My cell sang out. I answered it. “Hey, Cook. I just ditched Garrett.”

“Good for you. You two weren’t really right for each other anyway.”

I grinned.

“So, here’s the word off the street.”

“I love it when you talk dirty.”

“Yolanda Pope’s niece almost died after having a routine tonsillectomy.”

“No way.”

“Way. Minutes after the good doctor showed up on the ward.”

“Which is suspicious because?”

“He had no patients that day. He’d performed no surgeries and had no one to check in on, yet he checked onto the ward. Yolanda’s niece went into cardiac arrest minutes after he checked out.”

“Oh, my gosh. How old was she?”

“Twelve. They chalked it up to a reaction to the anesthetic, but she makes it through the entire surgery just fine, then has a reaction over an hour later?”

“Not likely. I can understand why Yolanda suspects him.”

“Do you think he knew she was Yolanda’s niece?”

“Positive. Poor Xander,” I said, remembering her older brother with fondness. I couldn’t imagine what Yost put him through. “How did you get this information so fast?” I asked her.

“I just happen to know the charge nurse who was on duty that morning.”

“Sweet.”

“Yeah, but none of it can be proved. The nurses just found the whole thing odd. Nothing was ever reported, but they believe Yolanda overheard the nurses talking about it, which is why she suspects him.”

“Well, all this leads to one conclusion. Nathan Yost is more aggressive than I thought. I’ve never met anyone who could pull off such malice with such skill. The man is absolutely evil.”

“I don’t understand what he hoped to gain by it, though,” Cookie said.

“Revenge. He’s an opportunist, saw his chance. Yolanda left him. He was paying her back. Speaking of evil, I’m going out to get a look around Farley Scanlon’s trailer. Obviously, Earl Walker was close, possibly even staying with him.” The one time I’d seen him years ago, beating the fuck out of Reyes, was enough to last a lifetime. The mere thought of that man being close by made me lose consciousness a moment. Either that or the lack-of-sleep thing was catching up with me.

“And you’re going out to his house because it’s been days since someone has tried to kill you?”

With a weary grin, I said, “Of course. This everyday mundane stuff is getting old.”

“Can you at least wait for Garrett?”

“Can’t.”

“Why?”

“Don’t like him.”

“Yes, you do.”

“And I have to visit a biker gang this afternoon.”

“If I had a nickel for every time you said that.”

We hung up as I pulled into Farley’s lot. The mobile home was little more than a tin can, and while I liked mobile homes as much as the next girl, this one left a lot to be desired. Like Spam. It should be ham, but it just ain’t.

I picked the lock and ducked under the police tape just as a car slowed in front of the house. They didn’t stop, thankfully, but they were probably calling the police at that very moment, or performing some other civic-minded duty. Then again, they could’ve just been checking out my ass. Which, who could blame them?

A huge, misshapen bloodstain sullied the olive green carpet and wood paneling that stood as a bold testament to the hideous décor choices of the seventies. Since I’d lacked the forethought to bring gloves, I found a set of oven mitts and quickly searched through stacks of papers and filthy trash cans, no easy feat in oven mitts. I realized Earl Walker was probably not using the alias Earl Walker anymore. There were a couple of bills with the name Harold Reynolds. Sounded like a fake name if ever I heard one. I stuffed the bills into my bag and continued rummaging through the insanity of it all.

I sat concentrating on a photo of a man in a hat with antlers when the doorknob jiggled. After a quick curse, I rushed down the narrow hall and ducked into the bedroom at the end of the house. The front door opened, skyrocketing my heart rate into near panic. If the cops caught me out here, it would probably look bad.

Hoping I wouldn’t seize and make a ruckus, I peeked through the slit between the door and the wall. A man stood there with gun drawn, but I could only see part of his backside. The sun streaming in through a dirty window just past him made it impossible to see what kind of clothes he was wearing, but it didn’t look like a police uniform. Then a hand covered my mouth from behind, and I struggled to keep that last cup of coffee from coming back up.

“Shhhh,” the intruder whispered in my ear as his other hand slid over my stomach and down to the button on my jeans. The heat from his body left a white-hot trail wherever it tread, and I rolled my eyes, partly in relief and partly in annoyance.

I was going to kill him. Reyes Farrow. How the hell did he get out here? He eased me against him, his heat saturating my clothes and hair. He was scalding, and I couldn’t help but let my head drop back against his shoulder and breathe him in. Then he started to unfasten the button on my pants, and I rushed back to attention, fighting him with both my mitted hands. He caught them and pressed into me, his steely arms wrapped tight.

“It’s your boyfriend,” he said into my ear. When I fought his attempts a second time, wrapping my hands awkwardly around his solid wrist as his fingers deftly unbuttoned my jeans, he shushed me again with a playful nip at my ear.

“Reyes,” I whispered as softly as I possibly could as he slid the zipper down. Now was hardly the time.

“Are those oven mitts?” he asked as he placed hot kisses down my neck. Then his hand dived inside my panties. I couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped when his fingers dipped between my legs, and footsteps sounded in the hall a moment later.

“Don’t take this personally,” he said with a disappointed sigh, and I felt a knife at my throat instantly.

My sudden voracity crashed and skidded across the ground like the bad landing of a hot air balloon. Again with the knife? Really?

Reyes walked back toward the far wall with me, his arms locked around my body like a straitjacket. Then Garrett walked in. He took one look at us and instinctively raised his gun, the tight quarters closing in on us fast.

I felt Reyes’s head tilt to the side, as though questioning him. Garrett’s silvery gaze darted between the two of us. He hesitated, pressed his jaw closed in anger, then lowered his gun, helpless to do anything else.