put your woman friend in the hospital, panicking him in this direction would be mostly fatal for him. We know what to look for this time.”
“I just hope we can catch him,” Tank said heavily. “It wears on the nerves, especially when a woman’s involved.”
“I know that feeling. If we can do anything on our end, let me know. I’ll fill Rick Marquez in on what’s happening. He told me about the direction the case is taking and the connections. He’s still chasing down leads on the prosecutor’s murder, now that you’ve given him a new angle to look at. He said he loves the chance to solve that case. He knew the guy from when he was a public defender. Damned shame.”
“Yes. Too many people have been hurt already. Thanks for the help.”
“I haven’t done much, but you’re welcome. Keep us in the loop.”
“I’ll do that.”
THEY’D PUT AS many safety precautions into effect as they could. Clara still insisted on staying at the cabin, and they couldn’t move her. But Tank did have a cowboy stay in the spare bedroom, with a gun, just in case.
Merissa got better very quickly. She and Tank had a nice meal together in the hospital for Christmas, complete with turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce. Clara joined them for it. Two days later, the doctor agreed to release her, and Tank and Carson drove her home.
She and Clara had a tearful reunion. “Oh, it’s so good to be home!” Merissa almost wept as she hugged her mother.
“So good to have you here, my darling,” Clara enthused.
“I wish I hadn’t messed up Christmas for us,” Merissa said miserably.
“We’ll have a late one. I haven’t even taken the tree down.” Clara laughed.
“I guess I can go home now?” the cowboy, Rance, asked.
“No!” several voices echoed.
Rance put up both hands and laughed. “No problem! I like it here. She—” he pointed at Clara “—can cook!”
“So can Merissa,” Tank said with a smile. “She’s in a class of her own.”
“I’ll prove that to you in a day or two, when I get stronger,” she promised him.
He grinned and bent to kiss her warmly. “Don’t get off your guard. We have to talk.”
She nodded, her eyes full of wonder. “As soon as you like.”
“Just a few loose ends to tie up first,” he said. He motioned to Carson to go with him. “I’ll see you first thing in the morning. If you need me...”
“I’ll call,” she promised.
He stared at her with such passion that she blushed. He walked back, scooped her up gently and kissed her. “See you in the morning.”
She laughed. “Okay!”
One thing he was certain of as he walked out the door. That woman was his. And she knew it.
HE PHONED ROURKE as soon as he finished telling the family about how things stood at the cabin now that Merissa was back home.
“I was going to call Marquez myself, but we’ve had a lot going on, with Merissa being released from the hospital. I did tell Hayes Carson, but Marquez should be briefed on everything, too. Since you know him,” he asked, “do you think you could give him a call for me?”
Rourke chuckled. “I’ll call him right now,” he added.
“Let’s hope there’s some good news.”
“Let’s hope.”
ROURKE CALLED BACK a few hours later, from near the Baker house. The cowboy who’d been watching Clara had returned to the ranch. Rourke had released him, and he was anxious to get back to his regular chores, despite Clara’s wonderful cooking. Carson was working around the Kirk ranch, keeping an eye on the family.
“Sorry it took so long. Marquez was in court,” Rourke said.
“I figured he wasn’t available or I’d have heard from you sooner. Are Clara and Merissa okay?”
“They’re fine. They were having lunch just before I left to check the surveillance units Carson put up. If I get back in time, I’ll get homemade chicken salad.” He laughed. “Okay, here’s what Marquez was able to find out...”
“Is that line secure?”
“Is it ever,” Rourke said grimly. “I’m halfway up a tree talking on a throwaway phone. Yours is a prepaid. No way he’s got access to these. And just in case he does, I’m running a scrambler on the line.”
“Devious.”
“I work in covert ops,” Rourke reminded him. “This is what Marquez told me. That watch was made by a Swiss manufacturer. It’s a custom one-of-a-kind watch. It was a birthday present to the assistant D.A. from his very wealthy wife.”
“So the guy couldn’t fence it,” Tank guessed.
“Very good. It could have been disassembled, jewels removed, gold melted down, but the watch was unique. My guess, and Marquez’s, is that the killer liked the prestige of wearing a watch that was worth more than the price of a new custom Jaguar XK. Same thing for the shirt, which was couture, hand-painted and cost a mint. So he likes the shirt and the watch and starts wearing them. It’s stupid, but brilliant people do stupid things. He wears them to Hayes Carson’s drug bust and is photographed wearing them. Later, he wears them to your ambush and you saw him wearing them. Somebody, probably his employer, goes nuts when he realizes his man has been advertising a killing that could put them both in the slammer for life and there’s a photograph to prove it. So the repentant employee goes after Hayes, tries to have him killed, but hires the wrong man and the gunman misses. Thus the kidnapping, which would certainly have led to Hayes’s murder except for some great escape work by Hayes’s fiancee, whom he just married.”
“The photograph would have been on the computer that was in Hayes’s office that was erased by a cohort of the would-be killer,” Tank finished for him.
“Most likely the woman accomplice was the one who worked for the so-called surveillance tech who bugged the houses up here,” Rourke guessed. “Then when they realized the photograph could be recovered, they took the computer and killed the techie who was trying to do the recovery.”
“Sloppy, messy job all around,” Tank muttered.
“Isn’t it, though?” Rourke mused. “To continue, then he realizes that you got a great look at him and you’re another loose end he can’t afford to ignore. Our guy is a pro. He’s great at disguises, knows his poisons...knows his way around the underworld. But I’ve worked with some guys like that who were skilled at covert ops but lousy at strategy and tactics. Maybe in the past he’s had someone else telling him what to do and how to do it, and he was great at it. Now, maybe he’s on his own and finding that he’s not covering all his bases like he used to. Or maybe he has a drug habit and it’s getting out of control, so he’s sloppy all of a sudden.”
“He didn’t try to hit the two federal agents or Cash Grier’s secretary,” Tank pointed out.
“They may have been further down the list. Take out the biggest risk first—Hayes Carson and his computer. Then you, because you could actually connect him with Charro Mendez and lead you back to his boss if you talked to the right people.”
“Lot of maybes there,” Tank pointed out.
“True.”
“What else did Marquez tell you?”
“They’ve tentatively traced our would-be assassin to a sleazy politician with purported ties to a drug cartel. He’s a state senator. But he’s running for a high political office. The elderly senior U.S. senator from Texas has died suddenly of what they assumed were natural causes. That’s being reinvestigated as we speak. There’s also a serious rival for the unexpired term who just landed himself in the hospital with an undiagnosed illness.”
“Did they look for poison in his bloodstream?” Tank drawled.
“They hadn’t, but thanks to Marquez, they’re going to.”
“You think there’s a tie to this politician?” Tank asked.
