A Texas Christmas: True Blue / A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel

“The lieutenant’s a good loser, though,” Rogers commented. “He bought a single pink rose and laid it on her desk after lunch.”

Rick’s eyes narrowed and his expression grew cold. “Did he, now?”

The lieutenant was a widower. Nobody knew how he lost his wife, he never spoke of her. He didn’t even date, as far as anyone knew. And here he was giving flowers to Gwen, who was young and innocent and impressionable …

“I said, do you think that could be construed as sexual harassment?” Rogers repeated.

“He gave her a flower!”

“Well, yes, but he wouldn’t have given a man a flower, would he?”

“I’d have given Kilraven a flower after he nabbed the perp who blindsided me in the alley and left me for dead,” he said, tongue in cheek.

She sighed. She felt in her pocket for the unopened pack of cigarettes she kept there, pulled it out and looked at it with sad eyes. “I miss smoking. The kids made me quit.”

“You’re still carrying around cigarettes?” he exclaimed.

“Well, it’s comforting. Having them in my pocket, I mean. I wouldn’t actually smoke one, of course. Unless we have a nuclear attack, or something. Then it would be okay.”

He burst out laughing. “You’re incorrigible, Rogers.”

“Only on Mondays,” she said after a minute. She glanced at her watch. “I have to get back to work.”

“Let me know if you find out anything else, okay?”

“Of course I will.” She smiled.

She felt a twinge of guilt as she walked out of his office. She wished she could tell him the truth, or at least prepare him for what she knew was coming. He had a surprise in store. Probably not a very nice one.

“But I made corned beef and cabbage,” Barbara groaned when Rick phoned her Friday afternoon to say he wasn’t coming home that night.

“I know, it’s my favorite, and I’m sorry,” he said. “But we’ve got a stakeout. I have to go. It’s my squad.” He sighed. “Gwen’s on it, and she’ll probably knock over a trash can and we’ll get burned.”

“You have to think positively.” She hesitated. “You could bring her home with you tomorrow. The corned beef will still be good and I’ll cook more cabbage.”

“She’s a colleague,” he repeated. “I don’t date colleagues.”

“Does your lieutenant date colleagues?” she asked with glee. “Because I heard he left her a single rose on her desk. What a lovely, romantic man!”

He gnashed his teeth and hoped the sound didn’t carry. He was tired of hearing that story. It had gone the rounds at work all week.

“You could put a rose on her desk …”

“If I did, it would be attached to a pink slip!” he snapped.

She gasped, hesitated and turned off the phone. It was the first time he’d ever snapped at her.

Rick groaned and dialed her number back. It rang and rang. “Come on. Please?” he spoke into the busy signal. “I’m sorry. Come on, let me apologize …”

“Yes?” Barbara answered stiffly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I really didn’t. I’ll come home for lunch tomorrow and eat corned beef and cabbage. I’ll even eat crow. Raw.” There was silence on the end of the line. “I’ll bring a rose?”

She laughed. “Okay, you’re forgiven.”

“I’m really sorry. Things have been hectic at work. But that’s no excuse for being rude to you.”

“No, it’s not. But I’m not mad.”

“You’re a nice mother.”

She laughed. “You’re a nice son. I love you. I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow.”

“Have a good night.”

“You have a careful one,” she said solemnly. “Even rude sons are hard to come by these days,” she added.

“I’ll change my ways. Honest. See you.”

“See you.”

He hung up and sighed heavily. He couldn’t imagine why he’d been so short with his own mother. Perhaps he needed a vacation. He only took time off when he was threatened. He loved his job. Being sergeant of an eight-detective squad in the Homicide Unit, in the Murder/Attempted Murder detail, was heady and satisfying. He assigned lead detectives to cases, reviewed cases to make sure everything necessary was done and kept up with what seemed like tons of paperwork, as well as reporting to the lieutenant on caseloads. But maybe a little time off would improve his temper. He’d talk to the lieutenant about it next week, he resolved. For now, he had work to do.

Gwen had been assigned as lead detective on the college student’s murder case downtown. It was an odd sort of case. The woman had been stabbed by person or persons unknown, in her own apartment, with all the doors locked and the windows shut. There were no signs of a struggle. She was a pretty young woman with no current boyfriend, no apparent enemies, who led a quiet life and didn’t party.

Gwen wanted very much to solve the case. She’d told Rick that Alice Fowler had found prints on a digital camera that featured an out-of-place man in the background. Gwen was checking that out. She was really working hard on the mystery.

But in the meantime, she’d been pressed into service to help Rick with a stakeout of a man wanted for shooting a police officer in a traffic stop. The officer lived, but he’d be in rehab for months. They had intel that the shooter was hiding out in a low class apartment building downtown with some help from an associate. But they couldn’t find him there. So Rick decided to stake out the place and try to catch him. The fact that it was a Friday night meant that the younger, single detectives were trying to find ways not to get involved. Even the night detectives had excuses, pending cases that they simply couldn’t spare time away from. So Rick ended up with Gwen and one young and eager patrol officer, Ted Sims, from the Patrol South Division who’d volunteered, hoping to find favor with Rick and maybe get a chance at climbing the ladder, and working as a detective one day.

They were set up in a ratty apartment downtown, observing a suspect across the alley in another run-down apartment building. They had all the lights off, a telescope, a video camera, listening devices, warrants to allow the listening devices, and as much black coffee as three detectives could drink in an evening. Which was quite a lot.

“I wish we had a pizza.” Officer Sims sighed.

Rick sighed, too. “So do I, but the smell would carry and the perp would know we were watching him.”

“Maybe we could put the pizza outside his door and he’d go nuts smelling it and rush out to grab it and we could grab him,” Sims mused.

“What do you have in that bottle besides water?” Gwen asked, with twinkling green eyes.

Sims made a face. “Just water, sadly. I could really use a cold beer.”

“Shut up,” Marquez groaned. “I’m dying for one.”

“We could ask Detective Cassaway to investigate the beer rack at the local convenience store and confiscate a six-pack for the crime scene investigation unit,” Sims joked. “Nobody would have to know. We could threaten the owner with health violations or something.”

Gwen gave him a cold look. “We don’t steal.”

Marquez gave him an even more vicious look. “Ever.”

He flushed. “Hey,” he said, holding up both hands, “I was just kidding!”

“I’m not laughing,” she returned, unblinking.

“Neither am I,” Marquez seconded. His face was hard with suppressed anger. “I don’t want to hear talk like that from a sworn police officer.”

“Sorry,” he said, swallowing hard. “Really. Bad joke. I didn’t mean I’d actually do it.”

Gwen shrugged. Sims was very young. “I’m missing that new science fiction show I got hooked on,” she groaned. “It’s making me twitchy.”

“I watch that one, too,” Rick replied. “It’s not bad.”

“You could record it,” Sims suggested. “Don’t you have a DVR?”

She shook her head. “I’m poor. I can’t afford one.”

Rick glared at her. “We work for one of the best-paying departments in the southwest,” he rattled off. “We have a benefits package, expense accounts, access to excellent vehicles …”

“I have a monthly rent bill, a monthly insurance bill, a car payment, utilities payments and I have to buy bullets for my gun,” she muttered. “Who can afford luxuries?” She glared at him. “I haven’t had a new suit in six months. This one looks like moths have nested in it already.”

Rick’s eyebrows arched up. “Surely, you’ve got more than one suit, Cassaway.”

“Two suits, twelve blouses, six pair of shoes and assorted … other things,” she said. “Mix and match and I’m sick of all of it. I want haute couture!”

“Good luck with that,” Rick remarked.

“Luck won’t do it.”

“Hey, is this the guy we’re looking for?” Sims asked suddenly, looking through the telescope.

Chapter Three

Rick and Gwen joined him at the window. Rick snapped a photo of the man across the street, using the telephoto feature, plugged it into his small computer and, using a new face recognition software component, compared it to the man he’d photographed.

“Positive ID. That’s him,” Rick said. “Let’s go get him.”

They ran down the steps, deploying quickly to the designations planned earlier by Rick.

The man, yawning and oblivious, stepped out onto the sidewalk next to a bus stop sign.

“Now,” Rick yelled.

Three people came running toward the stunned man, who started to run, but it was far too late. Rick tackled him and took him down. He cuffed his hands behind his back and chuckled as the man started cursing.

“I ain’t done nothin’!” he wailed.

“Then you don’t have a thing to worry about.”

The man only groaned.

“That was a nice takedown,” Gwen said as they cleared their equipment out of the rented apartment, after the man had been taken away by the patrol officer.

“Thanks. I try to keep in shape.”

She didn’t dare look at him. She was having a hard enough time not noticing how very attractive he was.

“You know,” he mused, “that was some fine shooting down at HQ.”

She beamed. “Thanks.” She glanced up. “At least I do have one saving grace.”

“Probably more than one, Cassaway.”

She shouldered her purse. “Are we done for the night?”

“Yes. I’ll input the report and you can sign it tomorrow. I snapped at my mother. I have to go home and try to make it up to her.”

“She’s very nice.”

He turned, frowning. “How do you know?”

“I came through Jacobsville when I had to interview a witness in that last murder trial,” she reminded him. “I had lunch at the café. It’s the only one in town, except for the Chinese restaurant, and I like her apple pie.” She added that last bit to make sure he knew she wasn’t frequenting his mother’s café just because she was his mother.

“Oh.”

“Has she owned the restaurant a long time?”

He nodded. “She opened it a couple of years before I was orphaned. My mother worked for her as a cook just briefly.”

Gwen nodded, trying to be low-key. “Is your mother still alive? Your biological mother?” she asked while looking through her purse for her car keys.

“She and my stepfather died in a wreck when I was almost in my teens. Barbara had just lost her husband and had a miscarriage the month before it happened. She was grieving and so was I. Since I had no other family, and she knew me, she adopted me.”

She flushed. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I was just curious.”

He shrugged. “Most everybody knows,” he said easily. “I was born in Mexico, in Sonora, but my mother and stepfather came to this country when I was a toddler and lived in Jacobsville. My stepfather worked at one of the local ranches.”

“What did he do?”

“Broke horses.” The way he said it was cold and short, as if he didn’t like being reminded of the man.

“I had an uncle who worked ranches in Wyoming,” she confided. “He’s dead now.”

He studied her through narrowed eyes. “Wyoming. But you’re from Atlanta?”

“Not originally.”

He waited.

She cleared her throat. “My people are from Montana, originally.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

“Yes, well, my parents moved to Maryland when I was small.”

“I guess you miss the ocean.”

She nodded. “A lot. It wasn’t a long drive from our house. But I go where they send me. I’ve worked a lot of places—” She stopped dead, and could have bitten her tongue.

His eyebrows were arching already. “The Atlanta P.D. moves you around the country?”

“I mean, I’ve worked a lot of places around Atlanta.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I didn’t always work for Atlanta P.D.,” she muttered, trying to backpedal. “I worked for a risk organization for a year or two, in the insurance business, and they sent me around the country on jobs.”

“A risk organization? What sort of work did you do?”

“I was a sort of security consultant.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but it wasn’t quite a lie, either. She glanced at her watch as a diversion. “Oh, goodness, I’ll miss my television show!”

“God forbid,” he said dryly. “Okay. We’re done here.”

“It didn’t take as long as I expected,” she commented on the way out. “Usually stakeouts last for hours if not days.”

“Tell me about it,” he said drolly. “Is your car close by?”

She turned at the foot of the steps. “It’s across the street, thanks,” she said, because she knew he was offering to walk her to it. He was a gentleman, in the nicest sort of way.

He nodded. “I’ll see you Monday, then.”

She smiled. “Yes, sir.”

She turned and walked away. Her heart was pounding and she was cursing herself mentally. She’d almost blown the whole thing sky-high!

Barbara was her usual, smiling self, but her eyes were sad when Rick showed up at the door the night before he was due home.

“You said tomorrow?” she murmured.

He stepped into the house and hugged her, hard, rocking her in his arms. He heard a muffled sob. “I felt bad,” he said at her ear. “I upset you.”

“Hey,” she murmured, drawing away to dab at her eyes, “that’s what kids are supposed to do.”

He smiled. “No, it’s not.”

“Want some coffee?”

“Yes!” he said at once, pulling off his suit coat and loosening his tie as he followed her to the kitchen. He swung the coat around one of the high-back kitchen chairs at the table and sat down. “I’ve been on stakeout, with convenience-store coffee.” He made a face. “I think they keep it in the pot all day to make sure it doesn’t pass for hot brown water.”

She laughed as she made a fresh pot. “There’s that profit margin to consider,” she mused.

“I guess.”

“Did you catch a crook?”

“We did, actually. That new face recognition software we use is awesome. Pegged the guy almost immediately.”

“New technology.” She shook her head. “Cameras everywhere, face recognition software, pat downs at the airport …” She turned and looked at him. “Isn’t all that supposed to make us feel safer?”

“No, it’s supposed to actually make you safer,” he corrected. “It makes it harder for the bad guys to hide from the law.”

“I guess so.” She got out cups and saucers. “I made apple pie.”

“You don’t even need to ask. I had a hamburger earlier.”

“You live on fast food.”

“I work at a fast job,” he replied. “No time for proper meals, now that I’m in a position of responsibility.”

She turned and smiled at him. “I was so proud of you for that promotion. You studied hard.”

“I might have studied less if I’d realized how much paperwork would be involved,” he quipped. “I have eight detectives under me, and I’m responsible for all the major decisions that involve them. Plus I have to coordinate them with other services, work around court dates and emergency assignments … Life was a lot easier when I was just a plain detective.”

“You love your job, though. That’s a bonus.”

“It is,” he had to agree.

She cut the pie, topped it with a scoop of homemade ice cream and served it to him with his black coffee. She sat down across from him and watched him eat it with real enjoyment, her hands propping up her chin, elbows on the tablecloth.

“You love to cook,” he responded.

She nodded. “It isn’t an independent woman thing, I know,” she said. “I should be designing buildings or running a corporation and yelling at subordinates.”

“You should be doing what you want to do,” he replied.

“In that case, I am.”

“Good cooks are thin on the ground.” He finished the pie and leaned back with his coffee cup in his hand, smiling. “Wonderful food!”

“Thanks.”

He sipped coffee. “And the best coffee anywhere.”

“Flattery will get you another slice of pie.”

He chuckled. “No more tonight. I’m fine.”

“Are you ever going to take a vacation?” she asked.

“Sure,” he replied. “I’ve already arranged to have Christmas Eve off.”

She glared at him. “A vacation is longer than one night long.”

He frowned. “It is? Are you sure?”

“There’s more to life than just work.”

“I’ll think about that, when I have time.”

“Have you watched the news today?” she asked.

“No. Why?”

“They had a special report about violence on the border. It seems that the remaining Fuentes brother sent an armed party over the border to escort a drug shipment and there was a shootout with some border agents.”

He grimaced. “An ongoing problem. Nobody knows how to solve it. Bottom line, if people want drugs, somebody’s going to supply them. You stop the demand, you stop the supply.”

“Good luck with that” She laughed hollowly. “Never going to happen.”

“I totally agree.”

“Anyway, they mentioned in passing that one of the captured drug runners said that General Emilio Machado was recruiting men for an armed invasion of his former country.”

“The Mexican Government, we hear, is not pleased with that development and they’re angry at our government because they think we aren’t doing enough to stop it.”

“Really?” she exclaimed. “What else do you know?”

“Not much, but you can’t repeat anything I tell you,” he added.

She grinned. “You know I’m as silent as a clam. Come on. Talk.”

“Apparently, the State Department sent people into our office,” he replied. “We know they talked to our lieutenant, but we don’t know what about.”

“State Department!”

“They do have their fingers on the pulse of foreign governments,” Rick reminded her. “If anybody knows what’s really going on, they do.”

“I would have thought one of those other government agencies would have been more involved, especially if the general’s trying to recruit Americans for a foreign military action,” she pondered.

His eyebrows arched.

“Well, it seems logical, doesn’t it?” she asked.

“Actually, it does,” he agreed. “I know the FBI and the CIA have counterterrorism units that infiltrate groups like that.”

“Yes, and some of them die doing it,” Barbara recalled. She grimaced. “They say undercover officers in any organization face the highest risks.”

“The military also has counterterrorism units,” he replied. He sipped his cooling coffee. “That must be an interesting sort of job.”

“Dangerous.”

He smiled. “Of course. But patriotic in the extreme, especially when it comes to foreign operatives trying to undermine democratic interests.”

“Doesn’t the general’s former country have great deposits of oil and natural gas?” she wondered aloud.

“So we hear. It’s also in a very strategic location, and the general leans toward capitalism rather than socialism or communism. He’s friendly toward the United States.”

“A point in his favor. Gracie Pendleton says he sings like an angel,” she added with a smile.

“I heard.”

“Yes, we had that discussion earlier.” She was also remembering another discussion over the phone and her face saddened.

He reached across the table and caught her hand in his. “I really am sorry, Mom,” he said gently. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m not usually like that.”

“No, you’re not.” She hesitated. She wanted to remark that it wasn’t until she asked about the lieutenant giving Gwen a rose that he’d gone ballistic. But in the interests of diplomacy, it was probably wiser to say nothing. She smiled. “How about I warm up that coffee?” she asked instead.

Gwen answered the phone absently, her mind still on the previews of next week’s episode of her favorite science fiction show.

“Yes?” she murmured, the hated glasses perched on her nose so that she could actually see the screen of her television.

“Cassaway, anything to report?”

She sat up straighter. “Sir!”

“No need to get uptight. I’m just checking in. The wife and I are on our way to a party, but I wanted to make sure things are progressing well.”

“They’re going very slowly, sir,” she said, curling up in her bare feet and jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt on her sofa. “I’m sorry, I haven’t found a diplomatic way to get him talking about the subject and find out what he knows. He doesn’t like me.…?”

“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.