He gave her the number. “Do your best, honey,” he pleaded. “You lived against all the odds. I don’t want you to die over a handful of money.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said heavily, and hung up. It wasn’t until then she realized that she was shaking.
* * *
When Boone came back, he found Keely quiet and preoccupied, staring into space.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, because he knew at once that something was. He could feel it.
She frowned. “How do you know something is?”
He moved to the bed and dropped down lazily into the armchair by her bed. “I read minds. Come on. Tell me.”
She sank back into the pillows wearily. “My father called. Jock’s running from the drug lords and he wants money to get out of the country. He told my father that if I don’t get it for him somehow, he’ll kill me. The drug dealers will probably send him back to wherever he came from in a shoebox.”
He took off his hat and dropped it on the floor by his chair. He ran a big, lean hand through his black hair. “I’ll turn Bailey loose on him, and when he gets through, Jock will fit in the shoebox. Or parts of him will.”
“Is Bailey all right?” she asked.
He smiled. “Doing great, thanks to you.” His smile faded. “I still can’t believe I listened to that self-centered little cheater when you told me what was wrong with Bailey. I wish I could go back and live those few minutes over.”
“It turned out all right.”
He nodded. “Only because you had the guts to do what you knew was right. You’ve got grit, Keely.”
“I’m just stubborn,” she replied. “What am I going to do? I don’t have anything I could sell that would bring enough money to buy Jock a plane ticket.”
“We’ll talk to Hayes,” he told her. “He’ll know what to do.”
* * *
And Hayes did. They arranged for a sum of money that Boone would give her father to lure him into a trap. Keely had already given Hayes the number where her father could be reached when she got the money.
“You’re not going,” she told Boone when he and Hayes were discussing who was going to take the money to Jock.
“Excuse me?” Boone asked haughtily.
She flushed, but she wouldn’t backtrack. “You’re not going. Everybody around me is either dead or in danger, and you’re not going to join my mother at the local funeral home. Let him do it.” She pointed at Hayes. “He knows how to deal with criminals. He’s good at it.”
“Thanks,” Hayes mused.
“I was with a Special Forces unit in the Middle East,” Boone reminded Keely. “I came home.”
She looked to Hayes for assistance.
He grimaced. “Okay, I’ll work out the details once you get the money together. With any luck, we can nab both men.”
“I’ll call you,” Boone promised.
When Hayes left, Boone watched Keely with faint amusement. “You’re afraid I’ll get hurt.”
She shifted on her pillows. “My mother is dead because my father wanted money. I don’t want to lose you… I mean, I don’t want Clark and Winnie to have to lose you.”
He pursed his lips. “I could have wrung your neck when I saw those photos,” he said conversationally. “I could have wrung Clark’s, too.”
“I know you don’t want him around me because I’m in another social class…”
“Stop that,” he muttered. “I didn’t want him around you because you’re mine, Keely,” he said curtly.
