CLINT'S WILD RIDE

by Linda Winstead Jones

  As she began to speak tears filled her eyes. "Elaine was the seventh victim. She was murdered last year."

  "You knew her," Clint said gently.

  Mary nodded, and tears ran down her face. "We went to college together. Over the years we talked on the phone and e-mailed and exchanged Christmas cards. She was…" Her heart lurched as she began to sob quietly. "Sweet. Elaine was always quiet and shy and sweet."

  "I'm sorry."

  "That's not enough!" Now that the tears had started, they wouldn't stop. "Sorry. Everybody's sorry!" It was her own failing that made her so angry she couldn't focus properly on Clint's face. "I should've known. I should've been able to save her."

  "You couldn't know…"

  She slapped Clint on the chest. "He picked Elaine because she was expendable! No one missed her for days! I should have been there for her, I should have stopped him!" Again, she hit Clint on the chest. Her eyes were so filled with tears the man beneath her was a blur. She wanted to be strong, to be solid and emotionless, but she had started to sob and she couldn't stop. "She was my friend, and I wasn't there for her. No one was there for her. She was expendable. Someone should have been there for her. Someone should have known she was gone." Inside, she felt as if she were literally falling apart. "It's just not fair," she whispered hoarsely. "I couldn't save Rick, and I couldn't save Elaine, and … and…"

  Clint slowly sat up, wrapping his arms around her, and pulled her face to his shoulder. For a moment or two she fought him. She wasn't a little girl, she didn't want any man to take care of her. But he stroked her back and she gave in. She wept hard, she sobbed until she ached all over.

  She clutched Clint's shirt in her hands, held on tight while she cried. She hadn't cried in so long, she hated to cry! But she couldn't stop. She wept until she didn't have any tears left, and all the while Clint cradled her against his body and whispered soothing nonsense into her ear.

  When the tears stopped and the sobbing ended, Mary lifted her head to look Clint in the eye. She knew she was a mess, red-eyed and puffy. Her nose was running, her breath kept hitching.

  "Don't take this away from me," she whispered.

  "Do you know how hard it is for me to watch you do this?" He brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek. "Do you know how much it hurts to watch you put yourself in danger? And if…"

  "No ifs," she interrupted. She couldn't deal with the idea of a baby right now. No matter how unlikely the concept, no matter how frightening … it was a possibility she could not even consider.

  Clint didn't answer for a while. He touched her, he frowned. He muttered beneath his breath. "All right," he finally said. "I won't blow your cover. I won't yank the rug out from under you."

  She nodded, relieved and near tears all over again.

  "But darlin', you have to let me help."

  * * *

  Mary glared at him when they checked into the hotel near the Von Braun Center in Huntsville. Yes, he had requested connecting rooms again. If she didn't like it that was too bad. There was no way he could let her out of his sight—especially not now.

  She was working alone. The very idea gave him the shivers. If she was right about her serial killer being with the rodeo, she had exposed herself in the worst way. Without backup. Without authority. She insisted she was only gathering information, searching for evidence, but he didn't believe her. When she'd broken down in his arms, she'd revealed too much. This case was much too personal to her. She was way too close.

  Once they'd gotten back on the interstate, after he'd confronted Mary with the truth, her tears had dried and she'd spent the next hour staring out the passenger side window. Was she angry that he knew her secret? Or embarrassed that she'd broken down in front of him? He had a feeling Mary made damn sure she only cried when she was alone.

  They'd ignored his unplanned confession once they were back on the highway. Love? No way. He cared about Mary, he truly did, and there were moments he was certain she was an important part of his life and would be for some time to come. But love? No. He'd fallen into that trap too quickly once before and he'd been burned. Maybe the "I think" had saved him. Maybe Mary was going to be just as anxious to forget the moment as he was.

  He was surprised that she knocked on the connecting door before he had a chance to.

  When he opened the door, she walked into his room. "Not bad," she said, glancing around his room with a critical eye and refusing to look directly at him.

  "You're sure you don't want to go back to the ranch for a couple of days?" he said to her back as she walked toward the windows and pulled back the drapes to look down on the parking lot.

  "I need to be here to see who's around and who's not, just in case…" She faltered. "Just in case he took someone in Birmingham." She trembled gently and then tried to hide her telling reaction. Clint knew that if another woman died before Mary found her man she would blame herself for not finding him in time. She didn't need that horror, on top of so many others.

  He nodded. "All right. You're calling the shots here."

  Mary turned to face him, allowing the drapes to fall shut. She wasn't the cool, sexy woman he'd met in Shea's living room. He knew her too well to be fooled by the facade she'd built for herself. She was still sexy, in her jeans and white buttoned-up shirt, she still had a figure that would stop traffic. But inside she was anything but cool. The emotion she tried to hide simmered, warm and real, close to boiling over. That emotion made her vulnerable, and Special Agent Mary Paris did not want to be vulnerable. She didn't want anyone to know that she could be hurt.

  "I can call Boone and Dean," he said.

  "No," she insisted quickly. "No one else. Just you and me, Clint. I can't afford to stir things up, and if those brothers of yours are hanging around…"

  "I got it," he said. "You don't want to scare off your suspect. But I have to tell Dean something. If I don't, he might mention your presence here to someone who shouldn't know, and that would make a mess for you, I imagine."

  Mary remained stoic. Stubborn. "My supervisor knows that I'm here to gather information. I can do whatever I want to on my own time."

  "You're not just gathering information," he accused. He'd seen her reaction this morning, knew how very personal this was to her. She was the kind of woman who would do anything to get what she wanted, or to catch the man she hunted.

  "I am," she said softly. "All I need is something new to take to the bureau. Something solid. I just need to find something that will force them to take a good hard look at Brisco."

  "You really think it's Oliver, don't you." He couldn't imagine anyone he knew doing the things Mary's killer had done. Oliver was brusque at times, but he wasn't the kind of man who would do something so cruel, so violent.

  Mary nodded. "He's still my primary suspect. Did you know his ex-wife?"

  "No. They were divorced before I joined the rodeo. I never met her."

  There was a new twinkle in Mary's eyes, a light that was almost mischievous. "It was a very ugly divorce."

  "Lots of men go through ugly divorces and they don't turn into psychos."

  "I know that." Mary claimed a chair by the window and stretched out her blue-jeaned legs. He wanted to join her, pull her to her feet and drag her into this bed. He didn't want to talk about killers, evidence and danger. He wanted to make her forget.

  "Four years ago, the ex Mrs. Brisco showed up at the beginning of the tour," Mary said in a businesslike voice. "She raised some kind of a stink. I've asked around, but no one seems to remember exactly what she did. They only remember that Brisco was furious that she was hanging around."

  "Did you ask him about it?"

  She looked horrified. "Of course not!"

  Clint sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. "That's really not much in the way of evidence, Mary. Even I know that."

  "Kristin Brisco is blond, pretty and given to wearing fancy, dangling earrings."

  "Like the victims," Clint said.

&nbs
p; "Like the victims."

  "That seems pretty flimsy to me."

  "It is," Mary said. "But it's all I've got."

  No, that wasn't all she had. She had him, well and good. She had him wrapped around her little finger.

  That didn't mean he had to play her way. "All right. I'll watch your back. I'll see what I can find out as far as old gossip goes. But Mary, one thing has changed."

  She looked very suspicious. "What's that?"

  "You will no longer make yourself appear to be expendable."

  She pursed her lips but said nothing.

  "By nightfall, everyone will know that we're sleeping together."

  "Clint!"

  "We're involved, we're serious and if you went missing I would most definitely notice."

  "I could tell everyone you're imagining things."

  Clint grinned at her. "You could. Think anyone would buy it?" He expected a heated argument, but Mary accepted his edict with surprising grace.

  Maybe she was afraid he'd pull out the possibility of a baby as ammunition if she didn't back down gracefully.

  He knew she was right; it was a definite long shot. But they had been together without protection that one time, and it was a possibility.

  One that should have terrified him, but did not.

  * * *

  He smiled at the jeweler. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm looking for."

  The thin little jeweler, a man in his sixties, boxed the gold earrings.

  With a continuing smile, he counted out the bills. A small gift for Mary, that wouldn't be too far out of bounds. And she would love the earrings. They'd be beautiful on her, gold swinging from her delicate earlobes and catching the light as she walked. There was something so erotic about pale hair and gold earrings lying across his pillow. At the moment, he could very well imagine Mary's blond hair and these earrings on his pillow.

  When he left the store, he removed his purchase from the jewelry store box, dropped the earrings into his pocket without touching them and discarded the box in a nearby garbage can. Sitting inside his car, he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves before removing the earrings from his pocket. One could not be too careful.

  Hands properly covered, he carefully placed the earrings in a small, unmarked box. With his gloved hands, he dropped the new box into a plain brown paper bag, folded down the ends as if he were packing a lunch for himself, and then took his pen and wrote Mary on the side of the bag.

  She would be so pleased with the gift, and she would look so pretty in the new earrings.

  This week he would dance with her again. Perhaps on Friday, perhaps Saturday. He would wait for the proper opportunity to arise. And when the week was done and the rodeo packed up and left town, he'd take her away for a few days. He never had a problem taking a couple of days between shows if he needed the time. Mary would wear his gift, and he'd seduce her. He had a special place planned for her. A secluded place. Everything was arranged. They'd be alone.

  And when their long weekend was through, if she didn't love him as madly as he had come to love her … he'd kill her.

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  « ^ »

  Mary sat before the mirror in Sam's trailer, putting on her makeup. She was getting good at this; even Lewis wouldn't know her under all this greasepaint.

  Clint paced behind her while she got ready for Huntsville's opening night of the rodeo. True to his word, he'd stuck close to her since he'd discovered that she was working on her own. At the hotel, they slept in their own rooms, in their own beds, and they rarely discussed anything but the case. It was easier that way. That's what she tried to tell herself anyway.

  When they were at the rodeo site, Clint remained with her almost constantly. The only time he left her alone was when he had to be in the arena. He didn't kiss her, he didn't touch her and still she felt sure that everyone knew there was more to their relationship than met the eye.

  Why wasn't she angry? If any other man had dared to step in and play the white knight, she'd set him straight in a heartbeat. Mary Paris needed no one to take care of her, she didn't need or want a protector.

  But Clint wasn't any man. Wasn't that the truth! There was no one in the world quite like him.

  The trailer door opened and Eugene walked in. He was always the last to arrive, always the first to leave when the rodeo was over. "Hey, Mary," he called, swinging a small brown paper bag before him. "I think you have an admirer." He sniffed suspiciously at the bag, which she now saw had her name written crudely on one side. "Someone left this on the trailer steps for you. I hope it's from an admirer." He sniffed again. "And I really hope there's no manure in here. I swear, I can't smell a thing anymore."

  Eugene offered the bag to Mary, but Clint snatched it before she could.

  "Don't…" she said, too late. Clint whipped the bag open and glanced inside.

  He lifted his head and looked her in the eye. "No manure."

  She could call in the crime lab, have them study the contents of the bag and check for fingerprints other than Clint's and Eugene's. But she had nothing to indicate that the bag had been sent by the killer, and even if it had been—he'd been careful up until now. If he didn't leave prints and clues at the crime scene, he wasn't going to leave the lab anything to find on or in the bag.

  "Is your name Mary?" she asked, for Sam and Eugene's benefit, offering her hand, palm up.

  Clint reached into the bag and withdrew a small white cardboard box, which was less than two inches square and about half an inch high. Mary's heart crawled into her throat. She knew what was in that box, long before she took it from Clint and removed the lid.

  A pair of gold earrings sparkled on a square of cushioning cotton. For a second, she couldn't breathe. She'd believed all along that she was right, that the killer was here, hiding among the innocent rodeo personnel. This was her proof. Not only was he here, he'd noticed her. He'd targeted her.

  Was this a new twist? Or had he given gifts to his victims before?

  "Give me those," Clint said brusquely, snatching the box out of her hand.

  "Oh, my," Sam said with a wicked smile. "I'm guessing they're not from you."

  Clint glared momentarily at his friend, and Sam backed off. He was a smart man who knew how far to push and when to step back. Clint stuffed the small box deep in the pocket of his jeans.

  "They look expensive," Mary said as she finished with her makeup and studied the results in the mirror.

  "What difference does it make?" Clint snapped. "You're not going to wear them."

  Mary stood and grabbed her red wig, pulled it on as she glared up at Clint. "I might want to try them on this weekend, if we go out like we did last week."

  "No way," he said softly.

  "Clint Sinclair, the jealous type," Eugene said with a grin. "I never would've thought it."

  His friends didn't know why he was so damned and determined to keep her from wearing those earrings. No one could know.

  "We'll talk about it later," Mary said as she turned her back on them all. Usually she got ready and then left the trailer while the three men changed into their work clothes. Clint and Sam wore bright suspenders, baggy pants and cleats. Eugene wore one of three outrageous Elvis-like costumes.

  Her hand was on the doorknob when Clint stopped her with a clipped, "Wait."

  She turned her head. Sam and Eugene thought Clint was jealous, that this thing with them was some sort of innocent flirtation that would burn out before the summer tour was over. But in his eyes, Mary saw the truth. Clint was worried, he was scared. And this thing between them wasn't innocent and it wasn't a flirtation. She suspected it might never burn out.

  "Wait for me in the back while I change," he said softly. There was so much he couldn't say, with Sam and Eugene here. "We need to talk. Please," he added in a lowered voice.

  Mary was willing to do almost anything to catch the man who had killed Elaine. Almost anything. Clint made her realize that, standing there looking at
her this way. She wanted the killer caught, she wanted him dead.

  But she was no longer willing to put her life on the line in order to catch him.

  "Okay," she said, giving in too easily. She never gave in! She never let any man tell her what to do.

  But Clint had a good point. She'd gotten what she wanted with the delivery of those earrings. Proof. The killer was here, he was watching her.

  And she was next on his list.

  * * *

  "Just get here!" Clint snapped into the cell phone when his brother expressed dismay and reluctance at the initial request.

  "Tell me why," Boone said sensibly.

  Of course Boone was reluctant to leave Jayne. She was very pregnant, and Boone adored his wife and the little girl who would join them in a few weeks. Clint reminded himself of that as he said more calmly, "I can't. Not over the phone. I need you and I need Dean."

  "When?"

  "Now." From here, behind the chutes, he could see Mary as she worked the crowd on the mezzanine. He'd told her to stay in plain sight. Would she listen to him? What would he do if she didn't?

  "Okay," Boone said. "Jayne's mother has been wanting to come stay awhile and help us get ready for the baby. I'll tell her to come on. That'll free me up for a few days."

  Clint breathed a sigh of pure relief. "Thanks. You'll call Dean?" He only had a few minutes.

  "Sure."

  Clint ended the phone call and turned around. Oliver Brisco stood just a few feet away, watching. Listening? He'd been so sure, once upon a time, that Oliver couldn't possibly be guilty of rape and murder. Now, looking at the man, he wondered.

  "Sinclair," Brisco said, stepping forward.

  Almost automatically, Clint looked up to the mezzanine where Mary worked. She was presently talking to a little kid who was probably no more than four. No one who watched would know that she was an FBI agent searching for a serial killer, that she was capable of more than just about any other woman, and most men.