“Thanks.” She closed her eyes, listened to Bergen shout instructions to the assembled police, and hoped the someone who would drive her was not Moen. With her ribs, she didn’t think she could survive a trip down the mountain at the same breakneck speed they’d come up.
A man’s warm, reassuring voice spoke close beside her, “Don’t worry. I’m here.”
Familiar, but definitely not Moen.
Without hesitation, the guy slid an arm around her waist, down under her butt and handled her out of the patrol car.
She opened her eyes wide.
Oh. Now she knew who it was.
Stag Denali. Bouncer. Enforcer. A Native American with rumored connections to the Mob. A man who had served time for murder. The guy who was bringing a casino to the local reservation. Rainbow had once expressed a wish to see him running through the forest naked. Kateri had … in a figurative sense.
She looked up into those dark, inscrutable eyes … eyes she had seen wild with lust and need and satisfaction. “What are you doing here?”
His smooth tones held an undercurrent of amusement. “I was out for a pleasure cruise through the scenic Olympic Mountains and came upon this scene, and like any good citizen I thought I should offer assistance.”
“Bullshit.”
“Okay, you got me. I was listening on the police scanner and decided I wanted in on the fun.”
She judged that was bullshit, too. Stag Denali wasn’t one of those guys who needed to join a police chase for his jollies. He’d already had plenty of excitement in his life. “Citizens who impede police action are a pain in the rear.”
“I impeded nothing. Just tagged along and avoided the collision.” He led her toward a gorgeous sedan. Really gorgeous. A Tesla … Expensive, too. He stopped beside the passenger door. “Here we are.”
Stag’s car, like the Terrances’, was low-slung, fast and black, but where theirs had silver glitter in the paint, his was smooth with an undertone of dark, dark green that seemed to reflect the cool depths of the forest. “Nice,” she mumbled. “New?”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t drive it on gravel roads.”
“Today I got a chip in the windshield.” He opened the passenger door and supported her as she lowered herself onto the seat. He lifted her feet inside, took her walking stick and shut the door. As he walked around the hood, she watched and thought it was one of God’s little ironies to build a Native American into the living embodiment of John Wayne, all long legs, narrow hips, broad shoulders and calm confidence.
Stag opened the driver’s door and suavely slid in.
Could the action of getting your butt into a car be described as suave?
Probably not. But Stag made it work for him. Maybe he was a mashup of John Wayne and James Bond …
She must be getting punchy from heat, pain and loss of blood. She pressed her hand hard against her ribs. Hot. Inflamed. That couldn’t be good.
“Take this,” he said.
She opened her eyes to see him holding a pill in the palm of one hand and a bottle of water in the other.
“What is it?”
“Percocet for the pain.”
“Percocet is a prescription drug. How did you get it?”
“I strained a groin muscle lifting my girlfriend up against the door so I could bang her brains out.” He stared meaningfully at her. “She’s a tall woman, I’d guess five-eleven.”
She plucked the pill out of his palm. “Not since the hip replacements. Now I’m maybe five-nine.” She swallowed the pill with a long drink of water. “The strained muscle? Was it worth it?”
“Yes.” He lowered her seat all the way back. “If you weren’t bleeding and looking like a ghost, I would lift you up on the hood and do it again, strained muscle or no.”
The guy might be a crook. But damn, he was charming. If only she didn’t have this ugly suspicion floating in the back of her mind …
Since the day Stag had strolled into Virtue Falls, he had been surrounded by a firestorm of gossip. Gossip about his past, about the casino, and inevitably, gossip about them.
They’d slept together. Which was nobody’s business but their own—except at the time, she had been running for office and that made it everyone’s business. In a small town where prejudice ran deep, electing a female sheriff had been a huge step. Electing a Native American female sheriff had been groundbreaking. Electing a woman who slept with the guy, also Native American, in charge of building a casino on the reservation … from here she could see beacon fires of indignation blazing all up and down the coast.
But none of that was why she felt conflicted about Stag Denali.
He pulled a blanket out of the duffel bag in the back and wrapped it around her. “Going to ask me why I carry a blanket?” He sounded testy.
“Emergency kit?”
He placed his index finger on her nose. “Right you are.”
She should ask him what he’d been doing outside the window of the Oceanview Café at the time of the drive-by. Why, before the shooting started, he dove toward the ground. Why, although bullets riddled the pavement, the sidewalk, the trees in the park and the building, he hadn’t been hit.
Virtue Falls was a small town. Gossip ran rife. Yet no one seemed to think anything suspicious about Stag Denali’s miraculous escape. Except Kateri.
And she was the last person who should be having doubts.
CHAPTER FOUR
“What’s wrong? You look funny. Are you going to vomit?” Stag looked around at his wonderfully glossy, polished wood interior. “Because this is a new car with all-leather seats and I can open the door in a hurry.”
Clearly a man who kept his priorities straight. The breeze of the air conditioner grabbed her, and Kateri shivered. “I’m cold.”
He touched her forehead. “You’re clammy.” He started the car and flipped on her seat heater. “You were in a wreck. You’re in shock.”
“None of the other officers are in shock.” Testy. She was testy.
“No one else was shot four days ago.”
She put her hand on her side. “It’s nothing.”
“I’ve been shot. It’s never nothing.” He put the car in reverse, made an efficient three-point turn and headed toward town. “It’ll take us about an hour, hour and a half to get to the hospital, so close your eyes and try to get some sleep.”
“I want to know what’s happening.” She sounded like a fretful child.
One hand on the wheel, he reached around and clicked a switch. The police scanner blared to life, then faded, then blared, then faded, but from the jumble of voices, the news didn’t sound good. “In these mountains, it’ll be in and out, mostly out.” He reached back again and clicked it off.
“Why do you have a police scanner?”
“I like to keep track of my girlfriend.”
Her mind clicked along to the next thought. “John Terrance has a police scanner, doesn’t he?”
“Most likely.”
“We could … do something with that information. Something … sneaky. Fill the scanner with misinformation.”
“Isn’t that as likely to confuse your men as John Terrance?”
“We have a secure channel … you didn’t hear that.” She took a couple of breaths and felt herself relax.
“John Terrance will likely figure out what you’re doing.”
“Yes, but maybe that’ll help us catch him and even if it doesn’t, won’t he be frustrated?”