He wanted to ask who that implicitly trusted individual was, but Neal spoke first. “That’s good.” He glanced at his wristwatch and winced when he read the time. “Before it gets any later, I have to go ruin the chief’s night.”
Crawford said, “I’ll see Judge Spencer home and stay with her till I’m no longer needed.” He sensed her disapproval of that plan but didn’t give her an opportunity to object. Effectively settling the matter, he got out of the booth.
“One thing before you go,” Neal said.
Crawford looked down at him, and the smug tilt at one corner of the detective’s lips signaled that he wasn’t going to like what was coming.
“Your father-in-law called me this afternoon.”
Even braced for something bad, Crawford was shocked to hear that. However, he kept his expression as uninterested as possible.
“Mr. Gilroy told me that you had refused to talk to him about your confrontation with Rodriguez up on the roof. He asked if I thought that was odd.”
“Do you?”
“Do I think it’s odd?” Neal shrugged. “A bit.”
Trying to keep his anger under control, Crawford said, “I was under no obligation to talk to Joe about it. But the reason I declined to discuss it last night was because I had just wrapped up with you. I was beat and wanted to go home.”
“That’s the only reason you didn’t share?”
Crawford tipped his head to one side. “Something on your mind, Neal?”
“I more or less wrote off Joe Gilroy’s call because of the bad blood between you two.”
“
But
?
”
“
But
if what you say is true, and Rodriguez wasn’t the gunman, then how you handled the situation takes on graver importance. Your reckless chase might have cost an innocent man his life.”
Holly had factually cited all the reasons that Rodriguez was responsible for his own tragic death. And Neal was goading him because it was within Neal’s petty nature to do so.
But his implication went straight to the heart of Crawford’s misgivings about the swift action he’d taken. However, he’d be damned before he gave any indication of it. He said, “You can cover the tab.”
By the time Neal caught up with him and Holly outside the diner, Crawford was giving her instructions. “Check your backseat before you get in the car. Don’t leave the parking lot until I’m behind you. I’ll be right there.”
Holly said a terse good night to Neal, then turned and headed for her car.
As Neal was about to leave, Crawford halted him with a raised hand. Glancing toward Holly’s retreating back, he said softly, “This is sensitive. I didn’t want her to hear it.” He hitched his head toward the corner of the building.
They fell into step. As soon as they rounded the corner, Crawford hauled off and slugged Neal in the mouth. The detective reeled backward, barely managing to stay on his feet, his hands cupped over his gushing split lip.
Crawford shook blood off his right hand. “You make another crack like that one about her skirt,
ever
, and I’ll make stew meat out of your balls.”
When they reached Holly’s house, Crawford stepped out of his SUV, giving the surrounding shrubbery careful scrutiny. They met at the back door. She unlocked it. As they went in, he stepped around her. “Wait here.”
Sliding his pistol from the holster at the small of his back, he went into the living room and made a visual sweep of it, avoiding looking directly at the sofa. He took the short hallway to her bedroom, which was traditional and tidy. He checked the closet and beneath the bed.
One glimpse into the bathroom told him there was no place in it for a grown man to hide, but he went in anyway because the compact space smelled deliciously of her. Hanging on a hook on the back of the door was the robe she’d been wearing last night. On his way out he brushed his hand across it, the texture sending a shaft of desire through him.
When he reentered the kitchen, she was standing at the open refrigerator. “Water?”
“Please.”
She passed a bottle to him and took one for herself. As he tilted his toward his mouth, he caught her looking at the fresh blood on the knuckles of his right hand. “I barked them on the door of my truck.”
She looked doubtful of that but didn’t question him.
He moved to the sink and washed his hands with hot water and liquid soap. After drying them on a paper towel, he took off his jacket and draped it over the back of a dining chair. He pulled the holster from his waistband and set it on the table.
She followed his motions, her gaze lingering on the holstered pistol.
“Goes with the job,” he said.
“So does a uniform.”
“I wear it sometimes. But I can be plainclothes.”
“Do you always wear that?” she asked, nodding down at the pistol.
“It’s always handy. I keep it out of Georgia’s reach when she’s at my house.” Thoughtfully, he ran his fingertips across the elaborately decorated butt of the official-issue pistol. “I wasn’t wearing it when I went to court yesterday. But if I’d had my weapon, I wouldn’t have had to waste valuable time getting Chet’s. Chet might, in fact, be alive. Maybe I could have apprehended the shooter, and Rodriguez would have finished his cigarette in peace. The perp would be behind bars tonight, and Rodriguez would be somewhere besides the morgue.”
She breathed deeply and let it out slowly. “I think we’ll always be asking ourselves how things might have gone
if only.
”
He nodded, but discovered he didn’t have anything further to contribute to that train of thought, so he said nothing as they stood there looking at each other, a few cubic feet of kitchen space separating them. Just like the night before.
With apparent unease, she clasped her hands at waist level. “Marilyn should be here soon.”
“Marilyn?”
“Marilyn Vidal. My campaign manager.”
“Your trusted person?”
She nodded.
He was greatly relieved to learn that it wasn’t Dennis who was on his way to spend the night with her. Admitting to that would be admitting to inappropriate feelings of jealousy. Instead he aimed for professional objectivity. “You explained the circumstances to her?”
“I didn’t go into all of it over the telephone. She wanted to rush right here last night. I told her it wasn’t necessary. But when you began talking about guards, I called her back and told her that I would appreciate her company and offered her my guest room.”
“What’s she like?”
“A steamroller.”
“She didn’t quail at the threat of danger?”
Holly gave a soft laugh. “She’s tougher than anyone you could have placed in here.”
Besides me.
“Marilyn and I have a good working relationship,” she was saying. “I doubt we’ll make ideal roommates.” She glanced at the wall clock. “She should be here soon.”
“You said that already. Anxious to get rid of me?”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I think you did.”
Exasperated, she said, “All right, maybe I did. This is awkward.”
“Like returning to the scene of the crime.”
She glanced guiltily toward the living room.
Crawford said, “You let what Neal said get to you.”
“He isn’t stupid. He knew we didn’t have to conduct our conversation about Rodriguez in a parked car.”
“Nothing we told him was a lie, Holly.”
“No, but in terms of spin, it was a Tilt-a-Whirl. He thinks—”
“Doesn’t matter what he thinks.”
“It does if he thinks we’ve slept together!”
“We haven’t.”
She gave him a withering look. “Your language is just more vulgar than mine.”
“And much more accurate.”
Whatever you wanted to call what they’d done, he was ready for an encore, which said a lot about his character. Neal’s crude remark had pissed him off, but mostly because it came so close to being the truth. He wanted under her skirt, and he wanted her under him.
She was all buttoned up again in her judge’s clothes, proper suit and blouse, but he remembered the feel of the comfy t-shirt she’d been wearing last night, how crushable the fabric had been when he took a handful of it and pushed it out of his way. The skin of her inner thighs had been even softer than the cloth, and between them, softer yet.
“I’m hungry,” he grumbled as he stepped around her and moved toward the refrigerator. “Do you have anything to eat?”
“Help yourself.”
He inventoried the contents of the fridge and found deli ham and sliced cheese in a drawer. He set them out on the counter. By the time he’d chosen the condiments he preferred, she’d taken a loaf of bread from the pantry.
“Make a sandwich for yourself,” he said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Eat anyway. Plates?”
She indicated the cabinet where he could find them, then listlessly removed two slices of bread from the wrapper and stacked them on the plate he slid along the counter toward her. “You should leave before Marilyn arrives.”
“We’ve exhausted all the reasons why you should have someone with you.” He slapped a slice of ham onto the bread and slathered it with mustard.
“But it looks like—”
“What?” He stopped trying to wrestle a slice of Swiss cheese out of the package and turned toward her. “What does it look like, Holly? Like I’m trying my damnedest to keep my hands off you? To keep from thinking about it? To cancel it? Like that’s gonna happen,” he scoffed. “But is that what this looks like? Because that’s what I’m doing. The other thing I’m doing is trying to protect you from a guy who wants you dead.” He stopped, took a breath. “Now, for the last time, I’m here because you shouldn’t be alone.”
“I shouldn’t be alone with
you
.”
“Too bad. You are.”
“Someone else could have been sent to guard me.”
“They’re being sent. In the meantime, I was readily available.”
“Because you—”
“Because I don’t want another dead woman on my conscience!”
H
is shouted statement left them in a sudden and tense silence. They continued looking at each other for several seconds, then, cursing under his breath, Crawford turned away and finished building his sandwich.
Holly made one for herself and carried her plate to the table. He waited until she was seated before sitting down across from her, then hungrily tucked in.
She picked at the crust of bread. “You’re referring to Beth.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Besides, you know everything. It’s in my ‘file.’”
“I know that she died in a car crash, a terrible accident.”
Placing his elbows on the table, he bent over his plate and muttered, “Officially.”
“You disagree with that ruling?”
“My father-in-law does. He’ll tell you what he thinks about Beth’s accident. Ask him.” Raising he head, he looked across at her, his eyes cold and hard. “Or have you already?”
“Not specifically.”
“Well, save your breath. I can tell you, he blames me.”
“According to the accident report, Beth was doing over eighty miles an hour. The car spun out of control and hit a utility pole.”
His eyes lost focus and seemed to be looking at the gruesome scene. “I was told she died on impact. I guess that’s something.”
Speaking barely above a whisper, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“Georgia was spared.”
“She didn’t have a scratch. A miracle, really.”
Holly asked, “What part of the police report do you dispute?”
“None of it. But there’s more to an accident than the physics of the collision. There’s the human factor, and in this instance, it was huge.”
Yes, there had been extenuating circumstances surrounding the deadly crash. Holly knew what they were, but she wanted to hear what he had to say about them.
He ate the last bite of his sandwich, washed it down with a swallow from his bottle of water, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When the silence between them stretched out, he gave her a surly look. “What?”
“Talk to me about it.”
“Why?”
“Is it too painful for you to talk about?”
“No.”
“Then…” She raised her shoulders.
He exhaled a long breath tinged with impatience. “Beth would never have left the house that night, would never have been on the road, speeding, plowing into a light pole, if she hadn’t been frantic to get to me. She didn’t even change Georgia out of her pajamas, just took her from her crib, strapped her in her car seat, and split.”
All that was a matter of record. The court-appointed psychologist’s report had given the facts nuance. She had assessed that the guilt he felt over the death of his wife, as misplaced as it was, had been as profound and debilitating as his grief. In the counselor’s opinion, he had finally forgiven himself.
But evidently he hadn’t. Not completely. The scars of guilt were permanent. He had merely learned to live with them.
“Tell me about Halcon.”
He assumed a thoughtful air and stroked his chin. “Well, let’s see, what would you find interesting about Halcon? Here’s something. Nobody seems to know why the city fathers kept the Spanish pronunciation but dropped the accent mark above the
o
.”
She frowned at his lame attempt to divert her.
Irritably, he pushed back his chair and carried his empty plate to the sink. “You can read all about the gunfight online.”
“I have.”
He turned around, still surly. “I’ll bet you have. Before or since the hearing?”
“Before. I wanted to know exactly what had happened out there because everything that’s happened since harked back to that showdown between you and Manuel Fuentes.”
He watched her for a moment, then tilted his head to one side. “Why a judge?”
“Pardon?”
Folding his arms, he leaned back against the counter. “I’ll trade you one for one, Your Honor. I’ll answer a question about Halcon in exchange for an answer from you.” When she hesitated, he said, “Until Marilyn gets here, we’ve got nothing better to do.”
Then he turned his head and looked through the door leading into the living room and, beyond it, the bedroom. When he came back to her, he asked roughly, “Do we?”
Although she experienced a rush of heat, she assumed her courtroom voice. “I get to go first.”
“Fine.”
“It was said that Fuentes had become an obsession with you. Is that true? Were you that determined to get him?”
“‘No matter what the cost.’ That’s a direct quote from the
Houston Chronicle
write-up about the shootout.”
“Which put Halcon on the map.”
“And me in dutch.” He took a moment to collect his thoughts, then began speaking matter-of-factly. “Fuentes had been on the radar for years, pumping drugs into the U.S., pumping weapons into Mexico, and making incalculable profits from both transactions. He was ambitious, audacious, and ruthless, eliminating anyone he perceived as an enemy or competition.
“His methods of execution were more grisly than you can possibly imagine. Medieval. And he circulated graphic photographs of his handiwork to terrorize and intimidate. We’ll never know exactly how many people he and members of his cartel killed. Countless, literally. He had to be put out of business.”
“And you had to be the one to do it?”
“It’s my turn. Why’d you go after the appointment when Judge Waters got sick? Why not remain a highly paid attorney like your dad?”
“You’ve gone online, too, I see.”
He raised his shoulder in a pseudo admission.
“Before or after the hearing?”
“I wanted to know who I was coming up against,” he replied. “Get a sense of the person inside the robe.” After a beat, he added, “But even having formed a basic profile of Judge Holly Spencer, you were a…surprise.”
Their gazes held until she lowered hers. “Dad was a lawyer, yes. A very successful defense attorney in Dallas.”
“A pal of Judge Waters.”
“They had forged a friendship while at Tulane.”
“But you went the way of the judge, not your dad. Why?”
“Actually, it’s my turn,” she said. “Before that day in Halcon, did you ever meet Fuentes face-to-face?”
“No. Nobody knew where he lived, and I’m guessing he was migratory, too smart to stay in one place for any length of time. I figured he was guarded by a veritable army. I studied him, and pegged him as a peacock, an egomaniac. He was a savvy self-promoter who manipulated the Mexican media. He thumbed his nose at law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border. He seemed untouchable. He thought he was.”
He flashed a malicious smile, his gray eyes glinting. “I figured that’s how we’d catch him. He would become overconfident, strut one too many times, and when he did, we’d be there.”
He uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on the counter behind him, bracketing his hips. She tried to avoid looking at the intriguing surface area between, but it was difficult not to look, gauge, recall the feel of him expanding her, filling her.
He asked, “Why Judge Waters’s footsteps and not Daddy’s?”
She reached for her bottle of water and began playing at twisting the cap off and on. “My father lived the cliché. In middle age, he left my mother for a much younger woman.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“How’d that go? The affair, I mean.”
“For him? Very well. He and the woman married, and stayed married until he died.”
He frowned. “Could she be the secret enemy behind the shooting?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never even met her. At Dad’s funeral we pretended the other didn’t exist.”
“Did they have children together?”
“And ruin her trophy-wife figure? No way.”
“What about his estate?”
“Everything went to her, so she isn’t begrudging me an inheritance, if that’s what you’re thinking. His will was airtight. In any case, Mom and I didn’t contest it. Six months after he died, his recent widow relocated to Chicago and linked up with a big-shot hedge fund guy.” She gave the cap another twist. “Fuentes came out of hiding to attend a party.”
“That’s not a question.”
“Humor me.”
“He came to Halcon for his niece’s
quinceañera
.”
“Her fifteenth birthday party.”
“A big deal in the Hispanic culture. A girl’s coming-out. We figured Fuentes would attend to honor the memory of his late brother, the girl’s father. He’d been killed by an El Paso narc officer the year before.”
“You were put in charge of the ambush.”
“I campaigned for it.”
“You’d only been a Texas Ranger a little over a year.”
“But I’d spent eight years with the DPS.”
“Not setting speed traps.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You did a lot of online reading.”
She smiled. “You were in the Criminal Investigations Division.”
“Mostly in the drug program.”
“You stopped traffickers.”
“Small-timers. A few middlemen. I wanted to cut off the head of the snake. Soon as we heard about the upcoming party for Fuentes’s niece, I moved to Halcon, spent months keeping my head down, eyes and ears open. Worked in a hardware and feed store as my cover.”
“Was Beth with you?”
“It’s not your turn.”
She just looked at him. He relented. “No. She was pregnant, and the situation was too dangerous. If my cover was blown, Fuentes would’ve killed her, too, probably before he came after me, just to make a point. We were living in Houston at the time. I drove home to see her when I could.”
“Were you with her when Georgia was born?”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah.” Lowering his head, he stared down at the toes of his boots and for several moments seemed immersed in the memory. “I was right there. Soon as the cord was cut, the doctor handed Georgia to me.” He laughed softly. “I didn’t know something that little could make that much racket.”
His head came up in time to catch Holly’s smile, and he returned it.
But he immediately turned serious again. “It was hard to leave them, to go back to Halcon. Beth begged me not to. We fought about it. But Fuentes was still wreaking havoc. I had a job to finish.”
“Was Beth ever reconciled to that?”
“No,” he said gruffly. “I don’t think she was.”
Then, in a sudden shift of mood and topic, he asked her if her mother had ever remarried.
“She never even went on a date. Dad’s leaving had shattered her self-confidence. Until the day she died, she was a very unhappy woman, and her unhappiness wasn’t merely from a broken heart.”
“What else?”
“Dad knew all the loopholes and used them unscrupulously in the divorce settlement. Mom didn’t have the wherewithal to fight him. I was too young. He walked away without a care. For my mom and me, it wasn’t so breezy. When Dad declined to help finance my education, Judge Waters broke off all contact with him.”
“And came to your aid.”
“He helped me obtain a scholarship. The rest you more or less know.”
He gave her a thoughtful look. “I also come from a broken home. My mom lives in California with husband number two.”
“Do you see her? Does Georgia?”
“Every other year or so. Mom’s not what you’d call a nurturer, and Georgia doesn’t see her enough to know her. By name only, really. Which is fine with me.”
“And your father?”
“He’s a son of a bitch.”
“Like mine.”
“Worse.”
She laughed lightly. “I’ve called mine worse, believe me. But,” she said, emphasizing the qualifier, “he did me a favor. He directed my career choice.”
“Ah, family law. Your specialty.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “I get it now. You’re fighting a personal crusade. You want women to get a square deal out of their lying, cheating, leaving, thieving husbands.”
“I’m fighting a personal crusade for fairness. Neither party should be disenfranchised, especially by lawyers’ tricks.”
“When you preside over a divorce or a custody hearing, your experience doesn’t bias you in favor of women?”
“No.”
“Come on. Just a little? You don’t enjoy scoring points against dear ol’ dad?”
“That’s not why I sought the appointment, not why I want to be a judge.”
He tilted his head as though he doubted that.
“What happened that day in Halcon?”
Returning to that subject, his goading smile dissolved. “I’d handpicked six men from three different agencies. These six were seasoned officers. Badasses. In their way, just as ruthless as Fuentes. They were as committed to ending his career as I was.”
“You wanted him dead or alive.”
“That was understood. Either way, he’d be a jackpot.” He lapsed into thought, and it was several moments before he continued. “One guy was planted inside, working for the party caterer. The rest of us put a net around the town. We waited all friggin’ day, and it was hotter than hell. I was beginning to think we’d go home empty-handed, that Fuentes wouldn’t show.
“But then late in the afternoon, a rattletrap panel truck pulled up to the back door of the party hall. It looked like a heap, but under the hood was the souped-up engine of a race car. Fuentes climbed out wearing a suit worth five thousand dollars, ten times that much in gold and diamonds, and ostrich boots with silver-tipped toes.”
“A peacock.”
He nodded. “Four bodyguards accompanied him inside. Two stayed with the truck. We moved into position, planning to take out Fuentes when he returned to the truck. Of course we didn’t expect him or his men to lay down their weapons and surrender when ordered to. We knew there would be a gunfight. We just hoped to neutralize them before they could do too much damage.”
“But things didn’t go according to plan.”
“No. The son of a bitch must’ve figured that if any heat was around, we’d be waiting on him as he left. So he didn’t go out the way he’d gone in. He went out the front entrance, the last thing we thought he’d do.”
“Why?”
“The party hall was at the end of a cul-de-sac. I didn’t think he would let himself get boxed in.”
“A logical conclusion.”
He gave a harsh laugh. “Yeah, well, Fuentes defied logic. We were in positions behind the building, jazzed, locked and loaded, when our guy on the inside started frantically whispering in my earbud that Fuentes was heading out the front door.