“So you have makes and models but no owner, right?”
“That’s right,” she said. “What’s that noise?”
“A hog.”
“What?”
“A Harley. I’m staking out a parking lot, and I need to know if any of your getaway vehicles happen to be a white Tahoe.”
“A Chevy Tahoe? No. I’m searching for small cars—all four-door sedans—a Grand Am, a Ford Fiesta, a couple of Hondas.”
“Damn.”
“Why?”
Another man walked out, this one wearing a cowboy hat. Definitely not a biker. Torres watched him cross the lot. “Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered as the man neared the Tahoe parked on the edge of the lot.
He pulled open the door.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“My guy just showed,” he said. “I have to go. Keep me posted on those cars.”
Torres dropped the phone into the cup holder and waited for a few moments to keep a low profile. It wasn’t that late, so there was still some traffic to blend into as he entered the highway.
He followed the Tahoe, which he was almost certain was the same one he and North had been in hot pursuit of just a few days ago.
Almost certain but not quite. No one had managed to read the license plate that night. But the make and model fit, along with the approximate age. The Tahoe from the other night was a clunker, just like this one, and Torres had a feeling about it. Enough of a feeling to run the plate, which was from out of state. The registration had come back to a Brian Floyd of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
If that was Floyd behind the wheel now, the guy had a clean record. So who was he? And why was he in Maverick?
Torres kept an eighteen-wheeler between him and the Tahoe as he sped down the highway. He could be a tourist. Could be someone passing through. Could be someone looking for work in one of the oil fields that had attracted thousands of roughnecks to the area in recent years.
Could be a friend of Hardin’s.
Torres didn’t know who the hell he was and had no idea if he had a connection to his case or not. He just knew something had nagged at him when he first noticed the Tahoe pulling into the Broken Spoke.
Maybe he was just bored. Or restless. Or bitter that North was probably getting it on with a pretty woman tonight, while he was stuck in Maverick, suffering the mother of all dry spells.
But none of that mattered right now. What mattered was that he had a lead and a chance to follow it up.
♦
Andrea called Nathan from a dark and secluded spot on the hotel patio.
“How’s it going?” she asked him.
“How’s it going? Fantastic. I’ve got feds all over my crime scene, and now I hear some ATF hotshot’s on his way down from Washington. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, let’s hear it, because these guys just pulled my case out from under me, and they’re not telling me jack shit.”
Andrea took a deep breath. She’d already told him that Carmen Pena was linked to a prominent politician and that her death might have been a targeted hit. Now she explained about Senator Kirby and the possible connection to Philadelphia.
“And you’re involved in this how? Wait, let me guess. Another ‘long story’?”
She didn’t answer. “How’s Lukas Pena?” she asked instead.
He made a sigh that sounded extremely tired. “Same. He’s still in ICU. Carmen’s mother is there with him, and she refuses to leave. The woman’s got a lot of family around her, so that’s good.”
Andrea’s chest hurt thinking about it. She stared out at the swimming pool, where rectangles of light from the second-story windows shimmered on the water. “Any updates on the evidence?” she asked.
“I’m not getting much, but one of the CSIs said they found a partial fingerprint on one of the pipe fragments. So that’s something.”
“Hmm. You’d think he’d wear gloves making it.”
“You’d think. They’re running the print now. Or so I’ve been told. I’m not really in the loop.”
The patio door opened, and a man stepped out. It was dark, but Andrea had no trouble recognizing Jon’s tall silhouette and the athletic way he moved.
“You know, Andrea,” Nathan said, “I’m all out of advice for you, and you don’t listen anyway. But I will tell you this: if Taggart gets wind that you’re out there investigating this when you’re supposed to be on leave, or that you’re involved at all, that’s it. You’re done.”
“I understand.”
“The man’s allergic to bad publicity.”
“I understand, Nathan.”
“Do you really? Because you’re not acting like it.”
“Listen, I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Keep me updated on that fingerprint.”
She hung up. Jon stepped through the wrought-iron gate and crossed the patio to the spot where she sat with her feet propped on a table. She braced for another round.
“Stopped by your room earlier.” He looked out over the darkened pool. “What are you doing out here, hiding?”
“No.”
“You get any dinner?”
“No.”
He stared down at her. He’d ditched the suit jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves. The light from the motel put shadows on his face, and his jaw was dark with stubble. He looked like a man who’d had a long day and probably spent way too much of it on a phone arguing with people.
Andrea pulled her feet off the table and pushed a chair toward him with her toe. He accepted the invitation.
“Sorry I blew up earlier.” As the words came out, they surprised even her. She rarely apologized to anyone. In her male-dominated workplace, it was a sign of weakness. But she was feeling weak today. Her nerves were frayed. She thought back to that blue baby swing and felt heartsick.
“Sorry for keeping you in the dark about the timeline,” he said.
He wasn’t really sorry, but she appreciated the effort. And anyway, she’d been keeping him in the dark about a few things, too, such as her trip to the Delphi Center. And her hostile encounter back at Lost Creek Ranch. But if he knew everything she’d been up to, he’d probably force her to butt out, especially after seeing that bullet.
“I contacted my brother tonight.”
His gaze narrowed. “You called him?”
“E-mailed him. I’m trying to get him to see me tomorrow.” Her throat tightened as she spoke. “I still don’t think he’s involved, but maybe he knows something, saw something that can help you get a search warrant for the ranch or make an arrest . . . before anything else happens.”
“If you let me talk to him, I can help him, Andrea.”
“You can’t promise that,” she said quietly.
“I can try.”
A silence settled over them, and she gazed out at the murky water. She was right, and he knew it. He couldn’t promise her anything. As he’d said in the car, if her brother had committed a crime, he was going to be held accountable. Andrea closed her eyes and tried to make the knot in her stomach go away.
Jon’s chair scraped over the pavement as he leaned back and looked up at the desert sky. “It’s not so bad out here.”
“Yeah.” If you didn’t mind the chill, which he obviously didn’t. He’d grown up in cold weather. She hadn’t. In only her thin blazer, she’d been shivering for the last half hour, but she hadn’t wanted to camp out in her room, where she’d known he’d come looking for her.
He was right. She was hiding. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was hiding from, but it had something to do with the way her pulse sped up whenever he argued with her. And the way he looked at her, as if he could see straight through every word she said.
He turned to look at her now. “What’d you think of the senator?”
She scoffed. “I think he’s a prick. I know there’s no ‘correct’ response to death, but isn’t there a morator
ium on golf or something?”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t play.”
“You don’t?”
He looked at her. “You sound surprised.”
“You’re a doctor’s kid.”
“My dad doesn’t play, either.” He smiled. “That’s a stereotype, Andrea. Like saying you grew up on a farm, so you probably lost your virginity in a hayloft.”
“I didn’t.”
“There you go.”
He gazed up at the sky again, and she did, too.
“You’re right, though,” he said. “About Kirby. If I were him, I wouldn’t let my wife out of my sight.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not him.”
Jon’s protective streak was deeply ingrained. The senator had seemed more worried about his reelection than about his family. Andrea didn’t know why she was so shocked by that. She’d always hated politicians, but actually seeing their warped priorities up close was pretty disturbing.
A gust whipped up, and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself.
“His own son,” Jon said, “and I bet he hasn’t even called the hospital.”
She glanced over and saw the contempt on his face. “Not everyone gives a shit about their kids, North.”
He looked at her, and she turned away, sorry she’d said anything. “You’re talking about your mom?”
“My dad.”
“Where is he?”
“No idea.”
He gave her a sharp look. It probably sounded odd to someone who had grown up in a stable family. Andrea felt self-conscious. And maybe a little defensive, as she had for most of her life.
“My mom cared about us,” she said objectively. “But she was an alcoholic. An addict. You’ve seen it.” Anyone in law enforcement had seen it a thousand times. “She and my dad always drank a lot, but he could handle it. When he left, she couldn’t anymore. It was like she became someone else.”
Andrea remembered so many afternoons coming home from school to find her mom passed out on the couch and Gavin camped out in front of the television, eating Froot Loops and chips, whatever was in the house.
“My childhood wasn’t all bad,” she said, thinking of Dee and Bob’s farm. Their method of helping their grandkids deal with grief had been to put them to work. Andrea remembered hanging wash on the clothesline and feeding chickens. Dee would send them out with coffee cans to fill with dewberries so she could make pies.
She thought of those hot afternoons picking berries alongside her brother until their fingers ached. She thought of his flushed cheeks and his solemn eyes, and her chest swelled with love for him. He’d been such a quiet kid—almost painfully shy—even though Dee and Bob had done everything they could to draw him out.
“Salt of the earth.” She looked at Jon. “That’s what people say about my grandparents. They’re good people. And they don’t have much, but they take care of it. Especially family.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It is.”
“But you didn’t want to stay on the farm?”
“Not really my thing.” Andrea looked at the sky again, recalling a female police officer with a tight brown ponytail. She’d waded into their messy living room, and with only a glance at the empty bourbon bottle, it was as if she knew everything about them. She’d walked up to Andrea and put a firm hand on her shoulder.
It’s up to you now. You need to be strong for your brother.
Some total stranger had given Andrea the words she’d lived by for years.
She looked at Jon in the dimness. They came from such different places in so many ways.
“How’d you get into this?” she asked him.
“What, law enforcement?”
“The Bureau.”
For a moment, he didn’t say anything. “My uncle was DEA. He used to take me fishing a couple times a year. I looked up to him.” He paused. “He worked in the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, back in ninety-five.”
“You mean—”
“He died in the blast.”
Andrea cringed. “How awful.”
“It was.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she watched him, hoping he’d fill in the blanks.
“I followed the trial pretty close,” he said. “What amazed me was McVeigh. His complete lack of remorse. Those children he killed, he called them ‘collateral damage.’ ”
Andrea shook her head.
“Total lack of conscience,” he said. “I think we’re dealing with the same thing now.”
Andrea watched his face, noted the steely look in his eyes. She could see this case was personal to him. She admired that about him. People were always telling cops not to let the job get personal, not to take the work home. But she didn’t think that was possible. The best cops she knew put their hearts into it.
She studied his profile, and her own heart fluttered. She looked away.
“Maybe he views it as a war,” she said. “A take-no-prisoners type of thing. Maybe he’s sick. God knows I’ve seen enough head cases on the job.”
“Same.”
They sat in silence for a while, with Andrea shivering and wrapping her arms around herself to fight off the chill. She felt cold to her bones. “Ever wish you’d stuck with the law firm?” she asked, trying to lighten things up. “You’d be making more money.”
“I like what I do.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees as he turned to look at her. “I’m good at it.”
He stated it as a fact, and she believed him.
“What about you?” he asked. “You like your job?”
“If I still have it.”
He frowned. “Is that really in doubt?”
“Didn’t you read the news stories?”
“You’re talking about that article that said you should have shot the pistol out of his hand, like it’s the Wild West? You can’t worry about crap like that, Andrea.”
It had been an op-ed column, and she wasn’t worried about it. It was absurd. But the supposedly factual news articles that implied the same thing bothered her.
She looked at Jon again. He seemed so strong and competent. She was tempted to open up to him, and she sensed that he really wanted to listen. She’d never been in a relationship like that. Not with a man, anyway.
He was watching her, waiting.
“I broke protocol,” she said. “I should have summoned backup if I’d thought the subject was mentally disturbed or there was potential for violence.”
“Instead, you followed your instincts.”
Her instincts. The same instincts that had made her look twice at the kid in the trench coat, the same instincts that had made her confront him—those same instincts had made her hesitate. And hesitation was deadly.
She’d walked into that kitchen and been ambushed by his humanity. The kid holding that gun was someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s ex-boyfriend. And she’d ended his life. She’d ended it. And even now, with bureaucratic forces lined up on opposite sides against her—she’d acted too late, she’d acted too soon, she shouldn’t have acted alone—none of that mattered now, because it was done, right or wrong, and she couldn’t undo it.
Looking back, the situation was clearer. From her perspective, anyway. No matter what any review board concluded, she knew that her biggest mistake was that she’d hesitated, she’d frozen up, and in doing so, she’d put innocent people at risk.
Despite all her training, all her experience, she’d hesitated in a crisis, and now she questioned whether she really had what it took to be a cop.
Jon rested his hand on her knee. She looked at him, faintly shocked by the warmth of the contact.
“You did the right thing,” he said.
She looked into his eyes, and she wanted so much to believe him. And selfishly, she wanted the review board to see it that way so she could go back to work.
She missed her job. Desperately. And she had no idea what she was going to do with herself if she couldn’t get i
t back.
His fingers slid over her arm and found her hand, making her loosen her grip on herself. He squeezed her fingers.
“You’re freezing.”
She didn’t say anything. She watched him. She could feel her chest rising and falling as she looked at his eyes, his mouth. He was warm and strong, and she hated feeling needy, but that was how she felt right now.
He leaned in, and she stiffened.
“Come here,” he whispered, pulling her close. She let him. She leaned against him, and his breath was warm against her temple.
He kissed her, and she pulled back reflexively.
He sighed. “You don’t trust me, do you?”
“No.”
It was a lie. She did trust him. She didn’t know why, but she did.
She wished things could be simpler. She wished they could just be two people getting to know each other, using each other for warmth. Maybe if they’d met under different circumstances, she could cave into what she was feeling right now, instead of burying it deep inside herself.
His hand slid down her neck, and he rubbed his thumb along her jaw. His eyes were dark now, and the intensity in them made her pulse pound.
“We’re the same, Andrea.” He kissed her temple again, then tipped her chin up and found her mouth. “We’re both alone.”
His mouth settled on hers, and she gave in this time. He tasted warm and male, and she leaned into his heat as his arms wrapped around her, and he shifted her almost into his lap. He pulled her closer and kissed her. There was a hungry insistence about him that reminded her of the way he’d looked at her the night they first met. She’d known then that he’d be this way. She’d known he’d be powerful and commanding, and it excited her.
He tipped her head back and kissed the underside of her jaw, and she felt the rasp of his stubble against her skin, and her pulse was racing now. The air around her was cool, but warm ripples ran up and down her skin as his mouth moved over the sensitive side of her neck.
She slid her arms around him, and his mouth found hers again, and she felt his fingers gripping her hip as he kissed her and pulled her even closer.
A phone buzzed, and she jerked back. For a second, she didn’t move. Then she groped around and found the phone wedged under her leg on the chair. She stood up and turned away, ignoring Jon’s gaze.
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