SPY IN THE SADDLE

by Dana Marton

  “Thanks.” She pushed by him. “Shouldn’t take more than five minutes to run through the place.”

  He locked the door behind them, the metallic click sending a twinge of unease up her spine. He probably just wanted to make sure nobody walked in while they were in the back.

  Tank was coming from the direction of the basement. He threw Brian a questioning look. Brian shook his head.

  Lilly kept smiling. “Hey, Tank. Can’t believe you have to work on Sundays. That bites, man.”

  Tank didn’t comment, just turned around and went back the same way he’d come.

  She checked around the stage first, trying to steal glances at the back hallway. The basement door was open, but she couldn’t see anyone coming and going.

  Brian watched her wherever she went. “Doesn’t look like it’s here.”

  “God, I hope you’re wrong. If it’s not here, then somebody already took it. I can’t afford a new phone. This was a good one. Paid for it from my last gig.” She went to the ladies’ room next, pushed through the swinging saloon doors in the corner by the jukeboxes.

  Brian followed her. “Boyfriend of yours drove you over?”

  She checked the stalls. “He’s off with his buddies somewhere.”

  “Them rodeo cowboys never do well. Win a few purses, get hurt, get hooked on drugs, wash up in a couple of years. You could do better.” He watched her. “Friendly advice.”

  She tried to take it lightly, even as more unease settled over her. “It’s not like we’re getting married. We’re just having fun while we’re both in town.”

  Since he wouldn’t move, she had to brush by him to get out of the bathroom. “I’ll look behind the bar. I put my bag there while I was singing.”

  Again, he followed, looking as if he was holding back anger. And, again, he seemed to put it away, as if coming to some sort of decision. “Want a beer? On the house.”

  “Sure.” Whatever made him back off for a minute. He was creeping her out, frankly.

  She made a show of looking behind the bar while he filled two glasses from the tap and slid one her way.

  “Thanks.” She gave a deep sigh, then took a gulp. “It’s not here, either.”

  “An iPhone?”

  She nodded and drank some more, playing for time. She wanted to see who else was here beyond Brian and Tank. Maybe if she hung around long enough, someone else would come from the back. She was trying to figure out how to offer to help with the stocking without sounding suspicious.

  “Those are expensive. Maybe you dropped it in the basement,” Brian said.

  She thrilled to the suggestion. “Could be.” She would have loved it if he let her go down there. She wanted to take a look at what they were really doing here this time of the night.

  She drained her glass so fast it would have made a cowboy proud, then headed for the basement door.

  Of course, Brian was right behind her once again. “You said you sang in San Antonio before,” he was saying as he closed this door, too, behind them.

  Even with the light on, the basement was poorly lit, smelling old and dank. She felt as if she was in some old castle dungeon. Goose bumps prickled on her skin.

  “Which bar did you say?” he asked.

  “Finnegan’s.” They’d set up a cover for her with the owner, should Brian call for a reference.

  She reached the bottom of the stairs, and the main area of the basement opened up in front of her. The space was stacked with sealed, unmarked boxes, close to a hundred of them. When Shep had told her about his meeting down here with Tank, he said the boxes held bottles and were marked with various liquor logos. So this batch was something different.

  She moved toward the boxes, making a show of scanning the floor, wishing she could find a way to look into one. She could hear Tank moving things around in one of the rooms. Then he came forward.

  “You ever hang out at Finnegan’s when you go up to San Antonio?” Brian asked. “Our Lilly used to be their star attraction. How about that?”

  Tank watched her darkly as he shrugged. “I’ve been there.”

  “Ever see Lilly? You should have told me about her. I would have stolen her away sooner.”

  Tank shook his head, still watching her. “My brother ain’t never heard of her, either, and he hangs out there nearly every night.”

  Oh, hell. She was beginning to feel as if this was some kind of a setup. She wanted to go back up, but Brian stood at the bottom of the staircase, blocking her way. God, she could have used some fresh air. The musty smell was turning her stomach.

  His eyes narrowed at her. “You sure it was Finnegan’s?”

  “I was only there for a few weeks. Might have been Frankie’s.” She gave a quick laugh. “Honestly, I was drunk half the time. They gave free beer to the band, too.”

  Brian didn’t seem to think any of that was funny. He watched her stone-faced. “Better look for that phone. I’m ready to get out of here.”

  Right. She moved around, scanned the ground, trying to ignore the two men and her growing sense of discomfort of being down here with them alone. Not only was she nauseous, she was beginning to feel dizzy, too.

  Had to be the chipotle. If Jamie had taken her to a place that gave her food poisoning, she was going to have to revise her good opinion of him.

  Tank lumbered back to his work in the room behind her.

  But Brian wasn’t done questioning her yet, it seemed, because next he wanted to know “When were you down here that you could have lost the phone?”

  “In between sets. Just stuck my head down, really. I was looking for you for something.” She covered the area, so she had to give up her pretend search. She made an unhappy face. “I don’t think it’s here.”

  “I don’t think so, either. But we did find something that might belong to you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bug.

  “What’s that?” She gave a clueless look. Her head was swimming. Could food poisoning hit this fast? “That’s not my earring.”

  The stone-faced look remained. “It’s not an earring, and I think you know that.”

  She didn’t ask what it was, just went on with the puzzled look and leaned against the wall as a sudden wave of weakness hit her.

  “It’s a bug,” Brian told her. “We do a sweep every Sunday. There’ve been only two strangers down here this week, you and your boyfriend.”

  “Not really my boyfriend. We’re just hooking up.” She tried to keep it light and did her best not to let him see that she was becoming rapidly incapacitated.

  “Who do you work for?”

  She gave a nervous laugh as a scared singer might. “You. For now. I mean, I like it here. But I’m not the long-term-commitment kind. If you change your mind about me, I’ll just move on. There are a million small bars in the world.”

  “I’m going to ask you only one more time. Who do you work for, darling?”

  “Are you serious? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I better get going. I need to find that damn phone.” She turned toward the stairs.

  But Brian’s arms snaked out faster than she’d ever seen him move and he grabbed her arm, yanked her back. “Are you a cop? CBP? Why in hell am I paying all that money if they still send their snoops around, dammit?” He looked openly angry now, even outraged.

  He yanked her toward him.

  She moved in with a self-defense maneuver, too slow as the basement spun with her. But she would have been free of the bastard the next second, anyway. Except Tank appeared behind her from out of nowhere and his meaty fist came down on the top of her head.

  * * *

  SHE DIDN’T ANSWER her phone. Shep swore as he waited for the interrogation room to free up. He didn’t like it when women did the holding-a-grudge thing. Men were so much si
mpler. Either they were okay with each other, or they settled their differences with their fists and then they were okay. She’d punched him. He let her. Why in hell was she still mad?

  The current op was almost over. She blew back into his life for a short time, and she was about to blow back out. Good. He’d be able to focus 100 percent on the job again then. Except the thought made him miserable.

  He didn’t want her to disappear. At least, he wanted to keep in touch. They couldn’t have a romantic relationship, but they could be...something. He needed to talk to her about that.

  He shouldn’t have made love to her. He knew that, dammit. He shouldn’t have made the off-the-cuff marriage offer, either. Obviously, it wasn’t what she wanted. A good thing, since he hadn’t planned on getting married, ever.

  He had no idea what had possessed him to blurt those words out like that. He needed to apologize again. He’d drive by her hotel in the morning, once he was done at the office.

  Mo came out of the interrogation room with his guy and led him away. Shep went in with the next.

  He clicked on the recorder, noted the man’s name and specifics, the date of the interrogation, then started with the questions. “Have you ever met with the Coyote?”

  “No, man,” the twentysomething kid Lilly and he had picked up earlier said, looking as tired as Shep felt.

  “What do you know about him?”

  “He’s the boss of everyone, pretty much. You cross him, you disappear.” The kid made a slicing motion across his throat. “He’ll ground you to dust.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  The kid just laughed. “Right, dude. He stopped by my house just to tell me that.”

  Shep asked another dozen questions. He received no helpful answers, no matter how hard he leaned on the guy.

  He stood to stretch his legs. He could have pushed harder, but he was pretty sure the kid was telling the truth. The interrogations were a long shot. It was unlikely that any of the men they’d rounded up had information that would lead directly to the Coyote, but he had to try anyway.

  They had the date and they had the place, but what they didn’t have was any confirmation and the Coyote’s true identity. They couldn’t afford any mistakes on this op, any crossed wires, any half-accurate intel. Being able to pick up the bastard for questioning sure would have helped.

  Also, even if they caught the tangos sneaking over, who was to say more wouldn’t try with the Coyote’s help? The government needed that man in custody and permanently out of business.

  “Do you know where Tank is?”

  “I don’t even know who he is.”

  Shep kept up with the questions, rotating the men in and out, consulting with Mo in between, until midnight, then went home to catch some sleep before his morning shift started.

  On his way to the office, he drove by the hotel. Lilly wasn’t in her room, didn’t respond to his knocking. She still didn’t pick up her phone, either. He walked through the parking garage, but he couldn’t find her car.

  He went to the front desk, but the guy there didn’t remember seeing her going out that morning.

  On a hunch, Shep drove by the bar, checked front and back, but the bar was closed and neither Lilly nor her car were there as far as he could tell.

  He switched to the monitoring app on his phone and accessed last night’s recording from the bar’s basement. Since the place had been closed, he didn’t expect much, but he wanted to check anyway. They couldn’t afford to overlook anything at this stage.

  The program was set to skip silence and just go to sound. It wasn’t long before Lilly’s voice came through on Shep’s Bluetooth.

  What in hell had she been doing there, alone, without telling him?

  Anger punched through him, quickly turning to worry as he heard Brian say, “It’s a bug. We do a sweep every Sunday. There’ve only been two strangers down here this week, you and your boyfriend.” Then some more conversation, her protesting her innocence, then the unmistakable sounds of a scuffle.

  Then a crunch, as if someone had ground the bug into the cement floor with his heel.

  He shut off the recording and called Lilly again. She didn’t answer her phone. So as he drove to the office, he kept calling. Until she did pick up, finally.

  “Hey, cowboy,” she said, tension in her voice, and something else in the way she dragged out the word cowboy. Was she drunk?

  “I was about to call you,” she said in the same slow drawl.

  “Where are you?”

  “Out at the rodeo grounds. Listen, I need you out here for a minute.”

  “What are you doing there? Is everything okay?”

  “Nothing to worry about. I’ll explain when you get here. Sooner would be better than later. Just hop in that rickety old Mustang of yours and step on the gas. I’ll be out by the bull pens.”

  Oh, hell. He gripped the phone. “I’ll be right there. Lilly—”

  She hung up before he could have asked any questions.

  He drove a souped-up SUV for work and a beat-up pickup for cover. The only Mustang he’d been near lately was Doug Wagner’s. Talking about that was her way of warning him there was trouble. And if she didn’t simply come out with what that was, it meant she wasn’t alone. There was somebody within hearing distance.

  He had a good idea who. But why was she at the fairgrounds? And why did she sound drunk at seven in the morning? He didn’t like any of that.

  He called it in.

  “I’m heading out to the rodeo grounds,” he told Ryder as he turned his SUV around. “Lilly’s there. There’s something going on. She got busted at The Armadillo last night. I think Brian and Tank might have her.”

  “Need backup?”

  “Don’t know yet.” He didn’t want to call the guys off the border. He also didn’t want to wake Mo unnecessarily since he’d been up all night, working. Keith was still in Mexico, following leads there. Ryder was manning the office, checking satellite images and processing last-minute intel.

  “Call me if you need anything,” the team leader said.

  “Let me get out there and do some recon first.”

  He drove as fast as he could, bringing up the tourist map of the rodeo grounds on his cell phone. Within a minute, he knew exactly where the bull pens were located.

  The rodeo was a weeklong event, starting that afternoon with the opening ceremonies and ending on the following Saturday with the biggest party Pebble Creek had ever seen, supposedly.

  The fairgrounds, made into a rodeo arena now, were on the outskirts of town, a sprawling compound of stables and show rings. He didn’t pull up into the front parking lot. He didn’t pull up into the back one, either. He went to the feed store directly attached to the side of the registration building and parked there.

  He checked his guns, the one he kept under his shirt stuck into his waistband at his back and the smaller one that he kept in his right boot. On second thought, he grabbed his other backup gun from the glove compartment and stuck it into his left boot before he got out. He skipped the official entrances and snuck through a hole in the chain-link fence.

  Whoever had been listening in while he’d been talking to Lilly on the phone, Shep didn’t want them to see him coming. He scanned the area as he walked. The goal was to see them before they saw him.

  The opening ceremonies for the rodeo would start at five, after the worst of the heat was done for the day. At the moment only the work crews ambled around the place, cleaning and setting up for the crowds that would come in the evening.

  Shep tried to look as if he belonged. He stayed near the perimeter as he made his way to the bull pens in the back. He was going to see what was going on, then call Ryder and report in.

  THERE HAD TO BE a way out.

  Shep would come for her.
She hoped. He’d promised to have her back. Well, she needed that now. And she was beginning to appreciate the offer. She wouldn’t have been the least upset if he rushed in to save her.

  She was locked in a feed bin near the sheep pens at the fairgrounds. There weren’t any cracks in the heavy plastic box, so she couldn’t see anything. Lilly could hear the sheep, though, and a dog barking now and then. She breathed deeply, wrinkling her nose against the smells that surrounded her, and did her best to keep from passing out again.

  Could have been worse. They could have put her in with the bulls. She was gagged with a nasty length of rag and bound hands and feet, wedged in between feed sacks. Must have been a hundred degrees. She could barely breathe.

  She shifted, testing her restraints once again but, like before, they didn’t give.

  She couldn’t remember much about getting here. She’d been fading in and out. She remembered Tank throwing a bucket of cold water into her face. He’d forced her to take that call from Shep, then let her fade out again.

  How long ago was that?

  Could Shep be here already?

  And if he was, how would he find her?

  She needed to think, but her brain was still frustratingly slow. She felt beyond tired, as if she would die if she didn’t sleep a little more. She bit the inside of her cheek so the pain would jolt her back awake.

  She could have kicked herself for letting Brian and Tank take her as easily as they had. She’d been so focused on Brian, she hadn’t noticed Tank sneaking up behind her until it’d been too late. A rookie mistake.

  She shook her head to clear the fog.

  She didn’t make rookie mistakes, dammit. Her stomach rolled.

  And the answer hit her, ridiculously obvious in hindsight. Images flashed into her mind, Brian turning with her glass as he’d slid the beer down the bar to her.

  She hadn’t been feeling so out of focus because of food poisoning from the chipotle like she’d stupidly thought at the time. Brian had put something in her beer.

  He had the drug ready behind the bar, slipped it into the drink with practiced ease, handed it to her without batting an eye. Had he done that to other women before? She wouldn’t have been surprised.