Blood Orchid (Holly Barker 3)

There was a knock on the door, and a man stepped inside—fiftyish, tall, slender, dressed in an expensive-looking suit. “Hi, Ed, you ready?”

Ed Shine put down his coffee cup. “Yep. Holly, I’ll tell Hurd to come tell you if he found anything out there.”

“Thanks, Ed.”

“You want to come look at a house with us?”

“Thanks, but I’m a little tired; think I’ll try to get in a nap.”

“We’ll be going, then. Oh, Holly, this is Willard Smith. He’s thinking of retiring to Blood Orchid.”

Smith held out his hand and gave her a little smile. “Everybody calls me Smitty,” he said.

57

Holly slept for an hour, then was wakened again by the doorbell. Hurd Wallace came in and tossed her a plastic bag with a shell casing inside. “I found that,” he said, “behind some bushes at the north end of the runway.”

“Thirty-caliber,” Holly said, looking at the casing. “Military weapon, I guess.”

“There’s a lot of surplus stuff on the weapons market,” Hurd said. “It could have come from anywhere. If somebody was firing on auto out there, he cleaned up after himself; I found just the one casing. What’s going on, Holly?”

She tapped her ear with a finger and moved her hand in a circle.

Hurd frowned, but he seemed to get her point.

“It’s this guy Rodriguez,” she said. “There’s a statewide APB out for him.”

“We got a fax from the state police,” Hurd said. “Nobody like that has been seen around Blood Orchid. There are so few people about that any visitor would be noticed.”

“I guess so,” Holly said, handing him back the cartridge case. She took his arm and walked him outside.

“You think the house is bugged?” Hurd asked.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Who do you think would be listening?”

“I don’t know, but somebody here tried to kill me, and that’s been happening way too often. I think I’m entitled to be a little paranoid.”

“You suspect Ed Shine of being involved in something?”

Holly didn’t hesitate. “No, Ed is the sweetest guy in the world, and he’s been great to me.” She wanted to trust Hurd, but she didn’t know how deeply Ed had his hooks into his security chief.

“Me too,” Hurd said.

“It may be that Rodriguez has just tracked me down. Will you keep an eye out for any strangers?”

“Sure I will, and I’ll alert my whole force to do the same, all two of them.”

Holly laughed.

“Do you have a weapon?”

“I’ve got my Beretta,” she replied.

“Take an extra magazine,” he said, handing her one.

“Thanks, Hurd.”