To the Limit (40 page)

They'd just accepted her into their home. Miriam had said, "You look all done in, sweetheart. How about a little something to eat and then let's get you to bed?"

It was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for her— with the exception of Billie getting her away from Lance and bringing her here.

And they didn't seem to mind that she didn't have much to say. They just accepted her.

"The chicken is delicious," she said, and that simple statement was rewarded with a smile from Miriam that was so enfolding, it brought tears to Tiffany's eyes.

"Thank you, dear. Sure you don't want some more?"

"No, thank you. I'm full."

She'd like to have some more. It was the first thing that had sounded or tasted good for days. She'd heaved her guts out on and off for twenty-four hours as her body purged all the poison from her system. She wasn't feeling all that great yet and was afraid the chicken might come right back up along with the mashed potatoes and the sweet corn that Miriam had grown in her own garden last summer, then frozen.

Yeah. On the way to the Campbell ranch, she'd been dog sick. One hit of weed would have put her out of her misery. But she hadn't smoked a joint. And she wasn't going to. She wasn't going to do any drugs anymore. No matter how much it hurt.

Instead, she was going to OD on all this peace and acceptance Billie had given her. She sat back and listened as the Campbell's caught up with Billie on what he'd been doing. Where he'd been. He told them—leaving out the part about Lance and Abe.

So, this was family, Tiffany thought, and smiled when Billie caught her eye as he and his father talked horse lineage, summer wheat, and winter feed. Tomorrow, if she was up to it and it didn't rain, Billie was going to take her horseback riding. She was excited. And surprised by it. She hadn't been excited about anything for longer than she could remember.

The Campbell quarter horses weren't like the horses she'd ridden in competition. They were shorter, stockier, less high-strung. But there were some beauties with soft brown eyes and sweet dispositions. She'd seen them grazing in the pasture along the drive when a foreman from a neighboring ranch who had given her and Billie a ride had dropped them off. She couldn't wait to ride again, even though it made her sad to think of her horses. She wondered about them often. If they were being cared for properly. And felt guilty for not checking in on them for so long.

With determination, she drew herself away from those worrisome thoughts. Billie was going to take her hiking soon, too. The Campbell ranch butted right up against Bryce Canyon National Park. It was rugged and mountainous and all beautiful rust- and cinnamon-colored peaks and valleys full of towering formations Billie called hoodoos.

Billie was sort of beautiful, too, she'd decided. He had pretty brown eyes, like his mother's. Had her beautiful smile, too, when he let himself give in to it. His mom and dad teasingly called him Pencil Boy, but Tiffany liked the long, lanky look of him.

She thought that maybe he was starting to like her, too. Just the way she was. With Billie she didn't feel the need to hide who she was behind rainbow hair colors and body piercings. Last night, he'd taken her outside to see the sky. It had been full of stars. Had made her eyes full of stars, and when he'd looked at her he'd said so—and blushed. And then he'd told her she was pretty.

"Excuse me," Jas said when the phone rang.

He rose from the dinner table to answer it, and Tiffany thought back to Mesquite. Back to when she'd offered Billie sex as payment for what he'd done for her. At first, when he'd said no, she'd been embarrassed. And then, instead of feeling the familiar panic of rejection, she'd experienced a flooding warmth, a tentative sense of peace, and decided to go with the feeling. To trust Billie Campbell, who didn't want anything from her but for her to be safe. It had made her feel warm all over.

She still felt that way. When Billie looked at her. When Miriam or Jas smiled at her.

Again, the thought came to her. This was a home. And though she knew it couldn't be, she wished she could paint herself permanently into the warmth of this simple, homespun picture.

She was being selfish by even staying here. She knew that. She didn't know if Lance was looking for her even now. But she did know that he planned to kill her if he found her.

She was surprised to realize that very little pain accompanied that knowledge. Fear, yes. But not pain. She'd thought she loved Lance. Looking around at the Campbells, though, she realized what love really was. It wasn't what she'd felt for Lance. Panic. That's what she'd felt. The panicky need to feel even the pretense of love in the guise of sex and muddied by the drugs she'd let Lance bully her into using.

The shame was almost worse than the worry.

She should leave. She should get as far away from these nice people as she could. What if someone came after her here? What if the Campbells got hurt because of her?

The only thing she knew for certain was that someone wanted her dead. She didn't understand it. Couldn't even comprehend it. And she didn't know where to go even if she left here.

Kat? Kat would take care of her. She didn't doubt that for a minute. But Kat had a life. She didn't need her hanging around her neck like a ball and chain. Once Tiffany would have turned to Eve. But Eve had deserted her. It still hurt.

A few more days,
she promised herself. She'd just stay here a few more days. Until she was a little stronger. Until she could figure out what to do.

Until she could reason out who had hired Lance Reno to kill her.

"That was odd," Jas Campbell said, returning to the table. "That was Jed."

"What's up?" Miriam asked. "Trouble with the trail ride today?"

"No." Jasper rubbed his jaw. "Jed said someone was looking for me today. Said that his father and mine were old friends and he'd promised to look me up since he was in the area."

"Really? Who could that be, do you think?"

Jas shook his head. "Beats me. Jed said he got to wondering about it, too ... figured later that he probably knew most of my friends and got to feeling uneasy about it. Said he gave them directions to our place. Figured they ought to be heading out here about now and thought maybe he'd better warn me."

Tiffany felt her blood run cold. She'd heard that expression. Had never before known what it meant. Now she did.

Her entire body felt like ice. Her lips felt frozen. What if it wasn't a friend of Mr. Campbell? What if it was Lance?

"B ... Billie?"

Billie looked at her, read the fear in her eyes, and realized what she was thinking.

"We need to tell them now," Billie said quietly.

She swallowed and slowly nodded.

Chapter 26

It was around four that afternoon
when Eve's cell rang. They were on the road to the Campbell ranch, watching the weather and wondering if they'd make the ranch before the rain that was predicted for the area started falling. She checked the number and recognized it as Ethan's.

"Hey, big brother."

"Are you sitting down?"

"Yessss," she said, drawing the word out slowly. Beside her in the passenger seat, McClain gave her a curious look. "I take it I'm going to be glad?"

"Bob came through. He got a lead on Jazelle Taylor."

Jazelle, the EA with no past. "Shoot."

"Let me see if I can summarize. But I've got to back up first. You know that Clayborne isn't only a Donald Trump-type entrepreneur. In addition to his real estate ventures and his computer tech businesses Clayborne was heavily into firearms manufacturing."

"Yes," she said impatiently as the Jeep bounced over a deep rut in the road. "I know all that."

"You also know he was connected politically—that's why you were pulled into civilian protection for Tiffany. OK. This gets a little convoluted, so just hear me out."

"It turns out, Clayborne used to be something of a loose cannon in the thrills department. Thought of himself as a John Wayne-type patriot when, in fact, he was dealing with illegal international gun exports for years."

"Illegal?"

"Gleason pulled some strings. Got some sealed files unsealed. Anyway, Clayborne was a huge financial campaign contributor to the president and, as a supporter of his administration, was privy to the inner political circle. There was a huge problem—still is for that matter—in illegal arms shipments out of Bulgaria."

"The country's been known for years as a hotbed for illegal arms brokering," she agreed.

"Right. Well, since Clayborne was in the business, the administration asked him how, if he were to illegally manufacture and ship arms to potential buyers, he would go about it, what contacts he would use, et cetera, hoping he could help them break the traffic.

"What happened next was that Clayborne convinced them that he could find the breaches by working undercover, which he did for several years. Still with me?"

"Yeah."

"Those two men you killed during the abduction attempt?"

Eve glanced in the rearview mirror, drew a deep breath. "Yeah—Bob told me they were foreign nationals from Bulgaria."

"Well, these particular men had no overt connections to any particular terrorist organization, but the consensus is that they may have gotten on to Clayborne's covert work for the U.S. government. The attack on Tiffany was a message to Clayborne to back off if he didn't want those around him hurt."

Her fingers tightened on the wheel. "Why didn't I know any of this? Why didn't anyone tell me? It was my case."

"You forget. You were fired."

"I resigned," she reminded him.

"Right. In any event, you were out of the loop. Besides, they couldn't prove that Clayborne was double-dipping. Either way, they figure he must have heeded the supposed 'message,' because it was about that time that he became the reclusive, eccentric, agoraphobic hermit we've grown to love and has holed up in his suite of offices ever since."

"OK. Let me see if I've got this. You're saying Clayborne had been playing both ends against the middle."

"Right. He'd been feeding the U.S. enough info to make them think he was legit and working for the cause while he was actually brokering his own illegal arms deals for both profit and the thrill of the danger with the Bulgarians."

"So the attempt to abduct Tiffany was, in effect, a warning from the Bulgarians who had gotten on to him but who didn't want to lose him as a source of their gun trafficking."

"You got it. But things went wrong. You foiled the abduction attempt. And the two men you killed? Petrov Yanev and Stayon Georgiev? They were the son and son-in-law of the head of the Bulgarian organization, Alexandrov Yanev.

"Eve," he said as her heart fell over itself. "Stayon was married to Alexandrov's daughter, Bianca."

It was like waiting for another shoe to drop. And then it did.

"We have reason to believe that Bianca Georgiev is behind the threats on your life. Probably, she's behind Tiffany's situation, too."

"And do we know where she is?"

"Well, for the past few months, she's been in West Palm. Working as Richard Edwards's EA."

Oh my God.
"Jazelle Taylor." She closed her eyes, then dragged her hand through her hair.
Revenge.
"So. We have our motive. She wants me dead because I killed her husband and brother."

"It would seem so."

"But why the theatrics? Why this long-drawn-out drama?"

"Only Bianca has the answer to that one. Are you still there?"

"Yeah. But I'm starting to have a little trouble hearing you," she said as static drowned him out. "Must be losing the signal."

Ethan's response was choppy. She heard bits and pieces, but what came through loud and clear was, "Stay with McClain. And don't be a goddamn hero."

And then the call dropped.

"I picked up bits and pieces, but you want to fill me in?"

She glanced at McClain. Then back at the road. Then she nutshelled it for him.

"Christ."

"Yeah."

They pondered the impact of Ethan's news in silence as they continued down the rough rural road. Mud gray clouds built and boiled up beyond the mountain range the closer they got to the Campbell ranch. Beside her in the seat, McClain closed his eyes and absently rubbed his bad knee. Trust him to keep the pain to himself.