For Just Cause

“She said grandson. I’m sure of it.”

Billy shrugged one muscular shoulder. “She must have misspoken, then.”

Elderly ladies didn’t normally speak of grandchildren they didn’t have. How odd.

As they approached Claudia’s silver-green Nissan Roadster, she used her remote to unlock the doors.

Billy whistled appreciatively. “Sweet ride.”

“Thanks.” She’d insisted on driving for two reasons. First, it gave her something to do with her hands, somewhere to focus her attention besides on Billy so she wouldn’t give away her roiling emotions. And second, she wanted—no, needed—to have control of something. Relinquishing the driving all day long yesterday to Billy had been a tough challenge, particularly since she hadn’t felt she’d had a strong grip on anything else, especially her own feelings.

She glanced over at him as he fastened his seat belt. A lot of men would balk at allowing a woman to drive them anyplace. But Billy was obviously secure enough in his masculinity that it didn’t bother him. Or maybe it bothered him and she wasn’t able to tell.

Why wouldn’t he be secure? Lord, he was handsome in a striped button shirt and a lightweight summer jacket, worn to disguise the fact that he carried a sidearm in a shoulder holster. A crisp pair of boot-cut Levi’s, the ostrich-skin boots to go with them and a white straw Stetson completed the picture.

He took his hat off and settled it on his lap, then donned reflective mirror sunglasses.

One reason cops wore mirrored sunglasses was so they wouldn’t telegraph their actions with their eyes. Was it possible he deliberately hid behind those opaque lenses to make it harder for her to read him? Did he really not want her to know who he was?

She supposed that was only fair. She didn’t exactly go out of her way to broadcast her true self, either. She punched Angie Torres’s address into her GPS, then slid her car smoothly into downtown morning traffic.

Angie Torres lived in a run-down area of Harrisburg Boulevard in Magnolia Park, a hundred-year-old neighborhood of Houston in the early stages of rehabilitation. But this block hadn’t yet been gentrified; the apartment was above a strip of white-brick stores, most of which were boarded up.

Mary-Francis had said her daughter worked in a medical office, leading Claudia to believe she was a functional addict, but this looked to be the sort of place where the near-homeless, prostitutes and other victims of society ended up.

Claudia and Billy climbed a dark staircase into an equally dim hallway, alive with roaches and smelling of urine. Billy placed his body between Claudia and the door as he rang the bell. Though it was a simple display of caveman machismo, it had an undeniable effect on her. His protectiveness made her skin tingle with warmth. Few people in her life had ever put her safety and well-being above their own, even casually.

No one answered. Billy knocked, then pressed his ear against the door and listened.

“I don’t think there’s anyone inside. I don’t hear voices or a TV, not even sounds of a pet. Let’s check around the back. There’s probably a fire escape or something.”

Once outside, Claudia was grateful for a breath of fresh air. She tried to follow Billy on his quest to find a back door, but the tangled, thorny brush behind the small, two-story building proved a bit much for her leather sandals and bare legs, so she waited for him in the shade of a tattered store awning, welcoming the small breather. Being around Billy was a lot of work.

She couldn’t even tell whether he was attracted to her. Normally she could discern in a heartbeat if a man was interested in her, at least on a physical level. The signs were so obvious—the covert studying of her body, the way an interested man leaned in when speaking to her, the length of eye contact, the way his gaze would move from face to breast to legs, then back, and that unique male shifting of weight to accommodate a burgeoning erection.

Billy had flirted with her, but flirting was automatic with him. He’d have probably flirted with Celeste if he hadn’t been so surprised by the javelina. But Claudia absolutely couldn’t tell if anything lurked behind the flirting.

With Billy, she was drowning in a sea of unknowns, confused about where she stood. For the first time in years, the ball of fear in her stomach just wouldn’t go away. Her built-in alarm system was warning her of Danger! in flashing red letters.

Unfortunately, the same thing that made Billy a mystery also made him undeniably exciting. What if he could read her attraction to him? How awful would that be?

She had some control over the physical signals she broadcast to the world, but she couldn’t do anything about the pheromones that were undoubtedly wafting from her body in waves.

As she waited for Billy, a young, skinny Hispanic man covered with tattoos exited from the door that led upstairs.

He noticed her as he walked toward a beat-up truck, and did a double take, this time perusing her up and down, his expression at first hostile, then more curious.

Claudia slid her hand into her pocket where she kept a small device that, with the push of a button, would emit a piercing siren. She never went anywhere without it.

“¿Qué pasa, mama?”

“Hola, señor.” Her Spanish was limited, but she knew enough to have a stilted conversation if necessary. “Do you speak English?”

“You want me to speak English, I speak English,” he said with almost no accent.

“My partner and I are looking for Angie Torres.” She hoped the use of the word partner would cause the man to think she was a cop.

He smiled slowly. “Police? You?” He laughed and shook his head. Then he continued in perfectly good English, “No cop I know dresses like that.”

“Do you know Angie?” she persisted.

The man leaned against a post and crossed his ankles as he lit a cigarette. The signs said he was flirting, not dangerous. She slipped her hand out of her pocket.

“Yeah, I know her.” And didn’t care for her, apparently, judging from the way he flashed a slight sneer. “She moved out. She inherited a house. Her mom murdered her dad and went to prison for it. She was a piece of work, that girl.” The man closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Why do you say that?”

“Always carping about how selfish her parents were, that they were rich and never gave her a dime. But who could blame them? Any money they gave her went up in smoke. I wouldn’t put it past her to kill her dad and blame it on her mama so she could get hold of their money.”

An alarming possibility, one they should probably look into, though Angie’s only criminal record consisted of a couple of misdemeanor possession charges.

“What kind of drugs did she use?”

The young man took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it out slowly—a classic move someone took to collect his thoughts before speaking. “Anything she could get her hands on. Got fired from her last job for stealing Vicodin.”

That would explain why she wasn’t working at the medical office anymore.

“Thanks. I appreciate the information.”

“No problem.” He flicked his ash into the breeze. “You busy later?”

Lord, she hoped so. She cast a glance toward the back of the building. “Um, my partner is really jealous. You probably don’t want him to see us talking.”

The man gave her a regretful look, then turned and sauntered away.

Billy reappeared around the corner. “No fire escape. This building is a code inspector’s nightmare. Who was that guy you were talking to?”

“A neighbor. He says we’ll find Angie at her parents’ house, which she now considers hers.”

“Probably at least half of it is. Mary-Francis wouldn’t have been allowed to keep the profits from her crime—in this case, her half of the community property. Was there a will?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s check out the house.” He paused just before getting into the Roadster. “There’s no reason you have to waste your whole day running around checking out leads. You can drop me at the office and get back to your work. I can do this on my own.”

“I want to meet Angie,” Claudia said firmly as she opened the car door. It had sat in the sun only a few minutes, but hot air wafted out, and she waited for it to cool off slightly before she climbed inside. “I want to see for myself how she acts when we bring up the coins…and her father.”

Billy’s eyebrows lifted. “You don’t trust me. You don’t think I can handle it.”

“Oh, no, Billy, it’s not that. I just…I feel so responsible for Mary-Francis ending up on death row. The prosecution used certain parts of my evaluation to make things worse for her. If there’s any chance of saving her…I just want to do my part, that’s all.”

“You did your part. You drew the case to our attention. We can take it—”

“Billy, don’t be difficult. I want to go with you to interview Angie.”

“So you can do your hocus-pocus on her.”

“My assessment could be of value to you. Why don’t you just accept my help?”

“I work better alone.”

“If I hadn’t been here, if I hadn’t talked to that neighbor, you wouldn’t even know where to find Angie.”

“I would have figured it out.”

“We don’t have all day. If Angie finds the coins—”

“If the coins even exist.”

“They do. Mary-Francis was telling the truth about that, though not necessarily about the particulars.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. You can come with me. But I don’t want to have to look out for your safety all the time, okay? I almost had a heart attack when I saw you talking to that lowlife just now, and I realized I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“I was fine. That guy was not dangerous. Just because he’s poor and has tattoos doesn’t mean—”

“Save me from a lecture about stereotypes. I’m a former cop and I can smell trouble. That guy was no angel.”

“We won’t be going anywhere dangerous,” Claudia persisted. Even though she was the one with the car keys, Billy had taken firm control of the reins.

“Angie could be dangerous. She has something to lose, if she thinks we might be challenging her right to her parents’ stuff. Addicts do desperate things when they’re cornered.”

Claudia couldn’t argue about that.

She should have just climbed behind the wheel, rather than debating with Billy over the roof of her car. But she felt compelled to make him agree with her. “It’ll be fine.”

“If I sense any danger, we’re getting out of there. You’ll do what I tell you to do. Is that clear?”

“Man, who pushed your macho button?” But she had to admit, he looked magnificent making his male dominance display. He leaned against the roof of the car, arms widespread, muscles tense, jaw firm. Any second now he would start beating those impressive pecs of his.

Her heart gave a flutter. At least that wasn’t on display for anyone to see.

“I can call Daniel,” Billy said. “He’ll back me up.”

“All right, I get it. Your word is the law where our personal safety is concerned. This is your case. I’m along to observe and assist. Is that good enough?”

The split-second expression of triumph on his face made her grind her teeth. But at least he’d shown her something.

CHAPTER THREE

EDUARDO AND MARY-FRANCIS Torres had lived in a solidly upper-middle-class neighborhood in Conroe, a Houston suburb. Their subdivision wasn’t quite uppity enough to be a gated community—but close. Tall limestone-brick walls flanked the subdivision entrance with a carved stone sign that read Pecan Grove. The cookie-cutter houses, built in the ’90s, were all too large for their tiny lots, but the saplings planted by the neighborhood developers had grown into mature trees and the homes were well maintained.

The Torres house was on Apple Blossom Court, a peculiar name for a street in a climate where apples couldn’t grow.

Out of habit, Billy paid close attention to the configuration of streets so he knew the fastest way to the nearest exit.

Claudia thought he was being macho, but he wasn’t kidding about the danger. Angie was a drug-addicted woman in a dramatic family situation who undoubtedly felt stressed and could erupt into violence at any time. He stood a better chance of surviving unscathed if he didn’t have to worry about a companion’s safety before his own.

But he couldn’t deny it felt great to be back out in the field.

When he’d first hired on with Project Justice, he’d told Daniel he was no longer comfortable facing danger on a daily basis. Daniel had responded by saying he wouldn’t require anything of Billy that he wasn’t ready to deal with.

Somehow, after three years on the job, Daniel knew Billy was ready. Billy could have said no to this assignment. But though he’d made a few token objections, he’d eventually accepted the responsibility of unraveling the puzzle.

Claudia’s onboard GPS found the Torres home with no trouble. The house was tan brick, just like all the others, but the lawn was yellow and scraggly and the landscaping hadn’t been tended to in months. A for-sale sign featuring the photo of a smiling female Realtor advertised that the property had four bedrooms and a pool.

Claudia pulled up to the curb just as a woman stepped out the front door, her cell phone wedged between her ear and shoulder. She frowned as Billy and Claudia climbed out.

“If you’re here about the car, it’s already sold,” she said. She was tall and painfully thin, with toothpick legs sticking out of her cutoff shorts. She had stringy, shoulder-length hair clumsily streaked with reddish-blond stripes. Her skin was pasty, and overall she had a look of ill health about her. Billy would have pegged her as a crack addict even if he hadn’t already known she had a drug problem.

She returned her attention back to her caller. “Sorry, I was talking to someone.” She opened the mailbox and pulled out a wad of envelopes that looked an awful lot like bills. Billy could just make out the FINAL NOTICE in large red letters on one envelope. Angie riffled through the mail and picked out one envelope to rip open. She turned her back on Billy and Claudia and headed back indoors.

“Excuse me. Ms. Torres?”

“I’ll have to call you back,” she said into the phone as she paused and turned to narrow her eyes at Billy. “What?”

“I’m Billy Cantu with Project Justice. This is my associate, Claudia Ellison. We need to talk to you about your mother.”

“Are you those people who get criminals out of jail?”

“We free innocent people who have been unjustly imprisoned,” he corrected her.

“Please don’t tell me you think my mom is innocent.”

“We have some questions, that’s all,” Claudia said. “Could we go inside and talk for just a few minutes?”

“I’m kind of busy here.”

“Busy selling all of your parents’ stuff?” Billy said. “Because I’m pretty sure you don’t have the legal right to do that, and in about five minutes I could get a court injunction and a locksmith over here to change the locks.”

Angie folded her arms, looking scared for a moment before she decided to brazen it out. “How am I supposed to pay the bills on this place without any money, huh?”

“Nice deal for you,” Billy said as he strolled up the walkway toward the front door without invitation. “Living here rent free and getting all the drug money you need listing stuff on Craigslist or eBay. Bet your mom had some nice jewelry. That was probably the first to go. Am I right?” He took the two steps to the front porch and headed inside the house.

“Hey!” Angie was right behind him. He turned to see Claudia bringing up the rear, looking perplexed by his high-handedness. But he suspected Angie wouldn’t give them the time of day unless they strong-armed her.

The inside of the house was stripped—no furniture, no pictures on the walls. But the air-conditioning ran full blast. Billy made his way to the kitchen, which was piled high with dirty dishes and empty pizza boxes. The trash can overflowed.

He whipped around to face Angie as an uncomfortable thought occurred to him. He’d just made a stupid mistake; he hadn’t cleared the house before assuming Angie was here by herself. “Are you living here alone?”

“None of your business. Get out before I call the cops.”

“No, you don’t want to do that.” He took out his cell phone. “I’ve got Judge Thomas Wilkes’s number on speed dial. He’ll issue the injunction on my say-so. You and whoever else is sponging off you will be out on your asses in a matter of an hour, maybe two.”

Just then another person showed up, a scrawny guy with the same kind of pasty complexion as Angie. But he held a gun in one shaky hand.

“Who the hell are you people?”

Billy broke a cold sweat as he stepped in front of Claudia, shielding her from the shooter. His carelessness had just come back to haunt him.

He needed to defuse this situation fast. “Put the gun down now, okay? We’re not cops, we’re friends of Angie’s mother.”

“For God’s sake, Jimmy, put the damn gun away.” Angie didn’t sound terribly nervous about the threat. “I can handle this. Go…go clean the pool or something.”

The man named Jimmy gave one parting snarl before he shoved his small handgun into the pocket of his baggy shorts and sauntered away.

Billy let out the breath he’d been holding, almost sick with relief. He stepped aside so he could look Claudia in the eye. “Not a dangerous situation, huh?”

“You’re the one who made the situation dangerous,” she countered, “by entering the house uninvited. We should go.”

“Go wait in the car. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Claudia folded her arms, obviously not budging. Billy wished she wouldn’t do that—it accentuated her breasts, which distracted him at a moment he needed all of his attention on Angie.

“What do you want?” Angie asked wearily. “They’re gonna show the house this afternoon. I need to clean up.”

That was an understatement.

“Who was that guy?” Billy asked.

“My boyfriend.”

Claudia watched with hyperalert eyes.

“Recently you visited your mother in prison. You asked her about some coins. What was that about?”

“My dad’s coin collection,” she answered warily. “Did Mom say anything about it? Did she say where she’d put it? It’s important that I find those coins.” Angie nearly salivated with eagerness.

“Your mother put them away for safekeeping.”

“They’re not valuable,” Angie said too quickly. “It’s just a few coins that have been in the family.”

“You know, Angie, you don’t seem like the sentimental type to me. Why do you want them? And how did you find out about them?”

She flashed a superior look at him. “I don’t have to tell you that. What matters is that the coins are mine. My father wanted me to have them. Mom has no right to hide them from me.” Angie thrust her chin out in a show of false courage.

“How do you know Daddy wanted you to have the coins?”

“He told me so.”

“When was that?”

“Right before he was murdered. He said he and Mom were going to split up and he wanted to give me some things before the divorce lawyers got it all. But he never got the chance.”

“So why did you wait all this time to ask your mother about the collection?”

“I…didn’t think about it until now. Like I said, it’s not that valuable.”

Claudia shared a look with Billy, then shook her head slightly. She obviously thought Angie was lying. Though Claudia had clearly been unnerved at having a gun pulled on her, she was still doing her job. His respect for her inched up another notch.

“You know what I think?” Billy was about to go out on a limb here, but he wanted to confront Angie with his suspicions while she was off balance—before she got the chance to get her story straight. “I think you killed your father and let your mother take the blame. Because they had money, and they wouldn’t share it with you.”

She did not appear disturbed by the accusation. “You can think whatever you want, but a jury says my mom did it. And if you know where those coins are, you better tell me. I know people, too. I have a lawyer.”

“You’re gonna need one,” Billy said. “If you didn’t kill your father, then maybe he’s not dead. Maybe he recently told you about the coins, and that’s why you took a sudden interest in them.”

Angie laughed, but it sounded forced. “If he’s alive, then how do you explain all that blood found at the crime scene?”

“There are ways,” Billy said, wondering if there really were. “I have evidence people working on that right now, taking a closer look at that blood.” Or he would, as soon as one of the lawyers at Project Justice officially became Mary-Francis’s attorney of record and made a formal request to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department to review the physical evidence.

Billy wasn’t sure when he’d decided this case had merit, but there was something here. Something off-kilter. In good conscience he couldn’t wash his hands of Mary-Francis.

“It’s his blood,” Angie said stubbornly. “DNA proved it.”

“We’ll see. Meanwhile, if I were you, I’d be waiting for a knock on the door from the police. Until your father’s estate has been legally awarded to you, you don’t own anything of his—including that coin collection. Unless you’re using the proceeds to pay your mother’s legal costs…”

“That’s what I’m doing!” Angie said quickly, grabbing on to the lifeline he’d handed her.

“What does your aunt Theresa have to say about all this? Your mother gave her sister power of attorney. Not you.”

At the mention of Theresa’s name, a look of panic briefly crossed Angie’s features before she caught it. “She said it was fine for me to sell stuff. Hey, Jimmy! Get in here.”

Claudia tugged on Billy’s sleeve. “For God’s sake, let’s go.”

“I’m not lying,” Angie shrieked, though no one had accused her. “I’m not. I’m just doing what I have to do to pay bills, pay lawyers.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Billy ushered Claudia toward the front door and out into the still, late-morning heat, having no desire to face Jimmy and his shaky gun hand. Neither of them said anything until they were back in the car with the air-conditioning on.

Then Claudia started to tremble—violently. Probably a delayed reaction to the gun.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Billy put a hand on her shoulder. She reminded him of a scared bird vibrating beneath his hand. “We’re safe now.”

“He wouldn’t have shot us,” Claudia said. “I could see it in his face. It was all bravado, an empty threat. Still…”

Billy wasn’t so sure.

“He would have been justified, you know,” Claudia continued. “We practically committed a home invasion. It’s legal to protect your domicile with deadly force.”

“It all turned out okay.”

She turned toward him, suddenly fierce. “Don’t ever do that again. Not when I’m along for the ride.”

“Now you see why I didn’t want you to come with me?”

“You shouldn’t be allowed to roam around loose without a handler. You’re dangerous.” She took a deep breath, started the car and pulled away from the curb. “Angie was lying.”

“No kidding. I don’t have to be a body language expert to figure that out. Maybe she did kill her father and frame her mother. She’s clearly a sociopath.”

“No, not a sociopath. Sociopaths are better liars.” She said this with such assurance, it made Billy wonder if she had more than just clinical knowledge to back up her claim.

“Still, she’s a bad seed,” he said.

“I’ll agree with you there. Not a pleasant person.” Claudia paused, weighing her words. “She didn’t kill her father—she was telling the truth about that. But she was definitely hiding something. Maybe it’s just her drug use, but maybe it’s something else.”

“If I could get her in an interrogation room, I could break her. Your body language tricks only take us so far. A confession would be a whole lot more useful.”