Protector. Diana Palmer

headaches.”

      She nodded. “I just had a call from someone who said the next person they send would be a better shot. That’s just a summary. I brought the recording with me.” She took out a small cassette and put it on the desk. “We routinely record all our calls. We’ve had some issues in the past.”

      “Yes, when someone tried to firebomb your office, I remember. He’s doing five to ten up in state prison, one of the few arsonists who ever got convicted.” Cash took out a small device from his desk drawer, inserted the tape Minette had brought and played it with his eyes shut. He did that again. He opened his eyes. “Northern Mexico,” he murmured, thinking aloud. “But with a hint of Mexico City. A native speaker. Calling from somewhere near a highway.”

      “You got all that from a few words?” Minette asked, impressed.

      He nodded, all business. “I still have a few skills left over from the old days, and I’ve dealt with telephone threats before. This is gloating, pure and simple. He thinks he’s too smart to be caught.” His eyes narrowed. “Hayes still at your place?”

      “Yes,” she said. “He’s resisting attempts at rehabilitation and pretending that he doesn’t need all that nonsense.” She sighed. “He may never leave, at this rate.”

      He got up from the desk, towering over her. “I’ll go out and have a talk with him,” he said. “I’ve been in his situation a few times. It might help. Mind if I hold on to that tape?”

      “No. And if we get any more calls, I’ll bring them to you.” She hesitated. “I have two little kids living in my house, not to mention my elderly great-aunt,” she began.

      “And you’re wondering how safe they are,” he replied. He smiled gently. “I’ll take care of that. No worries. You just save the world one article at a time.”

      She laughed. “Okay.”

      He walked her out. Carlie looked up from her desk with shimmering green eyes.

      “The mayor called,” she told Cash. “He wants to know if you’re coming to the city council meeting.”

      “No.”

      “I’ll tell him.”

      “I’ll tell you what to tell him...” Cash began heatedly.

      She held up a hand. “Please. My father is a minister.”

      Cash made a face at her and walked Minette to the front door. “I’ll see what I can do to motivate Hayes.” He hesitated. “Has he still got that huge reptile?”

      Minette nodded.

      “Is it living with you, too?” he asked with a grin.

      She laughed. “No. I’m not going to be lunch for any enormous holdover from the dinosaur age,” she promised him.

      * * *

      Later, at Minette’s house, Cash was less humorous. Hayes had received a call, also.

      “The coward was bragging about his marksman’s skill. He said that I moved or I’d be dead now,” Hayes muttered.

      “Good thing you did move,” Cash replied. He drew in a breath. “I gather you’ve had the number checked out already?”

      Hayes gave him a long-suffering look, and Cash laughed.

      “Yes. It was a cell phone that’s no longer in service. Probably one of those throwaway types. We traced a call one of the cartel mules placed from our jail the day before I was shot. Same story.”

      Cash nodded. “We’ve dealt with our share of those,” he agreed. He leaned forward in the chair he was occupying beside Hayes’s bed. “Lawmen make enemies,” he added. “But this is an exceptional one. Do you have any idea who’s behind the assassination attempt?”

      Hayes nodded. “My investigator dug out a privileged little piece of dark information about a month ago. He was able to tie the death of a border agent with the one they call El Ladrón.”

      “The thief,” Cash translated. He laughed. “How appropriate.”

      “His men don’t call him that,” Hayes said. “Only his enemies.”

      “We can only hope that he has enough of those to help bring him down.”

      “He has one major enemy who’s fighting him for control of Cotillo,” Hayes said. “A reclusive, very dangerous leader of a South American cartel making inroads into the Mexican drug trade.”

      “This reclusive drug trader, do we know who he is?”

      Hayes nodded. “The son of an American heiress who ran away with a charming but deadly Mexican gang leader. He used his mother’s money to avenge his father, who was killed by agents of El Ladrón.”

      “Deeper and deeper,” Cash mused.

      “It gets worse.” Hayes’s jaw was taut with stress. His dark eyes narrowed. “This reclusive drug lord has ties to our country in a way that could cause some very harsh problems locally.”

      “Don’t tell me. He’s related to the mayor of Jacobsville,” Cash chuckled.

      “Much worse.” He drew in a breath. “He has a daughter. She doesn’t know it.”

      Cash frowned. “There’s a new wrinkle. Her father is a notorious drug dealer and she doesn’t know about him?”

      Hayes nodded. He felt a twinge of guilt. “He’s the one who supplied Brent and Ella Walsh, who gave Rachel Conley the coke that she injected my brother, Bobby, with...a fatal dose of narcotics.”

      “Sorry,” Cash said gruffly. “That must make it harder.”

      “It does.” He leaned back against the pillows. He felt older than his years. “My father, Dallas, was sheriff here for many years, right up until he died, as you must know. He told me about the connection, in case I ever needed the information, but he made me swear that I’d never tell the woman what I knew about her real father.” He made a face. “It’s tied my hands in terrible ways.”

      “I can imagine.” He cocked his head. “Which means you can’t tell me, either.”

      “That’s the case.” Hayes drew in a long breath. “I’m not sure what to do,” he confessed. “I don’t know how she’d react. I don’t know,” he added, “if her father even knows about her. But I have to assume that he probably does. If that’s the case, and he finds himself in a corner, he might try to use her to help him out of it.”

      Cash’s eyebrows arched. “She has influence?”

      “Yes.”

      “Oh, boy.”

      “I never thought I’d have to wrestle with a decision like this,” he replied. “It’s keeping me awake at night.”

      “Family secrets,” he murmured. “Tippy and I have had to deal with those, too. She still doesn’t know who her real father was. Her mother couldn’t tell her, although her brother’s dad is a police chief in Georgia.”

      “I heard about that,” Hayes replied, and frowned.

      “What are you going to do?”

      Hayes shrugged, wincing when it made his chest uncomfortable. “I’m not sure. It depends on circumstances.” He met Cash’s eyes. “I’m putting Minette’s family in danger by staying here,” he added unexpectedly.

      “Not really.” Cash’s dark eyes were amused. “Things are going on that you don’t know about.” He held up his hand when Hayes tried to speak. “Better you don’t know.”

      “I gather our every move is being watched,” Hayes mused.

      “Oh, you can count on that.” He propped his forearms on his knees. “Now about this physical