Defender

by Diana Palmer

  “We’ll get him on racketeering charges, if that investigation pans out, and federal crimes carry a higher penalty than state or local ones do.”

  “Yes. There’s also the murder investigation,” Blake added.

  “How’s that going?” Paul asked.

  “Copper ruled it a homicide. We’ve got investigators on it already.”

  “How did you know so quickly?” Paul wanted to know.

  “The victim allegedly had two breeding stallions in the same corral in a thunderstorm to work them.”

  Paul rolled his eyes. “I don’t know much about breeding stock, but even I know that you don’t put two stallions in the same ring. And nobody sane puts any horse out to work in a corral during a thunderstorm.”

  “Grayling owns breeding horses, doesn’t he?” Blake asked.

  “Thoroughbreds,” Paul said. “Funny, I never connected it when I worked for him. The trainers always made sure the horses were taken care of and plenty of stable boys were around when Mr. Grayling went out to inspect them.”

  “There was one incident that we know of, from years ago,” Blake recalled. “A horse had to be put down. We heard about it from a man who used to work for Grayling. He said it was badly injured. The rumor was that somebody had taken a blunt object to it. Hayes tried to investigate but nobody would talk to him. In fact, the man who talked about it disappeared. Nobody knows where he went.”

  “Maybe he never went anywhere,” Paul replied.

  “That’s what we thought. But a man with three hundred million dollars can buy a lot of silence from people in authority,” Blake muttered.

  “Not down here he couldn’t.” Paul chuckled.

  Blake smiled. “Yes, Jacobs County has some of the most incorruptible public officials in Texas,” he agreed. “Hayes hated to see that investigation come to nothing. He runs horses at his own place. He and Minette have palominos. They love them.”

  “I used to see them from the road,” Paul recalled. “I had to go by their place sometimes on my way to pick up Merrie at school.”

  “She could be famous if her father would let her exhibit her artwork,” Blake said quietly. “She’s incredibly talented.”

  “Yes, she is.” He stared at the floor. “What about Isabel?” he added, looking up. “Migraines and a job like this are a bad mix.”

  Blake sighed. “Glory has high blood pressure, but it doesn’t stop her from coming in to work every day. In fact, she used to work for the DA in San Antonio. This is less stressful than that job. And she doesn’t have to hide out from drug dealers trying to kill her.”

  “Not many of those left, from what I hear, thanks to Eb Scott and Hayes Carson.”

  Blake smiled. “Well, Hayes is married to Minette, whose real father is known to one and all as El Jefe, one of the biggest drug dealers in the country. Not that he ever breaks the law in south Texas,” he added with a grin. “He wouldn’t be able to visit his new granddaughter.”

  Paul smiled. “Little girls are sweet.” His face closed up. He was remembering his own little girl. He stood up. “I have to get back to work. We’ll be keeping an eye on Mrs. Leeds’s son. But if you have any contact with Eb Scott, ask him as a personal favor to me to send somebody to take care of Mandy.” He swallowed. “She’s one of a kind.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  * * *

  Paul stopped at Isabel’s desk on his way out. There were two other women in the office now, as well as a man.

  “Could I see you for a minute?” he asked.

  Her teeth ground together. “I’m sorry. I’m quite busy.”

  “Sorry,” he said, as he bent down and picked her up in his arms. He started out of the room, carrying her. He glanced at the other workers, whose jaws were dropping. “No problem, I’m just practicing hostage rescue. It’s just a drill. Pay no attention.”

  There was muffled laughter as he carried her out of the office and down the hall.

  “You…put me down…this instant!” she panted, struggling in his arms.

  “You’re going to make me drop you, then I’ll have to arrest myself for battery,” he muttered. “I just want to talk. All you had to do was say yes.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you!”

  “Yeah, I know. I pretty much screwed up everything.” His jaw was taut. His teeth were clenched so hard that he hoped he didn’t crack them as he walked out of the courthouse toward his car.

  Two men in camo stepped in front of him.

  “Sir,” the broader one began.

  “Special Agent Paul Fiore, FBI,” he interrupted. “My ID’s in my left inside jacket pocket, next to my sidearm. But if you reach for it, you’ll cause me to drop Miss Grayling.” He gave the men a long stare. “She’s a material witness in a murder investigation and I need to interrogate her.”

  “Sir,” the broader one began again, visibly confused, “there’s a conference room in the DA’s office…”

  “They’re conferring in it,” Paul said. “Besides, their air-conditioning sucks. My car’s much cooler. Look at this poor woman—she’s sweating!”

  Which drew their eyes to a fuming Isabel, who was actually doing exactly what Paul said she was.

  “Put me down!” she told Paul.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Paul agreed. He started walking again.

  “Put her down, sir,” the broader man ordered.

  “Didn’t we just have that argument?” Paul asked over his shoulder. “Come on, guys. Ten minutes. I just want to eat a little crow. It’s going to taste bad enough. Don’t make things worse, okay?”

  The men followed them, still unsettled.

  “Look, just stand out here and make sure nobody tries to hurt her while we talk. That’s not so much to ask, right?” Paul murmured. He opened the back door and slid Isabel into the seat. Then he slid in beside her.

  “You’re not going anywhere, right?” the taller man asked.

  “Not one step,” Paul assured him. “And if she screams, you’re right here. Of course, I belong to the FBI. No funny business here.” And he slammed the door.

  “You are the most maddening…” Isabel began, exasperated.

  Paul leaned back and stared at her, all the humor gone out of his face. “I made some damned stupid decisions,” he said abruptly. “You paid for them and so did I. I never meant for your father to hurt you. I never thought he would. I was trying to find an easy way out for both of us.” He looked away. “I thought I had.”

  “Sure you did,” she muttered, sweeping back loose strands of red-gold hair that had escaped from her tight bun. Her blue eyes were icy. “You were married…!”

  “That was a lie. My wife and I…are no longer together,” he replied quietly. “There was no chance of my going back to her. Ever.”

  She was at a loss for words. She just sat there, stunned.

  He glanced at her. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Isabel, but I couldn’t stay. We were too volatile together. You were painfully naive, honey,” he added quietly. “And I still have a little honor left. I don’t seduce virgins.”

  Her face flamed. She averted her eyes.

  He drew in a long breath. “I thought I was doing the right thing. After what happened in my room that night…” He swallowed. “I had to have a reason to leave suddenly. So I told your father a lie. A little white lie. I never dreamed that he’d hurt you and Merrie.” His eyes closed. “God, I’m sorry. So sorry!”

  She was shaken. She couldn’t find the words she wanted to say. “You had a child…”

  He turned to her, his eyes so full of pain. “I don’t talk about her.”

  “Oh. I’m so sorry.” It must have been a painful divorce, she thought. Maybe he didn’t have visitation rights for his child.

  “I hope your damned father resists
arrest when they take him back in for trial,” he said through his teeth.

  “Paul!”

  He couldn’t bear the thought of Isabel being beaten, almost killed, because of what he’d said to Darwin. “We go through life from tragedy to tragedy, picking up the pieces in between. But we never get to put them back together again. Life is so damned hard.”

  She shifted on the edge of her seat. “Yes.”

  He glanced at her. “And Merrie. God love her.” He smiled sadly. “Of course she’d have tried to save you.”

  She nodded. “Mandy didn’t know until weeks later. We were afraid to tell her, because he made threats to us, about what he’d do to her if we talked.” She bit her lower lip. “He actually told me when he was…beating me…that he’d killed people before and made it look like an accident. He said that everybody has people they’d do anything to protect. It’s how he controls people who work for him.”

  “I never saw that side of him,” Paul said quietly.

  “He wears a mask,” Isabel returned curtly. “Most people never see what’s beneath it, unless they cross him. Like that Leeds woman did. They say her poor son is out of his mind with grief.”

  “So we hear.” He wasn’t going to tell her the rest. She’d have enough protection that the boy would never be able to harm her or Merrie or Mandy.

  “He brought the Leeds woman to the house from time to time. They’d go in his office and talk. She never liked us. But they say she loved her son very much.”

  “She must have. She made sure he had money, apart from what was seized when her part in the money-laundering cover-up was discovered.”

  “Are they doing that to Daddy’s money, too?” she asked.

  “Trying to,” he replied. “It takes time to build a case.”

  “Meanwhile, he’s on the loose somewhere, thinking up ways to hurt more people,” Isabel said darkly.

  “He isn’t at the house?” he asked.

  “No. We haven’t seen him for days. He came raging in and ran headlong into Eb Scott’s two guys.” She laughed softly. “He made a sudden stop, then left.”

  “I imagine there was more between the sudden stop and him leaving,” Paul noted.

  “Yes. He told me and Merrie to get out and I told him we weren’t going anywhere,” she recalled.

  “What?” He smiled, almost tenderly. “You actually talked back to him?”

  She smiled back. It was almost like old times, exchanging confidences. “I did. I reminded him that Mama left us half the house and its furnishings. It’s worth quite a lot of money. He does have control of it. He used it for collateral in loans and made us sign papers to give permission. But that means he can’t sell it, either. Mama wouldn’t have liked what he did with the money she left us.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He said he put it in a trust until we’re thirty years old. So we had no way to run from him, no way to escape. Merrie and I thought how wonderful it would be, to just go for a walk and not have bodyguards watching every step we took.” She looked up at him. “We’ve been under surveillance our whole lives.”

  “Under surveillance.” He suddenly pulled out his cell phone. He punched in numbers and waited. “Gaines. It’s Fiore. Listen, did anybody check if there was a memory stick in those surveillance cameras at Grayling’s house and at the Leeds woman’s house?…Not yet? How about having somebody go out there and look, before Grayling thinks to check it himself?”

  He nodded and smiled. “Good man…What?…Yeah, it worked. I bought two pizzas. Well, the guys didn’t like the same stuff. One didn’t even want cheese…I know, right? Insane!…Thanks. You, too.”

  He hung up.

  “Pizza?” Isabel asked.

  “We’ve got these two guys doing surveillance. They hate each other. They hate each other more when they’re hungry. So you buy pizzas for them and they get along.”

  She laughed.

  “Remember that,” he instructed. “It might come in handy one day, if you have to send people to stake out suspects for you.”

  “I’m just the new kid right now,” she protested. “There’s plenty of stuff to learn.”

  “You’ll do fine. But you remember to take those meds,” he said firmly. “Merrie’s got nobody but you. Neither does Mandy.”

  “I will. But migraines aren’t fatal, you know. They’re just uncomfortable.” She didn’t add that people who had migraines were much more susceptible to strokes. He probably knew. She’d had only one migraine while he was working for her father, and it hadn’t been a bad one. Since she’d graduated from law school, and gotten this job, they’d been worse and closer together.

  He looked down at her hand on her skirt. It was thin, like she was. He wanted desperately to clasp it in his and bring it to his mouth. But it was far too soon for anything like that. He had to go slowly, carefully. She was still a millionaire heiress and he was still a penniless kid from the streets of Jersey.

  “Nice ring,” he commented when she seemed puzzled by his scrutiny of her hand.

  “This?” She smoothed her other hand over it. “It belonged to my great-great-grandmother. She came to Texas in a covered wagon in 1901 with her husband and two little boys. She left a diary, which I also have. Mama willed them to me. She wanted Merrie to have the diary, but Merrie said it went with the ring and I should have it, since she had our great-great-grandfather’s pocket watch.” She looked up at him. “He was a Texas Ranger.”

  “Well!” he said, impressed.

  “We had another great-great-grandfather who was a horse thief,” she followed up. “They hanged him on one of those big oak trees in downtown Jacobsville. It’s over a hundred years old.”

  “I think I have a couple of horse thieves in my ancestry, too. And at least one pirate.”

  “Was he Greek?”

  He smiled. It flattered him that she remembered details about his family. “Yeah. He ended up with fishing boats. Never was sure if they were really his to begin with,” he added with a grin.

  Suddenly, there was a tap at the window.

  Paul opened the door. The key was in his pocket, and it wouldn’t lower the power window without being in the ignition first.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  The taller bodyguard bent down. “Mr. Kemp says that you have to give his assistant back or he’s calling Cash Grier back here to talk to you.”

  Paul chuckled. “Hey, I’m not that brave. She can go.”

  He got out of the car and helped Isabel out. He held her hand just a few seconds too long. The look on his face was one she wondered if she’d ever puzzle out. He looked…anguished, for those few seconds.

  “If you hear anything at all…” he began.

  “I know what to do,” she replied.

  “And thanks for the tip,” he added, smiling. “Even us hotshot FBI agents overlook a few minor details.”

  She smiled back. “Okay.”

  He watched her go back inside with eyes that absolutely ate her up, every step of the way.

  The bodyguards exchanged glances.

  Paul turned to them. “I hope your boss owes the DA a favor,” he said heavily. “Because Mandy won’t have anybody watching out for her.”

  They were both laughing.

  “What?” Paul asked.

  “We have a newbie who just joined. Eb’s mad at him. So he sent him over to Graylings to keep an eye on Mandy.”

  “Mad at him? Why?”

  “He bought Eb’s daughter a rabbit.”

  “So?”

  The broader one chuckled. “So Eb’s allergic to rabbits. And she wanted it to live in the house. No way was he going to refuse her.”

  “Did he know Eb was allergic?”

  “He does now,” the taller one said, laughing.
>
  Paul smiled sadly. “My kid had a rabbit…” He broke off, then checked his watch. “I’ll get back to San Antonio. Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Keeping her safe,” he said, with a glance toward the courthouse. He gave them a wry smile and got in his car.

  He was driving away before the tall bodyguard spoke. “You hear about what happened to his kid?”

  “Yeah,” the broader one said. His face was drawn. “Hell of a thing.”

  “Hell of a thing,” his partner agreed.

  * * *

  Isabel flushed as she sat back down at her desk, keenly aware of the interest Paul had evoked by carrying her out of the building.

  Blake Kemp didn’t say a word. He just lifted an eyebrow and smiled. Isabel ignored him.

  When she got home, she changed into jeans and a T-shirt, then went down to the kitchen to see if she could help Merrie and Mandy with the evening meal. They were all in there, the bodyguards, as well. They all stared at her and grinned when she walked into the room.

  Isabel threw up her hands. “Is nothing sacred?” she asked, exasperated, as she glared at the two men. “You told them, didn’t you?”

  “Hey,” the taller one said, “we don’t get out much.”

  “He carried you out of the building?” Merrie exclaimed.

  “I wouldn’t talk to him,” Isabel replied.

  “I guess he does need to know things. For the case, I mean,” Mandy agreed. She tried not to look pleased. She loved Paul. She’d been talking to him all along, unbeknownst to the girls. She didn’t want them to think she was a traitor, but she was very fond of the ex-bodyguard.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Isabel said at once.

  “Have they found Daddy?” Merrie asked.

  Isabel had a sudden thought. She held up her hand and ran for her purse. She pulled the jammer out and put it on the table.