“Stay in the car, Tess. I’m going to check and make sure we’re at the right house.” Brett opened the rental car’s door and stepped out. He paused for a moment to scan the street.
He climbed the three steps to the front porch and knocked. A man answered, and for a second or two, he and Brett exchanged words. A woman came to the door and stepped out on the porch to speak with Brett.
Brett returned to the car. He looked over the street again before opening her door. Then he squatted down to speak to her, keeping the door partially closed. “This character, the son, looks like a gangbanger. Are you sure you want to go in alone?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m here to interview the mom.”
A frown worked its way across his face. “I don’t like this, Tess. Why didn’t you arrange to meet them somewhere public?”
“When you’re talking about your honor roll student son being arrested for armed robbery, you don’t want to go over the details in public. Part of what I do is sort out the frustrated venting from the truth.”
As she exited the car, he positioned his body between her and the open street behind them. For the first time she realized her future husband was protecting her from a bullet. He would actually take one for her if something happened. A knot shoved its way into her throat and tears burned her eyes.
Brett dogged her steps all the way to the front door. He eyed the tattooed man standing at the door.
She rested a hand on Brett’s arm. “I’ll be fine, Brett,” she said, her tone just above a whisper. She stepped toward the storm door and the man opened it. She entered the house and Tess caught the man’s brief smirk before he released the door.
Brett laid a hand on it, preventing it from closing, and stepped into the room.
Damn it, Brett. She could handle this on her own.
“Why did you bring a cop with you?” the man demanded.
A policeman? That would burn Brett’s buns.
Tess had read about Miguel Delgado, Daniel Delgado’s brother. Mostly she’d uncovered information about his arrests and seen his picture. He had been taken into custody a number of times for assault but somehow avoided being prosecuted thus far. His history was written on his face, his body.
At the moment his eyes were narrowed, his body tensed, as if he was gearing up for a physical confrontation.
Brett folded his hands in front of him in a relaxed pose, but his eyes remained on Miguel, the planes of his face controlled.
Tess stepped between the two men. “Hello, Mrs. Delgado. I’m Tess Kelly.” She offered her hand to the woman, who stood to one side. “This is Brett Weaver.” She shot Brett a frown. She wasn’t going to offer any personal information to these people. And saying he was her fiancé would not put a professional spin on this whole situation. “He isn’t a cop. I’ve had some threats to my life recently. He’s here to protect me.”
Miguel’s eyes shifted from Brett, to her, then back again. “What kind of threats?”
“I tripped over some sensitive information, and my car was blown up.”
“That was on the news.” His brows lifted. “They said it was a terrorist attack.” His dark eyes skimmed over her in an assessment. “This thing you discovered, was it true?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” Tess offered the man her hand. “I assume you are Miguel, Daniel’s brother.”
He eyed her hand for a moment, then clasped it briefly.
“Please come and have a seat, Ms. Kelly,” Maria Delgado spoke for the first time, in a husky voice. “You too, Mr. Weaver.”
“I’ll need to stay here, Mrs. Delgado, so I can watch the car from your front window, if you don’t mind.”
“No one will steal your ride from my front door, man,” Miguel said, a jeer in his tone.
“Having it stolen isn’t my concern, Mr. Delgado,” Brett replied, his voice quiet.
Tess caught her breath against the sudden image of her car rising in the air as fire scorched the asphalt beneath it. Would they set another bomb while she and Brett were away from the vehicle? Her fingers tightened around her small notebook.
Brett took a position at the front window and turned his profile to the room.
Tess settled on a couch in the small, neatly arranged living room and faced Maria, a woman in her forties, and her son, a known gang member.
Miguel dove in, swearing his brother Daniel had nothing to do with the market holdup. “It has to be mistaken identity. We all look the same to white people.” The hard-bitten man of twenty had tattoos down one arm and was working on the other. He’d tied his long dark hair back in a ponytail, baring his flat cheekbones and pointed chin. Though he only stood a few inches taller than Tess, his body seemed taller with all its lean angles and ropy muscle. His deltoids and biceps worked as he punched his palm with a fist over and over in a show of agitation.
“Miguel.” His mother’s soft voice held a plea.
In reply he stopped pacing and leaned against the open archway leading into an equally small but clean kitchen.
“Not all white people believe Latinos, Asians, or Blacks look alike, Miguel,” Tess said, her tone even. The sharp predatory gleam in the man’s eyes brought the tiny hairs on the back of her neck to life. She was beginning to regret coming here. She turned toward Maria. “Let’s concentrate on Daniel right now. Tell me about him.”
“He’s a good boy, Miss Kelly. He studies most of the day, then goes to work at the grocery store from six until eleven each night. He had left the store and was walking home when the police stopped him and put him in their car. They wanted to know what he did with the money, but he didn’t have any money, because he wasn’t the man who held up the store.” Tears ran down her face. “Then they came here and searched my house. He was on his way home from the store. He had not been home. Yet, when I got home they were here, tearing my house up, looking for drugs, the money. Anything they could find to arrest him.”
Miguel broke in. “They found nothing because there was nothing here for them to find. Daniel is smart. Doctor smart. Everyone in the neighborhood knows it. He wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his opportunity.”
“What opportunity?”
Maria spoke, the pride outweighing her tears for the moment. “He’s been accepted to University of California on a scholarship. He worked so hard for it. Someone is setting him up to take the fall for this. Maybe someone from another gang.”
“Why did the police think it was him?”
“They wouldn’t tell us.” Bitterness lay heavy in Miguel’s tone.
Tess studied Miguel. Could he somehow be involved in all this?
As though he read her mind, his features hardened. “The police already checked me out. I was at a friend’s house working on his ride.”
If eyes could have been bullets, she’d have been a dead woman. He wouldn’t attack her here in front of his mother, but he might later if she pissed him off. Goose bumps marched up her arms, but she tried to ignore them.
“Could they be using Daniel to draw you in, thinking you know who held up the store?”
Miguel shook his head. “They’re wasting their time. I don’t know who did it. And there’s no word on the street. Whoever did this is keeping quiet. But they’ll talk, they always do. If I find out who he is—”
Tess cut in. “You’ll go straight to the police. Getting the real criminal arrested may be Daniel’s only chance to clear his name.”
“After I beat the fuck out of him,” Miguel said beneath his breath.
“Have you gotten Daniel a lawyer, Mrs. Delgado?”
“He’s worthless.” Miguel’s rage rasped with every syllable. “He went into the interrogation already wanting Daniel to take a plea deal before they’d even charged him. Just because his skin isn’t as white as his, because of the neighborhood we live in, he assumed he was guilty.”
Tess’s wasn’t naive enough to interpret everything from their perspective. Buy having spoken to the lawyer herself, she ha
d her doubts, too. She’d check as many facts as she could, and maybe everything would unfold before she wrote the story. But there was enough doubt in her own mind that she felt obligated to look into it. She reached for her billfold and pulled out a business card. “I can’t tell you what to do, but this lawyer might be able to help. Call him and see what he says.”
Mrs. Delgado bent her head. “Gracias, Miss Kelly.”
She spent some time getting names of people she could contact who could tell her about Daniel.
“I need to talk to some of the people you’ve mentioned who worked with Daniel, Mrs. Delgado. And I’ll certainly interview the people whose names you’ve given me as references. I have to have corroboration for everything I put in my article.”
“Will you call me and tell me what you find out?”
“Good or bad. Yes, I will. Also, I’d like to speak with Daniel. If he’ll allow me to interview him.”
“I will ask him this afternoon.” Maria said.
Tess rose to leave. “You have my number. Let me know what he says. I’ll speak with you soon.”
Miguel was suddenly in her personal space, his brown eyes emotionless and flat, like a shark’s. Tess read every year he had spent in the gang, every violent act he had committed, on his face. His voice was almost a whisper. “My mother believes you will help my brother. I do not hold out such hope. You fuck my brother with your story, and you will be sorry.”
Aware of movement and little else, Tess staggered back when Brett shoved an arm in front of her to create a space between her and Delgado, every muscle in his body poised for violence. She couldn’t read his expression from her position, but his word’s held an ice-cold conviction. “Ms. Kelly is under my protection, Delgado. You may be a big fish in this little pond. But you’re just another threat to me. You come anywhere near her, and I will take you out.”
“Miguel, please.” Maria grasped her son’s arm, her eyes wide with fear. “She is trying to help Daniel.”
Afraid for Brett more than herself, Tess’s stomach clenched and prickles of fear raced across her chest and down both arms. She grasped his jacket, but remained focused on Miguel. To show fear would only feed the violence inside him. “I’m not out to screw your brother, Miguel. I just report the facts. Good or bad. If he’s innocent, that’s what I’ll report. If he’s guilty, that will be on him.”
“Stay behind me, Tess,” Brett said, backing toward the door. Though both hands remained at his side, he was poised to deal with Delgado.
“Wait,” Miguel said. He spoke to his mother. She went to a small cabinet in the room and returned to him with a pad of paper and a pencil. He wrote something on the pad and tore it off. Maria approached them with the sheet.
“Call that number if you need help,” Miguel said.
Tess treated the note as if it might be laced with poison. He was threatening her one minute and offering her his number the next. She looked at Miguel. “Why?”
“You did not think you were going to walk into my mother’s house, the big time newspaper reporter, and be trusted without being tested, did you?” He shrugged. “If someone is trying to kill you, it usually means you’ve fucked them, stolen from them, or discovered information dangerous to them. You may run into the same problem clearing my brother.”
Tess sighed. Why did everyone assume that reporters were like private detectives? The days of Bernstein and Woodward were long gone. In today’s world no one could pass gas without five other people reporting it online if it was the least bit newsworthy. And worse yet, print papers rarely got the scoop.
Brett opened the door and stepped out.
He grasped her arm and dragged her close while he searched the street and surrounding area. His jaw pulsed, suppressed emotion in the hardened planes of his face, and his eyes blazed a pale, accusing blue. “Stay behind me until we get to the car.”
She followed him as he instructed, settled back into the car, and fastened her seat belt.
Brett got in, jerked his seat belt into place, and started the car. His movements measured, careful, he backed the car out of the drive, shoved it into gear, and stomped on the gas.
In her side view mirror, she could see Miguel standing on the sidewalk, watching them drive away, his arms folded across his chest.
Chapter Eight
‡
Brett struggled to control the rage that lashed and beat inside his skull. He was incensed with Miguel Delgado for jerking them around with his street gang bullshit. And he was mad as hell at himself for allowing the man to get so close to Tess. And he was furious with Tess for putting them both in the situation for the sake of an interview that could have been conducted in a public setting.
Neither one of them had spoken a word since leaving the house. At the moment he needed it to stay that way. At least until he had his temper under control.
A minute later Tess said, “I need to stop at the grocery store where Daniel worked, and afterwards go to Scribe Mercy Hospital to check on someone.”
“Anyone I know?” Brett asked.
“No. A girl who was held prisoner by a human trafficking ring for ten months.”
“Jesus—” Brett breathed, and rubbed a hand over his hair.
“She was in pretty rough shape when I interviewed her a couple of days ago.”
“This crime beat job is different from what I expected, Tess,” he said, approaching the subject as if it was a land mine they’d already stepped on and were waiting for it to blow.
“It’s not normally like this, Brett. I get there and scope out the scene, interview one or two bystanders while the police are doing their thing. Then I wait for the information officer to release a statement, go back to the newsroom and check to see if anything further has come in. If it hasn’t, I write the story. It’s not usually so—” she hesitated to find the right phrase, “in your face.”
“You don’t need the added stress of this Delgado thing after having your car blown up. That guy back there is dangerous.”
“I think I got that, Brett.”
At her wry, sarcastic tone, he glanced at her. Damnit. “What would you have done if I hadn’t been there?”
“He wasn’t going to attack me in front of his mother. He has more respect for her than that.”
“How the—” he cut himself off. “You don’t know what he would have done for certain, Tess.”
“He was trying to intimidate me, but he wasn’t gearing up for a physical confrontation like he was with you when we first arrived.”
Brett whipped the car into an empty space between cars on the street and parked. A number of foul swear words worked their way through his mind. Since he and Tess had gotten together, he’d made an effort not to cuss so much in front of her and the other ladies in his life, but the need to voice his displeasure was hard to stifle. “I wasn’t going to stand around outside while you were in the house with a violent criminal.”
“I understand. And I appreciate your need to protect me. And I love you for it. But this is what I do, Brett.”
He understood what she was saying. She had to accept that he faced danger on a daily basis. But she put herself at risk for a string of words people would read and dismiss in a matter of days.
“The girl who’s in the hospital, I wrote a story about how these two monsters took her off the street and forced her into prostitution. They beat her brutally and often, raped her, then sold her to other men. Those men abused her so badly she cut off her emotions till she had no will of her own.”
She half turned to him, her gaze piercing. “If telling her story keeps one girl from walking down the street at night and putting herself at risk, then it was worth whatever I had to do to get the story and tell it. If that story encourages judges to pass harsher sentences on these animals, then I did my job. If that story encourages one policeman to really look at the woman he’s arresting for prostitution and ask if she needs help, then something good came out of a horrible situation.”
Tess
sat back again, taking a deep breath. “If this woman was brave enough to tell me her story, then I had to be brave enough to write it. It was horrible and ugly and heart-wrenching. And it needed to be told so all the people who read it and are touched, or horrified, or sickened by it, might gain some understanding. Maybe even do something about it.”
He threw up an impatient hand in surrender. “Okay…all right…I get it. I’m not trivializing what you do.” But he had been. “The thought of you putting yourself at risk drives me crazy. You’re working three very controversial stories at the same time. Dangerous stories. And if I weren’t here with you…you’d be doing it alone.” He swallowed against the rush of emotion that lodged in his chest. “I don’t want to lose you, Tess. The thought of that…” He shook his head. He couldn’t go there.
“But you are with me, Brett.” She grasped his arm and, laying her hand against his cheek, turned his face so he would have to look at her. Her brown gaze, dark with emotion, delved into his. “I have to live knowing you face danger every day. The least you can do is accept that on rare occasions I may have to do the same. Langley realizes Trish has to deal with enraged parents when their children are taken from them. Hawk has to accept Zoe works with the stressed-out post-traumatic patients who may not be stable. My job for the most part is trying to liven up dry information released by the public relations officer at the police station. But when a story falls into my lap I’m not going to ignore it.”
With every word, the nails of worry and concern were hammered into his brain and heart—worry about her, Zoe and Trish. Everything she said was true. He and the other men couldn’t do a damn thing to protect the ones they loved from what they encountered in their work. Hell, Zoe had almost been killed at the physical therapy wing at the hospital. Brett rested his wrist across the top of the steering wheel. If he loved her, he had to accept this and learn to live with it.
The alternative wasn’t even something he could contemplate. And it could be worse. She could be pushing to do freelance assignments.
Building Ties (Military Romantic Suspense) (SEAL Team Heartbreakers Book 4) Page 8