tensed. Some things were not to be revealed under any circumstances, and certainly nothing about the situation he was in. Operational security could be compromised inadvertently. “Maybe I should just go,” he said.
Ryker clapped a hand to his shoulder. “Maybe you should, but we’re going to discuss other options here. Sheriff Dalton worked undercover for years with the DEA. I think he might have some understanding of what we could be dealing with here, and I’m sure he doesn’t expect either of us to reveal anything we’re not allowed to.” Then Ryker returned his attention to the sheriff. “Gage, you know I worked for the State Department. So did my friend here.”
Trace watched in amazement as understanding dawned in the sheriff’s gaze. “Yeah, I know all about that,” the man said, and somehow Trace believed he did. Reading between the lines.
“Well,” Ryker continued, “Trace was badly hurt, and he’s been cut loose. Our main concern is that he may have a tiger on his tail.”
Gage’s sharp gaze flashed back to Trace. “Well, and here I was starting to get bored with domestic disputes and traffic accidents. Winter’s a bad time for accidents.”
Trace said nothing, but his nerves stopped crawling. The sheriff had figured it out and knew not to say too much. Ryker had been right. And was that a possible solution Gage had just mentioned?
Trace decided to take over. After what Ryker had told him, there was no longer any doubt in his mind. “I need to get out of town. I need to be gone. I don’t want to put Ryker and his family at risk. Then there’s this Julie Ardlow. She asked me to sit with her at the diner last night for coffee, after I met her at Ryker’s house.”
“And she knows something is going on,” Ryker said heavily. “I warned her off.”
“You’re new around here, Ryker,” Dalton said. “Let me assure you that Julie takes no as a challenge. She’s not going to leave it alone.”
“Unless I leave,” said Trace, standing. The buzz of the drugs made him a little light-headed. “My phone’s on its way to...where?” he said to Ryker.
“A semi that was going to Denver.”
“Okay. Then I’ll ditch my car somewhere between here and there, get another and take a different direction.”
“You can’t keep running,” Ryker argued.
Trace simply shook his head. “I’ll get what’s coming to me, whatever it is, but it’s not going to land on someone else’s head. I never should have come here.”
“Sit a moment,” Dalton said mildly. “While I do admire your scruples, fact is, you’re in my town and that makes you my headache, at least briefly. So what do you know about this tiger?”
Trace sat slowly, ignoring the pounding in his arm, taking care not to let the meds make him clumsy. “Until this morning, I wasn’t even sure there was one. Vague...gossip, if you will. Ryker made a call and it appears trouble is stalking me, but that’s all either of us knows. Not who, why or anything. Which makes this a nearly unsolvable problem.”
Gage nodded slowly, rocking back in his desk chair. It squealed a protest. The only sound in the room. “Many years ago,” he said slowly, “I had a problem like that and I didn’t know it. A car bomb intended for me killed my entire family. I survived. Only one itch saved me from cutting my own throat. I wanted to find the SOB who’d ratted me out.”
Trace nodded. Gage’s experience didn’t shock him, because he’d seen it in his own unsavory world. “I get it. But for me it’s not too late to protect everyone else.”
“Maybe not. No way to know, but I was driving at something else. You need to start thinking real hard. You’d be surprised how different some things can look in light of new information.”
Trace knew he was right. It could. It might. Something might reveal itself. But he wasn’t about to sit here while the guy closed in on him and his friend. He needed to clear out. “I can think on the road.”
“Or maybe we can make it seem you’re on the road.”
Trace shook his head. “I appreciate it, but I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time in situations like this. I can take care of myself now, without endangering anyone else.” That was the most important thing. It always had been.
“You can’t possibly know that,” Ryker said. “You’re assuming a sniper’s bullet at fifteen hundred yards. What if it’s a bomb? What if other people get unavoidably involved?”
“Like what happened to my family,” Gage remarked. “Best you stay around people who know what’s going on. Who might be able to help. Like I said, I admire your scruples, but they don’t necessarily protect anyone. And not everyone has them.”
Trace sat in silence, staring down at his still-gloved, destroyed hand. They were right. He didn’t want to admit it—he wished he’d never set foot in this town—but they were right.
He’d been a damned fool to ever come here, but he hadn’t really believed he was in trouble. Not when he arrived here, simply because a colleague he knew lived here. The threat had been so vague that it seemed improbable that anything would happen. Someone looking for him under his real name? Could have been anyone and probably meaningless. He figured the suggestion of a threat had been used to shunt him aside until his medical retirement came through. He’d become useless, mainly because of the pain and the meds, and frankly no one wanted to see him hanging around like a reminder of what could happen to any of them. He’d known he made his coworkers uneasy.
But this? The burn of betrayal was returning, lighting a fire deep in his belly. The sheriff was right about one thing: he wanted to know who’d put him in this position and who was after him. He wanted those answers more than he wanted to preserve his own messed-up life.
He sighed. “I took my pain meds this morning. I’m not at my best. I need more coffee.”
“Three didn’t do it?” Ryker asked.
“This is strong stuff. That’s why I hate to take it.”
Dalton surprised him by rising and limping over to the door. He opened it and leaned out. “Hal!”
“Yo?”
“Get me six tall and strongs, black, from Maude’s. Double time.”
Then he limped back to his seat, and with every one of his careful movements, Trace felt a twinge of sympathy for the sheriff. Evidently he hadn’t escaped all the effects of the bomb that had killed his family.
“That’ll tick Velma off good,” the sheriff remarked when he’d settled again.
“Velma?” Trace asked.
“The smoking volcano at the front desk. She makes us coffee every morning. We all pretend to drink it so as not to offend her. Might as well swallow thickened battery acid.” Gage waved a hand. “Her coffee is infamous. Enough about that. We’ll pump some more caffeine into you, and when you feel ready, we’ll get into some detail about what, if anything, Conard County can do for you, if you’ll let us.”
Trace shook his head, trying to absorb this. “Why should you help me? You don’t
