Special Agent's Perfect Cover

The next minute, Hawk saw the chief of police pull himself together. What appeared to have been a momentary lapse, a chink in his armor, disappeared without a trace. Instead, a steely confidence descended over the older man’s features again, eliminating any hint that he had been unnerved by talk of an investigation.

“I’m afraid that someone’s been pulling your leg, Bledsoe,” Fargo told him in a measured, firm voice. “We don’t allow any crime here in Cold Plains.”

Talk about being pompous, Hawk thought. The man set the bar at a new height. “Well, whether you allow it or not, Sheriff—”

“Chief,” Fargo corrected tersely. “I’m the chief of police here.”

Hawk inclined his head. If the man wanted to play games, so be it. He could play along for now, as long as it bought him some time and he could continue with his investigation. Not that he thought Fargo would be of any help to him. He just didn’t want the man to be a hindrance.

“Chief,” Hawk echoed, then continued, “but those five women are still dead nonetheless.”

Minute traces of a scowl took over Fargo’s average features. “I run a very tight ship here, Bledsoe. Everyone’s happy, everyone gets along. Look around you,” he instructed gruffly as he gestured about to encompass the entire town. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t the town you left behind when you tore out of here after graduation.” His eyes narrowed with the intention of pinning his opponent down. “I’ve been the chief of police these last five years and I don’t recall anyone finding any bodies of dead women in Cold Plains,” he concluded, closing the subject as far as he was concerned.

“That’s because they weren’t found here,” Hawk explained evenly. “The bodies were discovered in five different locations throughout Wyoming over the last five years.”

The expression on Fargo’s face said that the matter was settled by the FBI agent’s own admission. “Well, if you know that, then I don’t understand what you’re doing here, trying to stir things up. We’re a peaceful little town, and we don’t need your kind of trouble here.”

A “peaceful little town” with a whole lot of secrets in its closet, Hawk was willing to bet. Out loud he said, “All the women are believed to have been from here at one time or another.”

“Hell, what someone does once they leave Cold Plains isn’t any concern of mine.” Though he continued to maintain the mirthless smile on his lips, Fargo’s eyes seemed to bore into the man he considered an interloper—and possibly a problem. “If they found you dead, say in Cheyenne, that wouldn’t be a reflection on the place where you were born, now, would it, Bledsoe?”

Hawk knew when he was being threatened and none-too-subtly at that. He had a feeling that Carly knew, too, because he saw her grow rigid, and just for a moment, that empty smile on her face had faded. She almost looked like the Carly he remembered, the Carly he still carried around in his head, despite all his efforts not to.

“It would be if I was killed here and then moved to Cheyenne,” Hawk countered calmly.

He saw a flash of anger in the watery eyes before the chief got himself under control. “Is that what you’re saying, Bledsoe? That these women were killed here and then somehow magically lifted and deposited in different places, all without my knowing a thing about it?” He drew closer, more menacing. “You think I’m that blind?”

“No, I don’t,” Hawk answered evenly. “And what I’m saying is that I need to investigate their deaths further, and that since they did come from Cold Plains, I wanted to ask a few questions starting here.”

Fargo crossed his arms before him, an immovable brick wall. Daring the other man to say the wrong thing. “Go ahead.”

Their battlefield would be of his choosing, not Fargo’s. “When I have the right questions,” he told the chief mildly, “I’ll be sure to come look you up.”

Fargo’s eyes narrowed into pale blue slits. “You do that.” He shifted his gaze to Carly, who had been, for the most part, silently witnessing this exchange. Though there was a smile on the older man’s lips, he looked far from happy. “Looks like recess time is over, Ms. Finn.” He waved at the children behind her. “You’d best get those little ones back to their classrooms.”

It was a veiled order, and Carly knew it. Nodding, she let the chief think that she appreciated his prompting. There was no point in digging in now. She needed Fargo to believe she was as mindless as all the other women who had chosen to cleave to Grayson’s remodeled version of paradise on earth.

“Right you are, Chief.”

Turning, she deliberately avoided making eye contact with Hawk, afraid he would see too much there, things that would give him pause. Because if he thought that what she was doing might all be an act, she was certain that Fargo, who was smarter than he actually looked, would pick up on it.

Worse, the chief might act on it. She didn’t want any harm coming to Hawk. Though it might sound callous to someone else, she didn’t care about the women whose murders were being investigated. They were dead, and nothing would change that. But Hawk wasn’t. She didn’t want Hawk getting hurt, and if he stayed here any length of time, he just might become a target.

It wasn’t safe here anymore.

Hawk had always shot straight from the hip, and around here, that was dangerous. Fargo wasn’t a man to cross and neither was Grayson or any of his cold-blooded henchmen. The only way to deal with any of them was to pretend to play the game.

As Carly withdrew, Fargo remained standing where he was, his right hand resting on the hilt of his holstered weapon as he regarded Hawk.