A Texas Christmas
True Blue

Diana Palmer

A Lawman’s Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel

Linda Lael Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

True Blue

Diana Palmer

About the Author

The prolific author of over one hundred books, DIANA PALMER got her start as a newspaper reporter. One of the top ten romance writers in America, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humour. Diana lives with her family in Cornelia, Georgia.

Chapter One

“We could lose the case,” San Antonio Detective Sergeant Rick Marquez muttered as he glared at one of the newest detectives on his squad.

“I’m really sorry,” Gwendolyn Cassaway said, wincing. “I tripped. It was an accident.”

He stared at her through narrowed dark eyes, his sensual lips compressed. “You tripped because you’re nearsighted and you won’t wear glasses.” Personally, he didn’t think the lack of them did anything for her, if vanity was the issue. She had a pleasant face, and an exquisite complexion, but she was no raving beauty. Her finest feature was her wealth of thick platinum-blond hair that she wore in a high bun on top of her head. She never wore it down.

“Glasses get in my way and I can’t ever get them clean enough,” she muttered. “That coating just causes smears unless you use the proper cleaning materials. And I can’t ever find them,” she said defensively.

He drew in a long, exasperated breath and perched on the edge of the desk in his office. In the posture, his.45 Colt ACP in its distinctive leather holster was displayed next to his badge on his belt. So were his powerful legs, and to their best advantage. He was tall and muscular, without it being obvious. He had a light olive complexion and thick long black hair that he wore in a ponytail. He was very attractive, but he couldn’t ever seem to wind up with a serious girlfriend. Women found him useful as a sympathetic shoulder to cry on over their true loves. One woman refused to date him when she realized that he wore his pistol even off duty. He’d tried to explain that it was a necessary thing, but it hadn’t given him any points with her. He went to the opera, which he loved, all alone. He went everywhere alone. He was almost thirty-one, and lonelier than ever. It made him irritable.

And here was Gwen making it all worse, messing up his crime scene, threatening the delicate chain of evidence that could lead to a conviction in a complex murder.

A college freshman, pretty and blonde, had been brutally assaulted and killed. They had no suspects and trace evidence was very sketchy already. Gwen had almost contaminated the scene by stepping too close to a blood smear.

He was not in a good mood. He was hungry. He was going to be late for lunch, because he had to chew her out. If he didn’t, the lieutenant surely would, and Cal Hollister was even meaner than Marquez.

“You could also lose your job,” Marquez pointed out. “You’re new in the department.”

She grimaced. “I know.” She shrugged. “I guess I could go back to the Atlanta P.D. if I had to,” she said with grim resignation. She looked at him with pale green eyes that were almost translucent. He’d never seen eyes that color.

“You just have to be more careful, Cassaway,” he cautioned.

“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

He tried not to look at the T-shirt she was wearing under a lightweight denim jacket with her jeans. It was unseasonably warm for November but a jacket felt good against the morning chill.

On her T-shirt was a picture of a little green alien, the sort sold in novelty shops, with a legend that read, Have You Seen My Spaceship? He averted his eyes and tried not to grin.

She tugged her jacket closer. “Sorry. But they don’t have any regulations against T-shirts here, do they?”

“If the lieutenant sees that one, you’ll find out,” he said.

She sighed. “I’ll try to conform. It’s just that I come from a very weird family. My mother worked for the FBI. My father was, uh, in the military. My brother is …” She hesitated and swallowed. “My brother was in military intelligence.”

He frowned. “Deceased?”

She nodded. She still couldn’t talk about it. The pain was too fresh.

“Sorry,” he said stiffly.

She shifted. “Larry died very bravely during a covert ops mission in the Middle East. But he was my only sibling. It’s hard to talk about.”

“I can understand that.” He stood up, glancing at the military watch he wore on his left wrist. “Time for lunch.”

“Oh, I have other plans …” she began quickly.

He glared at her. “It was a remark, not an invitation. I don’t date colleagues,” he said very curtly.

She blushed all the way down to her throat. She swallowed and stood taller. “Sorry. I was … I meant … that is …”

He waved the excuses away. “We’ll talk about this some more later. Meanwhile, please do something about your vision. You can’t investigate a crime scene you can’t see!”

She nodded. “Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

He opened the door and let her go out first, noticing absently that her head only came up to his shoulder and that she smelled like spring roses, the pink ones that grew in his mother’s garden down in Jacobsville. It was an elusive, very faint fragrance. He approved. Some women who worked in the office seemed to bathe in perfume and always had headaches and allergies and never seemed to think about the connection. Once, a fellow detective had had an almost-fatal asthma attack after a clerical worker stood near him wearing what smelled like an entire bottle of perfume.

Gwendolyn stopped suddenly and he plowed into her, his hands sweeping out to grasp her shoulders and steady her before she fell from his momentum.

“Oh, sorry!” she exclaimed, and felt a thrill of pleasure at the warm strength of the big hands holding her so gently.

He removed them at once. “What is it?”

She had to force her mind to work. Detective Sergeant Marquez was very sexy and she’d been drawn to him since her first sight of him several weeks before. “I meant to ask if you wanted me to check with Alice Fowler over at the crime lab about the digital camera we found in the murdered woman’s apartment. By now, she might have something on the trace evidence.”

“Good idea. You do that.”

“I’ll swing past there on my way back to the office after lunch,” she promised, and beamed, because it was a big case and he was letting her contribute to solving it. “Thanks.”

He nodded, his mind already on the wonderful beef Stroganoff he was going to order at the nearby café where he usually had lunch. He’d been looking forward to it all week. It was Friday and he could splurge.

Tomorrow was his day off. He was going to spend it helping his mother, Barbara, process and can a bushel of hothouse tomatoes she’d been given by an organic gardener with a greenhouse. She owned Barbara’s Café in Jacobsville, and she liked to use her organic vegetables and herbs in the meals she prepared for her clients. They would add to the store of canned summer tomatoes that she’d already processed earlier in the year.

He owed her a lot. He’d been orphaned in junior high school and Barbara Ferguson, who’d just lost her husband in an accident, and suffered a miscarriage, had taken him in. His mother had once worked for Barbara at the café just briefly. Then his parents—well, his mother and stepfather—had died in a wreck, leaving a single, lonely child all on his own. Rick had been a terrible teen, always in trouble, bad-tempered and moody. He’d been afraid when he lost his mother. He had no other living relatives of whom he was aware, and no place to go. Barbara had stepped in and given him a home. He loved her no less than he’d loved his real mother, and he was quite protective of her. He never spoke of his stepfather. He tried not to remember him at all.

Barbara wanted him to marry and settle down and have a family. She harped on it all the time. She even introduced him to single women. Nothing helped. He seemed to be an eternally on-sale item in the matrimonial market that everybody bypassed for the fancier merchandise. He laughed shortly to himself at the thought.

Gwen watched him leave and wondered why he’d laughed. She was embarrassed that she’d thought he was asking her to lunch. He didn’t seem to have a girlfriend and everybody joked about his nonexistent love life. But he wasn’t attracted to Gwen in that way. It didn’t matter. No man had ever liked her, really. She was everybody’s confidante, the good girl who could give advice about how to please other women with small gifts and entertainments. But she was never asked out for herself.

She knew she wasn’t pretty. She was always passed over for the flashy women, the assertive women, the powerful women. The women who didn’t think sex before marriage was a sin. She’d had a man double over laughing when she’d told him that, after he expected a night in bed in return for a nice meal and the theater. Then he’d become angry, having spent so much money on her with nothing to show for it. The experience had soured her.

“Don Quixote,” she murmured to herself. “I’m Don Quixote.”

“Wrong sex,” Detective Sergeant Gail Rogers said as she paused beside the newcomer. Rogers was the mother of some very wealthy ranchers in Comanche Wells, but she kept her job and her own income. She was an amazing peace officer. Gwen admired her tremendously. “And what’s that all about?” she asked.

Gwen sighed, glancing around to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “I won’t give out on dates,” she whispered. “So men think I’m insane.” She shrugged. “I’m Don Quixote, trying to restore morality and idealism to a decadent world.”

Rogers didn’t laugh. She smiled, very kindly. “He was noble, in his way. An idealist with a dream.”

“He was nutty as a fruitcake.” Gwen sighed.

“Yes, but he made everyone around him feel of worth, like the prostitute whom he idealized as a great lady for whom he quested,” came the surprising reply. “He gave dreams to people who had given them up for harsh reality. He was adored by them.”

Gwen laughed. “Yes, I suppose he wasn’t so bad at that.”

“People should have ideals, even if they get laughed at,” Rogers added. “You stick to your guns. Every society has its outcasts.” She leaned down. “Nobody who conformed to the rigid culture of any society ever made history.”

Gwen brightened. “That’s true.” Then she added, “You’ve lived through a lot. You got shot,” Gwen recalled hearing.

“I did. It was worthwhile, though. We broke a cold case wide-open and caught the murderer.”

“I heard. That was some story.”

Rogers smiled. “Indeed it was. Rick Marquez got blindsided and left for dead by the same scoundrels who shot me. But we both survived.” She frowned. “What’s wrong? Marquez giving you a hard time?”

“It’s my own fault,” Gwen confided. “I can’t wear contacts and I hate glasses. I tripped in a crime scene and came close to contaminating some evidence.” She grimaced. “It’s a murder case, too, that college freshman they found dead in her apartment last night. The defense will have a field day with that when the perp is caught and brought to trial. And it will be my fault. I just got chewed out for it. I should have, too,” she said quickly, because she didn’t want Rogers to think Marquez was being unfair.

Rogers’s dark eyes searched hers. “You like your sergeant, don’t you?”

“I respect him,” Gwen said, and then flushed helplessly.

Rogers studied her warmly. “He’s a nice man,” she said. “He does have a temper and he does take too many chances. But you’ll get used to his moods.”

“I’m working on that.” Gwen chuckled.

“How did you like Atlanta?” Rogers asked conversationally as they headed for the exit.

“Excuse me?” Gwen said absently.

“Atlanta P.D. Where you were working.”

“Oh. Oh!” Gwen had to think quickly. “It was nice. I liked the department. But I wanted a change, and I’ve always wanted to see Texas.”

“I see.”

No, she didn’t, Gwen thought, and thank goodness for that. Gwen was keeping secrets that she didn’t dare divulge. She changed the subject as they walked together to the parking lot to their respective vehicles.

Lunch was a salad with dressing on the side, and half a grilled cheese sandwich. Dessert, and her drink, was a cappuccino. She loved the expensive coffee and could only afford it one day a week, on Fridays. She ate an inexpensive lunch so that she could have her coffee.

She sipped it with her eyes closed, smiling. It had an aroma that evoked Italy, a little sidewalk café in Rome with the ruins visible in the distance …

She opened her eyes at once and looked around, as if someone could see the thoughts in her head. She must be very careful not to mention that memory, or other similar ones, in regular conversation. She was a budding junior detective. She had to remember that. It wouldn’t do to let anything slip at this crucial moment.

That thought led to thoughts of Detective Marquez and what would be a traumatic revelation for him when the time came for disclosure. Meanwhile, her orders were to observe him, keep her head down and try to discover how much he, or his adoptive mother, knew about his true background. She couldn’t say anything. Not yet.

She finished her coffee, paid for her meal and walked out onto the chilly streets. So funny, she thought, the way the weather ran in cycles. It had been unseasonably cold throughout the South during the spring then came summer and blazing, unrelenting heat with drought and wildfires and cattle dying in droves. Now it was November and still unseasonably warm, but some weather experts said snow might come soon.

The weather was nuts. There had been epic drought throughout the whole southern tier of America, from Arizona to Florida, and there had been horrible wildfires in the southwestern states. Triple-digit temperatures had gone all summer in south Texas. There had been horrible flooding on the Mississippi River due to the large snowmelt, from last winter’s unusually deep snows up north.

Now it was November and Gwen was actually sweating long before she reached her car, although it had been chilly this morning. She took off her jacket. At least the car had air-conditioning, and she was turning it on, even if it was technically almost winter. Idly, she wondered how people had lived in this heat before air-conditioning was invented. It couldn’t have been an easy life, especially since most Texans of the early twentieth century had worked on the land. Imagine, having to herd and brand cattle in this sort of heat, much less plow and plant!

Gwen got into her car and drove by the crime lab to see if Alice had found anything on that digital camera. In fact, she had. There were a lot of photos of people who were probably friends—Gwen could use face recognition software to identify them, hopefully—and there was one odd-looking man standing a little distance behind a couple who was smiling into the camera against the background of the apartment complex where the victim had lived. That was interesting and suspicious. She’d have to check that man out. He didn’t look as if he belonged in such a setting. It was a mid-range apartment complex, and the man was dingy and ill kempt and staring a little too intently. She drove back to her precinct.

Her mind was still on Marquez, on what she knew, and he didn’t. She hoped he wasn’t going to have too hard a time with his true history, when the truth came out.

Barbara glared at her son. “Can’t you just peel the tomato, sweetie, without taking out most of it except the core?”

He grimaced. “Sorry,” he said, wielding the paring knife with more care as he went to work on what looked like a bushel of tomatoes, a gift from an organic gardener with a hothouse, that his mother was canning in her kitchen at home. Canning jars simmered in a huge tub of water, getting ready to be filled with fragrant tomato slices and then processed in the big pressure cooker. He glared at it.

“I hate those things,” he muttered. “Even the safest ones are dangerous.”

“Baloney,” she said inelegantly. “Give me those.”

She took the bowl of tomatoes and dunked them into a pot of boiling water. She left them there for a couple of minutes and fished them out in a colander. She put them in the sink in front of Rick. “There. Now they’ll skin. I keep telling you this is a more efficient way than trying to cut the skins off. But you don’t listen, my dear.”

“I like skinning them,” he said with a dark-eyed smile in her direction. “It’s an outlet for my frustrations.”

“Oh?” She didn’t look at him, deliberately. “What sort of frustrations?”

“There’s this new woman at work,” he said grimly.

“Gwen.” She nodded.

He dropped the knife, picked it back up and stared at her.

“You talk about her all the time.”

“I do?” It was news to him. He didn’t realize that.

She nodded as she skinned tomatoes. “She trips over things that she doesn’t see, she messes up crime scenes, she spills coffee, she can’t find her cell phone …” She glanced at him. He was still standing there, with the knife poised over a tomato. “Get busy, there, those tomatoes won’t peel themselves.”

He groaned.

“Just think how nice they’ll taste in one of my beef stew recipes,” she coaxed. “Go on, peel.”

“Why can’t we just get one of those things that sucks the air out of bags and freeze them instead?”

“What if we have a major power outage that lasts for days and days?” she returned.

He thought for a minute. “I’ll go buy twenty bags of ice and several of those foam coolers.”

She laughed. “Yes, but we can’t tell how the power grid is going to cope if we have one of those massive CMEs like the Carrington Event in 1859.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“There was a massive coronal mass ejection in 1859 called the Carrington Event,” she explained. “When it hit earth, all the electrics on the planet went crazy. Telegraph lines burned up and telegraph units caught fire.” She glanced at him. “There wasn’t much electricity back in those days—it was in its infancy. But imagine if such a thing happened today, with our dependence on electricity. Everything is connected to the grid these days, banks, communications corporations, pharmacies, government, military and the list goes on and on. Even our water and power are controlled by computers. Just imagine if we had no way to access our computers.”

He whistled. “I was in the grocery store one day when the computers went offline. They couldn’t process credit cards. Most people had to leave. I had enough cash for bread and milk. Then another time the computers in the pharmacy went down, when you had to have those antibiotics for the sinus infection last winter. I had to come home and get the checkbook and go back. People without credit cards had real problems.”

“See?” She went back to her tomatoes.

“I suppose it would be a pretty bad thing. Is it going to happen, you think?”

“Someday, certainly. The sun has eleven year cycles, you know, with a solar minimum and a solar maximum. The next solar maximum, some scientists say, is in 2012. If we’re going to get hit, that would have my vote for the timeline.”

“Twenty-twelve,” he groaned, rolling his eyes. “We had this guy come in the office and tell us we needed to put out a flyer.”

“What about?”

“The fact that the world is ending in 2012 and we have to have tin-foil hats to protect us from electromagnetic pulses.”

“Ah. EMPs,” she said knowledgeably. “Actually, I think you’d have to be in a modified and greatly enlarged version of a Leiden jar to be fully protected. So would any computer equipment you wanted to save.” She glanced at him. “They’re developing weapons like that, you know,” she added. “All it would take is one nicely placed EMP and our military computers would go down like tenpins.”

He put down the knife. “Where do you learn all this stuff?” he asked, exasperated.

“On the internet.” She pulled an iPod out of her pocket and showed it to him. “I have Wi-Fi in the house, you know. I just connect to all the appropriate websites.” She checked her bookmarks. “I have one for space weather, three radars for terrestrial weather and about ten covert sites that tell you all the stuff the government won’t tell you …”

“My mother, the conspiracy theorist,” he moaned.

“You won’t hear this stuff on the national news,” she said smartly. “The mainstream media is controlled by three major corporations. They decide what you’ll get to hear. And mostly it’s what entertainer got drunk, what television show is getting the ratings and what politician is patting himself on the back or running for reelection. In my day—” she warmed to her theme “—we had real news on television. It was local and we had real reporters out gathering it. Like the Jacobsville paper still does,” she added.

“I know about the Jacobsville paper,” he said with a sigh. “We hear that Cash Grier spends most of his time trying to protect the owner from getting assassinated. She knows all the drug distribution points and the drug lords by name, and she’s printing them.” He shook his head. “She’s going to be another statistic one day. They’ve killed plenty of newspaper publishers and reporters over the border for less. She’s rocking the boat.”

“Somebody needs to rock it,” Barbara muttered as she peeled another tomato skin off and tossed it into a green bag to be used for mulch in her garden. She never wasted any organic refuse. “People are dying so that another generation can become addicted to drugs.”

“I can’t argue that point,” he said. “The problem is that nothing law enforcement is doing is making much of a dent in drug trafficking. If there’s a market, there’s going to be a supply. That’s just the way things are.”

“They say Hayes Carson actually talked to Minette Raynor about it.”

That was real news. Minette owned the Jacobsville Times. She had two stepsiblings, Shane, who was twelve, and Julie, who was six. She’d loved her stepmother very much. Her stepmother and her father had died within weeks of each other, leaving a grieving Minette with two little children to raise, a newspaper to run and a ranch to manage. She had a manager to handle the ranch, and her great-aunt Sarah lived with her and took care of the kids after school so that Minette could keep working. Minette was twenty-five now and unmarried. She and Hayes Carson didn’t get along. Hayes blamed her, God knew why, for his younger brother’s drug-related death, even after Rachel Conley left a confession stating that she’d given Bobby Carson, Hayes’s brother, the drugs that killed him.

Rick chuckled. “If there’s ever a border war, Minette will stand in the street pointing a finger at Hayes so the invaders can get him first.”

“I wonder,” Barbara mused. “Sometimes I think where there’s antagonism, there’s also something deeper. I’ve seen people who hate each other end up married.”

“Cash Grier and his Tippy,” Rick mused.

“Yes, and Stuart York and Ivy Conley.”

“Not to mention half a dozen others. Jacobsville is growing by leaps and bounds.”

“So is Comanche Wells. We’ve got new people there, too.” She was peeling faster. “Did you notice that Grange bought a ranch in Comanche Wells, next to the property that his boss owns?”

Rick pursed his sensual lips. “Which boss?”

She blinked at him. “What do you mean, which boss?”

“He works as ranch manager for Jason Pendleton. But he also works on the side for Eb Scott,” he said. “You didn’t hear this from me, but he was involved in the Pendleton kidnapping,” he added. “He went to get Gracie Pendleton back when she was kidnapped by that exiled South American dictator, Emilio Machado.”

“Machado.”

“Yes.” He peeled the tomato slowly. “He’s a conundrum.”

“What do you mean?”

“He started out, we learned, as a farm laborer down in Mexico, from the time he was about ten years old. He was involved in protests against foreign interests even as a teenager. But he got tired of scratching dirt for a living. He could play the guitar and sing, so he worked bars for a while and then through a contact, he got a job as an entertainer on a cruise ship. That got boring. He signed on with a bunch of mercs and became known internationally as a crusader against oppression. Afterward, he went to South America and hired on with another paramilitary group that was fighting to preserve the way of life of the native people in Barrera, a little nation in the Amazon bordering Peru. He helped the paramilitary unit free a tribe of natives from a foreign corporation that was trying to kill them to get the oil-rich land on which they were living. He developed a taste for defending the underdog, moved up in the ranks of the military until he became a general.” He smiled. “It seems that he was a natural leader, because when the small country’s president died four years ago, Machado was elected by acclamation.” He glanced at her. “Do you realize how rare that is, even for a small nation?”

“If people loved him so much, how is it that he’s in Mexico kidnapping people to get money to retake his country?”

“He wasn’t ousted by the people, but by a vicious and bloodthirsty military subordinate who knew when and how to strike, while Machado was on a trip to a neighboring country to sign a trade agreement and offer an alliance against foreign corporate takeovers.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It’s sort of privileged info, so you can’t share it,” he told her. “Anyway, the subordinate killed Machado’s entire staff, and sent his secret police to shut down newspapers and television and radio stations. Overnight, influential people ended up in prison. Educators, politicians, writers—anyone who might threaten the new regime. There have been hundreds of murders, and now the subordinate, Pedro Mendez by name, is allying himself with drug lords in a neighboring country. It seems that cocaine grows quite nicely in Barrera and poor farmers are being ‘encouraged’ to grow it instead of food crops on their land. Mendez is also nationalizing every single business so that he has absolute control.”

“No wonder the general is trying to retake his country,” she said curtly. “I hope he makes it.”

“So do I,” Rick replied. “But I can’t say that in public,” he added. “He’s wanted in this country for kidnapping. It’s a capital offense. If he’s caught and convicted he could wind up with a death penalty.”

She winced. “I don’t condone how he’s getting the money,” she replied. “But he’s going to use it for a noble reason.”

“Noble.” He chuckled.

“That’s not funny,” she said shortly.

“I’m not laughing at the word. It’s Gwen. She goes around mumbling that she’s Don Quixote.”

She laughed out loud. “What?”

He shook his head. “Rogers told me. It seems that our newest detective won’t give out on dates and she groups herself with Don Quixote, who tried to restore honor and morality to a decadent world.”

“My, my!” She pursed her lips and smiled secretively.

“I don’t want to marry Gwen Cassaway,” he said at once. “I just thought I’d mention that, because I can read minds, and I don’t like what you’re thinking.”

“She’s a nice girl.”

“She’s a woman.”

“She’s a nice girl. She has a very idealistic and romantic attitude for someone who lives in the city. And I ought to know. I have women from cities coming through here all the time, talking about unspeakable things right in public with the whole world listening.” Her lips made a thin line. “Do you know, Grange was having lunch next to a table of them where they were discussing men’s, well, intimate men parts,” she amended, clearing her throat, “and Grange got up from his chair, told them what he thought of them for discussing a bedroom topic in public in front of decent people and he walked out.”

“What did they do?”

“One of them laughed. One of the others cried. Another said he needed to start living in the real world instead of small town ‘stupidville.’” She grinned. “Of course, she said it after he’d already left. While he was talking, they didn’t say a word. But they left soon after. I was glad. I can’t choose my clientele and I’ve only ever ordered one person to leave my restaurant since I’ve owned it,” she added.

She dragged herself back to the present. “But the topic of conversation was getting to me, too. People need to talk about intimate things in private, not in a public place with their voices raised. We don’t all think alike.”

“Only in some ways,” he pointed out, and hugged her impulsively. “You’re a nice mother. I’m so lucky to have you for an adoptive parent.”

She hugged him back. “You’ve enriched my life, my sweet.” She sighed, closing her eyes in his warm embrace. “When I lost Bart, I wanted to die, too. And then your mother and stepfather died, and there you were, as alone as I was. We needed each other.”

“We did.” He moved away and smiled affectionately. “You took on a big burden with me. I was a bad boy.”

She groaned and rolled her eyes. “Were you ever! Always in fights, in school and out. I spent half my life in the principal’s office and once at a school board meeting where they were going to vote to throw you right out of school altogether and put you in alternative school.” Her face hardened. “In their dreams!”

“Yes, you took a lawyer to the meeting and buffaloed them. First time it ever happened, I heard later.”

“I was very mad.”

“I felt really bad about that,” he said. “But I put my nose to the grindstone after, and tried hard to make it up to you.”

“Joined the police force, went to night school and got your associate degree, went to the San Antonio Police Department and worked your way up in the ranks to sergeant,” she agreed, smiling. “Made me so proud!”

He hugged her again. “I owe it all to you.”

“No. You owe it to your hard work. I may have helped, but you pulled yourself up.”

He kissed her forehead. “Thank you. For everything.”

“You’re my son. I love you very much.”

He cleared his throat. Emotions were difficult for him, especially considering his job. “Yeah. Me, too.”

She grinned. The smile faded as she searched his large, dark eyes. “Do you ever wonder about your mother’s past?”

His eyebrows shot up. “What a question!” He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Do you know anything about her friends? About any male friends she had before she married your stepfather?”

He shrugged. “Not really. She didn’t talk about her relationships. Well, I wasn’t old enough for her to confide in me, either, you know. She never was one to talk about intimate things,” he said quietly. “Not even about my real father. She said that he died, but she never talked about him. She was very young when I was born. She did say she’d done things she wanted forgiveness for, and she went to confession a lot.” He studied her closely. “You must have had some reason for asking me that.”

She put her lips tightly together. “Something I overheard. I wasn’t supposed to be listening.”

“Come on, tell me,” he said when she hesitated.

“Cash Grier was having lunch with some fed. They were discussing Machado. The fed mentioned a woman named Dolores Ortíz who had some connection to General Machado when he lived in Mexico.”

Chapter Two

“Dolores Ortíz?” he asked, the paring knife poised in midair. “That was my mother’s maiden name.”

“I know.”

Rick frowned. “You mean my mother might have been romantically involved with Emilio Machado?”

“I got that impression,” Barbara said, nodding. “But I wasn’t close enough to hear the entire conversation. I just got bits and pieces of it.”

He pursed his lips. “Well, my father died around the time I was born, so it’s not impossible that she did meet Machado in Mexico. Although, it’s a big country.”

“You lived in the state of Sonora,” she pointed out. “That’s where Machado had his truck farm, they said.”

He finished skinning the tomato and reached for another one. “Wouldn’t that be a coincidence, if my mother actually knew him?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Well, it was a long time ago,” he said easily. “And she’s dead, and I never knew him. So what good would it do for them to dig up an old romance now?”

“I have no idea. It bothered me, a little. I mean, you’re my son.”

“Yes, I am.” He glanced at her. “I love it when people get all flustered and start babbling when you introduce me. You’re blonde and fair and I’m dark and obviously Hispanic.”

“You’re gorgeous, my baby,” she teased. “I just wish women would stop crying on your shoulder about other men and start trying to marry you.”

He sighed. “Chance would be a fine thing. I carry a gun!” he said with mock horror.

She glowered at him. “All off-duty policemen carry guns.”

“Yes, but I might shoot somebody accidentally, and it would get in the way if I tried to hug somebody.”

“I gather that somebody female mentioned that?”

He sighed and nodded. “A public defender,” he said. “She thought I was cute, but she doesn’t date men who carry. It’s a principle, she said. She hates guns.”

“I hate guns, too, but I keep a shotgun in the closet in case I ever need to defend myself,” Barbara pointed out.

“I’ll defend you.”

“You work in San Antonio,” she said. “If you’re not here, I have to defend myself. By the time Hayes Carson could get to my place, I’d be … well, not in any good condition if somebody tried to harm me.”

That had happened once, Rick recalled with anger. A man he’d arrested, after he’d been released, had gone after Rick’s adoptive mother for revenge. It was just chance that Hayes Carson had stopped by when he was off duty, in his unmarked truck, to ask her about catering an event. The ex-convict had piled out of his car and come right up on the porch with a drawn gun—in violation of parole—and banged on the door demanding that Barbara come outside. Hayes had come outside, disarmed him, cuffed him and taken him right to jail. The man was now serving another term in prison, for assault on a police officer, trespassing, attempted assault, possessing a firearm in violation of parole and resisting arrest. Barbara had testified at his trial. So had Hayes.

Rick shook his head. “I hate having you in danger because of my job.”

“It was only the one time,” she said, comforting him. “It could have been somebody who carried a grudge because their apple pie wasn’t served with ice cream or something.”

He smiled. “Dream on. You even make the ice cream you serve with it. Your pies are out of this world.”

“Don’t you have an in-house seminar coming up at work?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Why don’t you take a couple of pies back with you?”

“That would be nice. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” She pursed her lips. “Does Gwen like apple pie?”

He turned and stared at her. “Gwen is a colleague. I never, never date colleagues.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

He went back to work on the tomatoes. This could turn into a problem. His mother, well-meaning and loving, nevertheless was determined to get him married. That was one area in which he wanted to do his own prospecting. And never in this lifetime did he want to end up with someone like Gwen, who had two left feet and the dress sense of a Neanderthal woman. He laughed at the idea of her in bearskins carrying a spear. But he didn’t share the joke with his mother.

When he went to work the next day, it was qualifying time on the firing range. Rick was a good shot, and he kept excellent care of his service weapon. But the testing was one of the things he really hated about police work.

His lieutenant, Cal Hollister, could outshoot any man in the precinct. He scored a hundred percent regularly. Rick could usually manage in the nineties but never a perfect score. He always seemed to do the qualifying when the lieutenant was doing his, and his ego suffered.

Today, Gwen Cassaway also showed up. Rick tried not to groan out loud. Gwen would drop her pistol, accidentally kill the lieutenant and Rick would be prosecuted for manslaughter …

“Why are you groaning like that?” Hollister asked curtly as he checked the clip for his.45 in preparation for target shooting.

“Just a stray thought, sir, nothing important.” His eyes went involuntarily to Gwen, who was also loading her own pistol.

On the firing range, shooters wore eye protection and ear protection. They customarily loaded only six bullets into the clip of the automatic, and this was done at the time they got into position to fire. The pistol would be held at low or medium ready position, after being carefully drawn from its snapped holster for firing, with the safety on. The pistol, even unloaded, would never be pointed in any direction except that of the target and the trigger finger would never rest on the trigger. When in firing position, the safety would be released, and the shooter would fire at the target using either the Weaver, modified Weaver, or Isosceles shooting stance.

One of the most difficult parts of shooting, and one of the most important to master, was trigger pull. The pressure exerted on the trigger had to be perfect in order to place a shot correctly. There were graphs on the firing range that helped participants check the efficiency of their trigger pull and help to improve it. Rick’s was improving. But his lieutenant consistently showed him up on the gun range, and it made him uncomfortable. He tried not to practice or qualify when the other man was around. Unfortunately, he always seemed to be on the range when Rick was.

Hollister followed Rick’s gaze to Gwen. He knew, as Rick did, that she had some difficulty with coordination. He pursed his lips. His black eyes danced as he glanced covertly at Gwen. “It’s okay, Marquez. We’re insured,” he said under his breath.

Rick cleared his throat and tried not to laugh.

Hollister moved onto the firing line. His thick blond hair gleamed like pale honey in the sunlight. He glanced at Gwen. “Ready, Detective?” he drawled, pulling the heavy ear protectors on over his hair.

Gwen gave him a nice smile. “Ready when you are, sir.”

The Range Master moved into position, indicated that everything was ready and gave the signal to fire.

Hollister, confident and relaxed, chuckled, aimed at the target and proceeded to blow the living hell out of it.

Rick, watching Gwen worriedly, saw something incredible happen next. Gwen snapped into a modified Weaver position, barely even aimed and threw six shots into the center of the target with pinpoint accuracy.

His mouth flew open.

She took the clip out of her automatic, checked the cylinder and waited for the Range Master to check her score.

“Cassaway,” he said eventually, and hesitated. “One hundred percent.”

Rick and the lieutenant stared at each other.

“Lieutenant Hollister,” the officer continued, and was obviously trying not to smile, “ninety-nine percent.”

“What the hell …!” Hollister burst out. “I hit dead center!”

“Missed one, sir, by a hair,” the officer replied with a twinkle in his eyes. “Sorry.”

Hollister let out a furious bad word. Gwen marched right up to him and glared at him from pale green eyes.

“Sir, I find that word offensive and I’d appreciate it if you would refrain from using it in my presence,” she said curtly.

Hollister’s high cheekbones actually flushed. Rick tensed, waiting for the explosion.

But Hollister didn’t erupt. His black eyes smiled down at the rookie detective. “Point taken, Detective,” he said, and his deep voice was even pleasant. “I apologize.”

Gwen swallowed. She was almost shaking. “Thank you, sir.”

She turned and walked off.

“Not bad shooting, by the way,” he commented as he removed the clip from his own pistol.

She grinned. “Thanks.” She glanced at Rick, who was still gaping, and almost made a smart remark. But she thought better of it in time.

Rick let out the breath he’d been holding. “She trips over her own feet,” he remarked. “But that was some damned fine shooting.”

“It was,” the lieutenant agreed. He shook his head. “You can never figure people, can you, Marquez?”

“True, sir. Very true.”

Later that day, Rick noted two dignified men in suits walking past his office. They glanced at him, spoke to one another and hesitated. One gestured down the hall quickly, and they kept walking.

He wondered what in the world was going on.

Rogers came into his office a few minutes later, frowning. “Odd thing.”

“What?” he asked, his eyes on his computer screen where he was running a case through VICAP.

“Did you see those two suits?”

“Yes, they hesitated outside my office. Who are they, feds?”

“Yes. State Department.”

He burst out laughing as he looked at her with large, dancing brown eyes. “They think I’m illegal and they’re here to bust me?”

“Stop that,” she muttered.

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist it.” He turned to her. “We have high level immigration cases all the time where the State Department gets involved.”

“Yes, but mostly we deal with the enforcement branch of the Department of Immigration and Naturalization, with ICE. Or we deal with the DEA in drug cases, I know that. But these guys aren’t from Austin. They’re from D.C.”

“The capitol?”

“That’s right. They’ve been talking to the lieutenant all morning. They’re taking him to lunch, too.”

“What’s going on? Any idea?”

She shook her head. “Only that gossip says they’re on the Machado case.”

“Yes. He’s wanted for kidnapping.” He didn’t add what Barbara had told him, that his own birth mother might have once known Machado in the past.

“He’s not in the country.”

“And how would you know that?” Rick asked her with pursed lips. “Another psychic insight?” he added, because she had a really unusual sixth sense about cases.

“No. I ran into Cash Grier over at the courthouse. He was up here on a case.”

“Our police chief from Jacobsville,” he acknowledged.

“The very same. He mentioned that Jason Pendleton’s foreman is on temporary leave because of Machado.”

“Grange,” Rick recalled, naming the foreman. “He went into Mexico to retrieve Gracie Pendleton when she was kidnapped by Machado’s men for ransom.”

“Yes. It seems the general took a liking to him, had him investigated and offered him a job.”

Rick blinked. “Excuse me?”

“That’s what I said when Grier told me.” She laughed. “The general really does have style. He said somebody had to organize his mercs when he goes in to retake his country. Grange, being a former major in the army, seemed the logical choice.”

“His country is Barrera,” Rick mused. “Nice name, since it sits on the Amazon River bordering Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Barrera is Spanish for barrier.”

“I didn’t know that, only having completed two years of college Spanish,” she replied blithely.

He made a face at her.

“Anyway, it seems Grange likes the idea of being a crusader for democracy and freedom and human rights, so he took the job. He’s in Mexico at the moment helping the general come up with a plan of attack.”

“With Eb Scott offering candidates, I don’t doubt,” Rick added. “He’s got the cream of the crop at his counterterrorism training center in Jacobsville, as far as mercs go.”

“The general is gathering them from everywhere. He has a couple of former SAS from Great Britain, a one-eyed terror from South Africa named Rourke whose nickname is Deadeye …”

“I know him,” Rick said.

“Me, too,” Rogers replied. “He’s a pill, isn’t he? Rumored to be the natural son of K. C. Kantor, who was one of the more successful ex-mercs.”

“Yes, Kantor became a billionaire after he gave up the lifestyle. He has a daughter who married Dr. Micah Steele in Jacobsville, and a godchild who married into the ranching Callister family up in Montana.” His eyes narrowed. “Where is the general getting the money to finance his revolution?”

“Remember that he gave Gracie back without any payment. But then he nabbed Jason Pendleton for ransom, and Gracie paid it with the money from her trust fund?”

“Forgot about that,” Rick said.

“It ran to six figures. So he’s bankrolled. We hear he also charged what’s left of the Fuentes cartel for protection while he was sharing space with them over the border.”

“Charging drug lords rent in their own turf?” Rick asked.

“And getting it. The general has a pretty fearsome reputation,” she added. She laughed. “He’s also a incredibly handsome,” she mused. “I’ve seen a photograph of him. They say he has a charming personality, reveres women and plays the guitar and sings like an angel.”

“A man of many talents.”

“Not the least of which is inspiring troops.” Rogers sighed. “But it has to be unsettling for the State Department, especially since the Mexican government is up in arms about having Machado recruit mercs to invade a sovereign nation in South America while living in their country.”

“Why are they protesting to us? We aren’t helping him,” Rick pointed out.

“He’s on our border.”

“If they want us to do something about Machado, they could do something about the militant drug cartels running over our borders with automatic weapons to protect their drug runners.”

“Chance would be a fine thing.”

“I guess so. None of that explains why the State Department is gumming up our office,” he added. “This is San Antonio. The border is that way.” He pointed out the window. “A long, long drive that way.”

“I know. That’s what puzzled me. So I pumped Grier for information.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He didn’t. Tell me anything,” she added grimly. “So I had my oldest son pump his best friend, Sheriff Hayes Carson, for information.”

“Did you get anything from him?”

She bit her lower lip. “Bits and pieces.” She gave him a worried look. She couldn’t tell him what she found out. She’d been sworn to secrecy. “But nothing really concrete, I’m sorry to say.”

“I suppose they’ll tell us eventually.”

“I suppose so.”

“When is this huge invasion of Barrera going to take place? Any timeline on that?”

“None that presented itself.” She sighed. “But it’s going to be a gala occasion, from what we hear. The State Department would have good reason to be concerned. They can’t back a revolution …”

“One of the letter agencies could help with that, of course, without public acknowledgment.”

Letter agencies referred to government bureaus like the CIA, which Rick assumed would have been in the forefront of any assistance they could legally give to help install a democratic government friendly to the United States in South America.

“Kilraven used to belong to the CIA,” Rick murmured. “Maybe I could ask him if he knows anything.”

“I’d keep my nose out of it for the time being,” Rogers cautioned, foreseeing trouble ahead if Rick tried to interfere at this stage of the game. “We’ll know soon enough.”

“I guess so.” He glanced at her and asked, “Hear about what happened on the firing range this morning?”

Her eyes brightened. “Did I ever! The whole department’s talking about it. Our rookie detective outshot the lieutenant.”

“By a whole point.” Rick grinned. “Imagine that. She falls into potted plants and trips over crime evidence, but she can shoot like an Old West gunslinger.” He shook his head. “I thought I’d pass out when she started firing that automatic. It was beautiful. She never even seemed to aim. Just snapped off the shots and hit in the center every single time.”

“The lieutenant’s a good loser, though,” Rogers commented. “He bought a single pink rose and laid it on her desk after lunch.”

Rick’s eyes narrowed and his expression grew cold. “Did he, now?”

The lieutenant was a widower. Nobody knew how he lost his wife, he never spoke of her. He didn’t even date, as far as anyone knew. And here he was giving flowers to Gwen, who was young and innocent and impressionable …

“I said, do you think that could be construed as sexual harassment?” Rogers repeated.

“He gave her a flower!”

“Well, yes, but he wouldn’t have given a man a flower, would he?”

“I’d have given Kilraven a flower after he nabbed the perp who blindsided me in the alley and left me for dead,” he said, tongue in cheek.

She sighed. She felt in her pocket for the unopened pack of cigarettes she kept there, pulled it out and looked at it with sad eyes. “I miss smoking. The kids made me quit.”

“You’re still carrying around cigarettes?” he exclaimed.

“Well, it’s comforting. Having them in my pocket, I mean. I wouldn’t actually smoke one, of course. Unless we have a nuclear attack, or something. Then it would be okay.”

He burst out laughing. “You’re incorrigible, Rogers.”

“Only on Mondays,” she said after a minute. She glanced at her watch. “I have to get back to work.”

“Let me know if you find out anything else, okay?”

“Of course I will.” She smiled.

She felt a twinge of guilt as she walked out of his office. She wished she could tell him the truth, or at least prepare him for what she knew was coming. He had a surprise in store. Probably not a very nice one.

“But I made corned beef and cabbage,” Barbara groaned when Rick phoned her Friday afternoon to say he wasn’t coming home that night.

“I know, it’s my favorite, and I’m sorry,” he said. “But we’ve got a stakeout. I have to go. It’s my squad.” He sighed. “Gwen’s on it, and she’ll probably knock over a trash can and we’ll get burned.”

“You have to think positively.” She hesitated. “You could bring her home with you tomorrow. The corned beef will still be good and I’ll cook more cabbage.”

“She’s a colleague,” he repeated. “I don’t date colleagues.”

“Does your lieutenant date colleagues?” she asked with glee. “Because I heard he left her a single rose on her desk. What a lovely, romantic man!”

He gnashed his teeth and hoped the sound didn’t carry. He was tired of hearing that story. It had gone the rounds at work all week.

“You could put a rose on her desk …”

“If I did, it would be attached to a pink slip!” he snapped.

She gasped, hesitated and turned off the phone. It was the first time he’d ever snapped at her.

Rick groaned and dialed her number back. It rang and rang. “Come on. Please?” he spoke into the busy signal. “I’m sorry. Come on, let me apologize …”

“Yes?” Barbara answered stiffly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I really didn’t. I’ll come home for lunch tomorrow and eat corned beef and cabbage. I’ll even eat crow. Raw.” There was silence on the end of the line. “I’ll bring a rose?”

She laughed. “Okay, you’re forgiven.”

“I’m really sorry. Things have been hectic at work. But that’s no excuse for being rude to you.”

“No, it’s not. But I’m not mad.”

“You’re a nice mother.”

She laughed. “You’re a nice son. I love you. I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow.”

“Have a good night.”

“You have a careful one,” she said solemnly. “Even rude sons are hard to come by these days,” she added.

“I’ll change my ways. Honest. See you.”

“See you.”

He hung up and sighed heavily. He couldn’t imagine why he’d been so short with his own mother. Perhaps he needed a vacation. He only took time off when he was threatened. He loved his job. Being sergeant of an eight-detective squad in the Homicide Unit, in the Murder/Attempted Murder detail, was heady and satisfying. He assigned lead detectives to cases, reviewed cases to make sure everything necessary was done and kept up with what seemed like tons of paperwork, as well as reporting to the lieutenant on caseloads. But maybe a little time off would improve his temper. He’d talk to the lieutenant about it next week, he resolved. For now, he had work to do.

Gwen had been assigned as lead detective on the college student’s murder case downtown. It was an odd sort of case. The woman had been stabbed by person or persons unknown, in her own apartment, with all the doors locked and the windows shut. There were no signs of a struggle. She was a pretty young woman with no current boyfriend, no apparent enemies, who led a quiet life and didn’t party.

Gwen wanted very much to solve the case. She’d told Rick that Alice Fowler had found prints on a digital camera that featured an out-of-place man in the background. Gwen was checking that out. She was really working hard on the mystery.

But in the meantime, she’d been pressed into service to help Rick with a stakeout of a man wanted for shooting a police officer in a traffic stop. The officer lived, but he’d be in rehab for months. They had intel that the shooter was hiding out in a low class apartment building downtown with some help from an associate. But they couldn’t find him there. So Rick decided to stake out the place and try to catch him. The fact that it was a Friday night meant that the younger, single detectives were trying to find ways not to get involved. Even the night detectives had excuses, pending cases that they simply couldn’t spare time away from. So Rick ended up with Gwen and one young and eager patrol officer, Ted Sims, from the Patrol South Division who’d volunteered, hoping to find favor with Rick and maybe get a chance at climbing the ladder, and working as a detective one day.

They were set up in a ratty apartment downtown, observing a suspect across the alley in another run-down apartment building. They had all the lights off, a telescope, a video camera, listening devices, warrants to allow the listening devices, and as much black coffee as three detectives could drink in an evening. Which was quite a lot.

“I wish we had a pizza.” Officer Sims sighed.

Rick sighed, too. “So do I, but the smell would carry and the perp would know we were watching him.”

“Maybe we could put the pizza outside his door and he’d go nuts smelling it and rush out to grab it and we could grab him,” Sims mused.

“What do you have in that bottle besides water?” Gwen asked, with twinkling green eyes.

Sims made a face. “Just water, sadly. I could really use a cold beer.”

“Shut up,” Marquez groaned. “I’m dying for one.”

“We could ask Detective Cassaway to investigate the beer rack at the local convenience store and confiscate a six-pack for the crime scene investigation unit,” Sims joked. “Nobody would have to know. We could threaten the owner with health violations or something.”

Gwen gave him a cold look. “We don’t steal.”

Marquez gave him an even more vicious look. “Ever.”

He flushed. “Hey,” he said, holding up both hands, “I was just kidding!”

“I’m not laughing,” she returned, unblinking.

“Neither am I,” Marquez seconded. His face was hard with suppressed anger. “I don’t want to hear talk like that from a sworn police officer.”

“Sorry,” he said, swallowing hard. “Really. Bad joke. I didn’t mean I’d actually do it.”

Gwen shrugged. Sims was very young. “I’m missing that new science fiction show I got hooked on,” she groaned. “It’s making me twitchy.”

“I watch that one, too,” Rick replied. “It’s not bad.”

“You could record it,” Sims suggested. “Don’t you have a DVR?”

She shook her head. “I’m poor. I can’t afford one.”

Rick glared at her. “We work for one of the best-paying departments in the southwest,” he rattled off. “We have a benefits package, expense accounts, access to excellent vehicles …”

“I have a monthly rent bill, a monthly insurance bill, a car payment, utilities payments and I have to buy bullets for my gun,” she muttered. “Who can afford luxuries?” She glared at him. “I haven’t had a new suit in six months. This one looks like moths have nested in it already.”

Rick’s eyebrows arched up. “Surely, you’ve got more than one suit, Cassaway.”

“Two suits, twelve blouses, six pair of shoes and assorted … other things,” she said. “Mix and match and I’m sick of all of it. I want haute couture!”

“Good luck with that,” Rick remarked.

“Luck won’t do it.”

“Hey, is this the guy we’re looking for?” Sims asked suddenly, looking through the telescope.

Chapter Three

Rick and Gwen joined him at the window. Rick snapped a photo of the man across the street, using the telephoto feature, plugged it into his small computer and, using a new face recognition software component, compared it to the man he’d photographed.

“Positive ID. That’s him,” Rick said. “Let’s go get him.”

They ran down the steps, deploying quickly to the designations planned earlier by Rick.

The man, yawning and oblivious, stepped out onto the sidewalk next to a bus stop sign.

“Now,” Rick yelled.

Three people came running toward the stunned man, who started to run, but it was far too late. Rick tackled him and took him down. He cuffed his hands behind his back and chuckled as the man started cursing.

“I ain’t done nothin’!” he wailed.

“Then you don’t have a thing to worry about.”

The man only groaned.

“That was a nice takedown,” Gwen said as they cleared their equipment out of the rented apartment, after the man had been taken away by the patrol officer.

“Thanks. I try to keep in shape.”

She didn’t dare look at him. She was having a hard enough time not noticing how very attractive he was.

“You know,” he mused, “that was some fine shooting down at HQ.”

She beamed. “Thanks.” She glanced up. “At least I do have one saving grace.”

“Probably more than one, Cassaway.”

She shouldered her purse. “Are we done for the night?”

“Yes. I’ll input the report and you can sign it tomorrow. I snapped at my mother. I have to go home and try to make it up to her.”

“She’s very nice.”

He turned, frowning. “How do you know?”

“I came through Jacobsville when I had to interview a witness in that last murder trial,” she reminded him. “I had lunch at the café. It’s the only one in town, except for the Chinese restaurant, and I like her apple pie.” She added that last bit to make sure he knew she wasn’t frequenting his mother’s café just because she was his mother.

“Oh.”

“Has she owned the restaurant a long time?”

He nodded. “She opened it a couple of years before I was orphaned. My mother worked for her as a cook just briefly.”

Gwen nodded, trying to be low-key. “Is your mother still alive? Your biological mother?” she asked while looking through her purse for her car keys.

“She and my stepfather died in a wreck when I was almost in my teens. Barbara had just lost her husband and had a miscarriage the month before it happened. She was grieving and so was I. Since I had no other family, and she knew me, she adopted me.”

She flushed. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I was just curious.”

He shrugged. “Most everybody knows,” he said easily. “I was born in Mexico, in Sonora, but my mother and stepfather came to this country when I was a toddler and lived in Jacobsville. My stepfather worked at one of the local ranches.”

“What did he do?”

“Broke horses.” The way he said it was cold and short, as if he didn’t like being reminded of the man.

“I had an uncle who worked ranches in Wyoming,” she confided. “He’s dead now.”

He studied her through narrowed eyes. “Wyoming. But you’re from Atlanta?”

“Not originally.”

He waited.

She cleared her throat. “My people are from Montana, originally.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

“Yes, well, my parents moved to Maryland when I was small.”

“I guess you miss the ocean.”

She nodded. “A lot. It wasn’t a long drive from our house. But I go where they send me. I’ve worked a lot of places—” She stopped dead, and could have bitten her tongue.

His eyebrows were arching already. “The Atlanta P.D. moves you around the country?”

“I mean, I’ve worked a lot of places around Atlanta.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I didn’t always work for Atlanta P.D.,” she muttered, trying to backpedal. “I worked for a risk organization for a year or two, in the insurance business, and they sent me around the country on jobs.”

“A risk organization? What sort of work did you do?”

“I was a sort of security consultant.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but it wasn’t quite a lie, either. She glanced at her watch as a diversion. “Oh, goodness, I’ll miss my television show!”

“God forbid,” he said dryly. “Okay. We’re done here.”

“It didn’t take as long as I expected,” she commented on the way out. “Usually stakeouts last for hours if not days.”

“Tell me about it,” he said drolly. “Is your car close by?”

She turned at the foot of the steps. “It’s across the street, thanks,” she said, because she knew he was offering to walk her to it. He was a gentleman, in the nicest sort of way.

He nodded. “I’ll see you Monday, then.”

She smiled. “Yes, sir.”

She turned and walked away. Her heart was pounding and she was cursing herself mentally. She’d almost blown the whole thing sky-high!

Barbara was her usual, smiling self, but her eyes were sad when Rick showed up at the door the night before he was due home.

“You said tomorrow?” she murmured.

He stepped into the house and hugged her, hard, rocking her in his arms. He heard a muffled sob. “I felt bad,” he said at her ear. “I upset you.”

“Hey,” she murmured, drawing away to dab at her eyes, “that’s what kids are supposed to do.”

He smiled. “No, it’s not.”

“Want some coffee?”

“Yes!” he said at once, pulling off his suit coat and loosening his tie as he followed her to the kitchen. He swung the coat around one of the high-back kitchen chairs at the table and sat down. “I’ve been on stakeout, with convenience-store coffee.” He made a face. “I think they keep it in the pot all day to make sure it doesn’t pass for hot brown water.”

She laughed as she made a fresh pot. “There’s that profit margin to consider,” she mused.

“I guess.”

“Did you catch a crook?”

“We did, actually. That new face recognition software we use is awesome. Pegged the guy almost immediately.”

“New technology.” She shook her head. “Cameras everywhere, face recognition software, pat downs at the airport …” She turned and looked at him. “Isn’t all that supposed to make us feel safer?”

“No, it’s supposed to actually make you safer,” he corrected. “It makes it harder for the bad guys to hide from the law.”

“I guess so.” She got out cups and saucers. “I made apple pie.”

“You don’t even need to ask. I had a hamburger earlier.”

“You live on fast food.”

“I work at a fast job,” he replied. “No time for proper meals, now that I’m in a position of responsibility.”

She turned and smiled at him. “I was so proud of you for that promotion. You studied hard.”

“I might have studied less if I’d realized how much paperwork would be involved,” he quipped. “I have eight detectives under me, and I’m responsible for all the major decisions that involve them. Plus I have to coordinate them with other services, work around court dates and emergency assignments … Life was a lot easier when I was just a plain detective.”

“You love your job, though. That’s a bonus.”

“It is,” he had to agree.

She cut the pie, topped it with a scoop of homemade ice cream and served it to him with his black coffee. She sat down across from him and watched him eat it with real enjoyment, her hands propping up her chin, elbows on the tablecloth.

“You love to cook,” he responded.

She nodded. “It isn’t an independent woman thing, I know,” she said. “I should be designing buildings or running a corporation and yelling at subordinates.”

“You should be doing what you want to do,” he replied.

“In that case, I am.”

“Good cooks are thin on the ground.” He finished the pie and leaned back with his coffee cup in his hand, smiling. “Wonderful food!”

“Thanks.”

He sipped coffee. “And the best coffee anywhere.”

“Flattery will get you another slice of pie.”

He chuckled. “No more tonight. I’m fine.”

“Are you ever going to take a vacation?” she asked.

“Sure,” he replied. “I’ve already arranged to have Christmas Eve off.”

She glared at him. “A vacation is longer than one night long.”

He frowned. “It is? Are you sure?”

“There’s more to life than just work.”

“I’ll think about that, when I have time.”

“Have you watched the news today?” she asked.

“No. Why?”

“They had a special report about violence on the border. It seems that the remaining Fuentes brother sent an armed party over the border to escort a drug shipment and there was a shootout with some border agents.”

He grimaced. “An ongoing problem. Nobody knows how to solve it. Bottom line, if people want drugs, somebody’s going to supply them. You stop the demand, you stop the supply.”

“Good luck with that” She laughed hollowly. “Never going to happen.”

“I totally agree.”

“Anyway, they mentioned in passing that one of the captured drug runners said that General Emilio Machado was recruiting men for an armed invasion of his former country.”

“The Mexican Government, we hear, is not pleased with that development and they’re angry at our government because they think we aren’t doing enough to stop it.”

“Really?” she exclaimed. “What else do you know?”

“Not much, but you can’t repeat anything I tell you,” he added.

She grinned. “You know I’m as silent as a clam. Come on. Talk.”

“Apparently, the State Department sent people into our office,” he replied. “We know they talked to our lieutenant, but we don’t know what about.”

“State Department!”

“They do have their fingers on the pulse of foreign governments,” Rick reminded her. “If anybody knows what’s really going on, they do.”

“I would have thought one of those other government agencies would have been more involved, especially if the general’s trying to recruit Americans for a foreign military action,” she pondered.

His eyebrows arched.

“Well, it seems logical, doesn’t it?” she asked.

“Actually, it does,” he agreed. “I know the FBI and the CIA have counterterrorism units that infiltrate groups like that.”

“Yes, and some of them die doing it,” Barbara recalled. She grimaced. “They say undercover officers in any organization face the highest risks.”

“The military also has counterterrorism units,” he replied. He sipped his cooling coffee. “That must be an interesting sort of job.”

“Dangerous.”

He smiled. “Of course. But patriotic in the extreme, especially when it comes to foreign operatives trying to undermine democratic interests.”

“Doesn’t the general’s former country have great deposits of oil and natural gas?” she wondered aloud.

“So we hear. It’s also in a very strategic location, and the general leans toward capitalism rather than socialism or communism. He’s friendly toward the United States.”

“A point in his favor. Gracie Pendleton says he sings like an angel,” she added with a smile.

“I heard.”

“Yes, we had that discussion earlier.” She was also remembering another discussion over the phone and her face saddened.

He reached across the table and caught her hand in his. “I really am sorry, Mom,” he said gently. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m not usually like that.”

“No, you’re not.” She hesitated. She wanted to remark that it wasn’t until she asked about the lieutenant giving Gwen a rose that he’d gone ballistic. But in the interests of diplomacy, it was probably wiser to say nothing. She smiled. “How about I warm up that coffee?” she asked instead.

Gwen answered the phone absently, her mind still on the previews of next week’s episode of her favorite science fiction show.

“Yes?” she murmured, the hated glasses perched on her nose so that she could actually see the screen of her television.

“Cassaway, anything to report?”

She sat up straighter. “Sir!”

“No need to get uptight. I’m just checking in. The wife and I are on our way to a party, but I wanted to make sure things are progressing well.”

“They’re going very slowly, sir,” she said, curling up in her bare feet and jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt on her sofa. “I’m sorry, I haven’t found a diplomatic way to get him talking about the subject and find out what he knows. He doesn’t like me.…?”

“I find that hard to believe, Cassaway. You’re a good kid.”

She winced at the description.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Good woman. I try to be PC, you know, but I come from a different generation. Hard for us old-timers to work well in the new world.”

She laughed. “You do fine, sir.”

“I know this is a tough assignment,” he replied. “But I still think you’re the best person for the job. You have a way with people.”

“Maybe another type of woman would have been a better choice,” she began delicately, “maybe someone more open to flirting, and other things …”

“With Marquez? Are you kidding? The guy wrote the book on staunch outlooks! He’d be turned off immediately.”

She relaxed a little. “He does seem to be like that.”

“Tough, patriotic, a stickler for doing the right thing even when the brass disapproves, and he’s got more guts than most men in his position ever develop. Even went right up in the face of a visiting politician to tell him he was putting his foot in his mouth by interfering with a homicide investigation and would regret it when the news media got hold of the story.”

She laughed. “I read about that.”

“Takes a moral man to be that fearless,” her boss continued. “So yes, you’re the right choice. You just have to win his confidence. But you’re going to have to move a little faster. Things are heating up down in Mexico. We can’t be caught lagging when the general makes his move, you know? We have to have intel, we have to be in position to take advantage of any opportunities that present themselves. The general likes us. We want him to continue liking us.”

“But we can’t help.”

He sighed. “No. We can’t help. Not obviously. We’re in a precarious position these days, and we can’t be seen to interfere. But behind the scenes, we can hope to influence people who are in a position to interfere. Marquez is the obvious person to liaison with Machado.”

“It’s going to be traumatic for him,” Gwen said worriedly. “From the little intel I’ve been able to acquire, he has no idea about his connection to Machado. None at all.”

“Pity,” he replied. “That’s going to make it harder.” He put his hand over the receiver and spoke to someone. “Sorry, my wife’s ready to leave. I have to go. Keep me in the loop, and watch your back,” he added firmly. “We’re trying to get the inside track. There are other people, other operatives, around who would love nothing better than to see us fall on our faces. Other countries would do anything to get a foothold in Barrera. I don’t need to tell you who they are, or from what motives they work.”

“No, sir, you don’t,” she agreed. “I’ll do the best I can.”

“You always do,” he said, and there was faint affection in his tone. “Have a good evening. I’ll be in touch.”

“Yes, sir.”

She hung up the cell phone and sat staring at it in her hand. She felt a chill. So much was riding on her ability to be diplomatic and quick and discreet. It wasn’t her first difficult assignment; she was not a novice. But until now, she’d had no personal involvement. Her growing feelings for Rick Marquez were complicating things. She shouldn’t care so much about how it would hurt him, but she did. If only there was a way, any way, that she could give him a heads-up before the fire hit the fan. Perhaps, she thought, she might be able to work something out if she spoke to Cash Grier. They shared a similar background in covert ops and he knew Marquez. It was worth a try.

So Friday morning, her day off, Gwen got in her small, used foreign car and drove down to Jacobsville, Texas.

Cash Grier met her at the door of his office, smiling, and led her inside, motioning to a chair as he closed the door behind him, locked it and pulled down the shade.

She pursed her lips with a grin. “Unusual precautions,” she mused.

He smiled. “I’d put a pillow over the telephone if I thought there might be a wire near it. An ambassador’s family habitually did that in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Even did it in front of the head of the Gestapo once.”

Her eyebrows arched as she sat down. “I missed that one.”

“New book, about the rise of Hitler, and firsthand American views on the radical changes in society there in the 1930s,” he said as he sat down and propped his big booted feet on his desk. “I love World War II history. I could paper my walls with books on the European Theatre and biographies of Patton and Rommel and Montgomery,” he added, alluding to three famous World War II generals. “I like to read battle strategies.”

“Isn’t that a rather strange interest for a guy who worked alone for years, except with an occasional spotter?” she asked, tongue in cheek. It was pretty much an open secret that Grier had been a sniper in his younger days.

He chuckled. “Probably.”

“I like history, too,” she replied. “But I lean more toward political history.”

“Which brings us to the question of why you’re here,” he replied and smiled.

She drew in a long breath and leaned forward. “I have a very unpleasant assignment. It involves Rick Marquez.”

He nodded and his face sobered. “I know. I still have high-level contacts in your agency.”

“He has no idea what’s about to go down,” she said. “I’ve argued with my boss until I’m blue in the face, but they won’t let me give Marquez even a hint.”

“I think his mother knows,” he said. “She asked me about it. She overheard some visitors from D.C. talking about connections.”

“Do you think she’s told him anything?”

“She might know that his mother was romantically involved with Machado at some point. But she wouldn’t know the rest. His mother was very close about her private life. Only one or two people even knew what happened.” He grimaced. “The problem is that one of the people involved had a cousin who married a high-level agent in D.C., and he spilled his guts. That started this whole chain of events.”

“Hard to keep a secret like that, especially one that would have been so obvious.” She frowned. “Rick’s stepfather must have known. From what little information I’ve been able to gather about his past, he and his stepfather didn’t get along at all.”

“The man beat him,” Grier said harshly. “A real jewel of a human being. It’s one reason Rick had so many problems as a kid. He was in trouble constantly right up until the wreck that killed his mother and stepfather. It was a tragedy that produced golden results. Barbara took him in, straightened him out and put him on a path that turned him into an exemplary citizen. Without her influence …” He spread his hands expressively.

Gwen stared at her scuffed black loafers. Idly, she noticed that they needed some polish. She dressed casually, but she liked to be as neat as possible. One day her real identity would come out, and she didn’t want to give the agency a black eye by being slack in her grooming habits.

“You want me to tell him, don’t you?” Grier asked.

She looked up. “You know him a lot better than I do. He’s my boss, figuratively speaking. He doesn’t like me very much, either.”

“He might like you more if you’d wear your damned glasses and stop tripping over evidence in crime scenes,” he said, pursing his lips. “Alice Mayfield Jones Fowler, who works in the Crime Scene Unit in San Antonio, was eloquent about the close call.”

Gwen flushed. “Yes, I know.” She pushed the hated glasses up on her nose, where they’d slipped. “I’m wearing my glasses now.”

“I didn’t mean to be critical,” he said, noting her discomfort. “You’re a long way from the homicide detective you started out to be,” he added. “I know it’s a pain, trying to relearn procedure on the fly.”

“It really is,” she said. “My credentials did stand up to a background check, thank goodness, but I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. I let slip that my job involved a lot of traveling and Marquez wondered why, since I was apparently working for Atlanta Homicide.”

“Ouch,” he said.

“I have to remember that I’ve never been out of the country. It’s pretty hard, living two lives.”

“I haven’t forgotten that aspect of government work,” he agreed. “It’s why I never had much of a personal life, until Tippy came along.”

Everybody local knew that Tippy had been a famous model, and then actress. She and Cash had a rocky trip to the altar, but they had a little girl almost two years old and it was rumored that they wanted another child.

“You got lucky,” she said.

He shrugged. “I guess I did. I never could see myself settling down in a small town and becoming a family man. But now, it’s second nature. Tris is growing by leaps and bounds. She has red hair, and green eyes, like her mama’s.”

Gwen noted the color photo on his desk, with himself and Tippy, with Tris and a boy who looked to be in his early teens. “Is that Tippy’s brother?” she asked, indicating the photo.

“Rory,” he agreed. “He’s fourteen.” He shook his head. “Time flies.”

“It seems to.” She leaned back again. “I miss my dad. He’s been overseas for a long time, although he’s coming back soon for a talk with some very high-level people in D.C. and rumors are flying. Rick Marquez has no idea what sort of background I come from.”

“Another shock in store for him,” he added. “You should tell him.”

“I can’t. That would lead to other questions.” She sighed. “I’d love to meet my dad at the airport when he flies in. We’ve had a rough six months since my brother, Larry, died overseas. Dad still mourns my mother, and she’s been gone for years. I miss her, too.”

“I heard about your brother from a friend in the agency. I’m truly sorry.” His dark eyes narrowed. “No other siblings?”

She shook her head.

“My mother’s gone, too. But my dad’s still alive, and I have three brothers,” he replied with a smile. “My older brother, Garon, is SAC at the San Antonio FBI office.”

“I’ve met him. He’s very nice.” She studied his face. He was a striking man, even with hair that was going silver at the temples. His dark eyes were piercing and steady. He looked intimidating sitting behind a desk. She could only imagine how intimidating he’d look on the job.

“What are you thinking so hard about?” he queried.

“That I never want to break the law in your town.” She chuckled.

He grinned. “Thanks. I try to perfect a suitably intimidating demeanor on the job.”

“It’s quite good.”

He sighed. “I’ll talk to Marquez’s mother and plant clues. I’ll do it discreetly. Nobody will ever know that you mentioned it to me, I promise.”

“Least of all my boss, who’d have me on security details for the rest of my professional life,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t doubt he’d have me transferred as liaison to a police department for real, where he’d make sure I was assigned to duty at school crossings.”

“Hey, now, that’s a nice job,” he protested. “My patrolmen fight over that one.” He said it tongue in cheek. “In fact, the last one enjoyed it so much that he transferred to the fire department. It seems that a first-grader kicked him in the leg, repeatedly.”

Her fine eyebrows arched. “Why?”

“He told the kid to stay in the crosswalk. Seems the kid had a real attitude problem. The teachers couldn’t deal with him, so they finally called us, after the kicking incident. I took the kid home, in the patrol car, and had a long talk with his mother.”

“Oh, dear.”

His face was grim. “She’s a single parent, living alone, no family anywhere, and this kid is one step away from juvy,” he added, referencing the juvenile justice system. “He’s six years old,” he said heavily, “and he already has a record for disobedience and detention at his school.”

“They put little kids in detention in grammar school?” she exclaimed.

“Figure of speech. They call it time-out and he sits in the library. Last time he had to go there, he stood on one of the library tables and recited the Bill of Rights to the head librarian.”

Her eyes widened in amusement. “Not only a troublemaker, but brilliant to boot.”

He nodded. “Everybody’s hoping his poor mother will marry a really tough hombre who can control him before he does something unforgivable and gets an arrest record.”

She laughed. “The things I miss because I never married,” she mused, shaking her head. “It’s not an incentive to become a parent.”

“On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Tippy and me,” he replied with a smile. “I love being a dad.”

“It suits you,” she said.

She got to her feet. “Well, I have to get back to San Antonio. If Sergeant Marquez asks, I had to talk to you about a case, okay?”

“In fact, we really do have a case that might connect,” he said surprisingly. “Sit back down and I’ll tell you about it.”

Chapter Four

Sergeant Marquez came into the office two days later, looking grim. He motioned to Gwen, indicated a chair and closed the door.

She remembered her trip to Cash Grier’s office, and wondered if Grier had had time to talk to her superior officer’s mother and the information had tricked down.

“The cold case squad has a job for us,” he said as he sat down, too.

“What sort of job?”

“They dug up an old murder. It was committed back in 2002 and a man went to prison on evidence largely given by one person. Now it seems the person who gave evidence has been arrested and convicted for a similar crime. They want to know if we can find a connection.”

“Well, by chance, that was the case I just spoke to Chief Grier about down in Jacobsville,” she told him, happy that she could make a legitimate connection to her impromptu trip out of town. “He has an officer who knew the prisoner’s family and could place the man at a party during the murder.”

“Did he give evidence?” he asked.

She shook her head. “He was never called to testify,” she said. “Nobody knows why.”

“Isn’t that interesting.”

“Very. So the cold case squad wants us to wear out some shoe leather on their behalf?”

He grimaced. “They have plenty of manpower, but they’ve got two people out sick, one just transferred to the white collar crime unit and their sergeant said they don’t want to let this case get buried. Especially not when a similar crime was just committed here. Your case. The college woman who was murdered. It needs investigation, and they don’t have enough people.” He smiled. “Besides, there’s the issue of not stepping on the toes of another unit’s investigation.”

“I can understand that.”

“So, we’ll see if we can make a connection, based on available evidence. I’m assigning you as lead detective on this case, as well as on the college freshman murder. Find a connection. Catch the perp. Make me proud.”

She grinned at him. “Actually, that might be possible. I just got some new information from running a check on the photo of that odd man in the murder victim’s camera. The one I mentioned to you?”

“Yes, I recall that.”

She pulled up a file on her phone. “This is him. I used face recognition software to pick him out.” She showed him the mug shot on her phone. “The perp. His name is Mickey Dunagan. He has a rap sheet. It’s a long one. He’s been prosecuted in two aggravated assault cases, never convicted. Here’s the clincher. He has a thing for young college girls. He was arrested for attempted assault a few months ago, on a girl who went to the same college as our victim. I have a detective from our unit en route to question her today, and we’re interviewing people at the apartment complex about the man in the photograph. If his DNA is on file, and I’m betting it is since he’s served time during his trials, and there’s enough DNA from the crime scene to type and match …”

“Good work!” he said fervently.

She grinned. “Thanks, sir.”

“I wish we could get ironclad evidence that he killed the victim.” He grimaced. “Not that ironclad evidence ever got a conviction when some silver-tongued gung-ho public defender got the bit between his teeth.”

“Impressive mixing of metaphors, sir,” she murmured dryly.

He actually made a face at her. “Correct my grammar, get stakeout duty for the next two months.”

“I would never do that!” she protested with wicked, twinkling eyes.

He smiled back. She was very pretty when she smiled. Her mouth was full and lush and sensuous …

He sat back in his chair and forced himself not to notice that. “Get busy.”

“I’ll get on it right now.”

“Just out of curiosity, who was the officer who could place the convicted murderer at a party when the other murder was committed?”

“Officer Dan Travis,” she said. “He’s at the Jacobsville Police Department. I’m going to drive down and talk to him tomorrow.” She checked the notes on her phone. “Dunagan was arrested for assault by a patrolman in South Division named Dave Harris. I’m going to talk to him afterward. He might remember something that would be helpful.”

“Good. Keep me in the loop.”

“I will.” She got up and started for the door.

“Cassaway.”

She turned at the door. “Sir?”

His dark eyes narrowed. He seemed deep in thought. He was. He had a strange sense that she knew something important that she was hiding from him. He read body language very well after his long years in law enforcement. He’d once tripped a bank robber up when he noticed the man’s behavior and deliberately engaged him in conversation. During the conversation, he’d gotten close enough to see the gun the man was holding under his long coat. Rick had quickly subdued him, cuffed him, and taken him in for questioning. The impromptu encounter had solved a whole string of unsolved bank robberies for the cold case unit, and their sergeant, Dave Murphy, had taken Rick out to lunch in appreciation for the help.

“Sir?” Gwen prompted when he didn’t reply.

He sat up straight. His eyes narrowed further as he stared at her. She was almost twitching. “What do you know,” he said softly, “that you aren’t telling me?”

Her face flushed. “No … nothing. I mean, there’s … nothing,” she faltered, and could have bitten her tongue for making things worse.

“You need to think about your priorities,” he said curtly.

She drew in a long breath. “Believe me, I am.”

He grimaced and waved his hand in her direction. “Get to work.”

“Yes, sir.”

She almost ran out of the office. She was flushed and unsettled. Lieutenant Hollister met her in the hall, and frowned.

“What’s up?” he asked gently.

She bit her lip. “Nothing, sir,” she said. She drew in a long breath. She wanted, so badly, to tell somebody what was going on.

Hollister’s black eyes narrowed. “Come into my office for a minute.”

He led her back the way she’d come, past a startled Marquez, who watched the couple go into the lieutenant’s office with an expression that was hard to classify.

“Sit down,” Hollister said. He went behind his desk and swung up his long, powerful legs, propping immaculate black boots on the desk. He crossed his arms and leaned back precariously in his chair. “Talk.”

She shifted restlessly. “I know something about Sergeant Marquez that I’m not supposed to discuss with anybody.”

He lifted a thick blond eyebrow. He even smiled. “I know what it is.”

Her green eyes widened.

“The suits who came to see me earlier in the week were feds,” he said. “I know who you really are, and what’s going on.” He sighed. “I want to tell Marquez, too, but my hands are tied.”

“I went to see Cash Grier,” she said. “He’s out of the loop. He can’t do anything directly, but he might be able to let something slip at Barbara’s Café in Jacobsville. That would at least prepare Sergeant Marquez for what’s about to go down.”

“Nothing can prepare a man for that sort of revelation, believe me.” His eyes narrowed even more. “They want Marquez as a liaison, don’t they?”

She nodded. “He’d be the best man for the job. But he’s going to be very upset at first and he may refuse to do anything.”

“That’s a risk they’re willing to take. They don’t dare interfere directly, not in the current political climate,” he added. “Frankly, I’d just go tell him.”

“Would you?” she asked, and smiled.

He laughed deeply and then he shook his head. “Actually, no, I wouldn’t. I’m too handsome to spend time in prison. There would be riots. I’d be so much in demand as somebody’s significant other.”

She laughed, too. She hadn’t realized he had a sense of humor. Her face flushed. She looked very pretty.

He cocked his head. “You could just ask Marquez to the ballet and tell him yourself.”

“My boss would have me hung in Hogan’s Alley up at the FBI Academy with a placard around my neck as a warning to other loose-lipped agents,” she told him.

He grinned. “I’d come cut you down, Cassaway. I get along well with the feds. But I’m not prejudiced. I also get along with mercenaries.”

“There’s a rumor that you used to be one,” she fished.

His face closed up, although he was still smiling. “How about that?”

She didn’t comment.

He swung his long legs off the desk and stood up. “Let me know how it goes,” he said. He walked her to the door. “It’s not a bad idea, about asking him to the ballet. He loves ballet. He usually goes alone. He can’t get girlfriends.”

“Why not?” she asked. She cleared her throat. “I mean, he’s rather attractive.”

“He wears a gun.”

“So do you,” she pointed out, indicating the holster. “In fact, we all wear them.”

“True, but he likes women who don’t,” he replied. “And they don’t like men who wear guns. He doesn’t date colleagues, he says. But you might be able to change his mind.”

“Fat chance.” She sighed. “He doesn’t like me.”

“Go solve that murder for the cold case unit, and they’ll lobby him for you,” he teased.

“How do you know about that?” she asked, surprised.

“I’m the lieutenant,” he pointed out. “I know everything,” he added smugly.

She laughed. She was still laughing when she walked down the corridor.

Rick heard her from inside his office. He threw a scratch pad across the room and knocked the trash can across the floor with it. Then he grimaced, in case anybody heard and asked what was going on. He couldn’t have told them. He didn’t know himself why he was behaving so out of character.

The man Gwen was tracking in her semiofficial disguise was an unpleasant, slinky individual who had a rap sheet that read like a short story. She’d gone down to Jacobsville and interviewed Officer Dan Travis. He seemed a decent sort of person, and he could swear that the man who was arrested for the murder was at a holiday party with him, and had never even stepped outside. He had told the assistant DA, but the attorney refused to entertain evidence he considered hearsay. Travis gave her the names of two other people she could contact, who would verify the information. She took notes and arranged for a deposition to be taken from him.

Her next stop was Patrol South Division, in San Antonio, to talk to the arresting officer who’d taken Dunagan in for the attempted assault on a college woman a few months ago, Dave Harris. He was working that day, but was working a wreck when she phoned him. So she arranged to meet him for lunch at a nearby fast food joint.

They sat together over hamburgers and fries and soft drinks, attracting attention with his uniform and her pistol and badge, conspicuously displayed.

“We’re being watched,” she said in a dramatic tone, indicating two young women at a nearby booth.

“Oh, that’s just Joan and Shirley,” he said. He looked toward the women, waved and grinned. One of them flushed and almost knocked over her drink. He was blond and blue-eyed, nicely built, and quite handsome. He was also single. “Joan’s sweet on me,” he added in a whisper. “They know I always eat here, so they come by for lunch. They work at the print shop downtown. Joan’s a graphic artist. Very talented.”

“Nice,” she murmured, biting into the burger.

“Why are you doing a cold case?” he asked as he finished his salad and sipped black coffee.

“It ties in with a current one we’re working on,” she said, and related what Cash Grier had told her.

His dark eyebrows arched. “They never called a prime witness in the case?”

“Strange, isn’t it?” she agreed. “That would be grounds for a mistrial, I’d think, but I’ll need to talk to the city attorney’s office first. The man who was convicted has been in prison for almost a year.”

“Shame, if he’s innocent,” the patrolman replied.

“I know. Fortunately, such things don’t happen often.”

“What about the suspect in your current case?”

“A nasty bit of work,” she replied. “I can place him at the scene of the crime, and if there’s enough trace evidence to do a DNA profile, I think I can connect him with it. Her neighbors reported seeing him around her apartment the morning before the murder. If he’s guilty, I don’t want him to slip through the cracks on my watch, especially since Sergeant Marquez assigned me to the case as chief investigator.”

“Really? How many other people are helping you with the case?”

“Let’s see, right now, there’s me and one other detective that I borrowed to help question witnesses.”

He sighed. “Budget issues again?”

“Afraid so. I can manage. If I need help, the cold case unit will lend me somebody.”

“Nice group, that cold case unit.”

She smiled. “I think so, too.”

“Now about the perp,” he added, leaning forward. “This is how it went down.”

He described the scene of the assault where he’d arrested Dunagan, the persons involved, the witnesses and his own part in the arrest. Gwen made notes on her phone and saved the file.

“That’s a big help,” she told him. “Thanks.”

He smiled. “You’re very welcome.” He checked his watch. “I have to get back on patrol. Was there any other information you needed?”

“Nothing I can’t find in the file. I appreciate the summary of the case, and your thoughts on it. That really helps.”

“You’re welcome. Any time.”

“Shame about the latest victim,” she added as they got up and headed to the trash bin with their trays. “She was very pretty. Her neighbors said she went out of her way to help people in need.” She glanced at him. “We had one of your fellow officers on stakeout with us the other night. Sims.”

He paused as he dumped the paper waste and placed the tray in its stack on the refuse container top. “He’s not our usual sort of patrol officer.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, frowning.

“I really can’t say anything. It’s just that he has an interesting background. There are people in high positions with influence,” he added. He smiled. “But he’s not my problem. I think you’ll do well in the homicide unit. You’ve got a knack for sorting things out, and you’re thorough. Good luck on the case.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

He smiled. “You’re welcome.”

She drove back to the office with her brain spinning. What she’d learned was very helpful. She might crack the case, which would certainly give her points with Rick Marquez. But there was still the problem of what she knew and couldn’t tell him. She only hoped that Cash Grier would be able to break some ground with her sergeant.

Cash Grier had a thick ham sandwich with homemade fries and black coffee and then asked for a slice of Barbara’s famous apple pie and homemade ice cream.

She served it with a grin. “Don’t eat too much of this,” she cautioned. “It’s very fattening.” She was teasing, because he was still as trim as men ten years his junior, and nicely muscled.

He pursed his lips and his black eyes twinkled. “As you can see, I’m running to fat.”

She laughed. “That’ll be the day.”

He studied her quietly. “Can you sit down for a minute?”

She looked around. The lunchtime rush was over and there were only a couple of cowboys and an elderly couple in the café. “Sure.” She sat down across from him. “What can I do for you?”

He sipped coffee. “I’ve been enlisted to get some information to your son without telling him anything.”

She blinked. “That’s a conundrum.”

“Isn’t it?” He put down the coffee cup and smiled. “You’re a very intelligent woman. You must have some suspicions about his family history.”

“Thanks for the compliment. And yes, I have a lot.” She studied his hard face. “I overheard some feds who ate here talking about Dolores Ortíz and her connection to General Machado. Dolores worked for me just briefly. She was Rick’s birth mother.”

“Rick’s stepfather was a piece of work,” he said coldly. “I’ve heard plenty about him. He mistreated livestock and was fired for it on the Ballenger feedlot. Gossip is that he did the same to his stepson.”

Her face tautened. “When I first adopted him, I lifted my hand to smooth back his hair—you know, that thing mothers do when they feel affectionate. He stiffened and cringed.” Her eyes were sad. “That’s when I first knew that there was a reason for his bad behavior. I’ve never hit him. But someone did.”

“His stepfather,” Grier asserted. “With assorted objects, including, once, a leather whip.”

“So that’s where he got those scars on his back,” she faltered. “I asked, but he would never talk about it.”

“It’s a blow to a man’s pride to have something like that done to him,” he said coldly. “Jackson should have been sent to prison on a charge of child abuse.”

“I do agree.” She hesitated. “Rick’s last name is Marquez. But Dolores said that was a name she had legally drawn up when Rick was seven. I never understood.”

“She didn’t dare put his real father’s name on a birth certificate,” he replied. “Even at the time, his dad was in trouble with the law in Mexico. She didn’t want him to know about Rick. And, later, she had good reason to keep the secret. She married Craig Jackson to give Rick a settled home. She didn’t know what sort of man he was until it was too late,” he added coldly. “He knew who Rick’s real father was and threatened to make it public if Dolores left him. So she stayed and Rick paid for her silence.”

Barbara was feeling uncomfortable. “Would his real father happen to be an exiled South American dictator, by any chance?”

Grier nodded.

“Oh, boy.”

“And nobody can tell him, because a certain federal agency is hoping to talk him into being a go-between for them, to help coax Machado into a comfortable trade agreement with our country when he gets back into power. Which he certainly will,” he added quietly. “The thug who took over his government has human rights advocates bristling all over the world. He’s tortured people, murdered dissenters, closed down public media outlets … In general, he’s done everything possible to outrage anyone who believes in democracy. At the same time, he’s pocketing money from sources of revenue and buying himself every rich man’s perk that he can dream up. He’s got several Rolls-Royce cars, assorted beautiful women, houses in most affluent European cities and his own private jet to take him to them. He doesn’t govern so much as he flaunts his position. Workers are starving and farmers are being forced to grow drug crops to support his extravagant lifestyle.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen dictators come and go, but that man needs a little lead in his diet.”

She knew what he was alluding to. “Any plans going to take care of that?” she mused.

“Don’t look at me,” he warned. “I’m retired. I have a family to think about.”

“Eb Scott might have a few people who would be interested in the work.”

“Yes, he might, but the general isn’t lacking for good help.” He glanced up as one of Barbara’s workers came, smiling, to refill his coffee cup. “Thanks.”

She grinned. “You’re welcome. Boss lady, you want some?”

Barbara shook her head. “Thanks, Bess, I’m already flying on a caffeine high.”

“Okay.”

“So who has to do the dirty work and tell Rick the truth?” Barbara asked.

Grier didn’t speak. He just smiled at her.

“Oh, darn it, I won’t do it!”

“There’s nobody else. The feds have forbidden their agents to tip him off. His lieutenant knows, but he’s been gagged, too.”

“Then how in the world do they expect him to find out? Why won’t they just tell him?”

“Because he might get mad at them for being the source of the revelation and refuse to cooperate. And there isn’t anybody else they can find to do the job of contacting Machado.”

“They could ask Grange,” Barbara said stubbornly. “He’s already working for the general, isn’t he?”

“Grange doesn’t know.”

“Why me?” she groaned. “He’ll be furious!”

“Yes, but you’re his mother and he loves you,” he replied. “If you tell him, he’ll get over it. He might even be receptive to helping the feds. If they tell him, he’ll hold a grudge and they’ll never find anyone halfway suitable to do the job.”

She was silent. She stared at the festive tablecloth worriedly.

“It will be all right,” he assured her gently.

She looked up. “We’ve already had a disagreement recently.”

“You have? Why?” he asked, surprised, because Rick’s devotion to his adopted mother was quite well-known locally.

She grimaced. “His lieutenant gave the new detective, Gwen Cassaway, a rose, and I mentioned it in a teasing way. He went ballistic and I hung up on him. He won’t admit it, but I think he’s got a case on Gwen.”

“Well!” he mused.

That was a new and interesting proposition. “Couldn’t she tell him?” she asked hopefully.

“She’s been cautioned not to.”

She sighed. “Darn. Does everybody know?”

“Rick doesn’t.”

“I noticed.”

“So you have to tell him. And soon.”

“Or what?”

He leaned forward. “Or six government agencies will send operatives down here to disparage your apple pie and accuse you of subverting government policy by using organic products in your kitchen.”

She burst out laughing. “Yes, I did hear that a SWAT team of federal agents raided a farm that was selling unpasteurized milk. Can you believe that? In our country, in this day and time, with all the real problems going on, we have to send armed operatives against people living in a natural harmony with the earth?”

“You’re kidding!” he exclaimed.

“I wish I was,” she replied. “I guess we’re all going to be force-fed Genetically Modified Organisms from now on.”

He burst out laughing. “You need to stop hanging out on those covert websites.”

“I can’t. I’d never know what was really going on in the world, like us having bases on the moon.”

He rolled his eyes. “I have to get back to work.” He stood up. “You’ll tell him, then.”

She stood up, too. “Do I have a choice?”

“You could move to Greenland and change your name.”

She made a face at him. “That’s no choice. Although I would love to visit Greenland. They have snow.”

“So do we, occasionally.”

“They have lots of snow. Enough to make many snowmen. South Texas isn’t famous for that.”

“The pie was great, by the way.”

She smiled. “Thanks. I do my best.”

“I’d have to leave town if you ever closed up,” he told her. “I can’t live in a town that doesn’t have the best food in Texas.”

“That will get you extra ice cream on your next slice of apple pie!” she promised him with a grin.

But she wasn’t grinning when she went home. It disturbed her that she was going to have to tell her son something that would devastate him. He wasn’t going to be pleased. Other than that, she didn’t know what the outcome would be. But Grier was right about one thing; it was better that the information came from his mother rather than from some bureaucrat or federal agent who had no personal involvement with Rick and didn’t care how the news affected him. It did make her feel good that so far, they hadn’t blurted it out. By hesitating, they did show some compassion.

Rick went to his mother’s home tired. It had been a long day of meetings and more meetings, with a workshop on gun safety occasioned by the accidental discharge of a pistol by one of the patrol officers. The bullet went into the asphalt but fortunately didn’t ricochet and hit anything, or anyone. The officer was disciplined but the chain of command saw an opportunity to emphasize gun safety and they took it. The moral of the story was that even experienced officers could mishandle a gun.

Privately, Marquez wondered how Officer Sims ever got through the police academy, because he was the officer involved. The same guy who’d gone on stakeout with him and Cassaway. He didn’t think a lot of the young man’s ethics and he’d heard that Sims had an uncle high up in the chain of command who made sure he kept his job. It was disturbing.

“You look worn-out,” Barbara said gently. “Come sit down and I’ll put supper on the table.”

“It’s late,” he commented, noting his watch.

“We can have supper at midnight,” she teased. “Nobody’s watching. I’ll even pull down the shades if it makes you happy.”

He laughed and hugged her. “You’re a treasure, Mom. I’ll never marry unless I can find a girl like you.”

“That’s sweet. Thanks.”

She started heating up roast beef and buttered rolls, topping off his plate with homemade potato salad. She put the plate in front of him. “Thank goodness for microwave ovens.” She laughed. “The cook’s best friend.”

“This is delicious.” He closed his eyes, savoring every bite. “I had a sandwich for lunch and I only had time to eat half of it between meetings.”

“I didn’t even eat lunch,” she said, dipping into her own roast beef.

“Why not?”

“I had a talk with Cash Grier and afterward I lost my appetite.”

He stopped eating and stared at her with narrowed eyes. “What did he tell you?”

“Something everybody knows and nobody has the guts to tell you, my darling,” she said, stiffening herself mentally. “I have some very unpleasant news.”

He put down his fork. “You’ve got cancer.” His face paled. “That’s it, isn’t it? You should have told me …!”

He got up and hugged her. “We’ll get through it together. I’ll never leave your side …”

She pulled back, flattered. “I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t have anything fatal. That isn’t what I meant. It’s about you. And your real father.”

He blinked. “My real father died not long after I was born …”

She took a deep breath. “Rick, your real father is across the border in Mexico amassing a private army in preparation for invading a South American country.”

He sat down, hard. His light olive complexion was suddenly very pale. All the gossip and secrecy suddenly made sense. The feds were all over his office, not because they were working on shared cases, but because of Rick.

“My father is General Emilio Machado,” he said with sudden realization.

Chapter Five

“My father is a South American dictator,” Rick repeated, almost in shock.

“I’m afraid so.” Barbara pulled up a chair facing him and held his hand that was resting on the table. “They made me tell you. Nobody else wanted to. I’m so sorry.”

“But my mother said my father was dead,” he repeated blankly.

“She only wanted to protect you. Machado was in trouble with the Mexican authorities when he lived in the country because he was opposed to foreign interests trying to take over key industries where he lived. He organized protests even when he was in his teens. He was a natural leader. Later, Dolores didn’t dare tell you because Machado was the head of a fairly well-known international paramilitary group and that would have made you a target for any extremist with a grudge. He was in the news a lot when you were a child.”

“Does he know?” Rick persisted. “Does he know about me?”

Barbara bit her lower lip. “No. She never told him.” She sighed. “After Cash told me who your father was, I remembered something that Dolores told me. She said your father was only fourteen when he fathered you. She was older, seventeen, and there was no chance that her family would have let her marry him. She wanted you very much. So she had you, and never even told her parents who the father was. She kept her secret. At least, until she married your stepfather. Cash said that your stepfather got the truth out of her and used it to keep her with him. She didn’t dare protest or he’d have made your real identity known. A true charmer,” she added sarcastically.

“My stepfather was a sadist,” he said quietly. “I’ve never spoken of him to you. But he made my life hell, and my mother’s as well. I got in trouble with the law on purpose. I thought maybe somebody would check out my home life and see the truth and help us. But nobody ever did. Not until you came along and offered my mother work.”

“I tried to help,” she agreed. “Dolores liked cooking for me, but your stepfather didn’t like her having friends or any interest outside of him. He was insanely jealous.”

“He also couldn’t keep a job. Money was tight. You used to sneak me food,” he recalled with a warm smile. “You even came to visit me in the detention center. My mother appreciated that. My stepfather wouldn’t let her come.”

“I knew that. I did what I could. I tried to get our police chief at the time to investigate, but he was the sort of man who didn’t want to rock the boat.” She laughed. “Can you imagine Cash Grier turning a blind eye to something like that?”

“He’d have had my stepfather pilloried in the square.” Rick smiled, then sobered. “My father is a dictator,” he repeated again. It was hard to believe. He’d spent his whole life certain that his biological father was long dead.

“A deposed dictator,” Barbara corrected. “His country is going to the dogs under its new administration. People are dying. He wants to accomplish a military coup, but he needs all the help he can get. Which brings us to our present situation,” she added. “A paramilitary group is going down to Barrera with him, including some of Eb Scott’s guys, some Europeans, one African merc and with ex-army Major Winslow Grange, Jason Pendleton’s foreman on his Comanche Wells ranch, to lead them.”

“All that firepower and the government hasn’t noticed?”

“It wouldn’t do them a lot of good. Machado’s in Mexico, just over the border,” Barbara said. “They can’t mount an invasion to stop him. But they can try to find a way to be friendly without overt aid.”

“Ah. I see. I’m the goat.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“They’re going to tether me out to attract the puma.”

“Puma.” She laughed. “Funny, but one of my customers said that’s what the local population calls ‘El General.’ They say he’s cunning and dangerous like a cat, but that he can purr when he wants to.” Her face softened. “For a dictator, he’s held in high esteem by most democracies. He’s intelligent, kind, he reveres women and he isn’t afraid to fight for justice.”

“Does he wear a red cape?” Rick murmured.

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

“Who’s in on this?” he asked narrowly. “Does my lieutenant know?”

“Yes,” she said. “And there’s a covert operative somewhere in your organization,” she added. “I got that tidbit from a patrol officer who has a friend on the force in San Antonio. A guy named Sims.”

“Sims.” His face closed up. “He’s got connections. And he’s a total ethical wipeout. I hate having a guy like that on the force. He got careless with a pistol and almost shot himself in the foot. He’s the reason we just had a gun safety workshop.”

“Learning gun safety is not a bad thing.”

He sighed. “I know.” He was trying to adjust to the shock of his parentage. “Why didn’t my mother tell me?” he burst out.

“She was trying to protect you. I’m certain that she would have told you eventually,” she added. “She just didn’t have time before she died.”

He grimaced. “What am I supposed to do now, walk over the border, find the general and say, hey, guess what, I’m your kid?”

“I don’t really think that would be wise,” she replied. “I’m not sure he’d believe it in the first place. Would you?”

“Now there’s a question.” He leaned back in the chair, his dark eyes focused on the tablecloth. “I suppose I could have a DNA profile done. There’s a private company that can at least rule out paternity by blood type. If mine is compatible with the general’s, it might help convince him … Wait a minute,” he added coldly. “Why the hell should I care?”

“Because he’s your father, Rick,” she said gently. “Even though he doesn’t know.”

“And the government’s only purpose in telling me is to help reunite us,” he returned angrily.

“Well, no, they want someone to convince the general to make a trade agreement with us once he’s back in power. They’re certain that he will be, which is why they want you to make friends with him.”

“I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed to know he has a grown son who’s a cop,” he said coldly. “Especially since he’s wanted by our government for kidnapping.”

She leaned forward with her chin resting in her hands, propped by her elbows. “You could arrest him,” she pointed out. “And then befriend him in jail. Like the mouse that took the thorn out of the lion’s paw and became its friend.”

He made a face at her. “I can’t walk across the border and arrest anyone. I might have been born in Mexico, but I’m an American citizen. And I did it the hard way,” he added firmly. “Legally.”

She grimaced.

“Sorry,” he said after a minute. “I know you sympathize with all the people hiding out here who couldn’t afford to wait for permission. In some of their countries, they could be killed just for paying too much attention to the wrong people.”

“It’s very bad in some Central American states,” she pointed out.

“It’s very bad anywhere on our border.”

“And getting worse.”

He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. His big hand rested on the coffeemaker as he switched it off. “Who’s the mole in my office?”

“I honestly don’t know,” she replied. “I only know that Sims told his friend, Cash Grier’s patrolman, about it. He said it was someone from a federal agency, working undercover.”

“I wonder how Sims knew.”

“Maybe he’s the mole,” she teased.

“Unlikely. Most feds have too much respect for the law to abuse it. Sims actually suggested that we confiscate a six-pack of beer from a convenience store as evidence in some pretended case and threaten the clerk with jail if he told on us.”

“Good grief! And he works for the police?” she exclaimed, horrified.

“Apparently,” he replied. “I didn’t like what he said, and I told him so. He seemed repentant, but I’m not sure he really was. Cocky kid. Real attitude problem.”

“Doesn’t that sound familiar?” she asked the room at large.

“I never suggested breaking the law after I went through the academy and swore under oath to uphold it,” he replied.

“Are you sure you didn’t overreact, my darling?” she asked gently.

“If I did, so did Cassaway. She was hotter under the collar than I was.” He laughed shortly. “And then she beat the lieutenant on the firing range and he let out a bad word. She marched right up to him and said she was offended and he shouldn’t talk that way around her.” He glanced at her ruefully. “Hence, the rose.”

“Oh. An apology.” She looked disappointed. “Your lieutenant is very attractive,” she mused. “And eligible. I thought he might find Miss Cassaway interesting. Or something.”

“Maybe he does,” he said vaguely. “God knows why. She’s good with a gun, I’ll give her that, but she’s a walking disaster in other ways. How she ever got a job with the police, I’ll never know.” He didn’t like talking about Cassaway and the lieutenant. It got under his skin, for reasons he couldn’t understand.

“She sounds very nice to me.”

“Everybody sounds nice to you,” he replied. He smiled at her. “You could find one good thing to say about the devil, Mom. You look for the best in people.”

“You look for the worst,” she pointed out.

He shrugged. “That’s my job.”

He was thoughtful, and morose. She felt even more guilty when she saw how disturbed he really was.

“I wish there had been some other way to handle this,” she muttered angrily. “I hate being made the fall guy.”

“Hey, I’m not mad at you,” he said, and bent to kiss her hair. “I just … don’t know what to do.” He sighed.

“‘When in doubt, don’t,’” she quoted. She frowned. “Who said that?”

“Beats me, but it’s probably good advice.” He put down his cooling coffee and stretched, yawning. “I’m beat. Too many late nights finishing paperwork and going on stakeouts. I’m going to bed. I’ll decide what to do in the morning. Maybe it will come to me in a dream or something,” he added.

“Maybe it will. I’m just sorry I had to be the one to tell you.”

“I’ll get used to the idea,” he assured her. “I just need a little time.”

She nodded.

But time was in short supply. Two days later, a tall, elegant man with dark hair and eyes, wearing a visitor’s tag but no indication of his identity, walked into Rick’s office and closed the door.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

Rick stared at him. “Do I know you?” he asked after a minute, because the man seemed vaguely familiar.

“You should,” he replied with a grin. “But it’s been a while since we caught Fuentes and his boys in the drug sting in Jacobsville. I’m Rodrigo Ramirez. DEA.”

“I knew you looked familiar!” Rick got up and shook the other man’s hand. “Yes, it has been a while. You and your wife bought a house here last year.”

He nodded. “I work out of San Antonio DEA now instead of Houston, and she works for the local prosecutor, Blake Kemp, in Jacobsville. With her high blood pressure, I’d rather she stayed at home, but she said she’d do it when I did it.” He shrugged. “Neither of us was willing to try to change professions at this late date. So we deal with the occasional problem.”

“Are you mixed up in the Barrera thing as well?” Rick asked curiously.

“In a way. I’m related, distantly, to a high official in Mexico,” he said. “It gives me access to some privileged information.” He hesitated. “I don’t know how much they’ve told you.”

Rick motioned Ramirez into a chair and sat down behind his desk. “I know that El General has a son who’s a sergeant with San Antonio P.D.,” he said sarcastically.

“So you know.”

“My mother told me. They wanted me to know, but nobody had the guts to just say it,” he bit off.

“Yes, well, that could have been a big problem. Depending on how you were told, and by whom. They were afraid of alienating you.”

“I don’t see what help I’m going to be,” Rick said irritably. “I didn’t know my biological father was still alive, much less who he was. The general, I’m told, has no clue that I even exist. I doubt he’d take my word for it.”

“So do I. Sometimes government agencies are a little thin on common sense,” he added. He crossed his elegant long legs. “I’ve been elected, you might say, to do the introductions, by my cousin.”

“Your cousin …?”

“He’s the president of Mexico.”

“Well, damn!”

Ramirez smiled. “That’s what I said when he told me to do it.”

“Sorry.”

“No problem. It seems we’re both stuck with doing something that goes against the grain. I think the general is going to react very badly. I wish there was someone who could talk to him for us.”

“Like my mother talked to me for the feds?” he mused.

“Exactly.”

Rick frowned. “You know, Gracie Pendleton got along quite well with him. She refused to even think of pressing charges. She was asked, in case we could talk about extradition of Machado with the Mexican government. She said no.”

“I heard. She’s my sister-in-law, although she’s not related to my wife. Don’t even ask,” he added, waving his hand. “It’s far too complicated to explain.”

“I won’t. But I remember Glory very well,” he reminded Ramirez. “Cash Grier and I taught her how to shoot a pistol without destroying cars in the parking lot,” he added with a grin.

Ramirez laughed. “So you did.” He sobered. “Gracie might be willing to speak to the general, if we could get word to him,” Ramirez said.

“We had a guy in jail here who was one of the higher-ups in the Fuentes organization. He’s going on probation tomorrow.”

“An opportunity.” Ramirez chuckled.

“Apparently, a timely one. I’ll ask him if he’d have the general call Gracie. Now, how do you get Gracie to do that dirty work for you?”

“I’ll have my wife bribe her with flowers and chocolate and Christmas decorations.”

“Excuse me?” Rick asked.

“Gracie loves to decorate for Christmas. My wife has access to a catalog of rare antique decorations. Gracie can be bribed, if you know how,” he added.

Rick smiled. “An assistant district attorney working a bribe. What if somebody tells her boss?”

“He’ll laugh,” Ramirez assured him. “It’s for a just cause, after all.”

Rick started down to the jail in time to waylay the departing felon. He spoke to the probation officer on the way and arranged the conversation.

The man was willing to take a message to the general, for a price. That put them on the hot seat, because neither man could be seen offering illegal payment to a felon.

Then Rick had a brainstorm. “Wait a second.” He’d spotted the janitor emptying trash baskets nearby. He took the man to one side, handed him two fifties and told him what to do.

The janitor, confused but willing to help, walked over to the prisoner and handed him the money. It was from him, he added, since the prisoner had been pleasant to him during his occupation in the jail. He wanted to help him get started again on the outside.

The prisoner, smiling, understood immediately what was going on. He took the money graciously, with a bow, and proceeded to sing the janitor’s praises for his act of generosity. So the message was sent.

Gwen Cassaway was sitting at Rick’s desk when he went back to his office, in the chair reserved for visitors. He hated the way his heart jumped at the sight of her. He fought down that unwanted feeling.

“Do they have to issue us these chairs?” she complained when he came in, closing the door behind him. “Honestly, only hospital waiting rooms have chairs that are more uncomfortable.”

“The idea is to make you want to leave,” he assured her. “What’s up?” he added absently as he removed his holstered pistol from his belt and slid it into a desk drawer, then locked the drawer before he sat down. “Something about the case I assigned you to?”

She hesitated. This was going to be difficult. “Something else. Something personal.”

He stared at her coolly. “I don’t discuss personal issues with colleagues. We have a staff psychologist if you need counseling.”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Honestly, do you have a steel rod glued to your spine?” she burst out. Then she realized what she’d said, clapped her hand over her mouth and looked horrified at the slip.

He didn’t react. He just stared.

“I’m sorry!” she said, flustered. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to say that …!”

“Cassaway,” he began.

“It’s about the general,” she blurted out.

His dark eyes narrowed. “Lately, everything is. Don’t tell me. You’re having an affair with him and you have to confess for the sake of your job.”

She drew in a long breath. “Actually, the general is my job.” She got up, opened her wallet and handed it to Rick.

He did an almost comical double take. He looked at her as if she’d grown leaves. “You’re a fed?”

She nodded and grimaced. She took back the wallet after he’d looked at it again, just to make sure it didn’t come from the toy department in some big store.

She put it back in her fanny pack. “Sorry I couldn’t say something before, but they wouldn’t let me,” she said heavily as she sat down again, with her hands folded on her jeans.

“What the hell are you doing pretending to be a detective?” he asked with some exasperation.

“It was my boss’s idea. I did start out with Atlanta P.D., but I’ve worked in counterterrorism for the agency for about four years now,” she confessed. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “This wasn’t my idea. They wanted me to find out how much you knew about your family history before they accidentally said or did something that would upset you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve just been presented with a father who’s an exiled South American dictator, whose existence I was unaware of. They didn’t think that would upset me?”

“I asked Cash Grier to talk to your mother,” she said. “You can’t tell anybody. I was ordered not to talk to you about it. But they didn’t say I couldn’t ask somebody else to do it.”

He was touched by her concern. Not that he liked her any better. “I wondered about your shooting skills,” he said after a minute. “Not exactly something I expect in a run-of-the-mill detective.”

She smiled. “I spend a lot of time on the gun range,” she replied. “I’ve been champion of my unit for two years running.”

“Our lieutenant was certainly surprised when he found himself outdone,” he remarked.

“He’s very nice.”

He glared at her.

She wondered what he had against his superior officer, but she didn’t comment. “I was told that a DEA officer is going to try to get someone to speak to General Machado about you.”

“Yes. Gracie Pendleton will talk with him. Machado likes her.”

“He kidnapped her!” she exclaimed. “And the man she’s now married to!”

He nodded. “I know. He also saved her from being assaulted by one of Fuentes’s men,” he added.

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“She’s fond of him, too,” he replied. “Apparently, he makes friends even of his enemies. A couple of feds I know think he’s one of the better insurgents,” he added dryly.

“He did install democratic government in Barrera,” she pointed out. “He instituted reforms that did away with unlawful detention and surveillance, he invited the foreign media in to oversee elections and he ousted half a dozen petty politicians who were robbing the poor and making themselves into feudal lords. From what we understand, one of those petty politicians helped Machado’s second-in-command plan the coup that ousted him.”

“While he was out of the country negotiating trade agreements,” Rick agreed. “Stabbed in the back.”

“Exactly. We’d love to have him back in power, but we can’t actually do anything about it,” she said quietly. “That’s where you come in.”

“The general doesn’t even know me, let alone that I’m his biological son,” he repeated. “Even if he did, I don’t think he’s going to jump up and invite me to baseball games.”

“Soccer,” she corrected. “He hates baseball.”

His eyebrows lifted. “How do you know that?”

“I have a file on him,” she said. “He likes strawberry ice cream, his favorite musical star is Marco Antonio Solís, he wears size 12 shoes and he plays classical guitar. Oh, he was an entertainer on a cruise ship in his youth.”

“I did know about that. Not his shoe size,” he added with twinkling dark eyes.

“He’s never been romantically linked with any particular woman,” she continued. “Although he was good friends with an American anthropologist who went to live in his country. She’d found an ancient site that was revolutionary and she was involved in a dig there. Apparently, there are some interesting ruins in Barrera.”

“What happened to her?”

“Nobody knows. We couldn’t even ascertain her name. What I was able to ferret out was only gossip.”

He folded his hands on his desk. “So, you’re a fed, I’m one detective short and you’re supposed to be heading a murder investigation for me,” he said curtly. “What do I do about that?”

“I’ve been working on it,” she protested. “I’m making progress, too. As soon as we get the DNA profile back, I may be able to make an arrest in the college freshman’s murder, and solve a cold case involving another dead coed. I have lots of information to go on, now, including eyewitness testimony that can place the suspect at the murdered woman’s apartment just before she was killed.”

He sat up. “Nice!”

“Thank you. I have an appointment to talk to her best friend, also, the one who took the photo that the suspect showed up in. She gave a statement to the crime scene detective that the victim had complained about visits from a man who made her uneasy.”

“They’ll let you continue to work on my case, even though you’re a fed?”

“Until something happens in the general’s case,” she said. “I’m keeping up appearances.”

“You slipped through the cracks,” he translated.

She laughed. “Thanksgiving is just over the horizon and my boss gets a lot of business done in D.C. going from one party to another with his wife.”

“I see.”

“When is Mrs. Pendleton going to talk to the general, did the DEA agent say?”

He shook his head. “It’s only a work in progress right now.” He leaned back in his chair. “I thought my father was dead. My mother told me he was killed when I was just a baby. I didn’t realize I had a father who never even knew I was on the way.”

“He loves children,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but I’m not a child.”

“I noticed.”

He glared at her.

She flushed and averted her eyes.

He felt guilty. “Sorry. I’m not dealing with this well.”

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