Lonesome Lawmen

Four-2

Although Matt’s case wasn’t the only ongoing operation, most of the desks surrounding Matt were empty. Some people actually thought weekends were for play. Not Matt. Courts and judges still needed protection. Prisoners still had to be transported, and fugitives always required rounding up. The wheels of justice ground twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.

Maybe that’s why justice was so screwed up.

Paper drifts covered his desk, getting worse as reports began to filter in from the various tentacles of the investigation. He read each one. Unlike movies, most breaks came from the boring grunt work. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t glamorous. The waiting was the hardest.

In his youth he’d dogged cows and ridden broncs to the buzzer. Getting repeatedly tossed on his butt had taught him how to keep a rein on impatience. Now it took all his honed-under-pressure control to keep reading and making notes when he wanted to be out hunting a woman who read Louis L’Amour and may or may not be dead.

When Alice’s call finally came, he barked into the receiver, “Talk to me, Alice.”

“It’s not her, Matt. Coroner double-checked, then checked again.”

“Get back in here.” He dropped the telephone back in the cradle and leaned back.

She was alive.

Regret for Peg Oliver tempered his elation. She’d died knowing she’d been betrayed by her own. If she was watching somewhere, he hoped she knew she’d kept her witness alive. Surely there was a special place in the next life reserved for the line of duty dead. And one in hell for the people who sent them there.

Matt jumped up, unable to sit now that he knew she was out there. That soon he would see her, not her picture. Soon he’d know if her eyes were a trick the photographer had played with the light or—what was wrong with him? He was acting like a hormonal teen in the throes of his first crush.

He couldn’t do this. He had to stay detached, stay focused to be effective. Neuman had made a lot of mistakes with his op, but the biggest, in Matt’s opinion, had been getting involved with Peg Oliver. Neuman should have moved Gwynne first, not taken his girlfriend to the hospital. Shouldn’t have lingered to hold her hand while she threw her poisoned guts up. If he had, his girl and his men might be alive and Gwynne wouldn’t be missing. No way he’d be following Neuman’s primrose path to failure.

He spun around in his chair. Neuman would have to be told about Oliver, but not yet. Not a good idea to let a suspected rat in the woodpile know the cheese was still out there for the taking.

“Matt?”

Matt hadn’t noticed Henry approaching. “Yeah?”

“Jogger saw someone answering to Oliver’s description sitting in that park at the entrance to the subdivision early this morning.”

Matt muttered an expletive. They probably drove right by—while she sat and watched.

“Did he see where she went?”

“Said she headed down the road towards the bus stop. Riggs has got the PD checking transportation and hotels. We heard from Alice?”

Matt nodded, said as if it didn’t matter, “We still got a witness.”

“Holy—“

“She could still get dead if we don’t reel her in fast. Let’s do our thing. Contact known associates, check her finances. Does she have walking around money? If so, how much?”

Henry looked up from his notes. “What about phone taps?”

Matt hesitated. “We shouldn’t need ‘em, but let’s get the warrants just in case. Get on the horn to Anderson.” The complex process of witness protection wasn’t Matt’s purview, but is was Anderson’s. A good man and honest, he did protection better than anyone Matt knew. No surprise Hayes made his move before Gwynne got tucked under his wing. “Tell him his protection detail isn’t a bust after all. I’ll let Sheridan know.”

Henry grinned. “How did our esteemed Attorney General take the loss of his witness?”

“With the trial starting Monday morning? Same way Democrats took losing Congress. On a long, slow whine.” Matt grinned, then turned it to a frown. “About our boy Neuman—“

“You’re not letting him back in the loop, are you?”

“We need to let him know about Oliver, but not until Gwynne’s safely back in the nest.” And then? A spurt of eagerness was firmly flattened. “Let’s keep him and his guy on hand, just in case we need them.”

Henry looked up with a frown. “Why would we need them?”

“Hayes will have to complete his contract or he’ll have his employer on his butt.” It was as inevitable as death and taxes that the mob punished failure quickly and permanently. Local mob boss, Bates, the man suspected of footing the bill for Richard Hastings, was not known for making exceptions to this rule.

Henry arched his thin brows to his receding hairline. “Anderson ain’t gonna let you set his witness up as a clay pigeon. Or our excitable attorney general.”

“She’s already a pigeon.” Matt shrugged. “And Anderson’s got a wife and kids he’s gonna want to see again.”

“Hayes is that good?”

“Read his file again. Show me where he’s ever missed his mark and then tell me he’s not that good. Besides, we don’t have to put Gwynne in harm’s way, just make him think she is.”

“You think he’ll decoy twice?” Henry looked doubtful.

“If we control his source and Bates keeps the pressure on him, what are his options?”

Henry looked thoughtful. “It could work.”

“Anderson needs to take a good, hard look at the logistics of the place they had on tap for Gwynne. And we need to find something like, well—“

“A web?”

Matt smiled. “Yeah. A web.” He leaned back in his chair, his body tense with the anticipation of action. Hayes was so close, he could almost reach out and touch him. The beauty was, they wouldn’t even have to hunt for the bastard. Hayes would come to them. Once they had Dani Gwynne.

The romance writer and the hit man. Now there was a title for a book.

Hayes was a man with a mission. He had to find Dani Gwynne and finish the job and he had to do it quickly. Bates did not like failure. Hayes didn’t like what Bates did to failures. Not that Hayes knew how to fail, even if Bates weren’t in the picture. He couldn’t let Dani Gwynne escape her death. Each piece in the puzzle of his existence fit into the other. Remove one piece and the whole came apart.

She was his missing piece.