As he stared down at the photo once more, Dirk’s voice cracked. “Why didn’t I do this a long time ago? I’ll have women crawling all over me. They won’t be able to keep their hands off me.”
Chuckling pleasantly, the doctor sat up and placed his pad and pen on his desk. “Aaah, señor, you will truly be sought after by the ladies. Women like beautiful men and you will be one of them.”
Dirk said, “Well, I’ve got to be in the U.S., but that can be put on hold for a while.” He laughed.
The doctor rose to his feet. “Come, my receptionist will take you to your apartment here in the high-rise. She will give you instructions so that you are properly prepped for tomorrow morning’s surgery.”
Happiness threaded through Dirk. He gripped the photo as he left the office. From worm to butterfly. Hell yes, he liked that idea. As Dirk followed the older woman to the shiny brass elevators in the lobby, he smiled to himself. Once his hacker friend got a trail on Susan, he would find her and kill her. And she’d never see him coming. She wouldn’t recognize him at all. Chortling to himself, Dirk stepped into the elevator. Yes, all of a sudden, life was looking up. He might have to spend March and April at a posh, exclusive high-end resort on the Yucatán Peninsula, but after that, in May, he’d be back in the U.S. And looking for her.
RACHEL STOOD OUT ON the porch with the throwaway cell phone pressed to her ear. The March thaw was well on its way. The icicles steadily dripped along the porch gutters across the outside door. Spring was coming, thank goodness. She heard her FBI handler clear her throat at the other end.
“Rachel, I’m checking in with you. We had a lead on Payson but there was a snafu in communications between the Des Moines law enforcement and TSA down at the Miami airport.”
Her heart sank. “Oh, no, Dirk is on the loose.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’m so pissed I can’t see straight. I’m glad we have a new President in office. He’s made it a priority to get all law enforcement talking with one another on the same damn frequency. We could have arrested Payson as he got off the plane, but TSA muffed it.”
Closing her eyes, Rachel felt her gut knotting. “What should I do, Brenda? Should I leave here?”
“No, don’t do that. He doesn’t know where you or your mother are. You’re both safe. Just remember that, okay?”
“What do you think has happened to him? Where has he gone? Is he in Miami? He loves that city.”
“Well, I’ve got Dade County law enforcement turning over every nook and cranny to look for Payson. In fact, the FBI has gone above and beyond and sent every law-enforcement agency in the U.S. a new wanted poster on him. We’re really hustling on this. Not only do we want him captured to keep you and your family safe, but we know that Payson will reestablish his ties with coke dealers in the Midwest he worked with before. We really don’t want that, either.”
A little relief flowed through Rachel. “I—I’m just worried, Brenda. I worry that this family I’m with will be killed by Dirk. I know his temper. He’s a sociopath. He won’t think anything of killing an infant, the parents of Cade or Cade himself. I just can’t bear to think of that happening.”
“I understand,” Brenda soothed, “but look at this another way, Rachel: you have to live somewhere. You have to work to keep a cover. So, no matter where you might go, you will involve others simply because you have to have a job. You see that, don’t you?”
“It’s enough my brothers and mother pay for my choice,” Rachel said, a sob lodging in her throat and making her voice raspy. “I—I just feel at my wits’ end, Brenda. I’m so shaken by this. I love Jenny. I love Cade’s parents….” She almost said, I love Cade. The shock of that startled her for a moment. Rachel had no time to feel her way through that epiphany. Choking down the sob, Rachel pleaded, “Brenda, get him! Find him and get him behind bars. Please? I feel horrible about involving the entire Garner family. They do not deserve violence coming to their doorstep. My God, Jenny has lost both her parents. She doesn’t need Dirk coming here to kill her!”
“Take it easy,” Brenda said in a gentle tone. “Just breathe, Rachel. Breathe. You’re getting too emotional about this and that’s not like you. What’s different this time? Why are you wigging out?”
Anger stirred in Rachel. “Wigging out? I don’t think so, Brenda! Before, Dirk was behind bars and we were safe. Now, we’re not safe. I don’t think my reaction and my concern for Cade’s family is unwarranted. I’ve created enough trouble for my own family, much less involve the Garners, don’t you think?”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Brenda said. “Look, the witness protection program isn’t perfect, Rachel. We’re doing the best we can. We’ve stepped up surveillance on Payson by involving every local police department in this nation. You have no idea the cost to do that, but you shouldn’t have to be concerned about it, either. We want your ex-husband off the streets as much as you do. Please, just know that we’re on top of it as much as we can be.”
“His drug-lord boss is from Mexico City. Could he have skipped out of the country and gone south?” Rachel wondered.
“We’re looking at surveillance tapes at all border crossings right now,” Brenda said. “I think Payson has skipped the country.”
“He could hide in Mexico for a long time and then come back across in a disguise.”
“Yes, that’s what our team thinks. We’re sending out special instructions to border agents and border-crossing points from one end of the U.S. to the other about Payson and his habits.”
Rachel stared out the back-porch door. The temperature was in the forties, the sun shining brightly, the sky an incredible blue. Ordinarily, she’d be jumping up and down for joy over the welcome change of weather. But not now. Grimly, she said, “Dirk is a chameleon, Brenda. He was always changing his looks even when I knew him. Dumb me, I just thought he did it because he was vain. I didn’t know he was dyeing his hair and changing his hairstyle to fool people in the drug business.”
“You can’t have known what he was really doing, Rachel. You married the guy thinking he was on the up and up. You don’t marry a man thinking he’s a major player in a Mexican drug cartel.”
“No, I guess not,” Rachel whispered, closing her eyes. “I just keep eating myself up over this, Brenda. Why didn’t I see him for who he was? My mother and brothers didn’t like him at all. My mother put up such a fuss over me marrying him that I ran away with him to Las Vegas. I went along with it because I was so in love with him. I wanted to marry him! I thought my family was wrong.”
“Listen, honey,” Brenda said in a confidential voice. “You were raised on an Iowa farm. You led a pretty cloistered life out there in the Midwest. Drugs and stuff like that aren’t as active in the Greenfield area where you grew up. You were ignorant, Rachel. That’s all. You can’t keep punishing yourself for what happened. Payson lied to you. Here you thought he was a big-time software salesman making big bucks for his fake company. He was very good at convincing you.”
“Yes, he was. I swallowed everything like the stupid ditz I was.”
“Stop that,” Brenda said sternly. “You couldn’t know you married a drug dealer. There was a part of him that wanted a real family, Rachel. You know the readout on him and his family. They were meth parents. As a child, Dirk was a throwaway kid. His father beat him black and blue, broke his nose and some ribs later on. I think he saw the innocence in you that he’d wanted and never had himself. I think he was trying to start all over.”
“I know,” Rachel murmured. “The psychology isn’t lost on me. I can feel compassion for him now. I know what happened to him, but that doesn’t mean I condone what he did to me and Sarah.”
“I’m not trying to suggest that you should,” Brenda said. “I’m just trying to get you to understand that Payson saw a way out through you. Rachel, you were young, beautiful, innocent and your family loved you. I’m sure on some sick, twisted psychological level Dirk saw a way to right all the wrongs of his terrible childhood
by marrying you and surrounding himself with a healthy family. He would no longer be treated as he was when he was a young child.”
Rachel understood. She’d had five years to digest the “real” Dirk that the FBI had provided to her as way of information during the trial. “Yet, his dark side took over. He tried to kill me and he killed Sarah.”
“Knowing what fuels Payson helps us some, but not completely,” Brenda agreed, sadness in her voice. “And you paid the ultimate price for what he wanted and didn’t have the ability to move toward. He fell back into being a drug dealer just like his parents.”
“Bad blood.”
“Yes,” Rachel agreed. She saw Cade pulling into the slushy driveway. He was on duty today and was coming home for lunch. “Brenda, I need to go. Cade just drove into the driveway.”
“Okay, I’ll keep you informed. Throw that cell away and go to the next one on the list.”
“You bet I will,” she said, flipping the cover closed. Turning, Rachel walked back into the warm kitchen. Cade had asked for a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch today. That was easy enough to fix. After stuffing the cell into the pocket of her jeans, Rachel quickly went about gathering the items. Under no circumstances did she want Cade to see her on the phone. He’d ask who she was talking to and Rachel was sick of lying to him.
Her hands shook a bit as she placed the skillet on the stove. She’d almost blurted to Brenda that she loved Cade! Where had that come from? Upset, Rachel brought out the butter and the block of sharp cheddar cheese from the fridge. She heard the porch door open and shut.
“Hey,” Cade called, entering the kitchen. “How are things in your corner of the world?” Rachel seemed harried as she sliced the cheese at the counter. Cade always looked forward to being in the area of the ranch during his shift so he could drop by for lunch. So far, it had been a quiet day and he was grateful.
“Doing fine,” Rachel said, looking up to his warm gray gaze. In that split second, Rachel realized with a terrible, sinking feeling that she was falling in love with Cade Garner. “How’s the day going?” she forced herself to ask with a lightness she didn’t feel.
Cade set his briefcase on the table and then got out of the warm nylon jacket and hung it on a hook. “Great. I’m here. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Rachel nodded. “There’s no place like home.”
Grinning, Cade walked to the table. He opened the briefcase and brought out a bunch of papers and set them next to the plate and flatware Rachel had laid out earlier. “Amen to that. You look worried. Everything okay?”
Trying to stop her frowning, Rachel’s heart leaped in fear. Cade was a deputy. He had honed his visual skills much more than most people. “Uh, yes, just a busy morning is all.”
“Jenny?”
“Oh, no, she’s fine. She’s sleeping right now.”
“Good,” Cade said, putting the briefcase on the floor next to his chair. “Anything I can help you with?”
“No, I’m fine. Thanks. Just sit there and relax.” How badly Rachel wanted just to turn around, run into his arms and cry. Crying always helped relieve her tension, but she couldn’t do it. And now, knowing that she loved Cade, Rachel had to be extra careful with her body language and her choice of words with him. Under no circumstance could Cade know how she really felt.
Hearing him rustle through papers, which he routinely brought home to work on, Rachel felt a tiny bit of relief. She forced herself to think about the grilled cheese sandwich in the skillet. She got a jar of sweet pickles from the fridge, and, after putting it all on a plate, she turned and walked over to where he sat.
Cade had a wanted poster in his hand. As she drew near, Rachel gasped and nearly dropped the plate.
Cade looked up sharply at Rachel. She had stopped, her face turning pale, her eyes huge and filled with terror. “What?” he asked, dropping the papers and getting up. “Rachel? Are you all right? What’s wrong?” Without thinking, he put his hands on her shoulders, the plate between them.
Gulping, Rachel stared past Cade and down at the paper on the table. It was a photo of Dirk Payson. Then, she remembered Brenda had told her that they were sending out new information to every small police department in the U.S. That meant this one. Trying to breathe, she thrust the plate toward Cade. It broke the light hold he had on her shoulders.
“Here,” she rattled, “take this. I’m fine. I’ll be back in a minute…” And she turned on her heel and hurried down the hall to the bathroom.
Stunned, Cade stood in the quiet kitchen with the sandwich in hand. He watched Rachel disappear into the bathroom, the door shutting louder than usual. What was wrong? Scowling, he went to the table and sat down. Once more he had to remind himself they weren’t married. She was an employee, not his lover, as he so desperately wanted. If Rachel wanted to ask for help, she’d ask. Muttering under his breath, Cade pushed the papers aside and sat down. Women had ups and downs men never had. He reminded himself that women had an awful lot more hormones in place than men did, too. And who knew? Maybe her hormones were making her more out of sorts than usual. As he enjoyed the grilled cheese sandwich, Cade thought that maybe Rachel was getting cabin fever. It struck anyone who faced eight months of winter every year. And she wasn’t used to being housebound for so long, so this was probably just a bad day for her.
Sooner or later, Cade knew, she’d reappear. And tonight he’d broach the topic with her when she wasn’t so upset. Picking up the papers once more, he read about Dirk Payson. The FBI had called his office captain and they were making a big push to find this guy and get him back behind bars. Cade committed the man’s face to memory. As a patrolling deputy, it was his job to be on the lookout for such a criminal.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CADE WAS CONCERNED as he drove his cruiser along the dirt roads of Teton County. After Rachel had seen the wanted poster on Dirk Payson yesterday, she’d paled like the proverbial ghost. Worse, he hadn’t seen her after supper that night. She’d gone directly to her room, and his shift forced him to be up and out of the house long before she was awake in the morning.
The gray, scudding clouds signaled the end of a front coming through with a promise of much more blue sky. Slats of sunlight, like flashlight beams, flooded the valley. He was on a call to another small ranch, the Bar T, where there’d been a fight between cowboys. One of them had a busted jaw and Cade had been sent to collect the information. The winters were long and hard in Wyoming and about this time of year—late March, early April—cabin fever struck even the hardiest of residents. This was no place for the faint of heart.
The snow and mud combined, and he could hear it against the cruiser as he drove slowly but surely down the rutted road toward the ranch in the distance. His mind turned once more to Rachel. Why had she blanched when she saw that poster? Something was going on. Grimly, Cade’s mind wandered from the sublime to the ridiculous. Did Rachel know this suspect? Worse, was he a family member? Their names weren’t the same and Rachel had said she’d never been married. There was nothing in her background check to tie her to Payson. So why the violent reaction?
As he slowed down and drove through the large timber entrance to the Bar T, Cade decided that tonight after dinner he would gently try to broach the subject with her. God help him, he was falling in love with her and he knew it. But did she love him? Cade didn’t think so. Rachel was always careful around him, didn’t give him “the look” or any other body language to suggest it. Yet, their one melting kiss haunted him. He wanted to taste her more deeply, gather Rachel into his arms and make tender love with her. Cade thought his fervent dreams of needing Rachel showed that he was emerging from the death of his family. That wasn’t a bad thing, but Cade wasn’t interested in just any woman. He was interested solely in Rachel.
As he pulled up to the log ranch house, a couple of black-and-white Australian heeler dogs came out barking to greet him. Most ranches had sheepdogs or heelers to help herd the cattle along with the cowboys on horseb
ack or on ATV machines. For a moment, as Cade gathered his clipboard and made a call to dispatch to let them know he’d arrived on the scene, he was still centered on Rachel.
His mother, Gwen, had fallen in love with Rachel in so many ways. When Abby had died, he’d seen a little bit of his parents die, too. They had loved her. And now, Rachel and Jenny were bringing the rest of his family as well as himself back from that dark, shocking event. Cade had seen his family go from depression and grief to hope once again. The combination of Rachel and Jenny was like an IV given at the local hospital, a blood transfusion. As Cade opened the door to his cruiser, the cold, cutting spring wind rushed into the interior, wiping out the warmth.
No, tonight, he would have to have a talk with Rachel and get to the bottom of this. What would the answer be? Something as simple as that she was repulsed by the picture? Should he not bring his work home and spread it across the table where she had to look at it? Cade felt that was probably the case and he was willing to change his habits and use the small desk in the master bedroom to work on, instead. He didn’t want to upset Rachel like that again. There was no need for it.
“I’D LIKE TO TALK TO YOU about that wanted poster I brought home yesterday at lunch,” Cade said as they sat with their after-dinner coffee at the kitchen table.
Rachel frowned. “Oh…that.” Instantly, adrenaline shot to her bloodstream. Her heart beat harder.
Searching her closed expression, Cade studied Rachel in the tense silence that suddenly sprang up between them. He kept his voice gentle. “I know these posters can be upsetting. These guys aren’t stellar and some are pretty ugly and threatening to a normal person.” Searching for the words, he held her shadowed, fearful gaze. “I’ve had these posters out on the table before and you never had that kind of reaction to them.”
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