Her Cowboy Defender. Kerry Connor

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      Chapter Four

      Cade knew he was capable of being intimidating. He was a big man, and his sheer size alone was enough to inspire a certain wariness in people at times. He didn’t get angry often, certainly not truly angry, but when he did he knew it came across loud and clear. He’d seen more than one ranch hand who’d pulled something over the years cowering in the face of his anger, and after everything this woman had put him through in the past thirty minutes, he was angrier than he’d ever been in his entire life.

       The woman didn’t even blink. She simply stared up at him, her eyes so bleak and tired he almost felt an involuntary twinge of sympathy before he stifled the feeling.

       She gave her head a little shake. “Trust me, you don’t want to be involved any more than you already are.”

       He couldn’t argue with her on that. He didn’t want to be involved in this. But as long as he was, there was no turning back at this point. “So what now, you want me to just leave you here and be on my way?”

       “I would appreciate a ride back to my car so I can call for a tow truck, but I’m sure that’s too much to ask.”

       “Yeah, it is, especially since your friend who was shooting at us is back in that direction. You don’t think he won’t open fire again if he sees us passing by, or he won’t try to make his way to you while you’re waiting for your tow to show up?”

       She frowned, her forehead furrowing, and he could tell she hadn’t thought about it at all. “You’re right. Then if you could take me to the next town, wherever that is—”

       “I’m not going anywhere until I know what’s going on.”

       Alarm flared in her eyes. “But we can’t stay here. What if that man passes by while we’re just standing around—”

       “Then you’d better start talking fast.”

       She scowled at him, her jaw tightening. He could tell she wanted to argue, but must have read in his expression that it wouldn’t do her any good.

       Finally she cleared her throat. “My sister Pam is an FBI agent—”

       “I thought you said your sister’s name is Tara,” he said sharply, wondering if she was lying to him already, if she hadn’t been all along.

       “Tara’s my younger sister. Like I said, she’s only twenty years old. Pam is my twin sister. She’s an FBI agent. Late last year she was assigned to the field office in Dallas.”

       He suddenly realized he didn’t know her name. “What about you? What’s your name?”

       This time she did blink at him. “Oh. It’s Piper. Piper Lowry.”

       He couldn’t have said why, but it suited her. “Okay. Go on.”

       “Two days ago, I was notified that Pam was in a car accident that left her in a coma. I immediately flew to Dallas from Boston—that’s where I live. I went straight to the hospital from the airport. The accident was pretty bad. She’s in stable condition, but the doctors have no idea when she might wake up. I didn’t really get many details about what happened—her doctor made some reference that there was evidence she was driven off the road, but said I should talk to the police. I went there next. The detective I spoke to confirmed that it looked suspicious and said he’d been in contact with the FBI since Pam was a federal agent. He asked if I had any idea who might want to harm her. I told him I didn’t.

       “After that I went to Pam’s house. When I got there, the phone rang. I wasn’t going to answer it, but when the answering machine picked up, this man—older-sounding, with a slight accent—began speaking. He said they knew I was home and that I’d better stop playing games and pick up the phone if I ever wanted to see my sister alive again.

       “I picked up, of course. My first thought was that the man was talking about Pam. I had no idea Tara was missing or in any way involved. The man said he was aware of my accident, which is the only reason he allowed me to miss the original deadline, but he still wanted the information he asked of me.”

       “He thought you were Pam,” Cade concluded.

       “Exactly. Obviously I wasn’t the sister he was talking about, and we only have one other, so I knew he had to be talking about Tara. I immediately asked if Tara was okay, and he said she was for the time being, but wouldn’t be if I didn’t have the information he wanted.”

       “What information?”

       “I had no idea. I couldn’t tell him that, because then he’d know I wasn’t Pam. I was afraid that if he knew she was in a coma and incapable of providing any information, he might decide Tara was no use to him anymore and do something to her. So I said I had it. He told me to check the mailbox. There was an envelope in it with a cell phone they would use to contact me, and he would be in touch with further instructions. He hung up, and I immediately went to the mailbox. The phone was exactly where he said it would be.

       “As soon as I got back in the house, I tried to reach Tara. I hadn’t spoken to her in a few days, which wasn’t unusual. She’s in college in Pennsylvania, and is busy with school and everything. I couldn’t reach her on her cell, but I did get in touch with her roommate. She said Tara left a few days earlier, leaving a note saying she was heading home for a while because her sister was sick. That would have been before Pam’s accident, and nothing had happened to me, so I figured the kidnappers must have left the note so Tara’s disappearance wouldn’t look suspicious and the police wouldn’t be contacted.”

       “Obviously they contacted Pam once they had Tara,” he noted. “She really didn’t give you any idea Tara had been kidnapped? Did she try to reach you? What if you tried to call Tara earlier? You would have known the sick-sister story was a lie.”

       Piper shrugged. “Pam tends to do her own thing and likes to handle matters on her own. She probably thought she could handle the situation herself and get Tara back before I even knew anything had happened. Or else she was so busy dealing with the situation she didn’t have time to think about me.”

       “So did you call the police?”

       She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I didn’t want to do anything to endanger Tara, and I couldn’t trust them not to contact the FBI again, which is the protocol in kidnapping cases, especially one involving multiple states, since she was taken in Pennsylvania, not Texas.”

       “Why didn’t you want to contact the FBI? Your sister works for them.”

       “Exactly. And the information the kidnappers want must be something related to the Dallas field office. Why else would they kidnap the sister of an agent in that office?”

       “So wouldn’t the FBI be the best people to contact? They would know who would want the information so badly and probably be able to figure out who’s behind this and how to stop them.”

       “Except that’s exactly what Pam would have СКАЧАТЬ