Black Canyon Conspiracy

“Thanks. Now you’re really creeping me out.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms as if warding off a chill. “So what are we going to do? You can’t babysit me twenty-four hours a day.”

He stood and began to pace, studying the apartment. It was a ground-floor unit in a complex that faced a side street off the main highway. The front door opened onto a large parking lot, and there were large windows on all sides. No security. No guards. Easy in-and-out access. “Anyone could break in here with no trouble at all,” he said. “We need to move you to a safer location.”

“I can’t afford to move. I’m unemployed, remember?”

“You can’t afford to stay here, either.”

“Do you really think it’s that bad?” she asked. “I mean, would he really kill me? Isn’t convincing everyone I’m crazy enough?”

“We don’t have the proof we need, but we believe he’s had people killed before,” Marco said. “There was his pilot—and don’t forget that fish seller, Alan Milbanks.”

She nodded. “Milbanks’s death meant the chief source for my story about Richard Prentice was out of the picture. Very convenient.”

“Not having you around would be convenient for him, too. Do you want to take that chance?”

“No.” She straightened and lifted her chin, determined. “Do the Rangers have a safe house or something?”

“No. You can come to my place.”

“Your place?” She choked back a laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“You live in a duplex. With Rand in the other half.”

“Exactly. You’ll have twice the protection. And your sister’s over at his place all the time anyway.”

“No, Marco, I can’t. What will people think?” She flushed. “I mean, if your place is like Rand’s, there’s only one bedroom.”

He liked it when she blushed that way—it did something to his insides that he didn’t want to think about too much. He’d rather enjoy the feeling. “I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Go.” He put a hand to her back and urged her toward her bedroom. “Pack a bag. I know what I’m doing.” His duplex wasn’t ideal, but it was off the beaten path, had only one street leading in and out, bars on the windows and a reinforced door. And it wouldn’t be the first place anyone would look for her. Keeping her there would buy him more time to identify any real threat.

“If anyone but you tried to order me around like this, I’d tell them exactly what they could do with their bossy attitude,” she said as she headed down the short hallway off the living room. “But you make me believe you really do know what you’re doing.”

While he waited, he scanned the parking lot in front of the apartment. He focused on a big guy across the street. The man wore a blue-and-white tracksuit and had a pair of binoculars trained on Lauren’s front windows. Marco moved closer to the window and raised the blinds. The big guy didn’t move. Marco glared. No reaction from the guy in the tracksuit. He might have been a mannequin, except they didn’t make mannequins that burly, and after a few seconds, the watcher reached up to scratch his ear.

Marco moved quickly down the hall to Lauren’s bedroom and stopped in the doorway, stunned at the sight of her up to her elbows in lace and satin. She’d apparently dumped the contents of her dresser drawers on the bed and was sorting through the pile of panties, bras, stockings, negligees and who knew what other items of feminine apparel.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “It was easier to just dump everything and sort through them this way.” She grabbed up a handful of items and danced over to an open suitcase in the dresser and dropped them inside, then spent some time arranging them, smoothing them out and humming to herself.

“There’s a man standing out front, watching your apartment,” Marco said. “He’s not even trying to hide it. He has this huge pair of binoculars, like a bird-watcher would use.”

“Maybe he is a bird-watcher.” She giggled, a high-pitched, unnatural sound.

“Come look and tell me if you know him.”

“All right.”

She glided down the hall ahead of him, still humming, and went to the window. “Oh, yes, I know him.” She waved like someone greeting a friend at the airport.

“How do you know him?” Marco asked.

“He delivered that package.” She waved idly toward the box on the table.

“All right. Go ahead and finish packing. We should leave soon.”

“Yes, I’ll do that. I have a gorgeous new dress. I was in the mall yesterday and saw it and just had to have it. I’ll take it in case we go someplace nice.”

Marco frowned. “Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

Her smile didn’t waver, though to him it seemed forced. “Why wouldn’t I be feeling all right?”

“You’ve been under a lot of stress.” He spoke carefully, watching her eyes. Her gaze shifted around the room, as if frantically searching for something. “Most people would be anxious in a situation like this.”

“Yes. I am anxious.” She twisted her hands together. “I just... I’d love to go for a run now. Burn off some of this extra energy.” She turned to a dresser and began pulling out exercise tops and shorts, adding them to the pile of clothing on the bed.

Now was not the time for a run. He had to get her away from here, away from the guy in the parking lot, to some place safer. “Would you like me to call Sophie?”

“No! No, don’t call Sophie! She’s always so worried, worried I’m going to go off the deep end or do something stupid. Something...crazy.” She whispered the last word, standing still with a tank top dangling from one hand.

“You’re not crazy.” He kept his voice calm in the face of the agitation rolling off her in waves. After he’d met her, after he carried her in his arms out of the collapsed mine on Richard Prentice’s estate, he’d gone online and done some reading on bipolar disorder. He’d learned that stress and even variations in routine could trigger a manic episode. Lauren’s life had been nothing but stress these past months, and she had no more routine—no job or real home or any certainty about the future.

“Maybe...maybe I should call my doctor.” She looked at the clothes piled on the bed and the open suitcase. “I took my medication,” she said softly. “I always do, even though, sometimes, I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”

“Maybe the medication just needs...adjusting.”

She nodded. “Right. I...I’ll call him.”

He waited in the bedroom while she went into the living room. He wondered if he should remove the clothes from the bed—pack for her. But no. That was too personal. Too patronizing, even.

He backed out of the room and rejoined her as she was hanging up the phone. “I talked to the nurse,” she said. “She suggested I take more of one of my pills, and she’s calling in another prescription I can take if I need to.”

He nodded. “Do you need anything from me? Help with packing? Something to eat?”

“No, I’m good. I’ll just, uh, finish up back here.”

“I’ll keep an eye on our friend.”

“Friend?”

He nodded toward the parking lot. “The bird-watcher.”

She laughed again, and the sound continued all the way down the hall. The sound worried him a little, but it also made him angry. Why did such a beautiful, vibrant woman have to be plagued with emotions that veered so easily out of control? Why was she at the mercy of a disease she hadn’t asked for and didn’t want? He’d spent his life fighting off physical enemies, first in a street gang, then the military, now as a law enforcement officer. But what could he do to help her?

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