He cleared his throat and looked past her into the room, trying to regain his equilibrium. “I got a call from my office. About Hightower.” Clay put his hand on her arm, touching her before he thought about it. “He’s former military, you knew that, right?”
She frowned and stepped away from his touch, raking both hands through her hair and fanning it out around her shoulders. “Sure, he went in the army right out of high school.”
“Guess what he did while in the service,” Clay said rhetorically, then answered, “EOD.”
Her gaze locked on his. “Explosive Ordnance? That I didn’t know. I thought he was a ground-pounder.”
“Apparently he knows his stuff. Not the amateur I wish he was,” Clay admitted.
Clay braced his hands on the door frame, needing the support to remind him not to take her in his arms to reassure her. She was a woman, yes, but a professional in law enforcement, one whose strengths he was supposed to be evaluating, not shoring up.
He spelled out his greatest concern. “There was a reported theft last month, a shipment of C-4 used in training exercises at the EOD school over in Alabama. No viable suspects until now. Hightower trained there and would have known the probable location of the substance and how to gain access to it.”
She nodded slowly. “So he’s saving the good stuff for the big bang. The little homemade device with the dynamite was only the prelude.”
He gave the only answer that made any sense. “He’s probably got things wired to blow that we haven’t even thought about yet. He has a boatload of this stuff, Vanessa. He could blow this whole county off the map, little by little or all at once.”
She looked so small and vulnerable. And way too sexy. “I bet he wants the judge, jury and everyone else who had a hand in punishing him.” Her shoulders drooped, causing the gown to slip dangerously low.
Clay cleared his throat and tried to look away. His eyes just wouldn’t cooperate. She quickly caught up the front of her nightgown in a fist. “So get out of here and let me get dressed. We’ve got to go find the bastard and take him down.”
Clay reached to close the door even though she had already turned and was striding to her walk-in closet. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
In the mirror of her dresser, he caught her reflection. Her back was to him and she had already shucked her gown. The glimpse of her totally naked, pale light from the window bathing her in its soft glow, nearly did him in. With a major effort, he pulled the door shut and closed off the sight.
Rubbing a hand harshly over his face, Clay attempted to erase the tactile memory of her lips on his, the vision of her nude and the raspy sound of her sleepy voice when she had murmured his name. Waking dreams weren’t that easy to banish.
The real nightmare they faced ought to do it, but it didn’t.
Two hours later, Clay stood in the background and remained silent while Vanessa spoke with the Eastern Band chief, the sheriff and three deputies.
He noted how she laid out her plans for the bomb search as if they were only suggestions, then carefully listened to everyone who wanted to give input. She nodded and made changes on her notes.
“You are certain James Hightower is the man responsible?” the sheriff asked.
“No proof yet, sir,” she answered. “But he is the most viable suspect at this point. We need to find and interview him at any rate.”
He detected no patronization on either her part, due to the fact that she was FBI, or on theirs, because most were her elders and had probably known her as a child. Her quiet deference surprised him a little. Their obvious respect for her did, too. This was a matriarchal society, but guys the world over were well-known for wanting to control the ball no matter what history dictated.
“Vanessa’s blessed,” a quiet voice said in a confidential whisper. Clay turned slightly and saw the stern visage of Lance Biggins, one of the senior deputies who stood beside him at the back of the room.
“How so?” Clay asked.
“Look at her,” Biggins suggested. “We haven’t seen a woman like her since Nancy Ward.”
Clay was familiar with the tales surrounding the Cherokee heroine from the early nineteenth century who’d taken up arms for the People. “That’s some comparison,” he commented.
“Yeah, Van’s quite a girl. Even back in grade school, nobody messed with her. She’d kick your butt in a heartbeat.”
Clay smiled. Apparently, the deputy was still nurturing a schoolboy crush combined with a heavy dose of heroine worship. “I hear she still kicks.”
Biggins nodded, pursing his lips. He looked straight at Clay then with a warning in his jet-black eyes. “So don’t mess with her. Okay?”
Clay turned back to watch Vanessa and decided not to answer. He had already sort of messed with her and maybe he needed a butt-kicking for it, but it wouldn’t be by this guy.
He understood Biggins’s protective urge, though. Clay felt the same way about her and imagined most men did, especially those she was conversing with right now.
They might look on her as blessed somehow, given the number of her recent narrow escapes, but no one discounted the possibility that she might take one chance too many and the gods would cease to smile.
Vanessa continued with her proposal for the manhunt. Clay noted the sheriff’s reluctance to commit all his resources to searching for Hightower. His response to Vanessa’s suggestions was cool. He didn’t argue, but he didn’t agree, either.
Clay sauntered to the front where Vanessa and the sheriff were standing, going over the plans. “You have doubts, sir?” Clay asked, since Vanessa was barreling ahead with her orders as if she had full backing already.
The dark, fathomless eyes of the older man examined Clay’s curious expression, probably for any antipathy. Clay felt none of that. The sheriff seemed capable enough, just hesitant. Vanessa paused, too, when Clay asked the question. Both waited for the sheriff to speak.
He took his time, worried his upper lip with one finger for a minute, then shook it at Vanessa. “You were responsible for Hightower’s arrest before. We know he got much less time than you thought he deserved for what he did. Now you seem to have convicted him of these bombings already. Suppose he’s not the one you should be after.”
Vanessa blew out a breath of frustration, then shook her head. “Sheriff, I know he’s the one. Who else would be doing this?”
“There were a couple of guests at the casino who might have been targets that had nothing to do with Hightower. As a matter of fact, we know they are loosely tied to organized crime here in the South. I think they were hoping to muscle in on our action, or at least check it out to see if it was worth their while. They certainly have enemies within their organizations. I asked your people to pursue that line of investigation since it falls within the Bureau’s domain.”
“That’s in the works,” she assured him. “But it’s considered a real long shot, Sheriff. I’m telling you, James Hightower has plenty of reason to do something like this and he did. I’m sure of it.”
The sheriff pursed his lips and inclined his head. “Okay, I’ll give you the manpower to do the search, but let’s try to keep an open mind. Hightower’s got no business being back here on the Boundary anyway, but unless you can prove he’s committed some crime, all we can do is send him packing. Even that will take some doing.”
Clay could see Vanessa working up to an argument and quickly intervened before she could let it fly. “Thank you, Sheriff, that will be fine. Just catch him and let us question him. We’ll take it from there.”
The sheriff raised a dark brow and gave Clay another once-over. “You are convinced he’s our man? Do you have some information you haven’t