Lawman Protection

“After I’ve driven all the way out here?” She folded her arms across her chest. “I’ll stay.”

“Then you’ll have to wait over there.” He motioned in the direction of her Jeep.

Clearly, he wasn’t going to let her any closer. Better to wait him out. “All right.” She replaced the notebook in her purse. “Tell Captain Ellison I have some questions for him when he’s finished.”

She turned and walked back to her vehicle, not in any hurry. Once there, she rummaged in the glove compartment until she found a pair of binoculars. She leaned against the Jeep and trained the binocs on the wreckage.

Debris littered the area around the crash—chunks of fiberglass and metal, a tire, a plastic cup, the remains of a wooden crate. She focused in on the crate and made out the words Fragile and Property of— Property of whom?

She scanned to the right of the crate and froze when she found herself looking into a pair of eyes the color of hot fudge, underneath craggy brows.

Angry brown eyes, she corrected herself, that belonged to Captain Graham Ellison. He glared directly at her and she gasped and drew back as he stalked toward her.

By the time he reached her Jeep, she’d lowered the binoculars and was doing her best not to look intimidated, though the site of the big bear of a man glaring at her was enough to make a guilty person tremble.

But she hadn’t done anything wrong, she reminded herself. “Hello, Captain,” she said. “What can you tell me about this plane crash?”

“Why did you follow me out here?” he asked.

“I’m a reporter. It’s what I do— I track down stories.” She took out her notebook and pen. “When do you think the plane crashed? It looks recent, considering the broken tree limbs are still green, and the scar in the earth looks fresh.”

“So now you’re an expert?” Irritation radiated from him like heat, but she was no longer nervous or afraid. His intensity excited her, both professionally and—she wasn’t going to analyze this now, only note that it was true—personally. Being attracted to Captain Ellison might complicate things a little, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t do her job.

“Not an expert,” she said. “But I’ve been a crime reporter for a while now. Who does the plane belong to? Do you know?”

“Whoever he is, he’s dead.”

“Oh.” Her pen faltered, leaving a scribble on the notebook. “I suppose it would be difficult for anyone to survive a crash like that.”

“Oh, he survived,” Ellison said. “Then someone put a bullet in him.”

She swallowed hard. She didn’t like this aspect of her work, dealing with violence. But finding justice for victims often began with exposing the particulars of the crime. “How was he killed?”

“He was shot. In the chest.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“Who do you work for, again?”

“The Denver Post. I’m with the Western Slope Bureau.” She was the Western Slope Bureau. While she wrote stories about everything from local festivals to water rights, she specialized in crime reporting. The attempted arrest and subsequent murder of Raul Meredes had focused her attention on The Ranger Brigade—a romantic name for a disparate collection of officers from all the federal law enforcement agencies.

“If you’re so interested in this story, maybe you’d like a closer look.” He took her arm and pulled her toward the plane.

She didn’t protest. Clearly, he wanted to shock her, to frighten her even, but she’d seen death before. Whatever that plane held, she’d study it objectively and write about it later. She’d show the captain she was tougher than he thought. She wouldn’t be bullied or intimidated just because he didn’t like the job she was doing.

The pilot slumped sideways in his seat, safety belt still fastened, his shirt stained brown with dried blood. Flies buzzed around him, and she swallowed hard against the sickly stench that rose to greet her. “Recognize him?” the captain asked. He still held on to her arm, as if he feared she might bolt.

She started to look away, to shake her head, but that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? For her to be horrified and repulsed. She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to lean closer, to study the dead man, whose face was turned away from her. When she did so, true horror washed over her. She fought to breathe, and tears stung her eyes.

“What is it?” the captain shook her. “You’re not going to be sick, are you?”

She shook her head and wrenched away from him. “I...I do know him,” she gasped, then covered her mouth with her hand, fighting nausea.

“Who is he?” Ellison demanded.

“His name is Bobby Pace. I... He... We were dating. I went out with him two nights ago.”

Chapter Two (#ulink_59d31950-a2dd-58a5-9665-f6a357195bb9)

The stricken look on Emma Wade’s face made Graham feel like the lowest form of jerk. He’d been furious with her for nosing her way into his investigation, but that didn’t give him the right to treat her so cruelly. “Come on.” He put his arm around her and turned her away from the sight of the dead man. “I’ll take you back to headquarters and we can talk there.”

“I’ll be fine.” She tried to rally, but fresh tears streamed down her face.

“I’ll have one of the officers bring your Jeep,” he said. “You come with me.”

She didn’t protest as he helped her into the Cruiser. “Bring her Jeep with you when you come back to headquarters,” he told Randall, then he climbed into the driver’s seat.

Neither of them said a word as the vehicle bounced over the rough terrain. He kept stealing glances at her. She’d stopped crying, and was staring out the windshield with the look of someone who wasn’t seeing what was right in front of her. Even in her grief, she was beautiful; he fought against the desire to hold and comfort her. She was a reporter, and a potential witness in his case. He needed to fight his attraction to her and keep his distance.

At headquarters, he led her into his cramped office at the back of the trailer and moved a stack of binders to make room for her in one of the two folding chairs in front of his desk. The administrative assistant who helped deal with the mountains of paperwork the job entailed was off today, so they had the building to themselves, at least until the rest of the team got back from the crash site. He opened a bottle of water from the case that sat in the corner and handed it to her, then pulled the other folding chair alongside her. “First, I apologize for being such a jerk back there,” he said. “I get a little...intense, sometimes.”

“And you don’t like the press.” Her eyes met his over the top of the water bottle. They were the green-gold of dragonflies, he thought, fringed with gold-tipped lashes.

Focus, he reminded himself. “The press sometimes makes my job more difficult.”

“And men like you make my job more difficult.” Amusement glinted in those beautiful eyes, and he had to look away.

“What can you tell me about the man in the plane?” he asked. “Was he the pilot?”

“Bobby was a pilot. I never saw his plane, but I know he owned a Bonanza.”

“You and he had been dating?” Some emotion he didn’t want to look at too closely—jealousy?—pinched at him and he pushed it away. “For how long?”

“We only went out a few times. We weren’t lovers, just friends. He was having a hard time and needed someone to talk to.”

“What do you mean, having a hard time?”

“His little boy is sick, and needs a lot of expensive care. Bobby was worried about money—that’s the reason he took the job with Richard Prentice, even though he couldn’t stand the guy.”

“He worked for Richard Prentice?”

She nodded. “That’s how we met. I wrote a profile of Prentice for the Post last year. Bobby was kind of like a chauffeur—he piloted his Bonanza, or sometimes he flew a plane Prentice owned. He was on call to take Prentice wherever he needed to go.”

“When you saw him two nights ago, did he say anything about doing a job for Prentice the next day, or the next?”

“No. We didn’t talk about work. And he didn’t just fly for Prentice. He worked for anybody who wanted to hire his plane. He taught flying lessons, too.” She set the still-full water bottle on the desk and leaned toward him. “What happened? Did the plane crash because he was shot, or did that happen after they were on the ground?”

“We don’t know, though someone would have to be pretty stupid to shoot the pilot while they were still in the air.”