Defender

by Diana Palmer

  * * *

  Judge Comer was more than willing to give Paul a warrant for a wiretap.

  “I can’t comment on an ongoing case, but I remember Wisteria Grayling’s death very well,” the judge said as she signed the warrant for the wiretap and handed it to him. “She was my friend.”

  That was the first time Paul had heard the late Mrs. Grayling’s first name. “Wisteria?” he asked.

  She smiled sadly. “Her mother was as crazy about flowers as she was. She had two daughters. She named them Wisteria and Camellia. But Camellia was killed when she was very young by a drunk driver.” Her smile faded. “Wisteria was young and innocent, and Darwin Grayling was unscrupulous. She was an heiress. His family was wealthy, too, but he wanted more money.” She sighed. “Wisteria wanted children. He didn’t, but in the end he decided that sons would be useful to inherit the money. Wisteria only had girls. He hated them from the day they were born. He’d have kept her pregnant and having more babies if it had been possible, but she’d had high blood pressure and the doctor insisted that another child would kill her.”

  “I thought Grayling had all the money.”

  She shook her head. “He had some. But Wisteria had more. Her family dates all the way back to the Civil War here in south Texas. In fact, she was distantly related to Big John Jacobs, the founder of Jacobsville.”

  “Do her daughters look like her?” he asked, because he’d never even seen a photo of the woman.

  “Isabel is the spitting image of her,” the judge replied. “She’s going to make her mark in the district attorney’s office, if her health permits.”

  “Her health…”

  The phone rang before the judge could elaborate. “Sorry, this is a call I have to take,” she told him.

  “Thank you for the warrant, Your Honor,” he said formally.

  “You’re most welcome.”

  Paul walked out of the courthouse worried. What health problems? Was there something wrong with Isabel? Surely not! She’d been perfectly healthy when he’d known her.

  The worry about her father must have some bearing on it, he decided. No doubt it was something brought on by stress. He went back to his car, but he sat in it for several minutes lost in thought. Poor girls, to have their father arrested for a federal crime. It was already big news on all the media outlets. The tabloids would be on the scent next.

  So it was Isabel and Merrie’s mother who had the most wealth. Ironic, that even with all that money, Darwin Grayling had gone outside the law to add to the family fortune. It would all be for nothing, too, because his ill-gotten gains would be confiscated. Darwin would lose every penny of it. With luck, some of the illegal money would go to law enforcement, to help them shut down similar venues.

  He thought of Isabel and Merrie, so wealthy, who would now be without money. That put Isabel on equal footing with him, wouldn’t it? His heart jumped. He might actually have a chance with her now, with the money that had been such a bone of contention out of the way forever.

  But he’d hurt her so badly that she wouldn’t even speak to him in public. It would take time and effort to get past that prickly exterior, to the woman inside it. He had so many regrets that he couldn’t count them all. He should have handled it differently. He should have spoken to her about it, admitted his feelings, his doubts, his concerns. If he’d been honest in the first place, he might not have had to leave town to spare himself the heartache.

  Not that he’d spared her anything. He was sure that she’d been in agony about the news of his family, his defection without even a goodbye.

  But at least he’d soft-pedaled his reasons for leaving with her father. He would have died to keep her from getting in trouble with Darwin. So he’d spared her that.

  Now he had to investigate the extent of Grayling’s involvement with money laundering, ferret out the root of it and the persons involved. He spared a thought for the girls, who might become a target for disgruntled criminals who wanted revenge on their father.

  He felt a chill go through him. No. Not again. He couldn’t go through it again in one lifetime. The mob got even in ways that decent folk couldn’t even talk about in polite conversation. He knew it all too well.

  There had to be a way to save Isabel and Merrie from retribution. He could call Mikey and see how things stood. Maybe he could get him to bargain with the higher-ups, to explain what the girls had already gone through at the hands of their father. The big guys were human. If you didn’t poke them with sticks, they were remarkably merciful sometimes. He’d made mistakes that had been costly, because he’d poked them. But he was older and wiser now. He couldn’t bear the thought of Isabel in the hands of people who meant her harm.

  He’d talk to the other agents and see if something could be done about protection for them, and for Mandy.

  Yes. He could do that. He would do that.

  * * *

  “Protection?” Jon Blackhawk asked blankly.

  “Yes, protection,” Paul said, his eyes intent. “You know how organized crime works. They get even with the people who cross them. If they can’t find the main guy, some of them have no qualms about going after the soft targets, the families of people who go against them.”

  “I understand that.”

  “So there has to be some way we can get protection for Isabel and Merrie and Mandy,” he insisted.

  “I guess nobody told you,” Jon sighed.

  “Told me what?” Paul asked.

  “That Eb Scott loaned them a couple of his guys. Barton and Rogers. They’re experts in counterespionage. In fact, they both were with secret squads overseas in that capacity. They’re trainers, for Eb’s organization. He sends them as consultants for paramilitary organizations all over the world.”

  “Thank God,” Paul said heavily.

  “I guess you were close to the women. You worked for Grayling for several years,” Jon said.

  Paul nodded. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.”

  “Neither would we. How did it go with the wiretap?”

  “I’ve got two guys in a storeroom near the Grayling properties listening to every word that comes in or goes out over their telephone line,” he said. “They hate each other. I get calls from them, complaining like hell, every two hours.”

  “I know the guys. Pizza,” Jon said.

  Paul’s eyebrows arched. “Pizza?”

  He nodded. “It’s the only thing they both like, and when they’re not hungry, they get along.”

  “Pizza.” He grinned. “What sort do they like?”

  TEN

  Isabel was knee-deep in a file on an upcoming case when she heard footsteps outside in the corridor. Mr. Kemp was in consultation with police chief Cash Grier in his office, along with Sheriff Carson and an agent for Homeland Security. Tera was at lunch with Glory. The administrative assistant who handled all the secretarial work had gone along with them. It was just Isabel in the outer office, at her desk. There were two other assistant district attorneys, but one was at a crime scene and the other was at a local defense attorney’s office, taking a deposition.

  She didn’t look up when the door opened, creaking because the courthouse was almost a hundred years old and the doors were just as old. People came and went all the time. She saved the file she was looking at and lifted her eyes.

  Her face went stark white.

  Paul Fiore was standing there with his hands in his pockets, his black eyes narrow and quiet, focusing on her face. His hair was thick and black, with a few gray hairs tucked in on the sides. His face had a healthy olive tan. He was clean shaven and he looked very neat in his gray suit and patterned red tie. Very FBI. She hated him.

  He shrugged. “I have to see the DA,” he said almost apologetically as he noted the changes time had made in her face. “
You’re thinner.”

  She lowered her eyes to the screen. Her hands were trembling on the keyboard. She was frightened. The sight of him upset her. She couldn’t bear to speak to him, to look at him.

  “He’s in conference right now,” she said curtly.

  “Yeah. I noticed.” He stopped beside her desk, solemn and quiet. “Listen, I know it’s too late for an apology…”

  “I don’t want apologies.”

  His heart jumped. “What do you want?”

  She looked up with cold blue eyes, with nothing in them save vengeance. “I want you, with your heart cut out, hanging from a pike.”

  Both eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

  She’d embarrassed herself. She lowered her eyes to the screen, flushed. She was an officer of the court. She couldn’t believe she’d said such a thing, and to an FBI agent no less, which he was, even if she hated him. And she did.

  He didn’t react. “For what it’s worth, I made a joke out of it. I told him it was just a little flirting…”

  “Because of what you told him, the doctor put in about eighteen stitches,” she said in a voice like death warmed over. “Merrie had sixteen.”

  He didn’t get it. He was scowling. “What?”

  She looked up at him with ice-cold loathing. “A doubled-up belt. He almost killed me. Merrie came running in to try and stop him, and he started on her.” She swallowed, shivering. “He said…that sluts deserved to have the sin beaten out of them,” she added, looking up at him. “He said that no decent woman…would try to entice a married man with a child.” She managed a shaky smile. “Spare the rod and spoil the child, is what they call it. Although I was no child, and neither was Merrie.”

  “They arrested him, right?” he asked, shaken and not reacting well to what he’d just learned.

  “Nobody knew,” she bit off. “He had an unlicensed doctor on the payroll who came in and treated us. Mandy had been sent off on a vacation first, so she wouldn’t know. Wouldn’t have mattered if she had. She loves her brother. Daddy threatened to have him killed.”

  He’d never felt such rage. He’d caused that! “He laughed it off…!” He closed his eyes. “Dear God,” he ground out.

  His reaction surprised her. Paul hadn’t cared. She knew he hadn’t. He’d only been playing around with her, after all. He had a family. A wife and child.

  “Isabel,” he said huskily, trying to find the words.

  Before he could, Blake Kemp’s door opened suddenly and several men came out. Blake shook hands with them, his keen eyes going quickly to Isabel’s pale face and Paul’s distorted one. He said his goodbyes and walked over to Isabel, casting a cold glance at Paul.

  “Have you taken your meds today?” he asked her. He knew she took a new preventative for migraine, a drug that usually worked wonders. She had other meds for the times when it didn’t work.

  She drew in several steadying breaths, her cheeks flushed with color. “Yes, sir.” She forced a smile. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “See that you don’t. Between you and Glory, I’m going to have gray hair in no time. Mr. Fiore, what can I do for you today?” he asked, addressing the FBI agent.

  “I need to speak to you about the Grayling case,” he said, his mind obviously not on what he was saying. He stared at Isabel with horror. She lowered her eyes and went back to work.

  Blake motioned Paul into his office and closed the door.

  “What meds is she taking?” Paul asked at once.

  Blake searched the other man’s wild eyes. “She has migraine headaches. They’ve grown worse with all the stress she’s been under lately. The preventative ones don’t always work, so please don’t upset her if you don’t have to,” he added abruptly as he sat down at his desk. “Good assistant DAs aren’t thick on the ground around here.”

  Paul sat down in the chair Blake indicated. He leaned forward, his head in his hands, his mind reeling from what Isabel had just told him.

  “What about Grayling?” Blake prompted.

  Paul had forgotten why he came. His mind was whirling with the images of what he’d caused. “Her father beat her,” he said in a haunted tone. “I’d just told him I was leaving. I said I had a family up north, that Isabel was just flirting with me—you know, like young girls do. He laughed. He said it was nothing, that he understood. He paid me two weeks’ salary and didn’t ask me to work the rest of the time. He even paid for my plane ticket. He was smiling…” His eyes closed. “He beat her! Because of me!”

  Blake was shocked. The FBI agent seemed supremely cool and collected. He was melting down right there, in Blake’s chair.

  Blake grimaced. He knew things about the FBI agent that Paul wasn’t aware of. Which made what had happened to Isabel all the more tragic.

  “You should have told her the truth,” Blake said quietly.

  “How?” Paul asked, lifting his head. His face was contorted with rage, with grief. “Do you know what Grayling’s worth? One of her father’s men said I had a great thing going because Isabel liked me,” he added with hot distaste. “He said I’d be set for life, that I’d never have to work another day.” His black eyes pinned Blake’s blue-gray ones. “How would you like that? How would you like to be thought of as some woman’s toy boy, even if she didn’t look at you that way?”

  Blake drew in a breath. “I’d run.”

  “Yeah. So I ran.” He scowled. Blake didn’t look threatening or angry. In fact, there was quiet compassion in his eyes. “You know, don’t you?” he added.

  Blake nodded.

  Paul closed his eyes and shivered. “I was new to the Bureau. I was going to clean up the streets of my town. Trenton isn’t large, you know, not like a lot of eastern cities. There was a particular mob boss. I hated his guts, for what he’d done to my family. So I went after him.” He laughed hollowly. “You know, there are consequences for every action you take. I was young and hot-blooded, and I thought I was invincible. Well, maybe I was. But they…weren’t.” His head bent. “Blood,” he whispered. “So much blood. I have nightmares, still, after all this time. I dream they’re calling to me, and I can’t get to them in time…”

  “I served in Iraq,” Blake replied quietly. “A captain, in a special ops unit, on the front lines. My men were like my family.” He hesitated when Paul’s head lifted. “So I know.”

  Paul swallowed. He took a breath and sat up straighter. “I never told her,” he said. “You can’t, either,” he added, his black eyes pinning the other man’s. “I’ll never really get over her. But I’m still not in the market to be any woman’s toy boy.”

  Blake nodded. “It’s a hell of a shame.”

  “Yeah.” Paul smiled sadly. “But I don’t think I’d have the guts to try again, so it’s just as well.”

  Blake didn’t believe him, but he didn’t comment. He leaned back. “So. What did you want to tell me about the Grayling case?”

  “We have a CI in San Antonio who hangs out in bars. You know, where there’s always some stupid guy who wants to off his wife, and he’s eager to hire an undercover FBI agent to do the dirty work for him?”

  Blake chuckled. “I’ve prosecuted at least one of those.”

  “Well, this Confidential Informant overheard a young man discussing business with a known member of the local mob.”

  “What sort of business?”

  “He wanted to hire a cleaner.”

  Blake whistled. “Not surprising, really. There are plenty of men who’d rather kill a woman than pay years of child support…”

  “No. Not a woman. He was talking about having Grayling killed.”

  “He’ll need more money,” Blake said drily.

  Paul shook his head. “There’s more. He thinks Grayling is crazy about his daughters. His mother told him how he protected them from everyth
ing,” he said, and Blake’s expression went very still. “The CI said he was drunk and raging about doing away with Grayling, but doing away with his kids first.”

  Blake caught his breath. “Of all the damned cold, stupid things to do…! I hope you’ve got him under twenty-four-hour surveillance!”

  “That’s the thing,” Paul replied. “He slipped out the back with the man he was talking to. The CI didn’t have a legitimate reason to follow him, and he didn’t want to blow his cover. He was working on another job for us. He didn’t realize until he reported in that what he’d overheard was essential information in a murder investigation.”

  “Damn!” Blake exploded.

  “There’s a good chance that we can pick him back up before he scores,” Paul returned. “But in the meantime, just in case, we need to have somebody watching the women.”

  “They have bodyguards that Eb Scott provided,” Blake began.

  “You don’t understand. We need to have somebody here, in town, with them and somebody at the ranch with Mandy,” Paul emphasized. “She could just as easily be a target.”

  Blake frowned. He was only beginning to realize how unsettled Fiore was. The man was obviously emotionally involved with all three women. It wasn’t just a job to him.

  “You think of them as family, don’t you?” Blake asked abruptly.

  Paul hesitated. Then he drew in a long breath and shrugged. “Yeah. I’ve got nobody left except a cousin in Jersey.” He lowered his eyes. “I spent several years with them. Mr. Grayling was away on business most of the time. I got close to all three of the women.” He looked at Blake. “They were the only family I had. Until I left.” He averted his eyes. “God, if I’d had any idea what sort of person Grayling was behind that mask…!”

  “We all wear masks of one sort or another,” Blake replied. “Grayling had all of us fooled. Well, not Hayes. He and Copper Coltrain knew there was something fishy about Mrs. Grayling’s death, but they were both stonewalled by Grayling and his money.” His pale eyes glittered. “He won’t be stonewalling anyone, ever again. We’ll have his bank accounts enjoined and his property entailed very soon. He won’t have the money to buy any more public officials or stop investigations into his activities. If he’s guilty, and I can’t pronounce judgment on a man who’s only been charged with malfeasance, he’ll pay the price.”