Beauty and the Badge

by Lyn Stone

  “You read a book once,” he guessed.

  Mary broke eye contact. “Well, it was an excellent book,” she muttered.

  Ford laughed and picked up the mug, flipping off the makeshift cover. He drank it down to the flaky dregs. “There you go, Doc. How’s that for trust?”

  She smiled up at him and took the mug from his hand. “I’m sorry I don’t know more, but I did the best I could.”

  He laid his hands on her shoulders and squeezed gently. “Yes, and you’ve done that every step of the way. Thank you for that.” He kissed her on the cheek. “But now you’re going to have to leave things to me. Tomorrow morning, you will go back to your grandmother’s house. You’ll take one of the guns for protection, and you will leave.”

  “No,” she said. “I won’t.”

  Ford pushed her away and turned, running a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. “Damn it, Mary!”

  Just then the door crashed open and banged against the wall.

  Chapter 16

  “Well, well, how’s it going, Devereaux?” Blevins said, laughing. “And Ms. Shaw! At last.” He glanced quickly at Perry, who lay completely still. “Dead?”

  “Looks like it, doesn’t he?” Ford replied, inching closer.

  “Oh, I’d stop right there, Dev,” Blevins warned. “And toss your weapon.”

  Mary sucked in a shuddering breath. Ford didn’t have a weapon to toss. What would the man do to him? To them? Shoot them, of course. He had no choice now.

  Blevins didn’t look the way she thought a murderer would. He might have been an insurance salesman, a clerk at Sears, or a CPA. Blevins looked like Mr. Everyman—pushing forty, with slightly thinning hair, neat mustache. Not handsome, yet not ugly, either. Even his casual clothing looked ordinary, though a little worse for wear from his trip through the woods. There was nothing remarkable about him at all except the deadly weapon he held.

  “In the bedroom. I’m not armed,” Ford said, turning around so Blevins could see his back. “Guns make the lady nervous.”

  Blevins tchhed and shook his head. “My, my, such a gentleman, aren’t you? Didn’t they teach you anything at the Farm, you idiot? Where’s Perry’s piece?”

  Ford pointed to his own Glock. It lay on top of the mattress at Perry’s feet where Mary had left it. “Right there.”

  “Well, let’s get that out of the way,” he said. “Just on the off chance you might try something suicidal Ms. Shaw, go very slowly. Right hand over your head. Pick it up by the barrel with your left, two fingers only. Then bring it here and toss it out the door.”

  “I—I can’t,” Mary said, wringing her hands. “I can’t touch it! Please don’t make me.” She couldn’t wait to get her hands on that gun.

  “Go ahead, Mary,” Ford encouraged her. “The safety’s on. I promise it won’t hurt you. Do exactly as he says.”

  Mary did as he said, and she didn’t risk trying to use it. She knew she couldn’t get the safety off and fire quickly enough to save both herself and Ford. But Perry’s gun still lay under the edge of the mattress. If only Ford would distract him so she could get to that one, she might take Blevins by surprise.

  Ford seemed to sense the need. “Want to tell me why you turned?” he asked Blevins.

  Blevins laughed again as he stepped to one side and reached behind him to close the door. He aimed the pistol directly at Mary. “Ah, you want revelations?” He shrugged slightly. “I never turned, actually. I joined the Bureau because it’s an excellent information source if you’re on the inside. The talent I discovered listed in our computer files would amaze you. The best in the business. Perry, for example. But I do believe I overestimated his potential. It’s easy to subvert investigations if one is in charge, too. It has been a profitable career.”

  “You were in league with Nelson McEvan all along,” Ford said, nodding. “The appraiser.”

  “Oh, yes, an excellent partner these past twelve years,” Blevins replied. “But I decided not to share this time. Retirement, you understand. I’ve merely been tying up loose ends.”

  “That explains Antonio. But why have Mary killed?”

  “Now, now, Dev, don’t be dense. The fool gave her the diamonds before I could intercept them. She’s our famous courier.”

  Ford stared at her as though she had betrayed him.

  Blevins chuckled. “Only for the last two jobs, of course. Antonio did give them to her concealed in the dolls. She was to auction them off at one of her little society galas, just as she did the others. That top bidder got a real steal, so to speak. Actual treasure that sailed right through customs with a bill of sale and provenance. That was always the difficult part—getting them out of the country.”

  Mary gasped. “Jim set it up! He was the one who notified potential buyers. All in the name of love and Christian charity.”

  “Well, he did have a good cause other than that. If he hadn’t participated so enthusiastically, someone might have revealed the cons he ran before he was so wonderfully ‘saved.’”

  Mary had drifted slowly backward away from Blevins while he talked. She had only a few feet to go before she would pretend to faint on the mattress, slide one hand under and—

  “You may join your valiant protector now,” Blevins said, smiling, his eyes watchful and trained on Ford. “Stand over there with him.” He waggled the pistol slightly.

  Mary tried not to show her frustration. She had to get to that gun.

  He shifted his gaze to Mary. “I’ll take those diamonds now. I don’t have a lot of time to waste here.”

  “Less than you think,” Ford advised him. “Duvek knows.”

  “I gathered that from the phone conversation. More reason for me to hurry and hit the road, huh?” His wide, evil smile bared slightly crooked teeth and his eyebrows slanted à la Jack Nicholson. The man looked insane, but Mary knew he wasn’t Blevins might be greedy and amoral, but he was not crazy. “I’ll have the diamonds now and we’ll get this over with,” he said.

  “I don’t have them,” Mary told him.

  “Did you forget I was on surveillance that night? I heard Antonio give them to you. I’d have found you after I shot him if you hadn’t made that damned call. Now, get them.” He shifted the gun so that it pointed at her.

  “They’re gone,” she said. “I left the dolls in my purse and somebody took them. We thought it might have been you.”

  He fired. The bullet struck the cabinet door just behind Mary. “Quit jerking me around, you little bitch!” he shouted.

  “I’m not!” Mary cried, her hands clamped over her ears. “I swear I’m not!”

  “Settle down,” Ford said calmly. “Let’s talk about this.

  “Don’t you play buddy-buddy with me. I’ll kill you right where you stand. I don’t need you to find those gems and I don’t like you worth a damn, anyway!”

  “That’s pretty obvious,” Ford retorted, his words clipped with anger. “Maybe we could cut a deal here, though. Mary doesn’t have your damned diamonds. I do.”

  Blevins quirked his mouth and raised one dark brow. “Then how ’bout I just shoot her now? Let you watch her die. That’ll give you some incentive to cooperate, huh?” He pointed the pistol at Mary.

  “Do and you’ll never see them,” Ford warned. “You know how stubborn I can be. Let her go. Give her half an hour to get out of here and I’ll give you the gems.”

  “Like hell. Nobody’s going anywhere but me.”

  Mary couldn’t imagine what good Ford thought his blatant lie about the diamonds would do, but he kept it going, almost convincing her that he did have them.

  “Look, Blevins, you’ve already been made. There’s no need to kill the woman. It’ll take hours for her to make it out of the woods in any direction. Hell, she’ll probably get lost anyway. Don’t do this.”

  “You’re a dead man, Dev, but I might be persuaded to tie her up and leave her alive, if you play nice. Now give me the stones,” Blevins ordered. “Now!”

/>   Mary stared down the small round hole in the end of the pistol, not six feet away. The man was going to kill her, too. She didn’t believe for a minute that he’d leave her alive, no matter what they did or didn’t do.

  Ford neatly stepped in front of her, shielding her for the moment. “Just take it easy, man. I’ll get ’em. Okay?”

  Blevins laughed. “Tell you what. Let her get them. Tell her where,” he ordered. “Just in case you’re planning to surprise me with something the way you did Perry.”

  Ford slumped a little and looked over his shoulder at her. The firelight flickered over his face, bright enough that Mary could discern his every feature. She didn’t see the resignation she’d expected to find there. Instead, she read confidence and encouragement in the ghost of a smile.

  “Look under the foot of the sleeping bag, Mary. Be quick about it. Give the man what he needs. Go on.”

  “No funny stuff, sweetheart, or I’ll blow him away right now,” Blevins said.

  He was going to blow them both away in a few minutes anyway—Perry, as well, once he found out he was still alive.

  This was it. Their one chance.

  She edged away from Ford, taking cautious side steps toward the hearth, keeping her eyes on Blevins.

  Ford tried to keep him busy talking. “McEvan’s dead, isn’t he? You killed him, too.”

  Blevins grunted. “Everybody’s gotta die sometime. Now it’s your turn.” He waved the gun menacingly. “Such a hotshot, aren’t you? Commendations up the kazoo. I hate you career-jumping punks who snatch up promotions without paying your dues. Bad for morale.”

  Mary could tell that Blevins was agitated now, or maybe just eager, working himself up for what he meant to do. He hated Ford and looked forward to killing him.

  She quietly sank to her knees beside the hearth and lifted the corner of the sleeping bag. There it was. Perry’s gun. Different from Ford’s. Larger and, she imagined, heavier. Was the safety on or off? She wouldn’t get a second chance to find out once she picked it up and pulled the trigger. Would it fire as easily as Ford’s had or would it take more pressure?

  Mary gambled that Ford would automatically put a weapon’s safety on to store it. She slowly turned her body to face Blevins and clicked the switch with her finger. Please let that be the Off position, she prayed.

  I can do this. Did it before. Can do it again. Her hand closed around the unfamiliar grip and she slid her forefinger into the trigger guard. She ran her other palm beneath the grip for support

  “Promotion?” Ford said with a wry laugh. “What are you talking about?”

  “You were up for one, cowboy. Don’t tell me you didn’t know about it!” Blevins said with a menacing chuckle. “Well, you can kiss that goodbye!” He raised his weapon and aimed.

  Mary hefted the gun up level with her shoulders, and fired.

  Blevins jerked toward her as Ford rushed him, wrecking his aim. The bullet dinged off the stones of the fireplace behind her. Another lodged in the ceiling.

  Ford’s head connected with the man’s midsection. Blevins’s next shot exploded with the impact of their bodies.

  Had she hit Blevins? She didn’t think so.

  The two grappled for the gun. Suddenly, Ford reared up off Blevins, drew back with his right hand and shoved it up and into the man’s nose. Both men fell limp.

  Mary’s ears still rang from the deafening reports, and her equilibrium felt scrambled. She watched Ford reach over, scoop up Blevins’s pistol and crawl away from him.

  She shook off her shock and ran to Ford. “Is he—?”

  “Dead,” Ford affirmed. “It’s over.” He held his injured arm close to his chest. Mary felt him trembling all over. When she touched his face, it felt hot—too hot to be due to exertion.

  “Were you hit?” she asked, running her hands over his torso and then wrapping her arms around him.

  He shook his head slightly as if to clear it. “No, but I think I’m gonna fall down anyway.”

  Leaning on her, he staggered toward the fireplace. Together they sank down on the edge of the mattress where Peny lay unconscious.

  “Check his pulse,” Ford rasped, still trying to steady his breathing. “If he’s dead, too, we have a large problem.”

  Mary grabbed Perry’s arm and pressed her fingertips to his wrist, then his neck. “Steady,” she reported, “but weak.”

  “Gotta get him some help,” Ford said. He sounded really worried and he looked that way, too. “If Perry dies, there’s nobody to corroborate our story. We could both be up for murder. You for Perry. And me, for my own team leader!”

  “But you told Duvek!” she insisted. “He knows everything. And there’s me! I can tell them what happened. Selfdefense. He was trying to kill all of us!”

  Ford shook his head and let out a deep breath. “Duvek knows only that I said I suspected Blevins. There’s no proof. Think about it,” he said. “Duvek may believe, like everybody else did, that you have the diamonds. And that I’m in cahoots with you. Stands to reason, if that were so, I’d try to throw the blame on Blevins.”

  He was right. “What do we do?”

  “Go for help,” he said decisively, “and hope to God Perry makes it. He’s the only one who can clear us.”

  “You can’t go anywhere,” Mary pointed out.

  “I know. You’re it.”

  Mary hated to leave him, but she knew he was right. “To Gran’s house?” she asked.

  “Knoblett’s is closer.” He looked away from her, worry written all over him. Worry for her. “I just wish you had daylight for this.”

  Mary knew she had to put on a brave face, even if she was scared to death. “That’s okay, I’ll have Westy! He’ll guide me.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that if I were you. He takes off after a squirrel, and you could be wandering in circles till the cows come home. Bundle yourself up and get the flashlight.”

  After she had pulled on her warmest clothing, he struggled to his feet and ushered her to the back door. Blevins’s body blocked the front. Ford hadn’t the strength to move him and neither did she.

  Once they were outside, Ford looked up at the sky. “There you go,” he said, and pointed. “North star. Keep it directly behind you.”

  “You are kidding, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a short laugh, and reached into his pocket for his keychain. “Here’s the compass.”

  The moon afforded enough light that she could almost see his features. She stepped closer. “Ford, will you be all right?”

  “Just dandy,” he answered softly, “but only if you give me a little mouth-to-mouth before you go.”

  Mary rose up on tiptoe as he bent down to settle his lips over hers. His heat frightened her more than it excited her at the moment. She wondered what percentage was fever and how much was passion.

  Surely the fight with Blevins had depleted too much of Ford’s energy for him to feel anything but exhaustion and pain. She wondered how he could still stand.

  “Better go,” she said breathlessly as she broke the kiss. “Get back inside and lie down now. I’ll be back with help before you know it.”

  “Mary?” he said, his voice husky. “We left a lot unsaid. I want you to know that—”

  “You love me,” she interrupted softly, touching his face, brushing back the hair that tumbled across his brow. “I know you do.” She had no doubts left after having watched him jump between her and a bullet. A man, even one like Ford, wouldn’t do that for just anyone. “I love you, too.” There was no doubt about that, either.

  But she still wondered how long these feelings they had for each other would last—feelings that could very well have been prompted by the danger and proximity she and Ford had shared over the past week. She and Ford were as different as two people could be, in their hopes, priorities, life-styles. How could all of that translate into anything permanent?

  She no longer believed that Ford took risks unnecessarily—not the way her parents ha
d, at any rate. He didn’t thoughtlessly tempt fate just for the hell of it. He made instantaneous decisions and acted on them. Good decisions that had kept them alive these past few days. Ford was the soul of courage, and she admired him as much as she loved him. But she couldn’t be enough like Ford to share a life with him. Could she?

  He held her close now, leaning against her and resting his head on top of hers. His body swayed as he spoke, his voice gruff. “Glad we got that love stuff straight. Guess you know we’ll have to do something about it.”

  “You bet,” she said, trying to disengage without seeming too abrupt. “But now’s not the time.” She had to persuade him to go back inside before he collapsed on the cold ground. No way could she pick him up or even drag him. “Let me go now, Ford. All that’s just happened might sink in in a minute if I stand still and don’t do something.”

  He released her and raised his hand to cup her face. “Be safe, Mary,” he whispered. “Please, be careful.”

  “Always! You know me, caution personified. See you in the morning, Ford,” she replied, and hurried across the small yard and into the trees. She stopped there for a moment and turned to watch him walk haltingly back to the door of the cabin.

  Leaving him when he needed her made her ill, but the sooner she got to Knoblett’s and called for help, the sooner he and Perry could get to a hospital.

  Mary switched on the flashlight and began the arduous trek through the tumble of downed limbs and the wet slush of melting ice and snow.

  “We’ll lower a body basket and a medic,” the rescue pilot said to Duvek. He had to shout to be heard over the loud thumping of the blades. “Thanks for the directions, ma’am.” He tipped his cap and hurried back to the medevac helicopter.

  Michael Duvek started to follow him.

  “Wait for me!” Mary cried, rushing to catch up.

  “No!” Duvek shouted as he came to a stop beside her. “Not enough room. They’re stretching the load rule to take me.”

  Wind from the blades whipped their hair and buffeted their bodies. She had trouble standing firm. “But I have to—”