Accidental Agent (River's End Ranch Book 3) Read online

  “Waitressing is in my blood—my third great-grandmother, Abigail Peterson, was a waitress at a hotel in Topeka back in 1875—so I think I’ll be around a little bit longer.” She smirked. This was an actual ancestor, not a pretend one from Lithuania. “Besides, this book might be a total flop. It would be silly of me to quit my job now.”

  “Good, because I’m out of pancake syrup!” someone else shouted, and she laughed as she hopped down and went to grab him some more.

  The rest of the morning, Liz accepted congratulations while she served up coffee and fetched more toast. It was surreal—like everything she’d ever wanted all at once. She’d called her parents right after she’d emailed off the signed contract, and they were beyond excited for her. Now all her loved ones knew . . . all except Jack, who still didn’t know she wrote.

  Where on earth was he?

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the time Jack woke up, he’d been asleep for fourteen hours. He wiped the drool from his cheek and reminded himself to change his pillowcase later, then stumbled into the shower. He was absolutely starving, and he had no food in his apartment whatsoever. He’d have to go find a good diner somewhere, but he’d never found a diner as good as Kelsey’s Kafè.

  A pang shot through his heart. It had been days since he’d seen Liz, days since his unkind words had left her sitting behind the wheel of her car, looking stunned. Maybe she’d tried to call while he was out on assignment. He grabbed his personal cell phone on the counter and tried to turn it on, but the power had run down. Of course. That’s absolutely what would happen when he was anxious to make a call. He plugged it in and then headed out to find some food. By the time he came back, it would be charged enough that he could see if he had any missed calls.

  ***

  Liz’s cell phone rang as she was driving home from the diner. She was tempted to let it go to voice mail, but then she caught a glimpse of the caller ID and pulled off the road—maybe a little too fast—to answer it.

  “Hello?” She was as breathless as if she’d been running.

  “Liz? Is that you?”

  “Yes, it’s me.” She swallowed, trying to sound calmer. “How are you, Jack?”

  “Listen, I saw that you called. I’m so sorry I didn’t call you back—I was on a job and didn’t have my phone, but it turned out well. We’ve been able to start making a case against someone we’ve wanted to catch for a long time.”

  “Oh, that’s good. I’m so glad.” So he wasn’t trying to avoid her—he had a genuine reason, and he wasn’t lying dead in a field somewhere. Excellent news on both counts.

  “Yeah, there’s going to be a press conference tonight, if you’re someplace where you can watch the news.”

  “A press conference? The national news?”

  “Yeah, around six Los Angeles time.”

  “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.” He’d been involved in a national case? Wow. For all her trying to sound casual, she’d most definitely be watching the news. Probably with her nose pressed up against the glass. It was tempting to tell him her news too, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as cool, so she’d hold off on that for a bit. Plus, she didn’t want to seem like she was trying to outdo him in any way.

  Just then, she heard a tap on the window and looked up into the face of Sheriff Shane Clapper, the husband of her boss and not a bad short-order cook himself. He helped out at the café on occasion, and she knew him well. This didn’t look like a casual conversation he wanted to have, though.

  “Uh, Jack, can I call you back in a minute?”

  “I need to head down to the office—how about tonight around ten?”

  “Yes, ten. Absolutely.” She hung up and rolled down the window. “Hi, Sheriff. Fancy meeting you here.”

  “What was that fancy little maneuver you just performed, Liz?”

  “Maneuver? Oh, you mean when I pulled over to answer my phone? Well, I know I shouldn’t drive and talk at the same time, and I don’t have a headset, so I decided that parking would be the best choice.” She smiled and batted her eyelashes. “Safety first, as my dear old auntie used to say.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t consider slamming on your brakes and then whipping onto the gravel at the side of the road to be safe. I don’t think your auntie would either. I saw it from clear down there at the intersection.”

  “I’m sorry. I really was trying not to talk and drive. Can you let me off with a warning this time?”

  He put one hand on the roof of her car. “I can, but only because you were pulling over to take a call, and not because you’re trying to use our friendship to get out of a ticket.”

  Liz put a hand on her chest. “Me? Why, I’d never do such a thing, Sheriff!”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Get out of here, Liz. And I hope that call was worth it.”

  “Oh, it was. Believe me, it was.”

  When Liz got back to her apartment, she took a minute to throw a load of laundry in the washing machine, knowing she’d never get the smell of hamburgers out of her uniform, but always trying. She still had a little time before the news started, so she brought up her manuscript for Stab Wound and began to tweak the character of Clint Holly.

  She gave him a wry sense of humor, made him a little uptight but willing to change, and worked in a dazzling smile. By the time she’d made all the necessary changes to chapter one, she realized she was writing a fictional version of Jack, and without any warning whatsoever, a tear rolled down her cheek.

  She missed him.

  She looked over her shoulder as Joni came in the house a few minutes later, carrying a pizza box and a six-pack of root beer. “Hey, we both have the night off, right?” she called out. “I thought we could veg and eat ourselves sick. We need to celebrate your contract.”

  A thrill ran through Liz at the words “your contract.” She didn’t think she’d ever get tired of that. “Sounds great, but we have to watch the news first.”

  “The news? Whatever for? It’s so depressing.”

  Liz hit save on her document and walked the whole three steps into the living room. If she ever made any money at this book thing, she was going to get a bigger apartment. “Yeah, it is, but Jack says he’s going to be on it.”

  Joni sat on the couch and tucked her feet beneath her. “You finally talked to Jack?”

  “Yeah. He was out on a case, and apparently there’s this news conference thing and he asked me to watch.”

  “That’s so cool.” Joni leaned forward and pulled a slice of pizza from the box. “I’m starving—I can’t wait anymore.”

  Liz grabbed a piece too, and they watched a game show until the news started. Then it came on, and Jack’s face filled the screen.

  “Our lead story tonight comes to us from Los Angeles, where police and the FBI worked together to locate the headquarters of a human trafficking ring,” the anchorwoman said. “We take you now to a live press conference in progress.”

  The camera went back to Jack, who stood behind another FBI agent now speaking into a microphone. “Our agency, in cooperation with the police, has been working tirelessly to locate these missing women and children and release them from their imprisonment,” he said. “Our lead detective on this case, Jack Saunders, lost his partner just a short time ago, but he led up the charge this week, and we were able to shut down one of the locations where these victims were being held. You may direct your questions to him.” He stepped back, and Jack came to the front.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming out this evening,” Jack said. “Our efforts this week led to the arrests of four traffickers, and we were able to rescue twenty women and ten children. Sadly, this is not the end of our investigation, nor did we rescue all the women and children taken by this particular criminal organization. The women we interviewed say they were taken along with many others, but they were separated and they haven’t seen the others since. We are still looking, and we will not give up.

  “Furthermore, the four
traffickers we arrested were not the masterminds of the operation, if you will. Those are still at large, and our commitment to finding them and bringing them to justice remains as firm as ever.

  “Our office takes every crime seriously, but crimes that victimize children . . .” Jack paused, swallowed, and resumed. “Crimes that victimize children are particularly vile. We want to thank the community and the local police departments for their help and cooperation. We wish to extend our condolences to the families of those we have not yet found, and assure you that we will not ever give up. Never. That is our solemn oath to you.”

  Liz stared at the screen, dumbfounded, as the reporters asked their questions. Joni was silent too until she finally cleared her throat. “So, that’s your guy, huh?”

  Liz nodded. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “He’s amazing. Like, Captain America amazing.”

  “Yeah.” Butterflies and fireworks and every other warm, fluttery, exploding thing took over her stomach.

  “So, what next?”

  Liz didn’t take her eyes from the TV. “I think I need to pay a visit to California.”

  ***

  Jack’s warm voice sounded fantastic through Liz’s cheap cell phone. “So, you saw the press conference?”

  “I did. I was totally blown away—I had no idea. Really, none.” Chills ran up and down Liz’s arms. “I’m so amazed, and so proud of you.”

  “Well, I have an excellent team.” Jack tried to talk around a yawn—it didn’t really work.

  “You’re exhausted. Why don’t you go to bed?”

  “Because I want to talk to you.”

  Wow. How had she ever found this guy? Well, he’d actually found her, but still. “Listen, go to bed. We can talk another time. I think you’ve earned some sleep.”

  He paused, but then she could hear the grin in his voice. “Okay. Good night.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  After that far-too-quick phone conversation with Jack after the press conference, which only solidified in her mind that she needed to be with him, Liz talked to Kelsi the next morning and asked for time off. Kelsi had seen the press conference and granted the request immediately, but said that Liz needed to train Lindy a bit more before she left, and that was proving to be a nightmare of epic proportions. The girl was nice enough, but if they held an intelligence contest between her and the coffee pot, Liz knew without a doubt which kitchen appliance would win.

  “Bob mentioned that you’re not writing down your orders clearly,” she said, sitting down with the girl across one of the tables. He’d given her a few order forms to use as examples. “Here, where you wrote ‘no mustard,’ it really looks like ‘no monkeys,’ and that was confusing because we don’t serve monkeys here at the diner.” She smiled, hoping a little comedy would help the moment along, but Lindy didn’t seem to get the joke.

  “We don’t?”

  “No, we don’t, so you need to use neater handwriting. And on this one, where it says ‘more ketchup than not,’ what does that mean, exactly?”

  “I was just writing down what the customer said,” Lindy replied. “That’s what you told me to do, right?”

  “I meant to write down what they want, not necessarily what they said,” Liz explained.

  “But what’s the difference?”

  “Well, sometimes customers will phrase things in an unusual way, like this one here with the ketchup. So your job is to find out what he means and then write that down.”

  “You mean, like, ask him?”

  Liz’s smile was now plastered on. “That’s right. You need to ask and then write it down in clear handwriting.”

  “Okay.” Lindy pressed her fingers to her temples. “I’m sorry—you must think I’m a total airhead, and I’m really not. I actually won my high school’s science fair my senior year with a very complex ant farm. I raised all the ants from babies and trained them each in an occupation.”

  “An occupation?”

  “That’s right. In addition to all the regular classes of ants, I had a lawyer, a doctor, a nurse, and a special needs kindergarten teacher.”

  Liz blinked a few times. “And . . . how did the ants get their college degrees?”

  Lindy rolled her eyes. “Well, they didn’t get actual diplomas because if they’d tried to walk at graduation, they’d get stepped on.”

  “I see.”

  “So, like I said, I won the science fair, but my brothers didn’t understand the genius of the whole thing. They called me ‘Boring Belinda’ because all I ever talked about was the ecosystem in this ant farm and how they would struggle to determine their next mayor because both candidates were so well qualified.”

  Liz closed her eyes and held them that way for a moment. She was beginning to see why Kelsi had delegated this girl’s training to her. She was also coming to understand the expression “Good help is hard to find,” and was ready to go bribe Jess into coming back to work.

  “No, I’m just kidding,” Lindy said, and Liz opened her eyes with a snap to see the girl laughing. “I made all that up to tease my brothers. It was just a regular ant farm.”

  “That is a relief. So, have you met Jaclyn?” Liz asked.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Well, she lives at the entrance of the RV park here at the ranch, and I think the two of you would get along just fine. In fact, why don’t you go find her right now? I’m sure she’d love a visit.”

  “Oh, all right.” The girl took off her apron and left, and Liz remained exactly where she was, staring at the wall. That couldn’t have been real. That absolutely could not have been real.

  Kelsi came into the dining room from the back. “How are you and Lindy getting along?”

  “When can we fire her?”

  Kelsi threw her head back and laughed. “We need to have an actual reason for that.”

  “I have an actual reason—she’s a total fruitcake.”

  “I agree, but until she makes a pretty big mistake here in the diner, we need to give her a chance, don’t you think? It’s not like I have a ton of applicants beating down my door.”

  “What if I make it my personal mission to find some?”

  “More power to you.” Kelsi grinned before returning to her office.

  Hmmm. Waitresses. Waitresses. Where to find some waitresses . . . it’s not like they lived in a sprawling metropolis. She might have to get creative. Or she might never get to take a trip to California.

  A trip she very badly needed to take.

  ***

  “And the café is understaffed anyway, and I don’t know how to make waitresses appear out of thin air.” Liz took a deep breath. She’d been complaining to Joni for the last fifteen minutes without inhaling much, and the lack of oxygen was starting to catch up with her. “But my character is shaping up really well, so that’s good, right?” There was at least something positive going on in her life.

  Joni reached out and nudged her shoulder. “Of course that’s good. And you’ll get this figured out—there’s a gorgeous, wonderful man out there just waiting for the right moment to sweep you off your feet. Of course there’s a way to make this work.”

  “It might take so long that he’ll have forgotten all about me by then.”

  “And now you’re just feeling sorry for yourself, and that’s not the Liz I know. Come on—we need to get some groceries, and this place is a pigsty. Let’s take a couple of hours and take care of some things, and I’m sure you’ll feel a lot better.”

  Liz glanced around at the plates on the coffee table and the pizza box still sitting on the floor and the DVD cases scattered everywhere. “Ew. Who lives here—teenage boys?”

  “You’d think. Now come on—let’s get busy.”

  Liz took a quick shower to wash the smell of onions out of her hair, and then they headed off to the grocery store. She drove—Joni seemed to be carrying on a text conversation with someone, but wouldn’t share who. Maybe distracting herself with chores was a good idea.
At least she was doing something productive instead of dwelling on what she felt powerless to do at the moment.

  ***

  “And that’s that.” Agent Holden leaned back in his chair and tossed a file on his desk. “Every clue we’ve been following has dried up. It’s like del Gato doesn’t even exist.”

  Jack pressed his lips together. There was a reason the man had chosen to be known as “the cat”—he moved in and out of the shadows, leaving nothing but devastation in his wake, nothing solid to link him to his crimes. “I don’t enjoy feeling like we’re dealing with some kind of supervillain from a comic book,” he said at last. “We’re talking about real people, real crimes, real victims. We have twenty-five missing persons reports for young women who were last seen in the downtown LA area, and five of those have been identified by the women we pulled out of the warehouse. We know del Gato has them. It’s just a matter of where.”

  Holden nodded. “Agreed. Now, it’s entirely possible that he’s transported them out of the county or even out of the state. I’ve alerted the police, the Highway Patrol, and the FBI in all our border states that are already on the lookout for suspicious activity because of his confederates all over the country. Plus, how many rings are there that aren’t even connected to del Gato?”

  “Far too many.” Sometimes it felt like an impossible task. Jack pressed the palms of his hands into his eye sockets. “What’s our next step?”

  Holden tapped the folder. “There has to be something in here we can use. Maybe you could go talk to our newly released women and see if they can remember anything else—they trust you. Every single one of them asked about you during their debriefings—you were the first rescuer they saw, so they’d naturally be more inclined to want to talk to you.”

  Jack stood up. “They’re still at the shelter?”

  “Yes. We’ve asked them to stay a few extra days so we can make sure they all check out medically. Many of them have family who came and are staying in nearby hotels so they can be close by.”