Chapter 1
Chapter One
T he groan of stressed metal eased into T.R.’s consciousness. He opened his eyes to blackness, breathed in dust and coughed.
“Who’s that?” rasped a voice from the back of the elevator.
“Name’s McGuinnes.” His head pounded. “T.R. McGuinnes. You?”
“Chase Lavette. Are you the cop?”
“No.”
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“I hope to God he’s not,” T.R. said. “Are you hurt?”
“Yeah. Something’s wrong with my back. It hurts like hell. How about you?”
“I hit my head.” T.R. put a hand up to the side of his head, but he didn’t feel blood, just the jackhammer pain.
“Listen, you’d better not move,” he said.
“I’ll check the cop.” He got to his hands and knees, wincing at the viselike pressure against his skull.
Crawling forward, he brushed something with his shoulder.
He reached up and touched the warm surface of a fluorescent light that had been knocked from the ceiling.
“It’s getting damned hot in here,” Lavette said.
“Yeah.” Perspiration soaked his shirt, but it wasn’t only the heat making him sweat. It was the thought that he could be approaching a corpse.
“They should be coming to get us out of here pretty soon,” Lavette told him.
“Let’s hope so.” A pinpoint of light from the damaged ceiling allowed T.R.
to make out a shapeless mass near the left side of the elevator doors.
As he crept toward the body, his knee hit the edge of his briefcase and he wondered if his briefcase, flying through the air, could kill a man. The smell of blood made his gorge rise.
When he reached the cop, he forced himself to place two fingers against the guy’s neck. It was wet and he couldn’t feel a pulse. Oh, God. He leaned closer. Breathe, damn you .
“If you try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, you’re a dead man,” the cop said wearily.
T.R.’s breath whooshed out in relief. “Never learned it, anyway.” He sat on his heels and reached in his back pocket for a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his hands. Then he shoved the handkerchief toward the cop. “Here. You’re bleeding somewhere.”
“No joke. How’s the other guy?”
“I’ll survive,” Lavette said.
“Says his back hurts,” T.R. added. “I told him not to move.”
“Good. Moving a back injury case and severing his spinal cord would top off this episode nicely.” The cop eased himself up to a sitting position and winced as he touched the handkerchief to his face. “That briefcase cut the hell out of my chin. What’s that thing made of, steel?”
“Brass trim.”
The cop snorted. “You got a cellular phone in it, at least?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’d better use it. This has been great fun, but I’m due back at the station in an hour.”
T.R. groped behind him for his briefcase. “I suppose almost getting killed is a big yawner for you, isn’t it?”
“Killed in an elevator accident? You’ve been seeing too many Keanu Reeves movies. New York elevators are safer than your grandmother’s rocking chair.”
“Tell that to my back,” Lavette said. “I can’t drive with a busted back, and if I can’t drive, I can’t pay off my rig.”
T.R. opened his briefcase, found his cellular phone and snapped it open. “If you can’t drive, you’ll get an insurance settlement.”
“And sit around doing nothing? No thanks.”
T.R. dialed 911, gave their location and problem and hit the disconnect button.
“They’re sending a team to get us out,” he said.
As the news penetrated his numb brain, an adrenaline rush hit his system and he almost dropped the phone.
He clenched his fist around it and fought the trembling just as the elevator rumbled and lurched to the right.
“Damn!” Lavette cried out. “Aren’t we all the way down yet?”
“We’re all the way down,” the cop said. “The blasted thing’s still settling, that’s all. Move your fingers and toes, see if you still have all your motor coordination.”
Paralysis. The thought sickened T.R..
Lavette rustled around a little. “I can move everything,” he said at last, and T.R. sagged with a sudden release of tension.
“Good,” said the cop. “What’s your name?”
“Lavette. Chase Lavette.”
“T.R. McGuinnes,” T.R. said, taking his cue.
“Joe Gilardini,” the cop supplied. “I wish I could say it was nice to meet you guys, but under the circumstances, I wish I’d been denied the pleasure.”
“Same here,” Lavette said.
Sweat dripped down T.R.’s chin and he wiped it with the sleeve of his suit jacket. What they all needed was a distraction, he decided. He scrambled for ideas and came up with the last topic that had occupied his mind before the elevator had crashed. “Either one of you ever been out West?”
“Why do you want to know?” Lavette asked.
“I don’t, really. I just think talking is better than sitting here waiting for the elevator to shift again.”
“Guess you’re right,” Lavette said. “No, I’ve never been out West. Eastern seaboard’s my route. Always wanted to go out there, though.”
The cops sighed. “God, so have I. The wide-open spaces. Peace and quiet.”
“No elevators,” Lavette put in.
“Yeah,” Gilardini said. “If I didn’t have my kid living in New York, I’d turn in my badge, collect my pension and go.”
T.R. thought he should probably be locked up for the way his mind was working all of a sudden.
Only a crazy person would start putting together a business deal at the bottom of an elevator shaft with his fellow crash victims. Or maybe not so crazy.
He’d just been reminded that life is short, and you’d better grab what you can, when you can.
A pension and an insurance settlement. It might be enough, with what he could raise.
Of course, these guys probably didn’t know the first thing about investing, but maybe that was what he needed.
His usual contacts knew so much, they turned gun-shy on him.
“I just heard about this guest ranch in Arizona that’s up for sale,” he said. “One of those working guest ranches with a small herd of cattle. I’m going out there next week to look it over.”
“No kidding?” Lavette said. “Think you might buy it?”
“If it checks out.”
“Running a guest ranch,” Gilardini mused aloud. “You know, that wouldn’t be half bad.”
“And after I’ve had some fun with it, I’ll sell it for a nice profit,” T.R. said, sweetening the deal. “Tucson’s growing in that direction, and in a couple of years, developers will be crying out to get their hands on that land, all one hundred and sixty acres of it. I can’t lose.”
“A hundred and sixty acres,” Lavette said with reverence.
“I’m looking for partners.”
The cop laughed. “Now I’ve heard everything. Only in New York would a guy use an accident as a chance to set up a deal.”
The elevator settled with another metallic groan.
“Would you rather sit here and think about the elevator collapsing on us?” T.R. asked.
“I’d rather think about your ranch,” Lavette said. “I’d go in on it in a minute if I had the cash.”
“You might get that settlement,” T.R. reminded him.
“You know, I might,” Lavette said. “Listen, McGuinnes, after we get out of here, let’s keep in touch. You never know.”
“I guarantee you won’t go wrong on this investment. The Sun Belt’s booming.”
“I think you’re both nut cases,” Gilardini said.
“So you’re not interested?” T.R. asked.
“I didn’t say that. Hell, what else is there to be interested in down in this hole? If the ranch looks good, just call the Forty-third precinct and leave a message for me.”
T.R. shook his head. “Let me get some business cards out of my briefcase.”
“I’d just as soon not think about your briefcase, McGinnis. Let’s talk some more about the ranch. What’s the name of it anyway? I always liked those old ranch names — the Bar X, the Rocking J. Remember Bonanza ?”
“I saw that on reruns,” Lavette said. “The guy I liked was Clint Eastwood. I snuck in to see High Plains Drifter at least six times when I was a kid. Back then, I would have given anything to be a cowboy.”
“Yeah, me too,” admitted the cop. “So what’s the place called?”
T.R. hesitated. These guys were after macho images, and he wished he could give them one. “Well, this spread is named something a little different.”
“Yeah?” Gilardini said. “What could be so different?”
“The True Love Ranch.”