24 Karat Ammunition

“I have to go back to Dallas,” she said. “I have to see Selena’s boyfriend. Enrico will fall apart when he gets the news. They were so in love.”

“Going back to Dallas is not a good idea.”

“It’s where I live. And there’s the boutique. I have to check on it.”

“I can have someone go to the shop and put up a Closed sign. The cops probably have it staked off with crime scene tape anyway, and I’m sure they’ll be looking for you by now.”

She shuddered. “To talk to me, or to kill me?”

“Hopefully just to talk, and, remember, you don’t have any real proof that Gary Packard was the guy who broke into your house. You admitted he had on a mask that hid all his facial features.”

“So what do you think I should do?”

“Talk to a lawyer.”

Her head spun. She didn’t need a lawyer. This was all some horrible mistake, what Selena would call… But Selena was dead. The pain gripped her again, leaving her so shaken she could barely think. “I have to call Enrico.”

“You can call him, but I think it’s best if you don’t tell anyone that you’ll be staying at Jack’s Bluff.”

For a second she thought she’d heard him wrong. Only the words were still there, rumbling through her mind, prying loose old memories. “I can’t go to your family’s ranch.”

“You have a better idea?”

None came to mind. But she couldn’t become that entangled with Langston. It was too risky—for lots of reasons. She’d go with him, but only to pick up Gina. After that, she’d have to handle this on her own.

Back to Jack’s Bluff. Back to the memories. Back to Langston. This was the last thing she needed now. And the only thing that made sense.

THEY LEFT TRISH’S RENTAL at the camp and took the Porsche to Jack’s Bluff. Langston kept his eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel as he dealt with I-45 traffic and talked into the hands-free phone. This was his fifth call from Melvin since they’d left Dallas. The timing for being out of the office couldn’t be worse. “We’ll need a full risk analysis on that project,” he said as passed an eighteen-wheeler that was hogging the road.

“Do you want it done in-house?”

“No. Hire the risk analysis consultant we used on the last project. She nailed the political implications on the head.”

“Angie McLaughlin. I’ll give her a call today.”

“And get me the latest data on Delaney’s drilling project off the Louisiana coast. I’d hoped to have that up and pumping before hurricane season.”

“I talked to Delaney this morning. He’s blaming everyone but the Pope for the delays. Says he’ll need at least two more weeks and that’s only if the tropical storm in the Atlantic doesn’t move into the Gulf.”

“In the meantime he’s running seriously over budget.”

“I reminded him of that. Guess that’s it for now. Oh, except that Lynnette said to tell you that the governor’s PR rep called. He wants you to attend an official dinner on August twelfth with representatives from the Saudi government who’ll be in Houston to discuss the global energy market.”

“Have Lynnette check my calendar. If the date’s open, tell her to accept the invitation.” Lynnette Billings had been with the company for at least twenty years, working for his grandfather before she’d become Langston’s personal secretary. He’d hate to tackle the job of running Collingsworth Oil without her.

“That’s it for now,” Melvin said. “Will you be in this afternoon?”

“Probably not, but you can reach me by phone if something else comes up.”

“Anything I can do to help you with whatever it is you’re dealing with?”

“No, it’s under control.” That wasn’t quite the truth, but Langston had no intentions of bringing Melvin in on this. He never liked mixing business with his personal life.

Not that personal accurately described his relationship with Trish. She was more stranger than anything else at this point. She’d cried in his arms at the lake, but she’d retreated back into a shell of a silence since they’d been on the road.

“You seem to have a lot of responsibility with Collingsworth Oil,” Trish said, speaking for the first time in the past thirty miles.

“I’m a very hands-on president.”

“President of Collingsworth Oil? At your age? I’m impressed.”

“It helps when your family owns the company.”

“Is your grandfather still CEO?”

“He was until he had a stroke three weeks ago.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

“No one seems to have a definitive answer on that. His body’s mending, but his mind seems to have shut down.”

“I hate to hear that. He was always so in tune with everything.”

“Right up to the time of the stroke.”

She shifted in her seat, turning so that she could look at him. He met her gaze for a second before turning back to the road. Her eyes were slightly swollen from her earlier tears, making her look incredibly vulnerable.

“Does your family know that you’re bringing me to the ranch?”

“I explained the situation to Matt.”

“And did he tell you that you were crazy to become involved in my problems?”

“It seems the word crazy might have been bandied about. But don’t worry about Matt. He likes to give advice, but he’d have done the same in my situation.”

His cell phone rang again. Celeste. Damn. He should have called her before now, but it had completely slipped his mind. He took the call. “Good morning, Celeste. I was just about to ring you.”

“I tried to get you, but your line was busy.”

“Taking care of business.”

“When are you coming home?”

“I’m headed that way as we speak.”

“Good. Shall I get dinner reservations for tonight or would you like to order in?”

“Best not to plan on me for dinner. I have to stop off at the ranch and I may be late getting into town.”

“You’re going to the ranch again?”

“Sorry. It can’t be helped.”

“Very well. I’ll make other plans. So was the abduction business a scam as I suspected?”

“Quite the contrary, but Trish is okay now. I’ll explain everything when I see you.”

“Whenever that might be. Don’t get so involved with playing hero to this woman that you forget the fund-raiser Mother is hosting for the governor on Saturday night. She’d be terribly disappointed if you weren’t there.”

“I wouldn’t want to miss the governor.” He said his goodbyes, and then glanced at Trish. She was staring straight ahead, the muscles in her face and neck showing the strain of the past few days. There was no way this had been a simple carjacking, but it wasn’t a scam, either—at least not on Trish’s part. The answers to all of this had to lie in that missing video.

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