Night Thunder (23 page)

Chapter 23

“YOU FOUND HER—AND YOU LET HER GET away?”

The controlled fury in Oliver Tate’s voice was not lost on Dolph. He swore silently, clenching the cell phone tight against his ear.

“She won’t get far, Mr. Tate. I’ve called in reinforcements—Len, Morley, and Armstrong will be here in an hour.” He didn’t want to get into exactly what had gone wrong last night. Mr. Tate loathed explanations every bit as much as he loathed mistakes. Tate wouldn’t be happy to know he’d stumbled into a bust while he was chasing the girl, and that some goddamned hick cop had nearly caught him.

That guy who’d hit him had known what he was doing. Dolph had seen stars and his face still hurt. He’d barely had the wits to get away, but had known that in his dazed state, it wouldn’t be smart to stick around.

Much better to attack in his own time, in his own way.

That’s what he’d do today.

“The four of us will fan out to find the girl. We’ll have her and the diamond by noon.”

“You sound quite confident.”

“I am.” Dolph was sweating, though, as he sat inside his car on a steep, lonely road in the foothills. Tate didn’t give second chances too often. One slip-up and you were through.

Like Hammer. Like Lyle Samuels.

He held his breath, waiting for the verdict. “I’m going in fully loaded this time, Mr. Tate. I’ll be on a plane home tonight with your property.”

“See that you are, Dolph. See that you are.”

The phone clicked in his ear. Dead air. A reprieve.

Dolph took a deep breath, opened the glove compartment. He grabbed a PowerBar from inside and a bottle of water from underneath his seat and made short work of both, tossing the wrapper and the bottle out the window when he was done.

It was 7 A.M. In another hour he’d have Len, Morley, and Armstrong combing the town, foothills, and valley by helicopter, motorcycle, and automobile.

They’d find the girl. They had to.

If she wasn’t dead by tonight and the diamond wasn’t on its way back to Tate, he’d be the one buried.

Tate might occasionally give one of his employees a second chance, but he’d never been known to grant a third.

When I catch the bitch, she’s going to pay big-time for
all the trouble she’s caused. I’ll make sure she dies little
tiny bits at a time. Lots of pain, even more blood. That
babe’s going to fade away like paint drying. She’s going
down real slow.

Chapter 24

“ARE YOU SURE THIS IS THE SPOT?”

Ty dropped down on one knee beside the tree stump and glanced up at Josy in the milky-gray morning light. “Right here?”

“I’m positive.” She handed him a stick. “It’s down at least a foot.”

As he started to dig, Josy hugged her arms around herself in the chilly morning air. The day had dawned cool and cloudy. There’d been a misty rain earlier. Now it was dry, but the air smelled of earth and damp grass and more rain on the way. She shivered in her tank top. But not only from the chill in the air.

She was exhausted from the harrowing events of the previous night, and in the clear light of day, her fear was returning. She was afraid not only for herself, but for Ty and for Ricky. And there was a definite tension—an awkwardness—between her and Ty that had communicated itself to her the moment she woke up.

He was already showered and dressed, and in the kitchen making a pot of coffee when she opened her eyes.

She woke up alone in the big carved-oak bed.

And he’d been in such a hurry to get started that they hadn’t even talked much. He’d kissed her once, a quick peck, after she’d made the bed and hung his robe back in the bathroom.

But his mind had been elsewhere.

On the diamond. On Ricky. Not on
us,
she’d realized as she’d gulped the coffee, grabbed her purse, and followed him out to his car.

“Ah. Got it.”

She stared in silence as he tugged the brown-wrapped package from the dirt hole. Those strong fingers swiftly unwrapped the layers of paper, and then he was holding the diamond in the palm of his hand.

“Talk about a hot potato.”

The diamond glinted with cool crystal fire even in the pallid daylight. “Whoa, baby.” Ty shook his head. “I can’t even begin to guess what this is worth.”

He got to his feet, still studying the diamond. “But I’d bet my pension it’s a bundle. Something this size? It has to be a famous rock.”

“Do you mean . . . like the Hope diamond?”

“Exactly. When your pal Ricky turned thief he didn’t exactly do it in a small-time way, did he?”

“I’m sure he has a good explanation.” She bit her lip. “Maybe it’s evidence or something.”

He slanted her a skeptical glance. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Ty stuffed the diamond back into the wrapping and dropped it into his jacket pocket. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Dolph’s bound to be searching for you all through this area. We’ll be safer once we get into Albany County.”

There was silence between them for nearly the entire first hour of the drive. Josy tried to concentrate on the scenery, the low hills that grew gradually steeper, the greasewood brush, the sky billowing with charcoal clouds. Ty had switched on the radio, perhaps, she thought, to forestall any conversation, and Willie Nelson was singing “Always on My Mind.”

She refused to let herself dwell on what had happened between them last night. Today it seemed like a dream, a sensuous, wildly erotic dream, nothing at all like the cool, casual reality of them driving toward Laramie Peak, silent as strangers.

Better to think about today—about handing over the diamond to Ricky, finishing this horrible business at last. There was one aspect of it that she hadn’t considered before, but as the silence dragged on and she cast a quick glance over at Ty, she realized she’d better deal with it now. She didn’t want any unpleasant surprises later.

“I’m going to ask you to make me another promise.” Her voice sounded loud after such a long silence. She took a breath as Ty switched off the radio, his eyes still on the road.

“Why do I think I’m not going to like this?”

“You can’t arrest Ricky. Or hold him in any way. I’ll give him the diamond, and then we leave and he—”

“Gets away with it? We hand him stolen merchandise and let him run? I don’t think so.”

Josy heard the grimness in his tone and her stomach roiled. “You promised me you’d let me deliver it.”

“And I will. But I never said I’d let him just walk away scot-free.”

“So this is a trap?” Dismay swept through her. “You’re setting him up, aren’t you? You called your friend on the NYPD this morning and arranged for the police to be there—”

“You ought to be a writer, Josy. You have a vivid imagination.” He shot her a tight smile. “Relax. It’s only going to be you and me. I’m not planning to arrest him—I just want to persuade him to do the right thing. He needs to turn himself in and let me help him get this straightened out. According to my friend in New York, your old pal Ricky’s in shit up to his shirtsleeves. It’ll go a lot better for him if he faces it and quits running.”

“Ricky doesn’t run from things,” she protested sharply. “Not unless there’s no other way. We don’t know the whole story, and when we do, you’ll see that he’s been framed, just as he said.”

“Maybe he was.” Ty switched on the windshield wipers as a slow rain began to drip from the sky. The day had grown increasingly gray, the air whistling past the windows was thick with dust and grit.

She turned in her seat and stared at him. “You believe he was framed too? Tell me,” she said quickly. “What did you find out?”

“I spoke with Tommy Berger while you were still asleep. Ricky’s a wanted man in New York, all right. Big-time. The national media hasn’t picked up on the story yet—but the suits in the city want him back. Do you know why he was being investigated?”

“I know what the newspapers said about him. They said he was working undercover on a case involving some crime boss.”

“Not just some crime boss. Julius Caventini.”

“Yes—Caventini.” She nodded. “But the police accused him of going over to Caventini’s side. They said there was evidence he’d done a hit for Caventini and taken money for it. And that he’d accepted a payoff for tipping Caventini off to the investigation and helping him conceal evidence.”

“Right. Actually it was a precinct captain, a twenty-fiveyear veteran named Wallace Becker, who made the accusations and had Ricky arrested. According to Tommy, Ricky claimed to have evidence implicating not only Caventini but Becker and some cops in two other precincts, and—get this—he also pointed the finger at a big-shot businessman for being part of the organization. The businessman, Oliver Tate, has a squeaky-clean rep. He gives to all the right charities, is active in New York social circles, and is rumored to be on a short list of potential candidates for governor down the road.”

“Oliver Tate? That part wasn’t in the papers,” she said, feeling slightly dazed. “I know who he is. I’ve never met him,” she added, “but his wife attended some of Francesca’s runway shows. She always has a front-row seat. She was a former Miss World and is absolutely stunning. And I saw them once at a party one of Reese’s ex-husbands threw at the Rainbow Room. They’re one of the city’s power couples.”

“Well, according to Tommy’s sources, your pal Ricky thinks Tate is in bed with Caventini and Becker. So to speak. Married to the mob.”

“I wonder which one of them hired Dolph to find me.”

“Could be any of the three. And you were probably right when you said there might be others coming after you too. If Ricky’s telling the truth, all three of these men have a lot to lose. They’re playing for very high stakes, Josy.”

“But Ricky had evidence, right? It wasn’t only his word against Tate and Becker—”

“A funny thing happened on the way to internal investigations,” Ty said drily. “The evidence he turned over somehow disappeared.”

Josy’s mouth dropped. “What do you mean, disappeared?”

“There was a theft from the evidence room.”

“How convenient.” Anger darkened her eyes. “Don’t tell me that didn’t send up a red flag for the guys doing the internal investigation,” she exclaimed.

“Tommy didn’t have any scuttlebutt on that end of it. Though I’d think it would—if internal affairs is paying attention. But Josy”—he paused, choosing his words with care—“that still doesn’t explain why Ricky had this rock. Or where he got it—and how.”

“There has to be a good reason,” she insisted. “We’ll get all those answers today.”

“Yeah, if we make it that far.” Ty slowed for a sharp curve in the road. “Have you noticed that chopper?”

She hadn’t. But now that he mentioned it, she became aware of the steady whirring hum of a helicopter in the distance. Glancing through the windshield she saw a helicopter flying low in the sky ahead, coming right toward the car. As it glided overhead it changed direction, circling away to the east.

“What about it?” she asked, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“I noticed it earlier. It appeared to be following us briefly—then disappeared. Now it’s back. Could be Dolph or one of his friends.”

“Do you really think so?” Her breath caught in her throat. Now she’d put Ty in danger. And if they were being followed, they were leading Ricky’s enemies straight to him.

“Can you lose it?”

“We’re about to find out.”

Ty twisted the wheel and the car veered off the main road onto a gravel path. The cruiser jolted over the rough road, flanked on either side by stands of lodgepole pines.

“We’ve got time to kill, so let’s take the back roads for a while. This will take us to Bitter Gulch—we can get lunch there and switch cars.”

“How are you going to manage that?”

He pulled out his cell phone and shot her a grim smile. “Watch and learn.”

An hour later the car bumped onto a narrow paved road. Soon she saw a weatherbeaten wooden sign that read
Welcome to Bitter Gulch
.

“Talk about off the beaten path,” she murmured. “This town looks smaller than Thunder Creek.”

“It is, by about a hundred people. They’ve got a nice little diner here, though. Not as good as Bessie’s place, but we can get a decent burger.”

A burger sounded wonderful. Josy had barely even sipped her coffee this morning. Her appetite was coming back, especially since they hadn’t seen or heard the helicopter again since they’d turned off the highway.

“I’m so hungry I just might eat two burgers,” she muttered.

“Nothing like a woman with a healthy appetite.”

She spoke lightly. “Ah, so that’s what you like in a woman.”

Without turning her head, she could sense his glance shifting to her. “Among other things.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, soft blonde hair.” He shot her a smile, and her stupid heart fluttered like a butterfly on speed. “Beautiful green eyes. And, oh yeah, the softest lips in the West.”

She smiled back, some of the tension ebbing from her. “Oh, really,” she drawled.

“Yep. And don’t forget a talent for getting mixed up in more trouble than she can handle.”

“Some of us are just born lucky.” Deliberately, she kept her tone light and flip. “There’s one more thing I think you neglected to mention. Knowing how to keep things uncomplicated.”

“That helps.” There was a short silence and then he added, “Uncomplicated works for me.”

Sure it does. Heaven forbid anyone should actually fall
in love with you, or take those heart-wrenching kisses seriously.

“Me too. My last relationship was a mess. I learned my lesson.”

“Are we talking about the cop who was your ex-boyfriend?”

Ty was surprised by the stab of jealousy he felt at the mental image of Josy with another man. He didn’t like the picture it made in his head. Not one bit.

“He wasn’t a cop. I just told you that to cover up how alarmed I was when I found out
you
were a cop,” she explained.

Ty didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. She knew what he was thinking.

So many lies.

How had she ever—even for a moment—thought anything beyond the most casual of affairs would be possible with a man she had lied to about almost every aspect of her life?

“He’s an investment banker,” she hurried on. “A
married
investment banker.” She turned her head away from him, staring out the passenger window. “I had no idea. When we met he told me he was single.”

Okay, the jealousy was gone. Now he just felt angry. “It must have been rough on you when you found out.”

“I was in shock.” She didn’t know why she was opening up to him. Or why he would believe a word she said after all the lies. But somehow the words began pouring out. “I never would have guessed he was such a lying bastard. He said he traveled for his job and worked a lot of nights and weekends, schmoozing clients and CEOs. At least that’s what I thought. He managed to squeeze me in a few times a week. We had a lot of nice romantic dinners, and rented movies at my place. Once we even went away to Puerto Rico for a weekend. I found out later that he’d told his wife he was at an investment symposium in Miami.”

She sounded bitter. Ty could hear the brittleness in her voice, even though she struggled to keep her tone even. He parked on a small side street alongside the Country Goose Diner. “You must have gone through hell when you learned the truth.”

“I did. I hated the idea that he was hurting his wife and his children. The worst part was that he’d tricked me into hurting them too. I felt like . . . like a total sleazebag.”

“That’s crazy,” Ty said sharply. “He’s the sleazebag, Josy, not you.” He shut off the engine and turned toward her.