Pulling the Trigger

The lengthy pause indicated that Sherman had struck a nerve. “You’ve got nothing on me. No name. No ID. But can you still say no when the detox kicks in? Can you keep your mouth shut about Perkins? About Grainger’s murder? Do you really want to take the fall for our crimes? This is a federal investigator they’re bringing in, Watts, not some good ol’ boy sheriff who’ll give you a sip from his own flask and let you walk away. I hear she’s tough. She’ll break you.”

“She?” He took the news like a punch to the gut.

Hell. It was a woman who had turned him to drink in the first place. Some woman or other always seemed to be standing in the way of what he deserved. His high school sweetheart, Naomi, had married his best friend, Ralph Kuchu, instead of him. Eighteen years later, Naomi had been drunk enough to get herself and Ralph both killed in a car wreck—taking the woman Sherman loved and the money Ralph owed him to their graves.

Women were good for one thing. Sobering him up and poking questions at him wasn’t it.

And if she did flash her boobs or nag him enough and get him to reveal what he knew about Julie Grainger’s murder or Boyd Perkins’s whereabouts, then he’d be a dead man. He was only useful to Perkins and the family he worked for as long as he kept his mouth shut.

“All right. I can hide out for a few days.” Sherman carried his bag out to the table and packed the whiskey bottle in with a change of socks and some fishing gear. He grabbed his sleeping bag from the closet and tied it to his pack. “Let Perkins and Mr. Wayne know that I’m out of here.”

After disconnecting the call, Sherman opened the trailer door and studied the sky. Clouds were gathering with the promise of spring rain in the next twenty-four hours, give or take. That was good. It’d be hell to sleep in, as the temperature in the mountains was still cold on June nights. But rain also meant he wouldn’t leave any tracks. He reached for his black, flat-brimmed hat and pulled it on over scraggly hair that was still as black as it had been the day he was born over fifty years ago. With his survival skills, he could last for weeks up in the red rocks and cliffs of the Mesa Verde range.

He could last as long as he had something to drink.

And no woman got in his way.

Chapter One (#ulink_e03a194f-1ac5-5177-9eaa-429a98b5830d)

Special Agent Joanna Rhodes stepped off the puddle jumper flight from Durango into the rain at Kenner City, Colorado.

Though the other two passengers on the same plane made a dash for the shelter of the terminal, Joanna stood on the tarmac, surveying the stark, dramatic landscape of red rock mountains and barren desert spaces of the Four Corners region of the state. Awe-inspiring. Rich in history and mystique. Majestic. She’d read all the descriptors in tourism magazines and advertisements for the nearby casino.

But she couldn’t see the beauty. She could barely feel the cool drizzle of rain spitting against her face. An oppressive sense of the world closing in around her, so at odds with the rugged, wide-open spaces, made it difficult to catch her breath.

“Suck it up, girl,” Joanna whispered between clenched teeth, her nostrils flaring as she pulled her shoulders back and ordered her lungs to expand. It wasn’t the altitude or the faint chill of early spring in the air that had grabbed hold of her. It wasn’t the rain, kicking up a familiar, omnipresent dust and washing the scent of ozone down to her level, that made moving from this spot so difficult. It was the memories swirling inside her head, attacking her from every direction, that made this homecoming feel like a walk down a long corridor at a maximum-security prison, ending at a windowless cell with her name on it.

“That’s the power of positive thinking,” she chided herself with sarcasm, hating that her thoughts had gone off on the morbid metaphor. Fanciful images of any kind didn’t fit with the practical, efficient persona she’d worked so hard to cultivate. This wasn’t supposed to be a stroll down memory lane for her. “Focus on the work.”

She was here to break open a case that the bureau, local law enforcement and the Kenner County Crime Lab had been investigating for five months now. Solve the murder of a federal agent in the area and uncover suspected links to the feuding Wayne and Del Gardo crime families out of Las Vegas. Find a lead on the missing fifty million dollars that the late crime boss, Vincent Del Gardo, had allegedly hid in the Four Corners area.

All she had to do was face down a nightmare from her past to get the answers they needed.

No small task on any front.

This was her assignment. She’d been personally requested by the Durango bureau office because of her ethnic background and ties to the area. Her boss in D.C. had assured her it was a career-making opportunity she’d be foolish to pass up. Besides, a job was a job. And she was damn good at hers.

Blinking the moisture from her long dark eyelashes, Joanna checked the Glock 9 mm in the holster on her belt, as well as the FBI shield clipped beside it. Then she rebuttoned her pin-striped blazer and shook her ponytail down the center of her back.

“Piece of cake.” Armed inside and out, she pulled up the handle on her overnight suitcase and strode toward the terminal.

“Agent Rhodes?” The glass double doors swung open and a tall, lanky man wearing a tuxedo with a cowboy hat and boots jogged out to meet her.

Instinctively, she halted and retreated half a step, her hand hovering near her gun, waiting for the man to identify himself.

“Didn’t see you inside and thought I’d missed you. Sorry I’m running late. I had to pick up my wife and son and give away a bride before I could get here.” He stopped a few feet away and tipped the brim of his hat before extending his hand in greeting. “I’m Patrick Martinez.”

“Joanna Rhodes.” Recognizing the name and the general description of dark hair and Irish-blue eyes given her by the bureau chief in Durango, Jerry Ortiz, she reached out to shake hands with the Kenner County sheriff. “You’re not late, Sheriff. But I’d like to remind you that I could just as easily have rented a car and driven myself to your office.”

He grinned. “Well, that wouldn’t say very much for western hospitality, now, would it.”

Knowing she was meant to smile at the friendly remark, she curved her mouth into a practiced arc. But when he reached for the handle of her suitcase, Joanna tightened her grip. Long before she’d reached the age of thirty-three, she’d learned to take care of herself in every way that mattered. “I’ve got it.”

With a nod, he turned to walk beside her. “Then let’s get you out of the rain and get you briefed on the investigation.” Despite her show of independence, his longer stride got him to the doors first, and he pulled one open for her. He glanced up at the late afternoon’s overcast sky as she walked through. “We’re expecting storms on and off all weekend long. This little sprinkle is just the prelude.”

She remembered the all or nothing weather patterns from her childhood. Summers could be beastly hot and dry, yet still be chilly at night. Winters were frigid, especially up in the mountains. And the transitional seasons in between promised torrential rains and flash floods, or blizzards, depending on the temperature. The area was probably going through its spring thaw right now, when massive snowmelts at the higher elevations filled the rivers and streams in the area—the same streambeds that would be bone dry come autumn. But she wasn’t here to reminisce or discuss the weather. “How far are we from your office? I understand it shares a building with the crime unit?”

Once they cleared the terminal, the sheriff pointed to the officially marked black Suburban parked at the curb. With a beep from his key chain, he opened the back door behind the passenger seat. “You can toss your bag in here.”

“Thank you.”

His cowboy-style manners were charming but unnecessary. And once they were both inside the car, he seemed to accept that she was more interested in answers than in making new friends. “We’ve got a smoothly integrated system here in Kenner County. Budget constraints being what they are, the practicality of housing the area law enforcement units in one location made it a no-brainer. A briefing room, locker rooms, executive offices, plus the interview rooms, lineup room and temporary lockup are located on the first two floors, while most of the crime lab is housed upstairs on the third. We’ve got a fourth floor for storage.” He shifted into Drive and pulled onto the highway leading into town. “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Through the rhythmic swish of the windshield wipers, Joanna watched the landscape change from scrub brush to the metal prefab buildings of a growing industrial park. They passed a neat and tidy residential area nestled in the foothills, filled with square, pueblo-style houses, bungalows and larger Victorian reproduction homes. Finally, Sheriff Martinez turned his car toward the brick and stone buildings that marked the downtown area. Kenner City was a quaint, bustling enterprise of a town, nestled in a bowl between mountain peaks. It boasted striped awnings and pinewood balconies, and flags flew above nearly every storefront and business.

Not one trailer park in sight. No run-down liquor store on the main drag. No tattered teenage girl running the streets, looking for her parents in seedy bars and back alleys, hoping they’d be happy drunk and cooperate with her efforts to get them safely home, instead of mean drunk and belligerent, or just flat passed out from whatever party or paycheck they’d drunk their way through on any given night.

Everything here was charming and well kept and scrupulously clean—a far cry from the Ute reservation where she’d grown up, just a few more miles down the road.

She knew she was expected to say something, to make conversation to pass the drive time. But Joanna had made a career out of watching and assessing before she spoke, learning to listen without saying more than was required. Even before her training, idle chitchat had never come easily for her.

The sheriff didn’t seem to have that problem, however. “The hotel where you’re booked is just a block from our location, and I figured you’d be doing your interview of the suspect there. If you do want to go somewhere, one of my deputies will be available to drive you. Or we can loan you a vehicle if it’s not in use.” He slowed as they drove through the heart of downtown, touching his hat to pedestrians hurrying along the wide sidewalks. As they passed the last few businesses, he pointed out a diner-style restaurant with bright lights and lots of windows called the Morning Ray Café. “That’s my mom’s place. You can get all three meals there. It’s good, down-home cookin’ that’ll fill you up.”

The gleam of pride was obvious in his tone and smile. Joanna’s mother’s idea of a home-cooked meal had involved ripping open packages and zapping them in the microwave—when she remembered to fix any meal at all for her daughter. Joanna had turned herself into a fairly accomplished cook by the time she’d finished the third grade, simply as a matter of survival. But the lack of three square meals a day growing up had been the least of her problems.

The sheriff reached across the seat and tapped her elbow to pull her attention from her thoughts. He pointed to an imposing building with a gray brick and white stone facade on the corner at the end of the street. “There’s your hotel. Used to be a mining office, but now it’s completely remodeled inside. Want to check in first?”

Alarmed to realize her thoughts kept drifting to the past instead of focusing squarely on her present assignment, Joanna resolutely straightened in her seat. “Let’s go directly to your office. I want to familiarize myself with my surroundings before I meet the suspect I’m interrogating.”

“You want the home field advantage?” he teased.

“Something like that.” They had almost driven out of the far edge of town before Joanna spotted the rambling four-story building with signs that read Kenner City Sheriff and Kenner County Crime Unit. “I read the file from Supervisor Ortiz, but I’d like to get your take on things since you’ve worked more closely on Agent Grainger’s murder. What can you tell me about your suspect, Sherman Watts?”

Good. She got the name out without so much as a stutter of hesitation.

Focus on the job, Joanna. Watts is just a job.

“He’s a local troublemaker. Been convicted and jailed on any number of petty crimes—mostly drunk and disorderly, a couple of assaults.”

“A-assault?” That was a definite hesitation.

But Martinez, fortunately, didn’t pick up on the way she stiffened in her seat. He pulled into a slanted parking space in front of the building. “When Watts is drunk, he can get mean.”

So some things never changed in Kenner County. “You don’t have him in custody?”

“We suspect he’s been doing odd jobs for the Nicky Wayne crime family out of Vegas, like helping Wayne’s hit man, Boyd Perkins, hide out in the area. However, what we believe and what we can prove are two different things. That’s why he’s still a free man. But he’s definitely a person of interest we’ve been watching. Could be he had nothing to do with the murder, and he’s only funneling information to them—someone sure seems to be.”

She’d heard about the information leaks that had dogged the investigation, seeming to give Boyd Perkins—the man reputed to have killed mob boss Vincent Del Gardo, as well as the bureau’s chief suspect in Agent Grainger’s murder—a heads-up when to go into hiding or carry out another attack. “How do you want me to direct my interrogation? Confirm the source of the security leak? Find out if Perkins is still in the area and pinpoint his location? Or should I concentrate on Watts himself, and tie him to Boyd Perkins and Agent Grainger’s murder so you can make an arrest?”