Lawman Protection

by Cindi Myers

  Graham turned into the private road that led to Prentice’s ranch and stopped the cruiser in front of the closed gate. His headlights cut a bright path through the gray dusk, a spotlight illuminating the empty gravel drive. She peered down the driveway, expecting to see the headlights of an approaching Jeep, but saw only darkness, only the rumble of the idling engines of the caravan behind them disturbing the evening stillness. “Have you ever been here when guards didn’t greet you within a few minutes?” Graham asked.

  “Never.” She continued to stare down the drive. “Maybe they think if they ignore us, we’ll go away.”

  “Do you have Prentice’s number in your phone?” he asked.

  “I do.” She pulled her cell from her purse.

  “Call him. If I try, he’ll see it’s me and ignore the call. But he might talk to you.”

  She punched in the number and listened to the series of long rings. “No answer,” she said. After the tenth ring, she hung up. “What now?”

  Graham keyed his radio. “Simon, bring up a pair of bolt cutters,” he said. “We’re going to have to go around this gate.”

  Ten minutes later, Simon and a man from the sheriff’s department had cut the fence wire and pulled up two fence posts, opening a gap wide enough for a vehicle to easily pass through.

  Graham drove to the house, which blazed with light, though no guard came out to greet them. Emma waited in the vehicle while he got out and knocked on the door. No one answered. He tried the knob, but it didn’t yield.

  “Do you think they’re all down at the mine?” she asked. “Moving the missile?”

  “Could we get so lucky?” He slid back into the driver’s seat and they started forward again, leading their caravan toward the old mine site.

  “I’ve been this way once,” she said as they inched along the faint trail. “The first day I came to interview him, Prentice gave me a tour of the place. He mentioned that he planned to reopen the mine one day—that a survey had revealed it still contained gold that could be accessed with new technology.”

  “Do you think he was telling the truth or merely bragging?” Graham asked.

  “Maybe a little of both. I’ve heard that with the price of gold so high, some of these mines might be worth reopening.”

  “Or maybe he just uses that as an excuse if anyone asks about a flurry of activity around the mine.”

  They rounded a sharp curve and he came to a halt and cut the lights. The vehicles behind him followed suit. “No sense giving away our presence before we have to,” he said.

  They inched along and gradually her eyes adjusted to the dark enough that she was able to make out the silhouettes of trees and rocks. Then the mine itself came into view—a weathered wood head frame marked the opening to the tunnel. No lights showed around this entrance, and there were no vehicles or signs of activity. Graham stopped the Cruiser, though he left the engine running. “Stay here,” he told her.

  She watched his flashlight beam and that of the others until they disappeared behind a tumble of rock. A half circle of moon showed just above the mountains on the horizon. In its pale light the landscape looked smudged, like a charcoal drawing. The air smelled of car exhaust and sagebrush, the only sound the occasional ping of the cooling engine. Emma hugged her arms across her stomach, adrenaline making her jittery and on edge.

  A shout in the distance startled her—men’s voices, followed by the heavy slam of a car door and the sharp whine of bullets ringing on metal and rock. With her heart in her throat, she clutched the door handle and strained forward, squinting into the darkness.

  Footsteps pounded on the hard ground—dark figures running toward her. The driver’s-side door wrenched open and Graham leaped into the driver’s seat. “Hang on tight,” he commanded, as the vehicle lurched forward.

  “Ranger one, this is Ranger three.” Carmen’s voice over the radio crackled with anxiety. “What’s going on? I heard gunfire.”

  “There’s another entrance to the mine,” Graham said. “A side tunnel. Or maybe this headframe is just a decoy. There are at least two vehicles back there. They took off when I surprised them. I’m going after them.”

  “Should we follow?” Carmen asked.

  “Radio Randall and Michael. Two Jeeps headed their way, occupants armed and dangerous. We ought to be able to trap them between us. You take a team in to search the mine. They may have left someone—or something—behind.”

  He reached behind the seat and took a shotgun from the rack in the backseat and handed it to Emma. “Do you know how to use one of these?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “It’s easy. Jack the lever.” He demonstrated. “And pull the trigger. If things get bad and anyone comes near you, promise me you’ll protect yourself.”

  She didn’t know if the lump in her throat was fear, or sorrow that something might happen to Graham. If he was alive, he’d protect her, so when he said “if things get bad” what he really meant was if he wasn’t around to help her. “All right.” She took the weapon with shaking hands and laid it across her lap.

  The Cruiser lurched forward and she clutched the shotgun so it wouldn’t bounce off her knees as he headed out across the rocky ground.

  She tried to calm her fears by reminding herself that when this was over, she’d have the story of her career, but all she really wanted was to be home with Janey, soaking in a hot bath and enjoying a glass of wine, not rocketing across the ground, headed for unknown danger.

  “There they are!” Triumph in his voice, Graham nodded toward the faint glow of red taillights. He switched on his own lights and hit the brights. Behind him, two more Cruisers did the same.

  Graham sped up, the Cruiser bouncing over the rocks, barely under control. “You’re not getting any closer!” Emma shouted. “We’re going to wreck.”

  But Graham ignored her. The vehicle ahead must have realized they were following, because it increased speed, also. Emma gave up trying to hold on to the shotgun. She let it slide to the floor and clung to the dash and the door handle, her teeth clamped together to keep them from chattering. Graham steered around cacti and boulders, through dry creek beds and over hills, the vehicle’s suspension protesting with every jarring landing, engine racing.

  They roared over a hill and she was surprised to discover the gap between them and the other vehicle had lessened. She thought she could make out three occupants. She was about to point this out to Graham when something pinged off the hood of the Cruiser.

  “Get down!” he shouted.

  She dove under the dash. “They’re shooting at us!” The thought refused to register at first, but a second ping shook her back to reality and anger overtook her initial shock. “They’re shooting at us!” she said again.

  She grabbed the shotgun and rested the barrel on the top of the lowered side window.

  “What are you doing?” Graham shouted. “Get down!”

  “If you have to drive, then I have to shoot,” she said. With more calm than she would ever have imagined she could possess, she levered the gun and fired.

  The force of the shot propelled her back against the seat and the blast echoed in her ears. She had no idea if she’d hit anything, but she’d definitely gotten the attention of the trio in the vehicle ahead. They dove out of sight. Giddy, she prepared to shoot again.

  “Emma, don’t!” Graham ordered. “You might hit the missile.”

  She dropped the rifle as if it had suddenly heated up and burned her. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “I didn’t think you’d actually shoot.”

  He’d slowed the vehicle and the other two Cruisers took the opportunity to catch up with them. The radio crackled. “We can surround them with a flanking maneuver,” Marco said. “Michael’s going to try to shoot out their tires.”

 
Graham glanced at Emma. “I mean it this time—stay down.”

  She dove under the dash once more, knocking her head as the Cruiser sped up again. Closing her eyes, she tried to ignore the sound of gunfire around her.

  Then, as suddenly as the violence had erupted, peace descended once more. The Cruiser rolled to a stop. The shooting had ended, replaced by the rush of the wind and the slamming of car doors. Graham left the vehicle, but Emma stayed put, though curiosity compelled her to peek out over the dash.

  Graham had one of the men up against the bumper of the Jeep, cuffing his wrists, while Carmen and Michael dealt with the other two. Simon and Marco stood at the back of the Jeep, examining the bomb, the nose of which stuck out of the back window.

  Assured the danger had passed, Emma sat up and unfastened her seatbelt. She was debating getting out of the Cruiser—Graham would be furious with her for disobeying his orders, but she wanted to get close enough to overhear the conversation.

  The question was decided for her when the man Graham had cuffed turned to face him, cursing loudly in Spanish. He shook his head and his hat fell off, revealing a fall of long black hair and a decidedly unmasculine face. The man Graham had apprehended was no man at all, but a woman.

  Emma leaped out of the Cruiser and moved forward, notebook in hand. “Who are you?” she asked.

  The woman fell silent, staring at Emma. “I know you,” she said after a moment, in lightly accented English. “You’re that reporter. The one looking for Lauren Starling.”

  “Yes.” In all that had happened, Emma had almost forgotten about the missing anchorwoman. “Do you know Lauren? Have you seen her?”

  The woman pressed her full lips together and turned back to Graham. “I want to call my lawyer.”

  “You’ll have plenty of time for that,” Graham said. “Why don’t you start by telling us your name?”

  The woman lifted her chin. “My name is Valentina Ferrari. My father is—”

  “Jorge Ferrari, ambassador to the US from Venezuela.” Emma moved closer, ignoring Graham’s frown. “You’re Richard Prentice’s girlfriend.”

  Valentina’s expression grew guarded. “I am not anyone’s girlfriend.”

  “But what a coincidence that you’re now on Richard Prentice’s ranch,” Graham said. “With a stolen Hellfire missile in your possession. Did Prentice ask you to steal it for him?”

  “I refuse to say anything else. I want to speak with my attorney, with my father and with a representative from the State Department.”

  “Cruz!” Graham called. “Take Ms. Ferrari to the sheriff’s department and book her.”

  As Marco stepped forward to lead Valentina away, Graham took Emma’s arm and led her back to the Cruiser. He said nothing as they fastened their seat belts and he turned the Cruiser and headed back the way they’d come. Emma looked back at the trio of vehicles. “What will happen now?” she asked.

  He said nothing, guiding the vehicle over and around rocks, jaw set, eyes fixed straight ahead. If not for the tension radiating from him, Emma might have imagined he’d forgotten she was there. “Don’t do this, Graham,” she said.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t give me the silent treatment. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t get out of the car until it was safe to do so.” So what if he hadn’t given her permission to do so yet? She was an adult, and she had a job to do, too.

  He slid his hands down the steering wheel and let out a long breath. “I’m not angry with you,” he said. “I’m angry with myself, for not finding a way to stop Prentice before things got this far. Now we’ve got a foreign national—a diplomat’s daughter—involved, which means the politicians will be all over this. She’ll claim diplomatic immunity and we’ll have nothing.”

  “Will the US grant diplomatic immunity to someone who might be involved in a murder investigation?”

  “It’s been done before. Sometimes a country will waive diplomatic immunity, but it doesn’t happen very often. Our relations with Venezuela are shaky enough right now that I don’t think anyone is going to press it. Instead of finding the piece I need to solve the puzzle, the puzzle just gets bigger.”

  “You’ll get to the bottom of this,” she said. “I’ll help. Maybe I can talk to her, woman to woman. Or—”

  He stomped on the brake, throwing her forward. She braced against the dash as he shifted into Park and turned toward her. “Don’t you think you’ve helped enough already?”

  “Wh-what do you mean?” She stared, wishing she could make out his features better in the darkness. All she had to gauge his emotions was the rough timbre of his voice, anger mixed with something else she couldn’t identify.

  “What do you think you were doing, firing that shotgun at them?” he demanded.

  “You were driving and they were shooting at us. Somebody had to shoot back. Why else did you give me the gun?”

  “I didn’t think you’d really shoot! You said you didn’t like guns.”

  “I don’t. But I had to protect you.”

  He stared at her, then began to laugh. She could feel him shaking.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “You are.” He wiped his eyes. “I’m the cop. I’m the one who’s supposed to protect you. Not the other way around.”

  “Maybe we should protect each other.”

  He gripped the steering wheel with his uninjured hand, his jaw working. “You know this isn’t easy for me. I’m not used to a woman who’s always questioning me and second-guessing my decisions.”

  “It’s not personal, Graham. I do trust you, but I’m not used to having people tell me what to do.”

  “Even when it’s for your own good?”

  “I have to decide for myself what’s for my own good,” she said. “Wouldn’t you feel the same way?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Did you mean what you said before—that you loved me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I love you, too. Do you think that’s enough for two such independent people to work together?”

  She reached across the seat and he took her hand and squeezed it. “I think it’s a good start,” he said.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, Graham returned to Ranger headquarters early, only to find the rest of the team there ahead of him. “We got a match on those prints, Captain,” Simon said.

  Graham studied the report Simon handed him. Valentina Ferrari was a match for the previously unidentified print they’d found in Bobby Pace’s plane. “That’s one loose end tied up,” Graham said. He dropped the paper onto his desk. “Not that it will do us much good.”

  “The bullet that killed Pace is the same caliber as the gun she was carrying when you arrested her,” Simon said. “But ballistics isn’t back with their report.”

  “So she killed Bobby Pace.” Michael whistled. “That’s cold-blooded.”

  “Guess looks, money and power weren’t enough for her,” Simon said.

  Graham checked his watch. “I’ve got an appointment at eight to talk to Ms. Ferrari,” he said. “Let’s see what her story is.”

  “If we can’t prosecute her for murder, maybe we can at least get her to incriminate Prentice,” Michael said.

  “He’s already issued a statement to the press saying he was away last night and has no idea what Valentina was doing on his property, and no knowledge of the missile,” Michael said.

  “His story about being away checks out,” Simon said. “He and the ambassador were at a dinner with the mayor, city council members and at least fifty other people.”

  Graham’s stomach churned. “He’s doing it again,” he said.

  “Doing what?” Michael asked.

  “Slipping out of the net. No matter how much evidence we compile against him,
he builds a story to refute it.”

  “So he’s just a misunderstood rich guy who makes poor choices in associates,” Michael said.

  “He’d like us to believe that. So far, he’s been doing a good job of convincing everyone else.” He fished out his keys. “Come on, let’s see what Valentina will tell us.”

  The interview room in the Montrose police station featured gray walls, gray floor, gray folding chairs and tables. A couple of ceiling mics and cameras. Nothing to distract from the business at hand.

  The door opened and two deputies led in Valentina Ferrari. Dressed in baggy orange coveralls and silver handcuffs, she didn’t look glamorous, but there was no denying her beauty. She lifted her chin and glared at Graham, disdain in those dark eyes.

  A tall, handsome man in a gray suit only a shade lighter than his hair followed her in. “I’m Esteban Garcia,” he said. “I’m Ms. Ferrari’s attorney.”

  Graham motioned for them to sit at the table. He and Michael settled into chairs opposite them. “My client has nothing to say to you,” Garcia said.

  “Your client is allowed to speak for herself.” Graham addressed Valentina. Without her heavy eye makeup and military clothing she looked younger, barely out of her teens. “Ms. Ferrari, how do you know Richard Prentice?”

  “He is a friend of my father’s.”

  “I have a photo here of the two of you together, at a party at the Venezuelan consulate in Denver.”

  She glanced at the copy of the newspaper photo that Graham slid from a folder.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” her lawyer said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “He is someone my father invited to the party. He is nothing to me.”

  “You two look very friendly in the photo,” Graham said.

  Her lips curved in the hint of a haughty smile. “Men always want to be friendly with me. That doesn’t mean it means anything.”

  Graham left the photo on the table between them and sat back. “Let’s talk about the missile you were carrying in the back of the Jeep when we arrested you,” he said.