Nightfall (4 page)

“
And you’ve confirmed
this?”

“
There’s talk of another
meet-up, probably tonight or maybe even this afternoon.”

On the other end, Bruce
muttered something Colin didn’t catch. But he caught the
impatience. Last night was supposed to have been the big takedown,
and now they were pushing into Saturday without any
arrests.

“
And where’s this van? You
run prints on it yet?”

“
It’s at an auto shop in
town. But I sent one of our local guys over to get latents. He’s
got CSI training.”

“
What about the
girl?”

“
She’s still in town.” It
wasn’t the truth, but close enough as far as his boss was
concerned.

“
You tell her you’re
undercover?”

“
You think I want to blow
this op after five months?”

“
Well, don’t tell her. Don’t
tell her anything. Last thing we need is some civilian botching
this up.”

Colin pressed the remote to
open the gate. As it swung open, he noticed the fresh tire tracks
on the narrow road.

“
Denton? You
there?”

“
I’m here.”
Shit, no way…

“
Nail down that meeting,
ASAP. We need to know who, when, and where so we can get our team
in place.”

“
I’ll do it.”

Colin skidded to a halt in
front of the cabin and rushed up the steps. He opened the door and
checked the hook.

“
God
damn
it!”

He glanced around. The note
he’d left under the cereal box was still there, but a sentence had
been added in woman’s loopy script.

Need to make my delivery!
Hope you don’t mind-- I borrowed your Suburban.

***

Despite the sunny sky, it
was still freezing out, and Holly was caught between a desperate
desire to meet her deadline and an equally desperate desire to
avoid another wreck on the way to the wedding venue. As she
approached a curve in the road, she eased her foot off the gas and
checked the speedometer. She checked the clock. A horn blast behind
her had her checking the rearview mirror.

Holly recognized the truck
and murmured a curse.

Another honk accompanied by
a flash of headlights. She pulled onto the shoulder and buzzed down
the window of the borrowed SUV.

Colin stalked up to the
window, eyes sparking with fury. “What the hell do you think you’re
doing?”

“
Did you get my note?” She
flashed him a smile. “I hope you don’t mind, I—”

“
Damn right I mind.” He
glared down at her, and she felt a rush of irritation. He had a
right to be annoyed, sure—but a full-blown temper tantrum was going
to make her even later than she already was. She forced a
smile.

“
Sorry, but I just need it
for a
few
hours.
I’ll replace the gas and—”

“
Move over.” He jerked open
the door.

“
Excuse me?”

“
Move over. I’m
driving.”

She cast a frantic glance at
the clock. “I really don’t need an escort.”

“
You have no idea what you
need. Now, move over before I get pissed.”

She took in his blazing
eyes, the tight set of his jaw. Maybe he was one of those finicky
men who didn’t like anyone else behind the wheel of his
vehicle.

Holly scooted over the
console and into the passenger seat. Before she’d even fastened her
seatbelt, he’d thrust the Suburban into gear and pulled onto the
highway, leaving his pickup behind them.

He shot her a scowl. “I
could have you arrested for auto theft. This isn’t even mine—it
belongs to the ranch.”

Holly sighed. “I left you a
note. And I’ll fill it with gas, so what’s the harm? This thing was
just sitting in the barn while my entire business goes down the
tubes.”

His phone buzzed and he
jerked it from the pocket of his hunting jacket.

Holly glanced guiltily at
the leather jacket she was still wearing.

“
Denton,” he snapped. “Yeah…
yeah…” Another dark look in her direction. Then he checked his
watch. “Okay, call you in ten.”

He dropped the phone in the
cup holder and trained his gaze on the road.

“
So, Colin… I know you’re a
cop.”

He glanced at her. Then back
at the road.

“
I’m not a cop.”

“
Okay, now I know you’re a
cop and a liar.”

He didn’t say
anything.

Holly gazed out the window
and watched the woods rush past. A thick blanket of snow covered
the forest floor. “My dad was a cop, so I know, all right?” She
looked at him. “What are you—working undercover or
something?”

“
I’m not a liar.” He flicked
a glance at her. “And I’m not a cop—not like you mean. I’m with
ATF.”

“
Alcohol Tobacco and
Firearms.” She studied him with interest now and remembered the gun
cabinet back at the cabin. But it wasn’t really unusual. Everyone
out here had guns. Montana had one of the highest rates of gun
ownership in the nation.

“
And you’re right.” He gave
her a wary look and seemed to decide something. “The ranch gig is a
cover. I’ve been out here five months trying to line something
up.”

A chill snaked down Holly’s
spine as she noted his grim expression. This man wasn’t here
because of his Chevy. He’d tracked her down because he thought she
was in some sort of danger.

“
What, exactly, did I
stumble into last night?” she asked.

He stared ahead at the
road.

“
Colin?”

“
A deal was supposed to go
down. A big one. And one of the vehicles involved is a white van.”
He glanced at her. “This was last night at the barbecue joint in
town.”

“
You mean the one across
from Mae’s, where I stopped?”

He didn’t say anything, but
his silence confirmed her niggling suspicion that her pit stop was
somehow related to the freak shooting. It had been gnawing at her
for hours. She’d been wondering why her tire was punctured, and if
someone had meant to strand her on the outskirts of town.
Yesterday, she’d thought she’d dozed off at the wheel, but that
explanation didn’t account for the tire. Or the gunshots. Since the
moment she’d woken up this morning, Holly had felt certain there
was nothing accidental about her accident.

“
This area’s become a drug
route between Mexico and Canada,” he said. “And we have reason to
believe someone local is in on the action.”

“
Dealing drugs?”

“
Firearms. We believe one of
the cartels is getting supplied out of Branson County. The drugs
come north, the cash and guns go south. One of our locals gets a
sliver of the pie in exchange for heavy metal.”

“
You mean like… machine
guns?”

“
Handguns, machineguns,
whatever the client wants. The guy we’re looking at—he’s a big
collector around here. Only we’ve developed evidence that he not
only collects guns, he shaves off serial numbers and supes up the
weapons before sending them south. Makes a nice profit doing
it.”

“
So, this guy… what does he
look like?”

“
Why?” Colin gave her a
sharp look. “You think you might have seen him?”

“
I don’t know.” She stared
blankly through the window and tried to recall the details from
yesterday evening.

“
When you were at the truck
stop?”

“
Someone approached me in
the parking lot,” she told him. “I was climbing out of the van and
had my back to him. He said something like, ‘Hey, you got the
wrong—’ and then I turned around and he looked
surprised.”

Colin was watching her
intently.

“
I was wearing my baseball
cap,” she added, “so I figured he had me confused with
someone.”

“
Did you see what he was
driving?”

“
An SUV. Maybe a Tahoe? It
was blue or gray, I think. I can’t really be sure.”

“
What did he look
like?”

She blew out a sigh, trying
to recall. “I don’t know. Kind of tall and bulky.”

“
Was he bald? Did you notice
any tattoos on his neck?”

She slid him a look.
Clearly, he was describing a specific suspect. “I don’t know about
tattoos. He was wearing a camouflage jacket, like yours. But he
wasn’t bald. He had a cap on and white hair peeking
out.”

“
White
hair?” He frowned at her. “Are you sure?”

“
Yeah, why? Do you know who
it is?”

He shook his
head.

“
You know him, don’t you? I
can tell.”

He shot her a look. “The
less you know about this, the better.”

Holly shook her head and
looked out the window.

“
And the sooner you get back
to Bozeman, the better. After this delivery, I’m taking you
straight back to Al’s to pick up your van.”

Holly stared out the window
at the snowy landscape, and suddenly, it reminded her of cocaine.
It had never occurred to her that drug cartels had their tentacles
this far north. And now, she was being targeted by one, or someone
working for one, because of something she’d stumbled into purely by
accident.

Her mountain of unpaid bills
was starting to seem like the very least of her
problems.

“
Don’t worry,” Colin said,
giving her a thoughtful glance. “I’ll see what kind of protection
we can get you, in the event you have to testify.”

“
Testify?
”

“
About whoever approached
you in that parking lot.” He gave her a look. “It could be someone
important.”

“
The guy with the white
hair?”

“
I’m guessing it’s Ice Man.
He’s the link between the cartel and our firearms guy—a link we’ve
been investigating for a long time. But we’ve never had a positive
ID on him. Or even an eyewitness.”

Holly gaped at him.
“You
don’t
have an
eyewitness! All I saw was some guy in a parking lot. He barely said
two words to me.”

Colin shifted his attention
to the road, where the sign for the White Falls Inn had come into
view. Holly glanced at it, panicked.

“
Colin, I don’t want to
testify. I want to deliver my flowers and go back to my life in
Bozeman.”

He turned up a steep and
narrow driveway. “You will.”

“
I’m serious! I don’t want
any part of this. I’ve got enough stuff to worry about with my
sister on my case and a struggling business and loans from art
school—”

“
Just relax, all right? This
is all conjecture at this point.” His phone buzzed again as he
curved around a graceful driveway and pulled up to a white
clapboard house flanked by towering fir trees.

A trio of men in tuxedos
rushed out to meet the van, followed by a blond woman in a black
pantsuit. This was Patty, the wedding coordinator Holly had met on
the few occasions when she’d been privileged enough to do an event
at the prestigious White Falls Inn. Patty had obviously recognized
her and was making a beeline for the Suburban, already barking
orders at the staff.

Colin’s phone buzzed again
as the men yanked open the cargo doors. “Hey, you need a hand with
this?” he asked. “Because I need to take this call.”

Holly shoved open her door.
“Take it.”

“
I’ll be here when you
finish.” He checked his watch and a look of concern flitted across
his face. “Come straight back, all right? We need to get you safely
back to Bozeman before anyone realizes you’re here.”

***

“
I have a lead on Ice Man,”
Colin told his boss.

“
Shit, where you been? I’ve
been trying to get ahold of you.”

“
You know that florist I
told you about? She may be able to ID him for us. Someone
approached her last night at Mae’s Truck Stop, right after she
pulled up in her van. I thought it was Lopez, maybe mistaking her
for Hooks, but—”

“
Hooks is dead.”

Colin’s blood turned cold.
“What?”

“
They found him in a ditch
this morning over in Calvert County,” Bruce said. “Double-tap to
the head. And get this—his van’s missing. So looks like the swap
went down without us, only it wasn’t a swap, but a grab. Not only
that—his whole place has been looted. Guns, computers, phones,
everything. Someone swept through there like a horde of
locusts.”

Colin tried to process the
information. The man he’d been closing in on for months was dead.
The person they’d hoped to bust and then flip so they could go
after the bigger fish—Ice Man and Lopez—was gone.

“
Lopez knows we’re onto
him,” Colin said, watching uneasily as Holly pulled another load of
flowers from the back of the SUV. He turned away from her and
lowered his voice. “He’s shutting it down, eliminating loose
ends.”