“Thank you.”
Corie went down to the kitchen half an hour later to fix lunch. She glanced out the window to see Ben and Grady pulling weeds, and Rosie and Soren sitting side by side, swinging desultorily. She looked again to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. Yes. It was Soren and Rosie, having a peaceful conversation. Would they finally be friends?
Her cell phone rang while she spread sandwich fixings on the counter. She dug it out of her jeans’ pocket. It was Jack.
“You, again!” she teased, happy to hear his voice. “You’d better have good news.”
“I do,” he said, his voice turning serious, a note of excitement in it. “But you’d better sit down.”
Several ugly possibilities crossed her mind including one where their sister’s father had died in the coup and no one knew where Cassidy was. Corie sat at the table. “Did something happen to Mr. Chapman?” she asked.
“No. No. A manager of the company he was working with put him up for a few days then took him to the American embassy. He got a flight out yesterday and called me as soon as he received my message.” He inhaled a breath. She held hers. “You’ll never believe who our sister is.”
She expelled her breath. “We know who our sister is. She’s Cassidy Chapman.”
“Yeah, but guess who else she is?”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s Cassiopeia.”
When she said nothing, he added, “You know. The supermodel.”
She knew who Cassiopeia was. That was why she couldn’t speak.
It was impossible. The sister of the soldier with terrible nightmares and the gutter rat nobody wanted, could not be a celebrity. Everybody Famous, a popular television show about movie stars and other celebrities, had called her “The Stellar Beauty” several years before when she’d taken the fall fashion runways by storm, and that was how the name Cassiopeia stuck.
Corie admired Cassiopeia because the model had brought the smile back to strutting clothes. In the interest of showing off clothing without distraction, the trend had been to reduce the impression the model made, hence the distant faces, the lack of smiles. Cassie had changed all that.
For the past few years she’d been a favorite of late-night talk-show hosts and had been linked with many of Hollywood’s heartthrobs.
When Corie did finally find her voice, it was to squeak, “She’s a foot taller than I am!”
Jack laughed. “That’s not surprising. Her father is a foot taller than yours was.”
“She had a space between her teeth and out-of-control hair.”
“Well, now she’s probably had dental work and has the finest hair and makeup artists in the world available to her.”
Corie absorbed the shock—she was good at that—but she still couldn’t quite process the information. The gorgeous, blonde, blue-eyed Cassiopeia was her sister. Jack’s sister. They were the Manning family.
“It seems impossible.”
“I know.”
“You have to be the one to call her. I’d have no idea what to say.”
“Her father wants to tell her about us and let her get in touch. Seems fair. It will probably be very shocking for her. He says he tried to find you after they moved to Paris, but that was probably after your father died and everything changed again.”
“Yeah.” She felt a moment’s grief for all that time lost then focused on the fact that Jack had found her, Corie. “Do you think she’ll be happy to find us?”
“I guess we’ll know pretty soon. Her father said she was involved in... I don’t know, he wasn’t very specific. Some kind of scandal, I think. He was trying hard not to say too much. Anyway, she was hiding away in some secret location. She has another cell phone only he has the number for.”
“Wow.”
“Hmm. Kind of cloak-and-dagger. Might take a little time to hear from her, but after twenty-three years, I’m willing to wait. How about you?”
“Yes.” She wondered if Jack had spoken to Helen yet. “Has your mom talked to you about coming to Texas?”
“Yes. That was something else I wanted to see about. What can we bring? What do the kids need?”
“Nothing, Jack. Just cheerful people full of Christmas spirit who’ll want to sing carols and eat cookies and just have fun.”
“Okay, that’s us. We’ll fly out in the morning, rent a car in McAllen and be there by the middle of the afternoon.”
“I can’t wait to see you.”
“Me, too. Just think. Any day we might hear from Cassie.”
“It’s hard to believe. See you soon.”
Corie hit the off button, pocketed her phone and put a hand over her wildly beating heart. Her little sister, Cassie, was Cassiopeia, the runway star of Paris, London and Milan.
She caught her own reflection in the black refrigerator. Five-one and a half, jeans and a sweatshirt, feet of long black hair that hadn’t been trimmed or shaped in years. Cassie was the epitome of everything Corie was not—in appearance and probably ever other way. She was scared.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HOURS LATER, CORIE sat on the edge of her bed in black jeans and sweater and black boots, ready to implement the plan. She was going to break into Pimental’s office. What if she got caught and Cassie called and Ben had to say she couldn’t talk because she was in jail?
Okay, that wouldn’t happen. She wasn’t going to get caught because Pimental never stayed at his office late, she was good at skulking and Querida wasn’t a progressive town with formal security systems. And Chris Norton would never understand.
The lock on the back door of city hall was a simple pin-and-tumbler thing that was easy to disrupt with a hex wrench. The city’s computers probably had more security than the building did. And at midnight, the streetlights downtown went out as a cost-saving measure.
Sukie had once told her that as Pimental’s executive assistant, she was so important to him that she kept the key to his office in her desk.
And he was so important that he had an entire cabinet filled with government documents that he had to keep locked at all times. Unfortunately, Sukie hadn’t told her where the key was, but she had faith in her own ability to figure it out if she could just get in there. If Pimental did have a photo of Jack at Tyree’s, she wagered it would be in that file.
By the time she smoothed her bed, gently pushed open her bedroom window and climbed out into the shrubbery, her phone read 12:03 a.m. She headed for town at a run, a black bag slung over her shoulder, unwilling to risk waking Ben or the rest of the neighborhood with the sound of a car engine.
* * *
BEN LAY ON his back on the floor of Corie’s living room and stared sleeplessly at the ceiling. His thoughts went from poor Rosie, whose father had given her up like something he’d bought and decided he didn’t want, to Soren, who didn’t have anyone to take him home for Christmas, to Corie and Jack, who could be about to meet their long-lost sister for a complete reunion of the Mannings.
He was so lucky to have had loving parents, a good education, a job he liked but needed a break from and a friend to accompany him into the exploration of a new business.
He had a woman he loved but didn’t always understand. She didn’t seem to get him at all. She mistook his concern for a need to control. Actually he suspected she simply didn’t understand how love worked. Or did, and didn’t want it because it got in the way of doing what she wanted to do. And she’d seemed unusually distracted all afternoon.
They’d watched the kids together from the kitchen window while wrapping the presents Teresa had brought down from her room. Though Corie had smiled politely and answered his attempts to make conversation, her mind had clearly been elsewhere.
Back at her place, she’d gone to bed after their late dinner of fast-food takeout, claiming to h
ave to work on Teresa’s jacket. But he happened to know she’d left the jacket at Teresa’s. It was possible that finding Cassie after all these years completely distracted her, but he thought something else was at work here. He could almost see the sparking of her brain in her eyes.
He suspected she was plotting something.
When he heard the subtle sound of her window being raised, he was sure of it. He got up quietly. Still wearing his T-shirt, he pulled on his jeans as he went to the window. He watched her truck, expecting her to jump into it, and almost missed her. Fortunately a neighbor’s porch light caught her dark figure running up the street.
He resented the time it took to put on his shoes, but if he was going to follow her on foot, they were a necessity. He closed the door quietly behind him and ran in the direction she’d gone.
It took him until the very edge of town to get her in sight. That small, fit body moved remarkably quickly. The floodlight in front of the Grill caught her silhouette as she passed it on the other side of the street. She was heading for city hall.
He got a bad feeling about this.
* * *
CORIE UNLOCKED THE back door of city hall with her hexagonal wrench, pushing it straight into the hole in the door handle, turning it slightly back and forth until she felt the catch. A simple turn unlocked the door. She closed it quietly behind her and stopped to listen. The building was silent. Her nostrils breathed in the residual smells of cologne, perfume, wood polish and the mustiness of the old place.
She went straight to Pimental’s office. Having been there before to plead Teresa’s case about eviction, she knew she had to go through Sukie’s office first, mercifully unlocked. She tried the adjoining door. Locked. She hadn’t counted on Sukie being that efficient. Hopefully, she wasn’t efficient enough to have locked her desk.
Luck was with her. There were several keys in the pencil tray. The first one Corie tried fit Pimental’s door.
His office smelled of a familiar acrid cologne. A nice fragrance if it hadn’t been connected to him. She dug her key chain out of her pocket, pressed the small penlight button and flashed it around the room.
A door was open into a private bathroom with a shower. She remembered the news story about the deputy mayor insisting he needed it to prepare for meetings and the arrival of guests. Several citizens had protested the cost, but the room had been built anyway.
Corie put that out of her mind and went to the file cabinet across the room. It was locked.
Going back to his desk, she discovered that it, too, was locked. Great.
When Corie had worked in New York, her boss had rented space in an old loft furnished with ancient office equipment. It had had an old desk like this one, and she remembered that important notes were kept on a pull-out board above the drawers on the left side. She tried that. The board, termed a bread board, was not connected to the desk’s locking mechanism and came out easily. There were notes taped to it with what were probably important phone numbers and dates. She ran a hand along the underside and felt the thin metal shape of a key. Ha! She ripped it off and went to open the cabinet.
Shining her penlight in the top drawer, she found files for committees that worked with and for the town, suppliers and a disaster plan. Her situation did constitute a disaster, but she doubted the plan would help her.
She opened the second drawer to discover building plans, blueprints and some personnel information. She closed it and opened the third and bottom drawer, praying she would locate what she wanted.
Her heart began to beat faster when she saw the names on the files. Her own, Sukie’s, Tyree’s, Bigelow’s. There was a file labeled Pennington Properties and another tagged Craigslist. She’d never heard of Pennington Properties and couldn’t imagine what Craigslist had to do with his goings on. At the back of the file was an electronic tablet. She yanked the black bag off her shoulder and stuffed the entire contents of the bottom drawer inside.
She was about to relock the cabinet when someone grabbed her by the arm and yanked her around the desk. No! Not when she was this close! She pulled back a fist and swung with all her might.
Her assailant caught her fist in a big hand and squeezed tightly. “Corie!” It was Ben’s harsh whisper. “The cleaning crew is right behind me! Come on! The bathroom.”
The room was dark but Corie used her penlight to scan the area. Ben pulled her toward the shower, carefully opening the door. Voices could be heard now as the crew walked into Sukie’s office.
He closed the frosted shower door after them with the barest snick of sound. He pushed her into a corner and stood in front of her. Corie noticed that her light was still on and turned it off.
The voices grew louder. The crew, apparently a couple of older men, talked about wives and children while they worked in the outer office. Music played, something was banged around—wastebaskets, probably—and a vacuum cleaner roared.
The subject had turned to food as the men drew closer. Ben remained in front of Corie as the bathroom door opened. The sounds of a melancholy Jenni Rivera ballad drifted in and the overhead light went on. Corie couldn’t catch her breath.
Water splashed, the toilet flushed, more vacuuming.
“Do we have to do the shower?” a male voice asked.
Corie screamed silently. She felt Ben’s body brace for action.
“I saw Pimental today,” the second man replied. “He didn’t look like he’d showered, so I’m sure it’s clean.” They laughed and the light went out as they left the bathroom.
* * *
BEN PUT A hand to the shower door and took a moment to collect himself. He imagined this had been good practice for his career as a detective. Still, he’d like to plan his own death-defying investigations.
He turned to lean a shoulder against the shower tile and whisper-shouted at Corie, “What in the hell...?”
“I... I...” Apparently unable to explain herself, she simply held up the big black bag he’d seen flapping emptily against her back when he was chasing her. Now it appeared to be filled with something heavy. “I needed these,” she finally said.
“And what is ‘these’?”
“Pimental’s files. Not sure yet what’s in them.”
“So we just risked breaking and entering because of something you’re not sure is of value to us?”
She repeated that question to herself and thought it through. “Yes,” she finally replied. “What I’m looking for is or isn’t in here. Either way, it’s important.”
What?
He pushed the shower door open, pulled her out after him and stood still for a moment, listening for the sounds of the cleaners. He caught faint strains of music from across the building.
They went stealthily down the nearest stairway, then out the door into the quiet night. He took the heavy bag from her. “It never occurred to you to tell me you were going to break into city hall?”
She was already steps ahead of him and turned to give him an over-the-shoulder roll of her eyes. “Why would I? You’d have told me not to.”
He started after her. “Well, that’s sound reasoning.”
“I had to get these files, whether or not you approved. If what I want is in there, I can destroy it. If it isn’t, then he probably doesn’t have it, so all is well.”
Now that they were out of the building, he was beyond angry. “Isn’t it time you stopped playing your life like an extreme sport?”
She stopped. “What?”
He caught up with her. “Yeah, you treat this life like those extreme skiers and rock climbers and all those people who think the thrill of the risk is everything. Have you ever considered using your head before your gut? That there are legal ways to accomplish things without resorting to crime?”
She firmed her lips and glared at him. “Breaking and entering is what I know.”
“Oh, you’re a lot smarter than that, but it’s what you like to do. Yeah. You’re afraid to leave the old you behind because the present you doesn’t fit in. Using your gut is so much easier than using your head.”
“It’s my heart, not my gut. I don’t want Jack to be hurt.”
“What about me? If it was your heart,” he said, poking his finger in her chest, “don’t you have some responsibility to not make me insane with worry? To keep me in the loop when you’re going to do something nuts like break into city hall?”
She swallowed, tears in her eyes. “I didn’t want you involved.”
“And, yet, here I am!”
“Because you don’t know how to leave well enough alone. I want to protect Jack...and you, but this is who I am, and if you can’t deal with that, then...we have nothing more to say.” She walked off again.
Yeah, right. “Except that you have a bag filled with files that you’ve just stolen from city hall and we have to figure out how to get them back before morning.”
“After we’ve checked them out.”
He sighed. “After we’ve checked them out.”
“All right. Then after that, we have nothing more to say to each other.”
“Oh, I have a lot to say, but I’m not going to keep shouting in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night.”
They didn’t speak again until they were back in her kitchen. He made coffee while she pulled files out of the bag and spread them on the table. Among the folders was a tablet.
She turned it on, leaned forward when the icons appeared, but was clearly stumped by a password. She typed in something, sighed when it didn’t work, tried a few more words, then put the tablet aside and began to prowl through the paper files.
He brought her a cup of coffee and sat at a right angle to her, thinking how grateful he was that he was off duty and in a state where he wasn’t a police officer. Technically, a cop always had a responsibility to enforce the law, but he was ignoring that until he saw what she was after.
To Love and Protect Page 16
