Oil & Vinegar

by Mairsile Leabhair

  The first carafe filled up quickly and I swapped it out for the second one. There was a stack of paper cups on the counter so I grabbed a handful, picked up the coffee pot, and walked over to Candace. I swallowed my fear of too many people looking at me at once and offered her a cup.

  “Thank you, Connie,” she said, taking a cup from my hand and holding it out.

  I smiled at her and filled her cup. The young blonde was watching me intently, and it was becoming uncomfortable. I didn’t think she liked me. I held out a cup to her and she took it, still looking at me as if I had two heads. As I poured the coffee into her cup, Hettie walked back in and the anxiety in my heart dissipated. Just seeing her stoic frame, strong and demanding, soft and comforting, soothed my nervous heart.

  “Connie, is it?” the blonde asked.

  “I, um…” I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to be.

  “Actually, it’s Amanda,” Hettie said, putting her hand on my shoulder and glancing at her mother. “Amanda Sanders, this is my kid sister, Kandi Johnston.”

  “I’ve taken my maiden name back,” Kandi informed Hettie before looking back at me. “Kandi Quinn. It’s nice to meet you, and thank you for the coffee.”

  “You, too, and you’re welcome,” I said, moving on to the older man Hettie had been talking with earlier.

  “The oldest of our clan, my brother, Hank,” Hettie said.

  “Very nice to meet you, Amanda,” Hank responded. “And I’d love a cup of coffee, thank you.”

  With each introduction, I was beginning to feel more at ease, although I wouldn’t let my guard down.

  “You’re very welcome, Hank,” I replied, holding out a cup for him.

  As I poured Hank’s coffee, Hettie walked beside the other man, who had to be the gay brother. I didn’t know any gay men, but I felt somehow more connected to Jerry than the others.

  “And last, but never least, my brother Jerry.”

  “Would you like some coffee, Jerry?” I asked.

  He eyed me closely, as if inspecting my intent. “No, thanks. Never touch the stuff. But I do appreciate the offer.”

  I nodded and carried the coffee pot back to the counter. With the introductions over, I had names to put with faces, I was ready to climb back inside myself and hide. That’s what I did around more than two people at a time. I tried to make myself invisible. I didn’t know why. It had always been that way. In order for me to feel comfortable and unafraid, I needed to be obscure.

  “Hey, come sit with me a minute,” Hettie coaxed, extending her arm toward a pair of seats next to the desk closest to the entryway.

  Her brown eyes were darker than usual, and I sensed she was angry. At me? I searched my memory wondering what I might have done or said to make her angry. Was it the coffee?

  “I know who that man was in the pictures,” she said in hushed tones. “And I have to—”

  “Hettie, is that you?”

  I looked up and three police officers were standing in front of us. This can’t be good.

  “Buck, how the hell are you?” Hettie asked, jumping up and into his waiting arms.

  Buck looked like he’d been a cop for a long time. He had captain bars, gray hair, a worn face, and his stomach muscles couldn’t hold the weight any longer. The other two were younger by maybe ten years but had that veteran aura about them. Hettie obviously knew him. She poked his stomach and then stepped back.

  “We got the call about Henry and rushed right over. What happened?” Buck asked.

  “Apparently, he coded while being prepped so they took him straight up to surgery.”

  “Damn shame,” one of the other officers said. “But he’s a tough son of a bitch. He’ll pull through.”

  “Yeah, you know how tough he is, Chad,” Hettie replied with a grin. “He worked your ass off back when you were a rookie.”

  “I wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for your old man,” Chad stated. “Not everyone was as accepting back then.”

  “Not all of us are accepting now,” the third cop teased, shoving Chad with his shoulder. “I don’t think we’ve met, Hettie. My name is Tom, and I also worked with your dad. A better man you won’t find.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate you being here for my dad.”

  “Okay if we hang out for a while?” Buck asked.

  “Absolutely, and thanks. Mom’s over there.” Hettie pointed toward her mother. “I know she’d love to see you.”

  “Copy that,” Buck replied and walked over to Candace.

  Her surprise was genuine and affectionate, as she hugged him around the neck. The other two men also hugged her and then shook her hand. Apparently, they didn’t know her like Buck did. I glanced at Hettie just as she raked her fingers through her hair. Something was bugging her. Something other than her father was eating away at Hettie, and I got the feeling she wasn’t sure what to do. Hettie always knew what to do. Even in college, she knew what to do. She didn’t always have all the answers, but she knew what to do to get them, such as asking Meredith to tutor her. But I could tell she didn’t have the answers this time.

  “Why don’t you join your family and friends?” I suggested. “We can talk later about what you found in those pictures. They can wait, right?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I have a few minutes. I made a few calls that have started the ball rolling, and I’ll fill you in on that later.” Hettie squeezed my hand and kissed me on the cheek.

  As I watched her walk over to the others, I placed my hand on my cheek, hoping to catch her kiss in my palm and keep it forever. I’ve got to stop reading those romance novels.

  “Hey, mind if I join you?”

  The haze lifted, and I realize Jerry was speaking to me. I panicked. “Oh, um, sure, I guess.”

  “You and my sister looked pretty cozy. Have you dated her long?” he asked, sitting down beside me.

  I shook my head, keeping my eyes straight ahead. We’d been living together, dodging bullets together, seen each other naked, but dating? I wish.

  “She’s in love with you, you know? And I can see it’s mutual.”

  The speeding train just slammed into me and, like in the cartoons, I was spread eagle across its cowcatcher. I guess that meant I had jumped on board.

  “I’m sorry. I should have kept my mouth shut. I didn’t realize that you were married.” He pointed at my ring.

  I had completely forgotten to take it off my finger and hide it back on the chain around my neck. “Oh, um, I was married. She was killed two years ago.”

  “Oh, damn. I am so sorry.”

  “Thank you,” I muttered, not sure what else to say.

  “You must have loved her very much?” he asked.

  I brought my ring to my lips and kissed it. I’m not sure why, perhaps it was the fact that he was gay that eased my apprehension, or the fact that he was Hettie’s brother that made me trust him, but I felt comfortable in confiding in him. “I do love her, very much. And you’re right, I am in love with your sister.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  U.S. Marshal Hettie Quinn

  I glanced over at Connie, sitting beside my brother Jerry, and saw the sweetest smile on her lips as she held up her hand and kissed her wedding ring. My father’s heart was broken; mine was bleeding. His was, hopefully, fixable, but mine was not. I’d made a rookie mistake. Actually two mistakes. I’d fallen in love with my protectee, who also happened to be a widow. A young widow who clung to the ghost of her wife. Meredith had been a lucky son of a bitch who now I wished I had never met. No, that wasn’t true. She was a good kid and she’d loved Connie. Can’t fault her for that. But she needs to let Connie go.

  “Hey, Buck. Can I talk to you a second?” I asked, walking toward the door.

  “Sure. I’ll be right back, Candace,” he said.

  Mom looked at me and then back at Buck. She nodded. She knew I thought of Buck as an uncle. He and my dad were fishing buddies, and it was on Dad’s recommendation that Buck was promoted to captain to t
ake his place. Dad always said he should have been made captain first.

  “What’s up, kid?” Buck asked as we walked into the hallway.

  I handed him the picture of my hockey team and pointed at a particular man. “See this guy?” I asked, not waiting for a response. “He’s my boss.”

  “Yeah, okay?”

  “His name is Nathan Gossett, Supervisory Deputy of the Roanoke U.S. Marshal Division. He’s also trying to kill me.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “I wish I were. I can’t give you all the details, but I have reason to believe that he might show up here. I have evidence in a case that would implicate him and some other high-level personnel. I didn’t know it until just today that he was involved.”

  “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  “Keep my family safe. I need to leave and misdirect him away from here, but I might not be fast enough. Can you assign someone to watch over Mom for a few days?”

  “Henry has many friends on the force. I’ll put the word out and have a squad of volunteers watching over her, all without her knowledge.”

  “Thanks, Buck. I owe you one.” I slapped him on the shoulder and waited for him to walk back inside before I pulled out my cell phone. “Angie, it’s Hettie. I need another favor.”

  That was the easy part. The hard part was talking with Connie. I walked back inside and was surprised to see Connie still talking with my brother. Connie tended to isolate herself away from strangers, but it looked like my brother had won her over. He spotted me and met me halfway.

  “Hey, sis, got a second?”

  “No, not really.”

  “You can’t spare me even a minute?” he asked, piling guilt on top of the pressure.

  Relenting, I said, “Okay, sure. What’s up?”

  “Connie is a very special girl, isn’t she?”

  “Huh? I don’t have time—”

  “She’s in love with you, you know?”

  “No, I didn’t know. I hoped… wait, are you matchmaking again?”

  Jerry always tried to hook me up with women, I think because he couldn’t find his own true love.

  “Not this time. The match was already made. I could see the heat between you two the minute you walked in.”

  “Sure, Jerry. Look, she’s my friend. She can’t be anything more.” Right now.

  “Het, do you see that cop over there? The broad-shouldered, V-lined, muscular hunk with the blond hair?”

  “You mean Chad?”

  Jerry nodded. “He’s my ex-fiancé.”

  “What? Damn. How? Why?”

  “I decided that I wasn’t ready to get married. Now he has a husband, and I have no one. Something I’ve regretted for years.”

  “Gosh, I’m sorry, Jer.”

  “Don’t be sorry, be smart. Take the chance. You may not get another one.”

  He had no idea how right he was. “I will if you will, bro. You get out there and find someone to make you happy.”

  “You first,” he rebuffed.

  Laughing, I hugged him and walked over to Connie.

  “Hey, how you doing?”

  “Good. I had a nice chat with your brother. He’s very nice.”

  “He had good things to say about you, also. Uh, we need to talk,” I said, sitting down beside her.

  “When someone says that we need to talk, that means either something bad has happened or is about to happen.”

  I took her hand in mine and rubbed my thumb over her knuckles. “I have to leave for a few hours, and I want you to stay here. Angie is on her way over. She’ll stay with you until I get back.” Angie was mostly a desk jockey, but she had to recertify every year in both weapons and physical fitness. I was knew I was leaving Connie with someone I could trust or I wouldn’t be leaving her.

  “Leave? No. You can’t leave. Your mother needs you.”

  “Just my mother?”

  She blushed but didn’t look away. “No.”

  “Connie, I, uh… when this is over, would you go out with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m talking about a real date where you get all dressed up and I take you dancing, and—”

  “Yes.”

  Time to take a chance. She needed to know exactly what I was thinking.

  “You understand, Meredith is welcome in our friendship, but not on our date or other intimate places.”

  Connie giggled and turned her head. “What’s that, honey?” she said as if she were talking to someone. “I agree. A threesome would have been fun.”

  “Uh, Connie?”

  “I’m just teasing you, Hettie. Meredith is in my heart, not in the chair beside me.”

  “Good. In your heart is expected, in the chair beside you is a little creepy,” I said, teasing her back.

  “Hettie,” she murmured, a deep furrow between her brows. “I know it’s because of me that you have to leave your family. I don’t like that. I think it’s past time I got on with my life. The one waiting for me in Arkansas.”

  “Nothing doing. I can’t afford to fly all the way to Arkansas for our first date. Not if I’m going to buy some fancy duds to impress you.”

  She smiled sweetly, her blue eyes swirling with emotion. “Save your money. You’ve already impressed me more than you could ever imagine.” She put her hand to my cheek. “Just promise me you won’t be a hero again and you’ll come back quickly.”

  “Well,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I can’t promise about the hero stuff, but I will get back here as quickly as I can.”

  “Oh, you,” she gushed, smacking my thigh.

  Finally, I pulled my mother to the side and explained to her why I was leaving, but she’d already figured it out. She told me she would take care of Connie. I left my mother with tears in my eyes, feeling like I was being pulled apart in several directions.

  *

  I left Connie with Angie, who promised to watch after her, but she let me know in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t happy with the situation. I had been the same way when I was told I had to do protection. That was one argument I was glad I’d lost. Which made me wonder why Gossett let me go to protection in the first place. Had he sent me on purpose thinking I would join his cause? That couldn’t be it. He’d never approached me after I left. More likely, he didn’t know who I was protecting until my eReader was hacked. I was still not ready to believe it was Bowers. I knew sometimes partners could be bought, but Bowers just didn’t seem the type. He had scruples. Well, scruples when it came to anything other than sex.

  Things would move very quickly within the next few hours, so as soon as I boarded the plane, I stowed my gear, buckled my seatbelt and pretended to be asleep so no one would try to talk with me. I wanted to run the plan through my head a couple of times to make sure everything and everyone was in place.

  ***

  Late afternoon of the next day and I was back in Arlington at the same park where the little kids had played T-ball. The field was empty. There were no six-year-olds running around the bases, no proud parents cheering them on. The only game going on was in the next park adjacent to this one. I could hear the crack of the bat and the spectators yelling, but from where I stood, in the trees on the sideline, there was no one else around except for Krauss and Gossett. They were sitting in the bleachers, talking.

  Showtime. “Hey, Chief. Who’s winning?” I asked from the bottom of the steps.

  “Don’t be a smart ass,” she snapped. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

  Walking up the concrete steps to where they were sitting, I sat down behind Krauss and Gossett so that the sun was in their eyes as they turned around. I needed every advantage I could get. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, Gossett. But I need to speak with Chief Krauss, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind, Quinn,” he rebuffed.

  “This is a private conversation, Deputy,” Krauss informed me. “Call my office and make an appointment.”

  “That�
�s how I found you in the first place,” I conceded. “Look, this can’t wait, Chief.”

  “Fine. But whatever you have to say, you can say in front of both of us.”

  “All right, but you can’t say I didn’t try. I don’t believe in coincidences, and there seems to be a lot of that where you are concerned. Gossett told me that you requested my transfer and then you assigned me to protect a girl whose wife was murdered and then her parents. You seem to be in the middle of a pretty damn big conspiracy. Or is that just a coincidence, Chief?”

  “For your information, I am working with the FBI to solve the case. Unlike you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Special Agent Alcabú told me that you were rude and uncooperative.”

  “Oh, that,” I said contemptuously. “Alcabú was just being a hard ass.”

  “You were the hard-ass,” Alcabú said in my earpiece.

  I purposely bumped my wrist against the metal seat.

  “Ouch! Knock it off,” she demanded.

  “Not surprising,” Gossett said. “Quinn’s always been a screw up. A malcontent. At least Bowers managed to catch that sex offender you let slip through your fingers.”

  Taking a deep breath, I counted to ten quickly and corralled my temper. This was my show. Stretching my right leg out, I pulled the memory cards from my jeans pocket and held them up in the palm of my hand. These were duplicate cards and had absolutely nothing of value on them, but Gossett didn’t know that.

  He licked his lips and swallowed as if he were about to cut into a peach pie.

  “Sit rep, Quinn,” he demanded.

  I picked up one of the cards and looked at it as if it were gold. “On this card, there are two sets of books indicating someone at the bank was embezzling.” I placed the card back in my hand and picked up another one. “And on this card, there is a picture of you, SD, at my protectee’s wedding. That connects you to the parents’ murder.” I placed the card back in my hand, peripherally catching the shocked look on Gossett’s face. Shocked that I had caught him. “I was surprised that you weren’t at the wedding, also, Chief.”