by Carsen Taite
So much for a peaceful end to her morning ride. “Hello?”
“Ms. Davis, I have Mr. Gellar on the line for you.”
“I’m ready.” She wasn’t. She wasn’t supposed to meet with her new boss until Monday morning when she reported for duty at the federal building in downtown Dallas. This week was supposed to be about getting settled, including finding a place to live that wasn’t in close proximity to her perpetually angry brother.
“Ms. Davis, Hershel Gellar. You enjoying being back in Texas?”
“Yes, sir.” He wouldn’t give a shit about any equivocation and she didn’t know him well enough to confide her true mixed feelings. “And call me Peyton, please.”
“And I’m Hershel. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. No sense standing on formalities. Speaking of which, I’m sending over a couple of agents to pick you up. Got something you need to see. They’ll explain everything when they get there, say around eleven thirty. Let me know if you need anything else before Monday. We’re glad to have you on board.”
He was gone before Peyton could utter another word, and she spent a full minute just staring at her phone. Damn. She stroked Ranger’s head and urged him to hang tight while she called her realtor to reschedule the planned afternoon of house hunting.
Appointments rescheduled, she rode back to the house, grabbing a few minutes of solitude before her day exploded. Over the course of the last two days, she decided that wherever she chose to live, it needed to be like this. She’d forgotten how much she missed the wide spaces, the open sky, and the fresh air. She may not be in the market for a ranch, but she’d settle for a trailer on a big piece of land before she’d go back to the cement blocks of a bustling downtown.
When she reached the stable, Andy, their long-standing stable manager, was shoveling hay into the stalls. “Hey there, Miss Davis, you have a good ride?”
She dismounted and removed Ranger’s bridle. “I did, but it wasn’t nearly long enough. How are you doing?”
“Can’t complain. I’ve still got work when plenty don’t.”
He held out his hand for Ranger’s headgear, but she shook her head. “When I can’t clean my own tack, set me out to pasture,” she said. “Besides, don’t you have enough to keep you busy?”
“I suppose I do.”
Peyton leaned against the nearest stall. “How are things going around here?”
Andy gave her a wary look. “You should ask Neil. He’s had a lot going on lately, but I don’t reckon he’d appreciate me running at the mouth, even to you.”
Peyton nodded, both aggravated at the tight-lipped response and pleased at Andy’s loyalty, however misplaced. She abruptly changed the subject. “You spend much time with Dad lately? How do you think he’s holding up?”
Andy stopped shoveling and leaned forward on his pitchfork. “Your father was always a hard-working man. Sometimes the body outlasts the mind, sometimes it’s the other way around. Not sure which is worse. I do know he’d much rather be riding a horse than sitting in the house being waited on.”
Peyton sighed, not sure whether she’d expected a real answer. She figured she had as much of one as she was going to get from Andy. She made a mental note to carve out some time to talk to her mother about the lapses she’d noticed. She’d expected the physical changes, but not the zoning out, the memory loss.
An hour later, she was showered, dressed, and in the kitchen looking for an early lunch. Head in the fridge, she barely heard her mother enter the room.
“Don’t snack. Fernanda’s making chicken fried steak.”
Peyton emerged from the fridge with a hunk of ham. “Pretty sad I’m going to miss that, but I’ve got to be somewhere, so I’ll just grab a sandwich. Where’s the bread?”
“New loaf on the counter.” Her mother pointed. “Over there. Where are you off to in such a hurry? Still insisting on buying your own place?”
Peyton found the loaf of homemade bread and cut two generous slices. The ride had made her hungry and she fixed and ate a sandwich in short order. “You know I can’t stay here and you know why. And I’m not sure where I’m headed. Some folks from the office are coming out here to pick me up in a few. Apparently, Mr. Gellar thinks it can’t wait.”
“Hershel Gellar is a blowhard. I’m glad you’re home, but I can’t believe you’re going to work for that man. There’s plenty you could do around here, you know.”
Peyton fixed her with a hard stare. Her parents and Hershel had all gone to high school together, and they occasionally socialized. She’d never heard her mother speak ill of the man who’d been the United States attorney in this area for the past ten years. “Something you feel like sharing?”
“Nothing you need to worry about. Just remember my words when you start wondering whether it was a good idea to work for him.”
“You’re full of opinions today.”
“I’m always full of opinions. It’s the sharing them that doesn’t always suit me, but I have some definite opinions about your future. When you get settled in, we’ll have a good long talk, but now’s not the time.”
Peyton took stock. Her mother was never one to mince words. For her to need a ramp up to talk about a particular subject meant it involved a weighty subject. The list of possibilities was short: her dad, Neil, the ranch. None of those subjects could be covered in the few minutes she had until her ride showed up, and her mother had made it clear she wasn’t going to spill whatever it was right now anyway. “I’ll be home for dinner.”
“You will or you won’t. I know you have places to be, people to see.” She pointed a finger into Peyton’s chest. “Just call if you won’t make it home for dinner.” Her hand moved to Peyton’s side, and she patted her with what an onlooker might mistake for affection. “And I hope you’ve kept up practicing if you’re going to carry that thing. Didn’t think that’s the kind of work you came back to do.”
Peyton met her mother’s stare. Donning the holster and carrying her Smith and Wesson had been a gut decision spurred by not knowing what in the hell Gellar was sending her out to do. “They’ve got gun ranges all over the country, not just in Texas. I can shoot as well as I ever could.”
“Good.” Her mother nodded curtly and turned to the fridge and started pulling out fixings for the midday meal. “Now scatter. Fernanda’s going to want to start cooking in a minute, and she won’t be happy if you’re in the way.”
Peyton strode out of the kitchen and made her way to the front porch, unaffected by her mother’s dismissive tone. Her stoicism was mostly an act, the by-product of years living among cowboys who didn’t truck with overt displays of feelings. It was impossible not to like her when they were so much alike.
She’d no more settled into one of the rocking chairs on the front porch when a Ford F-150 four-door truck spun into the drive, churning gravel and kicking up clouds of dust. She stayed seated, waiting and watching. The driver’s side door opened and a woman jumped out, took two steps, and then stood still, facing the porch. She was tall and rangy and her jet-black hair blew wildly in the wind. She was dressed in jeans, ropers, and a black T-shirt that showed off well-toned muscles. Her eyes were covered by dark shades, but Peyton could tell she was being checked out. Thoroughly. She didn’t budge.
Seconds later, the passenger side door opened and a man stepped out. Unlike his driver, he wore a suit and tie. Navy blue and all business. He exchanged a look with the woman and then stepped gingerly across the gravel drive in fancy leather shoes as he made his way to the porch.
He stuck out a hand with a business card. “Agent Dunley, ICE. I’m looking for AUSA Peyton Davis.”
Peyton read the card. Agent Elliot Dunley from the Dallas ICE office. If she had to guess, she’d say he’d transferred in from a big city up north, where suits and fancy shoes on field visits were the norm. She glanced at the driver and saw her grimace. Whoever she was, she’d probably been saddled with this guy and would be all too happy to shove him off on someone else.
Peyton handed the card back to Dunley and nodded at the truck. “Who’s your friend?”
“What’s your name?”
“Answering a question with a question, are you? I guess I’ll just go find out for myself.” She didn’t wait for a response and walked over to the truck and offered a hand to the driver. “I’m Peyton Davis. Did Gellar send you?”
The woman lowered her sunglasses and sized her up. She ignored Peyton’s outstretched hand and said, “Yes, he did. Well, me anyway, but he”—she jerked her chin in the direction of Dunley who was still on the porch—“decided to tag along. I’m Dale Nelson, DEA.”
“I’m ready to go if you are.”
“Let’s go. You can fight the asshat”—she flipped a finger at Dunley—“for the front seat.”
Dale slid into the driver’s seat and started the truck. At the rumble of the engine, Dunley made his way back. Peyton motioned for him to sit in back and she rode shotgun. A few minutes later, they were headed down I-20, driving at a fast clip.
Peyton wanted to know where they were going, but didn’t want to let on that she didn’t have a single detail about this little field trip. All she did know was that in response to her request to transfer back to Dallas, she’d been selected by the deputy attorney general to head up a special task force investigating business dealings of the Zetas, a faction of the Mexican Cartel. She’d been given only a cursory briefing with promises of more detail on her first day at the office. The only word she’d gotten from Gellar had been a quick welcome e-mail when she’d signed on and his vague phone call this morning.
“So, you moved here from D.C.?”
Peyton saw Dale shake her head at Dunley’s question, and she was purposefully cagey in her response. “Back here actually.”
“Whose ranch was that we were just at?”
“What division of ICE are you with?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Homeland Security Investigations.”
Peyton suppressed a groan. Fresh from Washington, she was all too familiar with the long tentacles of Homeland Security. Practically every federal law enforcement agency had co-opted the name in hopes of garnering additional funding and power, but the amorphous title told her nothing about this guy’s position. “What’s your role in this investigation?” she asked, bluffing knowledge of the investigation itself.
“He’s my stalker.” Dale gunned the truck around a slow moving tractor and sped down the road. “You know how it is. U.S. attorneys with something to prove think they have to make a big show by sending in a suit to watch the folks in the boots and hats.”
Peyton made a note of the lack of deference to her new boss in a file to be examined later. Maybe Dale was right, but she’d make that decision on her own. “Where are we headed?”
“Weatherford.”
“You assigned to the Fort Worth Division?”
“No,” Dale replied.
The one word answer fell flat, but Peyton let it lie. Hershel Gellar’s jurisdiction extended to the New Mexico and Oklahoma border, but the district was divvied up into divisions, and AUSAs didn’t make a habit of trampling on each other’s turf. An unexpected answer to her unspoken question came from the suit.
“Our task force is not confined by division,” Dunley pronounced.
“Meaning?”
Dale beat him to the punch. “We can go where we want, do what we want, wherever we want, as long as we stay in the Northern District and catch the bad guys.”
“I’m guessing that makes you popular with the locals.”
“If we wanted to be popular, chances are we’d be doing something else,” Dale said.
Peyton wished Dale would take the damn sunglasses off so she could get a hint as to whether she had a sense of humor. As it was, she was looking at over an hour drive with a straight-laced man and a woman who didn’t seem to want her in the car, let alone want to engage in conversation. She pulled out her phone and started flicking through e-mails. Tons of folks apparently hadn’t gotten the message that she’d transferred. She fired off a quick message to her former secretary, then shut it down to check out the scenery along the way. Hills, fields, and bales of hay. She drank in the openness of it all and settled back to enjoy the ride.
In just over an hour, they pulled off the highway and started down a two-lane farm road, part paved, part not. Within a few minutes, a barn stretched into sight, aging and decrepit with only a few stripes of brick red paint that had probably once covered the entire building. Peyton counted at least ten cars out front, all from various law enforcement agencies. Dale pulled the truck around the back of the building and parked a few feet from a tractor-trailer. Once the truck was stopped, Peyton reached for the door handle, but Dale stopped her.
“Hang on a sec.”
She reached across Peyton and flipped open the glove compartment. After digging through the contents, she produced a couple of bandanas. Peyton shook her head. “You planning to rob a bank?”
“Put it on. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did. I doubt your cush little D.C. job prepared you for what you’re about to see.”
Peyton ignored the insult and watched Dale tie the bandana around her face. She followed suit. She glanced to the backseat where Dunley scrunched down in his seat as if trying not to be seen. Dale followed her gaze and said, “He’s already had all he can take. Come on.”
Without waiting for a response, Dale jumped out of the truck and strode over to the trailer. Peyton followed a few feet behind, watching the crowd of uniforms make a path for them both. Three steps in, she tugged the bandana from her face because it wasn’t doing any good. The stench of death, cloying and bitter, drew her closer even as she wanted to turn around, climb into the truck, and ride back to her family’s quiet ranch. But she’d chosen fighting evil over the simpler life of a rancher and she’d already paid a heavy price for her choice. She’d be damned if whatever was in that trailer was going to send her packing. Peyton squared her shoulders and prepared to face the first task of her new job.
CHAPTER THREE
Lily stepped out of the elevator and into the already crowded Tower Club on the top floor of Thanksgiving Tower in downtown Dallas. She glanced around but didn’t see her father anywhere in sight.
“Ms. Gantry?”
She turned to the maître d’. “Yes?”
“Mr. Gantry is with Mr. Rawlins in the Cimmaron room. If you’ll follow Jasper, he’ll show you back.”
Lily followed the waiter, reluctantly. She should have known her request to meet her father for lunch to discuss her future with Gantry Oil was too much to ask. Since her return from Germany, he’d stubbornly refused to talk about her career. Well, she was tired of afternoon teas and charity lunches, and it was time to put her education and training to use in the family business. She was determined to pin him down today, whether or not his lawyer was present.
She entered the small, private dining room to find her father and Nester Rawlins clinking heavy crystal glasses with healthy doses of amber liquid, most likely bourbon. They both glanced her way, smiling broadly.
“Sorry to burst in in the middle of your celebration. What’s the occasion?” she asked.
Nester stood. “We’re just toasting to our good fortune. Today and every day.” He raised his glass in her direction. “Join us?”
She read the hint of a challenge and she wasn’t about to back down. Turning to Jasper, she said, “Bulliet Rye. Neat.” She took a seat between the two men and folded her hands on the table. “What’s on the menu, gentlemen?”
They shared a glance and then her father cleared his throat. “Well, honey, I know you wanted to talk about your future, so I invited Nester since he manages the family trust. Whatever you decide to do with your life, the trust will help you do it.”
The trust. Definitely not a subject Lily wanted to discuss today or any day. From the time she’d known the value of a dollar, that’s all Gantry family members had talked about. The trust was the safeguarded wealt
h earned by the sweat of prior generations. No one seemed to know its true value, but everyone had an idea of what they would do with it once they came into their share. And during every discussion, people fell silent when she came near, since as her parents’ only child, she’d garnered the largest share despite her lack of blood ties to the family name. The funny thing was she’d much rather work to earn her money than have it handed to her in big fat sums. She’d prefer not to burst her daddy’s bubble in front of the family lawyer, but there was no better time to hammer her feelings home.
“Daddy, I want to earn my money. I didn’t go to school and study with some of the leading pioneers in alternative energy to come back here and get everything handed to me on a silver platter. I wanted to meet with you to discuss my future with Gantry Oil.”
Nester leaned back in his chair. “I never figured you to be one for the oil business. Weren’t you off learning about all that junk science, the ozone layer and all?”
“You mean renewable energy? Ways we can save the finite resources we have by using sustainable energy sources? If that’s junk, I’m full of it.” Lily turned to her father. “Don’t worry. I have no interest in climbing rigs or showing up at drill sites to boss your roughnecks around. But you can’t tell me you spent all your hard-earned dollars for me to get an MBA and an engineering degree to have me waste away planning parties and picking china patterns.
