Meat rubbed his face vigorously, then crossed in front of her on an intercept course with the refrigerator. He held up a carton of orange juice. “You want some?”
“No thanks. I already had a soda.” She held up the can, but the caffeine in it hadn’t helped. She was tired right down to her soul. If she was about to break, she was too tired to know it.
Meat drank out of the carton, carried it with him to the mantel where he stopped by the last picture in the row, a photo of little boy in uniform kneeling by a soccer ball. He stroked the picture lightly, as if he were stroking his son’s head.
Dani had a feeling this was something he did every day. How well she understood the compulsion. Even after ten years, she would be somewhere and panic wondering where Meggie was. Or she’d see a toy she knew she’d like and be up to the checkout before she remembered.
“He’s beautiful,” Dani said, huskily. She hesitated, then asked, “How’s Opal?”
Meat hunched his shoulders, turning from his son’s picture to the window that overlooked the junk yard. “Piss poor. Can’t stop blaming herself. I don’t think she’s going to get over it.”
“Getting over it isn’t an option, is it?”
“No. It ain’t.” He looked at her. “But we ain’t sitting in a hospital staring at a blank wall.”
Dani smiled wryly, thinking about Meggie’s father who spent his days staring into a whisky bottle. “Maybe we should be.”
His laugh was surprised, edged with loss. “Yeah, maybe. How come we’re not?”
What made it possible for some people to absorb the body blow of loss, while it was a knock-out punch for others? Why was she trying so hard to keep going when it would be so much easier to quit? For answers to these and other questions, stay tuned, she thought wryly.
Aloud she said, “I don’t know. I know if I sit for too long, I have to pee. Once I’m up—” She shrugged, “I just keep going. I guess I don’t know how to stop.”
Was going forward progress, she wondered, or just a different form of denial? She looked up and realized he was looking at her, his dark eyes uncomfortably penetrating.
“What?” she asked.
“You want to talk about what you don’t know how to stop?”
She had known before she met him that he wouldn’t be clueless, but thought she was putting on a good show. Apparently she thought wrong.
“It’s pretty deep, Meat. Deep and dangerous.”
He dropped down next to her, making a crater in the Naugahyde surface. She slid down it and thumped against his side. He wrapped his arm around her and squeezed. It was like being hugged by a tree trunk.
“Tell your uncle Meat all about it.”
Dani chuckled, even as tears pricked at her tired eyes. Telling was too hard, so Dani turned the lap top with Dark Lord’s letter front and center toward him. She didn’t have to read along with him. She had it memorized after the first read through.
Are you sleeping nights?
If she had been sleeping, which she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be now.
Meat inhaled sharply. “Why’s this bastard got it in for you?”
“For him, it’s a business transaction.” Amazing as it seemed, it wasn’t personal. He was a supplier, her death the demand. “You been following the Richard Hastings case?”
Meat frowned. “He’s that do-gooder that plugged some chick last year?” At Dani’s nod, he frowned. “What’s that got to do with you?”
“I saw him do it. I knew him. His bad luck. My bad luck, he doesn’t want to go to prison. This guy,” Dani nodded at the screen, “is gonna make me forget what I saw.”
“Bastards.” Meat’s forehead creased, finally, he asked, “What’s a do-gooder doing hiring a hit?”
Her laugh was sharp and unamused. “They tell me the FBI is wondering the same thing. As far as I know, they haven’t found out. I’ve known Richard since I was sixteen and I don’t get it.”
And what had all that knowing added up to? Nothing. Even now, with the picture of him killing burned in her brain so it could play and replay in her nightmares, some part of her couldn’t quite believe it. Was she that gullible or was he that clever? Would she live long enough to find out?
“Sucks, don’t it?”
“Dead toads,” she agreed.
Meat grinned, then grew serious. He tapped the screen. “Isn’t this kind of weird? I admit I’m not up on hit men protocol, but this is pushing the envelope. I wonder—”
He stopped, following a line of thought she couldn’t see. Dani waited a bit, but finally prompted, “Wonder what?”
“I bet this guy is a regular on the Net. See that crap at the top?”
“Yeah?”
“The right person could use it to trace him back to his dirty, little hidey hole.”
“I knew that. But Spook told me you can counterfeit that stuff.”
“Spook would know,” Meat conceded. “But you can’t hide your personal style. If he’s on the boards, Boomer Edison can find him.”
“Really?” It was an interesting concept. “Could I talk to him?”
“If you can throw a leg over a Harley, I can take you to him.”
Dani smiled. “I’ve always wanted to throw a leg over a Harley—as long as the leg was still attached to my body.”
Meat chuckled. “Can you wait for my lunch hour? Gotta get a Hog ready for 11:30.”
“No problem.” It would give her time to come up with a Harley-compatible persona suitable for public viewing.
* * * *
It was easy, but it was consuming, for Hayes to cross-reference Dani Gwynne’s online posts with the people she chatted with, then sort them by locality. The program had run most of the night while he tried, and failed, to sleep. Now the printer spit out a series of lists comprised of the people she’d chatted directly with, then cross-referenced by the different places she visited regularly. Contact wasn’t always public. “Going private,” taking a discussion to the privacy of email, was a common practice throughout the Internet. He and Willow had gone private soon after meeting, though she’d continued to politely but firmly resist the meeting Hayes was determined to have with her.
The printer finished its work and Hayes gathered up the sheets, shuffling through them for anything that might stand out. Much of what he did was through a finely honed intuition. This kind of research wasn’t part of his normal procedure. When he got a hit, the research had been done by Bates people. All that was left for him was the kill. This time he was willing to make some effort, as long as it was the right kind of effort. The kind that led him to Dani Gwynne.
Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt. Hayes recalled the phrase culled from the “quote wars.” His head was hurting, so he must be close. He pulled up the lists, removed the first five names from one, then faxed the rest to Bates with instructions at the top to have some of his people check them for signs of Gwynne. Wouldn’t hurt Bates to exert himself or his people.
His short list consisted of four women and one male. The women were romance writers with a high probability of contact. The male was a biker, fairly low probability, name of Meathook. Hayes knew him online, he and Willow chatted with him. There were no outward signs Gwynne had talked to Meathook, a remote chance she’d seek him out. Hayes almost crossed him off the list, then stopped. It wasn’t likely, but he couldn’t afford to pass up even remote chances with just five days left until the trial. Bates was getting restive. Only his very real fear of Hayes kept him in check. If he thought Hayes could fail, that fear would fade. He didn’t need Bates complicating things right now.
Hayes looked at his watch. He should be able to hit all five names before lunch, sooner than that if he was lucky.
He was feeling lucky.
EIGHT
Boomer Edison’s office was so awash with paper and technology, Dani almost couldn’t find him. She saw a shock of orange hair moving in the mass and used it to home in on where he’d hunkered down, typing at two of three comput
ers. A third whirred with the effort of making a printer spew pages in a continuous feed. Except for bifocals perched on the tip of his nose that gave him a vaguely mad scientist air, he looked like a football player who’d taken a wrong turn on his way to the field. His tee shirt even sported a number: infinity.
He didn’t fit into Dani’s notion of a computer whiz. But then, she no longer fit anyone’s idea of a romance writer. Meat’s Mama had played fairy biker “motha,” but instead of taffeta and glass slippers, Dani now sported black Army boots, shiny black leather shorts, a bandeau top that doubled as a push-up bra—more than doubling her available assets—with a black vest pulled over. In her neon beauty salon, conveniently attached to Meat’s junk yard, Mama had trimmed and planted a pyrotechnic bomb in Dani’s hair, then did her face in a combination of slut and Elvira that somehow worked.
After a bit of coaching on her attitude, Dani had thrown her leg over the back of Meat’s Harley and hung on. They stopped once so she could mail her chapters to her agent, then headed for Boomer’s office. She got off the Hog feeling like she could kick some serious booty—a feeling she liked. It made a nice change from the whimpering, cowering thing she’d been doing.
Dani propped her shoulder against the door frame, raised her voice to be heard over the technology, and asked, “You Boomer?”
“Yeah, I’m…” He turned to look at her, impatience melting into a look of shock when his gaze collided with the biker babe interrupting him.
Dani chewed the gum Mama insisted was mandatory and let him look his fill while she studied the scarlet-tipped, acrylic nails Mama had applied. If Shakespeare was right and life was a stage, then timing was everything. She wanted him to be capable of thought, but just enough to help her without asking too many questions.
“Can I help you?” The question emerged minus some of his bass tones.
“Meathook said you could, like, help me with a little problem I’m having?” Dani felt the lethal point of her index finger, while studying him through her outrageous lashes. He looked to be simmering nicely.
“Meat…hook?” He dabbed at the sweat popping out across his forehead.
“Big guy, tattoos, nice Hog?” she prompted.
His grin was edged with sheepish. “Oh yeah. Meat. What can I do for you?”
Dani smiled back, hoping it was as smoky as it felt. “I been getting this, like, shitty email crap from some jerk. Meat says, like, maybe you can tell us who it is, so he could, I dunno, kill him or something?”
She could almost see his Knight in Shining Armor genes kick in. He straightened. “I might. You got copies?”
“Yeah.” She worked her way through his paper stack maze so she could hand him the print out, then propped her elbows on a chest high pile to watch him at work.
It wasn’t until he blinked and swallowed so dryly she could hear it, that she realized the movement had put her cleavage on display. The romance writer inside her cringed, but biker babe licked her lips, then watched the sweat on his skin sizzle like water on a hot skillet.
“I…uh…usually need several posts for a good match,” he stuttered. Biker Babe did disappointed and he rushed to add, “but I can try.”
She made eye contact, held it for two beats, then said, “I’d be real grateful if you would.” She parted her lips slightly, waited another beat, and added, “Real grateful.”
His glasses fogged over. He took them off and turned to the computer, his hands visibly shaking.
Cool. Dani straightened, glad she wouldn’t have to deliver on that gratitude, though not unhappy with his response. She’d have to add a leather scene to her next book.
While his fingers fumbled on the keys, she looked around. The high tech clutter of Boomer’s space was interesting to someone with her cyberspace habits. The up side of being hunted like a dog was that she got to learn so many interesting things. Idly, she thumbed a stack of print outs.
She stopped, her gaze caught by a name at the top of a list on the first sheet. Willow?
She tipped her head to read what turned out to be a nearly complete list of her online handles. As far as she could tell, he’d only missed one. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out she wasn’t the only one who’d availed themselves of Boomer’s special ID hunting skills. She ought to make sure. It could be Dark Lord.
“So, what’s all this Willow shit?”
Boomer looked up, tried to look modestly proud. The effort put a twitch at the edge of his right eye. “That’s a search I did for the Feds.”
“Bitchin’.” Dani smoothed back her heavily moussed hair. “So you think you can find my guy?”
He sighed, fiddling with the stack of papers closest to him. “Less I have to work with, harder it is.”
“Oh.” She chewed her gum, trying to find a way to exit stage right. She’d run a check on Matt Kirby, Marshals Service tracker. He was good. Not the type to let sleeping lists lie. She’d bet her leather brassiere he or his guys would be here any minute to collect. Did she hear baying hounds getting closer? Absolutely. “So, when do you think you’ll, like, know?”
Boomer shrugged. “Tomorrow?”
“I’ll check back then. Thanks.” It was all he was going to get, so she gave him her sultriest smile. Instead of smiling back, he looked past her. “May I help you?”
“Kirby. US Marshals Service.”
Dani stiffened. The hounds, it appeared, were closer than she’d realized. It didn’t matter, she told herself with all the bravado she could muster. She was biker babe. She wasn’t afraid of no Fed. No way.
She turned. The Fed filled the doorway, giving Dani no choice but to study him.
It wasn’t a hardship.
What hit her first, was how large and solid he looked, how safe it made her feel to have him looming over her. He was as broad as Texas and solid as the Rock—which is what he looked like he’d been carved out of. Pure granite, except for his molten, brooding eyes. They’d been poured in under the wide forehead and then given the power to cut through flesh and sinew in search of buried secrets and hidden desires. The only softness she could find in his whole face was the dark hair brushed back from his face and the slightly full upper lip of his straight mouth that no amount of iron control could harden.
She recognized the weakness in her knees and the warmth that started in places that had been polar since her marriage bit the dust. She should. She’d written about it often enough. Warm flickered to flame when her gaze found the place where his conservative suit jacket met sexy, well-worn jeans, wrapped around narrow hips and powerful legs planted firmly in her path.
Wow. Her hands curled into fists against the urge to fan herself. She shouldn’t be surprised there was life in the old hormones or even that this man was stirring them up.
His raw, barely leashed energy wasn’t just physical. The rock had a volcano at its heart. She was looking at an alpha male—in the finely formed flesh—or she wasn’t a romance writer in biker babe drag.
No wonder Caro had waxed lyrical about his assets. It was a wonder she could wax anything or do anything but drool.
From the heat moving like thick honey through her mid-section came an instinctive urge to seek the safety of his sturdy body, to trust in the self-confidence he wore as comfortably as his jeans. He wasn’t just sexy as hell. He was a law man. A hunter. He wouldn’t go around obstacles. He’d go through or over what stood in his way in front of keeping him from what he wanted.
He wanted her.
The idea did nothing to cool her jets until she reminded her unruly libido it was what she knew that he wanted, what she’d seen. He needed her to get to Dark Lord.
Trying for detached, she studied the scuffed cowboy boots he wore. They’d be laying a track right over her if she didn’t get out of here before he turned his hunting dog nose and laser eyes on biker babe and saw Dani cowering underneath.
Hmmm. Biker babes walked, they didn’t get walked on, she reminded herself. She took a steadying breath, hoping Mam
a’s work was as good as she’d thought it was, then asked in a carefully calculated drawl, “You putting down roots, cowboy, or just coming in real slow?”
As soon as he looked at her, she knew it was a tactical error to demand his attention. She’d watched the surgical steel in his eyes cut through Boomer. She might be biker babe on the outside, but inside she was all romance writing woman who should have kept a low profile and hoped he’d get what he came for without seeing what he was looking for.
Stark naked in a stadium full of men would have felt less exposed than being caught in his gaze. Time to go. She took an unsteady breath and stepped toward him. If he was a gentleman, he’d move.
He wasn’t and didn’t.
Let’s try that one again. He had to move, didn’t he? She took another step. Nothing. Was he made of stone? A single stack of paper separated them. Even worse, she was close enough to see the smooth-rough texture of his skin, the different variations of brown in his eyes, and the lines fanning out from those eyes and his mouth—wait a minute. Was that a twitch at the edge of his mouth? Was she imagining—no, there it went again. Definitely a twitch.
Was that good or bad? She did one side-step, then one forward step. Now she was close enough to see, not just feel the banked fire behind the cool control in his eyes, close enough to see the jump of the pulse at his neck just above the crisp white shirt.
Well, well, the hunter wasn’t all cold, hard rock. Like a fire changing direction in the wind, embarrassed heat turned into pleased elemental. Had she thought him safe? He wasn’t. He’d be dangerous, even if she wasn’t in trouble. He stirred the ashes of her past, reminding her of what it felt like to want, to need, to feel that first, surprised shock of desire. To recognize that this man was different from all the others. That even if she walked away, she exchanged something in her for something in him.
Dani wrote books about desire. She’d heard songs sung about it, read poems crafted for it, but she still didn’t have a clue why one particular pair of eyes could make bones go soft as butter. Why one man’s smile could tempt a woman to step out of the safe zone into passion’s battle field, even when she knew it could mow her down.
The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy Page 8