Long, Tall Texans: Fearless Part 20

"I'm so sorry," he said, and meant it.

Her hands clenched on the key. "He can't know," she said stiffly.

"Things may change for the better soon," he began.

She looked at him. "He can't know," she emphasized.

"Okay. It's your business. But if you ever need help," he added gently.

She smiled. "Thanks."

CASH GRIER WAS IN CIVILIAN clothes, his ponytail tied neatly with a string as he waited for them on the firing line.

He glanced at Marquez, who was also sporting a ponytail, then at Glory who had her hair in a neat braid. "There's always one oddball in a crowd," he noted, indicating her hairstyle.

"I am not odd," she told him. "I simply have better taste in hairstyles."

Cash scoffed. He aimed at the target and sent six rounds straight into the smallest circle.

"Showoff," Marquez muttered.

Cash grinned. "I'm the chief of police," he reminded the detective. "I have to provide a good example for my men."

"It may take a blackjack to provide a good example for Kilraven," he replied, tongue-in-cheek. "Or didn't you know that he was at the FBI office in San Antonio yesterday pumping Jon Blackhawk for information on Fuentes's distribution network?"

"He what?" Cash growled.

"Who's Kilraven?" Glory wanted to know.

"The officer who saved you from Marco the other day," Cash reminded her.

"Oh. The one who almost crashed the drug deal in Comanche Wells," she recalled.

"Exactly," Marquez added. He glanced at Cash, who looked furious. "You might as well cheer up. You hired him as your gang specialist. Gangs distribute drugs. It isn't that far a leap to investigating Fuentes."

Cash expelled the clip from his automatic violently and refilled it. "I like individual initiative, until it becomes anarchy."

"Kilraven isn't an anarchist," Marquez chuckled. "He's just used to giving orders, not taking them."

"He's in the wrong business," Cash said. "He's not a team player."

"As I recall, neither were you until you started working down here for the police department," Marquez reminded him. "If you could adjust, he can adjust. It's just that you spec ops people don't blend as easily as regular military people do. You're used to working alone or in small groups."

Cash sighed. "I guess so. He did break up a network at the local high school. He borrowed one of the DEA's drug-sniffing dogs and went locker crawling. Ticked off the board of education, and a lot of parents, but he made several arrests."

"The end justifies the means," Marquez chuckled.

Glory was about to protest that when she got dizzy and sat down hard in the gra.s.s.

"Hey, you okay?" Cash asked, concerned, as he squatted just in front of her.

"It's nothing," she said weakly. "Just a little morning sickness."

Cash bit off a bad word. He and Marquez exchanged a look she didn't see.

"He isn't to know," she told Cash. "Marquez has already promised. You have to promise, too."

"He's your husband," Cash emphasized.

She bit down on the sickness and waited until it pa.s.sed. "He's working for Fuentes," she said curtly. "I'm a prosecuting attorney." She looked up. "He isn't to know that, either, no matter what."

Cash was concerned. He didn't dare tell her why. "Secrets are dangerous."

She brushed back a wisp of hair. "So I've been told. This is still privileged information."

"Okay. It's your call," Cash said finally.

She pulled herself to her feet. She couldn't use the cane and fire a pistol, so she'd left her cane in Marquez's truck. She felt pretty steady, all the same. Her hip wasn't as painful as it had been. She did very well unless she overexerted.

Marquez pulled a .32 caliber Smith& Wesson out of his belt.

"A wheel gun?" she exclaimed. "n.o.body uses a wheel gun anymore!" She indicated Cash. "He's got a .40 caliber Glock. You're packing a .45 caliber Colt. And I'm going to learn to shoot a wheel gun? Why don't you give me a big rock and I can practice hitting people in the head with it!"

Cash chuckled. "Because an automatic can fail under certain conditions."

"You can shoot a Glock underwater," she informed him.

"A wheel gun won't jam," he came back. "And besides, it's small. You can fire it with one hand."

"It's a sissy gun," she persisted.

Marquez loaded it and handed it to her. "Don't argue. It's undignified."

She gave him a speaking look.

"Okay," Cash interrupted. "Let's get started."

BY THE TIME SHE DROVE away with Marquez, her hands were swollen and sore. She rubbed them.

"n.o.body said I was going to have to fire the pistol with both hands, one at a time," she muttered.

"That's how the FBI teaches you to do it," he commented with a grin. "What if you get shot in your good hand? You have to be able to carry on with the other."

"I suppose so." She felt her purse. It was heavy. She had a box of ammunition that Marquez had provided, along with the pistol, sharing s.p.a.ce with her cosmetics and wallet. She was thinking about Rodrigo and wondering if she'd have to use the pistol on him. It made her sicker.

"The sooner this case is closed, the better," he said, thinking aloud.

"When it is, my husband may be sharing cell s.p.a.ce with Fuentes." She glanced at his worried expression. "It's true, isn't it?" she asked quietly.

He didn't dare tell her what he knew, and it hurt him. She already had all the stress she could handle, plus some.

"What do I do," she asked, "if Rodrigo calls and asks me to meet him someplace?"

"Don't go," he said.

"That's what I thought you'd say." She looked as miserable as she felt. It was ironic; for the first time in her life, she was crazy about a man, and he turned out to be a scoundrel. It wasn't fair.

"I know," Marquez said. Only then did she realize that she'd spoken aloud.

"Well, we do the job, no matter what the cost, so that we can save a few lives," she said in a low tone.

"That's the idea."

She looked out the window of the truck at the pa.s.sing landscape. "I should have moved to a tropical island someplace and spent my life picking up sh.e.l.ls on the beach."

He laughed. "That's a popular daydream around my office, too, especially when our new lieutenant goes on a rampage over budgets."

She frowned. "I thought that was what your last lieutenant was famous for."

"No, no," he corrected. "Our last lieutenant was a fanatic about our own spending; a real penny-pincher. No, this one goes on rampages to the city fathers about our lack of adequate funding," he said smugly. "He wants us to have better equipment and improved training. He wants me to go to the FBI school at Quanico."

"I'm impressed," she said.

"So am I. They say the course can drive people nuts, but you learn a lot there."

"They'd ruin you," she said wickedly. "You'd come back with all sorts of new ideas to improve your department and we'd find you in a ditch a few days after with a note in your mouth from your lieutenant, offering you up for adoption by any other agency that would have you."

"Spoilsport."

"Exactly who is this guy Kilraven?" she asked suddenly.

He pursed his lips. "He's the new patrol officer here."

Something in the way he said it made her very suspicious. "Oh, no," she said. "You're hiding something. Give it up."

"I'm not hiding anything," he lied.

"I'll ask Cash Grier."

"You'd have better luck asking a clam."

"Tell me. I can keep secrets."

He was amused. His eyes were dancing. "I have it on good authority," he began, "that he was sent down here from Langley..."

"Langley!" she interrupted excitedly.

"Langley," he agreed, "to flush out a potential kidnapper with ties to a government hostile to us in South America. Word on the street is that the kidnapper is very good at his job and has the perfect hostage in mind already. He thinks the hostage would bring him a lot of money from a certain federal agency to whom he is extremely valuable."

"Who?"

"Who, what?"

"Who's the potential victim?"

"We aren't sure," Marquez told her. "But we think he may be a drug agent-the same one who most recently helped shut down Cara Dominguez. He's cost the cartel over a billion dollars in the past few years."

"Wouldn't it suit them better to just kill him?" she wondered.

"I'm certain that's the idea. But they want money, and they think he can be ransomed. They'll kill him, of course, the minute they have the money."

"I thought our government didn't negotiate with terrorists."

"We don't, publicly."

She frowned thoughtfully. "There was a plot just recently to nab Jared Cameron, wasn't there?"

"Foiled by his bodyguard..."

"Tony the Dancer," she provided, grinning. "What a name!"

"It's Danzetta, actually."

"I know, but the other sounds romantic, in a thuggy way."

"It sounds like the mob, which Tony isn't part of. He's actually Cherokee."

"He's sort of dishy."

"You met him?"

She nodded. "He fed us some information about those kidnappers who got caught down here. They also had South American ties, but your D.A. didn't have jurisdiction over a federal crime. He sent them off with a federal marshal to our district U. S. Attorney for trial. They escaped."

"We heard," he replied. He shook his head. "Some case, that. Two guards were charged with aiding and abetting, but they vanished before they could be arraigned."

She glanced at him. "Big players, big money and big trouble for us. They're rumored to still be in the country."

"We heard that, too."

He pulled up at her door. "You keep that gun with you at all times," he cautioned.

"I'll have to, especially when Carla's kids are around. I wouldn't have them hurt for anything."

He smiled. "If you need help, call me, or call Cash. We'll come running."

"I will." The old depression came back. "Thanks, Rick."

He shrugged. "What are friends for?" he asked.