“Damn!”
She opened her eyes and grimaced as he glared at her.
“How did you know that?” he asked, moving forward so fast that she backed up too quickly and stumbled into a chair, almost falling. She caught the table just in time. “Who told you?” he demanded, although he stopped going toward her.
“Nobody...told me. I saw it,” she tried to explain. Heavens, he was fast! She’d never seen a man move like that.
“Saw it, how?”
“In my head. It was a vision,” she tried to explain. Her cheeks were flushed. He thought she was crazy. “Please, let me finish. The man in the paisley shirt, he was wearing a suit and you trusted him. There was another man, a man with dark skin wearing a lot of gold jewelry. In fact, his pistol had gold plating and pearls on it...”
“I only ever told my brothers that!” he said angrily. “Them, and my supervisor and, later, the DOJ guys!”
“The man in the paisley shirt,” she continued. “He isn’t who you think he is. He has ties to a drug cartel.” Her eyes closed again. “He’s made some sort of bargain with a man high up in politics in this country. I don’t know what, I can’t see it. But I do know this. The other man is running for public office, some very high office with money and political superiority in the balance...” She swallowed and opened her eyes. “He wants to have you killed.”
“Me?” he asked. “What for?”
“Because of the man in the paisley shirt,” she explained. “He was with that man who shot you, who’s now second-in-command to the leader of the drug cartel. But it isn’t known. The cartel put up money so he could run for public office, high public office. Once he’s elected, if he is, he’ll make sure the drug convoys get across the border with no interference. I don’t know how.” She held up a hand when he looked as if he might question that. “They’re going to try to have you killed so that you can’t tell on him.”
“Hell, I identified the shooter to the authorities. They have notes on my debriefing,” he scoffed. “It’s all in there, about the shooter with the gold-plated weapon, the gold jewelry, the lizard-skin boots, the gold tooth with a diamond that he wore for a front tooth—the works.” He laughed curtly. “It’s too late for them to silence me.”
“I’m just telling you what I saw,” she stammered. “It isn’t about the man with the gold-plated weapon—it’s about the man wearing the paisley shirt. He’s working for the politician. He’s already tried to have a sheriff killed, a man who might have recognized him. The sheriff was shot...” She closed her eyes and squinted, as if her head hurt. In fact, it did. “He’s afraid of both of you. If you recognize him, his ties to the politician will be made public and the politician will end up in prison. So will he. It isn’t the first time he’s killed to protect his boss.”
Tank sat down. This was intense stuff. It brought back nightmarish memories from the shooting. The impact of the bullets, the smell of blood, the dark-skinned man’s insane laughter while he fired the automatic pistol. There really had been another man there, a man in a paisley shirt, as she said, wearing a suit...
“Why didn’t I remember that?” he mumbled out loud. He put his hand to his eyes. “There was a man in a paisley shirt. He asked for backup. He said a drug deal was going down, a big one. I drove out there with him. He said he was from the DEA—” He broke off and gaped at Merissa.
“You hadn’t remembered that,” she said slowly.
He nodded. His face was ashen. There were beads of sweat just above his chiseled mouth.
She knelt on the floor beside his chair and held his big hand, the one that wasn’t rubbing his eyes. “It’s all right,” she said in a tone of voice that sounded like he imagined an angel of mercy would sound. “It’s all right.”
He didn’t like being babied. He jerked his hand away, and then was sorry when she stood up and backed away, looking hunted.
She couldn’t imagine the memories she’d kindled within him. He was trying to deal with them, and not very successfully. “People say you’re a witch,” he blurted out.
She didn’t take offence. She only nodded. “I know.”
He stared at her. There was something really other-worldly about her. She was almost fragile, despite her height; quiet, docile. She seemed so much at peace with herself and the world. The only turmoil was in her big, soft green eyes, which were looking at him with a mix of sympathy and fear.
“Why are you afraid of me?” he asked suddenly.
She shifted. “It’s nothing personal.”
“Why?”
“You’re very...large,” she faltered. She shivered.
He cocked his head, frowning.
She forced a smile. “I have to go,” she said. “I just wanted you to know what I saw, so that you could keep your eyes open and be alert.”
“We have a fortune invested in surveillance equipment here, mostly because of our prize-winning bulls.”
She nodded. “It won’t matter. They sent a professional assassin after the sheriff in Texas. He had surveillance equipment, too. Or at least I think he did.”
He drew in a long breath. He stood up, calmer now. “I know some people in Texas. Where?”
She shifted uneasily. He towered over her. “South Texas. Somewhere south of San Antonio. I don’t know anything else. Sorry.”
That should be easy to track down. If there’d been a shooting of a law enforcement official, it would be public and he could search for it online. He wanted to do that, if only to prove her so-called vision false.
“Thanks anyway. For the warning.” He smiled with pure sarcasm.
“You don’t believe me. That’s all right. Just...watch where you’re going. Please.” She turned and pulled up her hood.
He recalled that she’d walked here.
“Just a sec,” he said. He went to the hall closet, pulled out a shepherd’s coat and threw it on. “I’ll drive you home,” he said, digging in his pocket for his car keys. Then he remembered that he’d put them on the hook beside the back door. With a grimace, he retrieved them.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she began uneasily.
“What? Drive you home? It’s almost a blizzard. You can’t even see where you’re going in this!” he said, waving his hand toward the window.
“Hang your keys there,” she faltered. There was a strange, opaque look to her eyes. “You shouldn’t do that. He’ll find them there and get access to the house.”
“He, who?” he asked.
She looked up at him and blinked.
“Never mind,” he muttered. “Come on.”
THEY WERE GOING into the garage when Darby Hanes pulled up in one of the other ranch pickups. He got out, shaking snow off the shoulders of his wool jacket. He seemed surprised to see Merissa, but he tipped his hat to her and smiled.
“Hi, Merissa,” he said.
She smiled back. “Hello, Mr. Hanes.”
“Been riding fence,” he said, sighing. “I came back to get the chain saw. We’ve got a tree across a fence.” He shook his head. “Bad weather, and more forecast.”
Merissa was staring at him without speaking. She moved a step closer. “Mr. Hanes, please don’t take this the wrong way...but...” She bit her lip. “You need to take somebody with you when you cut the tree down.”
He gave her a wide-eyed look. “Excuse me?”
She shifted, as if she was staggering under a burden. “Please?”
“Oh, no, not one of those premonitions?” Darby laughed. “No offense, Miss Baker, but you need to get out more!”
She flushed, embarrassed.
Tank narrowed his eyes as he studied her drawn features. He turned back to Darby. “Let’s err on the side of caution. Take Tim with you.”
