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trouble if she’d decided to report
his actions to his superiors. He’d put his hands on her. She had plenty of
witnesses to that fact. If she was the vindictive type, she could raise one
hell of a stink. He nodded in agreement to her suggestion and thanked his lucky
stars that she clearly didn’t hold grudges.
    Casey
nodded to Stan as she walked back into the main room of the station. He was
talking with John and they both met her at Stan’s office door. Agent Hall and
his partner followed them into the office and once again they were all shut
into the small room. Casey faced the federal agents.
    “Okay,
if we’re going to do this thing, then there are a number of details that need to
be worked out in a hurry. Starting with an understanding that this is my area
of expertise. I don’t mean to sound superior or egotistic, but the fact is,
what you want to do is dangerous under the best of circumstances. I need you to
both acknowledge and accept that I’ll be running the show once we get into the
mountains. If you can’t or won’t do that, then there’s no point in talking
about anything else.”
    Jack
felt his hackles start to rise again, but he shoved the annoyance away. She was
clearly just stating her position. There wasn’t any attitude in her tone or
words, so he simply accepted them at face value. Skip nodded and Jack let him
give voice to their side of it.
    “Well,
ma’am, I can understand your position. But you’ve got to understand ours. It’s
our job to catch this man using whatever means are necessary. Ultimately, the
responsibility for whatever happens falls on us. That being the case, I hope
you can see why we feel it’s only fair that we be in charge of making decisions
on how to proceed.”
    Casey
shook her head. “You’re not getting me.” She lifted an arm and swung it in an
arc to indicate their surroundings. “Out here, you’re the experts. You’ve got
the training and the skills to handle anything that comes up. But things are
different in the mountains.” She paused, then continued. “Standing here in this
office, surrounded by all the wonders of civilization, it’s nearly impossible
to imagine how uncivilized it is just a few miles from here. I assure you that
it’s like another world altogether. The danger is very real, and not just from
your fugitive. Nature itself is the enemy and it takes no prisoners.”
    There
was something in her eyes, a tightness in her voice that hit Jack hard. She was
afraid. He was sure of it.
    “You
talk like it’s a living, breathing thing.”
    Her
amber gaze swung to him. “It is. And that’s why I need to know that out there,
you’ll defer to my judgment. This is your world, gentlemen, the mountains are
mine. You’ve got to trust me to know what’s best.”
    She was
right, of course. She was the expert. Jack nodded. “Okay, we’ll follow your
lead as far as the mountains are concerned, just as long as you agree to follow
ours when the time comes to apprehend the fugitive. You track him down for us,
then stay out of the way and let us handle it. Agreed?”
    She
nodded and stuck her hand out. “Agreed.”
    They
shook hands and Jack tried not to notice the little shock of awareness that
zinged through him at the contact. He focused instead on the firmness of her
grip, taking it as an indication that she was as capable as she claimed to be.
She pulled her hand away from his, then turned to the sheriff.
    “Stan,
I need Roger Thornton, Will Cardigan, and Tom Smithers in here as quick as you
can get them.” The sheriff nodded, then picked up the phone. He gave the names
to the dispatcher as Casey turned to glance at Jack. A moment later she called
out to the sheriff. “And you’d better get Bob Lampson over here, too. These
boys are going to need outfitting before they go anywhere.”
    The
sheriff nodded and continued talking to the dispatcher. He hung up the phone
and nodded. “What else do you want us to do?”
    “I’ll
want to take a