Valerie Hansen - Special Agent

“Who, dear?”

“The man. He had a mask on and he—”

“You’ve been through a severe trauma,” the blond nurse interjected. “We can’t give you a stronger sedative just yet, because of your head injury, but the doctor said we could take the edge off your pain. You may be having a delayed reaction to what happened to you or to the IV meds. I’ll report it to him.”

“I am not hallucinating,” Katerina insisted hoarsely. “There was a strange man right here in this room. He threatened me.” She lost hope when she saw the nurses exchange knowing glances.

“All right. Just lie back and rest,” the motherly one said, patting Katerina’s hand. “I’m sure you’ll be released soon. In the meantime, one of us will be close by. Use your call button if you need anything.”

“You’re not even going to look for the guy, are you?”

“As I said, we’ll report your symptoms to your physician, dear.”

Meaning, they still thought she’d been hallucinating or dreaming. Was it possible? No, she concluded. A trick of her brain would not have made her cracked lip bleed again. There had been a man’s hand pressed over her mouth. And he’d intended to take her away with him.

Vern was in jail. So who had accosted her?

* * *

Max knocked before entering Katerina’s room accompanied by a nurse. He’d expected to see her in bed but had not anticipated the reaction he got. She took one look at him, fisted her sheet and gathered it up under her chin like a shield. Her skin was pale, her mouth slightly swollen and her eyes reddened and puffy as if she’d been crying.

He hesitated, raw emotion churning through him. despite outward calm “The staff says you’ve been having a rough time, Ms. Garwood. Do you remember who I am?”

“FBI. You were there when the barn exploded.”

“Right. I looked after you until the ambulance arrived. How are you feeling?” he asked gently. “Are you up to finishing our conversation?”

As he watched, Katerina tried to raise herself into a sitting position and blanched. She looked ill beyond her injuries. Max beat the nurse to her bedside and steadied her. “Easy.”

With the weight of her shoulders resting on his arm, Katerina sighed. “Sorry. I forgot myself for a second. It’s been a rough day.”

Max stepped back as the nurse raised the head of her bed slightly, and then he asked, “Better now? Or do you need a few more minutes?”

“I’ll be fine as long as I don’t try to move too quickly.” She eyed the young nurse in the background. “Would it be possible for us to talk alone?”

Max nodded. “I see no problem with that. Leave the door ajar on your way out, please,” he told the nurse. As soon as she had left he took out a small digital recorder, clicked it on and renewed his interest in the patient. “What can you tell me about the incident at the ranch this morning?”

“Me? You were there, too. I don’t know any more about it than you do. One minute I was yelling back at you and the next thing I knew I was knocked off my feet.” Her voice softened a notch. “Thanks for looking after me.”

“You’re welcome. Now think. Did you see or hear anything unusual earlier?”

Her brow furrowed. “No. I wasn’t actually there for very long. I’d just stopped by to pick up the last of my clothes and things. I told you that.”

“I understand you no longer live there.”

“No. I don’t. My father was so angry when Vern was arrested for smuggling and distributing drugs he blamed me for ruining the family reputation and threw me out.”

Max struck a pseudo-relaxed pose. “And you’re surprised by that? It was pretty risky to keep company with a lowlife like Kowalski in the first place. You must have suspected he’d eventually be caught.”

“I had no idea he was a crook.”

That he didn’t believe for a second. “You were supposed to be marrying the man. How could you possibly not have known?”

“Because he was slick and because I was naive, I guess.” Her cheeks warmed visibly and his chest constricted when he saw moisture glistening behind her lashes. But he reminded himself he had a job to do. “Look,” Katerina went on, “I’m not stupid. I actually have a pretty decent IQ. But Vern wasn’t like the other men I’d met. He said all the right things at the right times and I fell for him. How was I to know he was using my father’s horse business as a cover to distribute drugs?”

“Intuition? Didn’t Kowalski ever say or do anything that made you suspicious before he was arrested?”

“No.” She broke eye contact. “Later.”

Aha! Now they were finally making progress. “When?”

“Promise you won’t look at me like I’m a horse short of a full team?”

“Yes. Go on, Ms. Garwood.”

“When I had a scare earlier this afternoon, the nurses said I imagined everything and blamed it on my injury and pain medicine.”

Leaning closer, Max listened carefully. “Is that what you think?”

“No. Well, maybe. I know I was terrified. I was drifting in and out of consciousness when somebody clamped a hand over my mouth and told me not to struggle.”

“Here?” Every instinct in him was on alert. “They told me you’d been having nightmares but what you claim is highly unlikely.”

“I know,” Katerina agreed. “The nurses who came after I shouted for help insisted I’d been dreaming. I’ve started thinking they may be right. It’s just that my lip bled and hurt more afterward and I can’t see any other reason for that much physical change, not even my screaming when I got so scared.”

“Describe your assailant.”

She huffed. “Pick up any mystery novel and you’ll know. Ski mask, hospital clothes and gloves. No prints, no ID, no nothing. He wasn’t as tall as you are and not as muscular, but...”

“Okay. What makes you think he had anything to do with Kowalski?”

“Because he told me Vern sent him,” Katerina said haltingly. “I—I thought he was going to kidnap me. That’s when I started yelling.”

Max gave her the kind of stern, menacing look he usually reserved for perps he was grilling. “You didn’t want to go with a friend of your fiancé?”

He saw her fists clench. “No.”

“Because he scared you?”

Despite the obvious discomfort of pushing herself up with her elbows, she met his severe gaze with one of her own. “No,” she almost shouted before lowering her voice, her throat raw. “Because I am an honest person and I want nothing to do with criminals, their friends or their disgusting business. When is everybody going to get that straight?”

The glistening of her unshed tears was more convincing than her insistence. Either she was a great actress or she was truly upset.

Max stood and backed away to make a call. He arranged to have the police check recent activity on the security cameras monitoring the halls and place a guard outside Katerina’s room for the night. Then he returned to her. “When you’re released from here I’ll come back and drive you home. Then, if you’re up to it, I’d like to take you back to the ranch and walk you through exactly what you did before I arrived.” He handed her a business card after jotting his private cell number on it. “Call me when you’re ready to go.”

“What if I refuse to take orders from you and arrange my own ride?”

“I don’t advise it.”

Katerina nodded. “I’ll call, but not because you’re scowling at me. And not because I’m guilty of anything and hope to fool you. I’ll call because you believe there really was a stranger in my room when everybody else insists I’m crazy.”

THREE

In retrospect, Katerina was not keen on asking the taciturn federal agent for a ride home the following day. The problem was, she had few other options. Her poor pickup truck was probably toast after the barn blew up and except for a few friends who worked in town and maybe the ranch foreman, there was nobody she felt she could call. Heath McCabe would be in deep trouble with her dad if she asked him, so she did the sensible thing and dialed Max West’s private number.