by Dana Mentink
“And Angela can take care of herself, too. She’s navy, after all,” Marco said.
Angela sighed. “A chaplain, but I had the obligatory combat training. I’m probably best at calling for help.”
“Don’t let her fool you, Dev. All the Gallagher sisters are made of tough stuff.”
“I don’t doubt it, Chief. They put up with you, after all.”
“Funny,” Marco said, as Candace and Angela laughed.
“What’s the code name for Ms. Gallagher?” Dev said.
“It should be Gumdrop,” Angela said promptly. “That was her nickname as a kid.”
Candace groaned. “You know how many years it took to get everyone to forget that nickname?”
“Gumdrop,” Dev said. “Got it.”
Candace glared at her sister.
“It’s better than mine,” Angela said. “Behind my back, they called me Giraffe when I was deployed. Something about my height.”
“Gonna tell them your nickname, Chief?” Dev said, eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Negative, and if you’d like to keep breathing, you won’t, either.”
Dev laughed. “You’re the boss.”
To preempt the question from coming out of Candace’s mouth, Marco said, “How about I cook up some spaghetti for dinner? I have some supplies in the truck.”
“Men who can cook, not bad,” Candace said. “We’ll go set the table.” She shot him a sly look. “But don’t think I’m going to forget about that nickname. I’ll get it out of Dev yet.”
“You’ll get no such intel from me.” Dev zipped his lips, turned an imaginary key and mimed throwing it away before he departed to the kitchen.
Marco watched them go. As he headed for his truck, he tried to breathe away the tension. Candace was safe for the moment, secured in a place where no one could get the jump on them. JeanBeth was under watch and he’d trust Dev and Lon to meet any kind of threat that Rico could toss at them.
So why did he have the tingling feeling, deep down in his gut, that something was about to go very wrong?
* * *
Candace helped Dev with the dishes while Marco did a check of the exterior of the old beach house. When the last dish was dried and put away in the worn wooden cupboards, Dev gave her a sweeping bow and disappeared somewhere. He and Marco would be bunking on sofas in the small downstairs room connected to a dark-paneled den that smelled of old cigars.
Candace, Angela and Tracy would be installed in the bedrooms upstairs, complete with a tiny bathroom and shower where Angela had just taken Tracy for her bedtime preparations.
Candace sighed. She would have to break the news to Tracy very soon that she would not be returning to school for a while. She didn’t look forward to the upset that would ensue. Thank you, Jay Rico, the man responsible for turning our lives upside down.
Fuming, she paced around the living room, perusing dusty bookshelves that held information on every kind of boat imaginable, plus a stack of tattered sailing magazines, while she formulated a plan of her own. She wasn’t about to sit around waiting for her sisters and Marco to figure out how to bring down Jay Rico. As long as she had her laptop, she was fully capable of doing some of her own sleuthing. Pulling a plaid-cushioned chair up to the sturdy table, she began firing up her computer just as Marco came in.
“Working?” he asked.
“Just starting.”
“Goal?”
“I want to know more about Kevin Tooley.”
“Our jailed gas station shooter?” He raised an eyebrow. “Thought our focus was Rico.”
“Rico’s interest in keeping Tooley out of prison seems unusual to me.”
Marco sat next to her, arms folded across the tabletop. “Not to me—he’s a ruthless thug protecting his interests. But I trust your instincts.”
She felt her cheeks warm at the compliment. “Thank you.”
“So tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Rico’s people have been jailed before. One has been in prison for six years. There’s no evidence that I can see that Rico started a campaign of terror to keep any of his other gang family out of prison, yet he’s heavily invested in Kevin Tooley. Don’t you find that strange?”
Marco lifted a shoulder. “Maybe, but I don’t think he’s the most rational guy. He uses intimidation and coercion when he feels the need.”
“Sure, in more important situations. But why in this case? Kevin Tooley is a kid, only eighteen, so he’s obviously not in a position of power in the Pack. Why go to all the trouble to prevent me from testifying against a young kid?
Marco was silent, staring at her, considering. He was weighing her reasons with calm deliberation and the respect gave her confidence to continue. “I want to understand more about Tooley, something to explain why Rico’s interested in this case.”
He nodded. “Okay. I’ll leave the ‘why’ to you. I’m more concerned with how he intends to go about stopping your testimony.”
“It’s not just mine. There are two other witnesses, remember?”
Dev knocked on the door frame with a knuckle. His face was grave and Angela stood next to him.
“Just got some bad news,” she said.
Marco straightened. “Let’s hear it.”
Candace steeled herself for whatever was going to come next.
“Donna heard from Barnes that one of the other witnesses has disappeared,” she said. “They’ve got people out looking, but they think he might have gotten a message from Rico and decided to get out of Dodge.”
Dev rubbed a hand over his thick beard. “Seems like it’s down to one other witness and Gumdrop.”
And then there were two...
Candace fought down the shiver of fear. She would not let him win.
“All right,” she said, forcing her chin high and trying to show her tiger stripes. “So be it.”
SEVEN
Tracy weathered the disappointment of missing church on Sunday with only a minor upset, but when Candace finally had the courage to tell her on Monday morning she would have to skip school for the foreseeable future, the child dissolved into a puddle of tears that wrenched Marco’s heart.
“Why can’t you just find the bad guys, Unco?” she wailed. “I’m gonna miss the play practice today, and tomorrow is library.”
“I am going to find them, kiddo,” he said. “I promise.”
She was only mildly placated by an early morning walk to the beach with Marco, Bear and Candace, where they searched for shells along the quiet stretch of sand. In her enthusiasm, Candace wandered close to the foamy edge of the water, her back to the pristine Pacific, jeans rolled up to her calves. She looked no more than a young girl herself, her laughter carrying over the sound of the surf.
A big wave, powered by the fall breeze, rolled in behind Candace, poised to douse her. Without thinking, Marco took her by the waist and twirled her away from the reach of the salt water. She grabbed his shoulders to keep her balance and clung to him, bringing her so close he could smell the subtle fragrance she always wore, the heady scents of vanilla and cinnamon.
Her curls tickled his face and he reached out to smooth them down. She was close, so close, brown eyes wide and heavily lashed, lips parted and cheeks flushed. He was overwhelmed by a desire to kiss her. The ocean crashed around them and his emotions did the same inside. She lingered there, close, and he wondered if she felt any of the same longing that kept him immobilized in that spot of sand, his arms clasping her to him. She tipped her mouth upward, the tiniest fraction of an inch nearer, and he was drawn as if by a powerful tide to close the gap, until she took a breath and stepped away.
“Thanks,” she said, tucking some hair behind her ear. “I don’t have enough extra clothes to get these wet.”
“Uh, s
ure.”
He fisted his hands on his hips, trying to breathe some sense back into his brain. She gazed out at the rolling surf and he stood there like a big, dumb block of stone, unsure what to say.
Had he really been about to kiss her? His own lack of control disturbed him.
“Come on, Unco,” Tracy called against the wind. “There are some cool shells over here.”
Relieved, he joined Tracy and Bear, scouring the beach and trying to leave his inexplicable behavior behind him.
Candace joined them, seemingly unruffled.
He found a perfect sand dollar, gingerly extracting it from the sand and handing it to Tracy with all the solemnity of a king bestowing a royal favor.
She took it, wide-eyed. “It’s not even chipped or anything. I’m gonna put it in my jar with the shells Daddy found me.” She continued, kneeling now, to search out more treasures tossed up by the sea.
Candace pushed the hair from her face as she joined them. “Rick took her to the beach just before he deployed for the last time. She was only two, so she doesn’t remember, but he found some beautiful shells and put them in a jar for her.”
“That was real nice.”
She knelt next to Tracy. “Baby, I know you don’t remember, but Daddy said you were the best shell finder in all of California.”
Marco saw moisture sparkling against Candace’s lashes.
“When we get home, I will show you a picture of you two at that beach, okay?”
“Okay, Mommy.” Tracy put the shell in her pocket and raced with Bear down the sand.
Candace continued to stare after the two. “I keep reminding her, but they’re my memories, not hers.”
The words rang with sadness, making Marco feel even more of a heel for his earlier impulse to kiss her. “I’m sorry.”
“He was a great dad. He never was the kind to ‘take her to play,’ he always played right along. First in the ball pit, the water, the ‘tiny tot’ days at the park. He would sure have loved doing these things with her now.”
The things that Marco was doing, making memories with another man’s child. And suddenly he was infringing again, inserting himself where Candace clearly did not want him to be. How would he feel if his child had no memories of her father? If all that love and devotion had been erased from a kid’s life by a roadside IED? But it wasn’t all erased, not as long as Candace was around to keep Rick’s memory alive for his little girl.
Marco walked away a few paces and left them to their treasure hunt, Candace, Tracy and the missing spot where Rick should be.
On their way back to the house to prepare for their courthouse visit, Marco made sure to hang back a pace. The waves rolled in and out, their ceaseless rhythm scouring away any trace of a human presence.
Keep the distance, he reminded himself, and everything will be just fine.
* * *
Candace dressed in slacks and the nicest blouse she’d packed, and restored her beach-blown hair to order. The prickling in her nerves was not due to the courthouse visit—she felt completely secure with Marco and Dev’s security measures—but with what had happened on the beach. Her mind was under control; Marco was a friend, protecting and helping. But her feelings were another matter.
Something inside her had wanted to lean forward and receive what she imagined might have been a kiss from Marco. But that could not be, Candace told herself sternly. What was she doing, thinking about kissing another man, any man? Especially in light of the obvious problem that Tracy did not remember her father?
But I can fix that, Candace thought, throwing up a prayer to God. Please don’t let Rick vanish from Tracy’s life like he vanished from mine. And as for thoughts of kissing Marco, those would be banished from both her mind and her emotions.
Bolstered, she kissed Tracy and Angela. Brent arrived and met Dev, who offered a handshake. “Heard you were a puddle jumper.”
“Rescue swimmer,” Brent said, quirking a smile.
“You any good?” Dev inquired.
Brent laughed. “Next time you’re drowning in twenty-foot seas, I’ll rappel out of a helicopter and show you just how good I am.”
Dev gave him a respectful grin. “All right, then. Hold down the fort, Coastie.”
“I will, and you drive safely, okay? No falling off your motorcycle or anything.”
When the bantering was finished, Marco got into the truck and they drove away toward the county courthouse. Candace didn’t see where Dev had gone, but she knew he was there somewhere, watching.
Like Rico’s men?
Marco was silent for the whole trip, probably just as well. She’d make it clear that she didn’t want any deeper connection with him than she already had, and didn’t want Tracy to bond with him any more than she’d already done.
Candace thought of Tracy’s joy when she spent time with Marco, and her stomach pinched with guilt. She recalled the school plays he’d attended and even a classroom tea, cramming his giant body into a first-grade-sized chair. Every year for her birthday he carved her a tiny wooden bunny to add to her collection, a reminder of an orphaned rabbit they’d tried to save. Was it wrong to put distance between Tracy and a man she loved? But it was not right to allow Rick to be replaced in her heart or Tracy’s.
Candace clasped her hands together and prayed, once again, for God to help her be both mother and father to her daughter. Relaxed, she drifted off until the slowing of the truck roused her. “I didn’t know I was that tired.”
Marco got out to open the door for her, but she hopped out first. She meant to say thank you, but he was propelling her toward the courthouse, his hand on her back.
They passed through the metal detectors and Candace had her purse searched. The precautions were comforting. There was no way Jay Rico would try anything in a heavily secured government building, and besides, he had no way of knowing she was here.
After forty-five minutes of waiting in a small conference room, during which Marco sat still as a statue and Candace paced, checked her phone, drank some water and paced some more, a sturdy woman with a neat bun entered.
“I’m Mandy Livingston, assistant to the district attorney. I’m sorry, but he’s still in court, so I don’t think he can meet with you today. But we can go over the particulars, okay?” She shot a look at Marco. “Would you mind waiting outside, sir?”
He hesitated, and Candace thought he might resist, but she nodded at him.
“I’ll be right outside the door.”
Livingston started in and Candace was again lost in that horrible time four months before, reliving the shooting, the cold expression on Kevin Tooley’s face as he aimed his gun out the car window and murdered a young man at the gas station.
“Why did he do it?” she blurted.
Livingston looked surprised. “Tooley?” She paused. “From what we can gather from our snitches, the victim threatened to go to the police with information about a car Tooley stole.”
“What do you know about Tooley’s background?”
She cocked her head. “Why is this of interest?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Okay. Here are the bare-bones facts. He was born in Los Angeles to a single mom, Yolanda Tooley, who was a receptionist at a gym. She was struck by a car and killed when Kevin was three. It was a hit-and-run and the driver was never caught. Kevin was raised by various people, an uncle notably. Started seeking out the gang life at age twelve.”
Twelve. Only a little older than Tracy.
“Minor trouble with the law and then fast forward to age eighteen, when he killed Jack Matthews at the gas station.” Livingston closed her notebook. “I’ve got to get back to court. We’ll be in touch.”
“Ms. Livingston,” Candace said. “The other witness, the one who disappeared. Any success tracking him down?”<
br />
“No, I’m afraid not, but the remaining witness is in protective custody.” She paused. “You should be also, to be blunt.”
I am, she wanted to say, but the woman was already gone. When Marco stuck his head in, the exhaustion of reliving the whole episode crashed in on her and she found she barely had the energy to rise from the chair.
Marco handed her a paper cup. An enticing aroma drifted from under the lid.
“Vanilla latte,” he said.
She goggled. “This from the man who tells me that coffee with vanilla isn’t really coffee.”
Marco shrugged. “Figured you’d need a little pick-me-up, and there was a coffee kiosk near the conference room.”
With a sigh of contentment she sipped her drink while he checked in with Dev.
“All clear,” Dev said.
Suitably revived, Candace followed Marco out, leaving him for a moment to head to the ladies’ room.
Three women were washing their hands and the stalls were all occupied, so she took her place in line, wondering why men never seemed to have to wait. Behind her, a bored young blonde with heavy eyeliner, smelling of cigarettes, was checking her phone. She bumped Candace with her elbow.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“No problem.”
When Candace emerged from the stall, the bathroom was empty except for the blonde girl who lounged against the wall. She was no longer immersed in her phone, but staring straight at Candace.
There was no friendliness in her smile, and her dark eyes were flat and cold. Candace’s breath crystallized in her lungs as the woman leaned forward.
“Jay Rico is looking forward to meeting you,” she whispered, reaching for Candace’s throat.
Instead of shrinking back as her instincts demanded, Candace grabbed the hair spray she happened to have in her purse and pressed the nozzle. It wasn’t as effective as the pepper spray she hadn’t been allowed to carry into the building, but it was enough.
The blonde out, pawing at her eyes, which had gone red from the chemicals.
“Tell Mr. Rico I’d love to meet him,” Candace said.
