Harper Allen - Covert Cowboy

She paused. “But you guessed about the Q-fever virus, didn’t you? I’d forgotten—Wiley’s ‘conscience’ recommended we look into the flu that swept Silver Rapids earlier this year.”

“I told him it might be worthwhile to check out any recent influenza-like outbreaks that might have occurred in the area,” Con said. “Since I didn’t realize this investigation was centered in Colorado I wasn’t aware there’d been one in Silver Rapids. But it fits. DeMarco’s always been intrigued by nerve gas, biological weaponry, that kind of thing. He’s responsible for at least six murders I know of that were passed off as deaths from natural causes, and Roland’s was one of them.”

He hoped his voice revealed none of the pain that suddenly swept through him. A vision filled his mind of Roland’s lifeless body, slumped over his desk, his hand still gripping the silver pen that had released the deadly vapor which had instantly killed him. That pen had been given to him by Helio DeMarco, it had later been established.

He felt a muscle in his jaw tighten. With difficulty he posed his next questions.

“But where’s the connection between DeMarco and the Langworthys? And which Langworthy is under suspicion, anyway?”

“The Ice Queen.” Colleen’s voice hardened. “Marilyn Langworthy, Holly’s half sister and Sky’s aunt. Her nickname’s apt. Even pregnancy hasn’t thawed her out.”

She was pregnant.

Just for a moment Con let himself imagine how he would feel if there was any possibility that the child she was carrying could be his, and fierce joy shafted through him, so powerful and piercing it felt like pain. He wrenched himself back to reality.

She’d had his body. Whether she ever knew it or not, she had his heart and his soul. But the one thing he was incapable of giving Marilyn Langworthy or any woman was a child, he thought bleakly.

So the baby she was carrying had to be—

“We believe that the father of her child is a certain Tony Corso.” Colleen frowned. “Since you’re an expert on DeMarco, you probably know Corso’s his nephew.”

Con reached for the bottle of bourbon and poured himself a second shot, more to have something to do than because he needed another drink. He tossed it back.

Marilyn was pregnant, and by a man who’d walked out of her life. Since earlier this year his own investigation into Corso as a lead to DeMarco had failed to turn up the mobster’s nephew, he didn’t need Wellesley to fill him in on Corso’s absence, he thought grimly as she continued talking, just as he hadn’t needed her to fill him in on a number of other details. He wasn’t going to tell her that. His flying visit to Denver three months ago, including what had happened between him and Marilyn that night in her office, was none of Colorado Confidential’s business and he intended to keep it that way.

There were other aspects to his involvement with this case that he had no intention of sharing, he admitted. Wiley almost certainly knew some of them, but it seemed he hadn’t felt the need to alert Colleen Wellesley to the situation, so that was all right.

That was the only thing that was all right.

Marilyn Langworthy had had an ill-advised affair—an affair she’d later regretted, judging from her assessment of Corso that night in her office—with a man who had connections to a mobster, unbeknownst to her. She gave the impression of being standoffish and unemotional.

If Colleen Wellesley or Longbottom or anyone else associated with Colorado Confidential thought they could hang her out to dry for reasons as flimsy as those, Con thought savagely, it would be his pleasure to set them straight right now. Even as he opened his mouth to speak, Wiley put a hand on his arm.

“If that were all we had on her we’d just keep her under surveillance on the off-chance she could lead us to DeMarco. But there’s more. It’s pretty damning.”

The older man’s expression was shuttered. “Marilyn Langworthy arranged a visit to Silver Rapids with Holly just before the flu outbreak, Con. It looks as if the Ice Queen deliberately exposed her half sister to the Q-fever microbe during Holly’s pregnancy with Sky.”

“Hold the elevator!”

Marilyn hoped the note of panic in her voice wasn’t as obvious to Jim Osborne and Dan Curtis, her neighbors, as it was to herself. Hastening across the gleaming heartwood floor of the loft complex’s foyer—waddling, more like, she thought despairingly—she found herself calculating the number of seconds before she reached her apartment and made it to the bathroom.

Living in a trendy converted warehouse had cachet, but there were definite drawbacks. For starters, the elevator had been originally built for freight, and it was slow. Jim and Dan would be getting off at the second floor, so their exit would tack on another ten or twenty seconds. Add thirty more for the mad dash up the industrial-style metal staircase that linked her open-concept lower floor to the upper one where the bathroom and bedrooms were, and there was a chance she wasn’t going to make it.

Everything she’d ever read about the physical side effects of pregnancy had emphasized benefits like glowing skin and silkier hair. She’d never expected to be at the mercy of a bladder that felt roughly the size of a pea.

Bad choice of word. As she scooted into the elevator she attempted to maintain a modicum of cool decorum by smiling her thanks at the two men.

“Mama’s been shopping for maternity fashions,” Dan teased, casting an eye at her parcels and releasing the elevator door. Beside him, Jim raised an eyebrow.

“I saw that look of desperation often enough on my sister’s face when she was expecting. Gotta go, sweetie?”

The Marilyn Langworthy of three months ago would have frozen him with a look, she thought. Now she felt grateful for his perception.

“Let’s just say I’ve decided to pack away my favorite CD of Handel’s Water Music until after next April,” she admitted. “There isn’t a warp speed button on that panel, is there?”

“Sorry, no.” His pleasant features crinkled into a grin. “But we’ll go straight to your floor first. Will that help?”

“You’re an angel,” she breathed fervently.

As the oversize freight doors clanged shut and the elevator began its noisy and excruciatingly slow ascent, surreptitiously she eased her left foot out of its leather flat and felt instant relief. She looked up in time to see both Jim and Dan glance politely away.

Her beloved collection of size seven Manolos were a dim memory, Marilyn thought wryly. Ditto for her wardrobe of designer suits and dresses, all of which she’d seemed to balloon out of within days of learning she was pregnant. Once upon a time she’d concentrated on the label of a garment, but now she’d acquired the habit of riffling through racks of clothes, extracting a likely looking top or skirt, and tugging ruthlessly at the waist-line to judge how much stretch it had.

Of course, her shopping expedition today had been only a cover. She’d needed to get away from the office and come to some hard decisions.

She was a thirty-one-year-old expectant single mother. She’d lost her figure, her reputation and after what she’d discovered this morning, quite possibly her job. And she had to go to the bathroom like nobody’s business.

Joy soared through her, so pure and exhilarating she felt a prickling moisture behind her eyes. She was going to have a baby. She was going to have a baby.

“…bring a plate up to you later, if you’d like.”

She’d missed the beginning of Dan’s comment, but it was obvious from his expression that he hadn’t been expecting tears in reply. She mustered a shaky smile.