Stuart Woods - Blood Orchid

“Okay. Run the prints against every available database.”

“Will do,” he said. He put an arm around her. “I don’t like leaving you here.”

“I’ve got my cellphone,” she said, patting her pocket. “I can use it outside the house to call you if I need you. If you call me, it may take a few rings for me to get outside, so don’t hang up.”

Grant gave Daisy a pat. “You take care of her, girl.”

Holly got a little sleep, and was awakened by the doorbell. She opened the door to find Ed Shine standing there.

“Hi,” Ed said. “I tried to call you for dinner last night and didn’t get an answer. You been off the reservation?”

“Come in, Ed,” Holly said, kissing him on the cheek. “I have a lot to tell you. I’ve got some coffee on; would you like some?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Ed said, settling on the living room sofa.

Holly poured the coffee and brought milk and sugar.

“The gate guard said somebody brought you back here.”

“Yes, that was Grant Early, my neighbor. I’ve been seeing him.”

“Is it okay for him to know where you are? I’ve been worried.”

“It’s okay.”

“So, what’s up?”

Holly told him about her experience of the day before, and she watched his reaction closely. He appeared to be shocked.

“That’s the most awful thing I’ve ever heard,” Ed said. “You think it was this Rodriguez fellow?”

“Him or a friend of his.”

“But how could he know that you were here? Have you told anybody?”

“No, no one, until yesterday. I spent the night at Ham’s place. Grant picked me up and brought me back here. I still think this is the safest place I could be.”

Ed picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Hurd? This is Ed. I’m over at guest house number two. Can you come over here right now? I need to talk to you. Good.” He hung up. “I want to get Hurd on this right away.”

“That’s a good idea,” Holly said. “I haven’t told any of my people, but Hurd is like family.”

“What happened to the airplane?” Ed asked.

“They’ll remove the wings, load it onto a truck, and take it back to the Orchid Beach airport, where it will be repaired.”

“God, you were lucky to get down in one piece.” He scratched Daisy behind the ears, and she reacted with pleasure.

“I know we were lucky. Ginny’s a fine pilot, and she got us down safely; it could have turned out differently.”

There was a knock on the door and Hurd Wallace entered. “Morning,” he said.

“Hurd, sit down,” Ed said. “Holly’s got something to tell you.”

Hurd listened calmly as Holly related the events of the day before. “I was on the practice tee, hitting some balls,” he said, “and I heard something that sounded like a string of firecrackers going off.”

“It wasn’t firecrackers,” Holly said.

Hurd stood up. “I want to go and take a look at the area around the airfield right now,” he said. “I’ll report back to you as soon as I can, Ed.”

Ed nodded, and Hurd left the house.

“What do you think all this means, Holly?”

“Well, Trini Rodriguez has got to be behind it,” she replied. “And he knows that I’m the one who put the law on him.”

“But how could he find you here?”

“I don’t know. Have there been any people on the property the last couple of days that you don’t know?”

“Just the construction crews,” Ed replied. He looked at his watch. “I have to be going in a minute; someone’s picking me up; I’m showing a house this morning.”

“Ed, when I was waiting for Ginny to land, a business jet came in and dropped off some packages that were taken away by one of your vans. What would that have been?”

“Let’s see,” Ed said, scratching his head. “Plumbing supplies, I expect; special-order stuff. We needed them in a hurry, and a friend sent them down from Atlanta in his airplane.”

“And who were the pilot and copilot?”

“They work for my friend; they’re his regular crew. Why? Do you think they had something to do with this?”

“I don’t know. One of them made a cellphone call just before it happened, and he had been looking at me.”

“Oh, Holly, I don’t think he would have been involved. He was probably reporting to his base about having arrived here.”

“I guess you’re right, Ed. Maybe I’m getting paranoid.”

There was a knock on the door, and a man stepped inside-fiftyish, tall, slender, dressed in an expensive-looking suit. “Hi, Ed, you ready?”

Ed Shine put down his coffee cup. “Yep. Holly, I’ll tell Hurd to come tell you if he found anything out there.”

“Thanks, Ed.”

“You want to come look at a house with us?”

“Thanks, but I’m a little tired; think I’ll try to get in a nap.”

“We’ll be going, then. Oh, Holly, this is Willard Smith. He’s thinking of retiring to Blood Orchid.”

Smith held out his hand and gave her a little smile. “Everybody calls me Smitty,” he said.

Holly slept for an hour, then was wakened again by the doorbell. Hurd Wallace came in and tossed her a plastic bag with a shell casing inside. “I found that,” he said, “behind some bushes at the north end of the runway.”

“Thirty-caliber,” Holly said, looking at the casing. “Military weapon, I guess.”

“There’s a lot of surplus stuff on the weapons market,” Hurd said. “It could have come from anywhere. If somebody was firing on auto out there, he cleaned up after himself; I found just the one casing. What’s going on, Holly?”

She tapped her ear with a finger and moved her hand in a circle.

Hurd frowned, but he seemed to get her point.

“It’s this guy Rodriguez,” she said. “There’s a statewide APB out for him.”

“We got a fax from the state police,” Hurd said. “Nobody like that has been seen around Blood Orchid. There are so few people about that any visitor would be noticed.”

“I guess so,” Holly said, handing him back the cartridge case. She took his arm and walked him outside.

“You think the house is bugged?” Hurd asked.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Who do you think would be listening?”

“I don’t know, but somebody here tried to kill me, and that’s been happening way too often. I think I’m entitled to be a little paranoid.”

“You suspect Ed Shine of being involved in something?”

Holly didn’t hesitate. “No, Ed is the sweetest guy in the world, and he’s been great to me.” She wanted to trust Hurd, but she didn’t know how deeply Ed had his hooks into his security chief.

“Me too,” Hurd said.

“It may be that Rodriguez has just tracked me down. Will you keep an eye out for any strangers?”

“Sure I will, and I’ll alert my whole force to do the same, all two of them.”

Holly laughed.

“Do you have a weapon?”

“I’ve got my Beretta,” she replied.

“Take an extra magazine,” he said, handing her one.

“Thanks, Hurd.”

“I’ll talk to you later, if I find out anything.”

“Use my cellphone number,” she said. “You still have it?”

“I know it by heart.”

“Hurd, you remember that building over on the north side of the property that has the vaults?”

“Yeah, I got a look at it once, after the Feds busted everybody.”

“Do you know if there’s been any activity around that building?”

Hurd blinked. “It’s back in the trees, and the driveway has a sawhorse across it and a No Trespassing sign.”

“If you get a chance to do it discreetly, could you have a look at the place, see if there’s any sign that people have been in and out of it recently?”