WHEN DAN DIDN’T RESPOND, Joan glanced over at him and rolled her eyes. “Give me that,” she ordered, pulling the romance novel from his hands. His eyebrows lowered like a Neanderthal’s. Joan gripped his chin and turned his head until he faced her. “Pay attention. Mr. Garrison is talking to you. He wants to know what you do for a living.”
Despite her grip on him, Dan effortlessly turned his head and shot Mr. Garrison a look before whispering to her, “So what do I do?”
“I never said. Use your imagination.” Joan finally turned him loose and sat back, crossing her legs.
“Oh, hell,” Dan muttered as Mr. Garrison pulled a chair up in front of them and sat with his knees spread, his hands braced atop them. Dan nodded his head, saying “Howdy” by way of greeting the white-haired, smiling little man.
“Howdy yourself, big fella,” Mr. Garrison returned. “Been thinkin’ about that gun you tote. And them handcuffs. Some of us were talking over our bridge game last evenin’ about what it might be that you do to put bread on your table. Found we couldn’t even begin to guess, given your…special personality.”
Dan shot Joan a this-is-all-your-fault look and again focused on the inquisitive older fellow. Adopting a sober expression, Dan said, “It’s a secret.” Joan surreptitiously pinched his arm. He didn’t even flinch.
“A secret, is it?” Mr. Garrison echoed, leaning forward, his brown eyes alight. “How secret?”
Dan leaned forward until his forehead almost touched Mr. Garrison’s. “So secret,” he said, “that if I told you, I’d have to kill you. And in a way that would hurt. You still want to know?”
Apparently all pluck and daring, and all yellow-velour jogging suit, Mr. Garrison said, “Ah-yep, so go ahead and tell me.”
“Yeah,” Joan encouraged. “Go ahead. Tell him, dear.”
Dan swiveled to give her the evil eye. She grinned back at him. His hazel eyes lit with humor, but he produced a properly serious scowl for his geriatric Grand Inquisitor. “All right. But you have to swear you won’t tell a living soul. Not even your lovely missus.”
Mr. Garrison casually flicked his right hand up to the oath-taking position and then resettled it atop his knee. “So sworn.”
Dan nodded, opened his mouth to speak. Joan leaned forward. This she had to hear. The sound of shifting weight, of fabric rubbing against fabric, coming from the matching Queen Anne chairs told her Mrs. Compton and Mrs. Edwards were no longer reading, either. Dan quirked an amused but devilish expression Joan’s way that had her suddenly fearing this monster she’d created.
Sure enough, he told Mr. Garrison, “I’m a crash-test aviator for a high-level governmental organization that specializes in defensive aerobatic maneuvers to deflect unfriendlies with extreme prejudice in adverse meteorological and warfare combat conditions under strictest lock-down and quadrilateral efforts by the joint commands and forces with the biennial treaty agreements co-signed by us and our most-favored-nation status allies in the western hemisphere.” He paused, drew a breath, and added, “Including Antarctica.”
Joan’s muscles locked. Her eyes bugged. Dead silence to echo hers came from the Queen Anne chairs. However, Mr. Garrison nodded, never lost a beat. “One of those, eh? I’ve heard of ‘em.”
“Have you now?” Dan drawled. Joan awarded him points for keeping a straight face.
“Ah-yep. Read a story back home in the papers about your organization. I said to the wife it’d be kind of hard to fit all that on a name tag.” Mr. Garrison waited, looked from one to the other of them. Then he scratched his white hair, thoroughly mussing it. “Well, the wife thought it was funny.” Now he pointed at Dan. “Explain them handcuffs. The paper never said you types carried handcuffs, young fella.”
Biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing aloud at this game of one-upmanship, Joan waited. Dan favored her with another thanks-a-lot look. She smiled, loving this discomfiture of his. But he didn’t. Smile, that is. Instead, he shook his head and refocused on the old gentleman, finally confessing, “In my spare time, I’m a cop.”
Mr. Garrison sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Thought as much. Told Ethel—that’s the missus—you had the look of the law about you.”
Now for that, Joan had a comeback. She jerked her thumb toward Dan, capturing for herself the men’s gazes. But a sudden movement in the hallway captured her attention. Instantaneous and heart-thumping fright imprisoned her breath in her lungs. She clutched Dan’s arm. He covered her hand with his own. “What’s wrong?”
With a taut jerk of her head, she now stared at him, whispering, “It’s…him. I think.”
A split second’s frown of confusion shadowed Dan’s features before he evidently caught her meaning and directed his steely gaze to the hallway. She followed suit and, having to look past Mr. Garrison to the hallway behind him, Joan saw their companion had taken notice of their brief, whispered exchange. The sharp old man’s eyes narrowed briefly before he wrenched around in his chair to see what concerned her and Dan.
But Mr. Garrison, Dan, the library—indeed, the world—blurred to the outer reaches of Joan’s awareness as the stranger out in the hallway claimed the clear-lensed center of her attention. As if on cue, the man slowed his steps, turned his head, zeroed in on her. Joan expected a rush of fear to course through her. But how could it? The man staring at her had a face made for comedy clubs. Thick eyeglasses. Black, bushy eyebrows, and mustache to match. Like three caterpillars had taken up residence on his face. Short, thick, and squat of body, in dark clothes. Yeah, all that. Maybe that’s what caught her attention. But so momentarily frightened had she been that she still couldn’t look away from him.
Until Dan’s voice broke the spell. He spoke to her in soft and soothing tones. “Is that him?”
Before Joan could recover her balance, Mr. Garrison faced them again, his gaze darting from her face to Dan’s. “Interestin’ fella, that one. Reminds me of Groucho Marx. Got here the same day we did, but a few hours later. That was the day before you skied up. Friendly sort. A real talker, but an eye for the ladies. Have a care for your bride there, Mr. Thompson.”
Joan wrenched her gaze to the older man. But Dan spoke for her. “A ladies’ man, huh? Thanks for the insight. I’ll do that.”
Mr. Garrison scratched his head. His hair spiked straight up where he rubbed. “Be a good idea. I’ve told Ethel—that’s the missus—ta keep away from him. She’s quite a looker, you know…like your missus here. And what he does for a livin’ don’t help matters none.”
Joan exchanged a look with Dan, and asked what Mr. Garrison so obviously wanted one of them to. “And what does he do for a living?”
“A perfume salesman,” the older man blurted. “Them cheap kinds, too. The designer-label rip-offs. Most likely illegal, if you ask me. Why, the man smells like a cheap whor—um, to high heavens. Totes them samples everywhere he goes, too, giving ‘em to all the women. I don’t mind telling you, some of us men are thinkin’ of havin’ a talk with him, if you get my drift” Now he focused on Dan. “Be interested to know your take on this, young fella.”
“As a policeman? Or a husband?”
The word came out of his mouth so naturally that Joan could only stare at Dan’s profile. He glanced in her direction, winked at her, and then refocused on Mr. Garrison, leaving Joan’s heart to beat a tattoo against her ribs.
“Both, I suppose,” Mr. Garrison was saying.
“Well,” Dan began, “as a policeman, I’d say you have every right to talk to the man—if by ‘talk’ you mean ‘talk,’ and that’s all. But speaking as a husband, I suggest we kick his butt.”
Joan gasped in surprise. But Mr. Garrison chuckled. “I like you, young fella. We think alike when it comes to protecting our womenfolk.”
Protecting our womenfolk? Excuse me? Is this the 1990s…or the 1890s? The thought was there, but she didn’t get too worked up over the older man’s attitude, knowing he was from a previous generation. But then…
“Now if only we could find someone to protect us from our womenfolk, right, Mr. Garrison?” Dan quipped.
So much for male bonding. “All right, you two, that’s enough,” Joan cut in, garnering for herself two sets of wide-eyed and innocent gazes. She stood up. “Don’t make me go for reinforcements—and I mean in the kitchen to get the other women to help me raise your consciousness. Maybe with a rolling pin.”
IN THE HALLWAY, just lumbering past the library, Bruno hurried his steps and twitched his nose, trying his best to resettle the fake eyeglasses and not to scratch the itchy mustache glued under his nose. All he needed to do was accidentally pull the furry thing off his face. Or worse, knock it sideways and not know it. That would give him away in a second. And the boss wasn’t none too pleased with him, as it was. So if he gave himself away, if he blew this one last chance to kill the girl who’d seen him kill Tony, the boss would send someone to nail him.
All this thinking. It made his head hurt—even worse than his arm had when he got his tattoo. Or maybe it was all the perfume samples he had to tote around as part of his disguise. Why hadn’t he picked a fake job in some field he wasn’t allergic to? But he’d had to think quick—never an easy thing for him, as the boss said—when the Taos cops started getting wise to his being there and asking around about the girl. That’s when he’d given himself a fake job, in case anyone asked him what he did for a living, and come up here to lay low. Who’d have thought she’d end up here, too? Bruno grinned, still not believing his good luck. The boss would be happy, too, that he could finish the job.
Still, it was a shame to have to kill her. She was a good-looking babe, not like all those other old ladies here that he had to kiss up to. Bruno sighed. Just part of the job, pretending to like some folks, having to kill other ones, nice ones you might’ve liked to date otherwise. But that was out, the dating part. She was with that big deputy. Bruno recognized him from when he was keeping an eye out for the cops in Taos. So that fake story of theirs, about being honeymooners, hadn’t fooled him. The cop brought her up here to hide her from him, Bruno Taglia. He snorted. And the boss said he was dumb. The cop had brought her to him on a silver platter. Well, skis, he supposed.
But now the lawman posed a problem. The boss wouldn’t like it none if he had to take out a cop. Too much heat. But he might not be able to help it, if he was to get to the girl. And he’d have to do it soon, too. He’d seen the look she just gave him, heard her gasp. She suspected him. Bruno shoved open the heavy fire door that led to the stairway and shuffled down the steps. Tonight, then. It had to be tonight. At the social get-together the old ladies were planning. Now to see how to disable that emergency power generator out back.
“HEY, sit down, you, you’re not going anywhere,” Dan assured Joan, accompanying his words with a chuckle. “We’ve got all the reinforcements we need in here.” He pointed to Mrs. Edwards and Mrs. Compton.
Joan sat, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t annoyed as heck with both men. Womenfolk, indeed. It also didn’t mean that she was over her fright from seeing that Groucho guy who was just too much like the hit man for her comfort But right then, another figure appeared in the library’s archway to capture her attention. Praise be, this time it was only a young male lodge employee, who spotted them and leaned into the room, addressing Dan. “Mr. Jacobs sent me to find you. He said to tell you he’s in his office…that it would mean something to you?”
Joan looked over at Dan to see him nodding. And looking grim. “Yeah, it does. Thanks. Tell him we’ll be right there.”
When the dark-haired kid nodded and left, Joan searched Dan’s face, but he offered nothing, merely gripped her arm and pulled her to her feet along with him. Mr. Garrison also stood, and Dan nodded to him. “If you’ll excuse us, the missus and I have to, uh, go do something in the office.”
Mr. Garrison waved them away. “I heard. Don’t stay on my account. I have to see to a nap, myself.” He started to turn away, but added, “See you tonight at the sing-along?”
“What sing-along?” Joan asked. Dan stilled next to her. Suspiciously so.
Mr. Garrison raised a bushy eyebrow at Dan and then addressed Joan. “The one in the lobby. Around that old piano. The ladies organized it, told everyone at breakfast, including your mister here. So join us. Can’t stay up in your room all the time, honeymooners or not. There’ll be cider and cookies. Ought to be fun.”
“That’s what I thought,” came Dan’s deadpanned sentiment as he tugged on Joan’s arm, obviously wanting to be gone.
Joan resisted, accusing him with a slanted look before she turned to Mr. Garrison. “It does sound like fun. And thank you for telling me about it, since no one else did.” Dan muttered something under his breath that Joan didn’t catch but did ignore in favor of telling Mr. Garrison, “We’d love to come. What time?”
“After supper. Sevenish. See you then.” With that, Mr. Garrison turned, called out a goodbye to Mrs. Compton and Mrs. Edwards and shuffled off across the room, making his way toward the hallway. An absently executed wave with a knobby-knuckled hand punctuated his exit.
Joan glanced Dan’s way, saw him watching Mr. Garrison take his leave. Then he surprised her by calling out, “Mr. Garrison?”
The older man stopped and turned around, his eyebrows raised in anticipation of a question, which Dan asked. “I was just wondering, sir, what do you do to put bread on your table?”
Mr. Garrison’s brown-eyed gaze sparked, as much as saying he’d hoped he’d be asked this. His sly grin nailed Joan and Dan in place like mounted trophies on a hunting-lodge wall. But what he said was, “I’m retired, young fella. My pension puts bread on my table.” With that and a wink, the old man turned around and walked slowly toward the exit. “See you at supper,” he said in parting as he rounded the corner to his left and disappeared from view.
Joan steadfastly stared at the spot just vacated by the harmless older man. Then she turned to Dan. “Do you get the feeling there’s more to him than he’s telling?”
His eyes alight with mischief, Dan’s mock-accusing stare fell on her. “Why not? There’s certainly more to us, Barbie, than we’re letting on. What a story you stuck us with.” Then his gaze roved over her, heating her, and by the looks of his heightened color, heated him, too. “But I guess I shouldn’t complain. Being newlyweds has its moments. Like now.” He grabbed her arms, pulled her tight against his chest and growled low in his throat as he bent his head to her neck, pretending to take a bite out of her.
Joan shrieked, but not nearly as loudly as Mrs. Compton and Mrs. Edwards. Their flurry of prayerful activity, over by the Queen Anne chairs, pulled the happy couple apart, had them jerking around in surprise to see two blurs of motion. Wide-eyed with fear, staring at Joan and Dan, the grandmotherly types sidled along the wall and then all but galloped out of the library and down the hallway.
A long silence ensued. Joan finally blinked, exhaling as she turned away from the again-deserted doorway to look at Dan. “I forgot all about them. What must they think?”
He grinned at her. “That we’re newlyweds?”
“WILL YOU PLEASE TELL ME how we—in the space of ten minutes—went from me kissing your neck in the library to you griping at me about not telling you about the sing-along?” While he asked, Dan rapped a knuckle against the lodge office’s closed door and then called out, “It’s me, Mark.”
Then he resumed his monologue with Joan, who apparently was not talking to him, judging by her averted gaze and pointed silence. “Will you look at me, please?” She wouldn’t. Dan made a noise of disgust and added, “Do you know what this means, why we’re standing here? The phone lines must be working. Which means I can call the station and start getting you cleared.”
Just as she opened her mouth and gathered a breath, obviously preparing to tell him her thoughts, Mark opened the door. And surprised Dan by blocking their entry while he seriously scrutinized them—as if this were a top-secret facility and he had to verify their identities.
“It’s really us, Mark,” Dan sniped. “And I don’t think we were followed, so let us in. Or is there a secret code word I’m supposed to know?”
Mark’s face colored. Joan chose that moment to speak up. But she spoke to Mark. “Has he always been bossy like this?”
“Since I’ve known him. His way or the highway.” With that, he motioned them inside.
Dan wasn’t taking this lying down. “You’re still ticked because I was chosen football captain in the ninth grade.”
“And every year after that,” Mark added with a grin. He leaned over toward Joan, mock whispering, “It’s always the quarterback who gets to be captain.”
Joan whispered right back, “And the girls. I hear they get the girls, too.”
“That’s enough,” Dan cut in. He punctuated his words by dragging his ponytailed prisoner into the room with him, closing the door behind them and pointing her to a chair pushed against the room’s back wall. “Have a seat and stay there. Can you do that, or do I need to cuff you?”
As he watched, Joan marched to the vinyl-upholstered chair and flopped down heavily on it. She then directed a Grim Reaper smile at Dan, saying, “I think I’m capable of sitting here, Sheriff. But since you get your jollies by handcuffing me, then—”
“Just sit there.” Dan arrowed a glance at Mark, whose face was as red as he figured his own was. “She says things like that all the time, just to shock people.”
Mark nodded. “Sounds to me like she knows you, buddy.”
Dan put his hands to his waist. “Whose side are you on?”
A big grin split Mark’s face as he pointed past Dan to Joan, who sat up straighter in her chair. “Hers.”
Dan caught himself before an answering chuckle escaped him. Instead, he shook his head, quirked his mouth into a grimace. “Damned defensive linesmen. Never were too smart.” Then he got down to business. “All right, let’s see what I can do about making everything okay—”
“Ha! Don’t believe him.” This from Joan. Dan pivoted to her, gave her a look, but it did no damned good. “The last time he said that to me, his plane crashed and we nearly got eaten by bears.”
“Will you just sit there and accept that staying with me, instead of visiting with the ladies in the kitchen, is for your own good, Joan? You’re just safer here with me. Where I can keep an eye on you.”
“I’m safer? Or are you?”
“All right, I am.”
She crossed her arms under her little-children-of-theworld sweater-covered bosom. “Well, you won’t be when Mrs. Compton and Mrs. Edwards tell everyone that you growled and bit me on my neck right in front of them. I’m telling you, you better let me go talk to them—before they combine forces and bash you in the head.”
Dan ignored the shocked gasp from Mark, and the burning heat on his own cheeks, to tell Joan, “Is that why you’re mad? Because I won’t let you go tell them some cockeyed story about me being a werewolf—which is exactly what you’d do, isn’t it?”
“I might.” With that, she snatched a touristy-type magazine from the round wood-block table next to her and began flipping pages.
Effectively dismissed, Dan exhaled and turned back to Mark, who said, “Man, you are in over your head. It’s about time.”
“Shut up, Mark,” Dan griped. He knew it So he didn’t need anyone else telling him. In silence, he watched Mark make his way behind the desk. His big blond pal put the telephone receiver to his ear and punched the different incoming lines, all the while listening. Dan sat on one of the chairs that faced the desk and begged, “Tell me it’s still working.”
Mark nodded. “Yep. Up and running. For now, anyway, given all the rain and flooding going on down in the valley. I heard about it on my transistor radio, right before the batteries went dead.”
Dan spared a fatalistic chuckle for that. “Man, that’s par for the course.” Then he took the receiver when Mark held it out to him, adding, “What we need are cell phones.”
“But first we’d have to have cell sites, right? I’ll go get the guest register, so you can give the names to Cal. Ask him if they’re building an ark yet. If so, tell him the only things we have two of up here are men and women.”
Dan couldn’t resist. “But only one woman capable of breeding in the new post-flood world.”
“Ha, ha, Hendricks,” she retorted to his back. He tensed, fully expecting to get clobbered at any second. Sure enough, the clobber came, but with words muttered not quite under her breath. “As if you’d have a chance.”
Dan’s gaze locked with Mark’s, whose eyebrows shot up. He pointed and tripped his way to the closed door, mumbling, “I’ll just get that register…with the names…and check on supper…while th—” He made it to the door, jerked it open and fled through it, closing it sharply behind him.
Alone now with his shy little “bride,” Dan pivoted, bracing an arm across the chair’s back. She looked up at him, green eyes edged with defiance, cherry mouth puckered with the same emotion. All spit and fire to cover her fear, her helplessness…her needing him. Dan’s heart melted, bringing a smile to his face. “You okay?”
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she said, “As I’ll ever be.”
“You know, you’re brave as hell. You’ve been through a lot and yet you don’t give up. You keep pushing. I like that about you.” Dan watched her reaction, saw her blink, swallow and raise her chin. He winked, too full of his own sudden emotion to do anything but turn his back to her and dial the number to the department.
As it rang, he forced his thoughts to what he needed to say. Then Cal answered. Dan surprised himself with how excited he felt, like a kid on his birthday. So much had happened, so much still needed to happen. “Cal, it’s me, Dan. Yeah, we made it to the lodge. Hear it’s raining cats and dogs—What? Old Shep’s home? Are you kidding?”
He pivoted, telling Joan, “That’s my grandfather’s dog. He’s as bad as the old man.” Then Dan went silent. Her eyes were still suspiciously shiny. Had no one ever told her she was brave? Poor kid. Taking a deep breath around the tightness in his chest, Dan faced forward again and listened. “He brought what—that collie with him? Puppies? That’s what we need. Ad? What ad? Tell me you’re lying.” Again he turned to Joan. “Grandpa took an ad out in the paper inviting all of Taos to his wedding on Halloween.”
“Oh, lovely.” She grinned. “Whatever shall we wear?”
She sobered at the same moment Dan did. His gaze locked with hers. The implication—that she might be in his life then—spread a warmth to his heart, and a frown to his face. Was that where they were headed? To a life together?
“Dan,” Joan urged, “remember Pam and Bob Jackson. And my friends.”
“Yeah.” He turned away from her, put the receiver to his ear. “Cal, do me a favor, man. I need you to call some folks in Houston and tell them Joan’s okay.” He gave him the names and then added, “So, despite falling out of airplanes and getting stuck in a tree, I’ve also found time to solve the LoBianco murder.” He jerked the receiver away from his ear, waited a second, and then put it back. “Settle down, man. Okay, I’ll wait. Go get them. Yeah, put me on the speakerphone.”
Behind him, the office door opened. Dan turned, saw Mark coming in with the guest register, which he held out to him. As he took it, Dan said, “Thanks, man. I owe you, big time.”
Mark waved that away, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve got a situation in the kitchen—too many cooks. I’m just going to slip out.”
Dan nodded, heard Sheriff Halverson’s booming greeting in his ear. “I’m fine, sir. Thanks. Yes, that’s right, I know what happened and who did it. Just not what he looks like, or what his name is. Or why. Yes sir, he. No, not her. I know, confusing.”
To prove it, Sheriff Halverson went ballistic. All Dan could do was listen and gesture and shake his head and try to cut in. “Yes, sir, I know what’s at stake—The killer’s probably that same—No, it’s not—Yes, we’re safe here. I’ll be careful, yes. I appreciate that. I know. What? No, it wasn’t Miss O’Leary. Yes, sir, I’m sure.” Having won the floor with that, Dan launched into how he knew Joan wasn’t guilty.
Several minutes later, his luck and the phone line still holding, Dan got to the names in the guest register, telling Ben Halverson he’d like them to double-check everyone here, just to be sure Joan was safe. No sense taking chances. Then he waited, hearing through the lines a flurry of activity. He could just see the scene now—everyone getting pen and paper, Cal on the computer and ready to input, the phone call going to the D.A. But what he liked best was the note of pride in Ben Halverson’s voice and how he called him son. “Yes, sir. You ready? Okay, here’s the first name I need you to—Hello? Hello?”
This is not happening. Dan sat stock-still, staring straight ahead at a framed restaurant association certificate hanging on the wall. The phone line was dead. He whirled to tell Joan. Her chair was empty. His gut twisted. He slammed down the receiver in its cradle and jumped up, turning to the office door…which was ajar.
A howling string of epithets accompanied his running steps out of the ground-floor office and across the lobby’s flagstones. He took the split-log stairs two at a time, sprinting to the second-floor kitchen—empty. Hadn’t Mark said something about too many cooks? Where was everyone? More alarmed by the second, Dan jetted back to the stairs, took them in a headlong flight and didn’t slow down until he jerked to a stop in front of his room.
Breathing hard, crazy with worry, he fumbled in his jeans’ pocket for the room key. Finally, his fingers and the denim cooperated, allowing him to extract it. In the next second, he held his Beretta in his other hand. Only then did he put the key to the lock—and freeze. The door was already open. Alarm shot through him.
He retreated from the doorway, took a couple of calming breaths, forced himself to think. Just follow police procedure. He did, plastering his back to the hallway wall and listening. He heard things being bumped and knocked about, whispering, the closet sliding open, drawers being pulled out. Dan’s jaw set with rage. His eyes narrowed. That was not Joan. She’d have no reason to rummage through their room like that. She knew where everything was.
Then that meant, just as he’d feared, she wasn’t safe here. But whoever this was, they’d be sorry. Especially if they’d so much as harmed a hair on her head. Deadly grim, and ready as he’d ever be, Dan jerked away from the wall, twisted to face the room, kicked the door open and burst inside, leading with his gun and yelling, “Police! I’m with the police and I’m armed. Freeze! Put your hands up or I’ll shoot!”