Читать книгу Undercover Colorado - Cassie Miles, Cassie Miles - Страница 11

Mac’s plan to unmask the woman who called herself Vanessa Nye went up in smoke when she kissed him back. Until then, he’d been trying to interrogate her, trying to trip her up. When he had demanded a kiss, he figured she’d back off and admit that she was conning him.

He hadn’t expected a lightning bolt.

He needed distance from her. And time to sort out his feelings. He spent the rest of the morning avoiding Vanessa and took off early for the meeting he’d scheduled with his partner.

Mac parked outside the graveyard near Redding. A secluded spot at the end of a graded gravel road, this was the first place that had occurred to him when he arranged this meet with Sheila. Mac wanted privacy, and nobody came here by accident. Not that the old cemetery was ominous. The opposite was true. This gently rising hillside surrounded by Ponderosa and lodgepole pine provided a peaceful resting place. The graves—some of them dating back over a hundred years—were fenced off, but the land wasn’t manicured. Weeds and wild-flowers grew rampant between the simple markers.

As soon as he stepped out of his car, Sheila pulled up beside him in her own vehicle. Good timing. In spite of her many other faults, his partner was punctual.

“Did you take the day off?” he asked as she came toward him.

“That’s right.” As always, she sounded irritated. “Until you get back, I’m stuck with boring desk work, which I totally hate. If I wanted to spend the entire day hanging around the station, I would have become a lawyer.”

He didn’t point out that a law degree was probably far beyond her limited ability to concentrate. “Did you get the information I asked for?”

“This time,” she said, “you really messed up.”

He messed up? He bit down hard to keep from spitting out accusations. The only mistake he’d made at the warehouse shooting was allowing her to get out of the car. “Tell me what you’ve heard.”

“You don’t have any idea how much trouble you’re in.” Her scowl etched deep lines below her thick brown bangs. “How much do you know about that guy you shot and killed?”

Mac had made it his business to find out about the man whose life he had taken. “His name was Dante Williams, and he was twenty-seven years old. High school dropout. Seven arrests, mostly on drug-related charges. One conviction landed him in prison for eight months.”

“A regular poster boy for how to ruin your life.”

“He still didn’t deserve to die.” Though Mac had fired in the line of duty, he would always regret the shooting, and he would visit the grave of Dante Williams to pay his respects. It was a ritual Mac followed with the other victim he’d shot and killed early in his police career.

“Anyway,” Sheila said, “this guy, Dante, was about to give evidence on the number one drug distributor in Colorado. The top man. The honcho. When you killed him, you blew it.”

“Were the feds and Denver vice working together on the sting?”

“Not on purpose,” she said. “They were both following trails that led to the same place.”

“To Dante,” he said.

“It gets worse.” She glanced at her wristwatch—one of her less annoying nervous habits. “Some people think you killed Dante on purpose. To keep him from turning snitch.”

The implication was clear. The FBI and the Denver P.D. suspected that Mac was a dirty cop, that he’d killed Dante Williams on orders from some honcho drug kingpin.

A burst of anger flared behind his eyelids. The shooting at the warehouse had been a grotesque miracle of bad timing, but he shouldn’t be a suspect. His dedication to his work and his years of service ought to count for something. He’d earned medals and citations. He was a good cop.

“Now you know,” Sheila said with a smirk. Her attitude was smug and superior. She almost seemed to be enjoying his fall from grace. “The best thing for you to do is lay low and let the dust settle. Please, Mac. Will you do that?”

“Why do you care?” His relationship with Sheila had never been good. They bickered like an old married couple at the verge of divorce.

“You’re my partner.” Insincerity dripped from her voice. “You’ve got to forget about this. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t start investigating on your own.”

As if he’d take advice from her? If she’d behaved in a competent manner at the warehouse sting, he wouldn’t be in this position. Unfortunately, she was his only source of information since everybody else suspected him. He needed to maintain this contact with Sheila. “Did you get that photograph I asked for?”

“Of course.” She opened her car door and leaned inside to retrieve a manila envelope. “This is a recent photo of the FBI undercover agent you shot. Leo Fisher. He’s out of the hospital.”

Mac pulled the photo out of the envelope and studied it. Leo Fisher was an average-looking guy with dark eyes and a square jaw. His long hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Mac thought he’d spotted Leo Fisher last night at the tavern, but he wasn’t one hundred percent sure.

Once again, he tapped into Sheila’s vast collection of gossip. “What have you heard about Leo Fisher?”

“He’s off the case, but…” Her voice trailed off.

“Come on, Sheila. What have you heard?”

“I heard that Fisher was up here in the mountains. Going to Vail, I think.”

“Why?” he asked. Vanessa had also hinted about a trip to Vail.

“I don’t know. God, Mac. I can’t tell you everything.”

Her tone was as whiny as a teenager. He really disliked this woman. Incompetent. Immature.

“I’m thirsty,” she said. “Come with me to get a latte.”

“Can’t,” Mac said. He didn’t want to spend any more time with her than absolutely necessary.

“Where are you staying up here, anyway?”

“I grew up here. In Redding.” No way would he tell Sheila about the safe house. “I have friends up here.”

“Like that cute guy.” She was suddenly alert. “I remember him. He stopped by the station to visit you a couple of times, right? He’s on the Vail ski patrol. I’d love to see him again.”

“Not today.”

“At least come with me for coffee. I drove all the way up here. What are you doing that’s so important?”

He pushed open the wrought iron gate leading into the cemetery. “Visiting my mother’s grave.”

Not even Sheila could be argue with the finality of that statement. She backed toward her car. “Bye, Mac. I’ll stay in touch.”

“You do that,” he muttered.

The information she’d given him hadn’t been completely unexpected. He’d felt the suspicions. Now, he knew why.

In the cemetery, he picked his way along a hard earth path lined with stones to a section where all the Grangers were buried. His grandparents. His great-uncle. And his mother, Kathryn Granger.

Leaning down, he plucked a few weeds that obscured the pink marble marker inscribed with her name. He read the words: Beloved Wife and Mother.

It was true. He had loved her. His name— MacCloud—had been her maiden name, and she’d done as well as she could raising him.

But he couldn’t respect Kathryn Granger. Not after he saw his mother in the arms of a man who wasn’t his father. She’d had an affair. She’d betrayed him and his father, the sheriff. Even after her death, he found it hard to forgive her lies.

Mac doubted he would ever find a woman he could trust.

LEO FISHER limped along the cracked sidewalk on a dark Denver street, not far from the warehouse where he’d been shot in the leg. This was a cruddy part of town, deserted after dark except for the bums and the rats that scattered in fear at his approach.

Leo was alone. Always alone. But he wasn’t bitter. He had a job to do, an important job. And he was the only one who could do it right. By himself. Alone.

Seeing Abby had been weird. He’d barely thought about her since the night she walked out on him. Maybe he’d been hard on her, but she should have understood that he was still in character, still playing the undercover role. The hell with her! He didn’t want or need a wife and family.

He was the best damned undercover agent in the FBI. The best. And there was no way in hell he’d give up on this operation. Not now when he was so close. Why should he let some snot-nosed vice cop like Vince Elliot step in and grab all the glory? This was Leo’s bust.

He stopped on the corner under a streetlamp and lit up a smoke.

A dark form materialized beside him. A snitch.

“Sorry about Dante,” Leo said.

The snitch made the sign of the cross. “He was a good man.”

“What have you got for me?”

“A name.”

Leo scoffed. “I know the name. Nicholas Dirk.”

He was the head honcho in drug distribution throughout the Rocky Mountain west. A wealthy guy who dabbled in all kinds of crime under the cover of being a land developer. He had houses in Denver and in Vail.

“I got evidence,” the snitch said.

“Give.”

“It’s on a computer. Dirk always takes the laptop computer with him. Download that and you’ve got him.”

Leo wasn’t impressed by this overly obvious information. “Big deal. There’s no way for me to get my hands on that evidence.”

“For the right price, I can tell you the password.”

“Now you’re talking.” Leo tossed down his cigarette and crushed it with the tip of his cane. That password was worth paying for.

ON THE SECOND FLOOR in the safe house were six bedrooms of varying sizes. Abby’s was small and squarish, plain but clean, without a telephone, computer hookup or television. Her bedroom opened into a bathroom that she shared with Mac.

For the past ten minutes, she had been standing with her ear to the bathroom door, listening to the thrum of the shower and debating with herself about opening the door a crack to spy on him.

Obviously, she’d be invading his privacy big-time. But her job as an undercover agent was to get close to him, and he couldn’t ignore her if she walked into the bathroom while he was half-naked. Kind of a risky maneuver. But she had to make him talk to her. She had questions. A lot of questions.

This afternoon, she and Julia had followed him to the cemetery. Abby’s surveillance technique was simple. Earlier today, she’d planted a tracking device in the heel of Mac’s boot. All she’d needed to do was activate the device. Julia drove and, together, they’d used GPS technology to locate the signal.

From a hillside near the graveyard, they’d watched while Mac met with his partner, Sheila Hartman. Though Abby hadn’t been close enough to hear what they were saying, the very fact that he’d arranged a clandestine meet was suspicious. Were they both dirty cops? What kind of plans were they making?

Using binoculars, Abby had seen them exchange a photograph of Leo. Again, suspicious.

Leo had said that he was tracking a drug kingpin who had a home in Vail. Would Mac make contact with this person? Would he demand a payoff for the murder of Dante Williams? Was he on the take?

Abby really hoped not. After that overwhelming kiss this afternoon, she wanted nothing more than to discover that Mac was squeaky clean and above suspicion.

After the noise from his shower ended, she waited a few minutes so he’d have time to put on some clothes. Then she opened the bathroom door a crack and peeked inside.

Her intention was to march right in. Brazen and bold. But the sight of him stopped her.