Covert Cowboy. Harper Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ wasn’t on the take,” he drawled. He met her eyes. “I’d have known if he was. Charpentier’s my best friend—in fact, I visited him earlier today, just before I caught my flight to Denver.”

      Her gaze wavered. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions,” she muttered. “So how did the Marshalls lose Helio, or Lio, as he now calls himself?”

      Instead of answering her question, Con asked one of his own. “Everyone’s heard about the Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, but do you know what our other big day is, cher’?”

      Annoyance reappeared on her features. “The name’s Wellesley, Burke. And no, I don’t know. I also don’t care.”

      “You should,” he informed her. “Because there’s a kind of poetic justice involved you might appreciate. Our other big observance is November the first. Today,” he added softly. “The Day of the Dead, when we visit the graves of our loved ones and remember how much they meant to us.”

      He glanced down at the yellow flower in his lapel. “The custom is to lay chrysanthemums by the headstone and have a little chat with the deceased.” He shrugged. “Some families even bring a picnic lunch, make a day of it. I didn’t have time to do that so I just laid my flowers down and made the same vow I always do.”

      “Charpentier’s dead, isn’t he?” Belated comprehension filled Colleen’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Burke, I didn’t know. What’s the vow you make?”

      “That I’m going to take down the bastard who killed him. That I’m going to take down Helio DeMarco.”

      Con flipped the silver dollar into the air. It flashed upward and then tumbled down again, throwing off glints of light before he one-handedly caught it. Slapping his palm and the coin in it flat against the pine bar, he looked at her.

      “Call it,” he said tonelessly.

      She raised an eyebrow. “Heads.”

      He lifted his hand. “Tails. I’ll work with Colorado Confidential, cher’, but on my own terms. No boss, no partners, no rules.”

      “No deal,” Colleen riposted. She turned to Wiley. “For God’s sake, Longbottom, this is the maverick you’re considering to head the New Or—”

      “I think you should take him up on his offer.” Con heard a hint of steel in the DPS director’s normally mild tones. “If Burke says he’ll deliver Helio to Colorado Confidential he will. Right now that’s all that matters—especially since this whole thing could blow up in our faces if it’s not taken care of quickly.”

      “How’s that?” Con frowned at his friend, but Colleen answered him before Wiley could speak.

      “We think one of the Langworthys has gone over to the other side,” she said coldly. “There was always a possibility Sky’s kidnappers had help from a member of the family, and with what we’ve found out about Helio’s involvement, that now seems to be a certainty. A former intern of a certain Senator Franklin Gettys, Nicola Carson, came close to being killed by a DeMarco hit man when she discovered a link between the senator, the mobster and a mysterious chemical mist that was being tested on sheep at Gettys’s ranch, the Half Spur. Fibers found in Sky’s crib after his abduction came from the type of sheep on the Half Spur. And Gettys’s ex-wife, Helen Kouros, gave us information she copied on a disk from the Half Spur’s computer that backs up our belief that some kind of bio-weapons research is being done there.”

      She paused. “But you guessed about the Q-fever virus, didn’t you? I’d forgotten—Wiley’s ‘conscience’ recommended we look into the flu that swept Silver Rapids earlier this year.”

      “I told him it might be worthwhile to check out any recent influenza-like outbreaks that might have occurred in the area,” Con said. “Since I didn’t realize this investigation was centered in Colorado I wasn’t aware there’d been one in Silver Rapids. But it fits. DeMarco’s always been intrigued by nerve gas, biological weaponry, that kind of thing. He’s responsible for at least six murders I know of that were passed off as deaths from natural causes, and Roland’s was one of them.”

      He hoped his voice revealed none of the pain that suddenly swept through him. A vision filled his mind of Roland’s lifeless body, slumped over his desk, his hand still gripping the silver pen that had released the deadly vapor which had instantly killed him. That pen had been given to him by Helio DeMarco, it had later been established.

      He felt a muscle in his jaw tighten. With difficulty he posed his next questions.

      “But where’s the connection between DeMarco and the Langworthys? And which Langworthy is under suspicion, anyway?”

      “The Ice Queen.” Colleen’s voice hardened. “Marilyn Langworthy, Holly’s half sister and Sky’s aunt. Her nickname’s apt. Even pregnancy hasn’t thawed her out.”

      She was pregnant.

      Just for a moment Con let himself imagine how he would feel if there was any possibility that the child she was carrying could be his, and fierce joy shafted through him, so powerful and piercing it felt like pain. He wrenched himself back to reality.

      She’d had his body. Whether she ever knew it or not, she had his heart and his soul. But the one thing he was incapable of giving Marilyn Langworthy or any woman was a child, he thought bleakly.

      So the baby she was carrying had to be—

      “We believe that the father of her child is a certain Tony Corso.” Colleen frowned. “Since you’re an expert on DeMarco, you probably know Corso’s his nephew.”

      Con reached for the bottle of bourbon and poured himself a second shot, more to have something to do than because he needed another drink. He tossed it back.

      Marilyn was pregnant, and by a man who’d walked out of her life. Since earlier this year his own investigation into Corso as a lead to DeMarco had failed to turn up the mobster’s nephew, he didn’t need Wellesley to fill him in on Corso’s absence, he thought grimly as she continued talking, just as he hadn’t needed her to fill him in on a number of other details. He wasn’t going to tell her that. His flying visit to Denver three months ago, including what had happened between him and Marilyn that night in her office, was none of Colorado Confidential’s business and he intended to keep it that way.

      There were other aspects to his involvement with this case that he had no intention of sharing, he admitted. Wiley almost certainly knew some of them, but it seemed he hadn’t felt the need to alert Colleen Wellesley to the situation, so that was all right.

      That was the only thing that was all right.

      Marilyn Langworthy had had an ill-advised affair—an affair she’d later regretted, judging from her assessment of Corso that night in her office—with a man who had connections to a mobster, unbeknownst to her. She gave the impression of being standoffish and unemotional.

      If Colleen Wellesley or Longbottom or anyone else associated with Colorado Confidential thought they could hang her out to dry for reasons as flimsy as those, Con thought savagely, it would be his pleasure to set them straight right now. Even as he opened his mouth to speak, Wiley put a hand on his arm.

      “If that were all we had on her we’d just keep her under surveillance on the off-chance she could lead us to DeMarco. But there’s more. It’s pretty damning.”

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