“I had a millisecond to decide. Scrub it, or go after him? But if we missed him then…” He shifted his eyes slightly and met hers directly. “I didn’t even complete the thought. That’s all the consideration I gave it before engaging.”
He’d reacted just as spontaneously in the courtroom, but she kept the observation to herself.
“I left my cover and ran full out toward the front of the building,” he said. “When I rounded the corner, I saw Fuentes and his four guards walking quickly toward a limo, one of the cortege that had brought the honoree and her family from the church service to the party.
“I called out to Fuentes by name and identified myself. He spun away, like he would duck back into the building. I already had my weapon up. I went for a head shot.” He raised his shoulder, letting the gesture speak for him. “He was dust. But all hell broke loose. My inside guy came barreling out through the entrance. One of Fuentes’s bodyguards shot and killed him instantly.
“By now, all of us were in an exchange. Fuentes’s men inside the panel truck were killed, but not before mortally wounding a DEA agent. He died in surgery.” He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his thumb and index finger. “Tough as boot leather, but a really likeable guy. He had a new joke every day, although he couldn’t tell one worth a damn. Always gave away the punch line.”
He dropped his hand from his eyes but kept his head lowered, staring at the floor. “Final body count: six of them, two of us. That’s not counting the three partygoers who were killed in the crossfire.”
Holly said quietly, “They were killed by Fuentes’s men, not yours.”
“True. Ballistics proved it. But my more outspoken critics dismissed that as a minor detail. The point was that if I hadn’t initiated the shootout, there wouldn’t have been any collateral damage at all. And they’re right.” Looking over at her, he added, “I was as much of a peacock as fucking Fuentes. I wanted a showdown with him, and I got one. A damned bloody one.”
“You were injured.”
“Wasn’t referring to that.”
“I know, but you
were
shot.”
“In the calf. Hurt like a mother. Entry near my shinbone. Out the back. I didn’t know at the time if it was serious or superficial. In either case, I wanted an orthopedic surgeon to work on it, not the hack in Halcon who we figured was on Fuentes’s payroll and was likely to cripple me for life. CareFlight took the seriously injured to the nearest trauma center, which was in Laredo. EMTs determined that my injury wasn’t life-threatening, so I was ferried by chopper to Houston.”
“Meanwhile, Beth was notified that you had been wounded.”
“And requiring surgery. But she wasn’t given any details. She must’ve pictured me barely holding on, bleeding to death, brain swelling out of my skull, something. Anyway, she grabbed Georgia and—” He stopped. “This is where we came in, judge. My turn to ask a question.”
“All right.”
“How much of this did you know yesterday when we went into court?”
She had been expecting a question about herself, not his custody hearing. She took several seconds to form her reply, then quietly confessed to knowing all of it. “Not the fine details, but most of it.”
“Um-huh,” he said, as though unsurprised. “And how much bearing did Halcon have on your decision?”
“I didn’t make a decision.”
“If you had.”
“I can’t quantify—”
“Yeah you can.”
She got up and carried her untouched plate of food to the counter. “We’re not going to talk about this. I’ve told you so repeatedly, starting with our first conversation last night in the hallway of police headquarters. Remember? I said then—”
He interrupted her by moving suddenly to bring them face-to-face. “I remember everything you said, Holly. But mostly I remember wanting to look at you while you said it.”
The declaration left her speechless, breathless, and, later, she wondered what would have been said or done next if his cell phone hadn’t rung.
Without looking away from her, he let it ring three times before yanking it from his belt. “Yeah?” He listened, then said, “I’ll be right out.”
As he returned his phone to his belt, he said, “Rangers are here and in place. What kind of car does Marilyn drive?”
She told him.
“Where’s your phone?”
She took it from her handbag, handed it over, and gave him the security code. He accessed her contacts and entered two names and cell numbers.
“Under Rangers. Don’t forget.” He returned the phone to her. “Keep it with you at all times and call one of them immediately if you see or hear anything. That’s what they’re there for. If you change your mind and want one of them inside the house, just ask.”
“It won’t be necessary.”
“Doesn’t have to be necessary. Don’t be ashamed to ask if only for your peace of mind. No shame in sleeping with the lights on, either.”
“I probably will.”
They exchanged a quick smile. After reattaching his holster and slipping on his jacket then he opened the door. “Lock and bolt this behind me.”
“I will.”
“You gonna be all right?”
“Of course. I won’t be alone for long.”
“Okay then, good night.”
“Good night.”
He stood there straddling the threshold for several seconds, then mumbled something as he pushed the door shut and, with some quick maneuvering, managed to cage her against the adjacent wall, his hands pressed flat to it on either side of her head.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Why not? I had just as well. What have I got to lose? After the screwup with Rodriguez, the whole friggin’ mess, I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting Georgia back, do I?”
“I can’t—”
“Do I?”
“You—”
“
Do I
?
” When she made no further attempt to answer, he nodded. “Figured as much. Even if you could get past all the other, you’ll never get past what happened on that couch in there.”
“That has no bearing—”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m as much to blame for that as you.”
“That’s not what you said earlier tonight. You suggested I’d had an ulterior motive.”
“That was wrong of me. I know you didn’t plan it. I know you regret what we did.”
“Hell I do,” he growled. “I only regret what we
didn’t
.” Keeping his hands on the wall, he pressed into her softness with unmistakable implication, bending his head, and claiming her mouth with his.
For crissake, we didn’t even kiss
, he’d said.
He rectified that now, fiercely and possessively, and she let him. Leaving her arms at her sides, she went limp against him and allowed him complete access to her mouth. His tongue was wild and willful, reminiscent of the urgency of last night’s coupling.
And then it gentled. Passion was replaced by tenderness, and that was even more undoing. The sweeps of his tongue became less aggressive, but much more intimate. Then, with a moan, he withdrew his mouth from hers, but only to bury it in her hair. His arm encircled her waist to secure her more firmly against him. She closed her arms around him and made a corresponding move to the evocative pressure he applied between her thighs.
They stayed that way, just holding each other, until he pulled his head up and looked into her eyes for several seconds, then pushed away from the wall and went out the door, pulling it closed behind him with a bang of finality.
Pat Connor’s hand was shaking as he used the burner phone he’d been given expressly for this purpose—to impart bad news, should any arise. His call was answered after two rings. “What?”
The gruff voice alone was enough to make Pat cringe. “I thought you should know. Starting first thing tomorrow, everybody evacuated from the courthouse yesterday will be questioned again.”
“How do you know?”
“Grapevine. Came from the chief of police about an hour ago. There’s a lot of bellyaching in the rank and file. They’re gonna question all law enforcement personnel. Judges. City officials. Everybody. The real kicker? They’re bringing in outside officers to conduct the interviews.”
There was a sustained silence on the other end and, when Pat couldn’t stand the strain any longer, he said, “I figure there’s only one reason they’d be going to all that trouble and pissing people off.”
“They know they got the wrong man.”
Pat saw the wisdom of keeping his trap shut. He’d done what he had been ordered to do, which had been to keep his eyes and ears open for any further developments. Maybe delivering this heads-up would get the man off his back.
That hope was dashed when he was told, “Keep yourself easy to find.”
C
rawford rolled to a stop alongside a dark-colored SUV similar to his own. The driver lowered the tinted window, and a face like that on a Native American nickel appeared. “Hey, Crawford.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“They killed the wrong guy? That’s a pisser.”
“Tell me.”
“Her judgeship inside?”
“And alone for the time being, so don’t blink.”
In addition to his harsh features, Harry Longbow’s name attested to his heritage. He traced his lineage to the Comanche, the fierce horsemen tribe of the Texas plains, whose raids on settlers had kept them at odds with early Texas Rangers. The Rangers had endured. Harry joked that he wouldn’t hold that against the agency, if the agency wouldn’t hold his gene pool against him. He’d been one of Crawford’s hand-chosen few in Halcon.
“Is that Sessions?” Crawford nodded at the other vehicle parked at the far end of the street.
“He was itching to come along. Wife’s redecorating and has him looking at wallpaper and carpet samples.”
Wayne Sessions was just as seasoned an officer as Harry, with whom he often partnered, but he was also a whiz on the computer, and was never without his laptop. Both were good men to have at your back.
Crawford alerted Harry to Marilyn Vidal’s imminent arrival and gave him the make of her car. “Any other vehicles, consider suspicious. Nobody lives on this lane except Judge Spencer and an elderly lady in the main house. Oh, she’s got three cats. Pass that along to Sessions. Don’t mistake a prowling feline for our perp.”
“Last thing you need, us blowing away an old lady’s cats.”
Crawford saluted him as he drove off. The streets of Holly’s neighborhood were empty, nothing appeared even remotely threatening, but the farther he got from her house, the more powerful his urge to turn around and go back. As reliable as the other Rangers were, he wanted to be the one watching over her, protecting her.
“Professional objectivity, my ass,” he muttered. Not since Beth had he kissed a woman like that. Not since Beth had he wanted to. Which was exhilarating and troubling in equal measure.
For the past four years he’d been paying self-imposed penance for the role he’d played in the fatal accident that took Beth’s life. When he got lonely, he figured he deserved to be. But what he knew now that he hadn’t known twenty-four hours ago was that self-denial was easy only if you were indifferent to what you denied yourself. Denying yourself something you wanted like hell was torture.
After he’d stopped the excessive drinking and getting into bar fights, well-meaning friends began encouraging him to date and offering to set him up with suitable women, saying things like, “Beth wouldn’t want you to live the rest of your life alone.”
To which he usually responded, “How the hell do you know what Beth would want?”
Although it was a quarrelsome comeback to a banality, it was also a valid but unanswerable question. No one, not even he, knew what Beth would want for his future without her. But whatever, self-denial seemed key to his atonement.
As he’d admitted to Holly, he’d taken women to bed, but only when a convenient opportunity presented itself, and, on those occasions, his involvement had ended with his climax. He’d never bothered to follow up with any of them because he simply had no interest in doing so. And he made damn sure his one-night stands didn’t result in unhappy consequences. For anyone.
Last night he hadn’t thought about any of that. Not Beth. Not consequences, none of it. He’d touched Holly and desire as unstoppable as an avalanche had overwhelmed him, and it hadn’t been assuaged by that hard-and-fast in her living room, which was no sooner begun than it was over.
He wanted more of her, and not just
that
. He wanted more of
her
. The hell of it was, she was completely, totally unattainable. Because if he continued pinning her against walls and kissing her like he wanted to, he could kiss good-bye any chance he had of getting Georgia back.
He couldn’t let that happen. Nothing, or no one, could interfere with his determination to be Georgia’s full-time daddy. The sun would burn itself out before he shrugged off his kid the way his old man had.
Acting on that resolve, he pulled his SUV onto the shoulder of the road, shoved the gear into park, and reached for his phone. He’d programmed her number on his speed dial. She answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“I saw your name.”
“Your friend there yet?”
“No. Is something wrong?”
“Yeah.” Crawford covered his eyes with his hand. “I don’t want to want you, Holly. But I do. God knows I do.”
She didn’t say anything, but her breathing turned unsteady.
“The bitch of it is, I can’t have you. Not if I want custody of Georgia.”
“I understand.”
She didn’t. But he let her believe that she did. Neither said anything for the longest time, but they kept the line open, listening to each other breathe. Finally he rasped, “Good-bye, Holly.”
“Good-bye—”
She clicked off, but he could swear that she’d caught herself just before saying his name.
“Crawford Hunt. It has a nice, masculine heft. What’s he like?”
Marilyn Vidal, despite her glamourous-sounding name, was squarely built and didn’t embellish her plain features by wearing makeup or jewelry. She operated her business from Dallas but had worked in nearly every state, saving foundering candidates for various political offices, but only if she felt strongly about their winning potential. She couldn’t be bothered with losers, didn’t tolerate whiners, didn’t suffer fools.
She gave extra points to clients who could lie with equanimity and eloquence.
Holly wasn’t inclined to lying, and she certainly didn’t do it well. Marilyn’s question about Crawford Hunt filled her with ambiguity. This morning she had vowed to throw away the robe she’d been wearing last night, but when she stepped from the shower only a few minutes ago, it was that robe she’d reached for and wrapped herself in.
She’d also resolved to discard her sofa at the earliest opportunity so she wouldn’t have to see it each day and remember what had taken place on it. But here she was, curled into the corner of it, hugging to her chest one of the throw pillows that had been haphazardly knocked onto the floor as they’d tried to make room.
There was much she could tell her campaign manager about Crawford Hunt—that he wore soft, frayed, button-fly jeans, that the dark blond hair that grew over his shirt collar was thick but surprisingly soft, that he made an erotically animalistic sound when in the throes of passion, and that his recent telephone call—essentially telling her to have a nice life—had left her feeling disconsolate, not relieved, as she should have been.
But of course she said none of that. In reply to Marilyn, who was industriously pacing the width of the sofa, she said, “He’s…I don’t know…cop-like.”
She rubbed the space between her eyebrows, which, she realized, she’d been doing a lot lately, and it was a habit reserved for when she was especially stressed. Marilyn had been under her roof for all of ten minutes, and already she regretted having her as a houseguest.
Marilyn seemed to drain those around her of their vitality, then absorb it, giving her a surplus. It was hard to say whether or not that siphoning of energy was intentional or a trait of which Marilyn was unaware. Holly suspected the former.
In light of yesterday’s events, she had arrived even more super-charged than usual. As she filled a highball glass with vodka, which she’d brought with her, she said, “When I got here, I was surprised not to find media camped out on the lawn.”
“This is a small town, Marilyn.”
“Which made big news yesterday.”
Holly conceded that with a weary nod. “Mrs. Briggs was busy all day fending off calls from reporters. I finally released a statement that didn’t divulge any sensitive information. Essentially it said that I had nothing to add to the police spokesperson’s brief.”
“We’ll change that tomorrow. It’s time you came out from under cover and made a public statement about the whacked-out Michelin man who shot up your courtroom. You don’t get an opportunity like this in every campaign.”
“That ‘opportunity’ cost two men their lives.”
“Right. It’s high drama, and you need to take advantage of it. It’s a shame you didn’t alert someone to your visit with the widow. That would have made great press.”
She regretted now telling Marilyn about her condolence call. Her expression must’ve indicated her disapproval of Marilyn’s callousness.
“Okay, okay,” she said, waving her unlit cigarette. “I’m an insensitive bitch, but it’s been a day and a half since the shooting. We need to start making hay.”
“I can’t compromise the ongoing police investigation.”
“What’s to investigate? It’s not like there’s a big freaking mystery here. They got the guy.”
Holly didn’t correct her. Like the rest of the world, Marilyn would learn of the mishap tomorrow. Holly anticipated an explosive reaction from her campaign manager, and she was too frazzled to deal with it tonight.
Marilyn was pouring her second vodka. “Tomorrow, you need to appear looking appropriately saddened, but resolved that nothing like yesterday’s tragedy will ever happen again. ‘Not in my courtroom. Not in my county.’ See where I’m going? Make it an issue of your campaign.”
“In other words, exploit it.”
“Hell, yes, it’s exploitative. But… Here.” She slid an issue of the local newspaper from the outside pocket of her bulging briefcase and placed it on the coffee table. “I saw this in the convenience store when I stopped for cigarettes. Greg Sanders is exploiting the hell out of it.”
In the photo accompanying the front-page story, her opponent was captured with his fist raised high above his head.
“He looks like a fire-breathing evangelist,” Holly said. “I believe the picture was taken as he was sowing seeds of uncertainty about my past, which suddenly has become shady. It’s a scattershot attack. There’s no basis whatsoever for any of his sly implications. Who would take him seriously?”
“Voters.”
“Did you read the quote from Governor Hutchins? He stands by his decision to appoint me.”
“Of course he does. In typical public official fashion, he’s covering his ass.” Marilyn fixed her with a stare. “Is your heart still in this, Holly? Do you want to keep that bench or not?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then you had better get your butt in gear.”
“For heaven’s sake, Marilyn, cut me some slack. If I’m less than my sparkly self, it’s because I’m tired to the point of collapse. I’ve had a grueling two days. I’m—”
“Oh, boo-hoo. I’m not your mother. I’m not your best friend and confidante. I’m your campaign manager. You’re paying me to see to it that you win.”
“I will win.”
“Not if you stay soft on something as earthshaking as a goddamn fatal shooting in your courtroom.” Slapping her fist into her other palm, she said, “Yes, your opponent’s ranting is ridiculous, but you must confront it. If you don’t, it will look like there
is
something shady in your past.”
She stopped and eyed Holly speculatively. “I’m trusting that’s not the case. You and Waters…?”
Holly merely glared.
“Okay. Your relationship was as pure as the driven snow.”
“It was.”
“But Sanders isn’t going to spring a nasty surprise, is he? A mental disorder during your teen years? Raging kleptomania? A love child? Illicit affair?”
Holly’s cheeks grew warm as she became aware of the sofa beneath her. But she shook her head in reply to Marilyn’s question.
“Well then, you need to go on record stating that you have no idea why this obviously unbalanced individual did what he did, but it sure as hell had nothing to do with you personally. You’re outraged over the death of your bailiff.
Your
bailiff. Make his murder a personal loss. You’re heartbroken.”
“Which it was, and which I am.”
“Then say so! It’s too bad Sanders beat you to the punch by setting up that fund for his widow and grandkids.”
“It was tasteless grandstanding.”
“Of course it was, but it gave him a platform.” She took a drink of vodka. “What we need is theater. We need—”
“What I need is sleep.” Holly replaced the throw pillow and stood up. “I can’t talk about it anymore tonight. Your Honor is calling a recess and going to bed.”
“I’m going to stay up for a while, thinking.”
“The guest room is tiny, but I think you’ll have everything you need. Good night.” She turned and started down the hall toward her bedroom.
“Would he be of any use to us?”
Holly stopped and turned back. “Who?”
“The Texas Ranger. Would he be any good on camera?”
Holly panicked at the thought of Marilyn approaching Crawford and talking about “theater” to advance her campaign. “Absolutely not.”
“He’s a hero.”
“But not a glory-seeker. The opposite, in fact. He’s shunned the limelight, too, and he’s adamant about protecting his daughter from it.”
“Oh,” Marilyn said, frowning. “That’s no fun, then.”
“I assure you, it’s not the least bit fun. Leave him alone.”
Still frowning thoughtfully, Marilyn unconsciously placed the cigarette in her mouth and reached for her lighter.
Holly added sternly, “And don’t smoke in my house.”
“Crawford, I wish you’d called first. I’ve already put Georgia down.”
Grace answered the door dressed in a robe and slippers. It wasn’t that late, but even so, she looked unusually haggard, ill at ease, and none too glad to see him. She didn’t invite him in.
“How is she?”
“Fine. But I let her stay up past bedtime to finish a new DVD. By the time it was over, she was nearly asleep. Joe had to carry her to bed.”
“Then I won’t wake her up. Actually, I came to see Joe.”
“Right now isn’t a good time.” His mother-in-law began twisting her fingers together. “We were on our way to bed. We haven’t quite recovered from yesterday.”
“Neither have I.”
“Then don’t you think it’s probably best if we…”