GRAY WOLF SECURITY, Texas: The Complete 6-Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Drug dealer?”

  “Jaime Hernandez.”

  I allowed myself a second of triumph as Kipling glanced at me. I bit it back, of course, but my heart was soaring. I’d told him.

  “Did you happen to hear what they were saying?”

  The man shook his head. “I was concerned because Mrs. McKay did not strike me as the kind of person who would speak to someone like him. But by the time I got over to where they were, he was already walking away.”

  “And this was a short time before her death?”

  The man nodded. “About a week, I’d guess.”

  Kipling held out his hand to the man. “I appreciate your help.”

  “He lives in this neighborhood, you know. A real menace if you ask me.”

  “He’s still around?”

  “Sure, sure. He shows up from time to time.” The old man pointed west. “On West Muskingum.”

  I knew that already. Did Kipling really think I would drag him out here on a wild goose chase and not know where we were going? I stepped back, ready to get the hell out of here and get on a good lead, but Kipling seemed content to talk to this old man.

  “That day you saw her talking to the drug dealer, do you remember why she was here?”

  The old man’s eyes welled with tears. “She had just ordered a pot roast. She said it was her husband’s favorite and he was due home very soon.”

  Kipling nodded. “I can’t believe you remember all that after such a long time.”

  “She was a favorite of mine. I’ve worked in this supermarket for thirty-five years, and I can count on one hand how many customers made that list.”

  Kipling shook his hand again, nodded to the manager, and led the way out of the office. Once again I was left trailing after him, unsure where he was headed next or what he might do now. Not only was I on a wild goose chase, but I was doing it with a bomb on the verge of exploding.

  We drove to the neighborhood where the Hernandez lived. I pointed and Kipling eased the car to the side of the road. There was nothing happening at the house now. It looked like any house in a neighborhood like this. The lawn was haphazardly kept, a car on cinderblocks sitting off to the side of the driveway. The front window had a crack along one corner and the front door looked as though it’d been kicked in and repaired more than once. But there wasn’t a line of cars out front, no one loitering on the lawn. It was just a house like any other in a poor neighborhood.

  “Your brother spend a lot of time here?”

  I shook my head. “Mickey met him in restaurants and clubs. I don’t think he ever came here.”

  “How do you know?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t, not for sure. But I don’t think a drug dealer would really invite his customers to his home. Do you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know much about the drug trade.”

  “You wouldn’t, I suppose.”

  He glanced at me, really looking at me for the first time since the incident at the liquor store. “What do you know about me?” he asked, less demanding and more curious.

  “Everything.” I sat back and drew my knees up to my chest, holding myself like a toddler trying to calm herself. “I know you grew up in Illinois, in a small town not far from Springfield. I know your father was a farmer—corn and soybeans—but he was a gentleman farmer, having inherited quite a fortune from his father who was into real estate. I know that you went to a private high school and attended Northwestern for a couple of semesters before enlisting in the Army. I know you worked your way up from private to sergeant fairly quickly, taking a position as a drill sergeant at Fort Jackson. That’s where you met your wife.” I tilted my head as I regarded him. “Should I go on?”

  “No, I get the picture.”

  I looked out the window again, trying to imagine my brother in this part of the city. As I did, the image shifted and I found myself trying to see my mother here. That wasn’t happening.

  “I guess you did some research on me to use it to help your brother.”

  “I did research on you because you were the other side of the coin I suddenly found myself emblazoned upon.”

  “Then maybe I should know a few things about you.”

  I looked over at him. “You’ve never had me researched? You work at one of the most secretive, yet most successful, security firms in the country, but you haven’t used their resources to check me out?”

  “Oh, I’m sure someone’s on it right now, but I haven’t bothered to do it myself.”

  I nodded as I turned to look out the window again. “Well, whoever’s doing the search will be quite disappointed with the results. There’s nothing much there.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Right here in Houston. Downtown in the same hospital where my father practiced.”

  “Your dad’s a doctor.”

  “A cardiac surgeon. Kind of ironic that he died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-four.”

  Kipling adjusted his position behind the wheel by pulling himself up with the steering wheel. “And your mom?”

  I shook my head. “Your next question should be where I went to school.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the order it goes in.”

  He grunted, but he played along. “Where did you go to school?”

  “A private school near Rice University. Mickey went to the same school, but he was expelled his freshman year for fighting.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Yeah, well, that was three years before he got into the drugs. He was defending our mother at the time, so you’d think she would have fought to make them keep him in the school, but she didn’t. That was the beginning of the demise of their relationship, I think. She called him an embarrassment for the first time then.”

  “An embarrassment. Sounds like something my dad would have said.”

  “Maybe your dad and my mom were made from the same cloth.”

  Kipling was quiet for a moment. Then I felt him shift again, moving around so he could see me.

  “You said that Mickey likely confessed for the money, money he wanted to use to help you go to school, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But if you never touched the money, how did you pay for school?”

  It was a good question. He might make a good investigator after all.

  “My dad left money for my education. Mickey hadn’t known about. I didn’t even know about it until shortly before my high school graduation. But I guess dad had suspected I wouldn’t want to use Mom’s money, so he’d set it up quietly, behind her back. Which was really funny because he rarely did anything he knew she wouldn’t approve of.”

  “He must have loved you.”

  That brought a lump to my throat. I swallowed hard to make it disappear.

  “And your mom? Why didn’t you want her money?”

  “Because her money comes with strings. Always with strings. And Mickey didn’t want me caught under her thumb for the rest of my life.”

  “Your mom sounds like a real winner.”

  I laughed. “She’d love to hear you say that. She believes she is. She believes she’ll be running this damn country someday. And maybe she will.”

  “Who is she?”

  That was a good question. I was her daughter; I should know who she was. But I didn’t. The woman was such a force in my life, but I was pretty sure no one really knew who she was. Maybe not even her. Maybe she didn’t understand why she was so driven, why she looked down on the man she once loved enough to bear him two children, why she was so hard and cold with those children. Or maybe it never occurred to her to even wonder.

  “My mother is Abigail Grant.”

  I felt his reaction more than saw it. Kipling sat up a little taller, his head swiveling in my direction like he thought looking at me would make it that much more of a reality.

  “Abigail Grant? As in Senator Abigail Grant?”

  “The one and only.”

  “The state s
enator who took Ashford Grayson’s place in congress and then made multiple successful runs of her own? And then moved on to the Senate? The same Senator Grant who’s rumored to be planning a presidential bid in 2020?”

  “Yes.”

  The silence grew heavy, resting hard on my shoulders. I waited for the inevitable questions, the awe-laced words that always fell from the lips of the men I’d given this information to. I waited for the ambition to kick in, the comprehension of what it would mean to marry the daughter of such a woman. They had no idea. They never did.

  But Kipling was different.

  “No wonder she didn’t want to have anything to do with Mickey’s case.”

  It was the first time he’d said my brother’s name since…well, ever. I turned so that we were facing each other across the tiny space there in the front of the SUV. He was leaning forward a little, his hands on his knees. I found myself staring at those hands, those capable hands. They could have been a surgeon’s hands. They could have been a farmer’s hands. But they were a soldier’s hands, the hands of a man who would have done anything for his country, but whose country allowed his family to meet a tragic end while he was fighting its battles.

  I touched the back of one of those hands, just my fingertips moving over the veins that were purple and blue against the surface of his tan skin. He tensed a little, but he didn’t pull away.

  Not immediately, anyway.

  “We should go. There’s nothing to see here.”

  My eyes moved slowly up to his face. He was watching me, clouds of emotion dancing through his eyes. I wanted to taste his kiss. I’d had his touch, but now I wanted his mouth. I wanted to know what it felt like to be thoroughly kissed by a man who felt as deeply as this man did. But before I could gather the courage, he turned away.

  “Seatbelt,” he said, as he started the SUV and pulled away from the curb.

  I didn’t realize where we were going until he directed the car onto the highway and then out of the city. I knew this route better than I knew the back of my hand or the path from my apartment to the hospital where I’d spent so much of my time until a month ago. He was taking me to the prison where my brother had been housed. The prison where he was murdered.

  “Why are we going there?”

  He didn’t ask how I knew. He didn’t even look at me.

  “I want to know how he died.”

  “He was killed by another inmate.”

  “Who? Why?”

  I shook my head. “They wouldn’t give me details. They said while the investigation was ongoing, so they couldn’t release anything more. All I know is that he was in the common area, watching television with some of the other inmates, and someone stabbed him multiple times with a handmade weapon.”

  “It was a hit.”

  “Probably. But they aren’t going to just give you a name.”

  “I don’t need a name. I need an affiliation.” He glanced at me. “We need to know who’s behind all this. If your brother didn’t do this, then this is much bigger than that drug dealer. Just because you think he might have worked for a Russian drug cartel, doesn’t mean he did. We need to know for sure.”

  I glanced at him. “You’re beginning to believe me.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. But I would say that I’m interested in finding out the truth.” He shot me a look even as his hands slipped over the steering wheel, pulling the SUV into the large parking lot outside the prison. “And I’m curious why your mother never threw her weight around to help you at least find out who murdered your brother.”

  “Because she thinks he did it. And she doesn’t want the fact that her son was a murderer of children to place a stain on her reputation.”

  “He was still her son.”

  I inclined my head, an old familiar anger burning in my chest. “That’s what I’ve been saying for ten years. If my dad was alive…”

  I let the statement fall without finishing it. We were pulling to a stop in a parking spot that gave us a perfect view of the front of the prison. Staring at it, I might not have imagined that it housed hundreds of violent criminals if I didn’t already know it as fact. It was a classy building, built to be as disruptive of the surrounding countryside as possible. It was stucco and glass, a modern building with faux-marble floors and chrome accents throughout the lobby. It could have been almost any business or government building in the country. But it wasn’t. It was a prison where men were stripped of their dignity and housed like animals in cages. And it was where my brother spent his final years, where he breathed his last breath.

  I could feel Kipling’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t bear to look at him. I knew he had little regard for my brother, and I could understand why. From his side of the equation, Mickey was nothing but a habitual user, a criminal with a long history of various criminal acts. Mickey was the worst our society had to offer and garnered very little sympathy from anyone, especially this man whose family was the subject of my brother’s last incarceration. He didn’t even have to be here with me. So it was a little bit of a surprise when he reached over and, hesitatingly, touched my arm.

  “You don’t have to go inside if you don’t want to.”

  “I don’t want to. But I want to know who killed my brother.”

  “Okay.”

  I climbed out of the SUV almost reluctantly, tugging at my blouse as I did. For the first time since it happened, I was wondering if there was some mark on me, some piece of clothing out of place that might announce to strangers what Kipling and I had done in the liquor store parking lot. It was a stupid thought, but I suddenly felt like my morals were under a microscope, as if the people in this place had higher authority to judge my actions than the people at the liquor store or the supermarket had.

  Kipling held open the door for me, forcing me to walk in first. The guard on duty at the front desk looked up and did a quick double check when her eyes landed on me.

  “Harley,” she said with a mix between a welcoming smile and a frown. “What can we do for you today?”

  I guess I’d been here a few too many times that the guards knew me by name.

  Kipling came around me. “We’d like to speak to the warden about the death of Mr. Michael Connors.”

  The guard’s eyebrows rose as she once again regarded me. “I was sorry to hear about Mickey,” she said to me.

  I just inclined my head because words were suddenly escaping me.

  “If you could just call the warden,” Kipling pushed.

  The woman’s eyes hesitated on me a moment longer, then she focused on him, her expression growing hard.

  “And you are?”

  “Kipling McKay. I’m sure the warden will recognize my name.”

  “Are you an attorney?”

  “No.”

  “Then what makes you think the warden will want to speak to you? Dr. Connors I understand, but he doesn’t share information with just anyone. Especially with the media.”

  “I’m not a reporter.”

  “He’s the husband and father of my brother’s final victims,” I said, my voice suddenly very loud in the silent lobby.

  They both looked at me, surprise registering on both their faces.

  “Could we just see the warden?” I asked, softening my voice slightly.

  The guard nodded, reaching for the phone before I’d even finished speaking. A guard arrived a short time later to lead us through the maze of corridors that led to the offices of the administrative wing. I thought we’d have to wait. The last time I’d met with the warden—a year or so after Mickey had been brought here—I had to wait three hours. But I guess having the victims’ closest relative with me helped grease the cogs of the inner office workings.

  “Ms. Connors, Mr. McKay,” the warden greeted us almost immediately. “How can I help you?”

  “No one has been terribly forthcoming with information on the death of Mr. Connors,” Kipling said. “We were hoping to get a few answers directly from the source.”

&nb
sp; The warden looked uneasy for a moment, but then the façade of the typical bureaucrat came back.

  “Well,” he said slowly, focusing on me, “I understand you and your brother were close. I am sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you. But all they would tell me was that he was killed by a fellow inmate. Could you give us more details?”

  The warden took a long moment to walk around his desk, clearly trying to buy time. I glanced at Kipling. He was tense, his shoulders held high and straight, his face trained into a purposely neutral expression.

  The warden took a seat and dug through a couple of files on his desk.

  “John Walker was on duty that night. I’ll call him up and let to speak to him.”

  “Is he the guard who saw it happen?”

  “He is.”

  We were moved into a smaller room where the guard joined us. I knew him. He was often on duty in the visitation room, taking people’s identification and assigning them to the computer consoles where the visitations took place. He nodded politely when our eyes met.

  “I understand you want to know about Mickey’s death.”

  “As much as you can tell us,” Kipling said.

  Walker glanced at the heavy door between us and the corridor where there could be any number of possible eavesdroppers. Then he focused on me, something like sympathy—or maybe it was pity—coming into his eyes.

  “It was a Thursday night. The prisoners were having their allotted hour of downtime before lights out. There was a football game on, so Mickey was parked in front of the television with a dozen other inmates. He never cried out; he never did anything to indicate he was in trouble. The only reason I knew there was something going on was because one of the other inmates had moved up close behind him and he had an arm around his throat.”

  The man looked down at his hands that were splayed on the tabletop. Almost reluctantly he looked up at me.

  “I pulled him away as quickly as I could, but your brother…the damage was already done.”

  It was my turn to look away. I didn’t want to imagine my brother sitting in his prison folding chair, blood gushing from his wounds. I didn’t want to remember what his lifeless eyes had looked like or remember the sight of him laid out in his coffin. I handled the funeral all on my own, and I stood at his gravesite alone. No one wanted to cry for a criminal. No one but me.