Page 44 of On the Chase
“Truman.”
“Truman?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s Truman?” Grace asked.
“Sit.” Hugh frowned at her. She was looking pale, too pale, and he knew her arm had to be killing her.
Of course she ignored him. “Who’s Truman, and why does he want you dead?”
“A coke dealer.” Hugh couldn’t answer the second part of Grace’s question. The man known only as Truman was a major player in the Denver area, but Hugh had never had a run-in with him. In fact, he’d never even met the guy. All Truman was to Hugh was a fuzzy surveillance photo and half a name in a briefing. It didn’t make sense that Truman wanted him dead so badly that he was willing to pay a lot of money to have him killed. “Why?”
“Dresden.”
“The china?”
“The town.”
“In Germany?”
“Why would the… No.” Theo was looking exasperated again. Grace just appeared confused and scared as she turned her head back and forth between the two, following their conversation. “Not the German city. TheColoradotown. The one just forty miles from here. The one with a lot of rich skiers and boarders who want their coke.”
Of course.He should’ve figured it out a lot earlier. Hugh blamed his denseness on the fact that both his leg and his hands felt like they’d been put through a meat grinder and then set on fire. “So, Truman’s finally figured out what the Rack and Ruin guys have known for years. If they take Highway Six from Denver to Dresden, instead of the interstate, then they’re a lot less likely to run into any state troopers who might take their nose candy away. But Six takes them right through Monroe.”
“And you’re the only narcotics-detection K9 team in Monroe since Denny retired.” Theo started to pace the room.
“Does Denver PD have any idea where to find Truman?” Hugh asked.
“No.” Pivoting around, Theo paced the other direction. “They’ve been trying to pin this guy down for years, but they don’t even have a last name for this asshole. LT called in the FBI to help. Apparently, they’ve been trying to get a solid case against Truman for a while now, too.” The door swung open, forcing Theo to stop abruptly so he didn’t get slammed in the face. When Otto stepped inside, he looked about as happy as Theo and Grace did.
“More good news?” Hugh tried to make his voice sound light, but he didn’t succeed. His burned hands throbbed in rhythm with the bullet wound in his leg, and he cursed his intolerance of pain medications.
Otto scrubbed a hand over his head. “The lieutenant and I checked out what was left of your deck.”
The nightmarish image of Grace and Lexi hanging off the edge of the railing, dangling over endless space as he tried to knot the rope around his torso, hit Hugh hard. He wanted to grab Grace’s hand, to pull her against him and keep her safe, but he managed to restrain himself. “Someone messed with it.” His voice was dark and sure. He’d rebuilt that deck just a few years ago. It had been strong and secure; he’d bet his life on it.
Silently, Otto gave a short nod.
Theo swore, and Grace made a small sound in her throat, but Hugh tightened his jaw. Although he’d known the investigating officers would find that the deck had been sabotaged, it still hit him sharply. It was one thing to threaten his life or to blow up his truck, but Grace and Lexi had been hurt, had almost beenkilled.
Truman had declared war, and Hugh was ready to fight back.
Chapter 13
Grace woke up with a cat purring on her head.
She blinked, taking in the unfamiliar, simple bedroom, the lack of city sounds. It took several seconds before all the details of her new messed-up life came back into focus. When they did, she wished she could go back to sleep. She even tried, closing her eyes firmly, but the cat rubbed its head against Grace’s cheek, squashing it. With a laughing groan, Grace gave up her feeble attempt at escaping reality and sat up.
Immediately, her arm throbbed, and she sucked in a pained breath. The doctor had told her that her shoulder was sprained, and that she’d strained pretty much every muscle in the top right quarter of her body, but nothing had been torn or broken or dislocated. Rotating her shoulder carefully, she bit back a gasp. It felt like it had been ripped off and then casually reattached, but at least she could move it. Right after the deck incident, she hadn’t even been able to raise it.
Otto had invited them to stay at his place after they’d left the hospital. Hugh didn’t want anyone to stay at his house until the crazy drug dealer who’d put a hit out on him was arrested and the contract canceled. She could tell it bothered him—a lot—to be chased out of his own home. Looking at the hard set of Hugh’s mouth last night as they were driving to Otto’s, Grace had almost pitied Truman. Hugh’s expression had shown clearly that he intended to make the guy pay. She still couldn’t believe that Martin Jovanovic hadn’t been behind the attempts on their lives. Only she could have the bad luck to escape from one killer in California, just to stumble over another in Colorado.
Grace slid out of bed, ignoring the cat’s displeased grumbles. Looking down at herself, at yet another borrowed, oversized T-shirt and sweatpants, she sighed. What she wouldn’t give for her own jeans.
There was a quick knock on the door, right before it swung open. “Hey. You’re up.”
Why was she not surprised to see Hugh’s grinning face? “You have the worst manners I’ve ever seen. What is so hard about waiting until you’re invited in?”
