High-Risk Reunion

by Margaret Daley

  Cade pointed to the south. “My land starts there. Check that area too.” He wouldn’t be surprised if something was discovered on his ranch. If he didn’t need to protect Tory and Michelle, he’d be out there looking himself. “I’m going to take Tory and her daughter to my house, then I’m going through it to make sure it’s secured.”

  “I can spare a deputy to park outside your house after the search here.”

  “Good.” Cade touched the brim of his cowboy hat then headed back to his rented four-wheel drive.

  As he slipped in behind the steering wheel, Tory opened her eyes halfway, then closed them again. He threw a glance at the backseat, and the sight of his daughter sleeping tugged at his heart. Fifteen years ago, his life could have been so different, if he hadn’t been on that secret mission. He couldn’t change the past, but he could at least affect the future and what was happening here.

  * * *

  Five hours later, Cade hung up after talking with the retired Texas Ranger about the Mederos case. He intended to pay Diego Mederos a visit later today at the jail, then see Lieutenant Sanders at the station instead of his ranch. He didn’t want Michelle to overhear too much talk about Mederos.

  Although the biker gang leader was the most likely person behind the attack on Tory and Michelle, he was also going to dig into Tory’s past cases. She would be with him when he picked up her files, so they could review them and figure out who to investigate. Her secretary, Rachel Adams, was coming in to box them up.

  The sound of footsteps drew his attention. With his hand on his gun at his waist, he rose and went into the hallway to check. Tory stopped halfway down the stairs, her face pale and full of exhaustion. She combed her shoulder-length blond hair behind her ears, then twirled the end of some strands—a nervous habit she used to do when she was upset and not sure what to do. In that moment he wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her, make her feel safe.

  He broke the long silence. “Did you sleep okay?”

  “No, I kept dreaming about yesterday. I finally gave up. At least Michelle is still asleep. How about you?”

  “A cat nap.”

  “Where’s your uncle?”

  “Fixing lunch. He’s determined to do his part by making high-energy food to help keep us going.”

  The corner of her mouth tilted up. “I got that impression when he kept insisting we eat his breakfast.”

  The hint of a smile reminded him of the Tory he used to know. He hated to bring up the situation, but time was against them. “We need to talk.”

  “Yes, before Michelle wakes up. This has taken a big toll on her.”

  He waved his arm toward the living room. “I agree. She’s gone through a lot. How about you?” Not only did his daughter have a long gash on her arm but smaller ones on that side of her body. He was feeling sore, so no doubt Tory was too. The seatbelt held them in place, but they had been jerked around as the Jeep rolled as though they were spinning in a clothes dryer.

  All emotions left her expression. “I’ll be okay as long as Michelle is.” She started for the living room.

  Cade trailed behind her. He’d learned to read her easily when they were teenagers. She’d confided in him all the time. The woman in front of him was determined to keep everything bottled up inside her. What had happened to her since they’d dated?

  She took a seat in a navy blue lounger as he sat opposite her on the tan couch. “When are we going to my office?”

  “After lunch. Paul gave your secretary my cell number. She called. She’ll be there at one o’clock to help any way she can.”

  “Rachel is invaluable to me. She knows what’s going on in my office as well as I do.”

  “Good, we could use her input.”

  She panned the room. “I like the homey feel to this room.”

  “You can thank Uncle Ben for that. The house may belong to me, but it’s really his home.” Why were they dancing around the subject they needed to discuss? After another minute of silence, he finally said, “This might be a good time to talk about what happened between us all those years ago.” He knew the case needed to be discussed, but their earlier relationship was standing in their way of working as a team.

  “No.”

  The force behind that one word blasted him. “Because Michelle’s nearby?”

  She nodded, folding her hands together in her lap.

  He’d let that go for the present, but they would be alone on the ride to town and back. “Then we need to talk about who you think would want to do you harm.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that all night. At the head of the list is Diego Mederos, but I have made some other criminals mad at me because I was responsible for them going to prison. I’ve been aggressive in my prosecution. My vision is to make this county a safe haven.”

  “I wish there was such a place.” That was why he’d gone into law enforcement when he’d left the army, but after all he’d seen, he didn’t think such a place on earth existed. Thanks to the Lord there was in heaven. That thought had kept him going when he wanted to walk away and let someone else fight the evil in the world.

  “I have to try. Did you know what happened to Belinda twelve years ago?”

  “Yes.” He remembered hearing about it from his uncle. Belinda had been Tory’s best friend in high school, and she’d been shot in a bank robbery because she didn’t get down fast enough.

  “I’d been in that bank ten minutes before that guy went on a shooting spree, killing Belinda. Five people died that day.”

  “Is that why you became a DA?”

  “I was going to law school already, but that was the main reason I changed the type of lawyer I wanted to be.”

  “Why did you want to become a lawyer?”

  “Remember I was on the debate team in high school and college? That’s when I started thinking about it.”

  “Why didn’t you write me about that?” On one of his oversea tours, he’d been in the Middle East when she started going to the University of Texas her second year in college.

  “Because I wasn’t sure. I still had several years to complete before I could go to law school.” She shrugged. “A gal can change her mind just like a guy.”

  Ouch! Cade had wanted a family. They had talked about it growing up. He’d never really had much of one. His mother had died not long after he was born and his father had passed away in a riding accident on the ranch when Cade was fifteen. His uncle became his only family and his guardian.

  Cade glanced toward the entry hall, wondering if Michelle was still in the guest bedroom she and Tory shared. “Just so you know, I didn’t change my mind.”

  She twisted her hands together and ignored Cade’s statement. “I’ll go through the records at my office to make a list of criminals I’ve put away, starting with the more serious crimes.”

  Instead of what they really needed to talk about—their past—they danced around the subject, with Tory clearly ignoring they even had a past. “Then we can check to see who’s still in prison. Is there anyone else you can think of besides the people you convicted?”

  “No. I’ve lived here most of my life, and I know a lot of the twenty thousand citizens of El Rio.”

  “Then how about Diego Mederos? I don’t remember anyone like him when we were growing up.” Twenty years ago the town was much smaller, but as San Antonio had grown so had El Rio.

  “He set up shop here seven years ago. I think he’s behind most of the serious crimes in this area. The police and the sheriff have tried to get him for years. But he’s never gone to trial. Something always happens to the case—a missing witness or evidence corrupted. So far we’ve been able to keep our main witness alive.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say. In El Rio I’m the only one who knows where the witness is
being guarded by the US Marshals.”

  “You’re talking about the father of the teenager killed—Carlos Dietz?”

  “Yes. There were a couple of other witnesses besides the father, but he’s the only one who will dare testify. He lost his only child. Two years ago, his wife died in a wreck. Guess who was involved in that?”

  “Diego Mederos.”

  “One of his henchman was supposedly driving drunk and got a slap on his wrist. There was some speculation it was Mederos who was also drunk. The car was his, and when he’s in it, he’s always driving. His fall guy served a year in jail and was set free a month before Carlos was murdered in front of his father. Carlos Senior was very vocal about the justice system failing him and his son.” She kneaded the muscles at the back of her neck. “I want to change that perception.”

  Tory was wound so tightly Cade wondered when she would break. The Mederos case was costing her more than a large amount of time. “Then why didn’t the henchman come after Carlos?”

  “Because most of the complaints were targeted at Mederos.”

  Not a smart move on the father’s part. Cases like Mederos’s caused Cade to question the justice system himself. It was made up of people who were flawed, but in the end everyone had to answer to God. That knowledge always gave him some peace. “I’m going to interview him this afternoon while we’re in town.”

  “He’s smart and cruel. Mederos won’t tell you a thing.” Tory bolted to her feet and began pacing.

  Cade sensed the presence of someone else nearby. He looked toward the entry hall and tensed.

  Michelle stood in the entrance, tears running down her cheeks.

  Tory covered the distance between them and tried to hug her daughter. “Honey—”

  Michelle pushed away. “Don’t. I hate your job. You’re in danger because of it.”

  Cade rose and walked to them. “Worrying doesn’t solve anything. It’ll only make it worse. When we know what we’re really dealing with, you’ll be informed. Then we can decide what needs to be done.”

  Michelle glared at him. “Were you even a friend of my dad’s? Or did Mom say that just to shut me up?”

  “I certainly had to get your dad and my nephew out of enough trouble when they were growing up.” Uncle Ben’s gruff voice came from the end of the hall, but as he moved toward them, it softened. “They were inseparable. They went everywhere together. Their curiosity was mighty huge. Once they wanted to know what would happen if you poked a beehive. That was a painful lesson to learn.” His six-feet-six-inch presence took up a large part of the hallway. At sixty he was still in good physical condition and was an expert shot.

  “You poked a beehive?” his daughter asked Cade as though she couldn’t believe he could have been that stupid.

  He nodded once. “Guilty as charged, but in our defense, we were only four years old.”

  “I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve worked up a mighty big appetite. I hope y’all are hungry. I fixed a lot.”

  “That’s what woke me up. What did you fix? It smells great.” Michelle took a step toward Uncle Ben.

  “That smell is our dinner. Chili. I slow cook it. My recipe has won several county fair competitions. I hope you’ll stick around to have some.”

  “I gotta.”

  “Good. I have a basketball hoop on the side of the barn. Cade and your dad used to practice here.”

  When the two of them disappeared into the kitchen, Tory sagged in relief. “Now you see why we need to be careful about what we say if Michelle is around. She’s going through an emotional stage where everything is black or white. No shades of gray. On top of that, she inherited that curiosity Ben was talking about.”

  Cade leaned close. “I wonder what else she inherited.”

  Tory’s sharp look sliced through him. She pinched her lips together and stalked toward the kitchen.

  Before he could follow her, a knock sounded at the door behind him. When he checked out the peephole, the look on Paul’s face didn’t bode well. Instead of asking the police chief to come inside, Cade stepped out onto the porch. He thought Michelle needed to know what was going on, but not the brutal facts. “Before you say anything, let’s go for a walk away from the house.”

  Thirty yards away, Paul stopped and faced Cade. “We found a dead body on your ranch near the crash.”

  FOUR

  After lunch, Tory left Michelle with Cade’s uncle and a deputy and climbed into the rented SUV to head to her office to pick up her files. The second Cade sat behind the steering wheel, she asked, “What’s wrong? Have you heard anything from Paul or the sheriff?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Oh, you tried to hide it, and I’m sure you did from Michelle but not me and probably not Ben. You get this hard glint in your eyes as though you’re preparing to take on the world. I didn’t say anything because Michelle doesn’t need to know the sordid details of this case, but I’m sure you’ve heard something I’m not going to like.”

  “I keep forgetting you know me well—” he slid his gaze toward her “—and some things haven’t changed since we were teenagers. Paul came to the house.”

  “When?”

  “Right after you went to the kitchen.” He backed out of the garage and drove toward the highway.

  “You should have gotten me. I’d rather hear firsthand any news of what’s happening.”

  He stopped before pulling out onto the road into town and twisted toward her. “Let me make this clear. I’m the investigator on this case. Not you. I’ll keep you informed as soon as I can, but that’s only because you are the district attorney.”

  Anger bubbled to the surface. “No, the only reason you’re appeasing me with information is because I may know information that can help you solve the case. Oh, and if I want to be guarded by someone else, that means Michelle will be too.” She stopped talking before she said something else and faced forward. She felt the stab of his gaze, but she didn’t look at him. Both Michelle’s life and hers were on the line. There was no way she wouldn’t be actively involved.

  He threw the SUV into drive and headed in the direction of El Rio. When they neared the crash site, Tory saw more law enforcement officers in the field on Cade’s ranch with crime scene tape around a location.

  Now she knew why Paul had come to the house earlier. “Who did they find?”

  “Judge Parks in a shadow grave.”

  All her earlier anger vanished as reality slammed into her. He was presiding over the Mederos trial. “How did he die?”

  “Execution-style. After his body is examined at the morgue, Paul thinks the time of death will be narrowed down but right now best guess is that it occurred between five in the afternoon and nine at night.”

  “I saw him on Friday as he was getting into his car. He was looking forward to his hunting weekend—away from the rat race as he said.”

  “You may have been one of the last people to see him alive.”

  A shiver flowed through her. “Are you going to stop?”

  “Yes.” He parked behind a patrol car. “I can have a deputy guard you.”

  “No, I’ve been to crime scenes before. It looks like they’re wrapping it up.”

  “Before we go, I wanted you to know Paul told me that they found that your brake line had been cut on your car, probably when I saw the biker check your car out. Paul had it towed to the police compound to thoroughly go over your Chevy. He’ll have your brakes and anything else fixed.”

  If she had driven her car home with Michelle inside last night, how long would it have been before her brakes failed? “How can we prevent that happening to your car?”

  “I’ll take care of that. Let’s go. We have a lot to do this afternoon.”

  Her mind numb from everything that had occurred i
n the past day, Tory traipsed across the pasture to where yellow police tape was strung up. The medical examiner knelt next to a body on the ground. This was the hardest part of her job. In murder cases, she always went to the crime scene. She wanted to make sure she saw firsthand what had occurred. It gave her a better feel for the crime and helped her when she was prosecuting the case. She wanted the jury to remember the victim and that the person needed justice.

  Cade joined Paul and Sheriff Dawson a few feet from the body. “I want a copy of all the photos taken as soon as possible. The death of a judge will cause ripples in Austin.”

  The police chief removed his cowboy hat and raked his fingers through his thick brown hair. “Good thing you haven’t been on the case from the beginning. Everyone involved in the Mederos case has been notified and procedures are in place. I’ve asked the Texas Ranger office in San Antonio for more manpower.”

  “Good. We’ll need a guard on the new judge who’ll be taking over the Mederos trial.” Cade glanced between Paul and Tory. “Is the main witness still secured?”

  Paul plopped his Stetson on his head. “When the judge was found, I called the US Marshals’ office overseeing Dietz’s protection. He’s fine, and they’re aware of what’s happening here.”

  Sheriff Dawson pointed to a deputy nearby. “That’s Collins. I’m putting him on desk duty at the station until this is resolved. He could be a target if Mederos’s gang is going after people on his case.”

  “The same with Lieutenant Sanders.” Paul hooked his thumbs in his belt. “So if you want to talk to him, you’ll need to do it there. In fact, he’ll be interviewing Mederos this afternoon.”

  “What about the officers’ families?” Tory wouldn’t put anything beneath Mederos.

  “Collins doesn’t have any in the area.” The sheriff motioned to the man to join them.

  “Sanders is sending his family away as we speak.”

  “Shouldn’t he be with them?” If she lost Michelle, Tory’s life would fall apart. She had to do what she could to make sure Mederos went to prison, but even that wouldn’t stop the violence from the members of the gang. She would go after each one until the threat was gone.