by Hinze, Vicki
“I didn’t intend to disappear. Just wanted to clear my head.”
“Next time, give notice.” He softened that edict with a gentle squeeze.
“I will.” She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “I guess underneath all that worrying, you’re pretty ticked at me for ditching you at A-1, huh?”
“You scared ten years off me.”
“I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“We all have our moments. Since you lived, I forgive you.”
She covered their clasped hands with her free one. “I look vulnerable.”
“I think at the moment, you are vulnerable.”
“Not really.” She lifted her chin, rubbed her head wound against the pillow and it stung. “Well, maybe a little.”
He smiled, brushed a hand over her forehead, stroking her. “I discovered something while you were missing.”
Skittish, she asked, “About the case?”
“About us.” He bent close and looked deep into her eyes. “Do you want to know what it is?”
“Only if it’s good.”
It wasn’t good. It was awful—for him. “You’ll like it.”
“Okay, then tell me.”
“You just want friendship between us, and I understand all the reasons why.”
“This isn’t sounding good.”
“I discovered that if I let things between us move beyond that, you’d see it as me breaking your trust.”
Confusion and maybe a little disappointment crossed her face. “Are you telling me I can trust you?”
“Absolutely, you can trust me.” This wasn’t coming out right. He was falling into the same trap he’d fallen into before in the car. “You know, this isn’t coming out right. But when you’re on your feet again and I’m free of brain fog, we need to talk.”
“Okay.” She tugged at the sheets. “But for the record, I do trust you. That’s why when I looked at you and saw doubt...well, I might have jumped to the wrong conclusion. You wanted to explain, and I should have let you. I was wrong.” She motioned to her head. “Old tapes playing old messages that don’t apply to you. If it helps, I am sorry.”
“Thank you.” He wanted to say more, but her eyelids were already fluttering closed. That was probably a blessing. The conversation they needed to have required not one clear head, but two. And right now they didn’t have one between them.
A nurse with a stethoscope wrapped around her neck came in. “We’re ready to move her up to the third floor. Give us ten minutes, Mr. Mason, and then you can come up.”
“Where she goes, I go.” Paul stood perfectly still.
Doc popped in. “It’s okay, Paul. Go tell Madison what’s going on. I’ll stay with Della until you get to her room. Third floor.”
“You’re going to stay with her during a simple transport to the third floor?” The nurse looked stunned.
“Yes.” He winked at Della. “She’s my friend—and so is he.” He motioned for her to get on with it...
“Thanks, Doc.” Paul stroked Della’s arm, then went back toward the waiting room.
Madison looked fighting mad. “Hold on, Grant.” She held her phone away from her ear and asked Paul, “How’s Della?”
“They’re keeping her overnight, but she’s okay. I’ll be with her.”
“Good.” She gathered her purse. “I guess I’ll go get busy, then.”
“Busy? Has something happened on the case I should know about?”
“No, Grant—” she lifted the phone “—has been drinking the Kool-Aid, suggesting Della did all this to cover that private security issue we’ve discussed.” Madison hiked her purse strap on her shoulder. “I need to go have a chat with him.”
Ream him was more like it, judging by the fire in her eyes. “He should be suspicious. It’s his job,” Paul said in Grant’s defense. “He’s wrong, of course. But he should prove it.”
“Fine.” She smiled and held up the phone to make sure her voice carried and Grant heard her. “I’ll let him live.”
Another woman saying “fine.” This, Paul did not need, and he doubted Grant Deaver did, either. “They’re moving Della to a room now.”
Madison nodded, clearly thinking. “I want her out of this investigation in every way, Paul. Keep her sequestered at an alternate secure location until we resolve all this. I’ll contact you on your cell to keep you in the loop.”
Paul stilled. Madison knew the ranch was the most secure location in North Bay. “What alternate secure location do you recommend?”
She checked to make sure they were still alone, licked at her lips and pointed to the phone, signaling she wanted Deaver to overhear them. “Remember the house in Seaside?”
Paul did. Surely Madison wasn’t serious. It was on the gulf. He couldn’t secure a house on the gulf. It’d take an army—which she knew as well as he did. Unsure what she was up to, he kept his comments to himself and simply said, “Yes.”
“Take her there.” Madison fished in her purse and removed a key off her fob, then passed it to Paul. “Here’s the key.” She passed it to him. “Don’t tell anyone—I mean no one. And don’t call in. Your phone will be tapped.”
She was setting up Deaver. No two ways about it. “I’ll remove the battery, Madison.”
“Perfect. Jimmy brought your rental car here and we returned Della’s CRV to A-1. You keep her in Seaside until we come and get you.”
“Got it.”
She frowned, clearly worried he hadn’t gotten the real message. Paul winked, and her expression eased. The message sent had been received. He’d go to the ranch with Della as planned. Grant would no doubt report the Seaside development to General Talbot and Colonel Dayton, and Madison and the rest of the Lost, Inc., staff would set up a sting at Seaside to nail him for crossing them and expose Talbot and Dayton as the ones setting Della up—if they were setting her up and were behind all the stalker business. Regardless, the stalker attacks should cease because he wouldn’t have a clue where she was or how to find her.
Clever, Madison. Very clever.
Likely this would only prove Grant Deaver wasn’t trustworthy. But it was possible it’d prove far, far more....
* * *
“Why are you driving toward Panama City?” Della looked over from the passenger seat to Paul. “I thought we were going to the ranch.”
“Same reason I cleared the car to make sure it wasn’t bugged or rigged with explosives.” Paul checked his rearview. The cop car was still behind them. Next traffic light, Jimmy should intercede. “You buckled up?”
She nodded.
“Still have a headache?”
“Oh, yeah.” She dragged her fingertips over her temple. “Dr. Mark said it could last a couple days, but I sure hope not.”
“Is the shot he gave you still working?”
“The pain is there, but it’s dull, so I guess so.” Earlier it’d had her stomach revolting. At least that had calmed down.
He passed her his phone. “Take out the battery for me.”
“Why?” She took the phone and popped off the cover.
“Is your phone in your purse?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her internal alarms starting firing; it showed in her eyes. “Paul, what is—”
“Take the battery out of it, too.”
“Okay.” She snapped the cover back into place on his phone, then fished hers from her purse and removed the battery from it. “I’m vulnerable here, and dealing with a wall-banger headache, and curious. I’m going to get testy.”
“We need to disappear for a while.” He glanced over. “You okay with that?”
Della studied him a long minute. This was a trust test, pure and simple. “Fine.”
“Not fine. Tell me anything but fine.”
A smile threatened. “I’m okay with that.”
He rewarded her with a hand squeeze that set her heart to racing. “I take it you’re cutting communications. Have you forgotten we’ve got a friendly following us?”
&
nbsp; “Haven’t forgotten. Jimmy’s going to help us with that.”
“How?” What she really wanted to know was why.
“Next red light. He’ll create a diversion.”
She tensed, looked ahead and saw a green truck spinning in the intersection.
Paul lowered the glass, signaled the officer following that he feared this was a trap and took off. “Hold on.” He jumped the median and shot up old Highway 331, then headed fast for the Waloka County line.
The officer stopped and checked out the truck. Della watched until she couldn’t see anymore. “Is Jimmy getting himself into trouble?”
“No. He’ll tell the cop something went out in his steering, and it did. He’ll be back at the office before lunch.”
“Okay.” She couldn’t take the suspense anymore. “What’s going on?”
“We’re enacting Madison’s plan.”
“Which is...what?” Della grabbed the handle on the door. Trees flashed by, making her nauseated.
“Taking you to the ranch.”
Nauseated and clammy. “Then why not just drive there?”
“I think because Madison and Grant got into an argument. She hasn’t had time to say, exactly.”
“You’re not making a lot of sense, Paul.”
“Oh, but I am.” His eyes gleamed. “Your boss is pretty smart. She’s setting up Talbot, Dayton and Grant Deaver to see if they’re your stalker.”
“She’s making herself a target?” Della’s stomach flipped. She smoothed a hand over it.
“No, she’s testing Grant’s loyalties.” Paul hooked an arm over the steering wheel and rode out of town and then onto a two-lane paved road lined with thick woods. “If he’s being straight with Madison, it’ll be fine. If he’s reporting to the general, she’ll know it. In the meantime, you’re supposed to be at Seaside, but—”
“I’ll actually be at your ranch and no one will know it, including the stalker.”
Della had to give Madison props. It was a clever idea. “If Talbot or Dayton don’t come out of this well, they’ll find a way to fry Madison. I don’t like that part of this.”
“They can’t,” Paul said. “Not without exposing themselves.”
Now that the road had smoothed out, her stomach settled. The clamminess ceased. Glad for that, Della paused, thought. “I don’t know, Paul. Powerful men can make things happen.”
“The Lost, Inc., folks will be fine. They’re professionals, too.”
“They are,” Della agreed, and hoped their safety proved true.
The car warmed, the ride became pleasant and smooth and the shot Dr. Mark had given her kicked in. Her eyes drifted closed, and Della slept.
* * *
“Hey.” Paul’s hand stroked her face. “Time to wake up.”
Della opened her eyes. She was leaning against Paul’s shoulder. She sat up and glanced at the clock. Forty minutes had passed. “We’re at the ranch?”
“Almost.” He hit his left blinker. “I didn’t want to turn off the paved road and jar you to death without you being aware of what was happening.”
“Ah. The road up to the house still isn’t paved?” That surprised her. Paul had money. At one time his folks had owned most of Waloka County. Paul still owned a lot of it.
“It is, just not for the first five hundred feet off the highway. It discourages gawkers. They disturb the horses.”
The horses! She hadn’t thought of them. “Are they okay? You’ve been away—”
“Warny’s taking care of them. As busy as we’ve been at Vet Net, I haven’t had the time.”
“I thought he was a recluse.”
“He has been for most of his life. But for Maggie, he gave it up. She asked him to move in and take care of the horses. He can’t refuse her anything.”
Neither could Paul, and he loved the horses, too. “Giving up your time with them must be hard for you.”
“Not as hard a time as the vets have when they come home and find out the life they left is gone. So many can’t find jobs and their homes have been sold out from under them.”
“It’s awful. And I know how important the work you do is. I’ve lived it. I just meant it’s sad you can’t spend more time with your horses. You love them.”
“I do.” He smiled at her. “But I love the vets more.”
“I’m glad.” She smiled back at him. “I’m eager to see if the place has changed.”
“It never changes much, but the new barn is finished.”
“The roof was going on the last time I was here.” Why had he stopped inviting her out? He used to do that fairly often. Warny seemed pleasant enough, but maybe he objected to anyone coming out. He’d been a total recluse for a long, long time.
“Then you know what’s changed.”
Paul’s ranch was two hundred lush acres out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by deep, thick woods. A three-acre clearing sat dead center, for the house, two barns and—what was it he called those fenced-in areas where he exercised the horses? She couldn’t recall. No matter. White-rail fence stretched as far as she could see, giving the horses a lot of room to roam. When she’d been out here for a picnic, she’d seen a half dozen deer. Paul said they were plentiful, as were squirrels, and back behind the house, there was a lovely natural spring and creek with clear water that was cold even in the heat of summer. It was a beautiful place. Breathtakingly beautiful.
He made a curve and braked at a gate that stretched across the road. Pressing his thumb flat on a posted pad, he waited. The gate swung open. He drove through and it closed behind them. “Yours is the only private home I know with a biometric security system,” she said.
“What happened in Utah made it necessary.” He frowned. “And more.”
The Gary Crawford incident with his sister. “Have you talked to Maggie lately?”
“Last night, while you were sleeping. I want her to come home, but she feels she should wait a bit.”
“With everything going on here, that might be a good idea. At least until Crawford is ruled out.” Della rubbed at her throbbing temple. “Will she wait?”
“Yeah. She’s stubborn but not stupid. I told her it was possible Crawford was stalking you.”
“How’d she react?”
“About like you’d expect. Scared. Mad. Mostly mad.”
Jake, Paul’s rottweiler, appeared out of the woods and made a beeline for the car, barking nonstop.
Della laughed. “I think he’s missed you.”
“Yeah.” Paul grinned. “He’s rotten, but he’s mine.”
He adored his dog more than his horses. And for the first time, Della experienced a quiet longing that he’d adore her a little, too. She chased the thought away. What they had was special. Too special to risk losing. Especially since it was nearly all she had. Oh, Miss Addie was good to her, and the guys at work were terrific. But at the end of the day, they went home to their families. And even if invited to join them, Della never forgot that she was an outsider. They were their families, not hers. She was alone. Well, nearly. Close.
She thought she’d needed to stay alone to survive. After loving and losing, she had believed it fully. Maybe she didn’t deserve more. But being nearly alone was different. Would it be wrong to want more? Just a little more? Just something?
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” She tossed away the wistful thoughts. It was the pain medication. She’d never dare to think about such things if she wasn’t half out of her head. Danny was dead. She couldn’t afford to want anything at all.
A bullet whizzed past the windshield.
To the right of the car, a low-slung oak limb crashed to the ground, half covering the road.
Paul braked hard and swerved, shouting, “Jake, sit!”
The dog dropped to his haunches, ceased barking. The car stopped, half on and half off the road. Paul narrowed his gaze at an old man in coveralls standing in the center of the road, his rifle aimed right at them.
“Wh
at in the world?” Della slumped sideways in her seat.
“It’s fine.” Paul grumbled, opened the car door, raised his hands then stepped out. “Warny, put that blasted gun down right now—and get your glasses on.”
“Paul?” Squinting, the old man walked toward him.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Jake sat champing at the bit to greet him. Paul tapped his thigh, and Jake lunged at him. “Hey, boy. I’m glad to see you, too.”
Warny joined them. His wrinkled, leathery face disappeared under a well-worn hat. “Sorry about that. Jake was kicking up such a ruckus—”
“What are you doing, shooting without your glasses? You could have killed us.”
“Ain’t likely.” He sniffed. “I was aiming six feet too high.” He peeked into the car. “Morning to you, Miss Della.”
“Morning, Warny.” She smiled. She couldn’t help herself. “Bit warm today, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is that. Surprising for October.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Paul told her. “Why’d you shoot at us?”
“You’re inside the fence in a strange car, barreling up the road to the house. What am I supposed to do, hang out a Rob Me sign?”
“I told you I was driving a rental.”
“No, sir.” He parked the shotgun across his shoulder. “You omitted that little fact.”
Paul stilled. He might have. “Well, next time, can you wait to see who’s in the car before you start shooting? The trees would appreciate it.”
Warny grinned. “I believe I can manage that.”
“Good.” Paul returned to the car. “Oh. I don’t want anyone to know we’re here.”
Warny’s old eyes gleamed. “So that’s the way of it, eh? Pastor ain’t much gonna like it. I don’t, either. That’s all I got to say on that.”
“That’s not the way of it. Della’s in danger. I’ll be bunking with you in the barn. Heaven help me.”
“I see.” Warny’s eyes went serious. “Well, in that case, Jake, stay with Miss Della.”
The dog jumped into the car, got in the backseat and parked his nose on Della’s shoulder. She petted his smooth snout. “Thanks, boy.”
“Sorry, Della.” Paul rolled his eyes. “Jake, get out of that car.”