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NASH FLUNG THE COVERS off his fiery body. Chills and fever. He groaned. Coughed. Saw the water bottle on the end table and groped for it. At least he wasn’t shaking anymore. He cracked the lid and downed most of the contents.
“You’re awake.” Danika stood before him. “Soup whenever you want it. Meanwhile, I might have a lead on who’s after me.”
At least she didn’t rush up and check him for fever. Although he might not mind her cool hand on his brow.
“Who? Did Grinch call?” He’d have heard his phone. Wouldn’t he? It was on the kitchen table.
“No, and I said I have a lead, not a name.”
He swung his legs off the couch and worked his way to a sitting position. Aside from being drenched in sweat, he felt better. Fever cooks the bugs, his mother used to say.
Thinking of her nursing him through the chicken pox brought back memories. Maybe he should ask Danika to check him for fever after all.
She hadn’t even asked how he was feeling. Which was what he preferred. No nursemaid, no tender ministrations. Or was it?
Danika sat in an easy chair and rambled on about a woman and bitcoins. Somewhere in the recesses of his memory, he recalled her talking about one of her stories.
“The scammer article?”
“Yes. Mrs. Jager tried to confront the guy, and gave him my name. Said I was going to expose him. Which might have started things rolling.”
Feeling another coughing fit coming on, Nash tried to forestall it by draining the rest of his water. “Not even the stupidest scammer would use his own name. How are you going to find him?”
“That’s where I hope you and Grinch can help. If you send the emails—Mrs. Jager forwarded them to me—to Blackthorne, they could track them down, couldn’t they?”
“Maybe. But if he’s half-good, he’d be using measures to make sure his emails weren’t traceable.”
“Blackthorne might find him. From what I’ve been able to figure out about the company, that’s part of what they do.”
Nash thought about the Intel Department, run by the rainbow-haired Emiko Miyake. Digging out email trails was a task they performed regularly, but one overlapping the covert side. “I suppose they could try.”
She frowned. “Suppose?”
He raised a hand. “In my work for them, I didn’t deal with that kind of thing.”
“Or is it because they’re not really working for me? Which I fully understand, because I’m not paying them. If this guy bombed—or hired someone to bomb—T-Bone’s cabin, isn’t that enough of a reason for them to try? Or is it on the back burner because he was after me, not T-Bone?”
Nash had no idea what burner the investigation was on. “I’ll forward the emails to Grinch. See what he thinks.”
“Give me his email address. Saves me forwarding them to you and then you forwarding them to him.”
Nash tried to think of a reason that wasn’t a good idea. In his state, he couldn’t come up with one, so he relayed it to Danika.
“Thanks. I’ll do that now.” She hurried to her laptop.
Nash stood, testing his legs. Not nearly as bad as his first trip out of bed after his surgery. A little weak, but not passing-out weak. He headed for the bathroom. Danika glanced up as he passed by the kitchen, but didn’t yell at him to go lie down.
She cared. She made soup. Which smelled pretty good. Maybe this was a short-lived virus.
He stared at himself in the mirror. He’d looked worse after Blackthorne ops. He took a cool washcloth to his face and then towel-dried his hair. Went into the bedroom and peeled off his sweat-soaked shirts—all three of them, replacing them with clean, dry ones.
Contemplating an upcoming need to do laundry, Nash headed for the stove where a large pot of soup simmered.
“Is it soup yet?” he asked.
Danika eyed him warily, as if she didn’t think he could manage serving himself a bowl of soup, but she didn’t intervene. “Help yourself.”
When he returned to the table, he noticed his Tylenol and a glass of water had appeared by his place. He checked the time since his last dose, then took the pills.
Was she smirking?
He finished his soup despite having to wield a five-pound spoon to lift each mouthful. “Good. Thanks.”
She didn’t look up from her computer, but her head bobbed.
“I guess I’ll hit the couch.”
Another head bob.
Bright flashing lights brought him out of a sound sleep. He jerked upright, reached for his gun, which was in the bedroom, dammit.
“It’s okay.” Danika had put on her sweatshirt. “I called Triple-A. I figured you could manage for an hour or so while we fetch my car and they tow it to the tire place in town.”
She was leaving him alone? He was sick, dammit.
Which is what you told her you wanted, so stop whining.
If she had wheels, she could leave him.
“You coming back?” he asked. He had no right to forbid her the use of her car.
“Of course. The deputy said they were done with the car, so why not get it fixed? I’ll leave the tracker on the ground where the car was. Rear left wheel, right?”
He nodded.
She drummed her fingers on her chin. “I can tell the tow truck driver to come back tomorrow.”
He waved her off. “I’ll be fine.”
She headed for the door, her new purse slung over her shoulder.
“Wait,” he called, slightly better than a croak. “Phone. Kitchen.”
She gave him a puzzled look, then found his phone and brought it to him. He checked the front door app. A white flatbed rested at the bottom of the driveway, Fred’s Towing emblazoned in blue on the driver’s door and at the top of the windshield. A man in gray coveralls with the same insignia strode toward the door.
Feeling like a father must feel when his daughter left on her first date, Nash let her go.
He lay down again, his mind going over what T-Bone had said about the Russians. Spies and sleeper agents. And the kicker. We might have stumbled onto something.
*****
AT THE AUTOMOTIVE SHOP Elizabeth had recommended—not that Deer Ridge offered many choices—Danika climbed out of the tow truck and went inside to the small waiting area. No need to stand out in the cold. She’d tossed the tracker under the car while the driver was setting things up, so nobody should know where she was.
A woman looked up when Danika entered. A curly-haired dog snoozed at the woman’s feet. Danika got a smile from the woman and a tail thump from the dog. The woman went back to her magazine, the dog went back to sleep.
Fine with her. Danika wasn’t in the mood for conversation. The tow truck driver hadn’t said three words, and she’d been grateful for that. She checked the time. They’d been gone an hour. Should she call Nash? No, he should be asleep, and why wake him?
She found a stack of magazines on an end table between two sets of chairs. Automotive or outdoors? She chose a copy of Outdoor Life and turned to a random page.
A mechanic poked his head into the waiting area. “Danika Payton?”
She popped up from the chair. He started talking about replacement tires, how the tread was worn on the other two, that she needed a whole new set.
Of course he’d say that. She was a woman. Upselling and scare tactics abounded. She’d done an article on it. She wondered what he’d have said if it was Nash bringing the car in, not her.
She allowed the man to show her what he meant about tread wear. He used the penny test as well as pointing out the wear bars. Danika groaned inwardly. He was right.
“Winter’s on its way. You have a set of snow tires? We can swap them out,” he said.
Was he going to try to sell her snow tires and a new second set instead of replacing the two slashed ones? Maybe she’d move somewhere it didn’t snow, or at least where there were no mountain roads to navigate. She’d thought about leaving, but where to hadn’t entered the picture yet.
“A set of all-weather tires will be fine,” she said.
While her car was getting its new shoes, and her credit card balance was climbing into the danger zone, she flipped through the magazine she’d been reading in the waiting room. The woman and her dog had left. Another customer had come in, a man as chatty as the tow truck driver had been taciturn.
Danika nodded politely, agreeing with his predictions of more snow, complaints about the price of gas, and what did she think about the election results? Not going there.
She tried to indicate there was something of great importance in the magazine article she was reading—not that her brain had processed a single word since she’d arrived.
Grateful the mechanics worked quickly, she took her keys and made a circuit of the car, viewing the bright, shiny tires with mixed feelings. Safety versus unplanned expenses.
She decided as long as she was in town, she’d make a quick stop at the grocery store. Nash’s Tylenol bottle was approaching empty, and he might need a sports drink in case his virus turned into the gastric distress variety. Cans of broth. The least she could do was leave him in a house stocked with the supplies he might need. Cough syrup. Tissues.
Unless he took a major turn for the worse, she would go through with her plan to leave tomorrow.
Her phone buzzed a text. From Nash.
Everything OK with the car
She texted back.
New tires. Quick stop at the store. Need anything?
He texted he didn’t—of course he would—but she’d stop at the store anyway. He’d probably texted instead of calling so she wouldn’t hear his frog voice.
A glance at the sky said she ought to make it to the house before the next band of snow hit.
She headed for City Market. Things were going her way. The snow had held off. She found a parking place in the shopping center lot not far from the grocery store entrance. Many of her items were on sale—flu season specials—and she hit an empty checkout line.
When she exited the store, her luck took a downward turn. A generous dusting of snow covered the parking lot, and big white flakes filled the air. Traffic was moving on the road, though, so not all bad.
Watching her footing, using the cart for balance, she got to her car. Her luck had definitely continued on a downward spiral. Some jerk had taken the space next to hers, parking so close she couldn’t get her driver side door open. They painted lines in the lot for a reason. What part of between didn’t he understand? It wasn’t like he was driving a truck. It was a Ford Taurus. In a handicapped slot. Without a tag. Some people.
Danika popped her trunk and loaded her bags inside. Maybe the space hog would come back before she had to climb in from the passenger side.
She swung her last bag in. The flimsy plastic tore, and a can of orange juice concentrate and two cans of chicken broth spilled into the back of the trunk. She leaned in to retrieve them.
A hand clamped over her mouth. Something sharp poked at her neck.
“Not a sound,” a gruff, deep voice said. But one that sounded familiar. “Don’t move.”