Fearless

by Diana Palmer

  RODRIGO HADN’T PURSUED the divorce, but Glory did. She charged him with desertion and alienation of affection and irreconcileable differences and set her own attorney on him. He offered a cash settlement, which he wasn’t required to do under Texas law. Glory refused hands down. He signed the papers and left the country. Nobody knew where he was.

  Glory was enjoying a hostile witness on the stand in a murder trial. The man had lied about everything, especially his involvement in the crime.

  “You turned state’s evidence in order to receive a reduced sentence, did you not, Mr. Salinger?” she purred.

  “Well, yes, but I was coerced.”

  She was wearing a very expensive pale gray suit with a green silk blouse the color of her eyes, and gray shoes with a short heel. Her blond hair had been cut. It curled around her delicate face like feathers. She wore contact lenses and makeup and she looked lovely. Her complexion was like peaches and cream. Her low self-image had been boosted in recent weeks by the gentle attentions of Officer Kilraven from Jacobsville, who spent his days off in the courtroom watching her work. She was one of a handful of people who knew he was the half brother of San Antonio FBI agent Jon Blackhawk. He was working undercover in Jacobsville with the help of police chief Cash Grier. Not even Glory knew on what. He was a secretive man. But he was also very masculine and he knew how to charm women. Glory had blossomed because of his interest. She wished she could encourage him, but she felt nothing more than friendship.

  She glanced at him in the audience and grinned. He grinned back.

  “Coerced?” she echoed the witness’s statement. She moved close to him, with her file folder in her hand. “How very strange.”

  “What is?” he asked.

  “It says here—” she indicated the file “—that you requested a meeting with the assistant prosecutor on this case—that would be me,” she purred again, “and swore that you’d do anything for a reduced sentence.”

  He frowned. “Well, I might have said that,” he agreed.

  “You signed this statement in the presence of your defense attorney. That’s correct, isn’t it, Mr. Bailey?” she asked the defense attorney.

  He got up. “Uh, well, yes…”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bailey,” she said, smiling. She turned back to the witness and the smile faded. Her green eyes glittered as she leaned toward the nervous man. “You will repeat the statement you gave to me, Mr. Salinger,” she said with icy disdain, “or I will have you charged with perjury and I will ask for the maximum time a judge can give you in jail. Is that clear?” He hesitated. “I said,” she raised her voice, “is that clear, sir?”

  “Yes. Yes!” He straightened. “I saw the accused shoot the victim,” he stammered.

  “Saw him? Or helped him, Mr. Salinger?” She leaned forward again. “Is it not a fact that you held the gun on the victim while your friend and partner, the defendant, cut his throat from ear to ear and watched him bleed to death on the ground in front of you?!”

  There was sobbing from the prosecution side of the courtroom. The victim’s mother, Glory knew, and she hated to make the point so graphically, but it was necessary to force this witness to admit what he knew.

  “Yes!” Salinger burst out. “Yes, yes, I held the gun on him while my partner killed him. I saw him do it. But he made me help him. He made me do it!”

  “Liar!” raged the defendant.

  “Order! Order in the court!” The raven-haired little judge raised her voice. The witness was now sobbing. The defense attorney was gritting his teeth. “Objection!” he called. “Objection, your honor! Leading the witness!”

  “Overruled,” the judge said calmly.

  The defense attorney said something under his breath and glared at Glory as he sat down again.

  “The defense attorney is objecting to the truth? My, my,” Glory murmured.

  “Another word, Miss Barnes, and I’ll hold you in contempt,” Judge Lenox chided.

  “I’m very sorry, your honor,” Glory drawled sweetly. She glanced at the defense attorney. “The prosecution rests.”

  “Mr. Bailey?” the judge asked the defense attorney.

  The lawyer knew he’d blown it. He made a futile gesture. “The defense rests, also, your honor.” His client glared at him as a deputy came to remove him from the courtroom.

  “We will adjourn for lunch and resume with the summations at 1:00 p.m. Dismissed.” The judge banged her gavel and stood up.

  “All rise!”

  Everyone else stood up.

  AT THE BACK OF THE courtroom, Rodrigo Ramirez was standing with an assistant prosecutor watching the trial.

  “Isn’t she something?” Cord Maxwell chuckled. “A little firecracker. She’s so good that defense attorneys shiver when they hear her name. She vanished for a while. Nobody knows why, but she’s back now and racking up convictions the way a pool champion racks up balls. There’s talk of running her for district attorney in three years.”

  “I can see why,” Rodrigo replied. He’d started when he heard the judge call her Miss Barnes. That had been Glory’s last name. But that elegant, chic woman at the prosecutor’s table bore no resemblance to the pathetic woman who’d worked for him in Jacobsville. And Glory’s hair had been long. Long, and beautiful.

  Rodrigo had tried not to think about her, but with little success. Part of him had loved her, in spite of all his rhetoric about never getting over Sarina. He missed Glory, and he’d grieved for the child. Perhaps it would have been a disaster, if they’d remained married, but he would have kept his vows, and he would have wanted the baby. It was a shame that he hadn’t let her talk to him. The guilt kept him awake at night. When he’d gone home from the hospital, he’d gone on a legendary bender. It hadn’t helped the pain. Nothing had.

  “They’re recessing,” Maxwell told him. “Let’s talk to her.”

  Rodrigo followed him down the aisle to where the defense attorney was glaring at his opponent.

  “And that’s another lunch you owe me, Will.” She chuckled.

  “I could win cases if they’d lock you in a closet somewhere!”

  “Watch it, Bailey,” a tall man with silver eyes told the attorney with a grin, moving to stand beside Glory. “If you lock her up, I’ll have to arrest you.”

  “You have no jurisdiction here, hotshot,” Bailey chuckled. “And I’m not going near Jacobsville as long as you work there. Marquez has told me too much about you.”

  “Lies,” Kilraven returned suavely. “I’m so sweet that people ask me to handcuff them when they break the law, just so they won’t hurt my feelings.”

  “You wish,” Glory laughed. “Let’s get something to eat…”

  “Miss Barnes?” Maxwell called.

  She turned, her face radiant, and met Rodrigo’s wide, shocked eyes.

  15

  GLORY’S GREEN EYES LOST their radiance and went cold. She glared at her ex-husband so intently that DEA Agent Maxwell had to clear his throat to divert her.

  “Maxwell, isn’t it?” she asked, trying to collect herself. “What can I do for you?”

  “You’re prosecuting one of our cases in district court,” he replied. “Mr. Ramirez here is the arresting federal officer. We’d like you to depose him. He’s going to be out of the country during the trial, and his testimony will be crucial to our case.”

  Glory didn’t want to talk to Rodrigo. She averted her eyes, thinking furiously. At her side, Kilraven’s big, lean hand slid over hers and clasped it firmly. She glanced up at him and smiled gently. He almost read her mind sometimes.

  “The case?” Rodrigo bit off. He didn’t like the other man touching Glory.

  Glory turned back to him. The smile was gone. “Which case is it?”

  “The accused is a man named Vernon Redding,” Maxwell volunteered. He was obviously puzzled by the undercurrents. He knew nothing about Rodrigo’s connection to the assistant prosecutor.

  “The Redding case.” She thought for a minute. “Oh, yes, the
smuggling charges. Reg Barton’s handling that one,” she said and thought, Thank God! “He takes a late lunch, so you can probably find him at our other office in the courthouse annex right now.”

  “Great. We’ll go over there, then. Thanks. Good to see you again, Miss Barnes.”

  “Yes. Same here.” She didn’t look at Rodrigo. Her hand was still clinging to Kilraven’s.

  Rodrigo wanted to say more. He was still getting used to the idea that his dowdy ex-wife was this high-powered, elegant assistant prosecutor. She’d hidden this side of her life from him. She wasn’t plain and she wasn’t stupid. She obviously had a law degree. She was cultured and she dressed in a manner that would make any man proud to be seen with her. She was very attractive, with her hair in that becoming style. But she hated him and had no reservations about expressing it with her eyes. He felt the chill all over.

  “It was good to see you again,” Rodrigo said quietly.

  “Was it? Pity I can’t return the compliment,” she said curtly. “I’d hoped that I’d never have to see you again as long as I lived.”

  He hesitated for a minute. Then, with a Latin shrug of his powerful shoulders and a quick glare at Kilraven, he turned and followed Maxwell out of the courtroom.

  Glory sat down quickly. Her heart was going wild. She fought for each breath. “Get Haynes,” she whispered.

  Kilraven turned and walked briskly out the side door and down the hall. But he didn’t have to go after Haynes, she was running toward him.

  “She didn’t take her medicine this morning!” she exclaimed breathlessly.

  “I know.”

  They turned and rushed back into the courtroom. Rodrigo had stopped and gone back the minute he saw the other man rushing out of the room. He watched as Haynes shook medicine out of two bottles into Glory’s hand, and Kilraven poured water from a carafe into a glass at the prosecution table.

  Rodrigo frowned. She shouldn’t be doing this job, he thought. It was going to kill her. He winced as he realized how far he’d fallen in his desperation to escape her. If he’d taken care of her, if he’d been kind to her, the baby might have survived and she might not be looking at him as if she’d like to see him roasting on a spit.

  Kilraven looked up. Across the room, the man’s pale silver eyes sliced into him. Rodrigo didn’t back away from threats. But this wasn’t the time to start more trouble. Glory had obviously had enough for one day.

  He went back to join Maxwell. He was going to see Glory before he left town. There might be a chance, a small one, to redeem himself before he left the country. He didn’t want to go away with her hating him.

  HE’D MEANT TO CALL ON her at her apartment that evening, but Jason Pendleton had invited him to a party and insisted that he come. They were acquaintances. He was curious about the other man’s insistence, but he didn’t feel right turning him down. Jason had helped him shut down Fuentes’s operation by giving him the management job at the farm. So he put on his dinner jacket and his diamond cuff links and drove his high-powered Mercedes to the family mansion.

  It was gloriously lighted, inside and out. There was valet parking. He gave the liveried boy his keys and walked up the semicircular driveway past the fountain to the steps that led to the front door. There was a Jaguar XKE, racing-green, parked at the door. He recalled seeing that car before, at his apartment many months earlier. But he dismissed it. There must be dozens of the fast cars in Texas.

  He was greeted by Jason and Gracie at the receiving line, and he proceeded down the hallway to the huge ballroom beyond. It was a gala evening. Thanksgiving was coming up and the house was decorated in Christmas colors. Jason mused that Gracie would put up a Christmas tree in August if she could get away with it; she loved the holiday so much. He insisted that she wait until Thanksgiving for the tree, but she’d decorated the ballroom with green and gold and red flowers and garlands, anyway.

  Jason hated company, but he was working on the takeover of a computer software corporation and this was how he did business. He softened up his quarry by introducing him to Hollywood celebrities and sports stars at get-togethers like this. It was sound business.

  Rodrigo accepted a whiskey on the rocks and nursed it slowly as he moved around. He came upon a young movie star who’d been his date for the premier of her second film in London. She was with a race car driver tonight, but she smiled at Rodrigo wistfully. She’d tried every trick she knew to bed him, but at the time he’d been hoping to persuade Sarina to marry him. The star was clearly attracted to her handsome escort, but she was still making eyes at Rodrigo. He lifted his glass and toasted her, but he turned away.

  As he turned, he came face-to-face with Kilraven, also in a dinner jacket, looking perfectly at home among the famous few.

  He frowned. There was something so familiar about this man. He didn’t seem the sort to work as a patrolman for a hick police department. He noted that the other man was wearing expensive clothes and carrying a glass of what looked like iced tea.

  “No whiskey?” Rodrigo asked him suspiciously.

  “I don’t drink.”

  Now he remembered. The man’s aversion to alcohol was almost a mania, and it got him talked about. His dark eyes narrowed. “You were in Peru with us five years ago,” he recalled with a bland smile.

  Kilraven’s dark eyebrows lifted. “Us?”

  “Not the DEA,” Rodrigo said softly.

  Kilraven scowled. He stared at Rodrigo for a long time. “Laremos. You were with Laremos.”

  Rodrigo nodded. “You were with a paramilitary unit.”

  “If you advertise that,” Kilraven said in a hushed tone, “you’ll be wearing a rosebush and a lot of dirt by midnight.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Rodrigo drawled.

  “Why wouldn’t I dare?” came the smiling challenge.

  “Because your boss and I play chess every other week. And I let him win.”

  Kilraven glared.

  “What are you doing here?” Rodrigo asked curiously. “Do you know the Pendletons?”

  “No. I know their stepsister.”

  “They must hide her on a closet shelf,” Rodrigo murmured as he sipped whiskey. “I’ve never seen her.”

  “She was out front a few minutes ago, making sure her car was still there. I believe Gracie had asked to borrow it.” He winced. “Gracie drives like she goes down steps.”

  Rodrigo’s dark eyes twinkled a little. “Headfirst?”

  “Exactly.”

  He frowned. “That car wouldn’t be a green Jag convertible, would it?”

  “In fact, it is. Racing-green is my favorite color,” came a stiff, cool little voice from behind him.

  He turned, and Glory was standing there, dressed in a beautiful little lacy black dress with spaghetti straps and sequins. She looked expensive and delicious, with the bodice cut just low enough to be both modest and flattering to her high, firm breasts. She was sipping brandy. Her soft blond hair curled toward her face, giving her a pixie look.

  “Hello, Rodrigo,” she said carelessly. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  “I was about to say the same thing. You never told me you were related to the Pendletons,” he said coldly.

  “Since when is my private life any business of yours?” she asked with an equal chill in her voice.

  Her attitude pricked his temper. “Privacy is like a religion to you, isn’t it, niña?” he scoffed. “You couldn’t even be bothered to tell your husband you were carrying his child!”

  “I was trying, when you began listing your new girlfriend’s bedroom skills to me!” she flashed at him. “Of course, she’s out of the running, too, isn’t she? You’re still lusting after your ex-partner!” she exclaimed. Her green eyes glittered with fury. “Remember me? The plain, crippled, stupid assistant cook that you were ashamed for your colleagues to see with you?”

  He’d said that. He couldn’t deny it. But he was furious that she’d brought it up. “I never said that to you!”

  “Y
ou said it behind my back,” she threw at him. “You didn’t have the guts to say it to my face!”

  “Back off,” he gritted. “Nobody talks to me that way, especially not some overzealous prosecuting attorney! I’m not in your courtroom!”

  “God help you if you were,” she shot back, fists clenched at her side. “I’d cut you into little pieces and throw you in the defense attorney’s face!”

  “I’d love to see you try it,” he told her.

  A crowd had gathered. The humdrum party had turned into a glorious piece of theater complete with attractive combatants. Even the movie star was listening attentively. Probably, Glory thought wickedly, to get pointers for her next argument; learn the craft from an expert.

  “Why don’t you go back to Houston where you belong?” she raged. “I’m sure Conchita can’t wait to make you another paella lunch!”

  “At least she doesn’t have the tongue of a shrew and the demeanor of an ax murderer!”

  “Fine talk from a glorified hit man!”

  “I work for the government,” he began.