Julie Garwood - The Ideal Man

All right, he was in business. He hadn’t found a place to hide near the Sullivan house, but maybe he had discovered something even better. Now he just needed to find out where the falls were.

The people of Winston Falls were proud of their town. Each time he stopped for gas and food, he was asked if he’d had time to visit the falls yet. “Everyone does,” he was told. “Why, you can’t come to Winston Falls and not go to the crystal clear water.”

Willis promised all the friendly townspeople he met that, yes, he would go to the falls.

He made good on his promise. It turned out the natural wonder was everything he’d been told and much more, for it was at the falls that he found the perfect spot for the ambush.

He expected Dr. Sullivan and the FBI agent to appear at any moment. She’d want to show him the town’s pride and joy, right?

Wrong. For two long days and nights Willis sat cross-legged in the brush with his high-powered rifle in his lap, waiting. He wasn’t alone. Hundreds of gnats and mosquitoes kept him company. There were also hordes of teenagers taking turns having sex behind the waterfall. Willis guessed the kids believed the water hid them from view, and he wondered why they hadn’t realized that, if they could see out, anyone walking by could see in. One teenage boy brought two different girls to the falls, at different times, of course.

Willis felt as though he were watching porn, bad porn, with lots of grunting and groaning. He would have left and formulated another plan if the spot he’d chosen hadn’t been the perfect place to kill someone. The noise from the water crashing down into the pool below would mask the sound of the rifle. And he was well hidden. Three teenagers walked right past him and never saw him.

He had a lot of time to think while he waited, mostly about his little brother, George. He missed the stupid kid. He’d told the Landrys that George was too young and not to entice him into their dirty business. They’d ignored him, and George was so eager to impress and so foolishly impatient, he’d gone and gotten himself killed.

George and he had such grand plans. They’d wanted to start some kind of business together. Nothing big, maybe just a pack-and-ship kind of place, but something legit. A stint in prison had been hard on Willis, and he didn’t think he could go back inside again. George would never have made it inside. He was too soft, too childlike.

Going straight proved to be impossible now. Once the Landrys had their tentacles around him, he couldn’t get away. They knew the day he was released and contacted him that evening. “Welcome back,” Cal Landry had gushed.

The money was too good to pass up. A hundred thousand to pop the doctor. Who could turn that down?

He thought it would be so easy, but the second day of being eaten alive by bugs changed his plans. He had to find another way to get her. But where? He knew he could get the doctor in St. Louis, but why wait? Why not get her here in her hometown where there was less law enforcement? He’d come to the conclusion that he might have to kill the FBI agent assigned to her as well, and that thought gave him chills. He’d get the needle in his arm for sure if he got caught.

Prison had changed him. It hadn’t hardened him; it had made him fearful.

Willis finally came up with a new plan. He went over it several times until he was satisfied it would work, then he got up, zipped the rifle in the duffel bag with his two guns, and headed for his car. It was time to get his audio surveillance equipment out again. He’d driven around the area enough times to know that there was only one road anyone could take from Winston Falls to the airport. Now he just needed to find out when they’d be on it.

His cell phone chirped indicating he had a text. “Number unknown,” he read, and that meant the Landrys. It was a one-word text: “Cancel.”

He sat in the car for several minutes while he considered his options. The Landrys had already put half the money in the secret account. They’d want it back, and that just wasn’t fair. After all the preparation he’d done? Then there was George. Cal and Erika had gotten his brother killed. Hell, no. He wasn’t going to give them any money back. As far as he was concerned, he hadn’t seen the text. He’d do the job and keep the money.

Ellie watched the scenery out of her side window as Max drove around the curves of the worn two-lane road.

“Do we have plane tickets? Clark told me he was taking care of it, but-,” Ellie began.

“Yes, we do. You’ll be sleeping in your own bed tonight.”

Max saw a glint of steel out of the corner of his eye when they rounded another curve.

“We’re near the falls,” she said. “If there were time-”

“Down! Get your head down!”

Max shouted the command as he swerved the SUV to get out of the line of fire. Cogburn leapt onto the road, lifted his rifle, and fired two shots. Max recognized the high-powered rifle as he swerved again. “The son of a bitch is trying to hit the gas tank. Must think he can blow us up.”

Ellie was amazed at how calm he sounded. The side of her face rested on his thigh. She was trying not to knock the gearshift.

The third shot hit the left back tire, and at the speed they were going, it was nearly impossible to control the vehicle.

“Hold on, sweetheart. We’re going off-road.”

The SUV was spinning, and Ellie thought they were going to roll, but Max knew what he was doing. Within seconds the SUV had righted itself, and they were headed into the woods.

He slammed on the brakes, got Ellie’s seat belt off and his own, and said, “Let’s go.”

Max threw his door open and pulled her out behind him. They both ran flat out, ducking under branches and leaping over scrub. Max stopped suddenly, motioned for Ellie to get down, and then pushed her back so that the branches concealed her. He put his hand up to tell her to stay still. And then he waited, crouched in front of her, listening to every little sound.

Ellie tried not to make any noise and to control her breathing. If Cogburn followed their tracks, he would find them. She remained motionless and silent.

How long had they waited? She didn’t have any idea, but her legs were going numb, and she was trying to ignore the knot in her calf. How could Max stay in this position without moving a muscle for so long?

A twig snapped. Where had the sound come from? She thought the left, but Max sprang up and fired to the right, three shots in rapid succession as he moved forward, running toward his target.

He got Cogburn with the third shot. The hit man tried to get back to his car, but he had only made it to Max’s SUV when he collapsed and began to scream. He wasn’t given any sympathy. Max grabbed the rifle and tossed it into the back of the car, then squatted down next to Cogburn. “You’re in a hell of a fix here,” he said.

“I need a doctor,” Willis cried. “I’m bleeding bad.”

“You just tried to shoot a doctor.”

Ellie ran to the car and got gloves out of her purse, nudged Max out of her way, and knelt down beside the man who had wanted to kill her. Willis’s eyes were wide with terror as Ellie pushed his hands away to check the damage.

“The bullet went through,” she said.

She got up and went back to the SUV to find something she could wrap around the wound until Willis could get to a hospital. She ended up using an old T-shirt and the only dress she had left. She wadded the shirt into a ball to apply pressure, then tore the dress into strips to hold it in place.

“There isn’t any more I can do for him.”

“I’m dying?” Cogburn began to wail.

Ellie knelt behind him now and was about to answer him when Max said, “You’d better hope you’re dying because, if you’re not, you’re going away for life.”