The wounded man was moaning. “I need a doctor,” he said.

Ry was pressing in numbers on his cell phone. “I’m going to need credentials,” he said, and looked toward Vic.

“I hired you all two days ago to help me with a drug trafficking problem,” he said at once, with twinkling dark eyes. “Amazing, how fast you guys solved this part of it.”

Ry chuckled. “Not so amazing. We’ve had a little more practical experience than these guys.”

“I noticed.”

Mina leaned back against the wall, still holding the .45. “This will make an amazing chapter if I change enough names,” she said heavily.

Sandra, who’d moved into Vic’s arms the minute he came out into the hall, was smiling. “I get to read it first,” she said.

Mina smiled at her. “Of course you do,” she laughed. She swallowed hard, turned green and handed the pistol to Vic. “Sorry,” she began, and ran for the bathroom.

THE SHERIFF ARRIVED along with the Border Patrol and the ambulance. Into the mix came a limousine with a man whose horror was immediately apparent to the driver, who saw Cort Grier’s face in the rearview mirror just briefly, before his passenger jerked open the door and ran toward the house.

Cort’s first thought was that something had happened to Mina. But he passed a swarthy-looking man on a stretcher and another being carried out by two husky paramedics on yet a second stretcher.

When he got into the house, there were nine men standing in the living room. Three of them were in uniform. Five others were in casual clothing, but they looked as if they belonged in military uniforms, just by their bearing. The last man was Vic, who stood with his arm around Sandra while the men in uniform and the men out of uniform spoke.

There was blood all over the floor in the hall.

“What happened?” Cort demanded anxiously.

Several people started talking at once, but he looked up and there was Mina, in a long jumper with a tank top under it, looking pale and out of sorts.

He ignored the people talking, skirted the blood and rushed up to take her in his arms and hug her close.

“My God, there’s blood on the floor! Are you okay?” he bit off.

“I’m fine. Really,” she said breathlessly, hugging him back. “I didn’t realize you’d be home so soon.”

He drew back and looked at her worriedly, searching for any evidence that the violence had touched her.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” he asked again.

She managed a wan smile. “Yes.”

“Who are the men on the stretchers outside?” he asked then.

“They thought drug smuggling was too much work, so they sauntered in here looking for hostages. I got the one upstairs. Ry got the one down here. We had to call the sheriff’s office and Border Patrol, because Ry and his men had the drug smugglers in custody.”

The sheriff, a tall man with white hair and a mustache and dark eyes, joined them on the staircase. A team of forensics people had just come in the door, and the deputy was showing them where to collect evidence.