Lawman Protection

by Cindi Myers

  The dust was beginning to settle around two black-and-white Cruisers by the time Emma parked the Jeep a few yards behind them. As she climbed out of her vehicle, she focused on the mass of wreckage behind the cops: the tail and one wing of a small plane pointed skyward, the nose crumpled against the prairie. She took a couple of pictures with her digital camera then, aware of at least two cops glaring at her, strode forward with all the confidence of a journalist who knows she has every right to be where these men didn’t want her.

  “Stop right there, ma’am.” A rangy officer in a long-sleeved brown shirt, khakis and a buff Stetson stepped out to meet her. A blond-and-black police dog stalked at his side, golden eyes fixed on her.

  “Hello, Officer. I’m Emma Wade, from the Denver Post.”

  “You need to turn around and leave, Ms. Wade. This is a crime scene.”

  “Oh?” She directed her gaze over his shoulder, to where the captain and two other officers were huddled at the door of the crashed plane. “What kind of crime? Was the plane carrying drugs? Illegal aliens? Some other contraband? Did anyone survive the crash? Do you know who the plane belongs to?” She took out her reporter’s notebook, pen poised. She didn’t really expect him to answer any of her queries, but sometimes interrogating men who were more used to assuming the role of interrogator yielded interesting results.

  He glanced over his shoulder toward the plane, then back at her, his expression tense. “No comment,” he said.

  “Then I’d better talk to someone else.” She started forward, but he put out his arm to stop her.

  “You really need to leave,” he said.

  “After I’ve driven all the way out here?” She folded her arms across her chest. “I’ll stay.”

  “Then you’ll have to wait over there.” He motioned in the direction of her Jeep.

  Clearly, he wasn’t going to let her any closer. Better to wait him out. “All right.” She replaced the notebook in her purse. “Tell Captain Ellison I have some questions for him when he’s finished.”

  She turned and walked back to her vehicle, not in any hurry. Once there, she rummaged in the glove compartment until she found a pair of binoculars. She leaned against the Jeep and trained the binocs on the wreckage.

  Debris littered the area around the crash—chunks of fiberglass and metal, a tire, a plastic cup, the remains of a wooden crate. She focused in on the crate and made out the words Fragile and Property of— Property of whom?

  She scanned to the right of the crate and froze when she found herself looking into a pair of eyes the color of hot fudge, underneath craggy brows.

  Angry brown eyes, she corrected herself, that belonged to Captain Graham Ellison. He glared directly at her and she gasped and drew back as he stalked toward her.

  By the time he reached her Jeep, she’d lowered the binoculars and was doing her best not to look intimidated, though the site of the big bear of a man glaring at her was enough to make a guilty person tremble.

  But she hadn’t done anything wrong, she reminded herself. “Hello, Captain,” she said. “What can you tell me about this plane crash?”

  “Why did you follow me out here?” he asked.

  “I’m a reporter. It’s what I do— I track down stories.” She took out her notebook and pen. “When do you think the plane crashed? It looks recent, considering the broken tree limbs are still green, and the scar in the earth looks fresh.”

  “So now you’re an expert?” Irritation radiated from him like heat, but she was no longer nervous or afraid. His intensity excited her, both professionally and—she wasn’t going to analyze this now, only note that it was true—personally. Being attracted to Captain Ellison might complicate things a little, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t do her job.

  “Not an expert,” she said. “But I’ve been a crime reporter for a while now. Who does the plane belong to? Do you know?”

  “Whoever he is, he’s dead.”

  “Oh.” Her pen faltered, leaving a scribble on the notebook. “I suppose it would be difficult for anyone to survive a crash like that.”

  “Oh, he survived,” Ellison said. “Then someone put a bullet in him.”

  She swallowed hard. She didn’t like this aspect of her work, dealing with violence. But finding justice for victims often began with exposing the particulars of the crime. “How was he killed?”

  “He was shot. In the chest.”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “Who do you work for, again?”

  “The Denver Post. I’m with the Western Slope Bureau.” She was the Western Slope Bureau. While she wrote stories about everything from local festivals to water rights, she specialized in crime reporting. The attempted arrest and subsequent murder of Raul Meredes had focused her attention on The Ranger Brigade—a romantic name for a disparate collection of officers from all the federal law enforcement agencies.

  “If you’re so interested in this story, maybe you’d like a closer look.” He took her arm and pulled her toward the plane.

  She didn’t protest. Clearly, he wanted to shock her, to frighten her even, but she’d seen death before. Whatever that plane held, she’d study it objectively and write about it later. She’d show the captain she was tougher than he thought. She wouldn’t be bullied or intimidated just because he didn’t like the job she was doing.

  The pilot slumped sideways in his seat, safety belt still fastened, his shirt stained brown with dried blood. Flies buzzed around him, and she swallowed hard against the sickly stench that rose to greet her. “Recognize him?” the captain asked. He still held on to her arm, as if he feared she might bolt.

  She started to look away, to shake her head, but that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? For her to be horrified and repulsed. She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to lean closer, to study the dead man, whose face was turned away from her. When she did so, true horror washed over her. She fought to breathe, and tears stung her eyes.

  “What is it?” the captain shook her. “You’re not going to be sick, are you?”

  She shook her head and wrenched away from him. “I...I do know him,” she gasped, then covered her mouth with her hand, fighting nausea.

  “Who is he?” Ellison demanded.

  “His name is Bobby Pace. I... He... We were dating. I went out with him two nights ago.”

  Chapter Two

  The stricken look on Emma Wade’s face made Graham feel like the lowest form of jerk. He’d been furious with her for nosing her way into his investigation, but that didn’t give him the right to treat her so cruelly. “Come on.” He put his arm around her and turned her away from the sight of the dead man. “I’ll take you back to headquarters and we can talk there.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She tried to rally, but fresh tears streamed down her face.

  “I’ll have one of the officers bring your Jeep,” he said. “You come with me.”

  She didn’t protest as he helped her into the Cruiser. “Bring her Jeep with you when you come back to headquarters,” he told Randall, then he climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Neither of them said a word as the vehicle bounced over the rough terrain. He kept stealing glances at her. She’d stopped crying, and was staring out the windshield with the look of someone who wasn’t seeing what was right in front of her. Even in her grief, she was beautiful; he fought against the desire to hold and comfort her. She was a reporter, and a potential witness in his case. He needed to fight his attraction to her and keep his distance.

  At headquarters, he led her into his cramped office at the back of the trailer and moved a stack of binders to make room for her in one of the two folding chairs in front of his desk. The administrative assistant who helped deal with the mountains of paperwork the job entailed was off today, so they had the building to themselves, at least until the
rest of the team got back from the crash site. He opened a bottle of water from the case that sat in the corner and handed it to her, then pulled the other folding chair alongside her. “First, I apologize for being such a jerk back there,” he said. “I get a little...intense, sometimes.”

  “And you don’t like the press.” Her eyes met his over the top of the water bottle. They were the green-gold of dragonflies, he thought, fringed with gold-tipped lashes.

  Focus, he reminded himself. “The press sometimes makes my job more difficult.”

  “And men like you make my job more difficult.” Amusement glinted in those beautiful eyes, and he had to look away.

  “What can you tell me about the man in the plane?” he asked. “Was he the pilot?”

  “Bobby was a pilot. I never saw his plane, but I know he owned a Bonanza.”

  “You and he had been dating?” Some emotion he didn’t want to look at too closely—jealousy?—pinched at him and he pushed it away. “For how long?”

  “We only went out a few times. We weren’t lovers, just friends. He was having a hard time and needed someone to talk to.”

  “What do you mean, having a hard time?”

  “His little boy is sick, and needs a lot of expensive care. Bobby was worried about money—that’s the reason he took the job with Richard Prentice, even though he couldn’t stand the guy.”

  “He worked for Richard Prentice?”

  She nodded. “That’s how we met. I wrote a profile of Prentice for the Post last year. Bobby was kind of like a chauffeur—he piloted his Bonanza, or sometimes he flew a plane Prentice owned. He was on call to take Prentice wherever he needed to go.”

  “When you saw him two nights ago, did he say anything about doing a job for Prentice the next day, or the next?”

  “No. We didn’t talk about work. And he didn’t just fly for Prentice. He worked for anybody who wanted to hire his plane. He taught flying lessons, too.” She set the still-full water bottle on the desk and leaned toward him. “What happened? Did the plane crash because he was shot, or did that happen after they were on the ground?”

  “We don’t know, though someone would have to be pretty stupid to shoot the pilot while they were still in the air.”

  “You’re sure there was a passenger?”

  “We’re not sure about anything. But someone shot your friend, and someone took the cargo that was in the plane. And we found fresh tracks that looked like a truck or another big vehicle pulled up alongside the wreckage.” He clamped his mouth shut. He was telling her too much.

  “I saw the busted-up crate,” she said. “What was in it?”

  “We don’t know that, either.” Though Marco Cruz, the DEA agent who’d been patrolling with Randall, had recognized the markings on the crate.

  “Do you think this is connected with Richard Prentice?” she asked. “Is he running a smuggling operation?”

  “We don’t know. How well do you know him? You said you wrote a profile for the paper?”

  “I spent two weeks visiting his home and shadowing him as he conducted business. He was charming. Arrogant, but when you have as much money as he does, maybe it comes with the territory.”

  So she thought Prentice was charming? The idea annoyed him, probably more than it should, but he wasn’t going to waste any more time playing the polite card. “I’ll need you to tell me everything you know about Richard Prentice. And I want to see all your notes, recordings and any other material you collected while researching your article.”

  “I’m not one of your officers who you can boss around, Captain,” she said. “If you really want that information, you can get a subpoena.” She stood, her face flushed, eyes practically snapping with fury. “And if you want to know about Richard Prentice, read the article.” She stalked out of his office, slamming the door hard behind her.

  He stared after her, stomach churning. So much for his attempt to not be a jerk around her. But the thought of her and that arrogant billionaire...

  “Captain! Wait ’til you hear this.” Marco Cruz, trailed by Randall Knightbridge, burst into the headquarters trailer. Lean and muscular, with skin the color of honey, Marco was the epitome of the strong, silent type. But at the moment, his face was more animated than Graham could remember ever seeing it.

  “What’s up?” he asked, rising to meet them.

  “I made some calls to some people I know,” Marco said. “I think my hunch about what was in that crate was right.”

  “So what was in it?” Graham had no patience for top secret time-wasting, not when the agencies were supposed to be working together.

  “I thought the crate looked just like the ones the military uses to ship Hellfire missiles. My sources in the army tell me they’ve had a few come up missing the last couple of years.”

  “What, they just lost track?” Graham asked.

  “That’s what I said,” Randall said. “But I guess people steal them to sell on the black market.”

  “So what was a Hellfire missile doing in that plane?” Graham asked. “Provided that’s what was really in that box.”

  “Hellfire missiles are what they use to arm unmanned drones,” Marco said.

  The hairs on the back of Graham’s neck stood up. “Anybody with enough money can buy a drone from a private company. It’s not illegal.”

  “But only someone with a Hellfire missile can arm that drone,” Marco said.

  “Who around here owns a drone?” Graham asked.

  Marco nodded. “That’s what we need to find out. And fast.”

  * * *

  FORGET GRAHAM ELLISON, Emma told herself as she unlocked the door to her house in a quiet suburb on Montrose’s south side. She didn’t need him to get to the bottom of this story. Safely inside, she dumped her purse and the day’s mail on the kitchen table.

  “Meow!” A silver-gray tabby emerged from the bedroom and leaned against her ankles.

  “Hello, Janey, darling.” Emma bent and scooped the cat into her arms. As she rubbed a finger beneath the furry chin Janey—for Jane Austen—purred loudly.

  “How was your day?” Emma asked. “I had to deal with the most frustrating man.”

  “Meow!” Janey said—though whether in sympathy, or simply because she wanted to be fed, Emma couldn’t say.

  But she opened a can of Salmon Supreme and dumped it into Janey’s dish, then poured herself a glass of wine and sat at the table to try to organize her notes. She didn’t have that much, but she had enough to write a story about the plane crash. For a painful moment the image of Bobby’s lifeless body slumped in the pilot’s seat of his destroyed plane flashed into her mind and she felt a sharp pang of grief for her friend.

  She swallowed her tears and opened her notebook. All the more reason to do everything she could to find his killer. Bobby had been a great guy—not a man she could fall in love with, but a good friend, and he deserved better.

  Her doorbell rang, the loud chimes startling her. She hurried to the door and checked the peephole, and sucked in a breath when she saw Graham Ellison standing there. He was still in uniform, but he held a large bouquet of flowers in his hand, wrapped in green tissue paper.

  She unlocked the door and opened it. “Captain, what are you doing here?” she asked.

  “It seems like I’m always apologizing to you,” he said. “We got off on the wrong foot. Can we try again?”

  She regarded him warily, trying hard not to notice how he towered over her, or how his shoulders were almost wide enough to fill the doorway. A man who made her feel dainty was a rarity, and she usually liked to savor the experience. But she had trouble relaxing around Captain Ellison. “Why should I give you another chance?” she asked.

  “Because we both want to find out who killed your friend.”

  It was the one answer
that was sure to sway her. She held the door open wider. “Come in.”

  He moved past her into the foyer, and handed her the flowers. “Peace offering,” he said.

  “Come in here.” She led the way into the kitchen, and motioned to the table. “I was just going over my notes.” She found a vase in a cabinet and filled it at the sink.

  “I’m not going to make the mistake of asking to see them.”

  She flushed. “I don’t like being ordered around. Also—I have my own system for organizing my research material. It’s messy and it probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone else.”

  “I shouldn’t have barked at you like you were one of my junior officers.”

  She arranged the flowers in the vase and set it on the counter, then looked him in the eye, ignoring the way her heart sped up when she did so. “What is it about me you don’t like?” she asked. “Is it just because I’m a reporter? Because we’re on the same side here. I want to know who killed Bobby, and I want to see them brought to justice.”

  He grimaced, as if in pain. “You’ve got it all wrong. Our problems aren’t because I don’t like you—they’re because I’m so attracted to you.”

  Now her heart was really racing, and she felt as if she’d swallowed battling hummingbirds. So she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the heat between them. “I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”

  He looked around the apartment, everywhere but at her. His gaze finally focused on the cat, who had finished eating and was meticulously grooming herself. “When I saw you in that crowd of reporters, I had a hard time not staring.” He hazarded a glance her way. “Is this going to get me into trouble?”