Camouflage Cowboy. Jan Hambright

and early,” Hale shot back.

      Nick relaxed. He liked Bernard Hale. “Better get your coffee on.”

      Hale snorted. “I ran the plate number you gave me. Came back registered to a Mamie Ashbury in Dillon, Montana. I gave her a phone call and low and behold, the plate belongs on her husband’s old pickup. Trouble is, he’s been dead for three years, and the truck is parked in their barn. She hustled out there and discovered the front and rear plates are missin’.”

      “Not anymore. They’ve turned up on a late-model sedan.”

      “About that black car, Nick. One of my deputies found it abandoned in a ditch along Highway 83 this mornin’. Ran the plates and found my inquiry. Ran the VIN number, as well, and it came back to an owner in Amarillo, a Mr. Maxwell Brewster. He claims he sold the car through a newspaper ad three weeks ago.”

      Worry sliced across Nick’s nerves like a razor blade. “Can you give me his contact information, Sheriff?”

      “Sure.”

      Nick grabbed his notepad off the conference table. “Go ahead.”

      Hale rambled off the phone number; Nick wrote it down. “Thanks. I’d like to follow up and get a physical description of the man he sold the car to.”

      “No problem, son. Good luck. Let me know if you need any more assistance.”

      “Thanks, Bernard.” Nick closed his phone and turned back to an empty conference room. He tossed the pad onto the table and rested both of his palms on the edge. One step forward, three steps back. At least he’d been able to make the car tailing Grace Marshall. Now he’d have no way of knowing if the guy was still following her until he spotted his new wheels. If he was able to spot them. The guy was cunning. He’d left a dead end when he dumped the black sedan. Hell, Nick would even bet the interior of the car had been wiped clean of any fingerprints.

      “Nick?” Amelia stood in the doorway of the conference room.

      “Yes.” He looked up.

      “There’s someone here to see you. Shall I show them in here?”

      Nick straightened. “Sure.”

      Amelia disappeared as he shuffled his paperwork into the file on the table. Who would visit him at CSaI headquarters? Most of his work was accomplished in the field, without the trappings of a storefront that could overexpose the CSaI team. He’d only given out a couple of business cards with the information on them since he’d become a part of the group….

      His muscles tensed between his shoulder blades as he stepped around the table, listening to Amelia’s voice in the outer office as it amplified.

      “Right this way, Miss…?”

      “Marshall. Grace Marshall.”

      Nick braced himself for another face-to-face with the unsuspecting focus of his investigation for Governor Lockhart. Rarely did a mark come to him, and a measure of curiosity zipped across his nerves.

      Did she know he’d been watching her home this weekend? Had she made him and believed he was some sort of crazy stalker? Was she here to tell him to flake off, or that she planned to call the cops?

      Every scenario he could use to justify her visit vanished from his mind as she stepped into the conference room.

      She looked beautiful this morning with her long hair let loose in sexy blond strands, her tentative blue-eyed gaze locking with his.

      He was in some serious trouble.

      “I’ll let you two speak in private.” Amelia stepped out and pulled the door closed.

      “I’m sorry to just show up like this,” Grace said as she fingered his business card in her left hand. “But I desperately need your help.”