Hard Target

by Barbara Phinney

  He'd turn down anything for a chance to see her again.

  "What the hell is going on with you?" she asked with a note of incredulity. "I know you don't care to be alone with me, Hastings, but driving like a maniac through a storm isn't going to get me out of your damn hair! Like it or not, we're in this together."

  His eyes flew open. "I don't want you out of my hair!" Abruptly, he shut up, feeling the blood surge into his face.

  Maybe he did. Was Dawna right? Was he scared to be alone with her? Was he scared of his emotions? Since when was he such a coward?

  No, he wasn't afraid. And he wanted to be alone with her more than he wanted to breathe his next breath.

  He turned to her, but Dawna was focused on the view beyond the windshield. She swore softly, her voice quivering. Tay tore his gaze away from her to stare out the windshield.

  And swear to himself.

  The road ahead was gone. A huge jagged boulder sat halfway through the washed out section. Branches and scrubby brush littered the road. A growing waterfall cascaded down the mountainside to their left, cutting a deep groove in the soft muck of the hill.

  They were trapped.

  Chapter Eight

  Dawna sagged back, feeling her head bump the headrest. Thank God Tay had slammed on the brakes. They'd have never seen the washout until it was too late.

  They shouldn't have left the church, as cold and damp and unpleasant as it was.

  She peeked at Tay. He looked as pale as she felt in the reflected light of the head lamps. "You okay?"

  Slowly, he nodded, his expression grim and distracted. Good. Maybe he was finally rethinking this stupid need to run all the time.

  What the hell was he thinking? That he didn't want to be alone with her? What a wonderful boost for her ego that was.

  If that was the case, she didn't want to be alone with him, either, but they were stuck with each other, and she refused to allow any leftover emotions to cloud her decisions.

  Tay twisted the ignition key. When the engine roared to life, he shoved the transmission into reverse. Turning around, he threw his arm across the top of her seat and began to slowly back up.

  She could almost feel the touch of his fingers, knowing on an intuitive level where they rested. Her back tingled, waiting for his touch, waiting for him to draw her closer.

  No, any intimacy wasn't going to happen. Tay was desperate not to be alone with her for too long. That much was obvious. All the way up here, he'd kept glancing over his shoulder, as if he was being driven to his death. And he'd rather brave the rain than stay with her at Cabanelos' tiny home. Now, he was returning to the church. A cold, damp church with a priest, a doctor and a dead body looked better than being stuck in a car with her.

  Flight versus fight, one instructor many years ago had said, were the two reactions to a dangerous situation. She was a fighter, challenging everything as much as possible. Taking on assignments others refused. Proving herself over and over.

  Tay didn't strike her as the flight sort, but whatever was going on in his head remained a mystery to her.

  He swore.

  Dawna twisted around at his outburst. Behind them, barely visible with the tiny reverse lights, was another smaller, washed out section of road.

  Dawna sighed, her lungs aching. She turned back around, finding her hand snaking up to her throat, her fingertips massaging her upper chest.

  She yanked her hand away to stare at it. "Altitude sickness," she muttered.

  Tay looked at her. "What did you say?"

  She tried another deep breath, but it failed to fill her lungs. It was like breathing through a straw. "I'm surprised we didn't think of this before. When did you notice it was hard to breathe?"

  "When we carried Cabanelos toward the church, I thought he weighed more than he looked." Tay shut off the engine.

  "Exactly. What do you suppose the altitude is here? We're higher than La Paz, and it's 13,000 feet above sea level."

  Tay sat back and shut his eyes. "I don't know."

  "We climbed the whole trip up here. And you aren't even used to the altitude of Cochabamba, yet. Like the doctor hinted, acclimatization takes a few days."

  "Altitude sickness?" His eyes remained closed, his tone reflecting how little he seemed to care. What daylight was left caught the tiny droplets of rain on his hair, making them glitter.

  "Yes," she went on. "Even the doctor speculated it may have been too much for Cabanelos to return here. What if he'd been doing something strenuous before he died?"

  "Like trying to climb onto one of the roofs to pick us off as soon as we got out of the car?"

  She nodded, even though Tay still had his eyes shut. "I bet we're showing the first signs of altitude sickness. Why else would you be acting so strangely? Why else would I agree to leave the body?"

  Tay said nothing, urging her to press on with her theory. "Altitude sickness can cause dizziness, disorientation, crying, poor judgment. The Bolivians up here like to blame their mistakes on the altitude. I've heard that excuse more than once, believe me."

  Tay opened his eyes and offered her a silent stare. Then he shut them again. "If you want to blame the altitude, feel free."

  What did he mean by that? With another breathy sigh, she said, "Regardless, we're stuck here for a while." She hated to admit this. "So we may as well put the time to good use."

  Tay's eyes came open with the laziness of a sleepy cat. "Any suggestions?" he murmured, his voice low and barely audible over the driving rain.

  She bit back the urge to snap at him. It was crazy to want him. It had to be the altitude, the lack of oxygen to her brain that was somehow making her decide how desirable, how enigmatic he was. She could remind herself of that. She would remind herself of that. Altitude. Poor judgment, hypoxia.

  She tightened her jaw. She would get her mind back on track.

  "Cabanelos said Ramos wasn't who he seemed," she began.

  Tay lifted his eyebrows. "Was he trying to say that Ramos planted the explosives? He certainly had the opportunity."

  "I don't think so." She shook her head. "Ramos was pretty shaken up. You can act scared to a point, but he actually paled."

  "Maybe the explosive went off prematurely."

  "Maybe."

  Tay straightened, his attention suddenly sharpening. "The most likely target was the ambassador. Ramos could have been planting the device for him, but it blew up too early."

  "Then he'd have been hurt."

  "It was small. He could have been far enough away to avoid injury."

  "Then if it was going to blow up the ambassador, he'd have made it larger and not to go off at the pedestrian door. The ambassador gets driven through the vehicular door. I don't think that's it. Ramos knows the ambassador's routine."

  She shook her head, frustrated. "It makes no sense. Ramos cleared the security check. We have no reason to suspect he'd take part in anything like this."

  "What did Cabanelos say? Ramos wasn't what?"

  "A desaparecido. A disappeared one." She frowned. "But Ramos wasn't a dissident. Just a man who had experience with security and who spoke English."

  Tay stared at her. "Still, he reacted at the police station when we were discussing the desaparecidos. It affected him, all right. You could see it in his face."

  "Wouldn't it bother you if your government had made your fellow countrymen disappear?" she countered.

  "Yes, it would. But Ramos didn't look haunted, or turn misty-eyed like you'd expect. He looked damned nervous. Besides, any political disappearances happened in the seventies, and Ramos would have been a very young man back then."

  "Not that young. I'm sure he's older than Cabanelos, who would have been a young man back then."

  "So what does that mean? That they were making a political statement? You remember that the Aymara aren't fighting a regime anymore, but fighting for indigenous rights." Tay straightened further, his expression deepening with concentration. "It could be, but Ramos isn't Aymara. Maybe
when Cabanelos realized he was dying, he was going to take Ramos down with him. Or maybe he was trying to redeem himself?"

  Dawna felt a smile reach her lips. What Tay was saying made sense. They might have suffered from some poor judgment, leaving the body in the church, but they weren't now. She reached out and grabbed Tay's arm. "I bet Cabanelos' wife could tell us. We should find her before the police do."

  "Cabanelos' neighbors recognized him. They should know his wife."

  Dawna released her grip on Tay and sat back. "It's kind of sad, isn't it? Dying alone in that village, crying for a wife that was hundreds of miles away."

  A soft touch on her cheek startled her. Tay had shifted closer to her. "Don't start feeling sorry for the guy, Dawna."

  "I'm not." She tried to move, but somehow, she seemed unable to turn her head away from Tay's gentle brush. "A part of me gave it some thought that he'd died alone up here. But I have to remember that he was a dangerous man."

  "And even though he said he could have killed us, but chose not to, it doesn't mean squat. You can't always rely on good aim. Maybe he just missed and was covering for that. He knew he was taking a risk we could have been killed, and still he fired on us. Don't feel sorry for him. He's a criminal."

  Cabanelos had died alone. Like to see, she was also alone in this world. She turned her head, feeling the bite of sudden sadness hit her eyes. It was just the altitude, she reminded herself, making mountains out of mole hills. "I'm not. I'm hardly some soft rookie you need to coach."

  Despite her outburst, Tay let his hand drift down to her shoulder. This time, the touch wasn't gentle. It was firm, his fingers pressing into her flesh as he dragged his hand down to grip her bicep. When she faced him again, Dawna could see his expression. Intense, yet warring, as if he doubted his own judgment. Even his breathing seemed labored. More so than a few minutes ago.

  The altitude still stole their good sense, and if Tay started something with her, she knew she wouldn't want him to stop.

  His voice reached through her thoughts. "You're no rookie, Dawna. You are one of the best police officers I know. Anything you put your mind to doing, you do with all you have."

  Was he talking about taking on the monumental assignment of moving the embassy to Cochabamba? Or was he talking about that night when she had decided to explore her desire and attraction to Tay with a gusto fed by too much alcohol and a relief her course was over?

  She wanted to restart that exploration.

  No! Automatically, she drew in a full lungful of air, sucking long and labored to force the air in, to force what little oxygen was up here to work restoring her good sense.

  She wasn't winning. Outside, the wet snow was now returning to a gentle rain. The rhythmic thrumming on the roof and windshield, even though muted by steel plating and inch thick glass, sounded less than before.

  Why not one kiss? Only one, here and now?

  Everything paused while she considered relaxing the taut control she had on her desire. One kiss wouldn't be so bad. One kiss wouldn't hurt anything.

  The cell phone between them whirred. Both she and Tay jumped back, as if the phone carried with it a dividing bolt of electricity.

  She grappled for it the same time as Tay, but he was that little bit quicker.

  "Hastings." Tay paused, listening. "Yes, Ambassador, we're fine."

  The ambassador! Surely he was looking for an update?

  "We would have called you again but we've been busy." Tay gave a brief description of what had happened to Cabanelos. "The road has washed out." He paused. "Yes, sir, we're stuck up here until morning."

  Stuck up here. Dawna fell back on the seat and struggled for another decent breath. Stuck here was exactly what they were. And she was ready to ruin everything she'd worked for with a kiss. It wouldn't bother Tay at all. He'd already betrayed her once, so kissing her now and then going about his inspection to find fault in her security measures would be all in a day's work for him.

  Tay handed her the phone. "He wants to talk to you."

  With a shaky hand, she took the phone.

  "Dawna, you okay?" The ambassador's voice was demanding, but also worried.

  "We're fine. It's been a difficult evening."

  "How so?"

  She hesitated to explain her words. "The air is thin here. We had to carry Cabanelos into the church. We're both finding it hard to breathe."

  A pregnant, knowing pause lingered between them. "Be careful, Dawna. Altitude sickness can cause fluid to accumulate around your heart, not to mention the less severe symptoms like bursting into tears or becoming clumsy. And it can affect your judgment, too."

  He was concerned that she was alone with Tay. "I'm fine," she said as briskly as possible. "We'll be home ASAP."

  "Check your map. I know when the vice president and I went up there, some of the vehicles took another route home."

  "I'll look for one on the map."

  "Or you can spend the evening doing up the report I want on my desk by morning."

  His tone was only half-joking. Something to ease the tension, but also something to keep her focused on her task and not on Tay. Ambassador Legace knew her well.

  "Ambassador, can you arrange to have Cabanelos' body autopsied?"

  There was another distinct pause. "I'll get Lucy on it first thing tomorrow. Be careful." He rang off.

  She set the phone down between them, before easing away from Tay. "The ambassador's going to try to arrange an autopsy." She stared out the windshield for a few minutes before dragging out her pen and pad. "I may as well start my report to him, while we're stuck here."

  Chapter Nine

  Tay doubted it was altitude sickness that made him act so strangely, but it was better for Dawna to think such a thing. What would she say if he'd told her he was haunted by his mother's voice, years after she'd died?

  But it was definitely poor judgment that caused him to want to haul Dawna onto his lap and kiss her senseless. Until he was senseless. Yes, poor judgment, all right. This was a criminal investigation. Someone had tried to blow up the embassy and now Cabanelos, the sniper who'd fired on them two days after the blast, had just died from natural causes?

  Too convenient.

  He caught a glimpse of Dawna through the corner of his eye. She'd flicked on the small, passenger side dome light and was writing fast and furiously in her notebook. He didn't need to rekindle the fire between them. He had nothing to offer her.

  Plus, he couldn't compromise the investigation by not focusing on it with all of his attention. Both he and Dawna, and the rest of the embassy staff for that matter, would be at risk.

  A noise grated into Tay and he yanked himself from a light doze to full attention. The sun was barely over the eastern end of the plateau, and Tay looked out with surprise at the beautiful vista. It was morning and they'd both dropped off to sleep. Then someone tapped again on the tinted window.

  Dawna jumped and peered past him. "It's the doctor."

  Tay climbed out of the car, followed immediately by Dawna. The doctor shook his head in reproach. "You hear the road washed out. But you leave the church. Foolish."

  "Yeah, well, we did," Tay answered bluntly. He looked beyond the rear of the car. A pair of domesticated llamas stood patiently at the edge of the smaller washout.

  A long, white bundle lay slumped over the larger of the animals. Cabanelos, Tay presumed.

  "You'll make it over the washout, I imagine."

  "Llamas are good for this, but Cabanelos is too heavy. Need two llamas." The doctor pointed to the skid marks near the smaller cave-in. "You two very lucky," he said in broken English. "Bad roads all the way down."

  He looked over to the body. "I take man down now," he added. "Oruro Hospital will get him to the morgue in Cochabamba."

  "So much for gathering the DNA and crime scene evidence," Tay muttered wryly, at the contamination of the body wrapped only in a sacramental cloth.

  The doctor shrugged, probably not understanding what the
y said. "This is all I can give you."

  But if Cabanelos was poisoned, maybe they didn't need anything but tissue and body fluids. "When will they repair this road?" he asked the doctor.

  Again, the doctor shrugged. "Today, tomorrow."

  Dawna picked her way around the car, choosing her steps wisely through the muck and scruffy, wet sod. She carried a map. "Isn't there another way down besides this road?"

  "Si," the doctor said. He took the map and spread it across the trunk of the car. "Here, but very bad. You drive slow, okay? Watch for washouts."

  "This road makes that cart path we were on look like a major highway," Dawna announced an hour later, after prying her fingers off the dash to ease a cramp in her hand. She wasn't being sarcastic. It was a horrendous road.

  Surprisingly, Tay laughed. "It isn't so bad. Your basic driver training as a private must have been worse."

  "No, it wasn't." They'd had to wait until the villagers came to fill in the lesser washout. She and Tay had tried to help with the hard work, but the thin air had made it nearly impossible for them to do more than a few minutes work. The villagers had laughed when Dawna dropped the shovel and plopped down on the edge of the cave-in to catch her breath.

  "They're laughing at us, you realize," she had snapped at Tay, who still did his share of shoveling. "They must think we had no oxygen in our brains when we tried to drive down the mountain."

  "We didn't," Tay had replied with a smile. "Let them have their fun. They're fixing the road, aren't they?"

  So she'd let them laugh. Now, careening precariously over bumps and dips and inclines no doubt illegal in North America, Dawna forgot the lack of oxygen and the filthy grime on her body. Right now, she just wanted to get safely back down the mountain.

  The path dipped once more, then leveled out somewhat as the hillside evened to a gentle roll. Dawna took in a welcome lungful of air.

  No more poor judgment. She had nearly succumbed to reaching for Tay and was only too happy to blame it on the altitude. Crazy. And it won't happen again.