Shotgun Daddy

by Harper Allen

  The two former Recoveries International operatives were about Gabe’s age, Caro surmised, and like him, they had an air of tense alertness about them. Their work boots and tan work shirts with photo IDs clipped to the breast pockets jibed with Gabe’s information that they’d been posing as telephone linemen working the stretch of road by the Lazy J. Although their dust-begrimed attire was no more polished than Dixon’s untucked shirt and baggy walking shorts, the executive’s outfit seemed foolishly casual in comparison.

  That casualness extended to the Detroit Tigers ball cap jammed backward on Steve’s head.

  Looking at him now, she thought it hardly seemed possible that he’d been the instigating force behind Jess’s kidnapping and murder and also the faceless assailant who’d run her off the road only days ago. But the proof was in front of her on the kitchen table, in the form of a printout of the pertinent sections of Crawford Solutions’ accounts showing transfers of staggering sums to a company that didn’t exist, as a quick call to Gabe’s federale contact, Captain Estavez, had confirmed.

  The transfers had been authorized by Dixon. Although any prosecutor hoping to convict him would need to tie the dummy company’s Swiss bank account to him, Gabe had informed her while they’d been waiting for the vice president’s arrival, that that wouldn’t pose an insurmountable problem.

  “The bad press the Swiss banks recently got when their long-ago involvement with Nazi moneymen came to light put pressure on them to cooperate a little more fully with international law enforcement agencies,” he’d said with grim satisfaction. “That cooperation widened when they realized the free world wouldn’t stand for terrorists’ war funds being protected by shields of secrecy. It’ll take time and a court order, but in the end the boys in Zurich will wash their hands of client number 527242927.”

  His mouth had tightened. “Yeah, it didn’t escape my notice that there were an awful lot of two’s in that number, princess. But since Dixon wouldn’t have been able to choose it, we’ll have to write that one off as coincidence and not as a reference to double bees or two bees or anything like that. The other instances, though…”

  “The other instances were a deliberate smokescreen on his part.” Caro had heard the thread of anger in her own voice and hadn’t tried to modulate it. “Although Jess never mentioned Del’s Beta Beta Force history to me, he must have let something slip to Steve. He wouldn’t have seen any reason not to. Steve obviously saw this Double B angle as a perfect red herring.”

  “So he has his hired cutthroats steal a truck with that particular logo on it?” Gabe didn’t sound entirely convinced.

  “Or maybe he saw the truck on one of his visits to check on the construction of the site, and that gave him the idea to use the Double B smokescreen.” Caro shook her head. “From what Tye’s reported to you, the fruit company was a local firm, so it could have happened that way. The main thing is, he wanted to divert suspicion away from himself, so he planted those veiled references to Beta Beta Force right from the start.”

  “Leo’s ‘Bravo, Mr. Riggs, bravo,’” Gabe said tightly. “Leo being Dixon’s mouthpiece and parroting the words Dixon told him to say.”

  “And Leo probably being Andrew Scott,” Caro had agreed. “It was a stroke of genius to stage a murder as a kidnapping gone wrong, Gabe—evil genius, but still genius. Jess—” she faltered but went on “—Jess was always supposed to die on that road. With the events at the Double B that had been occupying his attention behind him, I know he was trying to get back up to speed on the Crawford Solutions’ developments he’d let slide. Those included the Mexico plant, and Steve must have known that as soon as Jess began taking a more hands-on approach, like actually visiting the site itself to check on its progress, there was a possibility he’d discover he was being scammed.”

  She’d met his gaze. “You’ve been blaming yourself for his death, but it was no more your fault than Roswell’s was. If Larry Kanin and his men hadn’t charged in there with guns blazing, the shooting would have started some other way. That had to be how Dixon planned it—his orders to those thugs would have been to get the money and then stage some kind of flare-up that ended in Jess being killed.”

  She hoped she’d convinced him, Caro thought now, taking in the rigid set of Gabe’s shoulders and the carved implacability of his features as he shoved the printout across the table to a still-protesting Steve. His guilt over Jess’s death was all the more destructive because he thought of the Double B as home, and those he’d spent time here with as his family.

  Not that he’d ever admit it, which is a whole different problem, she told herself as Steve ran a finger down the lines of figures and then turned to the next page of the printout. Del’s right—Gabe does need roots. But whether losing his mother at such a young age was what convinced him he could live without them, or whether the deciding factor was never knowing who his father was, it’s going to take something big to make him finally see that.

  Or maybe not. Faint hope stirred in her. Maybe being back here at the Double B was nurturing the growth of some of those roots. He and Del were still at loggerheads with one another much of the time, but lately a grudging respect took the edge off their disagreements. Every day more of the barriers she sensed in her own relationship with Gabe seemed to fall. And although he still asserted that he had no interest in reclaiming any ties to his Dineh heritage, and only set foot on the Dinetah when he had business there, surely his gift to Emma of the moccasins and Navajo-crafted bracelet showed that he wasn’t so estranged from his culture as he liked to think.

  You’re clutching at straws, an annoying voice inside her head informed her. And deep down, you know it. If you truly believed he’d made peace with his past and himself, by now you’d have told him the truth about Emily, instead of letting him continue to believe Larry fathered—

  “I guess it’s useless to deny it.” Steve’s belligerent tone cut through her thoughts. “Yeah, I was setting up a nice little retirement fund for myself at Jess’s expense. I thought I’d be long gone by the time he discovered what I’d done, but them’s the breaks. It didn’t work out that way.”

  He stood, ignoring the two men on the other side of the table from him and fixing a sullen glare on Gabe. “Your bully-boys can escort me to my bank and watch over me while I arrange to have the Milagro Construction amounts transferred back into the Crawford Solutions’ general account, but with Jess dead, I don’t see why that can’t be the end of it. I’ll resign, of course—”

  “Stop playing games, Dixon.” Gabe’s tone was disgusted. “You know damn well this can’t be the end of it, just like you know we’re talking about the Dos Abejas millions, not whatever small-time fiddle you also had going with Milagro Construction. You got it right the first time—denying this is useless, so don’t try to tell me that some unknown hacker must have broken past the firewalls and security features that protect any company’s banking system, and pinned this theft on you. Caro’s explained how when a user accesses this program with his password, all transactions done under that password are attributed to him by name. Take a look at the Dos Abejas transfers and tell me whose name is beside them, dammit.”

  “The Dos Abejas—” Dixon snatched the printout from Gabe’s hand with a scowl.

  Watching him, Caro felt the same disgust Gabe had displayed rise in her as the vice president scanned it quickly, flipping through the pages and then turning back to the first one again.

  Despite what Gabe had just said to him, he was going to deny the evidence he was holding, she thought angrily. Del’s hope to lay Jess to rest in a proper grave could be weeks or months away from reality. If Dixon had decided to go down fighting rather than take responsibility for the fiscal crimes he’d committed, there was no way he would ever admit to any knowledge of Jess’s kidnapping and death.

  Even as her patience ran out, she saw his shoulders slump. His gaze as he dropped the printout on the table was unreadable.

  “I never was the type to go on sw
inging once the game was over,” he said, “and this game looks about as wrapped up as it could be. What are your plans for me now, Riggs?”

  “I’m turning you over to the feds,” Gabe replied. “Embezzlement’s the least of the charges they’ll be laying against you. Kidnapping, murder, the attempted murder of Caro two days ago that my men tell me you also denied on the drive here.” His tone harshened. “For that one alone I hope you never see the light of day again, Dixon.”

  Steve nodded. “I knew Jess had given her a password to access the accounts, so I had to eliminate her before she started snooping,” he said. “Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose to a monster like you it does,” Caro said, taking a step toward him and aware of Gabe’s restraining hand on her arm. “What makes no sense at all is why you threatened the life of my baby.”

  “What’s with the telephone repair vehicle parked out—”

  Del’s query as he opened the screen door behind Dixon to let Greta enter the kitchen ahead of him was abruptly broken off. Taking in the situation immediately, he reached for Greta as Gabe thrust Caro behind him and made a grab for Dixon.

  They were both too late.

  In frozen horror Caro saw Steve Dixon viciously yank Greta in front of him and wrest the rifle she was holding from her startled grasp. In a second quick motion he levered the bolt up, snapped back the firing mechanism and brought the bolt down again as he thrust the barrel of the rifle under Greta’s chin. He looked around the room with glittering eyes.

  “Anyone tries to stop me, the lady gets it first,” he snarled as he began backing toward the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I’ll let her go as soon as I make the main road, Riggs,” Steve went on. “Phone up to your man on the gate and tell him to let us through.”

  “I can’t do that, Dixon. How do I know you’ll keep to—”

  “This isn’t your call, Gabe,” Del said curtly. He inclined his head at Dixon. “Take me as your hostage instead.”

  “I don’t think so.” The sound that came from Steve was almost too rusty to be a laugh. “I’m holding the high cards. Why should I give them up?”

  “Then, I’ll phone through to Joseph Tahe at the guard shack right now,” Del said, his even tone belying the fear in his eyes. “And you have my word on it that no one will come after you until you’re off the property and my wife’s been released.”

  Watching Del, Caro saw that his keen gaze never left Dixon, but his next words were directed at Greta. “Baby-girl, we’ll get you out of this safely. That’s a promise.”

  “I know, you tough old mustang,” Greta shakily replied before her words were cut off by Dixon tightening his arm-hold around her neck.

  “Not good enough, Hawkins.” He blinked at Del. “That’s who you are, right? Jess’s famous Lieutenant Hawkins?” At Del’s nod he continued. “I’ll take the truck I was brought here in, but first I’ll see you shoot the phone connection to the house and the tires on the other two vehicles standing in the yard.”

  “You’ve got my weapon,” Del pointed out steadily. “My wife was carrying it for me because I have trouble making it up the porch steps when I don’t have my cane.”

  Dixon nodded in comprehension. “Jess told me that about you, too, that you’d lost your legs in ’Nam. Take a pistol from one of my former escorts.”

  “Give Del your gun, Terry,” Gabe said, as the taller of the two ex–Recoveries International men hesitated.

  Grimacing, the man bent down and removed a deadly looking automatic from a holster concealed under his pant leg, just above his work boot. He handed it to Del.

  “Phone the guard at the gate,” Dixon reminded Del tersely. He glanced at Gabe. “Lucky for me your boys aren’t real linesmen, Riggs. I wouldn’t want the next call from the Double B to be to the local sheriff’s office, which is why I’m going to have Hawkins take care of that eventuality.”

  “What if that scumbag decides to hold on to his hostage?”

  The low-voiced question came from the man Gabe had called Terry, as Del and Dixon and Greta descended the porch steps and made their way across the yard to the parked vehicles.

  “He needs her to get out of here, but after that he’ll make more speed alone,” Gabe said, watching through the screen door as Del aimed the pistol at the old-style connector at the top of the telephone pole by the drive. “I think Dixon will do exactly what he promised, but in case I’m wrong I’m going to cut across the west corner of the property. If I leave right after he does, I’ll get to the main road in time to make sure he lets Greta go unharmed.”

  Del fired four more shots in fast succession, and Caro saw the farm utility sink down to its rims.

  “How?” she asked Gabe urgently. “It’s not possible—not without transportation of some kind.”

  “This is a ranch, princess,” he said with a humorless smile. “And on a ranch, as long as you’ve got a horse you’ve got transportation…even if the only horse in the barn right now is a bad-tempered, hammerheaded Appaloosa.”

  IT HAD FALLEN TO HER to break the news of the events of this afternoon not once, but three times in the hours that had followed Steve’s escape, Caro thought wryly that evening. Daniel and MacLeish had returned from their fencing chore only minutes after Gabe had mounted bareback on a rearing Chorizo and had ridden at top speed across the west quarter of the property, disappearing from sight almost immediately over a small rise in the terrain. Del, looking older than Caro had ever seen him before, had gotten into Daniel’s battered pickup, and the three ex-marines had roared out of the yard, only to return a while later with a white-faced and dazed-looking Greta.

  Greta hadn’t protested when her husband had declared his intention of getting her to a hospital right away.

  “Maybe that would be best, sweetie,” she’d agreed, pressing a shaking hand to her stomach. “I feel like I’ve got a bushel basket of butterflies swooping around in here. I’d better get my blood pressure checked.”

  After their departure Caro had filled in the details for Mac and Daniel, who’d only received a sketchy account from Del. Even as she’d been finishing her recitation and Mac had been heading for one of the equipment sheds with the two former Recoveries International men to get some replacement tires for the crippled vehicles, Connor had returned from his meeting in Albuquerque with the Bureau, and she’d begun her story all over again for his benefit.

  Tess and Susannah had been the last to arrive back at the ranch, after a day spent in town taking nine-year-old Joey to the dentist, buying some much-needed outfits for Susannah’s rapidly growing baby boy, Danny, and doing the weekly grocery shopping. By then Gabe had returned, too, with a lathered but still feisty Chorizo, but since Caro had no intention of trading places with him and rubbing down the volatile Appaloosa in return for Gabe bringing Tess and Susannah up to speed on what had happened, once more she’d launched into her tale.

  The phone connection had been repaired in the past hour, and soon Tye would be calling from Mexico with his daily progress report, she thought now as she began helping Tess and Susannah unpack the groceries. Someone else could fill him in on the situation.

  “But Greta’s really all right?” Based on the friendship that had formed between them before she’d come to the Double B, Susannah had the closest bond with Greta and her worry showed.

  “Just shaken, which is why Del insisted on taking her to Gallup where she can stay overnight for observation in the hospital.” Caro smiled in reassurance. “Gabe’s fine, too, even though Chorizo got spooked a few times during Gabe’s ride to Last Chance to tell Sheriff Bannerman to alert the FBI and put an APB out on Dixon.”

  “I’ll feel better when we hear the police have found Dixon and taken him into custody,” Tess said fiercely, stowing several cartons of ice cream into the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and glancing past the screen door to the porch, where Joey was playing with Chorrie, his puppy. “What kind of monster kills a friend for money and
then—”

  Her angry words were interrupted by the shrilling of the wall-mounted telephone beside her, and she grabbed up the receiver with a worried frown.

  “Hello?” Her frown smoothed out. “Oh, hi, Tyler. Let me hand you over to Sus—”

  Watching her, Caro saw Tess’s eyes close momentarily. When they opened again they were filled with pain.

  “I—I see,” she said quietly, meeting Caro’s gaze. “Yes, I’ll tell the others, Tye, but I’m sure you want to tell Susannah yourself. Here she is.”

  Even as Tess handed the receiver to Susannah, Gabe entered from the porch. He took one look at Tess’s drawn features, and his own hardened.

  “Bad news?” Mindful of Joey’s presence just beyond the screen door, he kept his voice low, as did Tess when she answered him.

  “Not bad, just sad.” She shook her head unhappily. “Tyler says the federales have found a body matching Jess’s description. They’ll allow him to view it at the morgue sometime tomorrow to make a positive identification.”

  “DON’T SAY I never take you anywhere, lady.”

  Behind the wheel of Connor’s sedan, Gabe shot Caro, in the passenger seat beside him, a smile that belied the gravelled roughness of his tone. She smiled back at him, quenching the guilty ripple that ran through her as she did.

  The events of the previous day—their discovery of Dixon’s theft from Crawford Solutions, his confession and escape with Greta as hostage, Tye’s news from Mexico—had been so overwhelmingly grim that her current lightheartedness didn’t seem entirely appropriate. But appropriate or not, Caro thought helplessly, she did feel lighthearted. When Gabe had issued this unexpected invitation to accompany him, she’d had no trouble enlisting Tess and Susannah to baby-sit Emily. Now the prospect of a whole day with Gabe stretched out in front of her, a day free of the fear that had dogged her since Jess’s kidnapper had issued his threat against her child. Even the fact that they were on their way to Albuquerque to question Larry Kanin at the head office of Recoveries International couldn’t dim her mood.