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  “Good,” the guy said, patting Danny on the shoulder as he headed for the door. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow evening for the grand reunion with your wife.”

  Danny could only nod as the man opened the door, glanced in both directions, and then turned toward the elevators.

  The door banged closed.

  In all his life Danny had never felt so alone as he did right at that moment.

  He stared at the closed door for the longest time before returning to the couch to try to watch television.

  It was going to be another long, sleepless night.

  A very lonely night.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sunday, April 9th

  6:00 a.m.

  THE WAKE-UP CALL and the sun behind the pulled drapes came way, way too early, as far as Bonnie was concerned.

  Craig grabbed the phone, listened for a moment, hung it back up, and then just lay beside her half-snoring, half-moaning.

  She had the alarm clock set to go off ten minutes after the wake-up call, and if she had anything to do with it, she was going to make sure she used those ten minutes to get as much sleep as she could.

  But the wake-up call stirred the memories of what had happened yesterday, and last night.

  After the second trip to the cart shed and the discovery of the stairs up into the service area, she and Craig, along with Maxwell and Hagar, had spent two hours planning the protection of the Senator today. Hagar was going to bring in an extra three men, and Maxwell would also have extra men on duty, but he never said how many.

  Bonnie never expected to meet any of them. More than likely, knowing how efficient Maxwell had been so far, those extra men would be posing as staff, or even playing in the group ahead of the Senator.

  By the time midnight had come around, they had ways figured to keep the Senator completely covered from the moment he left his room to the moment he got on the plane headed for Washington. And as Maxwell assured them, even beyond. Even the plane he was due to fly on would be double-checked and all baggage scanned with special equipment.

  Bonnie lay there, letting the conversations from last night go through her mind as Craig snored lightly beside her.

  Maxwell had told them he had an idea as to who might want Senator Knight hurt. He had gone on to describe Charles Robins and the relationship between Robins and Senator Knight, including the vote on Monday in Washington in the Senator’s committee that would surely cripple Robins’ companies. The two men had never met, but were deadly enemies.

  “Robins has enough at risk to hurt a United States Senator to stop it?” Bonnie had asked.

  “More than enough,” Maxwell had replied. “But we don’t know for sure that he is behind anything. It could be literally anyone.”

  “Or that anything is even going to happen,” Craig had reminded them. “We’re still only acting on what we overheard by accident.”

  “Which is why we can only protect the Senator and see if anyone makes a move,” Maxwell had said.

  None of them liked that option, but there just wasn’t any other plan as far as they could figure.

  Now Bonnie lay in the bed waiting for the alarm to go off, listening to Craig snore, trying not to think about what the day might bring. There wasn’t going to be any more sleeping for her, that was for sure. And if she couldn’t sleep, Craig shouldn’t be able to either.

  She flicked off the alarm and rolled over to cuddle with him, putting her naked body the entire length of his back. His skin felt wonderful against hers, firm and smooth and warm.

  She rubbed her hand over his unshaven face and then down his chest.

  He moaned softly and then rolled toward her and onto his back.

  She pushed the covers back so she could see what she was doing in the early morning light coming through the curtains. He didn’t move or open his eyes.

  She wondered how long he could stay still with her against him. As it turned out, not long. He nuzzled his chin into her neck, letting his unshaven stubble brush lightly against the sensitive area under her ear. The motion sent shivers down her spine and she pushed against him.

  Their parking in the cart garage last night had been rudely interrupted and they had been too tired by the time they got back to the room to even think about finishing. But this morning was another matter.

  Just the thought of what they had started last night in the cart got her even more excited.

  She glanced at the clock. They didn’t have much time if they were going to meet Hagar for breakfast.

  But they had enough.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sunday, April 9th

  7:02 a.m.

  BREAKFAST WITH HAGAR was quick, without much talk about what was going on that day with the Senator since they were in a public restaurant with a hundred other golfers. All Hagar had said was that his men were in place and ready. And that he just hoped like hell this was all going to be just a walk in the sun.

  Craig agreed completely.

  After freezing for the first hour yesterday, Craig brought a jacket and his gloves this morning. Bonnie had done the same, putting on a jacket and lined rain pants over her shorts, swearing she would never get as cold as she had been yesterday again.

  Even with the jacket, Craig felt it was almost as cold. And when they reached their cart, they discovered they were riding together. The Senator’s cart was already gone.

  “I wonder why our cart assignments were switched?” Bonnie asked.

  Craig only shrugged as he dropped down onto the cold seat behind the wheel. “Disappointed you have to ride with your husband?”

  “When I can ride with a cute, older, and very powerful United States Senator?” Bonnie asked, smiling at him. “Of course.”

  She sat down next to him and put her hand in his lap. “But on the bright side,” she said, “I can do this all day.”

  Craig laughed. “Just wait until it warms up and we get out behind some of those rocks on the back side. You’ll see some groping then.”

  “Oh,” she said, giving his crotch a squeeze as he turned the cart toward the driving range. “I can hardly wait.”

  “Neither can Hagar and Maxwell’s men. We could put a show on for them.”

  “Sometimes you just take all the fun out of things,” she said, pretending to pout, but not taking her hand from his crotch.

  “I don’t remember taking anything out of anything earlier this morning.”

  She just laughed and kept squeezing his crotch all the way to the driving range.

  By the third hole Craig had shed his jacket.

  By the fourth hole Bonnie was down to her tight yellow shorts and white blouse, getting a whistle of appreciation from the Senator that made her blush again. Craig loved the fact that he had a beautiful and smart wife. Sometimes he worried that she was going to leave him for someone better, but at times like today he just enjoyed her beauty and the fact that other men found her beautiful as well.

  Actually, it turned out that riding together in the cart behind the Senator and Danny was more fun for Craig. He and Bonnie pointed out Maxwell and Hagar’s men to each other, and between them could keep a pretty close eye on the Senator at all times. They made sure that one of them was always standing beside him on every green and tee box.

  Plus every time Craig had a chance he touched her and she touched him. By the time this was all over he was going to be hot in more ways than just the temperature.

  Craig felt as if they had passed a milestone when they reached the mountain-top tee for the sixteenth hole. Two more holes after this one and a quick lunch and the Senator would be on the way to the airport, out of his and Bonnie’s vacation. He had come down here to play golf, spend time with Bonnie and get away from police work. Even though they had had fun so far, it would be nice to have at least one night to not think about life and death situations and protecting a United States Senator.

  Just three more holes.

  Craig grabbed a five iron and moved up to stand beside Bon
nie and the Senator on the top-most tee box. This hole was so beautiful, he just wanted to stand and stare at the valley and mountains below them. The golf course architect had outdone himself when picking this tee box and putting the green down across the canyon. It would be a golf hole Craig would never forget. And one that would be impossible to describe to his friends back in Seattle.

  Danny was up first and with his beautiful swing lofted a short iron into the air that floated seemingly forever before landing on the green pretty close to where his ball had been yesterday. Craig would be happy just to have his shot from yesterday again. It was his best of the tournament so far.

  The Senator was up next and hit his first shot into the canyon that cut across in front of the green. Disgusted, he dropped another ball. “I’m going to get one over if I have to use every ball in my damned bag.”

  Bonnie laughed. “I’ve got an extra dozen you can use as well.”

  The Senator frowned at her joke. “Just watch this, young lady.”

  His next shot got into the air and for a moment Craig thought it just might make it over after all, but then it came down with a resounding smack right square in the middle of the wooden cart bridge that crossed the canyon near the right front of the green.

  “Bulls-eye!” Bonnie yelled.

  The ball bounced a good fifty feet into the air, and as they all watched open-mouthed, landed on the green and rolled up closer to the pin than Danny’s ball.

  Hagar and an FBI agent standing on the hillside behind the green applauded that shot, laughing and shaking their heads. Craig almost choked from the laughter, and Bonnie turned red trying to not laugh too hard.

  The Senator, who was also laughing, seemed extraordinarily proud of himself. He picked up his tee and turned, a massive smile on his face. “I won’t be needing those extra balls, thank you, young lady.”

  That broke them all up again. Craig shook the Senator’s hand and Bonnie gave him a peck on the cheek before moving up to the tee. That shot was going to clearly be the highlight of all their rounds.

  Bonnie proceeded to hit three into the canyon before she quit in disgust and with much teasing from the Senator about him lending her golf balls.

  Craig managed to get his shot over, but barely, landing it in a pile of rocks far to the left of the green. Two shots in two days over the canyon. He was very proud of himself.

  They were getting into the carts, still laughing and joking about the Senator’s bridge shot, when suddenly Bonnie grabbed Craig’s arm and whispered to him. “What if those two men weren’t just passing through the cart shed last night?”

  She pointed at the warning signs for the steep cart path they had to wind their way down. Who knew what would happen if the brakes failed on a cart on the way down this cliff face. Nothing good, that was for sure.

  “Senator!” Bonnie shouted before the Senator could start off. He glanced back.

  “Can we talk with you for a moment?” Craig asked.

  The Senator was still smiling from his shot, but when he saw the frown on Craig’s face, he nodded and climbed out of the cart to come back to them.

  Maxwell, who had had been sitting in a cart just a few yards behind Bonnie and Craig, came up to see what they wanted as well.

  Craig watched the Senator as he came back. Danny glanced around, clearly sweating, then turned back to stare over the valley below.

  The little voice in Craig’s head said Danny’s reaction seemed odd.

  Very odd.

  Maxwell reached Craig’s side at the same time the Senator did.

  “What’s going on?” Maxwell asked.

  Bonnie leaned over Craig in the cart to whisper to both of them. “I just realized that maybe those two men last night might have been in that cart shed for a reason. I remember hearing the sound of metal clanging on the concrete just a moment before we saw them.”

  “A tool?” Maxwell asked.

  “Maybe,” Craig said. “Did your men check the Senator’s cart?”

  “Just for explosives,” Maxwell said, nodding and glancing at the hill in front of them.

  “That’s good to know,” the Senator said, shaking his head at the thought of a bomb in his golf cart. “But I can tell you that the brakes have been working great on that cart. I’m sure it will make it down this.”

  “Let’s let Danny take it just to make sure,” Craig said. “Humor us, Senator.”

  “I agree,” Maxwell said.

  The Senator chuckled. “I suppose after that shot, I could use a little walk. At least it’s downhill.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” Bonnie said, climbing out of the cart and moving around the cart to stand beside the Senator.

  Maxwell nodded, turned, and moved up to the lead cart. “Danny, go ahead and take the cart to the green.”

  “But what about the Senator?” Danny asked, clearly sweating now.

  Craig stared at the young pro and could clearly see the slight panic hidden just below the surface. Craig knew that look. He knew it from watching hundreds of criminals get caught in the act. Was it possible that Danny was in on the plan to hurt the Senator?

  Maxwell glanced back at Craig. Clearly he had seen the same thing.

  “The Senator feels like a walk,” Maxwell said.

  “That’s a long ways, Senator,” Danny said, clearly trying to get the Senator in the cart.

  “Not with a beautiful woman it isn’t,” the Senator said, not seeming to notice Danny’s discomfort.

  “Go ahead,” Maxwell said, patting the roof of Danny’s cart as the young man reluctantly slid over into the driver’s seat. “We’ll meet you at the green.”

  Danny started off, going extra slow.

  “Stay with the Senator,” Craig whispered to Maxwell. “I’ll follow Danny.”

  Maxwell nodded and quickly turned and spoke softly into a communications device he had in his watch. Craig saw one of the men on the far hill behind the green start down toward the green at once, with Hagar following.

  Craig stayed a good twenty paces behind Danny as they went across the cliff face under the tee box and made the first switchback. Twice the kid looked over his shoulder at Craig with a very frightened look.

  Craig only smiled.

  Clearly the kid knew something, or was very, very afraid of driving a golf cart.

  Craig was betting on the kid knowing something.

  After the next switchback the cart path took a sharp drop as it crossed the steepest part of the cliff, then made another switchback seemingly out over space. It was the scariest corner on the hill and the most dangerous. There were warning signs to use brakes and watch speed, and there were bumps built into the path to remind any driver to keep the cart’s speed down. On this cliff face, Craig couldn’t imagine any golfer trying to go fast on purpose.

  Or forgetting, for that matter.

  Ahead of Craig there was a slight pop from the Senator’s cart and Danny looked suddenly panicked.

  Danny’s cart seemed to shoot ahead, as if Danny had put his foot on the gas.

  On a downhill slope most golf carts have inhibitors that slowed the cart if it got going too fast.

  Danny’s clearly did not, or was suddenly broken.

  Danny was almost smashing his head on the roof as the cart banged over the warning bumps. He seemed frozen in panic, holding the wheel with both hands, his arms straight ahead.

  The cart was heading into the switchback far, far too fast. It would never make it. Craig instantly knew what the plan had been.

  With the Senator driving and on the cliff side, there would have been no chance for him to get out with Danny beside him. But there was no one blocking Danny.

  “Jump!” Craig shouted.

  Danny dove across the seat and out the passenger side at the last possible instant, just as the cart tipped toward the driver’s side and went over the rock edge.

  Somehow Danny managed to clear the cart, rolling once on the pavement and coming up hard against a rock with a sickening th
ud.

  The cart, with the two sets of clubs rattling and banging, rolled over and over down the steep rock face, filling the valley with a smashing sound that echoed off the rock hills.

  Clubs flew everywhere as the cart gathered speed end-over-end. The top of the cart ripped away like paper, spinning in the air. A couple of the heavy batteries under the seat flew away like large missiles.

  Danny’s massive golf bag came loose and did three end-over-end flips, scattering clubs and gear everywhere.

  Fiberglass from the cart’s side panel exploded in fragments as it smashed into a massive rock.

  What was left of the cart finally did a quick flip and disappeared over the cliff face and into the deep canyon in front of the green. The sound of it smashing into the rocks and brush at the bottom was like nothing Craig had ever heard.

  The echo of the sound took a long time to die off.

  If the Senator had been in that cart, he could have easily been killed in the “accident.”

  Craig had his cart stopped and was bending over Danny as the young pro groaned and sat up. He was going to be bruised and scraped, but it didn’t look like anything was broken.

  “Don’t move,” Craig said.

  Danny ignored him and tried to stand.

  “I said don’t move!”

  “But I have—”

  Craig flipped the kid over on his face on the cart path and pulled his arm behind it, leaning on the arm and Danny’s back with one knee.

  “You struggle and I break the arm,” Craig said, using his weight to hold the younger man down. He wasn’t going to take any chances with someone who could try to kill a Senator.

  Danny spit out some gravel and blood. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “You know as well as I do,” Craig said, pushing down even harder on the arm, making Danny jerk in pain and scrape the side of his face on the hot concrete path.

  Craig glanced around. Both Hagar and the agent who had been behind the green were heading at a run up the cart path toward him. The agent was going to beat the local detective, but not by much. Maxwell was coming down the trail in a cart, going as fast as he dared. The Senator and Bonnie were out of sight up near the tee box.