To her complete horror, she realized she was going to–
“Tasha!”
He caught her before she hit the ground. She heard him ask, “What the hell’s wrong with you?” before everything went dark.
When she awoke, she was on a sofa, covered with a blanket, inside a log cabin. Staring at the rough-hewn walls, she tried to remember how she got there...and why the sun was shining? Shouldn’t it be almost dark?
The sound of a door opening drew her attention.
“Come on, dog, get inside.”
Nails clattered on the hardwood floor, heading her way. Next thing she knew Cy jumped on her.
“Cy? Where’d you come from?” The wiggly little dog pounced on her, trying to lick her face. She sat up to save herself from a doggie bath.
“Oh, look, Cinderella awakes.”
She glanced at Matt. “That’s Sleeping Beauty.”
“Whichever.” He shrugged and took off his jacket, hanging it on a wall-mounted coat rack. “You’ve been asleep a long damn time.”
She’d started to grasp it was morning and she slept all night. His words confirmed her suspicions. “Guess I can’t party like I used to.”
“You’re getting old.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.” Hadn’t she just thought that recently? “How’d you know about Cy?”
“The dog? That his name?” He walked toward a wood-fueled stove and took down two tin cups from a shelf. He poured coffee from an old-fashioned coffee maker resting on the stove.
“Short for Cyanide.”
“Ah, killer dog. Yeah, he did try to take my hand off until we came to an understanding.”
“Did you hurt him?” She ran her hands over the dog, feeling for injuries.
“Please. I don’t hurt animals. I got him for you, didn’t I?” He walked over and handed her a cup.
“Thanks.”
“You mumbled something about a dog in your sleep,” he said in answer to her earlier question. “He slept with you most of the night.”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
“Been running too long on no sleep?”
“Yes, and I have further to go. Thanks for lending me your sofa. I didn’t mean to be so much trouble.”
“Woman, the second you stepped foot on my property you were trouble.”
She blew on the hot brew, then took a small sip. She used the moment to gather her courage. She desperately needed his help, and if he refused...well, she’d have to handle it if he refused. MJ might have to help, although Tasha was reluctant to go that route, revealing the truth to MJ would be one thing, dragging her to another country when she had a toddler to raise was entirely different.
Matt settled into a chair at a small table, patiently waiting. Of course, he planned to say no, so he had nothing but patience. If only he didn’t blame her for the death of his wife.
“I do need your help.”
“In case you forgot . . . from your passing out and all . . . I answered this question yesterday. No.”
“If not for me, then for Niko. He’s in trouble.”
Matt paused with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. “Sounds like a Vista job.”
She shook her head. “No. He took off from Vista to go on a job on his own.”
“Off on his own, where?”
“Russia.”
Matt choked on his coffee. Gasping, he said, “And you really think I’d go back there? Woman, you really are crazy.”
His refusal was making her desperate. “What about that Christian forgiveness thing?”
“This has nothing to do with whether or not I’ve forgiven you. This has to do with I’m not going back to Russia.”
“But, you’re his best chance. If they’ve got him in prison, you’ve been there. You know what it’s like.”
“Yes. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like is exactly why I’m not going.”
“Why? What do you have here?” She waved a hand around to encompass their surroundings. “You live alone in the middle of godforsaken nowhere, best I can tell you don’t even have any pets.” What do you have to live for? She let the unspoken question hang in the air.
“I happen to like living alone. I happen to like living period, whether you approve of my situation or not. I don’t like torture or putting my life on the line. Not anymore. The answer is no.”
She drew in a shaky breath, surprised that she was on the verge of tears. She really must be tired. She never cried.
Matt got up to refill his coffee, seeming to know she was struggling to keep herself together.
When she could speak again, she said, “If you won’t go with me, will you at least tell me the best way to rescue him?”
Setting the coffee pot down, he said, “Now, that, I can do.”
* * *
Dead. The word still hung between Ben and MJ.
“Where?” she asked.
“Not far from here. In Texas terms anyway. Colorado.”
MJ rubbed her temples and considered options. “Obviously Jeff doesn’t trust me. . .”
“Can you blame him?”
She pierced him with her stare. “Hell, yeah, I can blame him. He sent me on this crazy chase.”
The waitress brought their drinks, promised to be back in a moment to take their food order. MJ dumped three packets of sugar into her tea and stirred furiously until she noticed Ben watching her. “What?”
“Figures a junk food junky would be a sugar freak, too.”
“Are you always such a–” she’d been going to say “prick” but then she watched him pour four packets of sugar into his tea and changed it to “hypocrite?”
“What’s hypocritical? I only stated the obvious.”
“It’s okay for you . . . oh, never mind.” She pushed her phone toward him. “Here.”
He picked it up and turned it in his hands. “What?”
The screen had gone black by then. “Touch any key to bring up the picture.”
“Pic–” His puzzled frown changed to a wide-eyed stare. “The victim I would assume? And a message to check your email? Can you check it on your phone?”
“Yeah, but there’s only a message with an attachment, probably more pictures which I can’t see on my email through the phone.”
“You need to upgrade your phone. Hang on,” he said and moved to slide out of his booth until the waitress appeared and stopped him.
Hang on? MJ cocked her head. That sounded so . . . familiar. Yeah, people said ‘hang on’ all the time, but the way he said it. Hang on, MJ. Those eyes. Her gaze shot to his face, only to find him studying her as well.
“What about you, ma’am?” The waitress drew MJ out of her reverie. Oh! He wasn’t studying her. He was waiting on her to order.
She picked the most fat-laden junk food item on the menu, a bacon double cheeseburger. When Ben responded with nothing more than a look of censure and ordered a healthy meal of grilled chicken and green vegetables, she stuck out her tongue.
He was still smiling when the waitress left, but he offered no comment on her food choice. Instead, he said, “As I was saying, I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have my computer in the car. I need the keys please.”
She spent the next few minutes until he returned studying the picture on her phone. Why would Tasha send her something so macabre? Had she taken pictures of every one of the men?
Ben returned with his notebook computer and before she could ask him if he knew the restaurant had WiFi, he pulled out a little gadget and plugged it into a port. “Have Internet will travel,” he said.
“You’re so handy with the little gadgets aren’t you?” she asked, thinking of the GPS device he hid on her Mustang.
“Technology’s a wonderful thing.” He typed in what must have been a password before he offered her the computer. “Pull up your email and let’s see what she sent.”
With her email ope
n, she clicked on the attachment Tasha sent. “Whoa.” As she scrolled through the file of pictures, labeled, “And they all fall down,” the sense of unreal struck her. The men all looked to be peacefully sleeping. No wonder the deaths weren’t labeled suspicious.
She passed the computer back to Ben. “She’s good,” Ben said after looking at the pictures. “Warped sense of humor, too.”
“That can be taken so many ways,” MJ said. “What do you mean?”
“And they all fall down.”
MJ tilted her head up to stare blankly at the ceiling, trying to decide what she missed. “Okay, I give,” she admitted after a minute of drawing a blank. She brought her gaze back to Ben. “Why do you find that humorous?”
“Ring around the rosy?”
At her continued blank stare he said, “You know the nursery rhyme?”
“No, I don’t know. I’m into fairy tales, remember? So this nursery rhyme you’re theorizing she’s referencing means she’s warped because . . . ?”
He sighed, then recited, “Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”
He knew yet another nursery rhyme? She pinned him with a stare. “I’m worried about you.”
“I have sisters, remember.”
“And you obviously spent too much time with them.” But once she said it, she had the thought that it couldn’t hurt for a man to know how women think. When he didn’t rise to her bait, though, she asked, “You think ‘we all fall down’ is relevant to ‘they all fall down’ in what way?”
The look on his face said he was reaching for patience, reminding her of herself when she was dealing with one of Angelina’s stubborn streaks. MJ wasn’t sure she liked that comparison.
“Some say the nursery rhyme refers to the bubonic plague, and do not ask me for the intricacies of that theory.”
“And the ‘we all fall down’ refers to the people dying?”
“Now she gets it.”
“Watch it.”
“Obviously Tasha’s referencing these guys as a plague to be wiped out.”
MJ shrugged, finding the theory too intricate just to kill someone. Then again, they were talking about Tasha, and something drove her to these murders in the first place. Was it something important enough to create such a ritual? Or was it an idea that evolved with each subsequent murder?
