Wyoming Bold

CHAPTER TWELVE

TANK LOOKED INTO her eyes with aching longing. He wanted to tell her how jealous he was of Carson, how he wished he could take back the things he’d said, that he didn’t want her for a friend. He wanted her for the rest of his life.

But how could he do that, now that he’d ruined everything?

“You’re troubled,” she said softly. “Can you talk about it?”

His lips made a thin line. He shrugged. “I wish I could,” he said.

Her fingers closed around his. “Something to do with that man,” she guessed.

He just nodded. He turned her hand over and winced. There was a big bruise on the back of it.

“It just looks bad, that’s all,” she said. “They couldn’t hit a vein at first so they had to put the needle there, for the drip,” she added. She smiled, indicating her other arm, where a drip was still running into a needle in the fold of her elbow. “They got it right this morning.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said heavily. “We all are.”

“There’s no need for that,” she said gently. “This criminal is very good. He started when he was barely in his teens. Someone trained him, someone very expert in espionage.” Her eyes were almost opaque. “Someone in a tropical place. Palm trees. Cruise ships.” She flushed.

“Keep going,” he said, encouraging her. “He likes sharks...”

She blinked. “Yes. He likes sharks. He acts the same. No emotion, no regret, just a predator who takes advantage of opportunities.”

He wanted to ask her if she’d seen a watch in her visions, but he was paranoid about being overheard. Just in case the man had managed to bug her room, and why wouldn’t he; it was stupid to say anything that might be overheard. Sharks excluded, he mused. If the man was listening, that information wouldn’t set him off. After all, he was aware that people knew he’d mentioned sharks once.

“You look tired,” she commented.

He managed a smile as he looked at her. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“I can imagine,” she replied. “All this worry about what he’s going to do next...”

“No!” His fingers closed around hers. He shrugged and didn’t meet her eyes. “I was worried...we were all worried...about you.”

“Oh.”

She sounded surprised. He met her searching eyes. “My brothers came to the hospital with me when you were admitted. Their wives wanted to come, too, but I didn’t think it was wise to try to bring Harrison down here, or a very pregnant Bolinda.”

She smiled. “How very nice of them!”

“They like you,” he replied.

She flushed a little and laughed. “They don’t think I’ll curdle the milk?”

He shook his head. “We’re modern in some of our attitudes. No pitchforks and torches. Stuff like that.”

She did laugh then.

He drew in a breath. “At least you have a little more color today.”

“I’m feeling much better. I don’t know what they’ve been pumping into me, but it really has helped.”

“Any visitors? Besides us, I mean.”

“Just Carson.” Her eyes softened. “He came and sat with me for a few minutes.”

His face grew cold. He let go of her hand. “I just saw Carson. He didn’t mention he’d seen you.”

“He felt guilty because he left us alone in the house,” she replied, “and gave the man an opening to tamper with my meds.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That it wasn’t his fault, of course,” she replied. “I know you don’t like him,” she added perceptively. “But he’s not what you think. He’s a good person.”

He almost bit his tongue trying not to tell her some of the things he knew that Carson had done.

“How’s Mama doing?” she asked to divert him. “She seems okay, but she was very worried. And she’s still getting over Dad being shot.”

He lost his jealousy all at once. “She’s doing very well. That was an accident of fate. Your father was a cruel, vindictive man. We make our path in life, then we walk it. His ended as violently as he lived.”

She sighed. “I suppose so. It’s still hard.” She looked up. “Are your parents still alive?”

He shook his head. “Our mother, died some years ago. So did our father. It’s been just the three of us for a long time.” He smiled sadly. “You know, there’s nobody in the world who feels the same pride for you that a parent does, or the unconditional love you get. A parent will excuse things that the world won’t. I suppose we’re poorer for the lack of them.”

“I always hoped for a father who’d be loving and kind,” she replied sadly. “Mine was neither. I learned to stay out of his way almost as soon as I could walk. Mama took a lot of blows that were meant for me.” She closed her eyes. “My childhood was a nightmare.”

He smoothed his fingers over her soft hand. “I’m sorry for that.”

“Me, too.”

She wasn’t resisting so he linked his fingers into hers. It gave him a thrill, like parachuting from a great height. “Any other visitors?” he asked.

She smiled. “Not really. Just the sheriff’s deputy. He asked me a lot of questions for a report.”

“I guess Cody sent him,” he said.

“I guess.”

He glanced at the hall. Hospital workers were moving trays off some sort of mobile rolling cart. He grimaced. “I suppose it’s supper time and I have to leave,” he said reluctantly.

“They really have very nice food here,” she said. “Well, except for the gelatin.” She whispered loudly, “Can’t you please smuggle me in a steak?”

“I heard that,” one of the volunteers called through the door with a chuckle.

“Sorry. Couldn’t help it,” Merissa replied.

The woman came in with a covered tray and placed it on the hospital table that looped over the bed. “You’ll like this. It isn’t steak. But it’s good.” She lifted the cover.

“Roast beef!” Merissa exclaimed. “And carrots! I love carrots!”

“Her first solid food, I gather?” Tank asked the woman.

She laughed. “However did you guess? Only someone on a liquid diet would go all googly-eyed over carrots.” She rolled her eyes. “And there’s this, too.” She put fruit juice, milk and a small serving of vanilla ice cream on the tray.

“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Merissa whispered.

“Not quite, but you came close, I hear.” The woman chuckled again. “Now you eat every bite, okay?”

“Okay,” Merissa promised.

Tank smiled at her. Odd, he thought, the way her voice sounded. It was familiar. He wished he could place it. He almost asked if they’d met, but it would appear as a pickup line, and he wasn’t doing that in front of Merissa.

The woman went out. Merissa enthused over the food. But when she tasted the roast beef, she made a face.

“How very strange,” she murmured.

“What?”

“I’m just paranoid, I guess, but it tastes a little funny. It smells like someone got happy with the garlic. I guess it’s just my taste buds,” she added, and started to fork it into her mouth.

“No.” Tank took the fork with the meat on it. He sniffed it. He frowned. He knew that smell all too well. He’d worked, very carefully, with a commercial grade of Malathion. First the capsules, now this...!

“You’re not eating that.” He opened his cell phone and called Cody Banks.

“Hi, Tank. How’re things?” he replied.

“Did you send a deputy to the hospital to question Merissa today?” he asked.

The other man laughed. “Well, not yet,” he said. “I mean, she’s barely out of ICU...”

That was when Tank remembered the voice on the phone. He’d called the surveillance company and talked to a woman about installing the security cameras. That was the voice. The woman who brought in Merissa’s tray. She wouldn’t be working in a hospital if she was an accomplice for the assassin who was after Tank, and that was who she sounded like.

“Tank?” Cody asked when there was a long pause.

“You’ll think I’m crazy. But can you send your investigator over here right now?”

“Why?”

“Don’t hang up. I think the assassin has an accomplice working here, and part of Merissa’s meal that the woman just delivered may have something in it. Something dangerous. It smells like commercial Malathion. We already know that was what was put in the capsule she ingested.”

Cody knew Tank. He wasn’t an alarmist. His word was good enough for the sheriff. “I’ll not only send him, I’ll come with him. Don’t let them take that tray away until I get there.”

“I won’t.”

He hung up. Merissa was listening, and she looked more nervous than ever.

“Cody didn’t send a deputy over here to see you,” he said. “Tell me everything you remember about the man.”

She frowned. “He was medium height, wearing a uniform,” she said. “He was wearing a bib cap. He seemed very nice. He asked about my mother, and remarked about how lucky I was to still be alive. He said the man probably hadn’t meant to kill me at that point in time, or he would have put a bigger dose of poison in the capsules. He said that perhaps he was waiting for just the right moment to erase me, when it would have the most impact.” She looked at Tank. “That’s a strange thing to say, isn’t it?”

Tank was really worried now. He wanted to go out into the hall and find that damned woman, tie her up, make her talk. He wanted the man, the rogue agent. He pulled out his phone again and called Rourke.

“You’d better come down here. Make sure my brothers are in the house with their wives and that Carson is with them.”

“I’ll do it right now,” Rourke said without a single argument.

“Rourke?” Merissa questioned.

He smiled. “He once fed a man to a crocodile,” he mused. “I’m hoping he hasn’t lost his touch,” he added, just in case that paisley-shirt-wearing snake was listening.

“Dalton!” she exclaimed. “Shame!”

He curled her fingers closer into his. “On second thought, maybe something more creative than a crocodile.”

She was solemn. “He burns.”

“Yes, he burns to kill me...”

She shook her head. “No, Dalton,” she said softly. “He burns. Alive.” She shivered. “I saw it. I couldn’t see his features, but I know it was him in the vision. He burns. He screams...”

He nipped her thumb gently with his fingers. “Don’t dwell on things like that,” he said softly.

“That’s what I see. That’s the kind of thing I see, all the time. Death. Violence. Pain.” She drew in a long breath. “All my life. I had a friend when I was in grammar school. I knew she was going to die, and how. I tried to warn her. She thought I was joking. I told her not to go swimming in the lake that day, that a man driving a boat, drinking, would run over her.” She closed her eyes. “She just laughed. They went swimming. A man was driving a speedboat too fast, drinking. He didn’t see her. He ran right over her and the propellers caught her.” Her face was tragic. “After that, I didn’t want to have any friends.” She looked up at him. “People say this is a gift. It’s not a gift, it’s a curse. Nobody in his right mind would want to see the future if he knew what was lying in wait for him.”

“I suppose I’ve never thought of it like that.”

“I’d love to be just normal,” she said sadly. “You know, have a regular job, do regular things, get married, have kids...live a happy life.”

“Why can’t you?” he asked softly.

“My children would suffer because of me,” she replied. “They’d pay the price for my...gift.”

“You shouldn’t decide not to have children on such a basis,” he said quietly. “Merissa, we all have things in our lives that make us stand out. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Your children might have similar gifts. It isn’t a curse. It really is a gift. I wouldn’t be sitting here today if you didn’t have it.”

She knew that. She began to relax. She smiled. “I suppose I’m letting it all get to me.” She looked at her tray. “I’m so hungry,” she moaned.

“I’ll have them bring you something else, but Cody’s investigator’s having a look at that,” he added, indicating the tray.

The woman who’d brought the tray came in, smiling, to collect it. She stopped dead when she noticed that Merissa hadn’t touched it.

“Well, you haven’t eaten a thing,” she exclaimed. “Now that won’t do. You have to eat that right now,” she began. “All of it.” She moved to the bed. “Come on, Miss Baker, don’t be difficult. Here, I’ll feed it to you...”

“Like hell you will!” Tank exploded.

He got to his feet just as Cody Banks walked in the door. “Grab her,” he told Cody, indicating the woman. “She’s the assassin’s accomplice!”

“I’m...what... Who... You’re crazy!” the woman exclaimed, red-faced. “I’m leaving!”

“You are not,” Tank said, and covered the doorway. “Cody, there’s something wrong with the food on that tray. It needs to be tested. I recognize this woman’s voice. She worked for the so-called surveillance expert who bugged my house.”

The woman gaped at him. But she didn’t really protest when Cody cuffed her and told his investigator to call for a deputy to pick her up.

“You’ll sit right there,” he told the woman, indicating a chair near the window.

“You’ll never prove a thing,” the woman scoffed.

“Think so?” Tank asked, and his eyes were ice-cold.

THEY RAN A toxicology screen on the meal. The roast beef was laced with Malathion, enough to kill anyone who ingested it. Far from the normal grade that was used on the ranch as an insecticide, this was a commercial grade of the pure chemical, which was greatly diluted when in use. Tank was willing to bet that when they compared the Malathion in this food, and that in Merissa’s capsules, it would be a match for the product under lock and key on the Kirk ranch.

“Good God, he’s insane,” Tank exclaimed when the doctor gave them the results of the tests she’d ordered.

The doctor was grim. “I have never had such a case in all my career,” she confessed. “What do we do, Sheriff?”

Cody drew in a breath. “For one thing, we put someone with Merissa around the clock.”

“I can do that,” Rourke said. He’d joined them earlier. “I have another man watching the ranch. Both of us have backgrounds in, shall we say, deadly endeavors.” He smiled.

Cody gave him a wary look.

“I’ve done nothing illegal in this country,” Rourke reassured him.

Cody pursed his lips. “All right. Your man Carson can sure track,” he added.

“He can do a lot of things,” Rourke said. “Tracking is one of them. He’ll keep the family safe.”

“Clara has to move in with us,” Tank added. “I won’t have her at the cabin alone.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Rourke assured him. “I’d better get Merissa’s computer and bring it along as well. Wouldn’t want our anonymous friend messing with it.”

“Good idea,” Tank said. “And nobody says anything about what we’re planning in Merissa’s room. Chances are pretty good that it’s bugged, since we know a man pretending to be your deputy,” he told Cody, “came to interview her.”

“He’s in dead earnest this time,” Rourke said quietly. “He wants to kill her.”

“It’s a link in the chain,” Tank said. “He’s putting pressure on me. If she died, I’d never spend a second thinking about the past, when I met him. What he doesn’t know is that we’ve already made the connection he’s so afraid of.”

“What connection?” Cody asked.

“It’s better if you don’t know right now,” Tank told him. He clapped the other man on the shoulder. “It doesn’t concern this business, anyway. At least, not at the moment. Right now, our only concern has to be keeping Merissa alive.”

“Carson will stay at the hospital until she’s released,” Rourke said.

“Thank goodness,” Cody replied, oblivious to Tank’s offended and angry expression. “I don’t have the budget to do that.”

“He does,” Rourke said, jerking a thumb at Tank.

“My investigator will interview her while he’s here. This guy is a nutcase,” Cody said curtly.

“You can bet money on that,” Rourke replied.

“Why does he want to kill such a kind young woman?” Cody asked. “I just don’t get it.”

“She sees things,” Tank replied. “He’s afraid she’ll help me remember something he doesn’t want to get out. I’ll tell you the minute I can,” he promised. “It’s very complex.”

“Something to do with that case in Texas maybe?” Cody asked dryly.

“Maybe.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s even darker than that,” Rourke added. “This is a piece of a puzzle. A deadly one.”

“There are dozens of poisons that have no taste, or color,” Cody puzzled. “Why didn’t he use one of those?”

“He’s cocky,” Tank said coldly. “Arrogant. He thinks we’re all fools. Probably he thought it would be amusing to kill her with a substance we use on the ranch, in lesser doses, every day during the growing season.”

“Boy.” Rourke chuckled. “Has he got a surprise coming!”

“Indeed he does,” Tank added. He looked at Cody. “No chance you could suspend that woman you arrested on suspicion of murder over a lake or something by her thumbs to make her talk?” he teased.

He shook his head. “Sorry. Wrong century.”

“It was just a thought.” He glanced at Rourke. “Think she might sell him out for the right price?”

Rourke shook his head grimly. “I think she won’t be alive this time tomorrow.”

“Hey, I run a tight jail,” Cody protested. “He’d never get in past my guys. Not in a million years!”

Rourke and Tank didn’t answer. They knew enough already to be certain that if their killer wanted her dead, she would be.

SURE ENOUGH, LATER that very day Rourke phoned Tank, who was still at the hospital, with the news.

“The woman who tried to poison Merissa had a sudden coronary, right in her holding cell,” he remarked.

“How convenient,” Tank said. He wasn’t overflowing with sympathy. Merissa could have been lying dead in her bed, thanks to that witch.

“Isn’t it?” Rourke agreed.

“Did she have any visitors, do you know?”

“There was an old man with a cane who said he was her attorney and asked to see her. He was very convincing. The jailer let him use an interrogation room to talk to her. The old man came out, hobbling on the cane, thanked the jailer warmly, talked about the weather and left. They found the woman slumped over in her chair. EMTs responded, but all attempts at resuscitation failed. DOA at the hospital. He doesn’t like loose ends apparently.”

“So there goes our case,” Tank said angrily.

“Something like that.” Rourke drew in an audible breath. “Malathion. Good God, man, there are thousands of poisons that are undetectable by taste or smell. Why use Malathion?”

“Terror tactics,” Tank replied, his voice very quiet. “Something for impact. We know he can be stealthy when he wants to. Either he’s deliberately baiting us, or he’s getting sloppy. If he gets sloppy enough, we can hang him out to dry.”

“Lovely thought, and I just seasoned a brand-new rope,” Rourke said with a lilt in his accent.

Tank laughed, but without any real humor. “Well, we’ll see what happens. But I don’t like having Carson here with her,” he added involuntarily.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, mate,” Rourke replied. “He likes loose associations. Your lovely Merissa is a forever sort of person. Not at all his type.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Rourke chuckled. “You’ll see. I’ll go now. I’ve got things buttoned up tight here at the ranch. No worries.”

“All right. I’ll take your word for it that my family is safe.”

“A word to the wise,” Rourke added. “Don’t taste anything you’ve left unattended. Tell her, too. Carson will be watching, but it never hurts to emphasize certain things. He was careless with one poison. He might not be with another, especially now that his plans have been thwarted.” He hesitated. “I’ve seen men react under those conditions. A perfectly normal man, going by a set of mental plans, can go berserk when something unplanned happens. In this case, it could be fatal to a lot of people. Watch out.”

“Good advice, and I’ll take it. Thanks.” He paused. “You’ve been a lifesaver, Rourke.”

“You’re welcome,” the other man said as he hung up the phone.

MERISSA WAS SOLEMN. Carson was pensive. Neither of them spoke when Tank went back into the hospital room. He scowled.

Carson sighed. “He thinks we’ve been having a quick affair while the nurses’ backs were turned,” he mused, “somewhere between the checking-your-vitals and doctor rounds.” He smiled at Tank, who was really glowering now. “Just for future reference, I never conduct affairs with women of faith,” he pointed out, indicating Merissa. “They just aren’t into group sex, for some reason I can’t fathom.”

Tank couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. So did Merissa, although she flushed a little at the explicit remark.

“No offense meant, if you’re into it, of course,” he told Tank dryly.

“Not me.” Tank sat down in the only vacant chair and leaned back. He met Merissa’s eyes evenly. “I’m a one-woman man.”

She stared at him with wide, soft eyes. She wondered at the words and the expression on his face. It could be just a male thing, jealous of another man. On the other hand, he was looking at her with pure delight. Could he really have meant that he only wanted friendship from her? Had he said it because he wasn’t sure of her?

“I feel decidedly like a third wheel,” Carson remarked while they stared at each other. He got up. “I’m going down the hall for coffee. Can I bring you back a cup?” he asked Tank.

“Yes, please, cream only.” Tank slid a hand into his pocket and presented him with a twenty-dollar bill. “Don’t argue,” he added. “Think of it as an expense account.”

“In that case, I’ll splurge and get a chocolate bar to go with it.” Carson chuckled.

“I like mine with cream and sugar,” Merissa told him.

Carson gave her a patient look. “The nurses would carry me into a back room and do God knows what to me if I gave you caffeine.”

“Oh, you can paint a rose on that,” a cute little redheaded nurse said as she came into the room and shot Carson a voluptuous glance. “Really terrible things. Unimaginable things.” She gave him a mock growl.

“How many cups of coffee would you like, then?” he asked Merissa with a big grin.

Tank laughed. So did the nurse. Carson shot her a wink and a smile as he went out the door.

The nurse whistled and waved her hand as if fanning herself. “If I weren’t happily married and a mother...” she mused, looking after Carson.

“He does have that effect on women,” Tank joked.

“Most women,” Merissa corrected. She looked at Tank in a way that conveyed she wasn’t one of them.

Amazingly his face changed. He relaxed. He looked...happy. Content. He let the nurse do her job, then when she left, he moved close to the bed and leaned over Merissa.

“I lied.”

“Excuse me?” she asked.

He bent his head and brushed his mouth tenderly over hers. “I don’t want you for a friend.”

“An enemy then?” she teased, but she was breathing as if she’d been running.

He nibbled her upper lip. “We can talk about it when you’re out of the hospital and all this insanity ends.”

She touched his cheek with cold fingertips and smiled while his mouth moved against hers very softly. “Okay.”

He chuckled, because that didn’t sound like a refusal.

She sighed as she looked up at his hard, gorgeous face. “You are so incredibly handsome,” she murmured huskily.

He actually flushed. “Who? Me?”

“You.” She smiled. “It’s not only the way you look. It’s the way you are.”

“You don’t really know me yet,” he pointed out.

“I know you down to your bones,” she said in an old, wise tone. “You’d lay down your life for your brothers, for their wives, for people who are close to you. In time of danger, you never run. You’re honest and loyal and you don’t even drink. Or smoke.” She shook her head. “Your only real flaw, and it’s a small one, is that temper.”

He made a face at her. “It only peeks out from time to time in extreme circumstances.”

“Like when you think Carson’s trying to charm me.” She laughed softly.

He sighed. It was impossible to deny it. “Yeah.”

She touched his chiseled mouth. “He’s very attractive. He seems like a rock sometimes, but he has a soft center. He doesn’t want to get serious about anyone ever again, but there’s a young woman somewhere who’s driving him up the wall.”

“She’ll have to get in line,” he teased, relieved to hear that Carson wasn’t mooning over his girl.

“It’s not like that,” she replied. “She’s very religious. She won’t like some of the things she finds out about him.” She searched over Tank’s face. “I think it will shock him. He isn’t used to women who don’t think of intimacy as an itch you scratch whenever you feel the need.”

“You’re that sort of woman,” he said softly.

“Yes,” she replied. “I’m not judgmental. I don’t want to make the world over into my own image of how things should be.”

“I know what you mean. But there will always be people of faith, and women who don’t follow the crowd over the cliff of...group sex,” he added jokingly.

She laughed.

“And what’s so funny about group sex?” Carson asked haughtily as he rejoined them. “Honest to God, you people!” He hesitated for effect. “Haven’t you ever seen an anaconda mating ball on those National Geographic specials?”

They burst out laughing.

He handed Tank a cup of coffee and looked regretfully at Merissa as he dropped into a chair on the other side of the bed. “Sorry, but they really would throw me out on my ear if I brought you a cup.”

“I know. It’s okay,” she said, smiling at him.

Tank sat down in his own chair, but his eyes never left Merissa.

“Heard anything from the sheriff?” Carson asked.

Tank shook his head. “No, but he’ll let us know if he finds anything. Shame about that woman,” he added darkly. “I expect with a little incentive, she might have given something away.”

“Or not,” Carson added. “Men like that don’t choose partners for their loose tongues.” He crossed his long, muscular legs. “However, a little background check might turn up something.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” Tank smiled at Carson, because he knew what the man was doing. He suspected there was a bug in the hospital room. He was upping the ante, giving the shadowy assassin something more to worry about.

“Unless she was working for the government in deep cover, she isn’t invisible. Someone will have known her. Your friend the sheriff will run her through the NCIC database and see what shows. I’m betting she’s got a rap sheet. Not too long, maybe. But there’ll be something there.”

“Enough, I hope,” Tank added deliberately, “to give our shadowy friend a lot of worries. I wish him as many as he’s given me lately.”

“I expect when he hears what the Texas authorities are researching, he’ll need to change his underwear,” Carson said deliberately, and stared at Tank, to warn him not to speak.

“You think so?” was all Tank asked. He sipped coffee. “This isn’t bad, for coffee out of a machine.”

“Philistine,” Carson scoffed. “This is real, honest-to-goodness coffee from a real coffeemaker.”

“How did you get that?” Tank asked, surprised.

Carson leaned toward him. “There’s this really pretty nurse. I just smiled and mentioned how much I hated coffee out of those damned machines.” He held up his cup and grinned from ear to ear.

Tank couldn’t resist laughing, too. Merissa just shook her head.