Protector

by Diana Palmer

  “Lassiter. Why does your name sound so familiar?” Hayes wondered.

  “You might know of my father. He has a detective agency in Houston.”

  “Dane Lassiter is your father?” Hayes exclaimed.

  “That’s right. My mother is one of his chief investigators. My sister works for Houston P.D. as an intelligence specialist.”

  “What a connection,” Hayes laughed. “I’ve spoken to your dad several times on cases we’ve been involved in here. He’s one of the best in the business.”

  “Thanks. I do agree.”

  “But my father said you worked for some Middle Eastern madman...” Minette said.

  “Actually I did, very briefly,” he replied. He chuckled. “Who do you think gave his movements away to the proper authorities?”

  “My gosh!”

  “However, back to our own little problem,” he added. “I’ve turned up some activity near Cy Parks’s property, and not your father’s activity, Miss Raynor. There are at least four heavily armored SUVs parked on a back road there.”

  “It wouldn’t be on Burns Lake Road, would it?” Hayes asked at once. He glanced at Minette and Zack to see if they got the connection.

  “It’s where we’ve found most of the bodies that are dumped around here,” Zack answered for them.

  “Yes, actually, that’s where they are. I found them on aerial surveillance, they’re quite well concealed.”

  “Aerial surveillance?” Hayes exclaimed.

  “I have access to satellite data,” Lassiter told them. “Don’t ask, I can’t tell you.”

  “I could send my deputies out there....” Hayes began.

  “And do what? Arrest them for parking in the woods? They’ve done nothing illegal. Yet.”

  “But you think they will,” Hayes mused. “Why?”

  “Just a hunch. I think they’re gearing up for a kidnapping attempt on Miss Raynor.”

  Hayes pulled her protectively close. “Over my dead body.”

  “That’s the idea,” Lassiter said with a cold laugh. “If you get in the way, you’re their new target. El Ladrón’s looking for a way to get at her father for ruining one of his most lucrative drug deals. It cost him about four billion in narcotics and he wants revenge.”

  “Four...billion?” Minette exclaimed.

  “Oh, yes, big money,” Lassiter replied. “Under the Rico statutes, federal agencies could go to town on new and better equipment if we, if they,” he corrected himself, “could get their hands on it.”

  None of the three listening said anything about the slip of the tongue, but they did exchange knowing glances.

  “Anyway,” Lassiter said. “About those bugs. It might be very wise to leave them in place for now.”

  Zack looked at the small device in his hand and glanced at Hayes. He looked at Minette. She grimaced, but she nodded.

  “I guess he’s right,” she said. “If anything happens, he’ll find out before our bodies are cold.”

  Hayes chuckled. “No cold bodies are appearing on my shift, I assure you.”

  “Mine, either,” Zack replied.

  “That’s the plan. And if you could replace the listening devices you removed at Sheriff Carson’s house, Zack, isn’t it?” he added.

  Zack let out a breath. “The big lizard’s mad at me, at the moment. That’s going to take a little work, getting into the office past him at Hayes’s house.”

  “Ah, yes, Andy.” Lassiter chuckled. “He’s partial to bananas. I offered him two slices and he followed me around like a puppy.”

  “Yes,” Hayes agreed. “He’s nuts about bananas.”

  “I’ll go buy a bunch and get busy,” Zack said with a harassed look.

  “I’ll ask the county commission to authorize a raise in pay for you,” Hayes said with a grin.

  “Yeah, they’ll do that about the same time they declare us a province of Canada,” Zack said sarcastically. “Never mind. I can pay the bills and eat out once a month. I’m happy.”

  “Thanks, Zack,” Hayes said.

  “All of you, keep your eyes open,” Lassiter cautioned. “Even I don’t have total access to what these guys are doing.”

  “Yes, and my daughter must be safe, no matter what,” came a deep, concerned voice. “Mi vida, you take care, yes?”

  “I will. Thanks,” she added, because she recognized her father’s deep voice.

  “It was never my wish to involve you in something so dangerous.” He sighed. “I believe the large drug families are truly gaining more power than they should in political arenas. It should not be so. We run a business. Politics should be the will of the people, not the will of a few.”

  “As I recall,” Hayes said, “Thomas Jefferson, one of our presidents, said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” He pursed his lips. “I wonder if he was talking about surveillance devices...?”

  “Bite your tongue,” Minette said with a laugh.

  “Hey, don’t knock the tools of the trade,” Lassiter replied. “You may be very grateful for them one day. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Be safe, my child,” El Jefe added.

  The line went dead.

  “Well,” Hayes said, “we learn something new every day, I expect.”

  “I just learned to never let a utility repairman in my house ever again,” Minette said with irritation in her tone.

  “And I learned to carry bananas when dealing with giant lizards.” Zack grinned at Hayes.

  “I put more money in the petty cash jar on the dining room table,” Hayes told Zack. “Buy Andy some more eats.”

  “Already did,” Zack chuckled. “Except I forgot bananas. On my way now to get some. I’ll phone you later.”

  “Watch your back,” Hayes advised.

  “You do the same.”

  * * *

  “Lassiter’s father is a P.I.?” Minette asked, curious.

  “Oh, yes. And that’s a long and interesting story that I heard from one of our DEA agents who had dealings with him,” Hayes replied. “Lassiter worked for Houston P.D. until he was almost killed in a shootout. He was left with injuries that he thought wouldn’t let him return to the job he had, so he opened a detective agency and staffed it with some of his former colleagues on the force.”

  “My, my.”

  “He made his reputation by taking on cases no other detective agency would touch. After a few years, he was the first name people thought of when they were pursuing dangerous people. He was involved, peripherally, in the bust of a very nasty international child pornography ring some years ago.”

  “I remember reading about that. One of the principles in the case wrote a bestselling novel about it. Cord Romero’s wife, as I recall.”

  He chuckled. “Yes. Cord was a legend in merc circles. He worked with some of our local soldiers of fortune on cases until he and his wife had kids. He keeps a lower profile now. I understand he gave up the demolition work he specialized in.”

  She shivered. “I can imagine that his wife would have locked him in a room without a key if he’d even mentioned going back to it.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Which still leaves us with the question of why my father’s adversary is sending hit men after you,” she said. “I don’t think it’s because you know that a crooked mayor was mixed up in drug smuggling.” She frowned. “Hayes, do you remember seeing anybody else when that drug bust went down?”

  He hesitated. “Not really. Things were pretty confused. I was out there with two DEA agents, a couple of my deputies, a Texas Ranger and some assorted local law. It was at night, too, which didn’t help.”

  “Who were the DEA agents?”

  He thought back to the hectic arrests. “One of them was Rodrigo Ramirez,” he recalled. “He married Jason Pendleton’s stepsister, Glory, who now works as a part-time district court prosecutor on district attorney Blake Kemp’s staff.”

  “And the other one?”

  The frown deepened. “Now that’s a
good question. I don’t remember actually being introduced to him. He came with Rodrigo.”

  “You could call Rodrigo and ask if he remembers who it was.”

  “I guess I could.” He smiled at her and pulled out his cell phone. “Maybe his memory is better than mine.”

  * * *

  But Rodrigo didn’t remember, either.

  “Now that’s very odd,” Rodrigo said in his faintly accented tones. “I remember the bust, I remember being there. But I don’t remember the agent who came with me. He wasn’t one of our regulars, like Sarina Lane or even Alexander Cobb,” he added, naming his former partner and the local head of the DEA office.

  “It would be on the arrest report, I imagine,” Hayes said. “I’ll pull up the file. Don’t worry about it. How’s that new son?”

  Rodrigo chuckled. “Glory and I are over the moon. He’s the most fascinating little miracle you ever saw. You should come and visit.”

  “Time would be a wonderful thing,” Hayes sighed.

  “I heard about the shooting,” Rodrigo said, solemn now. “We know who hired the hit man. We’ve got people working on an arrest.”

  “Me, too,” Hayes said, “but this is going to be a long, slow process. In the meantime, I’m making some very unlikely allies,” he chuckled.

  “Like your former nemesis, Miss Raynor?” Rodrigo asked, tongue-in-cheek. “We heard you were staying with her.”

  Hayes looked at Minette with warm affection. “My former nemesis turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said softly, watching Minette color prettily. He drew her to him and looked down into her eyes. “We’re not enemies any longer.”

  “Glad to hear it. About this other unlikely ally...” Rodrigo continued.

  Hayes blinked. “Okay, now, that’s top secret.”

  “If you say so.” Rodrigo’s deep voice was amused. “Consider it an open secret in our bureau, however. You’re walking a very thin line there, Sheriff.”

  “I know. The problem is, he has access to information that I don’t.”

  “Miss Raynor’s house is bugged,” came the droll reply.

  “Crackers and milk, do you know everything?” Hayes burst out.

  “Not everything. I still don’t understand the unified field theory that Einstein was working on, or why bears hibernate or...”

  “I get the picture.”

  “Who put the bugs in, and why are they still there?” Rodrigo persisted.

  Hayes sighed. “We’re sort of doing a back-scratching thing.”

  “You and the biggest drug lord in northern Mexico, you mean.”

  “He’s one of the biggest, and not the worst by a long shot. The worst is his archenemy, who seems to be planning a kidnapping.”

  “With you as its object?”

  “Not me. Minette.”

  Rodrigo was quiet. “Just a minute. I’ll call you back.”

  He hung up. A minute later, Hayes’s cell phone rang.

  “This is a secure line,” Rodrigo said. “Why is El Ladrón after your host?”

  Hayes glanced at Minette, who looked sad and embarrassed. “Because her father is El Jefe.”

  “Oh, good God!” Rodrigo burst out.

  “Yes. It’s complicating things. She didn’t know until he moved in behind Cy Parks’s property a little while ago and started stocking it with his purebred racehorses. He knows Minette’s in danger, and he’s got his people protecting her.”

  “Along with some of Cy Parks’s people, your people and, rumor has it, the police chief of Jacobsville.”

  “That would be largely correct.”

  Rodrigo sighed. “One night we’ll read about a massive shootout in the dark when one side mistakes the other for the enemy.”

  “God forbid!” Hayes exclaimed.

  “I won’t add to the problem by putting any of my people in the field,” Rodrigo promised. “But this could get complicated very quickly, especially if El Ladrón’s agents manage to get their hands on Miss Raynor. He has a reputation for dealing very harshly with prisoners, and he has no respect whatsoever for human life. He kills women and children as handily as he kills men.”

  “Even the late, great and unlamented Lopez drew a line at killing children,” Hayes recalled.

  “His only saving grace, and not much of one at that. But he died and the Fuentes brothers took over. Now it’s El Ladrón running the cartel, and his cousin Charro Mendez who just became mayor of Cotillo through assassination. They’ll take over the drug trade in northern Mexico if they can. Nature does abhor a vacuum.”

  “I’d like to take a vacuum to every drug dealer in Texas and dump them all in the deepest part of the ocean,” Hayes said.

  “I don’t blame you. So would I.” Rodrigo hesitated. “Can you have a look at those logs and see if you can dig out the name of the DEA agent who was with me? I’ve got babysitting duties today while Glory’s taking a deposition,” he chuckled.

  “Not a problem.”

  “Odd that I wouldn’t remember who it was,” Rodrigo added. “It must have been an agent from one of the satellite offices. I know the people I worked with in Houston, and I know most of the agents in San Antonio.”

  “It was a hectic night,” Hayes said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “I have to.” Rodrigo was somber. “We know we’ve got a high-level mole in our organization. We don’t know who he is, or where he is.”

  “I doubt very seriously that he’d be somebody in a satellite office,” Hayes commented. “It would need to be someone with access to sensitive information.”

  “Every office has a computer, and they all contain high-level data,” Rodrigo told him. “But I do agree that it’s unlikely we’d have some low-level person dealing with a drug lord. We found one deep-cover agent working with the Zetas. He was fired, and prosecuted. But we learned that he wasn’t the only one. We’ve never been able to uncover the remaining mole.”

  “Send Cobb after him,” Hayes chuckled. “That man has a talent for digging.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Rodrigo replied. “I had a couple of run-ins with Cobb myself before I knew him well.”

  “You might ask him if he has any ideas.”

  “If he did, he wouldn’t share them. He plays his cards very close to his chest. If you find out anything, let me know, will you? But don’t talk on an open line. I’ll call you back on a secure one, as I did this time.”

  “Will do. Take care.”

  “You, too.”

  Hayes glanced at Minette. “I need to check some records. Want to come down to the office with me?”

  She smiled. “I’ll get my jacket.”

  Chapter 12

  They stopped by Barbara’s Café for lunch. Barbara grinned broadly when they walked in. “Nice to see you out and about again, Hayes,” she told him.

  “It’s nice to be out,” he replied.

  “You look a little glum,” Barbara noted.

  “She won’t let me drive,” he grumbled, wrinkling his nose at Minette, who grinned.

  “Dr. Coltrain won’t let you drive,” she corrected. “I’m just his mouthpiece.”

  He chuckled. So did Barbara.

  “I made a nice lemon cake for dessert today,” Barbara said as she handed them the lunch menu.

  “My favorite,” Hayes replied.

  She grinned. “And homemade rolls with butter.”

  “Now, I’ve been having those nightly,” he mused with a warm glance at Minette. “She’s an incredible cook.”

  “Don’t you put me out of business,” Barbara chuckled again, wagging a finger at Minette.

  “No worries, I’m just a temporary setback,” she said with a grin.

  “Oh, I’m not so sure of that,” Hayes mused, and he looked at her long enough to make her blush.

  * * *

  They had a tasty lunch and then drove over to Hayes’s office. Zack was rummaging through a drawer, muttering when they arrived.

  “What can’t
you find?” Hayes asked.

  “The stapler,” Zack sighed. “It’s the one most essential piece of equipment in this whole office, and the one thing I can never lay my hands on! It’s got legs. It walks!”

  Hayes gave him a long-suffering look. He reached into the “in” tray, lifted the top sheet of paper and uncovered the stapler. “I do that to keep Yancy from carrying it off. He never brings it back.”

  Zack laughed. “Okay. Now I know how to hide it, too. Thanks. What are you doing here today?”

  “Looking for the name of a DEA agent who showed up at the drug bust, the one where the new mayor of Cotillo was holding a gun on me. I disarmed him and arrested him. But he got out on bond and went over the border.”

  “Oh. That one.” Zack gave him a long look. “I had the same thought about that bust, so I pulled up the file.”

  His expression wasn’t comforting. “And?” Hayes prompted.

  “It’s not there.”

  “What?” Hayes sat down at the desk, pulled up his confidential files and tried to open the one dealing with the successful drug bust.

  “It’s empty,” he said, stunned.

  “Yes. Erased, unless I miss my guess,” Zack said grimly. “I was going to call you after lunch.”

  “Who had access here?” Minette asked.

  “All the deputies,” Hayes said.

  “All the deputies, the investigator, the clerk and the sheriff.”

  “The clerk?” Minette pounced on the one person out of the loop. “Don’t you have a new one here, because the last one got sick?”

  Hayes and Zack exchanged glances.

  “Yes, but she’s related to John Hulsey,” Hayes pointed out. “He’s one of our more prominent attorneys. He gave her a wonderful reference.”

  Minette just stared at him.

  Hayes flipped open his phone, pulled up a list of attorneys and called John.

  “Hi, Hayes, you getting better?” John asked.

  “Somewhat. Listen, John, that reference you gave your niece...”

  “My what?” John asked blankly.

  “Your niece, Beverly Sands...”

  “I have a nephew named Charles and a niece named Anthea. Nobody named Beverly...”