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“Why? You lace it with arsenic so you can have my job?” Justin teased the stern-faced secretary he’d inherited along with the sheriff’s office. Somewhere between the age of fifty and eighty, the woman had served more than twenty-five years under a string of Mission Creek sheriffs. “You don’t have to kill me to get the job, you know. I keep telling you, the folks in this town would vote you in over me in a heartbeat.”
“And why on earth would I want your job?”
“You’d get to wear a badge,” Justin offered.
The woman didn’t even crack a smile. “I got all the jewelry I want already. Besides, somebody has to keep this place running, and it don’t look like that person’s going to be you if you keep spending all your time traipsing from one end of the county to the other.”
“You got me there,” Justin told her, and took a sniff of the coffee.
“Heard there was quite a turnout for the dedication of the maternity ward at the hospital last night.”
“Yeah, I think half the county was there. You should have come,” Justin told her.
Audrey Lou sniffed. “And why would I want to spend my evening eating puny little sandwiches, drinking watered-down punch and listening to long-winded speeches from politicians when I could eat a nice hot meal, put my feet up and watch my favorite crime show?”
“When you put it like that, I guess I can’t think of any reason.” Justin certainly wished he had skipped the ceremony last night. If he had, he wouldn’t have seen Angela and might have actually managed to get some sleep. As it was, he’d barely slept a wink. Soured by thoughts of Angela, he stared at the inky contents of his cup. “So what’s wrong with this stuff?”
“That boy you hired made it about an hour ago, and he put enough grinds in the thing to make six pots.”
“Strong, huh?”
“I wasn’t about to drink any to find out. I was waiting for a free minute so’s I could come in here and throw the stuff out and make a fresh pot. But since you’re here, you can do it. I’ve got work to do.” And on that note, she turned and exited the little kitchen.
Desperate for the caffeine, Justin took a sip. And he nearly gagged. Audrey Lou had been right. While he generally liked his coffee black and strong, he drew the line at drinking brew that could pass for tar. Not that the extra caffeine would hurt, Justin admitted as he went about the business of measuring coffee grinds and water. After his chat with Hawk, he’d driven around and thought about what his brother had said. Hawk’s remark about pride had hit close to the mark. Too close.
More than once after Angela had left him, he’d missed her so much that he’d almost gone after her—until pride had kicked in and he’d abandoned the idea. Hawk had also hit the nail on the head about his feelings for Angela. Seeing her with Ricky had made him jealous, he admitted. And it had been that jealousy that had been the driving force behind his anger toward her last night.
As he waited for the coffee to finish dripping, Justin grimaced as he remembered swinging by the town’s two hotels, intent on apologizing to her for his behavior. Only there had been no Angela Mason registered at either establishment. He’d gone home to the ranch wondering if she’d driven back to San Antonio or if she was spending the night with Ricky Mercado. And it had been thoughts of Angela with Ricky that had kept him awake most of the night. Sometime during the early hours of the morning, he’d finally fallen asleep, only to dream about her. The way she’d looked at him on their wedding day in the small church when she’d pledged her love. The sweet, shy smile that curved her mouth on those mornings when he’d awakened her with a kiss. The way she’d gasped his name as he filled her when they’d made love. The way he’d felt when he’d been inside her.
Justin scrubbed a hand down his face. Was it any wonder he’d awakened with a dull, throbbing ache in his head and a painful hard-on for his ex-wife?
“Sheriff, the mayor’s on the line for you and your sister Rose wants you to call her, something about a dinner party,” Audrey Lou told him.
“Thanks,” Justin said, and forgoing the coffee, he headed for his office.
More than an hour later when Justin hung up the phone, the dull throbbing in his head had escalated into a bruiser of a headache. And he wasn’t at all sure how much of it had to do with his sleepless night or the workload. Rubbing the muscles at the base of his neck, Justin sat back and stared at the piles of paperwork and messages that covered his desk.
Maybe now was a good time for that coffee, Justin decided. After pouring himself a mug of the no-longer-fresh brew, he went back to his desk and began sorting through the endless reports and files and messages. For a county that he had always considered small by Texas standards, Mission Creek had certainly been a hotbed of activity lately, he thought as he sorted the open case files jammed with reports.
He opened the file containing a report on the abandoned baby girl named Lena who had been found on the Lone Star Country Club’s golf course last year—the same little girl who had since been kidnapped and he had yet to find. Picking up the snapshot of the smiling sweetheart that Josie Carson had taken only days before the kidnapping occurred, he traced her tiny face with his fingertip. Once again he felt that familiar pang as he thought of the little angel being snatched from the Carsons. And on the heels of that ache came frustration and anger. Anger with the person who had taken her. Anger with himself for failing to find her. Whooshing out a breath, Justin put the photo aside and reminded himself that as sheriff he couldn’t afford to let his emotions become involved. Anger and resentment weren’t going to help him find Lena. Only solid skills and dogged determination would do that.
And he would find her, he promised himself. He had to. Because it sure didn’t look like the FBI was going to be able to do it. If anything they only hampered his own efforts.
Thumbing through the file, he scanned the DNA tests that had been run on select members of the country club and the final paternity test that had revealed Luke Callaghan as the girl’s father. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how Luke must feel, returning home from some sort of business trip out of the country during which he’d been blinded. And then discovering he not only had a daughter he knew nothing about, but that the girl had been kidnapped. What still puzzled him was how Luke could be the baby’s father and not know who the mother was. Justin rubbed a hand along his jaw. Had it been any other man, he’d have sworn the guy was lying. But not Luke Callaghan. He didn’t doubt for a second that Luke had told him the truth.
For the next twenty minutes Justin fielded calls while he went over the notes on Lena’s kidnapping. And once again he found himself with more questions than answers. Closing the file, he picked up the next folder in the stack and sighed at the sight of the label that read “Bridges, Carl—Murder Case.” He didn’t even have to open the file on this one because he could recite the details of Judge Carl Bridges’s murder from memory. The fact that the case remained unsolved gnawed at him almost as much as Lena’s kidnapping. As he made a note to follow up with a call to Dylan Bridges that evening, he snatched up the ringing telephone.
When he hung up the phone fifteen minutes later, Justin reached for the next file, which was not only the oldest working file in his office, but the thickest by far because it contained information on the Mercado crime family. Since Carmine Mercado’s death eight months ago and the shifting of power within the organization to Frank Del Brio, Justin hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something was brewing within the family ranks. From all accounts, Johnny Mercado had been acting strangely of late. That scene he’d witnessed between Johnny and Del Brio last night attested to that fact. But it was more than that, he admitted. There was something about that look in Johnny’s eyes, his sudden spirit, that nagged at him like a splinter under his skin. Maybe now that Ricky was back in town, he should pay the younger Mercado a visit, ask him what was going on between his father and Del Brio just so Ricky knew that the sheriff’s office had an eye on them.
And what if Angela is with him?
Justin gritted his teeth at the taunting voice in his head and shut his eyes to block out the images of Angela with Ricky last night.
“Sheriff,” Audrey Lou called from the doorway, her voice impatient. “Something wrong with your hearing, son? Bobby’s on the line for you. Said it’s important.”
“Wainwright.” Justin all but barked out his name as he grabbed the telephone.
“I’m afraid I’ve got bad news, boss.”
Just what he needed, Justin thought. “All right, spit it out.”
“I lost Del Brio.”
Justin swore. “What happened?”
“He pulled a switch on me.”
“I told you not to let him out of your sight.”
“And I didn’t,” Bobby contended. “I tailed him to Mercado Brothers Paving and Contracting this morning just like you told me. And I’m positive it was Del Brio that I followed when he left there. I stayed with him all morning through this string of back roads outside of Mission Creek and all through Goldenrod—even down some private road—until he went back to his spread. Only when he reached his place and got out of the truck, it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Del Brio. It was a dude dressed up just like him, and the truck was a dead ringer for the one Del Brio was driving.”
“If you were following him the whole time, how could he make the switch?” Justin demanded.
“The only thing I can think of is that he arranged to have the dummy driver in a look-alike truck waiting around one of those curves. Because I swear that’s the only time the man was ever out of my sight.”
Trying to contain his frustration, Justin wiped a hand down his face. He’d ordered the tail on Del Brio after that exchange with Johnny last night—in part because he didn’t want a full-scale war erupting between the Mercados and Del Brio and his men, and in part because there was a rumor on the street that a big deal was about to go down.
“I know I screwed up. I’m sorry, Sheriff.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Justin told the kid. “It happens to the best of us. Del Brio didn’t get where he is because of his brains. He’s got the instincts of a cat. Evidently he spotted your tail. I just wish I knew where he was going that he felt the need to shake you.”
“You want me to see if I can pick him up again?” Bobby asked.
“No. We’ve got too much to do. We can’t afford to spend any more time playing games with the likes of Del Brio. Come on back to the office. The phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning, and I swear the paperwork is multiplying faster than rabbits.”
“Boss, there’s something else you should know,” Bobby told him.
Justin paused, sensing he wasn’t going to like what his deputy had to say. “What?”
“I wasn’t the only one tailing Del Brio. So was Johnny Mercado.”
Justin scowled, not at all happy to learn his own instincts had been right. Something was brewing between Johnny and Del Brio, and whatever it was, it could only mean trouble. “I was afraid of that.”
“You think Johnny plans to fight Del Brio for control of the family?”
“No.” At least Justin hoped that wasn’t the case because Johnny, even with this newfound spirit he’d shown, didn’t stand a chance against a ruthless thug like Del Brio. His son, Ricky, however, was another story. “But something’s going on, and I intend to find out what it is.”
“You going to go see Johnny? Try to talk to him again?”
“No. The old man is playing his cards close to the vest. I was planning to pay Ricky a visit later. But I think maybe I’ll drive out to the Mercado place and have that little talk with Ricky now. I’ll see you when I get back.”
After hanging up the phone, Justin shoved away from his desk and headed out of his office. He grabbed his hat and paused in front of Audrey Lou’s desk. “Bobby’s on his way in, and I’m going out to Johnny Mercado’s place. I need you to hold down the fort for me until I get back.”
The woman didn’t so much as bat an eye. “What do you want me to tell your sister? Rose has called for you twice already.”
“Tell her I’ll call her when I get back.”
But when Justin got back, after striking out on catching either Ricky or his father at their place near Goldenrod or the Mercado Brothers Paving, Audrey Lou was manning two phone lines and Bobby was taking down Mrs. Elkinson’s weekly complaint about the randy bull on the neighboring homestead bothering her milk cows. Wanting no part of that scene, Justin reached for the stack of phone messages Audrey Lou held out to him and headed for his office when Audrey Lou hung up the phone.
“That was Dylan Bridges’s office returning your call.”
Justin looked up from the messages he’d been skimming. “He still in his office?”
“No. That was his assistant who called to say he’s tied up until late this afternoon, wanted to know if he could call you at home tonight. I said I didn’t see why not since you don’t do much of anything but work and sleep, anyway.”
Justin ignored the dig at his lack of a social life. “Anything else I need to know?”
“Nothing except that you’ve got yourself a visitor. I put her in your office to wait.”
“Damn! She’s here already?” Justin asked, assuming it was his sister. Granted he’d called her from his vehicle and agreed to meet with her back at his office, but he’d told her he needed at least an hour. Evidently Rose decided not to wait. Which seemed to be par for the course where his younger sister was concerned this past year—starting with her running off to Aunt Beth’s in New York and shocking everyone when she came back with the news that she’d married Matt Carson of all people and was expecting his child. While the wedding hadn’t sat well with either the Carsons or the Wainwrights, the early arrival of the baby and the illness that had threatened both Rose and the baby had not only scared everyone but it had eased some of the tensions between the two families. However, his sister didn’t appear to be content with the strained truce. No, now that the danger was past, the darned female seemed hell-bent on ending the feud between the two families that had spanned seventy-six years. And for some reason, she had decided he was to be a key player in her fence-mending plans.
“You knew she was coming?”
“Sure. I talked to her about twenty minutes ago and told her to come by. Of course, I told her to give me an hour to return some of these calls. Obviously, she didn’t hear that part,” Justin said, but he wasn’t really irritated. He both liked and loved his sister, and he especially liked getting a chance to see his nephew.
“Well, you might have seen fit to tell me she was coming,” Audrey Lou sniffed. “And she might have told me you was expecting her instead of just saying she needed to see you and that she didn’t mind waiting.”
“She probably thought you knew,” Justin said, not wanting Audrey Lou angry with Rose. “She got the baby with her?”
“You mean to tell me she’s got herself a baby?”
Justin frowned. Obviously his sister Rose wasn’t the woman waiting in his office because everyone in Mission Creek, for that matter, half of Texas, knew about the recent birth of Wayne Matthew Carson and the danger that both the baby and Rose had faced. It had been the near loss of his sister’s life and the birth of the baby that had prompted Archy Wainwright to begin making amends with the Carsons, Hawk and even with his ex-wife, Kate. From what he’d seen the previous night, Justin suspected his parents were well on their way to a reconciliation—three decades after their divorce.
“Well, she never said a thing about any baby.”
“Audrey Lou, why don’t we start over? I take it that that’s not my sister Rose waiting in my office.”
Audrey Lou blinked, her big brown eyes magnified by the wire-rimmed glasses, reminding him of an owl. “Who said anything about Rose?”
“No one. My mistake. So who—”
The phone rang and she grabbed it. “Lone Star County Sheriff’s Office. Audrey Lou speaking.”
Justin strove for patience as he waited for Audrey Lou to finish the call. She’d no sooner hung up when the phone rang again. When she started to reach for it, Justin grabbed the receiver. “Lone Star County Sheriff’s Office. Hold on a minute. Now,” he said after punching the hold button on the phone, “who am I going to find waiting in my office?”
The woman gave him a look so stern, he felt like an errant schoolboy who needed to apologize for his poor manners and not the county’s sheriff and her boss.
“Thought you just said you was expecting her,” Audrey Lou told him with a sniff.
“Audrey Lou…”
“It’s your wife.”
Three
“Ex-wife,” Justin corrected. “We’re divorced.”
Angela tensed at the sound of Justin’s voice just outside the door. Despite a sleepless night and the lecture she’d given herself this morning, she was every bit as anxious at the prospect of working with Justin now as she had been when she’d agreed to take the assignment. But even if she could convince the FBI and the police chief to release her from her agreement to work the case, her conscience would never allow her to walk away. That meant she had to face Justin now and try to make him see that this wasn’t about them, but about the welfare of a missing little girl.
Bracing herself, Angela turned away from the window she’d been staring out of and watched Justin saunter into the room with that same purposeful stride she’d noted the first time she’d set eyes on him. His air of self-confidence had always fascinated her. Perhaps because she’d had so little self-confidence growing up and throughout their marriage. It had only been in the past few years that she’d begun to feel more sure of herself.
She hadn’t been mistaken in her impressions of him last night, she mused. Age hadn’t diminished Justin’s looks in any way. If anything, he was even more handsome in the slate-gray sheriff’s uniform than he had been the previous evening in the expensive suit. The silver badge pinned on his shirt gleamed beneath the office lights. With his service revolver strapped to his waist and the Stetson in his hand, he could have stepped right off the pages of some slick magazine showcasing lawmen hunks of the Southwest. Right down to the forbidding scowl on his face. She wasn’t sure if that grim set of his lips was due to her presence or to Audrey Lou’s reference to her as his wife. Probably both, she decided.
“For what it’s worth, I did try to explain that I was your ex-wife,” Angela told him. “And the truth is, I was surprised that Mrs. Cox even remembered me, let alone the fact that we were once married.”
“Audrey Lou’s got a memory like a computer chip,” Justin informed her as he made his way over to his desk. “The woman doesn’t forget anything when it comes to the citizens of Lone Star County. And there’s very little that goes on in this town that she doesn’t know about.”
The mention of how everyone knew everyone’s business made her smile. “I guess I forgot what a small town Mission Creek can be at times,” Angela offered.
“It’s not all that small of a town. But then I suppose that depends on the person and what they want.”
Angela knew it was a dig at her because she’d opted to move to the big city of San Antonio instead of remaining in Mission Creek and trying to salvage their marriage. Since Justin had refused to admit five years ago that the real problems at the core of their marriage had little to do with their careers and everything to do with their relationship, she doubted that rehashing her reasons for leaving would serve any purpose. Deciding to let the remark pass, she said, “Well, I’m sorry, anyway, about the confusion and any embarrassment it caused.”
“The confusion was of my own making. I thought you were Rose,” he explained as he dropped his hat on the corner of the paper-laden desk. “As for embarrassing me, you didn’t.”
“I’m glad. That I didn’t embarrass you, I mean,” she added nervously. “But I suppose I should have made sure Mrs. Cox understood.”
“She understood, all right. But whether we’d been divorced five years or fifty, it wouldn’t have made a difference to Audrey Lou. As far as she’s concerned, you’re still my wife.”
“I take it she’s not too fond of divorce?”
He made a dismissive sound. “That’s like asking if water is wet. The woman thinks the only time a marriage ends is when one of the pair dies. As far as she’s concerned, ‘until death do us part’ means just that. And since she’s been married to the same man for over forty years, I guess I can understand why she feels the way she does.”
“I suppose so,” Angela offered, feeling more awkward by the second. “The idea of two people spending their lives together, well, it is a lovely sentiment.”
“I guess that would depend on the two people and whether or not the marriage works out. In our case, it didn’t.”
While he didn’t say “because of you,” Angela could almost hear the words he’d left unsaid. Uncomfortable, she stared down at her clasped hands a moment. She’d long ago accepted blame for the failure of their marriage. Looking back now, she could see so clearly that their marriage had stood little chance of succeeding. How could it? Even without the added strain caused by Justin’s family’s objections to his choice of her as a wife and her inability to conceive a child, the marriage had mistake written all over it from the start. Someone like her wasn’t meant to be anyone’s wife—especially not the wife of a man like Justin Wainwright. Yet knowing that, she’d been too blinded by her love for him to say no when he’d proposed. And because she’d been selfish, she had married him and had made them both miserable.
Shoving aside the sad thoughts, Angela lifted her gaze again and found Justin’s eyes on her. And as had so often been the case during their marriage, those cool green eyes of his gave away nothing of what he was thinking. Growing more stressed by the minute, she decided the best thing to do was to get this over with and tell Justin the reason she was there. “Justin, I—”
“Listen, Angela, I—”
He chuckled.
So did she. And she let out a breath as some of the tension eased. Even though she realized that she was simply delaying the fireworks that her announcement was sure to set off, she said, “Go ahead. You first.”
“I was about to say that considering how our conversation ended last night, I’m surprised to find you here.”
