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Pollard’s voice rudely jogged Quinn back to the here and now.
“Let me do all the talking,” he ordered as he knocked on the solid oak door of Winston’s chambers.
Quinn took a deep breath to steady himself.
A bailiff he recognized, but didn’t know by name, let both men in. Immediately, Quinn was put on guard by the ominous scene inside the comfortably appointed chambers.
As he had expected, neither Judge Jeremy Schrader nor attorney Brandon Whitaker were present. Only Judge Winston, federal internal affairs prosecutor Dolph Merriday, and two armed U.S. Marshals from the Justice Department.
The armed marshals were not routine and instantly alerted Quinn to danger. The bailiff was already armed—which most likely meant the marshals were here to “escort” Quinn to the federal lockup in Billings.
“Thank you, gentlemen, for being prompt,” Judge Winston greeted the new arrivals. He bent his shaggy white, leonine head to study the notes spread out before him on a wide pecan-veneer desk. “Please have a seat.”
Winston radiated a sober, proper steadiness that usually had a calming effect on Quinn. Not so today as he and Pollard slacked into chrome-and-leather chairs arranged before the desk. Suddenly aware his scalp was sweating, Quinn stood back up to remove his topcoat.
After some preliminary questions to refresh his memory, Winston addressed himself to the prosecutor.
“As you know, Dolph, one reason for this meeting is to determine what evidence you intend to proffer. But I also have to determine if said evidence warrants litigation. Now, I’ve read Judge Schrader’s deposition. I agree it’s quite damning.”
Winston’s stern gaze cut to Quinn, and again, despite his innocence, those old feelings of guilt lanced him deep. The leopard cannot change its spots.
“However,” the judge continued, “at this juncture it’s a classic standoff. One man’s word against another’s. If you have no further evidence besides hearsay, I’m inclined to dismiss right now.”
Pollard sent Quinn a triumphant grin. But Dolph Merriday spoke up quickly.
“There’s more evidence, Judge Winston. Pursuant to a search warrant issued in the District of Columbia, certain items were seized during a search of Mr. Loudon’s residence in Washington. This was discovered hidden behind a cooling vent.”
Quinn felt the blood drain from his face as Merriday unzipped a canvas tote bag and set several stacks of new one-hundred-dollar bills on Winston’s desk.
“In addition to nearly seventy thousand dollars in cash,” Merriday said, “we found this list with it. A handwriting expert has determined that it was written by Loudon. It contains the names of various officials in the Montana Department of Highways. Loudon obviously hoped to bribe others besides Judge Schrader. It’s a classic construction-kickback scheme, and Loudon hoped to be their legal go-between.”
When he first saw the money, Quinn just sat there gawking like a fool. A moment later, however, angry blood hammered at his temples. He came suddenly to his feet.
“That’s a bald-faced lie!” he shouted. “This is a setup! They killed Cody Anders and now they aim to get rid of me. Of course I wrote the list. I intended to investigate those men. But the money was planted. Schrader and Whitaker are the perps here, not me, and Merriday is either their partner or their dupe.”
“Quinn,” Pollard urged him, “calm down and shut up.”
But he was past calming down, Quinn realized desperately. Already one of the U.S. marshals was reaching for the cuffs on his utility belt. A cold panic seized him—if they locked him up, he’d never clear his name. He would be remembered always as the very demon he had fought so hard to defeat. Either he got away now, or his fate was sealed.
In a heartbeat the .38 snubby was in his hand.
“Quinn!” Pollard shouted. “What in bleeding hell are you…?”
But it was too late for oaths, too. As the marshals went for their guns, Quinn aimed deliberately high and sent two quick slugs thwapping into the wall just above their heads, forcing them to take cover.
From shout to shots was a matter of mere moments. Caught completely off-guard, the bailiff had not even drawn his pistol. But he still stood, solid as a meeting house, before the room’s only door. Quinn lowered one shoulder and literally knocked him aside as he bolted into the hallway.
At the end of the hall, old Hank had his gun out, his face a mask of confusion.
“Quick, Hank!” Quinn shouted as he sprinted toward him. “Judge Winston needs you!”
The guard was too rattled to question the order. Quinn barrelled past him as the two marshals and the bailiff took off after Quinn. For a moment, Hank got in their line of fire, and Quinn gained a precious lead.
Just as he hit the stairs, however, there came a hammering racket of gunfire behind him.
Quinn felt a bruising blow between his shoulder blades. But the Kevlar vest he routinely wore these days absorbed the bullet’s lethal impact. He had started down the steps when a second bullet punched into the back of his left thigh.
He almost lost his footing as fiery pain erupted between his hip and his knee. But sheer determination not to let himself be sacrificed by crime barons kept him on his feet.
The wound hurt like hell, but luckily it wasn’t slowing him down yet. Quinn got his second break of the day a few moments later—he heard his pursuers burst out the front of the courthouse and automatically run toward the parking structure across the street.
Earlier, however, Quinn had avoided the parking structure because of the annoying queue out front. Instead, he had parked around the side on Willow Street. That chance decision gave him a precious few minutes’ head start.
It took very little time to get beyond the Kalispell city limits. Although relatively large, as Montana towns went, the population was barely 12,000. Thus he cleared town with no cops on his tail. But he knew his luck couldn’t hold forever. He had to get off the roads as quickly as possible, find some place to take a better look at his wound.
With town well behind him, he unleashed the powerful V-8 engine, pushing speeds of eighty-five and ninety on the winding secondary road. Traffic remained scant as he sped toward the rugged, granite-tipped mountains. His leg felt numb and hot, but didn’t seem to be bleeding much.
As the confused churning of his thoughts settled somewhat, Quinn couldn’t prevent an unwelcome question from the depths of his heart. The ease with which he turned criminal back there in Kalispell, when the situation demanded: he wondered if that was just intense will to survive, or part of an inherited “skill.”
His smoke-tinted eyes kept flicking to the rearview mirror. So far, still all clear. But he reminded himself he had to find a suitable place to hide, and soon. Unfortunately, he could think of absolutely no one, out West anyway, he could trust. Schrader and Whitaker knew everyone who mattered, including his own boss at the Department of Justice.
By now the engine was lugging, making the climb into the mountains. The last road sign he remembered seeing had said Old Mill Road. He knew it by name only. The car shuddered when pavement abruptly gave way to a sandy, rocky lane. There were washed-out places where the chassis scraped bottom.
Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, Old Mill Road simply made a sharp turn and ended at a wall of trees. Just as suddenly, an old cabin loomed up on his right. Quinn had to lock the brakes and skid into the overgrown grass out front to avoid crashing into the trees.
He put the transmission in park, turned the car off, then gave the cabin a brief inspection from the car. Clearly uninhabited, judging from the overgrown yard, the split-log structure had a solid cedar-shake roof and several sash windows secured with strong batten shutters. A bright new white-and-green sign in the yard advertised MYSTERY VALLEY REAL ESTATE and listed the Realtor as Constance Adams.
Quinn, still seated in the car, saw that only a couple hours of sunlight remained. This place was well hidden. With luck, maybe he could hide here until he figured out some kind of operating plan to clear himself. Right now it was hard to even get his thoughts straight.
Breaking into the cabin, however, did not seem like an option. That was a top-of-the-line padlock on the door, and those heavy shutters would not be easy to jimmy.
He wondered if he should just give up his wild plan—in fact, just give up, period. He was a fool to think he could elude a manhunt. For one thing, it was colder up here at this altitude—he could feel it even sitting in the car. It would be even worse after dark.
But again the harsh realization struck him with almost physical force: it wasn’t just sure prison time he faced, and for a crime he never committed. It was also fatal surrender to a dark destiny, the affirmation of evil handed down in the bloodstream. At least, that’s how others would see it. Quinn was no hermit who thumbed his nose at society; he cared very deeply what others thought about him.
That last thought steeled his will.
He took another look at the sign. He’d have to come up with some cock-and-bull story for the Realtor, assuming one would even come out this late. He had no clear idea how far away Mystery was. But he knew he had to try.
He took his cell phone out of his briefcase and tapped in the number on the sign.
Chapter 2
Once her Jeep started climbing out of the verdant valley, winding higher on Old Mill Road, Constance felt Beth Ann’s “Eighth House” nonsense lift from her like a weight.
It was a gloriously fine day, much more like early May than late January. White tufts of cloud drifted across a sky blue as a deep lagoon. Even this late in the afternoon the sun had weight as well as warmth. It felt good through her wool skirt and blazer.
Below her, in Mystery Valley, Hazel McCallum’s cattle clustered around feed stations in pastures that once again soon would be rich with sweet grass, timothy and clover. Hazel’s next wheat crop would be heading up, too. If this weather held, planting season would come very early this year.
Seeing the cattle queen’s realm spread out below like a panoramic painting made her decide to call Hazel. After all, this was the first nibble on that old cabin, which had been sitting vacant ever since old Ron Hupenbecker passed away back in the ’80s. Hazel didn’t really need the money, of course. Even the low prices for beef lately hadn’t hurt her valley empire much.
But Mystery’s matriarch seemed eager to know someone was living there again. “An empty house on my land,” she once confided to Constance, “makes me feel like I’ve broken a promise.”
She fished the cell phone out of her purse and tried Hazel’s number.
“Hello?” Hazel answered immediately in a youthful voice that belied her seventy-five years.
“Hazel, hi, it’s Connie.”
“What’s cookin’, good-lookin’? Haven’t heard from you in days. I was hoping maybe you’d run off to have a fling with one of my cowboys.”
Constance laughed. “You’d love it if I did, wouldn’t you?”
“So might you, so go right ahead. Tell you what…whoever you pick, I won’t even dock his wages.”
“Hazel, my God! I’m not even half your age, yet I end up doing all the blushing.”
“Hon, I grew up on a ranch. Nothing makes me blush. Oh, I know you like smart men who read books and talk about great painters. A girl with your looks, going all the way overseas to spend her vacations alone at stuffy museums with idiotic names like Santa’s Soap.”
“It’s Santa Sophia,” Constance corrected her, laughing, “and it’s a magnificent cathedral in Istanbul. Besides, I’m not always alone—I’ve met some very fascinating men at museums. Believe it or not, cowgirl, there’s life outside the rodeo.”
“Oh, stuff those highbrow types. Cowboys have their good points, too.”
“Sorry, Hazel. I just can’t warm up to men who treat their boots better than their women.”
Both women enjoyed a good laugh, for the joke had a nubbin of truth to it. Despite the ease and affection of their banter, however, Constance knew that Hazel was dead serious about that fling offer—and even better if it led to something more permanent.
Constance had gradually taken on the status of one of Mystery’s most glaring marriage holdouts. Two of her younger siblings were married, a third engaged. When Hazel pressed her about it, she usually demurred with the excuse that she hadn’t found “the one” yet. But that was only a partial truth, and Hazel knew it as well as she.
And even now the wily old cattle queen must have sensed the tenor of her thoughts.
“The burnt child fears the fire,” Hazel said gently. “But, dear, does one bad burn mean you must remain in the cold forever?”
Constance slowed down for a rough section of road, trying to ignore the sudden tightness in her throat. She loved Hazel; in fact, she considered the town matriarch her closest friend. But the candid old gal sometimes forced her to confront facts Constance would rather ignore.
In the cold. Aptly put, she decided. Career-wise she was content and becoming more so. She loved her family, and she loved Mystery. Overall, she considered herself blessed and felt humble enough to admit it. But Hazel was right. Romantically speaking, she was trapped out in the cold—in a sort of lovers’ Purgatory, that lonely and hopeless dwelling of those neither loved nor loving.
“Doug Huntington was your one permissible youthful indiscretion,” Hazel assured her. “He fooled me, too, Connie, and you know very few folks ever pull the wool over this gal’s eyes.”
No, Connie thought, trusting was no crime. But because of trust, she had nearly married a career criminal. Only weeks before she was to marry Doug, he had suddenly left the state. But being jilted was only the beginning. About the same time he left for parts unknown, she had started receiving the first of many massive credit-card bills. Thousands of dollars in purchases she never made—and none of the cards had been stolen. He had copied the ID numbers and gone on a telephone and Internet spending spree with them.
Bad enough that she had to pay all the bills, since the cards were not reported missing. Adding final insult to grievous injury, many of the bills were for women’s fine lingerie and jewelry; she had paid the bills for Doug’s little sex kittens.
Her only emotional salvation from the mess was to bury it like a squirrel buries acorns. To go to the police would mean reports and maybe a trial, and she couldn’t relive it again and again; it would break her. So she never reported him and never heard from him again. No one saw it outwardly in her bearing, but that trauma of the heart had orphaned all her hopes for romance. Since then, her confidence had been badly shattered when it came to judging men and their character. She doubted if she could ever pick up all the pieces again.
“Well, anyway, I didn’t call you to rake up the past,” she told her friend. “Possible good news. I’m on my way to show the old Hupenbecker place to a potential buyer.”
“See?” Hazel perked up in triumph, never one to be sidetracked from an unpleasant topic. “You feared no one would ever call. It just needed a little time, was all. Just like you. Give it a little time, and grass will push over a stone.”
“Time,” Constance told her wryly, “is a rare commodity when you’re trying to build up your own real-estate company.”
“There’s always time for love,” Hazel insisted. “But you have to allow it an appointment now and then, busy lady.”
“Maybe I will,” Constance said with little inward conviction. “When business slows down a little. Right now it’s booming, and I’m lucky if I have time to heat a microwave meal, much less meet my significant other. Speaking of business—wish me luck. Five minutes, and I’ll be showing the cabin.”
Before she hung up, Hazel asked, “To a man or a woman?”
“Man. One who seems used to ‘politely but firmly’ getting his way, too.”
“Hmm,” was all Hazel said to that, yet her oo-la-la tone suggested plenty. She added quickly, “Make sure to show him that lovely creek out back. Jake McCallum himself built the stone bridge over it. The State Historical Society wants to put a plaque on it, the silly featherheads. The oldest stone bridge in Montana.”
“I will,” Constance promised before she thumbed her phone off and put it away.
The road was almost all sand by now, and she shifted to a lower gear, the plucky little Jeep surging upward. Only now did it occur to her to wonder why a man in such a hurry would have time to be poking around out here in “Robin Hood’s barn,” as Hazel called the wild country.
She slid through a final, dogleg bend and spotted a fairly new, loden-green Lexus parked in the overgrown clearing out front of the cabin. George Henning himself, she presumed, was leaning rather oddly against one front fender.
He looked nothing like she’d expected him to. He was no mountain man in search of an out-of-the-way cabin; instead she had a quick first impression of a business suit-clad but slightly disheveled man in his middle thirties. The short, neatly cropped black hair contrasted noticeably with his pale complexion. His handsome wingtips and subdued silk necktie suggested he belonged to the fast and furious urban jungle, not cool mountain heights.
But in spite of his dark, conservative attire, she still didn’t fail to notice his pleasing physique: easily over six feet tall, wide at the shoulders, slim at the hips, an Olympic swimmer’s wiry, lithe build.
That’s some professional attitude, Ms. Adams, she chided herself as she parked behind his car and set the handbrake. She slid from behind the wheel, smoothing her skirt with both hands.
She felt a little flush of annoyance when he made no effort whatsoever to walk over and introduce himself. Instead, he remained leaning against his car, regally waiting for her to attend to him.
“Mr. Henning? Hello, there! I’m Constance Adams, the listing agent on the property.”
He gave her a closemouthed smile. Yet even that small politeness seemed to cause him great effort.
“Miss Adams, thanks for agreeing to come out so late. I do appreciate it.”
“Please don’t mention it. I enjoyed the drive, actually. I haven’t been up here in some time. I tend to forget how lovely it is.”
“Yes, it is,” he replied curtly, a note of impatience creeping into his voice.
Instantly her annoyance at him shaded over into dislike. He was big city and too busy for her. The fact that she was putting in overtime on his account didn’t rate at all. His time above all else was tantamount.
He’s the customer, she tempered to herself. Still she didn’t appreciate the rude treatment. Nor the strange feeling she had whenever she looked at him. It seemed horribly akin to attraction, and after Doug, she was going to have none of that.
“Since you had to wait for me,” she said, “I assume you’ve already seen the bridge?”
He gave her a blank look. “Bridge? I…actually, no. I caught up on some work while I waited.”
So he didn’t even bother to explore out back. It struck her as almost incredible that anyone serious about buying the place would not have stepped around back for a peek, at least. He seemed to resent her questions and made a big production out of looking at his watch to remind her he was in a hurry.
But it wasn’t her way to let others treat her like a menial servant—not even for a potential sale. The more you pressure me, Mr. Henning, the longer it’s going to take, she resolved.
“And what kind of work do you do?” she asked politely as the two of them began walking toward the cabin. She noticed that he favored his left leg.
