In the Enemy's Sights

by Marta Perry

  This was entirely too comfortable—sitting here alone with Ken, relieved that he was all right. “Did you decide about calling Quinn?”

  He frowned, as if he didn’t like being reminded about the night’s problems. “He’ll be coming to relieve me in an hour. I’ll talk to him about it then. It’s not as if we can do anything in the dark.”

  “The men will make short work of getting the lumber stacked again once they get here in the morning. But I think you should go on home. I’ll wait for Quinn to arrive, if you want.”

  She didn’t think he’d accept that. Sure enough, he was shaking his head before she got the words out.

  “No, thanks. I’ll hang around.” The furrows deepened between his brows. “I wasn’t worried about restacking the lumber, though.”

  She stared at him blankly. “What then?”

  He set the mug down on her desk and leaned toward her, face intent. “What made the lumber fall to begin with?”

  “Well, I—I don’t know.” How odd it was, that she hadn’t even thought about that. She’d been too focused on Ken’s safety.

  “Neither do I. But I’m going to find out.” When she didn’t respond, he shook his head impatiently. “Wake up, Juli. That lumber didn’t fall accidentally just when I was walking by.”

  She rubbed her forehead. “You’re right. I don’t know why I’m being so stupid. Those stacks are perfectly secure. One couldn’t collapse unless—”

  “Unless somebody made it happen,” he finished for her. His voice was grim.

  “More vandalism. But this isn’t like putting sugar in the gas tanks. You were hurt.” A shudder went through her.

  “If Angel hadn’t barked when she did, warning me, I would have had more than a few bruises to show for it.” His face was grim. “I’d have been buried under that pile of lumber.”

  Ken pulled into the driveway at his mother’s house a couple hours later and frowned at the sight of his brother’s car. So much for his hope of sneaking into the house without encountering his mother. All the lights blazed.

  What was going on? Usually Mom was ensconced in bed at this hour, half reading, half watching the news on television. He’d counted on just poking his face in long enough to say good-night and beating a quick retreat before she realized anything was wrong.

  Quinn wouldn’t have called, would he? Or Julianna? Surely not. Well, he better go in and face the music.

  It didn’t take more than an instant to realize that his accident was, for once, not his mother’s preoccupation. His brother, Michael, sat on the sofa, his arm around the shoulders of his girlfriend, Layla Dixou. Both wore a glow that was unmistakable, and if he hadn’t figured it out from Mike’s expression, he’d have guessed from the fact that his mother was smiling through tears.

  He grinned, holding out his hand to Mike. “Let me guess. I need to congratulate you.”

  Mike stood, his grin threatening to split his lean face. “You’d better. Layla has finally agreed to marry me.” He reached toward her, and the lovely lady vet stood, stepping into the circle of his arm.

  “How could I refuse?” She kissed his cheek lightly. “Strange as it seems, I love the guy.”

  A handshake didn’t seem enough. He grabbed his brother in a hug and wrapped his other arm around Layla. He bent to kiss her cheek.

  “Welcome. I always wanted another sister.”

  “Oh my goodness—Holly.” Mom wiped tears from her cheeks with both palms. “We have to call and tell her. She’ll be so excited.”

  “You mean she’ll be mad that I knew first.” Holly, as the elder twin by ten minutes, always wanted to know everything and do everything first.

  Mike punched him lightly on the arm. “That’s what it is to live at home again, buddy. You get to be first.”

  Mike meant it as a joke, of course, but it was yet another reminder that other people were getting on with their lives while he was stuck in limbo, waiting. Just waiting.

  “Right.” He managed a smile, but the stricken look in Mike’s eyes told him Mike had realized what he’d said. “Relax, Mike. It’s good to be one up on Hol for once.”

  Mom seemed to have missed that byplay, which was just as well. She caught Layla by the hand, drawing her toward the kitchen. “Come with me to call her, Layla. She’ll want to talk to you.”

  “Hey, won’t she want to talk to me?” Mike made a transparent effort to sound hurt.

  “Not unless you want to talk about white lace and orange blossoms.” Layla patted his cheek. “Consider yourself lucky to miss the girl talk.”

  Mom and Layla disappeared into the kitchen. Ken had to grin at the expression on Mike’s face.

  “Hey, didn’t you realize that was what was coming next? A wedding, with all the trimmings.”

  Mike shrugged. “I didn’t think. I mean, Layla’s kind of unconventional. I thought maybe we’d just get married, not have a big production.”

  “Layla might let you get away with that, but Mom and Holly certainly wouldn’t. Brace yourself, big brother. You’re in for it now.”

  Mike squared his shoulders, as if prepared to face anything. “Well, it’s worth it to end up married to Layla. She’s one in a million. What she sees in me and a rundown ranch—”

  “Guess there’s no accounting for tastes.” He tried to speak lightly, but there was a lump in his throat. “You’re a lucky man.”

  “I am.” Mike said the words as if they were a vow. “You ought to try it, Ken. Quit playing the field and get serious about someone.”

  “Playing the field is the last thing I’ve been doing. Trust me, I was too busy to think much about dating. And lately—”

  Lately he’d been shuttled from one hospital to another, listening to one Air Force doctor after another.

  Mike seemed to pick up on what he didn’t say. “Well, you’re home now, for awhile at least. Why don’t you make some nice Springs woman happy by asking her out?”

  “You sound like Holly. Don’t tell me you’re going to turn into a matchmaker, too?”

  Although, come to think of it, he did have a date of sorts, with Julianna. He’d better not let Holly get wind of that, or she’d never let him forget her efforts.

  “No, no.” Mike shuddered. “None of that for me. I don’t understand heifers, let alone women.”

  “Well, you’ve got Layla to take care of that now.”

  “Right.” His face grew serious. “After as close to death as we came in that cave-in, I’m not letting her get away from me. Guess you know it was Julianna Red Feather who found us. Are you seeing anything of her over at the construction company?”

  “Some.” Mike didn’t need to know how much. Or how recently. “I’ve seen her work with that dog of hers. Pretty impressive, what she does.”

  “Nobody knows that better than I do.” His brow furrowed. “I heard from somebody that coming in after Layla and me was the first time she’d been out with her team since that big hurricane last year in Florida. I guess she went through a pretty bad time there.”

  It wasn’t any of his business, was it? And yet he couldn’t help caring about anything that had to do with Julianna.

  “I hadn’t heard about that, but she’s training with her team now. They were out at the construction yard running a drill.”

  “Good. Seems like something too important to give up.” Mike shook his head, smiling. “Funny to think of little Julianna doing that, doesn’t it?”

  “Five-foot-two inches of nerve and muscle, that’s Julianna.” She had to have enough courage for three people to do what she did, and he was always intrigued by courage.

  “That’s who you ought to ask out.” Mike reverted with unnerving suddenness to the previous topic. “Mom would be delighted to see you dating Julianna.”

  “Mom’s already delighted enough with your engagement. That’ll keep her busy for a while.” Who was he kidding? If Mom got wind of him going out with Julianna, he’d never hear the end of it.

  “You wish.” Mike
grinned, obviously pleased at having scored off his little brother. “And speaking of Mom, you’d best do something to hide that lump on your head.”

  He brushed his hair in his face again. Too bad he still wore it in a regulation military cut. “Better?”

  “Just don’t let her see you in a bright light. What happened?”

  Mike was safe enough, but he didn’t want rumors to start spreading about Montgomery Construction. “Not much. Just a little accident down at the construction yard.”

  Mike snorted. “Seems to me entirely too many ‘little accidents’ are happening to be accidental.”

  It was what he’d been thinking himself, but he was startled to hear it from his brother. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I don’t believe in coincidence. It’d be nice to think that business with the drug cartel last year was over, but I’m starting to wonder.”

  Now he was startled. “I thought the ringleader, Escalante, died in a plane crash.”

  “Never believe everything you hear. They never found his body, and he was the kind that had as many lives as a cat.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’m overreacting, but I don’t think so. Something’s going on.” He squeezed Ken’s shoulder. “You be careful, you hear?”

  Julianna pulled into the parking area at the office early the next morning. She hadn’t expected to be able to sleep after Ken’s accident the night before, but to her surprise, she’d dived into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time in a week. She wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but at least she’d awakened feeling ready to go.

  Somehow she wasn’t surprised to see the silver compact Ken drove pull up next to her. Ken wasn’t the kind of person who’d take a day off because of a bump on the head.

  She got out and stood beside the car, waiting for him to join her. She inspected his forehead.

  “Like I said, purple.”

  He frowned in annoyance. “You sound like my mother.”

  “Your mother’s a very nice lady, but I have no desire to sound like her. What did you and Quinn do after I left last night?”

  “Hashed it out without coming to any conclusions.” He glanced toward the spot where the lumber lay strewn on the ground. “We’ll need to take a good look around in daylight, see if we can find anything. He insisted I go on home. Said he’d make spot checks the rest of the night.”

  She nodded, getting out her key. “The new man is supposed to start tonight. That should ease the burden.”

  “Right. Quinn can’t expect to stand guard at night and still function during the day. At least they left us alone the rest of the night.”

  She grasped the door handle, starting to put her key in the lock. But she couldn’t. The lock was dented, and the slightest pressure from the key sent the door shifting slightly open.

  She exchanged a startled look with Ken. Before she could move he grasped her arm and drew her behind him. Then he shoved the door fully open.

  Julianna couldn’t suppress a gasp. The office looked as if a small tornado had ripped through it. They’d been wrong. The vandals hadn’t left them alone.

  For a moment she could only stand and stare. Then fury poured through her. She started toward her desk phone, which lay on the floor on top of the philodendron that had been on the windowsill.

  “I’ll call the police.”

  “Wait.” Ken’s hand on her arm stopped her. He already had his cell phone out, and he pulled her toward the door. “Let me get Quinn first. That decision is his call.”

  He was right, of course, but even so she itched to be doing something. She leaned against her car, listening while he described the situation to Quinn in a few words. She couldn’t make out individual words in Quinn’s agitated response, but she thought she got the message.

  When Ken hung up, she raised her eyebrows at him.

  “No police.” He shrugged. “I don’t agree with him, but it’s his business, not mine. And he’s right about one thing—as of tonight, we’ll have twenty-four-hour guards on duty.”

  “I guess I can understand his viewpoint. No one would want to hire a construction company that’s a target for vandals. They’d think their property would be next on the list.” She moved to the doorway and surveyed the mess. “I guess I’d better get started cleaning this up.”

  “We,” Ken said. “We will clean up. And Quinn’s on his way.”

  She nodded and bent to pick up her philodendron. “Poor thing.”

  “Toss it in the trash,” Ken said abruptly. “I’ll get you a new one.”

  She was, quite irrationally, angry. “I don’t want a new one. I want this one!” She stopped, shaking her head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

  “That’s all right. I feel like snapping, too.” Ken picked up a trash can. “You decide. You tell me what’s safe to throw away.”

  “Well, the coffee can go, for starters.” The contents of the two-pound can had been liberally sprinkled over the mass of papers on the floor. “There’s a broom and dustpan in the closet. If you just want to stack the papers, I’ll have to go through all of them. Though I probably have everything on my computer.”

  Ken’s gaze narrowed as he transferred his gaze to the computer on her desk. She caught his meaning instantly, and dropped the plant to step over her overturned chair to the desk.

  “If they’ve broken my computer—” But the blue screen appeared, followed by her desktop. “No, thank goodness. That would have been the worst.”

  “Don’t you have everything backed up?” His tone was sharp, and she bristled at the implied criticism.

  “I’m backed up for system failure, not vandalism. Who would expect that? But from now on, everything will go home with me on a flash drive backup.”

  “Right.” He ran his hand through his hair, making the purple bruise on his forehead stand out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to criticize. Nobody expects something like this. Although—”

  She righted her chair. “Although what?”

  “Given everything that’s been going wrong in the past few months—” He shook his head. “I’m beginning to find it hard to believe there’s not something—or someone—behind this sudden rash of misfortune.”

  Her first impulse was to deny it. People didn’t carry on vendettas in placid Colorado Springs. But Ken had a point.

  “A lot of bad things have been happening to the Montgomerys and Vances lately,” she said slowly.

  “Too many bad things.” His frown deepened. “Michael thinks it’s mixed up with that ugly business last year.”

  “The drug cartel?” That exposure had been front page news in The Colorado Springs Sentinel for months. “I thought they arrested those people.”

  “Not all of them. And the way things have been going on around here, it seems as if someone’s got Montgomery Construction in his gun sight.”

  She could only stare at him for a long moment. “You’re serious?”

  “Like I said, I don’t believe in coincidence.” He shrugged, bending to pick up a handful of papers. “Although I have to admit, this seems like a pretty ineffective way of harassing us.”

  “Yes,” she said slowly, her mind churning with possibilities. She sank down in the desk chair and began paging through her files.

  “What are you doing? I thought you were going to help me clean up this mess before we get back to work.”

  “In a minute.”

  A bad feeling was growing inside her as she flipped through the files. Ken was right. This was a pretty ineffective way of shutting down a construction company. But if you knew enough, there was a better way.

  Ken came to lean over her, hands braced on the back of her chair. She seemed to feel them, as if they were pressed on her shoulders.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Something a little more important than spilled coffee.”

  She opened the report she’d been working on the day before—the latest report on the construction project at the hospital. She paged through it, half-afrai
d of what she was going to find, her certainty growing.

  “There,” she said at last. “This is what they were really after.”

  He bent over her, his breath feathering against her cheek. “What is it?”

  “The report Quinn was going to present to the hospital board later today.” Today.

  “Just looks like rows of figures to me.”

  “It is.” She bit her lip. If she was making a mistake…but she knew in her heart she wasn’t. “They’ve been changed.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “Because I did this report yesterday. I remember what the numbers should be.”

  Ken was looking at her with a skeptical expression, and her anger spurted.

  “You don’t need to look at me that way. I remember the work I’ve done. And I certainly remember what the figures are supposed to show.”

  He nodded slowly, and she knew he was accepting her judgment. “So someone tampered with this report. What does it mean?”

  She paused, giving herself a moment to question her hunch. But she was right. She knew it.

  “If Quinn had presented this report to the hospital board without catching this, it would have looked as if Montgomery Construction were trying to cheat on the contract.”

  “In other words, that sort of accusation could have meant the end of Montgomery Construction.” Ken’s hand tightened painfully on her shoulder.

  She didn’t mind. It made her feel as if she and Ken were united against an enemy. And it began to look as if the feeling was true.

  FIVE

  “I’m not sure what I’m doing here,” Julianna murmured as Ken held open the door of the Stagecoach Café for her.

  Ken took her arm. “You’re here because you’re an important part of the company. Besides, this is a council of war, and you know as much about what’s been going on as anyone does.”

  He was probably right about that. She did seem to have been present for the most recent problems, in any event. And Quinn had been almost embarrassingly extravagant in praising her for finding the changes that had been made in the report. She’d spent the rest of the morning closeted in the conference room, reconstituting the report from her notes.