Defender

by Diana Palmer

“You can marry some rich guy and have rich kids,” he said, trying to make a joke of it.

  “I won’t marry anyone. And there will never be kids,” she returned.

  He scowled. “Why not?”

  She lifted her face. “My father was a cold-blooded killer. I won’t pass those genes along to a child.” She moved toward the door.

  “For God’s sake, there are generations of people descended from killers who never break the law!”

  She turned. “It doesn’t matter. I like my job. I’ll put away criminals and help keep the streets clean.” She smiled sadly. “It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.”

  He grimaced. “Isabel,” he said softly.

  The tone of his voice was almost physically painful. “You don’t want me because I’m rich,” she said, and laughed helplessly. “I thought if you lo…if you cared about someone, nothing mattered.”

  He didn’t let a glimmer of emotion show. “So they say.”

  She managed a jerky smile. He’d just admitted in a roundabout way that he didn’t care for her. Certainly, he didn’t love her. She had to accept that and learn to live with it. “I’ll pass on the movie tonight, if you don’t mind. I brought home a dozen case files that need looking through.”

  He only nodded. “I’ll see you around, kid,” he said, and forced a smile.

  “Good night, Paul.”

  He watched her go, her back arrow straight, nothing of her internal agony on view. Well, she probably hadn’t cared that much, anyway, he told himself. She was naive, for a woman her age. Maybe she’d only wanted him because he was familiar to her, because he’d been around so long.

  There were plenty of rich guys in the world. She’d find one someday.

  He wasn’t going to care. He didn’t dare care. His pride wouldn’t let him marry her. He tamped down the anguish inside him. It was as hard as losing Lucy and little Marie. It was like losing them, all over again.

  He went back to his apartment and finished off half a bottle of whiskey before bedtime, and hoped that he wouldn’t get a call on his cell phone before it wore off. It didn’t make him feel much better, but it numbed the hurt long enough to let him get some sleep. He was never going to get over Isabel, no matter how much alcohol he drank.

  * * *

  Sari went to the kitchen to get a sandwich. Mandy had a nice spread laid out on the table, roast beef and herbed potatoes and homemade rolls, but suddenly Sari had no appetite.

  Merrie exchanged glances with her. She knew without a word being spoken what had happened when Paul came to take Sari out.

  “I feel absolutely wicked,” Merrie said, trying to cheer up her sister. “We can buy clothes that don’t fall apart after three washings. We can get new shoes that actually fit. We can take driving lessons and buy a real car!”

  “I wouldn’t mind learning to drive, I guess,” Sari said blankly. “What will we do with the limo?”

  “Give it and the driver to Mandy,” Merrie said gleefully. “We can buy her designer clothes and when she goes shopping at Sav-A-Lot, she can wow all the customers.”

  “Too late, Tippy Grier already did that,” Mandy teased. “But thanks for the thought, sweetie.” She looked at Sari. “You need more than a peanut butter sandwich if you’re going to stay up all night going through case files.”

  Sari made a face. “Sorry. I’m not hungry.”

  Mandy hugged her close. “You can’t fool us. We love you. Paul walked away, didn’t he?”

  Sari broke down. Mandy held her closer while a sad Merrie looked on.

  “There, there,” Mandy said softly. “Some things take time. But it will all come right. You’ll see.”

  * * *

  It didn’t come right. Sari went through the motions of living while people searched for Morris. She was guarded like Fort Knox. But she didn’t care about being watched anymore. She didn’t care about anything. The love of her life didn’t want her because she was wealthy. She didn’t know how she was going to live without Paul, now that she knew what it was like to be held in his arms and have him cherish her. It had been bad enough three years earlier, when he’d just walked away without a word. At least he’d had the courtesy to say goodbye this time.

  A week later, Blake Kemp called her into his office and closed the door.

  “I know, I’m backsliding,” Sari said before he could open his mouth. “I’m…sort of going through a bad patch right now. I’ll get through it.”

  “You need a week off. I’ve called in favors and borrowed an ADA from San Antonio. He’ll be here first thing Monday morning. You go somewhere and deal with this. You’re too valuable an asset to wither away.”

  She sat down and folded her hands in her lap. “I’m so sorry…”

  “We’ve all been there,” he said. “I know how it hurts to lose somebody you love.” Shadows flowed through his eyes briefly. He’d been in love with a local girl who died, years before he married his wife, Violet, and had a child. Everybody knew about it.

  Sari sighed. “Thanks, Mr. Kemp.”

  “They say your friend Paul is setting new records for sleepless nights up in San Antonio,” he replied, watching her jump as she reacted to the words. “He’s volunteered for every stakeout they’ve got. He says he can’t sleep.”

  “He lost his family in a horrible way.”

  “Years ago,” Blake returned. “He lost you this week. That’s what’s killing him.”

  Her pretty face contorted. “He doesn’t want me because I’m worth two hundred million dollars,” she bit off. “I only have value to him if I’m poor and people wouldn’t accuse him of trying to get rich quick.”

  “You know why he’s that way, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” She sounded defeated. “I don’t blame him. I really don’t. But trying to get over him again is killing me. He just walked away last time. He didn’t even say goodbye. I never knew why until he came back into my life.” She looked up. “And now he’s gone again.” She drew in a long, slow breath. “I think I’ll go down to the Bahamas and live on the beach for a few days. Heaven knows I can afford it now.”

  “Your bodyguards will have to go along,” he reminded her. “Remember, Morris is still on the loose.”

  “I’m not taking them along,” she replied. “Merrie and Mandy are far more vulnerable than I am. I can take the corporate jet to Nassau. Nobody will even know I’m gone. I’ll get Mandy to drive me to San Antonio, so even the chauffeur won’t know that I left.”

  He tried to think of a way to stop her, but he couldn’t. “It’s hurricane season,” he said finally. “Be careful you don’t get blown out into the ocean.”

  She smiled. “Will do, boss.”

  He chuckled. “Life goes on, you know,” he added when she was on her way out of the room. “It has to.”

  “I’ll get my act together before I come back.” She lowered her eyes. “Thanks. For the time off, I mean. I know I haven’t been here that long…”

  “You really are an asset,” he interrupted. “I’m not losing you. Go have a holiday.”

  “Yes, sir. I will.”

  He smiled. “Have a safe trip.”

  “Thanks.”

  * * *

  Merrie and Mandy argued. So did the bodyguards. It did no good. After a brief shopping spree in San Antonio with some of her newly acquired wealth, Sari packed and had Mandy drive her to San Antonio, where the corporate jet picked her up. Her heart was breaking. She didn’t know how she was going to go on. But she had to find a way to live without Paul. Maybe a holiday was just the thing to start the healing process.

  She checked in to one of the biggest hotels in Nassau, right on the beach. A gentleman in the lobby was hawking tours to some of the outer islands. It sounded like just the sort of thing she needed to get her mind off her
problems. So she signed up.

  She unpacked and hung her new wardrobe up in the closet. It had been fun to go shopping in San Antonio and buy clothes that actually fit and looked good. She’d enjoyed watching Merrie marvel over new styles with affectionate amusement. Neither of the women had ever had anything that wasn’t cheap. Most of what their father insisted on buying for them was the same dull colors and styles year after year.

  While they’d shopped, Sari had been looking around her, unconsciously hoping for a glimpse of Paul on the streets, in the restaurant where they had lunch with their two bodyguards. But he wasn’t there. She hadn’t really expected him to be. In a way, she wished he’d never gone back to the FBI, never been sent to San Antonio. Losing him for a second time in one lifetime was almost physically painful.

  She had the television in her room turned on, but she wasn’t really paying much attention to it. They were reporting on some unusual weather pattern developing in the Atlantic Ocean, a late-season tropical depression that might have the potential to become a hurricane very soon. They warned viewers to take precautions.

  Sari didn’t even watch it. She went out onto the patio and filled her eyes with the delight of the ocean beyond the bay, the tall, limber casuarina trees dancing in the growing fever of the wind. She closed her eyes and drew in the warm, moist, fragrant air through her nostrils. She smiled. It brought back memories of the only other time she’d been to the Bahamas, as a small child, with her mother and sister. It had been the sweetest vacation of her life. She remembered playing in the sand on the beach, with her laughing mother spread nearby on a colorful towel, amusing little Merrie with plastic toys. It was one of the only times they had, away from her father, before their mother died. It had been a happy time. There were so few of those that Sari treasured each memory.

  It was typical of their father that he’d hidden anything their mother had left them. There had been jewelry handed down in their family for over a hundred years that Darwin Grayling had just sold. He told the girls that possessions were only important if they could be spent or traded for gold. He had no sentiment and he raised them not to have any. It backfired, of course. Out of his sight, they were their mother’s daughters.

  Their mother had been a gentle, sweet, kind woman who loved to cook and do handiwork and listen to classical music. Too soon, they’d lost her. Left with a maniac who yelled and hit them if they dared to mix colors of towels in their own bathrooms, if the towels weren’t straight on their racks. Sari thought, not for the first time, that there had been something seriously wrong with her father, even before he started using drugs.

  She was amazed that none of the women in the household had ever noticed that the man had a drug habit at all. Not that they saw much of him. When he wasn’t away on business, he was traveling with that Leeds woman.

  One of the investigators who came to the house mentioned something about a sick racehorse that had been shipped north for a race. The horse had suddenly died. Darwin had shipped it back home, by train, to be buried because it was one of his favorites, he’d told the track owner. Odd, too, because he didn’t like the horses. He liked the money they won. She recalled that he’d actually killed one of them in a violent temper, like the one he’d been in when he hit Merrie and Sari. Like the one that had resulted in Betty Leeds’s death.

  She frowned thoughtfully. She’d learned through her job that drug smugglers sometimes had cocaine in condoms that they swallowed or even had children swallow, so they could get them through customs. It had turned her stomach, to think a human being would ever endanger a helpless child in such a way.

  But if they didn’t hesitate to do it to small children, what about racehorses? She recalled the horse who’d gotten sick. He’d lost the last five races, and the trainer said he had a healed injury that might slow his time enough to disqualify him in future competitions. Her father didn’t keep animals that didn’t earn their keep. Had anyone bothered to look in the horse’s stomach?

  She got on the phone and called Mr. Kemp at once.

  “I’m sure someone checked that out,” Blake told her. But he frowned. “Bentley Rydel might have been called in to consult by the trainer. Let me call him. I’ll get back to you. Just in case, do you know where they buried the horse?”

  “Yes. There’s a small hollow behind the barn, with a stand of mesquite trees and a big oak. It was somewhere in there. You could find it with ground-penetrating radar.”

  “I’ll make sure they know. Thanks, Sari.” He hesitated. “How’s Nassau?”

  “It’s nice here,” she said. “I’m going on a tour of the outer islands Friday. It sounds like fun.”

  “You do know that there’s a tropical depression bearing down on the Bahamas?”

  She laughed. “Yes, I know. But they’re not sure it will develop into a hurricane, or that it’s going to impact us here. In any case, they’ll tell us how to stay safe.” She paused. “Thanks for worrying, boss.”

  “I don’t like breaking in new help,” he said, tongue in cheek. “Have a good time. See you in a week.”

  “See you.”

  * * *

  She was about to leave on the tour when her cell phone rang. She pushed the button and listened.

  It was Blake Kemp. “You were right,” he told her. “Apparently your father buried the horse with the idea of going back later to recover the stash. Hell of a way to smuggle drugs. The poor horse!”

  “The trainer said that the sick horse was losing races,” she replied. “Daddy never kept anything around that didn’t pay its way.” She hesitated. “I forgot to ask Mr. Abernathy what will happen to the racehorses,” she added sadly.

  “If they weren’t used as collateral for loans or confiscated in some other way from the drug trade, you’ll inherit them. You and Merrie,” he added. “Meanwhile, your ranch manager will provide for them, right?”

  “Right.” She drew in a breath. “Of all the despicable ways to transport drugs. To kill a poor horse and use it like that!”

  “Some people have no honor.”

  “I’m starting to notice that.”

  “Forget about crime and just focus on getting a suntan,” he suggested. “Thanks again for the tip, Sari. I passed it along the chain of command.”

  Kindly, he wasn’t mentioning the FBI, which would mean Paul, who was working the case. Or she thought he was.

  “We had another bit of news,” he added quietly. “Agent Fiore has submitted a request to try out for the FBI Hostage Rescue Team. If he’s accepted, he’ll be leaving San Antonio, I assume.” He paused. “I’m sorry, but I thought it might be easier hearing it from me.”

  She fought the lump in her throat. “It is. Thanks, boss.”

  “Life happens,” he said “But sometimes, unexpectedly, miracles happen. I’m qualified to know,” he added.

  She knew that he meant his Violet and their child. “I’m fresh out of those,” she said sadly. “But life does go on. See you.”

  “Sure.”

  She hung up and cried her eyes out. It was what she’d expected, really. She didn’t think Paul was the sort to settle down, and he certainly wouldn’t want to risk running into Sari very often in the city. He knew how she felt about him. She couldn’t hide it.

  She packed a small bag to carry with her on the tour of the islands, which was to culminate overnight at a private resort. It also featured dinner on a three-masted schooner, which offered a meal fit for royalty.

  She turned off the television and left. It was a shame that she hadn’t left it on for just five minutes longer. A hurricane watch had just been issued for the outer islands.

  SIXTEEN

  Paul was going through the process of applying to the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team. He had a friend who was a sniper in one of the two units, and he hoped that his skills and his physical condition w
ould qualify him for one of the openings.

  It was going to be a long shot. He was in his midthirties. He’d be competing against guys in their twenties, in much better physical shape than he was, with better weapon skills. But he couldn’t stay in San Antonio and risk running into Isabel, as he certainly would if he continued as a special agent. It wasn’t something that his heart could bear. The rigors of training, and the adrenaline rush of standing on ready night and day for assignments in the exclusive HRT would keep him from brooding too much.

  Jon Blackhawk was less than enthusiastic about his plans.

  “You’re one of the best agents I’ve ever worked with,” Jon told him with genuine feeling. “I hate to lose you.”

  “Hey, I might not even get to apply,” Paul said, chuckling. “They don’t pick just anybody for the application process.”

  “You’d have a good shot at it, if that’s what you really want to do,” he added. “You should talk to Garon Grier. He was with HRT for several years.”

  “I’d forgotten that,” Paul said.

  Jon nodded. “The guys who were on his former team came to the hospital when his wife was about to give birth. She had a leaky heart valve and didn’t tell him. Her life was almost taken by a serial killer when she was a little over eight months pregnant. She lived against all the odds.”

  “I’d heard a little about him, but nothing that personal. Poor guy. He seems happy enough now.”

  “A wife, a son, a good job and a ranch in Jacobsville. Not bad at all.”

  Paul knew what the other man was saying. He pretended not to understand. “Anything else in the pipe about Morris?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “We got a tip from a guy who thought he saw him in a restaurant here in the city,” Jon replied. “All our violent-crime agents are leaning on their CIs to see if anybody knows anything.”

  Paul understood the reference to Confidential Informant very well. Every agent had several, usually ex-cons who could be persuaded to feed information back to the Bureau. They were invaluable in tight investigations.