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“Oh, dear,” she said worriedly.
He grimaced. “I’m okay,” he said. “Just a little dizzy.”
She moved to the bed and touched his forehead. “You’ve got a fever.” She pulled out her cell phone and called Copper Coltrain. She filled him in on Hayes’s condition and Copper said he’d come out to the house as soon as he got his own kids to school.
“Thanks, Copper,” she said.
“All in a day’s work,” he replied. “Lou can fill in for me until I get to the office. Don’t worry about Hayes,” he added. “Sometimes we have these little setbacks. He’ll be fine. I won’t let him die.”
Minette laughed softly. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” He hung up.
“No need to look so worried,” Hayes told her when she put the phone away. “I’m tougher than I look.”
“I know that. But I don’t like losing houseguests.”
He smiled through the discomfort. “I’m not dying. I’m just sick. Damn, it hurts.”
She pulled out the meds and gave him what was prescribed. “Copper’s coming by to see you.”
“He’ll fix me right up.”
She glared at the prescription bottle. “This antibiotic always works for me.”
“I have an odd constitution and I’m funny about drugs,” he said wearily. “Copper will work it out. But thanks for calling him.”
“Sure. I’ll check back with Aunt Sarah later.”
He nodded. “Be careful. It’s wet out and the roads get treacherous after a rain.”
“I know.” She smiled. “I’ll see you later. Hope you feel better.”
“Thanks. Me, too.”
He closed his eyes. She left him there, but not without misgivings and a lot of worry.
Chapter 4
Minette had her day planned. Interviews in the morning, pick Julie up at kindergarten at one, bring her home, then back to school to talk to Julie’s teacher. Then, at three, she would go back to the elementary school to get Shane.
But that wasn’t the way it played out...
When she finished the first interview, with a local politician who was thinking about entering the mayor’s race, she had a phone call.
“Miss Raynor?” a deep, faintly accented voice inquired.
“Yes?”
“I have a message for your houseguest.”
“Who is this?” she asked belligerently.
“My name is not important. Please tell Sheriff Carson that a more accurate marksman is being engaged.”
He hung up.
Minette stared at the phone, but she didn’t hang it up. She pulled out her cell phone and called Zack. She explained the phone call she’d just received and asked if he could have the telephone company run a trace. He agreed to try and hung up.
Bill Slater stuck his head in the door. “Trouble?” he asked.
She sighed. Her managing editor looked capable of standing there all day unless she told him. “I think whoever hired the attempt on Sheriff Carson just called me,” she confided. “He had a message for Hayes. They’re hiring a better shot,” she said coldly.
“Well, that’s brassy,” Bill replied.
She nodded. She felt sick to her stomach. They couldn’t watch Hayes night and day. And a good sniper was invisible.
“Zack’s good,” he reminded her. “So is Yancy.”
“I wonder if we know anybody in the mob,” she wondered aloud. “Fight fire with fire?” she mused with a laugh.
“Bite your tongue. Hayes will lock you up for just suggesting it.”
She sighed. “No doubt.” She worried her hair. “It’s got to be connected with the turf war,” she added. “Hayes interfered. They don’t like that.”
“Tell me about it. Our recently departed ace reporter almost got you killed and us burned alive with his unmasking of the rougher elements of the drug trade,” he added darkly. “I could have punched him. Insolent little toad.”
“He wasn’t so bad,” she replied with a sad smile. “At least he had the guts to dig out the bare facts of the conflict.”
“And almost got us killed,” Bill repeated. “If it hadn’t been for some quick work by the fire department, and then Chief Grier, who found the perp, we’d both be toast.”
“That’s the truth.” She pursed her lips. “You know what, I think I’ll wander over to the police department and have a word with Chief Grier.” She got up, and pushed her chair toward her desk. “You’ll need to have Jerry prompt the florist about that display ad they want—we can’t wait too long on the copy.”
“I’ll tell Jerry to sit on them.”
She made a face at him. “Don’t sit too hard. We’re hurting for advertising.”
“So I’ll stand on street corners and sell great package deals,” he chuckled.
“I don’t think it would help. But it’s a kind thought. I’ll be back when I can. Call if you need me.”
He nodded.
* * *
Cash Grier was intimidating, even to a woman whose job it was to interview all sorts of personalities. He seemed very businesslike and unapproachable. He was tall and dark, with a handsome face and intelligent black eyes. He’d been married for a couple of years to a former movie star, and they had a little girl. Tippy Grier’s young brother also lived with them.
“What can I do for you?” Cash asked when she perched forward on a chair in front of his massive cluttered desk.
She was staring at piles of paper haphazardly stacked on either side of a cleaned-off spot.
He gave her a haughty look. “I’ll have you know that those files are logically stacked in priority of need. I myself went through each one with no assistance from my secretary who doesn’t know how to file anything!” he added, raising his voice so that the demure, dark-haired young woman in the outer office could hear him through the half-open door.
“Lies,” came a lilting voice in answer.
“I can’t even find the menu for Barbara’s Café!” he shot back.
With a resounding sigh, the young woman walked through the door, dark-haired, slender and neatly dressed in jeans and a blue T-shirt with a knee-length sleeved sweater over it. “There,” she said, putting the menu neatly on his desk. She glared at him. “And the files would be in order, sir, if you’d just let me do my job...”
“Those are secret and important files,” he pointed out in his deep voice. “Which should not be the subject of local gossip.”
“I never gossip,” she replied blandly.
“You do so,” he retorted. “You told people all over town that I carry a sidearm!”
The secretary looked at Minette, rolled her eyes and went back out again.
Minette was distracted. She stared at Cash Grier curiously. Their very few meetings had been businesslike and brief, mostly when she interviewed him about criminal investigations—and there had only been a handful lately.
“I have trouble getting good help,” he said with an angelic smile.
“I’m the best help you’ve ever had, sir, because I can spell and type and answer the phone!”
“Well, you can’t do them all at once, Carlie, now can you?” he shot back.
There was a muttered sound, followed by the muted one of fingers on a computer keyboard.
“What can I do for you?” Cash asked belatedly.
“It’s about Sheriff Carson,” Minette replied.
“Yes. We’re working with his department to find out who shot him, although frankly, it’s causing some headaches.”
She nodded. “I just had a call from someone who said the next person they send would be a better shot. That’s just a summary. I brought the recording with me.” She took out a small cassette and put it on the desk. “We routinely record all our calls. We’ve had some issues in the past.”
“Yes, when someone tried to firebomb your office, I remember. He’s doing five to ten up in state prison, one of the few arsonists who ever got convicted.” Cash took out a small device from his desk drawer, inserted the tape Minette had brought and played it with his eyes shut. He did that again. He opened his eyes. “Northern Mexico,” he murmured, thinking aloud. “But with a hint of Mexico City. A native speaker. Calling from somewhere near a highway.”
“You got all that from a few words?” Minette asked, impressed.
He nodded, all business. “I still have a few skills left over from the old days, and I’ve dealt with telephone threats before. This is gloating, pure and simple. He thinks he’s too smart to be caught.” His eyes narrowed. “Hayes still at your place?”
“Yes,” she said. “He’s resisting attempts at rehabilitation and pretending that he doesn’t need all that nonsense.” She sighed. “He may never leave, at this rate.”
He got up from the desk, towering over her. “I’ll go out and have a talk with him,” he said. “I’ve been in his situation a few times. It might help. Mind if I hold on to that tape?”
“No. And if we get any more calls, I’ll bring them to you.” She hesitated. “I have two little kids living in my house, not to mention my elderly great-aunt,” she began.
“And you’re wondering how safe they are,” he replied. He smiled gently. “I’ll take care of that. No worries. You just save the world one article at a time.”
She laughed. “Okay.”
He walked her out. Carlie looked up from her desk with shimmering green eyes.
“The mayor called,” she told Cash. “He wants to know if you’re coming to the city council meeting.”
“No.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“I’ll tell you what to tell him...” Cash began heatedly.
She held up a hand. “Please. My father is a minister.”
Cash made a face at her and walked Minette to the front door. “I’ll see what I can do to motivate Hayes.” He hesitated. “Has he still got that huge reptile?”
Minette nodded.
“Is it living with you, too?” he asked with a grin.
She laughed. “No. I’m not going to be lunch for any enormous holdover from the dinosaur age,” she promised him.
* * *
Later, at Minette’s house, Cash was less humorous. Hayes had received a call, also.
“The coward was bragging about his marksman’s skill. He said that I moved or I’d be dead now,” Hayes muttered.
“Good thing you did move,” Cash replied. He drew in a breath. “I gather you’ve had the number checked out already?”
Hayes gave him a long-suffering look, and Cash laughed.
“Yes. It was a cell phone that’s no longer in service. Probably one of those throwaway types. We traced a call one of the cartel mules placed from our jail the day before I was shot. Same story.”
Cash nodded. “We’ve dealt with our share of those,” he agreed. He leaned forward in the chair he was occupying beside Hayes’s bed. “Lawmen make enemies,” he added. “But this is an exceptional one. Do you have any idea who’s behind the assassination attempt?”
Hayes nodded. “My investigator dug out a privileged little piece of dark information about a month ago. He was able to tie the death of a border agent with the one they call El Ladrón.”
“The thief,” Cash translated. He laughed. “How appropriate.”
“His men don’t call him that,” Hayes said. “Only his enemies.”
“We can only hope that he has enough of those to help bring him down.”
“He has one major enemy who’s fighting him for control of Cotillo,” Hayes said. “A reclusive, very dangerous leader of a South American cartel making inroads into the Mexican drug trade.”
“This reclusive drug trader, do we know who he is?”
Hayes nodded. “The son of an American heiress who ran away with a charming but deadly Mexican gang leader. He used his mother’s money to avenge his father, who was killed by agents of El Ladrón.”
