Cold Target (45 page)

“You aren't?”

“No.”

DeWitt cursed on the other end of the line. “Will you stop saying yes and no? This whole thing is beginning to smell like rotten fish.”

“Try a little harder to find her,” Gage said. “Without involving Ms. Rawson. Then we'll talk.”

“I'll try the justice again.”

“You might try to find out a little more about Holly Ames. Hobbies, community involvement—you know, things like that.”

A silence. “You think something bad has happened to her?”

“I don't think anything. I just want to locate her without being involved.” Gage paused, then added, “But as you said—it's beginning to smell. Someone else involved in the situation is also dead. Merely because of questions asked. Be careful.”

An even longer silence. “You think Ames is involved? And maybe Judge Matthews? I need to talk to you.”

“I'm not at home.”

“And you're not going to tell me where you are?”

“No.”

“I can call the department.”

“You would never get anything from me again.”

“Dammit, Gage.”

“Find her,” Gage said, and hung up.

Meredith made them all toasted cheese sandwiches. She included two for Beast since they hadn't brought his dog food.

He gulped his as the three humans sat at the table and ate. She liked Dom. It had taken a few hours. There had been awkwardness, even resentment. All this began with an affair that took place thirty-three years ago. If it hadn't …

But then there never would have been a sister. Her mother would have never known love, even as cruel as this one had been.

She was beginning to learn the value of love. The glory of it. The joy. She knew it every time she looked at Gage. She wondered whether he felt the same delicious shivers up and down his spine when he looked at her as she did when her glance wandered his way.

What would happen when the danger was over? When the partnership ended? When the adrenaline ebbed?

She didn't want to think about that. She wanted to know more about the man who had incited dangerous feelings in her mother and who had fathered her half sister.

“How did you meet Mother?” she asked.

“She and her friends came to my father's tavern. They'd heard we had a great Cajun band, and basically they were slumming. Except for your mother. She loved the music. She didn't laugh at the grandfather dancing with his six-year-old granddaughter.” He caught the look on her face. “Yes, children came to eat and dance. You have to understand. Cajuns are big on family. It's the most meaningful thing to them.

“Your mother fell in love with my family, with the music. The others got bored and decided to go. I had danced with her. I didn't want to let her go. I offered to take her and her friend, Lulu, home.

“Maggie and I fell in love that night. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. You've heard of laughing eyes. I had, too, but I had never seen them until that night. She glowed with life and vitality.”

His regret and sadness seeped through her. She remembered her mother's unhappiness. Two young lives destroyed. Why?

“And it was Prescott who framed you?”

“Yes.”

“And then someone killed him. So he obviously didn't act on his own.”

“He could have been killed for some other reason,” Gage interjected. “From everything I could discover, he had enemies. He was a gambler, for one thing.”

“I could buy that if there weren't so many other deaths that are related in some way.”

But they were getting away from the subject she most wanted to hear about. Her mother. “How long were you and my mother together?”

“Four months. Long enough to know we wanted to be married. My parents objected as much as I knew hers would. She wasn't Cajun. She wouldn't understand our ways. They wanted me to take over the tavern, but I'd never wanted that. I wanted to go to college and become someone important. Well, I became someone important, but not in the way I thought.”

“Ah, but you have,” she said gently. “You've helped so many kids.”

“Except my own,” he said. “Except my own.”

After lunch, Gage asked her if she wanted to explore the bayou with him in the canoe. “I'll take the cell phone. There's not much we can do until DeWitt calls back.”

“And Dom?”

“I already asked him. He wants to make some phone calls. I think he needs some time to absorb everything.”

She understood. It had taken her days to absorb everything. She couldn't even imagine what it would be like to discover you'd had a daughter thirty-three years earlier. “Beast?”

“Beast will stay here. I don't think anyone knows about this place, but he sure as hell will let everyone know if there's lurkers around.”

She liked the idea of being alone with him. She needed to relax. She liked Dom but there was no question that there was an unease between them. She was the daughter of his love and probably his enemy.

She watched as Gage dragged the canoe to the dock and nervously eyed it as he settled it in the water. She had never been in one, and she knew how fragile and easily unbalanced one could be. She was not good at balance. Neither was she good at grace.

He must have caught her apprehension because he grinned. “Believe it or not, Beast has gone canoeing with me. If he can do it …” He left the sentence unfinished.

Falling into a bayou full of alligators and snakes was not her idea of fun. But if Beast could do it, she certainly could. And the prospect of being with Gage in his territory was irresistible.

He got in first, then held out his hand to her. The strength in that hand helped as she stepped in. His other hand caught her and guided her down onto a seat. For a moment, she feared she would tip the boat, and then she caught the balance.

He sat down and handed her a paddle. “Just watch me,” he said with a lopsided grin that made her want to do anything.

Beast looked dismayed from his spot on the dock.

“Not this time,” Gage told him. “Take care of Dom. Guard.”

The dog turned and trotted back to the shack.

Gage put his paddle in the water and made what looked like effortless strokes. She watched him for several minutes.

“You do the exact same thing on the other side. Try to match my rhythm.”

Easier said than done. She leaned over and the canoe started to tip. She leaned in the opposite direction. She watched as he balanced the canoe. “Don't lean,” he said. “Use your arms until you find the balance.”

She tried again.

This time the canoe moved faster. She found her rhythm and started to look around. Moss hung from trees rising from the water. Water flowers floated on the surface.

She had never heard this kind of peace. There was the buzzing of insects, the call of a bird, the sound of the paddles, but there was a human silence. A breeze softened the heavy moisture-laden heat. The aroma of flowers and vegetation filled the air.

The world and its dangers seemed a million miles away. She was flooded with a sense of peace as the canoe sliced though the waters. An alligator sunned itself on a bank. A bird sang its song. She understood now the lure of the swamp and the bayous, the sensuous feeling of timelessness.

He turned and looked at her, his slow smile mesmerizing her. He knew that she was succumbing to the magic. “When the world gets too violent,” he said softly, “I come here. Nothing changes here. I imagine it was like this five hundred years ago. I always get balance.”

It wasn't a word she would have expected him to use. He'd always seemed more like an action person. Always in movement. Always restless. Here there was a peace about him.

Layers and layers. How intriguing to explore them. He was, she decided, the most complex man she had ever met. She wanted to lean over and push back a lock of sandy hair that fell over his forehead. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead and he had unbuttoned his shirt so the breeze could reach his body. In addition to being the most complex man, he was also the sexiest. And at the moment, he oozed sexuality.

She almost dropped the darn paddle.

Whether or not he sensed her feelings, he guided the canoe toward a piece of land that jutted outward. He hopped out and pulled the boat up, then held out his hand to her. She took it, her hand fitting in his so naturally. He pulled her to him, against him, and he kissed her.

They had kissed before. They had made love before. But this was on an entirely different level. She felt the kiss through to her bones. It was tender and savage, passionate yet comforting, soothing. It was both demanding and giving.

She leaned against him, absorbing the love and care inherent in every caress.

She wished they weren't standing in the middle of a swamp.

His cell phone rang.

She silently cursed the intrusion of modern technology in a place where time seemed to stand still.

She heard his side of the conversation.

“Yeah?”

“You have to be kidding.” Not a question.

“You sure about this?” A question.

Then, “Public record now, right?”

A pause. “No one will know where it came from. Thanks, buddy.” He snapped the phone closed.

She waited for an explanation.

“I told you about our floater. A man who was found in a bayou. We struck gold. A sample of DNA was taken. It matched up with a man named Carrick. So happened he was charged with rape while in the service. The victim refused to testify but he was given a discharge and his DNA went on file.”

“The name meant something to you,” she said.

“He worked occasionally for Randolph Ames.”

He punched in some numbers on the cell phone.

“Sanders, it's Gaynor again. Any luck?”

She could hear the reporter sputtering over the line. It was clear he was very angry at being stonewalled.

“Well, I might have something else for you.”

She noticed he let that tantalizing morsel sit a moment before continuing. “Ask the Ames people if they know a man named Carrick. Accused rapist some years ago. Now a body in the morgue. A floater with no hands and no head.”

He listened for a moment, then said with some relish, “Look in your own morgue for photos of State Senator Randolph Ames. You'll discover Carrick in some background photos. Apparently worked as a chauffeur and bodyguard.”

Meredith heard an exclamation from the receiver, then Gage said, “I don't know if he knew or not. I'm sure you can find out. But you didn't get it from me.” He snapped the phone closed.

He turned back to her. His eyes were worried. “I don't like the idea that Holly Ames is missing,” he said.

She felt a similar panic. She'd heard enough to send chills down her back.

He took her hand. “Let's get back. I really want to talk to Ames. By the time DeWitt finishes with him, he's going to be in a panic.”

They paddled back without stopping along the way to gaze at birds as they had on their way out.

As they drew closer, she saw Dom pacing the small, rickety dock, Beast beside him.

Gage stepped out of the canoe as Dom tied it to the dock. Then Gage reached out and helped her from the boat.

He turned to Dom. “What is it?”

“They're closing down my shelter.”

twenty-nine

B
ISBEE

Holly worked on her latest creation, Belle the Butterfly. She had steadily increased her production, enjoying every single moment.

She couldn't remember when she had been so happy. Nor when Harry had been.

She was finally beginning to feel safe. If Randolph hadn't found her by now, he'd probably cut his losses and made up some plausible story.

Now that she was concentrating on Garden Folk, she no longer went to the library every day. Instead she had invested in an inexpensive used computer. She still checked the New Orleans papers occasionally, but certainly not with the compulsion she had her first weeks in Bisbee.

The increased amount of work had not diminished her joy in creating. She now had the pig, the butterfly, the frog, the ladybug, a whimsical turtle, and a snail. Each one changed, according to her mood and the piece of metal she used.

It was the best of all possible worlds. She could watch Harry, and now he had the computer as well as the television, books and Caesar to keep him happily occupied. They went for a long walk every day, and that was their special time together.

Doug had gotten into the habit of dropping by two or three times a week, always with food. He knew how much Harry loved tacos, and he could whip them up in no time while she put away her tools. Sometimes Jenny came and sometimes not, depending on her schedule.

Doug and Holly would sit outside and have a glass of wine or beer and watch the sun set.

He would leave then, realizing that she had to get back to work. He was the most undemanding, most patient man she had ever met. He just seemed to enjoy their company.

It was frightening how much she looked forward to his knock on the door and how much she liked looking at his face. It was such a pleasant face. The sun had bronzed it. Intriguing laugh lines drew attention to kind and intelligent eyes and a mouth that smiled easily. The features were craggy rather than handsome, obviously carved by character rather than displaying the smooth good looks of someone to whom everything came easily.

She had never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. She couldn't remember Randolph ever saying a kind one.

Every day, she got nearer and nearer to telling Doug her story. Each time, she caught herself before the words spilled out.

She knew she would. That one day she would trust him enough to tell him. And that day she would be putting her life, and Harry's, in his hands.

The phone rang, and she picked it up.

“We've received three orders for your Garden Folk,” Marty said happily. “Also received a call from a gallery in Florida asking about them. They want to purchase ten but they also want to know something about the artist for marketing purposes. Apparently it's an intimate type of place that likes to personalize everything.”