Identity: Unknown. Suzanne Brockmann

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      “Dirty laundry goes into this basket over here,” the shelter worker trumpeted. “If it’s labeled, you’ll get it back. If it’s torn, throw it out and take two.” The worker looked up at him. “What size do you need?”

      “Medium.” It was something of a relief to finally know the answer to a question.

      “You in need of jeans?”

      He looked down. The black pants he was wearing were badly torn. “I could use some, yeah. Thirty-two waist, thirty-four inseam, if you’ve got ’em.” He knew that, too.

      “You’re the one Jarell called the Mission Man,” the shelter worker remarked as he searched through the box.

      “He’s a good guy—Jarell. A little too religious for my taste, but that wouldn’t bother you, would it? He’s always giving everyone nicknames. Mission Man. Mish. What kind of name is Mish anyway?”

      His name. It was… his name? It was, but it wasn’t. He shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to remember his name.

      Dammit, he couldn’t even remember his name.

      “Here’s a pair what’s got a thirty-three-inch waist,” the shelter worker told him. “That’s the best I can do for you, Mish.”

      Mish. He took the jeans, briefly closing his eyes so that the room would stop spinning around him, calming himself. So what if he couldn’t remember his name? It would come back to him. With a good night’s sleep, it would all come back to him.

      He told himself that again and again, using it like a mantra. He was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine. All he needed was a chance to close his eyes.

      He went into the corner of the room, out of the line of traffic around the sinks and stalls, and started to pull off one of his boots.

      He quickly pulled it back on again.

      He was carrying a side arm. A .22-caliber.

      In his boot.

      It was slightly larger than palm-sized, black and deadly looking. There was something else in his boot, too. He could feel it now, pressing against his ankle.

      He took his jeans into one of the stalls, locking the door behind him. Slipping off the boot, he looked inside. The .22 was still there, along with an enormous fold of cash—all big bills. There was nothing smaller than a hundred in the thick rubber-banded wad.

      He flipped through it quickly. He was carrying more than five thousand dollars in his boot.

      There was something else there, too. A piece of paper. There was writing on it, but his vision swam, blurring the letters.

      He took off the other boot, but there was nothing in that one. He searched the pockets of his pants, but came up empty there, too.

      He stripped off his pants and pulled on the clean jeans, careful to brace himself against the metal wall the entire time. His world was tilting, and he was in constant danger of losing his balance.

      He slipped his boots back on, somehow knowing how to position the weapon so that it wouldn’t bother him. How could he know that, know what size jeans he wore, yet not know his own name? He put most of the money and the piece of paper back in his boot as well, leaving several hundred dollars in the front pocket of his jeans.

      He came face-to-face with his reflection in the mirror when he opened the door of the stall.

      Even dressed in clean clothes, even washed up, long, dark hair slicked back with water, even pale and gray from the pain that still pounded through his battered body, he looked like a man most folks would take a wide detour around. His chin had a heavy growth of stubble, accentuating his already sun-darkened complexion. His black T-shirt had been washed more than once and had shrunk slightly. It hugged his upper body, outlining the muscles of his chest and arms. He looked like a fighter, hard and lean.

      Whatever he really did for a living, he still couldn’t remember. But considering that .22 he had hidden in his boot, he could probably cross kindergarten teacher off the list of possibilities.

      Rolling up his torn pants, he tucked them under his arms. He pushed open the men’s-room door and skirted the room where breakfast and temperance were being served. Instead, he headed directly for the door that led to the street.

      On his way out, as he passed the shelter’s donation box, he dropped a hundred-dollar bill inside.

      * * *

      “Mr. Whitlow! Wait!”

      Rebecca Keyes headed for Silver at a dead run, swinging herself up into the saddle and digging her boots into the big gelding’s sides. Silver surged forward, in hot pursuit of the gleaming white limousine that was pulling down the dude ranch’s dirt driveway.

      “Mr. Whitlow!” She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled piercingly, and finally the vehicle slowed.

      Silver blew out a loud burst of air as she reined him in next to the almost absurdly stretched-out body of the car. With a faint mechanical whine, the window came down and Justin Whitlow’s ruddy face appeared. He didn’t look happy.

      “I’m sorry, sir,” Becca said breathlessly from her perch atop Silver. “Hazel told me you were leaving, that you were going to be gone a month and I…I wish you had informed me earlier, sir. We have several things to discuss that can’t wait an entire month.”

      “If this is more of your wages garbage—”

      “No, sir—”

      “Thank God.”

      “—because it’s not garbage. It’s a very real problem we’re having here at the Lazy Eight. We’re not paying the ranch hands enough money, so they’re not sticking around. Did you know we’ve just lost Rafe McKinnon, Mr. Whitlow?’

      Whitlow stuck a cigarette between his lips, squinting up at her as he lit it. “Hire someone new.”

      “That’s what I’ve been doing with staff turnovers,” she said with barely concealed frustration. “Hiring someone new. And someone else new. And…” She drew in a deep breath and tried her best to sound reasonable. “If we’d simply paid someone solid and responsible like Rafe another two or three dollars an hour—”

      “Then he would’ve asked for another raise next year.”

      “Which he would have deserved. Frankly, Mr. Whitlow, I don’t know where I’m going to find another stable hand like Rafe. He was a good man. He was reliable and intelligent and—”

      “He was obviously overqualified. I wish him luck at his next endeavor. We don’t need to hire rocket scientists, for God’s sake. And how reliable do you need a man to be, to shovel—”

      “Mucking out the stalls is only a small part of the job description,” Becca countered hotly. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down again. She’d СКАЧАТЬ