“Okay, this is getting really weird,” she said.
“I’m not so sure about that.” Clare reached for the seat belt buckle. The metal edge was so hot it singed her hand. “Ouch.” She wrapped her fingers around the bottle of water to cool them. “If you ask me, things are starting to fall into place. What do you want to bet that Dr. Mowbray wasn’t a real shrink at all, just some scam artist Brad knew and hired to pose as a psychiatrist?”
Elizabeth smiled ruefully. “You sound positively thrilled at the notion.”
“Yes. Because it explains so much.” Clare finally got the buckle fastened.
Elizabeth exhaled slowly. “Like why Mowbray was so quick to declare me a wack job.” She paused. “How was he able to get the drugs?”
“Come on, Liz. A fourteen-year-old kid can buy just about any kind of drugs he wants on a street corner if he knows what he’s doing. How hard could it be for a couple of professional scam artists to get ahold of a few bottles of psychoactive meds?”
“True.” Elizabeth fastened her own seat belt, put the Mercedes in gear and reversed out of the parking space. “Wonder where Dr. Mowbray is now?”
“I don’t know, but I’d sure like to find him.”
“Me, too,” Elizabeth said with great depth of feeling. “I have a few things to say to that bastard.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Jones & Jones had screwed up, Jake thought. He could feel it in his gut. It wasn’t the analysts’ fault, not entirely. They’d had a lot of help. The intelligence had been bad from the beginning, and Archer Glazebrook’s efforts to protect Clare had sent everyone looking in the wrong direction.
But the biggest problem of all was that no one knew what the enemy’s real agenda was in Stone Canyon. Until he had that information he was chasing phantoms in the dark.
He brought the BMW to a halt and sat looking at the old, abandoned ranch house. It was six o’clock in the evening. The sun was sinking fast in the sky, turning the mountains a dozen shades of purple.
He got out and walked toward the skeleton of the old house. The soles of his low boots left little impression on the hard, dry ground.
He had come across the tumbledown house shortly after arriving in Stone Canyon. The ramshackle structure was perched on a hillside overlooking the town and the Valley beyond. Jake liked the view. He also liked the sensations he got here. The wildness of the desert was a stimulating balm to his senses, allowing him to think more clearly.
He heard a soft rustling noise to his left. A covey of quail bolted out from the cover of some nearby brush and raced madly toward the safety of the shadows beneath the porch.
He opened his senses, taking in the unseen energy of the desert. In this environment life was reduced to its most basic elements. Small creatures darted, skittered and slithered, intent on the next meal or on not becoming a meal, or on mating. Nothing else mattered. Survival and reproduction were the only goals.
He walked through the bones of the old house and out onto the remains of the front porch. When the quail heard his footsteps overhead, they scurried out from under the sagging boards and dashed for some other cover.
He halted, studying the landscape. This afternoon he came out here because he needed to think without distractions. It was time to revise the strategy of the hunt.
The problem was Clare. His instincts were to get her out of the picture entirely; to keep her safe. But that was not going to be possible. He knew her well enough already to realize that nothing he could say would deflect her from her own agenda. And the truth was, he needed her help. If it hadn’t been for her he would still be going down the wrong path.
It was time to tell her the truth. Fallon wouldn’t like it, Jake thought. But it was understood that once he was out in the field, he had the discretion to make decisions of this nature. The reality of the situation was that, thanks to Clare, an entire new avenue of investigation had opened up.
It was definitely time to bring Clare into the loop.
Light glinted amid a mound of boulders on the hillside to his left. His hunter instincts, already fully aroused, reacted in less than a heartbeat.
The speed of his reflexes was all that saved him. Even with that, he was not able to move fast enough to avoid some damage.
The shot from the rifle seared his left shoulder instead of sinking deep into his chest. The impact spun him partway around and off his feet.
There was an audible whack as the bullet tore through flesh and continued on, plowing into the wall behind him.
The initial sensation of icy shock in his shoulder gave way to fire. When he looked down he saw that his shirtsleeve was already saturated with blood.
Chapter Thirty-six
“Where is he? I know he’s here somewhere. Let me see him. I demand that you tell me his condition.”
Clare’s voice reverberated through the thick glass doors that separated the emergency room reception area from the treatment rooms. Jake could hear her very clearly. He smiled.
“Sounds like my ride is here,” he said to the young ER doctor and the uniformed representative of the Stone Canyon Police Department who accompanied him.
“That would be the lady out there in the waiting room?” Dr. Benton asked, watching Clare through the glass doors.
“That’s her,” Jake said.
“Don’t give me that privacy stuff.” Clare leaned toward the hapless woman behind the desk. “I’m the closest thing he’s got to next of kin in this town.”
“Your wife?” Officer Thompson inquired politely.
“No,” Jake said.
“Must be a good friend, then,” Thompson concluded.
“Oh, yeah,” Jake said.
“Sounds like she’s real concerned about you,” Thompson offered.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Jake said, pleased.
Benton hit the code to unlock the doors. Jake and his two companions ambled out into the lightly crowded reception room.
Clare had her back to him. She was still engaged in an intense conversation with the woman behind the desk.
“No, I’m not his wife,” Clare said tightly. “I’m a friend, the one who got the call from you a few minutes ago telling me that he had been injured.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the beleaguered receptionist said. “I can’t authorize someone who is not a family member—” She broke off at the sight of Jake. Relief brightened her face. “Here is Mr. Salter now.”
Clare whirled around. “Jake.”