For once, though, angry-worried wasn’t unwarranted.
Yet the part of Cassie that resented being babied, especially by someone only a year older than she, reared its head long enough to defend herself.
“It was one time and it didn’t catch fire! It overheated and puffed out smoke. That was it.”
“I saw flames!”
Cassie opened her mouth to attempt another defensive strike even if it was a halfhearted attempt. Once Kristen Gates had something to talk about, especially when it came to venting, she wouldn’t stop until everything was out on the table.
But the older woman didn’t give her the chance at a rebuttal.
“That’s not the point, Cassie. Flames or not, you shouldn’t have followed. You should have let that man go it alone.”
Cassie had a moment of déjà vu. The fear and anguish at finding Henry unconscious in Westbridge hitting her like a ton of bricks again. If she hadn’t been there? What would have happened?
Then again, if she had never showed up at the side of the street and driven them to that very same neighborhood?
Guilt extended the worry behind each what-if.
One or all of the emotions must have showed in her expression. Kristen took a beat, visibly restraining herself. She inhaled a long breath and sat on the edge of the coffee table. When she let the breath out, her face lost some of its redness.
“Cassie,” she started again. Their knees touched. It was the grounding Kristen must have needed. When she spoke, her words softened. “You have always been the sweetest, most compassionate out of the Gates kids. Something you no doubt learned from Dad. I mean, we don’t just call you Daddy’s girl for kicks. Your desire to see the best in everyone and even encourage it is a trait you and Dad have become pros at. You two put all of us above yourself.
“I mean, even when we were kids you always made sure we were happy before even thinking about you. What normal eighteen-year-old skips her own prom to throw her, at times admittedly ungrateful, older sister a surprise birthday party? Or who turns down a once-in-a-lifetime date with the hot, sexy fireman Marcus Guiles to drive over a hundred miles because you knew Davie didn’t have anyone to help him move?”
She grinned. “At the best of times your heart and capacity to empathize and help the people around you have kept you from getting something you want.” Kristen reached out and purposely touched the scar at Cassie’s neck. “At the worst of times it has nearly cost you your life.” She dropped her hand.
Cassie took the moment to touch the same scar.
“That was different, and you know it,” she reminded Kristen. “I was trying to protect Billy’s little girl.”
Once again Kristen’s expression softened.
“I know,” she said. “But what about today?”
They both lapsed into silence.
Cassie didn’t want to break it. She didn’t want to admit why she had done what she had. Why she had wanted to help Henry.
Kristen took the silence as contemplation. She continued when it was clear Cassie wouldn’t. “You can’t help everyone, Cassie. Especially not strangers with troubled pasts.” She smiled. It was a warm look. “There’re two of you now. That’s double the danger in everything you do.”
Cassie let out a sigh of defeat.
The willpower she had long held on to since she’d found out she was pregnant had just cracked. While she hadn’t kept her pregnancy a secret from her family and friends, she had censored the part about the one-night stand with a stranger. Instead she had said the father was a friend and one who didn’t want a family. A decision they both had decided was best. No hard feelings.
It hadn’t mattered, of course. Cassie’s brothers, and most of her sheriff’s department colleagues and friends, had roared. Threats and promises of pain had swiftly followed. Even her parents, even a parent as kindly as her dad, had had very bad words for the mystery man she refused to name.
But now that Cassie had found Henry?
Now that he lived in the same zip code?
Now that he worked in the same building?
Now everything was different.
“His name is Henry and he’s not a stranger, Kristen. At least, not in the ways that count.” Cassie let her gaze drop to her stomach.
Kristen’s eyes soon followed. They widened when she understood. “Oh.”
Cassie rubbed her stomach. “Oh is right.”
A moment passed. Then Kristen stood, grabbed her glass of sweet tea and started to retreat into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Cassie asked, worried she’d somehow broken her sister.
“I’m exchanging this for two glasses of wine,” she called over her shoulder before disappearing into the next room. “I feel like you need a drink.”
“Kristen, I’m seven months’ pregnant!”
Kristen’s mass of hair floated into view as she popped her head around the corner. “I know! I’m drinking for both of us!”
* * *
HIS JAW WAS THROBBING. There would be a bruise across his skin. If there wasn’t already one. If he could have, he would have touched the tender spot. Instead he slid his jaw back and forth with a grunt.
He also tasted a little blood.
Suzanne Simmons had one hell of a right cross.
“You know, they ain’t supposed to be able to do that,” Travis said.
Henry looked across the interrogation table. Travis eyed the spot where Suzy had hauled off and hit Henry in retaliation for punching her lead detective. It had happened so fast that Henry genuinely didn’t have time to dodge it, for show or not.
The surprise and pain had coupled to make him stagger. He’d barely regained his footing when the newly recovered Matt had jumped in to subdue him. But not without a fight from Henry. He’d bucked against the detective all the way into the interrogation room and didn’t stop until his hands were cuffed behind the chair.
Even then Henry had used his words to fight. Calling Matt and Suzy a lot of not-so-great things.
By then he’d hoped they’d understood what he was doing.
If not, he was definitely fired.
Or really under arrest.
“They can’t just touch you like that and then lock you away,” Travis restated. His eyes shifted to the mirror behind Henry. Suzy, Matt and Deputy Medina were all watching, he was sure. “That’s what they did to Ricky, ’member? Jumped him and got all crazy when he fought back.” He shook his head, disgusted. “Self-defense! That’s all it was! How is that right that they locked him up and threw away the key? Tell me that!” Travis shook his head, hair slapping the sides of his head. It was shorter than it had been the last time Henry had seen him.
“These pigs think they can do whatever they want,” Henry agreed, slipping into a heavier Southern twang. “Think they’re above the law.”
Travis ate it up. His head switched movements. He nodded so hard it made his cuffs clink against his chair.
“It’s supposed to be innocent until proven guilty,” he railed. “Just wait. My lawyer will get here and sort it out.” The questions Travis should have had at seeing someone from his past finally seemed to dawn across his expression. His thin face almost caved in on itself, pinching in confusion. “Wait, what did you do? Why’re you here?” He lowered his voice to a quick whisper, eyeing the glass behind Henry. “Last I heard, you’d got a new job.”
For a split second Henry worried that Travis had figured it out, that he was a deputy, not the small-time drug runner Gage Coulson. But if there was one thing he was certain about, it was that Travis wasn’t smart enough to hide what he did and did not know.
He knew Henry as a man he’d worked with for a year.
He didn’t know that Gage wasn’t real. Just a persona and an identity that had been created as a part of a task force to stop a dangerous organization from
getting traction in Tennessee.
What Henry knew was that Suzy had been wrong. Not only was Travis not smart enough to bluff; he wasn’t clever or organized enough to cripple the sheriff’s department’s communications. Not by himself.
He was more of a paint-by-numbers kind of guy.
And even then Henry had seen him mess that up from time to time.
Still, he needed to be a little cautious. Considering the last time he’d seen the man was right before the ambush.
“You heard what went down at the warehouse?” he asked, searching the man’s expression for any tells. “After the fire?”
Travis nodded then shrugged.
“Everybody heard about that,” he said. Again he eyed the two-way mirror. He’d been arrested enough to know that people were watching. Still, he wasn’t smart enough to know that whispering wouldn’t keep the people on the other side from hearing them. Or that maybe he should just keep his mouth shut altogether. “They said it was a trap, got swarmed by cops after I took off. Grabbed a group of y’all. Even nabbed some of those Richland fellas.” He spit off to the side, a curse to the Richlands. “Ain’t gonna lie, I was okay with that.” He managed to drop an almost apologetic look. “Was sorry to hear about Parker, though. No way to go, I suspect. Burning alive like that. Heard they never found his body.”
Henry didn’t have to pretend that the memory pained him. To keep their partnership intact during their time undercover, Henry and Calvin had been named as brothers. Gage and Parker Coulson had become friends and business associates with the very people they were trying to take down. Calvin had been better at being friendly. Maybe that was how he’d escaped.
Because he surely hadn’t used Travis’s help.
The man seemed genuine in his belief that Henry wasn’t a cop and that Calvin had died that day.
Which meant Calvin hadn’t included the small-time crook in his plan. At least, if he had, not directly.
“They said the fire did the job,” Henry said, careful in his words. “No remains left but ash.”
Travis shook his head in sympathy. Curiosity soon replaced it. “What happened to you? Heard you was let go and left town.”
“Yeah, those cops couldn’t find nothing on me.” Henry scrunched his nose like he smelled something disgusting. “They tried, though, but you know how smart Parker was. Dead or alive, he wasn’t about to let his little brother get locked up.” Henry lowered his voice to the point where he questioned whether Suzy and the rest of their audience could hear him on the other side of the mirror. “I had enough alibis to squeeze out of town. The Richlands, not so much.”
Travis let out a hoot of laughter. His handcuffs clinked against the metal of his chair again.
“So I came to ’Bama, thinking the change in scenery would be good,” Henry continued. “Then there I am, just checking out the situation with the local black-and-whites, when bam! I get grabbed again. Something about being a suspect. Calling me a thief and conspirator.” Henry mispronounced the last word, adding enough Southern twang to make it seem like he was barely capable enough to know what it meant, let alone be it. His goal of getting down to why Travis had attacked the department would only be met if he stayed true to the most important principle of what had made him a successful Gage Coulson.
Travis had to be able to relate to him. Get on the same page. Henry had to show the man that even though time had passed and their situation had changed, Henry was still of the same mind.
The same side, too.
“Said someone took out their phones here,” he added, sure to put some awe in his tone. “Now they’re all running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”
Travis couldn’t help himself. He grinned.
Not only was it important to be able to relate to a dense criminal, it was also important to inflate their ego sometimes, too. Henry couldn’t resist the latter.
“Told them it wasn’t me, but I’ll tell you what, that must have taken a lot of brains to pull that off.” Henry gave him a wink. “Got them scrambling around like crazy. Believe you me, that’s someone I wouldn’t mind working for.”
Pride, clear as day, pushed Travis’s chest out.
Then something unexpected happened.
That pride was replaced with worry, followed swiftly by fear. It creased his brow and sagged his body down.
“You always been nice to me, Gage. So I’ll keep it fair between us.” Travis leaned over as far as he could.
Henry mirrored him, another surge of adrenaline starting to swirl inside his chest. When the man spoke again, his words were so low Henry almost had a hard time following.
“Might be time to leave town again. The people running this thing got a big plan for everyone here. As soon as it gets dark, all hell will be raining down. You don’t wanna be around when that happens.”
It wasn’t a threat.
It was a promise.
Chapter Eleven
“He’s not that dumb.”
Henry dropped into one of the several seats around the conference room table. Luckily, he was neither in cuffs nor being fired. At least, not yet.
“Even Travis knows he pushed the limits with what he should and shouldn’t have said,” Henry continued. “With how quick he buttoned his trap closed just now, I think he’s done talking.”
Suzy kept standing next to the head of the table. Matt, Caleb, Dante and Deputy Medina took the open seats around him.
“I think you’re right,” the chief deputy agreed. “I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here when I point out that man was afraid. Whether that fear is for the people he’s answering to or for the supposed rest of the plan, or both, I’m not sure. But yeah, I think he’s done.”
“Even if he wasn’t, his lawyer will make him shut up,” Medina added. “We got lucky enough that he was caught in traffic and it added a few minutes to his commute. We definitely couldn’t have pulled off that little show otherwise.”
Henry agreed with that. After Travis had shut down, his lawyer showed up. Deputy Medina had explained why Henry had been thrown into the room with Travis by blaming the chaos of everyone running around, trying to do their jobs without their normal tools. It was vague and really didn’t make that much sense, but Maria had sold it with a flair of anger. It had been enough to throw the lawyer’s attention off Henry and onto his client.
Though Henry made sure to struggle against Caleb and Dante when they had come in to take him away.
“Sorry about the hit, by the way,” Henry added for the first time. There was a mark on Matt’s jaw, roughly the same spot where Henry was currently feeling pain. “When I realized who Travis was and that I wasn’t in uniform, I thought we could use my old cover to our advantage.” He managed a grin. “And Gage Coulson wasn’t known as the type to not resist.”
Detective Walker snorted. “You kidding me? It was well worth the hit just to see Suzy here nearly lay you out.” Matt turned to the two deputies who hadn’t seen the incident. “I mean she hit him so hard I almost saw stars.”
There was a moment when everyone shared in the humor of what had happened. Even Henry joined in with a little laugh. The truth was he had been impressed with not only her strength, but how quickly Suzy had figured out what was going on. She had been made privy to his background but hadn’t known the individuals he’d run into while working.
She’d taken a chance on him and it had paid off.
Which was the reason why the room sobered considerably right after their shared humor ended.
“All hell will be raining down,” Suzy repeated, voice hard and cold. “It wasn’t an accident, taking down our communications. It was a part of a larger, more menacing plan. One that is run by people, not just one person.” She looked to Henry. “I don’t know Travis like you do, but am I right in thinking that if he had been in contact with Calvin, he would alrea
dy have known you were a deputy?”
Henry nodded.
“You probably guessed it already, but Calvin was undercover as Parker Coulson,” he explained. “Brother to Gage Coulson, aka my undercover identity. Even if Calvin had already met with Travis but, for whatever reason, hadn’t given away who I really was, I’m pretty sure Travis would have told me he’d seen my supposedly dead brother. Calvin and I wanted to keep our cover as close to reality as we could when it came to our partnership, so brothers worked out well for us. It was no secret that Parker and Gage were close.”
Again, that familiar pain of losing someone who was just like a brother ached in Henry’s chest. He glanced across the table at Caleb and Dante. It wasn’t a secret, either, that they had also gotten close in their time at the department. Dante had been best man for Caleb’s wedding. Partners to best friends to basically brothers.
Henry fought the urge to warn them there was still a chance they didn’t know each other at all.
However, projecting his past on them wasn’t fair. It also wouldn’t do a thing to help their present.
So he continued. “Bottom line, Travis would have told me about Calvin. If only to score some points of gratitude with me. I don’t think he could have kept it a secret even if he’d wanted to.”
“It still doesn’t make Calvin’s sudden appearance and threat less unsettling,” Matt pointed out. “I’m still hard-pressed not to believe they’re connected. Maybe this all has something to do with the undercover work you both did in Tennessee?”
Henry had already thought long and hard about that. He’d come up relatively empty-handed. “The last long stint of undercover work that we did before Calvin’s death—well, what we thought was Calvin’s death—involved us infiltrating a small but growing group of gun runners and drug dealers operating through a recreational ranch in Tennessee. He took a job as part of the security and I was an extra set of hands for the hard labor parts of keeping the ranch going. The task force wasn’t sure who the main players were, so we divided and conquered until Calvin got his foot in the door. What we thought was a small operation with maybe twenty men ended up being two competing operations vying for the top spot in the area.”
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