“Not anymore. They’ve turned up on a late-model sedan.”
“About that black car, Nick. One of my deputies found it abandoned in a ditch along Highway 83 this mornin’. Ran the plates and found my inquiry. Ran the VIN number, as well, and it came back to an owner in Amarillo, a Mr. Maxwell Brewster. He claims he sold the car through a newspaper ad three weeks ago.”
Worry sliced across Nick’s nerves like a razor blade. “Can you give me his contact information, Sheriff?”
“Sure.”
Nick grabbed his notepad off the conference table. “Go ahead.”
Hale rambled off the phone number; Nick wrote it down. “Thanks. I’d like to follow up and get a physical description of the man he sold the car to.”
“No problem, son. Good luck. Let me know if you need any more assistance.”
“Thanks, Bernard.” Nick closed his phone and turned back to an empty conference room. He tossed the pad onto the table and rested both of his palms on the edge. One step forward, three steps back. At least he’d been able to make the car tailing Grace Marshall. Now he’d have no way of knowing if the guy was still following her until he spotted his new wheels. If he was able to spot them. The guy was cunning. He’d left a dead end when he dumped the black sedan. Hell, Nick would even bet the interior of the car had been wiped clean of any fingerprints.
“Nick?” Amelia stood in the doorway of the conference room.
“Yes.” He looked up.
“There’s someone here to see you. Shall I show them in here?”
Nick straightened. “Sure.”
Amelia disappeared as he shuffled his paperwork into the file on the table. Who would visit him at CSaI headquarters? Most of his work was accomplished in the field, without the trappings of a storefront that could overexpose the CSaI team. He’d only given out a couple of business cards with the information on them since he’d become a part of the group….
His muscles tensed between his shoulder blades as he stepped around the table, listening to Amelia’s voice in the outer office as it amplified.
“Right this way, Miss…?”
“Marshall. Grace Marshall.”
Nick braced himself for another face-to-face with the unsuspecting focus of his investigation for Governor Lockhart. Rarely did a mark come to him, and a measure of curiosity zipped across his nerves.
Did she know he’d been watching her home this weekend? Had she made him and believed he was some sort of crazy stalker? Was she here to tell him to flake off, or that she planned to call the cops?
Every scenario he could use to justify her visit vanished from his mind as she stepped into the conference room.
She looked beautiful this morning with her long hair let loose in sexy blond strands, her tentative blue-eyed gaze locking with his.
He was in some serious trouble.
“I’ll let you two speak in private.” Amelia stepped out and pulled the door closed.
“I’m sorry to just show up like this,” Grace said as she fingered his business card in her left hand. “But I desperately need your help.”
Chapter Four
A wave of concern washed over him. He shrugged it off as he reached out to take her hand.
“I’m not sure what I can do for you, Grace.” Their palms touched and he closed his fingers around hers. Her grip was firm, her hand delicate but strong. An instant surge of protectiveness consumed him. He released her hand and stepped back. “Have a seat.”
“Thank you.” Grace eased herself into a chair at the massive table, thankful that her legs hadn’t collapsed from underneath her the moment she entered the room. Every wall she’d erected to protect herself and Caleb was being compromised by her own hand at this moment, but she had no choice. She couldn’t let her son die because she was afraid to reach out when she needed help, and Nick Cavanaugh was the first man she’d met in Freedom who gave her a sense of hope.
He sat down at the table across from her. She was grateful for the distance that separated her from the handsome man who now studied her with eyes that seemed to calculate every aspect of her. It didn’t help, either, that she could smell the lingering scent of his clean aftershave in the room.
“I don’t normally do things like this, but as I told you in the hospital parking lot, my son, Caleb, needs a bone-marrow transplant. I’m desperate to find a donor, Mr. Cavanaugh.”
Leaning forward, he put his arms on the table and said, “Please, call me Nick.”
She nodded, trying to force down a lump that formed in her throat. She tried not to stare at him, at the hunger in his clear blue eyes, or the strength in his powerful body. He made her feel safe simply by being close to her.
“He won’t make it to his fifth birthday if he doesn’t receive a transplant soon. He has an added complication—he’s AB negative.”
“So his blood type isn’t easily matched?”
“Yes. It’s not impossible to find a matching donor, but it’s not that simple. Their HLA, or human leukocyte antigens, need to match on lots of points, as well, or his body will reject the stem cells, but the odds of it happening before…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t deal with the prospect of living without her little boy. “I was given up for adoption as an infant. And even though I’m not a donor match for Caleb, my birth mother could be. There’s a high probability that she has the same rare blood type as him, and their HLA profile will match up. I managed to trace her to Freedom two years ago. She could save his life. That is, if I can find her.”
She watched his facial features soften for the first time since she’d entered the room. One unguarded moment from the man of steel sitting across from her was better than none at all.
“The only problem is, I don’t know who she is. That’s what I need you to find out for me.” Grace dug into her purse where she’d placed it in her lap. “I have a redacted copy of the adoption paperwork signed by the judge. That’s how I traced her to Freedom. But other than a Jane Doe of a designated age, I don’t have much else.” She pulled out the copy and slid it across the table toward him. “I can pay you a small retainer.”
Nick’s gut cinched in a knot he wasn’t sure he’d ever get untied. He should have seen this coming, known how to react, like a soldier on a mission. Duty. But he was sitting across the table from a woman with a dying child. It didn’t get more real than that. Had his years on the battlefield turned him into a heartless monster?
“Please help me find her.” The plea in her voice cut like a knife.
Slowly he nodded, unsure whether voluntarily or involuntarily; he only knew it felt good in his soul to take up on the side of honor. “I’ll see what I can come up with.” He picked up the adoption paperwork and flipped it over. “Where can I contact you?”
A shallow smile pulled at her mouth and he found his thoughts wandering to her lips for an instant.
She rattled off her cell number. “I work at Cradles to Crayons most mornings, so you could leave me a message there, and starting next Monday, I’ll be working a couple nights a week at Talk of the Town Café if you’d like to speak to me in person.”
Nick wrote down her number, new information to him, but he already knew her work schedule at the preschool.
“You’re going to go to work for Faith Scott?”
“Yes.” Grace put her purse on the table, pushed back her chair and stood up. “I don’t know how to thank you enough, Nick.”
Staring across at her, he could see the relief in her eyes.
“Just tell Caleb to hang in there, would you?”
“I will.” She picked up her purse and without a backward glance, opened the door and left the conference room.
Dammit. What had he done? He rocked back in his chair and closed his eyes. This was one ambush he’d willfully landed himself in. Just like the firefight his bogus intel had drawn his buddies into in Iraq. There were lives at stake.
Frustration ignited a powder keg of guilt inside of him. He had to get it right this
time.
Caleb Marshall’s life now rested in his hands.
NICK TRIED TO GET COMFORTABLE in one of the oversize leather wingback chairs clustered in the long gallery leading to Governor Lila Lockhart’s office, but it was useless. His body was simply reacting to the agitated state of his thoughts.
Succumbing to frustration, he stood up and took to pacing back and forth as he fingered the DNA analysis report in his hand.
The firm sound of his boot soles on the gleaming white marble floor echoed throughout the gallery, but he didn’t stop.
He’d gotten himself involved in a conflict of interest that had the potential to blow up in his face, but he brought the image of little Caleb Marshall into his mind’s eye and felt his nerves relax.
The little guy deserved a fighting chance, and if this meeting with the governor afforded Caleb that, then he would take whatever fallout it generated around his position at CSaI.
Glancing up he spotted Parker McKenna as he stepped through the double doors at the end of the corridor and strode toward him with a frown on his face.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, buddy, but the shooting attempt still has Lila rattled, and we picked up some movement around the perimeter of the grounds late last night on the security cameras. I put the place in lock-down while Matteo and Harlan checked it out.”
“Not a problem.” He fell in step next to Parker as he turned and headed back toward the governor’s office doors. “Did you find anything in your sweep?”
“A couple of boot tracks in the mud on the northeast corner of the grounds. No one trespassed beyond that point. We cast them for analysis. Matt is taking apart the surveillance video frame by frame, hoping to get a possible ID on the intruder.”
“Could be whoever it was, was testing your preparedness, checking to see if you’ve beefed up the protection around Governor Lockhart. Could be they’re scouting for weaknesses in your defenses so they can make another attempt.”
Parker stopped outside the doors. “Thanks for your input, Nick. I certainly wish you were involved in this investigation, but I understand you’re working on something else for the governor.”
“Let me know if I can help with reconnaissance if you get a usable image off the video footage.”
“I will.” Parker reached down and turned the knob on the right side door, then pushed it open.
Nick stepped inside and listened to the soft click of the latch behind him.
Governor Lila Lockhart looked up from her position behind the massive desk that dominated the antique-filled room. The place had once been her father’s safe haven. He only knew it for fact because team member Wade Coltrane had told him this was the place where Lila’s father had cut a land deal to help out a desperate Henry Kemp. A deal that had left the Lockharts rich and the Kemps struggling to hold on to the remainder of their ranch.
“Agent Cavanaugh. Please, come in. I’m anxious to hear about your progress on the matter we discussed.”
Nick encased his intentions in armor and walked to the desk, where he shook Lila’s outstretched hand.
“I don’t have to tell you how sensitive this matter is.”
“No.”
“Good. Have a seat and tell me, were you able to get any information based on the license-plate number I saw the morning the family picked up the infant?” She stared at him with an unemotional intensity that spoke of analytical precision, but somewhere under her polished exterior she had to have an emotional response of some kind. That infant had been her child, her own flesh and blood.
He shrugged it off and lowered himself into one of the two chairs in front of the desk. “I was able to trace the old plate number you gave me to a Claudine and Ralph Wilson in Amarillo. They’re both deceased now. A car accident four years ago.”
For an instant Lila’s facade melted and her blue eyes took on a watery sheen that she easily blinked away. “And what of the child? Were you able to make a DNA match between us?”
“Yes. She’s your daughter. She’s alive, well and living here in Freedom.”
Lila sucked in a quick breath and leaned back in her chair. “Does she know I’m her birth mother and that I gave her up for adoption?”
“No, but she’s here with the specific task of finding you.”
“She must never learn of my identity, and I do not want to know hers. It could jeopardize my bid for the presidency and decimate my political career. The press and my pundits would have a field day with the information. Not even my press secretary would be able to spin the rhetoric before it destroyed me.”
“There’s more to it, Governor. She has a sick child who needs a bone-marrow transplant. She needs a close blood relative as a donor. She’s a mother, and she’s desperate.”
The color leaked from the governor’s face, then returned under her makeup in the form of rosy blotches on her cheeks. “So you believe she could be here to blackmail me into becoming the child’s donor, if she’s able to discover who I am, or she’ll torpedo my presidential aspirations with the scandal it could ignite?”
Nick gritted his teeth. He’d been retained to make sure that scenario never took shape. “I’m monitoring her on a daily basis. She hasn’t discovered your identity. She’s been working from a redacted copy of the adoption order—that’s how she tracked you to Freedom—but you might consider beating her to the punch by becoming an anonymous donor for her child.”
“I will not!” Lila’s eyes narrowed as she studied him. “Find out how much it’s going to cost me to keep her quiet. Better yet, I’ll pay out-of-pocket for a Texas state wide bone-marrow drive in Amarillo. Perhaps a donor can be found there.”
Tension walked across the back of his neck. He found another focal point in the room, a set of longhorns protruding from a velvet-covered mounting. The governor’s callous response was wreaking havoc on his sense of right, but he hadn’t been handed this assignment so he could advocate for Grace on the other side. He’d been hired to make sure none of it ever came to light.
“A lot of desperate recipients could benefit from that, Governor. Maybe even your own grandson.”
“I’ll put the wheels in motion.” She nodded, showing no sign that the word grandson had even penetrated her seemingly glacial emotions.
“Assure me you’ll continue to monitor the situation, keep her quiet and keep me informed?”
“You have my word.” Nick gritted his teeth and stood up. Maybe the bone-marrow drive would produce a donor for Caleb. He had to hang hope on that.
“Bart speaks highly of you, Agent Cavanaugh. That’s why I chose you to take this assignment. Don’t let me down.”
He nodded to the governor and she went back to work on the papers scattered across the desktop in front of her.
Nick went to the door. He grasped the knob, turned it and stepped out into the corridor, spotting Parker McKenna coming toward him at a fast clip.
“Nick. I need you in the control room. Matt has isolated a couple frames of last night’s intruder. He’d like you to take a look. Says the guy looks familiar.”
Pulling the door closed behind him, he fell in step next to Parker.
“Let me guess. The thug from the hospital?”
“He says it could be, but he wants you to take a look, as well. Back up his call.”
Caution worked its way through him. It made sense that the guy who’d made sure Trevor Lewis never spoke again was the one who’d tried their defenses at the ranch. Could he be the shooter, as well?
Nick followed Parker down a narrow hallway off of the gallery. A sharp right and they were standing in a small room with a bank of security-camera feeds lining the wall.
Matteo glanced up at him. “I think it’s him, Nick.” He pushed and held a button and Nick watched the image click backward, before pausing for an instant. He moved closer, leaned in and studied the fuzzy picture on the monitor.
“We captured a few seconds of physical movement before he faded out of camera range.” Matt pushed the pause butto
n again and set the figure in motion.
Nick watched the ski-mask-clad intruder stand up from a crouching position, turn and move out of sight. “Same powerful build. Approximately the same height. I’d say he’s the man who took Lewis out. Could be our shooter, as well. Maybe you should contact the deputy whose uniform he took. They’d have to be about the same size. Maybe he’ll remember something if you show him the footage.”
“Good call. We’ll get on it.” Parker headed out of the control room, presumably to contact the deputy the thug had almost killed with a violent blow to the head.
Matt paused the video and turned his chair. “What’s up?”
Nick crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorjamb. “I need a favor.”
“If it involves stealing more glasses from Talk of the Town you can count me out. Faith is protective of those damn glasses.”
“She told you, huh?”
“She mentioned you pocketed one and promised to bring it back washed.”
A smile busted loose and spread on his face. “It’s at headquarters. I’ll see that it makes the trip back to the café. But that’s not the favor I need.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” The grin on Matt’s face confirmed that his buddy was all in.
“Faith just hired a woman to work some evenings at the café, a Grace Marshall.”
“I’ve met her. She’s gorgeous, and nice. We like her.”
“I need to see the employment application she filled out.”
“Damn.” Matteo stood up and pushed in the chair. “I’m not sure I wanna go there, Nick.”
“I need to know who her previous employer was, or her previous address before she moved to Freedom. I know she grew up in Amarillo, but after college in Texas, she married and disappeared. I’ve got a hole to plug in her background, or at least I’ve got to know what fits in it.”
“Does this involve your special assignment for Governor Lockhart?”
“Yeah.” In a roundabout way it had everything to do with his assignment, but deep down he needed to get a handle on who was following Grace and why she was running scared. Besides, he was responsible for keeping her under surveillance and that meant keeping her and Caleb safe.
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