by Kelly Irvin
The officer put his finger and thumb between his lips and wolf whistled. His colleague glanced back. Rodriguez gave a backward wave. The other officer stepped out of Aaron’s way.
He raced toward her in a stride that would’ve done an Olympian proud. “Are you okay?” Rain dripped from his sodden copper curls. He seemed ready to do battle. Ignoring the rain puddles and the mud, he dropped to his knees next to the officer and grabbed both Nina’s hands. “Claire heard an accident go out over the scanner. She told me to head this direction. I saw your car and freaked.”
“Slow down. Slow down. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” Aaron turned to the officer. “She doesn’t look fine. Did EMS check her out?”
“Yeah, they did. Take it easy before I have to call them over for a cardiac event.” The officer’s phone beeped. “I’m gonna take this. Don’t go anywhere.”
The last words were directed to Nina. His phone to his ear, his gaze on the access road traffic, he ambled toward the other officer.
“I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t care who you kiss. Okay, so I do care, but I shouldn’t have been such a jerk about it. You don’t owe me anything. You’re a free agent—”
Nina put her fingers over his lips. “Chill, McClure. We have bigger issues here. I opened the safe-deposit box.”
His hand closed over her fingers and pulled them away, but he didn’t let go. His fingers were warm, and the ice inside her began to melt. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He blinked. “What was in it?”
“Seven newspaper clippings in an envelope.” She leaned toward him. His warmth drew her like a fireplace on a winter morning. Or was it a moth to a flame? “I’m such an idiot. I grabbed my bag and my camera, but not the envelope. It’s in my car. We need to get it before they tow it away.”
Glancing toward Officer Rodriguez, who had his back to them, Aaron helped her from the seat. She stared at her sweet little Lady Bug. Crumpled. Likely totaled. Lady Bug was the first car she picked out and made payments on herself. Her beautiful Lady Bug was DRT, as they liked to say in the news business. DOTR. Dead Right There or Dead On The Road. Her legs buckled.
Aaron’s arm went around her waist. “Easy. Are you sure you shouldn’t let them take you to the ER?”
“I’m fine.” Carless. She still owed money on Lady Bug and she wasn’t totally sure how much insurance would cover. Cars were the least of her problems right now. Someone had tried to kill her. “Hurry. They’re getting ready to push the car up on the tow truck. Tell them to wait.”
It was one of those tow trucks that carried the dead and maimed cars on a flatbed instead of hooking it up and lifting in on its rear tires. Aaron leaned on the barrier and waved at the tow truck driver as he walked past, his head ducked down in his yellow slicker. The driver growled something about traffic tie-ups.
“Give us one minute, please.”
“Get whatever you need and get out. Thirty seconds.”
“Hey, didn’t I tell you to sit tight?” Officer Rodriguez strode toward them.
“I need stuff from my car before they take it. My house keys are in there.”
A true statement.
“You can’t go on the highway.”
Police had two lanes shut down. Traffic crept through the bottleneck beyond their units. “We’ll stay on this side of the car. I’m not giving permission to tow my car until I have my stuff.”
Rodriguez wavered. “I’ll get it for you.”
“It’ll be faster if I did it. I know where everything is.”
His scowl as big as his earlier grin, Rodriguez crossed his arms. “Like the guy said, fifteen seconds. It’s too dangerous out here.”
“It’s a parking lot out there.”
Nina led the way. They scampered around the barrier and squeezed onto the passenger side between the car and the concrete. The rain came down harder. A steady rat-a-tat-tat against the cracked windshield. The door had been shoved into the frame. Paint and primer were gone and sheer metal exposed. The side window had shattered in the process. Which made access somewhat easier.
Aaron poked his arm through the open space and tugged. The door squealed and budged a few inches. He squeezed around until he could wedge himself between the car and the barrier and move the door a few more inches. “I don’t see an envelope.”
“Let me in. I’m skinnier than you are.” Aaron moved out and Nina squeezed in. She eased down until her line of sight allowed her to peruse the front seat. Nothing. Not surprising, considering the force of the collision. “I’m sure it’s on the floor. Help me get the door open wider.”
Together they wrestled it open far enough for her to kneel and squeeze her arm and shoulder through the opening. She felt around. A brush. Her favorite ink pen. Two rolls of film. She grabbed those and tucked them in her pocket. Film was expensive. A Writer’s Digest renewal notice. She bent forward, her neck protesting, and peered into the foot well. She craned her head to search under the seat.
The envelope was gone.
29
Aaron stood guard. Nina would stay on the Fischers’ living room couch for the next twelve hours if he had to get Pearl to hold her down. The Fischers’ cook-slash-maid was a giant of a woman built like a king-size bed, who ran the household like it belonged to her.
Nina’s nose had started bleeding on the way home and Aaron practically carried her into the house. Pearl had taken one look at them and rushed into “her” room for a first-aid kit, hot water bottle, and heating pad. Then she added ice packs and a cup of hot tea to the prescription. After twenty years, people were used to taking orders from her.
Pearl had tugged a crocheted comforter over Nina and insisted she not move a muscle. Not even twitch an eye. After taking ibuprofen for what she described as a teeth-rattling headache, Nina went to sleep with an ice pack on her cheek. She’d been asleep for almost four hours.
Grace wasn’t there. Neither was Jan. According to Pearl they’d returned after the reading of the will and then gone out again. No, she did not know where they went. Nor was it her job to keep track. “I ain’t no secretary and I ain’t no receptionist. I got work to do.”
And she did it very well.
Nina moaned. Her eyes opened. Her hand went to her forehead. She sat up. “You let me sleep. You shouldn’t have let me sleep. We need to find copies of those articles online. We need—”
“Do not move. Period. You can’t keep getting beat up and not take five minutes to recover.” He plopped down in the overstuffed chair across from the couch. “If you lie still until Pearl brings you some soup and a grilled cheese, I’ll let you run through what happened. We’ll plot next steps. Steps to be taken when you feel better.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “My neck hurts when I lay down. I feel better sitting up.”
Her face, already battered by not one but two intruders, was black and blue and purple in some places, green and yellow in others. She looked like a boxer who’d gone ten rounds and then been KO’d by a muscle-bound heavyweight.
The thought of food—even Pearl’s famous homemade three-cheese-and-focaccia-bread sandwiches—made Aaron’s stomach twitch. He hadn’t eaten much since Melanie’s death. A steady diet of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and crunchy peanut butter from a jar kept him upright. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept. “You can sit up as long as you don’t get up.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“No, but I’m your friend and friends don’t let friends wander around wounded. Tell me about the articles.”
She ran through it quickly at first, then more slowly as her remaining energy dissipated. Her head bobbed. She plucked at the comforter. “Rick’s firm has something to do with this.”
“That worries you.”
“Yes.”
“I know he means something to you, but—”
“He’s a friend too.”
A friend who wante
d more. Something he and Aaron had in common. “I guess what it comes down to is whether discovering the truth and finding your dad’s killer are the two most important things to you.” He chose his words with great care. “Or are protecting your dad’s reputation and your friend’s future in politics more important?”
“Too bad we can’t have both.” She gazed beyond him to the windows. “Nothing is more important than the truth. We both know that. Three people are dead. Two, at least, were innocent bystanders who didn’t deserve to be caught up in a tempest of my father’s making. We have to figure out who did it. Melanie and Serena deserve justice.”
“Okay. Let’s start with what you remember about the articles—”
Pounding on the front door made them both jump.
“I’ll get it.” Wiping her hands on her apron, Pearl marched by. “What is wrong with these people? Don’t they know how to ring a doorbell? Heathens.”
A second later King bolted into the living room.
* * *
Rick gritted his teeth and pasted a smile on his face. This fund-raiser-slash-hand-gripper was well under way. The smell of barbecue smoke from the big pit clung to his suit. His hair drooped. His hand hurt from the grip-and-grin. His jaw hurt from the grin-and-grip. The Tejano music reached a crescendo as the men whirled their partners on the makeshift dance floor. The party had rented a closed used-car dealership building and turned it into a campaign headquarters.
Here came another contributor. An attorney who went to school with Peter. The wife, who was at least fifteen years younger, worked in the mayor’s office. Good connection. He widened his grin and made sure his grip remained firm. “How’s it going, Louis? Dineen. Thanks for coming. How’s your daughter? Still being scouted by UT’s basketball team?” He prided himself on remembering every big contributor. Ten thousand and up. “Did you get enough to eat? Can I get you a beer?”
Dineen, who’d had some work done on her face and her chest, gushed and went off to get a beer for her man.
Louis slipped onto the stool at the round, high table and surveyed the crowd. The Tejano band finished the Emilio Navaira song and immediately started an old Selena tune. Sad to think they were both dead. Sadder about Selena, shot down by her fan-club president just as her career was taking off. Emilio’s brush with fame lasted much longer, but his star had been dying long before he succumbed to the grave. With a shout the dancers headed back to the floor.
“Are you making inroads against that scum Benavides?” Louis had to shout to be heard over the accordion, bajo sexto, keyboard, and drums. “If we don’t trounce that guy, we’ll look bad to the entire party.”
“Polls look good.”
“Sure they do. You’re a newbie.” The sarcasm in his voice matched the curl of Louis’s upper lip. “He’s a five-term rep in the Texas House. You’re trying to skip up the ladder without doing your due diligence on the local level.”
“Why are you supporting me then?”
“Because Peter asked me to and I owe him a favor.”
“I can take Benavides. I’ve shaken more hands and walked more blocks and kissed more babies and done more TV interviews and run more ads. We just need a little more capital to make it to the finish line.”
The finish line being election day in November. It loomed far too close. Too much ground to make up.
“Peter seems convinced.”
“Peter’s right.”
The object of their conversation ambled their direction, his high-society wife, Tiffany, on one arm and his lovely daughter Cicely—newly divorced, a junior partner, and new member of the bar—on the other. She looked like the beauty-pageant queen she’d once been. High cheekbones, perfect skin and teeth, an amazing body clad in skinny jeans and a tight, white Vote for Zavala T-shirt, shiny strawberry-blonde hair, and blue eyes reminiscent of her dad’s. She also looked three sheets to the wind.
Peter flashed that self-satisfied smile he got when they won a court case.
“You look happy. Why the smile?”
Peter draped Cicely over a stool. Tiffany drifted away. A contributor with a gut the size of an enormous beach ball bulging over a silver-and-turquoise belt buckle shaped like the state of Texas immediately asked her to dance. She took him up on the offer without a backward glance.
“Can I borrow Rick for a minute?” Peter directed the question to Louis. “Business.”
“No problem.” Louis patted Cicely’s hand. “I’ll make do here.”
Cicely curled her fingers around his and released the smile of someone who had a huge headache and worship of the porcelain throne in her future.
“What’s going on?” Rick followed Peter into one of the offices and closed the door. “Did we get a break? Did they solve Fischer’s murder?”
“No. However, we did nip another problem in the bud. Mr. Miles performed his tasks with extraordinary finesse.” His nose wrinkled. “Unlike you.”
“What tasks?”
“With the help of his associates—”
“What associates? More people know about our little problem?”
“If you’ll let me finish. Mr. Miles has, shall we say, a security firm. I’ve hired him and the firm to assist us with security needs.” Peter eased into a chair and leaned back, arms behind his head. He seemed far too happy. “With the help of his associates, he surveilled Nina Fischer. She visited a safe-deposit box at Frost Bank. He was able to retrieve the contents of that box.”
White-hot anxiety hit Rick in the chest with the force of a cattle prod. It was hard to breathe. He tried to pace, but the room was too small. “How? How did he retrieve the stuff? When? He didn’t hurt Nina, did he?”
“You are such a wuss. You need to get over it. Her car—if you want to call that Bug a car—is totaled, but she only has a few bumps and bruises. She’ll live.”
“Get over it?” Rick stomped around the desk and grabbed Peter by his two-hundred-dollar red silk tie and jerked. “You endangered her life with a car accident? I’ll kill you and then I’ll kill him.”
Peter grabbed Rick’s tie and brought him closer. His face was so close, Rick could see the shape of his contacts in his icy-blue eyes. He had a tiny scar over his left eye. A mole hidden in his frosted-silver bangs. He smelled of barbecued ribs and Dewar’s. “You better think real hard about what you do next. You can be an ambulance chaser on the south side or you can be the next representative of this area in the Texas legislature. Is some girl you’ve got the hots for worth your future, your career with the firm? You get elected to the legislature, women will be hanging all over you. Nina Fischer has made it clear she’d rather avoid the limelight. Her mother has to drag her to social events. She doesn’t bother to hide her boredom. You need someone like my daughter who understands how to work a crowd.”
Rick breathed. He let go of the tie.
“Good choice.”
He whirled and stormed to the door.
“Use a breath mint before you shake any more hands.”
“I’m not shaking any hands. I’m going to Nina’s.”
“She’s fine. Hardly a scratch.”
“Nobody touches her but me.”
“Fine. But if push comes to shove, that means you finish the job Mr. Miles started. Are you man enough to do that, or are you just a loser from the barrio? You mess this up and you’ll end up right where you started.”
He couldn’t let that happen. He was destined to be somebody important. Nothing would stand in his way. And no one. Not even the woman he loved.
* * *
The ibuprofen hadn’t helped. Neither had the soup and sandwich. Nina rubbed her forehead. Maybe King would get the hint. The detective had pulled up a straight-back chair from the bay window and seated himself directly in front of the coffee table that separated them. He appeared to be settling in for the night. He seemed to enjoy the meal much more than Aaron, who picked at his sandwich until Pearl finally removed it with a harrumph punctuated by a swish of her long skirt.
At least King seemed finished with his earlier tirade. His monologue. Why hadn’t she called him after the accident? Why did he have to find out from a uni? Did she think it was related to her father’s death, or was it simply another bad San Antonio driver? The rapid-fire delivery of the questions didn’t leave much time to assemble answers.
“So you’re okay?” Despite the question, King’s expression remained hard, tense, and irritated. “Did the EMTs check you out?”
“I made sure.” Aaron shifted in his chair. Had King intentionally set his chair up so Aaron had to look at his back? “She refused to go to the hospital. She’s banged up. Her nose hurts, her head hurts, her back and neck hurt. You probably should come back tomorrow.”
“I can speak for myself.” A spurt of anger gave her new energy. “Let’s just get this over. What do you want? Why are you here? Again?”
“You got run off the road today. Are you seriously suggesting that it’s unrelated to your father’s murder? To the deaths of Melanie Martinez and Serena Cochrane?” He jabbed his finger at her. “You told me you weren’t stupid. Neither am I. Tell me why someone would try to run you off the road.”
“It all happened so fast.” True. Not the whole truth, but true. “One minute he was riding my bumper. The next my car hit the barrier. It was raining. The road was wet.”
Behind King, Aaron scowled and mouthed the words Tell him.
Uh-uh. Not yet. Not before she figured out what the connection was between the articles and her father’s life. Then she would turn the entire thing over to King. She just needed a head start. If he would leave, she and Aaron could get into her laptop and start searching that virtual archive known as the World Wide Web.
“You think it was an accident?”
“No.” She wouldn’t lie. It was no accident. Besides, he could pull the 911 tape and know what she said to the dispatcher. “He intentionally swerved, forcing me into the barrier.”
“You keep saying he.”
“It was a man. The windows were tinted so I didn’t get a good look at him.”