Nanny

by Christina Skye

  chapter 21

  Where’s Liberace? I don’t see his cage.” Frantic, Sophy scrambled up the aisle of the small plane, looking for her mother.

  “He’s fine, honey.” Cara smoothed her hair, looking frazzled. “He’s right in his cage in the back.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Tate put him there personally.”

  “Oh.” Sophy took a slow breath. “Uncle Tate is careful. He wouldn’t forget Liberace.”

  Cara studied her daughter, wondering where these new fears had come from. “Of course he wouldn’t. Now it’s time to strap in because we’re ready to take off. Can you hear the motor change rhythm?” When all else failed, distraction was the best answer, Cara knew.

  In the wing of the small airport north of Monterey, a technician in gray coveralls moved unhurriedly, recording equipment transfers and completed repairs.

  With a new girlfriend who liked pretty things, Ray Markle had a salary that never stretched far enough, so the quiet offer that had come his way four months ago proved to be a godsend. All he had to do was note any flight plans filed for Senator Winslow’s Cessna Grand Caravan, then make a call to an anonymous voice-mail box with all the details.

  Ray had been able to take his astonished girlfriend to Acapulco the following month, and now they were planning a trip to Paris, thanks to payments wired directly into his new bank account in the Caymans. Ray accessed the account from an ATM card sent to him in an envelope with no return address, and he had no idea of the source of these payments, nor did he care. He told himself it wasn’t breaking the law to jot down a few flight details.

  As Senator Winslow and his group boarded the Cessna, the technician stood behind a wall of outbound cargo, dialing the phone number burned into his memory. When he heard the short electronic click, he rattled off the details of the senator’s flight plan. Next stop for the Cessna was Elko, Nevada. Ray hadn’t been able to track any stops beyond Elko, but he had a cousin near Vegas who worked weekends in Elko. In exchange for one month’s payment on his new truck, his cousin would track the plane outbound to its next destination.

  The whole arrangement suited Markle just fine—except for one detail. He wasn’t an imaginative man, but the day the offer had come by phone, he’d been warned by a harsh, electronic voice exactly what would happen to him if he ever decided to discuss the arrangement.

  The graphic description still made his skin crawl.

  As the Cessna lifted smoothly from the runway, Ray was already on the phone with his cousin in Nevada.

  “But I don’t understand? Where is Ms. M? Why isn’t she going with us?”

  “Lower your voice, Sophy.” Cara was sharper than she intended, all too aware of the airport crew scattered nearby. “I told you we’d discuss this at the ranch.”

  “But why—?”

  “Stow it, Sophy.” Audra bent down beside her sister, glaring. “Can’t you see this is important?” she hissed.

  Sophy swallowed. “Important how?”

  “Later.” Gripping her arm, Audra walked Sophy to the front of the plane. “Look, Mom brought Liberace’s cage up here.”

  Instantly distracted, Sophy let out a yelp and crouched down to chatter nonsense at her pet ferret, which answered with noisy indignation at his incarceration.

  “Thank you, Audra.” Cara put a hand on her daughter’s arm. “Sometimes she wears me out. We’ll discuss everything, I promise, just as soon as we get to the ranch.” She squared her shoulders. “I shouldn’t have waited this long to tell you the truth, either. Now maybe you’ll share something with me.” She softened her tone. “Like why you believe you’re fat.”

  Instantly Audra flushed bright red. “She told you?”

  “Of course Summer did, darling. And we can work this out, I promise, but only when we stop keeping secrets. That goes for me as well as you.”

  “You’re worried about something bad, aren’t you, Mom? No offense, but you’ve been a little hyper lately.”

  Looking at her suddenly mature and thoughtful daughter, Cara felt a crazy urge to laugh. They grow up, she thought in amazement. They argue and they yell, but then they grow up, and one day they actually give you great advice.

  Life couldn’t be all bad.

  “We’ll talk about that, too, honey. I promise.”

  “Cara, can I talk to you a moment?” Tate Winslow made a small gesture toward his pilot, who was walking down the aft stairs.

  “Of course. Audra, will you stay here with Sophy for a second?”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  Cara followed Tate outside, where he scanned the nearby runway. Seeing no one within hearing range, Tate nodded to his pilot. “James tells me there’s a storm front running through southern Wyoming. Things could get bumpy up there.”

  “Is that dangerous?” Cara asked the pilot.

  “No, ma’am. Mainly uncomfortable. I suggested we alter our route to avoid the turbulence, but it may involve an extra stop and more airtime.”

  “I’d like to make it easy on the girls.” Cara looked up at the open door to the Cessna. “Audra gets airsick, I’m afraid.”

  “No problem. I’ll arrange it.” The pilot nodded and headed off across the runway.

  Tate moved closer to Cara as a small Jeep lumbered past, loaded down with cargo crates. “There’s a tropical storm heading toward the Pacific Coast of Mexico, too. Bad time for flying.”

  “But Los Reyes is—”

  Tate cut her off, frowning. “No names, honey. Our travelers have been informed. They’ll be considering alternate routes.”

  Cara rubbed her neck as another cargo transport lumbered past. “I’m having second thoughts about this plan, Tate. It’s going to be very dangerous if they question the wrong people.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “There must be an informant there at the clinic. No one else could have known about me or the date.” She hesitated for a moment.

  “What’s wrong, Cara? Did you tell someone else?”

  “No.” Cara took a breath. “It could only be the staff at the clinic.”

  “Then let our friends call the shots. They’re professionals, and they won’t be sloppy.”

  Cara closed her eyes and ran her hands over her face. “Maybe we should call everything off. Both trips.”

  “You and the girls need to be somewhere safe now. Trust me, no one can get within ten miles of the Lazy W without Bud and his boys running them to ground.”

  Cara touched his face gently. “I never could resist a glib-tongued politician with an agenda.”

  “Damned right,” the senator said, in no way taking offense. “Now let’s get this bird back in the air. Bud has four barn-sized strip steaks waiting to slap on the grill. Three minutes up, three minutes down.”

  Cara wrinkled her nose. “That’s barbaric. You may as well hear them moo.”

  “No, ma’am. That’s beef the way it’s meant to be served.” Chuckling, Tate took her arm and guided her toward the Cessna, where a man in khaki work pants backed down the stairs carrying a metal box filled with cleaning supplies. He nodded politely as he moved aside to let them pass.

  If either Cara or Tate had looked closer, they would have noticed that the worker’s bright identity badge read “T. Markle, Maintenance.”

  At the other side of the airport Summer was waiting to board a small cargo plane. The painted sign on its wings read “Almost, Arizona—there’s only one way to get closer to heaven!”

  “Ms. Mulvaney?” A lanky man with a grizzled face and a big clipboard sauntered toward her. “Just got you on under the wire. Had to remove a skid of extra virgin olive oil to do it, though.”

  Summer blinked at him. “Who are—”

  The man stuck out a dusty hand. “Name’s Grady. Deputy sheriff of Almost, Arizona, and editor of the Almost Gazette.” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t reckon I can interview you for the next issue. Not when I was told to keep this all quiet like.”

  “I’m afraid so, er—Grady.” Summer followed him across t
he tarmac, trying to keep pace with his long strides. She’d been told by Gabe to expect a deputy sheriff named Grady to meet her in Elko, but the rest of the details of her trip were vague. “Is that the plane we’ll be taking?”

  “Sure is. And you’re in luck, ma’am. The sheriff is piloting today. One of his favorite things when he’s got a day off, which is next to never.”

  Summer followed Grady up the stairs, where two young men were nearly done loading boxes of high-end food products. When she turned, her breath caught.

  The man in the cowboy boots and well-worn Stetson was the spitting image of Mel Gibson, right down to the devilish grin. “Welcome aboard Almost Air, ma’am. I’m T.J. McCall.”

  Summer shook hands, trying to conceal her surprise.

  “Don’t worry about trying to hide the shock,” Grady drawled. “T.J.’s used to it by now. If you come with me, I’ll show you to your seat.”

  “Enjoy your flight, ma’am.” The sheriff/pilot gave a two-finger wave and headed to the cockpit. Summer was barely settled and strapped in when the small plane began to taxi across the steaming tarmac.

  “Next stop, Arizona,” Grady said proudly.

  “I know that, Ray. But I’m positive they said Mexico. The woman mentioned a place called Los Reyes, or something close to that.” Terry Markle cupped his cell phone, speaking quietly in the stairwell just off the Elko staff lounge. “She was arguing with him, Ray. And I’ll be damned if that wasn’t Senator Tate Winslow himself she was arguing with.” His voice rose with excitement. “Her two girls were real polite, even introduced me to their pet ferret—”

  “To hell with their pet ferret,” his cousin snapped. “What I need are their flight plans and ETA.”

  “I’m on my way to check now.”

  “Did anyone leave the plane in Elko?”

  “A woman. Tall, with dark hair. A real looker, or she would have been if she hadn’t been wearing such a gawdawful ugly gray suit. Hell, women today—”

  “Stow it, Terry. Get me the flight plan and the names of all the passengers. Then see if you can find out where the other woman went.”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you where she went. Hell, you never listen to—”

  “Where?”

  “She took a cargo plane south. Almost Airlines.”

  “Almost what?”

  “Almost, Arizona,” Terry said impatiently. Clouds were piling up on the horizon. Storm coming, he figured. “They’re a small carrier south of Phoenix. Way south,” he added.

  “Okay, good work. Gotta go, Terry.”

  “Wait. You’ll wire me that money, right? My new truck—”

  “Consider it done,” Ray snapped. “And keep your damned mouth shut.”

  Terry shook his head as the line went dead. His cousin was a real jerk, but who couldn’t use a little extra money? Smiling, he sauntered off to finesse the Cessna’s final flight information from an old friend he knew in administration.

  Over the next half hour four calls were made to the anonymous voice-mail number. Strategies were devised, maps consulted, money discussed. Within twenty minutes, wheels began to turn on both sides of the border, greased by vast amounts of untraceable cash. The world was full of secrets, but if you had enough money, as Ray Markle’s employer did, no secrets were safe.

  Patrick Flanagan smiled as he put down the phone. Life was good.

  And it was about to get even better.

  chapter 22

  The Lazy W Ranch straddled fifty acres of some of the prettiest grazing land in Wyoming, bordered by dark waves of fir and oak. A river wound through the rolling hills, alive with rainbow and brown trout.

  But the ranch’s value didn’t come from mineral rights or long-term investment potential. Though his family had a number of residences scattered over the country, the Lazy W was really home to Tate Winslow—the place where he’d learned to hoe an irrigation ditch, tie a fly lure, and lay down a barbed-wire fence. The clean, rugged hills of the Lazy W held his heart, fed his dreams, everything that Washington, D.C., was not.

  Which was why, for Tate, even an hour spent here wiped away months of exhaustion, cynicism, and doubt.

  He smiled as Sophy charged past, running straight into the arms of Bud Fowler, ranch foreman for over thirty years. The old cowboy caught the little girl tight and swung her around in a circle.

  “How about we get Peaches ready for a dawn ride, Sophy? We can head up north and watch the sun break over the mountains.”

  A well-briefed and trusted family retainer, Bud was too polite to comment on the pink gloves Sophy was wearing. Instead he swung the little girl up onto his shoulders, then beckoned to Audra. “You been working on your casting arm, Audra? A lot of fat trout are waiting in that stream, you know.”

  “I don’t have so much time right now, Bud. Not with school and . . . everything.”

  “Darlin’, even a grade-A student’s got to take some time off. Just wait till you taste a nice, fat trout grilled on the fire, minutes from the water. Add a little cornmeal, a pinch of salt, and cook it up real fast in olive oil. Heck, no fancy restaurant’s gonna come close to that.”

  Audra smiled shyly. “I packed my fishing gear, just in case.”

  “Well, you trot on down to see me tonight after dinner and I’ll work on a new move with you. You’ll have a trout in no time.”

  “Can I try, too?” Sophy demanded, bending forward over Bud’s head and blocking his view.

  “Sure can, honey. And my Elly just may have some fresh peach ice cream hidden somewhere.” He glanced at the senator. “Fresh chocolate chip cookies, too. Assuming anyone is interested,” he added dryly.

  “You tell Elly her last shipment of cookies was well-received.” Tate grinned at his old friend. “Only problem was that I made the mistake of taking them out of my office. My campaign spending bill got more support that one day than it had for the six months preceding.”

  “In that case, I’ll advise her to lay in more flour and sugar, Senator. By the way, your mother called twice and your brother called three times. Nothing that was an emergency, they said.” With Sophy still riding firmly on his shoulders, Bud turned to Cara. “Good to see you again, ma’am. I’ve got a nice mount ready for you tomorrow, if you’ve a mind to join the girls.”

  “Can I tell you later?” Cara resolutely avoided Tate’s eyes—and the flush that threatened. “Dawn may be a little too early for me.”

  “No problem. Me and the boys’ll wrangle these two cubs just fine. You can take things easy up here. I hear that big trial is keeping you busy as a gopher in quicksand. No court dates or dockets here, ma’am.” He tickled Sophy’s leg. “Just mile-high sunsets and nights so quiet you can hear the aspens growing.”

  “Bud, can you really hear—”

  Audra cut her sister off, but her laugh was light, freer than Cara had heard it for weeks. “Of course you can’t, silly. It’s a—a figure of speech. Right, Bud?”

  The old cowboy rubbed his jaw. “Hard to say about that, honey. Last night it was so quiet, I cudda sworn I heard a coyote cough over in the next county.”

  Even Audra laughed in delight at this example of a tall tale, for which Bud was justly famous.

  “And that was with my earmuffs on,” the old cowboy added, all honesty. “But just you tell me about this new beast you brought with you. What do you do with a ferret, anyway?”

  Excited, the girls held up Liberace’s cage.

  “Stop worrying, Cara. They’ll be safe here. So will you,” Tate said quietly, touching her cheek.

  “I know. At least, the rational part of me knows. But I’m worried about Gabe and Summer. Have you heard anything yet?”

  “Still too soon, honey. Gabe should check in when they arrive in Los Reyes. Don’t worry, they won’t be working alone down there.”

  “You still haven’t told me—”

  Tate slid his arm across her shoulders. “Later, Counselor. If we don’t hurry up, that steak I was telling you about is going to g
et up and amble back to the herd.”

  Up ahead, Sophy lowered her voice. “Look, Bud, he’s kissing her again.”

  “That bother you, honey?” Bud’s tone was casual.

  “Not really. It’s just—I mean, I don’t get why grown-ups do that stuff all the time. Phillip Howland kissed me once and it tasted like crayons. Ick.”

  Bud kept a carefully straight face. “Boy oughta be horse-whipped and no mistake. What about you, Audra?”

  “Yeah, do you like kissing?” Sophy demanded.

  “Actually,” Bud cut in gently, “I was asking if the senator and your mother kissing bothered her.”

  Audra toyed with the strap on her backpack. “No. Why should it? The senator—well, he’s great. I think it’s really cool he’s gonna be our father. Well, our stepfather,” she said thoughtfully. “And any fool could see that Mom thinks he’s, like, a major babe. So, yeah, I’m cool with it.”

  Bud nodded. “Glad to hear that. Now, why don’t we get the Jeep loaded and then you can introduce everybody at the ranch to Liberace?”

  The sky was streaked with long fingers of purple beneath racing clouds. Cara sank down on the bent-twig rocker on the Lazy W’s broad front porch, watching far-off lights twinkle from the nearest town, fifteen miles away.

  “All this unimaginable peace.” She took in a long, delicious breath of clean air. “And stillness everywhere. Why do I always forget how good it is to be here?” She looked up at Tate, who was leaning on the split-rail porch, cradling a cup of coffee. “Thank you for reminding me.”

  “My pleasure. We all need some time out of the pressure cooker. How’s that cut on your hand?”

  “Fine. I can’t believe I was so clumsy.”

  “Stress, honey. It can hit you in ways you don’t expect. Believe me, I know.” Tate sipped some coffee. “Audra’s growing up. She’s looking a little tired, too. I’d like to spend some time with her, if you don’t mind. Maybe we’ll go fishing one day.”

  “She’d love that.” Cara frowned. “And you’re right, she does look tired. Also, she’s not eating enough. Apparently someone’s been telling her she’s fat. We’ll have to ply her with food while we’re here.”