Harlequin Intrigue June 2015 - Box Set 2 of 2: Navy SEAL Newlywed\The Guardian\Security Breach (25 page)

“No. Like I said, she didn't speak English and I don't know much Spanish. I gave her a couple of protein bars and she seemed grateful. She heard the people who shot that man shouting and she took off. I mean, she panicked and was running for her life.”

“So she knew who they were?”

“That's what I think. Or at least what they were up to.” She touched the back of his hand. “Do you think she's mixed up in all this somehow? Maybe she's being held prisoner by these people or something?”

“She's probably one of the workers. These drug operations bring illegals in to work their grow operations or make meth. They're as good as prisoners, isolated out here, kept under guard.”

“Is that what happened to that man—he tried to escape?”

“We don't know for sure, but that's a likely scenario.”

“No wonder she panicked and ran.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“She said the baby was a girl named Angelique. And she showed me where to find some of the plants I was looking for. She seemed very familiar with the plants in the area. I got the impression she was hungry.” She blinked back tears, thinking of the beautiful woman and the baby, alone and in danger.

“Maybe we can find her and help her. Even if we send her back to her home, that would be better than the way she's living now.”

“I guess so.” Better to return to home and family than to live with the threat of danger.

“You competed in beauty pageants?” Michael asked.

Of course he'd picked up on that. Why had she even mentioned it? “Don't sound so shocked. I was Miss Milwaukee my freshman year in college.”

“How did a beauty queen end up in Afghanistan?”

“It's a long story.”

“I've got time.”

She sighed. She could try to blow him off, but he struck her as someone who wouldn't give up questioning her. It was probably a trait that made him good at his job. “I thought it would be a good way to get money for grad school,” she said. “My parents thought I was wasting my time with more schooling, so they wouldn't pay. And I didn't expect them to. I was willing to do it on my own.”

“So the beauty queen wanted to be a biologist all along,” he said.

“I didn't know what I wanted to do,” she said. “My undergrad degree is in communications. But I needed to get away from home. My father is a local celebrity. He does sports for the number one news station in the city, plus he does a lot of voice-over work—ads and public service announcements and things. Everybody knows him. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but I wanted the chance to prove myself doing something that was just mine. I never thought it would turn out the way it did.”

“No one does,” he said. “I mean, you couldn't, right? No one would enlist if the first thing that came to mind was dying or being injured.”

“My parents were horrified—first with my enlistment, then when I went overseas. When I was injured they freaked out. My mother burst into tears the first time she saw the scar. She still can hardly bear to look at me.” She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. “My dad is always trying to fix me. He wants me to have more surgery, to try special makeup. He can't let go of the hope that I'll go into television after all. They think I'm wasting my time trying to be a scientist.”

“Do you think it's a waste of time?”

“No. I'm happier doing this—something that's all mine—than I would have been competing with my dad. And I would have been competing, at least subconsciously. This is a chance to prove myself on my own terms. I guess it's what I was looking for in the military all along.”

“Funny sometimes, how life has a way of working out.”

“If you're talking about fate, I still don't believe in that. Things just happen for no reason.”

“Hey, I didn't say anything.” He grinned. “Is tomorrow soon enough for us to go out?”

“Go out?” She blushed, and hated that she did so.

“On patrol. You said you wanted to come with me, right?”

On patrol—of course. What was she, some sixteen-year-old expecting the class jock to ask her out on a date? “Oh, yeah. Sure. When can we go?”

“I'll pick you up about eight.” He stood, and she rose, also, and followed him to the door. “Thanks for telling me about Mariposa,” he said. “We'll try to find her and help her.”

“I should have trusted you earlier, but...”

“Yeah, I know. It's hard to trust sometimes.”

She followed him out the door, reluctant to say goodbye. Now that she'd confided in him, she felt closer somehow. As if she finally had a friend who really understood her. “What's that on your car?” he asked.

She followed his gaze to the box sitting on the hood of the Toyota Camry. “I don't know. I've never seen it before.”

They walked to the car and she started to reach for the box, but he put out his arm to stop her. “Don't touch it yet. Let's take a closer look.”

Following his example, she leaned over and read the writing on the outside of the small brown cardboard box.
Abby Stewart
was written in marker in block letters. “I don't see anything that says who it's from,” she said.

“So you're not expecting a package from anyone?”

“No.” She wrapped her arms across her stomach, fighting back a wave of nausea at the idea that a stranger had walked into her camp and left this.

Michael pulled out his radio. “Let's get Randall and Lotte over to take a look.”

“The dog? Do you really think that's necessary?” She eyed the box. It looked both innocent and sinister.

“Better to be safe.”

He made the call and Randall said he'd be right over. They retreated to the shade of the trailer's awning to wait. Abby fidgeted, but Michael leaned against the trailer, relaxed. “It's probably nothing,” she said. “Maybe we should just open it.”

“Let's wait,” he said, and she didn't argue.

Randall pulled in beside Michael's Cruiser a few minutes later. He got out of the truck, then released Lotte. She trotted forward, eyes bright, tail waving. Randall showed her the box. “Lotte,
such
,” he commanded.

The dog braced her front paws on the bumper of the car and stretched toward the box, ears flattened, tail low. She retreated quickly, whining, and circled the vehicle, clearly agitated. She paced, panting and whining, looking from the box to Randall and back again. “She doesn't look too happy about whatever is in there,” Michael said.

“She's not alerting for bombs or explosives,” Randall said. “But she doesn't like whatever she's smelling. Lotte,
komm
.”

The dog came and lay at Randall's side. Michael took out a knife. “Let's see what we've got.”

He picked up the box and balanced it in his hands. “It's heavy,” he said. “Maybe three or four pounds.” He opened out a blade on the knife and slit the tape along the sides of the box, then set it on the ground. “Better play it safe.” He picked up a stick from beside the campsite's picnic table. “Stand back.”

Abby retreated a few steps, chewing her lip nervously. They were probably going through all this drama for nothing, but the dog's behavior worried her. Whatever was in that box, it had upset Lotte, who still stared at it, her brow wrinkled.

Michael slid the tip of the stick under the edge of the box lid, and with a jerk, flipped it off. The box tilted to its side, the contents pouring out in a rippling, fluid motion. Lotte barked, and Abby screamed as she stared at the huge rattler, coiled and ready to strike.

Chapter Six

Michael pulled out his service weapon and squeezed off two shots. The rattler writhed and thrashed, then lay still. Lotte barked again and whined. Despite the heat, Abby felt chilled through. She stared at the dead snake, shaken more by the idea that someone had intended it for her than by the snake itself.

A gust of wind rattled the branches of the piñons that surrounded the campsite, and tugged at the awning of the trailer. “It's got to be five feet long.” Randall picked up the stick Michael had used to open the box and lifted the snake.

“Careful,” Abby said. “They still have venom in them, even when they're dead.”

Randall nodded and glanced around. “Think we should bag it for evidence?”

“Photograph it, then bag it and tag it,” Michael said. “The box, too. Maybe we can pick up some prints.”

“I doubt it,” Randall said. He let the snake drop again. It lay coiled in the dust, still menacing despite its lack of life. “Someone goes to all the trouble to box up a snake and leave it as a present, they're probably smart enough to wear gloves.”

“Why would someone do this?” Abby asked.

“They're sending a message.” Michael's expression was grim. “Warning you off.”

“Warning me off what? I haven't done anything.”

“You found that dead man and got us involved,” Randall said. “We were close enough to something that sniper fired on us. Maybe they're trying to frighten you out of the backcountry altogether, in case you stumble onto anything else.”

“I'm frightened, all right.” She shuddered. “I could have been killed.”

Michael rested a hand on her shoulder. “You might have been scared half to death. And you'd probably be pretty sick for a while,” he said. “But the hospitals around here probably carry antivenin, so chances are good you'd have survived. But whoever did this probably doesn't care one way or another. You're a threat to them, so they're threatening back.”

“I haven't done anything to anyone,” she protested again.

“You witnessed an execution,” he said.

She shuddered at the word. But that was what the murder of that man had been. They'd hunted him down and killed him, like predators hunting prey. “But I didn't see anything. I couldn't identify anyone.”

“They can't be sure of that.”

“But...how did they know my name?” She shook her head, the reality of what had happened refusing to sink in. “I hardly know anyone in the area—no one who would do anything like this.”

“It would be easy enough to learn your name,” Randall said. “They could look up your car registration, or get it off your camping permit at the park rangers' office. Using your name makes something like this more personal. More threatening.”

She shuddered. She felt threatened, all right. And a little sick.

Michael squeezed her shoulder, then dropped his hand. “You can't stay here,” he said.

“No, I can't.” This time, whoever hated her had left a snake. What would they do next time? “But where can I go?”

“We'll find you a hotel in town,” Randall said. “Register you under an assumed name. One of us can stay with you.”

“One of you?”

“I'll stay with you,” Michael said.

“You don't have to do that.” She straightened her shoulders. “I have a weapon, and I know enough to be careful now. I can look after myself.” She'd fought so hard to be independent. She couldn't let this faceless stranger or strangers take that from her.

Michael set his mouth in the stubborn line she was beginning to recognize. “Until we determine how big a threat these people are, I'm going to stay with you,” he said.

“I don't need a babysitter.” She especially didn't need him hovering. Just because he'd saved her life once didn't mean he was responsible for her the rest of her life. Now that the shock of what had happened was starting to fade, she could think more clearly. “Like you said, this was a warning. If someone had really wanted to hurt me, they wouldn't have bothered gift-wrapping the snake—they'd have turned it loose inside the car.” She shuddered at the idea.

“I'm not going to give them a chance to get that close again.” His dark eyes met hers, their previous warmth replaced by cold determination.

“You might as well give up,” Randall said. “He's stubborn.”

“Fine,” she said. “But I'm not sharing a room with you.” Having him that close, that...intimate...would be too much.

“I can get a room next door to yours.”

“All right.” She'd have to learn to live with that.

Randall pulled out a camera and began taking pictures. “Let me see that box,” he said. “Maybe Lotte can pick up a scent trail.”

But the dog found nothing. Abby went into the trailer to pack while the two officers collected evidence and disposed of the snake. She came out with a suitcase in one hand, her laptop bag and purse in the other, her backpack on her back. “All right, I'm ready,” she said. “But in the morning, can I still go out on patrol with you?”

“If you still want to.” He took the suitcase from her.

“I want to. Working is better than sitting around brooding about the fact that someone I don't even know hates me enough to attack me with a snake. Besides, I have a lot of territory to cover and only a few weeks to do it. I can't let a threat from a stranger stop me.”

* * *

M
ICHAEL
TOLD
HIMSELF
he shouldn't have been surprised by Abby's toughness. She'd already proved she was a survivor. He glanced at her as they negotiated the winding road that led away from the park. The afternoon sun slanted across her face like a spotlight, glinting on the silver earrings she wore. She definitely looked like a beauty queen, or a movie star. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

She turned toward him, her dark blue eyes wary. “You can ask. I don't promise I'll answer.”

He focused on the road again. “What happened after you came back to the States—after you were wounded?” he asked. “I mean, how long were you in the hospital? Did you have any kind of rehab, or did they just send you home?”

“I went to a hospital in Germany first. They did surgery there to remove shrapnel, and the surgeons saved my eye. They had to repair my broken cheek.” She touched the scar. “I have a titanium plate holding everything together.”

He winced. “Sounds brutal.”

“I guess it was, but I was in a fog a lot of the time—partly from the drugs, partly from the trauma itself.”

“I think that's a protective mechanism the mind has—blocking out trauma that way.” In his PJ training, he'd been taught that the wounded seldom remembered what happened on the helicopters.

“I guess, but it bothers me sometimes that I can't remember,” she said. “After I was transferred back to the States, to a hospital in Milwaukee, people came to see me and I have no memory of it. And yet the silliest things stay with me.”

“Like what?”

“Like I remember I asked my mom to bring me some clothes to wear besides the hospital gown—sweats and things like that. She brought me this yellow blouse I'd always hated. I yelled at her for bringing it and she started to cry. My dad yelled at me for hurting her feelings and then
I
started to cry.” She shook her head. “It was just so stupid—what did it matter what color the blouse was?”

“I don't know if it's so stupid,” he said. “It makes sense to me. There were so many things happening to you that you couldn't control. The clothes you wore were one little thing you could control. And the medications, not to mention the brain injury, probably made it more difficult to manage your emotions. Your doctors should have told your parents that.”

“They probably did. But my mom and dad's way of coping with this whole mess was to pretend nothing was wrong. We'd have these surreal conversations, where Mom would talk about boys I used to date who would be so glad to see me again, and Dad would tell me I should try out for a summer job with the community theater group. After a while, I couldn't stand it anymore and I'd say something horrible, like no one wanted a freak on stage. Then Mom would start to cry again. It was awful.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “You're not a freak, you know.”

“I know. But I'm not who I was. I'm still coming to terms with that. I don't even want that old life anymore—I'm not sure I ever wanted it. But I'm still figuring out what my new life will look like.” She shifted in the seat. “But right now, I'm more focused on figuring out where I'm going to be staying tonight.”

“Carmen made reservations at a motel on the other side of town. We figured the farther from the park, the better.”

The motel turned out to be one of those old-fashioned lodges with rooms lined up in two low-slung wings on either side of the A-frame lobby. “We have reservations for Ricky and Lucy,” Michael told the desk clerk, a fleshy older man with skin the color of raw dough.

He handed over the keys and accepted Michael's credit card, then they drove down to a room on the end and parked. “Ricky and Lucy?” Abby asked. “Why those names?”

“Ricky and Lucy Ricardo? From
I Love Lucy
. I love those old shows. When I had to come up with a couple's names, that popped into my head.”

His reply made her feel a little off balance—as if he really was a mind reader. “I love those old shows, too,” she said. “When I was in the hospital, I watched a lot of them.” Lucille Ball had been a beauty queen who wasn't afraid to make a fool of herself to get a laugh. Watching her had given Abby hope; maybe she could be more than a pretty face herself. But how could Michael know that?

He unlocked the door to the room next to the one on the end and did a quick tour of the space, then looked into the bathroom and checked out the closet. “What are you searching for?” she asked.

“Any sign that anyone's been here ahead of us.”

“Why would they have been?”

“Someone might have heard about our plans to stay here. It's not likely, but it pays to be careful.”

He unlocked the door to the adjoining room on the end of this wing. “Just to make it easier to reach each other in an emergency,” he explained. “You can stay in this room. I'll take the one next door.”

His room was a copy of hers, right down to the blue-and-green quilted spread and the bottle of water on the dresser. “What now?” she asked.

“Want to order pizza?”

She almost laughed. After everything that had happened today, pizza seemed so ordinary. So safe. “That sounds like a good idea.”

He pulled out his phone. “What do you like?”

“Anything but anchovies and onions.”

He made a face. “Right.”

She returned to her room and arranged her few things on the bed and table, then combed her hair and splashed water on her face. She hadn't bothered to do more than apply sunscreen this morning and it showed, her brows and lashes pale and unadorned. She thought about putting on makeup, but she didn't want Michael to get the wrong idea. Circumstances had thrown them together, but it wasn't as if they were dating or anything.

If she was ready to be in a relationship, he wouldn't be her first choice. She was glad he was with her now, and that men like him were hunting down whoever had killed the man in the desert, but he was too intense. Too protective. All his talk of fate and seeing meaning in random happenings unsettled her.

She booted up her laptop and tried to focus on the notes she'd made about desert parsley and its habitat. But that only made her think of Mariposa. She pulled out her phone and studied the picture of the beautiful young woman. Where was she right now? Were she and Angelique safe?

When Michael knocked on the door between their rooms and announced that the pizza had arrived, she gratefully shut down the computer and joined him in his room. The smell of spicy pepperoni and sausage, sauce and cheese made her a little dizzy, and she realized she was starving. “This was a great idea,” she said, helping herself to a slice.

“Just what the doctor ordered.” He filled his own plate and sat across from her at the little table in front of the window. He'd drawn the drapes, shutting out the setting sun, and turned on the too-dim lamp behind him. The interior felt cool and cozy.

“Speaking of doctors,” she said, “you seem to know a lot about medicine. Did you consider becoming a doctor?”

“Early on, I thought about it. That's why I signed up for the PJs. I thought I wanted a career in trauma medicine. I pictured excitement and the adrenaline rush and saving people's lives.” He fell silent and picked a slice of pepperoni off his pizza.

“What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

“They don't tell you that you lose more than you save.” He looked into her eyes. “You were my first save—that's another reason I remember you.”

She wanted to look away from the intensity of his gaze, but she couldn't. This man had saved her life; she couldn't turn away from him. “I wish I remembered you,” she said. If she did, would she feel that connection between them that he seemed to feel?

He shrugged his shoulders, as if shrugging off bad memories. “Anyway, by the time my tour was up, I'd decided I wasn't cut out for that line of work. I bummed around for a few months, not sure what I wanted to do. After the constant adrenaline rush of the war, civilian life was an adjustment. When my uncle suggested border patrol, I figured I'd give it a shot.”

“Do you like it?”

“I like working outdoors, doing something different all the time. I'm not so crazy about the bureaucracy. And sometimes I question whether I'm really doing much good.”

“You saved me from that snake.” She smiled, letting him know she was teasing.