After this job, he could pick and choose where to live. How to live. Thanks to the internet, he’d been able to start hisinvestigations business with nothing more than his laptop and a cell phone.
“What about the weather?” Cordell asked, his voice booming through the phone.
Wyatt pulled the phone from his ear and scowled. Cordell had picked up the device on his end and he sounded concerned. “What about it?” The reports were being broadcast nationwide, updates broadcast hourly everywhere except the casino floor. If they were already in town as Wyatt assumed, they should have heard the latest local warnings.
“You grew up around there,” Cordell snapped. “Do we have a problem?”
Was the man actually unable to comprehend the dire snowfall warnings? “The better question is what can we change to cope with it,” Wyatt hedged. “Do you want to put this off for a few days?” The diamonds were scheduled to be here for another week.
“No. A delay is not an option.”
Wyatt had assumed from the start Cordell had a buyer lined up. A buyer who wouldn’t tolerate any excuse, not even a massive winter storm. The information might give Pickering a fresh angle to work.
“Well, there is a risk that the main roadway will be closed,” he allowed, unsure what Cordell wanted to hear.
Anyone who bothered to take a drive through the Black Hills would notice paved roadways weren’t prevalent. If the main highway was blocked Wyatt would have to find another way to the rendezvous point Cordell had specified a few miles north of Deadwood. With the storm bearing down on the area, that could get tricky.
“If you want your cut, you’ll get us out.”
“I’m aware,” Wyatt said. “There are alternate routes. I was just taking a look,” he lied. The next thing on his agenda tonightwas locating the best way to send Cordell and his crew straight to jail. “If everyone is in place on time, I’ll get us all out as promised.”
“We know what we’re doing.” Cordell made a noise that rang a little too close to a villainous chuckle and sent a ripple of dread across the back of Wyatt’s neck.
The call ended. Finally.
Wyatt scrubbed away the dread and dropped the phone on the hotel dresser. This wasnothis idea of a good time. If he’d ever thought working with the FBI might be entertaining, the pressing storm and Cordell’s laugh cured that misconception.
He thought of Evie downstairs dealing poker and swore. He wondered what it would take to read the reports on the calls between her and Cordell. Dumb question. Pickering and her team might agree, but at what cost? He didn’t want to be drawn into another case. No, he’d cash his check and move on with his life.
One of these days he would decide where to live that life. Not here. If he’d harbored any hope of coming home, Evie’s reaction had crushed that. Clearly, she wasn’t pleased to see him again. He doubted she’d hesitate to turn him in if she realized he was working with thieves.
In forty-eight hours, when it came out that he was tied to the diamond theft, she’d hate him more than ever. Why did that twist him up? He’d wrecked everything all by himself when he’d run away.
It shouldn’t matter. He couldn’t let her low opinion of him interfere with the work. Too much was riding on this entire operation. Turning on the television, he found the weather channel. He’d just flopped back on the bed to await the next update on Winter Storm Holly, when someone knocked at the door.
Of course. This would be Pickering or one of the other agents, eager to go over every word and inflection of his chat with Cordell. The man must have really embarrassed them on some previous occasion to have them so intent on capture.
He should probably do something fun during his stay in an upscale hotel on the government’s dime. According to the schedule, he’d have tomorrow to himself, then the robbery the day after. Too bad Cottonwood didn’t have tours available.
Resigned, he flung the door open without checking who was on the other side. He barely caught back the terse greeting when he saw it was Evie standing there instead of agent Pickering.
She jerked, her face going pale. “Sorry. This is a bad time,” she said. “Bad idea,” she mumbled, backing away into the hallway.
“Evie,” he breathed. His heart seemed stuck in his chest. “I thought…” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I’m afraid to ask who you were expecting.”
“Come, in. It’s fine.” It was a terrible time and a stupid idea after Pickering all but said Evie was involved with Cordell. “Do you want to come in?”
“Um. No, thanks.” She didn’t move away from the door. “I just, um… I made a mistake.”
“Come inside, Evelyn. Please.”
“I really can’t. Not while I’m in uniform.” She wrapped the open panels of her coat tightly around her, as if hiding as much of that uniform as possible. Her chin came up, but compassion glowed in those soft gray eyes. “I just wanted to say… to tell you that this—me working here—wasn’t something I planned on. It became a necessity.”
His heart settled back into place and the normal rhythm he generally ignored. “Evie, I’d never judge you.”
She rolled her eyes. “We both know that’s exactly what you did the moment you saw me downstairs.”
