by Harper Allen
Very carefully she grasped her mug of coffee. It was cold. She raised it to her lips, anyway.
What dark tunnel had that train of thought emerged from? she wondered shakily. She barely knew the man. She could admire his dedication to his job, and his courage had undoubtedly saved both her life and Joey’s, but there was no real common ground between the two of them.
Besides, he was hiding something from her. Whatever it was, it was obvious he saw this situation as a one-man operation, with him making all the decisions and taking all responsibility for Joey’s safety. How Connor managed to work with a partner was a mystery to her, Tess thought in frustration. Paula Geddes had to be an exceptional woman to put up with—
The sip of cold coffee she’d swallowed stuck in her throat. She set the mug back on the table, slopping some of the liquid on her hand in the process.
“You’ve contacted her.” She could hear the barely suppressed fury in her voice, but she didn’t care. “After I told you what Joey had remembered you contacted Geddes and told her where we were, didn’t you? You knew Del and Daniel and I would find it harder than ever to believe in MacLeish’s guilt, and you needed someone else with the same just-the-facts-ma’am methods to help—”
“Just the facts, ma’am? Most of the time our Virgil accuses me of being too imaginative, but coming from him, I take it as a compliment.”
The wry admission came from the woman who’d just rounded the corner of the verandah. Her slim figure was garbed in a navy-blue pantsuit, a braided gold bangle on one wrist providing the only note of ornamentation to her outfit, and her hair was cropped close to her head in tight spirals. The light from the citronella candle couldn’t completely erase the weary shadows purpling the coffee-colored skin under her eyes.
“I told you not to spring me on them as a surprise, Connor.”
Under the navy jacket the woman’s shoulders lifted in a frustrated shrug. She extended her hand to Tess.
“I hear you once battled Bigfoot and won. More to the point, I hear you did a better job of protecting Joey than I did when he came to you the night the safe house was blown. It’s an honor to meet you, Tess.”
Her handclasp was warm and firm. Tess knew her own was little more than a light grasp, although that wasn’t due to antagonism but to her heritage, she acknowledged. The People had never really taken to the habit of touching the hands of strangers upon first meeting them. But then again, this woman wasn’t a complete stranger.
“My apologies, Tess.” As if she’d read her mind, the woman released her hand. “You’re Dineh, and I should have known better. By the way, I’m Paula Geddes, Connor’s partner.”
“BREACH OF SECURITY?” As Paula spoke, Tess saw her shake her head before the female agent tore off another chunk of the bread at the side of her bowl and sopped up the last morsel of chili in the bowl in front of her. “Don’t worry, Del, the Double B’s harder to get into than Fort Knox. When Daniel stopped at the gate on his way out I was being grilled by a very suspicious young man who was holding a rifle on me.”
“Joseph Tahe.” Del grinned. “He’s one of Joanna and Matt Tahe’s cousins. Joanna’s a nurse who runs a new-mother’s clinic on the Dinetah, and her brother, Matt, is Tribal Police. When we had some problems here last month I asked him to suggest a couple of men I could hire as security.”
The ex-Marine had taken to Paula Geddes almost immediately, Tess noted, but that wasn’t so surprising. What was surprising was that she herself felt no reticence with Paula. The woman was obviously in her late forties—in the well-lit kitchen the lines of experience bracketing her mouth and accentuating those dark eyes were plainly visible—but her attitude was less stiff than her younger partner’s.
As if in illustration of exactly that, Connor scowled. “Daniel gave Joseph the okay to let you through? Come to that, just where the hell was he heading at this time of night, anyway?”
“Cool it, Virge,” Paula sighed. Tess hid a smile. It was apparent that behind that sigh lay more than a few previous head buttings with her by-the-book partner. “After I showed Daniel my ID he asked me questions about the phone call I made to you just after Jansen’s goons tried to kill you at the motel two nights ago—questions pointed enough that I knew you’d given him some details about our conversation. My answers satisfied him that I really was who I said I was. As to where he was going, how should I know?”
“Last Chance.” From Del’s curt tone it was clear Connor was still in Dutch with him. “Earlier today Daniel said he might drop round to the café in town to see if anyone was talking about mysterious visitors to the Double B.” He rubbed his jaw. “As far as I know, no one saw us hauling you into the pickup the night of the accident, but he thought it wouldn’t hurt to get up to speed on the local gossip, if there is any.”
Paula threw Connor a glance and then turned to Tess. “The way I heard it from my less-than-forthcoming partner, you had a little tire trouble on the way here. It sounds like it might have been a tad more than that, if he had to be pulled from the wreckage. What happened?” Her manner was suddenly serious. “Dear God, had the car been tampered with?”
Tess shook her head. “It had nothing to do with Petrie and Malden. A tire blew, but the accident was mainly my fault. I swerved to avoid a—”
The scene—and why hadn’t she remembered it before now? she wondered in confusion—dropped joltingly into place in her memory, like a photographic slide that had been stuck and had suddenly been released in front of the beam of a projector. It filled the screen of her mind—the dark road, the headlights, the sudden shape looming up directly in the path of the sedan.
Except there was something wrong with the memory, Tess thought worriedly. Everything had happened so fast, but a handful of details had seared themselves into her brain. She’d seen a flash of white teeth. She’d seen a yellow eye. She’d seen bristling gray hair.
It had been too big. And it had walked upright.
“I…I swerved to avoid hitting an animal,” she said faintly. “It looked like a wolf. Or maybe some kind of dog.”
A wolf or a dog leaping desperately to get out of the way of the rushing death bearing down on it. That sounded right. That might have been what had given her the impression that the creature she’d seen in the instant before she’d jerked the sedan’s steering hard over had walked like a man.
It had been an animal. It hadn’t been—
“You were going in to a meeting with Jansen when I called you on your cell this afternoon, Paula.”
Beside Tess, Connor tipped his chair back and drummed impatient fingers on the scarred pine of the table. His hand brushed against hers and for a moment his fingers stilled, his touch warm against the coldness that had spread through her. He moved his hand away, his attention directed at his partner.
“How did it go? Did you get the impression he suspected you’d been in contact with me?”
“That was what the meeting was about—he called in every agent who had more than just a nodding acquaintance with you, me included—and warned us there was a possibility you might try to sell them the story you’d been set up. He took me aside afterward to remind me that I was still on medical leave, and that he didn’t like me getting involved in the investigation.”
Geddes frowned. “He’s good, Connor. Really good. If he hadn’t made that one tiny slip when he came to see me at the hospital and if I hadn’t remembered it when I overheard those agents talking about the armed-and-dangerous alert on you, even I might have fallen for his act today.”
“What slip?”
She needed to ground herself in the normalcy of this discussion, Tess thought as she ventured the question. Not that an FBI agent getting framed by a dirty area director was normal, exactly, but there had to be some logic behind Jansen’s actions, if only they could figure it out. And logic was comforting. Logic was dependable. Knowing there were immutable rules that kept the universe from spinning nightmarishly out of control meant that she hadn’t—couldn’t have
—seen what she’d imagined she’d seen two nights ago.
It wasn’t logical that Connor’s touch a moment ago had taken away some of the iciness that had gripped her. She didn’t for a moment believe he’d sensed her state of mind and had instantly acted to reassure her, but logical or not, he’d taken the edge off her panic enough so that her question hadn’t sounded out of place.
Del raised inquiring eyebrows at Paula as he lifted a tin coffeepot from the cookstove. She held out her mug before replying to Tess.
“I wasn’t even supposed to be on duty the night the safe house was blown. Terry Frakes was Bill Danzig’s partner, but it was Terry and his wife’s first wedding anniversary. Weeks before we’d pulled this assignment he’d booked reservations at an expensive restaurant.”
Her grin was rueful. “My husband spent our anniversaries at racetracks or in poker games, which is why I divorced him, but Terry’s a sweetheart. I told him I’d cover for him, even though it meant spending twelve hours with Rick Leroy.”
She pursed her lips dismissively. “Rick has a problem with women. He has a bigger problem with African-Americans. So while I was playing cards with Bill at a penny a point and beating the pants off him, he was on the other side of the room dividing his time between ogling News at Eleven’s blond anchor babe and glowering at the woman of color he’d been forced to work with. Joey had been in bed for about two hours by then, and I’d looked in on him once or twice. Everything seemed normal enough until Rick went into the kitchen, saying he was going to make himself a sandwich. That’s when the lights went out in the apartment.”
Slim brown fingers wrapped around the coffee mug in front of her. A faint tremor ran through them.
“It gets hazy after that. I know I grabbed my gun from the table beside me. Bill seemed under the impression that something Rick had done in the kitchen had blown an electrical circuit, because he yelled out words to that effect. That’s when I got shot.”
Some of the tension left her. “My ex always said I was one pigheaded, thick-skulled woman. I guess he was right. The doctors told me the bullet grazed my skull instead of penetrating it and killing me instantly.”
Carelessly she reached up and tugged at the tight curls on her head. The curls lifted off, revealing her lopsidedly shaven head and the white band of surgical gauze.
“No way was I going out looking like this,” Paula drawled. “A girl’s got some pride. The wig’s not bad, is it?”
Any last reserve that Tess had felt dissipated. Now that she’d met the woman, she was glad Geddes was involved. Tough, good-humored, and courageous, not only would she be able to report back on Jansen’s movements, but she also might be more open-minded than Connor had been about Mac’s possible innocence.
“You said Jansen slipped up,” Del prompted, his smile still lingering as Paula tossed the wig into her open purse on the floor beside her. She nodded at the purse.
“He played Mr. Nice Guy, retrieving my shoulder bag from the safe house to give it to me when he came to the hospital. Frankly, the only possession I’d been worried about was this—” she touched the gold bangle on her wrist “—since it was a family heir-loom. The nursing staff had removed it for safekeeping, thank God,” she added. “But getting back to Jansen. When he gave me my purse he made a little joke about my fifty-seven cents worth of winnings that he’d found at the scene being all there in my change purse if I wanted to check.”
“Winnings?” Tess’s brow cleared. “Oh. From the penny-a-point game with Danzig.”
“Yeah.” Paula’s gaze darkened. “The thing is, I didn’t tell Jansen I’d been beating Bill in that game. So the only way he could have known it was if he’d learned it from—”
“If he’d learned it from Leroy,” Connor said harshly. “Dammit, what’s their angle? What’s their connection to Quayle and MacLeish, and why is it so important for them to make sure Joey never remembers what he saw in that alleyway?”
“Joey has remembered,” Del said sharply, shoving back his chair and getting to his feet with an effort. “It’s time for me to take one last turn around the barns,” he muttered, opening the cupboard over the kitchen counter where he’d earlier informed Tess he kept a couple of flashlights for just this nightly chore. “I need some fresh air any—aw, hell.”
The curse came from him in an undertone. Glancing quickly at him, Tess saw him thrust a scrap of paper at Connor.
“Daniel left a note in the cupboard for me to find,” he said shortly. “The damn fool’s taken it upon himself to go to Albuquerque and find MacLeish.”
Chapter Nine
It was no use, Tess thought. She couldn’t sleep, and it wasn’t the coffee she’d had after supper that was keeping her awake, or the arrival of Paula Geddes, who’d accepted Del’s offer to stay the night and was presumably having no trouble sleeping in the bedroom Tess had shown her to three hours ago when the household had retired for the night.
It wasn’t even her worry over Daniel. She swung her bare feet to the floor.
Connor’s refusal to entertain the possibility that MacLeish might have acted in self-defense had nothing to do with the ballistics report he’d cited as his clinching proof—it couldn’t have, she thought in exasperation, since he himself was now a victim of Jansen’s trumped-up evidence—and everything to do with his personal attitude toward Joey’s story.
His attitude toward Joey, and his attitude toward her, she reflected, feeling her way down the shadowed stairs to the main floor of the house. She held her breath as she passed the closed door of the spare bedroom that had been allocated to Connor, letting it out only when she reached the kitchen.
Joey had transferred some of his hero-worship of her to the man he’d initially been so hostile toward. The fact that Connor had been shot had seemingly brought home to the boy that the agent was ready to put his life on the line for him.
And the fact that the great Tess Smith had turned out to be his aunt and someone who made sure he washed behind his ears in the mornings had definitely changed her status, she told herself dryly, although he’d taken the news of their relationship with an equanimity that had surprised her.
“You’re mom’s sister?”
He’d been sitting on the porch at the time, and he’d bent his face to the squirming puppy in his lap. For a moment she’d wondered whether she might not have been wiser to withhold the information until her nephew’s life was in less turmoil. Then he’d looked up at her.
“Does that mean I don’t have to get fostered out anymore?” His manner had been studiedly casual. “’Cause I’m tired of that, Tess. I want to stay in one place with one family.”
With equal casualness she’d nodded, knowing a demonstrative reaction from her would be too much for him at that point. “That’s what it means. You okay with that?”
“I guess.” His tough-guy reply had been spoiled by the exuberant whoop he’d given a moment later as he’d raced off the porch, the puppy still cradled in his arms.
She hadn’t had to tell the Hangar 61 story for at least twenty-four hours now, Tess realized with a mixture of relief and faint regret. But several times today she’d seen Joey shadowing Connor and had heard him asking the agent innumerable questions about cases he’d been on, how many times he’d had to fire a gun, how old someone had to be to join the Bureau…
Opening the refrigerator door and pulling out the milk, she repressed a grin. Connor had worn the same harassed expression she’d seen on Daisy when the heeler hound mama had been trying to escape her scampering pups and have a few moments of peace and quiet to herself. But when Tess had taken pity on him, he’d shrugged aside her offer to keep Joey out of his way.
“He’s not bothering me.” A rare smile had briefly creased one tanned cheek. “Well, not much, anyway. And Del and Daniel said when they’d rested up from the lasso lesson they gave him earlier, they would show him how to saddle a horse. Between the three of us we should be able to wear him out before bedtime.”
There’d
been rough affection in his tone. Virgil Connor might try to hide it, but it was obvious he cared for the child he’d sworn to protect, Tess thought, pouring herself a glass of milk. She pulled out one of the hoopbacked chairs that ringed the pine table, and paused indecisively. He cared for Joey. And he felt something toward her. What that something was she wasn’t exactly sure, just as she wasn’t sure what it was she felt about him.
“A little plain, old-fashioned lust and a whole lot of irritation, most of the time,” she said out loud as she unlatched the kitchen door and stepped out onto the porch. “Which makes Agent Connor the equivalent of eating cheese just before bedtime. It keeps you awake, makes you cranky and gives you very disturbing dreams. Face it—he’s the reason why you’re wandering around in the middle of the night instead of—”
“Good, you’re here.” The glass of milk nearly slipped through her fingers as the voice came out of the darkness. “Because if you hadn’t shown up in the next five minutes I’d about decided to go wake you up. Since I’m not sure which room’s yours, Del could have been in for a shock.”
“Either that or you would have found the right room,” Tess said, hoping her tone was sharp enough to mask her still-twanging nerves. “Then you would have been the one to get a shock, Connor. Del gave me a key to the nightstand drawer, and I keep my little derringer in there. What’s so urgent you couldn’t wait to talk to me tomorrow?”
“Nothing, I suppose.” His voice was edged. “Everything. Hell, I don’t know.”
By now her eyes had adjusted to the starlight that was the only illumination on the verandah. Connor was sitting in a chair, his legs thrust out in front of him and a tumbler of some gold-colored liquid on the chair’s wide arm by his elbow. He was wearing one of the pairs of jeans he’d borrowed earlier—Del had told her they were Tye’s—but what he was wearing up top could only have belonged to Virgil Connor.
Who owned undershirts anymore? Tess thought incredulously, stepping over his outstretched legs and taking the chair beside him. And who wore them under white polyester shirts, for God’s sake? Because that must have been the case—he certainly hadn’t shown up here with a change of clothes, so the undershirt would have been what he’d been wearing when he’d been shot.