assignment,” Rafe lied without missing a beat. According to that forged ID he was with the sheriff’s department.
“And this guy?” The gun barrel gestured toward the salesman. He was sitting on the floor looking rumpled and sullen, clutching his upper arm with his hand. Blood trickled through his fingers.
“No damn idea,” Rafe replied quite honestly. He gave the man a long, hard look, running the bland features through a mental mug book. Nothing. Whoever the guy was, he was new to the equation.
The bartender grunted. “So he just started shooting at you for no reason at all, is that what you’re saying?”
“He wasn’t shooting at me, he was shooting at him.” Rafe nodded toward Reggie, who was still sitting on the floor looking shaken and pale.
“And you decided to do your civic duty and stop it.”
The bartender sounded skeptical and bored with the whole thing, and Rafe sighed again, deciding it was time for a bit of embroidery. “I was sent here to bring this man back to Nevada.” He gave Reggie another nod. “There’s a warrant out on him. Fraud and embezzlement.”
The bartender grunted again. “What did he do?”
“Scammed a whole lot of little old ladies out of their life savings.”
Reggie gave an indignant yelp of protest.
“Which doesn’t explain why someone was trying to kill him.”
“If someone scammed your old granny out of her life savings, wouldn’t you be out for blood?” It sounded so plausible, Rafe almost believed it himself.
“That’s absolutely preposterous!” Honey Divine had managed to catch her breath finally and was sitting flat on her bottom on the floor, glaring through tangles of hair, one shoulder distractingly bare. She pulled the sweater up impatiently, then shoved the mound of blond hair out of her eyes. “Mr. Dawes has done no such thing!”
The bartender lifted an eyebrow. “And you are…?”
“Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh,” she enunciated very clearly into the expectant silence. Her hair had tipped over one eye again and she gave it a shove, then swore with unladylike exasperation and reached up and pulled it off entirely.
“He scalped her!” The drunk at the bar—who apparently hadn’t moved throughout the entire melee—stared at her in stupefaction. “The Indian scalped her!”
Rafe gave the man an evil glare that made him recoil, and the bartender just snapped, “Shut up, Claude,” without even turning around. But even he seemed taken aback at the sight of a woman sitting on his barroom floor with her hair in her hand. “Special…what?”
She gave her head a shake and her own hair—masses of it, tangled and as red as a fire engine—tumbled around her face. Then she got to her feet, teetering a trifle unsteadily on those four-inch heels, retrieved her small handbag and rummaged through it. “Special Agent Kavanagh,” she repeated impatiently. “And Mr. Dawes is in my custody.” She found what she was looking for and pulled it out, walking across to hand it to the bartender. “You can call the number there on my ID and confirm it.”
Rafe looked at her, narrow-eyed. “If you’re FBI, lady, I’m Clark Kent.”
“I’m not FBI,” she said crisply. “I’m with a special agency that specializes in—” She stopped and glared at him. “Who did you say you were?”
Rafe paused very slightly, selecting and rejecting a dozen explanations in the space of a heartbeat, trying to fix on the one that would get him out of here with the least amount of trouble and explanation. Government agent. Just his damn luck. What the hell else could go wrong today?
“His ID makes him for a Nevada cop,” the bartender spoke up.
“I doubt that.” She looked at Rafe evenly. “I’d be very surprised if you’re in law enforcement, Mr….?”
Again, he thought it through. “Blackhorse,” he replied after a moment, deciding this much truth couldn’t get him into too much trouble. “Rafe Blackhorse.”
“And you’re obviously not drunk.”
Rafe managed a tight smile. “Wallpaper.”
“Excuse me?”
“People see a drunk Indian, they don’t see him at all. He blends into the scenery, like wallpaper. It makes for good…camouflage.”
“That’s very cynical, Mr. Blackhorse.”
Rafe smiled coolly. “Just experience, Agent Kavanagh.”
Her eyes narrowed very slightly. “You’re the man who’s been following us.”
Reggie Dawes made a gurgling sound.
“That’s right,” Rafe said after a split second, deciding to stick to the truth as far as he could. It was hard to concentrate, with those aquamarine eyes locked on his, but he forced himself to hold her gaze. “I’m taking Dawes back to Nevada.”
Another gurgle from Dawes.
The woman simply smiled. “I don’t know what the Nevada sheriff’s department wants with Mr. Dawes, but they’ll have to take it up with the Justice Department.”
“Tony sent him,” Dawes piped up from somewhere behind Rafe. “And this guy over here…this guy’s from Atlantic City.”
Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh said a word that Rafe was pretty sure wasn’t in any special agent manual. She stepped by him and walked across to where Dawes was peering down at the salesman from a safe distance.
“His name’s Pags Pagliano, and he’s muscle for the Atlantic City operation.”
“One of Gus Stepino’s men?”
Dawes nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing wildly. He was pale and damp, and he swallowed audibly. “Th-that means he got tired of waiting for Tony to take care of it and sent his own guy after me.”
“Terrific.” Kavanagh did not look happy.
And Rafe had to sympathize. If Stepino’s men got Dawes first, he was out a cool thirty grand.
“We’re leaving,” she said abruptly. “Now.”
“Not with Dawes, you’re not,” Rafe told her flatly.
Kavanagh looked around at him coolly and opened her mouth to reply when Dawes stepped in front of her. “W-what about Charlie?”
The salesman—Pagliano—snorted. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to turn up, Reggie.”
“You killed him?” Dawes’s voice ended on a squeak.
Pagliano just smiled a feral little smile. “Your best friend sold you out. Three grand, Reggie. That’s all you’re worth, can you believe it?” The smile widened. “Gus would have paid ten times that, but Charlie’s such a moron he only asked for three.” He gave another snort and shook his head in disgust. “Moron.”
Dawes looked sick. “I don’t believe you. Charlie wouldn’t do that.”
“How do you think I found you so quick? You think I stumbled into this little rat hole out here in Nowhere, North Dakota, by accident?” His tone made it clear he didn’t think Charlie Oakes was the only moron of his acquaintance.
Kavanagh had gone a shade or two paler herself, and Rafe wondered how long she’d been on the job. First solo case, maybe. Which could mean she would be easy to bluff, if he played his cards right. But it could also mean she might not bluff at all, too worried about getting it right, about making points with her boss, to risk messing up. He swore, using another word or two that wouldn’t show up in any government manual.
“Well, Agent Kavanagh,” he said carelessly, “I’ll leave Pagliano in your capable