by Diana Palmer
“You know about her husband?”
“I arrested him once,” he said, his lips making a flat line. “She’s probably going to remember that, so if she says anything to you about me, we went steady in high school. Okay?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “We did? I must have a bad case of amnesia. You’d think I’d remember something like that!”
He glowered at her. “You’d have been lucky. I was a catch in high school,” he told her. “Girls couldn’t keep their hands off me.”
“That’s not what your mother, Barbara, says,” she replied smugly.
“What does my mother say?” he asked warily.
“She says you hid behind potted plants any time a girl started walking toward you.”
“That was in grammar school!” he protested.
She laughed. “Really?”
He shifted his weight. “Maybe I was a little shy. But I never hid behind a potted plant.”
“Is that so?”
“I might have fallen into a potted plant, once,” he relented. “When the cheerleader captain asked me to vote for her in the class president race. She was a dish.”
She couldn’t stop laughing.
“It’s not funny.”
“Yes, it is.”
He moved away from the truck. “I hate losing arguments to lawyers,” he muttered. “I’m going back to work.”
“What are you doing down here on a Monday?”
“I almost forgot,” he chuckled. “Your boss sent you a love letter.” He handed her an envelope.
“This isn’t my boss’s handwriting,” she pointed out. “And my name is misspelled!”
“We have a mole. He doesn’t like the new regime, or the new drug lord. He sent that to you via your boss. But he’s only giving us information on Fuentes. That—” he indicated the envelope “—is the closest he’s going to come to revealing himself as a witness. We have no idea who he is.”
“Have you read this?” she asked. It was sealed, but barely.
“No. And I resent having you insinuate that I try to read other people’s mail.” He stuck his hands into his jeans pockets. “Anyway, we couldn’t get the steam to work ungluing it.”
She laughed. “Some detective you are!”
“I’m a very good one, thanks. Read that and tell me what’s in it. Then you’d better let me have it back. Even with your name misspelled, we don’t want anybody locally making connections.”
She slid her thumb under the seal and pulled out a small piece of lined paper that looked as if it could have come from a steno pad. “It’s an address,” she said, looking up at him. “And a date and time. That’s all.” She read it to him.
“A drop,” he said at once. “A drug drop.”
She handed him the note. “You could have opened it.”
He shrugged as he pocketed the note. “I wanted to see how you were.”
She smiled up at him. “That was nice.”
“I hope I haven’t just blown your cover,” he said uneasily. “You were seen getting into the ranch truck and heading toward town, so I tailed you. I didn’t realize Consuelo was with you until you both got out of the truck.”
“Maybe she didn’t recognize you,” she said comfortingly.
“Let’s hope so.” He studied her closely, seeing the dark circles under her eyes. “Ramirez giving you a hard time?”
Her heart jumped. “No. Why do you ask?”
“Some of his friends say he’s been hell to get along with since he took that job.”
“He’s nice to me,” she lied.
“Most people are nice to you,” he chided. “You’re sweet.”
“Tell me that the next time you see me in court with Fuentes on the spit.”
“I can’t wait,” he chuckled.
“Me, either. If you need to get in touch with me, you can tell Chief Grier to drop by any Wednesday. Rodrigo’s usually not around then.”
Marquez straightened. There was something disturbing in his expression.
“What? Did I say something wrong?” she asked.
He wiped off the expression. “Nothing at all. I just had a thought. You watch your back,” he added. “If you need me, call me, any time. I’m down here with mother most weekends, unless I’m on call.”
“I’ll remember. Thanks, Rick.”
“What are friends for?” he chuckled.
CONSUELO GAVE HER A very odd look when she caught up with the older woman in the grocery store.
“You know that guy from school?” she asked.
“Yes. He was in my class,” Glory said. “We went steady.” She looked demure.
Consuelo turned her attention to a rack of pickling spices. “He’s a cop.”
“Yes, I know. He works up in San Antonio.”
“He put my husband in jail,” she muttered.
“Oh!”
Consuelo fell for the shocked expression. Her cold eyes softened. “You couldn’t understand how it was for me, with Marco having trouble in school and then my husband going to prison. I couldn’t even afford rent. I had to do some things, to be able to buy food…” She turned away. “It was a long time ago,” she said suddenly. “Don’t mind me.”
“I’d do anything for you that I could,” Glory told the other woman. “Really.”
Consuelo turned back to her. “I know you would,” she said in a soft tone. “You’re not still sweet on Marquez?”
Glory hesitated. “Well, not really. I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
“Good. That’s good. Can you find me some garbage bags?”
“Sure thing.”
She hobbled away on her cane. It had been a close call. Her life was starting to be a lot more complicated. Not the least of her worries was the way she and Rodrigo had parted.
EVEN THOUGH CONSUELO SEEMED to have fallen for her story about going steady with Rick, Glory was aware that the older woman was more curious about her now. She asked throwaway questions about how long she and Rick went steady and if she knew any of his fellow officers in San Antonio.
Glory had to be careful and not let it slip that she’d worked in the city. It was hard, downplaying her intelligence and not giving her education away.
Rodrigo was polite to her now, but very cool. He seemed not to be interested in her after their passionate interlude. In fact, he was paying a lot of attention to the younger woman who’d flirted with him at the fiesta.
Glory’s confidence in herself had been healthy until Fuentes’s death threat had landed her at the truck farm. But divided from her profession, she found that she had no real identity as just an ordinary woman. She had no skills to speak of except that she could process fruit and make preserves. She could cook, after a fashion, but not like Consuelo could. Her homemaking skills were poor due to her impaired movement, because working with a mop or broom or even a vacuum cleaner was painful, and the aftereffects could last for days. Her blood pressure was more or less under control, but she had episodes of dizziness and headaches when she forgot her medicine. She felt almost useless around the house.
When Rodrigo started bringing his one-girl fan club, Teresa, into the house with him for the occasional meal, the way he flirted with her made Glory ill at ease. She knew that it was deliberate, because he noticed and enjoyed Glory’s discomfort.
Now that she knew Fuentes was looking for her, she was under even more pressure. Her interlude with Rodrigo had caused her shame. She hadn’t realized how conventional she was until she’d allowed herself to be seduced. She felt she was following in her mother’s footsteps, and it bothered her. Of course, her mother had only been available to men who had money. Glory wasn’t mercenary. She’d planned her life to be a solitary one. She’d fallen off the straight and narrow, and she was worrying about the consequences. Her periods were very regular. But she was now a week overdue.
It could have been stress. She hoped that it was. Her mother had been very young when she bowed to community pressure after she’d become pregnant by
Glory’s father. She’d married him, but she’d made him and Glory both pay. It was almost ironic that her mother’s parents had died in a plane crash just a few weeks after they’d forced Glory’s father and mother into marriage with their hopes to avoid a scandal.
She touched her flat belly worriedly. She’d never considered having a child. She wasn’t sure her health would permit it, in the first place. In the second, she had little to do with children, and she wasn’t sure that she’d be a proper mother. Her real fear was of her genetics. What if she turned out to be like her own mother, hateful and resentful and abusive to a child? The thought tormented her. It was why she’d never considered marriage and a family in the first place. She couldn’t be sure. She was scarred in more ways than the purely physical. Her self-esteem was almost nonexistent.
And if she was pregnant, what would she do about it? She’d have to see her doctor before she could make any decision. If Rodrigo found out, what would he do? He was missing his former girlfriend and her child. He wanted a child of his own, a replacement for what he’d lost. But that wasn’t love. It was grief, and once he had the child he might bitterly regret it. For instance, what if his girlfriend decided to divorce her husband and go after Rodrigo? Glory wouldn’t stand a chance, considering the love Rodrigo betrayed when he was with the pretty blonde woman. He’d leave skid marks exiting Glory’s life, if he could have the woman he really wanted and the child he adored.
She became depressed as the days passed and Rodrigo continued to ignore her. Then, one day, several things happened at once to make her position hazardous in the extreme.
First, Cash Grier showed up at her door looking somber one Wednesday morning. He asked to speak to her alone.
She followed him onto the front porch, apprehensive about the way he looked.
“What’s up?” she asked quietly, wary of eavesdroppers.
He motioned her down the steps to his squad car, going slowly so that she could keep up with her cane. Then he stood so that she was facing him, so that anyone watching couldn’t see their lips move.
“A trained sniper can read lips,” he told her quietly. “Just in case anyone’s looking, they won’t be able to understand what we’re saying. Marquez got in touch with his friend on the narcotics squad, who worked on a couple of his confidential informants,” he said. “Fuentes has sent a killer after you.”
To her credit, Glory didn’t pass out. “What sort of killer?” she asked calmly.
“A professional.”
She knew what that meant. She’d seen plenty of hits in the course of her work. Drug lords knew where to get the best people for that sort of job, and they didn’t miss. A professional would be more than a match for most local law enforcement. On the other hand, she considered as she studied Cash Grier’s stony expression, she was probably in the best small town on earth for a hit man to try to kill her. Grier here had been a government sniper. Eb Scott and Cy Parks, not to mention Micah Steele, were professional mercenaries, now retired. But Eb ran a school for counterterrorism that was known all over the country, and some of the men taking courses there would be a match for any hired assassin Fuentes cared to sacrifice.
She cocked her head and looked up at Grier. She smiled. “Finally,” she murmured. “Some good news.”
He stared at her without blinking. “Good news?”
“This is the worst town in America for contract killers. The only hit man who ever got into town was crippled by your wife, I hear,” she said with twinkling eyes.
He laughed. “With an iron skillet,” he agreed. He sighed. “Well, you’ve got grit. I expected at least a worried expression.”
She shrugged. “We’ve sort of cornered the market on dangerous men in this town,” she reminded him. “Look what happened to Lopez, even though he didn’t buy the farm here.”
“And to his replacement, Cara Dominguez,” he reminded her. “None of these smugglers believe the hype about our resident mercs,” he chuckled. “Their misfortune. Okay. You’re not rattled. That’s good. But we’re taking some steps to keep you alive until you testify.”
“Kevlar?” she suggested.
He studied her for a long moment, his eyes narrow as he seemed to mentally weigh the factors.
“I know some things that you don’t about Jacobsville,” he replied. “You’re going to be safer than you’ll realize. Just help us out by not going anywhere alone, especially at night.”
“Don’t tell me,” she chuckled. “You’ve got snipers stationed in the pecan trees.”
He laughed. “Nothing quite so visible. Just trust me.”
She nodded. His reputation in police work was formidable. If he said she was safe, she was. But she wondered how it was being handled.
“You won’t tell me anything even if I ask, will you?” she returned.
He grinned. “Not a word. Keeping secrets is my stock in trade.”
She sighed. “Okay, then. I’ll stay inside and away from the windows.”
“That should do the trick until we can get enough on the hired gun to lock him up.”
“You wouldn’t like to tell me who he is?” she fished.
“No, I wouldn’t. Not even if I knew. You’re safer that way. I’ll be in touch.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He drove away and she ground her teeth together. One more thing, she thought, to drive me nuts. They should have left her in San Antonio and set her up in a controlled area and offered to let the hit man do his worst. Instead she was stuck here in small town America with a killer in close proximity and they said she was safe.
She threw up her hands and went back to work. She didn’t share the tidbit of information with Consuelo, or Rodrigo. Neither of them had any idea what a mess her life was in. She wanted it to stay that way.
7
GLORY HATED FEELING helpless. If she was a good shot, and she had a pistol, she might have been able to defend herself. But she couldn’t shoot. She wasn’t whole physically, and she’d never had anyone do more than threaten to kill her. Death threats were a part of the job for most people in law enforcement and the court system. She knew judges who carried pistols to the bench under their robes and she knew some who’d survived attacks. She’d always known that if she became a prosecuting attorney, there would be the occasional threat. But this one was deadly. Fuentes didn’t want to spend his life in prison. He was going to make sure that Glory didn’t testify.
Cash said she was safer than she realized. She wondered if he had someone working on the farm, keeping an eye on her. It would have helped her mental attitude a little. But a covert scan of all the workers didn’t produce anyone suspicious.
She felt Rodrigo watching her as she and Consuelo sat down with him at the table to eat supper. He was astute for a man who ran a truck farm. Pity, she thought, that he was so good at management, and he’d never continued his education. She’d never asked what was the last grade of school he’d completed. Perhaps, she told herself, she didn’t really want to know.
Then it hit her. What if Rodrigo was not only mixed up in the drug trade—what if he was the assassin? Her fork fell out of her fingers and hit the plate with a loud noise.
“What is it?” Rodrigo asked, frowning.
She was staring at him in utter horror. No, she told herself. No, it couldn’t be! But what did she know about him, really? Only what he volunteered. He was personable, a good dancer, a hard worker and he spoke several languages. But so did a lot of criminals. He was gone every Wednesday, along with Castillo. When she’d told Cash that, his expression had closed up like a trap. Cash had said that Fuentes had sent the hit man after her, but that didn’t mean the killer hadn’t already been put in place for the mission. For all she knew, Fuentes might have had her tailed and tracked here to Jacobsville weeks ago. Here, where Rodrigo was close and could kill her if he was ordered to. Her heart sank deeper in her chest.
“Are you all right?” Rodrigo repeated, his accent sl
ightly thicker as he stared at her.
“I’m getting clumsy,” Glory excused her slip, picking up the fork again and smiling sheepishly. “It’s peeling all those peaches. My fingers are rebelling.”
Consuelo laughed. “I know how you feel! We will both be stronger than weight lifters soon, with all this exercise.”
“The peach crop is almost through,” Rodrigo advised them. “Only a few more days and we’ll be done.”
“Thank goodness!” Glory exclaimed.
He gave her a long look. “Of course, by then the first apples will be ready for picking…”
Both women groaned aloud. He only laughed.
SHE WAS WORKING IN the kitchen when Rodrigo walked in with Consuelo’s son, Marco. Consuelo was hesitant, but the boy grinned and picked up his mother and whirled her around.
“I’m sorry I was short with you last time,” he told the woman. “I was just having some problems, but they’re all solved now. Rodrigo said I could come back, if you don’t mind.”
Consuelo hugged him back, tearfully. “Of course you can come back!”
He kissed her. “You’re too good to me.”
“Yes, I am,” Consuelo replied, but she laughed.
Rodrigo was staring at Glory. He wanted to ask what was making her study him that way, but it was early morning and he had to get things organized in the fields. Sooner or later, he told himself, they were going to have to try to talk to each other. If he’d made her pregnant, he had to know. Then, choices would have to be discussed. He hoped it wasn’t true. Glory had made it obvious that she didn’t want a child. Or perhaps she did, but she didn’t want one with a common laborer who made a living with his hands. He felt cold all over. He couldn’t tell her the truth about himself. When he did, it would place even more barriers between them. He didn’t want a glorified housekeeper as a wife, any more than she wanted a foreign farm worker as a husband. It was demeaning, just the same, to think she didn’t want his child. She’d told him that she had health problems, and he knew her hip gave her trouble, but that was no reason for being unable to carry a child. The fact was that she didn’t want the child of a common farm worker. She wouldn’t admit it, but he knew just the same. It wounded his pride.