Lady Killer

“Sure,” Tony said, rubbing at the persistent peppery itch in his nose. “Uh…let’s see. Okay, I know. My cell phone number’s on that card I gave your mom. Still have it?”

“Yeah-I think. Yes.” He was nodding eagerly, making the standing-up strands of his hair bob. “Mom has it. I’ll ask her.”

“Well, then, there you go. Call me whenever you feel like it.”

Tony hauled in a breath and was grinning in the goofy, relieved way of a man who’d managed to come through a scary moment unscathed. He gave the kid’s shoulder one final squeeze and watched him shoot off in the direction of the house at a pace that was only a memory for anybody past twenty. He was feeling pretty good about the way he’d handled things with the boy, until he looked up, and there was Brooke looking back at him. And there he was, feeling like he’d been socked in the stomach again.

She was standing in the doorway to one of the horse stalls, one hand leaning on the half-open bottom section of the Dutch door, the other holding a propped-up pitchfork. Her face was pink and sweaty, and wisps of her hair clung to her forehead and cheeks like wet feathers. She ducked her head to wipe her face on the arm braced on the door, and when she looked back at him, her expression was…vulnerable, he thought, so vulnerable it made his heart sore. And at the same time, the lift to her chin seemed defiant-even angry.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said in a hard, clipped voice.

“I don’t think I did,” Tony said carefully as he angled across the pasture to join her. “But, hey, look, I’m sorry if I was out of line.”

She made an impatient gesture and looked down at her feet, clad in clumpy knee-high boots. “It’s not that.” She took a breath and shot him a fierce, bright look, one he’d seen on his own mother’s face and knew very well: Mama Bear protecting her cub. “He’s very vulnerable right now. He just lost his dad.” She paused, and to the fierceness was added an intriguing layer of something he could only think must be embarrassment. “He’s…For some reason, he’s developing an attachment to you. But you’re only here for a couple of days. What is he supposed to do when you’re gone?”

To his astonishment and dismay, the words “I’m not going anywhere” popped into his head and almost- almost-came out of his mouth. Thank God he stopped himself in time. What was he thinking? She was right. He was only here for a couple more days. He’d probably already got enough cougar photos to fill an article for National Geographic, and enough video for a couple of Animal Planet shows as well. He couldn’t tell her his real reason for hanging around, of course.

Which is to somehow get her cleared of murder charges and reunite her with her long-lost brothers, after which my job here will be done and I’ll be long gone.

Right?

“Gotcha,” he said, and then added, frowning earnestly, “I understand. I hear what you’re saying.” He said some other basically meaningless stuff-he wasn’t sure what-but he hoped he’d assured the mama bear that he wasn’t planning to inflict emotional harm on her cub.

He was pretty sure he said “Good-bye” and “See you tomorrow” in there somewhere, too, and a short time later found himself sitting behind the wheel of his rental car. He sat there staring through the windshield and listening to his heart thump faster than it should while images flashed through his mind: A grubby little boy’s hand gently stroking soft, thick alpaca wool…bright little boy’s eyes gazing eagerly up at him. Sweat-damp feathers of blond hair sticking to a lovely woman’s forehead and cheekbones-bones that would still be lovely when they were ninety. Nothing new there-he had a photographer’s mind. What was making his pulse rate climb and his sweat grow clammy were the images that were drawn from pure fantasy: his hands stroking those feathers of hair back from that lovely woman’s face…his lips kissing her sweat-damp brow…and then her cheeks…her mouth…

He huffed out an explosive breath, along with some blasphemy his mama definitely wouldn’t have approved of, started up the car and drove-too fast-down the lane and onto the FM road that would take him back to town and sanity. He hoped.

It wasn’t until he’d calmed down some and his pulse had resumed a more normal rhythm that he thought to check his rearview mirror. That was when he saw the sheriff’s patrol car behind him.

His heart gave a guilty kick, the way it probably did for most people when they looked up and saw a law- enforcement vehicle in their mirror. He swore out loud and tried to think whether he’d disobeyed any traffic laws while in his state of lapsed consciousness, all the while making sure to hold steady just under the speed limit. After a while, though, when the lights on top of the SUV didn’t start flashing, it occurred to him to wonder why a deputy sheriff would be following him at all, because in his-admittedly limited-law-enforcement experience, the sheriff’s department seldom bothered to police traffic-law violators.

And this guy seemed to be sticking to him like glue.

Well, that’s weird, he thought. He tried to see who was behind the wheel of the SUV, but the windshield showed him only a reflection of the sky, a dusky slate splashed with clouds and just beginning to reveal the amber and gold tints of impending sunset. For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, his heart rate had kicked into high again.

The SUV followed him when he made the turn onto the main highway. At the first stoplight heading into town, where the highway widened into four lanes, it pulled up beside him on the left, crowding him just a little more than it needed to. The window rolled slowly down, and a fleshy face wearing aviator sunglasses and topped with a brown Stetson swiveled toward him. For a long, long minute, those dark, blank shades stared at him. Just stared.

Then…the light turned green, the window rode up and the SUV pulled away.

After another sharp exhalation and some more blasphemy, Tony drove on, too.

“I hate to admit it, but it spooked me,” he said to Holt a little while later, as they waited for their dinners-they were both having the barbecue tonight, which was on special and which Shirley had assured them was the best in town, if not in all of West Texas. “It sure as hell felt like a threat-or a warning, maybe. The only thing I can’t figure out is why.”

“The fact that you’ve been spending quite a bit of time with a woman suspected of killing one of their own might have something to do with it,” Holt said mildly.

Tony frowned. “I wish I could have gotten a better look at the guy. I think it was the one I ran into at Brooke’s place yesterday-Lonnie Doyle-you know? The dead cop’s partner and supposed best friend. Hard to tell for sure, between the hat and the shades. He’d be my first choice for-”

“Speak of the devil,” Holt said, without moving his lips.

Three deputies, including Lonnie Doyle, had just come into the diner, not really swaggering, not exactly talking, but somehow taking up more than their fair allotment of oxygen and space, it seemed to Tony. He and Holt watched silently and without seeming to as the three took their usual corner booth, and even without looking directly, it was impossible to miss the glances the lawmen aimed their way.

Shirley went over to the deputies, carrying three mugs and a pot of coffee, and Tony and Holt picked up their own coffee mugs and exchanged looks of silent warning. Tony felt a curious crawling sensation on the back of his neck and wondered if it was the same primitive reflex that made a wolf’s hackles rise.

A moment later, Shirley came out of the kitchen, carrying two platters of barbecue, and at the same time, Lonnie Doyle slid out of the corner booth and began to stroll, unhurried, past the row of booths lining the outside wall of the diner, timing it so that he arrived at Tony and Holt’s booth about the same time their dinner did. He stood there, with one hand on the back of the booth near Tony’s shoulder and the other on his belt, heavy with the cops’ usual gear, including weapon, and his barrel chest puffed out. He’d positioned himself so he was blocking Shirley’s path, leaving her standing there with the two heavy platters in her hand, and looking uncertain and maybe a little scared.

Tony didn’t often lose his temper, but he could feel it rising like the mercury on a blistering hot Arizona day.

“Know what, Shirl? I think my friends here have decided they’d like those ribs to go,” Lonnie drawled, staring down at Tony, with his lips curled to one side in a bad imitation of an Elvis Presley sneer.

Tony opened his mouth to give that the reply he thought it deserved, but before he could get a word out, Holt kicked him under the table and said to the waitress, quietly and with a reassuring smile, “Thanks, darlin’. And, if it’s not too much trouble, would you mind throwing in a couple pieces of that apple pie?”

Shirley turned without a word and went back to the kitchen.

Lonnie slapped the back of the booth in a business-concluded kind of way. Then, as if it was only an afterthought, he turned back to say in a soft undertone only they would hear, “You might want to watch who you