by Kelly Irvin
“What makes you think I can’t let him go?”
“It’s written all over your face whenever you look at him.” The anger flickered and turned to ashes. “I’ve never understood why smart women allow men to treat them badly. There are plenty of good men out there who know how to treat women right.”
Gabriella breathed into the onslaught of emotion. Deacon was smart, funny, handsome, and a decent human being. Still, he was a good friend, nothing more or less. “I appreciate your friendship and your willingness to be my guinea pig for new desserts.”
He grinned. “In that area, you can do no wrong. Now, is there anything I can do to help? Do you want a ride home after I finish here?”
“I can’t leave . . . not without my . . .” She bit her lower lip, already raw from a night of chewing on it. “You could let me use your phone, however.”
“Anything for you. Just promise me there’s a slice of pineapple-upside-down cake in my future.” He dropped the phone in her hand and wrapped his fingers around hers. His gaze probed hers. “I’m serious, anything you need. You can count on me.”
Swallowing the sudden lump in her throat, Gabriella nodded. “Thanks.”
The single syllable escaped in a whisper.
He nodded and strode away.
Aware of damp perspiration collecting on her neck and face now that the early morning sun was in full bloom, Gabriella sought the shade of the biggest tree in the plaza and contemplated the phone. Natalie had an extra set of keys, but Gabriella didn’t want to wake her sister. Or make her drive downtown with the kids. Not in her condition.
She’d call Victoria Richards instead. Vic didn’t have keys to the car, but she did have keys to the restaurant. She could take care of getting the place open and ready for the Southtown crowd that came in to grab breakfast on their way to work on Friday morning.
Groggy with sleep, it took Victoria a few minutes to comprehend the story. When she finally strung a few sentences together, it wasn’t the murder she seemed interested in. “So you want me to open the restaurant for you today so you can go to Laredo to look for Jake—once you get your keys back from Eli, who insists he’s coming with you?”
“Right.” Gabriella ignored Victoria’s obvious curiosity. “He thinks he’s going with me to find Jake, but he’s not. No way.”
The pause on the line told Gabriella her employee was considering how much she could say and not lose her job. Considering Victoria had been her second-in-command for two years and weathered the blow-out arguments and the aftermath of the breakup, they both knew she could say quite a lot. “He’s a detective, he solves crimes for a living, and you don’t want his help? Come on, sister, what’s the real problem? Are you afraid a couple of hours in a car with him will change something? You broke up six months ago. You keep saying you’re over it. Put your money where your mouth is.”
“It doesn’t matter if we drive to Belize together, nothing is going to change. Eli didn’t exactly set the bar high, and you know it.”
“Eli was extremely messed up for obvious reasons. He’s straightened himself out.” Victoria didn’t know when to give up. “Luis says he’s seeing a PD therapist. He even let us drag him to church one Sunday. Forgive him—you know you want to.”
“Why are you siding with him?” Her stomach roiling, Gabriella smoothed her dirt-and-bloodstained shirt. “Can you come in early or not?”
“I want you to be as happy as Luis and I are. Luis says Eli’s really trying and you’re blowing him off.” Victoria sighed. “I’m just saying my piece for a change. And yes, I will come in early.”
Victoria’s latest boyfriend was a gym rat buddy of Eli’s, which meant his opinion wasn’t exactly unbiased. “You really can’t get what it’s like to date a police officer.” She lowered her voice, aware of the number of officers swarming around the plaza. “Every day you say good-bye like it’s the last time you’ll see him. Literally.”
The memory of the ticking clock in the hospital waiting room filled her head, increasing in volume and velocity until the dong-dong-dong like a cathedral bell crowded out all rational thought.
She blinked and rubbed her temple. “Anyway, now’s not the time. Just open the restaurant, please. The banana cream pie is in the walk-in. I also made apple-cranberry turnovers and double-fudge macadamia nut cookies.”
“Avoid the subject all you want.” Victoria’s sniff was loud over the line. “Doesn’t change anything. I hope Jake’s okay. Call me from Laredo. And be nice. To Eli.”
Gabriella disconnected.
“So what aren’t you telling me?”
She turned to find Deacon hovering within inches. How much of that conversation had he heard? Heat scorched her face. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come on, Gabriella. Spill it. The CSU gal says this guy dragged himself from the Plaza to Courtside. Seems like he was looking for someone specific. That someone being you.”
Gabriella shut her mouth tight and counted the benches in the plaza.
Deacon crossed his arms, his head cocked to one side, his thick, shiny raven hair spilling across his forehead. “I have hours until my deadline.”
She shifted and studied the beautiful French Gothic architecture of San Fernando Cathedral.
“There has to be a reason the victim came to you before he died. What did he say to you?” Deacon stepped into her line of sight. “I’m good at reading faces, and this guy scared you.”
Alberto Garza’s face, misshapen with pain and horror, appeared in her mind’s eye. “Yeah, he came out of the shadows at midnight, whispering my name, and he dropped dead at my feet. It would’ve scared you too!”
“He knew your name. He did know you. Whoa! What else?”
“No, he didn’t know me; he knew Jake.” Gabriella cringed and rubbed an eyebrow that seemed to have developed a tic. “Don’t you dare print that!”
“Jake? Who’s Jake? An old boyfriend?” Deacon stared at her like he was studying a bug under a microscope. “No, a family member. That’s it. Anyone ever tell you not to play poker?”
“I’m done talking to you.”
She walked away. Deacon followed.
“All I have to do is an internet search to get your family. If he’s a brother or whatever, I’ll find out.” Deacon’s declaration carried over the fountains. Dunbar and Eli cast inquiring glances her way. Deacon kept talking. “I’m coming into the restaurant tonight for some of that fabulous carne asada. I hope you have banana cream pie on the dessert chalkboard. Or is it strawberry rhubarb pie day?”
Ignoring his continuing commentary, Gabriella sidled past the officer who was busy trying to keep a homeless man from taking a bath in the fountains. She glanced back. Deacon had collared Dunbar and was giving the detective the third degree. Good luck with that. Dunbar would send him right to the Police Department Public Information Office.
Gabriella stopped next to Eli. He didn’t look up. He studied the weapon on the ground, a frown etched on his face. Her keys were nowhere in sight. She considered knocking him to the ground and doing a search. Except he had thirty-five pounds—all muscle—on her. And he’d probably enjoy it.
Trying to deep-six her frustration, she focused on the weapon. In Texas, sporting goods stores could sell weapons as long as they ran an instant FBI background check and the buyer was a U.S. citizen with no felonies. But what would a college kid be doing with it? Domestic terrorism?
Eli squatted next to the assault rifle. Either he didn’t realize she was there or he was studiously ignoring her. “Eli, what are you thinking? Why would Garza have a weapon like this?” She kept her voice down, glancing back to make sure Deacon hadn’t snuck inside the yellow tape. “Do you think he could be some kind of terrorist?” The possibilities were scary.
Eli rubbed his temple with two fingers. “He could be. But it’s more likely he was selling it. The cartels use college kids to act as straw buyers. They get paid to buy the guns and turn them over to facilitators who smuggle them out
on the same routes used to smuggle drugs in.”
Gun smuggling. Jake’s area of expertise. Fear ballooned in her stomach, making the coffee she’d consumed slosh in painful waves. “Give me my keys. I have to find Jake.”
“We will find Jake.”
“Give me my keys! I’m going to Laredo . . . to his town house. Today. Now.”
“You can’t go alone—” Eli’s cell phone rang. He held up a large hand. Those hands had propped her up when her parents decided to divorce four years ago. “Hold that thought. Don’t go anywhere.”
“How can I? You have my keys!” Gabriella whirled and started back to the restaurant and her car. She’d have Victoria give her a ride home to get the spare set.
“Gabs, wait. It’s for you.”
No one in his right mind would try to reach her through Eli. Not friends or family, certainly. Gabriella sighed and marched back. Careful not to touch him, she grabbed the phone.
“Where are you, Gabby? I’ve been trying to reach you forever.” Her sister sounded stressed. “I’ve been so worried. What are you doing with Eli? He was my last option, but I figured he’s a police officer. If something had happened to you . . .”
Her voice trailed off as if she were reviewing the terrible things that might have happened. Natalie didn’t have to imagine the horrible accidents that might occur. She’d lived through one—just barely. Her agitation stoked hot coals of guilt in Gabriella’s gut. “I’m so sorry. Hang on and I’ll tell you.”
She ran quickly through the events of the last seven hours, leaving out the repeated, heated discussions with Eli. A long silence followed.
When she finally spoke, Natalie’s tone was tart. “I guess that explains the two ATF agents camped out in our living room.”
Chapter 4
The house smelled like Feds. Gabriella stormed into the living room. She found a dark-haired guy in a blue suit and Ray-Bans sitting on their overstuffed sofa, along with a shorter blond man in a gray suit. Both seemed more focused on Artemis than Gabriella’s precipitous entrance. She could’ve kissed the old, graying bulldog. He growled again, deep in his throat, his black pug-nosed face a fierce grimace. Jowls joined in with a series of vicious feline hisses from her post on the seat of the oak rocking chair. Her fat tabby body shook with suspicion. Both men squirmed.
Gabriella raised her eyebrows in a silent question to Natalie, who wheeled her chair toward the foyer. “Are you all right?”
Worry made the lines around Natalie’s mouth more pronounced in a face much like Gabriella’s. Her gray eyes were bright with intelligence behind the blue frames of her glasses. Instead of blonde, her long hair was auburn. “I’m fine. Everything is under control.”
“Aunt Gabby, I think they want to arrest you and Mom.” Ava, a miniature replica of her mother with ginger hair and an added dose of freckles, sounded surprisingly perky at the possibility. She scooted down another step from her perch on the staircase, her face pressed between the bars of the banister. “Can Eli stay with us if they do?”
“They’re not going to arrest Mom—she’s in a wheelchair.” Cullen bounced on the step next to his younger sister. The look on his face under dark, thick curls reminiscent of his father said he was slightly more worried about the situation. “They’re after Uncle Jake. Did he do something bad?”
“Hey, you two, everything is fine.” Gabriella squeezed past her sister and squatted in front of them at the bottom of the stairs. “What I need right now is a monster hug and then for you two to skedaddle upstairs and play while we talk to our guests. Can you do that?”
Massive hugs ensued. Their small, wiry bodies smelled of Play-Doh and little kid sweat. Sweet. Swallowing the sudden lump in her throat, Gabriella swatted their behinds and sent them up the stairs.
She turned and squeezed Natalie’s shoulders. “Introduce me to our guests.”
“Meet ATF Special Agents Crawford and Morales.”
Gabriella stalked across the living room to face the firing squad. She scooped up Jowls and hugged her warm body to her chest. Better to go on the offensive. “I’d like to see some identification, please.”
The two men stood and made a show of displaying their badges.
The dark-haired guy was Morales. “Your sister says she hasn’t seen or talked to your brother in weeks. How about you?”
Gabriella wanted answers, not more questions. “My brother works for you guys. Why don’t you tell me where he is?”
“Miss Benoit, your brother left the office yesterday and never returned. He didn’t report in. He’s not at home. He’s not answering his phone. We tried to ping it, and it appears to be turned off. His town house has been ransacked. His laptop and desktop computers are missing. We’re concerned for his safety.”
Gabriella sat down in the oak glider rocker that always reminded her of her mother. The two men sat across from her. Artemis waddled over and plopped down at her feet. “An ATF agent fails to report in after fieldwork and you’re just now investigating?” Her pulse pounded in her ears. “You’re just now telling his family?”
Blond guy, also known as Special Agent Crawford, held up a hand. His fingers were stumpy and covered with fine, pale hair. “I was just telling Mrs. Ferrari, this is a really nice house. You recently opened a restaurant, right?”
“I have a restaurant. My sister, Dr. Ferrari, has a psychiatric practice here at the house. What does that have to do with anything?”
“What’s a house like this go for? Four, five hundred thousand?” Crawford’s gaze bounced from the stone fireplace to the original Jesse Treviño paintings to the slick hardwood floors and bookshelves filled with first editions her mother collected and brought with her when they moved to San Antonio from New Orleans. “That’s a lot of money for two self-employed women with no spouses.”
Natalie had come into a small fortune when Paolo died, but that was none of these yokels’ business. She’d used a portion of it to retro-fit their childhood home to make it accessible—as accessible as a two-story house could be. A first-floor study became Natalie’s bedroom. “My parents had the house built when my dad was chief of surgery at University Hospital and my mother was a tenured professor of English Literature at UTSA. Natalie and Jake and I grew up here.”
“Your parents passed and left it to you?”
“What does this have to do with Jake’s disappearance?”
“Just trying to get a sense of Special Agent Benoit’s family. Where might he go if he was in trouble.”
“What exactly was Jake working on?”
“Where are your parents?”
The guy was a plodder. Gabriella glanced at Natalie. She shrugged and offered a thin smile. It hurt to say the words aloud, but they had nothing for which to be ashamed. “Divorced. My dad is back in New Orleans, where he’s originally from. Our mother is in London, her place of birth.”
With her new husband. But these guys didn’t need to know that.
“Not close, are you?”
None of Morales’s business. Or anyone else’s. Growing up in a house filled with doctors, scientists, writers, musicians, and philosophers who engaged in wild political and philosophical arguments had woven them together in a way that had made them inseparable. Until three years ago when their mother did the unthinkable. The unforgivable. “We were. Once.”
“I’ll need addresses and telephone numbers.”
“Where was Jake going when he left the office yesterday?”
“Special Agent Benoit was involved in a sensitive operation that we expected to come to a head last night. He told his boss he would be back in the afternoon with new information.”
“He was . . . undercover . . . doing what? With whom?”
Crawford shifted in his seat. He and his partner exchanged glances. They were shifty-looking guys. The definition of shifty remained a mystery, but she knew it when she saw it. Crawford answered. “Not undercover. He was dealing with some informants who’d agreed to cooperate in our investigation in exchang
e . . . on certain terms.”
“And this had to do with gun smuggling by one of the cartels?” A guess based on the weapons in the dead man’s car but an educated one.
Crawford pursed fat lips and shook his head. “I didn’t say that. I’m not at liberty to divulge the details of our operation. We’ve been on this for nearly eighteen months and we don’t want—we won’t—do anything to jeopardize it.”
“Our brother is missing. I don’t give a flying—”
The front door flew open and banged against the inside wall. Gabriella winced. Only Eli would make that kind of entrance. He strode into the house like he owned the place. He had changed out of street clothes into a charcoal-gray suit and black silk tie. That didn’t make him look any less like a guy itching for a street fight. “What do they want?”
Jowls and Artemis immediately abandoned Gabriella and scampered—Jowls scampered, Artemis managed an admirable trot—toward their favorite meal ticket. Pounding on the steps said Cullen and Ava were about to do the same thing. “Eli, you’re supposed to be solving a murder. I can handle this.”
Crawford and Morales leaned forward. “Murder?” Morales’s hand went to a pen in his pale-pink dress shirt pocket. “Who’s this?”
Eli took his time hugging children and petting animals with a studied nonchalance. The pulse in his jaw gave his tension away. He turned to face the two men. “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”
Three males went through the mine-is-bigger-than-yours badge skirmish, the air heavy with posturing testosterone.
“What is your involvement with Benoit?” Morales hurled the first spear.
“Kids, why don’t you go get the ice cream out of the freezer.” Eli glanced at his black sports watch. “It’s eleven o’clock. Close enough to lunchtime. How about banana splits? And a fudge sundae for Aunt Gabriella—she’s having a really bad day. Knowing your aunt as I do, I’m thinking you’ve got all the fixings you need.”
“There’s no ice cream in this house for you.” Natalie’s tone was reminiscent of their mother’s when her teenagers missed curfew. “I’m sure you understand.”