On the Edge

by Heather Graham, Carla Neggers

  “I’m going with you.”

  “Like hell,” Kelly said.

  “Probably will be, but I’m going just the same,” Quinn said.

  Kelly’s shoulders slumped. “You’ve already helped me more than I had reason to expect. I can’t ask you to do this. It could get you killed.”

  “You didn’t ask. I volunteered, remember?”

  Kelly wanted to hug him. Instead, she only smiled.

  “Who do you think you are? The cavalry?”

  Quinn grinned back at her. “One Texas Ranger. One cavalry troop. Same firepower. Less noise. So is it a deal?”

  He was holding out his hand. Kelly took a deep breath, then held out her hand.

  “It’s a deal.”

  4

  Quinn carried the suitcase to the truck as Kelly went to call her boss. She knew he was going to tell her to wait, to let him send guards to help bring her in, but she had a gut feeling that the more people who knew what she was doing, the less likely it would be that she’d make it in alive.

  She sat down on the side of the bed and made the call.

  When Michael Forest finally came on the line, Kelly was waiting to make her case.

  “This is Forest.”

  “Captain Forest…this is Agent Sloan.”

  The tone of his voice lifted.

  “Kelly, it’s good to hear from you again. I trust you’re healing?”

  “Yes, sir. Almost good as new.”

  “Good…good. Let me know when you’re up to traveling and I’ll send someone for you. The trial is coming up, and Marsh, the Federal prosecutor, is getting antsy.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s part of why I’m calling. There’s a problem that’s developed since we last spoke.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “There’s a million-dollar bounty out on me.”

  Forest made no attempt to hide his shock. “A million dollars! Damn it. That has to mean Ortega is alive.”

  “It could have come from someone else within the organization, but I don’t think so. Dominic Ortega and his brother-in-law, Ponce Gruber, have a lot to lose if I testify.”

  “I don’t like this. I don’t like this a bit. It changes everything. Give me a pickup location. We’ll bring you in under guard.”

  “Sir…if I may, I’d rather come in on my own.”

  “That’s out of the question. Not with a million-dollar incentive to bury you. It’ll bring out every scumbag in the country.”

  “But if you come after me, word will get out. And we both know that much money can turn even a righteous man if the need is great enough.”

  “Are you saying you don’t trust your fellow agents?”

  Kelly sighed. “Not in so many words.”

  “But you need help,” Forest argued.

  At that point, Quinn walked back into the room. Kelly looked up.

  “I have help…good help,” she said, her gaze locking with Quinn’s as he waited for her to finish the call.

  “Can you trust this help?”

  “He saved my life once already. I think I can trust him to do it again if the need arises.”

  “I’d rather we did this my way,” Forest argued.

  “Sir, it’s my life that’s on the line. I know what I’m doing, okay?”

  There was a brief moment of silence; then Kelly heard her boss give a slow, weary-sounding sigh.

  “Okay. But stay in touch.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And be careful.”

  “Always,” Kelly said, and hung up.

  “Well, now,” Quinn said.

  The grin on his face made Kelly’s blood pressure rise.

  “I trust you’re not about to make me sorry I complimented you to my boss?”

  “Who? Me? Never,” Quinn said, then put his hands on Kelly’s shoulders. Before she knew it, he’d leaned down and brushed his mouth across her lips. “Just call that a thank you for the vote of confidence,” he said softly. “Are you ready to go?”

  Kelly’s mouth was burning. She wanted to put her fingers on her lips to see if they were as blistered as they felt, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “No thanks are necessary. I was simply stating a fact, and yes, I’m ready to go.”

  “Then put this on,” Quinn said, and tossed a white wide-brimmed straw Stetson in her lap.

  “What on earth for?” she asked.

  “Disguise. The less people who see me leaving with you, the less chance we have of blowing our cover.”

  “Oh. Right,” Kelly said. She was already wearing the red boots, a pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt with a logo that read Cowgirls Do It In The Mud. The hat would be the crowning glory to the white trash look to which Daryl seemed to be drawn. She bunched her hair up beneath the crown as she settled the hat on her head. The brim shadowed most of her face, which was exactly what she needed.

  “How do I look?” she asked.

  Quinn eyed the tight denim and even tighter T-shirt and opted for pleading the Fifth.

  “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me,” he drawled.

  Kelly laughed. “That bad, huh?”

  “Oh no. To the contrary, Agent Sloan. That good. You’ll pass just fine as a real cheap date.”

  Kelly felt herself blushing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d blushed and began to worry what other responses Quinn McCord might bring out in her before this trip was over.

  “Just shut up and let’s go,” she said.

  Quinn slid an arm around her shoulder as they started out the door.

  “McCord…what the—”

  “Hey, don’t fight this. It’s part of your cover, remember?”

  Kelly stifled her dismay. He was right. Besides, what did it matter? They’d shared the same bed. Putting his arm around her was nothing.

  They started toward his truck with their hips bumping as they walked, and the farther they walked, the tighter his grip became. Finally Kelly’s right breast was mashed flat against Quinn’s side.

  “Come on, McCord. Ease up, will you? I appreciate your help, but not at the expense of my right boob.”

  Quinn looked startled, then loosened his grip.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  Kelly grinned. “It’s okay, the damage isn’t permanent.”

  “Thank God,” Quinn said. “I’d hate to mess up something that perfect.”

  Kelly stifled a sigh. There was no need to respond, because she knew he wouldn’t stop until he’d gotten the last word. It was only after Quinn had settled her safely inside the truck and then paused and looked around that she realized he’d been teasing her to keep her mind off the danger to her life. She started to remind him that he wasn’t the only cop here, and that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. But that was no longer true. If it hadn’t been for Quinn, she would never have made it to safety before passing out. And if that had happened, either she would have drowned, or Ortega’s men would have found her and turned her into fish food. Now, with the million-dollar bounty on her head, Ortega had once again turned her into bait. This was going to bring all the worms out of the underbelly of society. She needed to be gone when they started turning Galveston upside down.

  She rode leaning forward, with an eye to the mirror on the outside of the cab. It wasn’t until they had passed the city limits and begun heading north that she started to relax.

  It was eleven minutes after 10:00 p.m. when two men walked into the office of the Sea Gull Inn. The desk clerk, Charlie Warden, looked up.

  “Evening, gentlemen. How can I help you?”

  A tall Latino man wearing a blue silk shirt and dark slacks leaned over the counter.

  “I’m looking for my brother, Quinn McCord. I thought he was staying here, but I don’t see his truck in the parking lot. He drives a black Dodge pickup. Can you tell me if he’s still registered here?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Sorry. We can’t give out that kind of infor
mation.”

  “You don’t understand. It’s a family emergency. If I don’t find my brother, he might never get a chance to tell our mother goodbye.”

  Charlie frowned. He’d heard all kinds of stories, and as stories went, this one was pretty lame. He remembered the man who’d driven the Dodge truck, and he didn’t look anything like this guy. This man was Latino. The Dodge guy was not.

  “You two don’t look anything alike,” Charlie said.

  “That means he was here!”

  Charlie’s frown deepened. “You already said he’d been staying here. So what’s the deal? What’s going on?”

  Suddenly the man pulled a gun and pointed it in Charlie’s face.

  “Talk to me, damn it. Where is he?”

  “No. No. Don’t shoot me, man! I got a wife and four kids.”

  “Then tell me what I need to know,” the man growled.

  “He’s gone. He checked out this morning, and that’s all I know.”

  “Just shoot him and let’s get out of here,” the other man said.

  Luis de Jesus was set on claiming that million-dollar bounty. His cousin Franco worked for Ortega, and it had been Franco who’d given him the heads-up on the tag number of a black Dodge truck that had been sighted on the beach the morning Kelly Sloan had escaped. He hadn’t come this far to take no for an answer.

  “Shut up, Armenio. You talk too much. Let me think.”

  Even though the air-conditioning was blasting a thirty-four degree wind down his neck, Charlie was sweating. He had to think of something—and fast—or he was a dead man.

  Luis turned back to Charlie. “This man…the man in the truck…did he have anyone with him?”

  “He registered alone. He was supposed to stay a week, but he left early. That’s all I know.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” Luis said. “Was he alone when he left?”

  “I didn’t see anyone with him.”

  “Think harder,” Luis said, and shoved the gun up the desk clerk’s nose.

  “I don’t pay any attention to who comes and goes. If you’ll look out the window, the only view I have of this place is the front entrance.”

  “So who came and went that wasn’t a client?”

  “God almighty! How would I know that?”

  “Then I’ll rephrase the question, and you better by God have an answer I like. Did you recognize anyone coming in here that wasn’t registered?”

  Charlie frowned, trying desperately to remember anything that would get them out of his face. And then it hit him.

  “Yeah! Yeah! Actually, I did.”

  “So who?”

  “There’s this old guy who lives just off the strip. I saw him come and go a couple of times in the past few days.”

  “What’s his name?” Luis asked.

  Charlie rubbed at his chest. “I’m not sure…. Don, David, Daryl…maybe it’s Daryl. But I don’t know his last name.”

  Luis twisted the gun a little tighter against Charlie’s nose. “Then how do you know him?” he asked.

  “Seen him down at the Baytown Bar. He’s always talking about the good old days.”

  “What do you mean?” Luis asked.

  “He was a Ranger…a Texas Ranger, and that’s all I know.”

  Luis started to smile. It was the lead they’d been looking for, because according to his information, the Dodge truck belonged to a man named Quinn McCord. Current employment—a Ranger for the state of Texas. Now all they had to do was find the old man and see what he knew about Quinn McCord’s hasty exit.

  “You’ve been very helpful,” Luis said, and flipped off the safety on his gun.

  Charlie’s eyes widened, and then he started to gasp. He grabbed at his chest, wadding the fabric of his shirt into his hand as he stumbled backward.

  “My heart…my heart…I got a bad heart.”

  Luis eased up on the trigger.

  “Aren’t you going to shoot him?” Armenio asked.

  Luis hesitated, then put the safety back on and slipped the gun in his jacket.

  “Why? It would only alert the police…and any one else who might have information similar to ours.”

  “But he’ll tell,” Armenio said.

  Luis smiled. “Not if he’s dead of natural causes, he won’t.”

  Armenio stared at the desk clerk, who was turning paler by the second. When he doubled over and then dropped to his knees, Armenio elbowed Luis.

  “Ten dollars says he won’t last another thirty seconds.”

  Luis looked at the desk clerk, then nodded. “You’re on.”

  Charlie rolled over onto his side and started to moan as Armenio began timing what he thought were the throes of Charlie’s death.

  Fifteen seconds, then twenty, then thirty seconds passed. A minute and fifteen seconds after he fell to the floor, Charlie Warden rolled over onto his back, exhaled loudly, then stopped breathing.

  “Pay up,” Luis said, as he held out his hand.

  “What if he’s not—”

  Before Armenio could finish what he was going to say, the headlights of a car flashed across the wall behind the desk. Both men looked toward the window, then headed through the door behind the desk, exiting the motel through the room reserved for the clerk on duty. They were in their car and driving away by the time Charlie Warden sat up and crawled to the phone.

  As he dialed 911, he knew he had his wife to thank for being alive. If it hadn’t been for all those murder mystery shows she insisted on watching, it would never have occurred to him to fake his own death.

  Meanwhile, Luis and Armenio were heading toward the Baytown Bar. If they were lucky, someone would know where the old Ranger lived.

  The next morning and half a country away, Dominic Ortega walked out onto the veranda of his Florida home with the aid of a nurse, then took a seat in the shade as a waiter handed him a glass of cold juice.

  “Thank you,” he said, as the nurse pushed a foot stool up to the chair and helped him lift his feet.

  “You’re welcome,” she said softly, then shook two of his pain pills out into her hand and gave them to him. “Are you comfortable, sir?”

  Ortega swallowed the pillows, then nodded. “Yes. You may go. If I need you, I will ring.”

  He leaned back in the chair as the nurse disappeared, then took a small sip of the chilled juice. It felt good to be out of that hospital, although the helicopter ride from Houston to the west coast of Florida had been extremely uncomfortable. But once they’d arrived, he’d settled in just fine. Here, he had peace and quiet when he needed it, and guards that he trusted. And here, he was, once again, in control. Satisfied that, for now, all was right with his world, he closed his eyes and relaxed.

  Overhead, a flock of seagulls squawked noisily. An easy breeze was coming in off the water, cooling the heat of mid-day. The scent of jacaranda and oleander overpowered the smell of salt air just enough that Ortega could almost believe he was back in Mexico, and he would be, as soon as his wounds had healed.

  His thoughts drifted as the pain medicine took effect. But when he slept, his dreams turned to nightmares, and once again, he felt the pain of the knife plunging deep into his chest.

  Somewhere in another part of the house a phone began to ring. It filtered through his sleep until he began to wake. He was struggling to sit up when his house man came hurrying outside with the phone.

  “Sen˜or! Sen˜or! The call…it is an emergency.”

  Dominic frowned as he took the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Dominic…this is Ponce.”

  Dominic sat up too quickly, then grabbed at the front of his shirt, grunting in agony as he shifted the phone to a better position.

  “Damn you, Ponce. You should not be calling me here. They can trace your call.”

  “No, no, it’s safe. I’m using my lawyer’s cell phone. There’s something you need to know.”

  “What is it?”

  “Kelly Sloan is alive.”

&nbs
p; Ortega cursed. “How do you know?”

  “I have someone on the inside who’s feeding me information. They said she’s not only alive, but on the move. My lawyer said the deal we made is off the table. If she testifies at my trial, she’ll crucify me.”

  Ortega frowned. “What deal?”

  “I’m sorry? What did you say?” Ponce asked.

  “I asked you…what deal? You said you had made a deal with the Feds. What deal could you possibly have made that did not involve me?”

  Suddenly Ponce realized that he’d given himself away. Desperate to get back in his brother-in-law’s good graces, he began whispering, as if he were about to hang up.

  “I can’t talk anymore now,” he said. “The guards are coming to take me back to my cell.”

  “Damn you, Ponce…what did you tell them?”

  “Nothing! I told them nothing!” Ponce cried. “I’ve got to go. Just make sure you stop Kelly Sloan or we’re both dead.”

  He hung up before Dominic could say anything more.

  “Damn it,” Dominic muttered, then staggered to his feet. He walked to the edge of the terrace overlooking the ocean and stared out across the water.

  It didn’t matter now what Ponce had said or what he had done. He would deal with him later. For now, what he needed was to make sure that Kelly Sloan didn’t make it to D.C.

  He hurried back to the table, picked up the phone and made a call. It rang once. Twice. It was answered on the third ring.

  “It’s me,” Dominic said. “Spread the word. The bounty is up to two million, but only if they do her before the week is out.”

  He hung up without waiting for an answer, then rang for the nurse. She appeared within seconds.

  “I need something for pain.”

  The nurse glanced at her watch. “It hasn’t been three hours yet, sir.”

  Dominic repeated his request. “I said…I need something for pain.”

  The glitter in his eyes was more frightening than if he’d shouted at her.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll bring it right now.”

  “Thank you,” he said, then returned to his chair. He made himself focus on the undulating water, rather than the pain and frustrations of his life, and reached for his juice. Despite the fact that the ice had melted and the drink was no longer cold, he drank it all. The tart-sweet taste of the freshly squeezed juice washed the bitterness from his mouth.