For Just Cause

by Kara Lennox

  Hudson didn’t see it that way. “It’s July Fourth weekend on Lake Conroe. You guys like to water-ski?”

  “Sure,” Claudia said, being agreeable. She’d never tried water-skiing, but since it was something affluent people did—people with boats and lake houses—she pretended to know something about it.

  It was a habit with her, but one she really ought to break. She had a spotless professional reputation to rely on now; she didn’t need for people to think she came from the “right” sort of background.

  They shook hands all around and exchanged cards, then Billy and Claudia left. She knew she should probably leave it alone, but she couldn’t resist asking. “Why were you in such a hurry to leave? It’s well after lunchtime, and I’m hungry.”

  “I just want to keep working, that’s all. And what is it with you and food? For an extremely slender woman, you eat a lot.”

  “Well, excuse me. I like food, and you’re the one who said we have to keep our bodies and brains fueled, blah blah blah.” Something about Billy’s manner bugged her. “You don’t like Hudson?”

  “I like him okay. Do you like him?”

  “I don’t really know him well enough to form an opinion.”

  “Oh, come on. As a psychologist, you know people form opinions about other people the second they meet. He must have made an impression on you.”

  “Fair enough. From what I saw, yes, I liked him. He’s friendly, has a sense of humor, seemed willing to share information with us, unlike some of the cops I’ve encountered who get very territorial about their investigations. He seems to genuinely care about the victim, and he wants to see justice done.”

  “And he’s good-looking, right?”

  “Very. But a little young for me.” Or at least young-looking. “What does that have to do with anything? I try not to let people’s looks bias my opinion of their character.”

  “I thought maybe I saw a little spark there. Hudson was flirting with you.”

  She looked at him as if he’d just announced the Rapture was imminent. “Flirting?”

  Billy shrugged one shoulder in a deliberately unconvincing manner. “Looked that way to me.”

  “So what if he was? Maybe I wanted to have lunch with him, and you hustled us out of there like you thought the place was sprinkled with anthrax.”

  Billy slammed on the brakes hard enough to make Claudia’s shoulder harness catch and jerk her back. “I can take you back if you want. I’m sure Vale would give you a ride back to the office. If you’d rather waste time on a leisurely lunch than help prove Mary-Francis’s innocence—”

  “Now you’re just being silly. Step on the gas, please, there’s a line forming behind you.”

  He eased the car forward, gripping the steering wheel hard enough that his knuckles turned white.

  “You are acting really weird.”

  Billy loosened his death grip and took a deep breath, obviously trying to shake off whatever had made him mad. “You’re right. Being around Vale—I guess it brought up a few memories that aren’t so pleasant.”

  “How do you know Hudson?”

  “We worked together on a joint investigation several years ago. Drugs were coming through Houston to a dealer in Conroe, then sliding through the pipeline straight to Dallas.”

  “Sounds like you didn’t really like working Narcotics, if just the reminder of it can put you on edge.”

  He shook his head. “Let’s just drop it, okay?”

  “It might help you to talk about—”

  “No head-shrinking allowed, remember?”

  “Have you ever been to therapy?”

  “Yes. Been there, done that, all better. And if I did need a shrink, it wouldn’t be you.”

  Claudia leaned back in her seat, hurt. She was surprised how much his insult stung, like steel wool on a sunburn. “I know you don’t have much faith in the body-language thing, but I hadn’t realized you think I’m a complete incompetent.”

  “No, Claudia, that’s not it. I wasn’t trying to dis you. I just don’t want that kind of relationship with you.”

  The question begged to be asked: What kind of relationship did he want? She was too chicken to ask out loud.

  “I could fix you and Vale up, if you’re interested.”

  They were back to that? “No, thanks. I’ll solicit my own dates.”

  “Do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Date.”

  “Sometimes.” She squirmed in her seat and adjusted the visor to block the sun from her eyes. Probing other people’s personal lives was endlessly fascinating to her, but she didn’t like it when the tables were turned.

  Still, she stuck with the conversation out of blatant curiosity. Where was he going with this?

  “Are you involved with anyone now?” he asked.

  “No. Are you?” She’d already figured out he wasn’t, because there’d been no signs of a wife or girlfriend—no phone calls, no references to a particular woman, nothing calling him home at the end of the day. Unless he was one of those guys who so severely compartmentalized his life that he could lock a woman out of even his thoughts while he was working.

  “No one special. So why not Vale? It wouldn’t have to be a fix up. A group of us could get together to watch baseball—”

  “I’m not interested in Hudson Vale.” Then, feeling she needed to justify herself, she added, “He’s not my type.”

  “You don’t date cops?”

  “I have nothing against cops.”

  “Who’s your type, then?”

  She had no idea. So far, no particular “type” had ever worked out for her. Maybe her type was bossy, Hispanic ex-cops who drove big pickup trucks and had an uncanny ability to hide secrets from her.

  “I don’t have a type.”

  “Then why not—”

  “I’m not going out with Hudson Vale. Even if he was interested, which he wasn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can always tell when men are interested in me. It’s child’s play for someone with my training.”

  He latched on to a single word. “Always?”

  The air hung heavy with that word, but finally she responded. “Maybe not always.”

  “So Vale is out?”

  She sighed with exasperation. “He is awful cute. And we only just met. Maybe I should give it a shot. When’s the next baseball game? We could invite a group to that bar you guys like—Pacifica, I think it’s called?”

  “We have work to do.” He was suddenly cranky again.

  “Oh, my God.” She should have seen it before.

  “What?”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Why would I be jealous of Hudson Vale? I got a better job at twice the pay, and I’m better lookin’…” He glanced over to see if she knew he was kidding.

  She refused to let him defuse the situation with humor. “You’re jealous because he paid attention to me. You think because you and I shared one kiss you have some kind of hold on me—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He pulled into a strip mall parking lot, found the only spot in the shade, turned off the engine and opened the windows. “For the record, I don’t harbor any illusions that I have rights to you because we locked lips. Once. And for the record…yeah, maybe I’m jealous. He flirted like that with my partner in Dallas, and she flirted back, and…and I didn’t like it, that’s all.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, that must have been uncomfortable.”

  “Don’t feed me therapy dialogue, okay? Nothing ever came of it because Vale wasn’t seriously interested. But it just gets in my craw that your type is always interested in his—”

  “Excuse me? My type? What type is that, Billy?”

  “You know…”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Rich. Educated. Sophisticated.”

  How ironic that all the qualities she’d strived for her whole life, the image she’d struggled to project, was the very thing dri
ving a wedge between her and a man she was starting to care for. “You’re making some pretty big assumptions about me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ll give you educated, because I have a PhD. But rich? I’m still paying off student loans. My condo is mortgaged to the hilt and my car isn’t paid for. As for sophisticated…it’s a facade. I buy my clothes at outlet stores, my designer purse is a fake, I can’t tell a good French Bordeaux from Ripple, and I’ve never set foot outside the United States.

  “Even my accent is fake.” She’d quickly realized her Texas twang marked her as a hick when she’d started college at Dartmouth, and in no time she’d picked up a Boston accent. “And the blond hair? Straight out of a bottle. Although my skin is on the fair side, I think my father might have been Puerto Rican, just from little things my mom would say when she was drunk, but I never laid eyes on him, so I don’t know.”

  She’d clearly surprised him. He studied her as if she’d sprouted scales and cloven hooves.

  Claudia shrugged. “Now you know. So don’t presume things about me again, okay? And how about some air-conditioning?” She deliberately returned to the accent she’d had in childhood, so he’d know she wasn’t making things up. “I’m feeling ’bout as parched as a toad on a brick patio in August.”

  * * *

  BILLY FELT AS IF HE’D BEEN hit in the head with a brick bat. He turned on the engine, ran up the windows and turned the A/C back on, as requested, then eased out of the parking space and resumed their journey home.

  Neither of them said anything for a long time.

  Apparently Claudia wasn’t at all what he’d believed. The “cool blonde” was as fake as her knockoff handbag.

  It should have turned him off. But oddly, he was even more drawn to her. What disadvantages must she have overcome? No father, drunk mother, clearly not rich, if she had all that debt.

  He wanted to ask Claudia questions. Where had she grown up? Where was her mother now? How had she managed an Ivy League education if she grew up poor? And what was her natural hair color?

  Most important, why did she feel it was important to disguise who she really was?

  Of course, the outer trappings weren’t what made her an extraordinary human being. Her intelligence, her compassion, her work ethic—those were the qualities that truly attracted him, he realized with a start. The superficial crush based on blond hair and long legs had evolved into something much deeper, richer.

  And that kiss…

  She didn’t want to talk about the kiss. Maybe she was embarrassed that she’d made out with a poor boy from the barrio. That would make sense, since she tried to hide everything else that might cause others to mark her as low class.

  He finally decided he needed to say something. “I’m sorry, Claudia. For that whole business with Hudson, for the assumptions, everything.” Maybe even the kiss.

  “You don’t have to apologize. I deliberately mislead people. If others make incorrect assumptions, I have only myself to blame.”

  “Why do you do it? Are you afraid people wouldn’t like the real Claudia? Claudia is your real name, right?”

  She grinned at him. “Now who’s sounding like a therapist? I think we’ve played enough true confessions for one day. Let’s give it a rest, huh?”

  He didn’t blame her. The more she revealed of herself, the more she would expect him to reciprocate. She was still a shrink, and she still wanted to get inside his head, a place he didn’t invite guests.

  She would wait a long time for him to spill his guts. He’d already told her about Sheila’s crush on Vale, which was more than he normally told anyone. Especially about Sheila.

  “You still hungry?” he asked.

  “I thought we didn’t have time to eat.”

  “You know I just said that because I didn’t want you to eat lunch with Vale. Yeah, maybe I’m jealous.”

  He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she’d started to smile just then. “I’m starving,” she said. “I could go for some ribs.”

  “There’s a Smokestack Barbecue close to the office. Ever been there?”

  “Nope. Let’s go for it.”

  * * *

  TELLING THE TRUTH TO Billy was like taking off a tight pair of shoes that pinched her toes. For the first time in years, Claudia felt free to be herself. She didn’t have to ruthlessly squelch her Texas drawl or pretend a “classiness” that wasn’t native to her.

  And she could dig into a big plate of barbecued ribs, something she hadn’t done since she was a kid in foster care. And this time, she wouldn’t have to growl like a jungle cat to get even one rib. When Billy suggested they share a rack of baby backs, she actually admitted she wanted her own.

  Instead of being horrified by her indelicate appetite, he laughed and told her to order whatever she wanted. He ended up with a pulled pork sandwich.

  She gnawed on those ribs like a true Texan, and she even licked her fingers, all the while knowing Billy was watching her—not with revulsion, but with a quiet amusement he didn’t attempt to hide.

  “I never would have pegged you as a rib girl,” he said as she ripped off another rib to gnaw on.

  “I like stuffed jalapeno peppers, too. I guess when I decide to let it all hang out, I do a bang-up job of it. Disappointed?”

  “Of course not. I’m actually touched that you trust me enough to just be yourself.”

  “You’re not going to tell everybody, are you?” Daniel knew of her humble background, and she imagined Mitch Delacroix did, too, since he was probably the one who’d done the extensive background check Daniel required of anyone who did work for Project Justice.

  “My lips are sealed. For a price.” He waggled one eyebrow at her suggestively, and she had just enough time to squelch the frisson of desire that swept up her body before Beth McClelland swooped down on their table and grabbed a chair.

  “Hey, Billy, I thought I might find you here.” Beth nodded toward Claudia as she swiped a cold French fry from Billy. “Good to see you again, Claudia.”

  “Nice to see you, too.” Claudia liked Beth. She had an irrepressible optimism about her, reflected in her brightly colored, slightly eccentric clothing, her wild, curly brown hair and a ready smile. Beth was also painfully easy to read. She had almost no ability to hide her feelings and probably had never lied successfully in her life.

  “Were you looking for me?” Billy asked.

  “I was.” Beth grabbed an abandoned menu from an adjacent table and quickly perused it. “But I figured I’d just join you for lunch, since I was hungry. I have good news. Or at least, interesting news. Unless…” She looked back and forth between Billy and Claudia. “Unless I’m interrupting something?”

  “No, not at all,” Billy answered, running right over Claudia’s weaker objection. Now that she and Billy weren’t arguing, she’d been enjoying her alone time with him. Probably far more than was healthy.

  A waiter stopped by their table, and Beth ordered a barbecued chicken sandwich with coleslaw. Her order seemed positively dietetic compared to Claudia’s big ol’ slab of ribs, which she’d come close to finishing.

  “So, spill it,” Billy said. “What’s the news?”

  “My buddy in Montgomery County did an end run for me and couriered over a box of evidence from the Torres case. I dived right in, started running tests on the bloody mattress cover. Besides getting a DNA profile, I tested it for everything I could think of.”

  Claudia pushed her plate away. “I’m done.” No matter how long she worked with Project Justice, she would never get used to their casual discussion of murder scenes. Bugs and bodily fluid didn’t go well with meals, in her opinion. She wiped her hands on a moist towelette provided by the restaurant.

  “That was really fast,” Billy said. “And…?”

  “It’s Eduardo’s blood, all right. No wiggle room there. But here’s the interesting thing. The blood contained sodium citrate, an anticoagulant.”

  “So he was taking heart medicine or s
omething?” Claudia asked, drawn into the discussion despite herself.

  “Sodium citrate is used to preserve blood in test tubes and other vessels outside the body. It would never appear in blood in its natural state.” She waited, and it took a few seconds for the implications to sink in.

  Claudia slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from shrieking in shock.

  “Oh, my God,” Billy said. “Eduardo faked his own death.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BILLY’S VOICE WAS TINGED with amazement. “He stockpiled some of his own blood over some extended period of time, enough to convince a medical examiner that he couldn’t have survived.”

  “Angie worked in a medical office,” Claudia said. “She could have drawn his blood, or stolen the equipment he would need to do it. The anticoagulants were necessary to keep the blood from spoiling before he could use it.”

  Billy was nodding. “Then he dumped it in the bed to frame his own wife, let it dry, put the sheets back on so Mary-Francis wouldn’t notice.”

  “Why didn’t the police crime lab find the anticoagulants?” Claudia asked.

  “It’s not something they would normally test for,” Beth explained. “They probably didn’t do a tox screen. They went straight to DNA.”

  “That Eduardo is one sick bastard,” Claudia couldn’t help saying. The man sounded depraved, and given the hordes of mentally unstable people she’d encountered over the years, that was saying something.

  “He needed to disappear to avoid a pending murder charge,” Billy said. “But he couldn’t stand the thought of letting Mary-Francis have all of their accumulated wealth, not when they’d been heading for divorce. So he figured out a way to prevent her from benefiting from his supposed death.”

  “Why wouldn’t he just syphon off all of their assets and disappear to some country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.?” Claudia asked.

  Billy shrugged. “Sending his wife to death row was the ultimate revenge, I guess. We might never know his motive, but it doesn’t matter. This constitutes a strong suggestion that Eduardo is still alive. This should be enough to reopen Mary-Francis’s case. I’ll schedule an appointment with the Montgomery County D.A.”