Lonesome Lawmen

Five-4

Dani slept restlessly, woke early with tears on her cheeks, the grim remains of yet another nightmare digging into her emotional reserves. The tears were easy to brush away. Exhaustion dug in its heels, refusing to be dislodged by mere will power. What had possessed her to think she could take on the forces of law and disorder for who knew how long? Rosebud had asked the same question quite forcefully last night when her gentle question had loosed the brakes on Dani’s tongue. It had helped to talk about it and Rosebud did have a point. But Rosebud hadn’t stared into Peg’s dead eyes, hadn’t fled a burning house that was supposed to be safe. She hadn’t seen a killer at work on a friend that was supposed to be her—

If Dani went back, she would be back to square one, wondering where and when Dark Lord would strike.

And who would lead him to her.

Dani rubbed her face. “I need my soda.” It wasn’t a cure, but it was better than nothing.

She carried the cold can into the bathroom to get the morning washed away. It took her half way through a second soda before the caffeine level in her blood got high enough to fuel something besides an inclination to whine. She sat down at the kitchen table with a pencil and her trusty idea notebook. She flipped through the pages, looking for a blank one. A couple of sentences on one page caught her eye.

A wish before—

Dani remembered the night she had made it. A dark one. Heavily laced with foreboding. She bit her lip, then with conscious intent, filled in the blank.

A wish before dying.

There, she had faced it. Honesty was always the best policy. She couldn’t compute the odds of surviving, not while she was sleep deprived. She did know they weren’t good—though still better than the odds of getting her wish. She looked at the wish, her mouth twisting in a bitter smile.

Fall in love again.

The romance writer dreaming of romance. She had a better chance of being taken hostage by terrorists and not just because she was over thirty. She tore the sheet out and deposited it in Rosebud’s circular file. Thoughts were not so easily tossed away. A romance writer with no hero was not grounds for expulsion from the league of romance writers.

It was a pity.

With a sigh, she connected her computer to Caro’s telephone line and logged onto the Net as an anonymous user. Once inside, she began threading her call across the world-wide network as carefully she had once placed stitches in a baby quilt.

“Oh yet we trust that somehow good,” she muttered, as she typed in commands, “Will be the final goal of ill!”

When she realized what she was doing, she grinned. Spook, the online spy, had a lot to answer for. He had started a veritable epidemic of quoting across the boards. What was it he’d said, that a good quote was almost as good as a swift kick if properly applied? He sure knew where to apply them. Let’s hope he’d come through with the information she needed—

She saw Spook’s email address come up. With a file attached. Bless the boy. She might have to look him up and thank him for his help in person. What was it he said about friends? Some people go to priests. I go to my friends. Something like that. She couldn’t nail quotes like Spook.

When she finished her thanks to Spook and sent it on its way, she re-logged on as Blossom, hoping for something from her agent. The missive waiting for her wasn’t from Pat. She had knocked around the Internet long enough to recognize the address was from the Justice Department.

Well, well, they had found out faster than she expected. If they had this email address, they could be tracing it to her real time address while she sat marveling at the obvious. She picked up the letter and cut the connection the quick way, by pulling her line out of the wall plug. They could not have traced her in that brief instant, but she fought the urge to look over her shoulder as she pulled the letter up onto her screen. Her gaze went first to his name at the bottom of the note.

Matt Kirby.

At least it wasn’t Neuman or McBride. She scanned the missive quickly, her eyebrows and blood pressure inching higher with each word.

“—stupid to stay away. He was in your hotel room and killed a maid. Get your ass back in protective custody and help us stop Hayes permanently—“

Hayes? Did he mean Dark Lord?

“—and do what you came here to do.” He ended his terse summons with a business and home address, several telephone numbers, and no emotional shorthand. Not that he needed smileys or frowns to get his point across.

She was stupid. He was smart.

She hoped he was smart and not just arrogant. Smart meant he could still be taught a few things.

Like when to tell someone where to take their ass.

And when not to.