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“Are you okay?” He reached out and gently took her hand, then turned it over. “How bad is this?”
“Just a nick—it’s all right.” The initial numbness was wearing off, and her hand was throbbing, but she couldn’t bother with it just yet.
“Oh, my,” Jane whispered as she crawled from behind her desk. “What happened here?”
“You’ll need to come with us to the deputy’s office. I expect we’ll have a lot of questions.” Sara raised a brow at Nathan. “You do have your squad car here, right?”
“Outside.” His eyes twinkled. “With all of those other DEA cars and the helicopter.”
Jane’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding! Here?”
“Nathan, take Jane and Robert on out. I need to discuss a few things with Phil before he leaves.”
As he left, Robert’s warning glare at Phil told Sara she’d chosen the right man.
She waited until the others were at the end of the hall. “Okay, Phil, you have a couple of options. Listen close—because your decision is going to make a big difference to your future.”
* * * *
PHIL DIDN’T TAKE LONG to weigh his options.
As the full ramifications of his involvement began to sink in, he became a font of information. He gave names. Revealed when the delayed shipment was to arrive.
And he accused Robert of killing the Lunds after they overheard too much and threatened to call the sheriff.
By the time the two drug runners from the West Coast pulled in early Sunday morning, the Aspen County Drug Task Force, the regional BCA special agent, the BCA’s crime-scene unit, and a drug dog were already in place. Harold was recuperating at the local vet clinic.
“Three hundred kilos of meth—and a total of seven people in custody. That’s quite a haul,” Nathan said as he watched the last of the cars pull away. “You were a success.”
“I did the local legwork,” Sara said, “but this investigation will continue. The DEA has a special interest in the case because we figure this bust will lead to uncovering a major drug pipeline coming through the upper Midwest. We’ve got a good start here—the driver and his buddy were only too ready to cooperate to save their own skins. So were Phil and two other guys who work in the plant.”
Nathan shook his head. “I just wish the Lunds and Nina Olson were still alive,” he said heavily.
“I know. But with multiple homicide charges and this trafficking case against him, at least Robert will never be free again. Your godfather seems to be in the clear, however.”
“Did you question him?”
“Several other agents did, and they’ve been going through his records. Maybe your godfather would’ve caught on to Robert’s activities in time, but fortunately, he hadn’t yet. Or he might have been eliminated like the Lunds were.”
Nathan gave her a humorless smile. “Ian never cared much for Robert, but he did think the man was a good manager. Big mistake.”
Nathan looked so weary that she wanted to put her arms around him. Instead, she flipped through the papers on her clipboard and kept her distance. “One last thing—Allen just told me that they’ve picked up the guy out on County 63. A highway patrol saw a vehicle matching the description of Nina Olson’s Ford Explorer and ran the plates. The suspect is with the Vice Lords gang out of Chicago, so he probably came up to do business with Robert. When he ran into the ditch, he didn’t think twice about killing someone for another set of wheels.”
“Another case of someone innocent being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“The one case that we can’t find a connection to is Earl—so maybe he did die of natural causes. I’m still looking into it, though.”
A burst of static came from the mic clipped to Nathan’s shirt, followed by the details of a shoplifter call-out at Mitchell’s Hardware.
He pressed the receiver button. “Ten-four.”
“I guess you’ve got to go.” She wanted to say so much more, but the words wouldn’t come. He’d been coolly professional during the past few hours, as if she was a complete stranger. But what was left to say?
He jingled the squad car keys in his pocket. “I suppose you’re heading to Dallas now?” His voice was emotionless, distant. He could have been talking to a fellow officer or any civilian on the street. If not for the hint of sadness in his eyes, no one would guess that they’d ever met.
“I leave on Christmas Day. I’ll have to come back when these cases go to trial, though.”
“Take care.” He turned, walked to his car, and drove away without a backward glance.
