Return To Sender

by Merline Lovelace

  “Well, if you’re sure someone’s coming out here to cover for me...”

  “The postmaster assured me that wasn’t a problem.”

  Sheryl looked to Pat, who nodded. “We’ll manage until the temp gets here. Go close down your station.”

  Still a little bemused by her sudden transition from postal clerk to task force augmentee, Sheryl headed for the front. Naturally, her curious co-workers peppered her with questions.

  “What’s going on, Sher?” Elise wanted to know. “Why are you closing out?”

  Peggy grinned wickedly over the divider separating the stations. “And who’s the long, tall stud with the mustache? Tell us all, girl.”

  “I can’t right now. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  When she could, Sheryl amended silently, hitting a sequence of keystrokes to tally her counter transactions. The printer stuttered out a report for her abridged workday. Another quick sequence shut down the computer.

  Her hand resting on her mounded tummy, Elise waited for the next customer. “Where are you going now?”

  That much at least Sheryl could reveal. “Downtown. The postmaster has assigned me to a special detail.”

  “With the stud? No kidding?” Peggy waggled her brows. “How do I go about getting assigned to this detail?”

  “By stopping by to check on little old ladies on your way home from work.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” Sheryl repeated.

  With swift efficiency, she ejected her disk from her terminal and removed her cash drawer. After stacking her stock of stamps on top of the drawer, she carried the lot to the vault. A quick inventory tallied her cash receipts with the money orders, stamps and supplies she’d sold so far this morning. She scribbled her name across the report, then left it for the T-6 clerk who had the unenviable task of reconciling all the counter clerks’ reports with the master printout produced at the end of each day. That done, she hurried back to her counter to retrieve her purse and extract a promise from Elise.

  “Brian’s supposed to pick me up at eleven-thirty. He wanted to show me a house during lunch that he’s going to list. He needs a woman’s opinion about the renovations that might be necessary to the kitchen. Would you go with him? Please? You know how he always raves about what you did with your kitchen.”

  Brian wasn’t the only one who raved about the miracles Elise had performed with the small fixer-upper he’d found for her after her divorce. With two kids to house and a third about to make an appearance, she’d taken wallpapering and sheet curtains to a higher plane of art. She’d also turned a dilapidated kitchen into a marvel of bleached cabinets, handdecorated tiles and artfully disguised pipes.

  “I’ll be happy to go with him, but...”

  “Thanks! Tell him I’ll call him tonight.”

  Sheryl left Elise with a frown still creasing her forehead and hurried toward the back. Now that she’d gotten used to the idea, she had to admit the prospect of taking part in a criminal investigation sent a little thrill of excitement through her. The Wanted posters tacked to the bulletin board in the outer lobby and the occasional creeps who came into the post office, like the one this morning, were the closest she’d come to the dark, seamy side of life. Besides, she was only doing her civic duty by helping Harry piece together the puzzle of the postcards.

  Which didn’t explain the way her pulse seemed to stutter with that strange, inexplicable excitement when she saw the marshal. Hands shoved into his pockets, ankles crossed, he lounged against one of the carriers’ sorting desks as though he had nothing else in the world more important to do than wait for her. The pose didn’t fit his character, she now knew. Harry MacMillan was anything but patient. She’d just met him yesterday—fallen into his arms, more correctly—and now he’d pulled her off her job to work on his team.

  At the sound of her footsteps, he glanced up, and Sheryl’s excitement took on a deeper, keener edge. His toffee-colored eyes swept her with the same intent scrutiny that had raised goose bumps on her skin yesterday. Suddenly self-conscious, she glanced down at her pin-striped shirt with its neat little cross tab tie and her navy shorts.

  “Should I change out of my uniform?”

  His gaze skimmed from her nose to her knees and back again. “You’re fine.”

  She was a whole lot better than fine, Harry thought as he followed her to the exit. He’d never paid much attention to postal uniforms, but Sheryl Hancock filled hers out nicely. Very nicely.

  Her pin-striped shirt with its little red tab was innocuous enough, but the long, curving stretch of leg displayed by those navy shorts pushed his simple observation into swift, gut-level male appreciation. It also put a knot in his belly that didn’t belong there right now.

  Frowning, Harry gave himself a mental shake. He’d better keep his mind focused on the information Sheryl could supply, not on her tanned legs or the seductive swing of her hips. And he’d darn well better remember why he’d yanked her from her workplace and put her on his team. She held the key to those damned postcards. He felt it with every instinct he possessed. He wasn’t going to rest until he’d pulled every scrap of information out of this woman.

  Despite his stern reminder that his business with Sheryl was just that, business, his pulse tripped at the thought of the hours ahead. On the advice of her lawyer, Inga Gunderson flatly refused to talk to the investigators. Harry and Ev had spent several frustrating hours with the woman last night. Finally, they’d left her stewing in her own venom. The clerk of the court had assured them that she wouldn’t get a bail hearing until late tomorrow, if then, given the overloaded court docket.

  Earlier this morning, Ev had left to drive up to the labs at Los Alamos to talk to one of the government’s foremost experts on the use and physical properties of depleted uranium. The New Mexico state trooper assigned to the task force was now out at the local FAA office, compiling a list of secondary airstrips within a hundred-mile radius. The Customs agent working with them on an as-needed basis had returned to his office to cull through foreign flight schedules. For the next few hours at least, Harry would have the task force headquarters—and Sheryl—to himself.

  He intended to make good use of that time.

  “Why don’t I drive, since my vehicle is cleared for the secure parking at the Chavez Federal Building? We can come back for your car later.”

  “Okay. Just let me open my windows a bit to keep from baking the seats.”

  A moment later, Sheryl buckled herself into the blast furnace heat of the tan sedan. “So you’re operating out of the downtown courthouse?”

  “We’ve set up task force headquarters in the U.S. Marshals’ offices.”

  Task force headquarters!

  A vague image formed in her mind of a busy, hightech command post, complete with wall-sized screen satellite maps displaying all kinds of vital information, humming computer terminals, beeping phones and a team of dedicated, intense professionals. The idea of becoming a part, however briefly, of the effort kindled a sense of adventure.

  Reality came crashing down on her the moment she stepped inside the third-floor conference room in the multistory federal building in the heart of the city. Hand-scribbled paper charts decorated the nondescript tan walls. Foam coffee cups and cardboard boxes of records littered the long conference table. Wires from the phones clustered in the center of the table snaked around the cups and over the boxes like gray streamers. A faint, stale odor drifted from the crushed pizza cartons that had been stuffed into metal wastebaskets in a corner. Sheryl looked around, gulping.

  “This is it? Your headquarters?”

  “This is it.” Harry shrugged off the clutter with the same ease he shrugged out of his jacket. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  She might have been able to do just that if her gaze hadn’t snagged on the blue steel gun butt nestled against his left side. Even holstered, the weapon looked ugly and far too dangerous for her peace of mind.

  Harry
tossed his jacket over a chair back and turned, catching her wary expression. “Don’t worry. I know how to use it.”

  Somehow, that didn’t reassure her.

  “I don’t like guns,” she admitted, dropping her shoulder bag into a chair. “They make me nervous. Very nervous.”

  Calmly, he rolled up the cuffs of his white cotton shirt. “They make me nervous, too. Especially when they’re loaded with uranium-tipped bullets. Ready to get to work?”

  After that unsubtle reminder of the reason she was here, Sheryl could hardly say no. Pulling out one of the chairs, she rolled up to the table.

  “I’m ready.”

  “We pretty well took apart the postcard from Rio last night. Let’s start with the one from Pamplona today. We’ll reverse the process and work the front side first. Can you describe the scene?”

  She shot him an amused glance.

  “Of course you can,” he answered himself. “You talk, I’ll listen.”

  Summoning up a mental image of the card, Sheryl painted a vivid word picture that included a narrow, cobbled street lined with two-story stone houses. Geranium-filled window boxes. White-shirted young men racing between the buildings, looking over their shoulders at the herd of black bulls just visible at a bend in the street.

  Harry copied down every word, so intent on searching for similarities with the card from Rio that it was some time before he noticed the subtle difference in Sheryl’s voice. It sounded softer, he realized in surprise, almost dreamy. He glanced up to find her staring at the wall, her mouth curving slightly. She’d gotten lost somewhere on a high, sunny plain in Spain’s Basque province.

  Harry got a little lost himself just looking at her. The faint trace of freckles across the bridge of her nose fascinated him, as did the mass of tawny hair tumbling down her back. She’d pulled the hair at her temples back and caught it in one of those plastic clips with long, dangerous-looking teeth. His hand itched to spring the clip free, to let those curls take on a life of their own.

  “There was a cathedral in the background,” she murmured, drawing his attention away from the curve of her cheek. “An old Gothic cathedral complete with flying buttresses and a huge rose-colored window in the south transept. One of man’s finest monuments to God.”

  Sighing, she shifted in her seat and caught Harry staring at her. “I’ve read a little bit about medieval Gothic cathedrals,” she confessed with an embarrassed shrug. “Some people consider them the architectural wonders of the modern world.”

  “Have you ever been inside one?”

  “No. Have you?”

  He nodded. “Notre Dame.”

  “In Paris?”

  Her breathless awe made Harry bite back a grin. He’d visited the majestic structure on a wet, dreary spring day. All he could recall were impenetrable shadows, cold dampness and thousands of votive candles flickering in the darkness. Of course, he was a marine gunny sergeant on leave at the time, and far more interested in the filles de joie working the broad embankments along the Seine than in the gray stone cathedral

  “Maybe your sort-of fiancé will spring for a trip to Paris for a honeymoon,” he commented casually.

  He saw at once that he’d said the wrong thing. The soft, faraway look disappeared from her green eyes. She sat up, a tiny frown creasing her brow.

  “Brian isn’t interested in traveling, any more than I am. We prefer to save our money for something more practical, like a house or a new car or the kids’ college education.”

  Without warning, a thought rifled through Harry’s mind. If he wanted to stake his claim to a woman like this one, he’d whisk her off to a deserted island, peel off her clothes and make love to her a dozen times a day before either of them started thinking about a house and a new car and the kids’ college education.

  His belly clenched at the image of Sheryl sprawled in the surf, her tanned body offered up to the sun like a pagan sacrifice. Her arms reached for him. Her eyes...

  Dammit!

  A quick shake of his head banished the crashing surf. He had to remember why he was here. And that Sheryl was spoken for... almost. Pushing aside her vague relationship with the jerk who made appointments instead of dates, he brought them both back to the matter at hand.

  “Let’s talk about the message on the back.”

  She blinked at his brusque instruction, but complied willingly enough.

  “As best I recall, it was short and sweet. ‘Hi, Auntie. I’ve spent two great...’” She paused, chewing on her lower lip. “No, it was three. ‘I’ve spent three great days keeping a half step ahead of the bulls. See you soon, Paul.”’

  “Run it through your mind again,” Harry ordered. “Close your eyes. See the words. Picture the—”

  One of the phones on the table shrilled. He grabbed the receiver, listened for a few minutes and hung up with a promise to call back later.

  “Close your eyes, Sheryl.”

  Obediently, she blanked out the chart-strewn walls.

  “Visualize the words. Follow every curl of every letter. Describe them to me.”

  Like a dutiful disciple of a master mesmerizer, she let Harry’s deep, slow voice lull her into a state of near somnolence. Slowly, lines of dark swirls began to take shape.

  She didn’t even notice when morning faded into afternoon, or when the uninspiring conference room began to take on an aura of a real live operations center. She did note that the phones rang constantly, and that a seemingly steady stream of people popped in to talk to Harry or pass information.

  Sometime around the middle of the afternoon, the short, stocky Everett Sloan returned from Los Alamos Laboratories. Sheryl soon discovered that, unlike Harry, he was assigned to the Albuquerque office of the U.S. Marshals and had been tapped as the local coordinator for the task force. Shedding his wrinkled suit jacket, Ev informed his temporary partner that he’d collected more information than he’d ever wanted to know about the properties and characteristics of the heavy metal known as U-235.

  A short time later, a slender, striking brunette in the brown shirt, gray pants and Smoky the Bear hat of a New Mexico state trooper joined the group. After brief introductions, Fay Chandler tossed her hat on the table and unrolled a huge aerial map showing every airstrip, paved or otherwise, within a hundred-mile radius. The three-letter designation code for each strip had been highlighted in yellow. If their suspect intended to bring his contraband in someplace other than Albuquerque International, Fay would coordinate the local response team.

  In the midst of all this activity, Harry somehow remained focused on Sheryl and the postcards. After hours of work, he reduced the sheets of information he’d pulled from her to a few key words and phrases. He repeated them now in an almost singsong mantra.

  “Rio...Carnival...April...four.”

  Sheryl picked up the chorus. “Pamplona... bulls...July...three.”

  “Prague... Wenceslas Square... September... two.”

  MacMillan stared at the words, as though the sheer intensity of his scrutiny would solve the riddle they represented. “I know there’s a pattern in there somewhere. A reverse order of numbers or letters or something!”

  “Maybe the computers will find it.” Ev Sloan slid his thumbs under his flashy red-and-yellow Bugs Bunny suspenders to hitch up his pants. “I’ll go down to the data center and plug the key words in. The airstrip designation codes, too. Be back in a flash with the trash.”

  Harry caught Sheryl’s smile and put a more practical spin on Ev’s blithe remark. “You’ll think it’s trash, too, when you see the endless combinations the computers will kick out. It’ll take us the rest of the evening, if not the night, to go over them.”

  Sheryl’s smile fizzled. Good grief! He hadn’t been kidding about working day and night. She snuck a peek at the clock on the wall. It was after five. They’d worked right through lunch. The Diet Pepsis and bags of Krispy Korn Kurls Harry had procured from the vending machines down the hall had long since disappeared. Practical considera
tions such as real food and a cool shower and retrieving her car from the post office parking lot crept into Sheryl’s mind.

  As if to echo her thoughts, a loud, rolling growl issued from her tummy.

  “I’m a creature of habit,” she offered apologetically when Harry glanced her way. “I tend to crave food...real food...a couple of times a day.”

  He speared a look at the clock, then reached for the jacket he’d tossed over a chair back hours ago. “Sorry. I didn’t intend to starve you. There’s a decent Italian sub shop across the street. Ev, Fay, you two up for another round of green peppers and sausage?”

  Ev shook his head. “I want to get the computers rolling. Bring me back a garlic sausage special.”

  “I’ll pass, too,” Fay put in. “My youngest has a T-ball game at six-thirty and I swore on his stack of Goosebumps that I’d make this one. I’ll come back here after the game’s over, Harry.”

  MacMillan shrugged into his jacket. “You’ve been at this hard for the past three days and nights. Relax and enjoy the game.”

  Laughing, Fay rerolled her aeronautical maps. “Your single status is showing, Marshal. Anyone with kids would know better than to advise a parent to relax at a T-ball game.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  So he was single. Without knowing why she did so, Sheryl tucked that bit of information away for future reference. She’d noticed that he didn’t wear a wedding ring. A lot of men didn’t, of course, but the confirmation that the marshal was neither married nor a parent added a new dimension to the man...and triggered a whole new set of questions in her mind. Was he divorced? Currently involved with someone? Seeing someone who didn’t mind the fact that he spent almost all his time away from home, chasing fugitives?

  Sheryl shook off her intense curiosity about the marshal with something of an effort. His personal life had nothing to do with her, she reminded herself, or with her part in his investigation. She shifted her attention to Fay, who winked and settled her hat on her sleek, dark hair.

  “Some people think that high-speed chases in pursuit of fleeing suspects and cement-footed drunks are tough, but I’m here to tell you that keeping up with my four rug-rats takes a whole lot more stamina.”