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  “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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  He chuckled. “Probably.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Ouch,” he said.

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

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

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

  “You got lucky,” she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  She shook her head.

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

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

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

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

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

  “It’s quite good.”

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

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

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

  Her fine eyebrows arched. “Why?”

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

  “Oh, dear.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “It suits you,” she said.

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

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

  Chapter Four

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

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

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

  “What sort of job?”

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

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

  “Did he give evidence?” he asked.

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

  “Isn’t that interesting.”

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

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

  “I can understand that.”

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

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

  “Yes, I recall that.”

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

  “Good work!” he said fervently.

  She grinned. “Thanks, sir.”

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