Wild Ways

Another gurgle from Dawes.

The woman simply smiled. “I don’t know what the Nevada sheriff’s department wants with Mr. Dawes, but they’ll have to take it up with the Justice Department.”

“Tony sent him,” Dawes piped up from somewhere behind Rafe. “And this guy over here…this guy’s from Atlantic City.”

Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh said a word that Rafe was pretty sure wasn’t in any special agent manual. She stepped by him and walked across to where Dawes was peering down at the salesman from a safe distance.

“His name’s Pags Pagliano, and he’s muscle for the Atlantic City operation.”

“One of Gus Stepino’s men?”

Dawes nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing wildly. He was pale and damp, and he swallowed audibly. “Th-that means he got tired of waiting for Tony to take care of it and sent his own guy after me.”

“Terrific.” Kavanagh did not look happy.

And Rafe had to sympathize. If Stepino’s men got Dawes first, he was out a cool thirty grand.

“We’re leaving,” she said abruptly. “Now.”

“Not with Dawes, you’re not,” Rafe told her flatly.

Kavanagh looked around at him coolly and opened her mouth to reply when Dawes stepped in front of her. “W-what about Charlie?”

The salesman—Pagliano—snorted. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to turn up, Reggie.”

“You killed him?” Dawes’s voice ended on a squeak.

Pagliano just smiled a feral little smile. “Your best friend sold you out. Three grand, Reggie. That’s all you’re worth, can you believe it?” The smile widened. “Gus would have paid ten times that, but Charlie’s such a moron he only asked for three.” He gave another snort and shook his head in disgust. “Moron.”

Dawes looked sick. “I don’t believe you. Charlie wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you think I found you so quick? You think I stumbled into this little rat hole out here in Nowhere, North Dakota, by accident?” His tone made it clear he didn’t think Charlie Oakes was the only moron of his acquaintance.

Kavanagh had gone a shade or two paler herself, and Rafe wondered how long she’d been on the job. First solo case, maybe. Which could mean she would be easy to bluff, if he played his cards right. But it could also mean she might not bluff at all, too worried about getting it right, about making points with her boss, to risk messing up. He swore, using another word or two that wouldn’t show up in any government manual.

“Well, Agent Kavanagh,” he said carelessly, “I’ll leave Pagliano in your capable hands while I get Dawes back to—”

“Not on your life.” She turned those amazing aquamarine eyes onto him again. “I don’t know who you are, Mr. Blackhorse, but I doubt very much you have ever worked for Nevada law enforcement. And you’re not taking Reggie Dawes anywhere.”

“You don’t think he’s a cop?” The bartender swung the barrel of the shotgun almost casually toward Rafe.

“I’d be very surprised, but I’ll let your sheriff sort it out. Tell him we’ll be in contact.”

The bartender blinked. “Where are you going to be?”

“En route to Washington.” She shoved her ID back into her handbag, then pulled out a business card and a pen and started writing something on the back of the card. “When the sheriff gets here, have him call this man at this number. He’ll verify everything I’ve told you and will arrange for someone to come out and collect Pagliano. He can deal with Mr. Blackhorse then. And call an ambulance for Mr. Pagliano, will you? I’d like him alive when we try him for attempted murder.”

Rafe managed not to swear out loud. So much for wondering what else could go wrong. “Look, honey, this isn’t—”

“Special Agent Kavanagh,” she said crisply. “Honey Divine is Mr. Dawes’s wife.”

“That’s not what—” He caught himself. Just about the last thing he needed right now was a lecture on political correctness.

“Hold it!” The bartender’s voice rattled a nearby tray of glasses. “Nobody’s goin’ nowhere till Sheriff Haney gets here. I’ll let him figure out which of you’s telling the truth and which ain’t.”

“Oh, for—” Kavanagh caught herself, eyes glittering with subdued anger. “All right. Fine. Have it your way.”

Rafe eased his breath out on a long, weary sigh, thinking of his thirty thousand dollars winging its way south even as he was standing there. It had sounded like easy money—once.

Chapter 2

It took pretty much the whole day and a multitude of lengthy phone calls to convince Sheriff Dobbes Haney that she wasn’t kidnapping Reggie, that the Beretta in her handbag was registered, and that she wasn’t wanted on a half-dozen warrants for who knows what kind of mayhem. And that Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh was, indeed, exactly who she said she was. He didn’t seem happy about it. And after the last phone call, this one to Virginia, during which he seemed to do more listening than talking, he was even less so. But he did finally tell her she was free to go about her business. Suggesting—strongly—that she do whatever it was Special Agents from unspecified offices in Virginia do outside his jurisdiction.

That was fine by Meg. She couldn’t get far enough away fast enough.

But by then it had been almost eight o’clock, too late to do anything but drive to the nearest town big enough to have an airport of any size and wait for the earliest flight eastbound.

Which was why she was sitting in a cheap motel room at a little after midnight, listening to Reggie brush his teeth in the bathroom between their connecting rooms and wondering what in heaven’s name she was doing with her life.

Maybe her sister was right, and this obsession about finding Bobby’s killer was getting out of hand. She could be married right now. Was supposed to be married right now. Living in Marblehead in a big overwrought Tudor, discussing lawns with the landscaping people and wallpaper with the interior decorator and choosing names for their first child. If she’d married six months ago, as planned, this would be a suite at a luxurious hotel, not a ratty room in the Dewdrop Inn. And the man brushing his teeth in the bathroom wouldn’t be a skinny little accountant for the mob, but Royce Bennett Packard of Packard Industries.

Meg closed her eyes and tried to conjure up the image of Royce brushing his teeth, to no avail. Did Royce brush his teeth? She imagined he must, they were such perfect teeth. Like everything about Royce—the country club tan, the health club physique, the gentleman’s club portfolio. Not a hair, a molar or an investment out of place.

She wondered, very idly, what he would have thought if he’d seen her today. Not just the spandex and the wig and the four-inch heels—those would have rendered him speechless on the spot. But the rest of it: her lying flat on her belly on a barroom floor in the middle of a gunfight, a fifteen-round semiautomatic Beretta pistol in her handbag and a hundred and eighty pounds of good-looking Nevada cop on top of her.

Not pleased, she decided. Royce’s vision of the future Mrs. Packard did not include guns, bullets or cops of any variety.

And then, to her annoyance, she found herself thinking about that good-looking Nevada cop. If that’s what he was—the cop part, not the good-looking part. As skeptical as she was about the first, the second was beyond argument.

The last she’d seen of Rafe Blackhorse, Haney had told him to park himself in a chair and wait, and Blackhorse had done just that. He’d apparently spent the afternoon asleep in a wooden chair that he’d tipped back against the wall in the booking room, long legs stretched out, booted feet resting comfortably on a desk, ankles crossed, looking as relaxed as a cat.

“Miss Kavanagh?”

Meg looked up as Reggie poked his head hesitantly into her room.

“My pajamas are in my other suitcase, and it’s in the car.”

“Forget it, Reggie. You’re not setting foot outside this motel until tomorrow morning.”

He managed to look both contrite and indignant. “But I always sleep in pajamas.”

“Well, you’re not sleeping in pajamas tonight.”

“But—”

“Reggie, we nearly got killed this afternoon because of you, so I’m not feeling as generous as I could be, all right? No pajamas.”

“It’s not my fault we nearly got killed,” he said prissily. “You are supposed to be protecting me, after all. It was up to you to—”