A growl issued from behind him. Fiona hated that nickname, but she had earned his use of it now by laughing at him.
“The fact that Fiona is female doesn’t mean she’d do better with this cover than you, Shawn,” Colleen said mildly. “And this assignment requires someone with your particular expertise—arson investigation. You do know something about that, don’t you?”
She knew full well he did. He had devoted his life to fighting fires—and to bringing down the people who set them. With good reason. Damned good reason.
“Yeah,” he agreed softly. “I know something about that.”
“There’s more to the situation than the fire that destroyed the records department of Gilpin Hospital six weeks ago,” Colleen continued. “Wiley Longbottom thinks that the fire could be connected to the flu epidemic that ran through Silver Rapids a few months back.” Longbottom was the director of the Colorado Department of Public Safety. Colleen reported to him. “He believes there’s a chance the flu was caused by the same type of microbe found in the blood samples Michael took from the sheep at the Half Spur Ranch.”
Michael Wellesley, Colleen’s brother, had just returned from an undercover assignment at that sheep ranch, which was partially owned by powerful Colorado senator Franklin Gettys. Not a man you wanted to accuse of anything without indisputable proof. He’d also brought back an unanticipated reward, his new love, Nicola Carson. She’d been the target of an assassin, and was staying at the Royal Flush under Michael’s personal protection.
Colleen continued in a deceptively mild voice, “And if so, we definitely need more information. When we got the test results from the Center for Disease Control, the blood samples showed antibodies for Q fever.”
“That’s a disease carried by livestock anyway, isn’t it?” Fiona asked.
“Yes, but Wiley thinks the Silver Rapids flu epidemic might not have been flu after all. It may have been an outbreak of Q fever. And while Q fever is often found in livestock, a human epidemic of that proportion is…suspicious. And the whole mess could have some bearing on the Langworthy kidnapping.”
“How?” Shawn demanded, stunned by Colleen’s implication that the flu could have a human source. If so, no doubt someone had a vested interest in covering it up.
“The missing baby’s mother, Holly Langworthy, was one of the people infected. At the time, she was still pregnant with little Schyler. We have to look into the fire and the flu, in case the baby’s disappearance is somehow related.”
Ah, Shawn thought. That was the crux of it. Colorado Confidential’s first major case wasn’t just high priority. It was the priority. Schyler, the infant grandson of one of Colorado’s most influential citizens, Samuel Langworthy, had been kidnapped. So far, regular law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction, even the FBI, were stymied. The Department of Public Safety had turned to the newly constituted covert agency, the country’s fourth Confidential organization, for help.
It was a case they couldn’t afford to blow. A baby’s life was at stake. More lives might hang in the balance.
“There’s a doctor on staff at the hospital, Dr. Kelley Stanton,” Colleen continued. She slowly drummed one finger on the table as if using the rhythm to remind her of the facts. Her hands were blunt nailed and work roughened. She owned this ranch, which, Shawn knew, had been in her family for generations.
“Dr. Stanton is a suspect in the arson,” Colleen went on. “She was involved with treating the flu patients, including two elderly people who died. You’ll have access to her by working at the child-care center, since she has a three-year-old daughter who goes there. Rumors around the hospital suggest she set the fire to hide her negligence in treating those patients.”
“A pretty nasty allegation,” Shawn noted.
“That would be ugly enough,” Colleen agreed. “But if Wiley’s right and there’s some relation to the kidnapping, this Dr. Stanton could be more than a quack who wants to hide some mistakes. She could be helping to cover up an act of bioterrorism as well as the kidnapping. And Wiley isn’t wrong very often. So…?” She looked directly into Shawn’s eyes and paused.
Colleen was waiting for his assent. “Yeah,” he said. He knew he would regret it. He also knew he had no choice.
“Good.” Colleen rose. “I’ll get things set up. You’ll start in three days.”
A SHORT WHILE LATER, Shawn left the others behind and stealthily oozed his way from behind the huge, movable wine rack that hid the door to the secret basement room. He had to think about this new assignment. Prepare himself for it mentally.
He headed upstairs, into the plush room that had once been the bar. One of Colleen’s ancestors had once run the Royal Flush as a saloon and bordello. The room maintained the flamboyant ambiance, complete with sexy red velvet curtains. It still housed the original long bar of dark pine, which had obviously been well polished over the many intervening years. The faint, pungent-sweet scent of fine wood preservative hung in the air. The ranch’s caretakers, Raven and Melody Castillo, took great care of the place.
Too bad the room wasn’t still used as a bar. Shawn could have used a drink. A good, stiff one.
Behind the bar was a portrait of a woman, who seemed out of place in the sumptuous and suggestive room— Eudora Wellesley, he’d been told. Colleen’s ancestress. There was nothing flamboyant or even particularly attractive in her appearance. In fact, she was dressed primly, in dark clothes, and there was a set to her mouth as if the lady was shocked by the things that had gone on in this room. And yet, the artist had painted a sparkle into her alert gray eyes.
Grumbling to himself, Shawn headed outside. He wasn’t the imaginative sort. This new twist to his career as an arson investigator turned covert agent was giving him fits.
As he stepped through the front door onto the porch, he nearly ran into Dexter Jones, the foreman. His other boss, for his cover at the Royal Flush as ranch hand.
“You seen Ms. Wellesley?” Dex asked. The foreman was in his early fifties. He kept his hair, obviously once dark but now sprinkled with silver, no-nonsense short. He seemed a no-nonsense guy, dedicated to making sure the ranch ran smoothly.
As smart and wily as tough-acting Dex seemed, the foreman supposedly had no idea of what went on in the basement. But Shawn sensed the man’s strong suspicion that more went on at the Royal Flush than just ranching.
As part of his Colorado Confidential cover, Shawn had to act as if he’d no clue what Dex was talking about when the older man blew off steam by guessing what his lady boss was really up to.
“I saw Ms. Wellesley a while ago,” Shawn told him. “I came in to ask whether she was going to ride Dora today, and if so when she wanted me to have her saddled.” Dora was Colleen’s horse, a mare she’d named after the illustrious lady whose picture hung over the bar. The bay and white paint was a lot prettier, in Shawn’s estimation, than her namesake.
“And she said—?”
“She’d let me know. I think she’s back in her room on the phone. Or maybe she’s getting changed. In any event, she said she didn’t want to be disturbed for the next hour.”
“Right,” Dex muttered, and turned on his heel without entering the house.
If Shawn wasn’t mistaken, the gruff foreman had a thing for his employer. That wasn’t any of Shawn’s business.
But his new assignment certainly was.
Shawn walked down the porch steps and to the side of the main house. He inhaled crisp, clean air tinged with the scent of the nearby horse enclosure. To his left was the winding road to the ranch, and beyond it the meandering South Platte River. To his right were rolling green acres of ranchland, surrounded by the massive, tree-covered slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Some of the ranch’s red Hereford cattle grazed in the distance.
Heaven.