by Kelly Irvin
“Now we’re dealing with AK-47s and hundreds of rounds a minute.”
“Times have changed.”
“What about this one?” Eli pointed to the wicked-looking gangster rifle.
“That’s the Thompson machine gun, better known as a Tommy Gun. The first rifle to be labeled as a submachine gun. Even before World War II it was favored by gangsters during Prohibition. One expert calls it the gun that made the twenties roar. Thompsons were used in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
He went on and on, sharing tidbits about his favorite pistols, rifles, and bayonets.
“Impressive.” Eli managed to get a word in edgewise after about ten minutes. Texans and their guns. Everyone and his mother owned them. Not only owned them, but loved them like family members. “So do they work?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t have a weapon in the house that didn’t.” Smoke streamed through Mendez’s nostrils. He rolled the cigar around the edge of a marble ashtray to loosen the ashes. “What’s the point?”
“What’s the value of your collection, if I can ask?”
He shrugged. “It’s insured at half a mil.”
“Wow. Aren’t you afraid someone will steal it?”
“Not in the least.” Mendez guffawed as if Eli had told him a joke. “One of the advantages of having weapons and knowing how to use them in a hold-your-ground state. You come on my property to take my stuff, you can expect a welcoming committee.”
Eli had no desire to discuss with Mendez the finer points of Texas’s penal code when it came to the use of deadly force and trespassers. He cocked his head toward the gun safe that stood guard on the fourth wall. “I guess you have guns even more valuable than these?”
“These are historical. Meant for display.” Mendez waved the cigar toward the safe. “The meat and potatoes of the firearms in my possession don’t need to be displayed.”
“Could it be that some of them aren’t quite . . . legal?”
“I would never.” His tone said he would and did.
Eli’s phone vibrated. Again. He glanced at the screen. A dozen texts, all from Gabby. “I’d better get going.” He shook Mendez’s hand. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Mendez.”
“Andy. Any time. Come out after this is over. We’ll do some hunting. There’s a big-game ranch not far from here if javelina aren’t your thing.”
He wasn’t inclined to shoot lions or zebras either. “Thanks for the invitation.”
A minute later the front door closed behind Eli. He heaved a deep breath for the first time in an hour and a half. Like many Texans, the man liked his guns. Which kept a cop on his toes. Eli used the remote to unlock the Charger and strode toward it. A few feet from the bumper, a hiss sounded. He glanced around. Sunny stuck her head out from the open window of the Lexus. “Wait for me at the front gate.”
He nodded and took off. Ten minutes later Sunny joined him. She slipped into the passenger seat and settled into the leather with a sigh. “Why did you bring up LD? The party where I met Jake was at LD’s.”
What was Jake doing there? Scooping out a potential suspect? “I heard he might have switched from imports to exports.”
“You think he might have Jake?” Sunny removed her oversized sunglasses. Her eyes were wide with undisguised curiosity. “Why haven’t you gone after him? Why are you out here talking to me?”
“According to Larry Teeter, there’s not enough evidence. Did you see or hear anything at Donovan’s parties that would help?”
Her gaze on the car’s bug-splattered windshield, she chewed her lower lip. “Once, I heard a couple of LD’s employees talking about taking him somewhere after the guests left. It was already two in the morning. The bars were closed.”
“A friend’s house?”
“No. A meeting at one of his warehouses.”
“That’s all you heard?”
“One of the guys turned and saw me walking toward them. They moved the conversation into one of the other rooms.”
“What’s the layout of the house?”
Sunny used a DQ napkin to sketch the layout. “It’s huge. Makes our place look like a guesthouse. At least a dozen bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms. A study, a gaming room, a movie theater, a kitchen twice the size of ours, two dining rooms—”
“Security?”
“Big guns. All around the house, inside the house.”
“Basement?”
“In Laredo? I doubt it.”
“You don’t know what warehouse they were talking about?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you. I want Jake back.” Her voice broke. “Do you think he’s dead?”
“We won’t stop until we find out.”
She sniffed and nodded. “I have to go. Daddy will be looking for me.”
“Can I ask some personal questions?”
“Sure.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“She was a lot younger than Daddy. She left when my brothers and I were little. She was tired of being alone all the time while he was off saving the world. At least that’s what he says.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Do you work?”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“I’m trying to understand your relationship with Jake.”
“You can’t understand why a guy like him would be interested in a woman like me.” For a second the angel-child persona slipped. Her clipped words matched the hard look on her face. “Not very smart. Still living with her daddy.”
“I think you’re very smart.” Smart enough to know she had a sweet deal living in her father’s house, bills paid, driving a car he provided. “Do you work?”
“I told you. I decorate people’s houses. I have a degree in interior design. LD’s wife gave me a break when I came back from A&M. Then she recommended me to others. My father’s very traditional. You’re of Mexican descent. You know what I mean.”
“I do.” Eli’s father was different. He encouraged his children to fly the coop. To trust in God’s plan. “That’s why you didn’t tell him you and Jake wanted to get married?”
“Jake’s not Catholic.”
“That didn’t bother you?”
“Jake and I talked about it. He knew I had questions. That’s why he wanted to meet with your dad.”
So many balls in the air for Jake. Love, faith, his job. Somehow he’d dropped one. Life was complicated for most people, but even more so for law enforcement. Eli belonged to the same club.
“You want to know what Jake saw in me? Do you like my perfume?”
A light, clean scent of fresh flowers that wafted through the car the second she got in. “Sure.”
“It’s Elizabeth Arden. I buy it at Walmart. Jake liked me because I’m not what I look like. He says I’m a mystery he wants to solve.”
“What are you like?”
“You’ll never know.”
Thank the Lord. “You better go. Daddy will wonder where you are.”
“You don’t approve of me, do you?” Her tone said she found that fact amusing. “You like people to think you’re the rebellious preacher’s kid, but you’re really as uptight as your father.”
She had no idea. “I’d advise you not to poke the tiger. Or to judge. I try not to.”
“But judgment is written all over your face.” She slipped from the car, then bent to peer through the window. “Be careful, Mr. Detective.”
She was gone before he could ask her why.
He started the car and let it idle. The wind blew dust across the rocky road that led to the highway. A tumbleweed rolled across the road and came to rest against a magnificent Spanish Dagger. He wasn’t one to judge. He had his own sins for which he would answer. He pulled his wallet from his pocket and plucked the photograph from its hiding place. Whatever Jake had done with Sunny, it only made him human. Eli could understand in a way few could. God w
illing, he would have the chance to tell Jake that. He returned the photo to his wallet and tucked it away. Finding Jake came first and foremost.
Sunny Mendez wasn’t telling him everything she knew. She claimed to be head over heels for Jake. She’d gone after an ATF agent. She obviously liked a challenge. She’d come out here, risking her father’s ire, to nudge Eli toward Luke Donovan, her alleged friend. She was by no means the obedient daughter. Andy Mendez, the doting father, knew more than he was saying as well.
Next step was to find out more about Luke Donovan’s real estate holdings and his finances. They might hold the key to Jake’s whereabouts. And somewhere along the line, the key to Sunny Mendez.
Larry Teeter, another man who knew more than he was saying. The ATF could get information Eli couldn’t. He punched in the special agent’s number.
Voicemail.
Chapter 23
Watched phones never texted. Or something like that. Gabriella glanced at her phone. Three o’clock. Where was he? She scooped it up and thumbed another text.
Where R U?
Nothing. She tossed the phone on the massive oak dining room table. The sound of the kids screaming and laughing in the pool wafted through the sliding glass doors behind her. Piper’s melodic laugh mingled with their high, sweet giggles. That they could be so carefree after the home invasion was a testament to their resilience. Gabriella wanted that. She wanted to jump in the pool, play Marco Polo, and dunk her nephew without a care in the world. If kids knew what adulting was like, they wouldn’t be in such a hurry to grow up.
Here she sat, waiting, like a ridiculous damsel in distress. Eli had driven her here with no consideration for her opinion of the situation. He’d dragged her from the car and pushed her through the door.
Big, stupid ox.
Big, caring, stupid ox who was risking his life for her family.
She stared at the gun that lay next to her laptop. The last thing he’d done before leaving her at the door was to hand her his backup piece. Fully loaded. “Keep it close. It won’t do you any good hidden in the bathroom or under a pillow.”
“But the kids—”
“Keep it on you.”
She accepted it, which meant accepting the situation. Her presence could put Natalie and the kids in danger. She ran her fingers over the barrel. Smooth and cold. Until fired. Then hot and deadly.
She grabbed her phone again.
Answer me.
Where R U?
Talk to me.
Nothing. The urge to hurl the phone across the room grappled with the knowledge that she was being childish.
What about Deacon? No word from him either. Two men out there saving the world without her. This stank.
She switched to her thread with Deacon.
Where R U?
Check in, please.
What R YR sources saying?
Once again silence.
Men stank.
“You keep texting him, you’ll ruin his concentration.” Natalie maneuvered into the room and past the dining room table. Artemis followed behind, her rotund shadow. She held out a glass of iced tea. “You know he has a rhythm to everything he does. You’ll ruin his vibe.”
“Actually, I was texting Deacon. But now that you mentioned it, Eli should’ve let me go with him. I shouldn’t be here, putting you guys in danger. I just want to make sure he’s okay.” The ache started in her temple and worked its way down to the vicinity of her heart. Not Eli. Not him too. “He should be back by now. How long does it take to interview an alleged girlfriend and her father?”
“We’re safe here. He had to drive out to the ranch and back. It takes time. And finesse. You’re worried because you still care about him and you know finesse is not really in his toolbox.”
“I’m worried because he’s risking his life to find Jake.” She settled the glass on a coaster next to her laptop. She had resigned herself to always caring about Eli. That didn’t mean she trusted him. Time for a change of subject. “I’ve been looking at social media. These millennials. They leave their pages wide open to the public.”
“They know if you’re on social media, you can expect the whole world to know your business.” Natalie stretched her arms over her head and craned her neck. “That’s why my children won’t have access to social media until they’re thirty. I’m not sure they’ll even have cell phones.”
“Good luck with that.” Gabriella angled the screen so Natalie could see it. “They had Facebook pages, but they didn’t post much.”
“That’s because Facebook is for old people. Did you try Instagram or Snapchat?”
“Snapchat, their photos disappear. With Instagram it’s just photos. Mostly selfies. Hashtag good food. Hashtag handsome dude. Hashtag romantic night. Gag me with a spoon. There are pictures of Kristina Briones with Beto. Beto with his cousins. Lots of red plastic cups. Lots of stupid, drunk grins and gang signs. Why do girls stick their tongues out when they do selfies with friends?”
“What about Jake and Sunny?”
“He’s an ATF agent.”
“He has a personal life.”
She searched Jake Benoit. Nothing. Mirasol “Sunny” Mendez. The angel face appeared first on the list. She clicked. Photos of Sunny and Jake. At a restaurant. Eating steak. Outside the church. At a Tejano concert. At BorderFest at the Civic Center in front of the rattlesnake pit. Lots of hashtag romance stuff. “I wonder if he knew she posted these photos.”
“I’m betting he didn’t. What a great way for someone to keep track of him.” Natalie leaned in for a closer look. A little tracking device called Sunny Mendez. “She’s a looker, but not his type.”
“That’s what I said. He always went for the athletic marathon runner with legs up to her waist and a permanent tan. What does this little girl have that ensnared him?”
“I didn’t meet her. You did. But you know as well as I do, we don’t get to pick the people we fall in love with.” The sadness that etched her face was a shard of glass twisting in Gabriella’s chest just below her rib cage. Natalie had lost her one true love and Gabriella was to blame. “It’ll break my heart if our little brother finally found someone and she turned out to be a snake in the grass.”
“We don’t know that for sure, but either way, he deserves so much better.”
“As much as he pretended not to be devastated over Mom and Dad, he was.”
“We all were.”
“I called them both last night.”
Gabriella slapped the laptop closed. Blood pounded in her ears. She busied her hands checking her phone for texts. Nothing. “Why?”
“They’re our parents.”
“They dropped out of our lives when they divorced. When was the last time they saw Ava and Cullen? When was the last time they called you?”
Artemis, ever the mediator, whined and tried to climb Natalie’s pale-blue capris. She leaned over and tugged him into her lap. “At Christmas.”
“There you go. My point exactly.”
“They’ll fly in as soon as they can. It’s hard with her being overseas and his surgery schedule.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You think because they stopped loving each other, they stopped loving us, but they didn’t. They were beside themselves over Jake’s disappearance.” Natalie’s hands scrubbed between Artemis’s ears. The old bulldog panted. His massive head swiveled to convey his disapproval at Gabriella. “They want to be close. We need them to be here if anything—”
“We’ll find him alive and they’ll turn around and go home.”
“They committed the supreme sin of choosing to have lives of their own. Of choosing to be happy. They recognize that life is short and sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to. We both know that. Look at me.”
“Why are you taking their side?”
“Because I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. My Paolo is gone. My kids need their grandparents. They need their family. I need them. You need them too. So
get over it.”
“You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought. Why didn’t you say something before?”
“Because you needed to work through some things first.” Natalie scooted around the table and laid her hand on Gabriella’s. “You’re making progress. By coming here with Eli, you’re learning to trust again. To forgive. To forgive him and yourself.”
“When are you planning to move on?”
“Pardon me?”
Gabriella couldn’t pretend to know what it was like to lose a wonderful, sweet, funny, handsome husband like Paolo, but her sister was equally wonderful, funny, sweet, and good looking. She deserved another chance at love.
Natalie tapped on the wheelchair’s arm. “I’m doing enough just to keep my practice going and take care of my kids.”
“Don’t use them as an excuse. You know how many people in this world use wheelchairs and are happily married, working, doing good. And parenting.”
Natalie’s gaze dropped. “So what do you think of Deacon?”
“Deacon? Deacon!” Not an entirely unexpected development, given the intensity of the event that had thrown them together. Whether the feelings would be sustained was another matter. But it broke the ice for Natalie, allowed her to at least think about the possibility. “Hallelujah, that’s what I think.”
“It’s just a question.”
“I know, but it’s a good question. He’s a decent guy, funny, smart. But a reporter, that counts against him in Eli’s book, but—” Gabriella’s phone chirped. A text. “When this is all over with, we’ll return to this topic.”
The text was from Deacon. His ears must’ve been burning.
Be out front in 5. Slowing down to 60. Be ready to hop in.
How did he know she was back at the house?
What is going on?
Meeting Eli & sources. Be ready.
So Eli and Deacon had been in communication. Neither had bothered to keep her in the loop. She jumped up so quickly, her chair flew back and teetered. She grabbed the laptop and the gun.
Natalie’s gasp made her stop.
“I know. Eli gave it to me.”