by Cindi Myers
“My daughter’s affairs are her own concern,” Ferrari said.
“Will you be seeing Mr. Prentice while you’re here in Colorado?”
“I will be seeing many people while I visit your state.” His smile was suave, polite and cold as ice.
“Mr. Prentice, as a concerned citizen, was kind enough to offer us any assistance he may provide while the ambassador is in Colorado,” Mattheson said.
“Will Valentina Ferrari be staying at the Prentice ranch, also?” Emma asked.
“My daughter is a model,” Ferrari said, cutting off Mattheson, who had opened his mouth to declaim some more. “She has a very busy schedule. I do not expect to see her during my short visit.”
“But she is involved with Mr. Prentice?” Emma asked, pen poised over her notebook.
“No more questions.” Ferrari moved past her, head erect and shoulders stiff.
“What about Lauren Starling?” Emma called after him. “Is she a friend of your daughter’s or of Richard Prentice?”
He ignored her. Mattheson glared at her, then followed the ambassador toward the terminal.
That hadn’t given her much, except to confirm that the ambassador knew Prentice and Mattheson. And the senator and the billionaire were well-known to be working together to try to disband The Ranger Brigade. But Emma couldn’t see how this tied in with either Bobby Pace’s murder or Lauren Starling’s disappearance.
She hurried to the parking lot and slid behind the wheel of her rental in time to fall in behind the black Lexus that carried Mattheson and Ferrari. She didn’t have anywhere in particular she had to be, so she might as well follow them for a while. Maybe she’d find out what Ferrari’s mysterious business was. He’d probably come to Montrose, Colorado, to sample the sweet corn or something like that. Sure—and Emma was going to take a cue from his daughter and be a fashion model in her next career.
By the time the Lexus turned onto the highway headed out of town, Emma was sure the senator and the ambassador were headed toward Richard Prentice’s ranch. Either that, or the ambassador had a desire to see the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. They had to be aware she was behind them, but she wasn’t breaking any laws, traveling on a public highway. As it happened, she had to go this way, anyway, to get to Graham’s house, though she had no intention of turning off before the Lexus did.
She pulled out her new cell phone and punched the button for the camera. When the Lexus did make a move, she wanted a picture. When she called Richard Prentice to ask why the Venezuelan ambassador paid him a visit, she didn’t want him to try to deny that the ambassador had been there.
The Lexus signaled a turn onto the road leading to the park, and Emma prepared to follow. But the car swerved as she made the turn, so that she had to fight to keep it on the road. Heart pounding, she guided it to the side of the road. A check of the mirrors showed the coast was clear, so she got out and checked the tires. Sure enough, the front passenger side was flat. Sighing, she pulled out her phone to call AAA. But before she could make the connection, a familiar black-and-white Cruiser slid in behind her.
Randall Knightbridge exited the Cruiser, leaving the engine running. “Car trouble?” he asked.
“A flat.” She motioned to the tire.
He frowned. “Looks like a bad one. Do you have a spare?”
“I have no idea. This is a rental. They dropped it off this morning.”
“Pop the trunk and let’s take a look.”
She opened the trunk and he took out the spare tire and tools. “This shouldn’t take long,” he said, rolling up his sleeves.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked. “I heard you were shot.”
“Nothing serious.” He indicated the bandage on his right forearm, just below a tattoo of crossed lacrosse sticks. “It was just a scratch.”
“Were you following me?” she asked, as he knelt and positioned the jack under the car’s frame.
“I was headed back to headquarters.” He looked up. “Why would you think I was following you?”
“Graham wasn’t too happy when I left the house this morning. He thought I should stay out of sight and safe. I thought he might have asked one of you to keep an eye on me.”
“No offense, ma’am, but we’ve got too much work to do to follow you around—even if the chief had asked. Which he didn’t.” He pumped the jack and the car began to rise. “What were you doing, anyway?”
“I tried to interview the ambassador from Venezuela about why he’s visiting Colorado, but he didn’t have much to say. Have you seen Graham this morning?”
“I saw him for a few minutes. He wasn’t in a good mood.” He hefted the old tire off the axle and rotated it slowly. “There’s the problem.” He fingered a slash in the sidewall. “Big enough to do real damage, but small enough you wouldn’t discover it right away.”
She leaned over him, frowning at the gash. “What caused that?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say either a pocketknife or a screwdriver. Jam it in quick, pull it out and be on your way.” His eyes met hers. “The G-man’s right. Someone is still out to hurt you.”
She ignored the cold knot that had formed in her stomach. “This didn’t hurt me. It just annoyed me.”
“What if I hadn’t come along right away?” He looked around them. “There’s not a lot of traffic out here. Someone else could have driven up and grabbed you. Maybe that was even their plan.”
She swallowed the bitter taste of fear. “I see your point. Are you going to tell Graham? It’ll just make him more upset.”
“I think you should be the one to tell him, not me.”
“I can’t let whoever is making these threats silence me,” she said. “I can’t let them frighten me into changing who I am.”
He shoved the spare into place and began tightening the lug nuts. “I get that.”
“I’m not sure Graham does.”
“He’s a smart guy. He’ll figure it out.”
“I hope so.” She cared about him enough to be patient. But she couldn’t keep fighting the same battle with him. She had to remain independent, to fight for what she believed in, no matter how anyone—including the man she loved—tried to stop her.
Chapter Eighteen
Graham’s head ached, but he welcomed the distraction from the different kind of pain in his heart. Better not think about Emma right now; he had to focus on work. “What did we turn up at the mine yesterday?” he asked.
“Not much,” Carmen said. She handed out copies of a spreadsheet. “This is an inventory of all the evidence we have that may or may not be related to Bobby Pace’s death, as well as everything we’ve managed to compile from the fire at Emma’s house and her kidnapping yesterday.”
Graham frowned at the slim list under the heading Emma. “Not much,” he said. “Not enough.” The evidence in Pace’s murder wasn’t much better—a single thumbprint and a few partial fingerprints from the cockpit that they hadn’t been able to link to Pace or anyone he knew, the spent bullet that had lodged in his chest, the busted crate from the missile and his incomplete logbook, plus lots of photographs of the body, the wrecked plane and the surrounding terrain. At the mine, they had a few mostly generic tire tracks, Emma and Graham’s statements, the bullet that had wounded Lance and more photographs.
“The FAA and NTSB ruled Pace’s plane crashed due to pilot error,” Carmen said. “He miscalculated his approach.”
“Maybe he was distracted,” Michael said. “By, say, someone with a gun to his head.”
“Check for a print match with a Valentina Ferrari,” Graham said. “She’s a Venezuelan fashion model, the daughter of the ambassador to the US.”
“I’ll see if I can find anything.” Carmen made a note. “How does she know Bobby Pace?”
“She knows Richard Prenti
ce. It’s a long shot, but I want it checked.”
The front door opened and Lotte trotted into the room, followed by Randall and Emma. Face flushed, hair windblown, she greeted him with a smile warm enough to melt a glacier. Graham wanted to pull her close and tell her how glad he was to see her but, aware of his team watching, he settled for a brief smile and a nod.
“Am I interrupting?” she asked, looking around the table.
“We’re almost done.” Graham motioned her toward the table. “Did you speak to Ambassador Ferrari?”
“The ambassador from Venezuela flew into Montrose this morning,” she explained to the others. “I met his plane and asked questions, most of which he refused to answer. But I learned he does know Richard Prentice. In fact, I think that’s who he’s here to see.”
“Was his daughter with him?” Graham asked.
“No, but state senator Peter Mattheson was.”
The mention of the agitating senator made Graham clench his jaw. The lawmaker had made it his personal crusade to do away with The Ranger Brigade Task Force, and spouted off about it in the press at every opportunity. “What did Mattheson have to say?”
“Not much. The whole interview was pretty much a bust.” She pulled out an empty folding chair beside Graham and sat. “But my visit to the airport wasn’t completely wasted. Before Ferrari and Mattheson arrived, I talked to some of the private pilots. I showed them Valentina’s picture and one of them recognized her. She called herself Val and tried to hire a pilot to fly her to Rhode Island about the time Bobby was murdered.”
She definitely had the attention of everyone in the room now. “Did she hire Pace?” Randall asked.
“She originally hired a man named Fred Gaskin, but he came down with appendicitis the day before they were supposed to fly out. So he gave her Bobby’s name.”
“What would she be doing in Rhode Island?” Carmen asked.
“She told Fred she needed to pick up tractor parts for a cousin in Durango,” Emma said. “So she planned to bring something back with her.”
“Providence, Rhode Island, is a major port on the Atlantic,” Michael said. “She could have been collecting something that had been smuggled into the country.”
“Like a stolen Hellfire missile,” Graham said.
“But who was the missile for?” Carmen asked. “Did Richard Prentice want to arm that drone he supposedly bought?”
“What good would it do him if he did?” Randall asked. “If he drops that anywhere, he’ll attract all the wrong kind of attention and end up in a federal prison for the rest of his life.”
“He’s not a hothead,” Emma said. “And he’s definitely not stupid.”
“But he has the money to buy a black-market missile,” Michael said. “Maybe he’s planning to frame one of the militia groups who are such fans of his. Or maybe he owes one of them a favor and this is the payback they’re collecting.”
“Or maybe we’re looking at this all wrong,” Emma said.
“What do you mean?” Graham asked.
“We know Venezuela is on the US watch list as a possible source of terrorists,” she said. “What if Valentina and her father have contacts with those terrorists? Maybe they’re even sympathizers?”
“And Prentice knows this and has exploited it to acquire the missile?” Michael asked.
Emma shook her head. “No. Maybe it’s the other way around. Valentina is taking advantage of any feelings Prentice may have for her by persuading him to buy the missile for her.”
“Most women settle for a big diamond,” Carmen said.
“We don’t know why she wants the missile,” Emma said. “Maybe she’s a true believer in the cause, or maybe she owes someone a big favor, or she’s being threatened. Whatever the reason, she gets Prentice to pay for the missile, which she plans to pick up and deliver to the terrorists back in Venezuela.”
“But the plane crash delayed delivery and she had to hide it in that cave,” Carmen said.
“Then we found it, and she had to move it,” Graham said.
“And now her father is here to pick it up and make the delivery,” Michael said. “No one’s going to stop and search a diplomat’s plane.”
“Is Ferrari with Prentice now?” Graham asked.
“I don’t know,” Emma said. “I was following him, but my car had a flat before I could see where they turned. Officer Knightbridge stopped to change the tire for me.”
“A flat?” Graham asked, all his old worries about her safety surging forward again.
“The car with Ferrari and Mattheson turned down the road that leads to the park and to Prentice’s ranch,” Randall said.
Emma refused to meet Graham’s gaze; he’d have to question her later. He forced his attention back to the matter at hand. “Chances are, Ferrari is at Prentice’s ranch now,” he said. “And I’d lay odds the missile is there, too.”
“He probably wouldn’t risk hiding it at the house,” Carmen said.
“He put it in a mine before,” Michael said. “There are plenty of those to choose from around here.”
Graham turned to the large topo map tacked to the wall behind him. The others stood and joined him around the map, studying the symbols and letters identifying features of the park and surrounding lands, including the Prentice ranch.
“There.” Randall pointed to the crossed pickax symbol for a mine. “This one is closest to the ranch house. They could even have extended one of the tunnels under the house.” He traced a likely path between the mine and the house with one finger.
“We need to get in there and take a look,” Graham said.
“Can you get a warrant?” Cruz asked.
“Now that we have a possible terrorist connection, I think I can,” Graham said. “We’ve got to get that missile away from there, before a lot more people get hurt.”
* * *
EMMA RETREATED TO a back office, where she worked on a brief article about the ambassador’s arrival in Montrose. She’d file the story before the deadline for tomorrow’s paper, but she hoped by tomorrow she’d have more exciting news to report.
Shortly after noon, Graham found her. “I thought you might like some lunch,” he said, setting a paper bag with the emblem of a local sub shop on the table beside her.
“Sounds great.” She opened the bag while he sat across from her with his own lunch. “How are things going for you?” she asked.
“The ambassador’s pilot filed a flight plan to leave Montrose at ten this evening and fly to Houston,” he said. “Our best guess is he’ll file a new plan there after refueling. We’ve got surveillance on the ranch, but we don’t expect them to make a move before dark.”
“So when will you make your move?”
“We’ll go in at dusk.”
“I’ll go with you.” It wasn’t a question. She looked him in the eye and he didn’t look away.
“Civilians have no place on a police operation like this.” He took a large bite of his sandwich.
“I’m not just any civilian. I’m the reporter who led you to the evidence that could break open this case.”
She had to wait while he finished chewing. She couldn’t decide if he was weighing his answer carefully, or merely stalling. “You’ve been helpful,” he said. “That doesn’t entitle you to special privileges.”
“Maybe not. Does sleeping with you?” She smiled, hoping to take some of the sting out of her words.
“That only makes me want to protect you more,” he said softly.
“I’ll wear a Kevlar vest, and I’ll stay in the Cruiser until you tell me it’s safe to leave. I won’t interfere.”
“Would you be able to identify Valentina Ferrari on sight?” he asked.
“I think so, yes. And Jorge Ferrari, too.”
“Th
en that will be the official reason you’re coming with us. And you’ll do exactly as I say.”
“Yes, sir.” She gave him a mock salute, then patted his hand. “Everything will be fine, I promise.”
He made a grunting sound that could have meant anything and they returned to eating their lunches. Clearly, Graham still struggled with giving her the independence she needed, but he was learning.
* * *
THE WHOLE TEAM, along with reinforcements from the Montrose County Sheriff’s Department, gathered at Ranger headquarters as the sun was setting over the canyon. As the day’s heat gave way to a chilly evening, Graham briefed everyone on the plan for the evening.
“We’ll approach the ranch from two sides, at the front gate and through the wilderness area,” he said. “Prentice’s guards will try to stop us, but we have a warrant authorizing this search. If anyone interferes, place them in custody.”
He assigned teams to search the old mine and surrounding grounds for any sign of recent activity. “If you locate the missile, set a guard and notify me. Remember that anyone you encounter may be armed and dangerous, so be prepared.” Though his ribs were still bandaged and Emma knew his shoulder still pained him, he’d abandoned the sling and changed into black SWAT gear, complete with a bulky Kevlar vest and riot helmet. He presented a big, commanding presence that held the attention of every man and woman in the room.
She was waiting in the front seat of the Cruiser when he led the others outside. “Afraid I’d leave you behind?” he asked as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
“You would if you could,” she said.
“I don’t suppose I can talk you into waiting here?” he asked. “I promise to give you an exclusive when we’re done.”
“Nice try, but I’m coming with you. I agreed to play by your rules.” She patted her chest. “I’m stuffed into this ghastly uncomfortable vest and I’m ready to duck when you give the word.”
He shifted the Cruiser into gear. “Then I guess we’d better get started.”
Half the vehicles fell in behind Graham on the park road while the other half, led by Randall Knightbridge and Michael Dance, set out cross-country to approach the mine from the side. The canyon itself presented a natural boundary at the rear and at the other side of the ranch, making retreat that way all but impossible.