Authors: Jodi Thomas
Parker nodded.
As she heard the sound of car doors opening, Tori slipped up the stairs and sat in the darkness of the landing, watching, listening.
“You okay with keeping silent about Tori?” Parker asked Clint.
“I won't say a word unless the deputy asks,” Clint answered. “This has nothing to do with her. If she wants to remain unknown out here, it's no business of mine.” He turned away from Parker and opened the front door.
Tori watched a big man dressed in the tan uniform of the sheriff's department enter. He had to be over six-six, and to her surprise, he had a woman with him who was almost as tall. She was wearing creamy beige pants tucked into chocolate-brown knee-high boots and a leather jacket. They were a striking couple; they matched.
Clint stepped forward. “Evening, Fifth,” he said, sounding none too friendly, as usual. “Did you bring a date to a 911 call?”
The deputy didn't seem to take offense. “I'm off duty, technically, but we were working on a case at the sheriff's office when you called. Madison O'Grady, meet Clint Montgomery. We're on his land.” He turned from Clint to Yancy. “I'd also like you to meet my friend Yancy Grey.”
Yancy just smiled and gave a quick wave as if he didn't want to get too close.
Tori fought down a laugh. She would have reacted the same way. Strangers were never welcomed at first sight.
Madison, a beautiful, auburn-haired woman in her midtwenties, wasn't the least bit shy. She stepped forward and held out her hand to first Yancy, then Clint. “Among other things, I'm a helicopter pilot, Mr. Montgomery. If the sheriff or Fifth thinks it will help, I'll be happy to stay over tonight. We could be in the air at dawn, flying over your place.”
Clint shook her hand but didn't smile. “I'd appreciate the help. I'm sure whoever is on my ranch will be long gone, but thanks to the recent rain, we might be able to track tire marks. At the least in the morning I'll know where they're coming in.”
Fifth smiled, as if pleased that she'd offered to help. “Montgomery's spread is big, but nothing like the Kirkland Ranch. With any luck we'll find something fast, and you can make it back to work before the morning is half-over.”
The sheriff pulled up and Clint went outside with the deputy. Yancy climbed back on his stool, showing little interest in becoming part of the posse. Parker moved around the kitchen, nervous as always and seeming to want to keep busy. Madison took the other stool and stared at Yancy.
“How long you been friends with Fifth?” Madison asked.
“I don't know. Ever since he's been in town, I guess.” Yancy looked nervous. “Is this an interrogation? Do I need to ask for a lawyer?”
Madison laughed. “Funny. I probably deserved that. Truth is, we were on a date, but he just didn't know it.”
“Oh.” Yancy didn't look any more comfortable. “I've been on a few of those myself. If you don't mind a little advice, I'd encourage you to let him know. Speaking for the whole male race, we're as likely to guess wrong as right.”
Tori smiled down at him, loving that he wasn't flirting or even understanding the tall woman, yet he was doing what Yancy did. He was being friendly because he probably thought it was the right thing to do.
Tori saw Parker insert herself into the conversation, probably to make things less awkward. Thirty minutes later, when Clint returned, she and Madison were laughing like old friends.
“Nothing,” Clint announced. “We didn't find a single clue. Whoever is on my land just seems to disappear when I go after them.”
No one looked surprised.
“The deputy's waiting,” Clint added as Parker shook Madison's hand. “I'll see you at dawn. Fifth told me where you park your helicopter.”
Madison nodded at him and waved at Parker and Yancy as she walked out.
Tori breathed out in relief. Slowly, she let her tense body relax. They were gone. No one had asked about her, and she'd managed to remain invisible.
All three downstairs stood there, silently, until the cruisers pulled away. Then Clint spoke first. “You can come down, Tori. No one asked about you.”
She slipped back into the light, walked down the stairs and hugged Parker, then Yancy, then Clint. “Thanks,” she whispered to Parker's cowboy.
He gave her a twitch of a smile. “Anytime. Glad to help. No sense getting you involved in my problem.”
Then they all moved to the table. The meal an hour ago had looked, if not good, at least edible. Now not so much.
“Anyone up for hamburgers?” Clint offered.
After some discussion over who would go and who would stay, they decided to all go in Clint's pickup. Yancy and Tori claimed they didn't mind squeezing into the small, windowless backseat in the cab. When they drove through the hamburger place, Yancy tossed a blanket over Tori that she complained smelled like a horse, and yet didn't remove the blanket until they were driving away from the take-out window. Everyone in the pickup heard her laughing softly.
They were all comrades now, coconspirators. The conversation flowed easily.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
L
OW
CLOUDS
MOVED
over the land, making the night as black as the bottom of a well. Gabe Santorno dropped from the oak tree that stood at the bend in the road leading up to a little farmhouse. He was getting too old to be climbing trees. Hell, maybe he should think about retiring. Only where did old warriors go when they could no longer trust their skills?
Maybe Victoria Vilanie should be his last assignment. Only this time he wouldn't be bringing the prize home. He wouldn't be collecting the bounty. This time he would let it go.
When she'd picked Yancy up at dusk, he'd been watching, waiting in the trees at the edge of Yancy's few acres of land. Gabe guessed where they were heading and took a chance tracking them on foot. He couldn't keep up with the Jeep she was suddenly driving, but there were few farms or ranches in the direction she was going. Her place had to be close if she usually walked the distance to visit Yancy.
Sure enough, by the time he made it to the little farmhouse, the Jeep and a blue pickup were parked outside. He'd almost missed the house because of the old tree, but the oak offered him a great hiding place to watch. From the branches, he could see a mile in any direction.
Gabe waited until full dark, then slipped like a shadow into the tree. In the daylight, someone might have seen him, but at night, he looked like one of the thick branches.
The windows of the farmhouse were open, and he could see the two couples moving around. From their body language he knew they were definitely two couples, but the four of them were not friends.
He waited, spending most of his time watching Yancy. Gabe couldn't help but think about all the years he'd missed being in his son's life. What had he looked like when he learned to walk? When he'd been a kid? When he'd been barely grown and had to go to prison. Gabe hadn't been there to catch him as a toddler when he tumbled or help him through his teens or fight for him when he went to prison.
He'd never been there, yet he could tell, somehow, that Yancy had managed to grow into a good man. The kind of man a woman like Tori might love.
Maybe Jewel Ann had had something to do with that.
He'd asked a few people about her but no one knew more than that she'd stayed with the Stanley widow until after the baby was born.
Gabe wished he could ask Yancy. Maybe he knew. But the question would be far too personal. Besides, Gabe's profession was finding people. When this was over, if Jewel Ann was still alive, he'd find her.
Then, when he knew about Jewel Ann, maybe he'd tell Yancy who he was.
Gabe was proud of his boy, and it was a kind of pride he'd never known. Even if he hadn't been there for Yancy's childhood, Yancy was a part of him. Maybe the only good part left.
When the shots came, Gabe spotted their point of origin easily and was out of the tree and crawling over dry buffalo grass before the blast stopped, echoing in the night air. The shots weren't aimed at the house or at him. Gabe knew what they were, though.
Whoever was firing was trying to draw the people out. If it had just been a normal night, maybe the people would have stepped on the porch to see what was going on, thinking that maybe a car was backfiring or someone was shooting off fireworks.
But country folks know the sound of gunfire. Yancy and the cowboy inside the farmhouse made sure they all stayed inside.
In truth, Gabe had seen the ploy work a few times. People are naturally curious. They usually look out to see what's going on. If the two couples in the house had stepped on the porch, the shooter would have known there were two women in the place. And if he was tracking Victoria Vilanie, he might not get a good view to ID her, but he'd have enough to know the house was worth watching.
Information that Gabe remembered Charlie Watts providing echoed in his thoughts. Victoria's dad had said he didn't care if she was dead or alive. He wanted her back. For a quarter million, some of the bounty hunters might decide that
dead
would be the easier way. They'd make sure no one connected the bullet that killed her to them. Then, a few days later, they'd show up as if just arriving in town and identify the body.
Gabe was almost to the neighbor's fence when he saw an outline of a man running low to the ground. The runner reached the main road and turned toward town, his form blending with the brush and mesquite trees growing wild. The shadow knew what he was doing. He'd be invisible before any car lights could catch him. Like Gabe, he was in shape, able to run two miles.
Car lights turned on the road from town. Gabe pulled back and disappeared in the grass. By the time the sheriff's cruiser passed, lights silently blinking, the shadow traveling in front of him was gone.
He moved deep into the night heading toward Crossroads. Tori and Yancy were safe tonight but Gabe's fears had come true. Another hunter had found Victoria Vilanie's trail and he wouldn't stop until he snatched her upâor worse, killed her.
As Gabe slipped into the back of the Franklin sisters' house, he knew what he had to do.
Find the shadowy hunter and stop him.
Yancy was going to get the chance to be happy that Gabe never got.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
F
IFTH
W
EATHERS
LEANED
back in his office chair and stared at Madison. Between roaming around Clint Montgomery's place and checking on things at the office, they'd been hanging out with the sheriff for an hour. Sheriff Brigman had finally called it a night and gone home. Fifth got what he'd been waiting forâa minute alone with Madison.
“Well, did you notice?” Fifth whispered, even though they'd both heard the front door close.
She nodded. “But I don't think Sheriff Brigman did. He never went in the house. I thought of mentioning it to him, but I couldn't see that the news would have anything to do with the shots being fired half a mile away.”
“Right. But I couldn't get the obvious out of my mind. Three people at the farmhouse. The table set for four.”
“And when you left me there, I couldn't miss how every few minutes at least one of them glanced at the stairs as if they expected someone might come down. All three were helping hide something or someone.”
“They were terrible at pretending,” Fifth said.
“Maybe that's because they're honest people. They must have seen themselves as protecting someone. But from who? Surely not us.”
Fifth grinned. “My first thought was that the shooter had gotten inside and was holding a gun on them, but Parker wouldn't have set him a place at the table. Besides, if they'd been in danger, Montgomery would have told me when we went outside. Whoever was there was being hidden, protected.”
Madison nodded as if she knew Fifth was testing her. “The professor, maybe. They could have all known him. You said he wasn't in his room when you left the Franklin Bed-and-Breakfast.”
“Yeah, but he could have gone to eat or visit with friends. I swear, the guy has been here a few weeks and he already knows more people in town than I do.” Fifth rubbed his forehead. “It doesn't make sense. Why would three people, two of them I consider my friends, lie about there being someone else in the house? Why would they protect the professor from me? I sleep ten feet away from the man every night.”
“I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out who Dr. Gabe Santorno is. I can't tell if he's a good guy or a bad guy. I just know he's not who he says he is. I checked this morning. There is no Dr. Santorno at the University of Texas. If he's lying about that, he's lying about why he's here.”
“I say we bring him in and question him,” Fifth said.
“You do a lot of interrogation?” she asked.
“No. Most of the locals start confessing in the cruiser on the way to the office.”
Madison laughed. “You read Santorno's bio from his army years. I'm guessing he wouldn't tell us anything he didn't want us to know even if we tortured him. And remember, as far as we know, the man has done nothing wrong. Maybe UT canceled his class and he doesn't know it yet, or maybe he's just hoping to get the job next year. People stretch the truth all the time to make themselves sound better. If we give him a few days, maybe he'll slip up and we'll see who the man behind the professor mask is.”
“Well, we can't starve him out. He's eaten enough at the Franklin sisters' place to last until fall.”
Madison stood, crossed her arms and began to pace back and forth, deep in thought. “If those three weren't hiding the professor, then who? If they are honest people, like you say, they wouldn't be harboring a criminal.” She turned and retraced her steps. “And doesn't it seem strange that those three would be together. Maybe Parker and the rancher. They live next to each other. But Yancy? Why was he out there?”
“They were about to eat dinner. Maybe he was hungry?”
She ignored him and kept pacing.
The third time she whirled to retrace her steps, she bumped into Fifth.
He reached out and steadied her, but he didn't turn her loose.
“What are you doing?” She tugged on his arms, but he didn't let go.
“Stop thinking and relax, Madison.”
When she shoved, he let go and slid his hands inside his jacket to keep them to himself.
To his surprise, she didn't move away.
He figured now might be the only shot he got all night. Madison wasn't the cuddle-up-and-talk type. “I love working with you. I love the way you look at every angle, but how about we take a break?”
“Fifth, this is serious.”
She was so close he could smell her hair, and every time she breathed, he prayed her chest would brush his chest. Her brain might be running full speed, but his had turned down another track.
“So is this.” He leaned his head against her throat. “I love the smell of you. I love the feel of you against me, Madison. I love pretty much every inch of you. Do you have any idea how hard it is to wait until you make the first move?”
She pushed him away. “I'm not going back to the bed-and-breakfast with you, Fifth, so we have to be all business. Hiding out in your room kind of feels like we're at my parents' house. Besides, I told my cousin Connie I'd stay with her if I had to sleep in town tonight.”
“What about the Kirklands' big house? They don't even live in it. Quinn's your relative, too. She'd let you stay there.”
“Quinn doesn't even know I'm in town. Besides, if I told her I was working with you on a case, she'd tell Staten and he'd tell the sheriff that I was staying over. If you came along with me, everyone would notice your cruiser parked out in front of Kirkland's headquarters all night. Half the town knew we ate lunch together. If you stay with me at the ranch no telling what will happen.”
“I get the point.” He stepped away. “It's not like we're star-crossed lovers. Everyone around wants us to get together, but I'd like to have some time to date before we have to pick out rings.”
“Me, too. Besides, we don't really have a case with Santorno. Just a person of interest. I doubt my department will let me take off much more time.”
“How about, when this is over, I come to Wichita Falls and we have a real date. I'll find a hotel room that looks nothing like your parents' house.”
“No,” she said.
“No?” Fifth looked crushed. He'd thought she was as interested in him as he was in her.
She grinned. “I have an apartment. Central heat and air, private balcony, plenty of parking, king-size bed.”
He tugged her close. “I get off at five on Friday. I can be there by seven. You pick the restaurant.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “How about takeout?”
“Perfect.”