Diana Palmer - Wyoming Bold

* * *

HE LEFT HER. His mind was working overtime. He wanted to throw Carson through a wall. The man was the devil himself. He remembered Carson charming the beautiful flight attendant, all smooth talk and smiles. It hadn’t mattered about that woman, who was a stranger. But this was Merissa. And Merissa was his.

If only he hadn’t botched it when he’d blurted out that proposal. He’d even had the rings in his pocket. He was going to press them into her hand and ask her right then. That wasn’t really how he’d meant to do it. He wanted to do the whole courtship thing. Send her flowers, buy her presents; take her on moonlight rides. But he’d lost it when he had her so warm and soft in his arms.

She loved kissing him, he could tell that. But she was backing away and just when he wanted to get closer, much closer.

So was it Carson pulling them apart? Was he a rival? And if he was, how could Dalton, who was no rounder, compete with him? The thought tormented him.

* * *

“WHAT DO YOU know about Carson?” he asked Rourke later, when they were going over new safety precautions for the ranch.

Rourke lifted both eyebrows. “Not a lot. Why?”

“He told Merissa things.”

“Oh?” Rourke’s one brown eye was twinkling. “What sort of things?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” he muttered. He ran a hand through his thick hair. “He’s one smooth operator. He turns on the charm and women fall at his feet.”

“Well, yes, they do. But he’s a one-nighter, if that helps.”

“What do you mean?” Tank asked.

“I mean, he doesn’t date the same woman twice. He has no staying power. In fact, if you want my honest opinion,” he added, “he hates women.”

Tank gave him a disbelieving look.

“No, I’m not joking,” Rourke continued. He finished connecting two wires on a monitor. “He even said something about it once, to the effect that women are no damned good. He said they’ll crawl to a man who treats them like dirt, but turn their backs on one who’d die for them.”

“The reverse of that is often true,” Tank commented.

“I know.”

“I’ve seen him in action, too,” Rourke added. “I can’t say I wasn’t a bit envious. Never had that sort of luck with the ladies.”

“And that’s not what I’ve heard about you,” Tank mused.

Rourke shrugged. “I’m like Carson. I like variety.”

Tank pursed his lips. “I believe you helped Carson feed a man to a crocodile over a woman...?”

Rourke’s face hardened like steel. He averted his eye and didn’t say another word.

“Sorry,” Tank said.

Rourke didn’t look at him. “There are things I never discuss. Tat’s one of them.” He turned his head, and his one good eye was blazing. “K.C. Kantor’s another.”

Tank held up both hands. “I didn’t say a word.”

Rourke shrugged. “Sorry.” He tuned the device he was working on. “I used to have a higher boiling point.”

“We all have weaknesses.” Tank leaned back. “Mine’s lying in a hospital bed, mooning over your damned womanizing comrade.”

Rourke’s eyebrows almost blended into the blond hair at his forehead. “She’s what?”

TANK FELT EMBARRASSED. He shifted his posture. “He tells her things.”

He chuckled softly. “She’s that sort of woman. It doesn’t mean she’s got eyes for him,” he pointed out.

“Well, I think...”

His cell phone rang. He pulled it off his belt and answered it. “Kirk.”

“Can you bring Rourke and meet me in the parking lot of the Custom Kitchen?” Carson asked.

“What in hell for? Are you hungry?” Tank asked sarcastically.

“I’ll tell you when you get here.” He hung up.

Tank relayed the message.

“He’s found something and he isn’t willing to talk at the house,” Rourke said grimly.

“Surely he didn’t leave Clara at the house by herself?” Tank asked worriedly.

“I can almost assure you that he’s got her with him. He may be a womanizer, but there isn’t anybody better at the job than he is.”

“He wasn’t there when Merissa was almost poisoned,” Tank pointed out coldly.

“None of us would have expected the SOB to walk into the house and poison her meds,” Rourke retorted. He stopped and frowned. “You said he left tracks?”

“Yes.”

Rourke cocked his head. “Now, isn’t that interesting? He’s sneaky enough to poison prescription meds so that they’re undetectable, and yet he leaves footprints?”

“We need answers.” Tank moved ahead of him to a nearby ranch pickup.

“I think we’re about to get them, too,” Rourke predicted.

* * *

CLARA WAS WITH CARSON. He sent her inside, with a gentle smile, to have coffee while he talked over some things with his colleagues.

Tank was somber and cold. Carson either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He was intent on what he and the sheriff’s investigator had uncovered.

“The tracks led to the highway about a mile behind the house,” Carson told them, leaning casually back against the bed of the truck with his arms crossed. “They vanished. We assume a car or another vehicle was parked there. We found a partial tire track in the snow on the side of the road. We couldn’t track any farther on foot, but the sheriff’s department has dogs. They marked the spot with GPS and they’re bringing out bloodhounds in the morning.” He sighed. “But if you want my take on it, they’ll track him to a deserted house or a parking lot, and another dead end.” His black eyes narrowed. “He’s just playing games. That’s all.”

“Games. He almost killed a woman!” Tank exploded.

“To him, it’s just a game,” Carson replied calmly. “Cat and mouse. He’s playing you.”

Tank looked menacing.

Carson’s face softened just a little. “I know what she means to you,” he said quietly. “I’m not downplaying how serious it could have been, if she’d taken more than one of those Malathion-laced capsules. I’m telling you how he feels about it.”

“How do you know so much?” Tank asked.

“Men work in patterns,” he said surprisingly. “I was a math whiz in college,” he added. “Top of my class, in fact. I have a photographic memory, which came in handy when I majored in history as an undergraduate. History, as you may know, is mostly case law. I had in mind being another F. Lee Bailey,” he mused. “But I dropped out of law school just before graduation, due to...personal matters.” He straightened. “What I’m saying is that people have habits that make them predicable, like equations. This man shows a few traits that may help us track him down.”

“Such as?” Tank asked, mellowing.

“He’s a master of disguise. We know that already. He’s single-minded, methodical, careful, and he knows how to tamper with pharmaceuticals without being caught.” He shook his head. “So how is it that this careful, methodical man leaves a trail a kindergarten child could follow?”

Rourke and Tank exchanged glances. “We were just discussing that,” Rourke confessed.

“He’s keeping you off your guard, unbalanced, by placing Merissa and Clara in danger,” Carson continued.

“So?” Tank asked.

“He’s afraid that you’re going to remember something that will hurt him, point him out to the authorities. He’d like to kill you, but he can’t get close enough. So he’s keeping you focused on the women instead of the past.”

“He may have a point,” Rourke said.

“There’s another thing,” Carson continued. “Remember what I said about the man I worked with who was an expert at covert poisonings?”

“I do,” Tank said.

“You met him once, too, I believe,” Carson told Rourke. “The red-haired fellow who was always talking about sharks.”

“Sharks!” Tank straightened.

“What?” Carson asked, diverted.

“Sharks.” He paced, touching his forehead. “Sharks. Why can’t I remember? Someone was talking about a man who mentioned sharks...”

“Carlie,” Carson said quietly. “In Cash Grier’s office.”

“Yes!” Tank turned. “Remember, she said the rogue agent came into Cash’s office and he was talking about sharks and how misunderstood they were. She said he told her he liked to swim with them in the Bahamas!”

“Sharks. Disguise. Poisons. The Bahamas.” Carson’s eyes narrowed. “I need to make a couple of phone calls.”

“Why did you want us to meet you here?” Rourke asked as the other man pulled out his cell phone.

“The man we’re looking for knew that Merissa kept her headache pills in her bedside table, and that she was starting to get a headache. How?”

The men looked at one another.

“I missed a bug. We missed a bug,” Carson told Rourke.

“Impossible!” Rourke said angrily. “I ran the rooms four times, just to make sure!”

“You were out of sight yesterday,” Tank said, “when Merissa took the medicine.”

“Only for thirty minutes.”

“About that time, I was driving Merissa home. Where was Clara?”

“I don’t know, but we can ask,” Rourke said, leading the way into the restaurant. “If she was out of the house at all, that gave him the opportunity to sneak in another bug.”

“How about the capsules?” Tank asked. “That would have taken time. The doctor said it was an almost perfect job of tampering.”

“He knows she has headaches. All he lacked was the opportunity to place the capsules.”

“Why not when he was bugging the place?” Tank wondered.

“I imagine he makes it up as he goes,” Rourke replied quietly. “He plans, but he plans as situations develop. He might have learned about her headaches for the first time after he placed the bugs. The tampering could have taken place over a period of days.”