by Diana Palmer
Bernie had to be prompted to follow Sari into the kitchen. She was spellbound.
* * *
“If anybody had told me that Mikey would fall all over himself for a small-town Texas girl, I’d have fainted,” Sari teased. “Honestly, you’re all he talks about when he and Paul get together!”
Bernie flushed. “He’s all I talk about at the boardinghouse. I’ve never met anybody like him. He’s so...sophisticated and charming and sweet.”
“Sweet?” Sari’s eyes were popping.
Bernie laughed. “Well, he is.”
“I suppose people bring out different qualities in other people,” Sari said philosophically as she made coffee. “I owe Mikey a lot. So does my sister. He helped keep us alive.”
“I heard that you were threatened, because of your father,” Bernie said quietly. “Not the particulars, of course, just that Mikey helped your husband with the investigation.”
“Mikey put us in touch with a gentleman who saved Merrie’s life,” Sari said, without going into any detail. “She was almost killed.”
“I did hear about that. Some crazy man ran into her with a pickup truck, and then died in jail.”
Sari nodded. She waited until the coffee perked and poured two cups of it. She put them on the table. She knew from the office that Bernie took hers black, just as Sari did.
Sari sat down across from her. “We lived through hard times,” she recalled. “Our father was a madman. There were times when I thought he was going to kill us himself.”
Bernie stared into her own coffee. “My grandfather had an unpredictable temper,” she said. “You never knew which way he was going to jump. One time he’d laugh at something you said, and the next... Well, Mama and I had to be very careful what we said to him. So did my father.”
“Your grandparents lived in Floresville, didn’t they?” Sari asked gently.
Bernie’s face clenched. She met the other woman’s concerned blue eyes. “You know, don’t you?” she asked.
Sari nodded. “From a former sheriff who moved here and had dealings with our office. But you know I don’t gossip.”
Bernie smiled. “Yes, I do.” She put both hands around the coffee cup, feeling its warmth. “My grandfather wasn’t a bad man. He just had an uncontrollable temper. But he could be dangerous. And he was, one time too many.” She grimaced. “We lived out of town on a ranch, but gossip travels among country folk. After it happened, Dad lost his job and wasn’t given references, so we came back to Jacobsville. I was only ten. Dad and I were targeted once by one of the victim’s relatives.”
“I’ve been through the wars myself, you know. But I don’t blame people for what their relatives do,” she added firmly.
“Neither do I. But there was some gossip even here. Fortunately, there wasn’t so much that Dad couldn’t find work. He went to Duke Wright and got a job. He never got like Granddaddy. I used to think if only somebody had forced my grandfather to see a doctor and get on medication. If only we’d realized that he had mental health issues,” she said huskily.
“If. There’s a horrible word. If only.”
“Yes.” Bernie nodded. She looked up. “You won’t tell Mikey? I mean, I’ll tell him eventually, but it’s early days yet and—”
“Mikey has secrets, too,” Sari interrupted. “He won’t hold anything against you. He’s more worried about what you’ll think of him. He’s...had some problems in his past.”
Bernie cocked her head. “Can you tell me about them?”
“I think he should tell you,” Sari replied. “I don’t like to carry tales. He’s not a bad man,” she added firmly. “Everybody has shameful secrets. Some get told, some never do, some we carry inside us forever like festering wounds.”
Bernie nodded. “That’s like mine. Festering wounds. They blamed all of us, you see, not just my dad. They blamed Mama and me, as well.”
“Bernie, you were just a kid. How could anyone have blamed you?”
“They said Mama made him mad in the first place,” she explained. She closed her eyes. “I was just ten years old, I didn’t have anything to do with it. Neither did Dad. But people died, and I live with the guilt.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Sari said curtly. “There was no possible way you could have stopped it.”
“Losing my grandmother and my mother was the worst of it, especially for Dad,” Bernie confessed softly.
She put a hand over Bernie’s. “You can’t live in the past. I’m having a hard time with that myself. My father killed a woman. He more than likely killed my own mother. I have to live with that, and so does Merrie. We have our own guilt, although I don’t know what we could have done to stop it. We were terrified of our father, and he was so rich that nobody around here would go against him. He made threats and people did what he wanted them to.” She sighed. “It was like a nightmare, especially when he was arrested. He tried to make me marry a foreign prince so that he’d have money for his defense attorney,” she recalled bitterly. “He came at me with the belt and I screamed for help. He died with the belt in his hand. I thought I’d killed him.”
“You’d never hurt a fly,” Bernie returned gently. “Neither would Merrie. Your father was an evil man. That doesn’t mean you’d ever be like him. You couldn’t be.”
Sari smiled. “Thanks. I mean it. Thanks very much.”
“I guess we’re all products of our childhoods,” she commented. She searched Sari’s blue eyes in their frame of red-gold hair. “What was Mikey’s like, do you know? He said he grew up in Newark, and his grandmother raised him and your husband.”
Sari smiled. “She did. She was Greek, very small and very loving, even though she was strict with them.”
“What about their parents?”
“The less said the better,” Sari said coolly. “I’m frankly amazed that they both turned out as well as they did.”
Bernie sighed. “I know how that feels, except it was my grandfather, not my parents.”
Sari nodded. She smiled. “I hope you’re prepared for Monday. When Jessie finds out about the hot date, she’s going to be a handful. Glory and I will run interference for you. And it isn’t as if Mikey even likes her.”
Bernie sighed. “That’s a good thing. She’s really beautiful.”
“She is. But as our police chief likes to say, so are some snakes.”
They both laughed.
* * *
In the office, things were less amusing. One of Cotillo’s henchmen had actually managed to get inside Marcus Carrera’s Bow Tie Casino in the Bahamas while Tony Garza was in his private study there. Only quick thinking by Carrera’s bodyguard, Mr. Smith, who sensed something out of the ordinary, had saved the day. The henchman was arrested and held for trial.
“They found the henchman dead in his cell the next day, of course,” Paul told his cousin.
“Of course.” Mikey stuck his hands in his pockets. “It’s a good bet that Cotillo knows where I am, as well. I’ve got no place else to go in the world where I’d have protection like this,” he added.
“True enough,” McLeod said. His gray eyes narrowed. “Once you testify, we have plans for you.”
“They’d better be plans for two people, because I’m not leaving here without Bernadette.”
The words came as a pleasant shock to his cousin, who’d only known Mikey to get serious about a woman once in his life, and that had ended badly.
McLeod chuckled. “We can arrange that.”
“Okay, then.”
“But we’re going to have to up the protection,” Paul said. “Eb Scott wanted to lend us the Avengers,” he added, referring to Rogers and Barton, two of Scott’s top men, “but they’re on a top-secret mission overseas. He sent us Chet Billings instead. And we’ve got Agent Murdock here assigned to you as well.”
“So long as he doesn�
�t try to make coffee for me, we’re square,” Mikey said with a glance at the tall FBI agent.
Murdock just laughed.
“What about Carrera?” Mikey asked. “Is his family going to be under threat, as well?”
“He hired on some old friends,” Paul said. “Several old friends, from back home.”
Mikey knew what he meant, without explanation. “If I were Cotillo, I’d fold my tent and go back to Jersey.”
“Not a chance,” Paul said quietly. “He thinks he has what it takes to put Tony Garza down and take over his whole operation.”
“Sounds to me like a man with a huge narcissistic complex,” Murdock murmured.
“Or a man on a raging drug high,” McLeod inserted.
“Maybe both,” Paul replied. “People are getting involved in this who don’t even have ties to Tony’s business. They just don’t like the idea of an untried, arrogant newcomer trucking into their territory and trying to set everybody aside who’s been in the business for generations.”
“I know several low-level bosses who hate Cotillo’s guts and would love to move on him, There’s even a rumor that one of the bigger New York families wants him out,” Mikey said. “But Tony’s the only one with the power to put him away. If Cotillo hadn’t tried to frame him on that murder one charge, Cotillo would be running south as fast as his fat little legs would carry him.”
“We’ve got the video you made,” Paul told Mikey. “It’s even got the time stamp.”
“Sure,” Mikey replied with a wry smile. “But the defense could swear that it was photoshopped, that I lied to save my friend.”
“Not if you testify,” McLeod replied. “You’re the best insurance we’ve got that Cotillo can’t bring his murderous operation into Jersey. Listen, nobody thinks you and Tony sing with the angels, okay?” he added. “But there are levels of criminals. Cotillo is a cutthroat with no conscience, who’s only in it for the money. He’ll kill anybody who gets in his way. Tony has more class than that. And you,” he said to Mikey, “never hurt a person unless they hurt somebody you cared about.”
Mikey flushed. “Cut it out,” he muttered. “You’ll ruin my image.”
Paul chuckled. “He’s right, though,” he told his cousin. “Merrie said that after she’d painted you.”
“Hell of a painting,” Mikey replied. “And she didn’t even know me.”
“What painting?” McLeod asked.
“Wait a sec.” Paul pulled out his cell phone and turned to the photo app. He thumbed through it and showed it to McLeod. It was the painting Merrie had done of Mikey, which Paul had photographed before he sent it to his cousin.
“Damn,” McLeod said, looking from the portrait to Mikey. “And she didn’t know what you did for a living?”
Mikey shook his head. “She painted that from some snapshots Paul had. Well, from a couple of digital images, from his cell phone, like that one. I was amazed. She did Tony, too. Some artist!”
“Some artist, indeed.” McLeod agreed.
“Back to the problem at hand,” Paul said when he put down the phone. “We need to double security. And you need to find another way to hang out with Bernie. A safer way than a drive-in theater in the country.”
Mikey muttered under his breath. “What, like having tea in her bedroom in the boardinghouse? That’ll help her rep.”
“You can bring her here,” Paul said. “We have the best security in town.”
“You mean it?” Mikey asked.
“You bet,” Paul told him. “You can watch movies together in the sunroom.” He pursed his lips. “Where Cash Grier isn’t likely to tap on the window.”
“Which brings to mind a question,” Mikey said. “Why was Grier looking for me at a movie theater out of town? Not his jurisdiction, is it?”
Chapter Six
“Cash was home and Sheriff Carson wasn’t answering his phone,” Paul said, “to make a long story short. Our police chief volunteered. His kids were protesting bedtime, so he pretty much walked off and left Tippy and Rory with it,” he added, naming Cash’s wife and young brother-in-law.
“In which case, he might want to spend the night at a friend’s house,” Mikey chuckled, “if what I’ve heard about his missus is true. Did she really use an iron skillet on that guy who came in her back door with a .45?”
“Absolutely she did,” Paul confirmed. “She’s still a celebrity for that, not to mention being a former model and movie star.”
“And gorgeous,” Agent Murdock said with a sigh. “Even two kids haven’t changed that.”
Paul chuckled. “Tell me about it. Not that I did bad myself in the wife department. My Sari would give all the movie stars a run for their money.”
“She’s a doll,” Mikey agreed. He sighed. “Well, what are you guys doing about Cotillo while he’s plotting to have me and Tony killed?”
“We think he has somebody locally,” Paul said, suddenly somber. “We don’t know who. There are several people who just started working in Jacobsville recently, some of them with pronounced northern accents, like mine and yours.”
Mikey grimaced. “I think I met one of them. She works with Isabel in the DA’s office. A woman named Jessie.” He shook his head. “Apparently she likes rich men and she’s predatory. She actually got my cell phone number and called to ask me out.”
“I’ll bet that went over well,” Paul replied tongue in cheek, because he knew his cousin inside out. Mikey didn’t like aggressive women.
“It didn’t go over at all,” Mikey replied. “I told her the number was private and I wasn’t interested. Then I hung up and blocked her number.”
“I never attract women who want to date me.” Murdock sighed. “I guess you have to be handsome.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Murdock, except the way you make coffee,” Paul said. “And I did save you from that visiting attorney who mentioned how the ficus plant needed fertilizer.”
“Yes, he was looking right at me when he said it,” Murdock said and sighed. “Not my fault. Nobody else in the office will even try it.”
“I would, but I’m never at my desk long enough.”
“I live on the damned telephone,” Murdock said heavily. “I get picked every time the boss needs information that he has to get from people out of town. I spend most of the day tracking down contacts.”
“You should apply for the SWAT team,” Paul suggested. “You’d do well.”
“I’d get somebody killed is what I’d do,” Murdock returned. “I don’t think fast enough for a job like that. I guess, all in all, information gathering is important work and I’m pretty good at finding people.”
“He used to be a skip tracer for a detective in Houston,” Paul told Mikey. “He was good.”
“I still am,” Murdock said with a grin. “I tracked down an escaped murderer just a few days ago by calling his mother and telling her I was an old Army buddy. She told me exactly where he was. Sweet lady. I felt really guilty.”
“People break the law, they do time,” Paul said. “That’s the rules.”
“Rules are for lesser mortals,” Mikey said with a hollow laugh. “I never followed any in my life.”
“Until now,” Paul said, with twinkling black eyes. “Rules are what’s keeping you alive.”
“Well, that and Bernie, I guess,” Mikey said, and a faint ruddy color ran along his high cheekbones. “We went to the drive-in earlier. We were having a great time until Grier tapped on the window.”
“What movie did you see?” Agent Murdock asked.
Mikey cleared his throat. “It was some sort of action movie, I think. The title escapes me.”
“I’ll bet it does,” Paul said under his breath. “Isabel told me that Bernie poured coffee over ice when she went to get a cup, and then she toppled a bookcase, all in the same day. And she’s not clumsy.
”
Mikey’s eyes twinkled. “Well, well.”
“She’s a sweet woman,” Paul said. “Sari’s protective of her. That woman, Jessie, who works in the office, gives her a hard time.”
“DA needs to take care of business and fire her,” Mikey muttered.
“He’s given her fair warning that she’ll lose her job if she causes any more trouble,” Paul replied. He put his hands in his pockets. “Back to the matter at hand, though. I phoned Marcus Carrera and asked him how things were going. He says Tony’s getting restless. He doesn’t like hiding from some cheap hood who wants to take over his territory. He’s fuming that he didn’t anticipate trouble from that quarter when the guy first moved in with his goons.”
“If he comes back, he could die over here,” Mikey said. “He knows that Cotillo will have people watching and waiting.”
Paul nodded. “That’s what I told Carrera. He said he’ll talk some sense into Tony and make sure he stays put, no matter what it takes. He’s got some old friends from his gangster days helping out. And he hired a group of mercs, one of whom used to live here—that Drake guy whose sister married the veterinarian, Bentley Rydel. Kell Drake, that was his name.”
“That’s some formidable backup,” Mikey conceded. “I hope he won’t have to stay there too long. But what about Cotillo?”
“We’ve got plans for him,” Paul said. “I have friends in Jersey, too. They’re doing some scouting for me. The agency turned one of our best field agents onto the case, and he’s digging into Cotillo’s background. With any luck, he’ll find something we can use for leverage while we wait for Tony’s trial to come up.”
“Tony fled the country,” Mikey said sadly. “That’s going to go against him. Flight from prosecution.”
“He didn’t fly, he was flown—by us,” Paul said with a grin. “So that’s not a charge he’ll be facing.”
Mikey sighed. “His past isn’t lily-white. Neither is mine. So far, Cotillo hasn’t ever been charged with a crime, for all we know.”
“That’s right,” Paul returned. “For all we know. That’s why we’re digging. There’s a federal prosecutor also on the case, and using his own investigators to look at Cotillo and his associates. Eventually, somebody’s going to talk.”