Undercover Colorado

“Not necessary,” Mac had said.

“You’ll like it. The feds arranged it.”

“The feds?” That didn’t make sense. Denver P.D. seldom even talked to the feds, much less cooperated with them. “Why?”

“You don’t need to know.” Perkins sank heavily behind his desk and pulled a stack of papers toward him. “You’ll be contacted and given directions.”

“What if I don’t want to go?”

“Then you can consider this a direct order,” Perkins growled. “Don’t be a jackass, Mac. This is a gift. An all-expenses-paid vacation in the mountains. Accept it, okay?”

“I don’t get it. I shot that undercover agent. There’s no reason for the feds to give me a gift.”

Perkins shrugged. “Maybe they feel bad on account of you got shot at their sting.”

“I thought it was our sting. Vince Elliot was on scene.”

“Don’t start, Mac. Just go to the mountains.” He glared. “And I will need your badge until the I.A. investigation is over.”

Silently, Mac had pried his shield from his wallet and placed it on the lieutenant’s desktop. He’d already turned over his service handgun.

“Okay,” Perkins said. “See you next week.”

As soon as he left Perkins’s office, Mac had gone to vice looking for answers. He’d talked to Vince Elliot. In spite of the fact that Mac had probably saved his life at the warehouse, the vice cop was cold. Vince said that all he wanted was a bust, then he turned and walked away.

Why all the secrecy? Why wouldn’t anybody tell him anything?

“Mac,” the blonde whined. “Aren’t you going to cut the branches for me?”

He clipped two lower branches that he could reach with his right hand.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He wished he knew the answer to that question.

THREE HOURS LATER, Mac stepped through the door of the Sundown Tavern in Redding. It felt like he’d gone back in time fifteen years. Not much had changed since high school when Mac and his buddies came here to play pool in the back room. The pine paneled walls still held sepia photographs of legendary skiers and other Colorado sports heroes, notably John Elway. The musty smell of old logs and beer was the same. The wood floor still creaked when Mac walked across it. The light was dim except for the neon beer signs over the bar where a couple of old-timers hunched on stools nursing their drinks.

At the end of the bar, Mac spotted his friend, Paul Hemmings. He’d changed. A lot.

No longer the skinny teenager, Paul was six feet, four inches tall and built like a linebacker. For the past seven years, he’d been an Eagle County deputy sheriff. After his divorce, he was raising two little girls on his own; he carried a lot of responsibility on those big shoulders.

He lumbered across the creaky wood floor like a St. Bernard coming to the rescue of a stranded skier. His huge arms enveloped Mac in a hug that caused a poignant ache in his wounded shoulder.

“That’s enough,” Mac said.

Paul backed away quickly. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“I’m fine.”

“I can’t believe you got shot in the line of duty. You’re supposed to be the smart one.”

“Not this time.”

After a round of hellos to the other men in the bar who remembered Mac or at least pretended they did, they went into the back room where liquor wasn’t served. There were a handful of teenagers back here, eating burgers and giggling.

Paul rolled a cue ball across the green felt of one of the pool tables. “Do you feel up to a game?”

“Bring it on,” Mac said. “I can still beat you with one hand tied behind my back.”

As Paul racked up the balls, he said, “Tell me about the shooting.”

“We heard the call for an officer in need of assistance. Me and my partner, Sheila—”

“You have a woman partner? How’s that?”

“I like female partners. They’re usually smarter than the men and know the rules. It’s never been a problem.”

Not until Sheila came along. A lot of what happened at the warehouse had been her fault. First, she’d yelled and provoked the bad guys before sufficient backup was in place. Then, she’d gotten herself in the line of fire.

Mac had downplayed her incompetence when he talked to the I.A. investigators; it wasn’t right to rat out your partner. But Sheila had made two dumb moves. That was nearly enough to put her in the same classification as that high-maintenance blonde at the safe house.

The thought of Vanessa brought an unexpected grin. All her prancing and posing made an amusing diversion, especially after she gave up on seducing him and dropped the sex-bomb act. During dinner, she’d rattled on about this and that. At one point, she’d given them a hilarious rendition of her act as a Las Vegas showgirl balancing a wineglass on her cleavage. He had a sense that she was more intelligent than she let on. Street smart, anyway.

Mac picked a cue from the wall rack and tested it. “We’re playing eight ball. I’ll break.”

“Fine with me.” Paul leaned on his cue. “So how’d you get shot?”

“I’m not proud of what happened.” Mac stretched himself across the pool table, testing different positions that wouldn’t strain his left arm and shoulder. He zeroed in on the cue ball and fired. The balls scattered across the table. He sank the seven. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“It happens.”

“Tell me about you,” Mac said. “How are the girls?”

“Too smart for their own good. Apparently, at age seven and nine, they know everything. And I’m an idiot.”

“I could have told them that.” Mac sank another ball. “How about sports? Are they skiing?”

“Skating,” Paul muttered. “Figure skating with the fancy outfits and the show tunes.”

Mac bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at the thought of his big, husky friend shepherding around his two little princesses.

Mac missed his next shot and stepped back from the table in time to see their friend, Jess Isler, stroll through the door. Mac wasn’t the only one who noticed. The teenaged girls in the room stopped talking when Jess appeared.

It had been that way all through high school. Jess was a good-looking man. He was on the ski patrol and lived in nearby Vail.

After enduring another hug, Mac punched Jess on the shoulder. “Are you still dating that movie star?”

“We moved on. It was too much attention. You know, the paparazzi.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mac rolled his eyes. “Those paparazzi can be a real pain.”

Paul stood between them. “It’s been a long time since the three of us got together.”

“It was your mom’s funeral, Mac.” Jess shrugged. “Four years ago.”

“She was a good woman,” Paul said.

Jess nodded.

Mac said nothing. His feelings about his mother were ambivalent. Sure, he had loved her. Kathryn Granger was beautiful and fun, always laughing. But he knew something about Kathryn that nobody else was aware of. She had betrayed the family.

That was one of the reasons he had left town when he graduated high school. It was also one of the reasons he knew never to trust a woman; they would only break your heart.

Speaking of which…he looked up and saw Vanessa strolling toward the pool table. What the hell was she doing here?

“Hi there,” she said in a breathy little voice. “Mac? Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”

“This is a private conversation.”

Undeterred, she moved toward Paul. When she grasped his huge hand, he had no alternative but to shake. “I’m Vanessa,” she said. “And you are?”

“Paul Hemmings.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “How do you know Mac?”

“We’re both staying at the same little resort.”

“I wanted to ask about that place,” Paul said. “Why is it called Last’s Resort?”

“The woman who runs it is Julia Last,” Mac said. Though Paul was his friend and a deputy, he wouldn’t betray the true purpose of the safe house. “Nice place. Real quiet. A friend recommended it to me.”

“You could have stayed with me,” Paul said.

“Or me,” Jess put in.

“Thanks, guys.” Mac knew his lieutenant had arranged his stay at the safe house for a reason. “But I’m supposed to rest and recuperate. I can’t do that with the little girls at your place, Paul. Or with the big girls who are always hanging out with Jess.”

Vanessa had picked up a cue. “Whose shot?”

“Mine.” Mac stared down at the table. Paul’s last shot had left him behind the eight ball. There wasn’t much he could do.

“I’ll play the winner,” Vanessa said.

Though Mac concentrated on their game, he couldn’t help listening as Vanessa chatted with handsome Jess. She was the kind of woman who would always focus on the best-looking man in the room. Or the wealthiest. From the platinum blond curls on her head to the toes of her high-heeled boots, she was a gold digger. It annoyed him that her husky laugh tickled pleasantly at the edge of his senses.

“The Vail ski patrol,” she said admiringly to Jess. “You must know some famous people.”

“Some,” he admitted. “Mostly, my job is a great way to get in a lot of skiing. As a bonus, I get to help people.”

“Like your friend, the deputy.”

“Kind of weird,” Jess said. “The three of us were buds in high school, and we all ended up in some kind of law enforcement jobs.”

“Ski patrol?” Paul scoffed. “Do you catch a lot of bad guys on the slopes?”

“Tell me about Mac,” Vanessa said.

Mac muffed a shot. He didn’t want Jess giving her too much information about him. Until he figured out what Vanessa was up to, he didn’t want to let his guard down.

“Mac’s dad was the sheriff,” Jess said. “A good guy. He moved down to Florida after Mac’s mom died.”

“Does he have other family up here?”

“Aunt Lucille.” Jess chuckled.

“Oh, yeah,” Paul chimed in. “Good old Aunt Lucille. She’s a real character.”

Jess picked up where he left off. “The woman has got to be in her seventies, but she still wears flashy clothes and skis like a demon. She competed in the 1952 Winter Olympics when Stein Eriksen won the giant slalom.”

“My kind of woman.” Vanessa bared her teeth in a grin. “A winner.”

“We’ll see about that,” Paul said. “Looks like you’re playing Mac.”

As she sashayed toward the pool table, her dark eyes held a competitive gleam. Mac decided there was no way he’d let her win this game. Unfortunately, when he broke the balls, nothing went in.

When Vanessa positioned herself across the table, he had a spectacular view of her cleavage. Earlier today, her vamping and prancing was a major turnoff. Now, when she wasn’t trying to be sexy, he was getting turned on.

With a crisp shot, she sank a striped ball and left herself another good lie.

“Nice,” Jess commented.

Gliding around the table, she nudged Mac out of her way. “I don’t like losing.”

She tapped the cue ball. Another ball tipped into the corner pocket. Now she had a problem. The cue ball was trapped behind two others.

Her eyes narrowed as she considered all the angles. When Vanessa banked the cue and sank the four, it was obvious that she knew what she was doing.

“You’re a hustler,” Mac said.

“I learned more in Vegas than just shaking my tail feathers.”

When her ruby lips spread in a smug grin, he had the insane urge to kiss the smile off those lips. He didn’t want to be attracted to this woman. She was a protected witness. For all he knew, she was up to her pretty brown eyes in danger and disaster—criminal activity of the worst kind.

He only had one more chance to sink a ball. He muffed it. Then she cleared the table and sank the eight.

Grudgingly, he offered approval. “Not bad.”

“Beat you.”

She tapped her cue against his chest and looked him straight in the eye. What was going on inside her head? He wanted to find out.

Mac was good in a police interrogation when he had the weight of the law on his side. Subtlety wasn’t his forte, but he was good at spotting a liar. “Buy you a drink?”

“I’ll have a Singapore Sling.”

“The Sundown Tavern doesn’t do cocktails with umbrellas.”

“Then, I’ll have the specialty of the house.”

As he led the way from the back room to the bar, Mac calculated her body weight and probable resistance to intoxication. It shouldn’t take more than three tequila shots to loosen her tongue. Then she’d be ready to tell him anything he wanted to know.

AN HOUR LATER, Abby stared down at the shot glass on the table. It would be her fourth. Though she’d managed to spill more than she drank, she was beginning to feel the effect.

“Drink up,” Mac urged. He was sipping soda, claiming that he couldn’t mix alcohol with his pain medication. “No need to worry. I’m the designated driver.”

She rose to the challenge, lifting her shot glass. “Here’s to the mountains.”

“To the mountains,” echoed Paul and Jess, both of whom were still nursing their first and only glass of beer.

She tossed back the tequila. The fiery liquid burned her tongue, but she held it in her mouth. When she lifted her beer glass to her lips as a chaser, she spit most of the tequila into the glass. Even with all these precautions, she was woozy. Clearly, Mac was trying to get her drunk. But why?

He rested his elbow on the table and gazed curiously into her eyes. “How are you doing, Vanessa?”

“Great,” she said defiantly.

“Feeling a buzz?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

Drunk or not, she could nail his hide to the wall. If he was a dirty cop, she was the woman who could prove it. As she stared back at him, she was momentarily distracted by the devilish spark of amusement in his intense blue eyes. Being with his friends had loosened him up, and he almost seemed to be having fun. When the tension in his face relaxed, it was a very interesting face. Good bone structure. Strong features.

Though he wasn’t as gorgeous as Jess and not as likable as Paul, she was intrigued by Mac. He was a man of many secrets. At the same time, he seemed straightforward and solid. Not the kind of guy who broke the rules. Was he dirty?

“You know, Vanessa,” he said softly, “from the first time I saw you, you looked familiar. Have we ever met before?”

“Nope,” she said.

“It seems like you know me.”

At the edge of her alcoholic haze, a warning bell went off. He was very subtly interrogating her, trying to get her to admit to a link between them. He suspected her.

Easily, she slid back into her Vanessa persona. “You and me? Honey, we don’t run in the same circles.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I just am.” Though she didn’t physically move away from him, she tried to create some distance. “And if you’re using this as a pickup line, it’s not very good.”

“I don’t have to pick you up,” he pointed out. “You followed me.”

There was no point in pretending she had come to the Sundown Tavern by coincidence. It had been difficult for Julia to arrange the logistics for this trip while still keeping the other safe house agents in the dark about Abby’s true identity. Though Abby didn’t see the agent who had acted as her chauffeur, she knew he was nearby.

“I didn’t come here because of you,” she said. “I just wanted some fun.”

“But you’re interested in me,” he said.

“What an ego!”

Across the table, Jess and Paul seemed to be observing their interaction with approval.

“When a woman follows a man into town,” Mac said, “there’s usually a reason.”

“What do you know about women?”

She heard snickers from Jess and Paul, but Mac didn’t crack a smile. “I know this,” he said. “Women are good at manipulating. They have these secret agendas. Clever little plans. What’s yours, Vanessa?”

“You know, there’s a word for that attitude. Men who don’t like women. Misogynist.”

“Big word.”

She tossed her platinum curls. “Just because a girl is pretty doesn’t mean she’s dumb.”

“Ouch,” Jess said. “Score another point for Vanessa.”

“Thanks.” When she stood, her knees were a bit rubbery. “I need to visit the little girls’ room.”

She’d made this trip before they’d started drinking, and Abby wished she’d left a trail of bread crumbs to lead her back to the restrooms. The route led past the bar and a small dining area, which was empty, into a hallway. By the time she got to the door marked Gals, she was walking steadily.

But her head was spinning. Mac seemed to suspect her of ulterior motives. Somehow, he’d seen through her cover story. A smart man. And attractive. She was dangerously close to wanting more from him than information.

She had to stop thinking that way. She was a professional and had worked hard to climb through the ranks in the FBI. Mac was her target. There could never be anything between them.

When she placed her hand on the restroom door, she felt someone clutch her shoulder. Acting on instinct, she whirled in her high-heeled boots to break his hold. At the verge of a karate chop, she checked herself. She knew this man. “Leo.”

“I like the hair. You make a sexy blonde.”

When he reached up to touch her curls, she slapped his hand away. Leo Fisher was no longer her fiancé; he had no right to touch her. “I thought you were in the hospital.”

He gestured with a carved ebony cane. “No broken bones. I need some ligament repair on my knee, but it’ll wait.”

“My sympathies,” she said coolly.

His voice lowered. “How long has it been, Abby?”

“Fourth of July. Last year.” The moment when she broke up with him was still vivid in her memory. There was no way she’d ever forgive him. “Tell me why you’re here. And make it fast. I need to get back to the table.”

“I wanted to keep an eye on your boy, Mac Granger. If he’s one of the dirty cops, he might contact the guy I’ve been looking for.”

“This is my assignment.”

“I’ve been working this case for six months, and I’m close to getting enough evidence on the man at the top of the drug distribution chain. He owns a place in Vail. If your friend, Mac, tries to get in touch, let me know.”

“Forget it,” she said.

“Come on. For old times’ sake?”

He was almost pleading, and that worried her more than if he’d come on strong. “Are you supposed to be on this investigation? Does anybody know what you’re doing?”

“I’m undercover. You know how it gets.”

“Yes, I do.” She worried that Leo had come unhinged and was acting on his own as a rogue agent. “I suggest you go back to Denver and get that operation on your knee. Take some time off. Schedule a visit with a counselor.”

He handed her a scrap of paper with a phone number written on it. “Call me on my cell phone if Mac Granger goes to Vail.”

She crumpled the paper and threw it on the hardwood floor. Then, she turned away from him. “Finding your drug lord isn’t my problem.”

Her assignment was Mac.

Chapter Three

In a shabby little diner in Denver, three people hunched around a small circular table. Though it was late and nobody was seated nearby, they spoke in low, secretive tones. The topic of their conversation was Mac Granger.

“If he figures this out, he could screw up everything.”

“Forget about him. He’s stuck in the mountains.”

“My point exactly.” The speaker took a long drag on a Marlboro Light. “He’s close to Vail. If he gets suspicious, he could start making connections.”

Nervous tension wrapped around them like a gloved hand. For the moment, they were safe and warm. At any moment, the hand could open, and they’d be exposed.

“Well, what do you think we should do about Mac? Kill him?” A strangled laugh underlined the absurdity of that idea. “We’re not murderers.”

But the thought had been planted. To kill Mac Granger was the simplest solution. Better him than us.

“I don’t know him,” the smoker said. “You both do. Is he the kind of guy who gives up easily?”

“Never.”

“Then he should be eliminated. I’ll take care of it.”

The other two stared down at their coffee mugs, unwilling to acknowledge the decision, but knowing they had no other choice. Having Mac alive and probably investigating was dangerous.

“Make it look like an accident. I don’t want an investigation.”

“Don’t worry.” The cigarette stubbed out in the ashtray, leaving a wisp of smoke. “I’m a cop. I know better than to leave clues.”

THE NEXT MORNING, Mac stood on the deck behind the safe house finishing his second mug of coffee. A crisp breeze stirred the dry grasses of the valley and quaked in the golden aspen leaves. The clear blue skies offered the fresh promise of a brand-new day. A new start. He should have felt optimistic.

Instead, a series of dark questions played across his mind. Why had he been sent to this safe house to recuperate? Why wouldn’t Vince Elliot, the undercover cop who had been at the warehouse shooting, talk to him? Was Mac under suspicion? Of what?

Last night, he’d called his partner, Sheila, on her cell phone. Though Sheila had all the perceptiveness of a goldfish, she was his partner. She owed him. And she was a good source for gossip. If all her bragging was true, she’d slept with half the Denver P.D. which was probably how she’d gotten promoted to detective so quickly. Without betraying the location of the safe house, Mac had arranged to meet her later today near Redding.

His frustration level rose. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was a good cop. His actions at the warehouse were unfortunate but appropriate. Why the hell would he come under suspicion?

He looked to the mountains for solace. When he was younger, he had loved this land. He and Paul and Jess had taken a blood oath to always stay together in the Rockies. When they were kids, they’d called themselves the Three Trolls, Keepers of the Treasure, and they had ceremoniously buried a shoebox filled with crystal, pyrite and pine cones.

Paul and Jess had lived up to that boyhood oath. Both of them were still here—flourishing and happy.

But not Mac. His vision of life was different. He preferred the in-your-face threat of city life where the scene was constantly evolving and there was a reassuring undercurrent of static noise. All this fresh mountain air was choking him. Last night in bed, he couldn’t sleep; the mountain silence weighed down on him.

After less than twenty-four hours here, he was itching to get back to Denver, back to work. The only thing keeping him here was his suspicion of Vanessa. As soon as he understood what she was doing, everything else would become clear.

He returned to the kitchen where Julia had finished washing the breakfast dishes. Everyone had eaten, except for Vanessa, who hadn’t yet made her appearance. He stood in the kitchen doorway and glanced past the dining room table toward the staircase. Where was she?

He asked Julia, “How long has Vanessa been at the safe house?”

“Only a few hours longer than you.”

“She’s a handful.”

“So are you,” Julia said with a hint of accusation. “In the future, I’d prefer that you didn’t roll into town and get blitzed. This isn’t a frat house, Mac.”

“I wasn’t drinking.”

“But Vanessa was. I had a full report from Roger Flannery.”

“The young guy?” Mac had met Roger Flannery yesterday. He was so new to his job as an FBI agent that he still had the stink of Quantico about him.

“It was good experience for him to keep surveillance last night,” Julia said. “But I don’t want it to happen again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

There was a loud groan from the staircase, and Mac turned to see Vanessa lurch onto the bottom stair. Her skintight leather pants creaked as she wobbled across the floor toward the kitchen. Her blond hair was a fluffy contrast to her pained expression. In spite of her heavy makeup, he saw dark circles under her big, brown eyes.

“Hangover?” he asked brightly.

As she tried to focus on him, her left eyelid twitched. “Aspirin,” she rasped.