For Just Cause
For Just Cause
Kara Lennox
Guilt. Innocence. Psychologist and body-language expert Claudia Ellison can sense them both, which is why she's so good at her job.Unfortunately, even the innocent are convicted and this time Claudia's partially to blame. To help free a wrongfully imprisoned woman, she teams up with Project Justice investigator Billy Cantu, the one man she can't read.They must track down the truth before someone gets hurt. And to do that, they need to trust each other. Only, the ex-undercover cop has secrets he wants to keep, and to Claudia, not knowing everything is not an option. But some things aren't meant to be shared. Because once they are revealed, they can never be taken back.
Danger in the unknown
Guilt. Innocence. Psychologist and body-language expert Claudia Ellison can sense them both, which is why she’s so good at her job. Unfortunately, even the innocent are convicted and this time Claudia’s partially to blame. To help free a wrongfully imprisoned woman, she teams up with Project Justice investigator Billy Cantu, the one man she can’t read.
They must track down the truth before someone gets hurt. And to do that, they need to trust each other. Only, the ex-undercover cop has secrets he wants to keep, and to Claudia, not knowing everything is not an option. But some things aren’t meant to be shared. Because once they are revealed, they can never be taken back.
“It really bugs you that you can’t read me like a book?”
Claudia nodded in response to Billy’s question. “Frankly, yes.”
“So no one is allowed to have a secret?” he persisted.
“I believe in honesty,” she said.
“You don’t have any secrets, then.”
She hesitated a beat. “No.”
“How many men have you slept with?”
“Billy! Good God, that is none of your business.”
“I’m trying to prove a point. Everyone is allowed to privacy.”
“Everyone reads expression and body language. I just happen to be better at it than most people.”
“And I’m better at not being read than most people. So that means I’m dishonest? Lady, where do you get off?”
“There. That is the first honest emotion I’ve seen from you.”
“Stop reading me!”
“I can’t help it.” Her eyes inexplicably filled with tears.
“Here,” he said gruffly. “Read this.” He leaned across the gearshift, pulled up the parking brake and kissed her.
Dear Reader,
Many years ago, I attended a workshop on the art of reading faces and body language. Back then, it was considered a fringe science, right up there with astrology and palmistry. But I was fascinated with the subject, and I always knew someday I would create a character with this skill.
Now, copious research has proved that reading expressions and body language is a legitimate science. And I finally found the right story and the right character: psychologist Claudia Ellison, who was introduced in my first Project Justice book, Taken to the Edge. Claudia is known as the human lie detector. In fact, she doesn’t feel safe unless she can “read” the people she deals with. Of course, the one man she can’t read—investigator Billy Cantu, a man skilled at hiding his feelings—is the one she falls in love with. She skates the fine line between fascination and fear as they work together to try to save a woman on death row, a woman no one else seems to care about.
I hope you enjoy their adventure!
Sincerely,
Kara Lennox
PS—I like to hear from readers. Please contact me through my website, www.karalennox.com. And look for the next book in my Project Justice series—Hidden Agenda, available July 2012.
For Just Cause
Kara Lennox
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kara Lennox has earned her living at various times as an art director, typesetter, textbook editor and reporter. She’s worked in a boutique, a health club and an ad agency. She’s been an antiques dealer, an artist and even a blackjack dealer. But no work has ever made her happier than writing romance novels. To date, she has written more than sixty books. Kara is a recent transplant to Southern California. When not writing, she indulges in an ever-changing array of hobbies. Her latest passions are bird-watching, long-distance bicycling, vintage jewelry and, by necessity, do-it-yourself home renovation. She loves to hear from readers. You can find her at www.karalennox.com.
For my dear friend Marie Del Marco.
I can never thank you enough for luring me to Southern California and giving me such a warm welcome. Your relentless pursuit of your dreams is an inspiration to dreamers everywhere.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE (#u283907a0-3f90-56d0-8281-0c986be8fdf5)
CHAPTER TWO (#ud351c3b8-1147-5081-8ce2-b9d159585f5f)
CHAPTER THREE (#u79a70ae8-fcc3-5fb2-bc46-5713aede23d9)
CHAPTER FOUR (#udf0ac58f-5237-51ed-b90a-0d7409a98179)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
THE WEIGHT ROOM AT PROJECT Justice smelled like gymnasiums everywhere—a hint of sweat, overlaid with eau de cleaning supplies. Claudia Ellison, dressed most inappropriately for the gym in a buttercup-yellow linen suit and cream leather heels, stood poised in the doorway observing her quarry.
He didn’t see her. Billy Cantu sat on a bench doing reps with a barbell. His rippling biceps mesmerized her for several moments. She’d met Billy before, briefly, but she hadn’t guessed how ripped he was underneath his neatly pressed shirts.
Wearing only a pair of gym shorts, Billy exposed an awful lot of skin, smooth and naturally tan due to his Hispanic heritage. Thick, almost-black hair, deep brown eyes, sensual lips parted slightly as he breathed from the exertion…
She stopped herself. Her job wasn’t to catalog Billy’s masculine assets, charming though they were. She was supposed to be reading his body language, gauging his mood. Would he be receptive to her proposal?
He’d better be. Billy was her last hope.
Billy’s face was relaxed. His arm moved slowly, no jerky motions. He didn’t appear to be pressed for time, given the leisurely way he returned his hand weight to the rack and selected another to work on his lats. This might be the best time to garner his undistracted attention.
She walked briskly into the room, stepping around a stationary bike and a rowing machine, making sufficient noise that she wouldn’t startle him when she spoke.
He looked up, and the first thing she saw was blatant male appreciation—before he schooled his face. He controlled his features quickly, so quickly that only someone with her training would have caught that brief microexpression when he was unguarded.
“Dr. Ellison.” He laid his weights on the bench and grabbed a towel, blotting the light sheen of perspiration on his face and neck. “You come to work out?”
She looked down at her suit and heels, then back up to find him grinning. She tried to mirror his teasing mood, calling up a smile of her own.
“Call me Claudia, please.” She strode forward, hand outstretched. “It’s nice to see you again.”
His hand was large and calloused. It swallowed hers whole as they shook hands. She hadn’t expected his touch to feel so…so personal, and now she was the one who had to arrange her face into a pleasant but neutral expression. Adopting whatever mask fit the situation was something she did very, very well.
“I hope you’re not here to shrink my head.”
“No, not at all. But I do have something to ask you.”
He stood and walked over to an old-fashioned watercooler and filled a paper cup with spring water. She tried to gauge his reaction to her interrupting his workout. Was he irritated? Did he welcome the intrusion?
Strangely, she couldn’t read anything into his posture or facial expression.
She didn’t know a lot about Billy, only that he was an ex-cop from Dallas who’d been working at Project Justice for about three years as an investigator, mostly operating in the background. According to Daniel, Billy had never been the point man on a case.
Now it was her job to convince him to do just that. An innocent woman’s life depended on it.
She watched, fascinated, as he gulped down two cups of water, then crushed the cup in his hand. “You’ve got me curious. What is it you’d like to know?” Although he looked exotic, with his dramatic coloring and sultry, full lips, his speech bore no trace of a Spanish accent. He was a hundred percent Texan.
“Actually, I need your help. Do you remember the Eduardo Torres murder case?”
“Of course. Eduardo Torres was a key player in the Rio Grande Mafia. He was a murder suspect himself, killed some guy in a drug turf war. Then his wife offed him.”
“Only she didn’t. I was hired by the wife’s defense attorney to do a psychological evaluation. I found Mary-Francis Torres to be deceptive on a number of issues. But not about the most important thing. When she said she didn’t kill her husband, she was telling the truth.”
“How do you know?” Billy sounded neither curious nor skeptical; the question was perfectly neutral.
“Well, that’s what I do. I read body language and facial expressions, and with a high degree of accuracy I can tell when someone is lying.”
“So, you believe the wife is innocent?”
“I believe she didn’t kill her husband, and that she has no idea what happened to him. I testified to that effect.”
“I guess the jury didn’t believe you.”
“Unfortunately, when the prosecutor cross-examined me, he focused on the lies Mary-Francis told. Most notably, she claimed her marriage to Eduardo was a happy one and that they hadn’t quarreled. I had to point out to the jury, again and again, the instances in which I spotted deception. Sadly, I did her case more harm than good.”
And she’d been racked with guilt about it ever since.
“I’m sorry to hear you were sliced-and-diced by the prosecutor. But I doubt you’re to blame for the conviction. As I recall, the case was something of a slam dunk. They found about a gallon of Eduardo’s blood in the bed he shared with his wife.”
“But no body.”
“The medical examiner testified he couldn’t have survived that much blood loss.”
“But someone else could have killed him.”
“Maybe. But unless some new evidence has surfaced—”
“That’s the thing. Mary-Francis knows I’m a consultant for Project Justice, so she contacted me—the only person who believed she was innocent, even if I wasn’t much help in the courtroom. She claims to have new evidence.”
“Hmm. What kind of evidence?”
“She couldn’t explain it in the email. She doesn’t write, spell or type very well. I told her I would come see her. But I’d like someone from Project Justice to come with me and evaluate whatever she has—from a law enforcement perspective.”
“Me?”
She’d surprised him. At least she could read that much. But not much else. Billy Cantu was a blank canvas. She’d never met anyone so difficult to read.
“Why not you?”
“You can’t just sneak in the back door like this. Surely you know how it works. There’s an application process. Cases have to be evaluated. Then Daniel himself makes the final decision about which cases we accept.”
“I talked to Daniel. He feels the case merits at least a preliminary investigation. But all of the lead investigators are stretched to the max right now. He said you’re the only person who might be available.”
“So, I’m your last choice?”
Was he teasing? She had no idea. “You’re my only choice, Billy. And the only chance this poor woman has of getting off death row. Right now, I am the one person in the world who believes she didn’t kill her husband. I have a responsibility to pursue this, or I can’t live with myself.”
Billy blew out a breath. “I’d like to help, Claudia. But I assist the other investigators. I don’t take on my own cases.” He moved to the weight machine, stacked up what looked like two hundred pounds, and started working his legs.
“Only because you don’t want to.” Claudia sat down on the adjacent station, so he would have to see her face. “Daniel says he offered to promote you to senior investigator, and you turned him down.” And why was that? Claudia wondered. What normal man didn’t want to be promoted, get a better title, a bigger paycheck and more prestige? But she didn’t ask aloud. This meeting wasn’t about making Billy uncomfortable.
“I like things the way they are.”
Claudia sighed elaborately. “All right. I’ll just have to tell Mary-Francis that you’re too busy building muscles to save her life.”
Billy let the weights drop with a clang. “Now, wait a minute. I’m not just goofing off here. I’m on my lunch hour. Anyway, part of a cop’s job is to stay in shape.”
“You’re not a cop. And if you’re not working in the field, if the heaviest thing you lift is a phone—”
“I work in the field.”
“Then come with me to interview Mary-Francis. C’mon, Billy, don’t make me beg. You don’t have to commit to the case. Just commit to the one interview. If it pans out, maybe Daniel will reconsider and assign it to someone else.”
“You’re not leaving me much choice,” he groused as he resumed his reps. His thighs had muscles on muscles, and she had to force her gaze away.
“I never intended to. A woman’s life, Billy.”
“All right. One interview. But Mary-Francis better wow me. And just for the record? I’m not crazy about shrinks.”
“All shrinks? Or me in particular?”
“Let’s just say I’m a skeptic of your particular skill, and leave it at that.”
She did her best not to show how insulted she felt. Most people, even cops, were impressed by her skills, or at least politely curious. “Fair enough. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve set up the visit with Mary-Francis.”
* * *
A ROAD TRIP WITH A BEAUTIFUL blonde sounded like heaven to Billy Cantu—unless the blonde spent four hours straight studying him like a particularly fascinating species of toe fungus.
“I know I’m good-lookin’,” Billy finally said, “but do you think you could stop staring at me for five minutes?”
“Oh. Sorry.” Claudia turned to look out the windshield at the parched midsummer fields. “It’s an occupational habit.”
“It’s also kinda rude. I mean, when women stare at me, I want to at least pretend it’s because they’re trying to get inside my pants—not my brain.”
“I don’t want to be either place, thanks,” she said tartly, and Billy grinned. A quick glance told him she was blushing.
“You’ve been awful quiet,” Billy said. “How about you give me some more background on this woman we’re going to see? I read the court transcript, but you must know stuff that’s not public.”
Claudia had a transcript in her lap, but she’d spent more time covertly studying Billy than looking at her notes. Maybe she’d thought he wouldn’t notice, but he had excellent peripheral vision.
This interview was a waste of time. But Daniel wanted him to check it out, so here he was. Daniel had built Project Justice from the ground up and continued to choose which cases they took on. Apparently he trusted Claudia’s opinion that Mary-Francis was innocent. Or he at least didn’t want to offend her.
Billy preferred to work behind the scenes, supporting the other investigators. But lately Daniel had been pushing him out the door more and more.
“Mary-Francis isn’t the most likable woman I’ve ever met,” Claudia said. “She never should have taken the stand in her own defense.”
“I’ll say. The cross-examination was a bloodbath.”
“And yet…I still believe she’s telling the truth. Not about everything, maybe—but about not killing her husband, yes.”
“Obviously, or you wouldn’t have brought the case to Project Justice.” As a psychologist on retainer with the foundation, she didn’t normally bring in cases. She interviewed witnesses or analyzed interrogation or trial video. She was a nationally recognized expert on body language.
Which, if anyone asked Billy, was all a bunch of hooey.
Since nobody asked, he listened politely as she went through her notes. “Anytime she was questioned whether she knew where her husband was, or whether she’d killed him, or if she knew someone else had killed him, her body and face indicated her answers were truthful. If she were lying, her body would show more stress. But her shoulders were relaxed, her eyes wide and animated, her voice confident. However, she wasn’t always truthful. She lied about some things.”
“Like what?”
“Like her marriage. She tried to pretend everything was fine, that she and her husband were deeply in love. But any time that subject came up, she would pull her head in like a turtle and hide her hands in her lap. In fact, whenever anyone raised their voice or tried to intimidate her, she showed the classic body language of an abuse victim.”
A squirrel darted out into the road. Billy swerved to miss it.
Claudia squeaked and grabbed on to the door. “God, Billy! What the hell are you doing?”
“Trying not to hit a squirrel.”
“Oh. That shows great compassion. But I’d prefer one dead squirrel to a head-on with a semi.”
“It was a reflex.” He didn’t like her assigning a motive to his actions. Great compassion. For a squirrel? Really? But he had a lot of hours to spend with her, and he didn’t want to spend them arguing.
“So,” he continued, “you’re telling me someone does an imitation of a turtle, they’re lying?”
Claudia released the door handle and seemed to gather her composure around her. “That was one of many signs that she felt threatened when certain subjects were broached. Each person is different, though. I have to observe a subject for some length of time to get a baseline of their usual body language, then note when that changes—”
“Yeah, okay.”
“You don’t believe me?”
He shrugged, unwilling to tell her what he really thought about hocus-pocus disguised as science. He much preferred the old-fashioned method of catching someone in a lie—breaking them down with tough interrogation.
“What I do is legitimate science, backed up by scores of studies—”
“Really, you don’t have to convince me. It’s not essential for me to understand your work to do my job, is it?”
“Well, no.”
“You just want me to interrogate Mary-Francis so she’ll tell us about this supposed new evidence, and you’ll observe.”
“Interrogate is rather a strong word. I don’t want you to put too much pressure on her. It could completely shut her down or cause her to end the interview.”
“Hmm.” He had his own way of questioning a suspect, a way that usually worked, honed by his experience with the Dallas Police Department. He’d have to play it by ear. “Any idea what this evidence is?”
“Only that it’s something shocking. But whatever it is, I want you to evaluate it from a cop’s point of view.”
“That means I ask hard questions.”
“I know. Just don’t bully her, or her stressed-out body language will override everything else.”
“Got it.”
They lapsed into silence. Claudia shifted in her seat, crossed and uncrossed her legs. Billy couldn’t help looking at the bit of leg she revealed as her skirt slid up.
Damn, hard to keep your eyes on the road when something like that was sitting next to you.
“So you really don’t believe in what I do,” she finally said.
He grinned. “That really bugs you, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Why? You must be used to skepticism.”
“Usually not from people in my own camp. I thought Daniel only hired open-minded investigators.”
“You’re saying I have a closed mind?”
“I think you refuse to open your mind to something that goes against your deeply held beliefs. In my business we call that—”
“Stop right there. You are not allowed to analyze me. That’s not part of the deal.”
“You didn’t object to my analysis during your initial employment screening.”
“’Cause if I had, I wouldn’t have gotten the job. My head is just fine, thanks. It doesn’t need shrinking.”
“Fine.” The single word came out sharp and punchy as a quick right jab. But after a few moments of tense silence, she spoke again, sounding much more relaxed. “I apologize. Analyzing everybody I spend time with is automatic for me.”
That was something Billy understood. Even now, years after his undercover work, he still evaluated every person he met in terms of potential threat. He still sat with his back to a wall. And he still kept a spare gun inside his boot.
Back in the day, he hadn’t been completely safe anywhere, not even behind locked doors. Ingratiating himself with one party of drug dealers made him a target for the other. He’d had a price on his head when Sheila was killed. His superiors had agreed that relocation to a different city, where his face wasn’t known, was the best course of action.
The Houston P.D. would have hired him, but he’d decided that he was done with police work. Getting the job with Project Justice had seemed like a godsend.
“Didn’t mean to overreact. But if you’re going to pick apart every word I say or every gesture I make, maybe you should keep your observations to yourself.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Afraid of what you might hear?”
“Let’s just say I don’t want to have to defend myself against incorrect assumptions. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” He smiled and hoped she took that in the spirit he’d intended—as a joke. Because even though he’d spent a good portion of his sleepless night last night fantasizing about her slender legs wrapped around his hips, he did not intend to become her lover.
Like most women, she would want way more from him than he was prepared to give.
* * *
BY THE TIME MARY-FRANCIS Torres was led into the interview room wearing handcuffs and leg irons, Claudia had set up her small video camera in one corner. She might want to analyze the video later, run it in slow motion to detect the rapid-fire expressions that were too fast for human eyes to catch.
Claudia had requested that she and Mary-Francis be seated face-to-face, no glass partition, no telephones, not even a table between them. The prison officials had reluctantly agreed after Daniel had intervened. Whatever people thought of Project Justice’s efforts to free inmates who shouldn’t be in prison, Daniel’s name had clout.
“Remove her handcuffs, please,” Claudia instructed the guard.
“I can’t do that, ma’am.”
“Yes, you can,” she said smoothly. It was essential that Claudia observe Mary-Francis’s entire body. Legs and feet often revealed a lot because people didn’t monitor those body parts as much as hands and facial expression.
With a bit more prodding, the guard finally did as Claudia asked, though he cautioned her and Billy that no touching was allowed.
Finally they were left alone, and Claudia was able to inspect her subject.
Mary-Francis Torres was forty-three years old, slightly overweight, with black-and-silver hair scraped into a tight ponytail. Before imprisonment she’d worn it in a bun, but she probably wasn’t allowed hairpins.
She looked as if she was holding up pretty well. But death row inmates, isolated from the rest of the population, didn’t have to worry about fights, or other inmates stealing their food. They were allowed books, sometimes a radio and an hour of outdoor recreation a day.
It was probably the most comfortable way to spend time in a maximum-security prison, not that Claudia would recommend it.
Prison had not yet humbled this woman. She still wore a belligerent expression, a subtle sneer that had not impressed the jury at her trial.
Claudia supposed she would be belligerent, too, if someone unjustly accused her of killing her husband. Assuming, of course, that she had a husband.
“Hello, Mary-Francis.” Claudia used her most soothing voice. “How are you doing?”
“How do you think?” Mary-Francis spoke with only a slight accent. She had emigrated to the U.S. when she was fifteen, Eduardo Torres’s child bride.
“Is there something you need?” Claudia asked. “Toiletries or books?”
Mary-Francis declined to answer the question, and instead looked pointedly at Billy. “Who is he?”
“Billy is my associate from Project Justice. He’ll be helping me evaluate whatever evidence you present.”
“He’s staring at me. Tell him to stop staring at me.”
Billy didn’t look away. He said nothing. Claudia wished he would try to put Mary-Francis at ease. A relaxed subject was much easier to read.
“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” Claudia said. “You said in your email that you have new evidence that will prove your innocence.”
Mary-Francis shot another look at Billy. “Not in front of him.”
“He has to be here,” Claudia said. “He is the only one who can decide whether Project Justice will take on your case.”
Mary-Francis pursed her lips in disapproval. “I have no patient-doctor privilege with him. This information can’t get out. It can’t go public. If certain people find out what I’m going to tell you, they could have me killed.”
Evidence of paranoia. That wasn’t a good sign. Claudia hoped this wasn’t a fool’s errand.
“Billy is entirely trustworthy,” Claudia said. “He would never reveal sensitive information to an outsider.”
“Not even for a lot of money? A whole lot of money? He might be wearing a nice shirt, but he looks like a gangbanger to me. The kind who would pop an old lady in the head and steal the rings right off her dead fingers.”
Claudia watched carefully for a reaction from Billy. But he took the insult as if Mary-Francis had been commenting on the weather. Which was one of the main reasons the man unnerved her, and why she’d been studying him on the way to Mountain View Correctional Facility. He showed nothing of his true feelings—not a single nonverbal clue. His every gesture and facial expression were carefully choreographed to project only what he wanted others to see. In her experience, only sociopaths could disguise their feelings so completely, and only because they didn’t have genuine feelings. All of which made Billy both challenging and scary.
“Look, Ms. Torres,” Billy said, finally breaking his silence, “you either have to talk with me here, or this interview is over. It’s not Dr. Ellison’s decision.”
Mary-Francis shot Billy a look of pure venom. “Fine. I will talk.” She sounded as if she was bestowing upon them a great honor. “The other day, my daughter, Angie, came to visit me. She never visits me, so I knew right away something was up.”
“You and your daughter aren’t close?” Billy asked, smoothly taking over the questioning.
“She thought I murdered her father. She wouldn’t speak one word to me. Now, suddenly, everything has changed. Eduardo must have contacted her.”
Claudia was shocked—and disappointed. Eduardo couldn’t possibly be alive. Was this simply a last-ditch, desperate effort of a condemned woman to stir something up?
Billy didn’t look shocked. “So you think your husband is alive? Because your daughter came to visit.”
“I know he is.”
“Maybe Angie simply had a change of heart.” Billy flashed a charming, completely phony smile. “Your execution has been scheduled. It could have made her realize she’s about to become an orphan.”
Claudia watched for variations in her subject’s posture, or telltale gestures that might indicate stress.
But everything remained the same. Mary-Francis faced them squarely, her hands folded on her lap, her shoulders down and relaxed.
“Angie asked me about something that was a secret between Eduardo and me. Something we agreed she shouldn’t know about. Since I never told Angie, Eduardo must have.”
Billy looked confused. “Maybe he told Angie this secret before he died.”
“If he had,” Mary-Francis said, “Angie would have come to me long before now. I know my daughter. She is an addict, and she would steal anything valuable and sell it for drug money.”
“So this secret between you and Eduardo,” Billy said. “It involves money?”
“It involves something valuable, yes…”
Ah, now Claudia could see it. Not deception per se, but evasiveness. Mary-Francis was uncomfortable talking about this secret, whatever it was. Claudia made a note of Mary-Francis’s tight mouth.
“Well, what is it?” Billy asked.
Mary-Francis seemed to be weighing her options. Finally she came to a decision. “Coins. We had a coin collection worth a good deal of money. After we caught Angie stealing from us, I worried she might discover the coins and try to pawn them. So I gave them to my sister, Theresa, for safekeeping. I told no one, not even Eduardo.”
“Why not Eduardo?” Billy wanted to know. “Didn’t you trust him?”
“Of course I trusted him! I was going to tell him, but it slipped my mind. And then he disappeared.”
Hand to the neck. Eyes squinting. Shoulders raised. Voice at a slightly higher pitch. Any one of those things could be a sign of deception. Together, Claudia felt absolutely confident they indicated Mary-Francis was lying.
“Ma’am,” Billy said, “excuse me for saying so, but your story is ridiculous.”
“I’ll explain better, then,” Mary-Francis said, losing her composure for the first time. “Eduardo was suspected of killing some drug dealer. The FBI was closing in, and Eduardo was scared of going to prison. I believe he fled to Mexico, thinking he would take the coins with him and sell them, so he could start over in comfort. But then he couldn’t find them because I’d moved them, and he couldn’t very well ask me about the matter. I was supposed to think he was dead.”
“Your loving husband wanted you to think he was dead?” Billy asked.
“He must have thought that would be better than going to prison,” she grumbled. “He knew the police would question me, and he figured I couldn’t tell them where he’d gone if I didn’t know.
“Later, he got in touch with Angie somehow, thinking she would help him find the coins.” Her words were rushed, a little desperate. “Maybe he promised her some money—Angie would believe anything he told her. She would do anything for him.
“But Angie couldn’t find the coins, either, so she came to me, thinking she could weasel where I’d hidden them, said she wanted to keep the coins safe, put them in a safe-deposit box, but that makes me laugh. She would turn them over to her father. Or sell them, probably for far less than they’re worth. My daughter is not the smartest—”
“How much are they worth?” Billy’s interruption halted Mary-Francis’s avalanche of words.
Her body language changed abruptly. While telling her story she had been leaning forward, her face open and animated, gesticulating with her hands. Now she pulled into herself and smoothed her hair, another self-soothing gesture.
“I don’t really know.”
Billy glanced at Claudia. She shook her head slightly.
“So your daughter asks about the coins,” Billy says, “and you draw the conclusion that your husband is alive.” He leaned back and folded his arms, a classic male territorial display designed to intimidate.
“You’re not getting it,” Mary-Francis said. “My daughter absolutely did not know about those coins before Eduardo disappeared. Now suddenly she’s full of questions. She knows. Because Eduardo told her.”
“So what do you want us to do?” Billy challenged. “Should we tell the police to let you out of jail because your daughter mentioned a coin collection? It’s preposterous.”
“I want you to find Eduardo. I know he is alive, and you must find him. He’s probably running out of money by now, and he’s desperate for the coins. Maybe you could set a trap. I can give you the names of friends and relatives he has both here and in Mexico. But first, I need for you to warn my sister. Sooner or later Angie will figure out I gave the coins to Theresa. Tell her to hide them well.”
“Why can’t you contact Theresa yourself?” Billy asked. “Advise her to move the coins to a safe-deposit box.”
“I can’t get hold of her. She doesn’t respond.” Tears sprang to Mary-Francis’s eyes. “She has my…oh, what is the word, where she can sign my name?”
“Power of attorney,” Billy supplied.
Mary-Francis nodded vigorously. “I am afraid she has turned her back on me like Angie.”
“If Eduardo is alive,” Claudia asked softly, “how do you explain all that blood?”
“Evidence can lie,” Mary-Francis said. “The police are corrupt.”
Billy was still stuck on the coins. “Mary-Francis, how valuable are those coins?” he asked again. “You must have some idea.”
Mary-Francis hesitated. “I’m not sure. They are old Spanish escudos, from sunken ships. Maybe a million dollars?”
CHAPTER TWO
“A MILLION BUCKS’ WORTH of old Spanish coins?” Billy said once they were safely back in his truck. “It better be Jean Lafitte’s treasure.”
“If they’re gold,” Claudia said, “they could be pretty pricey just based on the meltdown value alone. Historical significance would add to their value. She could be right.”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter what the coins are worth,” Billy said. “The question that concerns us is, does she really believe Eduardo is alive? If so, is she deluding herself?”
“She seems sincere to me.” Claudia sounded tired. “I’m starving. Can we stop somewhere and eat?”
“Sure. Any suggestions?” Billy didn’t recall seeing much in the way of classy restaurants in the closest town, Gatesville. Though it was the county seat and “the spur capital of the world,” it was definitely a small town.
“Any place is— Oh, look, a Tubby’s. Let’s go there.”
“Tubby’s? You’re kidding, right?” Claudia Ellison wanted to eat lunch at a greasy spoon with a gravel parking lot filled with beater cars and trucks?
“I have…fond childhood memories. But if you’d rather eat someplace else—”
“No, this is fine.” Billy tried to picture what Claudia’s childhood might have been like. He assumed she’d come from wealth. She had an aristocratic bearing and a way of speaking that he associated with old money. No Texas twang, so he doubted she came from around here. Maybe she’d eaten at Tubby’s while on a family vacation?
He had a hard time picturing little Claudia with her upper-class family, dining on ribs or chicken-fried steak. The mental image wouldn’t gel.
“I thought you’d be more of an upscale-French-restaurant sort of person,” he said once they were inside and seated at a booth with a faded green Formica table between them. Out of habit, Billy had selected the table and placed his back toward the wall, where he had a good view of the front door and a plate-glass window into the parking lot.
“Mais oui, I love ze French food. But this place…they have the best banana splits here.” She opened one of the plastic menus the waitress had dropped in front of them and gravely looked over the offerings as if about to make a decision of importance.
After a minute or two she looked up at him. “What? Why are you smiling?”
“I just never expected a Tubby’s restaurant to delight you, of all people.”
She suddenly became self-conscious, and he wished he hadn’t ribbed her about her lunch choice. “I guess I needed something happy to focus on after being in that prison.” She shivered delicately. “What an awful place.”
“And Tubby’s is a happy place?”
She looked around, perhaps assessing it through her adult eyes. The restaurant was half-filled, mostly with men in work clothes and a couple of tables of boisterous teenagers.
“Yes, it’s happy,” she declared. “These men are so relieved to sit in the air-conditioning for a few minutes’ break from their construction jobs. And those kids—blowing their allowance money on burgers and ice cream, flirting, away from parental control—yeah, happy.”
But her smile was slightly bittersweet.
“You ready?” the waitress asked.
“Yes, I’ll have the chicken finger basket and a Diet Coke.”
Billy ordered a standard burger and fries and the waitress left.
“No banana split?”
“It probably wouldn’t be as good as I remember. Now. About Mary-Francis.”
“I think she’s a lying schemer. Please, can’t we write this one off? No way could her husband be alive.”
“Ah, sorry. She was telling the truth—about some things, anyway. The coins exist. She believes they’re worth a million dollars, and her daughter did visit. She believes Eduardo has been in contact with Angie. All that’s true. She was lying about one thing, though.”
“What?”
“She didn’t merely ‘forget’ to tell Eduardo about giving the coins to her sister. I think she deliberately kept the information from him. Their marriage was on the skids. But she couldn’t just divorce him—he was violent. She might have wanted to keep those coins for herself, so she could escape and make her own fresh start.”
“Forgive me for pointing this out, but a million-dollar coin collection is a nice motive for murder.”
“She believes he’s alive,” Claudia said flatly.
“Then she’s delusional. The blood evidence was clear-cut. Maybe she had some sort of psychotic break and she forgot she murdered him.”
“Give me some credit. I think I would notice if the subject was psychotic.”
Their food arrived, and for a time they didn’t speak, focusing on filling their empty stomachs. Once Billy had taken a few bites to dull the edge of his hunger, he sat back and observed Claudia as she devoured her chicken fingers, coating each one with a few dribbles of ranch dressing. She took small bites, closing her eyes to savor each one.
He again wondered why this place was special to her. He tried once more to picture her as a little girl. Long blond hair in pigtails, maybe. She had such a slight build now, she’d probably been thin as a child, all knees and elbows. Had she been a tomboy, or a Little Miss Priss? Probably the latter.
“You’re smiling again.”
Billy quickly schooled his features. Damn, that was careless of him, letting his musings show on his face. His life no longer depended on hiding his true self every waking minute. But he still preferred to keep his feelings out of public view, and the one person he ought to be more careful around was Claudia Ellison. He might not believe in her body-language junk science, but she was perceptive.
They finished and paid with a company Visa, then headed back into the sizzling hot afternoon. Claudia removed her pale blue suit jacket. Her blouse was damp, clinging to her breasts in a way that made Billy’s mouth go dry despite the huge soft drink he’d just sucked down.
“So you’re going to recommend Project Justice not take on this case?” Claudia asked.
“It’s kind of fantastical.”
“Yes…but don’t you think we should at least check a few things out? For example, let’s sic Mitch on Eduardo. If the guy is alive, he’s leaving signs of his presence somewhere in cyberspace. Mitch is so amazing when it comes to that, and we have that list of friends and associates Mary-Francis gave us.”
“I guess that would be okay, if Mitch doesn’t mind.” Mitch Delacroix was Project Justice’s resident computer geek and missing person locator. “I can put Daniel off about a decision for a few days.”
“And I want to visit Theresa and see what she has to say about this illustrious coin collection.”
“Yeah, I’ll admit I’m curious. If Theresa has some supervaluable artifacts in her home, we should advise her to take them to the bank and put ’em in a vault. Especially if her drug-addict niece wants them.”
As Claudia climbed into the passenger seat of Billy’s truck, she offered him a healthy flash of thigh, and his heart leaped into his throat…was that her panties he just saw? Then he realized she was wearing a lacy-edged slip.
How Victorian. How…intriguing.
“She was definitely concealing something,” Claudia said once they were back on the road. “She gave at least a dozen signs of it.”
“A dozen? Come on.” No one could give themselves away that thoroughly.
“You knew she was lying. How did you come to that conclusion?”
“’Cause she told a stupid story about a million-dollar treasure and a dead husband come back to life. Doesn’t take an expert to figure out it’s a crock.”
“My hunch is, you read all the body-language signals on a subconscious level—the direction of her feet, the angle of her body, voice inflection, how fast she talked, where she looked, what she did with her hands, nostrils, lips, whether she swallowed a lot—”
“It would take me a year to catalog all that. Isn’t it easier just to listen to what a suspect says?” Yet merely listening to the words someone spoke hadn’t always told him what he needed to know. He’d missed some vital clues during that last operation with Sheila.
Just thinking about Sheila filled him with a profound sadness. “Hey, Claudia, can you tell what I’m thinking now?”
“I read body language, not minds,” she said tartly.
“What’s my body language telling you?”
She actually took him seriously, studying him from head to toe in a slow perusal that made him hot—checking him out the way a woman does at a bar when she wants you to return the favor. If he was as good as he thought he was, though, Claudia would have no idea how badly he’d like to kiss those moist, full lips of hers and muss up that elegant blond hair.
“You’re bored,” she finally said. “You don’t like this assignment, you don’t like Mary-Francis, and you’d rather be working on something else.”
“Uncanny,” he said as relief washed through him. He still had it. He could still hide his true feelings.
“I’m not so ready to wash my hands of Mary-Francis,” Claudia said, abruptly returning to business. “I’m going to talk to Angie. If she’s in contact with her supposedly dead father—”
“Whoa, wait, Claudia. You probably shouldn’t confront her. She could be dangerous.”
Claudia seemed insulted. “I know how to deal with addicts, even violent ones. I’ve had clients come at me with knives, try to choke me with drapery cords—”
“In a clinical situation, where I’m guessing you have a panic button, or people waiting in the next room who’ll come running if you scream.” Jeez, and he thought his job was dangerous.
“I know a little something about dangerous people,” she said. “I wouldn’t be dumb enough to confront her in an unsafe environment.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said, surprised at how happy it made him to have an excuse to spend more time with Claudia. Now that he knew for sure she couldn’t see inside his head as though it was a fishbowl, he wouldn’t be so irritated if he caught her studying him again. In fact, he might not be irritated at all. Did she always wear lacy slips? What was that about?
“I’m sure you have better things—”
“Once Daniel makes up his mind to check out a potential client, he wants it done right. It’s my job to run around interviewing people connected with the case. It’s what I’m being paid to do.”
“I’m on a hefty retainer,” Claudia reminded him.
“Then we’ll confront Angie together,” he said, settling the matter.
* * *
“GOOD MORNING, CELESTE,” Claudia said as she entered the Project Justice lobby the next morning. “I’m here to meet Billy Cantu.”
Celeste Boggs, Project Justice’s office manager and self-proclaimed head of security, looked up from her Soldier of Fortune magazine with a stern expression and pointed to a clipboard. “Sign in there, please.”
“Oh, but I’m not—”
Celeste tapped the clipboard with one impatient finger and glared, daring Claudia to complete her argument.
Claudia signed in. It was hard to defy Celeste. Though the former Houston cop was in her seventies, she was one scary mama who claimed to know fourteen ways to kill someone with her bare hands. Celeste dressed as if she were auditioning for the role of World’s Most Eccentric Senior Citizen, but Claudia wasn’t fooled by the flamboyant red, ostrich-feather-trimmed shirt or the huge earrings made from shotgun shells.
Celeste meant business, and no one got past her into the rest of the building unless she let them.
“Billy,” Celeste said into the phone, “your date is here. I hope you bought a corsage for her.”
Is that how Claudia appeared to Celeste? she wondered with some alarm. Like a high-school girl all primped for a date with the quarterback? She’d opted for a more casual look today, a pale peach linen sundress with a wide brass belt. The skirt was one of her shorter ones…had she subconsciously dressed provocatively for Billy’s sake?
The possibility was troubling.
A loud clanging of metal and a snort coming from the vicinity of Celeste’s feet interrupted Claudia’s uncomfortable musing. “What’s that noise?”
“Oh, that’s just Buster.”
“You have a dog down there?”
“No, not a dog.” Celeste tried and failed to hide a mischievous smile. “Want to see him? He’s a beauty.” She leaned down and grabbed on to something that turned out to be a metal cage. As she hefted it up, Claudia saw that inside the cage was a large, furry, fierce-looking…pig? It was excitedly trying to dig its way through the steel bars with sharp, cloven hooves.
Claudia took an instinctive step back. “Oh, my God, what in the hell is that thing?”
“It’s a javelina! Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
“In a zoo, maybe. What’s it doing here?”
“It was in my backyard, and it kept digging up my vegetables. I caught it. My grandson’s school mascot is a javelina and their previous one died—or maybe they ate it. So I’m donating this one to the school.”
“You’re donating a vicious wild animal to a school?” That did not sound like a wise plan.
“He’s not vicious. I’ve been taming him down. Watch, he’ll let me pet him now.”
“Uh, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Claudia took a few more steps back.
Celeste opened the cage door. “Don’t worry, he’s really rather sweet. Aren’t you, Buster?” Celeste petted the animal on the head, then scratched it behind one ear.
The beast didn’t look as if it enjoyed the attention. In fact, it was frozen in a classic defense posture designed to make it invisible. Its next move would be to bolt for freedom. Freeze, fight or flight.
A frosted glass partition separated the lobby from the rest of the building. Just as Celeste withdrew her hand and was about to close the cage, Billy burst through the glass door like a freight train.
“Good morning, Claudia!”
The wild animal bolted out of the cage at the speed of light, sliding across the polished surface of the reception desk, plopping to the floor and wiggling right past Billy’s feet and through the door before it closed.
Claudia screamed just from the sheer surprise, and Billy backed up against a wall, his right hand automatically reaching under his jacket for a weapon.
“Holy crap, what was that thing?”
Celeste was the only one who didn’t look perturbed. “A javelina, what did it look like?” She calmly picked up the phone and pushed the intercom button. “Attention, all staff. Please be advised there is a small, hairy, piglike animal loose in the building. If you see it, would you mind calling the front desk so I can catch it?”
“You brought a live javelina to work?” Billy asked, as if wanting to be sure he’d heard right.
“It would have been fine if you hadn’t scared it.”
Billy looked at Claudia. “Now would be a good time to leave.”
“Sign out! Both of you.”
Once they were out the door and heading for Claudia’s car, they burst out laughing.
“What the hell was that about?” Billy asked. “Celeste’s new pet?”
“She caught it in her yard,” Claudia said, “and she’s donating it to her grandson’s school because they need a mascot.”
“Her grandson? Celeste doesn’t have any children. She never married. You must mean her great-nephew.”
“She said grandson. I’m sure of it.”
Billy shrugged one muscular shoulder. “She must have misspoken, then.”
Elderly ladies didn’t normally speak of grandchildren they didn’t have. How odd.
As they approached Claudia’s silver-green Nissan Roadster, she used her remote to unlock the doors.
Billy whistled appreciatively. “Sweet ride.”
“Thanks.” She’d insisted on driving for two reasons. First, it gave her something to do with her hands, somewhere to focus her attention besides on Billy so she wouldn’t give away her roiling emotions. And second, she wanted—no, needed—to have control of something. Relinquishing the driving all day long yesterday to Billy had been a tough challenge, particularly since she hadn’t felt she’d had a strong grip on anything else, especially her own feelings.
She glanced over at him as he fastened his seat belt. A lot of men would balk at allowing a woman to drive them anyplace. But Billy was obviously secure enough in his masculinity that it didn’t bother him. Or maybe it bothered him and she wasn’t able to tell.
Why wouldn’t he be secure? Lord, he was handsome in a striped button shirt and a lightweight summer jacket, worn to disguise the fact that he carried a sidearm in a shoulder holster. A crisp pair of boot-cut Levi’s, the ostrich-skin boots to go with them and a white straw Stetson completed the picture.
He took his hat off and settled it on his lap, then donned reflective mirror sunglasses.
One reason cops wore mirrored sunglasses was so they wouldn’t telegraph their actions with their eyes. Was it possible he deliberately hid behind those opaque lenses to make it harder for her to read him? Did he really not want her to know who he was?
She supposed that was only fair. She didn’t exactly go out of her way to broadcast her true self, either. She punched Angie Torres’s address into her GPS, then slid her car smoothly into downtown morning traffic.
Angie Torres lived in a run-down area of Harrisburg Boulevard in Magnolia Park, a hundred-year-old neighborhood of Houston in the early stages of rehabilitation. But this block hadn’t yet been gentrified; the apartment was above a strip of white-brick stores, most of which were boarded up.
Mary-Francis had said her daughter worked in a medical office, leading Claudia to believe she was a functional addict, but this looked to be the sort of place where the near-homeless, prostitutes and other victims of society ended up.
Claudia and Billy climbed a dark staircase into an equally dim hallway, alive with roaches and smelling of urine. Billy placed his body between Claudia and the door as he rang the bell. Though it was a simple display of caveman machismo, it had an undeniable effect on her. His protectiveness made her skin tingle with warmth. Few people in her life had ever put her safety and well-being above their own, even casually.
No one answered. Billy knocked, then pressed his ear against the door and listened.
“I don’t think there’s anyone inside. I don’t hear voices or a TV, not even sounds of a pet. Let’s check around the back. There’s probably a fire escape or something.”
Once outside, Claudia was grateful for a breath of fresh air. She tried to follow Billy on his quest to find a back door, but the tangled, thorny brush behind the small, two-story building proved a bit much for her leather sandals and bare legs, so she waited for him in the shade of a tattered store awning, welcoming the small breather. Being around Billy was a lot of work.
She couldn’t even tell whether he was attracted to her. Normally she could discern in a heartbeat if a man was interested in her, at least on a physical level. The signs were so obvious—the covert studying of her body, the way an interested man leaned in when speaking to her, the length of eye contact, the way his gaze would move from face to breast to legs, then back, and that unique male shifting of weight to accommodate a burgeoning erection.
Billy had flirted with her, but flirting was automatic with him. He’d have probably flirted with Celeste if he hadn’t been so surprised by the javelina. But Claudia absolutely couldn’t tell if anything lurked behind the flirting.
With Billy, she was drowning in a sea of unknowns, confused about where she stood. For the first time in years, the ball of fear in her stomach just wouldn’t go away. Her built-in alarm system was warning her of Danger! in flashing red letters.
Unfortunately, the same thing that made Billy a mystery also made him undeniably exciting. What if he could read her attraction to him? How awful would that be?
She had some control over the physical signals she broadcast to the world, but she couldn’t do anything about the pheromones that were undoubtedly wafting from her body in waves.
As she waited for Billy, a young, skinny Hispanic man covered with tattoos exited from the door that led upstairs.
He noticed her as he walked toward a beat-up truck, and did a double take, this time perusing her up and down, his expression at first hostile, then more curious.
Claudia slid her hand into her pocket where she kept a small device that, with the push of a button, would emit a piercing siren. She never went anywhere without it.
“¿Qué pasa, mama?”
“Hola, señor.” Her Spanish was limited, but she knew enough to have a stilted conversation if necessary. “Do you speak English?”
“You want me to speak English, I speak English,” he said with almost no accent.
“My partner and I are looking for Angie Torres.” She hoped the use of the word partner would cause the man to think she was a cop.
He smiled slowly. “Police? You?” He laughed and shook his head. Then he continued in perfectly good English, “No cop I know dresses like that.”
“Do you know Angie?” she persisted.
The man leaned against a post and crossed his ankles as he lit a cigarette. The signs said he was flirting, not dangerous. She slipped her hand out of her pocket.
“Yeah, I know her.” And didn’t care for her, apparently, judging from the way he flashed a slight sneer. “She moved out. She inherited a house. Her mom murdered her dad and went to prison for it. She was a piece of work, that girl.” The man closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Why do you say that?”
“Always carping about how selfish her parents were, that they were rich and never gave her a dime. But who could blame them? Any money they gave her went up in smoke. I wouldn’t put it past her to kill her dad and blame it on her mama so she could get hold of their money.”
An alarming possibility, one they should probably look into, though Angie’s only criminal record consisted of a couple of misdemeanor possession charges.
“What kind of drugs did she use?”
The young man took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it out slowly—a classic move someone took to collect his thoughts before speaking. “Anything she could get her hands on. Got fired from her last job for stealing Vicodin.”
That would explain why she wasn’t working at the medical office anymore.
“Thanks. I appreciate the information.”
“No problem.” He flicked his ash into the breeze. “You busy later?”
Lord, she hoped so. She cast a glance toward the back of the building. “Um, my partner is really jealous. You probably don’t want him to see us talking.”
The man gave her a regretful look, then turned and sauntered away.
Billy reappeared around the corner. “No fire escape. This building is a code inspector’s nightmare. Who was that guy you were talking to?”
“A neighbor. He says we’ll find Angie at her parents’ house, which she now considers hers.”
“Probably at least half of it is. Mary-Francis wouldn’t have been allowed to keep the profits from her crime—in this case, her half of the community property. Was there a will?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s check out the house.” He paused just before getting into the Roadster. “There’s no reason you have to waste your whole day running around checking out leads. You can drop me at the office and get back to your work. I can do this on my own.”
“I want to meet Angie,” Claudia said firmly as she opened the car door. It had sat in the sun only a few minutes, but hot air wafted out, and she waited for it to cool off slightly before she climbed inside. “I want to see for myself how she acts when we bring up the coins…and her father.”
Billy’s eyebrows lifted. “You don’t trust me. You don’t think I can handle it.”
“Oh, no, Billy, it’s not that. I just…I feel so responsible for Mary-Francis ending up on death row. The prosecution used certain parts of my evaluation to make things worse for her. If there’s any chance of saving her…I just want to do my part, that’s all.”
“You did your part. You drew the case to our attention. We can take it—”
“Billy, don’t be difficult. I want to go with you to interview Angie.”
“So you can do your hocus-pocus on her.”
“My assessment could be of value to you. Why don’t you just accept my help?”
“I work better alone.”
“If I hadn’t been here, if I hadn’t talked to that neighbor, you wouldn’t even know where to find Angie.”
“I would have figured it out.”
“We don’t have all day. If Angie finds the coins—”
“If the coins even exist.”
“They do. Mary-Francis was telling the truth about that, though not necessarily about the particulars.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. You can come with me. But I don’t want to have to look out for your safety all the time, okay? I almost had a heart attack when I saw you talking to that lowlife just now, and I realized I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“I was fine. That guy was not dangerous. Just because he’s poor and has tattoos doesn’t mean—”
“Save me from a lecture about stereotypes. I’m a former cop and I can smell trouble. That guy was no angel.”
“We won’t be going anywhere dangerous,” Claudia persisted. Even though she was the one with the car keys, Billy had taken firm control of the reins.
“Angie could be dangerous. She has something to lose, if she thinks we might be challenging her right to her parents’ stuff. Addicts do desperate things when they’re cornered.”
Claudia couldn’t argue about that.
She should have just climbed behind the wheel, rather than debating with Billy over the roof of her car. But she felt compelled to make him agree with her. “It’ll be fine.”
“If I sense any danger, we’re getting out of there. You’ll do what I tell you to do. Is that clear?”
“Man, who pushed your macho button?” But she had to admit, he looked magnificent making his male dominance display. He leaned against the roof of the car, arms widespread, muscles tense, jaw firm. Any second now he would start beating those impressive pecs of his.
Her heart gave a flutter. At least that wasn’t on display for anyone to see.
“I can call Daniel,” Billy said. “He’ll back me up.”
“All right, I get it. Your word is the law where our personal safety is concerned. This is your case. I’m along to observe and assist. Is that good enough?”
The split-second expression of triumph on his face made her grind her teeth. But at least he’d shown her something.
CHAPTER THREE
EDUARDO AND MARY-FRANCIS Torres had lived in a solidly upper-middle-class neighborhood in Conroe, a Houston suburb. Their subdivision wasn’t quite uppity enough to be a gated community—but close. Tall limestone-brick walls flanked the subdivision entrance with a carved stone sign that read Pecan Grove. The cookie-cutter houses, built in the ’90s, were all too large for their tiny lots, but the saplings planted by the neighborhood developers had grown into mature trees and the homes were well maintained.
The Torres house was on Apple Blossom Court, a peculiar name for a street in a climate where apples couldn’t grow.
Out of habit, Billy paid close attention to the configuration of streets so he knew the fastest way to the nearest exit.
Claudia thought he was being macho, but he wasn’t kidding about the danger. Angie was a drug-addicted woman in a dramatic family situation who undoubtedly felt stressed and could erupt into violence at any time. He stood a better chance of surviving unscathed if he didn’t have to worry about a companion’s safety before his own.
But he couldn’t deny it felt great to be back out in the field.
When he’d first hired on with Project Justice, he’d told Daniel he was no longer comfortable facing danger on a daily basis. Daniel had responded by saying he wouldn’t require anything of Billy that he wasn’t ready to deal with.
Somehow, after three years on the job, Daniel knew Billy was ready. Billy could have said no to this assignment. But though he’d made a few token objections, he’d eventually accepted the responsibility of unraveling the puzzle.
Claudia’s onboard GPS found the Torres home with no trouble. The house was tan brick, just like all the others, but the lawn was yellow and scraggly and the landscaping hadn’t been tended to in months. A for-sale sign featuring the photo of a smiling female Realtor advertised that the property had four bedrooms and a pool.
Claudia pulled up to the curb just as a woman stepped out the front door, her cell phone wedged between her ear and shoulder. She frowned as Billy and Claudia climbed out.
“If you’re here about the car, it’s already sold,” she said. She was tall and painfully thin, with toothpick legs sticking out of her cutoff shorts. She had stringy, shoulder-length hair clumsily streaked with reddish-blond stripes. Her skin was pasty, and overall she had a look of ill health about her. Billy would have pegged her as a crack addict even if he hadn’t already known she had a drug problem.
She returned her attention back to her caller. “Sorry, I was talking to someone.” She opened the mailbox and pulled out a wad of envelopes that looked an awful lot like bills. Billy could just make out the FINAL NOTICE in large red letters on one envelope. Angie riffled through the mail and picked out one envelope to rip open. She turned her back on Billy and Claudia and headed back indoors.
“Excuse me. Ms. Torres?”
“I’ll have to call you back,” she said into the phone as she paused and turned to narrow her eyes at Billy. “What?”
“I’m Billy Cantu with Project Justice. This is my associate, Claudia Ellison. We need to talk to you about your mother.”
“Are you those people who get criminals out of jail?”
“We free innocent people who have been unjustly imprisoned,” he corrected her.
“Please don’t tell me you think my mom is innocent.”
“We have some questions, that’s all,” Claudia said. “Could we go inside and talk for just a few minutes?”
“I’m kind of busy here.”
“Busy selling all of your parents’ stuff?” Billy said. “Because I’m pretty sure you don’t have the legal right to do that, and in about five minutes I could get a court injunction and a locksmith over here to change the locks.”
Angie folded her arms, looking scared for a moment before she decided to brazen it out. “How am I supposed to pay the bills on this place without any money, huh?”
“Nice deal for you,” Billy said as he strolled up the walkway toward the front door without invitation. “Living here rent free and getting all the drug money you need listing stuff on Craigslist or eBay. Bet your mom had some nice jewelry. That was probably the first to go. Am I right?” He took the two steps to the front porch and headed inside the house.
“Hey!” Angie was right behind him. He turned to see Claudia bringing up the rear, looking perplexed by his high-handedness. But he suspected Angie wouldn’t give them the time of day unless they strong-armed her.
The inside of the house was stripped—no furniture, no pictures on the walls. But the air-conditioning ran full blast. Billy made his way to the kitchen, which was piled high with dirty dishes and empty pizza boxes. The trash can overflowed.
He whipped around to face Angie as an uncomfortable thought occurred to him. He’d just made a stupid mistake; he hadn’t cleared the house before assuming Angie was here by herself. “Are you living here alone?”
“None of your business. Get out before I call the cops.”
“No, you don’t want to do that.” He took out his cell phone. “I’ve got Judge Thomas Wilkes’s number on speed dial. He’ll issue the injunction on my say-so. You and whoever else is sponging off you will be out on your asses in a matter of an hour, maybe two.”
Just then another person showed up, a scrawny guy with the same kind of pasty complexion as Angie. But he held a gun in one shaky hand.
“Who the hell are you people?”
Billy broke a cold sweat as he stepped in front of Claudia, shielding her from the shooter. His carelessness had just come back to haunt him.
He needed to defuse this situation fast. “Put the gun down now, okay? We’re not cops, we’re friends of Angie’s mother.”
“For God’s sake, Jimmy, put the damn gun away.” Angie didn’t sound terribly nervous about the threat. “I can handle this. Go…go clean the pool or something.”
The man named Jimmy gave one parting snarl before he shoved his small handgun into the pocket of his baggy shorts and sauntered away.
Billy let out the breath he’d been holding, almost sick with relief. He stepped aside so he could look Claudia in the eye. “Not a dangerous situation, huh?”
“You’re the one who made the situation dangerous,” she countered, “by entering the house uninvited. We should go.”
“Go wait in the car. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Claudia folded her arms, obviously not budging. Billy wished she wouldn’t do that—it accentuated her breasts, which distracted him at a moment he needed all of his attention on Angie.
“What do you want?” Angie asked wearily. “They’re gonna show the house this afternoon. I need to clean up.”
That was an understatement.
“Who was that guy?” Billy asked.
“My boyfriend.”
Claudia watched with hyperalert eyes.
“Recently you visited your mother in prison. You asked her about some coins. What was that about?”
“My dad’s coin collection,” she answered warily. “Did Mom say anything about it? Did she say where she’d put it? It’s important that I find those coins.” Angie nearly salivated with eagerness.
“Your mother put them away for safekeeping.”
“They’re not valuable,” Angie said too quickly. “It’s just a few coins that have been in the family.”
“You know, Angie, you don’t seem like the sentimental type to me. Why do you want them? And how did you find out about them?”
She flashed a superior look at him. “I don’t have to tell you that. What matters is that the coins are mine. My father wanted me to have them. Mom has no right to hide them from me.” Angie thrust her chin out in a show of false courage.
“How do you know Daddy wanted you to have the coins?”
“He told me so.”
“When was that?”
“Right before he was murdered. He said he and Mom were going to split up and he wanted to give me some things before the divorce lawyers got it all. But he never got the chance.”
“So why did you wait all this time to ask your mother about the collection?”
“I…didn’t think about it until now. Like I said, it’s not that valuable.”
Claudia shared a look with Billy, then shook her head slightly. She obviously thought Angie was lying. Though Claudia had clearly been unnerved at having a gun pulled on her, she was still doing her job. His respect for her inched up another notch.
“You know what I think?” Billy was about to go out on a limb here, but he wanted to confront Angie with his suspicions while she was off balance—before she got the chance to get her story straight. “I think you killed your father and let your mother take the blame. Because they had money, and they wouldn’t share it with you.”
She did not appear disturbed by the accusation. “You can think whatever you want, but a jury says my mom did it. And if you know where those coins are, you better tell me. I know people, too. I have a lawyer.”
“You’re gonna need one,” Billy said. “If you didn’t kill your father, then maybe he’s not dead. Maybe he recently told you about the coins, and that’s why you took a sudden interest in them.”
Angie laughed, but it sounded forced. “If he’s alive, then how do you explain all that blood found at the crime scene?”
“There are ways,” Billy said, wondering if there really were. “I have evidence people working on that right now, taking a closer look at that blood.” Or he would, as soon as one of the lawyers at Project Justice officially became Mary-Francis’s attorney of record and made a formal request to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department to review the physical evidence.
Billy wasn’t sure when he’d decided this case had merit, but there was something here. Something off-kilter. In good conscience he couldn’t wash his hands of Mary-Francis.
“It’s his blood,” Angie said stubbornly. “DNA proved it.”
“We’ll see. Meanwhile, if I were you, I’d be waiting for a knock on the door from the police. Until your father’s estate has been legally awarded to you, you don’t own anything of his—including that coin collection. Unless you’re using the proceeds to pay your mother’s legal costs…”
“That’s what I’m doing!” Angie said quickly, grabbing on to the lifeline he’d handed her.
“What does your aunt Theresa have to say about all this? Your mother gave her sister power of attorney. Not you.”
At the mention of Theresa’s name, a look of panic briefly crossed Angie’s features before she caught it. “She said it was fine for me to sell stuff. Hey, Jimmy! Get in here.”
Claudia tugged on Billy’s sleeve. “For God’s sake, let’s go.”
“I’m not lying,” Angie shrieked, though no one had accused her. “I’m not. I’m just doing what I have to do to pay bills, pay lawyers.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Billy ushered Claudia toward the front door and out into the still, late-morning heat, having no desire to face Jimmy and his shaky gun hand. Neither of them said anything until they were back in the car with the air-conditioning on.
Then Claudia started to tremble—violently. Probably a delayed reaction to the gun.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Billy put a hand on her shoulder. She reminded him of a scared bird vibrating beneath his hand. “We’re safe now.”
“He wouldn’t have shot us,” Claudia said. “I could see it in his face. It was all bravado, an empty threat. Still…”
Billy wasn’t so sure.
“He would have been justified, you know,” Claudia continued. “We practically committed a home invasion. It’s legal to protect your domicile with deadly force.”
“It all turned out okay.”
She turned toward him, suddenly fierce. “Don’t ever do that again. Not when I’m along for the ride.”
“Now you see why I didn’t want you to come with me?”
“You shouldn’t be allowed to roam around loose without a handler. You’re dangerous.” She took a deep breath, started the car and pulled away from the curb. “Angie was lying.”
“No kidding. I don’t have to be a body language expert to figure that out. Maybe she did kill her father and frame her mother. She’s clearly a sociopath.”
“No, not a sociopath. Sociopaths are better liars.” She said this with such assurance, it made Billy wonder if she had more than just clinical knowledge to back up her claim.
“Still, she’s a bad seed,” he said.
“I’ll agree with you there. Not a pleasant person.” Claudia paused, weighing her words. “She didn’t kill her father—she was telling the truth about that. But she was definitely hiding something. Maybe it’s just her drug use, but maybe it’s something else.”
“If I could get her in an interrogation room, I could break her. Your body language tricks only take us so far. A confession would be a whole lot more useful.”
“Can we get her arrested?”
Billy thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Doubtful. If we’d seen any obvious evidence of drugs sitting around, we could call the cops and have her hauled in. But we didn’t.”
“She’s stealing from her father’s estate.”
“Unless Theresa really did give her permission to sell the stuff. If she’s mad at her sister, she might have.”
“She didn’t. I’d bet my career on it.”
Billy wasn’t so sure, and the police wouldn’t take Claudia’s word for it.
“Let’s go talk to Theresa and see what she knows about the estate, or old coins, or whatever.” Claudia seemed recovered now from her fright. The pink had returned to her cheeks, and she had the gleam of excitement in her eyes. Billy knew that gleam. She was on the hunt.
He glanced at his watch. “I should get back to the office.”
Her shoulders slumped with disappointment. “It’s your call.”
He grinned. “I’m kidding. I am dying to find those coins now.”
“Damn it, Billy.”
“What? Why are you mad?”
They were still in the Pecan Grove subdivision; Claudia had been turning on streets randomly. Now she pulled over to the curb again and reached for her Day-Timer, flipping pages of her notes. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at me for not catching on that you were teasing. It should be child’s play. Ah, here it is, Theresa’s address.” She plugged it into the GPS. “It’s not far, only a couple of miles.”
“It really bugs you that you can’t read me like a book, doesn’t it?”
“Frankly, yes.”
“Did it ever occur to you that some people don’t like to be read?”
“Only people who have things to hide.”
Maybe he did have things to hide. Or at least, things he didn’t want every random stranger to know about. Was that so wrong?
“So no one is allowed to have a secret?” he argued. “Everyone has to be completely up-front about every single part of their past, every single thought that goes through their heads?”
“I believe in honesty,” she said.
“You don’t have any secrets, then.”
She hesitated a beat. “No.”
“Nothing in your past that you’d prefer people didn’t know about.”
“I’m not ashamed about anything I’ve done.”
“How many men have you slept with?”
“Billy! Good God, that is none of your business.”
“Wow, must be a lot.”
“I don’t believe you! How could you even— That is so inappropriate—” She sputtered to a stop.
“I’m just trying to prove a point! Everyone is allowed privacy—in their homes and inside their heads.”
“And I say if it’s on their face or in their gestures or their posture, and I’m adept at figuring it out, then the information is fair game. Everyone reads expression and body language. I just happen to be better at it than most people.”
“And I’m better at not being read than most people. So that means I’m dishonest? Lady, where do you get off?”
“There, right there. That is the first honest emotion I’ve seen from you. You’re in perfect congruence—chest thrust forward, arms splayed to take up as much room as possible in a classic male territorial display—”
“Stop reading me!”
“And you just crossed the line from irritated to really angry.”
“Ya think? And yet you don’t stop.”
“I can’t help it.” Her eyes inexplicably filled with tears.
“Here,” he said gruffly. “Read this.” He leaned across the gear shift, pulled up the parking brake and kissed her.
* * *
CLAUDIA’S SENSES SWAM as she leaned in to the kiss. Billy might have thought he was unreadable, but she’d seen the kiss coming a split second before he’d carried through with his intention.
And she’d welcomed it.
That was just crazy; she was mad at Billy. They were having an argument. And yet she’d felt this insane need to connect with him. He’d shown her only a tiny sliver of his true self just then, the self he wanted to protect from her prying eyes, and all at once she’d felt simultaneously guilty and turned on.
She believed very few people had seen what she’d just seen—the real Billy Cantu. And she wanted more.
He reached up to tunnel his fingers through her hair, settling his hand on the back of her head so he could hold her a willing prisoner.
She inhaled sharply as his tongue invaded her mouth. Of course his kiss would not be tentative. Billy didn’t have a tentative bone in his body.
Or maybe he did; what the hell did she know? He was a mystery she desperately needed to unravel. How could she feel such a profound attraction to someone she didn’t even know?
Though she would have been happy to make out in the front seat of her car for the rest of the morning, Billy gradually pulled away, ending the kiss with a series of gentle nibbles. They separated, but only by an inch or two, and she studied his eyes, trying to figure out his motive here.
Was this a display of dominance? Or had he really wanted to kiss her?
His pupils were dilated. She thought she saw desire there, but maybe she was seeing only what she wanted to see.
“Can you read me now?” he demanded.
“No.” The word came out a whisper.
He released her and sat back in his seat, and she almost whimpered at the loss of his touch. “Good. ’Cause you’d probably slap me.”
“Are you going to tell me what that was about?”
“No. You need to be off balance once in a while. For your own good.”
He was wrong about that. She’d spent the first half of her life off center, shuffled into the care of one ambivalent adult after another, never sure if the new place would be a safe haven or a house of horrors.
Off balance wasn’t where she cared to be.
And yet…the excitement generated by her uncertainty felt good in a deeply visceral way.
She pulled herself together, straightened her hair, blotted away the smeared lipstick with a tissue and added fresh. Finally she got back to the business of driving, following the instructions of the by-now-impatient GPS.
“Destination on the left,” the bland voice informed them as Claudia cruised slowly past.
Theresa Esteve obviously hadn’t achieved the level of wealth her sister had. This nameless neighborhood wasn’t nearly as grand as Pecan Grove. The small ranch houses had probably been built in the 1960s, and the residents here likely mowed their own grass and trimmed their own bushes.
But there was something wildly askew about Theresa’s house. The front window was boarded up with plywood.
Claudia double-checked her Day-Timer. “That’s the house, 1642 Baxter Avenue. What do you suppose happened here?” She turned the car around, pulled up to the curb and stopped.
“Stay in the car.” Billy manually unlocked his door. “I’ll check it out.”
Claudia ignored him. “It’s a vacant house. I doubt we’ll face any gunmen here.”
As they approached the front porch, Billy took a detour to examine a flash of yellow he saw on the picket fence that separated the house from the one next door. “Hey, Claudia, look at this. Crime scene tape.”
“Oh, my God. This might explain why Theresa won’t answer Mary-Francis’s calls.”
“I’m going to call a buddy of mine that works for the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department. Maybe he can tell us what happened here.”
Claudia nodded and sat down on the edge of a brick planter filled with thirsty-looking azaleas. What was going on here? What had started as a simple request from a condemned woman had turned into a crazy scavenger hunt featuring a drug addict, her gun-toting boyfriend and a lost million-dollar coin collection. And now another possible crime victim.
She did not envy Billy his job right now.
Maybe it was time for her to wash her hands of this mess. She had dutifully turned over the information she had to Project Justice. She could write up her final report tonight, including data from both interviews. Once she finished that, the ball was in their court.
Except…except she was still the only person who was sure Mary-Francis didn’t kill her husband or know of his current whereabouts. The poor woman had no one to fight for her now. Certainly not her daughter, and now it appeared something had happened to her sister.
Antsy, Claudia stood again. She walked to the driveway, which was empty except for a few oil spots. The garage door had no windows, so she couldn’t look to see if there was a car. She ambled to the side of the house, where a short section of weathered wooden privacy fence guarded the backyard. But one of the slats was broken, and she peeked in.
A woman dressed in a bright pink track suit was busy digging around in a parched, overgrown garden. Could that be Theresa? It would explain why no one had answered the door.
“Hello, there!” Claudia called out.
The woman froze, then hightailed it to a back corner of the yard and disappeared through a gate.
Claudia rejoined Billy just as he was finishing his call. “You’re not gonna like this.”
“What?”
“We’re too late to warn Theresa. She was the victim of a home invasion. Someone broke in, roughed her up, then tore the house up, but no one knows what they took because the only person who could tell them—Theresa—is in a coma.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“THERE WERE NO PRINTS left behind, no trace evidence at all,” Billy continued. “The cops don’t have a clue.”
Claudia felt sick to her stomach. “When did this happen?”
“A few days ago.”
This crime couldn’t be unrelated, could it? Theresa’s neighborhood wasn’t top drawer, but neither was it a hotbed of violent crime.
“There was someone in the backyard just now, digging around in the dirt,” she said. “I called out, but whoever it was ran off, scared.”
Billy’s eyebrows raised in obvious interest. He turned and climbed the stairs to the front porch to have a closer look at the plywood patch covering the window. He pushed on a corner, which gave slightly.
“Billy, that would be breaking and entering.”
“No one will care. The police are done with the crime scene. We’re just going to look around.” With a quick glance left and right to be sure no one was watching, he heaved his shoulder into the plywood.
With a shriek of nails pulling free, the board came loose.
Billy knocked it all the way to the floor inside, then climbed in. “I’ll let you in through the front door.”
Claudia considered going to sit in her car. An arrest for B & E could jeopardize her entire practice and cause Project Justice considerable embarrassment. But probably no one would care if they looked around, and she couldn’t contain her own curiosity, so when Billy opened the front door, she stepped across the threshold.
It was like a brick oven inside; Claudia’s skin immediately dampened with perspiration. Her dress stuck to her, clinging to her thighs and breasts.
She wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or miffed when Billy ignored her, flipping on some lights, first in the entry way, then the living room, and going into search mode.
The place was a wreck—furniture overturned or ripped open, drawers and cabinets emptied. Here and there, black fingerprint powder marred surfaces.
Theresa was obviously a devout woman. Pictures of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and several saints adorned the walls. Over the red plaid sofa hung a huge print of da Vinci’s The Last Supper. And on the brick hearth was a statue of Jesus as well as an angel, a monk—maybe St. Francis—and a couple of other saints Claudia couldn’t identify.
“Whoever did this trashed the place to make it look like a random crime,” Billy said. “But I worked in property crimes on the Dallas P.D. for a while. Burglars don’t just destroy stuff for the hell of it. They take what they want and leave. This much damage is overkill.”
“As if the perpetrator had an emotional connection to the victim?”
“Possibly.”
Billy and Claudia quickly checked the rest of the house. Every room had been assaulted and vandalized.
“Let’s check out the backyard,” Claudia said. “I want to know why that woman was digging around.”
“Digging for buried treasure? Maybe she heard something about the missing coins.”
In the early summer heat, it wouldn’t take long for an unwatered garden to wither and die. The backyard looked as if it had once been lovingly cultivated with flowers and a vegetable patch. Now, most everything was dead or dying. Green had turned to yellow and beige. The tall weeds rattled in the light breeze.
“If Theresa ever comes home,” Claudia said, “she’ll be horrified by what’s happened to her yard.” She walked over to where the mystery woman had been turning up the earth. Several large holes had been dug up in one corner of the garden. “I wonder what that woman was looking for?”
Billy squatted down and examined the other plants in the vegetable patch. “Potatoes. And onions.”
“How can you tell?”
He gave her a pitying look. “I take it you don’t garden.”
“I have a landscaping service that does all that. Do you have a garden?”
“Sure. I grow all kinds of stuff in big pots on my patio—tomatoes, peppers, onions, squash. Growing up, if my mom hadn’t grown vegetables, we’d have gone hungry. Now I just do it ’cause there’s nothing quite like a home-grown tomato.”
She never would have pegged him as a gardener. But she was more surprised that he’d shared something from his personal life with her.
“Hey, you!”
Claudia jumped and looked for the source of the voice. The woman in pink, wearing a large brimmed hat and sunglasses, was peering at them over the privacy fence. Unless she was seven feet tall, she was on a ladder.
“You’re trespassing!” the woman screeched. “You better not be taking those vegetables.”
“No, ma’am,” Billy said. “We’re with the sheriff’s department, doing some follow-up on the crime that took place here. Did anyone talk to you about that?”
He lied with perfect assurance. If Claudia had been called upon to spot his lies, she would have failed miserably.
The woman, though obviously the suspicious type, didn’t even ask to see a badge.
“Of course they did,” the woman replied indignantly. “I live next door and I know everything that goes on in this neighborhood. We all watch out for each other here.”
“Did you see what happened that night?” Billy prompted.
“It was late at night. I was asleep.” She dared him to contradict her. “It’s all in the statement I gave. Patty Dorsey is my name.”
“We saw you stealing Theresa’s vegetables,” Billy said.
Patty whipped off her sunglasses. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Theresa wouldn’t want her vegetables to go to waste. We share all the time. I give her peaches from my trees. What did you say your name was?”
“Sergeant Billy Cantu. You wouldn’t happen to be digging around because you know something valuable is buried out here, would you?”
She shifted from angry to curious. “What kind of something valuable?”
“Coins, maybe?”
Her eyes widened with surprise and delight. “Her brother-in-law’s coins? Theresa told me he’d stolen a pirate’s treasure, gold doubloons or some nonsense. I didn’t believe it at the time.” She surveyed the backyard with new eyes, perhaps seeing something a lot more valuable than a few filched potatoes.
“Don’t be digging around here anymore,” Billy warned her. “I don’t want to bust you for trespassing, but I will.”
“Humph.”
“If you discover the location of any stolen pirate’s treasure, it’s your civic duty to turn it over to the police—or become an accessory. Have a nice day, Patty.” Billy tipped an imaginary hat and turned to head back inside.
Claudia followed, her heart pounding, until they were safely inside. “Lying to that woman goes against everything I believe in. Isn’t it a pretty serious crime, impersonating a police officer?”
“She doesn’t suspect. And even if she does, she’s too busy thinking about buried treasure to report me. Maybe we’ll luck out, and she’ll find the coins for us.”
“You just like playing games with people’s heads.” Another thought occurred to her. “You’re obviously a skilled investigator, good at teasing information out of people. How come you don’t like field work?”
He froze. “How do you know that about me?”
“During your original evaluation. You said you didn’t want to work in the field. You told me then you were tired of it. And because Daniel asked me if there was any reason, in my professional opinion, that I thought you weren’t fit for active duty, so to speak. At the time I didn’t know you were a lunatic, so I said no, no reason, that you were just ready for a change.”
“We almost got our heads blown off today, and you want to know why I don’t like field work?”
They ended up back in the living room. Claudia spotted a bloodstain on the carpet, probably from Theresa’s assault. Her stomach turned, and their earlier confrontation with a loaded gun barged back into her mind.
What she recalled most clearly was how Billy had again put himself between her and danger.
She wandered back to the fireplace and noticed something she hadn’t seen before. Lying on the bricks was a hunk of ceramic material, about the size of a poker chip but curved. It bore a bright blue glaze. She picked it up and studied it.
“Watcha got there?”
“A fragment of something. It doesn’t belong to anything in the vicinity.”
Billy studied the area where the fragment had lain. “Hey, look at this. There’s a spot here on the hearth that’s not as dusty as everything else.”
Now that she looked more closely, she realized the arrangement of statues was unbalanced. “You think another statue used to be here?”
“Could be.” He picked up the statue of St. Francis and flipped it upside down, examining the bottom. He did the same with the angel. “These statues are hollow inside.”
“A good place to hide coins?” Claudia ventured.
Billy nodded. “It’s an old drug-smuggler trick, hiding stuff inside statues.” He thought about it some more. “I like it. But why wouldn’t Mary-Francis just tell us that?”
“Maybe she didn’t know exactly where her sister put the coins. Or she doesn’t trust us. She’s still hoping to keep the coins for herself when—if—she gets out of prison.”
“And the robbers beat Theresa until she told them where the coins were hidden.”
Claudia shivered at the thought of what that poor woman must have gone through—the terror, the pain. “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”
“A woman’s life is at stake,” he reminded her. “We owe it to her to be thorough. Why are you so nervous? You told me you face down violent offenders in your work pretty often, right?” Billy checked the contents of two drawers in the coffee table that had been overlooked.
“That’s different. That’s in a controlled setting, when I’m squarely on the right side of the law. This is breaking and entering, and I for one don’t relish explaining to Daniel how we got ourselves arrested.”
Billy didn’t seem bothered by their straying into unlawfulness. “Hey, Claudia, check this out.” He held up a small white box that she at first thought was a pack of cigarettes or a deck of cards.
Claudia looked longingly toward the front door. “Billy, please.”
His face softened, probably sensing her distress. She didn’t make any attempt to hide it. “Okay.” He tucked the item into his pocket.
Claudia didn’t take a full breath until they were back in her car. She started the engine, again turning on the A/C full blast.
“You okay?”
She waved away his concern. “I’m fine, considering I just committed my first felony.”
“Misdemeanor trespassing, tops.”
“How comforting. What was that thing you found in the drawer?”
“Probably nothing important. It was one of those Flip video cameras. You ready for some lunch?”
How could he act so normal after all they’d been through? After seeing the visceral evidence of a violent crime? Then again, he was a former cop. She knew some homicide cops could literally eat a sandwich while standing over a bloody corpse.
“I could at least use something cold to drink,” she said.
She hadn’t planned on sharing another meal with Billy. Last time, she’d spotted Tubby’s and gotten all sentimental, probably revealing more about herself than she’d intended. But Tubby’s did make her think about one of the happier times in her life. At age thirteen she’d been placed in a foster home with another girl close to her age, and they’d become inseparable. One of their hangouts had been Tubby’s. Marlene, who’d been pretty and popular, had shared her clothes and makeup and had made sure Claudia was accepted into her “in” group of kids.
For the first time in her life Claudia had felt like an accepted member of a peer group. She had belonged.
After about six months, Marlene’s real mother had regained custody, and the friendship had ended abruptly—along with Claudia’s acceptance. It turned out her “peer group” had only been putting up with Claudia for Marlene’s sake.
“You like Mexican food?” Billy asked. “I saw an El Fenix on the way over here.”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
Billy gave her directions, and five minutes later she was pulling into the parking lot, the lunch crowd thinning out by now.
Once they were seated in the blessedly well air-conditioned restaurant with a basket of chips and hot sauce between them, Billy took the tiny video camera from his pocket.
Claudia couldn’t bring herself to order an actual meal, so she requested an iced tea. Billy gave her a disapproving frown, ordered a plate of beef enchiladas, then returned his attention to the camera, fiddling with the buttons.
“Theresa took quite a few movies. Does she have kids, grandkids?” He looked at the screen and grinned. “Aw, cute baby.”
“I saw some family photos at the house, so, yes, I’m sure she has children. Mary-Francis said her sister was a widow.”
A baby’s laughter issued from the camera’s tiny speaker. Billy pushed more buttons. “Now we have what looks like a Little League baseball game. And this one…an elderly lady’s birthday party and…someone who apparently just got a new car.”
“Sounds riveting. Will the Academy of Motion Pictures be calling?”
“Same baby again. This time he’s walking.” Billy smiled a really sweet, unguarded smile, and her heart swelled. He continually surprised her. Sure, she could tell herself the kiss they’d shared earlier was an isolated incident, that it would never happen again. But the desire she felt for him wasn’t going away.
Not until she figured him out.
Claudia was great at coaching her clients on relationship matters, but the fact was, she’d never had a successful romantic relationship, just a few spectacular failures—like Raymond Bass.
He’d been executed last year.
It seemed every man she met had an angle in wanting to date her, and she always figured it out much too easily. If they were interested in sex and nothing else, she always knew it, no matter what they told her or how sweet they appeared to be. They were so painfully transparent.
Then there were the ones who wanted free therapy. Pass.
Her abysmal love life was a failing on her part. She couldn’t put the blame on anyone else. Because part of her strained to learn every detail about a potential boyfriend so that she could feel safe; then she lost interest when no mystery remained.
Billy’s motives for kissing her were impossible to read. He was mysterious…exciting…dangerous…and she ought to be running as far and fast as she could in the opposite direction. Instead, she was intrigued.
“Oh, now here’s something interesting.”
“What?”
He studied the tiny screen intently for a few moments. “Claudia. I think this is a memorial service for Eduardo.”
“Let me see.”
He turned the camera partway in her direction, but as they both leaned across the table to look, neither of them could see very well. Without thinking much about it, Claudia slid out of her side of the booth and into his.
Big mistake.
“Start it over.” She struggled to make her voice sound calm, as if their contact, from her thighs all the way up to her shoulder, didn’t affect her at all, as if her heart hadn’t started beating like a drum solo and her insides hadn’t clenched up in anticipation of something that would never happen.
Apparently her efforts succeeded. Billy obliged, turning up the volume.
An elderly priest stood informally before a group of people seated in folding chairs. “This is Theresa’s house.” Claudia recognized the large sofa painting of The Last Supper. “I wonder why the service was held there?”
“Because the Torres home was a crime scene?”
“Now we can at least see what the house looked like before the break-in.”
The priest talked about Eduardo’s sterling qualities, how he gave generously to the church and sponsored a poor village in Mexico—the village where his wife’s parents still lived.
“There’s something funny about that priest,” Claudia said.
“Funny, how?”
“He keeps glancing at the fireplace. He’s definitely distracted by something over there. See how he bounces up on his toes?”
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Kara Lennox
Guilt. Innocence. Psychologist and body-language expert Claudia Ellison can sense them both, which is why she's so good at her job.Unfortunately, even the innocent are convicted and this time Claudia's partially to blame. To help free a wrongfully imprisoned woman, she teams up with Project Justice investigator Billy Cantu, the one man she can't read.They must track down the truth before someone gets hurt. And to do that, they need to trust each other. Only, the ex-undercover cop has secrets he wants to keep, and to Claudia, not knowing everything is not an option. But some things aren't meant to be shared. Because once they are revealed, they can never be taken back.
Danger in the unknown
Guilt. Innocence. Psychologist and body-language expert Claudia Ellison can sense them both, which is why she’s so good at her job. Unfortunately, even the innocent are convicted and this time Claudia’s partially to blame. To help free a wrongfully imprisoned woman, she teams up with Project Justice investigator Billy Cantu, the one man she can’t read.
They must track down the truth before someone gets hurt. And to do that, they need to trust each other. Only, the ex-undercover cop has secrets he wants to keep, and to Claudia, not knowing everything is not an option. But some things aren’t meant to be shared. Because once they are revealed, they can never be taken back.
“It really bugs you that you can’t read me like a book?”
Claudia nodded in response to Billy’s question. “Frankly, yes.”
“So no one is allowed to have a secret?” he persisted.
“I believe in honesty,” she said.
“You don’t have any secrets, then.”
She hesitated a beat. “No.”
“How many men have you slept with?”
“Billy! Good God, that is none of your business.”
“I’m trying to prove a point. Everyone is allowed to privacy.”
“Everyone reads expression and body language. I just happen to be better at it than most people.”
“And I’m better at not being read than most people. So that means I’m dishonest? Lady, where do you get off?”
“There. That is the first honest emotion I’ve seen from you.”
“Stop reading me!”
“I can’t help it.” Her eyes inexplicably filled with tears.
“Here,” he said gruffly. “Read this.” He leaned across the gearshift, pulled up the parking brake and kissed her.
Dear Reader,
Many years ago, I attended a workshop on the art of reading faces and body language. Back then, it was considered a fringe science, right up there with astrology and palmistry. But I was fascinated with the subject, and I always knew someday I would create a character with this skill.
Now, copious research has proved that reading expressions and body language is a legitimate science. And I finally found the right story and the right character: psychologist Claudia Ellison, who was introduced in my first Project Justice book, Taken to the Edge. Claudia is known as the human lie detector. In fact, she doesn’t feel safe unless she can “read” the people she deals with. Of course, the one man she can’t read—investigator Billy Cantu, a man skilled at hiding his feelings—is the one she falls in love with. She skates the fine line between fascination and fear as they work together to try to save a woman on death row, a woman no one else seems to care about.
I hope you enjoy their adventure!
Sincerely,
Kara Lennox
PS—I like to hear from readers. Please contact me through my website, www.karalennox.com. And look for the next book in my Project Justice series—Hidden Agenda, available July 2012.
For Just Cause
Kara Lennox
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kara Lennox has earned her living at various times as an art director, typesetter, textbook editor and reporter. She’s worked in a boutique, a health club and an ad agency. She’s been an antiques dealer, an artist and even a blackjack dealer. But no work has ever made her happier than writing romance novels. To date, she has written more than sixty books. Kara is a recent transplant to Southern California. When not writing, she indulges in an ever-changing array of hobbies. Her latest passions are bird-watching, long-distance bicycling, vintage jewelry and, by necessity, do-it-yourself home renovation. She loves to hear from readers. You can find her at www.karalennox.com.
For my dear friend Marie Del Marco.
I can never thank you enough for luring me to Southern California and giving me such a warm welcome. Your relentless pursuit of your dreams is an inspiration to dreamers everywhere.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE (#u283907a0-3f90-56d0-8281-0c986be8fdf5)
CHAPTER TWO (#ud351c3b8-1147-5081-8ce2-b9d159585f5f)
CHAPTER THREE (#u79a70ae8-fcc3-5fb2-bc46-5713aede23d9)
CHAPTER FOUR (#udf0ac58f-5237-51ed-b90a-0d7409a98179)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
THE WEIGHT ROOM AT PROJECT Justice smelled like gymnasiums everywhere—a hint of sweat, overlaid with eau de cleaning supplies. Claudia Ellison, dressed most inappropriately for the gym in a buttercup-yellow linen suit and cream leather heels, stood poised in the doorway observing her quarry.
He didn’t see her. Billy Cantu sat on a bench doing reps with a barbell. His rippling biceps mesmerized her for several moments. She’d met Billy before, briefly, but she hadn’t guessed how ripped he was underneath his neatly pressed shirts.
Wearing only a pair of gym shorts, Billy exposed an awful lot of skin, smooth and naturally tan due to his Hispanic heritage. Thick, almost-black hair, deep brown eyes, sensual lips parted slightly as he breathed from the exertion…
She stopped herself. Her job wasn’t to catalog Billy’s masculine assets, charming though they were. She was supposed to be reading his body language, gauging his mood. Would he be receptive to her proposal?
He’d better be. Billy was her last hope.
Billy’s face was relaxed. His arm moved slowly, no jerky motions. He didn’t appear to be pressed for time, given the leisurely way he returned his hand weight to the rack and selected another to work on his lats. This might be the best time to garner his undistracted attention.
She walked briskly into the room, stepping around a stationary bike and a rowing machine, making sufficient noise that she wouldn’t startle him when she spoke.
He looked up, and the first thing she saw was blatant male appreciation—before he schooled his face. He controlled his features quickly, so quickly that only someone with her training would have caught that brief microexpression when he was unguarded.
“Dr. Ellison.” He laid his weights on the bench and grabbed a towel, blotting the light sheen of perspiration on his face and neck. “You come to work out?”
She looked down at her suit and heels, then back up to find him grinning. She tried to mirror his teasing mood, calling up a smile of her own.
“Call me Claudia, please.” She strode forward, hand outstretched. “It’s nice to see you again.”
His hand was large and calloused. It swallowed hers whole as they shook hands. She hadn’t expected his touch to feel so…so personal, and now she was the one who had to arrange her face into a pleasant but neutral expression. Adopting whatever mask fit the situation was something she did very, very well.
“I hope you’re not here to shrink my head.”
“No, not at all. But I do have something to ask you.”
He stood and walked over to an old-fashioned watercooler and filled a paper cup with spring water. She tried to gauge his reaction to her interrupting his workout. Was he irritated? Did he welcome the intrusion?
Strangely, she couldn’t read anything into his posture or facial expression.
She didn’t know a lot about Billy, only that he was an ex-cop from Dallas who’d been working at Project Justice for about three years as an investigator, mostly operating in the background. According to Daniel, Billy had never been the point man on a case.
Now it was her job to convince him to do just that. An innocent woman’s life depended on it.
She watched, fascinated, as he gulped down two cups of water, then crushed the cup in his hand. “You’ve got me curious. What is it you’d like to know?” Although he looked exotic, with his dramatic coloring and sultry, full lips, his speech bore no trace of a Spanish accent. He was a hundred percent Texan.
“Actually, I need your help. Do you remember the Eduardo Torres murder case?”
“Of course. Eduardo Torres was a key player in the Rio Grande Mafia. He was a murder suspect himself, killed some guy in a drug turf war. Then his wife offed him.”
“Only she didn’t. I was hired by the wife’s defense attorney to do a psychological evaluation. I found Mary-Francis Torres to be deceptive on a number of issues. But not about the most important thing. When she said she didn’t kill her husband, she was telling the truth.”
“How do you know?” Billy sounded neither curious nor skeptical; the question was perfectly neutral.
“Well, that’s what I do. I read body language and facial expressions, and with a high degree of accuracy I can tell when someone is lying.”
“So, you believe the wife is innocent?”
“I believe she didn’t kill her husband, and that she has no idea what happened to him. I testified to that effect.”
“I guess the jury didn’t believe you.”
“Unfortunately, when the prosecutor cross-examined me, he focused on the lies Mary-Francis told. Most notably, she claimed her marriage to Eduardo was a happy one and that they hadn’t quarreled. I had to point out to the jury, again and again, the instances in which I spotted deception. Sadly, I did her case more harm than good.”
And she’d been racked with guilt about it ever since.
“I’m sorry to hear you were sliced-and-diced by the prosecutor. But I doubt you’re to blame for the conviction. As I recall, the case was something of a slam dunk. They found about a gallon of Eduardo’s blood in the bed he shared with his wife.”
“But no body.”
“The medical examiner testified he couldn’t have survived that much blood loss.”
“But someone else could have killed him.”
“Maybe. But unless some new evidence has surfaced—”
“That’s the thing. Mary-Francis knows I’m a consultant for Project Justice, so she contacted me—the only person who believed she was innocent, even if I wasn’t much help in the courtroom. She claims to have new evidence.”
“Hmm. What kind of evidence?”
“She couldn’t explain it in the email. She doesn’t write, spell or type very well. I told her I would come see her. But I’d like someone from Project Justice to come with me and evaluate whatever she has—from a law enforcement perspective.”
“Me?”
She’d surprised him. At least she could read that much. But not much else. Billy Cantu was a blank canvas. She’d never met anyone so difficult to read.
“Why not you?”
“You can’t just sneak in the back door like this. Surely you know how it works. There’s an application process. Cases have to be evaluated. Then Daniel himself makes the final decision about which cases we accept.”
“I talked to Daniel. He feels the case merits at least a preliminary investigation. But all of the lead investigators are stretched to the max right now. He said you’re the only person who might be available.”
“So, I’m your last choice?”
Was he teasing? She had no idea. “You’re my only choice, Billy. And the only chance this poor woman has of getting off death row. Right now, I am the one person in the world who believes she didn’t kill her husband. I have a responsibility to pursue this, or I can’t live with myself.”
Billy blew out a breath. “I’d like to help, Claudia. But I assist the other investigators. I don’t take on my own cases.” He moved to the weight machine, stacked up what looked like two hundred pounds, and started working his legs.
“Only because you don’t want to.” Claudia sat down on the adjacent station, so he would have to see her face. “Daniel says he offered to promote you to senior investigator, and you turned him down.” And why was that? Claudia wondered. What normal man didn’t want to be promoted, get a better title, a bigger paycheck and more prestige? But she didn’t ask aloud. This meeting wasn’t about making Billy uncomfortable.
“I like things the way they are.”
Claudia sighed elaborately. “All right. I’ll just have to tell Mary-Francis that you’re too busy building muscles to save her life.”
Billy let the weights drop with a clang. “Now, wait a minute. I’m not just goofing off here. I’m on my lunch hour. Anyway, part of a cop’s job is to stay in shape.”
“You’re not a cop. And if you’re not working in the field, if the heaviest thing you lift is a phone—”
“I work in the field.”
“Then come with me to interview Mary-Francis. C’mon, Billy, don’t make me beg. You don’t have to commit to the case. Just commit to the one interview. If it pans out, maybe Daniel will reconsider and assign it to someone else.”
“You’re not leaving me much choice,” he groused as he resumed his reps. His thighs had muscles on muscles, and she had to force her gaze away.
“I never intended to. A woman’s life, Billy.”
“All right. One interview. But Mary-Francis better wow me. And just for the record? I’m not crazy about shrinks.”
“All shrinks? Or me in particular?”
“Let’s just say I’m a skeptic of your particular skill, and leave it at that.”
She did her best not to show how insulted she felt. Most people, even cops, were impressed by her skills, or at least politely curious. “Fair enough. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve set up the visit with Mary-Francis.”
* * *
A ROAD TRIP WITH A BEAUTIFUL blonde sounded like heaven to Billy Cantu—unless the blonde spent four hours straight studying him like a particularly fascinating species of toe fungus.
“I know I’m good-lookin’,” Billy finally said, “but do you think you could stop staring at me for five minutes?”
“Oh. Sorry.” Claudia turned to look out the windshield at the parched midsummer fields. “It’s an occupational habit.”
“It’s also kinda rude. I mean, when women stare at me, I want to at least pretend it’s because they’re trying to get inside my pants—not my brain.”
“I don’t want to be either place, thanks,” she said tartly, and Billy grinned. A quick glance told him she was blushing.
“You’ve been awful quiet,” Billy said. “How about you give me some more background on this woman we’re going to see? I read the court transcript, but you must know stuff that’s not public.”
Claudia had a transcript in her lap, but she’d spent more time covertly studying Billy than looking at her notes. Maybe she’d thought he wouldn’t notice, but he had excellent peripheral vision.
This interview was a waste of time. But Daniel wanted him to check it out, so here he was. Daniel had built Project Justice from the ground up and continued to choose which cases they took on. Apparently he trusted Claudia’s opinion that Mary-Francis was innocent. Or he at least didn’t want to offend her.
Billy preferred to work behind the scenes, supporting the other investigators. But lately Daniel had been pushing him out the door more and more.
“Mary-Francis isn’t the most likable woman I’ve ever met,” Claudia said. “She never should have taken the stand in her own defense.”
“I’ll say. The cross-examination was a bloodbath.”
“And yet…I still believe she’s telling the truth. Not about everything, maybe—but about not killing her husband, yes.”
“Obviously, or you wouldn’t have brought the case to Project Justice.” As a psychologist on retainer with the foundation, she didn’t normally bring in cases. She interviewed witnesses or analyzed interrogation or trial video. She was a nationally recognized expert on body language.
Which, if anyone asked Billy, was all a bunch of hooey.
Since nobody asked, he listened politely as she went through her notes. “Anytime she was questioned whether she knew where her husband was, or whether she’d killed him, or if she knew someone else had killed him, her body and face indicated her answers were truthful. If she were lying, her body would show more stress. But her shoulders were relaxed, her eyes wide and animated, her voice confident. However, she wasn’t always truthful. She lied about some things.”
“Like what?”
“Like her marriage. She tried to pretend everything was fine, that she and her husband were deeply in love. But any time that subject came up, she would pull her head in like a turtle and hide her hands in her lap. In fact, whenever anyone raised their voice or tried to intimidate her, she showed the classic body language of an abuse victim.”
A squirrel darted out into the road. Billy swerved to miss it.
Claudia squeaked and grabbed on to the door. “God, Billy! What the hell are you doing?”
“Trying not to hit a squirrel.”
“Oh. That shows great compassion. But I’d prefer one dead squirrel to a head-on with a semi.”
“It was a reflex.” He didn’t like her assigning a motive to his actions. Great compassion. For a squirrel? Really? But he had a lot of hours to spend with her, and he didn’t want to spend them arguing.
“So,” he continued, “you’re telling me someone does an imitation of a turtle, they’re lying?”
Claudia released the door handle and seemed to gather her composure around her. “That was one of many signs that she felt threatened when certain subjects were broached. Each person is different, though. I have to observe a subject for some length of time to get a baseline of their usual body language, then note when that changes—”
“Yeah, okay.”
“You don’t believe me?”
He shrugged, unwilling to tell her what he really thought about hocus-pocus disguised as science. He much preferred the old-fashioned method of catching someone in a lie—breaking them down with tough interrogation.
“What I do is legitimate science, backed up by scores of studies—”
“Really, you don’t have to convince me. It’s not essential for me to understand your work to do my job, is it?”
“Well, no.”
“You just want me to interrogate Mary-Francis so she’ll tell us about this supposed new evidence, and you’ll observe.”
“Interrogate is rather a strong word. I don’t want you to put too much pressure on her. It could completely shut her down or cause her to end the interview.”
“Hmm.” He had his own way of questioning a suspect, a way that usually worked, honed by his experience with the Dallas Police Department. He’d have to play it by ear. “Any idea what this evidence is?”
“Only that it’s something shocking. But whatever it is, I want you to evaluate it from a cop’s point of view.”
“That means I ask hard questions.”
“I know. Just don’t bully her, or her stressed-out body language will override everything else.”
“Got it.”
They lapsed into silence. Claudia shifted in her seat, crossed and uncrossed her legs. Billy couldn’t help looking at the bit of leg she revealed as her skirt slid up.
Damn, hard to keep your eyes on the road when something like that was sitting next to you.
“So you really don’t believe in what I do,” she finally said.
He grinned. “That really bugs you, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Why? You must be used to skepticism.”
“Usually not from people in my own camp. I thought Daniel only hired open-minded investigators.”
“You’re saying I have a closed mind?”
“I think you refuse to open your mind to something that goes against your deeply held beliefs. In my business we call that—”
“Stop right there. You are not allowed to analyze me. That’s not part of the deal.”
“You didn’t object to my analysis during your initial employment screening.”
“’Cause if I had, I wouldn’t have gotten the job. My head is just fine, thanks. It doesn’t need shrinking.”
“Fine.” The single word came out sharp and punchy as a quick right jab. But after a few moments of tense silence, she spoke again, sounding much more relaxed. “I apologize. Analyzing everybody I spend time with is automatic for me.”
That was something Billy understood. Even now, years after his undercover work, he still evaluated every person he met in terms of potential threat. He still sat with his back to a wall. And he still kept a spare gun inside his boot.
Back in the day, he hadn’t been completely safe anywhere, not even behind locked doors. Ingratiating himself with one party of drug dealers made him a target for the other. He’d had a price on his head when Sheila was killed. His superiors had agreed that relocation to a different city, where his face wasn’t known, was the best course of action.
The Houston P.D. would have hired him, but he’d decided that he was done with police work. Getting the job with Project Justice had seemed like a godsend.
“Didn’t mean to overreact. But if you’re going to pick apart every word I say or every gesture I make, maybe you should keep your observations to yourself.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Afraid of what you might hear?”
“Let’s just say I don’t want to have to defend myself against incorrect assumptions. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” He smiled and hoped she took that in the spirit he’d intended—as a joke. Because even though he’d spent a good portion of his sleepless night last night fantasizing about her slender legs wrapped around his hips, he did not intend to become her lover.
Like most women, she would want way more from him than he was prepared to give.
* * *
BY THE TIME MARY-FRANCIS Torres was led into the interview room wearing handcuffs and leg irons, Claudia had set up her small video camera in one corner. She might want to analyze the video later, run it in slow motion to detect the rapid-fire expressions that were too fast for human eyes to catch.
Claudia had requested that she and Mary-Francis be seated face-to-face, no glass partition, no telephones, not even a table between them. The prison officials had reluctantly agreed after Daniel had intervened. Whatever people thought of Project Justice’s efforts to free inmates who shouldn’t be in prison, Daniel’s name had clout.
“Remove her handcuffs, please,” Claudia instructed the guard.
“I can’t do that, ma’am.”
“Yes, you can,” she said smoothly. It was essential that Claudia observe Mary-Francis’s entire body. Legs and feet often revealed a lot because people didn’t monitor those body parts as much as hands and facial expression.
With a bit more prodding, the guard finally did as Claudia asked, though he cautioned her and Billy that no touching was allowed.
Finally they were left alone, and Claudia was able to inspect her subject.
Mary-Francis Torres was forty-three years old, slightly overweight, with black-and-silver hair scraped into a tight ponytail. Before imprisonment she’d worn it in a bun, but she probably wasn’t allowed hairpins.
She looked as if she was holding up pretty well. But death row inmates, isolated from the rest of the population, didn’t have to worry about fights, or other inmates stealing their food. They were allowed books, sometimes a radio and an hour of outdoor recreation a day.
It was probably the most comfortable way to spend time in a maximum-security prison, not that Claudia would recommend it.
Prison had not yet humbled this woman. She still wore a belligerent expression, a subtle sneer that had not impressed the jury at her trial.
Claudia supposed she would be belligerent, too, if someone unjustly accused her of killing her husband. Assuming, of course, that she had a husband.
“Hello, Mary-Francis.” Claudia used her most soothing voice. “How are you doing?”
“How do you think?” Mary-Francis spoke with only a slight accent. She had emigrated to the U.S. when she was fifteen, Eduardo Torres’s child bride.
“Is there something you need?” Claudia asked. “Toiletries or books?”
Mary-Francis declined to answer the question, and instead looked pointedly at Billy. “Who is he?”
“Billy is my associate from Project Justice. He’ll be helping me evaluate whatever evidence you present.”
“He’s staring at me. Tell him to stop staring at me.”
Billy didn’t look away. He said nothing. Claudia wished he would try to put Mary-Francis at ease. A relaxed subject was much easier to read.
“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” Claudia said. “You said in your email that you have new evidence that will prove your innocence.”
Mary-Francis shot another look at Billy. “Not in front of him.”
“He has to be here,” Claudia said. “He is the only one who can decide whether Project Justice will take on your case.”
Mary-Francis pursed her lips in disapproval. “I have no patient-doctor privilege with him. This information can’t get out. It can’t go public. If certain people find out what I’m going to tell you, they could have me killed.”
Evidence of paranoia. That wasn’t a good sign. Claudia hoped this wasn’t a fool’s errand.
“Billy is entirely trustworthy,” Claudia said. “He would never reveal sensitive information to an outsider.”
“Not even for a lot of money? A whole lot of money? He might be wearing a nice shirt, but he looks like a gangbanger to me. The kind who would pop an old lady in the head and steal the rings right off her dead fingers.”
Claudia watched carefully for a reaction from Billy. But he took the insult as if Mary-Francis had been commenting on the weather. Which was one of the main reasons the man unnerved her, and why she’d been studying him on the way to Mountain View Correctional Facility. He showed nothing of his true feelings—not a single nonverbal clue. His every gesture and facial expression were carefully choreographed to project only what he wanted others to see. In her experience, only sociopaths could disguise their feelings so completely, and only because they didn’t have genuine feelings. All of which made Billy both challenging and scary.
“Look, Ms. Torres,” Billy said, finally breaking his silence, “you either have to talk with me here, or this interview is over. It’s not Dr. Ellison’s decision.”
Mary-Francis shot Billy a look of pure venom. “Fine. I will talk.” She sounded as if she was bestowing upon them a great honor. “The other day, my daughter, Angie, came to visit me. She never visits me, so I knew right away something was up.”
“You and your daughter aren’t close?” Billy asked, smoothly taking over the questioning.
“She thought I murdered her father. She wouldn’t speak one word to me. Now, suddenly, everything has changed. Eduardo must have contacted her.”
Claudia was shocked—and disappointed. Eduardo couldn’t possibly be alive. Was this simply a last-ditch, desperate effort of a condemned woman to stir something up?
Billy didn’t look shocked. “So you think your husband is alive? Because your daughter came to visit.”
“I know he is.”
“Maybe Angie simply had a change of heart.” Billy flashed a charming, completely phony smile. “Your execution has been scheduled. It could have made her realize she’s about to become an orphan.”
Claudia watched for variations in her subject’s posture, or telltale gestures that might indicate stress.
But everything remained the same. Mary-Francis faced them squarely, her hands folded on her lap, her shoulders down and relaxed.
“Angie asked me about something that was a secret between Eduardo and me. Something we agreed she shouldn’t know about. Since I never told Angie, Eduardo must have.”
Billy looked confused. “Maybe he told Angie this secret before he died.”
“If he had,” Mary-Francis said, “Angie would have come to me long before now. I know my daughter. She is an addict, and she would steal anything valuable and sell it for drug money.”
“So this secret between you and Eduardo,” Billy said. “It involves money?”
“It involves something valuable, yes…”
Ah, now Claudia could see it. Not deception per se, but evasiveness. Mary-Francis was uncomfortable talking about this secret, whatever it was. Claudia made a note of Mary-Francis’s tight mouth.
“Well, what is it?” Billy asked.
Mary-Francis seemed to be weighing her options. Finally she came to a decision. “Coins. We had a coin collection worth a good deal of money. After we caught Angie stealing from us, I worried she might discover the coins and try to pawn them. So I gave them to my sister, Theresa, for safekeeping. I told no one, not even Eduardo.”
“Why not Eduardo?” Billy wanted to know. “Didn’t you trust him?”
“Of course I trusted him! I was going to tell him, but it slipped my mind. And then he disappeared.”
Hand to the neck. Eyes squinting. Shoulders raised. Voice at a slightly higher pitch. Any one of those things could be a sign of deception. Together, Claudia felt absolutely confident they indicated Mary-Francis was lying.
“Ma’am,” Billy said, “excuse me for saying so, but your story is ridiculous.”
“I’ll explain better, then,” Mary-Francis said, losing her composure for the first time. “Eduardo was suspected of killing some drug dealer. The FBI was closing in, and Eduardo was scared of going to prison. I believe he fled to Mexico, thinking he would take the coins with him and sell them, so he could start over in comfort. But then he couldn’t find them because I’d moved them, and he couldn’t very well ask me about the matter. I was supposed to think he was dead.”
“Your loving husband wanted you to think he was dead?” Billy asked.
“He must have thought that would be better than going to prison,” she grumbled. “He knew the police would question me, and he figured I couldn’t tell them where he’d gone if I didn’t know.
“Later, he got in touch with Angie somehow, thinking she would help him find the coins.” Her words were rushed, a little desperate. “Maybe he promised her some money—Angie would believe anything he told her. She would do anything for him.
“But Angie couldn’t find the coins, either, so she came to me, thinking she could weasel where I’d hidden them, said she wanted to keep the coins safe, put them in a safe-deposit box, but that makes me laugh. She would turn them over to her father. Or sell them, probably for far less than they’re worth. My daughter is not the smartest—”
“How much are they worth?” Billy’s interruption halted Mary-Francis’s avalanche of words.
Her body language changed abruptly. While telling her story she had been leaning forward, her face open and animated, gesticulating with her hands. Now she pulled into herself and smoothed her hair, another self-soothing gesture.
“I don’t really know.”
Billy glanced at Claudia. She shook her head slightly.
“So your daughter asks about the coins,” Billy says, “and you draw the conclusion that your husband is alive.” He leaned back and folded his arms, a classic male territorial display designed to intimidate.
“You’re not getting it,” Mary-Francis said. “My daughter absolutely did not know about those coins before Eduardo disappeared. Now suddenly she’s full of questions. She knows. Because Eduardo told her.”
“So what do you want us to do?” Billy challenged. “Should we tell the police to let you out of jail because your daughter mentioned a coin collection? It’s preposterous.”
“I want you to find Eduardo. I know he is alive, and you must find him. He’s probably running out of money by now, and he’s desperate for the coins. Maybe you could set a trap. I can give you the names of friends and relatives he has both here and in Mexico. But first, I need for you to warn my sister. Sooner or later Angie will figure out I gave the coins to Theresa. Tell her to hide them well.”
“Why can’t you contact Theresa yourself?” Billy asked. “Advise her to move the coins to a safe-deposit box.”
“I can’t get hold of her. She doesn’t respond.” Tears sprang to Mary-Francis’s eyes. “She has my…oh, what is the word, where she can sign my name?”
“Power of attorney,” Billy supplied.
Mary-Francis nodded vigorously. “I am afraid she has turned her back on me like Angie.”
“If Eduardo is alive,” Claudia asked softly, “how do you explain all that blood?”
“Evidence can lie,” Mary-Francis said. “The police are corrupt.”
Billy was still stuck on the coins. “Mary-Francis, how valuable are those coins?” he asked again. “You must have some idea.”
Mary-Francis hesitated. “I’m not sure. They are old Spanish escudos, from sunken ships. Maybe a million dollars?”
CHAPTER TWO
“A MILLION BUCKS’ WORTH of old Spanish coins?” Billy said once they were safely back in his truck. “It better be Jean Lafitte’s treasure.”
“If they’re gold,” Claudia said, “they could be pretty pricey just based on the meltdown value alone. Historical significance would add to their value. She could be right.”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter what the coins are worth,” Billy said. “The question that concerns us is, does she really believe Eduardo is alive? If so, is she deluding herself?”
“She seems sincere to me.” Claudia sounded tired. “I’m starving. Can we stop somewhere and eat?”
“Sure. Any suggestions?” Billy didn’t recall seeing much in the way of classy restaurants in the closest town, Gatesville. Though it was the county seat and “the spur capital of the world,” it was definitely a small town.
“Any place is— Oh, look, a Tubby’s. Let’s go there.”
“Tubby’s? You’re kidding, right?” Claudia Ellison wanted to eat lunch at a greasy spoon with a gravel parking lot filled with beater cars and trucks?
“I have…fond childhood memories. But if you’d rather eat someplace else—”
“No, this is fine.” Billy tried to picture what Claudia’s childhood might have been like. He assumed she’d come from wealth. She had an aristocratic bearing and a way of speaking that he associated with old money. No Texas twang, so he doubted she came from around here. Maybe she’d eaten at Tubby’s while on a family vacation?
He had a hard time picturing little Claudia with her upper-class family, dining on ribs or chicken-fried steak. The mental image wouldn’t gel.
“I thought you’d be more of an upscale-French-restaurant sort of person,” he said once they were inside and seated at a booth with a faded green Formica table between them. Out of habit, Billy had selected the table and placed his back toward the wall, where he had a good view of the front door and a plate-glass window into the parking lot.
“Mais oui, I love ze French food. But this place…they have the best banana splits here.” She opened one of the plastic menus the waitress had dropped in front of them and gravely looked over the offerings as if about to make a decision of importance.
After a minute or two she looked up at him. “What? Why are you smiling?”
“I just never expected a Tubby’s restaurant to delight you, of all people.”
She suddenly became self-conscious, and he wished he hadn’t ribbed her about her lunch choice. “I guess I needed something happy to focus on after being in that prison.” She shivered delicately. “What an awful place.”
“And Tubby’s is a happy place?”
She looked around, perhaps assessing it through her adult eyes. The restaurant was half-filled, mostly with men in work clothes and a couple of tables of boisterous teenagers.
“Yes, it’s happy,” she declared. “These men are so relieved to sit in the air-conditioning for a few minutes’ break from their construction jobs. And those kids—blowing their allowance money on burgers and ice cream, flirting, away from parental control—yeah, happy.”
But her smile was slightly bittersweet.
“You ready?” the waitress asked.
“Yes, I’ll have the chicken finger basket and a Diet Coke.”
Billy ordered a standard burger and fries and the waitress left.
“No banana split?”
“It probably wouldn’t be as good as I remember. Now. About Mary-Francis.”
“I think she’s a lying schemer. Please, can’t we write this one off? No way could her husband be alive.”
“Ah, sorry. She was telling the truth—about some things, anyway. The coins exist. She believes they’re worth a million dollars, and her daughter did visit. She believes Eduardo has been in contact with Angie. All that’s true. She was lying about one thing, though.”
“What?”
“She didn’t merely ‘forget’ to tell Eduardo about giving the coins to her sister. I think she deliberately kept the information from him. Their marriage was on the skids. But she couldn’t just divorce him—he was violent. She might have wanted to keep those coins for herself, so she could escape and make her own fresh start.”
“Forgive me for pointing this out, but a million-dollar coin collection is a nice motive for murder.”
“She believes he’s alive,” Claudia said flatly.
“Then she’s delusional. The blood evidence was clear-cut. Maybe she had some sort of psychotic break and she forgot she murdered him.”
“Give me some credit. I think I would notice if the subject was psychotic.”
Their food arrived, and for a time they didn’t speak, focusing on filling their empty stomachs. Once Billy had taken a few bites to dull the edge of his hunger, he sat back and observed Claudia as she devoured her chicken fingers, coating each one with a few dribbles of ranch dressing. She took small bites, closing her eyes to savor each one.
He again wondered why this place was special to her. He tried once more to picture her as a little girl. Long blond hair in pigtails, maybe. She had such a slight build now, she’d probably been thin as a child, all knees and elbows. Had she been a tomboy, or a Little Miss Priss? Probably the latter.
“You’re smiling again.”
Billy quickly schooled his features. Damn, that was careless of him, letting his musings show on his face. His life no longer depended on hiding his true self every waking minute. But he still preferred to keep his feelings out of public view, and the one person he ought to be more careful around was Claudia Ellison. He might not believe in her body-language junk science, but she was perceptive.
They finished and paid with a company Visa, then headed back into the sizzling hot afternoon. Claudia removed her pale blue suit jacket. Her blouse was damp, clinging to her breasts in a way that made Billy’s mouth go dry despite the huge soft drink he’d just sucked down.
“So you’re going to recommend Project Justice not take on this case?” Claudia asked.
“It’s kind of fantastical.”
“Yes…but don’t you think we should at least check a few things out? For example, let’s sic Mitch on Eduardo. If the guy is alive, he’s leaving signs of his presence somewhere in cyberspace. Mitch is so amazing when it comes to that, and we have that list of friends and associates Mary-Francis gave us.”
“I guess that would be okay, if Mitch doesn’t mind.” Mitch Delacroix was Project Justice’s resident computer geek and missing person locator. “I can put Daniel off about a decision for a few days.”
“And I want to visit Theresa and see what she has to say about this illustrious coin collection.”
“Yeah, I’ll admit I’m curious. If Theresa has some supervaluable artifacts in her home, we should advise her to take them to the bank and put ’em in a vault. Especially if her drug-addict niece wants them.”
As Claudia climbed into the passenger seat of Billy’s truck, she offered him a healthy flash of thigh, and his heart leaped into his throat…was that her panties he just saw? Then he realized she was wearing a lacy-edged slip.
How Victorian. How…intriguing.
“She was definitely concealing something,” Claudia said once they were back on the road. “She gave at least a dozen signs of it.”
“A dozen? Come on.” No one could give themselves away that thoroughly.
“You knew she was lying. How did you come to that conclusion?”
“’Cause she told a stupid story about a million-dollar treasure and a dead husband come back to life. Doesn’t take an expert to figure out it’s a crock.”
“My hunch is, you read all the body-language signals on a subconscious level—the direction of her feet, the angle of her body, voice inflection, how fast she talked, where she looked, what she did with her hands, nostrils, lips, whether she swallowed a lot—”
“It would take me a year to catalog all that. Isn’t it easier just to listen to what a suspect says?” Yet merely listening to the words someone spoke hadn’t always told him what he needed to know. He’d missed some vital clues during that last operation with Sheila.
Just thinking about Sheila filled him with a profound sadness. “Hey, Claudia, can you tell what I’m thinking now?”
“I read body language, not minds,” she said tartly.
“What’s my body language telling you?”
She actually took him seriously, studying him from head to toe in a slow perusal that made him hot—checking him out the way a woman does at a bar when she wants you to return the favor. If he was as good as he thought he was, though, Claudia would have no idea how badly he’d like to kiss those moist, full lips of hers and muss up that elegant blond hair.
“You’re bored,” she finally said. “You don’t like this assignment, you don’t like Mary-Francis, and you’d rather be working on something else.”
“Uncanny,” he said as relief washed through him. He still had it. He could still hide his true feelings.
“I’m not so ready to wash my hands of Mary-Francis,” Claudia said, abruptly returning to business. “I’m going to talk to Angie. If she’s in contact with her supposedly dead father—”
“Whoa, wait, Claudia. You probably shouldn’t confront her. She could be dangerous.”
Claudia seemed insulted. “I know how to deal with addicts, even violent ones. I’ve had clients come at me with knives, try to choke me with drapery cords—”
“In a clinical situation, where I’m guessing you have a panic button, or people waiting in the next room who’ll come running if you scream.” Jeez, and he thought his job was dangerous.
“I know a little something about dangerous people,” she said. “I wouldn’t be dumb enough to confront her in an unsafe environment.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said, surprised at how happy it made him to have an excuse to spend more time with Claudia. Now that he knew for sure she couldn’t see inside his head as though it was a fishbowl, he wouldn’t be so irritated if he caught her studying him again. In fact, he might not be irritated at all. Did she always wear lacy slips? What was that about?
“I’m sure you have better things—”
“Once Daniel makes up his mind to check out a potential client, he wants it done right. It’s my job to run around interviewing people connected with the case. It’s what I’m being paid to do.”
“I’m on a hefty retainer,” Claudia reminded him.
“Then we’ll confront Angie together,” he said, settling the matter.
* * *
“GOOD MORNING, CELESTE,” Claudia said as she entered the Project Justice lobby the next morning. “I’m here to meet Billy Cantu.”
Celeste Boggs, Project Justice’s office manager and self-proclaimed head of security, looked up from her Soldier of Fortune magazine with a stern expression and pointed to a clipboard. “Sign in there, please.”
“Oh, but I’m not—”
Celeste tapped the clipboard with one impatient finger and glared, daring Claudia to complete her argument.
Claudia signed in. It was hard to defy Celeste. Though the former Houston cop was in her seventies, she was one scary mama who claimed to know fourteen ways to kill someone with her bare hands. Celeste dressed as if she were auditioning for the role of World’s Most Eccentric Senior Citizen, but Claudia wasn’t fooled by the flamboyant red, ostrich-feather-trimmed shirt or the huge earrings made from shotgun shells.
Celeste meant business, and no one got past her into the rest of the building unless she let them.
“Billy,” Celeste said into the phone, “your date is here. I hope you bought a corsage for her.”
Is that how Claudia appeared to Celeste? she wondered with some alarm. Like a high-school girl all primped for a date with the quarterback? She’d opted for a more casual look today, a pale peach linen sundress with a wide brass belt. The skirt was one of her shorter ones…had she subconsciously dressed provocatively for Billy’s sake?
The possibility was troubling.
A loud clanging of metal and a snort coming from the vicinity of Celeste’s feet interrupted Claudia’s uncomfortable musing. “What’s that noise?”
“Oh, that’s just Buster.”
“You have a dog down there?”
“No, not a dog.” Celeste tried and failed to hide a mischievous smile. “Want to see him? He’s a beauty.” She leaned down and grabbed on to something that turned out to be a metal cage. As she hefted it up, Claudia saw that inside the cage was a large, furry, fierce-looking…pig? It was excitedly trying to dig its way through the steel bars with sharp, cloven hooves.
Claudia took an instinctive step back. “Oh, my God, what in the hell is that thing?”
“It’s a javelina! Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
“In a zoo, maybe. What’s it doing here?”
“It was in my backyard, and it kept digging up my vegetables. I caught it. My grandson’s school mascot is a javelina and their previous one died—or maybe they ate it. So I’m donating this one to the school.”
“You’re donating a vicious wild animal to a school?” That did not sound like a wise plan.
“He’s not vicious. I’ve been taming him down. Watch, he’ll let me pet him now.”
“Uh, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Claudia took a few more steps back.
Celeste opened the cage door. “Don’t worry, he’s really rather sweet. Aren’t you, Buster?” Celeste petted the animal on the head, then scratched it behind one ear.
The beast didn’t look as if it enjoyed the attention. In fact, it was frozen in a classic defense posture designed to make it invisible. Its next move would be to bolt for freedom. Freeze, fight or flight.
A frosted glass partition separated the lobby from the rest of the building. Just as Celeste withdrew her hand and was about to close the cage, Billy burst through the glass door like a freight train.
“Good morning, Claudia!”
The wild animal bolted out of the cage at the speed of light, sliding across the polished surface of the reception desk, plopping to the floor and wiggling right past Billy’s feet and through the door before it closed.
Claudia screamed just from the sheer surprise, and Billy backed up against a wall, his right hand automatically reaching under his jacket for a weapon.
“Holy crap, what was that thing?”
Celeste was the only one who didn’t look perturbed. “A javelina, what did it look like?” She calmly picked up the phone and pushed the intercom button. “Attention, all staff. Please be advised there is a small, hairy, piglike animal loose in the building. If you see it, would you mind calling the front desk so I can catch it?”
“You brought a live javelina to work?” Billy asked, as if wanting to be sure he’d heard right.
“It would have been fine if you hadn’t scared it.”
Billy looked at Claudia. “Now would be a good time to leave.”
“Sign out! Both of you.”
Once they were out the door and heading for Claudia’s car, they burst out laughing.
“What the hell was that about?” Billy asked. “Celeste’s new pet?”
“She caught it in her yard,” Claudia said, “and she’s donating it to her grandson’s school because they need a mascot.”
“Her grandson? Celeste doesn’t have any children. She never married. You must mean her great-nephew.”
“She said grandson. I’m sure of it.”
Billy shrugged one muscular shoulder. “She must have misspoken, then.”
Elderly ladies didn’t normally speak of grandchildren they didn’t have. How odd.
As they approached Claudia’s silver-green Nissan Roadster, she used her remote to unlock the doors.
Billy whistled appreciatively. “Sweet ride.”
“Thanks.” She’d insisted on driving for two reasons. First, it gave her something to do with her hands, somewhere to focus her attention besides on Billy so she wouldn’t give away her roiling emotions. And second, she wanted—no, needed—to have control of something. Relinquishing the driving all day long yesterday to Billy had been a tough challenge, particularly since she hadn’t felt she’d had a strong grip on anything else, especially her own feelings.
She glanced over at him as he fastened his seat belt. A lot of men would balk at allowing a woman to drive them anyplace. But Billy was obviously secure enough in his masculinity that it didn’t bother him. Or maybe it bothered him and she wasn’t able to tell.
Why wouldn’t he be secure? Lord, he was handsome in a striped button shirt and a lightweight summer jacket, worn to disguise the fact that he carried a sidearm in a shoulder holster. A crisp pair of boot-cut Levi’s, the ostrich-skin boots to go with them and a white straw Stetson completed the picture.
He took his hat off and settled it on his lap, then donned reflective mirror sunglasses.
One reason cops wore mirrored sunglasses was so they wouldn’t telegraph their actions with their eyes. Was it possible he deliberately hid behind those opaque lenses to make it harder for her to read him? Did he really not want her to know who he was?
She supposed that was only fair. She didn’t exactly go out of her way to broadcast her true self, either. She punched Angie Torres’s address into her GPS, then slid her car smoothly into downtown morning traffic.
Angie Torres lived in a run-down area of Harrisburg Boulevard in Magnolia Park, a hundred-year-old neighborhood of Houston in the early stages of rehabilitation. But this block hadn’t yet been gentrified; the apartment was above a strip of white-brick stores, most of which were boarded up.
Mary-Francis had said her daughter worked in a medical office, leading Claudia to believe she was a functional addict, but this looked to be the sort of place where the near-homeless, prostitutes and other victims of society ended up.
Claudia and Billy climbed a dark staircase into an equally dim hallway, alive with roaches and smelling of urine. Billy placed his body between Claudia and the door as he rang the bell. Though it was a simple display of caveman machismo, it had an undeniable effect on her. His protectiveness made her skin tingle with warmth. Few people in her life had ever put her safety and well-being above their own, even casually.
No one answered. Billy knocked, then pressed his ear against the door and listened.
“I don’t think there’s anyone inside. I don’t hear voices or a TV, not even sounds of a pet. Let’s check around the back. There’s probably a fire escape or something.”
Once outside, Claudia was grateful for a breath of fresh air. She tried to follow Billy on his quest to find a back door, but the tangled, thorny brush behind the small, two-story building proved a bit much for her leather sandals and bare legs, so she waited for him in the shade of a tattered store awning, welcoming the small breather. Being around Billy was a lot of work.
She couldn’t even tell whether he was attracted to her. Normally she could discern in a heartbeat if a man was interested in her, at least on a physical level. The signs were so obvious—the covert studying of her body, the way an interested man leaned in when speaking to her, the length of eye contact, the way his gaze would move from face to breast to legs, then back, and that unique male shifting of weight to accommodate a burgeoning erection.
Billy had flirted with her, but flirting was automatic with him. He’d have probably flirted with Celeste if he hadn’t been so surprised by the javelina. But Claudia absolutely couldn’t tell if anything lurked behind the flirting.
With Billy, she was drowning in a sea of unknowns, confused about where she stood. For the first time in years, the ball of fear in her stomach just wouldn’t go away. Her built-in alarm system was warning her of Danger! in flashing red letters.
Unfortunately, the same thing that made Billy a mystery also made him undeniably exciting. What if he could read her attraction to him? How awful would that be?
She had some control over the physical signals she broadcast to the world, but she couldn’t do anything about the pheromones that were undoubtedly wafting from her body in waves.
As she waited for Billy, a young, skinny Hispanic man covered with tattoos exited from the door that led upstairs.
He noticed her as he walked toward a beat-up truck, and did a double take, this time perusing her up and down, his expression at first hostile, then more curious.
Claudia slid her hand into her pocket where she kept a small device that, with the push of a button, would emit a piercing siren. She never went anywhere without it.
“¿Qué pasa, mama?”
“Hola, señor.” Her Spanish was limited, but she knew enough to have a stilted conversation if necessary. “Do you speak English?”
“You want me to speak English, I speak English,” he said with almost no accent.
“My partner and I are looking for Angie Torres.” She hoped the use of the word partner would cause the man to think she was a cop.
He smiled slowly. “Police? You?” He laughed and shook his head. Then he continued in perfectly good English, “No cop I know dresses like that.”
“Do you know Angie?” she persisted.
The man leaned against a post and crossed his ankles as he lit a cigarette. The signs said he was flirting, not dangerous. She slipped her hand out of her pocket.
“Yeah, I know her.” And didn’t care for her, apparently, judging from the way he flashed a slight sneer. “She moved out. She inherited a house. Her mom murdered her dad and went to prison for it. She was a piece of work, that girl.” The man closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Why do you say that?”
“Always carping about how selfish her parents were, that they were rich and never gave her a dime. But who could blame them? Any money they gave her went up in smoke. I wouldn’t put it past her to kill her dad and blame it on her mama so she could get hold of their money.”
An alarming possibility, one they should probably look into, though Angie’s only criminal record consisted of a couple of misdemeanor possession charges.
“What kind of drugs did she use?”
The young man took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it out slowly—a classic move someone took to collect his thoughts before speaking. “Anything she could get her hands on. Got fired from her last job for stealing Vicodin.”
That would explain why she wasn’t working at the medical office anymore.
“Thanks. I appreciate the information.”
“No problem.” He flicked his ash into the breeze. “You busy later?”
Lord, she hoped so. She cast a glance toward the back of the building. “Um, my partner is really jealous. You probably don’t want him to see us talking.”
The man gave her a regretful look, then turned and sauntered away.
Billy reappeared around the corner. “No fire escape. This building is a code inspector’s nightmare. Who was that guy you were talking to?”
“A neighbor. He says we’ll find Angie at her parents’ house, which she now considers hers.”
“Probably at least half of it is. Mary-Francis wouldn’t have been allowed to keep the profits from her crime—in this case, her half of the community property. Was there a will?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s check out the house.” He paused just before getting into the Roadster. “There’s no reason you have to waste your whole day running around checking out leads. You can drop me at the office and get back to your work. I can do this on my own.”
“I want to meet Angie,” Claudia said firmly as she opened the car door. It had sat in the sun only a few minutes, but hot air wafted out, and she waited for it to cool off slightly before she climbed inside. “I want to see for myself how she acts when we bring up the coins…and her father.”
Billy’s eyebrows lifted. “You don’t trust me. You don’t think I can handle it.”
“Oh, no, Billy, it’s not that. I just…I feel so responsible for Mary-Francis ending up on death row. The prosecution used certain parts of my evaluation to make things worse for her. If there’s any chance of saving her…I just want to do my part, that’s all.”
“You did your part. You drew the case to our attention. We can take it—”
“Billy, don’t be difficult. I want to go with you to interview Angie.”
“So you can do your hocus-pocus on her.”
“My assessment could be of value to you. Why don’t you just accept my help?”
“I work better alone.”
“If I hadn’t been here, if I hadn’t talked to that neighbor, you wouldn’t even know where to find Angie.”
“I would have figured it out.”
“We don’t have all day. If Angie finds the coins—”
“If the coins even exist.”
“They do. Mary-Francis was telling the truth about that, though not necessarily about the particulars.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. You can come with me. But I don’t want to have to look out for your safety all the time, okay? I almost had a heart attack when I saw you talking to that lowlife just now, and I realized I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“I was fine. That guy was not dangerous. Just because he’s poor and has tattoos doesn’t mean—”
“Save me from a lecture about stereotypes. I’m a former cop and I can smell trouble. That guy was no angel.”
“We won’t be going anywhere dangerous,” Claudia persisted. Even though she was the one with the car keys, Billy had taken firm control of the reins.
“Angie could be dangerous. She has something to lose, if she thinks we might be challenging her right to her parents’ stuff. Addicts do desperate things when they’re cornered.”
Claudia couldn’t argue about that.
She should have just climbed behind the wheel, rather than debating with Billy over the roof of her car. But she felt compelled to make him agree with her. “It’ll be fine.”
“If I sense any danger, we’re getting out of there. You’ll do what I tell you to do. Is that clear?”
“Man, who pushed your macho button?” But she had to admit, he looked magnificent making his male dominance display. He leaned against the roof of the car, arms widespread, muscles tense, jaw firm. Any second now he would start beating those impressive pecs of his.
Her heart gave a flutter. At least that wasn’t on display for anyone to see.
“I can call Daniel,” Billy said. “He’ll back me up.”
“All right, I get it. Your word is the law where our personal safety is concerned. This is your case. I’m along to observe and assist. Is that good enough?”
The split-second expression of triumph on his face made her grind her teeth. But at least he’d shown her something.
CHAPTER THREE
EDUARDO AND MARY-FRANCIS Torres had lived in a solidly upper-middle-class neighborhood in Conroe, a Houston suburb. Their subdivision wasn’t quite uppity enough to be a gated community—but close. Tall limestone-brick walls flanked the subdivision entrance with a carved stone sign that read Pecan Grove. The cookie-cutter houses, built in the ’90s, were all too large for their tiny lots, but the saplings planted by the neighborhood developers had grown into mature trees and the homes were well maintained.
The Torres house was on Apple Blossom Court, a peculiar name for a street in a climate where apples couldn’t grow.
Out of habit, Billy paid close attention to the configuration of streets so he knew the fastest way to the nearest exit.
Claudia thought he was being macho, but he wasn’t kidding about the danger. Angie was a drug-addicted woman in a dramatic family situation who undoubtedly felt stressed and could erupt into violence at any time. He stood a better chance of surviving unscathed if he didn’t have to worry about a companion’s safety before his own.
But he couldn’t deny it felt great to be back out in the field.
When he’d first hired on with Project Justice, he’d told Daniel he was no longer comfortable facing danger on a daily basis. Daniel had responded by saying he wouldn’t require anything of Billy that he wasn’t ready to deal with.
Somehow, after three years on the job, Daniel knew Billy was ready. Billy could have said no to this assignment. But though he’d made a few token objections, he’d eventually accepted the responsibility of unraveling the puzzle.
Claudia’s onboard GPS found the Torres home with no trouble. The house was tan brick, just like all the others, but the lawn was yellow and scraggly and the landscaping hadn’t been tended to in months. A for-sale sign featuring the photo of a smiling female Realtor advertised that the property had four bedrooms and a pool.
Claudia pulled up to the curb just as a woman stepped out the front door, her cell phone wedged between her ear and shoulder. She frowned as Billy and Claudia climbed out.
“If you’re here about the car, it’s already sold,” she said. She was tall and painfully thin, with toothpick legs sticking out of her cutoff shorts. She had stringy, shoulder-length hair clumsily streaked with reddish-blond stripes. Her skin was pasty, and overall she had a look of ill health about her. Billy would have pegged her as a crack addict even if he hadn’t already known she had a drug problem.
She returned her attention back to her caller. “Sorry, I was talking to someone.” She opened the mailbox and pulled out a wad of envelopes that looked an awful lot like bills. Billy could just make out the FINAL NOTICE in large red letters on one envelope. Angie riffled through the mail and picked out one envelope to rip open. She turned her back on Billy and Claudia and headed back indoors.
“Excuse me. Ms. Torres?”
“I’ll have to call you back,” she said into the phone as she paused and turned to narrow her eyes at Billy. “What?”
“I’m Billy Cantu with Project Justice. This is my associate, Claudia Ellison. We need to talk to you about your mother.”
“Are you those people who get criminals out of jail?”
“We free innocent people who have been unjustly imprisoned,” he corrected her.
“Please don’t tell me you think my mom is innocent.”
“We have some questions, that’s all,” Claudia said. “Could we go inside and talk for just a few minutes?”
“I’m kind of busy here.”
“Busy selling all of your parents’ stuff?” Billy said. “Because I’m pretty sure you don’t have the legal right to do that, and in about five minutes I could get a court injunction and a locksmith over here to change the locks.”
Angie folded her arms, looking scared for a moment before she decided to brazen it out. “How am I supposed to pay the bills on this place without any money, huh?”
“Nice deal for you,” Billy said as he strolled up the walkway toward the front door without invitation. “Living here rent free and getting all the drug money you need listing stuff on Craigslist or eBay. Bet your mom had some nice jewelry. That was probably the first to go. Am I right?” He took the two steps to the front porch and headed inside the house.
“Hey!” Angie was right behind him. He turned to see Claudia bringing up the rear, looking perplexed by his high-handedness. But he suspected Angie wouldn’t give them the time of day unless they strong-armed her.
The inside of the house was stripped—no furniture, no pictures on the walls. But the air-conditioning ran full blast. Billy made his way to the kitchen, which was piled high with dirty dishes and empty pizza boxes. The trash can overflowed.
He whipped around to face Angie as an uncomfortable thought occurred to him. He’d just made a stupid mistake; he hadn’t cleared the house before assuming Angie was here by herself. “Are you living here alone?”
“None of your business. Get out before I call the cops.”
“No, you don’t want to do that.” He took out his cell phone. “I’ve got Judge Thomas Wilkes’s number on speed dial. He’ll issue the injunction on my say-so. You and whoever else is sponging off you will be out on your asses in a matter of an hour, maybe two.”
Just then another person showed up, a scrawny guy with the same kind of pasty complexion as Angie. But he held a gun in one shaky hand.
“Who the hell are you people?”
Billy broke a cold sweat as he stepped in front of Claudia, shielding her from the shooter. His carelessness had just come back to haunt him.
He needed to defuse this situation fast. “Put the gun down now, okay? We’re not cops, we’re friends of Angie’s mother.”
“For God’s sake, Jimmy, put the damn gun away.” Angie didn’t sound terribly nervous about the threat. “I can handle this. Go…go clean the pool or something.”
The man named Jimmy gave one parting snarl before he shoved his small handgun into the pocket of his baggy shorts and sauntered away.
Billy let out the breath he’d been holding, almost sick with relief. He stepped aside so he could look Claudia in the eye. “Not a dangerous situation, huh?”
“You’re the one who made the situation dangerous,” she countered, “by entering the house uninvited. We should go.”
“Go wait in the car. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Claudia folded her arms, obviously not budging. Billy wished she wouldn’t do that—it accentuated her breasts, which distracted him at a moment he needed all of his attention on Angie.
“What do you want?” Angie asked wearily. “They’re gonna show the house this afternoon. I need to clean up.”
That was an understatement.
“Who was that guy?” Billy asked.
“My boyfriend.”
Claudia watched with hyperalert eyes.
“Recently you visited your mother in prison. You asked her about some coins. What was that about?”
“My dad’s coin collection,” she answered warily. “Did Mom say anything about it? Did she say where she’d put it? It’s important that I find those coins.” Angie nearly salivated with eagerness.
“Your mother put them away for safekeeping.”
“They’re not valuable,” Angie said too quickly. “It’s just a few coins that have been in the family.”
“You know, Angie, you don’t seem like the sentimental type to me. Why do you want them? And how did you find out about them?”
She flashed a superior look at him. “I don’t have to tell you that. What matters is that the coins are mine. My father wanted me to have them. Mom has no right to hide them from me.” Angie thrust her chin out in a show of false courage.
“How do you know Daddy wanted you to have the coins?”
“He told me so.”
“When was that?”
“Right before he was murdered. He said he and Mom were going to split up and he wanted to give me some things before the divorce lawyers got it all. But he never got the chance.”
“So why did you wait all this time to ask your mother about the collection?”
“I…didn’t think about it until now. Like I said, it’s not that valuable.”
Claudia shared a look with Billy, then shook her head slightly. She obviously thought Angie was lying. Though Claudia had clearly been unnerved at having a gun pulled on her, she was still doing her job. His respect for her inched up another notch.
“You know what I think?” Billy was about to go out on a limb here, but he wanted to confront Angie with his suspicions while she was off balance—before she got the chance to get her story straight. “I think you killed your father and let your mother take the blame. Because they had money, and they wouldn’t share it with you.”
She did not appear disturbed by the accusation. “You can think whatever you want, but a jury says my mom did it. And if you know where those coins are, you better tell me. I know people, too. I have a lawyer.”
“You’re gonna need one,” Billy said. “If you didn’t kill your father, then maybe he’s not dead. Maybe he recently told you about the coins, and that’s why you took a sudden interest in them.”
Angie laughed, but it sounded forced. “If he’s alive, then how do you explain all that blood found at the crime scene?”
“There are ways,” Billy said, wondering if there really were. “I have evidence people working on that right now, taking a closer look at that blood.” Or he would, as soon as one of the lawyers at Project Justice officially became Mary-Francis’s attorney of record and made a formal request to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department to review the physical evidence.
Billy wasn’t sure when he’d decided this case had merit, but there was something here. Something off-kilter. In good conscience he couldn’t wash his hands of Mary-Francis.
“It’s his blood,” Angie said stubbornly. “DNA proved it.”
“We’ll see. Meanwhile, if I were you, I’d be waiting for a knock on the door from the police. Until your father’s estate has been legally awarded to you, you don’t own anything of his—including that coin collection. Unless you’re using the proceeds to pay your mother’s legal costs…”
“That’s what I’m doing!” Angie said quickly, grabbing on to the lifeline he’d handed her.
“What does your aunt Theresa have to say about all this? Your mother gave her sister power of attorney. Not you.”
At the mention of Theresa’s name, a look of panic briefly crossed Angie’s features before she caught it. “She said it was fine for me to sell stuff. Hey, Jimmy! Get in here.”
Claudia tugged on Billy’s sleeve. “For God’s sake, let’s go.”
“I’m not lying,” Angie shrieked, though no one had accused her. “I’m not. I’m just doing what I have to do to pay bills, pay lawyers.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Billy ushered Claudia toward the front door and out into the still, late-morning heat, having no desire to face Jimmy and his shaky gun hand. Neither of them said anything until they were back in the car with the air-conditioning on.
Then Claudia started to tremble—violently. Probably a delayed reaction to the gun.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Billy put a hand on her shoulder. She reminded him of a scared bird vibrating beneath his hand. “We’re safe now.”
“He wouldn’t have shot us,” Claudia said. “I could see it in his face. It was all bravado, an empty threat. Still…”
Billy wasn’t so sure.
“He would have been justified, you know,” Claudia continued. “We practically committed a home invasion. It’s legal to protect your domicile with deadly force.”
“It all turned out okay.”
She turned toward him, suddenly fierce. “Don’t ever do that again. Not when I’m along for the ride.”
“Now you see why I didn’t want you to come with me?”
“You shouldn’t be allowed to roam around loose without a handler. You’re dangerous.” She took a deep breath, started the car and pulled away from the curb. “Angie was lying.”
“No kidding. I don’t have to be a body language expert to figure that out. Maybe she did kill her father and frame her mother. She’s clearly a sociopath.”
“No, not a sociopath. Sociopaths are better liars.” She said this with such assurance, it made Billy wonder if she had more than just clinical knowledge to back up her claim.
“Still, she’s a bad seed,” he said.
“I’ll agree with you there. Not a pleasant person.” Claudia paused, weighing her words. “She didn’t kill her father—she was telling the truth about that. But she was definitely hiding something. Maybe it’s just her drug use, but maybe it’s something else.”
“If I could get her in an interrogation room, I could break her. Your body language tricks only take us so far. A confession would be a whole lot more useful.”
“Can we get her arrested?”
Billy thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Doubtful. If we’d seen any obvious evidence of drugs sitting around, we could call the cops and have her hauled in. But we didn’t.”
“She’s stealing from her father’s estate.”
“Unless Theresa really did give her permission to sell the stuff. If she’s mad at her sister, she might have.”
“She didn’t. I’d bet my career on it.”
Billy wasn’t so sure, and the police wouldn’t take Claudia’s word for it.
“Let’s go talk to Theresa and see what she knows about the estate, or old coins, or whatever.” Claudia seemed recovered now from her fright. The pink had returned to her cheeks, and she had the gleam of excitement in her eyes. Billy knew that gleam. She was on the hunt.
He glanced at his watch. “I should get back to the office.”
Her shoulders slumped with disappointment. “It’s your call.”
He grinned. “I’m kidding. I am dying to find those coins now.”
“Damn it, Billy.”
“What? Why are you mad?”
They were still in the Pecan Grove subdivision; Claudia had been turning on streets randomly. Now she pulled over to the curb again and reached for her Day-Timer, flipping pages of her notes. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at me for not catching on that you were teasing. It should be child’s play. Ah, here it is, Theresa’s address.” She plugged it into the GPS. “It’s not far, only a couple of miles.”
“It really bugs you that you can’t read me like a book, doesn’t it?”
“Frankly, yes.”
“Did it ever occur to you that some people don’t like to be read?”
“Only people who have things to hide.”
Maybe he did have things to hide. Or at least, things he didn’t want every random stranger to know about. Was that so wrong?
“So no one is allowed to have a secret?” he argued. “Everyone has to be completely up-front about every single part of their past, every single thought that goes through their heads?”
“I believe in honesty,” she said.
“You don’t have any secrets, then.”
She hesitated a beat. “No.”
“Nothing in your past that you’d prefer people didn’t know about.”
“I’m not ashamed about anything I’ve done.”
“How many men have you slept with?”
“Billy! Good God, that is none of your business.”
“Wow, must be a lot.”
“I don’t believe you! How could you even— That is so inappropriate—” She sputtered to a stop.
“I’m just trying to prove a point! Everyone is allowed privacy—in their homes and inside their heads.”
“And I say if it’s on their face or in their gestures or their posture, and I’m adept at figuring it out, then the information is fair game. Everyone reads expression and body language. I just happen to be better at it than most people.”
“And I’m better at not being read than most people. So that means I’m dishonest? Lady, where do you get off?”
“There, right there. That is the first honest emotion I’ve seen from you. You’re in perfect congruence—chest thrust forward, arms splayed to take up as much room as possible in a classic male territorial display—”
“Stop reading me!”
“And you just crossed the line from irritated to really angry.”
“Ya think? And yet you don’t stop.”
“I can’t help it.” Her eyes inexplicably filled with tears.
“Here,” he said gruffly. “Read this.” He leaned across the gear shift, pulled up the parking brake and kissed her.
* * *
CLAUDIA’S SENSES SWAM as she leaned in to the kiss. Billy might have thought he was unreadable, but she’d seen the kiss coming a split second before he’d carried through with his intention.
And she’d welcomed it.
That was just crazy; she was mad at Billy. They were having an argument. And yet she’d felt this insane need to connect with him. He’d shown her only a tiny sliver of his true self just then, the self he wanted to protect from her prying eyes, and all at once she’d felt simultaneously guilty and turned on.
She believed very few people had seen what she’d just seen—the real Billy Cantu. And she wanted more.
He reached up to tunnel his fingers through her hair, settling his hand on the back of her head so he could hold her a willing prisoner.
She inhaled sharply as his tongue invaded her mouth. Of course his kiss would not be tentative. Billy didn’t have a tentative bone in his body.
Or maybe he did; what the hell did she know? He was a mystery she desperately needed to unravel. How could she feel such a profound attraction to someone she didn’t even know?
Though she would have been happy to make out in the front seat of her car for the rest of the morning, Billy gradually pulled away, ending the kiss with a series of gentle nibbles. They separated, but only by an inch or two, and she studied his eyes, trying to figure out his motive here.
Was this a display of dominance? Or had he really wanted to kiss her?
His pupils were dilated. She thought she saw desire there, but maybe she was seeing only what she wanted to see.
“Can you read me now?” he demanded.
“No.” The word came out a whisper.
He released her and sat back in his seat, and she almost whimpered at the loss of his touch. “Good. ’Cause you’d probably slap me.”
“Are you going to tell me what that was about?”
“No. You need to be off balance once in a while. For your own good.”
He was wrong about that. She’d spent the first half of her life off center, shuffled into the care of one ambivalent adult after another, never sure if the new place would be a safe haven or a house of horrors.
Off balance wasn’t where she cared to be.
And yet…the excitement generated by her uncertainty felt good in a deeply visceral way.
She pulled herself together, straightened her hair, blotted away the smeared lipstick with a tissue and added fresh. Finally she got back to the business of driving, following the instructions of the by-now-impatient GPS.
“Destination on the left,” the bland voice informed them as Claudia cruised slowly past.
Theresa Esteve obviously hadn’t achieved the level of wealth her sister had. This nameless neighborhood wasn’t nearly as grand as Pecan Grove. The small ranch houses had probably been built in the 1960s, and the residents here likely mowed their own grass and trimmed their own bushes.
But there was something wildly askew about Theresa’s house. The front window was boarded up with plywood.
Claudia double-checked her Day-Timer. “That’s the house, 1642 Baxter Avenue. What do you suppose happened here?” She turned the car around, pulled up to the curb and stopped.
“Stay in the car.” Billy manually unlocked his door. “I’ll check it out.”
Claudia ignored him. “It’s a vacant house. I doubt we’ll face any gunmen here.”
As they approached the front porch, Billy took a detour to examine a flash of yellow he saw on the picket fence that separated the house from the one next door. “Hey, Claudia, look at this. Crime scene tape.”
“Oh, my God. This might explain why Theresa won’t answer Mary-Francis’s calls.”
“I’m going to call a buddy of mine that works for the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department. Maybe he can tell us what happened here.”
Claudia nodded and sat down on the edge of a brick planter filled with thirsty-looking azaleas. What was going on here? What had started as a simple request from a condemned woman had turned into a crazy scavenger hunt featuring a drug addict, her gun-toting boyfriend and a lost million-dollar coin collection. And now another possible crime victim.
She did not envy Billy his job right now.
Maybe it was time for her to wash her hands of this mess. She had dutifully turned over the information she had to Project Justice. She could write up her final report tonight, including data from both interviews. Once she finished that, the ball was in their court.
Except…except she was still the only person who was sure Mary-Francis didn’t kill her husband or know of his current whereabouts. The poor woman had no one to fight for her now. Certainly not her daughter, and now it appeared something had happened to her sister.
Antsy, Claudia stood again. She walked to the driveway, which was empty except for a few oil spots. The garage door had no windows, so she couldn’t look to see if there was a car. She ambled to the side of the house, where a short section of weathered wooden privacy fence guarded the backyard. But one of the slats was broken, and she peeked in.
A woman dressed in a bright pink track suit was busy digging around in a parched, overgrown garden. Could that be Theresa? It would explain why no one had answered the door.
“Hello, there!” Claudia called out.
The woman froze, then hightailed it to a back corner of the yard and disappeared through a gate.
Claudia rejoined Billy just as he was finishing his call. “You’re not gonna like this.”
“What?”
“We’re too late to warn Theresa. She was the victim of a home invasion. Someone broke in, roughed her up, then tore the house up, but no one knows what they took because the only person who could tell them—Theresa—is in a coma.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“THERE WERE NO PRINTS left behind, no trace evidence at all,” Billy continued. “The cops don’t have a clue.”
Claudia felt sick to her stomach. “When did this happen?”
“A few days ago.”
This crime couldn’t be unrelated, could it? Theresa’s neighborhood wasn’t top drawer, but neither was it a hotbed of violent crime.
“There was someone in the backyard just now, digging around in the dirt,” she said. “I called out, but whoever it was ran off, scared.”
Billy’s eyebrows raised in obvious interest. He turned and climbed the stairs to the front porch to have a closer look at the plywood patch covering the window. He pushed on a corner, which gave slightly.
“Billy, that would be breaking and entering.”
“No one will care. The police are done with the crime scene. We’re just going to look around.” With a quick glance left and right to be sure no one was watching, he heaved his shoulder into the plywood.
With a shriek of nails pulling free, the board came loose.
Billy knocked it all the way to the floor inside, then climbed in. “I’ll let you in through the front door.”
Claudia considered going to sit in her car. An arrest for B & E could jeopardize her entire practice and cause Project Justice considerable embarrassment. But probably no one would care if they looked around, and she couldn’t contain her own curiosity, so when Billy opened the front door, she stepped across the threshold.
It was like a brick oven inside; Claudia’s skin immediately dampened with perspiration. Her dress stuck to her, clinging to her thighs and breasts.
She wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or miffed when Billy ignored her, flipping on some lights, first in the entry way, then the living room, and going into search mode.
The place was a wreck—furniture overturned or ripped open, drawers and cabinets emptied. Here and there, black fingerprint powder marred surfaces.
Theresa was obviously a devout woman. Pictures of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and several saints adorned the walls. Over the red plaid sofa hung a huge print of da Vinci’s The Last Supper. And on the brick hearth was a statue of Jesus as well as an angel, a monk—maybe St. Francis—and a couple of other saints Claudia couldn’t identify.
“Whoever did this trashed the place to make it look like a random crime,” Billy said. “But I worked in property crimes on the Dallas P.D. for a while. Burglars don’t just destroy stuff for the hell of it. They take what they want and leave. This much damage is overkill.”
“As if the perpetrator had an emotional connection to the victim?”
“Possibly.”
Billy and Claudia quickly checked the rest of the house. Every room had been assaulted and vandalized.
“Let’s check out the backyard,” Claudia said. “I want to know why that woman was digging around.”
“Digging for buried treasure? Maybe she heard something about the missing coins.”
In the early summer heat, it wouldn’t take long for an unwatered garden to wither and die. The backyard looked as if it had once been lovingly cultivated with flowers and a vegetable patch. Now, most everything was dead or dying. Green had turned to yellow and beige. The tall weeds rattled in the light breeze.
“If Theresa ever comes home,” Claudia said, “she’ll be horrified by what’s happened to her yard.” She walked over to where the mystery woman had been turning up the earth. Several large holes had been dug up in one corner of the garden. “I wonder what that woman was looking for?”
Billy squatted down and examined the other plants in the vegetable patch. “Potatoes. And onions.”
“How can you tell?”
He gave her a pitying look. “I take it you don’t garden.”
“I have a landscaping service that does all that. Do you have a garden?”
“Sure. I grow all kinds of stuff in big pots on my patio—tomatoes, peppers, onions, squash. Growing up, if my mom hadn’t grown vegetables, we’d have gone hungry. Now I just do it ’cause there’s nothing quite like a home-grown tomato.”
She never would have pegged him as a gardener. But she was more surprised that he’d shared something from his personal life with her.
“Hey, you!”
Claudia jumped and looked for the source of the voice. The woman in pink, wearing a large brimmed hat and sunglasses, was peering at them over the privacy fence. Unless she was seven feet tall, she was on a ladder.
“You’re trespassing!” the woman screeched. “You better not be taking those vegetables.”
“No, ma’am,” Billy said. “We’re with the sheriff’s department, doing some follow-up on the crime that took place here. Did anyone talk to you about that?”
He lied with perfect assurance. If Claudia had been called upon to spot his lies, she would have failed miserably.
The woman, though obviously the suspicious type, didn’t even ask to see a badge.
“Of course they did,” the woman replied indignantly. “I live next door and I know everything that goes on in this neighborhood. We all watch out for each other here.”
“Did you see what happened that night?” Billy prompted.
“It was late at night. I was asleep.” She dared him to contradict her. “It’s all in the statement I gave. Patty Dorsey is my name.”
“We saw you stealing Theresa’s vegetables,” Billy said.
Patty whipped off her sunglasses. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Theresa wouldn’t want her vegetables to go to waste. We share all the time. I give her peaches from my trees. What did you say your name was?”
“Sergeant Billy Cantu. You wouldn’t happen to be digging around because you know something valuable is buried out here, would you?”
She shifted from angry to curious. “What kind of something valuable?”
“Coins, maybe?”
Her eyes widened with surprise and delight. “Her brother-in-law’s coins? Theresa told me he’d stolen a pirate’s treasure, gold doubloons or some nonsense. I didn’t believe it at the time.” She surveyed the backyard with new eyes, perhaps seeing something a lot more valuable than a few filched potatoes.
“Don’t be digging around here anymore,” Billy warned her. “I don’t want to bust you for trespassing, but I will.”
“Humph.”
“If you discover the location of any stolen pirate’s treasure, it’s your civic duty to turn it over to the police—or become an accessory. Have a nice day, Patty.” Billy tipped an imaginary hat and turned to head back inside.
Claudia followed, her heart pounding, until they were safely inside. “Lying to that woman goes against everything I believe in. Isn’t it a pretty serious crime, impersonating a police officer?”
“She doesn’t suspect. And even if she does, she’s too busy thinking about buried treasure to report me. Maybe we’ll luck out, and she’ll find the coins for us.”
“You just like playing games with people’s heads.” Another thought occurred to her. “You’re obviously a skilled investigator, good at teasing information out of people. How come you don’t like field work?”
He froze. “How do you know that about me?”
“During your original evaluation. You said you didn’t want to work in the field. You told me then you were tired of it. And because Daniel asked me if there was any reason, in my professional opinion, that I thought you weren’t fit for active duty, so to speak. At the time I didn’t know you were a lunatic, so I said no, no reason, that you were just ready for a change.”
“We almost got our heads blown off today, and you want to know why I don’t like field work?”
They ended up back in the living room. Claudia spotted a bloodstain on the carpet, probably from Theresa’s assault. Her stomach turned, and their earlier confrontation with a loaded gun barged back into her mind.
What she recalled most clearly was how Billy had again put himself between her and danger.
She wandered back to the fireplace and noticed something she hadn’t seen before. Lying on the bricks was a hunk of ceramic material, about the size of a poker chip but curved. It bore a bright blue glaze. She picked it up and studied it.
“Watcha got there?”
“A fragment of something. It doesn’t belong to anything in the vicinity.”
Billy studied the area where the fragment had lain. “Hey, look at this. There’s a spot here on the hearth that’s not as dusty as everything else.”
Now that she looked more closely, she realized the arrangement of statues was unbalanced. “You think another statue used to be here?”
“Could be.” He picked up the statue of St. Francis and flipped it upside down, examining the bottom. He did the same with the angel. “These statues are hollow inside.”
“A good place to hide coins?” Claudia ventured.
Billy nodded. “It’s an old drug-smuggler trick, hiding stuff inside statues.” He thought about it some more. “I like it. But why wouldn’t Mary-Francis just tell us that?”
“Maybe she didn’t know exactly where her sister put the coins. Or she doesn’t trust us. She’s still hoping to keep the coins for herself when—if—she gets out of prison.”
“And the robbers beat Theresa until she told them where the coins were hidden.”
Claudia shivered at the thought of what that poor woman must have gone through—the terror, the pain. “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”
“A woman’s life is at stake,” he reminded her. “We owe it to her to be thorough. Why are you so nervous? You told me you face down violent offenders in your work pretty often, right?” Billy checked the contents of two drawers in the coffee table that had been overlooked.
“That’s different. That’s in a controlled setting, when I’m squarely on the right side of the law. This is breaking and entering, and I for one don’t relish explaining to Daniel how we got ourselves arrested.”
Billy didn’t seem bothered by their straying into unlawfulness. “Hey, Claudia, check this out.” He held up a small white box that she at first thought was a pack of cigarettes or a deck of cards.
Claudia looked longingly toward the front door. “Billy, please.”
His face softened, probably sensing her distress. She didn’t make any attempt to hide it. “Okay.” He tucked the item into his pocket.
Claudia didn’t take a full breath until they were back in her car. She started the engine, again turning on the A/C full blast.
“You okay?”
She waved away his concern. “I’m fine, considering I just committed my first felony.”
“Misdemeanor trespassing, tops.”
“How comforting. What was that thing you found in the drawer?”
“Probably nothing important. It was one of those Flip video cameras. You ready for some lunch?”
How could he act so normal after all they’d been through? After seeing the visceral evidence of a violent crime? Then again, he was a former cop. She knew some homicide cops could literally eat a sandwich while standing over a bloody corpse.
“I could at least use something cold to drink,” she said.
She hadn’t planned on sharing another meal with Billy. Last time, she’d spotted Tubby’s and gotten all sentimental, probably revealing more about herself than she’d intended. But Tubby’s did make her think about one of the happier times in her life. At age thirteen she’d been placed in a foster home with another girl close to her age, and they’d become inseparable. One of their hangouts had been Tubby’s. Marlene, who’d been pretty and popular, had shared her clothes and makeup and had made sure Claudia was accepted into her “in” group of kids.
For the first time in her life Claudia had felt like an accepted member of a peer group. She had belonged.
After about six months, Marlene’s real mother had regained custody, and the friendship had ended abruptly—along with Claudia’s acceptance. It turned out her “peer group” had only been putting up with Claudia for Marlene’s sake.
“You like Mexican food?” Billy asked. “I saw an El Fenix on the way over here.”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
Billy gave her directions, and five minutes later she was pulling into the parking lot, the lunch crowd thinning out by now.
Once they were seated in the blessedly well air-conditioned restaurant with a basket of chips and hot sauce between them, Billy took the tiny video camera from his pocket.
Claudia couldn’t bring herself to order an actual meal, so she requested an iced tea. Billy gave her a disapproving frown, ordered a plate of beef enchiladas, then returned his attention to the camera, fiddling with the buttons.
“Theresa took quite a few movies. Does she have kids, grandkids?” He looked at the screen and grinned. “Aw, cute baby.”
“I saw some family photos at the house, so, yes, I’m sure she has children. Mary-Francis said her sister was a widow.”
A baby’s laughter issued from the camera’s tiny speaker. Billy pushed more buttons. “Now we have what looks like a Little League baseball game. And this one…an elderly lady’s birthday party and…someone who apparently just got a new car.”
“Sounds riveting. Will the Academy of Motion Pictures be calling?”
“Same baby again. This time he’s walking.” Billy smiled a really sweet, unguarded smile, and her heart swelled. He continually surprised her. Sure, she could tell herself the kiss they’d shared earlier was an isolated incident, that it would never happen again. But the desire she felt for him wasn’t going away.
Not until she figured him out.
Claudia was great at coaching her clients on relationship matters, but the fact was, she’d never had a successful romantic relationship, just a few spectacular failures—like Raymond Bass.
He’d been executed last year.
It seemed every man she met had an angle in wanting to date her, and she always figured it out much too easily. If they were interested in sex and nothing else, she always knew it, no matter what they told her or how sweet they appeared to be. They were so painfully transparent.
Then there were the ones who wanted free therapy. Pass.
Her abysmal love life was a failing on her part. She couldn’t put the blame on anyone else. Because part of her strained to learn every detail about a potential boyfriend so that she could feel safe; then she lost interest when no mystery remained.
Billy’s motives for kissing her were impossible to read. He was mysterious…exciting…dangerous…and she ought to be running as far and fast as she could in the opposite direction. Instead, she was intrigued.
“Oh, now here’s something interesting.”
“What?”
He studied the tiny screen intently for a few moments. “Claudia. I think this is a memorial service for Eduardo.”
“Let me see.”
He turned the camera partway in her direction, but as they both leaned across the table to look, neither of them could see very well. Without thinking much about it, Claudia slid out of her side of the booth and into his.
Big mistake.
“Start it over.” She struggled to make her voice sound calm, as if their contact, from her thighs all the way up to her shoulder, didn’t affect her at all, as if her heart hadn’t started beating like a drum solo and her insides hadn’t clenched up in anticipation of something that would never happen.
Apparently her efforts succeeded. Billy obliged, turning up the volume.
An elderly priest stood informally before a group of people seated in folding chairs. “This is Theresa’s house.” Claudia recognized the large sofa painting of The Last Supper. “I wonder why the service was held there?”
“Because the Torres home was a crime scene?”
“Now we can at least see what the house looked like before the break-in.”
The priest talked about Eduardo’s sterling qualities, how he gave generously to the church and sponsored a poor village in Mexico—the village where his wife’s parents still lived.
“There’s something funny about that priest,” Claudia said.
“Funny, how?”
“He keeps glancing at the fireplace. He’s definitely distracted by something over there. See how he bounces up on his toes?”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
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Kara Lennox
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Guilt. Innocence. Psychologist and body-language expert Claudia Ellison can sense them both, which is why she′s so good at her job.Unfortunately, even the innocent are convicted and this time Claudia′s partially to blame. To help free a wrongfully imprisoned woman, she teams up with Project Justice investigator Billy Cantu, the one man she can′t read.They must track down the truth before someone gets hurt. And to do that, they need to trust each other. Only, the ex-undercover cop has secrets he wants to keep, and to Claudia, not knowing everything is not an option. But some things aren′t meant to be shared. Because once they are revealed, they can never be taken back.