down the hall.
He went to close the front door that Davy had left open and spotted Bobby Rawlings standing out in the yard, watching him through narrowed eyes. Rawlings was even scarier than McCoy in some ways. He was a Swain by blood, son of one of old Jasper’s cousins. That gave him even more carte blanche for violence around these parts than Davy, who was only a Swain clan member out of criminal loyalty.
He gave Rawlings a wave. Rawlings didn’t wave back. Scanlon hadn’t expected he would.
He closed the door and turned as Davy’s heavy bootfalls heralded his return. “You and Bobby been out hunting coyote this morning?”
“Yeah,” Davy answered flatly.
“Any luck?”
“Got close, once. Just missed the bitch.” Davy shrugged. “We’ll find her again. Next time, ain’t gonna mess around—just put a bullet straight in her brain.”
Scanlon’s blood chilled.
“Thanks for the use of your facilities.” Davy slanted a look at Scanlon. “Reckon you’ll be comin’ to town Saturday?”
“I can,” he said carefully, not sure where Davy was going with the question.
“Addie Tolliver’s throwin’ a barbecue Saturday afternoon for Leamon’s birthday.”
Addie Tolliver was one of the Swain sisters. She and her son Leamon ran the feed shop in town, and he was pretty sure that Addie was the main mover and shaker in the Swain family’s meth and weed business. The family often used the store’s back room as a meeting place. He also suspected that the storage area may have been a temporary holding area for drug shipments going out to other parts of the state, though the one time he’d been able to sneak into the back room, all he’d accomplished was overhearing the plan to go after Isabel.
“The Brubakers are comin’ over from Higdon to play,” Davy continued. “Ever heard ’em?” When Scanlon shook his head, Davy gave him a look that smacked of disappointment. “They’re an old bluegrass family. The young ones are still playing the old stuff. You’d like it.”
Scanlon knew better than to assume he was being invited to the barbecue. He was still too new in town. He waited for Davy to let the punch line drop.
“Addie’s lookin’ for someone to watch the feed store for her while everybody’s at the barbecue. Said she’ll pay six bucks an hour for three hours. Under the table. Won’t be much to it—most everybody else in town will be at the barbecue.”
Everybody but the new guy, Scanlon thought, tamping down a flash of annoyance. He’d known going into this undercover operation that it would be a long-term assignment. He couldn’t expect an insular drug-dealing clan to take him to their bosom after a few months.
“I can do that,” he said aloud.
“Good. I’ll tell Addie you’ll be there. Two o’clock on Saturday.” Davy walked to the door and opened it. “She mentioned you by name, you know. Asked me to check with you specifically.”
Scanlon smiled. “Tell her I said thanks. I sure can use the extra money.”
Davy’s gaze dropped to Scanlon’s scarred hand. “Reckon the government’s not exactly real generous these days.”
“No. You’d think they’d want to do a little more to reward a fellow who took a bullet in their godforsaken wars.”
“Just be at the feed store Saturday. Maybe if you do a good job then, Addie or one of the other Swains will find more jobs for you to do.” Davy headed out the door, pulling it closed behind him.
Scanlon released a long, slow breath. Not quite what he’d expected when he’d spotted Davy McCoy coming out of the woods.
But was his sense of relief premature? The Swains had been plying their criminal trade for a lot of years now. They might not be brain surgeons, but they were as wily and vicious as the coyotes Davy McCoy liked to hunt.
Maybe they really didn’t suspect his involvement in helping Isabel get away. But he couldn’t afford to assume he was safe from scrutiny. He had to figure out a way to get Isabel back to safety as soon as possible.
For his sake as well as hers.
Chapter Three
The closet seemed to grow darker as time passed, despite the thin shaft of light drifting into the cramped space from the bedroom outside. The odor of old cedar tickled her nose, threatening more than once to make her sneeze. She had held the urge in check, hearing heavy footfalls from the hall that she knew didn’t belong to Ben Scanlon.
The ache in her head had eased a little, probably thanks to the food he’d insisted she put in her stomach to dilute the effects of whatever drug her ambushers had injected into her. Her memory was starting to leach back into her brain as well, at least the moments preceding whatever had happened to her.
She’d gone out of her room at some point that morning. She remembered getting ice and then—something. Something had happened after she went to get the ice.
But what?
She pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead. She’d carried the ice bucket out of the room, down the hall—her room wasn’t far from the elevators, but the ice maker was all the way down the hall, near the stairs—
An image flashed into her mind. A reflection of herself in the mirrored back of an elevator car. She looked tired and bedraggled in the image, dressed in sloppy clothes, with no makeup and her hair in a messy ponytail.
That meant something. Why did it mean something?
Had she gone somewhere on the elevator?
No, not on the elevator. She’d gone to the elevator alcove to get out of sight. Hadn’t she?
But why had she wanted to be out of sight?
Swallowing a growl of frustration, she retraced her steps. Out the hotel room door. Down the hall, ice bucket in hand.
She’d dropped her key card. She could hear it hit softly on the vinyl flooring in front of the ice machine. She’d bent to pick it up—
And looked behind her on purpose. At the man.
Sandy hair. Black T-shirt. Faded jeans. Just like the man she’d spotted in the woods behind Scanlon’s house.
“Isabel?”
Scanlon’s quiet voice made her jump. Heart jackrabbiting, she answered in an equally soft voice, “Yeah?”
“It’s safe to come out now.”
She grabbed the doorknob and hauled herself unsteadily to her feet to let herself out. The dim bedroom seemed unbearably bright, forcing her to squint.
She spotted Scanlon a few feet from the door, studying her with troubled blue eyes. He looked as if he was about to speak again, but she preempted him. “I know where I saw that man outside your house before.”
