Loaded
“You limp,” Trish admitted. “But you could never be useless.”
I’ve hired Shelly Lane,” Lenora said. “If you want to get rid of that cane, you’ll cooperate with her. If you’re too hardheaded to work with her, then it will be your loss. She’s moving in tomorrow.” Lenora dusted her hands as if that were the end of the matter, but that didn’t mean it was.
“Tomorrow?” Jaime questioned. “I thought this new physical therapist was in the hospital.”
Lenora kicked off her black sandals and pulled a foot into the chair with her, settling it under her full black skirt. “If not tomorrow, then the next day. She’s coming here to recuperate.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Langston questioned.
“Why wouldn’t it be? She doesn’t have anywhere else to go,” Lenora said. “Besides, it will give her a chance to get to know Jeremiah before she starts working with him.”
“Yeah, like that’s an advantage,” Jaime mocked.
Matt’s muscles tightened. “I know you mean well, Mom, but you can’t just move her onto the ranch until we have more facts about today’s attack.”
“What’s to know?” Lenora asked. “She was just crossing the street and someone started firing at her. You were the one who told me what happened, Matt. That’s why I went to the hospital to check on her.”
“That’s the way it looked,” Matt said, “and the way Shelly told it, but at this point there’s no way to know she’s leveling with us. The shooter could be someone she knows.”
Jeremiah swung his cane in the air, banging it into the leg of a table and sending a half-empty glass of iced tea into a wobbling dance that fortunately ended without the glass hitting the floor. “Don’t know what this world’s coming to, but if some sick bastard’s trying to kill her, you ought to already have her out here. Can’t expect a woman to take care of herself.”
“Right,” Jaime said, mocking him. “What would we ever do without a man to take care of us?”
“Let’s get back to Shelly Lane,” Langston said. “She’s probably as innocent in all this as she claims, but to be on the safe side, I’d like to have Clay Markham investigate her before we move her onto Jack’s Bluff. He’s as competent a private detective as you’ll find anywhere in Texas, and Collingsworth Oil has him on retainer.”
“And I say we get Aidan Jefferies to run a police background check on her as well,” Matt said. “If they both clear her, then Mom can move her in with no worries.” Aidan was one of Langston’s closest friends and a Houston homicide detective.
“How long are we talking about for these investigations?” Lenora asked.
“A few days at most,” Langston assured her. “Actually, they’ll probably know by tomorrow night if she’s had any other attempts on her life or reported any type of threats. They’ll definitely know if she has a police record of any kind.”
“I guess I can live with that,” Lenora said, “though I hate to tell her that I’m going back on my offer to move her out here tomorrow. And I don’t like the idea of her going back to that motel all alone.”
“Have the doctor keep her in the hospital,” Matt said. “I don’t know why he’d object to that, as long as we pick up the tab.”
“I suppose that’s an option,” Lenora said. “And tomorrow’s probably not the best day to have her out here, anyway, what with children from the Turnaround Program coming out for the day.”
Matt groaned. “That’s tomorrow?”
“Yes, and you promised to help with the horse riding,” Lenora said, smoothing her short graying hair. “I’ll give Shelly’s doctor a call, but I guess I should go back into town tonight and break the news to Shelly in person.”
“I’ll do it,” Matt said, suddenly uneasy with his mother becoming too involved with Shelly before they had an official report.
“Okay, but don’t tell her the delay is because we’re having her investigated. Just say I’m getting her room ready so that everything will be perfect when she arrives.”
Matt shrugged. “Sorry, Mom, I’m not into sugarcoating.”
“Just be nice,” Lenora said. “Miss Lane’s welcome to Texas has already been traumatic enough.”
“I’m always nice.”
“Compared to what?” Jaime asked. “A striking rattlesnake?”
“Just because I’m not a pushover for a smile and a pretty face doesn’t mean I’m unsociable.”
“Pretty, huh?” Jaime smiled tauntingly. “This story just keeps getting better. But I’ll have to hear the rest tomorrow. I’ve got a date with Tommy Stevens tonight, and he should be here to pick me up any minute.”
“When did you start dating him?” Trish asked. “I thought you were back with Garth.”
“Not anymore. All he thinks about is running off to some new rodeo competition. Like at twenty-five, don’t you think he’d have better things to do than try to stay on a stupid bull?”
Matt would have thought the guy had better things to do than date Jaime. She was as fickle as a mare at breeding time. But all she had to do was crook her finger and Garth—and half the male population of south Texas—came running. He hoped someone would shoot him if he ever got that crazy about any woman.
His cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID: sheriff’s office. He walked to the kitchen to take the call. Ten to one this had to do with Shelly Lane, and the odds were even better that it was not good news.
Chapter Three
“What’s up, Ed?” Matt asked as soon as the sheriff identified himself.
“I just talked to Emile Henley up at the Shell Station on the highway west of town. He said a stranger in a black Ford Fusion stopped for gas at his place about an hour before today’s shooting.”
“That’s interesting. Did he think the man might have been drunk or high on something?”
“Nope, just buck-snorting arrogant according to Emile. He said he tried to make small talk when the guy came inside for cigarettes, but the man just made some comment about Colts Run Cross being a hick town and stomped away.”
“Did he notice if the car had a license plate on it at the time?”
“Said he didn’t notice.”
“But he likely would have if the plate had been missing. The culprit probably removed it just before opening fire on Shelly Lane.”
“That’s what I’m thinking as well. I’d be careful if I was you about moving her onto the ranch. She seems nice enough, but truth is she might be mixed up in most anything.”
“I’m in solid agreement. If it were up to me, I’d write out a check for her time and expenses and say adios, but Mom is championing her case—as if she were the only qualified PT north of the border.”
“I hear you, and your mother can be a stubborn woman at times. Can you call Miss Lane to the phone?”
“I’d have to yell awful loud. I’m out at the ranch.”
“Isn’t she there with you?”
“No, why would you think that?”
“I stopped by the hospital a few minutes ago to question her and the nurse said she checked herself out and told them she would be spending the night at Jack’s Bluff Ranch. I figured Lenora had picked her up.”
“No, Mom’s been here all evening. So have I. Shelly Lane is definitely not here.”
“This case is getting weirder by the minute.”
“Is there something more about her past?”
“Not a lot. I ran her through the system. Everything checks out. No warrants out for her arrest. No rap sheet. Not even an outstanding parking ticket.”
“So you’re thinking this might have actually been a case of random violence?”
“Could be. There’s been a rash of them in southeast Houston of late. We’re less than an hour and a half out of the city so it’s reasonable that some of the hoods down there might have connections up here. But then there was the gun.”
“Are you saying you found the weapon?”
“Not the perp’s, but when we were checking Miss Lane’s vehicle for ballistic evidence, I found a loaded Smith & Wesson .45 in her busted-up glove compartment. It might mean nothing. Lots of women traveling alone carry high-powered pistols these days.”
“But it could mean she was afraid of someone,” Matt said, “someone who followed her to Texas.”
“Exactly.”
As far as Matt was concerned, this was beginning to look more and more like the pretty little PT had better reasons than a need for change of scenery for taking a job so far from home. And now she’d lied about where she’d be tonight.
But no matter what she’d told the nurse at the hospital, it was a sure thing she wouldn’t be spending tonight, or any other night, at Jake’s Bluff Ranch until he got to the bottom of this.
FORTUNATELY FOR SHELLY, Hank Tanner’s Garage and Body Shop was on Birch, a quiet side street of mostly closed family-owned businesses less than a mile from the hospital. It should have been an easy twilight walk except that the temperature was still in the eighties and the humidity seemed higher still.
Perspiration wet her underarms and dripped into her eyes. Worse, her arm had stated to throb. Wiping her face with a tissue from her pocket, she crossed the street and turned the corner, thankful when she spotted the sign for the garage in the next block. Her spirits lifted more when she saw her car parked at the side of the old clapboard building.
Hopefully her weapon was still in place. The sheriff would have surely checked the damaged vehicle for ballistics evidence, but he’d have had no reason to check her locked glove compartment. But then he probably had the keys. She didn’t remember giving them to anyone, but either she had or she’d dropped them when she got shot.
Stepping over a crack in the sidewalk, she cut across the corner of the parking lot, walked around the rear of an old pickup truck and got her first good look at the extent of the damage to her vehicle.
The whole side of the car was riddled with bullet holes. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the weapon, but judging from the size and number of holes, it must have been a large automatic. Her nerves grew edgy as it hit her how close she’d come to getting killed.
Attacked in broad daylight on the main street of Colts Run Cross. She could see why that might rouse both the sheriff’s and Matt Collingsworth’s suspicions, but what else could it be except random violence?
The only people with reason not to want her here were the Collingsworths, and it was almost inconceivable that they could have learned her identity this quickly. And even if they had, a careless, open attack like this wasn’t their style.
She let her fingers slide over the damage, then walked to the passenger-side door, opened it and climbed inside. The vehicle wasn’t locked, but even if it had been, entry would have been easy enough with two windows shot out.
Her spirits plunged at the first glimpse inside the glove compartment. The contents—including her weapon—were missing.
There was the possibility that Hank Tanner had her belongings inside for safekeeping, but more likely the sheriff had confiscated them. No problem there. The car and gun registrations would check out.
Still, it was amazing how vulnerable she felt without her weapon, despite the fact that she hadn’t carried it on her body since arriving in Colts Run Cross. It didn’t fit the PT persona and chancing someone noticing that she was carrying a weapon would constitute an unnecessary risk when there was no reason to think she was in any kind of danger.
Her cell phone vibrated—not her regular phone but the CIA one, disguised as a compact. It was her signal to call in at her earliest convenience unless she was free to take the call. She wished she could ignore it, because it was likely her supervisor and she wasn’t sure she was ready to handle Brady Owens just yet. She took a deep breath and leaned against the car.
“Shelly Lane,” she said, identifying herself.
“I got the word you’ve been shot,” Brady said, without bothering with a greeting. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, or I will be in a few days. It was only a flesh wound. Left arm. Random violence. Nothing to worry about—really.”
“Any complication is reason for worry. Where are you?”
“At Hank Tanner’s Garage, standing by my vehicle.”
“Who’s with you?”
“I’m alone. I wouldn’t have answered otherwise.”
“I’m just checking.”
To see if the accident had somehow addled her brain and made her a risk. The Collingsworth case was Brady’s baby and he’d made it clear that he wasn’t comfortable with her lack of experience. She was certain he’d be even less thrilled with her now.
“I’m totally aware of the seriousness of this case, sir, but things are under control. What I meant is there’s no reason the assignment shouldn’t still be a go.”
“That will be my decision. I haven’t made it yet.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have there been any new developments since you called in the report?”
“Nothing except that I’ve left the hospital.”
“Were you released?”
“No, sir, but the wound is too insignificant to require hospitalization. I’ll go back in tomorrow to have it checked.”
“See that you do that. Is there anything else I should know?”
“My weapon was locked in the glove compartment of my car at the time of the shooting incident. It’s missing. I assume either the mechanic took it for safekeeping or the sheriff has it. Either way, I’m sure I’ll get it back.”
“Just be sure to explain it away convincingly. Do you think there is any chance the Collingsworths were behind the attack?”
“I’m all but certain they weren’t. Matt Collingsworth was inside the restaurant when it occurred and was the first to come to my rescue.”
“So I heard. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have ordered a hit. With his money, hired guns are easy to come by.”
“But we have no evidence that any of the Collingsworths have ever used a paid assassin,” Shelly countered. “And Lenora Collingsworth visited me at the hospital. She seemed extremely apologetic about the shooting incident and has asked me to move to the ranch tomorrow. That would be the last thing she’d do if she knew I was with the CIA.”
“It would seem that way, unless you’re walking into a trap.”
“They’re not going to shoot me in cold blood,” Shelly said. “They use money and influence—not guns—to get what they want.” Shelly knew that Brady would have a difficult time denying that.
Besides, she was his best chance—maybe his only chance—to get an agent inside the family circle, and they needed that edge to push things off dead center.
They’d had a mole inside Collingsworth Oil for months. Ben Hartmann was an experienced agent and talented computer hacker, but as yet he hadn’t acquired the proof to seal the case. No proof that the Collingsworths were GAS, Ben’s term for suspects once they had indisputable evidence that they were guilty as sin.
“We’ve spent weeks setting this up,” she argued. “Unless there’s a serious leak in our department, no one could possibly have found out why I’m really here. It would be a major setback if we called this off just because some two-bit hood with a point to prove to his fellow gang members shot up my car.”
“The random violence angle is a huge assumption, Shelly. You know what I think about assumptions.”
“Yes, sir.” But he also knew there was always a gamble in this type of operation.
“I’d like to hear your firsthand, no-spin account of today’s shooting incident.”
She filled him in on the details, leaving nothing out—except for her ridiculous and very momentary attraction to Matt Collingsworth. He listened without questions until she’d finished.
Then the silence on the line seemed thick with apprehension. She knew he was rethinking everything, especially her inexperience. She didn’t breathe easy until she heard the muffled clicking of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a clear signal that he was giving in. All the agents recognized the telltale habit.
“Proceed as planned, while I have this checked into, Shelly. But watch your back and stay on high alert. Never underestimate a Collingsworth.”
“That’s a given.”
Once the connection was broken, she stepped outside the car and looked around. It was almost completely dark now and a sliver of moon hung just over the top of a cluster of sweet gum trees on the opposite side of the street.
There were a couple of other businesses on the block—a machine shop and a tree-trimming business. Both were closed with no sign of life around the buildings, except a black cat, crouched near a trash bin, cautiously watching Shelly.
A welcome gust of wind caught an empty bag and blew it across the parking lot depositing it under Shelly’s banged-up vehicle. Thankfully it was not actually her car, but one the agency had purchased specifically for this assignment.
A pickup truck turned the corner onto Birch, the beam from its headlights fanning her for an instant before returning to the street. The driver slowed, and in spite of her mental reassurances of safety, her nerves skittered nervously.
It’s a small town, she told herself as the driver pulled into the parking lot a few feet away. He was probably just curious why a woman would be out here all alone. Still, she’d feel a lot safer with her weapon in hand. Today’s close call had been an excellent reminder that she wasn’t invincible.
The car stopped, and she got her first good luck at the driver. Her muscles clenched. This wasn’t a curious passerby.
He was here to find her.
Chapter Four
Matt slid from behind the wheel and stood by the side of his truck, his gaze fixed on Shelly. Her face and eyes were shadowed, her features blurred in the early-evening darkness. She looked pale, but her shoulders were squared and her mouth was set in hard lines as if she was determined not to let the situation get the better of her.
An unexpected protective urge surged inside him as his focus moved to her bandaged arm and then to the bullet-battered car.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she quipped, but her attempt at humor lost its effect to the eerie screech of an owl hidden in the branches of a nearby tree.
Matt looked around, expecting to see Hank standing nearby. He didn’t. The place was completely deserted except for Shelly.
“What are you doing here after hours?” he asked.
Shelly brushed her bangs to one side and propped her right hand on her hip almost defiantly. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“I was looking for you,” he admitted. “I tried your motel. When you weren’t there, I drove here to see if Hank had heard from you.”
“How did you know I’d left the hospital?”
“The sheriff called me. Apparently you told the nursing staff you were going to Jack’s Bluff tonight.”
She shrugged and looked backed to the car as he stepped closer. “I didn’t exactly tell them that. They just surmised it and I didn’t set them straight. It seemed the easiest way to walk out of the hospital without causing a major ruckus.”
“Why not just wait until the doctor released you?”
“I hate hospitals and I didn’t see any point in running up a big hospital bill when I didn’t need to be there in the first place.”
Matt scanned the quiet parking lot. “How did you get here?”
“I walked. It’s not that far.” She slapped at a mosquito that was buzzing around her ear. “I’m fine, Matt. And I don’t hold your family responsible for any of this, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried at all.” Unfortunately, that wasn’t exactly true. Pretty much everything about Shelly Lane worried him—and puzzled him—especially the fact that she was standing on a deserted street alone at night after being shot at just hours ago.
He didn’t trust this whole situation, wasn’t at all convinced that Shelly didn’t know who’d tried to kill her. Yet if she did, that would give her all the more reason not to put herself at risk like this.
He stepped between her and the car. “Are you in some kind of trouble, Shelly?”
“No. Why would you ask that? You were there when some crackpot roared in from nowhere and used my car for target practice.”
“The other possibility is that he’d come to town looking for you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t even know anyone around this part of the country.”
“Maybe someone followed you from Atlanta. Maybe a jealous boyfriend? A jilted lover?”
“The last boyfriend is engaged to be married to a fashion model. He forgot me at the first sight of my replacement—who I introduced him to, no less.”
Matt doubted that any man had found Shelly that easy to forget, but he wasn’t going there now. He pressed a hand on the top of the car and leaned into it. “Do you always carry a loaded gun in your glove compartment?”
She turned to look at his truck and the shotgun riding the rack behind his seat. “Obviously there’s no local law against carrying weapons in a vehicle.”
“Touché.”
“Actually, one of my friends insisted I buy it before leaving Atlanta. She kept stressing how it wasn’t safe for a woman to drive so far by herself, said I might have car trouble and get stranded in a dangerous area. Who knew the danger would be in Colts Run Cross?”
Which is what made this so difficult to buy into. He watched as the breeze teased her bangs, blowing wispy strands of hair about her forehead.
“I’m shaken, Matt. I won’t deny it. My first instinct was to go running back to Atlanta. But running from random violence is like trying to get out of the path of a tornado. It can strike anywhere.”
“But both are more likely in some places than others.” The owl screeched again and mosquitoes were starting to treat the back of his neck like a buffet. Whatever was going on with Shelly Lane, he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get to the bottom of it tonight.
Matt rocked back on the heels of his boots. “No point in hanging around out here,” he said. “I can give you a ride back to your motel.”
“Thanks.”
And on the way he’d tell her that her plan to move to the ranch tomorrow had been put on hold.
They walked back to his truck in silence and he opened the door for her. He circled the vehicle, climbed behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition and gunned the engine. The beams of his headlights illuminated the damaged side of Shelly’s car as he backed from the lot.
His hands tightened on the wheel as the reality of the situation settled into a grim knot in his stomach. If the attack on her was personal, the guy wouldn’t just give up because the first try didn’t work. The shooter might even be a hired hit man biding his time until he could get to her again. Maybe waiting for dark, when she was alone in a motel at the edge of town.
A spray of gravel shot from the back wheels of his pickup truck as he sped away from Hank’s. He couldn’t take her to the ranch when no one knew for certain she was on the up and up. But he couldn’t just dump her to fend for herself if she was in real danger.
So where did that leave him?
SHELLY SAT UP STRAIGHTER, staring at the neon sign identifying the rambling wooden roadhouse whose parking lot they’d just pulled into as Cutter’s Bar and Grill.
“Why are you stopping here?”
“I could use a cup of coffee,” Matt said.
“I don’t drink coffee this late,” she said.
“Then how about a beer?”
“I can’t drink alcohol. I’m still feeling the effects of the pain medication they gave me at the hospital. Besides I’m not dressed for going out.”
That wasn’t exactly a valid argument since she had on the same jeans she’d had on at lunch today. Topping them was the crimson cami she’d had on under the bloodied blouse that Matt had cut the sleeves out of. There was a blood stain on it, but it so closely matched the color of the shirt, it looked more like fabric shading. Her attire would likely be the same as half the women in the bar.
“You look fine,” Matt said, “and I could really use the coffee.”
She hesitated, then pulled down the visor and checked her reflection in the small lighted mirror. “I at least have to put on some lipstick,” she said, already reaching in her handbag for a tube. She’d have never gone out in D.C. looking like this, but she wasn’t in the nation’s capital and this wasn’t a date. It was her job. This might be the perfect opportunity to start winning Matt’s confidence.
