by Diana Palmer
“Good idea. Meanwhile, Rourke’s on the job.”
“Should we warn Calhoun Ballenger?” Rick wondered aloud.
“If he knows, he’ll warn his son, and his son might mention it to a classmate,” Carson replied. “It’s better to keep him in the dark. We’ll make sure his son is watched and protected.”
“Don’t toss any hand grenades around,” Rick warned.
Carson sighed as he stood up. “My past will haunt me.”
“Actually, if it was up to me, you’d get a medal,” Rick said. “So many dead kids because rich men want to make a profit off illegal drugs.” He shook his head. “Crazy world.”
“Getting crazier all the time.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” Rick said, shaking hands with the other man. “By the way,” he added, “nice hairstyle.” He grinned. Carson grinned back.
* * *
FRED BALDWIN WAS WORRIED. Mr. Helm had promised that he was going to protect him, that he was in no danger of getting arrested for kidnapping Carlie Blair. But he knew from painful experience that Mr. Helm didn’t keep many of the promises he made. That was, unless he promised to get you for crossing him. He kept all those promises.
He fingered the expensive watch that he still had, that Mr. Helm didn’t know about. He knew why the watch was important. It had belonged to Richard Martin, who burned up in Wyoming after trying to kill two women. He’d killed an assistant prosecutor for that watch. But Martin was dead. And Fred had the watch.
Mr. Helm didn’t know that he hadn’t destroyed it. He liked the watch. That chime it sounded wasn’t a song he knew, but it was okay. It was the two-tone gold on the timepiece, very expensive, and that made him feel good. His father had been a low-level worker at an automobile plant in Detroit. His mother had kept a day care in their home. There were four kids and never enough money. His father drank it up as fast as he got paid.
Two of his brothers were in jail. His oldest brother had died last year. His mother had finally left his father, and went to live with a sister in California. He hadn’t heard from her in a long time. She’d loved her oldest child best, the one who died. She hadn’t wanted the others. She thought they were too stupid to be her kids. She said so, often.
The only time she’d liked Fred was when he became a policeman. Finally, one of her kids besides her favorite might actually amount to something.
Then he got arrested and fired and she turned her back on him. Well, it was no surprise.
Fred didn’t like women much. His mother was cold as ice, heartless. Maybe his father had made her that way. Maybe she was that way to begin with.
He liked that little woman he’d kidnapped, though. She should have hated him. He’d terrified her. But she’d been sorry for him when he told her about his father beating him up. He felt bad that he’d scared her. He was glad to know she’d escaped, that her father hadn’t been killed.
Luckily for him, the two would-be assassins got blamed for the screwup. Mr. Helm hadn’t hired them in person, so he wouldn’t be connected with them.
On the other hand, Fred had hired them for the person who was contracted by Richard Martin to kill Reverend Blair, on Mr. Helm’s orders. If they talked, Fred was going to be the one who’d go to prison.
Well, that little woman knew what he looked like, and he had no reason to believe she wouldn’t have told the law about him. He knew from something Mr. Helm had let slip once that Carlie Blair had a photographic memory. Mr. Helm said not to worry about it, that he’d make sure Fred was okay. But Fred had seen what had happened to the man Richard Martin had hired to kill Carlie Blair, the same woman he’d kidnapped. Martin had poisoned the would-be killer, right under the cops’ noses, and apparently on Mr. Helm’s orders.
Funny, that he’d been ordered to kidnap Carlie, when Richard Martin had been ordered to hire somebody to kill her. Not only that, when the first killer failed, Martin had hired someone else to finish the job. But the person he was taking orders from had sent him to kidnap Carlie to draw the reverend out to be killed.
Why did Mr. Helm want the preacher dead? As far as Fred knew, the preacher didn’t have anything on Mr. Helm at all. And what Carlie knew didn’t matter before, because she remembered Richard Martin and he was dead.
She’d remember Fred now, though. That would be a motive. But they were trying to kill her father!
Well, his opinion was that Richard Martin had been so high on drugs that he hadn’t made it clear who was supposed to be the victim. And his hire, to put it politely, was as crazy a person as Fred had ever met. He’d been sent to kidnap Carlie on that person’s orders, to strike at a time when she was unprotected at her home. He shook his head. It was nuts. Worse, he was the one who was being set up to take the fall.
He looked at the watch again. He’d never been tempted to talk about it. But after what he’d just overheard Mr. Helm say to his new enforcer, that South African guy, he had to do something. The South African man was going to plant drugs on the son of a politician who was the only serious contender for the U.S. Senate seat. If the man had been a stranger, he might not have cared. But Fred knew Calhoun Ballenger.
He’d seen the cattleman a few months ago, coming out of a downtown hotel where some cattlemen’s conference was being held. Two men were waiting in the shadows. One of them was armed. When Mr. Ballenger started down the street, they jumped him.
He was a big man, and he handled himself well, but the man with the gun struck him in the head.
Fred didn’t like bullies. He’d never been one, for all his size, and he hated seeing anybody pick on an unarmed man. It was why he’d become a cop in the first place years ago. So without really thinking about it, he jumped in, subdued the man with the pistol and knocked out his accomplice.
He’d left them in the alley and dropped a dime on them while he took Mr. Ballenger down the street to the emergency room of a local hospital.
He didn’t dare tell the cattleman who he was, but Mr. Ballenger had wanted to do something for him, to pay him back for the kindness. He’d looked at Fred with admiration, with respect. Those were things sadly lacking in his life. It had made him feel good about himself for the first time in years. He’d waved away the older man’s thanks and left the hospital without identifying himself.
Mr. Ballenger’s son was going to be targeted by Matthew Helm, and Fred didn’t want to be any part of it. But how was he going to warn the man without incriminating himself and his boss? Mr. Helm would turn on him, make sure he went to prison for the kidnapping if he lifted a finger.
He couldn’t go to the law, as much as he’d have liked to. But there was one other possibility. This watch was important. The right people could do good things with it. And suddenly, right in front of him, was the very girl he’d kidnapped...
* * *
CARLIE WAS PUTTING her groceries into the back of the pickup truck when she came face-to-face with the man who’d kidnapped her.
“Don’t scream,” Fred said gruffly, but he didn’t threaten her. He was wearing a raincoat and a hat, looking around cautiously. “You got to help me.”
“Help you? You kidnapped me!” she blurted out.
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” he said heavily. “I got in over my head and I can’t get out. I can’t go to the law. They’re always watching. Mr. Helm is going to plant drugs on Mr. Ballenger’s youngest son,” he said hastily, peering over the truck bed to make sure nobody was nearby. “He’s going to try to get him out of that Senate race.”
“Terry?” she exclaimed. “He’s going to try to set Terry Ballenger up?”
“Yeah. That South African guy who works for him, he’s going to plant the evidence,” he said quickly. “You got to tell your boss.”
She was absolutely dumbfounded. She couldn’t even find words. He didn’t know that Rourke was working with the authorities an
d she didn’t dare tell him. But he was risking his very life to try and save Calhoun’s son from prosecution. It really touched her.
His dark eyes narrowed. “I’m so sorry for what I done,” he said, grimacing. “You’re a nice girl.”
Her face softened. “Why do you work for that rat?” she wondered.
“He’s got stuff on me,” he explained. “I can’t ever get another job. But I can help you.” He took off the watch, looked at it admiringly for just a few seconds and grimaced. “Never had nothing so fancy in my whole life,” he said, putting it in her hands. “He told me to bust it up and throw it away. I couldn’t. It was so special. Anyway, that watch belonged to some prosecutor that had evidence on Mr. Helm. Richard Martin killed him. It was his watch. Martin took the watch and then killed people who remembered he had it.”
“He tried to have me killed,” she told him.
“Yeah, and then he hired somebody to kill your dad.” He shook his head. “See, Martin was high on drugs, out of his mind. I think he got confused, gave the contract out on the wrong person. I think it was supposed to be you, again, but we got sent after your dad.”
“You know who’s behind it,” she said, surprised.
He nodded solemnly. “Mr. Helm’s behind it. But the contract was given out by Martin.”
“Who’s got it?” Carlie asked. “Please?”
He searched her eyes. “Some pretty blonde woman up in San Antonio. I didn’t know until a day ago. Funny, she didn’t even know about my connection to Mr. Helm. She asked around for some muscle to help with a hit, and the other guys got hired. One of them was a man I knew, he said I could do it on the side and Mr. Helm would never have to know.” He laughed coldly. “Well, Mr. Helm knew already. He just didn’t tell us.”
“Blonde woman...?”
“Yeah. She used to work for Mr. Helm, years ago, when he started out in the local rackets.”
Blonde woman. Hit woman. Contract killer. Somebody who knew that Carlie would be home alone on that Friday night. Somebody with ties to Jacobsville.
“Do you know her name?” Carlie asked.
He frowned. “Funny name. La...La...something.”
Carlie’s blood froze. “Lanette?”
“Yeah. That’s it. How’d you know?”
Now wasn’t the time to fill him in on personal information. But it meant that Carson could be in real danger if Lanette suspected that he might blow her cover. She’d be in jeopardy if her link to the kidnapper here was ever found out.
She slid the watch into her pocket, gnawed her lower lip. She looked up into his broad, swarthy face. “They’ll kill you if they find out you gave me the watch.”
His dark eyes were quiet and sad. “I don’t care,” he said. “I never done anything good in my whole life except for being a cop, and I even fouled that up. You were nice to me.” He forced a smile. “Nobody ever liked me.”
She put a small hand on his arm. “How do you feel about small towns?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You have to trust me,” she said quickly.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to do something that will seem crazy.”
“Really? What?”
She threw back her head and screamed.
* * *
“JUST RELAX,” CASH GRIER told his prisoner under his breath. “This isn’t what it seems. You may think she sold you out, but we’re trying to save you. Your boss will think you’re being arrested for assault.”
Fred Baldwin went along, stunned but willing to cooperate on the off chance that he might not have to spend his whole life in federal prison. “Okay, boss,” he said. “It’s your play.”
Cash marched him out to the police car, put Carlie in front beside him, and left a patrolman to take her truck home and explain things to her father.
* * *
ONCE THEY WERE in the police station, Cash took Fred into his office and removed the handcuffs. He put Fred’s automatic in his desk drawer and locked it. Carlie produced the watch out of her pocket.
“And I’ve got you filing,” Cash said, shaking his head at her. “You should be wearing a badge, kid.”
“No, no,” she protested. “He—” she pointed at Fred “—just turned state’s evidence. So to speak. He can make the connections. But we have to get word to Carson,” she added quickly. “His girlfriend is the woman who hired Fred and the other two guys to kidnap me and kill my dad.”
“Why did you give Carlie the watch?” Cash asked Fred. “You had everything to lose!”
“She was nice to me,” he murmured, glancing at Carlie. “They tried to kill her dad, with my help. And now they’re trying to frame Mr. Ballenger’s son. I took down two hoods who jumped him in San Antonio. Never seen a rich man so grateful for just a little help. I liked him. It’s not right, to punish a man’s son because the father’s just doing something good for the community. I got tired of being on the wrong side of the law, I guess. I thought if I gave her the watch, she’d give it to you and maybe you could stop Mr. Helm before he hurts somebody else.”
“I’ll stop it, all right,” Cash said. He frowned. “But it’s suicide on your part. You think Helm wouldn’t know who gave us the watch?”
Fred smiled sadly. “I ain’t got no place to go, nobody who cares about me. I thought, maybe I could do one good thing before he took me out.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Cash told him firmly.
“And you do have somebody who cares about you,” Carlie said firmly. She took the big man’s hand in her own and held it. “Right here.”
Incredibly, tears ran down his wide cheeks.
“Now, don’t do that, you’ll have me doing it, too,” Carlie muttered. She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped his eyes and then wiped her own.
“I’m Italian,” Fred muttered, embarrassed. “We don’t hide what we feel.”
“You’d better let me get this on paper,” Cash said, smiling. “Coffee?”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll make a pot,” Carlie said. She glanced at Cash. “Carson...” she began.
“I’m two steps ahead of you,” Cash promised, picking up the telephone.
* * *
CARSON HAD HIS phone turned off, which was a pity. Lanette had already heard from an informant that Fred Baldwin was in custody down in Jacobsville, Texas, for apparently confronting that pitiful little secretary that Carson was so crazy about.
She was livid. Fred was stupid. It was why she’d hired him, because he was expendable and too dumb to realize she was setting him up to take the fall for her when she killed Jake Blair.
But somewhere along the line, he’d had a flash of genius. He was probably spilling his guts. They’d be after her in a heartbeat. That little secretary would be gloating, laughing, feeling so superior to the beautiful woman who was obviously her superior in every single department.
Fred had flubbed his assignment. His cohorts were in jail. Now he’d been arrested, too. She’d been paid for a job that she hadn’t completed. Word would get around that she was incompetent. She’d never get another contract. Worse, Fred would implicate her to save himself. She’d be running from the law for the rest of her life. The perks of her profession, all that nice money, her spectacular wardrobe, everything would be lost because her own plan had backfired on her.
Even Matthew Helm had refused to help her. Oh, he made promises, but his back was to the wall right now, and he was trying to save his own skin. He had to know that Fred would rat on him.
Well, she reasoned, at least she was going to have one bit of satisfaction on the run. That stupid little hick in Jacobsville wasn’t going to get to gloat. Her feelings for Carson were so apparent that a blind woman could see them. Carlie loved Carson. So Lanette would g
o to prison for kidnapping and assault and conspiracy, and little Carlie would end up with Carson.
No way. If she lost Carson, for whom she had a real unrequited passion, Carlie wasn’t going to have him. She’d make sure of it.
She reached into the purse she carried to make sure the automatic was where it was supposed to be.
“I can’t stay long,” she told Carson, who was impatient to be gone and seemed surprised and irritated to have found her at his apartment door when he arrived.
“Just as well,” he said curtly, “because I have someplace to go and I’m already late.”
“Couldn’t we have just one cup of coffee first?” she asked, smiling softly. “I found out something about that attempt on the preacher.”
“You did? How?” he asked, instantly suspicious.
“Well, let’s just sit down and talk, and I’ll tell you what I know,” she purred.
* * *
CASH PHONED ROURKE, using the number Rourke had sent him. “Carson’s in danger,” he told the other man. “His blonde girlfriend is the contract killer Richard Martin hired to take out Reverend Blair.”
“What!” Rourke exploded.
“I don’t have time to go into the particulars,” Cash said. “Suffice it to say I have a witness,” he glanced at Fred, who was smiling as Carlie handed him a mug of black coffee, “and no time to discuss it. Do you know where he is?”
“At the apartment he rented,” Rourke said, shell-shocked. “In San Antonio.”
“Can you get in touch with him?”
Rourke let out a breath. “No. Not unless I do it in the open.”
“Rourke will have to blow his cover to call Carson, they’re monitoring his phone,” Cash said aloud.
“I’ll do it,” Carlie said urgently. “Give me the number.”
“Rourke, give me the number,” Cash said.
He did. Cash scribbled it down and handed it to Carlie.
“What’s this written in, Sanskrit?” she exclaimed.
Cash glared at her, took it back and made modifications. “It’s just numbers, for God’s sake,” he said irritably