by Gayle Wilson
The assassin hadn’t taken any more potshots after that fusillade while he was crossing between Nicki’s hiding place and their mounts. Apparently he wasn’t in a position to be able to follow Michael’s movements here, at least not as long as he stayed on his belly. Or, and this was something he didn’t want to think about, the gunman could now be on the move himself.
He should have told Nicki to fire off a couple of rounds every now and then. She wouldn’t hit anything—not at that range—but it might keep the guy in place until Michael could get up there to challenge him.
He was climbing now, the rifle held in his right hand, the left used for balance or to help pull him over obstacles. And he was hurrying, choosing to sacrifice stealth in the interest of speed. The quicker he got to the gunman, the less chance there would be that Nicki would get hurt again.
Just stay low and keep your head down, he urged her telepathically, wishing he’d taken time to say that once more. Instead, he had decided that he needed to get away before he made a lot of promises he might not be able to keep.
He slowed his forward progress, moving far more cautiously now. He was getting too close to the shooter’s location to take the chance that he might inadvertently warn him. From below, he had picked out a wind-gnarled pinon pine to use as his guide. It was now less than twenty feet above him.
He glanced below, locating the boulder behind which Nicki was hidden. From up here, it looked far too small to provide adequate cover, but he could only see what looked like part of her boot. At least she was keeping her head down.
As his gaze began to track back up the incline, it was drawn to something near the base of the slope. A movement? If so, it had been fleeting enough that he couldn’t be sure of exactly what he’d seen. Maybe a flicker of sunlight striking something reflective.
Like the barrel of a rifle?
Unmindful now of the noise, he began to climb again, keeping an eye on the boulder below as he headed for the point he’d marked as the assassin’s location. After only a few minutes he had found a position just above that spot so that he could see the entire area around the misshapen tree.
Just as he’d feared, there was no one there. With a total disregard for his footing, he began to descend the treacherous slope he’d just laboriously climbed. While he’d been up here hunting him, the assassin had been making his way down, headed toward the target he had intended to take out all along.
NICKI CLOSED her aching eyes against the sunspots that danced in front of them. The resulting darkness was incredibly restful.
Her head jerked as she started to doze off. Panicked at the possibility that she had been asleep, even briefly, she raised it to survey the area around her. Nothing had changed in what must have been the few seconds she’d had her eyes closed.
She shifted a little, trying to press the pad made from Michael’s shirt more tightly against the wound on the back of her shoulder. The position she was forced to assume in order to do that was awkward and uncomfortable. And since the fabric was completely soaked with blood, she couldn’t be certain the pressure was doing that much good.
She started to put her other hand under the elbow of the arm wrapped around her body and realized it was holding the Glock Michael had given her. Her fingers, wrapped tightly around its stock, seemed numb and unresponsive.
She loosened them, trying to stretch out their stiffness. She wished she could manage to do that with the rest of her cramped body, but there wasn’t enough room.
She turned her head, trying to find Michael on the rugged escarpment that loomed above her. Sunlight shimmered off the light-colored rocks. She blinked against it, not daring to close her eyes.
She realized she was no longer pressing the pad against her shoulder. She had begun to lift the hand that held the blood-soaked square when her attention was drawn to the horses. They were milling again, just as they had when Michael had slipped under them. She pushed herself upright, trying to see if he were again hiding behind them.
She thought she saw something moving through their shifting legs, but heat waves rising from the ground between them distorted the air. The scene wavered and blurred, making it difficult to distinguish exactly what was there. She blinked to moisten the dryness of her eyes.
When she focused on the horses once more, she thought for an instant that she must be experiencing some kind of flashback. Or a heat created hallucination. A man was running across that barren, empty stretch between the animals and the boulder where she was hidden.
Michael? Could it be Michael?
She tried to remember what he’d told her. Something about yelling out her name. Giving her plenty of warning.
There was no sound at all. No footsteps. No wind. Nothing. It was exactly like one of those silent movies. Flickering images with no dialogue.
No dialogue. And there was supposed to be. He had told her that.
She struggled to her knees, knowing that she no longer had any reason to worry about keeping her head down. She put both hands around the butt of the Glock, bringing it into firing position like Michael showed her.
Michael. What if this was Michael? What if he was yelling at her, and she couldn’t hear him? Just as she couldn’t see his face clearly enough through the sun-induced haze to make an identification.
She batted her eyes to clear her vision as the index finger of her right hand closed over the trigger.
Where the hell was Michael? Why wasn’t he here to help her?
If this wasn’t Michael, then the only person it could be—
She raised the weapon, pointing it like a finger at the center of the approaching runner’s chest.
Don’t get fancy, Michael had told her. Locate the widest area of the target, point the muzzle and gently squeeze the trigger.
God, he was so close. Almost here. Almost on her. Almost—
He had a gun, she realized. He was holding it out in front of him with both hands, pointing it at her.
Not Michael. Not Michael.
Her finger tightened over the trigger as she tried to remember everything he’d said.
Squeeze, don’t jerk. Gentle pressure.
But he was so close. Too close.
The gun went off, although she wasn’t conscious of having completed the pull. As it did, the muzzle jerked upward. She tried to control it, concentrating on lining it up again on the center of the target.
Although her brain didn’t seem to be making logical connections, she understood that she must have missed because he was still coming. She fought her shaking hands, trying to keep the big gun from wavering.
The running man skidded to a stop in front of her, his boots sliding over the rock-strewn ground. She had time to know that she had never seen him before in her life before the muzzle of the gun he held out in front of him began to lower. Although her hands still trembled as they tried to line up the Glock, his seemed rock steady.
The black eye of the weapon he held was pointed directly between her eyes. It was the one thing in the shifting kaleidoscope of images that appeared stable. Unambiguous.
She could even see his finger moving, tightening over the trigger. Squeezing it ever so gently. Just as Michael had tried to teach her.
The sound of the shot seemed to come from a great distance, her own a fraction of a second behind it. She didn’t think she had managed to get the muzzle aligned with the center of his chest, but as she watched, the gunman seemed to hesitate.
His mouth opened and then closed, and his eyes widening in shock. The gun he held began to lower until it was no longer pointing at her forehead. And then, no longer pointing at her at all.
When it finally went off, the bullet plowed into the ground at his feet. A finger of dirt kicked up, as if someone had scooped it out and thrown it into the air.
In slow motion, his knees began to bend forward. He didn’t release the weapon, not even to put his hands out to try and stop his fall.
His forehead hit the ground last, bouncing as it collided wi
th the ground. That, too, produced a small cloud of particles that lifted into the still air before they settled to earth again.
Throughout the entire sequence she had kept the Glock trained on him, the barrel following his slow descent. It took her a moment to realize that he was no longer moving. Another to understand that the threat he had represented was ended.
Still she held the gun pointed at him. Afraid to move. Afraid that if she did, he would come back to life. That he would raise the weapon that lay under his body and gently, ever so gently, squeeze the trigger again.
Again.
Ridiculously, she looked down, trying to see where the bullet had struck her. There had been no pain. No force of impact. Not like before. Which meant…
Gradually she came to the conclusion that whatever had happened to the bullet he’d fired, it hadn’t hit her. She was alive, and she hadn’t been shot. Not this time.
She took a small sobbing breath in celebration. As she did, she became aware that someone was running toward her, boots crunching over the gravel with a sound she was by now too familiar with.
She lifted her head to face the new threat, setting off a violent wave of vertigo. The world swam out of focus, grew gray and then black. She struggled to bring it back.
The sun seemed blinding in its intensity. She brought her weapon up, aiming it at the sound of those running footsteps because she couldn’t see anything but glare.
“Nicki?”
Her finger closed over the trigger as Michael’s words echoed in her brain. Gentle squeeze. Don’t jerk.
That’s what she had done wrong before. That’s why the muzzle had lifted. Hands shaking, she aimed at the silhouette moving across the sun-brilliance patch of open ground.
This time she’d get it right, damn it.
“Nicki!”
From a great distance, she recognized Michael’s voice. He was calling her name. She wanted to tell him that she had to do this first. One last thing to do, and then maybe they’d let her rest. That’s all she wanted. Just to lie down somewhere cool and dark, even if it was in one of Colleen’s beds.
“Put it down, Nicki. Put the gun down. It’s over. It’s all over.”
She concentrated on the movement of her finger over the trigger. Slow and steady. The figure before her was growing larger and larger, his darkness blocking out the painful light from the sun.
Just choose the widest point of the target…
She blinked again, narrowing her eyes against the glare. As she did, for a second the face of the man coming toward her was clear.
His mouth was moving. She realized she could even hear the words coming out of it. She had been hearing them for a few seconds now, but they had had no meaning until she put them together with his face.
Michael. Michael was calling her name. Just as he’d told her he would.
Her finger eased off the trigger. As it did, the strength in her arms seemed to evaporate. Still holding the Glock in both hands, she let her arms fall.
Very carefully she laid the gun on the ground. Then she put her palms down either side of it, head hanging. She closed her eyes, giving in to the pleasant darkness she had fought.
Michael caught her before she collapsed. As his arms closed around her, she opened her eyes, looking into his.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “It’s all over. I’m going to take you home.”
She licked her lips, trying to gather enough moisture in her dry mouth to form the words. She couldn’t do it. It was all too hard. Giving in to the exhaustion she’d fought for hours, she closed her eyes, concentrating on the promise he’d made.
Home. Finally, finally she was going home.
Chapter Nineteen
“They got a match on the fingerprints,” Colleen said.
Even in the dim lighting of the hospital corridor, Michael could see that the furrows were back in her forehead. She had a right to them.
He had dumped everything into her lap as soon as he’d gotten Nicki back to the ranch. Colorado Confidential, with the help of the DPS, had taken care of the body of the man he’d killed. He had known they sent the assassin’s fingerprints through the national database. He just hadn’t had time to worry about the results.
He leaned tiredly against the gray tiled wall, prepared to listen. Before he gave her his full attention, however, he glanced down the hall to the door of Nicki’s room. Shawn Jameson, looking big and powerful, was standing guard in front of it.
Reassured, he turned back to Colleen. “And?”
“His name was Joseph Delano. He’s wanted in connection with the murders of two women in the Washington area.”
A coldness settled in the pit of his stomach. Two women.
“D.C.,” he clarified. When she nodded, he asked, “Do we know who they were?”
There was a small hesitation, but she told him, her eyes compassionate. “They’d been implicated in the call-girl ring I told you about.”
“The one Nicki supposedly belonged to?”
“That doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been a setup.”
Her face said she didn’t believe that, although the suggestion had originally been hers. As far as he was concerned, there was no use discussing this until he heard from the people he’d asked to look into those allegations.
He had requested a down-and-dirty investigation, the kind that would turn up everything, no matter how cleverly hidden. How that was progressing was something else he hadn’t had a chance to check on. Just as he hadn’t had a chance to sleep or shower or do anything beyond worry.
He’d done plenty of that. Since it was a relatively new activity for him, he was finding it not only time-consuming, but highly unpleasant.
“And we finally got word from the CDC on the samples you provided. Apparently the blood contains an antibody for Q fever.”
“Q fever?” Michael questioned.
“A bug that causes a deadly strain of flu-like illness. There’s been some talk in the past about using it as a biological weapon. From the spraying you described at the lab on the Half Spur, I’m wondering if they’re testing some kind of aerosol vaccine for it on the sheep.”
“If someone in Gettys’s position is involved in testing a biological weapon—even a vaccine for one…”
Michael let the words trail. The political ramifications of having a U.S. senator engaged in anything like that would be as obvious to Colleen as they were to him.
“Wiley Longbottom has suggested we investigate a flu with characteristics similar to Q fever that hit Silver Rapids about five months ago. Two elderly people died from it at Gilpin Hospital in Denver. Shortly after that, the hospital’s records room went up in flames.”
“And you want me to look into that fire?” Michael asked, his concern for Nicki warring with his need to get to the bottom of whatever had been going on at the Spur.
“No, big brother, you’re still officially on bodyguard duty. I’m assigning this one to Shawn. Not only is he screaming for something to do, he’s an experienced arson investigator. And Fiona and Night are occupied following up the other leads we had on the Langworthy baby.”
“At least we know there’s no baby at the Half Spur.”
That was about all he could be sure of about that operation. He didn’t have any answer for the fire that had threatened Nicki. It could well have been just what Quarrels had suggested—an accident caused by Ralph’s smoking. Or maybe someone had decided to issue a warning to whoever was poking around the secret activities on the ranch. Since Nicki had been seen by Johnson in the office, she would be a likely target.
He might never know the truth, he acknowledged, his eyes considering the closed door of Nicki’s room. And at this point, at least as far as he was concerned, the more important consideration was simply keeping her safe.
“How is she?”
The concern in his sister’s voice seemed genuine despite Nicki’s conviction that Colleen disapproved of their relationship. He didn’t give a damn whether she d
id or not, of course, but since he was going to need a safe place to take Nicki after the doctors released her, maybe this would be a good time to clear up any misunderstandings.
“She’s going to be okay.”
Saying the words out loud brought an unexpected ache to the back of his throat. Even he could see how much improved Nicki was today—stronger, more alert and very anxious to get out of here. Which brought him back to what he needed to say to Colleen.
“I want to bring her to the ranch.”
“Of course,” his sister said quickly. “I told you that the Royal Flush is as much yours—”
“And whatever you feel about the assassin’s connection to the call-girl ring, I don’t want you to reveal those feelings to her. Not by word or action. Not by thought if you can help it. Keep whatever doubts you have to yourself, Colleen, because I promise you Nicki wasn’t involved.”
“Then you’ve heard back from—”
“Not yet, but even if they tell me…” He took a breath, thinking how far he had come from those first doubt-filled days on the Half Spur. “That’s something I know, no matter what they tell me.”
“But—”
“Like you said. There’s such a thing as personal judgment. I’ve made mine. It isn’t subject to change.”
He had realized that while he’d waited through the surgery. Waited alone because everyone else had been busy taking care of Delano’s corpse. And he owed Colorado Confidential, and especially Colleen, a huge debt of gratitude.
“Please believe that I only want what makes you happy,” she said stiffly.
He nodded. “I know.”
“And you’re saying she does? Despite—”
“Despite everything,” he said.
It was probably just as well his sister didn’t understand that any glass walls he owned had been stoned long ago. Her eyes searched his before she nodded.
“Call me as soon as you know when they’ll release her. Oh, and that reminds me. Someone called for you this morning. They left a number. No name, no message, just this,” she said, taking a sheet torn off the message pad in her office out of the pocket of her slacks.