Long, Tall Texans: Stanton ; Long, Tall Texans: Garon

by Diana Palmer

  She put down the brush and walked back out onto the porch. She hadn’t quite finished pruning the roses, and it was pleasant out by the steps, in the sun.

  She’d no sooner started clipping when she heard a vehicle drive up. To her surprise, it was Garon, the last person she’d expected to see. She stood up with the clippers cradled in her hands while he got out of the car and came up to the steps.

  He stopped short. His dark gaze slid over her face and shoulders, and down her body, with odd intensity. They began to glitter.

  She opened her mouth to ask what was wrong. Before she got the words out, he had her up in his arms, and he was kissing her as if there wouldn’t be a tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 8

  GARON COULDN’T HELP himself. The sight of Grace’s trim, pretty figure in those tight jeans and shirt, the delight of her long blond hair cascading down her back, robbed him of reason. He had a sudden, urgent arousal that he couldn’t control. The feel of her in his arms, against his tall, powerful body, was like a potent narcotic.

  “Open your mouth, Grace,” he bit off against the taut line of her lips. He drew her even closer. “Come on, baby,” he whispered seductively, teasing her lips with his own in a passionate whisper of touch, “do it. Do it, Grace…”

  She tried to speak, and ended up doing exactly what he’d asked her to. She gasped at the rush of feeling it provoked. He knew too much. He made her hungry. She’d never in her life wanted to belong to a man, until right now. She could feel the heat and power of his muscular chest crushing against her soft breasts, she could hear his heartbeat, the rasp of his breathing. Or was it her own heartbeat?

  Older, frightening memories rushed in on her as his ardor became less controlled. She pushed at his chest. He drew away from her. He looked as shocked as she did. He fought to breathe normally.

  “I know,” she said, holding up a hand and forcing a smile to her swollen lips. “It was a helpless reaction that you can’t explain, but I can. I had Miss Lettie down the road make a doll of you and rub my photo over it, so now you can’t resist me.” She grinned.

  He burst out laughing. “Damn!”

  “Not that I normally resort to such measures,” she added demurely. “My extreme good looks usually get me all the men I want.”

  He drew in a long breath. She had this uncanny way of defusing dangerous situations. He’d been in over his head, and he knew it. But she didn’t seem to be angry at him, despite her past. He had to remember her background, so that he didn’t frighten her. She was so very innocent, for a woman her age. Despite her bad experience, she seemed to like being in his arms. The thought excited him. “There goes my illusion of being the only man in your life.”

  “Your illusion left skid marks,” she agreed. “Why are you here, if you don’t mind saying?”

  He blinked. “I don’t know.”

  She gave him a wry look. “Short-term memory loss can’t be good for your job…”

  “Hell, I know what I’m doing when I’m at work!” he muttered.

  “Well, that’s a relief!”

  “I have to drive over to Palo Verde to interview a man,” he said. Marquez had located an ex-policeman from Palo Verde who remembered the cold case about the dead child from two years before. He said that a neighbor of the dead child claimed to have seen a man with the child earlier on the day she was abducted. The witness, Marquez said, had been acknowledged by police at the time, but the witness had been out of town when the detectives went back to speak to him. Apparently he’d gotten lost in the shuffle when publicity brought in hundreds of tips that had to be checked out. Garon wanted to see the witness, if he still lived in Palo Verde. Perhaps he might have remembered something else in the years since the crime occurred. He might be just the break they needed to find a suspect in two child murders. Like Marquez, Garon was certain they were dealing with a serial killer. The cases were much too similar to be coincidences.

  “You working today?” he asked Grace.

  “I only worked this morning. I get off this noon on Saturday,” she said.

  “I wish I did,” he signed. “Want to come with me?”

  Her whole face radiated the delight the invitation caused. He wasn’t infatuated with the Jaqui woman. He couldn’t be, if he was taking Grace out for the day!

  “I’ll just change into something better,” she began, worried that she didn’t have many clothes to choose from.

  “What’s wrong with what you’ve got on?” he asked. “You might have noticed that I’m not wearing a suit.”

  She did notice. He was in tan slacks that emphasized the powerful muscles in his long legs, and a pale lemon designer shirt that outlined the muscles in his chest and arms. He was wearing a lightweight jacket with it. He looked very handsome.

  “Don’t you usually wear a suit?” she wondered.

  “Only when I plan to arrest someone and the media might show up,” he said amusedly. “The Bureau likes us to look professional at such times.”

  “Well!”

  “But since I don’t plan to arrest this man, I can be casual.”

  “In that case, I’ll get my purse and a sweater.”

  He waited for her by the car, looking around curiously. “Where’s the cat?” he asked when she rejoined him.

  She bit her lower lip. “He got out of the house while I was gone. I found him…” She swallowed. “I buried him.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. He knew she was fond of the old cat. “Our white cat had kittens. She lives in the barn, keeps down the rat population. When the kittens are old enough, you can come over and pick out one.”

  She blinked away tears. “That would be nice.”

  “For us, too. One less mouth to feed.”

  “How’s Miss Turner?”

  “She had to drive to Austin to see about her father,” he said. “He had a heart attack.”

  “Poor thing! Her father is the only family she has left. Has she called to tell you how he’s doing?”

  “Not yet. But she will, I’m sure.”

  “What do you have to interview this witness about?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “We think he might have seen the perpetrator in a cold case murder,” he told her. “If he did, and he can remember anything about the abductor, that might give us a head start on a suspect for our current case, which has similar features. If he didn’t, we’re back to forensics evidence to search for a killer.”

  “That cold case—it’s about that little girl who was killed there, isn’t it?”

  “You’re sharp,” he murmured.

  “Palo Verde isn’t big enough to get in the news unless there’s something terrible going on,” she said. “I thought when you mentioned this latest case that it was very similar to what they said happened to the girl up at Palo Verde.”

  “Marquez made the connection.”

  “You said you’d be looking for evidence at the autopsy. Did you find any?” she asked with deliberate carelessness.

  “Plenty,” he said flatly. “Including DNA evidence. If we can find the man who did it, we can hang him.”

  “If only it wasn’t such a big state,” she said quietly.

  “Oh, we’ll get lucky eventually.” He glanced at her. “Have you ever heard of the Locard Exchange Principle?”

  She frowned. “No.”

  “It’s a theory of evidence that forms the basis of modern forensic investigation,” he said. “Dr. Edmond Locard was a French policeman who noticed that criminals leave trace evidence behind them, and pick up trace evidence from any location they visit. It’s an exchange of fibers, hair and other materials. Analyzing this evidence can place the criminal at the scene of a crime, without any other proof of involvement.”

  “I love to watch those television shows about cold cases,” she said. “It’s fascinating to see how the smallest things can connect the dots in crimes.”

  He smiled. “I watch them, too.” He glanced at her. “But a large part of police work
is surveillance and interviewing witnesses or family members of victims. Boring stuff.”

  “To someone who works part-time jobs for a living,” she pointed out, “it’s not all that boring,” She glanced at him. “How long have you been an FBI agent?”

  “Since I was twenty-three,” he said.

  “And you’re eighty now…” she began mischievously.

  “I’m thirty-six,” he reminded her.

  “Did you always work murders?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve only been assigned to one serial murder case, back east. But I’ve worked violent crime for most of my career. I worked on the Hostage Rescue Team for six years, and on the FBI SWAT team in D.C. for four more. After that I worked out of Austin. Now I’m in the San Antonio Field Office. I head a squad that covers violent crime.”

  “Those first two things—that’s dangerous work. I’ve seen movies that show how those teams operate.”

  His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Yes. Very dangerous.”

  She frowned. “You chose that sort of work. Something happened to you, too,” she guessed. “Something traumatic.”

  His jaw tautened. “Something,” he said. He glanced in her direction. “I don’t talk about it.”

  “I wasn’t prying,” she said, turning her purse over in her lap. “But you asked me if I talked to anyone about what happened to me.”

  “So you did.”

  “So turnabout is fair play.”

  He didn’t answer. He was silent for a time, caught up in the past, in the anguish of those years. The pain was harsh.

  She realized she’d stepped on broken glass and she searched for some way to lighten the tension. “Do you believe in werewolves?” she asked.

  The car swerved faintly. “Excuse me?” he asked in disbelief.

  “I saw this movie. It was very realistic,” she told him.

  “I’m sure that I know at least one person who’s never seen during full moons. You have to use silver bullets on them, you know, regular lead ones won’t work.”

  “I don’t have a silver bullet to my name,” he pointed out.

  “We’re in trouble if we run into one,” she remarked dryly.

  “Tell you what. If you see a werewolf, you tell me, and I’ll rush home and melt down some of the silver service and start making bullets right away.”

  “Deal,” she said smugly.

  He felt his heart lighten. She was good company, for a shy and damaged spinster. She made him forget the past. He liked being with her.

  She was feeling something similar, especially after the way he’d kissed her earlier, with such need and pleasure. She tingled all over remembering how it had felt. Maybe he had a hard time with relationships, and that was why he wasn’t married.

  * * *

  THEY STOPPED at the police department in Palo Verde to talk with its police chief, Gil Mendosa. He was sheepish and embarrassed when Garon told him about their current murder investigation and Marquez’s efforts to find out about his department’s cold case from him through e-mail that was ignored.

  “We had these e-mails that embarrassed Miss Tibbs,” he explained. “She’s seventy, and handles the phone and the mail for us. Well, ever since, if the heading doesn’t have something specific about a case in it, she just deletes it unread, like we told her to. Tell Marquez I’m sorry.”

  “I will. What we want to know is if you’re keeping back any information about the little girl’s murder—something you want to keep out of the news.”

  The chief glanced at Grace uneasily.

  “She’s a clam,” Garon told him easily. “It’s all right.”

  “Okay, then. Yes, there was one other thing. The man tied a ribbon around her neck and strangled her to death with it. A red ribbon.”

  * * *

  “HERE, SIT DOWN for God’s sake!” Garon growled. He’d caught Grace just as she folded. “What’s the matter?”

  She fought for every breath. She couldn’t give herself away. She couldn’t!

  “It’s that twenty-four-hour stomach virus that’s been going around,” she said with a weak laugh. “I had it yesterday and it’s knocked me to my knees. Drastic way to lose weight, you know.”

  “Would you like something to drink?” the chief asked gently.

  “How about a martini, shaken, not stirred,” she began, with twinkling gray eyes.

  “You can have a Diet Coke,” Garon returned, moving to the drinks machine in the department’s canteen with a handful of change, “if I can find the right change.”

  “Don’t feed it a dollar bill,” the chief cautioned. “It eats them.”

  She gave him a hard look. “You’re a policeman and you let a machine rob customers right in your own office?” she exclaimed.

  “A man we arrested last month got hold of a gun and shot the last machine we had in here,” he replied. “Two months before that, one of our own officers accidentally hit the machine it replaced with a baseball bat. Don’t wonder out loud,” he advised when she started to ask how someone could accidentally smash a machine with a bat. “So, you see, we can’t ask the machine people to give us a third one. They’d never understand.”

  “I see your point,” Grace agreed.

  Garon handed her an icy cold soft drink. She popped the lid and drank thirstily. “Oh, that’s so good,” she said, sighing. “Thanks.”

  “You should have told me you weren’t feeling well,” he said.

  She smiled at him. “You wouldn’t have let me come with you.”

  He pursed his lips and his dark eyes twinkled. Grace blushed.

  Garon forced his attention back to Mendosa, and told him about the witness Marquez had unearthed in San Antonio.

  “His name is Sheldon,” Garon said. “He apparently lived two doors down from the murder victim. Some homicide detectives from San Antonio talked to him. Marquez and I followed up, and he recalled seeing the suspect.”

  Mendosa grimaced. “We had an apparent eyewitness ourselves, a man named Homer Rich. But our former chief said the guy was loopy and he wouldn’t let us go talk to him. The witness lived right next door to the child.” He frowned. “But he doesn’t live here now. He moved out of town not long after the murder.”

  Garon frowned. “Was he a suspect?”

  “No,” Mendosa said. “The guy was handsome, he made a good living, although I never knew exactly how he made his money. He had a fiancée somewhere. Nobody local ever saw her. He wasn’t a suspect. In fact, he joined the search when her family knew she was missing. He even printed up some flyers at his own expense.”

  Garon didn’t say a word. He took notes. But he knew very well that sometimes murder suspects joined in the search and even spoke to the police about the progress of the investigation. He wasn’t telling Mendosa. It would only make the man feel bad. He was operating on a shoestring as it was.

  “Know where Rich moved to?” he asked.

  Mendosa shook his head. “He kept to himself, mostly. You might ask Ed Reems, he rented the house to Rich.” He gave Garon the address, which he jotted down. “Ed loves to talk. If he knows anything, he’ll tell you.”

  “Thanks,” Garon said warmly.

  “You’re welcome. If you need help, let me know. We’re all on the same team, when it comes to murder. I’d love to heat up that cold case and solve it. It haunts me. There’s just me and one other part-time officer to handle things here. We have to call in the county sheriff’s department for assistance if anything major breaks. We just don’t have the resources to commit to a decent investigation. I hope you catch this guy.”

  “You and me and half the FBI,” Garon replied.

  “Child killers evoke sympathy from nobody, especially if they get sent to prison.”

  “Amen. If you need help, just call.”

  Garon smiled. “I will. Thanks.”

  * * *

  GRACE FINISHED her soft drink just as they pulled up at a dingy single-wide trailer on a quiet street just outside the P
alo Verde city limits.

  “Stay put,” he told her. “I won’t be long.”

  He got out and walked up the steps to the front porch. The door opened. He displayed his credentials. A minute later, he went inside the house.

  Grace wondered what he was going to find out. The mention of the red ribbon had made her sick. Garon would be suspicious. She didn’t want him to know why it had upset her. It was too soon. Far too soon.

  Less than five minutes passed before he came back out, frowning. He got into the car beside her.

  “Wasn’t he home?”

  He drew in a long breath. “He was home,” he said, staring at the house. “He said that Rich didn’t leave a forwarding address. What’s more, he left the furniture in the house, along with appliances he’d bought. He must have been in a hell of a hurry to get out of town.”

  Grace bit her lower lip and mentioned what they were both thinking. “What if he wasn’t a witness? What if he did it?”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking.” He started the car and put it in gear. “I’ll leave you at the chief’s office. I need to do some door-to-door investigating.”

  “Couldn’t I help?”

  He smiled gently. “Not without credentials,” he said. “I’ll get Mendosa to help me. If we’re lucky, we may turn up something.”

  * * *

  BUT FOUR HOURS LATER, they hadn’t turned up one single witness who’d seen anything connected with the crime.

  “Look,” Garon told Mendosa, “it’s a real long shot, but I’d like to send a forensic team down here to scour the house where Rich lived. We might get lucky and turn up something. We can find traces of blood even after houses are wiped clean with disinfectant and bleach.”

  “I’ll arrange it with the landlord and his tenants,” Mendosa promised. “How about next Monday, first thing?”

  Garon shook his hand. “That’s fine. I appreciate the help.”

  Mendosa grinned. “So do I. Nobody likes to see a murderer walk.”

  “You can say that again.”

  * * *