“There’s the housekeeper, Esmerelda. She’s the only one who stays in the main house. A dozen ranch hands stay in a bunkhouse out back.”
“Ranch?”
“Horse.”
She nodded, then returned her attention to the road.
“Have you always wanted to be an attorney?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t offer more and he didn’t ask.
Quinn eased his foot from the gas pedal to avoid plowing into the five or so cars slowed to a crawl ahead of him, automatically glancing behind him to make sure the others were doing the same. A flash of white caught his eye. He squinted into the mirror. What appeared to be a white van was coming up quickly, two cars back. He reached out and adjusted the mirror. It was a familiar white van with familiar lettering on the side.
“What is it?” Dulcy asked.
Quinn grasped her arm, preventing her from turning to take a look. “Don’t. We wouldn’t want our new friend to know we’re on to him.”
“Friend?” Realization seemed to dawn. “Are you talking about the delivery guy?”
“Uh-huh.”
Quinn took stock of the construction ahead of him. Cones blocked the left lane for about half a mile, leaving two highway patrolmen to alternate traffic in both directions. He pulled the Jeep to a stop. Cars drove in a steady stream from the other direction. He covertly glanced behind him, to find the van hemmed in by cars. With the White Sands Missile Range a few miles to the west, it was reasonable to think that the traffic was due to military employees coming and going, traffic usually unnoticed unless there was roadwork.
Quinn reached for the door handle.
“Where are you going?” Dulcy quickly grasped his arm, giving in to the urge to look behind them.
“I’m going to find out just what, exactly, this guy knows about Brad’s disappearance.”
She released him and grasped her own door handle. “Then, I’m coming with you.”
Quinn stared at her. “Stay put, Dulcy.”
“Forget it. I’m not going to stay in here like some sitting duck. Wherever you go, I go. I thought I made that clear.”
He reached across the seat and grasped her wrist, tugging her back onto the seat. “Stay here, Dulcy.”
Quinn could feel the steady thrum of her pulse beneath his thumb and noted the rise of color in her cheeks. But whether it was due to anger or his touch, he couldn’t be sure. Whatever the reason, he was glad when she sighed and voiced reluctant agreement.
Quinn climbed out, his boots thudding against the hot road. Nearby, a truck churned its contents and a steamroller was evening out the freshly laid asphalt. The sharp smell of tar coated his nose as he set his path straight for the van. He was nearly on top of it when the door opened and the driver stumbled out. It was the same guy.
And he started running in the other direction.
A LINE OF SWEAT trickled down Dulcy’s back, making her shiver as she swiped at curls that had escaped her twist. She turned in the seat to watch Quinn bearing down on the van, his dark hair back, his entire posture full of purpose and determination. She made a soft sound in the back of her throat, then reached again for the door handle. There was no way she was going to stay in the Jeep. She needed to know where Brad was just as badly as Quinn did. Even more so. And if the delivery guy could give her that information, then, by God, she was going to get it.
The coolness of the Jeep had masked how very hot the day had become. The asphalt beneath her feet felt soft, the short wood heels of her new sandals seeming to sink into it. She quietly closed the door so as not to catch Quinn’s attention, then stalked toward the passenger side of the van. She was halfway there when she saw the deliveryman bolt from the van and make a run for it. But rather than heading for open road, he turned toward the roadwork.
Damn. Dulcy watched Quinn give chase. She issued orders to her feet to do the same. Skin-scorching heat pressed in on her from all sides, making it nearly impossible to breathe and weighing down her muscles. Quinn was right behind the guy, while she remained separated from them by a line of cars. She began to question the futility of such a chase. Boy, she really needed to start working out more. Who knew she was so out of shape?
The row of cars was now behind them and roadwork lay straight ahead, along with big, heavy machinery that seemed to waver in the heat. Sweat rushed down Dulcy’s forehead and she wiped it from her eyes even as she kept pace. Then the guy cut in front of her. She reached out, grabbing for his shirt. She managed to get a handful, but if he noticed, she couldn’t tell, because he kept running, towing her along with him—
Then Quinn plowed into him from behind. Dulcy tried to extract her hand, but it was caught firmly between their bodies. All three of them flew toward a section of freshly laid blacktop.
Dulcy wasn’t sure what hurt the most. The stones that bit into her bare knees, the hot tar, or her throbbing hand where Quinn lay on top of it.
Quinn quickly got up. She freed her hand and sat, watching as he swung the deliveryman around, his fists twisted into the front of the guy’s T-shirt. Dulcy cradled her aching hand in her other one.
“Who the hell are you and where’s Brad?” Quinn demanded through gritted teeth.
The heat against her bottom seemed to seep right through the material of her shorts. She scrambled to stand, the sweat that had slithered down her back earlier now a stream.
“Let go of me, man! I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I think you do,” Quinn disagreed. “Let me make this easy for you by asking the first question again. Who the hell are you?”
“What do you mean, who the hell am I? You know who I am. I…I deliver flowers.”
“Wrong answer.” Quinn tightened the fabric around the guy’s neck. “Try again.”
The guy coughed. “I’m telling you the truth, man. Check the back of the van.”
Dulcy hadn’t been sure Quinn knew she was behind him until he looked at her. He nodded to her and pushed the guy in the direction of the van. When they finally reached it, he said, “Check it out.”
Dulcy quickly rounded the van and peeked in the back window. It was empty but for a tarp and some tools. She moved to tell Quinn the same, only to see the guy working his arms in between Quinn’s and knocking them outward. Quinn had a hold on the guy’s torn shirt. Before he could drop it and grab the guy again, he took a sucker punch to the solar plexus that left him flat on his back.
“Quinn!” Dulcy ran for him, putting herself directly in the path of the delivery guy. He plowed into her, knocking the breath from her lungs. She saw Quinn scrambling to his feet, so rather than continuing toward him, she ran after the guy.
Horns honks as she wove between cars. She didn’t know where the guy thought he was going. Even if he did manage to get away, where would he go? Aside from the White Sands Missile Range, which wasn’t open to the public, nothing but desert stretched for miles in any direction.
He was widening the gap between them. And with only one car left in the line, she was facing an all-out chase in open road.
“Stop!” she shouted, as if the order would instantly result in his halting in the middle of the road with his hands up.
She caught the gaze of the driver of the last car. The deliveryman drew even with the door and the driver swung it open, catching the runner across the waist. Quinn passed Dulcy and grabbed the guy.
“I think it’s time you and I had a little talk with local law enforcement, don’t you?”
11
“ALL RIGHT…OKAY. If you want to know the truth, I was following you.” The guy finally ’fessed up from where he sat in the back of a highway patrolman’s car, his hands cuffed behind his back. Quinn knew all the enforcement officers by their first names out here. He also knew the names of their wives and their kids and sometimes the nicknames of their pets. That’s why it wasn’t surprising when the running man’s claims of harassment fell on deaf ears and he found himself the property of the
State of New Mexico for however long it took Quinn to get the answers he wanted.
Jerry Rimmer, a rookie patrolman, was looking through the guy’s wallet. He came up with a California driver’s license. “Michelangelo Tucci.” He flicked it over. “And he’s an organ donor, too.”
“Yeah, well, there are people out there who need his organs more than he does,” Quinn said.
Dulcy nearly choked on the water she’d sipped from a bottle one of the guys on the construction crew had given her.
Jerry bent toward Tucci in the back seat, his mirrored glasses reflecting his image back at him. “Is that your real name, sir?”
The deliveryman rolled his eyes. “Do you think that’s something I’d make up?”
He slid the license back into the wallet and tossed it into his lap. “So, Mr. Tucci, do you mind telling us what your involvement is in the disappearance of Mr. Bradley Wheeler?”
“Disappearance?” His eyes grew large and sweat drew lines down his soot-covered face. “What in the hell are you talking about? Wheeler owes me money. That’s where this begins and ends.”
Quinn hiked a brow. “Ends?”
Michelangelo sighed and made an exasperated face. “You know what I mean.”
Dulcy stepped up beside Quinn. “He’s lying. There’s no reason to believe Brad would have anything to do with this man, much less borrow money from him.”
“Borrow? Who in the hell said anything about his borrowing?” The guy shrugged, trying to get more comfortable despite his hands being bound behind his back. “The guy placed a few bad bets. He’s gotta pay up.”
Quinn met Dulcy’s gaze, careful to keep his own thoughts from showing. Shock, however, was written all over her face.
“That’s impossible,” Dulcy said. “Brad doesn’t gamble.”
“Yeah, well, try telling that to someone who’s listening, babe. Me and Wheeler have been doing business for the past eight years. But this is the first time he’s welshed on a debt.”
Quinn crossed his arms tightly over his chest. The two patrolmen nearby caught the personal tone of the exchange and made themselves scarce, moving to stand near the front of the car, well out of earshot. “How much are we talking about here?”
Michelangelo shrugged again. “Twenty big ones. Give or take a thou.”
“Twenty thousand dollars?” Dulcy whispered. She began shaking her head. “He’s lying. He’s got to be…” Her words drifted off.
“So why were you following us?” Quinn asked, suspecting he already knew the answer but wanting to verify it just the same.
“I thought you’d take me to him, you know? I haven’t been able to find the guy all weekend. You two were my last bet.”
Quinn leaned his hands on the door and pushed as if to close it with deliberate casualness. The bottom caught Michelangelo’s legs, and he gave an unmanly yelp.
“Tell me, Tucci. Are you really looking for Brad? Or have you already found him?”
“I don’t know—” Another yell. “Hey, knock it off with the door! Or else I’m going to file brutality charges.”
The patrolmen near the front of the car gave a pointed glance, then turned purposefully in the other direction.
“Give it to me straight, Michelangelo,” Quinn said, holding the door steady against his legs. “Do you or do you not know anything about the possible kidnapping of Brad Wheeler?”
“Kidnapping? Oh man, do you ever got the wrong guy.” He yelped again, then leaned forward to ward off the door with his upper body. “Hey, I’m just a small fish, you know? If Wheeler was kidnapped, someone higher up the ladder would have to see to it. And I would have been told. Got it?”
Quinn stared him down. He had no proof that the guy was telling him anything other than the truth.
He released the door. Tucci groaned and lay back flat on the seat, raising his legs inside the car. Quinn turned toward Dulcy, who looked far too pale in the bright midday sun. He thanked the patrolmen.
“That’s it?” Dulcy asked.
“Unless you can think of something else to ask him.”
She remained still for a moment, then silently shook her head.
Jerry called out, “What do you want us to do with this guy?”
“Give us a half hour, then turn him loose.”
“I FEEL LIKE I’ve just run a marathon, then ended it with a nice long dip in a tar pit,” Dulcy said quietly, looking down at her ruined shorts and blouse. She picked at a spot on her leg but only made it worse.
Quinn turned the Jeep into a long, winding driveway, the entrance to which was flanked by two tall flowering cacti. She froze where she was bending down in front of the air-conditioning vent; the view outside the windshield was breathtaking. A long, one-story adobe-style ranch sat atop a low rise, the color rich in the bright sunlight and blending into the red of the surrounding desert. A rough-hewn wood swing sat on the narrow front porch, covered with a colorful Indian weave rug faded by years of sitting in the sun. Bleached cattle skulls decorated either side of the front door, while multicolored paper lanterns were strung the length of the house. Behind the house, about five hundred feet back, sat a long mesa, a small, isolated flat-topped hill, the perfect counterpoint to the flatness of the rest of the land. Off to the right Dulcy made out several low-lying buildings, probably the bunkhouse and stables. At this time of day, nothing moved. Not one lick of evidence to prove that there was life within miles.
Quinn parked the Jeep and got out. She followed, trying to take in everything as she walked.
Quinn seemed right at home in the rugged environment. His swagger just right. The leather strap holding back his black hair perfect. He opened the front door and held it for her, his gaze steady on hers, watchful. Dulcy returned his gaze, somehow sensing the moment an important one, but unable to pinpoint why.
Once inside, the temperature instantly dropped, making her shiver. Her eyesight slowly adjusted to the dim interior. The rough adobe walls were continued inside, decorated with southwestern tapestries and more Indian rugs and earthenware. But where she might have found the effect stale and artificial in someone else’s home, here it all felt…right.
“The bathroom’s down the hall and to the right,” Quinn said. “Feel free to use the shower.”
Dulcy finally found her voice. “Where will you be?”
His gaze flicked over her face, then up to her eyes. “Out back. I’ll get a shower at the bunkhouse, then catch up with the ranch hands. I’ll meet you in the kitchen when I’m done.”
A half hour later, Dulcy stood in the tiled shower, scrubbing tar spots from her skin and wringing the desert dust from her hair. She watched the red-tinted water swirl down the drain at her feet. There was something decidedly decadent about being completely nude in Quinn’s house. After he had gone, she’d taken her time getting to the bathroom, running her fingertips along the unvarnished tops of tables, picking up frames displaying old and cracked sepia prints of Native Americans she guessed were Quinn’s family. Nowhere had she caught a hint of a feminine presence. And everywhere she had felt him. She could see him choosing every last item in the place, which left her feeling both comforted and uncomfortable.
Funny, two minutes inside Quinn’s ranch house and she felt more at home than she ever had visiting Brad’s condo.
She pushed the unwelcome thought from her mind and again picked up the soap in the wall dish. Sandalwood—purely male and one-hundred-percent Quinn. Lathering up, she ran the bar over her exposed skin, reveling in the satiny feel of the cool water and drinking in the pure recklessness of her actions. She’d never even taken a shower at Jena or Marie’s place, yet here she was making herself right at home. What did that mean?
Nothing. It meant nothing. The past few days were far outside anything she’d consider normal, which meant normal reactions would be just as out of whack.
The shower curtain was suddenly ripped open. Dulcy gasped and turned to face a small, wrinkled old woman staring at her accusingly.
&n
bsp; “You’re Dulcy?” she demanded.
Dulcy was sure there was a time and a place for such a question, but it definitely wasn’t while she was buck naked in a strange shower facing a woman who could have been fifty or a hundred.
She strategically placed her hands to cover herself and tried to grab the shower curtain.
“I’m…yes, I’m Dulcy.”
The woman’s black eyes held amusement. And just as quickly as she’d ripped open the shower curtain, she closed it.
Dulcy collapsed against the tiled wall. What was that? An inner voice told her the woman had to be the Esmerelda whom Quinn had mentioned. She’d automatically assumed the housekeeper would be a young, lush-bodied Latina. Instead she was a tiny, wiry Native American with long braided hair, wearing a gold lamé jogging suit.
With hurried movements, Dulcy squeezed the last of the soap from her hair and body, then switched off the water. The shower curtain was again ripped open and the woman stood holding a thick cotton towel. Grabbing the shower curtain to cover herself, Dulcy reached for the towel. “Thank you.”
Esmerelda refused to relinquish control. She motioned Dulcy from the shower. “Out.”
“But—”
“Out.”
Dulcy swallowed hard. She’d never been completely nude in front of another woman—unless she counted her mother, but mothers were supposed to see their children naked.
She cautiously stepped out, her hands covering herself. Amusement returned to Esmerelda’s eyes as she skillfully nudged her hands out of the way and began roughly drying her off. Dulcy gasped. Was this the Native American way? Somehow she thought it important that she know. The old woman lifted her breasts up as she dried them, making a small sound that appeared to be approval. Then the cotton was between her legs. Dulcy snapped her thighs together and grabbed the towel.
“Please…I can do it.”
The woman made no secret of her perusal as she reluctantly gave up the fight. A slow smile creased her wrinkled face and she seemed to come to a conclusion Dulcy could only guess at. She felt like…a horse who had just been given thoroughbred status.
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