Elizabeth Lowell - Blue Smoke and Murder

And a fast way out was the only thing that would keep her alive.

To her left a long, pale ribbon of rocks and sand slanted up to a dry waterfall. A glance told her that the dark rocks of the fall were too far off. Every step of the way she would show up against that light sand like the target she was.

She’d be shot to death before she reached the uncertain cover of the dry fall.

To her right the wash took a hard turn around a rocky outcrop. She was running for it before she consciously made a decision. She didn’t know if she would find cover at the bend in the wash, or another long stretch of pale sand. But the crooked stretch of wash was the only hope she had.

She sprinted toward the bend, her breath harsh, burning.

A rock poked out of the darkness, tripping her, sending her flying. She landed facedown and felt black light spin down out of the sky over her. She tried to get up, knowing that the shooter could still see her.

Her body didn’t respond.

Fighting to breathe, Jill waited to be shot.

BEAVER TAIL RANCH

SEPTEMBER 17

6:42 P.M.

With each step, Zach gained on Ski Mask. Whatever the shooter did for a living, wind sprints weren’t on his daily to-do list. As Zach closed in, he could hear the man’s breath groaning in and out. Zach couldn’t see Jill any longer. Either she’d gone to ground or she’d outrun Ski Mask.

Zach’s earphones whispered. “The client vanished. The shooter is-shit, he just dropped into some kind of hole. Watch it, Zach!”

He kept running for a long five count, then skidded to a stop near the edge of the hidden ravine. Against the pale sand of the river bottom he saw a bulky shadow turn toward him.

He dropped to the ground as two shots exploded out of the ravine. The shooter was no more than fifteen feet away.

Zach didn’t aim toward the muzzle flash. Instead, he aimed for the thighs.

Bring him down and then finish him off.

His gun kicked.

The shadow cursed and went to his knees.

More shots exploded out of the ravine. Even as Zach registered the fact that one of the shots came from a Colt Woodsman, the muscular shadow in the ravine jerked, driven backward, closer to Zach.

“You’re dead, bitch!” the man screamed, raising his pistol to send a hail of bullets toward Jill.

Zach didn’t know he was yelling until the shadow turned toward him. He saw the twilight gleam of eyes behind the mask and shot twice, the double tap of death.

The shooter slammed against the far wall of the narrow ravine and bumped down to sprawl in the sand.

Prone, Zach kept his pistol pointed at the space where the man’s head should have been.

“Jill, it’s Zach,” he called. “Stay down until I tell you to move.”

Nothing answered him but the echo of shots careening back from the mountains.

“Jill!”

Zach didn’t remember jumping into the ravine, but he was there, flashlight in one hand and weapon in the other, kicking Ski Mask’s gun away.

Not that it mattered. Even the darkness in the bottom of the dry creek couldn’t conceal what two bullets at close range had done.

“I’m coming in, Jill. Don’t shoot me.”

He waited for an answer.

All he heard was the harsh sound of his own breathing and the yammer of ops in his headset, demanding information. He ripped the headset off and let it dangle around his neck as he went toward the darkness at the bend in the streambed.

When he saw Jill sprawled facedown against the pale sand, he went to his knees beside her. Fighting to breathe slowly, he put two fingertips against the pulse point in her neck and prayed like the choirboy he once had been.

Be alive.

Be alive!

His own heart was beating too fast for him to feel if there was a pulse in her neck. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

He felt the heartbeat under his fingertips at the same instant she groaned.

“She’s alive,” he said raggedly, replacing the headset. “Now shut up until I find out how bad she’s hurt.”

Faroe’s snarled order stopped all communication.

“Jill,” Zach said gently. Then more firmly. “Jill!”

Dazed eyes opened, looking very green in the cone of the flashlight’s glare. She breathed with the gasps of someone who has had her breath knocked out. “I thought-you said-shut up.”

“Them, not you.” He kissed her sweaty, sandy cheek. “Where do you hurt?”

She rolled over, gasped as pain shot through her right arm, sat up, and said, “Pretty much everywhere, but it all still works after a fashion. You okay?”

He gathered her close. “I am now.”

BEAVER TAIL RANCH

SEPTEMBER 17

6:46 P.M.

Flashlight beams danced through the brush and finally came to the edge of the dry creek.

“We’re coming in,” a male voice said through Zach’s headset.

“Just don’t fall on us,” Zach said.

Two St. Kilda operators jumped down the bank and landed in the sand like paratroopers.

“Anybody need a medic?” the female op asked.

“No,” Jill said.

“Yes,” Zach said.

“You told me you were okay,” Jill said instantly, running her hands over him, searching for hidden injury.

“Not me,” he said, kissing her gritty forehead. “You.”

“Nothing wrong with me that soap and water won’t cure.”

Zach winced and touched his earphones. “Faroe wants me to be sure. Or it could be Lane. Their voices are getting more alike every day.”

She leaned over the tiny mike that rested along Zach’s jaw. “I’m okay. Dirty, tired, scuffed up some, but nothing dangerous.”

“Where’s the shooter?” one of the ops asked.

“About forty feet up the draw,” Zach asked.

“Dead?”

“Oh yeah,” Zach said.

“Know him?” the op asked.

“No. We’ll need fingerprints. He was wearing full body armor.”

“Gotcha. Photo ID won’t help.” The op turned and started up the dry wash.

“Why will it take fingerprints?” Jill said.

“Are you sure you want to know?” Zach asked.

The sound of Velcro being stripped open told Zach that the op had found the shooter and was removing body armor.

“That man killed Modesty,” Jill said flatly. “I have a right to know.”

“I shot him twice in the face at pretty close range.”

She drew a ragged breath. “Okay. A photo ID wouldn’t be much good right now. Do we know who the well-dressed dude was?”

The remaining op switched channels, talked quietly, and turned to Jill. “The ID we ran on the DOA makes him as a Carson City lawyer.”

Jill blinked. “What was he doing here?”

“Good question,” the op said. “We don’t have an answer. Yet.”

The female op’s voice carried through the darkness. “Well, hello, Harry.”

“You recognize the shooter?” Zach called.

“Not by his beautiful face, that’s for sure,” the op called back. “He’s got a tatt on his left pec. Susie. That was his third wife’s name.”

“You know him?”

“I worked for Harry ‘Score’ Glammis while I went to college. He was private eye to Hollywood’s rich and corrupt. I quit after Harry beat his wife’s lover to death and got away with it. Still has the scars on his knuckles. It wasn’t the first time he killed someone. Always in self-defense, of course.”

“A real sweetheart,” Zach said.

“Word was he had anger-management issues,” the female op said dryly, “aka ’roid rage. Looks like you solved his problem the old-fashioned way.”

Zach let go of Jill and came to his feet.

“Can you stand up?” he asked her.

Wincing, she pushed to her feet, then swayed a bit.

“You okay?” he said quickly, stepping close, ready to catch her.

“As long as I don’t have to do another two-thousand-yard dash over broken country, I’m good.” She accepted his arm and leaned into him. “Not great. Just good enough.”

“You’re way better than that.” Zach brushed a kiss over her bleeding lip. “Ready?”

She started to say something, then stopped, remembering. “Have you searched all the cabins? Ski Mask-Score-said something about taking the paintings to be authenticated. I don’t think the lawyer was the art expert.”

Zach looked at the remaining op.

“We’re checking the cabins one by one,” the op said.

“Find anyone?” Zach asked when the op switched back.

“So far, two men. Their ID says they’re Ken and Lee Dunstan, son and father.”

“What’s their excuse for being here?”

“They say that they were working for the dead lawyer,” the op said. “The old man came here to look at some paintings for the lawyer’s client, who claims he was being extorted by one Jillian Breck. Ken Dunstan came along to keep his father company in-and I quote-‘a stressful situation.’”

Zach said something bleak under his breath.

“Now what?” Jill asked, looking at him.

“The story is just plausible enough to close the case right here.”

“I didn’t extort anyone! You know that!”

“Yes, I know.” For all the good that does, Zach thought tiredly. “But with Glammis and that lawyer dead, we don’t have anywhere to go.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s over.”

“But whoever hired Glammis is at least an accessory to murder,” Jill said.

“Glammis is dead. All the dude paying the bills has to say is that Glammis exceeded his orders. Hell, it could even be true.”

“You mean the son of a bitch who hired my great-aunt’s killer can’t be touched?” Jill demanded, her eyes narrow.

“Legally, no. And St. Kilda doesn’t do illegal.”

Jill just stared at him, her eyes dark.

He pulled her close and held her, rocking slowly. “I’m sorry. Sometimes a little revenge is all you get.”

“It’s not good enough,” she said against his chest.

“I know. But it’s all we have.”

Sirens wailed in the distance. Someone had called the sheriff.

“Can St. Kilda keep us out of jail?” Jill asked.

“The sheriff won’t like it, but yes. Self-defense is a fact.”

Jill took a deep breath. “Good. I have an idea.”

LAS VEGAS

SEPTEMBER 18

2:00 P.M.

The conference room that the Golden Fleece had turned over to St. Kilda for the afternoon looked like an important high-end business center in L.A., Boston, Houston, or Manhattan. Gleaming table, automatic digital and sound recording, computers for everyone attending, pen and paper for those who felt more in control that way, and lush leather chairs for the comfort of the important high-end assets attending the meeting.

Twelve beautifully framed, unsigned landscape paintings stood on easels at the front of the room. Only Ramsey Worthington looked at them. Fascination and dismay fought for control of his expression.

Grace paused in the hallway outside the open door and asked Faroe in a soft voice, “Any word yet?”

“Incoming,” he murmured, tapping his Bluetooth earpiece.

“With or without?” she asked.

“With.”

Grace’s smile was the kind that made Faroe glad she was on his side. She stepped through the open door into the room, where impatience and importance seethed. The air-filtration system was having a hard time blanking out the smell of stale bourbon that Lee Dunstan sweated with every heartbeat. His face looked like he’d slept in it for a long time.

“I was just going to advise my clients to leave,” Carter Jenson said, looking at his ten-thousand-dollar watch.

“They would have regretted it,” Grace said.

She didn’t sit down. Instead she stood at the front of the table, dressed in a silk blouse, low heels, and well-cut slacks, a woman comfortable in her own power. She placed a folder within easy reach on the table.

Faroe leaned against the wall by the doorway with the relaxed readiness of a predator. He purely loved watching Grace downsize swollen egos.

“Do I need to summarize the events of yesterday?” Grace asked, looking around the table.