by Dana Marton
The tattooed kid looked his way. “You need a light?”
Shep spit the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his heel. “Trying to quit. Thanks anyway.”
“Good luck with that,” the kid said. “I try at least once a year.”
The ranch hands gave him sympathetic nods.
“You here for the rodeo?” one of them asked.
“You bet. Shep,” he said, introducing himself. “Down from Pennsylvania. You?”
“Brandon here might try.” One of the ranch hands nodded toward the skinny, tattooed guy.
That was good. Shep needed names. “How about you two?”
“Nah, Nick has a bad back. I got a bad horse.” The man gave a sour laugh.
“I hear you.” Shep shook his head. “Some days I think mine is the devil’s spawn.”
Nick gave a rueful laugh. “I had one like that. Almost broke my neck.”
Shep gestured toward the bar’s back door with his head. “So this place okay? My girl is singing.”
“New chick?” Brandon asked. “Best keep an eye on her. Crowd can get rowdy.”
He nodded. “How about the manager? Better pay her. Last gig she had, they stiffed her more weekends than not.”
“Brian’s cool. He don’t mind paying under the table, either. Save some on taxes, if she’s interested.”
The manager sounded as if he didn’t mind breaking any number of laws whatsoever. Could be Tank reported to the Coyote, could be he reported to Brian. What if Brian was the direct link?
Something they had to figure out in a hurry.
* * *
THEY DID MAKE some progress with Tank. Shep put a rush order on the prints and they got the results back early the next afternoon.
“Zeb Miller, with a rap sheet as long as the Rio Grande,” the lab tech said on the other end of the line and sent the file over.
Shep took it into Ryder’s office.
“Wish we had time to follow him for a while, see who he meets up with.” Ryder shook his head as he looked over the man’s impressive list of offenses. “But we just don’t. Why don’t you go pick him up? Let’s see if we can crack him.”
They had to try—didn’t really have a choice.
But Tank wasn’t at the address listed as his rental and couldn’t be tracked down, not even with an APB on his vehicle. Worse, that night when Shep went back to The Yellow Armadillo, Tank didn’t seem to be there, either.
Maybe he had some sixth sense and got spooked. Or maybe he was on a run across the border and he’d be back later.
Shep settled in to watch the show. Mostly he watched the audience, keeping an especially close eye on Brian, who seemed to keep to his office tonight. There was no movement in the back hallway, nobody coming and going from the basement.
Lilly put on a hell of a show, once again. And as bad as watching her dance across the stage half-naked was, the breaks were worse. He thought he’d jump out of his skin every time she sat on his lap.
LILLY CHANGED AGAIN during her last break and finished her bottle of water as she walked over to Brian’s office, trying to make progress in her investigation. She flashed a smile as if his groping had already been forgotten.
“I hate to ask for favors on my first night, but...” She winced. “I could really use a dressing room. I like changing between sets. Do you think it would be possible to find me a small place that’s private?”
He looked a lot less excited about her now that Shep was in the picture. He barely looked up from his paperwork. “People always used the bathroom before. That’s all we got. This ain’t no fancy place.”
“It doesn’t have to be fancy. Last place I worked at let me use a storage room. How about a quiet corner down in the basement?”
He did look up at that and shook his head. “If you want, you can change in my office.”
With him right there, no doubt. “You got glass in your door,” she pointed out.
“The better to keep an eye on people coming and going.”
She raised a teasing eyebrow. “You don’t trust your staff?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
His cell phone rang and he picked it up, pointed at the door for her to close it. She did, then meandered toward the basement door, but just as she could have tried the lock, Brandon came down the hall, so she stepped away.
He flashed her an unhappy look, unlocked the door and went through. She could hear him lock it behind him.
Great.
She pulled out her cell phone to check the time. She had five more minutes before her next set. She couldn’t go downstairs now. And she better clear out before Brandon came back. She didn’t want him to think she was loitering for a reason and say something to Brian.
She didn’t want to go sit by the bar. If she stood alone, guys hit on her. If she went to sit with Shep at his table, he’d feel the need to act like her boyfriend and she wasn’t sure how much more of that she could take tonight.
She walked up front, grabbed another bottle of water, then walked outside through the front door for some fresh air. The smokers usually hung out in the back alley, so the front was nice and quiet.
The street was mostly deserted at one in the morning, the row of small shops closed, but not darkened. She glanced down the rainbow of neon lights over the entrances. She was used to big-city lights in D.C., and this was nowhere like that, yet small Texas towns did have their own charm, she thought.
Movement at the car shop on the corner caught her eye. She couldn’t see at first what exactly was going on. The repair shop didn’t have their lights on like the stores. It was almost time for her to go back in, but on an impulse, she stayed and waited another minute.
There was that movement again. And when she looked more carefully, she could see a man coming from the repair shop carrying a box and watched as he put it into the back of a black pickup. A passing car illuminated him for a second. Brandon.
She pulled into the shadows so she wouldn’t be seen if he looked this way.
It was definitely him—the same height, width, the same lumbering movement. How on earth had he gotten over there?
Only one explanation came to mind. The Yellow Armadillo had a tunnel, some kind of underground connection to the car shop. They definitely needed to find a way down there.
Music filtered through the door as the band inside began to play. She hurried back in.
She didn’t have a chance to catch Shep on her way to the stage. He was talking to some guys up by the bar. But as soon as her last set was done, she searched him out in the dispersing crowd so she could tell him her theory about a tunnel.
“We have to know for sure what’s going on in the basement. I want to go down there. Tonight,” she clarified.
They stopped next to his pickup after walking out together. “Let the team handle it,” he said.
“We’re here right now. The last stragglers will be gone in ten minutes. No better time than the present. There’s a twenty-four-hour convenience store on the other side of the corner, past the mechanic. We could pretend to be heading there to pick up something.”
He looked down the street, then back at her. “Okay.” And then he reached out and wrapped his arm around her.
Oh, man, was that necessary? Him touching her unsettled her every single time. But she supposed they had to stay in character in case anyone saw them—people were still leaving the bar—so she snuggled against him. “Find out anything useful tonight?”
He shrugged. “Nothing spectacular. Got a couple of names to run through the system. If there’s a tunnel, you definitely win.”
Good. She liked winning. She liked the idea of him coming to see her at last as an independent, competent woman, as opposed to Miss Disaster, a total screwup.
They wal
ked and, even as they carefully scanned the few people lurching to their cars, they pretended to be looking at each other. Not really a hardship for her. He was totally hot. He always had been.
She couldn’t see any movement at the car shop now as she gave the place a quick glance. The black pickup was gone. Brandon had probably driven off with whatever he’d been carrying in that box. Considering it was past 2:00 a.m., he might not come back tonight.
That would serve their purposes just fine, she thought. It’d be easier to snoop if nobody was around.
They walked past the car shop then entered the small convenience store. Shep headed to the back. “How about some iced tea?”
But while they were picking through the cooler, Brian walked in.
He nodded at them as he went for smokes, then ended up behind them at the checkout line. He managed a leering look at her legs. “Hey.”
Shep nodded at him and added a handful of condoms to their purchases from the display before wrapping his arm around her waist. “Hey yourself.”
Not too subtle, was he?
She thought about jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow as he paid then stuffed the foil packets into his back pocket, but all she could do was smile as she did her best to act her cover. She pulled him over by the magazine rack on their way out, pretending to be picking through the tabloids, so Brian would leave first. She wanted the manager gone so they could take a better look at the mechanic shop on their way back, unobserved.
His car was parked in front of the store. He got in and drove away.
They walked outside into the balmy night at last, and she looked after the car as it disappeared around the corner.
“Was that necessary?” She hissed the words under her breath. That many condoms? Really?
He flashed her an overly innocent look.
Fine. Whatever. She pushed back the aggravation and focused on the job. “I want to walk down the side street so we can check out the repair shop from the side and back. I want to get a better feel for it.” A better feel for how to get in.
He looped his arm around her shoulders, keeping her close to him as they’d started out.
She would have preferred some space—her brain worked better that way—but to shake off his embrace would have meant admitting that he was affecting her. Instead, she draped her arm around his waist. Two could play this game.
The side street was badly lit and completely deserted. They kept an eye on the houses across the road while checking out the car shop from this angle. The shop didn’t have a single light on in the back, either; it was completely dark. They cut through the parking lot, as if taking a shortcut to the Laundromat behind the mechanic’s.
The shop’s back door looked like a simple deal, with a simple lock, she saw when they got close enough. She stopped and turned into Shep, as if for a kiss, lifting her face to his. “I have a set of lock picks on me,” she said as her body tingled from the contact.
“I’d feel more comfortable if I took you back to your hotel and came back here on my own.”
Did he even realize that he was insulting her? “I’m an FBI agent.”
His lips flattened for a second. “I know.”
“I don’t need your permission to do my job. And I certainly don’t need your protection, although I’d be stupid not to accept backup. I’m going in.”
He held her gaze, a pained look on his face. “When did you become so pushy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A lone cowboy meandered down the side street. They had to wait until he passed out of sight. They kept their hands on each other, playing the part of lovers who’d stopped for a quick kiss and some sweet words.
Shep bent his head a little closer as they gazed at each other. “Why didn’t you stay with music?” he asked out of the blue. “You sure know how to rock a stage.”
Where had that come from? “Are you hoping I’ll give up the FBI and go on tour?” A smile tugged at her lips. “You want me gone that bad?”
“You have no idea,” he said with feeling.
A quick laugh escaped her. “I like the FBI. Not that I want to do it forever.”
“What else?”
“I’d like to work with foster youth someday. I have some ideas about how to help kids who might be going down the wrong path.” She gave a small shrug. “I have some experience there.”
His face turned somber as he watched her. “Seventeen and all alone in the world. You shouldn’t have run away.”
“Stop saying that. I wouldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t.” She tilted her head. “I’m good at what I do, too. You don’t have to worry about me.”
But he still hesitated another long minute before he said, “Okay. Let’s see if there’s an easy way into this place.”
The cowboy had long disappeared down the street.
She moved away from Shep. “You carrying?”
He nodded.
He probably had a small weapon in his boot, since she couldn’t see any bulges in his waistband behind his back.
“Me, too.” She’d gotten a dainty little thing for her purse, something any woman would carry. She’d left her government-issue weapon in her hotel room. She kept her bag behind the bar while she sang, where anyone could have gone through it. If anyone snooped, she didn’t want them to see anything that might give her away.
The back door was locked, but she made quick work of it.
He raised a dark eyebrow as they stepped inside. “You have a knack for this.”
“A skill I had before I ever entered law enforcement, to be fair,” she whispered back to him as they moved forward.
Three cars sat in the six-bay garage, no people in sight.
They moved along the wall, looking for a door that might lead down to the basement. Shep was the one to find it. Somebody had taped a piece of paper on the door that said W.C. OUT OF ORDER.
She worked the lock, again, nothing fancy. A super-security lock would have stood out, she supposed. She had it open within a minute. Instead of a bathroom, a staircase stretched down in front of them, dark and not very inviting.
He turned on the small LED light that hung from his keychain and went down first, past the rat droppings, then the mummified rat on the landing. She turned on her own keychain light and followed, closing and locking the door behind her in case they came out somewhere else. She didn’t want anyone to know that somebody had been through here.
The stairs led straight down into a narrow passageway. They followed it and found nothing down there but bare brick walls, no room for anything, really.
There were a couple of turns, two branches that led off to empty storage rooms. They followed the main tunnel.
“Probably built during Prohibition,” Shep said as they moved forward.
That would explain why it led to a bar.
Less than ten minutes passed before they reached another set of stairs, the tunnel still continuing beyond.
They went up, through the door at top, careful not to make any noise. The lights were off, but enough moonlight came through the windows to illuminate the place. They were in a waiting room with old plastic chairs and a scuffed reception desk.
Scribbled-over posters about the food pyramid decorated the walls. To their left a supply closet stood with its door half-open, the shelves stocked with bottles of disinfectant and boxes of bandages. They had reached some kind of a health clinic it seemed.
They hadn’t passed by one when they’d walked. Which meant the place had a different storefront. It was likely an illegal clinic, the cash-only type that asked for no ID and treated gunshot wounds without questions.
“Handy for the steroid pills,” Shep whispered, moving forward.
Right. He’d gotten some of those from Tank. Sounded as if Brian
and his crew had a hand in a number of things. They apparently appreciated the efficiency of diversifying.
“Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do criminal organizations,” she said, keeping her voice down. “Do you think Brian is stepping into the gap that was created when your team took out some of the local big dogs?”
She would have said more, but as she stepped after him, voices reached them.
They weren’t alone in the building.
Chapter Seven
Shep froze and held up a hand to alert Lilly, but from the look in her eyes, she’d heard the voices, too. There were at least two people in one of the back offices.
“How long are we supposed to sit around doing nothing?” a man asked in a deep, raspy voice. “I’m losing money every damn day.”
“Lie low is the word,” someone else answered. “You just cool your heels until the first.”
October first, Shep thought. They already knew that the Coyote had put everything on hold until then, probably to lull CBP into thinking smuggling was slowing. Then on the first, when all his minions started up business again, the sheer volume would overwhelm the border agents. In the chaos, the Coyote could slip his special cargo through without being detected.
Not if Shep and his team had anything to do with it.
“I have creditors to pay,” the man with the deeper voice said.
Lilly pulled away from Shep silently and pointed toward the half-open door of the supply closet. He nodded and moved after her, careful not to make any noise. They’d be out of sight in there in case anyone came out of that office, but they could still hear the conversation.
“Tell them to wait,” the other man answered.
The closet was pretty tight, shelves taking up most of the space. While Lilly was looking, trying to figure out how they could both fit, he simply pressed himself into the far corner, where he wouldn’t be seen even if they left the closet door half-open. They had to do that, leave everything the same so if the men came out, they wouldn’t notice anything out of place.
Lilly shot him a dubious look, then wedged herself into the remaining space, her back pressed tightly against him, the only way they’d both remain concealed.
