Way Out West (14 page)

Tyler
grunted. “When’s he coming back?”

“I’m not sure.” She
nervously tossed her hair to one side.

He gave her a slanted
look. “You make a lousy liar.”

“It’s true, I’m not sure
when he’ll be back.”

“You expect me to
believe that the two of you are as inseparable as Siamese twins and he leaves
without telling you where he’s going or when he’ll be back?”

“All he said was he’d be
back as soon as he could.”

“Hmph.” He stared hard
as though trying to decide whether to believe her or not. “No matter. With your
help, I should be able to finish up today and then I’m out of this hell hole.”

“Finish what?” she
chanced to ask.

He waved the gun under
her nose. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.” He laughed as though he’d
just made a big joke. Then, pointing the gun at her temple, he growled, “Any
funny business from you and your boyfriend gets it when he returns.
Understand?” She nodded. “Good. Let’s go.”

Behind the fence was a
horse laden with saddlebags, a shovel, a pick, and some brown paper parcels.

“Get on,” he ordered.

Not again.
“I can’t, I don’t know how to ride a horse.”

“You’re not gonna ride
him, I am. You’re just gonna sit. Now get up!”

She approached the horse
with a resigned sigh. Picturing how she’d seen Rand get up, she grabbed the
saddle horn and put her foot in the stirrup. She pulled as hard as she could,
but her legs were too short to give her any leverage up. She fell back to the
ground.

Tyler
gritted his teeth. “I said no funny business!”

Rising, she kicked at
the dirt. “I can’t help it, I’m too short.”

“Not as short as my
patience with you. Now, try again.”

She tried again, but
this time felt a hand press against her bottom and push her up. She swung her
leg over and landed with the saddle horn against her stomach while she teetered
from side to side.

“Hang on!” he yelled.

She grabbed the horse’s
mane, making him stomp in protest. Before she could be sure she was on to stay,
Tyler mounted behind her and snaked his arm around her stomach. He jabbed the
gun in front of her stomach, pressing it against her ribs.

“Put both your hands on
the horn and keep them there. That way I’ll know where yours are and you’ll
know where mine are.”

His laugh chilled her as
he lifted the reins and moved the horse out of the alley.

Chapter Eleven

Callie looked around as
they emerged from behind the last of the clustered buildings in town. The few
people who were about took little notice of them. It was early yet and the town
was still sleepy from the long exciting weekend.

She couldn’t very well
yell for help with Tyler’s gun stuck in her rib cage either. If she could just
get someone’s attention, someone who knew her, they’d know something was wrong
with her headed out of town with Tyler.

As they passed the
church, Callie gazed longingly at the garden where she and Rand had shared a
special moment. It was also where he’d told her he had to leave. Little did she
know then what that announcement would mean for her.

They continued up the
road toward the last building, the blacksmith shop. Hard at work, Abe hammered
a shoe into shape.

Abe, look at me.
Remember me? I was with Rand the other day. Do I look like I belong with this
lowlife creature?
She silently
pleaded that he’d hear her thoughts and rescue her.

Abe looked up briefly
from his work but the continuing fall of the hammer sank Callie’s heart. The
horse plodded on by.

Suddenly, the hammer
stopped.
Yes!
Callie turned to see Abe staring at her, a frown wrinkling
his forehead. She sent him a pleading look.
I’m wearing a robe, Abe!

Tyler
poked the gun deeper into her ribs. “Turn
around,” he warned.

Reluctantly she looked
ahead to where the road opened into nothingness. For the first time, real fear
twisted in her gut as she faced the reality that they’d be far away from any
civilization. There’d be no one around to help her or even know what had become
of her should Tyler decide to kill her. Only Abe had seen them and from his
puzzled look there was no way of knowing if he’d recognized her from their
brief meeting.

“Where are we going?”
she finally asked, certain that Tyler would want to brag about his plan. When
he answered with only a laugh, she tried again. “Are we leaving the town?”

Up ahead, the iron arch
that welcomed visitors to Way Out West now loomed to reinforce her desperation.
When Rand’s arms had been around her as they’d entered, she’d felt the warmth
of the welcome to her very soul. She’d seen the town emerge through his eyes
and saw beauty in all its simplistic forms. With Tyler, there was no beauty,
just desert, brush and rocks.

Leaving the gate behind
them, they rode for about half a mile before he suddenly turned the horse off
the road. He guided the animal slowly down the small embankment and around
rocks and cactus. They rode on for another half-mile before stopping at a small
bush. He slid from the horse, tied him to the bush, and motioned with the gun
for Callie to get down.

“Let’s go, I don’t have
all day.” Then he laughed. “Well, I do, actually, but I want to get this over
with.”

Callie’s short legs
couldn’t reach the stirrups so she hung on to the saddle horn and slid herself
down the side.

“Now, grab that shovel
and pick and take them over there.”

“Over where?”

“There, where you see
that mound of dirt.”

She squinted against the
bright sun until she spotted the mound he pointed to. It blended so well with
the landscape, no one would have suspected it’d been freshly dug. As she lugged
the tools, Tyler unloaded the rest of the stuff. He dropped it all on the
ground near the gaping hole, but gently placed the brown parcels out of the
way.

“What’s in the
packages?” she asked boldly.

“Never mind. Just pick
up the shovel and start digging.”

“What am I digging for?”

“Just dig!”

* * *

Rand
left the conference room where he’d met with his
security people. Everyone had a profile on Kyle Thornton and a laundry list of
his computer tactics. They knew everything that Thornton had ever done on
computer and what to expect. But Rand didn’t delude himself into thinking the
hacker hadn’t picked up some new tricks for his bag. After all, he’d lain low
for a year. There had to be a reason.

Returning to his office,
Rand picked up the file in the middle of his desk. Opening it, he scanned the
profile of Tyler Thornton. Small time thief, scam artist, history of running
numbers. All small stuff. Yet, a number of arrests showed possession of a
firearm.

Rand
frowned. What if Tyler Thornton had a real gun
with him? What had he left Callie to face back in town? If Tyler found out he
was gone, would he do something?

A knock on the door
shook him from his fearful thoughts. He had to trust that Becky and Sheriff
Clayton would keep her safe until he returned to her. “Yes?”

Tom Lawrence, head of
operations, opened the door. “Everyone’s here, Benton. Whenever you’re ready.”

Rand
closed the file and stood up. “I’ll be there in
five minutes.” Before the door closed, he called. “Tom?”

“Yes, Benton.”

“Wire Sheriff Clayton
immediately. Tell him Tyler is known to carry firearms, a piece of information
that was missing from the earlier telegram.”

When the door closed
again, Rand went to his small dressing room. He didn’t want to address his
employees dressed in western garb. He needed to cut a strong, imposing figure.

Quickly changing into a
gray business suit, he hung his gambler’s outfit on a hook and checked his
image in the full-length mirror.
Back to reality.

As Rand entered the
conference room, it seemed all twenty employees held their breath. He read the
worried looks on their faces, realizing they had no idea why they’d been
called. He’d been a boss so long he’d almost forgotten what it was like to be
an employee. All kinds of things must be going through their heads: firing,
layoff, going out of business.

He smiled and began his
talk in a low, reassuring tone. “I want to thank you all for coming on such short
notice. Let me assure you this has nothing to do with your jobs.”

A collective sigh
rippled through the room as relaxed faces assured one another with nods and
smiles.

“Way Out West is faced
with a potentially serious security breach and I need everyone’s help and
cooperation in working toward closing the gate before all the horses get out.”

Rand went on to explain
his suspicions and how the Thornton brothers came to target their system. “I
believe that Kyle Thornton knows how the transactions work between the
operations center and the bank in town and he plans to tap into it. By doing
so, he could have access to our guests’ accounts as well as their confidential
information. It would only be a matter of time before he bled us dry along with
our guests. The liabilities alone could keep us tied up in court for years.”

Murmurs buzzed from one
end of the room to the other.

“Tom Lawrence will fill
you in on the details of what is expected of each of you. In the meantime, I
want you to know that no one will have access to the system without Tom’s or my
access code. As of this morning, I personally locked out all passwords and we
are operating at level four.

“Once you have logged
on, your activity will be monitored by a background filter. It will track only
the activities that are a risk to security. Reports of who did what will be
printed and sent to me. Please understand, this is a necessary step in securing
our system. Until we’ve pinpointed the breach, we must be wary of every
potential weakness.”

Rand
left Tom Lawrence to finish the briefing while
he hurried back to the operations room. It was empty and quiet except for the
hum of terminals and the clicking of the printer.

He’d ordered full
printouts of all transactions since Friday. Now it was just a matter of sorting
through the stack that had begun to pile up. His keen eye scanned the pages,
looking for irregularities, large numbers, anything that stood out from the
ordinary.

Assured that everything
seemed in order, he left the printer to finish its task. As he waited, he
couldn’t get the picture of Tyler with a gun out of his head. He remembered the
intense stare when Tyler had accused him of cheating. Something about the way
he’d held the gun was far too familiar.

Unwilling to wait any
longer, Rand rushed out of the operations room and headed for wardrobe. He
picked out a pair of denim pants, a red plaid shirt and suede vest, and a hat
with a smaller rim than his gambler’s hat. Back at the office, he changed to
the casual duds and checked in the mirror.

One more detail,
Callie, and then you’ll see the real Rand.
Digging out his shaving kit, he made fast work of the mustache. No more
hiding. He wanted everything out in the open.

Just then the terminal
at his desk beeped loudly, signaling a logon from outside the center. Rand rushed to punch up the internal path. Whoever it was, was searching through the files,
obviously looking for a certain one. The tracer Rand had activated that morning
kept the searcher going in circles. As soon as he opened a file, it closed and
moved on to the next.

“That ought to keep you
busy for awhile, Thornton.”

Rand
tapped the hat on his head and headed for the
stables.

* * *

“I’m hot,” Callie
protested. She’d already removed her robe, but the long sleeves of her
nightgown kept the heat in.

“That makes two of us,” Tyler sneered as he dug on the opposite side of the hole.

“Can’t we take a break?
I’m hungry and thirsty and tired.”

“Would you like a little
cheese to go with that whine?” Tyler tossed his shovel. “Women ain’t nothin but
a pain...”

His words trailed off as
he went to the saddlebags. Callie mopped her brow with the back of her hand.
They’d been digging for hours and she still had no idea what they were digging
for.

“Here.” Tyler handed her a beef jerky and the canteen.

She made a face at the
offering. “This is what I get for all my hard work, a drink of water and dried
beef?”

“Shut up or you’ll get
nothing.”

“Yeah, well when I
collapse of heat and hunger, you can dig your lousy hole by yourself.”

“At least it’ll be
quiet.”

Callie sneered at him
before taking a swig from the canteen. Tepid water wasn’t exactly what she’d
hoped for. She sat on the ground and took a bite of her jerky.

“Sooner or later,
someone’ll come looking for me.”

He grabbed the canteen
out of her hands. “They have to know where to look first.”

“Abe saw us go by. He’ll
tell them.”

“He saw us on the road.
We’re far from the road now. No one will see us.”

She feared he was right.
They were far from the beaten path. But she had to hope. “When Rand gets back, he’ll come looking for me.”

Tyler
laughed. “Unless he has a little mishap agai—“ A
series of muffled curses followed his abrupt halt.

Startled by his
outburst, Callie tensed and readied herself for the worst. “Wh-what?”

“I forgot the damn
wire!” He sent her an evil glare. “It’s all your fault. I had all I could do to
concentrate on keeping you in check.” He grunted as he took a seat opposite her
then leaned back and waved a hand in the air. “Oh, well. I’ll be long gone by
then.”

She consoled herself
with the thought that Rand would at least have an idea where to look since he’d
been tripped by Tyler’s wire the day before. But what did Tyler mean he’d be
long gone? Callie tensed.

“What about me? What are
you going to do with me?”

“If you don’t quit your
yammering, I’ll make that decision real quick.”

“Does that mean you’re
leaving?”

“Don’t you know it. I
can’t wait to leave this place. No running water, no electricity. People must
be nuts to pay to come here.”

She took another bite of
jerky. Maybe if she kept him talking, she’d stall him and buy more time. “Aw,
it ain’t so bad once you get used to it. It has a certain charm that grows on
you.”

“You’re just saying that
cuz your boyfriend owns it.”

Callie coughed on the
jerky and stared straight at Tyler. He was still lounging back, seemingly
undaunted by what he’d just said. Surely she must have misunderstood him.

“Owns what?” she
ventured in a casual tone.

Tyler
finally looked over at her and adjusted his hat.
“Don’t give me that innocent look. My brother researched this job real good.
When he worked for Randall at BRJ, he knew there was some connection. All the
trips, all the correspondence. Randall was real secretive about it. But you
can’t hide from Kyle. Once he gets those electronic tentacles working, there’s
no stopping him. When he found out about the transactions to and from this
place, he knew he’d found the pot of gold.”

Tyler
stood up and dusted his pants off. “Enough talk.
Let’s get back to work.”