“Yo, Cade.”
Wayne stopped and waited for the young cop to come down the courthouse steps and join him on the sidewalk.
“Your hunch was right,” Reed Austin said. “The mineral block was laced with poison. It would have been slow death for any animal that licked it.”
“Arsenic?” Wayne knew it had a cumulative effect, the poison lurking in the body until enough had built up to kill.
Reed shook his head. “It was something the crime lab hadn’t run into before. A muscle relaxer that isn’t used because of the danger. I don’t have a clue where anyone would get the stuff. It isn’t on the market.”
Wayne considered this information, one part of him going cold with fury. If he could get hold of Dale Carson for just five minutes—
“You look as if you’re contemplating murder,” Reed remarked, a warning in his tone.
“Nah. Maybe a little friendly persuasion on a couple of guys.” He rubbed his chin and tried to think. Something was niggling at the back of his mind. “A muscle relaxer, huh? Sure seems odd to use something like that.”
“It’s hard to detect. One of the new lab guys thought of checking for a relaxant because of the recent death of a kid who got in his parents’ medicine cabinet and tried one.”
Wayne was reminded of Jenny and her illness. He had a sense of time speeding by faster and faster. He needed to talk to Kate and Ethan and others before it ran out.
“I don’t suppose they could detect fingerprints on the block, could they?”
Reed shook his head. “I’ve got an appointment with the city attorney. It seems we’re being sued for false arrest. A cop can’t win for losing.” His grin was cynical as he headed for his car.
Wayne started for his truck. He was going to stop by the McCallum house. He wanted to talk to Sterling about the ranch. Hell, he wanted to talk him out of selling. For some stupid reason, it had become important to him.
Down the street, he saw Janie Carson come out of one of the department stores, several packages in her arms. He wondered, not for the first time, if she knew where her brother was hiding. Could he find out?
For a second, his conscience bothered him, then he grimly stalked along the sidewalk. Some things were more important than personal ethics. Besides, he hated to see whoever was trying to ruin the ranch succeed.
“Hey, Janie, going to work?” he asked, striding up to her with a falsely cheerful smile.
She blinked at him as if not quite sure he was talking to her. “No, taking my packages to my car.”
“Here, let me help.” He took the largest bags from her and swung into step beside her. “Nice day, huh?”
It was. The temperature was in the forties. The sun was shining, the air was clear and the sky a robin’s-egg blue. Some store windows were decorated with hearts and red and white streamers for Valentine’s Day, still a month away. He was reminded of a gift he had to take care of.
Adjusting his step to hers, he walked with Janie to her car, which was located on the street next to the city park. He chatted with her about her job and teased her about buying valentines for all the guys in town.
She tossed her head and gave him sassy answers and flirted with him outrageously. His smile became a real one as he enjoyed her performance. She was good with her eyes, flashing him under-the-lashes glances as she told of a humorous incident while shopping.
She locked her packages in the trunk of her compact car.
“How about a coffee?” she suggested. “We could drink it here in the park.”
A pinch of guilt took hold of him. He shook it off. After all, he was on important business, even if he was going about it in an underhanded fashion. “Sure.”
He went with her to the café and paid for the two coffees. He grinned. “We’re getting citified here in the sticks, aren’t we? Gourmet coffee, bagels and all that.”
She laughed, a tinkling, teasing, girl’s laughter, wrinkled her pert nose at him and pushed her lips into a pouty expression that begged to be kissed. She was as subtle as one of Freeway’s pups, wriggling all over itself wanting to be petted.
For an instant, he was reminded of Kate and him, back when they’d both been eighteen and in love, and life had seemed theirs for the taking. God, what a long time past that had been.
He dusted off one of the park benches and invited her to sit beside him. The sun felt good on his back as they sat facing the street. Their shoulders touched as Janie snuggled closer. He hoped Reed Austin didn’t see them.
Wayne suspected the cop was more than half in love with Janie. If she was smart, she’d snap the young man up. She’d have a secure future with Reed, which was a lot more than any woman would get from him.
It was time to be moving on. He could feel it in his bones, in every breath he breathed. Yet this place of his birth was growing on him. Sometimes he remembered only what was good about living here….
“How are things on the ranch?” Janie asked.
Ah, the perfect lead-in. “Not so good. McCallum has ordered it closed down. It would be a shame to lose his daughter’s inheritance, especially now when she might need the money for her treatment. I understand it’s expensive.”
He sat silently, letting the words soak in.
Janie stared into the middle distance, her young face pensive and troubled. She swallowed, then licked her lips.
He held his breath, sure she was going to tell him where the young man was hiding. Maybe she knew who Dale was in cahoots with, too. He leaned closer, taking on a confidential air, his lips close to her ear.
“Janie,” he murmured, “we need help. If you know anything that would—” He broke off as he stared into eyes so cold they would have frosted a store window at twenty paces.
Carey Hall averted her gaze and strode on down the sidewalk, her head high as she pretended not to see him sitting there with Janie, making out with the impressionable youngster as he tried to pry information out of her.
“Hell,” he said.
Janie jerked as if startled out of a trance. “What?”
“Nothing.” He sighed and glanced at his watch. “I have to go. I have an appointment.”
Janie now wore a frown. He could see she didn’t think much of him at the moment. He didn’t think much of himself.
“Were you using me to make Dr. Hall jealous?” she demanded, her hands on her cup as if she might throw the hot coffee in his face.
“Yeah,” he said.
Janie missed the ironic overtone. “I think you’re a beast.” She flounced off.
He finished off the coffee and tossed the cup toward the trash bin. Missed. He picked it up and slam-dunked it into the bin. So far his day had been a perfect zero, and it was now time for his meeting with the deputy.
Five minutes later, he stopped in front of the McCallum house. He climbed out, his heart kicking up a bit when he saw Carey’s ute in the drive.
He wondered if she’d brought good news. Maybe they’d found a donor for Jenny. She hadn’t told him where to go or when to come in for testing. That was something he needed to ask about. Maybe she didn’t need him. Maybe someone else matched, and he could leave.
Sterling answered his knock. “Come on in. We’re nearly finished.” He led the way into the living room.
Jessica smiled and spoke in her usual manner. Jennifer played on the floor in front of the fire with a doll and tea set. The doc nodded, but didn’t speak.
He noticed Jessica’s eyes were red. As if she’d cried shortly before his arrival. The deputy was as grim as death. Carey, too, was blinking her eyes suspiciously.
“I, uh, wanted to talk to you about the ranch. The foreman asked me to stop by.” He felt awkward, as if he, the outsider, had intruded on a family scene. “Should I come by later?”
“No,” Jessica answered. “It’s all right. I was just taking Jenny to the bedroom for her nap. If that’s all?”
She looked at Carey, who nodded, then she swept the child into her arms and hurried out. The little girl was thin, and as pale as a mist. Her shiny, bouncy curls were gone. Tufts of colorless hair wafted around her face.
Something clenched hard and achy in his chest. He listened to the kid tell her mom about her tea party until a door closed down the hall, shutting off the childish treble.
“What is it?” he asked, looking from one to the other.
Sterling didn’t answer.
Carey spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “Sterling and Jessica don’t match Jennifer’s blood profile. They can’t be donors. We’ve tested a full dozen people now. It’s like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.”
“You haven’t tested me. I said I’d volunteer. Where do I go?”
She gave him a doubtful perusal. “There probably isn’t any need—”
“I said, I’ll do it,” he snapped, angry with her for closing him out, with himself for trying a cheap trick with Janie, angry with the whole damn situation.
He saw her and Sterling exchange glances, then she nodded. “All right. Can you report to the hospital tomorrow around noon?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” She stood. “I’ll let you know the moment we find anything,” she said to Sterling, who jerked his head once in understanding.
After she left, the emptiness of the room closed in around the two men. Wayne pondered this for a moment. With the women gone, life seemed diminished somehow. Odd, that.
“I wanted to talk to you about the ranch. Did Reed tell you about the mineral block I found?” he asked.
For the next half hour, he and the deputy discussed the Kincaid place that was Jennifer’s heritage. If the kid died, McCallum and his wife would inherit the ranch. Not that they wanted it. He could tell that.
“I have some ideas about the place,” he started, then decided it wasn’t the time. “Once we get the problem of the Kincaid curse settled.”
Sterling snorted. “You believe in curses?”
“I believe in people trying to make others believe in them. I never heard of a cow dying of fright from seeing a ghost, and no ghost planted that poison.”
“Right.”
He discussed the ranch for another fifteen minutes. “There’s something niggling in the back of my mind. Some clue I’m missing or maybe something I’ve forgot—” He stopped before he gave his past away. “It’ll come to me.”
“I hope it does before you get a bullet in the head. We could use some help on this case.”
Wayne smiled at Sterling’s gallows humor and got up to go. “So do I.”
He drove back to the ranch, his thoughts on the days ahead. He’d nearly given his identity away several times recently. He would have to confess and explain his past actions soon.
Carey closed the file and slid it into its slot at the nurses’ station. “If J. D. Cade comes in, would you page me?”
“Sure,” Annie said, flipping her red braid over her shoulder and out of the way while she painted clear nail polish across the run in her stocking. She blew on the polish, then pulled her skirt down over the run. “Where will you be?”
“In the cafeteria. I’ll eat lunch here before heading back to the office.”
As she walked down the corridor, she realized she’d said “if,” not “when.” She didn’t expect him to show up. Her senses were keen where he was concerned. She instinctively knew he was restless. He’d be gone soon.
The thought dampened her already gloomy spirits, which matched the weather. It was raining hard. The rain would probably turn to sleet by night. She had a long day ahead of her and would be out on the icy roads after dark.
Just as she reached the cafeteria line, she heard her name over the page. She turned and retraced her steps along the hall, then went into the reception area. J.D. was there, talking to Sara, the records clerk, who was charmingly, shyly, flustered by his presence.
Carey smiled ironically. Flustered wasn’t half of what she felt around him. She was fast losing her fight to avoid him and stay out of his arms. She wanted him. It was that simple. And that complicated.
With a resigned sigh, she went forward. “So you came.”
“I said I would,” he said in that wonderful voice that was like rough velvet.
Her breasts beaded when his sultry blue gaze swept over her. She was dressed in black wool slacks and a green sweater under her surgical smock, which was open down the front. He paused at the evidence of her arousal. A slow smile kicked up the corners of his mouth.
She made a threatening face at him when Sara bent over her charts and pretended not to see the byplay between them. He grinned openly.
“The lab is this way.” She strode off with a determined air of brisk efficiency without waiting to see if he came along or not.
His chuckle assured her he was right behind her. “Will this take long?”
“No.” Her short reply raised the sandy eyebrows of the lab technician, who had started work there the same day she’d opened her office.
“I’ll need you to fill out this form,” Bill, the technician, told J.D., handing over the clipboard. “Sit here.”
She noticed J.D. hesitate as he held the pen over the first line. He glanced up and met her eyes. A prickling sensation attacked her scalp. She had the strangest feeling he was going to tell her something.
But he didn’t. He quickly wrote in the information on the standard form and handed the clipboard back to Bill.
She moved over to the window and gathered her composure around her as if it were a cloak she’d accidentally dropped.
Bill glanced at the form. “I have to know your full name. What do the J and D stand for?”
“That’s it,” J.D. said. “Nothing else.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll add ‘initials only’ at the end of the line.” He showed the cowboy what he’d done.
The technician quickly performed the procedure, filling the vials of blood necessary for the tests that would determine if J. D. Cade could be used as a bone marrow donor for Jennifer McCallum.
Carey suddenly hoped that he could. She wanted it desperately, as if her own life were at stake. The oddest thing was she wanted it for him. He didn’t know it, but he had a need to be needed.
She didn’t know how she knew that, but there it was. She was as positive of it as she was that the sun was still shining behind the layer of black clouds that hovered over Whitehorn and most of southern Montana.
“Okay, we’re done,” Bill said.
She faced the room again. Bill stuck a strip bandage over J.D.’s arm, then left the room with the vials of blood in a metal pan. They would be on their way to the state lab within the hour.
“How long before you’ll know?” J.D. asked.
“We’ll have the results in a week,” she told him.
“A week,” he repeated.
She would almost swear he sounded like a man who’d gotten a last-minute reprieve from the governor.
Reprieve from what?
That was the question. There was something going on that she didn’t understand, but she was aware of the vibes in the air. It wasn’t just sexual tension between her and him, either, but something more….
“Have you had lunch?” she asked.
“No. You paying, Doc?” He gave her an amused look while he rolled down his sleeve and buttoned the cuff.
“Yes.”
“All right.” He took her arm. “Is this a date?”
“You wish,” she scoffed, automatically playing the role she’d adopted with him.
Once seated with their food in the cafeteria, she gazed at him, puzzled. “Something is different. What?”
“I don’t know.” He picked up his hamburger.
“Yes, you do. You’re not saying.” Again, she didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. Anger brewed in her at his reticence. “I’ll find out.”
He gazed at her a long minute, then shook his head as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.
But he did. She felt it in her bones.