Black Canyon Conspiracy Read online

  “They fought like wildcats,” one of the bystanders offered. “It was really something.”

  “Did you know these men?” the male officer asked. “Had you ever seen them before?”

  Lauren shook her head. She was pretty sure the man who’d gone after Sophie had worked for Richard Prentice, but she’d share that information with the Rangers, who were more likely to take her seriously.

  “The one who went after Sophie was a big guy, with very short blond hair and a cleft chin,” she said. “I never saw the guy who went after me, but they were both in a white van. The kind service companies use, but this one didn’t have a name or logo or anything on it.”

  “The man who attacked my sister looked like a wrestler,” Sophie said. “Dark hair, not too tall—maybe five-eight or five-nine?”

  “Did either of you see a license plate on the van?” the male officer asked.

  Lauren shook her head.

  “I took a picture,” a woman volunteered. She stepped forward to show her cell phone.

  The officer studied it. “Looks as if they’ve smeared mud on the plate, but send it over and our techs will see if they can make out anything.”

  The officers interviewed bystanders and the store manager, and took down Sophie’s and Lauren’s contact information. When Lauren gave her name, the female officer did a double take. “You’re that newscaster who had that run-in with Richard Prentice,” she said.

  Lauren stiffened. “Yes.”

  The officer had very pale, gray eyes and an open, direct gaze. “For what it’s worth, I believed you,” she said. “But Prentice’s money talks pretty loud around here.” She tucked her notebook into her pocket. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”

  The male officer joined them. “Will you ladies be all right getting home or would you like one of us to follow you?” he asked.

  Lauren hugged her arms across her chest. “It’s up to Sophie. I’m definitely too shaky to drive.” Now that the adrenaline had faded, she felt almost too weak to stand, and she ached all over.

  “Thank you, but we’ll be fine,” Sophie said, and turned to Lauren. “I texted Rand, and he and Marco are coming to get us.”

  * * *

  MARCO KNEW HE had to tamp down the rage that filled him when Rand told him Lauren and Sophie had been attacked in a supermarket parking lot. The women were all right, so the focus now had to be on making sure they were safe. Later, he’d work on finding out who had targeted them and bringing them to justice. Stay in control and act deliberately, always aware of what the most important task is at the moment. Never let emotion get in the way of doing your job. These were the lessons that had helped him excel over the years.

  But no training or mental discipline could prepare him for the relief that flooded him when he saw Lauren, shaken but safe, standing in that parking lot. His knees almost buckled when he climbed out of the pickup truck that was Rand’s personal vehicle, and he had to stand still for a moment, holding on to the door and trying to recover. The knowledge that she could have been seriously hurt, even killed, shook him to the point he couldn’t speak, and he fought the urge to crush her in his arms.

  So this was how it’s going to be, he told himself, trying to accept this new reality. After years of avoiding caring deeply for anyone, he’d found a woman he quite possibly couldn’t live without.

  After a few seconds, he recovered enough to join Lauren and the others beside Sophie’s car. “Hey,” he greeted her. “You okay?”

  She nodded, then shook her head. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

  Pulling her to him was as automatic as breathing. She buried her face against his chest and he smoothed her hair and spoke softly. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “You’re going to be all right.”

  “Sophie says the guys who went after them were big, beefy types,” Rand said after a moment. “They were in a white van with the tag obscured.”

  “I recognized one of them.” Lauren straightened and brushed her hair back out of her eyes. Her expression was strained, but she looked calm. “The one who attacked Sophie. He worked as a guard for Richard Prentice. His name was Al or Hal or something like that.”

  “You didn’t say anything to the police about that,” Sophie said.

  “No. I figured the minute I mentioned Richard Prentice they’d discount everything I said. After all, I’m the crazy woman who had such a twisted crush on him that I went to his house and refused to leave. Then, when he didn’t return my affections, I accused him of kidnapping me.”

  “Don’t say that.” Marco couldn’t keep the hardness from his voice. “You’re not crazy.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said softly. “But I’m tired of always having to defend myself. I knew if I waited and told you two about the guy, you’d take me seriously.”

  “A lot of other people saw him,” Sophie said. “If we can link him to Prentice, it won’t be only your word against his.”

  “Right now we need to make sure he can’t get to you again.” One arm still around her, Marco urged her toward Rand’s truck.

  She halted, stumbling. “Do you think they’ll come back?”

  “If Prentice sent them to kidnap you again and they failed, they’ll try to finish the job,” Marco said.

  “But we’ll make sure they don’t,” Rand said.

  “How are you going to do that?” Lauren asked. “You can’t stay with us twenty-four hours a day. And next time they might bring four people instead of two, or even more.”

  “They were overconfident, attacking you in broad daylight,” Rand said.

  “They thought we’d be too frightened to fight back,” Sophie said.

  “They probably won’t make that mistake again,” Marco said. “But next time we’ll be ready.”

  “What are you going to do?” Lauren asked.

  “Right now, we’re going back to your apartment and put these groceries away,” Rand said. “You can change clothes and get something to eat, then we’ll meet with the others at the captain’s place. We’ll come up with a plan of action there.”

  “What about my car?” Sophie asked.

  “We’ll send someone to get it later, and have them park it at a hotel or somewhere in town,” Marco said. “That will confuse anyone looking for you.”

  “Why would Prentice want to kidnap me again?” Lauren asked when they were all in the truck. “He’s already persuaded the grand jury not to believe me, and he’s made me look like an idiot in the press.”

  “He must still feel you’re a threat.” Rand started the truck and headed out of the parking lot.

  “You must know something that could incriminate him,” Marco said. “Something you haven’t revealed yet.”

  “I’ve told you and the police everything I know about him,” she said. “Why would I hold back anything that could lock him away for good?”

  “It would have to be something you don’t even realize is important,” Marco said. “But something that makes Prentice afraid enough to try to silence you, despite the risks.”

  “I don’t believe he thinks there are any risks,” Sophie said. “He’s convinced he’s invincible.”

  “People who believe that always end up making mistakes,” Marco said.

  “Do you know some secret about Prentice?” Sophie asked. “Something he’d kill to keep people from finding out?”

  Lauren stared out the window, at the storefronts and apartment complexes and passing traffic. She didn’t like to think of that dark time, when she’d been so lonely and afraid. “I really wasn’t with him that much,” she said after a moment. “He kept me locked away—first in an upstairs bedroom, then in the mine. He would visit in the evenings several times a week. A few times we had dinner together. I tried to get him to talk about himself. I thought if I could figure out what made him tick, I could persuade him to let me go. But he evaded all my questions about his past, his childhood, his businesses—anything remotely personal.”

  “So w
hat did you talk about?” Rand asked.

  She sighed. “He spent most of his time trying to convince me to marry him.”

  “So he was romantic?” Rand’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror, clearly skeptical.

  She made a face. “Not at all. His idea of a proposal was to persuade me of the benefits of marriage to him. I could have any material thing I wanted. He’d use his money and influence to buy me any job I aspired to. With his wealth and power and my beauty and ability to persuade the public, there was no limit to the changes we could make in government and society.”

  “He really said that?” Sophie asked. “About making changes to government and society?”

  Lauren nodded. “I think he had this picture of me, installed as the anchor or host of some news show, reporting his ideas about unrestricted property rights and unregulated business and power for the privileged, and everyone seeing the brilliance of his ideas. He’s fanatical enough to believe it could happen.”

  “So no romance.” Was that relief she heard in Marco’s voice?

  “Not really. A few times he made an attempt to be, I guess you’d call it, ‘warmer.’” She sat up straighter, a memory she’d pushed aside popping into her head. “One time he asked me to call him Bruno.”

  “Bruno?” Sophie laughed. “Where did he get that?”

  “He said it could be my pet name for him.” Lauren shook her head. “I guess that was his idea of romance.”

  “And he never tried anything physical?” Marco’s voice was strained.

  All she could see from her seat in the back of the truck was his neck, black hair neatly trimmed over his sun-bronzed skin. She studied the inch of tawny flesh exposed above his collar as she spoke. “He held my hand a couple of times and once he kissed me, but even the kiss was cold.” Just thinking about kisses from Marco made her feel overheated.

  “He’s crazy.” Sophie hugged her arms across her stomach. “And he scares me.”

  “It’s easy to dismiss someone like him as crazy,” Marco said. “But he’s operating according to some kind of internal logic, no matter how skewed. If we knew what that logic was, what really drives him, we would have a better chance of getting ahead of him and anticipating his next move.”

  “I had a lot of empty hours to spend trying to figure him out,” Lauren said. “As far as I can tell, he believes he should be able to do whatever he wants, but I don’t know why he believes that.”

  “He doesn’t want the government telling him what he can and can’t do with his property and his businesses,” Rand said.

  “Right,” Lauren said. “But he doesn’t believe that kind of freedom should extend to all people, only to ones like him, who already have money and position.”

  “Those who have, get more, and everybody else is out of luck,” Rand said. “What kind of political philosophy is that?”

  “I don’t care about his politics,” Marco said. “I only want to stop him from breaking the law.”

  “He’s getting careless, attacking the girls in daylight, in a public place,” Rand said. “We put more pressure on him, he’s going to crack, and that’s when we’ll get him.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Lauren said. She didn’t want to live a life where she was scared to step out her door every morning.

  “He knows you’re stronger than him,” Marco said. “That’s why he’s so desperate to silence you.”

  She didn’t feel strong right now, but Marco’s faith in her made her feel supported, as if, with his help, she could be strong again. “We’ll stop him,” she said. “With all of us fighting together, there’s no way he can win.”

  * * *

  THE MEETING AT Graham’s that evening was like dozens of other meetings the Ranger team had held—everyone coming together to discuss a case and a strategy for solving it. But as Marco followed the others into the captain’s living room, nothing felt the same as before. For one thing, they were all in civilian clothing—jeans and khakis and T-shirts or polos. Carmen wore a blouse with flowers, her long hair loose and earrings trimmed in crystals and feathers, reminding him that she was actually a pretty woman, not just a cop.

  Women were the other big difference in this meeting. In addition to Carmen, Emma, Abby, Sophie and Lauren had joined them, ready to contribute what they knew about Richard Prentice, and their ideas for making a case against him. No longer was this about just what law enforcement could do. Though none of the Rangers had officially resigned their positions, they had taken temporary leaves or were using up accumulated vacation days in order to pursue this private investigation. If knowledge of their activities came to attention of their superiors, a number of them might very well lose their jobs.

  “It feels strange, being here with all of you,” Lauren said. She’d kept close to him all afternoon, her warm presence and soft scent reminding him of the biggest reason he was taking such a career risk. “Included, I mean.”

  “You probably know more about Prentice than anyone,” Marco said. “You can help us find his weaknesses.”

  “I’m not sure he has any of those.”

  Graham stood before a whiteboard in front of his fireplace. To his right, Simon, who wore black jeans, a black snap-button Western shirt with large red roses and black lizard-skin cowboy boots, prepared to take notes. “The attack on Lauren and Sophie in the grocery store parking lot this afternoon was the rash move of a man who’s not secure in his position,” Graham said. “He’s worried we’re going to learn something he doesn’t want anyone to know. He thinks Lauren could reveal that something.”

  “I’ve gone over everything I can remember about my time at his ranch,” Lauren said. “And I don’t see anything incriminating. I never heard him talk about anything illegal. I never saw him do anything illegal. I never saw anything in his house that wasn’t on display for everyone to see.”

  “Keep thinking,” Graham said. “Maybe it will come to you. Meanwhile, we need to come up with a plan for uncovering everything possible about him.”

  “We’ve been over and over his background,” Carmen said. “There just isn’t a lot there. He was raised in Texas by a father who was a real estate attorney. His mother owned a dance studio. Prentice started out small, taking over failing oil companies and selling off their assets. A surge in oil prices made him a millionaire overnight and he began operating on a larger scale, amassing more money and influence. Some of his business decisions may have been unethical, but he’s always operated just inside the law, at least in his business transactions.”

  “There’s got to be something incriminating in his office,” Lauren said.

  “Why do you say that?” Michael asked from his seat on the couch beside Abby.

  “Remember how he was shredding all those papers the night I was rescued?” she said. “But Sophie and Rand chased him away before he’d gotten very far into the cabinet.”

  “He’s been back to the house since,” Rand said. “He’s had plenty of time to destroy any evidence.”

  “Maybe not,” she said. “Remember, he thinks he’s invincible. And he kept those papers for a reason. He wouldn’t want to destroy them unless it was absolutely necessary.”

  “I never understood why people would keep incriminating evidence—in writing—around,” Emma said.

  “Sometimes it’s because they’re so sure they’ll never be caught,” Graham said. “But sometimes it’s because they need the evidence to hold over someone else.”

  “You mean—blackmail?” Emma asked.

  “Something like that,” Graham said.

  “Who would Richard Prentice want to blackmail?” Sophie asked.

  “Probably lots of people,” Michael said. “But one person I can think of is Senator Mattheson. Maybe there’s a reason the senator always dances to Prentice’s tune.”

  “It would be interesting to know what Prentice has on Mattheson,” Carmen agreed. “But proving blackmail could be tough.”

  “We won’t know what he’s hiding in those f
iling cabinets until we get a closer look,” Rand said.

  “So we do what—break in?” Simon asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Which makes anything we find inadmissible in court,” Simon said.

  “We don’t take anything but photographs when we go in,” Michael said. “But we find out what’s there and we give the information to the local police.”

  “Who do nothing because Prentice has paid them off,” Simon said.

  “Then, we give it to the feds.” Michael looked to Graham. “The FBI will have to act if we come up with convincing evidence.”

  Graham nodded. “How are we going to get in to look at the files? Prentice has at least two guards on shift at all times, plus surveillance cameras.”

  “I could go in.”

  The room fell silent. Marco couldn’t believe what he’d heard. He stared at Lauren. She wore the determined expression he was coming to know well, jaw set, chin up, eyes flashing. He both loved the look and hated it, admiring her boldness yet wanting to protect her from danger. “I could do it,” she said. “I could go there and tell him I want to talk about my feelings for him. He wouldn’t refuse me, I’m sure. Once we’re together, I could put knockout drops in his drink or something. I could search the file cabinets, and anything I saw would be admissible as evidence, right?”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Marco said, before anyone else could speak.

  “I’ve been there before and he didn’t hurt me.”

  “Are you forgetting the package he sent? The death threat? The attack this afternoon?” His voice rose, and he tried to rein in the emotions that made him want to seize her and hustle her out of the room until she came to her senses.

  She swallowed. “I haven’t forgotten those things. But this is our best chance to get close to him and get the evidence we need.”

  “I won’t let you do it,” he said.

  “This isn’t your decision to make.” Her eyes met his, troubled but determined.

  “No, but it’s mine,” Graham said. “I can’t let a civilian take that kind of risk.”

  She stood, steady on her feet, and faced the ranks of officers and friends who sat around the living room. “Let me do this,” she said. “If I don’t, I won’t be able to walk out my door without worrying about someone attacking me. I won’t be able to get a job without some new rumor about my sanity popping up.” Her gaze came to rest on Marco, silently asking for understanding. “I know you all have a lot at stake here, and that it’s important to make your case. But my life is on the line here—not because I’ll be in danger if I go to Richard’s ranch, but because I won’t have a life worth living if I don’t.”