by Jenna Ryan
“Hawley doesn’t care. Joan says he did the same thing to his wife when she was alive. She died of a stroke,” Alessandra said before he could ask. “And don’t forget—” she tapped his shoulders with her index fingers “—neither Hawley nor Ryder are connected to that bus accident.”
“That we know of.”
“Well, now you’re just making things complicated.”
“Name of the game in law enforcement.”
“Does that mean we’re going to Moe’s birthday party tonight or not?”
He grinned. “Seeing as everyone’s going to be armed up, anyway, and we’ve been using Moe’s truck to run from a killer for the past few days, it’d be rude not to go.”
“There’s that word again. Rude. Even though she’s dead, I still think that pushy woman’s part of this. Am I being weird, McBride, getting stuck on an irrelevant point?”
“No point’s irrelevant… What?” he said when she rested her forehead against his shoulder.
“We need to buy a present for Moe, and the party starts in a few hours. What might a ninety-year-old man want that he doesn’t already have?”
“A beautiful twenty-eight-year-old wife with legs that go on forever and a butt that makes men’s jaws drop. Unfortunately, he can’t have you, so he’ll have to settle for a bottle of really good whiskey—which I’m told is the only thing he ever asks for and all the guests give him.”
“I’m surprised he’s made it to ninety. I guess we can stop at a store on the way to Larry’s barn.” She swatted a mosquito from her arm. “I hate to think how I look right now. All I know is that I feel like something a very big cat dragged out of a cave.”
His answering smile held just enough danger that she scooted out of range.
“Keep your mind on the blips, McBride. Another round of sex with you, and I won’t have the strength to party.”
Her admittedly feeble protest might not have put him off, but an incoming call had him motioning at the trailer.
“Take your shower. It’s the trooper I spoke to this morning. Maybe they’ve picked up our mystery bus driver.”
And maybe Moe would live another ninety years, but Alessandra doubted it.
The water ran warm when she tested it, and felt delicious sliding over her limbs and down her back. She used the lavender-and-cream shower gel she’d bought in town, a shampoo with the same luscious scent and followed both with a silky body lotion that made her wonder why she hadn’t lured McBride inside and— No, stop, she commanded herself. She had to stay firm. No more sex.
Why? asked an inner voice.
“Don’t do this, Alessandra,” she cautioned herself. “Find the madman first. Think about tomorrow—well, tomorrow.”
The madman had almost certainly ditched his truck in favor of another man’s school bus turned camper. Because it wasn’t a rust bucket on four wobbly wheels? Or because it made some kind of symbolic statement?
She pictured the truck while she dried her hair. She’d seen it, or one very much like it, before. On Ryder’s ranch?
Possibly, but Ryder hadn’t been on the bus that crashed and, as far as she knew, he wasn’t connected to anyone who had been.
Ah, but how much did she know about the passengers with whom she’d traveled? How much did she really know about Ryder?
Still, it didn’t feel right, she reflected after a few minutes. Possible, but not probable.
She could see the truck in motion in her head. She could almost hear it sputtering. There was something else, as well, something Joan had mentioned in one of her messages….
“You ready?”
At McBride’s question, the thought winked out and took Joan’s message with it.
McBride did his usual five-minute shower and still wound up waiting for her to finish.
She’d bought ivory cotton pants and a really pretty halter top in town that afternoon. The top had a deep V front and not much of a back. She’d wanted to add in a pair of strappy red shoes with superskinny stiletto heels, but she had to get to and from Cheech’s trailer on foot, so she went with the cream-colored ankle boots instead.
A spiffed-up Larry met them on the far side of the ridge. The sun had already dipped below the tree line. McBride kept his eye on the intermittent blips he was receiving. Alessandra endeavored to pin down at least one elusive memory. She thought about going through her emails again, but between the road conditions and Larry’s driving, she didn’t have a chance.
“I told Ruthie we’d pick her up on our way past the motel.” Larry winked at Alessandra next to him. “She took quite a shine to you after you told her about that cure for Puddles’s ringworm.”
“It wasn’t—” he hit a bump and almost caused her to bite off her tongue “—much. Uh, can we fit another person in here, Larry?”
“Can if you sit on McBride’s lap. Pretty sure he won’t mind.”
McBride merely grinned and raised a brow at her.
“Now, I want you to tell me everything I don’t already know,” Larry went on. “I’ve got the gist, but I’m confused about the motive. Alessandra was involved in a bus accident seven years ago, and now someone wants the two of you dead.”
“If you’ve got that straight, you know as much as we do.” McBride checked his screen. “Transmitter’s stopped working.”
“For him as well as us, I hope.” Alessandra braced for another series of potholes.
His phone beeped. Setting an arm on the seat behind her, he switched to email. “Interesting,” he said as he read.
She answered Larry’s questioning look with an unruffled shrug. “If you’re waiting for an explanation, don’t hold your breath. Garbo was positively chatty by comparison.”
McBride’s lips curved. “I heard that, darlin’.”
“Which means the information he’s receiving is intriguing, but not earth-shattering.” She tipped her head toward the screen. “You know a man named Methuselah?”
Larry chuckled. “Some folks around here call Moe that.”
“My Methuselah’s eighty-four and still an active archivist for the Chicago Police Department.” McBride scrolled to the end of the message. “I asked him to dig up any information he could on the man who was driving the bus the night of the crash.”
“And he found…?” Alessandra asked.
“Nothing you haven’t already told me. One thing he did discover is that the driver who was supposed to make the trip wasn’t indisposed as he claimed at the inquiry. It came out later, and was subsequently hushed up by the bus line, that the driver you got had made a pass at his superior’s wife during a company picnic. Your driver had been working a plum route. When word reached his superior about the pass, he was yanked off the good route and stuck on a less favorable one.”
Alessandra nodded. “Okay, that is interesting, but I don’t see—” Then a light went on in her brain and she did. “Someone who knew about the pass leaked the information to my driver’s superior. Someone as in the driver who was supposed to make the trip but didn’t.”
“You should have been a cop, Alessandra.” McBride switched the screen back to transmitter mode. “The driver you were meant to have was better at distances than the one you got—more in tune with the bus, more safety conscious, less inclined to be distracted and therefore more likely to be aware of potential mechanical problems.”
“In other words, if the regular guy had been driving, there’s a chance we wouldn’t have crashed, no one would have died and maybe the crazy person who’s after us now wouldn’t be.”
“It’s a theory.”
“Which could make the driver who didn’t go the fourth person in the murder equation.” Confusion swept in from all sides. “Does that mean Hawley and Ryder are axed as suspects?”
“Methuselah couldn’t find a link between either of them and anyone on the passenger list. Doesn’t mean there isn’t one, only that if one exists, it’s obscure. My opinion? They’re not involved.”
She massaged a temple that had beg
un to throb. “I wish that made me feel better, but all it does is tangle my mind up even more. Larry, look out!”
The old man had been turning his head to follow their conversation. At her warning, he jerked the wheel hard to the right, and wound up with a rear tire spinning freely over a very deep ditch.
“Norman, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded when Ruthie’s rail-thin son picked himself up from the other side of the road and loped over to them. “Jumping out of the bushes like that. I haven’t forgotten about your ma.”
The man, in his late forties with a long face and droopy eyes, clung to the truck. He tried several times, but couldn’t seem to speak.
“He’s hyperventilating.” Alessandra pushed on McBride’s leg. “Let me out.”
“It’s Ma,” he finally wheezed. “Fell…in the lobby.” He smacked the top of his head with his palm. “Blood, there’s blood.”
Larry scrambled out of the truck. “Ruthie’s hurt?”
Norm looked like a bobblehead figure that couldn’t stop nodding. “I waxed the floors. Party shoes.” He made a splatting motion.
“Show me,” Alessandra began, and almost had her arm yanked out of the socket as Norm hauled her across the road.
A twisty path led to the rear of the old motel. He tugged her up a set of stairs, through the office and out to the front desk. He was so distraught that McBride had to pry his fingers from her wrist.
Alessandra knelt beside the woman. Ruth’s complexion, she noted, was ashen.
Norm was frantic. “Is she dead?”
“No.” Alessandra checked her pulse and eyes, then bent her head to listen to the woman’s heart. “Beat’s fast, but regular. She’s definitely lost some blood. A doctor’d be good.”
Larry waved his cell. “Doc Dyer’s gone fishing for a week. I’m ringing his replacement now. Lucky for us, he’s coming up from Lancer for Moe’s party.”
McBride made a wary circle of the room. “Can you stop the bleeding?”
“It’s stopped on its own.” She examined the woman for other injuries, then glanced at Norm. “This looks worse than it is. No bones appear to be broken. But I need some information.”
Norm’s head continued to bob while he answered her questions.
Ruthie was seventy-six, took pills for high blood pressure and smoked a secret half pack of cigarettes every day. Norm didn’t think she’d ever had a heart attack, but suspected he might be having one, so when Alessandra was done with his mother could she please take a look at him. Apparently the replacement doctor from Lancer had cold hands and the bedside manner of a drill sergeant.
Larry came over and gently eased Norm aside. “Doc’s a good twenty minutes away.” He gave Alessandra an encouraging pat. “Anything we can do for her in the meantime?”
“Is there a cot in the office?”
“There’s a sofa. We could carry her in.”
“We” translated to McBride, who had less trouble lifting Ruth from the floor than Larry did getting Norm to stop nodding his head. “Blood’s scaring him, I think. I’ll leave him here in Ruthie’s chair and call the doc again.”
McBride crouched next to Alessandra. “Do you need me?”
“No, but that question had an ominous sound to it. Don’t you think she fell? The floors are slippery, and her shoes do have a three-inch heel.”
“Is that high in the female world?”
“Depends on the female. For Ruth, I’d say yes.” She took the woman’s pulse again. “Please tell me you don’t think she was attacked.”
“There was blood on the corner of the lobby desk and a scratch in the floor next to it, so in my professional opinion, I’d say she fell on her own. Feel better?”
“Marginally.” She laid Ruth’s hand on her chest. “Her respiration’s good, pulse is steady. She could have a mild concussion, but otherwise, I’d say she’s doing well. Seeing as she’s not a horse or a dog, however, I’d rather the doctor make the official diagnosis.”
When Norm thumped his chest for attention, she sent McBride a vaguely humorous smile and went to have a look.
By the time the doctor arrived, daylight had faded from the sky. Moe hobbled in behind him with Curly on his heels. Shortly after that, trucks and cars began pulling into the lot. People climbed out. Coolers appeared and were carried inside along with canvas chairs.
Larry returned to say that there were at least fifty partygoers in the lobby, early arrivals who’d heard about Ruth and figured they’d drop by for a quick look-see.
One of those party people had an old boom box that belted out Garth Brooks at top volume.
Alessandra found McBride behind the lobby desk. A woman with orange hair and cowboy boots was attempting to capture his attention, but while he made polite noises, he was fixated on the BlackBerry screen.
“Tell me something good.” Alessandra eased the halter top away from her heated skin. Too many people in a small space with no AC had sent the temperature into the nineties.
McBride’s response was preoccupied. “I haven’t seen any sign of a yellow school bus.”
“I’d call that good.”
“Most everyone here knows how to handle a firearm.”
“I guess that could also be construed as good under the circumstances.”
“Several of them are already half-hammered.”
The woman with orange hair offered a bleary smile and a sloppy toast before draining her whiskey glass.
“Maybe not the best scenario,” Alessandra decided. “Any more blips?”
“Not for a while.” He motioned for Larry to join them. “Killer’s heading this way, though, darlin’. Could be on the doorstep if the last reading I got was accurate.”
On the doorstep? Alessandra forced herself not to react. “So, no party for us. Is the tracker he’s following still attached to Moe’s truck?”
“Yes, and I parked the truck behind an old farmer’s stand. If I leave now, I might be able to intercept him before he reaches town.”
“I knew it.” She jabbed his arm. “You never intended to go to Moe’s party. You were going to ditch me in a barn with a hundred armed guests and trust that even if he did manage to slip past you, no way would he get past all of them.”
“Safety in numbers, Alessandra.”
“Only where I’m concerned, apparently, because inasmuch as I’ll be surrounded, you’ll be alone with two measly guns. Meanwhile, a crazy man who, by the way, wants both of us dead, will be counterplotting in his own deranged and nonlinear way. Said lunatic will also be in possession of an assault rifle, dynamite and God knows what other weapons. But you go to the party, Alessandra. Mix, mingle and be safe. That madman’s as good as caught.”
The barest hint of amusement lurked in the eyes that met and held hers. “I take it you don’t like my idea.”
She didn’t know whether to punch him and be done with it or give in and laugh at the whole ridiculous situation. There was a homicidal maniac heading for—possibly even in—Ben’s Creek, and here she was with a bunch of strangers who were dressed in their Sunday best, drinking toasts to a ninety-year-old birthday boy and packing everything from pistols to sawed-off shotguns.
Ridiculous won. A little too easily, if she was truthful.
“Okay, fine.” She raised her hands. “Call’s yours. I’ll assume Ruth’s accident put your plan on hold or you’d be long gone.” At his level look, she sighed. “Do what you need to, McBride. Just don’t expect me to play party girl and endanger innocent lives. I’ll wait at Cheech’s trailer or—”
The rest of her sentence simply died as an explosion ripped through the air. The force was so violent it rattled the windows and shook the foundation of the old motel.
Several people, including Alessandra, lost their footing and pitched sideways. In her case, she fell into McBride, who managed to catch and keep her upright even as he slammed into the desk.
The screams and shouts torn from terrified throats faded to stunned silence as th
e echoes died off and left only the heavy thump of boom-box music in its wake.
Alessandra stared at McBride, then thought of Ruth in the office and spun for the door. McBride caught her before she could take more than a step. When he spoke, however, she couldn’t hear him.
Pandemonium erupted, filling the air with a din that very nearly outstripped the explosion.
Larry ran out of the back room on unsteady legs. “What the hell was that?” he shouted. “A bomb?”
“Gas leak explosion?” someone else speculated.
McBride drew Alessandra out of the chaos. “That was dynamite. He’s here.” He shoved his backup in her hands. “Take this. Use it on anyone who’s not dressed for a birthday party.”
“Where did he set it off?”
“Sounded like the woods.” Snagging Larry’s sleeve, he pulled him into the corner. “What’s behind the motel, structure-wise?”
“Smokehouse, old outhouse, big old garage full of junk.” He flapped a hand at Morley through the mayhem. “What do you want us to do?”
“Stay with Alessandra. Whoever he is, he wants her dead.”
She grabbed him before he could disappear. “He wants you dead, too, McBride.”
“I know.” A gleam of anticipation appeared in his eyes. “Thing is, only one of us can get what he wants. And it’s not going to be him.”
HE DIDN’T WANT to leave her. His plan, such as it was, had backfired, but they couldn’t run forever, and no way was he handing Alessandra over to a killer.
Other people ran with him into the darkness behind the motel. Most of them headed for a nearby farm. Some followed him and the acrid odor of explosive. Feet pounded through the trees as they searched for debris.
Slowing, McBride let the crowd go past. He glanced at the motel, still in sight, and attempted to put himself in the murderer’s head. Never an easy task when dealing with someone who was insane.
Blow up a structure. Draw attention to the devastation. Hide. Watch from a safe distance. People rush past. Once they’re gone, circle back.
Like the shadow he’d become so many times in his life, McBride melted into the darkness and worked his way over to a cluster of bushes and boulders.