Lost but not Forgotten
Шрифт:
MITCH VALETTI, former Desert City, Arizona detective, cruised along the private lane leading to his ranch. It’d been three months since he’d driven this route. Three endless months he’d spent recovering from bullet wounds at the home of his best friend and former partner, Ethan Knight. Mitch felt he shouldn’t have intruded as long as he had. Ethan and Regan were newlyweds. They already had their hands full caring for the quadruplets Ethan had rescued from an abusive home. The bastard who’d knocked those defenseless babies around was also responsible for firing three slugs into Mitch. Three slugs that had caused nerve damage in his leg and left him with a limp.
That wasn’t why he’d stuck around longer than he should have, all the while allowing a neighbor to care for his stock. It had just seemed easier than coming home, facing a life that was in shambles.
His odd melancholy tonight had little to do with his injury—which wasn’t his first. He’d survived being knifed in the stomach a few years back when he’d gone in alone on a domestic dispute call. His staying at Ethan’s wasn’t connected to the doc’s news that he’d be left with a permanent disability. Mitch had dealt with that early on. Almost immediately after waking from the extensive surgery, he’d made up his mind to resign from the force. To expand his horse herd. Although he’d told Ethan he might take a few private investigative jobs on the side. Just until his ranch stood on its own.
When Ethan and Regan tied the knot in his hospital room, Mitch thought his own future looked, if not bright, okay. He owned and leased enough land to raise horses, had a serviceable home and loyal friends—including a woman he was pretty crazy about. Amy Knight, Ethan’s youngest sister.
Hell, he knew Amy didn’t feel the same about him. She flaunted the fact that she’d been dating Desert City’s prissy-faced, wonder-boy district attorney. Deep down, though, Mitch had assumed Amy would come to her senses. She hadn’t. Instead, she’d eloped with the jerk D.A. while Mitch was recovering. He’d never admit to anyone on the force how much Amy’s defection hurt. Especially not to Ethan. To Ethan and their fellow cops, Mitch represented the consummate swinging bachelor. In truth, Amy’s marriage had ripped the heart out of him. For the first time in his thirty-five years, Mitch questioned life’s purpose.
Oh, he knew his friends had seen a change in him and were worried about his moodiness. Because of that the Knights had insisted he stay on, and he’d hung around several weeks beyond when he probably should’ve bid the newlyweds farewell. Ethan had gone back to work right away, and Regan’s at-home social work private practice was taking off. The quads, two boys and two girls, cute little tykes, would probably miss him the most. Already he missed them. Darn, but those rascals had gotten under his skin. Wouldn’t the cops who gathered at Flo’s Caf'e to eat and shoot the breeze get a walloping laugh if they ever found out he envied them their families?
Mitch snorted inelegantly and contemplated how that image contrasted with his life. Man, maybe he should’ve stopped at Flo’s before coming home tonight. Guys and gals from the precinct tended to hang out there between shifts. He probably just needed to get back in the swing of things.
The very thought lifted his spirits. “Shoot, how can a man feel down when he’s lucky enough to be behind the steering wheel of a sweet baby-blue fully restored ’68 Corvette?” Grinning foolishly, Mitch caressed the steering wheel. He nearly missed the flash of his headlights off metal ahead.
Chrome. Damned if there wasn’t a car without running lights parked in his lane. He’d worked too many drug busts to shrug off the significance of a car traveling without lights after dark. And this one was moving. Mitch could hear the sound of the other car’s engine, too. It was plain the driver didn’t have a hankering to stick around.
Mitch’s headlights barely pierced the swirl of dust kicked up by the fast-departing car. Mitch tried to make out its type, but as he peered out his windshield, he plunged into a curve in the lane.
Pressing on his gas pedal, Mitch was determined to read the license plate before the car reached his turnaround and came back at him with lights on bright. Only reactions long-honed by his police training saved him from plowing into something sitting in the road—a small suitcase. He braked and swerved.
Once he’d squealed to a stop, Mitch sat there a moment, sweat beading on his brow, his teeth clamped tight to stave off the pain he’d brought to his bad leg. Fighting off a wave of dizziness, he backed the hell up fast and scrambled to locate his cell phone.
Cursing, he watched the other car disappear and decided to relinquish the chase. Instead, he punched in the number of the precinct’s bomb squad. Why else would someone drop a suitcase on a private rural road at night? Especially as the drop coincided with an ex-cop’s arrival… If Mitch didn’t know for certain that the crazy who’d shot him was locked up tight, he might think Tony DeSalvo had come back to finish the job.
DeSalvo wasn’t the only creep he’d ticked off in his career, though. Just the latest. Tony was still safely put away—Mitch verified that first. He had no clue who’d left him a hot calling card, but he would damn sure find out as soon as the sucker discovered this road dead-ended.
“What the hell?” Mitch saw headlights bobbing across his west pasture. He slid out of the Vette, wincing at the stabbing pain in his left leg. Hands on hips, he watched the fleeing car slow midway in its run to intercept the 181 cutoff. Probably waiting to see him blown to smithereens.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he muttered darkly as the distant vehicle sped up again. He ought to notify the county sheriff, whose territory was intersected by Highway 181, but Mitch knew they couldn’t respond in time. The perpetrator could turn north and lose himself in Tucson’s winter-visitor traffic, or turn south and cross the border into Mexico at Agua Prieta. Either way, they’d shake a tail. So rather than give futile chase, he’d be better off seeing if his old department’s bomb squad could lift any prints from the suitcase. It shouldn’t be hard with the new computer system to cross-match prints to any of the bad guys he’d helped put away during his six years on the force.
It took fifteen minutes for his former co-workers to show up. Mack Rich and Pete Haslett wore gear that made them look as if they were headed to the moon. They seemed particularly eerie in the hazy spotlights they trained on the item in the lane.
“Wow, cowboy,” quipped a third member of the team. “You really know how to throw a homecoming. Since it could get hotter than your standard college bon-fire around here, I suggest you move that classic car before it gets torched, ruining your day and mine.”