by Kelly Irvin
“I don’t want it around the kids.”
“I know.”
“Stay here.”
“I have to go.”
“I know. Be careful.”
Gabriella paused long enough to hug Natalie. Then she ran back into the fray.
Where she belonged.
Chapter 24
Self-combustion appeared to be a distinct possibility. Deacon kept his gaze on the street in front of him. Gabriella radiated irritation. He hadn’t been the one to dump her at the house. Thank God that had been Eli’s job. She would never have let Deacon get away with it.
He shut the vent to stave off the fumes from a dilapidated VW van with orange Tamaulipas tags that puttered ten miles under the speed limit in front of them. Might as well flip the switch and let her explode. Then they could get back to doing something constructive. “How’s it going back there?”
What he really wanted to ask was, How’s Natalie doing?
“Where have you been? Where’s Eli?” Gabriella twisted in her seat to face him. Her seat belt snapped. She growled. Literally. Like a feral cat. “Where are we going, and how do you know he’s meeting us there? Have you two been talking?”
And leaving her out. That’s what she really meant to say. “We’ve been texting. He’s on his way back from the Mendez ranch.”
“He texted you but not me.” Her voice rose an octave.
“We were working.”
“What happened out there?”
“He says he got some more information on Luke Donovan. Andy and Sunny Mendez seemed legit. He’ll get into the details when he gets here.”
“We’re supposed to be a team.” She snorted. “You two are chauvinistic men masquerading as feminists. Jake’s my brother. And Eli is my . . . He’s someone . . . He’s my friend.”
The crux of the matter. This was about fear for both the men in her life.
“Eli’s fine. And believe me, he doesn’t underestimate your abilities. He’s keeping you off the front lines because you really are in danger. They’re not after him or me. They’re after you. You can work behind the scenes and still be effective. Together, we’ll find Jake.”
He couldn’t promise Jake would be alive when they did, but they would find him. Gabriella and Natalie would have closure, however painful.
Closure was a stupid word.
“We’ll see about that.” She said the words quietly, but they were undergirded with a steely determination. “What did you find out?”
“I have a friend who’s a reporter at the Morning-Times. Crime beat.” An SUV ran the red light. Deacon laid on the brakes and the horn at the same time. “I’d forgotten how bad the drivers are here.”
“Deacon!”
“He’s been working on a story about corruption in local law enforcement for a couple of years. He’s—”
“Years? He hasn’t been able to break the story? What reporter stays in Laredo for years? Is he any good?”
“All great questions, if you’ll let me finish. Yes, he’s an excellent reporter. He’s engaged to a local woman, a TV reporter. Her elderly parents are here so she stays; therefore he stays. Anyway, this story is a tough nut to crack. He received death threats after an interview with the chief of police in which he asked questions about gun smuggling. No one will talk on the record about it. They’d rather not get gunned down in the street or have a pipe bomb explode in their mailbox. His boss isn’t eager to publish something that can’t be corroborated by the federal law enforcement agencies, and they aren’t talking. I don’t blame him.”
“How well do you know this guy? Will our investigation end up on the front page tomorrow?”
“I’ve known Chris since I worked at the paper years ago. He’ll want first dibs, but he can be trusted with an embargo. He has more information than we do, so you need to trust him.”
“So what does he say about the ATF and Rincon?”
“Chris didn’t want to talk on the phone. That’s why we’re going to the Sunshine Lounge. We’re meeting him there.”
“The Sunshine Lounge. That sounds promising.”
“Hey, it’s a landmark among journalists who work here.” The smells were most vivid in his memory. Cigarette smoke, stale beer, and the antojitos they served—little bowls of beans and Fritos. The feel of the chalk silky on his fingertips, lining up the shot, watching the female reporters whisper and jockey for position. They looked so different in jeans and T-shirts compared to their reporter suits during the day. “It’s also a hotbed of gossip. You can find out all kinds of things about stories-in-progress and law enforcement. It’s owned by three cops—which makes it a semi-safe place to drink—”
“There’s no such thing.”
“I mean there won’t be a shoot-out as the result of a disputed shot.” He amended the statement. Gabriella had every reason to feel the way she did about alcohol, but not everyone who drank ended up with his car wrapped around a tree. Or in a wheelchair. “How’s Natalie doing?”
“Who’s asking? The reporter or the friend?”
Gabriella’s tart tone didn’t bode well, but Natalie was an adult and so was he. “The guy who brought her down here to keep her and her children safe.”
“You went through a terrifying experience with her, so it seems like you really know her, but you don’t.”
“I’m not an idiot. I know that.” Maybe a little bit of an idiot. Or a closet romantic. “I just want an opportunity to get to know her. You’re her sister, not her mother.”
Bad move. Gabriella’s mother was a sore subject. Not that she ever talked about her. Gabriella’s dogged silence on the subject spoke volumes.
“Now isn’t a good time. There’s too much emotion and too much adrenaline.” As usual she wouldn’t be drawn into the mother subject. “It’s in the day-to-day, ordinary life that you figure out stuff like that.”
“You think I can’t handle her being in a wheelchair?” Her lack of confidence in him—and in Natalie—was crushing. “Do you really think I’m that shallow?”
“No.” She wiggled in her seat. “I’m sorry. I don’t. But this is my sister we’re talking about. She’s been through so much. The kids have been through so much. I don’t want her to get hurt.”
“You’d rather she not try at all? What happens when you and Eli finally get married?”
“We’re not getting married.”
“You are. Stop messing around and get it over with.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“You shut up.”
Gabriella might just be the sister he never had. Or sister-in-law. A guy could dream. “Let’s find Jake. Then we’ll duke it out.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
* * *
The Sunshine Lounge was anything but. Gabriella shut the door of the silver Infiniti Deacon borrowed from his aunt Piper and stared up at the grungy, squat building painted a drab gray color. A pink-and-green-neon Tecate sign with a palm tree and garish orange sun provided the only splashes of color. Two small windows on either side of the door had been covered with black paper. A few desiccated weeds decorated strips of dirt that served as a front yard for the establishment. A half a dozen parking spaces were full. The grim building matched her mood.
She glanced over the car’s roof at Deacon. “Why does your friend want to meet here?”
“Because no one will think twice about an old colleague looking him up and asking to get together at the Sunshine Lounge for old times’ sake.”
“Y’all spent a lot of time here, I take it.” She stepped over a splotch on the asphalt that looked like vomit and headed for the cloudy fingerprint-smeared glass door. “Back in the day when you were young and a partier.”
“I’m still young, thank you very much. Every Thursday night, like clockwork, we played pool, gossiped, flirted, and drank large quantities of cheap beer. I was one of the few journalists who called Laredo home.” He pushed the door open and held it for Gabriella. “Everyone else was a long way
from home. We were like family to each other. We took turns having parties at different apartments, playing cards, and watching movies.”
“You are too young to have good old days.” Squinting in the sudden darkness, she waited for her eyes to adjust before moving forward. “Sounds like not much has changed, though.”
“The news business is a small one in the bigger scheme of things. The same people I knew here are in San Antonio now, with a few exceptions, like this one.”
He led the way between a series of scarred pool tables with green felt covers. The joint was hopping on a late Saturday afternoon. An old Jason Aldean song, “When She Says Baby,” wafted from tinny speakers. Considering the bar’s dive appearance, the crowd was surprisingly diverse. Several guys Gabriella pegged as off-duty cops had a lively game near the front door. The way they stood between the tables, facing the door, was the first tip-off. The not-quite-at-ease posture. The gazes that hugged her outline and then dismissed her as no visible threat. One in particular made eye contact. She held his gaze. He shrugged and went back to his game. She continued her own assessment of threats.
Deacon zeroed in on a table near the back. In the dim overhead lighting—not conducive to a decent game of pool—stood a tall, balding man who vigorously chalked his cue. He was almost as skinny as his stick. He greeted Deacon like a long-lost friend and comrade in arms. He made the introductions. Chris eyed her with a healthy mixture of curiosity and wariness.
“So you want to pick my brain.” He gave the chalk another twist on his stick and laid it on the table. “Like I told Deacon, it’s tit for tat. I’ve been trying to break a story on gun smuggling for years. This sounds like the best shot I’ll ever have.”
“Deacon tells me you haven’t been able to break it on your own.” Gabriella eyed the door. No Eli. She slipped onto the stool across from him. “I realize it’s like working in a war zone down here, but surely there’s still a few of the good guys left who appreciate the role of the fourth estate.”
“Sure, and like me, they’d prefer to stay alive.” Chris tapped the far side pocket and took his shot. The yellow solid dropped from sight. Not bad. “I live for the story, but I’d rather not die for it.”
“What’s different now?”
“From what Deacon has told me, which granted isn’t a lot, this may be the opportunity to take them out of circulation for good and break a story of national significance that could save my job.”
Deacon’s constant anxiety over his job was universal in the newspaper business, which had been on its death bed for years, and not news to Gabriella. The stakes were high for journalists who loved their profession. “Take who?”
A waitress dressed in shorts only slightly longer than panties and a hot-pink tank top approached the table with her order pad on a small tray. “What can I get you?”
“Would you like a beer? That’s basically all they have here.” Chris approached the table, grabbed his longneck, and nodded at the waitress to bring him another. “But on the upside, it’s happy hour.”
Happy until someone drove drunk and killed someone or ended up in jail for a DUI. “No, thanks.”
“Bring the lady a club soda with a twist of lime,” Deacon broke in. He knew her story. He’d seen the results in Natalie. “I’ll have a Coke, lots of ice, please.”
The waitress trotted away in high-top pink Converse tennis shoes.
“Now answer my question. Take who out of circulation?”
Chris handed Deacon a pool stick. “You and me buddy, like old times.”
“I’ll bury you like old times. You break.”
Chris did as he was told. Nice break, but no balls sank. “It’s all yours, friend.” He sauntered back to the table. “The cops who are being paid by organized crime to look the other way.”
Finally. “Do you know that for a fact?”
Chris glanced around. He chewed on his lip for a few seconds. Toby Keith’s foot-stomping, fist-shaking “Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue” pounded the air around them. Finally, he tugged a dark navy backpack from the floor and plopped it on the table. “I want your word. I get first dibs on the story when these guys go down.”
“I’m not in charge of this investigation, but whatever I can do, I’ll do.”
“Your brother obviously thought Luke Donovan was the key. He and his partner both.”
Nothing new there.
Chris pulled a brown folder from the backpack and opened it. He proceeded to lay out a series of photos and shove them one by one across the table at Gabriella. “The family resemblance is strong. There’s no doubt you and Jake Benoit are related.”
It was night and the car’s windows were tinted, but Chris was right. Jake sat in the passenger seat of the black SUV. He held a camera with a long lens in his right hand.
“How’d you get this? Where was it taken?”
A bell dinged. She glanced up.
Eli. Thank You, God. Thank You. I don’t deserve Your help, but I thank You for being so gracious. Even if I’m an unforgiving, unforgetting, merciless sinner.
Eli surveyed the scene with that same neutral cop stare he always used in unfamiliar territory. His face was sun-reddened and his shirt collar damp with sweat. He looked windblown and dusty. And rugged in blue jeans that molded to his muscled frame. Every woman in the place stared. From the waitress to the woman hanging on her boyfriend. Deacon waved. Eli stalked toward them.
“Remember, we’re here to play pool.” Gabriella brushed past Deacon and made a beeline for Eli. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you answer my texts?” Just managing to keep her voice down, she planted herself in his path. “You could be dead and I wouldn’t even know it. What’s wrong with you?”
“I missed you too.” He bent over so his lips were close to her ear as he pulled her into a hug. His scent of cologne and man sweat enveloped her. The anger dissipated in a wave of sudden heat brought on by his whispered words and his breath on her cheek. “Everything is fine. I’m fine.”
She broke away, whirled, and marched back to the table. “This is Deacon’s friend Chris. He’s about to tell us how he obtained photos of Jake taking photos.”
Chris propelled the yellow solid ball into a corner pocket with an elegant stroke. “Nice to meet you.”
“Same here.” Eli’s mocking chuckle followed her. “Nice place, Deacon.”
“Glad you like it. It’s owned by cops. Makes it safe yet dangerous. You never know which around here.”
Or whom to trust. Just like in life.
The four of them squeezed around the table, heads together. “I’d been trying for months to get someone from the ATF to talk to me. All I got was the party line. Word was going around at the courthouse and the federal building and the police station. Something big was up. I heard your brother was one of the agents involved.”
“How?”
“I’ve been here ten years.” Chris shrugged. “I’m not bragging. I have a network of sources built up over the years. Guys I can buy a drink or a steak. Court reporters and administrative assistants who like to feel like they’re in the know. A cup of coffee from Starbucks. Some Dunkin’ Donuts. They like to talk. Cops sick of the status quo love a gripe session over a few beers when someone else is buying. People who just like the idea of being that ‘unnamed source.’”
“Okay, so what happened?”
“Your brother wouldn’t talk to me. He wasn’t interested in beer or steak or being an unnamed source. Totally a ‘talk to the PIO’ straight shooter. So was his partner. So my photog and I decided to follow them.”
“You surveilled two ATF agents?” Eli’s grin showed he appreciated his new acquaintance’s perseverance, even if he wouldn’t want it directed at him. “That’s probably against the law.”
“I doubt it.” Chris grinned back. “At least not if we don’t get caught. It went on for a while. Days. Nights. Finally, we got lucky. We followed them to a warehouse district off Mann Road on the northwest side.” He stabbed at the top
photo. “That’s where he was the night this was taken. They were surveilling a piece of industrial property we found out later is owned by none other than Luke Donovan.”
“He’s in the import-export business.” Deacon’s raised eyebrows matched his sarcastic tone. “Donovan has warehouses. So what?”
The waitress reappeared with Chris’s beer, Deacon’s Coke, and the club soda. Deacon slid the folder over the photos. A Dr Pepper for Eli, even as he gazed longingly at the beer. The waitress trotted away. He turned back to the photos.
Gabriella shuffled the photos. She laid one of three men carrying automatic weapons on top. “Who needs men with artillery to guard warehouses filled with furniture and clothes?”
“The same is true at LD’s mansion, according to Sunny Mendez.” Eli tapped on the table with one finger. “Lots of guys with guns. She says he has security up the wazoo. Big guns, as she described them. On the perimeter of the property as well as at the house.”
Gabriella turned to Chris. “Were you able to confront Jake or Teeter with the photos? What did they say?”
“Your brother disappeared before we had a chance. Teeter isn’t talking to us.”
“And there’s this.” Chris tugged a photo from the bottom of the stack with two fingers. He handled it like it was dusted with anthrax. “What’s our friendly neighborhood homicide detective doing there?”
Detective Carlos Rincon stood, arms crossed, talking to a man Gabriella didn’t recognize.
“Hot-diggity-dog!” Deacon pumped his fist. “Now we’re talking.”
“Rincon is in on it.”
“Then he knows where Jake is.” White-hot anger surged through Gabriella. The bar’s walls shimmered. “Jake could be there, right now. We have to go.”
Deacon grabbed her arm. “Hear the rest of the story.”
Chris shook his head. “After Jake disappeared, that’s the first place we went. The guards were gone. Apparently they go where LD goes. We managed to look through some windows. Lots of boxes. Nothing seemed out of place. At least not from the outside. No cars. No activity of any kind.”
“Then we confront Rincon.”
