Unbridled Page 6

  She let out a breath. “Thank goodness!” She finished her coffee. Her eyes were sad. “That Rado,” she said with quiet venom, “should be locked up and the key thrown away. He’s gotten away with more murders than he’s even been charged with.”

  His heart jumped. “He has?”

  She looked down at her coffee cup. “It was his gang that killed my mother and my little brother,” she said, and then regretted saying it out loud. She grimaced. “You don’t tell anybody that, okay?” she added worriedly. “I shouldn’t have said it.”

  “I never tell anything I know,” he replied. “They killed your family?” he added, shock in his voice.

  She nodded. “They were after the former tenant, who’d sold them out. They didn’t know he’d moved.” She swallowed down the memory. It was horrific. “That didn’t bring my family back, of course. He and the boy who did the shooting were arrested. The boy did time. Rado had a convenient alibi. They couldn’t break it.”

  Now he understood that sadness in her, that showed even when she smiled. He could only imagine how it would feel, if his own family had been shot to death in front of his eyes.

  “Do you have anybody else?” he asked.

  She managed a smile. “I had an elderly aunt, but she died two years ago. I’ve got nobody, now.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said, and he smiled at her. “You’ve got me. I’ll be your family.”

  Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over. She grabbed a napkin and dashed them away, embarrassed.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly. “If I offended you...”

  “No! I’m not offended.” She swallowed, hard. “It was the nicest thing anybody’s said to me, in a very long time.”

  He sighed, and smiled, relieved.

  She stuffed the napkin into her pocket. “I’ve got to go or I’ll be late for my shift.” She paused as she started to leave. “Do you have family?”

  “It’s just me and my dad,” he said reluctantly.

  “At least you have somebody,” she pointed out. She hesitated. “But you’ve got me, too. If I’m your family, you’re my family, too. Right?”

  He cocked his head. He grinned from ear to ear. “Right!”

  She laughed. “Okay. See you.”

  “See you.”

  * * *

  One of the nurses on duty had seen the story about the gang shooting on the news, but it was only a flesh wound. Police had been at the hospital to take the boy into custody, but his companions rushed him out the door before the police could get near him. The name he’d given was an alias. They noticed tattoos on him. Wolves’s heads. Retaliation, probably, for the dead Serpiente gang member. The nurse said they were still hunting for the victim.

  Sunny worried about Tonio. He was just the right age for Rado to want to recruit him. She didn’t know what she could do to protect him, but she’d do anything she could. She was already fond of him.

  * * *

  Two days later when she came on shift early, Tonio was in the canteen again, waiting for her. One of the nurses noticed this and teased Sunny about her young gentleman friend, only to be informed that he was her family. The nurse knew her background and understood. She just smiled.

  After her shift, Sunny was thinking about Tonio as she went down the hall. She was almost due for her days off, so she wouldn’t see him again right away. She was almost to the elevator when she noticed a San Antonio police detective who came onto the ward and paused at the desk. She knew that he was probably asking about yet another shooting victim who’d been brought in the night before.

  Sunny knew he was going to want to talk to her, because she’d been the nurse on duty when he was placed on the ward following emergency surgery. She’d pulled another double shift, tonight, this time because two nurses were down sick and they were shorthanded. The gang shooting victim on her ward was only ten, a painful reminder that gangs didn’t care about the age of anybody they targeted.

  Odd child, to be so young and sound so mature when he talked in his sleep. He had tattoos. Wolf tattoos. It didn’t bode well that this was the third gang shooting in recent days. And it was the second shooting of a member of Los Diablos Lobitos.

  The detective spoke to the nurse in charge of the shift, who indicated Sunny and motioned to her. She went to the desk, her coat over her arm, her purse strap over her shoulder.

  The man was tall and blond and drop-dead gorgeous. He’d have turned heads anywhere. There were all sorts of rumors about him. The most persistent one was that he’d been with a group of mercenaries in Africa some years ago. That was before he joined the San Antonio Police Department and worked his way up through the ranks to Captain, the position he held now.

  Sunny knew him, because he’d been a lieutenant when her family was killed and he’d worked the case. Cal Hollister was a good man, with a kind heart. If Sunny had liked fair men, he’d have been at the top of her Christmas list. But she had a gnawing yen for an olive-skinned man with black dancing eyes.

  “Hi, Captain Hollister,” she greeted him, smiling.

  “Hi, Sunny. How’ve you been?” he asked gently.

  “Life is hard, then you die?” she teased.

  He grinned. “So it is. Can I buy you a cup of coffee in the canteen so you can stay awake while we talk?” he asked. It was morning. She’d been up all night and she was tired. He knew it without being told.

  “Sure you can,” she said, stifling a yawn.

  * * *

  He led her into the canteen and purchased two cups of black coffee from the machine. He placed one in front of Sunny as he dropped his tall frame into the chair. There were only a couple of people in the canteen so far, an elderly couple she recognized from the cancer ward; they had a grandchild there, in serious condition.

  She forced her attention back to Hollister. “Are things so bad that the brass has to work cases now?” she teased.

  He laughed shortly. “I ducked out of a meeting and said I’d promised to help Lt. Marquez interview a witness. I hate administration. I miss working cases.”

  “You were good at it,” she said, smiling. “How can I help?” she asked.

  “It will be hearsay, and not worth beans,” he began. “But I wondered if your young patient said anything after he went on the ward?”

  She hesitated. This was a slippery slope. Anything a patient told her wasn’t supposed to be shared with anyone without permission from the administrator. It was to protect the hospital from lawsuits, that modern pastime that so many people seemed to love.

  He chuckled. He produced a signed paper and handed it over. “I always go through channels when I have to. Recognize that signature?”

  She did. She’d seen it on memos often enough. It was the hospital administrator’s.

  “Okay, then,” she said, relaxing. “He hasn’t said much. He hasn’t had visitors, either. But he did say something, last night,” she confessed. “Although, it was an odd sort of comment, and I’m not sure he was completely out from under the anesthesia at the time. You know that it can make you goofy for a few days after surgery?”

  “I know it all too well,” he said somberly. “I’m carrying about three ounces of lead in my carcass that they could never remove.” His face hardened, as if he was remembering how he collected that lead.

  She cocked her head.

  “Give it up,” he said with faint amusement. “I don’t talk about my past, ever. Well, maybe to a local priest, but he’s an old friend.”

  She pursed her lips. She knew a priest downtown who was a former merc. He did a lot of outreach work. “I wonder if we could possibly be thinking of the same priest?”

  He glowered at her.

  She held up both hands in mock surrender. “Okay, I’m done. Honest.”

  He shook his head with a heavy sigh. “Some people!” he scoffed.

  She
grinned at him. He’d been so kind when she was living through her own tragedy.

  “Okay. What did he say?”

  She sipped black coffee. It was at least strong enough to keep her awake, if badly brewed. She made a face.

  “Listen, if you’d ever had coffee made over a campfire with the grounds still in it,” he began.

  She sighed. “Good point. At least it’s not that bad.” She lifted her eyes to his pale ones. “He said that he loved wolves, and that his boss was getting ready to poison a few snakes.”

  Hollister whistled softly. “Oh, boy.”

  “Like I said, it could have been the aftereffects of the anesthesia.”

  “Or it could be code for what’s really happening.” His eyes narrowed. “You know what’s going on. Your hospital got the last two victims...the dead kid who was in Los Serpientes, and the wounded Lobitos member who skipped out before police could question him.”

  She nodded. She was thinking of Tonio and the treatment he’d had at the hands of Rado and his friends. She worried for him.

  “There’s a gang war starting,” Cal told her. “I don’t want a gang war in San Antonio. I still remember the last one and it makes me sick at my stomach.”

  “I remember it, too.” It was the one that had resulted in her family’s death.

  “I’m going to set up a task force,” he said. “We have a Texas Ranger here with a good knowledge of gangs and gang activities. I’m going to ask him to join.”

  “Does he know about this latest shooting?”

  He smiled secretively and glanced past her. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  She half turned in her chair, and there was John Ruiz, staring at the two of them with narrow black eyes. And he wasn’t smiling.

  FOUR

  “We were just talking about you,” Hollister chuckled.

  “Was it something printable?” John asked as he joined them at the table.

  “Mostly.” He held up a cup. “Want coffee?”

  “I have too much respect for the beverage to ever drink it out of that counterfeit machine,” John said haughtily.

  “It makes very nice hot chocolate,” Sunny said in its defense.

  “It also steals dollar bills,” John muttered. “Someone should give it an attitude adjustment.”

  “You wouldn’t ever have gone down to Palo Verde with a baseball bat?” Hollister asked hesitantly, and with a grin.

  John chuckled in spite of himself as he pulled up a chair and straddled it. “No, but I understand the officer who did is still paying off the damage on a monthly basis. The circuit judge put the fear of God into him.”

  “What am I missing?” Sunny asked, her eyes glancing off John’s. A faint blush colored her high cheekbones and he seemed to relax, all of a sudden.

  She didn’t realize that he’d seen her with Hollister and that he was suddenly jealous. The other man drew women like flowers drew bees. Her flush delighted him, because it was proof that she was more attracted to him than the good-looking blond man sitting with her. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind since he’d seen her in the cathedral. Crazy, to feel possessive about a woman he hardly knew!

  “There was a soft drink machine in the police department in Palo Verde,” John told her, bringing his attention back to the incident Hollister had alluded to. “It ate dollar bills and refused to give either change or soft drinks. One of the officers accidentally hit it with a baseball bat several times and it had to be replaced. So the story goes.”

  She burst out laughing. “How in the world can you accidentally hit a soft drink machine with a baseball bat several times?!”

  “Funny, the judge asked the same question,” John replied, his black eyes twinkling.

  “And what was the officer’s excuse?” she asked.

  “Muscle spasms,” he said with a grin.

  She chuckled. John loved the way she laughed. It made her look very pretty, with her face animated and those dark eyes bright with humor.

  “Needless to say, the muscle spasm defense failed,” Hollister chuckled. “Actually, I had a similar mishap with an office shredder after it ate my credit card,” he confessed. “I use it so often that I generally leave it on. It’s automatic. So I accidentally dropped my card when I pulled it out of my wallet, and the damned thing shredded it.”

  “I hope the issuing institution was reasonable about replacing it,” John asked amusedly.

  “They were, after they stopped laughing,” Hollister said, sighing. “But the captain at the time wasn’t as understanding about the big dent in the shredder and the matching dent in the wall. I ended up buying a new shredder and paying to have the wall fixed. I’m still being ridden high about it, at the office.”

  “I shot a vacuum cleaner once,” John confessed. He laughed. “I hate housekeeping. We have a woman who lives on the ranch and does it for us part-time. But she was down with the flu for a week, and I was left with the chore. Damned things! You have to drag them around furniture and they catch on every single thing they can find.”

  “You shot it?” Sunny asked, appalled. “Your poor neighbors!”

  “I don’t have neighbors,” he returned. “I have a cattle ranch near Jacobsville, down in Jacobs County. Closest neighbor is about three miles away.”

  “Gosh, all that space,” Sunny said with a wistful smile. “I live in a renovated broom closet.”

  They both stared at her.

  “Kidding,” she said. “It’s an apartment, but if I had mice, I’d have to move. There wouldn’t be enough room for all of us.”

  They both smiled.

  “I was going to call you when I left here,” Hollister told John. “We have a new shooting victim.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m here,” John said. “I’ve got a police psychologist out in the waiting room. I need permission to question the patient.”

  “He’s asleep right now,” Sunny volunteered. “He’s had a lot of pain, so the doctor ordered medication that would put him to sleep about two hours ago.”

  “To sleep for how long, do you think?” John asked.

  “A few hours, I should think,” she said. “He didn’t sleep last night at all. He was in and out of lucid speech. He just said that he loved wolves and his boss was going to feed some snakes to them.”

  John and Hollister exchanged worried looks.

  “I’m going to put together a task force,” Hollister said. “I’d like to have you on it.”

  “I’m game.” John sighed. “Well, I’d better send my psychologist home. She gets paid by the hour.” He shivered. “Keeps snakes.”

  Hollister’s eyes widened. “Emma Cain.”

  “Well, yes.” John was surprised. “How in the world...?”

  Hollister sighed and smiled secretively. “I have a checkered past. She was part of it.” He glanced at his watch and got to his feet. “When do you go back on duty?” he asked Sunny.

  “Not for three days,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll ask Merrie York. She takes the shift when you’re off, doesn’t she?”

  “Usually.”

  “I know her brother, Stuart,” he said. “We have a mutual friend, Hayes Carson, who’s sheriff down in Jacobs County.”

  “I know Hayes,” John said, chuckling. “He’s had to help me with a few issues out in the county. He’s a great guy. Odd father-in-law,” he added, tongue in cheek.

  “Yes,” Hollister chuckled. “His father-in-law is the biggest drug lord in the North American continent.”

  “What?” Sunny asked, aghast.

  “It’s okay,” John assured her. “He doesn’t practice his vocation in the United States. He has a brand-new granddaughter. No way he’s risking his visiting privileges by breaking the law around Jacobs County.”

  Hollister sighed. �
��Still, half the undercover narcs in south Texas are employed by him.”

  “Does he know this?” Sunny wondered.

  “We’ve never been sure,” John said with a laugh.

  “Didn’t his enforcer work for one of those Middle East dictators who was killed?”

  “Former enforcer,” John replied. “He’s the son of Dane Lassiter, who heads a well-known Houston detective agency. From what we hear, the son is actually a fed working several undercover cases with international perpetrators.”

  “Dangerous work,” Hollister said.

  “He graduated from MIT with a degree in theoretical physics,” John mused. “Hell of a profession for an egghead.”

  “MIT.” Hollister shook his head. “Now I’ve heard everything.” He got up to shake hands with Ruiz and smile at Sunny. “Thanks for the help,” he added. “You take care of yourself.”

  “You do the same,” she replied and laughed. “I’m just a nurse. You’re right in the front lines in any gang warfare.”

  “Goes with the job. And I love the job. I’ll call you,” he added to John.

  They both watched him leave.

  There was an awkward silence.

  “He likes blondes, and he’s been around the world more than once,” John said abruptly, and his eyes were faintly hostile.

  “It’s not like that,” she said gently. “He was the detective on the case when I...” She hesitated. “It was a long time ago.”

  She picked up her purse and coat. “I have to go.”

  “Give me a minute, before you leave. Please,” he added with a smile.

  He walked out toward the waiting room. She wondered why he wanted her to wait. She wanted to go to bed.

  But he wasn’t long. He came back in not more than the minute he’d promised.

  “I’ll walk you home,” he said.

  Her heart jumped. She just stared at him. “But, it’s broad daylight,” she stammered.

  He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and smiled at her. “There are manholes,” he pointed out.

  She blinked. “Yes?”

  He shrugged. “You could fall in one. I’d be there to pull you out again.”