“I didn’t know he needed one.”
“According to my client, he has to have one today. She was quite insistent about it. Evidently, her dog almost died last year when the worms got into his bloodstream and wrapped around his heart.”
The gruesome description made Sheryl gulp.
“She says that he could pick up another infestation if he misses even one dose of the medication,” Ortega advised her.
“So where can I get this medication?”
“If you wouldn’t mind going to the pet store on Menaul, where Mrs. Gunderson does business, you can pick up the pills and charge them to her account. My client has instructed me to call ahead and authorize the expenditure.”
“Well...”
She hesitated, wondering if she should contact Harry or Ev Sloan before she acceded to the attorney’s request. But Ev had vouched for the lawyer himself, she recalled, swearing that he was tough but straight. Evidently, he also cared enough about his clients to relay their concern for their pets.
“I don’t mind,” she told Ortega. “Give me the address of this store.”
She jotted it down just below the list of items Elise had asked her to bring to the hospital.
“I was just leaving to visit a friend at University Hospital. I’ll stop at the pet store on my way.”
“Thank you, Miss Hancock. I’m sure my client will be most grateful.”
His client, Sheryl discovered when she walked out of the pet store a little over an hour later, was more than grateful. She was lying in wait for her... in the form of two men with slicked-back hair, unsmiling eyes, shiny gray suits and black turtlenecks that must have made them miserable in Albuquerque’s sweltering heat.
One of the men appeared at Sheryl’s side just as she unlocked her car door. The other materialized from behind a parked car. Before she had done more than glance at them, before she could grasp their intent, before she could scream or even try to twist away, the shorter of the men slapped a folded handkerchief over her mouth.
She fought for two or three seconds. Two or three breaths. Then the street and the car and the gray suits tilted crazily. Another breath, and they disappeared in a haze of blackness.
Chapter 12
“Dammit, where is she?”
Harry paced the task force operations center like a caged, hungry and very irritated panther. He’d been trying to reach Sheryl since just after ten, and it was now almost three.
Ev Sloan leaned back in his chair and watched his partner’s restless prowling. Like Harry’s, his face showed the effects of his previous long night in the tired lines and gray shadows under his eyes.
“Want me to call central dispatch and have them put out an APB?”
Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and jiggled his loose change. His gut urged him to agree to the all-points bulletin, but this morning’s fiasco held him back. He didn’t want to use up any more chits with the Albuquerque police than he already had. Sheryl was probably out shopping or visiting friends. A patrol car had already swung by her apartment and verified that her car wasn’t in its assigned slot... and the door to her place was shut!
“We’ll hold off on the APB,” he growled.
“Whatever you say.” Ev scraped a hand across the stubble on his chin. “I’m getting too old for this kind of work. I used to get an adrenaline fix from a takedown like last night’s that would last me for weeks. Now all I want to do is to nail this bastard Gunderson, go home, kick off my shoes and grab the remote.”
“I’ll settle for seeing my son’s T-ball team bring in just one run,” Fay put in with a smile.
The other two men at the conference table took up the refrain. They’d joined the team this morning, each an expert in his own field. While they tossed desultory comments about the best way to ease the strain that gripped them all, Harry paced the length of the room again, his change jingling.
Why the hell couldn’t he shake this edgy, unfinished feeling that had been with him almost since he’d left Sheryl this morning?
Because he’d left Sheryl this morning.
He had to face the truth. The way he’d walked out of her arms and her apartment was eating at him from the inside out. It didn’t do any good to remind himself that he’d had to get back to the command center and attend to the up-channel reports from the drug bust last night. Or that he’d wanted another go at Inga Gunderson. The blasted woman still refused to talk, except to pester Harry and Ev and her lawyer, Don Ortega, with repeated instructions on the care and feeding of her precious Button. Harry had come out of this morning’s session at the detention center so tight jawed with frustration that his back teeth ached.
A flash message from the CIA with the news that they’d traced the six canisters of depleted uranium to Rio de Janeiro had only added to his mounting tension. The shipment had to be heading for the States any day now.
Any hour.
As a result of that message, the task force had redoubled its efforts. Fay had asked the FAA to send out an alert to every airport manager in the four-state area, then contacted her highway patrol counterparts. Ev had pulled in two more deputy marshals from the Albuquerque office. The added personnel were following up every lead, however tenuous, including an unconfirmed report of a visit to the city by two thugs who supposedly strong-armed for a known illegal arms dealer.
Harry had plenty to occupy his mind...yet he’d interrupted his work a half-dozen times in the past five hours to call Sheryl. Between calls, he’d find himself thinking of her at every unguarded moment.
His fists closed around the loose coins. He shouldn’t have just walked out like that. After what they’d shared, his refusal to make any promises must have hit her like a slap in the face.
What the hell kind of promises could he make? he thought savagely. That he’d return to her apartment tonight? Tomorrow night? For however long he was in town? That he’d swing through Albuquerque every few months and take her up on the offer that shimmered in her green eyes when he’d left this morning? That he’d ask her to share his life...or at least the few weeks of relatively normal life he enjoyed before he hit the road again?
The thought of sharing any kind of a life with Sheryl grabbed at Harry with a force that sucked the air right out of his lungs. He stared at the wall, the edge of the coins cutting into his palm. For a moment, he let himself contemplate a future that included nights like last night. Mornings like the one he’d woken up to today.
He wouldn’t even mind the hairy little mutt digging his claws into his groin again just to hear Sheryl’s laughter. His throat closed at the memory of those helpless giggles and the way she’d fallen back on the bed, her hair spilling across the blanket and her rosytipped breasts peaking in the cool air-conditioning.
Angrily, he shook his head to clear the erotic image. Why in the world was he putting himself through this? He’d learned the hard way that fugitive operations and a stable home life didn’t make for a compatible mix. Sheryl, too, had seen firsthand her parents’ inability to sustain a long-distance marriage. Harry had damned well better stop thinking about impossible futures and concentrate on right here, right now.
Which brought him back full circle to the question of where Sheryl was at this moment. More irritable and edgy than ever, he strode back to the conference table and reached for the phone.
“Maybe her friend in the hospital knows where she is,” he said curtly in answer to Ev’s quizzical look. “I’ll make one more call, then we need to go over today’s scheduled flights into every major airport in the four-state area. I want copies of all passenger lists and cargo manifests as soon as they’re filed.”
The operator patched him though to University Hospital, which in turn connected him with Elise Hart’s room. Harry recognized instantly the male voice that answered on the second ring. What did Sheryl’s former boyfriend do—live at the damned hospital?
Curtly, he identified himself. “This is Harry MacMillan. I’m trying to reach Sheryl.”
&nb
sp; Just as curtly, Brian Mitchell responded. “She’s not here.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.” Mitchell hesitated, then continued in a less abrupt tone. “As a matter of fact, I was thinking of calling you, Marshal. Sheryl told Elise that she’d swing by her house to pick up some clean clothes before she came to the hospital this morning. She hasn’t shown up and doesn’t answer her phone.”
Harry stiffened. The prickly sixth sense that had been nagging at him all day vaulted into full-fledged alarm.
“We’re a little worried about her,” Brian finished.
A little worried! Christ!
“I’ll check it out.”
The real-estate-agent’s voice sharpened once again. “She’s okay, isn’t she? This manhunt you pulled her into hasn’t put her in danger.”
“I’ll check it out.”
“I want you to notify me immediately when you find her!”
Yeah, right. Harry palmed him off with a half promise and slammed the phone down. Then he snatched his jacket off the back of a chair and headed for the door.
“Call the APD, Ev. Ask them to put out that all-points. And ask them to have their locksmith meet me at Sheryl’s apartment.”
Ev took one look at his partner’s face and grabbed for the phone. “Right away!”
Harry wheeled the souped-up sedan out of the underground parking garage. The tires whined on the hot asphalt. Merging the vehicle into the light weekend traffic flow, he willed himself into a state of rigid control. He’d carried a five-pointed gold star too long to give in to the concern churning like bile in his belly.
Adobe-fronted strip malls and tree-shaded residences whizzed by. Ahead, the Sandia Mountains loomed brownish gray against an endless blue sky. The stutter of a jackhammer cut through the heat of the afternoon.
The sights and sounds registered on Harry’s consciousness, but didn’t penetrate. His mind was spinning with possibilities. Sheryl could have gone in to work. No one had answered at the Monzano Branch when he’d called earlier, but they might not answer the phones during off-hours.
She could be running errands. The time could have slipped away from her, and she’d forgotten her promise to stop by the hospital this morning.
Or she might have taken off on another jaunt with that damned dog. Hell, she’d chased him barefoot around the whole complex only this morning and left her door open to all corners.
His hands fisted on the steering wheel. He’d strangle her! If she’d ignored all security measures again and scared the hell out of him like this, he’d strangle her...right after he locked the door behind them, tumbled her onto the bed and told her just how much he’d hated leaving her this morning!
Assuming, a small, cold corner of his mind countered, that Sheryl was in any state to hear him.
At that moment, she wasn’t.
Her stomach swirled with nausea. Her throat burned. Black spots danced under her closed lids.
In a desperate effort to clear her blurred vision, Sheryl lifted her head an inch or two. Even that slight movement brought an acrid taste into her dry, parched throat and made her senses swim. Moaning, she let her head fall. It hit the bare mattress with a soft plop, raising a musty cloud of dust motes.
“Ya back with us, sweetheart?”
The thin, nasal voice drifted through the sickening haze. Sheryl’s clogged mind had barely separated the words enough to make sense of them when a deeper, almost rasping voice came from somewhere above and behind her.
“The next time you do a broad, you idiot, cut the dosage.”
“Hey, enough already! You been on my back for hours about that.”
“Yeah?”
The vicious snarl scraped across Sheryl’s skin like a dull knife. “Who do you think is gonna be on our backs if we miss this drop?”
“She’s coming ’round, ain’t she?”
“It’s about damn time.”
Without warning, a palm cracked against Sheryl’s cheek.
“Come on, wake up.”
Gasping at the pain that splintered across her face, she fought to bring the figure bending over her into focus. A greasy shine appeared...black hair, slicked back, reflecting the light of the single overhead bulb.
She blinked. Her lids gritted like sandpaper against her eyes. Slowly, she made out a wide, unshaven jaw above a black turtleneck. A pair of unsmiling eyes in a face some people might have considered handsome.
“We ain’t gonna hurt you.”
“You...” She swiped her tongue around her cottony mouth. “You...just...did.”
“That little love tap?” The stranger snorted and dug a hand into her armpit. “Come on, sit up and take a drink. We gotta talk.”
The mists fogging Sheryl’s mind shredded enough for her to grasp the fact that her wrists were tied behind her. Fear spurted like ice water through her veins. Her feet dropped to the floor with a thump, first one, then the other. She swayed, dizzy and confused and more scared than she’d ever been before. The grip on her arm held her upright.
Another figure appeared from the dimness to her side, holding a glass. When he shoved it at her lips, Sheryl shrank away. A fist buried itself in her hair, yanked her head back.
“It’s just water. Drink it.”
With the glass chinking against her teeth, she didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Most of the tepid liquid ran down her chin, but enough got through her teeth to satisfy the pourer.
The fist loosened. Sheryl brought her head up and eased the ache in her neck. Gradually, the black swirls in front of her eyes subsided
“Wh...? Where am I?”
The words came out in a croak, but Slick Hair understood them. He flicked an impatient hand.
“It don’t matter where you are. What matters is where you’re going.”
She swallowed painfully. Her heart thumping with fear, she met her kidnapper’s unsmiling gaze.
“Where am I going?”
A snigger sounded beside her. “That’s what you’re gonna tell us, sweetheart.”
She swung her head toward the second man. Like Slick Hair, this one also wore a black turtleneck and a shiny gray suit. It must be some kind of uniform, she thought with a touch of hysteria. He had small, pinched eyes and a nasal pitch that grated on her ears. He came from somewhere east of New Mexico, obviously. Or maybe he owed that whine to the fact that someone or something had flattened his nose against his face.
Slick Hair scraped a chair across the bare wood floor, twisted it around and straddled the seat. With Broken Nose hovering at his shoulder, he smiled thinly.
“We need to have us a little chat, Sheryl.” At her start of surprise, his smile took on a sadistic edge. “What? You don’t think we know your name? Of course we know it. We got it from Inga this morning.”
Despite her fear and the pain lancing through her face and wrists, her head had cleared enough by now for her to grasp that the men confronting her had some connection to Harry’s investigation. She just hadn’t expected them to admit it so readily.
“How...?” She swallowed. “How did you talk to Inga? She’s in...”
“In jail?” Slick Hair waved a hand, dismissing the small irritation of police custody. “Those bastards at the detention center wouldn’t allow her more than her one damn call to her lawyer, but Inga’s a shrewd old broad. She got this Ortega guy to call the shop and let our little friend there know you were coming.”
“The pet shop?”
“Yeah,” Broken Nose put in. “We been hangin’ out there, waiting for Inga to show. We was worried when we heard the cops snatched her, but like Big Ja—” He caught himself. “Like my friend here says, she’s a smart old broad. We just waited, and sure enough, she sent you.”
Slick Hair folded his forearms across the back of the chair. His eyes settled on her face.
“So, you wanna tell us about the postcard?”
She tried to bluff it out. “What postcard?”
“The one that come in fro
m Rio, Sheryl. The one from Rio.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. No one sent me any postcards, from Rio or anywhere else.”
“Come on, sweetheart,” Broken Nose whined. “We got contacts, ya know. It didn’t take no undercover dick to find out you work at a post office. Since Inga sent you to the shop, you gotta have the information we want.”
“No, I—”
In a move so swift that Sheryl didn’t even see it coming, Slick Hair’s arm whipped out. The backhanded blow sent her tumbling sideways onto the bare mattress. She lay there for endless seconds, biting her lip against the pinwheeling pain. She wouldn’t cry! She wouldn’t give in to the fear coursing through her!
Harry was looking for these men or their partner in crime. He’d soon come looking for her, too. She didn’t know how long she’d been out, or where she was now, or what was going to happen next, but she just had to hold on. Find out what she could. Get word to Harry somehow.
Slowly, awkwardly, she pushed herself up on one elbow and faced her captors.
“Now, tell us about the card from Rio, Sheryl.”
“Wh...?” She wet her lips. “What do you want to know?”
Slick Hair smiled again, his thin lips slicing across the strong planes of his face. “Smart girl. Just tell me what Paul wrote on the back.”
Bitterly regretting that she’d ever peeked at Inga Gunderson’s mail, much less harbored any concern for her welfare, Sheryl summoned a mental picture of the bright, gaudy Carnival street scene. The words on the back of the card formed, went hazy, reformed.
‘“His to my favorite aunt,’” she recited dully. ‘“I’ve been dancing in the streets for the past five days. Wish you were here.’”
“Five days!”
Broken Nose did a quick turn about the room. It was empty of all but a rickety table, the two chairs and the cot she sat on, Sheryl saw. A blanket covered the only window.
“Five days past the date of the last drop,” the smaller man continued excitedly. “Lessee. Last time, we picked up the stuff on the third. Five days past that would make it the eighth. Tomorrow. Damn! We got another whole day to wait.”
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