True Blue & Carrera's Bride

“I find that hard to believe, Cassaway. You’re a good kid.”

She winced at the description.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Good woman. I try to be PC, you know, but I come from a different generation. Hard for us old-timers to work well in the new world.”

She laughed. “You do fine, sir.”

“I know this is a tough assignment,” he replied. “But I still think you’re the best person for the job. You have a way with people.”

“Maybe another type of woman would have been a better choice,” she began delicately, “maybe someone more open to flirting, and other things…”

“With Marquez? Are you kidding? The guy wrote the book on staunch outlooks! He’d be turned off immediately.”

She relaxed a little. “He does seem to be like that.”

“Tough, patriotic, a stickler for doing the right thing even when the brass disapproves, and he’s got more guts than most men in his position ever develop. Even went right up in the face of a visiting politician to tell him he was putting his foot in his mouth by interfering with a homicide investigation and would regret it when the news media got hold of the story.”

She laughed. “I read about that.”

“Takes a moral man to be that fearless,” her boss continued. “So yes, you’re the right choice. You just have to win his confidence. But you’re going to have to move a little faster. Things are heating up down in Mexico. We can’t be caught lagging when the general makes his move, you know? We have to have intel, we have to be in position to take advantage of any opportunities that present themselves. The general likes us. We want him to continue liking us.”

“But we can’t help.”

He sighed. “No. We can’t help. Not obviously. We’re in a precarious position these days, and we can’t be seen to interfere. But behind the scenes, we can hope to influence people who are in a position to interfere. Marquez is the obvious person to liaison with Machado.”

“It’s going to be traumatic for him,” Gwen said worriedly. “From the little intel I’ve been able to acquire, he has no idea about his connection to Machado. None at all.”

“Pity,” he replied. “That’s going to make it harder.” He put his hand over the receiver and spoke to someone. “Sorry, my wife’s ready to leave. I have to go. Keep me in the loop, and watch your back,” he added firmly. “We’re trying to get the inside track. There are other people, other operatives, around who would love nothing better than to see us fall on our faces. Other countries would do anything to get a foothold in Barrera. I don’t need to tell you who they are, or from what motives they work.”

“No, sir, you don’t,” she agreed. “I’ll do the best I can.”

“You always do,” he said, and there was faint affection in his tone. “Have a good evening. I’ll be in touch.”

“Yes, sir.”

She hung up the cell phone and sat staring at it in her hand. She felt a chill. So much was riding on her ability to be diplomatic and quick and discreet. It wasn’t her first difficult assignment; she was not a novice. But until now, she’d had no personal involvement. Her growing feelings for Rick Marquez were complicating things. She shouldn’t care so much about how it would hurt him, but she did. If only there was a way, any way, that she could give him a heads-up before the fire hit the fan. Perhaps, she thought, she might be able to work something out if she spoke to Cash Grier. They shared a similar background in covert ops and he knew Marquez. It was worth a try.

So Friday morning, her day off, Gwen got in her small, used foreign car and drove down to Jacobsville, Texas.

Cash Grier met her at the door of his office, smiling, and led her inside, motioning to a chair as he closed the door behind him, locked it and pulled down the shade.

She pursed her lips with a grin. “Unusual precautions,” she mused.

He smiled. “I’d put a pillow over the telephone if I thought there might be a wire near it. An ambassador’s family habitually did that in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Even did it in front of the head of the Gestapo once.”

Her eyebrows arched as she sat down. “I missed that one.”

“New book, about the rise of Hitler, and firsthand American views on the radical changes in society there in the 1930s,” he said as he sat down and propped his big booted feet on his desk. “I love World War II history. I could paper my walls with books on the European Theatre and biographies of Patton and Rommel and Montgomery,” he added, alluding to three famous World War II generals. “I like to read battle strategies.”

“Isn’t that a rather strange interest for a guy who worked alone for years, except with an occasional spotter?” she asked, tongue in cheek. It was pretty much an open secret that Grier had been a sniper in his younger days.

He chuckled. “Probably.”

“I like history, too,” she replied. “But I lean more toward political history.”

“Which brings us to the question of why you’re here,” he replied and smiled.

She drew in a long breath and leaned forward. “I have a very unpleasant assignment. It involves Rick Marquez.”

He nodded and his face sobered. “I know. I still have high-level contacts in your agency.”

“He has no idea what’s about to go down,” she said. “I’ve argued with my boss until I’m blue in the face, but they won’t let me give Marquez even a hint.”

“I think his mother knows,” he said. “She asked me about it. She overheard some visitors from D.C. talking about connections.”

“Do you think she’s told him anything?”

“She might know that his mother was romantically involved with Machado at some point. But she wouldn’t know the rest. His mother was very close about her private life. Only one or two people even knew what happened.” He grimaced. “The problem is that one of the people involved had a cousin who married a high-level agent in D.C., and he spilled his guts. That started this whole chain of events.”

“Hard to keep a secret like that, especially one that would have been so obvious.” She frowned. “Rick’s stepfather must have known. From what little information I’ve been able to gather about his past, he and his stepfather didn’t get along at all.”

“The man beat him,” Grier said harshly. “A real jewel of a human being. It’s one reason Rick had so many problems as a kid. He was in trouble constantly right up until the wreck that killed his mother and stepfather. It was a tragedy that produced golden results. Barbara took him in, straightened him out and put him on a path that turned him into an exemplary citizen. Without her influence…” He spread his hands expressively.

Gwen stared at her scuffed black loafers. Idly, she noticed that they needed some polish. She dressed casually, but she liked to be as neat as possible. One day her real identity would come out, and she didn’t want to give the agency a black eye by being slack in her grooming habits.

“You want me to tell him, don’t you?” Grier asked.

She looked up. “You know him a lot better than I do. He’s my boss, figuratively speaking. He doesn’t like me very much, either.”

“He might like you more if you’d wear your damned glasses and stop tripping over evidence in crime scenes,” he said, pursing his lips. “Alice Mayfield Jones Fowler, who works in the Crime Scene Unit in San Antonio, was eloquent about the close call.”

Gwen flushed. “Yes, I know.” She pushed the hated glasses up on her nose, where they’d slipped. “I’m wearing my glasses now.”

“I didn’t mean to be critical,” he said, noting her discomfort. “You’re a long way from the homicide detective you started out to be,” he added. “I know it’s a pain, trying to relearn procedure on the fly.”

“It really is,” she said. “My credentials did stand up to a background check, thank goodness, but I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. I let slip that my job involved a lot of traveling and Marquez wondered why, since I was apparently working for Atlanta Homicide.”

“Ouch,” he said.

“I have to remember that I’ve never been out of the country. It’s pretty hard, living two lives.”

“I haven’t forgotten that aspect of government work,” he agreed. “It’s why I never had much of a personal life, until Tippy came along.”

Everybody local knew that Tippy had been a famous model, and then actress. She and Cash had a rocky trip to the altar, but they had a little girl almost two years old and it was rumored that they wanted another child.

“You got lucky,” she said.

He shrugged. “I guess I did. I never could see myself settling down in a small town and becoming a family man. But now, it’s second nature. Tris is growing by leaps and bounds. She has red hair, and green eyes, like her mama’s.”

Gwen noted the color photo on his desk, with himself and Tippy, with Tris and a boy who looked to be in his early teens. “Is that Tippy’s brother?” she asked, indicating the photo.

“Rory,” he agreed. “He’s fourteen.” He shook his head. “Time flies.”

“It seems to.” She leaned back again. “I miss my dad. He’s been overseas for a long time, although he’s coming back soon for a talk with some very high-level people in D.C. and rumors are flying. Rick Marquez has no idea what sort of background I come from.”

“Another shock in store for him,” he added. “You should tell him.”

“I can’t. That would lead to other questions.” She sighed. “I’d love to meet my dad at the airport when he flies in. We’ve had a rough six months since my brother, Larry, died overseas. Dad still mourns my mother, and she’s been gone for years. I miss her, too.”

“I heard about your brother from a friend in the agency. I’m truly sorry.” His dark eyes narrowed. “No other siblings?”

She shook her head.

“My mother’s gone, too. But my dad’s still alive, and I have three brothers,” he replied with a smile. “My older brother, Garon, is SAC at the San Antonio FBI office.”

“I’ve met him. He’s very nice.” She studied his face. He was a striking man, even with hair that was going silver at the temples. His dark eyes were piercing and steady. He looked intimidating sitting behind a desk. She could only imagine how intimidating he’d look on the job.

“What are you thinking so hard about?” he queried.

“That I never want to break the law in your town.” She chuckled.

He grinned. “Thanks. I try to perfect a suitably intimidating demeanor on the job.”

“It’s quite good.”

He sighed. “I’ll talk to Marquez’s mother and plant clues. I’ll do it discreetly. Nobody will ever know that you mentioned it to me, I promise.”

“Least of all my boss, who’d have me on security details for the rest of my professional life,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t doubt he’d have me transferred as liaison to a police department for real, where he’d make sure I was assigned to duty at school crossings.”

“Hey, now, that’s a nice job,” he protested. “My patrolmen fight over that one.” He said it tongue in cheek. “In fact, the last one enjoyed it so much that he transferred to the fire department. It seems that a first-grader kicked him in the leg, repeatedly.”

Her fine eyebrows arched. “Why?”

“He told the kid to stay in the crosswalk. Seems the kid had a real attitude problem. The teachers couldn’t deal with him, so they finally called us, after the kicking incident. I took the kid home, in the patrol car, and had a long talk with his mother.”

“Oh, dear.”

His face was grim. “She’s a single parent, living alone, no family anywhere, and this kid is one step away from juvy,” he added, referencing the juvenile justice system. “He’s six years old,” he said heavily, “and he already has a record for disobedience and detention at his school.”

“They put little kids in detention in grammar school?” she exclaimed.

“Figure of speech. They call it time-out and he sits in the library. Last time he had to go there, he stood on one of the library tables and recited the Bill of Rights to the head librarian.”

Her eyes widened in amusement. “Not only a troublemaker, but brilliant to boot.”

He nodded. “Everybody’s hoping his poor mother will marry a really tough hombre who can control him before he does something unforgivable and gets an arrest record.”

She laughed. “The things I miss because I never married,” she mused, shaking her head. “It’s not an incentive to become a parent.”

“On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Tippy and me,” he replied with a smile. “I love being a dad.”

“It suits you,” she said.

She got to her feet. “Well, I have to get back to San Antonio. If Sergeant Marquez asks, I had to talk to you about a case, okay?”

“In fact, we really do have a case that might connect,” he said surprisingly. “Sit back down and I’ll tell you about it.”

Chapter 4

Sergeant Marquez came into the office two days later, looking grim. He motioned to Gwen, indicated a chair and closed the door.

She remembered her trip to Cash Grier’s office, and wondered if Grier had had time to talk to her superior officer’s mother and the information had tricked down.

“The cold case squad has a job for us,” he said as he sat down, too.

“What sort of job?”

“They dug up an old murder. It was committed back in 2002 and a man went to prison on evidence largely given by one person. Now it seems the person who gave evidence has been arrested and convicted for a similar crime. They want to know if we can find a connection.”

“Well, by chance, that was the case I just spoke to Chief Grier about down in Jacobsville,” she told him, happy that she could make a legitimate connection to her impromptu trip out of town. “He has an officer who knew the prisoner’s family and could place the man at a party during the murder.”

“Did he give evidence?” he asked.

She shook her head. “He was never called to testify,” she said. “Nobody knows why.”

“Isn’t that interesting.”

“Very. So the cold case squad wants us to wear out some shoe leather on their behalf?”

He grimaced. “They have plenty of manpower, but they’ve got two people out sick, one just transferred to the white collar crime unit and their sergeant said they don’t want to let this case get buried. Especially not when a similar crime was just committed here. Your case. The college woman who was murdered. It needs investigation, and they don’t have enough people.” He smiled. “Besides, there’s the issue of not stepping on the toes of another unit’s investigation.”

“I can understand that.”

“So, we’ll see if we can make a connection, based on available evidence. I’m assigning you as lead detective on this case, as well as on the college freshman murder. Find a connection. Catch the perp. Make me proud.”

She grinned at him. “Actually, that might be possible. I just got some new information from running a check on the photo of that odd man in the murder victim’s camera. The one I mentioned to you?”

“Yes, I recall that.”

She pulled up a file on her phone. “This is him. I used face recognition software to pick him out.” She showed him the mug shot on her phone. “The perp. His name is Mickey Dunagan. He has a rap sheet. It’s a long one. He’s been prosecuted in two aggravated assault cases, never convicted. Here’s the clincher. He has a thing for young college girls. He was arrested for attempted assault a few months ago, on a girl who went to the same college as our victim. I have a detective from our unit en route to question her today, and we’re interviewing people at the apartment complex about the man in the photograph. If his DNA is on file, and I’m betting it is since he’s served time during his trials, and there’s enough DNA from the crime scene to type and match…”

“Good work!” he said fervently.

She grinned. “Thanks, sir.”

“I wish we could get ironclad evidence that he killed the victim.” He grimaced. “Not that ironclad evidence ever got a conviction when some silver-tongued gung-ho public defender got the bit between his teeth.”

“Impressive mixing of metaphors, sir,” she murmured dryly.

He actually made a face at her. “Correct my grammar, get stakeout duty for the next two months.”

“I would never do that!” she protested with wicked, twinkling eyes.

He smiled back. She was very pretty when she smiled. Her mouth was full and lush and sensuous…

He sat back in his chair and forced himself not to notice that. “Get busy.”

“I’ll get on it right now.”

“Just out of curiosity, who was the officer who could place the convicted murderer at a party when the other murder was committed?”

“Officer Dan Travis,” she said. “He’s at the Jacobsville Police Department. I’m going to drive down and talk to him tomorrow.” She checked the notes on her phone. “Dunagan was arrested for assault by a patrolman in South Division named Dave Harris. I’m going to talk to him afterward. He might remember something that would be helpful.”

“Good. Keep me in the loop.”

“I will.” She got up and started for the door.

“Cassaway.”

She turned at the door. “Sir?”

His dark eyes narrowed. He seemed deep in thought. He was. He had a strange sense that she knew something important that she was hiding from him. He read body language very well after his long years in law enforcement. He’d once tripped a bank robber up when he noticed the man’s behavior and deliberately engaged him in conversation. During the conversation, he’d gotten close enough to see the gun the man was holding under his long coat. Rick had quickly subdued him, cuffed him, and taken him in for questioning. The impromptu encounter had solved a whole string of unsolved bank robberies for the cold case unit, and their sergeant, Dave Murphy, had taken Rick out to lunch in appreciation for the help.

“Sir?” Gwen prompted when he didn’t reply.

He sat up straight. His eyes narrowed further as he stared at her. She was almost twitching. “What do you know,” he said softly, “that you aren’t telling me?”

Her face flushed. “No…nothing. I mean, there’s…nothing,” she faltered, and could have bitten her tongue for making things worse.

“You need to think about your priorities,” he said curtly.

She drew in a long breath. “Believe me, I am.”

He grimaced and waved his hand in her direction. “Get to work.”

“Yes, sir.”

She almost ran out of the office. She was flushed and unsettled. Lieutenant Hollister met her in the hall, and frowned.

“What’s up?” he asked gently.

She bit her lip. “Nothing, sir,” she said. She drew in a long breath. She wanted, so badly, to tell somebody what was going on.

Hollister’s black eyes narrowed. “Come into my office for a minute.”

He led her back the way she’d come, past a startled Marquez, who watched the couple go into the lieutenant’s office with an expression that was hard to classify.

“Sit down,” Hollister said. He went behind his desk and swung up his long, powerful legs, propping immaculate black boots on the desk. He crossed his arms and leaned back precariously in his chair. “Talk.”

She shifted restlessly. “I know something about Sergeant Marquez that I’m not supposed to discuss with anybody.”

He lifted a thick blond eyebrow. He even smiled. “I know what it is.”

Her green eyes widened.

“The suits who came to see me earlier in the week were feds,” he said. “I know who you really are, and what’s going on.” He sighed. “I want to tell Marquez, too, but my hands are tied.”

“I went to see Cash Grier,” she said. “He’s out of the loop. He can’t do anything directly, but he might be able to let something slip at Barbara’s Café in Jacobsville. That would at least prepare Sergeant Marquez for what’s about to go down.”

“Nothing can prepare a man for that sort of revelation, believe me.” His eyes narrowed even more. “They want Marquez as a liaison, don’t they?”

She nodded. “He’d be the best man for the job. But he’s going to be very upset at first and he may refuse to do anything.”

“That’s a risk they’re willing to take. They don’t dare interfere directly, not in the current political climate,” he added. “Frankly, I’d just go tell him.”

“Would you?” she asked, and smiled.

He laughed deeply and then he shook his head. “Actually, no, I wouldn’t. I’m too handsome to spend time in prison. There would be riots. I’d be so much in demand as somebody’s significant other.”

She laughed, too. She hadn’t realized he had a sense of humor. Her face flushed. She looked very pretty.

He cocked his head. “You could just ask Marquez to the ballet and tell him yourself.”

“My boss would have me hung in Hogan’s Alley up at the FBI Academy with a placard around my neck as a warning to other loose-lipped agents,” she told him.

He grinned. “I’d come cut you down, Cassaway. I get along well with the feds. But I’m not prejudiced. I also get along with mercenaries.”

“There’s a rumor that you used to be one,” she fished.

His face closed up, although he was still smiling. “How about that?”

She didn’t comment.

He swung his long legs off the desk and stood up. “Let me know how it goes,” he said. He walked her to the door. “It’s not a bad idea, about asking him to the ballet. He loves ballet. He usually goes alone. He can’t get girlfriends.”

“Why not?” she asked. She cleared her throat. “I mean, he’s rather attractive.”

“He wears a gun.”

“So do you,” she pointed out, indicating the holster. “In fact, we all wear them.”

“True, but he likes women who don’t,” he replied. “And they don’t like men who wear guns. He doesn’t date colleagues, he says. But you might be able to change his mind.”

“Fat chance.” She sighed. “He doesn’t like me.”

“Go solve that murder for the cold case unit, and they’ll lobby him for you,” he teased.

“How do you know about that?” she asked, surprised.

“I’m the lieutenant,” he pointed out. “I know everything,” he added smugly.

She laughed. She was still laughing when she walked down the corridor.

Rick heard her from inside his office. He threw a scratch pad across the room and knocked the trash can across the floor with it. Then he grimaced, in case anybody heard and asked what was going on. He couldn’t have told them. He didn’t know himself why he was behaving so out of character.

The man Gwen was tracking in her semiofficial disguise was an unpleasant, slinky individual who had a rap sheet that read like a short story. She’d gone down to Jacobsville and interviewed Officer Dan Travis. He seemed a decent sort of person, and he could swear that the man who was arrested for the murder was at a holiday party with him, and had never even stepped outside. He had told the assistant DA, but the attorney refused to entertain evidence he considered hearsay. Travis gave her the names of two other people she could contact, who would verify the information. She took notes and arranged for a deposition to be taken from him.

Her next stop was Patrol South Division, in San Antonio, to talk to the arresting officer who’d taken Dunagan in for the attempted assault on a college woman a few months ago, Dave Harris. He was working that day, but was working a wreck when she phoned him. So she arranged to meet him for lunch at a nearby fast food joint.

They sat together over hamburgers and fries and soft drinks, attracting attention with his uniform and her pistol and badge, conspicuously displayed.

“We’re being watched,” she said in a dramatic tone, indicating two young women at a nearby booth.

“Oh, that’s just Joan and Shirley,” he said. He looked toward the women, waved and grinned. One of them flushed and almost knocked over her drink. He was blond and blue-eyed, nicely built, and quite handsome. He was also single. “Joan’s sweet on me,” he added in a whisper. “They know I always eat here, so they come by for lunch. They work at the print shop downtown. Joan’s a graphic artist. Very talented.”