Chapter SEVEN
“IT HAPPENED AGAIN,” a deep, familiar voice said.
“What happened?” Roberto asked, still trying to register the name of the caller.
“The cops were there. It got ugly. The buyer shot a cop.”
Brad. He was probably using a different cell since he’d been sent on the job.
“Who the hell is doing this?” Brad groaned.
I am. “Shit, I don’t know. Did you get caught up in it?” Roberto told himself he wouldn’t feel guilty. Brad was a grown man who had started making bad decisions way before Roberto came along. The fact that Brad expressed numerous times that he didn’t feel as if he had a choice was insignificant. “Brad? Did you get caught up in it?” he repeated.
“No… I wasn’t arrested. I was watching from a convenience store. I was supposed to notify Cane, the guy doing the drop, if I saw something. And I called him as soon as I saw the bum hiding behind the Dumpster. He was a cop. Cane no sooner got off the phone with me when they moved in waving guns and badges.”
“At least you weren’t arrested,” Roberto said. But it was only a matter of time.
“Yeah, but you know what this means? Johnny wasn’t doing this and they killed him. F*cking killed that kid for nothing. I’m tired of this. And the boss wants me to do a job for him. I told ’im in the beginning I didn’t want to do the dirty work. I’m a construction guy.”
“Then don’t do it,” Roberto said, realizing he didn’t dislike Brad as much as he should.
“You can’t tell the boss no.” Brad’s voice rose.
“Then tell your brother-in-law you can’t do it. Tell Cruz it’s for his sister and his nieces.”
“He won’t give a rat’s ass. He doesn’t care about my girls. If the boss says do it, he’ll say the same thing.”
Roberto closed his eyes. “Don’t do something you can’t live with.”
“If I don’t do it he’ll think I’m behind this. I’ll end up like Johnny.” The man almost sounded like he was crying.
Roberto massaged his temples with his thumb and middle finger. He’d tried. Given it an honest shot. Now all bets were off.
“What does he want you to do?” he asked.
“F*ck!” Brad moaned again. “I’m not cut out for this.”
“What does he want you to do? Talk to me.”
“It doesn’t matter. I gotta do it,” Brad said. “Look, you’re not in nearly as deep as I am. Do yourself a favor, get on your bike, keep riding, and don’t look back.” Brad hung up.
“Shit!” Roberto muttered.
You’re not in nearly as deep as I am. Brad’s words echoed in Roberto’s head.
Oh, I’m in deep, Roberto thought. He was in it until it was over. Until DeLuna was six feet under.
Or until Roberto was.
Austin’s phone rang a little after two that afternoon. Pissed that his schedule for plan B had been hijacked, he answered it without checking who it was.
“Hello,” he snapped.
“Aren’t you in a good mood?” Tyler said. “What’s wrong? Her cats hiss at you when you planted the bugs?”
“Real funny!” he muttered. But damn, he wished he could figure out what it was Tyler was afraid of so he could give the guy hell right back.
“Did you get them in?” Dallas’s voice came on the line. They were on speakerphone. “We told you to call us after you did.”
“So what does that tell you? I haven’t done it yet.”
“Yeah, like you’re really good at reporting in,” Dallas came back, letting Austin know he was still pissed at Austin’s coming here. “Then just don’t do it! The last thing I want to do is make a run up to Heartbroke, Texas, and bail your ass out of jail.”
“I’m not getting caught. If the damn painters would leave, I’d have been done.” Austin had already spoken with his partners once this morning. Not that he’d filled them in on everything. The whole fiasco of meeting Leah Reece, and then being shot down by her, was something he’d keep to himself.
Hell, he had a reputation to preserve. They thought he was forever getting lucky, and he kind of liked them thinking that. Not that he got turned down a lot, but lately he hadn’t put himself out there as much.
“Take that as a sign and just get the hell out,” Dallas said.
“No can do,” Austin shot back. “How friggin’ long does it take three men to paint a one-bedroom apartment?”
No way could Austin risk picking a lock with painters coming and going. “Did you just call to piss me off?”
“No. We actually have good news,” Dallas said, his tone taking on a different tune.
“Good news that will confuse the hell out of you,” Tyler said.
“What?” Austin stood from his sofa and looked out the peephole to see if the door to the neighboring apartment was still open.
It was.
“Tony dropped by,” Dallas said.
Tony, being Dallas’s brother who was a homicide detective for the Miller PD. “And you want me to guess what he wanted?” Austin snapped, letting his mood loose again.
“He didn’t want anything,” Dallas said.
“He brought us a puzzle,” Tyler said.
“Would you just tell me?” Austin’s hold on the phone tightened.
“There was an incident in San Antonio this morning. A drug bust.”
“Tell me DeLuna was arrested and I’ll dance naked in the streets,” Austin said.
“Only because then you won’t have to go face the big mean kitties and possibly have to squirt them with a water gun,” Tyler said, laughing.
Damn, he wished he hadn’t told his partners about that. He still thought the plan was brilliant. Cats didn’t like water. He didn’t like cats.
“Hell,” Dallas said. “We’d all be dancing naked if that was the case. But it appears to be DeLuna’s operation and his men who were arrested. A cop was shot, not by DeLuna’s men, by the buyers. But that means San Antonio police are going to be looking into this hard.”
“Okay, so why do I feel there’s more to this story?” Austin remembered Tyler’s remark about there being a puzzle.
“Someone put the San Antonio police onto the drug deal going down,” Dallas said. “A paid informant.”
“Roberto?” Austin asked. “Did he ask for payment from us? He didn’t mention it, and I spoke with him yesterday.”
“We haven’t heard from Roberto, but that was why Tony came by. He thought we were behind it.”
“Let him think what he wants. I don’t give a shit.” Austin didn’t dislike Tony, actually he’d grown to like the guy, but with him still being a cop, sometimes he rubbed Austin the wrong way.
“But there’s more,” Dallas said. “One San Antonio detective got to looking into who these guys connected with in the past and found out that in the past month there’ve been five other busts in varying cities with these people. Two of the guys were on bail from another arrest. All of these arrests were handed to them on a platter by an informant.”
“The same one?” Austin asked.
“We can’t prove it. No one’s going to give up their informants.” Tyler put in his two cents.
“You think it’s Roberto?” Austin asked. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would he stop asking us for money?”
“Don’t know,” Tyler added. “But it’s almost too coincidental that someone else is doing this. Getting to DeLuna, one drug deal at a time.”
An alarm bell went off in Austin’s head. “Tyler, remember when we first hired Roberto, you said it seemed Roberto wanted DeLuna for his own reasons?”
“Yeah, I thought about that,” Tyler said. “But we decided it didn’t matter.”
“And I’m not sure it matters now, either,” Dallas said. “If the guy’s willing to do the job for free… let him.”
“But it’s a puzzle,” Tyler said. “I don’t like puzzles I can’t figure out. Unsolved puzzles come back and bite you in the ass.”
“Then figure it out.” Austin picked up the water gun that was loaded and ready to go as soon as the damn painters left. “Or hell, call Roberto and ask him outright.”
“I’ve thought about it,” Dallas said. “But what if he says he was doing it and he’s not.”
“Weren’t you the one who accused me of not trusting him?” Austin asked.
“I do trust him. Or I did until this came out. Hell, what doesn’t make sense is, even if he wasn’t doing it, if he’s really positioned himself in with DeLuna as he says he is, he should at least be reporting things back to us. This isn’t making sense.”
“You’re right,” Austin said. “It doesn’t make sense. Maybe somebody needs to arrange a little visit with him. We haven’t done that in almost a year.”
“Maybe,” Dallas said.
“But if he’s in really deep it could cause trouble,” Tyler said.
“Not if we’re careful,” Austin insisted. But damn his partners were getting to be pansies on doing anything that carried the least bit of risk. Maybe he pushed his luck some, but he had to when working with these two.
“Let me think this through,” Dallas responded.
“I want to do a little more investigation on Roberto,” Tyler said. “Maybe I can dig something up.”
Austin rolled his eyes, aimed his water gun, and squirted the bull’s-eye he’d hung across from the breakfast table. “You know, sometimes there is such a thing as thinking something to death.”
“And there are such things as idiots, too,” Dallas groaned.
Voices and banging noises echoed outside his apartment door. “Hey… I think I hear the painting crew leaving. Let’s argue this point later.”
Getting into her apartment was a piece of cake. Easier than it should be. Leah Reece needed to replace her lock for one a little more difficult to pick.
Slipping the thin dental-appearing tool in his pocket, he reached for the doorknob and hesitated. He mentally went over the checklist of things he needed: the bugs, his water gun, his gloves—just in case the bugs were found and checked for fingerprints. Ready to roll.
Just to be safe, he knocked before walking inside. As expected, silence echoed from the apartment.
He reached for the knob and stopped. His gun—his real gun. Shit! He hadn’t brought it. He wouldn’t need it, his subconscious insisted. He couldn’t actually shoot one of Leah’s felines. And to bring it would lead to temptation to do just that.
Oh, hell! He was procrastinating.
The mere idea that not just one, but four felines waited inside terrified the shit out of him. Honestly, he’d thought the time he’d been forced to be in the same room with Lucky, Tyler’s wife’s cat, had cured him of his only phobia. Obviously not.
He glanced down. His friggin’ hands were shaking. Not that he’d ever admit his cowardice to another soul. But who could blame him? Leah had admitted that two of her cats were semi-feral. Meaning semi-wild.
It had been a feral cat that had attacked him. He carried the scars from a whole shitload of stitches under his arm, and the crazed animal had nearly ripped off his ear. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d had to get about a hundred painful rabies shots in his stomach because the cat and her kittens had disappeared.
And what had he done to deserve the attack? Not a damn thing. He’d just wanted to look at them.
Taking one deep breath, he turned the knob and inched inside. He moved in quickly and closed the door. Then, automatically frozen in one spot, he visually searched for varmints.
A gray tabby shot across the room. “Damn!” Austin jerked back, but calmed when the feline disappeared into the bedroom.
The sharp taste of panic on his tongue hadn’t faded when he spotted the big orange cat perched on the arm of the sofa. Its gold eyes looked evil as it rocked back and forth as if preparing to lurch at him.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Austin pulled the gun from the waist of his jeans. “I don’t want to use this, but I will.” Damn it was good he’d left his real weapon behind or he might have left a trail of dead cats behind.
Almost as if the damn thing could understand English, it settled back on its haunches.
“Good kitty,” he said, mimicking Tyler when he talked to Lucky.
Austin was about to relax when something brushed against his leg. “Shit!” He sounded like a scared girl, when he saw the black creature against his shin. He nearly fell over his own feet to escape. It was the same one who’d hissed at him last night at the door, too.
Getting his balance, he aimed the gun at the black feline waiting to see if it planned to attack. It didn’t. It just stood there, gold eyes watching him as if debating whether Austin’s demise was worth its effort.
“I swear, I’ll use this thing. Leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.” It had been the peace treaty he and Lucky had made. They’d gotten excellent at ignoring each other.
Rolling his shoulders, he tried to relax. “Place the bugs and get out of here.” He whispered his plan. Hearing his own voice in the silent apartment eased his nerves.
He slipped his gloves on. Watching the two felines, he stepped into the kitchen. He kept count of them and their whereabouts. Two felines in the living room and one hidden in the bedroom. Which meant one more was hiding somewhere. Probably watching him right now. Shit!
He searched for the fourth cat. When he didn’t spot it, he focused on finding a place for the first bug.
“There.” In the breakfast nook, he could conceal it in her bookshelf.
He peeled off the back of the sticky tape used for hanging and lodged the bug under the third shelf. Stepping back, he confirmed that the molding on the lip of the shelf hid the little matchbox-size device.
It did.
Remembering he wanted to see if she had a little black book filled with numbers, he stepped into the small kitchen. The bottle of wine he’d bought her sat on the counter.
Half-empty. “So you liked it, huh?”
Looking over his shoulder, confirming no cats were in attack mode, he noticed her surroundings. Her place was neat, not too neat, but cleaner than his own place. Only a coffee mug and the wineglass were in the sink. Remembering what he was looking for, he stuck his pistol into the waist of his jeans and pulled out a drawer.
A little black book sat on top of some papers.
Bingo.
With victory stirring in his chest, he opened it up to the D’s for DeLuna. He stared down at the neat handwriting written across the notebook. Donaldson, Dixon. No DeLuna. He checked the R’s for Rafael. Not there, either. He went to B for brother. Nope. But one name, Brandon, was circled and a face with horns was doodled beside it.
“What did Brandon do to you?”
Frowning, he placed the book back in the drawer. Carefully, he moved back into the living room. The orange cat sat on the arm of the sofa, looking at him as if to say: Wait until my master gets home, I’m gonna tell her you were here.
He pulled out his water gun again, his major fear having subsided, but just to be safe. “I know you can’t talk, buddy,” he told the feline, and eased to the other side of the sofa and peeled the paper off the second bug. Crouching, one eye on the cat and one on his project, he attached it to the underside of one end table.
While there, his gaze caught on a photograph on the tabletop. A young Leah with a younger male standing at her side. Leah looked around eight, the boy around two or three. She had a protective hand on the young boy’s shoulder—appearing to be the picture-perfect big sister. Having never had a real sibling, or at least none he knew of, he wondered if Leah’s brother appreciated her. With her paying for his dang college, and penny-pinching on groceries, he hoped the young man valued her sacrifice.
Austin suddenly noted the absence of an older sibling from the picture. How much contact had Leah had with DeLuna? He was only Leah’s half sibling, and because of the different names he assumed they shared the same mother. Which usually meant they lived together. Yet he knew what they said about assumptions.
He needed to call Tyler. He’d bet the information guru knew all about Leah Reece, too. Tyler knew everything. A genius, he read about four books a week. He took in more information than he did oxygen. However, asking Tyler for the info would earn Austin another reprimand on his poor investigation skills.
Tyler’s reprimands were hard to swallow, too. Mostly because Austin knew he was a damn good investigator. They simply worked differently. He worked best deciphering the situation minute by minute and following his gut. Tyler was a damn Boy Scout. Prepared to the point of boredom, he followed logic. Except when it came to Zoe, his new wife. The genius had gone plumb stupid during their crazy courtship.
Normally, Austin avoided the Boy Scout’s reprimands at all cost, but not this time. Austin needed to know everything about Leah Reece, and now. If it cost him enduring another lecture, he’d endure it.
But he was going to make sure it was worth it. Giving the apartment another visual sweep, he started gathering questions about Leah. Did she ever live with Rafael growing up? How did Rafael end up so bad and Leah so… different? Why was she antisocial? Questions started popping in his mind from every direction. Why didn’t she insist her younger brother get a school loan? Why didn’t she like gifts? Who was the Brandon dude, and what had he done to deserve a devil doodle by his name? Was Brandon the reason she’d refused to share the wine with him?
He realized most of his inquiries were personal and not investigation related—and Tyler would be the first to point that out. Frowning, Austin picked up the picture and stared at the younger Leah. Discontent filled her eyes. From an unhappy childhood? Or did she not like being photographed?
“Bet my sob story is worse than yours,” he muttered. Then he remembered the number of domestic violence cases he’d worked on the force. Violence in a home usually spilled over to the kids. There were parents who treated their own flesh and blood worse than the foster parents had treated him.
As bad as he’d had it, he’d never gone hungry or been beaten. Not physically. Knowing nobody really ever gave a shit—no one cared if he made good grades, if he got the spot on the football team, or did his homework—might not have been the best way to grow up. But some kids living with their parents got rawer deals than him.
Thoughts of the past led back to the recent past and his unwanted visitor. Candy Adams’s words floated through his head. I thought we could just get to know each other.
Did she really think she could just waltz back into his life?
Get to know each other, my ass! She probably realized she was getting old and wanted him to take care of her. Hell, she could wait on him on the front porch steps somewhere and see if he showed up.
Passing a palm over his face, he pushed his mother and the uncomfortable feelings from his mind and focused on Leah Reece.
Still holding the photograph, he stared harder at the sad girl in the image. “What’s your story?” Personal or not, investigation related or not, he wanted to know it.
Setting the frame down, he started to stand up, but a flash of fur caught his eye. That damn orange cat now sat on the other arm of the sofa, less than eight inches from his face. Those claws could take out an eye in seconds.
Tamping down the temptation to blast the animal with water, he slowly rose. “Look, I know another cat your color. He’s a little uglier than you, not that it’s his fault, having been caught in a burning building. But the point is that we made a deal? You stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours. Got it?”
The animal meowed almost as if he understood.
Forcing himself to relax, Austin shifted his gaze around the room. Feminine touches were splashed here and there. Throw pillows in matching colors, fancy drink coasters, and that dried flower crap in crystal bowls that made the room smell like… like cinnamon and apples.
With one more bug left to hide, he started toward the bedroom. In the hall, she had a set of louvered doors, only half closed. His apartment didn’t have these.
He opened the doors and stared at the stacked washer and dryer and open space that held a litter box. Returning the doors to their half-open position, he paused in the doorway and stared at the bed.
His steps faltered on the threshold. He remembered the one cat that had earlier scampered into the room. And he still hadn’t seen the fourth cat. Was it in there hiding? How wild was it?
He peered inside. Not a feral kitty in site, but the bed ruffle stirred as if recently moved.
“Shit,” he muttered, but determined not to let his fear best him, he inched inside. His next intake of shallow air filled his scenes. It smelled different in here. His mind stopped thinking about cats and started thinking about Leah. The scent was… vanilla. A soft, warm, musky perfume that reminded him of waffle cones. He remembered catching a hint of that smell when he’d picked her up in the parking lot.
Austin’s gaze moved to a white, fluffy-looking blanket resting on top of the unmade bed. On the corner of the bed rested a silky-looking rose-colored nightshirt.
He moved farther in and stared at the piece of soft-looking fabric. His hand, without permission, reached out and touched it—slid his glove-covered fingers over what looked like a low-cut neckline. An image of her wearing it filled his head.
Realizing his behavior bordered on perverted, he pulled his hand back. Moving to the head of the bed, he got on his knees and stuck the bug at the bottom of the bed frame. Then he heard it. A loud half moan, half cry. Still on his knees, he glanced back.
The gray cat stood between him and the door. It arched its back in an unnatural way, its neck extended, its tongue hanging out as weird noises spewed from its mouth. Austin bolted to his feet. Was this an attack warning, or was the animal convulsing and about to die?
Before Austin could decide which it was, the animal bolted forward. Austin lurched back and hit the side of the bed.
As if the sound was an alarm, the other two cats came running through the door. Holy hell. Three of them—all looking at him as if they were hungry and he was a salmon.
Grabbing his water gun, prepared to shoot, he watched as the gray cat suddenly went from howling to hacking. A projectile spew of fluid came from the animal’s mouth, and then the most disgusting three-inch tubular thing shot out behind the water and landed right beside Austin’s shoe.
“Gross.” He’d heard of hair balls, but never believed they were that big, or that… disgusting. Why would anyone own one of these creatures?
Staring at the hairy glob of goo, his stomach turned. And wouldn’t you know, that was when the fourth cat, another gray one, came shooting from under the bed, hitting Austin’s ankles. Austin shot forward. The black cat, positioned a few feet in front of him, hissed.
“Friggin’ hell!” He leaped onto the bed. The back of his head hit the ceiling fan blade, and he took several steps back on the mattress.
His heart pounding in his chest, he pointed the gun—daring one of them to try anything. Then with his other hand he rubbed the back of his head. The cats didn’t move. All four sat glaring at him. This was absolutely his worst nightmare.
He shifted his eyes from one to the other. And that’s when he noted the hair ball was no longer on the floor. He looked down. The disgusting ball of hair clung to the side of his shoe. But even worse were the footprints he’d made on the pristine white comforter. Footprints Leah was bound to notice.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
In spite of the cats, he jumped down. They scattered. Two out the door, one under the bed, and the orange one landed on top of the dresser. He pointed his gun at Big Orange. “Don’t mess with me.”
He looked back at his friggin’ footprints on the comforter and then at his watch. He didn’t have time to take it to be cleaned.
Her clinic closed at five. Which meant, in less than two hours, if she didn’t stay late, she could be strolling home.
His heart thumped with indecision. If she thought someone had been here, she’d call the police. If she called the police, they might find the bugs.
He was screwed.
“Damn it!” He took a deep breath. He could do this. He had an hour and a half. Tucking the water gun back in his waistband, he paced out into the hall. Maybe she had some spot cleaner and he could manage to get the footprints off the damn thing and make it look like the cats threw up on it instead. Or maybe… His mind stopped working. The creak and clink of Leah’s door opening echoed in the silent apartment.
Oh, damn! Had she left work early?
Okay, he wasn’t just screwed. He was screwed, glued, and tattooed.