Wild Ways

“See?” The drunk smiled broadly at the salesman. “She says I’m not botherin’ her.”

“But maybe you should sit down,” Meg said gently. “You don’t look too…steady.”

The grin widened, jaunty and irreverent and utterly charming. “A li’l drunk’s all.”

In spite of herself, Meg had to laugh. “Yeah, I can see that.” The bartender had come around from behind his bar and was standing there, poised and ready, watching them intently. Meg shook her head very slightly and he relaxed after a heartbeat, then went back behind the bar, still watchful.

“Look, chief,” the salesman said congenially, “take this and buy yourself some beer, all right?” He tucked a crumpled ten-dollar bill into the man’s shirt pocket.

“Hey.” The man plucked the money out of his pocket and gazed at it wonderingly, staggering a little to one side.

“Now, as I was saying,” the salesman continued smoothly, turning back toward Meg, “you look just like this girl I used to know. Let me give you my card and I’ll—” He started reaching inside his jacket, and in that moment, all hell broke loose.

Meg didn’t even see what started it. One instant she was just sitting there, and the next the salesman went flying off to one side, the gun in his hand spinning away. Meg just gaped at it uncomprehendingly as it arced through the air in a perfect parabola, and she found herself wondering where on earth it had come from and why she felt so calm and why Reggie was shouting at her to get down, get down, get down…

In the end, she didn’t have a choice. A large hand fit itself around the back of her neck and shoved, and the next thing she knew she was flat on her belly in a puddle of what she prayed was spilled beer, the wind knocked completely out of her. The big round table followed, landing on its side with a crash that nearly deafened her, wooden chairs and beer glasses and pretzels cascading across the floor. People were shouting and then she heard shots—two, one right after the other—and she gulped for air, blinded by tendrils of hair as the wig slipped, groping for her small handbag.

All wrong, she thought dizzily, this was going all wrong. She was supposed to be the one with the gun. She was supposed to be protecting Reggie, supposed to be—

Another two shots. Wood splintered right above her head and she sucked in a startled breath. Reggie…oh, God, where was Reggie…?

Frantic and completely disoriented, she started to sit up, desperate to find her handbag and the gun, desperate to—

“Stay—down!” Another hand, or perhaps it was the same one, landed between her shoulder blades and shoved her flat, making her wheeze, and then someone was firing right above her head. It was heavy firepower and she could tell by the way the shots were spaced that whoever was using it was an expert, and then a beer glass lying just to her left exploded into shards and she recoiled with a yelp as broken glass sprayed around her.

Another shot, this one even closer, and suddenly something massive and heavy landed across her, driving the rest of her breath out of her in a gasp. She could smell leather and beer and cigarettes as the man’s jacket fell open around her, wrapping her in his heat, and she tried to suck in her breath to scream for Reggie.

More shouts, crashes. A shotgun blast roared to her left, deafeningly close, and then, abruptly, there was utter silence. She could hear someone swearing a little distance away, and the rasp of someone’s breathing against her ear. And slowly, she started to collect her wits.

Whoever was lying on top of her was heavy, all solid muscle and meat pressed a little too intimately against the full length of her body. She could feel his heart hammering against her back and wondered dizzily what on earth he was scared about, considering he was the one with the gun and she was the one lying flat on her face on a bar floor, unarmed and dazed, not having a clue what was happening.

“Reggie?” Her voice was just a wheezy squeak. She turned her head, but the blasted wig had tumbled down over her eyes and she couldn’t see a thing.

“I’m okay.” Reggie sounded shocked and scared. “I’m okay.”

“All right, you jokers,” someone bellowed above them. “Onto your feet, all of you! This is my bar, by God, and no one comes in here and starts shooting it up, understand me?”

“Meg? Miss Kavanagh? A-are you all right?”

“Yeah.” At least she thought she was, Meg decided dimly. She was completely paralyzed, but nothing hurt outrageously and she didn’t seem to be gushing blood all over the place. Of course, it was a little hard to tell, with this behemoth on top of her. She gave her head a slight shake, and the wig tipped even more precariously.

This hadn’t been in the plan. Not a shoot-out in a Dakota bar with some unknown assailant. Not being pinned to the floor under about a ton of human male—who, by the way, didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry to get off her. Not completely losing control of things like this…

She rammed her elbow into the nearest part of the behemoth’s anatomy and was rewarded by a grunt of pain. “Get off me, damn it! I’m a government agent and you’re under arrest!”

This wasn’t going according to plan, Rafe thought irritably as the slender female form under him gave another wriggle. Under different circumstances it wouldn’t have been that unpleasant, but it wasn’t doing much at the moment but distracting him. And he was getting the hell beat out of him, into the bargain. She had the sharpest elbows he’d ever encountered in his life, and seemed to have no qualms about using them enthusiastically. Plus, she kept yelling something about arresting him, which didn’t make a lot of sense considering he was on top and had the gun.

She gave another muffled threat of some kind or another, but he ignored it, swearing through clenched teeth as she buried her elbow into his solar plexus. He wasn’t getting paid enough for this, he thought wearily. No way was he getting paid enough.

“Okay, you jokers—I said on your feet! And keep those hands and guns where I can see ’em, ’cause this here shotgun can make an awful big hole in a man.”

Rafe sighed. Maybe he was losing his touch. Maybe it was time to find a new line of work, because nothing about this whole case had come even close to going the way he’d planned it.

“Okay, okay,” he growled, planting both hands flat on the floor where the bartender could see them. “Where’s the guy who was shooting at me?”

“Down,” the bartender said succinctly. “Bleeding all over my floor. You going to pay to have that cleaned up?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll pay, I’ll pay.” Rafe swore under his breath again. “I’m going to get up now, so keep your finger off that damn trigger.”

“Just don’t give me no reason to do otherwise,” the bartender rumbled. “Come up slow. That skinny little runt down there beside you have a gun?”

“N-no,” Reggie stammered. “I—I’m an accountant.”

Rafe didn’t see where that made a difference, but it seemed to satisfy the bartender, who motioned Reggie up with the barrel of the shotgun. Honey Divine was still wriggling and swearing underneath him, and Rafe eased himself off her gingerly, wondering how long it would take the bruises on his ribs to fade.

The bartender was watching him intently, and Rafe got up slowly, hands well outstretched, giving the man no reason to feel threatened. “I’m a cop,” he lied. “ID in my hip pocket.”

The bartender gestured with the shotgun. “Get it out. Slow.”

Rafe reached behind him and under the jacket slowly. The Taurus brushed his fingertips but he left it there, easing his wallet from his jeans pocket instead. He held it up, then flipped it open and tossed it onto the nearest upright table. The bartender picked it up, read it, looked at the ID picture and then at Rafe, then nodded after a moment and lowered the shotgun. “Nevada? You’re a long way from home.”

“Special assignment,” Rafe lied without missing a beat. According to that forged ID he was with the sheriff’s department.

“And this guy?” The gun barrel gestured toward the salesman. He was sitting on the floor looking rumpled and sullen, clutching his upper arm with his hand. Blood trickled through his fingers.

“No damn idea,” Rafe replied quite honestly. He gave the man a long, hard look, running the bland features through a mental mug book. Nothing. Whoever the guy was, he was new to the equation.

The bartender grunted. “So he just started shooting at you for no reason at all, is that what you’re saying?”

“He wasn’t shooting at me, he was shooting at him.” Rafe nodded toward Reggie, who was still sitting on the floor looking shaken and pale.

“And you decided to do your civic duty and stop it.”

The bartender sounded skeptical and bored with the whole thing, and Rafe sighed again, deciding it was time for a bit of embroidery. “I was sent here to bring this man back to Nevada.” He gave Reggie another nod. “There’s a warrant out on him. Fraud and embezzlement.”

The bartender grunted again. “What did he do?”

“Scammed a whole lot of little old ladies out of their life savings.”

Reggie gave an indignant yelp of protest.

“Which doesn’t explain why someone was trying to kill him.”

“If someone scammed your old granny out of her life savings, wouldn’t you be out for blood?” It sounded so plausible, Rafe almost believed it himself.

“That’s absolutely preposterous!” Honey Divine had managed to catch her breath finally and was sitting flat on her bottom on the floor, glaring through tangles of hair, one shoulder distractingly bare. She pulled the sweater up impatiently, then shoved the mound of blond hair out of her eyes. “Mr. Dawes has done no such thing!”

The bartender lifted an eyebrow. “And you are…?”

“Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh,” she enunciated very clearly into the expectant silence. Her hair had tipped over one eye again and she gave it a shove, then swore with unladylike exasperation and reached up and pulled it off entirely.

“He scalped her!” The drunk at the bar—who apparently hadn’t moved throughout the entire melee—stared at her in stupefaction. “The Indian scalped her!”

Rafe gave the man an evil glare that made him recoil, and the bartender just snapped, “Shut up, Claude,” without even turning around. But even he seemed taken aback at the sight of a woman sitting on his barroom floor with her hair in her hand. “Special…what?”

She gave her head a shake and her own hair—masses of it, tangled and as red as a fire engine—tumbled around her face. Then she got to her feet, teetering a trifle unsteadily on those four-inch heels, retrieved her small handbag and rummaged through it. “Special Agent Kavanagh,” she repeated impatiently. “And Mr. Dawes is in my custody.” She found what she was looking for and pulled it out, walking across to hand it to the bartender. “You can call the number there on my ID and confirm it.”

Rafe looked at her, narrow-eyed. “If you’re FBI, lady, I’m Clark Kent.”

“I’m not FBI,” she said crisply. “I’m with a special agency that specializes in—” She stopped and glared at him. “Who did you say you were?”

Rafe paused very slightly, selecting and rejecting a dozen explanations in the space of a heartbeat, trying to fix on the one that would get him out of here with the least amount of trouble and explanation. Government agent. Just his damn luck. What the hell else could go wrong today?

“His ID makes him for a Nevada cop,” the bartender spoke up.

“I doubt that.” She looked at Rafe evenly. “I’d be very surprised if you’re in law enforcement, Mr….?”

Again, he thought it through. “Blackhorse,” he replied after a moment, deciding this much truth couldn’t get him into too much trouble. “Rafe Blackhorse.”

“And you’re obviously not drunk.”

Rafe managed a tight smile. “Wallpaper.”

“Excuse me?”

“People see a drunk Indian, they don’t see him at all. He blends into the scenery, like wallpaper. It makes for good…camouflage.”

“That’s very cynical, Mr. Blackhorse.”

Rafe smiled coolly. “Just experience, Agent Kavanagh.”

Her eyes narrowed very slightly. “You’re the man who’s been following us.”

Reggie Dawes made a gurgling sound.

“That’s right,” Rafe said after a split second, deciding to stick to the truth as far as he could. It was hard to concentrate, with those aquamarine eyes locked on his, but he forced himself to hold her gaze. “I’m taking Dawes back to Nevada.”

Another gurgle from Dawes.

The woman simply smiled. “I don’t know what the Nevada sheriff’s department wants with Mr. Dawes, but they’ll have to take it up with the Justice Department.”

“Tony sent him,” Dawes piped up from somewhere behind Rafe. “And this guy over here…this guy’s from Atlantic City.”

Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh said a word that Rafe was pretty sure wasn’t in any special agent manual. She stepped by him and walked across to where Dawes was peering down at the salesman from a safe distance.

“His name’s Pags Pagliano, and he’s muscle for the Atlantic City operation.”

“One of Gus Stepino’s men?”

Dawes nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing wildly. He was pale and damp, and he swallowed audibly. “Th-that means he got tired of waiting for Tony to take care of it and sent his own guy after me.”

“Terrific.” Kavanagh did not look happy.

And Rafe had to sympathize. If Stepino’s men got Dawes first, he was out a cool thirty grand.

“We’re leaving,” she said abruptly. “Now.”

“Not with Dawes, you’re not,” Rafe told her flatly.

Kavanagh looked around at him coolly and opened her mouth to reply when Dawes stepped in front of her. “W-what about Charlie?”

The salesman—Pagliano—snorted. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to turn up, Reggie.”

“You killed him?” Dawes’s voice ended on a squeak.

Pagliano just smiled a feral little smile. “Your best friend sold you out. Three grand, Reggie. That’s all you’re worth, can you believe it?” The smile widened. “Gus would have paid ten times that, but Charlie’s such a moron he only asked for three.” He gave another snort and shook his head in disgust. “Moron.”

Dawes looked sick. “I don’t believe you. Charlie wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you think I found you so quick? You think I stumbled into this little rat hole out here in Nowhere, North Dakota, by accident?” His tone made it clear he didn’t think Charlie Oakes was the only moron of his acquaintance.

Kavanagh had gone a shade or two paler herself, and Rafe wondered how long she’d been on the job. First solo case, maybe. Which could mean she would be easy to bluff, if he played his cards right. But it could also mean she might not bluff at all, too worried about getting it right, about making points with her boss, to risk messing up. He swore, using another word or two that wouldn’t show up in any government manual.

“Well, Agent Kavanagh,” he said carelessly, “I’ll leave Pagliano in your capable hands while I get Dawes back to—”

“Not on your life.” She turned those amazing aquamarine eyes onto him again. “I don’t know who you are, Mr. Blackhorse, but I doubt very much you have ever worked for Nevada law enforcement. And you’re not taking Reggie Dawes anywhere.”

“You don’t think he’s a cop?” The bartender swung the barrel of the shotgun almost casually toward Rafe.

“I’d be very surprised, but I’ll let your sheriff sort it out. Tell him we’ll be in contact.”

The bartender blinked. “Where are you going to be?”

“En route to Washington.” She shoved her ID back into her handbag, then pulled out a business card and a pen and started writing something on the back of the card. “When the sheriff gets here, have him call this man at this number. He’ll verify everything I’ve told you and will arrange for someone to come out and collect Pagliano. He can deal with Mr. Blackhorse then. And call an ambulance for Mr. Pagliano, will you? I’d like him alive when we try him for attempted murder.”

Rafe managed not to swear out loud. So much for wondering what else could go wrong. “Look, honey, this isn’t—”

“Special Agent Kavanagh,” she said crisply. “Honey Divine is Mr. Dawes’s wife.”

“That’s not what—” He caught himself. Just about the last thing he needed right now was a lecture on political correctness.

“Hold it!” The bartender’s voice rattled a nearby tray of glasses. “Nobody’s goin’ nowhere till Sheriff Haney gets here. I’ll let him figure out which of you’s telling the truth and which ain’t.”

“Oh, for—” Kavanagh caught herself, eyes glittering with subdued anger. “All right. Fine. Have it your way.”

Rafe eased his breath out on a long, weary sigh, thinking of his thirty thousand dollars winging its way south even as he was standing there. It had sounded like easy money—once.

Chapter 2

It took pretty much the whole day and a multitude of lengthy phone calls to convince Sheriff Dobbes Haney that she wasn’t kidnapping Reggie, that the Beretta in her handbag was registered, and that she wasn’t wanted on a half-dozen warrants for who knows what kind of mayhem. And that Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh was, indeed, exactly who she said she was. He didn’t seem happy about it. And after the last phone call, this one to Virginia, during which he seemed to do more listening than talking, he was even less so. But he did finally tell her she was free to go about her business. Suggesting—strongly—that she do whatever it was Special Agents from unspecified offices in Virginia do outside his jurisdiction.

That was fine by Meg. She couldn’t get far enough away fast enough.

But by then it had been almost eight o’clock, too late to do anything but drive to the nearest town big enough to have an airport of any size and wait for the earliest flight eastbound.

Which was why she was sitting in a cheap motel room at a little after midnight, listening to Reggie brush his teeth in the bathroom between their connecting rooms and wondering what in heaven’s name she was doing with her life.

Maybe her sister was right, and this obsession about finding Bobby’s killer was getting out of hand. She could be married right now. Was supposed to be married right now. Living in Marblehead in a big overwrought Tudor, discussing lawns with the landscaping people and wallpaper with the interior decorator and choosing names for their first child. If she’d married six months ago, as planned, this would be a suite at a luxurious hotel, not a ratty room in the Dewdrop Inn. And the man brushing his teeth in the bathroom wouldn’t be a skinny little accountant for the mob, but Royce Bennett Packard of Packard Industries.

Meg closed her eyes and tried to conjure up the image of Royce brushing his teeth, to no avail. Did Royce brush his teeth? She imagined he must, they were such perfect teeth. Like everything about Royce—the country club tan, the health club physique, the gentleman’s club portfolio. Not a hair, a molar or an investment out of place.

She wondered, very idly, what he would have thought if he’d seen her today. Not just the spandex and the wig and the four-inch heels—those would have rendered him speechless on the spot. But the rest of it: her lying flat on her belly on a barroom floor in the middle of a gunfight, a fifteen-round semiautomatic Beretta pistol in her handbag and a hundred and eighty pounds of good-looking Nevada cop on top of her.

Not pleased, she decided. Royce’s vision of the future Mrs. Packard did not include guns, bullets or cops of any variety.

And then, to her annoyance, she found herself thinking about that good-looking Nevada cop. If that’s what he was—the cop part, not the good-looking part. As skeptical as she was about the first, the second was beyond argument.

The last she’d seen of Rafe Blackhorse, Haney had told him to park himself in a chair and wait, and Blackhorse had done just that. He’d apparently spent the afternoon asleep in a wooden chair that he’d tipped back against the wall in the booking room, long legs stretched out, booted feet resting comfortably on a desk, ankles crossed, looking as relaxed as a cat.

“Miss Kavanagh?”

Meg looked up as Reggie poked his head hesitantly into her room.

“My pajamas are in my other suitcase, and it’s in the car.”

“Forget it, Reggie. You’re not setting foot outside this motel until tomorrow morning.”

He managed to look both contrite and indignant. “But I always sleep in pajamas.”

“Well, you’re not sleeping in pajamas tonight.”

“But—”

“Reggie, we nearly got killed this afternoon because of you, so I’m not feeling as generous as I could be, all right? No pajamas.”

“It’s not my fault we nearly got killed,” he said prissily. “You are supposed to be protecting me, after all. It was up to you to—”

“All right!” Meg threw her hands up to stop him. “All right, I’ll get your pajamas!” She got to her feet and grabbed the car keys from the nightstand, then paused and turned back to the bed and dug the Beretta from under the pillow. She tucked it into the back waistband of her jeans and headed for the door, jabbing her finger at Reggie as she walked by him. “You sit down and stay out of trouble. I’ve told the manager if he puts through any calls from either of these rooms without my go-ahead, I’ll have his head on a plate. So don’t even think about trying to contact Honey. And I’ll be just outside, so there’s no point in trying to make a run for it.”

He looked hurt. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“In a pig’s eye you wouldn’t,” she replied uncharitably. “I wish you’d get it into your head that Spence O’Dell is your only hope of getting out of this alive, Reggie. But if you make another run for it, he’ll let Stepino kill you just on principle and make his case some other way.”

Leaving him standing there to mull this over, she turned off the lights both inside and outside the room, then pulled open the door and stepped out into the cold North Dakota night. She closed the door behind her and stepped well away from it, tucking herself into the shadows under the open stairway to the second story. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot and she scanned the dimly lit area for movement.

She’d been careful when she’d found this place, doubling back a couple of times, keeping Reggie out of sight when she’d registered and telling the manager she was traveling with her senile old aunt, which explained the no-phone rule. She’d taken every precaution in the book, but she was still jumpy as she eyed the parked cars.

Pagliano had almost gotten them that afternoon because she’d been careless. That wouldn’t happen again, but Pagliano wouldn’t be the only hired gun out here on Reggie’s trail. Gus Stepino obviously figured that Tony Ruffio and his hired gun weren’t up to the job and was taking care of it himself. So odds were there were others out here hunting for Dawes, all working independently, all stone killers, all very, very good at what they did.

She, on the other hand, had the requisite month of generic agency training under her belt, plus another month of field agent training done on the sly and without O’Dell’s knowledge. Had this been an authorized assignment, she would be out here with no less than six months of special training behind her, and she sure wouldn’t be alone. She would be with at least two others, relegated to fetching coffee and standing guard while learning everything she could.

If she didn’t get herself or anyone else killed after a few of those jobs, and if O’Dell was in an expansive mood, she might then be assigned as second agent on a case, working closely with a mentor who would be testing her every step of the way, watching for weakness, for flaws, for anything that could be a problem. And after maybe a year of that, if she was very good and very lucky and was still alive and still interested, she might get assigned a solo job.

Might, because regardless of how good she was, she was still a woman. And O’Dell didn’t like women field agents.

There had been two in twenty years. Now there were none. And O’Dell made no bones about the fact that he intended to keep it that way.