The Marriage Profile

by Metsy Hingle

  “It’s all right,” Ricky said when she started to get up. “Angela’s cool, Sal.”

  He hesitated a moment, then said, “Frank’s looking for you, kid. He wants to see you right away.”

  “As you can see, Angela and I are about to have dinner. I’ll give Frank a call later,” Ricky said, his voice gruff.

  “He wants to see you now.”

  “I’m busy now,” Ricky countered. “Tell Frank I’ll be by when I finish here.”

  Sal looked around and clamped a hand down on Ricky’s shoulder. He leaned down and said in a loud whisper, “Don’t be stupid, kid. Frank’s in a real strange mood. You don’t want to mess with him when he’s like this.”

  Ricky shook off the older man’s hand. “I’m not afraid of Del Brio.”

  “I know you’re not. But think about your daddy, boy. You set Frank off, and you might not be the one who ends up paying for it,” Sal told him. “Come on, kid. The lady will understand.”

  “Go ahead, Ricky,” Angela interjected. “The truth is I’m not feeling all that well, anyway.”

  “All right,” Ricky said, and Angela could see that it cost him to agree. “I’ll give you a call later.”

  “Thanks, ma’am,” Sal said, nodding his head. When he lifted the cigar to put it back in his mouth, the scent hit Angela.

  “Excuse me,” she said, and left the two men staring after her as she raced to the rest room, where she lost what little she had managed to keep in her stomach that day. When the worst of it was over, she exited the stall and went to the basin and rinsed out her mouth.

  “Are you all right?”

  Angela looked up from the sink and stared at the reflection of the curvy, blond waitress in the club’s signature black pants and white shirt. “I think so,” Angela said.

  “Why don’t you sit down a minute,” she said, and led her to the bench against the wall. She wet a towel and brought it over to Angela. “You’re still looking a little green.”

  “Probably because I feel a little green,” Angela said, taking the cloth and using it to wipe her face. “Thanks.” When she could breathe a little easier she said, “You seem familiar, but I’m afraid I don’t remember your name.”

  “We haven’t met before,” she said a bit nervously. She smoothed her shirt where her name was stitched across the front of it. “I’m Daisy. Daisy Parker. I work here at the club.”

  “I’m Angela Mason. Thanks again, Daisy,” she said, and attempted a smile. “Would you believe I never get sick? Not so much as a cold. And I usually have a cast-iron stomach. Although you’d never know it by the way I’ve been upchucking these past few days. Sometimes even just the smell of certain food has been setting it off. And just now when I smelled that cigar, well, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to the bathroom in time.”

  Daisy gave her a thoughtful look. “You said you’ve been tired a lot lately, too?”

  Angela’s smile slipped. “Yes. Why?”

  “Is it possible you’re pregnant?”

  “No, that’s not possible. I can’t…” Angela went still. “At least I don’t think so,” she corrected, but suddenly wondered if it could be true. Could she be pregnant?

  “You might want to check with your doctor because when I—” Daisy paused, her expression grew sad and a haunted look came into her brown eyes. “When a friend of mine was pregnant, she was sleepy all the time and everything from cigar smoke to lemon oil made her queasy.”

  The door to the ladies’ room burst open and in walked a petite, bubbly redhead. “Daisy, you’re needed out front,” she said as she eyed the two of them curiously.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” Daisy told the other woman. The redhead waited several beats, then flounced out. When they were alone again, she said, “I need to get back to my tables, but before I do, I just wanted to tell you that I heard about you coming to Mission Creek to try to find that little girl who was kidnapped. And I wanted you to know that I think it’s a good thing you’re doing, Ms. Mason. A real good thing. And I hope…I hope you can find her.” She grabbed Angela’s hand and squeezed it a moment, then stood. “I better go. Try chewing on ice and see if it helps your stomach.”

  Angela stared at the hand the woman had touched, squeezed it into a fist and tried to make sense of the swirl of grief and fear she picked up on from Daisy in their brief contact. But she felt confused and was unable to make sense of the source of Daisy’s pain. Then her own situation hit her again. Recalling that night she and Justin had made love, she counted back and tried to determine where she’d been in her menstrual cycle. Since she’d never been regular, she’d paid little attention and didn’t have a clue whether she was late now.

  Could it be possible? After all this time and so many disappointments, could she possibly be pregnant with Justin’s child?

  The doctors had said there was always the possibility that she could get pregnant. It just wasn’t likely to happen without her taking fertility drugs or going through the various high-tech procedures.

  And if she was pregnant?

  Angela smiled. She spread her fingers over her abdomen. She wanted the baby. More than wanted the baby, she welcomed it.

  And Justin? How would Justin feel?

  Her smile dimmed. Justin had made it clear that he didn’t want her in his life. How would he respond to her being pregnant with his child? It was a bridge she would have to cross if and when she came to it, she decided. First, she had to get one of those over-the-counter pregnancy tests and see if it confirmed her suspicions.

  “Have you had any luck finding out who the woman is?” Luke asked Justin as they sat in the restaurant where the sheriff had agreed to meet him and give him an update.

  “Not yet, but I’ve got some leads that I’m following,” Justin told him.

  Maybe the sheriff didn’t know the identity of the mystery blonde he’d spent that night with, Luke thought. But Luke had a pretty good idea who she was. He thought about Daisy, the waitress at the club from whom he’d stolen a kiss the other night. The more he thought about her, the more Luke was convinced that Daisy was the mystery woman he’d met that night at the Saddlebag. Daisy was his daughter’s mother.

  His daughter.

  Thoughts of the baby he’d fathered still rocked him. And his chest tightened each time he thought of missing this first year of her life, of learning that she’d been kidnapped. “What about the child? Have you been able to turn up anything about who might have her or where she’s being held?” There was a long pause, which Luke found disturbing. “Justin?”

  “Like I explained to you on the phone, Angela came up with a sketch of the place where she thinks Lena’s being held.”

  “You believe she’s right?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Justin told him. “Don’t ask me to explain how she knows, because I can’t. Hell, I find it hard to believe myself. But I think Angela’s right about this. If we can find this place, we’ll find your daughter.”

  Luke leaned forward and wished he could see the other man’s face. “So why haven’t you found her?”

  “Because there are hundreds of places that could fit the one in her sketch,” Justin said, and Luke could hear the exasperation in the other man’s voice. “I wish like hell I had better news, Luke, but the truth is for over two weeks we’ve been searching every ranch in Lone Star County that even comes close to matching the one in Angela’s sketch. But so far we’ve struck out. We’re going to find her. You have my word on that. It’s just taking us a while to do it.”

  “And while you’re searching for my daughter, I’m sitting here doing nothing,” Luke said with disgust.

  “Come on, you’re being a little rough on yourself, don’t you think?”

  “Hardly,” Luke countered, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “How would you feel if some sick bastard kidnapped your daughter and you were doing nothing to get her back?”

  “You’re hardly doing nothing. You have me and Angela searching for her plus the FBI.
We’re trained for this kind of work. You’re not. Even if you had your sight, you’d probably just get in the way.”

  But Justin’s assurances did nothing to ease his guilt. The sheriff didn’t know, couldn’t know that he, too, had been trained to rescue. “You think so?”

  “Yes. This sort of thing is best left to the law, Luke. Not businessmen. Even one as successful as you.”

  He’d done his job of acting the millionaire playboy well, Luke thought. “Funny you should mention that. You know all those business trips I was always taking?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, they were business trips technically. But not the kind you and everyone thought they were.”

  “You sure you want to be telling me this? Don’t forget I’m a lawman,” Justin warned him.

  Luke grinned wryly and imagined Justin was worried he was about to reveal some illegal activities he’d been involved in. “Yeah, I want to tell you, and your being a lawman doesn’t matter. Those trips I took weren’t for Callaghan Industries. They were special missions I handled for the United States government.”

  “You saying you’re some kind of spy?”

  “A secret agent, actually,” Luke replied, and could almost imagine his friend’s expression. “The last mission was in Central America. I won’t bore you with the details, but it wasn’t pretty. We were successful, but I ended up like this,” he said, and tapped the side of the dark glasses he wore to shield his sightless eyes.

  “Why are you telling me this now?” Justin asked.

  “Because I want you to understand just how great a failure I am. As a man, as a father.” He closed his eyes behind the glasses. “In the past ten years I’ve saved and rescued hundreds, probably thousands, of strangers. Yet now when the one person who has every right to expect me to protect her—my daughter—I can’t help her. I can’t save her from the sick bastard who’s stolen her because I’m worthless. Without my eyes, I’m of no use to her or anyone.”

  “Luke, you—”

  Someone barreled into the back of his chair, jolting him, and Luke’s glasses fell from his face atop the table.

  “Oh, heavens, I’m sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going,” the woman said.

  “Angela? Is that you?”

  “Yes,” she said, and scrambled to pick up his glasses. “I’m sorry, Luke. I should have been paying attention….”

  But as he stared at her, he caught flickers of light bouncing off something around her neck. He rubbed his eyes, looked again and could just make out the image of a silver cross on a chain that reflected in the overhead lights.

  “Here’s your glasses,” she told him.

  Luke took the dark shades from her fingers, realized that he could make out the shape of her hand and the glasses he’d been hiding behind since he’d lost his sight.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, worry in her voice, no doubt because he continued to stare at her.

  “I’m fine,” Luke assured her. He was better than fine, he realized. Because if those flickers of light and the shadowy images meant anything, his sight was coming back.

  “You sure Del Brio is going to show for this swap meet you’ve got planned?”

  “I’m sure,” FBI agent Sean Collins told fellow agent Annabelle Harte as they sat out of sight and monitored the Texas road where more than a year’s worth of work was finally going to pay off. Tonight he would finally put Del Brio and the Mercado crime family behind bars where they belonged. “You heard the tape Haley Mercado made. Del Brio said he would be on hand to make the exchange.”

  “I don’t know, Collins. Why risk it? Why not let his men handle the exchange the way he’s done in the past?”

  “Maybe with a million bucks changing hands for those stolen artifacts, Frankie doesn’t trust his homeboys. Whatever the reason, the minute he takes that money, we’ve got Del Brio where we want him.” Sean trained his night-vision goggles on the road where the six trucks were lined up on opposite sides of the road—three containing smuggled Mayan treasures hidden inside bags of road-paving and concrete supplies from Mercado Brothers Paving and Contracting and three empty trucks, identical in appearance, that were to be driven away by Del Brio’s people when the swap was made. Only, the drivers of the empty trucks had federal agents at the wheel who would take Del Brio and his men into custody when the money changed hands.

  “I don’t like this. Del Brio’s late. The tape said he’d be here for eight-fifteen. It’s eight-twenty now,” Harte pointed out.

  “Don’t get your panties in a wad, Harte. He’ll be here.” But when another five minutes ticked by, Collins grew antsy himself. “Garrett, you all set?”

  “Just sitting here in my big black sedan with my briefcase full of money waiting to buy me some genuine Mayan artifacts,” the undercover agent replied.

  Collins grimaced at the smart-mouthed reply. “Morrisey? Henderson? Wyatt? You and your partners all set?”

  “All set,” each team of drivers replied in turn.

  “You forgot to ask about me, boss.”

  “You better hope you’re right about Wainwright, Hunter. He and that Mason woman came real close to blowing this operation,” Collins told the agent he’d sent in to work undercover in the county sheriff’s office. Two nights ago when the pair had shown up at the door for their groceries, Collins had thought he’d have to haul them both in to salvage the operation. Just as he’d expected, Wainwright had picked up on something because he’d had Hunter check out Mason’s new neighbors. Fortunately for Wainwright, he’d bought Hunter’s story about the computer salesman and his wife from Kansas and hadn’t pursued the matter.

  “Heads up,” Harte said, cutting into the chatter. “Looks like the big man’s arrived. What is it with these Texas guys and their trucks? Look at the tires on that green monster.”

  “It’s a guy thing,” Hunter said with a good-old-boy chuckle that earned him a smart put-down from Harte.

  “Looks like he’s got someone with him,” Collins noted as he watched the vehicle approach. “Big gorilla of a guy.”

  “Probably his bodyguard,” Hunter supplied. “Name’s Alphonse Piccolo out of Jersey, but he goes by the name of Big Al.”

  “Son of a— Big Al knows me,” Wyatt informed them. “I hauled him in about six years ago when I was working to crack a drug-smuggling ring back east. He was a real mean mother. Ended up cutting himself a deal with the D.A., squealed on some guys higher up the food chain and got himself a reduced sentence.”

  “Can he make you?” Collins asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it’s too late to make like Casper now, Wyatt,” Garrett informed him as the green truck pulled up beside the black sedan.

  “Wyatt, you hang back as best you can and let Reynolds take the lead when it’s time to exchange trucks,” Collins ordered.

  “You have my money, Mr. Garrett?” Del Brio asked.

  “Right here,” the agent said, and, placing the black attaché case atop the hood of the sedan, he opened it to reveal neat stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills. But before allowing Del Brio to do more than look at it, he said, “First, I want to see the merchandise.”

  Del Brio went to each of the trucks, selecting random bags. Using a knife, he slit the canvas of one bag and out poured the chalky powder used to make concrete—along with ancient crosses, coins and religious artifacts from Mayan ruins in Mexico. “Satisfied?”

  “Yes,” Garrett told him.

  “Excellent,” Del Brio said. “Big Al, have our men switch trucks with Mr. Garrett’s men while we conclude our business.”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  “I’ll take my money, Mr. Garrett,” Del Brio told him, and they started back toward the sedan.

  “Hey, what the—” Big Al shouted. “I know you. You’re that lousy fed who…”

  “He’s made me,” Wyatt said into his hidden microphone as Big Al came charging at him.

  “Move in,” Collins ordered.

  And ch
aos erupted.

  He was in a foul mood, Justin admitted as he drove his truck along the dark roadway. They’d spent another day searching for the ranch where Lena was being held and they had once again come up empty. He was tired, hungry and frustrated. He hadn’t been pleased with Bobby’s explanation for tailing Angela—that he’d just happened to find himself in the same vicinity while he’d been tracking Del Brio. Justin now found himself questioning his own wisdom in having Bobby check out Angela’s neighbors, especially when the report that came back on Mr. and Mrs. Collins was clean.

  Something had been off with Angela’s neighbors. And something was off with his deputy, too, Justin surmised. The man was hiding something. But for the life of him, Justin couldn’t figure out what. All the checks he’d run on Hunter had come back indicating that Bobby was just who he claimed to be—a young deputy eager to make good. But Justin had a gut feeling there was more to Bobby Hunter than met the eye.

  Turning off the main highway, Justin said, “Since it’s so late, I thought I’d take an alternate route. There’s an old road that’s not used much anymore. It’s a little longer distance-wise and the road has only one lane, but there’s hardly any traffic.”

  “Hmm? Oh, fine,” Angela said, and went back to gazing out the window.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. What do you say we stop and have some Tex-Mex or maybe grab something at Coyote Harry’s?”

  “What?”

  “I asked if you’d like to stop and have dinner,” Justin repeated, irritated by Angela’s continued distraction. She’d been acting as if she was only half there ever since that night at the country club when he’d run into her with Ricky.

  “Thanks, but I’m really not very hungry.”

  Her answer did nothing to improve his lousy mood. Nor did Angela’s silence for the next ten miles. It itched at him like a pesky mosquito bite, until he couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on, but—”