Winsor, Linda

by Along Came Jones

  The agent helped himself to some of Clyde's coffee from the pot that always brewed next to the restroom door. Three packets of sugar later, not to mention enough creamer to make latte an inadequate description of his concoction, he stirred it as though lost in thought until it threatened to brim over the side.

  Too much thought, Shep noted with suspicion. If his instinct was right, the prolonged pause in the conversation meant Voorhees was already withholding information of some sort. Most likely he was deciding what more Shep needed to know and what he didn't. Interagency distrust at its best, Shep thought, taking in every nuance of the agent's behavior and assessing it.

  "Someone ransacked her place while she was being questioned by the local police," Voorhees said at last.

  "Maybe it was the boyfriend." Shep found Voorhees's word lover too distasteful to use. "Which would prove right there that she was just a dupe being used by him. Any prints?"

  "Place was clean as a whistle," the agent told him. "I don't think Majors was that professional. I mean, the guy blew up a car with no body"

  "At least he didn't kill someone innocent." Substituting a body would have bought him a little more time to operate if the people he swindled thought he was dead—time for him to split with the money, while authorities and his cronies chased after Deanna. No wonder she'd bolted. She must have been frightened out of her wits with the law and unknown thugs after her.

  "Are we talking a small-time disgruntled perp or a cartel looking for her?" Shep asked.

  "Or the lover," Voorhees said. "But there are implications in the investigation that we're talking big-time drug operators and money laundering. Personally, I vote for the lover."

  "Who's to say Majors didn't take the money and isn't living the high life in a Mexican resort or some other remote paradise? That makes more sense to—"

  "A man matching C. R. Majors' height and build was picked up by a security camera in Manetti's apartment building after his alleged death. Blasted hat hid his face, but my bet is on him. The cartel would have taken out the camera first. It's not like it was hidden."

  Going to Deanna's place after the fact? Something must have gone wrong, if Majors intended to frame her for his crime. Otherwise, he'd have been nuts to tarry after his accident. "Okay, so he's definitely not a professional."

  "A greedy little white-collar twerp," Voorhees agreed. "He used Deanna Manetti to pull off this caper and left her holding the bag—quite literally, we think."

  Shep wrestled against accepting that Deanna was knowingly involved. "So something went wrong with his plan to frame her and make off with the money."

  "No, evidence points to her being part of the scheme and planning to follow him later with one of the tickets he bought to the Caribbean."

  It wasn't making sense. Something had to have gone wrong. "Did he use his ticket?"

  Voorhees shook his head. "That's why we think he's still around somewhere and that she's our key to finding Majors, not to mention our only link to the money."

  And the drug ring's only link. Majors was penny-ante, but the involvement of a drug cartel sent a chill raking down Shep's spine. Deanna's situation grew more ominous by the minute. Greed usually led to foolhardiness. Majors not only pulled the wrong tiger's tail, but he was taking Deanna along for the ride.

  "So why don't you just take her into custody? Why go through all this with me?" Shep acted like he couldn't see what was coming. The ice patch of his direct involvement in the case was widening by the second, and there were no guardrails.

  "Because we want him more than we want her. She wouldn't tell the police anything before anyway... claims she made the deposits to the account as a favor, that she had no idea what was going on."

  "So Deanna's just bait." History was repeating itself. Voorhees was still ignoring the bird in the hand for more in the bush. "Majors can finger the ringleaders in the cartel, if they don't take him out first."

  Voorhees grinned. "That's the big picture, Jones... which is where you come in."

  Shep clenched his jaw, bracing as he hit the slippery slope in his mind. He'd already heard more than he wanted to know, the momentum toward the point of no return.

  "I understand the woman is stranded at your place until her car is repaired, right?"

  With a short nod, Shep pulled up a chair and straddled it, leaning on its back with folded arms. "And you want me to keep a lid on things until this Majors tries to contact Deanna." He wasn't going to go along with it, but he was curious. "Just how do you expect him to find her? You can't possibly believe they chose this little fly speck on the map as a meeting place... if she is even guilty of complicity."

  Which is something Shep seriously doubted. For all her smarts, Deanna Manetti had a gullible side. It was more dangerous to someone like him than any combination of beauty and brains. Shep had been called to aid and protect the innocent, to champion justice. It was an inherent part of him, even if he wasn't quite as idealistic as he'd been when he entered the Marshals.

  "No," the agent acknowledged, "but Majors knows where she is—or at least where her car is."

  "Now hold on a minute." Shep straightened in anger. It was just as he suspected. The car search had told them something. "If you want my help, Voorhees, you'd better tell me everything you know or suspect. I don't like surprises." What was he saying? He had no intention of getting involved.

  "We didn't find money when we searched her vehicle, but we did find a tracking device mounted under the hood of the trunk. Great way to find each other if plans go awry, don't you think?"

  So that was who had broken into Charlie Long's garage. It also explained why the alleged vandal hadn't taken any of the car's equipment. The stereo alone would bring more than pocket change. But did Deanna know she was being tracked? At first she'd been pale as last night's ashes, but after Charlie's explanation, she seemed to have gained her color back.

  If this wasn't a quagmire, there was no such thing, Shep fumed, as angry at himself for being drawn into it as he was at Voorhees for tugging at just the right strings, in just the right order, to pull him in. Except that Shep wasn't likely to be the only one herded into this patch of quicksand.

  "As friendly as folks are here in Buffalo Butte, all this Majors has to do is ask about the car, and he'll find out all he needs to—"

  "Now hold on, boy." Clyde stopped Shep as he sprang from the chair. "Ain't nobody tellin' anything to any strangers about your houseguest. Cantankerous Charlie wouldn't if he could, and I spoke to the folks at the diner, the feed store, and the grocery this morning. Told 'em the gal was in Witness Protection, it was their civic duty to keep what they knew to themselves, and to send any strangers who wander in asking questions straight to me."

  Great. Within the span of a few hours, Buffalo Butte had become a town of special agents for the U.S. government. Shep knew the townsfolk wouldn't talk after the sheriff's explanation, but that didn't mean they wouldn't try to help either. From Agent Voorhees's groan of realization, he and Shep were at least of the same mind on that—civilians had no place in agency business unless it was unavoidable. And it was unavoidable now... unless Shep refused to go along with the plan. It was his choice.

  "Meanwhile," Voorhees said, taking Shep's silence as compliance. "I want to set up a surveillance of your place. You can tell your pretty guest we're geologists testing the area for minerals."

  Uncle Dan had sold the mineral rights to Hopewell, not that there was anything left worth mining, so the charade would seem reasonable to Deanna—or anyone who might ask—if Shep went along with the plan.

  "And since you've obviously won her trust, we want you to try to get her to talk."

  "I'm not wearing a wire." Shep didn't like it, nor any aspect of the entire scheme. He'd left his job behind him. He certainly didn't want to work with the man whose reckless ambition had cost him that job in the first place.

  "It would go a long way toward building the case," Voorhees pointed out.

  And while Shep
was accustomed to being put at risk, he didn't like the idea of Deanna being used... even if she had used him. "Like I care. I'm not living under your microscope in my own home. You'd just have to take my word on what she says, if she says anything—"

  "I hear you don't even have a phone," Voorhees interrupted.

  "If I decide to help at all, I won't need a phone. I have a radio."

  "We'll give you a phone. We have to have some way to keep in contact."

  "I didn't say I'd help."

  Voorhees met Shep's glare head on in bold study. "So she's got to you, has she?"

  Shep clamped his fists to his side to check his impulse to knock the patronizing smile off of the special agent's face. "Whatever happened to a person being innocent until proven guilty?"

  Granted, he could see how easily Deanna might play him for a sucker and a place to hide out, but she wasn't that good an actress where her fear was involved. It had been vividly real. He'd seen it beyond her eyes, where lies could not abide.

  "Maybe I need to rethink this plan," Voorhees goaded. "I suppose you could tell her that you've made arrangements for her to stay at that bed-and-breakfast for propriety's sake."

  And leave Deanna to the mercy of Jay's ambition, not to mention jeopardize Esther Lawson and the citizens of Buffalo Butte? Shep wavered. At least at Hopewell, just he and Deanna would be at risk. Tick had already left for roundup at a neighboring ranch.

  "All we're asking is that you plant a few listening devices." The agent shrugged. "Hey, it could prove her innocence in this... unless you have something to hide."

  This was a no-win situation. Shep was condemned if he did and convicted if he didn't.

  "If I were a swearing man, I'd tell you where to go, Voorhees," Shep ground out slowly.

  Jay lifted his brow. "Then you really have changed since that day I put you in the ambulance." Reaching into his coat pocket, he withdrew a cell phone and handed it over to Shep. "Numbers are programmed in. List is in the directory."

  Shep thought he had changed. Now he wasn't so certain, because at this moment, he felt everything he'd felt back then and more. Dropping the unwanted phone in his pocket, he turned before he was tempted to give in to a repeat performance. "I'll keep the phone. You keep the bugs." He grabbed his Stetson off the peg by the door and set it firmly on his head.

  It might be a no-win situation, but Shep wasn't going to let Voorhees know it. Besides, half a loaf was better than none. At least he wouldn't have strangers listening in on every word spoken in his own home.

  ***

  The radio played loudly from the bedroom as Deanna finished off a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch and surveyed her progress. The windows were washed. The curtains were in the washer. The cabinets looked brighter. Once she had new shelf paper, she could tackle the insides. All in all, the whole room looked and smelled television commercial clean and fresh.

  "Martha Stewart, eat your heart out," she challenged, taking up her plate and heading to the kitchen sink.

  From the rug in front of the door, her furry companion raised his head.

  "You're not Martha Stewart," she said in a playful tone that set Smoky's tail wagging. "You're Smoky, aren't you, boy?"

  Grateful for his company, she walked over to the overgrown pup and gave him a good scratching behind his ears. As if on cue, the dog promptly dropped and rolled over for a belly rub.

  "You are rotten," she said, laughing as his hind leg started thumping the floor. "But I don't have time to tickle you. I don't know when Shep will be home, but I gotta get these curtains hung."

  Sheesh, she even sounded like the happy homemaker. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Deanna had a great respect for the women who maintained a household and raised children to boot. It simply hadn't been a role for her.

  Inadvertently her attention shifted to the mantel where a little Shep, clad in full cowboy regalia—six-guns and all—gave her a snaggletoothed grin.

  "Oh, enough already!"

  Deanna hurried to the washing machine as if the prospect of domestication nipped at her heels. She loved other people's kids, but how could she even think about being someone special's honey and having children when she'd made such a mess of her life? It might sound good, but it just wasn't workable—whether Shepard Jones was the catch of a lifetime or not. He'd drop her like a hot brick if he got wind of her trouble with the law. Unlike C. R., this guy was a straight shooter. He'd even come to a complete stop at a four-way the day before when the only thing that moved for miles were cows in the fields.

  Forcing the issue out of her mind, she reached inside the machine and began pulling the curtains out. It was their third washing, and this time the white was finally white and the red... was pink. With a groan, she shook one out, but her dismay only grew when it fell apart, as if she'd rent it in two.

  Now what was she going to do? Shep couldn't fix this with ketchup or applesauce, no matter how much of a gentleman he tried to be.

  As Deanna cast an accusing glance at the empty bleach bottle, Smoky erupted into fierce barking in the kitchen. The dog was growling and pawing to get out when she reached the screen door and looked down the long narrow main street of the ghost town; something she'd been avoiding, lest her imagination run wild with her. At the far end, dust lingered in the air, although what had stirred it was nowhere in sight.

  She supposed Shep might have come up the back way, but if it was him, why hadn't he pulled the Jeep up in its usual spot by the house? In the pasture beyond the livery stable, Patch looked up curiously from grazing but made no move to meet her master as she had yesterday. And wasn't Ticker's trailer on the other side of the street? Besides, Shep had said Ticker would be gone for a few days.

  Painfully aware of how alone she was, Deanna was reluctant to let her only companion out, no matter how much he pawed and barked.

  "Sorry, Smoky, but I need you more in here." She eased the front door shut and locked it.

  If someone came up and knocked, she simply wouldn't answer it. She'd hide in the bathroom and let Smoky's barking convince him no one was home. Most likely it was a friendly neighbor dropping by for a visit, but Deanna was afraid to take that risk. Besides, a friendly neighbor would come right up to the house, not hide in his vehicle.

  Thirteen

  It seemed like an eternity passed in the four-watt night-lighted confines of the bathroom. The dog continued barking, his excitement waning as he raced from the kitchen to the bedroom and back, only to start again. Finally, curiosity got the best of her. Deanna opened the door and listened. The Beach Boys crooned a lively tune on the radio, interrupted by an occasional bark from the dog, as if Smoky, too, questioned whether the need for alarm was over.

  Deanna tiptoed to the bedroom, instinctively hunkering down to her knees when Smoky resumed barking at the window. Peering around the curtain she spied someone coming out of the livery stable—a man, tall and lean in faded jeans and a T-shirt. He took his time, looking all around, as if casing the place. A beat-up Western-style hat shaded his face, hiding his age, although the rest of his outfit did little to hide the fact that he was in good physical shape.

  Down on the Jersey shore, she might have admired the tanned bulge of bicep as he put his hands on his low-slung jeans in seeming contemplation. Today, it evoked a different response. He was big, strong, and totally capable of anything he had in his mind to do. She shuddered, recalling the overturned furniture in her apartment and the broken drawers. What if somehow—

  Her heart stopped as the stranger turned abruptly, staring dead on at the house. He couldn't possibly see her, but Deanna drew back against the wall and tried to push Smoky away from the bedroom window before the dog leaped through the buckled screen.

  "Down, Smoky!" She lunged for the dog's collar, losing her balance and sprawling on the cool wooden floor empty-handed. Smoky vaulted over her and made for the porch door. A scramble and peek through the curtain revealed the visitor walking straight to the house.

&n
bsp; With a strangled cry, she crawled back to the bathroom as fast as her surely bruised knees and hands would allow. Once inside, she eased the door shut, leaving just enough of a crack to keep tabs on what was transpiring. By now, Smoky's excited bark had grown fiercer, even threatening. He sounded as though he could chew up and spit out the stranger from the boots up.

  The man knocked loudly on the kitchen door, despite the dog's ruckus.

  "Yo, anybody home?" The old metal doorknob rattled over Smoky's low growl. "Hey, take it easy, boy. I'm not gonna hurt you."

  Of course the stranger could see inside the kitchen, thanks to her housecleaning binge—not a curtain at either window. That might not have made a difference before she washed the glass in them, but she'd made it easier to see what might be worth stealing inside. Deanna strained to listen above Smoky's warning, picking up what she thought were retreating footsteps on the porch.

  Her breath of relief lodged in her chest as Smoky abandoned the door, racing past her for the bedroom window. Was the intruder there? Easing out of the bathroom, she inched along the hallway wall and peeked around the bedroom door to where Smoky had taken up guard.

  "Here you go, boy."

  Deanna flattened against the cold plaster at her back. Heavenly Father, he was hack! "Smells pretty good, huh?"

  Afraid to look, but more afraid not to, Deanna peered through the hinge crack of the bedroom door in time to see the now silent Smoky sniffing something at the screen. Now there's a real guard dog. In disbelief, she watched the man pry the screen open enough to slip a large dog biscuit through. Western security left a lot to be desired, she thought, wishing for the alarm system and window locks at her New York condo. She didn't even have a phone to call for help.

  This guy really knew what he was doing. Smoky took the biscuit and laid down on the scatter rug, chewing his traitorous little heart out, while the stranger carefully removed the screen. "Got more where that came from, buddy." One... two... three more biscuits landed on the rug next to the dog. With little more than a grunt, the stranger hoisted himself up on the windowsill.