The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy

by Pauline Baird Jones

  She tried to fight it by getting up. She pushed back her chair and started around the desk with some papers in her hand. She should have stayed put. The room wasn’t big enough. There wasn’t enough space left to spit, let alone breathe, on the other side of her desk. He was so close, his blue eyes and wide shoulders filled her horizon. A move, any move, and her mouth would be against his. And the chiseled, pouty curve was more tempting than a puff pastry. Her mouth strained toward him, but she reined it in. The only outward sign of her struggle was a slight tremor that lit new fires in those heady blue depths. She wasn’t too proud to retreat, so she stepped back.

  “I should run my errands,” he said, a husky edge to his voice. “See you back here tonight?”

  The question sounded more important than was allowed, than was safe. She didn’t know who he was or what he wanted, but he couldn’t have it. She couldn’t give it. There was only the game.

  She nodded without breaking the lock he had on her eyes. He didn’t move, despite his stated intention. The moment stretched out until she was certain she was going to burst into flame or climb over the desk and throw herself at his chest. Then a knock on the door broke passion’s link. She dropped into her chair like a popped balloon and shuffled the papers from one side of her desk to the other.

  Without waiting for a response a big man opened the door and slouched in the frame.

  “You Phoebe?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m looking for a job.”

  She had to glance at Jake then. Needed to see the answering gleam of laughter light his eyes more than she needed air to breathe. She made herself look away, made herself look at the intruder. His beefy profile and mean eyes made him easy to place in Harding’s column. No surprised he hadn’t gone for the subtle approach. This was a bar.

  “Got nothing right now.” She hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her shorts. “You can leave your name and number and—”

  “I’ll just check back.” His mean eyes did the guy thing over her assets. Phoebe didn’t flinch. She was used to it.

  Jake wasn’t. He had to rein in the urge to punch the guy’s mean lights out, even as he assessed the subtle change that had come over Phoebe. Her demeanor had lost all softness or warmth. No quarter visible.

  The man looked at Jake and stiffened, his narrow eyes thinning to malevolent pinpoints. Jake didn’t know him, but he could tell the man was a con.

  And that the con knew him for a Fed.

  SIX

  Out in the hall, Billy Books cussed silently. Stern hadn’t warned him there’d be a fed with the broad. That would cost him.

  He saw the pay phone, looked both ways, then with his back to the wall, he dialed Stern’s cell phone number. It was gonna cost him big time.

  * * * *

  Seated at a borrowed desk in the local Bureau field office, Bryn was going through reports, hoping they’d take the bad taste out of her mouth from her visit to TelTech. It galled her that the law forced her to be on the side of someone so subtly scummy. She’d use him to catch Phagan, but she’d make sure she found his nasty secret and took him out, too.

  An agent cleared his throat and Bryn realized she was scowling. She used a red tipped finger to mark her place in a report, before looking up at him. “Yes, what is it?”

  “I think we got ourselves a laundering op running out of that bar you asked me to check out.”

  “Really?” Bryn gave him the nod to sit down. Resting her elbows on the pile of reports, she applied pressure to her temples.

  Once seated, he leaned forward, using his hands to emphasize his points. “It’s got all the markers. A complex trail of dummy corporations leading to more dummy corporations, dead or MIA directors.” He shrugged. “Sure haven’t found a JR anywhere in the mix.”

  Bryn frowned. “Local PD says he’s a big-deal Texan.”

  “More like a big-deal invisible man. I’m betting it’s an ID built on a grave. Vintage Phagan work. Missed on our first, quick check on them.”

  “You running background checks on the employees?”

  He nodded.

  “Good.” She rubbed between her eyebrows, noting absently that she needed to pluck. “Keep digging. Find me the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. ASAP.”

  “You want I should put someone in the bar?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. “Jake Kirby’s already in. So far he’s cooperating. Let’s not muddy the waters.”

  “Right.” He left, but Bryn didn’t go back to her reading. The reports were dull stuff for whirling thoughts to light on. Phagan was there, a shadowy figure just out of her reach.

  What was he up to now? Where did an obscure country bar fit into his plans? Was this one of his crumbs, leading her where he wanted her to go? Or a clever diversion planned to keep her attention away from his real objective? Or was its discovery, like Ollie’s death, just another piece of bad luck, one Phagan was hoping she wouldn’t notice?

  Please, let it be door number three.

  * * * *

  Phoebe headed for her SUV, while her thoughts circled around the summons from Dewey.

  Queen to king’s three.

  How did she feel about it? Was she really ready to face her sister’s murderer?

  For answers to these and other questions, stay tuned to this brain, she thought, with a wry calm that surprised her. Somehow she’d expected to feel more. This was it. Closure time. She shined a light inside her head and found no sign of triumph and plenty of fear. It had been seven years, but some things wouldn’t have changed. He’d still be a dirty fighter, a mean survivor, and a dangerous adversary.

  Obviously his guy had found the fliers when he killed Ollie and he’d moved to get his gnarly guy in to check out the bar. Though he hadn’t sent his best man, Phoebe noted as she spotted, without seeming to, the beefy goon lying in wait across the road, somewhat shielded by trees.

  Hard to know whether to be insulted or relieved.

  She slid behind the wheel and fired the engine, her wheel-spinning start sending a wave of gravel flying out from beneath her tires all the way to the paved road. She turned toward town, noting without surprise the man’s truck sliding into place behind her.

  Halfway to town, Jake’s truck popped up behind the tail.

  “Who are you following, Curious Jake? Me or him?”

  She’d noticed he’d smelled what was rotten in the guy’s Denmark, but what had the guy smelled about Jake? They hadn’t circled each other snarling, but there’d been a hair-raising tension crackling between them. The explanation that fit best was that Jake was some kind of a cop. But what kind? He didn’t act like any cop Phoebe knew, despite her long association with the less-than-law-abiding Phagan.

  Of course, this deal with Harding was the first time Phagan had let her get close to the action. Other than a couple of new recruits, Phoebe was the only one in Phagan’s little gang without a record for even a small infraction. Never even got a speeding ticket, though she knew one of the local cops. He used to hang out at the bar until he got married. Well, the search for light and knowledge about Jake Kirby would have to wait until after she jerked Harding’s chain. Which meant she had to lose both the tail and the tail’s tail.

  She passed into the outskirts of Estes Park and prepared for the first turn, checking her rearview before moving over. Both tail and Jake moved over, taking the turn with her. She took several more turns, random ones now, and the truck followed, with dumb, dogged persistence, letting her lead him astray.

  “Guys, any other day I’d enjoy this.” Now was not a good time to be lead car in a three-car parade. She lifted the armrest between the seats where her cell phone nestled out of sight and punched in a phone number, then left it on speaker, because she didn’t want her quarry to see her making a call that might give away the surprise.

  “Estes Park Police Department.”

  “Is that you Honk?”

  “Well, as I live and breathe, Phoebe Ann?”

  “
The one and only, darlin’.”

  “What can the Estes Park PD’s finest do for you?”

  “What you do so well, Honk. Arrest someone.”

  * * * *

  Jake watched the patrol car with lights flashing come between him and Phoebe’s tail. Phoebe’s SUV turned a corner. Jake hesitated before deciding to stick with her tail and not with her. He pulled into the curb well back but with a good view of the truck.

  The officer slid out of his cruiser and approached the truck. The guy got out, his hands visible. He’d done this scene before. The officer said something. The guy protested. The cop went to the rear of the truck, kicked out a taillight, then pointed to it.

  A setup. Jake hated it when a lead got busted. He shifted into drive and pulled around the two stopped cars. As he passed, the guy took a swing at the cop. Jake’s last view as he rounded a bend was of the guy spread-eagled on the ground getting cuffed. Nice work Phoebe. He had a feeling she’d be one hell of a chess opponent.

  * * * *

  When Jake didn’t follow her, Phoebe took a few random turns to make sure she really was clear, then got back on course. Jake, she admitted, wasn’t the only one who was curious. And her curiosity wasn’t as impersonal as she would have liked it to be.

  Jake could have noticed the guy’s interest and followed to protect her, but just because he was her enemy’s enemy didn’t make him her friend or mitigate the very real threat he could be to her and her friends. It was one thing if just she was at risk, but it wasn’t.

  Her loyalty belonged to Kerry Anne first, her friends second, and the game they were running next, with her hormones coming in a distant last. She couldn’t let herself get distracted by Jake, not right now. He wasn’t, she could tell, going to go away, and not because she was spinning his hormonal wheels. He had a law-abiding interest in their game, probably because of her stupid phone call to Phagan’s last apartment in Montana.

  She pulled into the parking lot in front of an office bearing a brass plate in the window with uninformative inscription, Smith’s and stared ahead without seeing it. She was on the tightrope. There was no going back just because a curious stranger with a fine ass was swinging in and out of her view.

  She gave herself a firm shake and climbed out. This was not a good time to lose her concentration, not when she was about to face him. She let herself in, locking the door—and all thoughts of anything but her next step—behind her. The door secured, she passed through the silent office with its skeleton furniture without turning on any lights until she came to a bathroom with a lighted vanity set up in one corner. A cabinet held the basic bathroom necessities, with a locked closet next to it.

  Phoebe dug out her keys and opened the closet, revealing a small wardrobe and a theater-style make up set up, complete with wigs and prosthetics.

  She thumbed through the clothes on the rod until she found the item she needed. Along with the red shoes she’d mentioned to Jake, there was a photo of Kerry Anne and her white high school graduation dress hung on a pole. Kerry had given it to her the day she left for college. Those three things were all she’d brought with her to her new life. Had she known that someday this moment would come? Had the subconscious “path finder” been able to see this far ahead and anticipate this moment?

  She fingered the soft white organdy, releasing a faint whiff of Kerry Anne’s flower scent, and a host of memories, into the air around her. Phoebe lifted the sleeve to her cheek and closed her eyes, letting the whirlwind of the past engulf her in its part-pleasure, part-pain embrace.

  Their mama had been an incipient drunk before, Montgomery Justice, the man now known as Peter Harding, entered their lives. Phoebe had wondered what he saw in their mama back then. Mama had been Junior League, but her drinking had made sure her daughter’s weren’t invited to join. Now, when it was too late, she knew what he’d seen, what he wanted. Had her mama known, too, at the end? Had she accidentally fallen down those stairs like the newspaper said? Or had Justice finished his work of destruction and moved on, thinking he’d left the past behind?

  “He’s wrong, Kerry,” Phoebe said, the dress as soft against her cheek as Kerry’s hand had been the day she died. “Neither of us can escape our past.”

  Her internal tightrope gave a quiver that almost tumbled her off, but Phoebe managed to steady herself, inside and out. She took out Kerry’s picture and propped it on the mirror’s ledge, pretending she couldn’t see the cracks to the past that showed in her eyes and in the tension around her mouth. Taking her time, she began the process of remaking herself in the picture’s image careful not to look down, careful not to see the chasm opening at her feet.

  As Kerry Anne began to edge out Phoebe, apprehension was edged out, too. By the time she was ready for the contact lenses, her hands were steady enough to insert them. Kerry’s eyes were blue and had always been true. She’d died trying to be true to her little sister. Now her little sister would be true to her.

  The outward changes she made seeped inward, changing her walk, the way she used her hands. Memory gave her back her sister, or maybe Kerry Anne’s gentle spirit invaded Phoebe’s soul, seeking to aid her this one last time.

  She smiled her sister’s smile, then took that image with her as she left, used it to keep at bay the other image of her sister. The one with slashed wrists and blood spreading across white tile. Outside she got into a small car and turned it toward Denver where Dewey waited for her.

  * * * *

  Stern’s cell phone buzzed discreetly. “Mr. Stern?” Billy’s voice was muffled. “I got a problem.”

  Stern gave a silent sigh. Billy had been Harding’s uninspired pick for their team. As usual, Stern was the one having to fix the mess the choice caused. “It’s not your job to have problems, just to collect information.”

  “Can’t do nothing if you don’t bail me.” Billy sounded sulky and a bit threatening.

  A tiny crease appeared between Stern’s eyes. He didn’t like being threatened. By anyone. “Bail you?”

  “I got stopped by a local yokel. Claimed I had a taillight out, but I know the bastard kicked it hisself.”

  “Why would a broken taillight require bail?”

  “It don’t.” Feet shuffling were audible despite background noise. “Bail’s for punching the hick cop.”

  “I’m glad you kept your head.” Sarcasm was wasted on Billy, but Stern used it to vent his own frustration. “What did you find out about the bar?”

  “You gonna bail me?”

  “If you give me what I want.”

  “The manager’s a woman—Phoebe I think they said. Foxy—could get—”

  “I’m not interested.” Stern kept his voice even with an effort. “How did you give yourself away?”

  “I didn’t do nothing. I asked her about a job, and she told me she didn’t have any openings. I did the nice and left, then waited for her to come out. Was following her when I got copped by the brownie.”

  “Not the information I was looking for.”

  “It could be her.”

  Stern could tell by the man’s voice there was more.

  “Give it all or you’ll need protection from me.”

  “She had heat with her. Not a local lame-ass. A Fed.”

  Billy didn’t have to tell him the Fed had made him. Sounded as if half the town had made him. “You just made bail.”

  Stern rang off without adding that Billy’s employment was going to end very soon.

  * * * *

  “Okay, I got it.” Jake wrote down the MUD address Matt had gotten him, then eased the drifting car back into his lane. Good thing Bryn wasn’t with him or there’d be a coup d’etat on the driver. “Tell Sebastian thanks for me, Matt. I’m just outside Denver now. Gonna go check it out before I come in.”

  “Bryn and I’ll meet you outside the building,” Matt said.

  “You don’t—”

  “I don’t care if they are computer geeks, you’re not going in without backup. Now wait for
me.”

  “Yes, big brother.”

  “You wait or I’ll kick your ass.”

  “Kiss my—” Before Jake could finish, Matt broke the connection. Jake grinned as he stowed the phone, then keyed the address into his laptop, his fingers tapping the steering wheel until a map came up. He was close. That was good, gave him reconnoiter time before Matt and the troops got there.

  * * * *

  Peter Harding felt like a god as he looked out the window at the gathering below. This was it. This was the beginning of his rule, his first step into Denver society as Audrey’s fiancé. The day he declared for governor with her powerful father standing behind him. They didn’t know it yet, but they were there for him. It was as it should be, as it was always meant to be. He was destined to be supported by lesser lives, to absorb their strength to power his own.

  How he’d hated the years of hiding, the sneaking around like some common criminal. He wasn’t meant to live in shadow. Now, today, he was stepping into the light. True, it was borrowed light from Audrey’s father, but that wouldn’t be for long. Power was fluid, a liquid-gold energy that continuously sought the one most qualified to wield it. He was that person.

  Norma Jean Beauleigh and her daughters had been a mistake. He could admit that now. He’d let himself be sucked in by the small perfection of Kerry Anne and Nadine. He hadn’t learned to take the long view back then.

  A small tremor of unease disturbed the surface of his satisfaction at the thought of Nadine. She had to be the one sending the notes and now the black rose that had come this morning in the box that was supposed to hold his white lapel rose. But if it was she, why had it taken her so long to act? Had she, like him, been consolidating her power?

  His first reaction had been to cancel today’s event. What if she showed up at the party? Stern, in that enigmatic way of his, said he hoped she would. Now that he was here, he hoped she did, too. How could he fear her when he was at the apex of his power? There was no way a mere woman could take it away from him. He stroked the black rose pinned to his lapel and smiled.