True Valor

by Jax Hunter

“My... fee ...” Julie snapped her mouth shut on the rest of the word. Either this visitor was lying, or she had a fiancé she hadn’t gotten around to remembering. That was an unpleasant thought in light of having entertained the idea of falling in love with Nic. Nic, the one who’d left her here. She pushed the button. “Okay, give me a minute.”

  Julie smoothed the wrinkles from her orange jumpsuit, wondering why she bothered. Well, whoever this guy was, he would definitely not be seeing her at her best. Then, she pulled the rubber band from her hair and finger combed as best she could. She shrugged, pushed the button again, and told the jailer she was ready.

  The jailer accompanied her to the visitation room and opened the door. “He’s inside, ma’am.”

  He was most assuredly inside. The room was small, with a window from which the staff could keep an eye on them, not that they bothered. He turned as she entered and a 200-watt smile spread across his handsome face. Handsome was an understatement. The idea that this man was her fiancé sent a shiver down her spine. He wore charcoal grey slacks and a forest-green V-neck sweater that accentuated his light green-blue eyes. He looked like he’d stepped out of the centerfold of GQ’s beach-boy edition, if GQ even had a centerfold. Or a beach-boy edition.

  “Hi, doll.” He strode toward her, swept her into his arms, winked, and nailed her with a hot, devouring kiss. His lips moved down her neck until she felt his breath in her ear. “I’m Cruz. I work with Nic. You can call me Eric. I’m going to kiss you again, so kiss me back, then we can talk.”

  Julie’s head spun as he kissed her. She didn’t exactly return the kiss but at least she didn’t pull away. Cruz? This was Cruz? This was definitely not how she’d pictured Eric Cruz. She’d expected him to have the dark, Latin looks his name implied. And she certainly hadn’t expected him to be her visitor. What the hell was going on?

  He drew back and held her at arm’s length. “Let me look at you.” Then he gathered her into his arms again, whispering, “D said you were beautiful. He was right.”

  She took the opportunity of being so close to him to whisper back, “What are you doing here?”

  Cruz held her tight, not allowing her to back away. “I’m here to help Nic get you out of this mess.”

  “He put me here,” Julie hissed. She tried unsuccessfully to pull away.

  “Only to keep you safe. I don’t know how much I can tell you. Places like this have ears.” He moved her again to arm’s length. “I’m so glad you’re okay, sweetheart.”

  Again, he smiled and again, she shook herself to match this surfer with the identity of Nic’s best friend.

  “We only have half an hour,” Cruz said, pulling her hand to his lips. He led her to the table in the middle of the room and moved her purposefully to a particular chair. Then, he sat down beside her, with his back to the window. “You are so beautiful,” he said again, pulling her hands over and holding them gently. His voice became little more than a whisper. “I can see why D loves you.”

  Julie frowned and Cruz laughed.

  “What can you tell me about the guy in the ski mask?”

  “Um, not much.”

  Eric squeezed her hands reassuringly.

  “I walked into my parent’s room. He had his back to me. My parents...” Her throat closed on the words.

  “It’s okay. Just think about the man.”

  “He had his back to me. Then he turned around, not like he’d heard me, like he was going to turn around anyway.” Julie looked at Cruz. His eyes were soft with compassion. But somehow, having Nic’s best friend here, only made her miss Nic more. She looked back down at her hands, wrapped in his. She tried to focus on the scene in her head. “He saw me and our eyes met. He looked surprised and he raised the gun.”

  The scene that had stopped there in her memory now continued. She didn’t speak, not wanting to break the vision in her head, but clung to Eric’s hands as she watched.

  The man raised the gun to kill her. There was no doubting the look in those eyes. Julie reacted. Without even thinking, she kicked the man’s hands, and the gun went flying. She kicked him again just above the knee.

  His breath came out in a whoosh and she ran. Down the hall, through the kitchen, and grabbed her folks’ car keys from the nail by the door, before racing to their car.

  As she pulled the door open, something thudded against the car. One look at the house explained the sound. There, on the front porch, the man stood, gun aimed at her. She launched into the car, got it started, and ducking as best she could, pulled out of the driveway into the street.

  She never looked back.

  That was all she remembered until Nic found her, still in her pajamas.

  The warmth of Eric’s hands on hers brought her back.

  “I kicked the gun out of his hand. I kicked him again, I think in the knee. I ran, got in my parents’ car and drove away. Then, Nic found me.”

  Cruz didn’t speak for a minute. “Do you remember what color eyes the man had?”

  Julie thought for a moment. It had been so dark. Maybe brown, but there was no way of knowing for sure. She spoke the thought out loud.

  “How about his height. Tall, short?”

  Julie pulled away and stood. “Stand up.”

  He did and she moved him against the wall of the small room. She backed up, looking him up and down, focusing on his eyes. “Maybe six inches shorter than you.”

  A rap at the door made them both turn. “Two minutes, Miss Galloway,” the voice said.

  “Okay, thank you.”

  Cruz moved to where she stood and pulled her close again. “They’ll only allow visitors on Sunday and Wednesday. But you can write letters any time. Address them to me and I’ll give them to Nic. Be careful what you write. They can read them. We’re staying at the Sleepy Z Motel. I’ll come back Wednesday.” That said, he lifted her chin and kissed her goodbye.

  Nic looked up when the door opened.

  “Amigo! Let’s go to breakfast. I’m buying.”

  Nic was not amused. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Kissing your girlfriend.” Cruz smirked, walked over, and slapped Nic’s boots, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to put your shoes on the bed? C’mon, let’s go eat.”

  The grin never left Cruz’s face, even when Nic leapt off the bed, grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall.

  “You’re going to ruin my sweater, man.”

  Nic shoved him again, then let go and stalked away. He trusted Cruz with his life, had on many occasions. The question never arose between them whether one would encroach on the other’s action.

  Oh, yeah. Cruz was definitely a player. Wherever he went, women followed. He could get them without even a second glance. He was the most charismatic person Nic had ever seen. His body language, the way he wore his clothes, his incessant smile. But when all was said and done, Eric Cruz was loyal to his very core.

  But that damned smile.

  Eric waited at the door, his stance saying he knew Nic would come around.

  Son of a bitch.

  “So what happened to your arm?” Eric asked.

  “Run-in with a booby trap.” At Cruz’s questioning look, Nic continued, “Nails. Spring loaded.”

  Cruz moved to block the doorway.

  “Let me see.”

  “Nah, I’m fine.”

  “Nic. Let me see.”

  That tone said do what I say right now. Most of the time, it wasn’t worth a fight. Nic pulled his shirt off.

  “Dios mio,” Cruz pulled his sunglasses up and stared at the ugly marks on his chest, leaning in to get a better look. “You coulda been killed, punctured a lung.”

  “They just grazed me.”

  “Yeah, right, if by grazed, you mean filleted.” He shrugged and put his shades back on. “They look okay now though.”

  “Some herb or something Julie put on ‘em. I’m driving,” Nic said, pulling his shirt back over his head. Cruz opened the door and stepped back, allo
wing Nic to lead the way. Nic could hear him chuckle under his breath.

  Nothing was said on the drive, and once seated at a table, the usual thing happened. The waitress fell over herself attending Cruz’s every need. Nic was used to being invisible when Hollywood was around. Cruz wasn’t exactly from Hollywood but that’s what the team called him.

  Technically, Eric Cruz was from Beverly Hills. His father was one of the top plastic surgeons to the stars. Joey used to say Hollywood had grown up with a silver carabineer in his mouth. The image never worked, but it always made Cruz curse a blue streak in Spanish and was good for a laugh. His habit of slipping into Spanish was the only evidence Cruz was stressed.

  When the waitress finally left after taking their order, Nic spoke. “How is she?” The question came out in a croak and felt like it was wrenched from his guts.

  “She misses you.”

  “Did she say that?” Nic couldn’t imagine that, after what he’d done to her.

  “No.” At Nic’s unspoken question, Cruz answered, “She didn’t kiss me back.”

  Again, that loyalty question darted through Nic’s mind. Cruz would never betray him, but the question remained: What the hell was he doing kissing Julie? Like usual, Cruz read Nic’s mind.

  “I’m posing as her fiancé,” Cruz said matter-of-factly leaning back with a cat-swallowed-the-canary look.

  “I hope you have a good reason for that.”

  Cruz raised an eyebrow and grinned. “She’s a very beautiful woman.”

  “And that’s why you’re posing as her fiancé? Because she’s a beautiful woman?”

  Now Cruz laughed. “It was the best I could think of on short notice. Sorry, man.”

  The waitress came with a tray of food. She smiled seductively at Eric and slipped a small piece of paper into his hand. He smiled back in a friendly manner, slipped the piece of paper into his pocket, and picked up his fork.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes before Nic spoke. “So, what did you find out?”

  “In general, or from Julie?”

  “From Julie.” This game was getting tiresome. Or maybe Nic was just irritated because Cruz had seen Julie more recently than he had.

  Cruz thought for a minute and lay down his fork. “You didn’t tell me Julie had a black belt.”

  “Does she?”

  “She managed to defend herself against a man who pulled a gun on her. Either you didn’t tell me that part, or she hadn’t remembered yet.”

  Nic shook his head. “I don’t know that part. Fill me in.”

  “Well, after she walked into her parents’ room and saw the man standing with his back to her, he turned and was apparently surprised to see her. He raised his pistol, and Julie kicked it out of his hand, kicked him in the knee, and ran for her life. He managed to get off a few shots at the car but didn’t hit her, thank God.”

  This was news to Nic. While Julie had told him what she remembered, her memory had stopped after Ski-Mask Dude turned around. But dead Doug had mentioned the kick that left the bad guy limping.

  “Is that all she said?”

  “No. I asked her how tall the guy was and she said about six inches shorter than me,” Cruz picked up his fork. After a few bites, he continued, “She didn’t see the guy’s eyes well enough to tell me what color they were.”

  Nic had to think. He twirled his fork in what used to be a stack of pancakes, now mush. Eric was maybe two inches taller than Nic. The good sheriff was, if Nic remembered correctly, only an inch or so shorter than Nic. Maybe Julie just didn’t have time to see how tall the murderer was.

  Maybe he hadn’t had his cowboy boots on that night.

  When they got back to the motel, Cruz dragged out his laptop, opened it, and turned it on.

  “I brought your cell and charger,” he said, tossing a bag to Nic.

  “Thanks.”

  Together, they spent the next hour going over the facts they had. It would take a lot more before they could go to the authorities with anything that remotely resembled proof. Even if Julie had been completely accurate in her description of Ski-Mask Dude, that alone was not enough. They still needed to figure out a motive for the sheriff of a small town to murder an entire family.

  An idea struck Nic. It must have shown on his face because Cruz looked at him, a sense of foreboding written on his face.

  “Spill it, D.”

  “Well, I was just thinking about Julie’s dad’s computer.”

  Cruz shook his head even before Nic had finished his thought. But even so he was smiling.

  Nic continued. “Well, that computer was wiped clean when we got to the house. I was just thinking...”

  “You were just thinking I could maybe use my mad skills and find something on it, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. There is one small problem, though.”

  “Does it involves breaking and entering?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Cool!” Cruz checked his watch. “You want to go now or would you feel better waiting until dark?”

  “Scalpel.” Cruz snapped the latex gloves as he pulled them on, a wicked grin settling on his face. The room was still dark except for the glow from the patient. Nic paced the room, not nearly as comfortable with breaking and entering as Cruz was. You’d have thought he’d grown up on the streets of South Central L.A. rather than on the boulevards surrounding Rodeo Drive.

  “C’mon, baby,” Eric crooned in a sing-song voice to the computer. It was almost embarrassing, listening to him seduce the computer. But that was Cruz.

  “Could you put a move on?” Nic continued to look out the window, standing back so he wouldn’t be seen from the street. “The good sheriff and his minions could arrive any minute, guns a-blazing, to take us away in chains.”

  “Dude, if the cops have guns, why would they need chains?”

  Chapter Seventeen