Saloon to get some burgers. Don’t go anywhere. If he leaves, let him go and wait for me. Don’t get out of the car for any reason. Don’t do anything.”
“I’m not a child, Martin, and I’m not going to do something foolish.”
“I know. Just don’t get carried away. If anything happened to you…” He stopped, unwilling to finish the statement, unwilling to admit the truth aloud—if anything happened to her, it would destroy him.
“I’ll stay here. I’ll lock the doors, and I’ll be good.”
He got out quickly so the dome light wasn’t on one second longer than necessary. Sticking close to the building, he backtracked half a block to the alley, then made his way to the Saloon, placing their order at the bar, waiting impatiently. Maybe he shouldn’t have left her. Maybe he should have forgotten about dinner or insisted that they go home. Maybe—
“Hey, Martin, Stone and the chief and a couple of the guys are over there in the corner. Come join us.”
He glanced at Jack Stryker, then at the long table of cops before shaking his head. “Thanks, but not tonight.”
“Haven’t seen you around the department lately, though I hear you met Juliet there for lunch today.”
Martin let that slide. “Anything new on the Stuart case?”
“Dean Springer has gone to ground, and he might never come back up. We reinterviewed everyone in town who knew him, and we still can’t connect him to anyone with reason to want Olivia dead. Of course, part of the problem is we can’t find anyone with reason to want her dead. And it’s easy for someone like Springer to hide. He’s one of those forgettable sorts. Hell, he lived here for twenty years, and only a few people knew him.”
Martin was one of those forgettable sorts, too. He’d been missing for more than ten months, and no one had missed him yet.
“Sure you won’t join us?”
“Thanks, but Juliet’s waiting.” He pulled some money from his pocket as the waitress brought his order. He was across the bar and on his way out when he met a crowd coming in. One of them bumped into him, then released the woman with him and stuck out his arm to block Martin’s way.
“Hey, why don’t you watch where you’re going?” the man demanded, his tone belligerent, his manner blustery, posturing for his girlfriend.
Martin switched the paper bag to his left hand, then tilted the cowboy’s hat back so they could see eye to eye. “Jimmy Ray,” he said softly. “Haven’t we danced this dance before?”
The cowboy’s eyes widened, and he swallowed hard. “Man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I didn’t know—”
“That’s right. You didn’t know. That’s why you need to be nice to everybody, because you never know.” He leaned closer to emphasize the last words. “The next time you bump into somebody, you handle it right. You say, ‘Excuse me. I didn’t mean to do that.’ Try it now.”
“Ex-excuse me. I didn’t mean to—to…” Jimmy Ray’s Adam’s apple bulged as he swallowed again.
“Close enough. Nice seeing you again.” He stepped around the cowboy and left the bar. A glance down the street showed the lights were still on in Brown’s office. A closer glance showed just the front end of Juliet’s car on the next street over. It wasn’t attention grabbing, since there were other cars parked nearby. Of course, Maxwell Brown hadn’t seen any of those other cars parked outside his house a short while ago.
He returned down the side street and through the alley, tapping on the window so she could unlock the door. He handed her a burger, Coke and napkins and unwrapped his own burger before speaking. “I ran into a friend of yours at the Saloon.”
“Really? Who?”
“Jimmy Ray.”
“Jimmy—Oh, the cowboy.”
“You say that as if it’s something special,” he teased. He could afford to tease because, in fact, she’d said it as if the other man was totally inconsequential. “Of course, being Texas born and bred, I imagine cowboys do carry some significance for you.”
“Not in the least, though if you put on a pair of boots and a Stetson, I imagine it might raise my temperature a degree or two.”
“I could do more than that, darlin’. In my apartment this evening you were steaming.”
She blushed in the dim light and picked for a moment at her hamburger before asking, “You don’t think anyone could see…do you?”
The window was set high enough that his hand underneath her skirt had been hidden from view. But anyone with any imagination whatsoever would have known what he’d been doing to her, where he’d been touching her, what she’d been feeling. The look on her face, the taut line of her body and the arch of her back had all but shouted pure sexual delight.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m sure no one saw a thing.”
For the next hour, they talked, sat in silence and listened to music. Martin was about to suggest that they call it a night and head home when finally something happened. The lights went off in Maxwell Brown’s office, and a moment later he came out of the building and climbed into his car. If he turned toward home, they would let him go, Martin decided. If he didn’t, they would follow.
When Brown turned the other way, Martin opened the door. “Let me drive, Juliet.” They switched places, then he pulled to the corner. As soon as the Lexus was out of sight, he turned.
Once the road left town, it wound through valleys and over passes. Eventually, it reached the interstate, and from there it was easy going to anyplace in the country. Brown didn’t go that far, though. Only a couple of miles out of town, he turned into a broad driveway, slowed at the security gate, then went inside. Martin drove past, pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine and the lights. “Wait here—”
“No way. I’m going with you.”
“You’re not dressed for a nighttime walk through the woods.” Her skirt was full and would snag on bushes, and her shoes, while sensible flats, weren’t designed with hiking in mind.
“I’ll be fine.”
“That dress will reflect every bit of light in the sky.”
She reached in back and came up with a black trench coat. Her smile was smug. “I like to be prepared. I don’t trust Colorado weather.”
He wanted to argue with her, but he didn’t have time. If there was anything to see inside the fenced-in compound, he needed to get close enough. “You do what I say without question. Stay behind me. And if I tell you to run, you run like hell and don’t look back. Understand?”
Her only response was to shrug into the coat, then climb out of the car. With the coat covering her to the ankles and its hood drawn tight around her face, she was less visible than he was, making him wish once more for a knitted black cap to cover his blond hair.
What little light the moon gave disappeared as they moved deeper into the woods. They followed the concertina-topped fence, keeping to
