Don't Mess With Texas (18 page)

Dallas remembered Nikki at the same time Austin squeezed the horn again. Snagging the horn from Austin’s hand, Dallas tossed it across the room. “Stop it! Nikki’s asleep.”

Bud bolted after the horn and caught it, sending out loud short blasts of noise.

“Shit!” Dallas started chasing Bud, Austin started chasing him, and Tyler stood there laughing. Finally, Dallas caught the dog, retrieved the horn and glared at his two partners.

“Who’s Nikki?” Austin asked, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Nikki Hunt, right?” Tyler asked.

Dallas nodded, ran a hand through his hair, and looked at the wall clock. It was eight thirty. He’d gotten less than two hours sleep. Damn it, but he was going to have to buy a sofa he could actually lay on. Bud, still in a playful frenzy, ran to the kitchen and pawed at the door. Having to piss himself, Dallas commiserated with his dog, and let him out.

“Who’s Nikki?” repeated Austin.

Tyler chuckled. “The artist with size C breasts.”

Austin looked down the hall with interest before turning back to Dallas. “You bring her home with you and you sleep on the couch? What’s up with that? Does that mean she’s free range? I mean, I’d rather have the stripper, but—”

Dallas pointed to the door. “You know better than to piss me off before I have my coffee.”

Austin chuckled but he wasn’t as stupid as he pretended to be, so he started out. Tyler, probably smarter than he and Austin put together, stayed at the door. “Your brother’s called twice. And your dad called and said to remember what’s coming up next week.”

“Thanks.” Dallas grabbed his cell off the coffee table. He’d turned it off, afraid Tony would be trying to find Nikki when he got to her apartment. And yup, two missed calls from Tony. One from his dad.

Looking down the hall that led to his bedroom, he considered it a miracle she wasn’t awake.

“I made coffee in the office.” Tyler still stood in the doorway. “I guess you’ll fill us in as to why you brought her home with you, huh?”

You mean besides the fact that she’s hot and makes me want to protect her from everything wrong in the world?
Two images flashed in Dallas’s head: one of her wearing that tight little tank top, still wet from the shower, and one of her at six years old, looking frightened as she stood beside her grandmother. One image made him want her. The other made him want to protect her.

Damn, he was so gone where Nikki was concerned. And maybe it was the lack of coffee, but right now he didn’t want to fight what he felt. He recalled what he’d told her at her place,
How about we take it a day at a time?
At the time, he’d been joking, but now it sounded like a damn good plan.

He looked down the hall again. Had she slept better than he did? Between his unrelenting hard-on and the damn sofa springs, he’d barely closed his eyes.

He glanced back at Tyler, who was probably accurately reading every one of Dallas’s internal thoughts. On top of a criminal justice degree, his partner had a degree in psychology.

Dallas sighed. “Give me a minute and I’ll be in.”

“Okay.” Tyler started out the door.

“Tyler?” When Tyler turned around, Dallas asked, “Do I do something weird to my face when I lie?”

Tyler grinned. “You mean your brow thing?”

“Why the hell haven’t you told me?”

“Because only the most observant person would notice. And I knew it would give you a complex.” Tyler’s gaze shifted to the hall that led to the bedroom. “She’s an artist, so part of her job is to notice details. It makes sense she’d notice.”

“You should have said something,” Dallas muttered
and then said, “I’ll be out in a few minutes.” He ran a hand over his face. “I need to call Tony before he shows up on my doorstep with guns blaring.”

“Too late.” Tony’s voice boomed from down the hall. “And the guns are loaded.”

Tyler knew better than to come between two brothers talking about guns, so he went back to the office. Dallas watched his partner escape and hoped he knew to keep Austin cornered in the office. All Dallas needed was for Austin and Tony to get into it over last night.

Tony appeared in the doorway, looking as angry as he’d sounded. “We need to talk. You didn’t answer my calls. I don’t know if anything was taken from Nikki Hunt’s apartment. And I’m only going to say this once: If you or one of your guys come sniffing around another of my crime scenes, I swear to God, I’ll have your asses thrown in jail!”

Dallas groaned. He’d expected this much or more, but not before coffee. He moved to the door, hoping to stop Tony from coming inside his apartment. “Can you wait in the conference room? I’d like to take a piss and get some coffee, before you chew my ass out.”

Tony frowned. “Why don’t I chat with Nikki while you piss?”

“Why don’t you let her sleep a few more hours?” His tone went deeper, implying it wasn’t a request.

From the harsh lines on Tony’s face and the wrinkled shirt he wore—the same one he’d been wearing last night—Dallas surmised Tony hadn’t gone to bed. Just dealing with Tony was hard; dealing with a sleep-deprived Tony was like juggling sharp glass.

Not that Dallas was exactly a pushover himself, and
he didn’t plan to back down, but… he needed coffee and a piss first. “She didn’t get to bed until after four. Give her a couple of hours. Hell, go home and get some sleep yourself. I’ll personally see that she gets to your office later.”

His brother’s scowl deepened. “Take your piss. I’ll wait in your conference room.”

Five minutes later, relieved, teeth brushed, and ready to get his ass chewed out—not that he didn’t plan to chew back—Dallas walked into the conference room. He set two cups of coffee on the big mahogany table and pushed one across the top to his brother.

Tony, on the phone, nodded his thanks and pulled the cup toward his lips. “Tell them I just need five minutes. Damn it, get the doctor to okay it.”

Did Tony mean Ellen Wise? Dallas sipped his coffee, grabbed a
Sports Illustrated
magazine from the table, flipped through the pages and feigned disinterest in the conversation. He wondered if his eyebrows went up when he did that, too.

“Did you get a confirmation from Brian and Sterns?” Tony asked the person on the line.

Dallas’s interest was piqued even higher when he heard the name of the firm where Nikki’s husband had worked.

Tony’s frowned deepened. “I don’t give a damn. You tell them I’ll be there at two o’clock and somebody better be there to talk to me or the next court appearance they’ll be making will be their own.” He hung up and eyed Dallas with the same mood he’d offered the caller.

“What do you know?” Tony asked.

“What do
you
know?” Dallas countered.

“Don’t fuck with me.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not my type.”

“I could go wake her up right now,” Tony threatened.

Dallas almost got pissed, but then stopped himself. Knowing when to toss in the towel wasn’t a sign of weakness, but intelligence. So he tossed it and hoped he got something for his trouble. “She didn’t notice anything that was taken from her place.”

“You believe her?”

“One hundred percent,” Dallas said, meaning it.

Tony looked as if he knew something Dallas didn’t, so he just waited for Tony to continue. Taking another sip of his coffee, Tony finally spoke, “It looked like a computer had been hooked up to the desk top, but it isn’t there now. Did she bring it with her?”

Dallas shook his head. “I asked about the computer. She sold it a couple of weeks ago.”

Tony leaned in. “That doesn’t sound fishy to you?”

“Not when she’d already confessed to having money issues.”

“So maybe she was doing something on the side to make a little cash. Drugs?”

“Christ, Tony. Does she look like a drug dealer?”

“Have you forgotten that the first thing they taught you at the academy was not to go on stereotypes?”

“It’s not just how she looks. It’s… my instincts.”

“And like I said earlier, your instincts are being overrun by your dick. You’re so hot for her you can’t see how bad this looks. Hell, Rick Clark told me you bet on her guilt.”

Dallas flinched. “So there’s your proof. I see how bad this looks. But when I looked closer, I realized the truth. Why the hell do you think I’m representing her?
For Christ’s sake, she’s not the type of woman I want to get involved with, but I can’t stop myself.” He gut knotted when he admitted that truth. “Look, I know she’s not guilty.”

“We’re cops. We’re supposed to look at the evidence.”

Dallas leaned in. “I
was
a cop. Look where the evidence got me. Or did you even look at the evidence in my case? My guess is that you didn’t. You
knew
I was innocent.”

“You’re my brother.”

“And I was innocent. But the evidence didn’t prove that.”

Tony shook his head. “Damn, you’re right. You can’t be a cop again. You’ll never be able to let the evidence speak for itself.”

“Good thing I don’t want the job then,” Dallas said. “And I still look at the evidence—I just know the evidence can lie.”

Tony slumped back in his chair. “You, Austin, and Tyler were framed. Most people who look guilty are guilty.”

“Yeah, we were framed. But Nikki’s not being framed and she’s a suspect. My other client, Eddie Nance, isn’t being framed unless you blame Detective Shane for setting him up, and look what he’s up against.”

“No one is setting anyone up,” Tony said.

The silence was heavy. Dallas wanted to ask about what happened between Tony and Shane, but he figured that would send Tony over the edge. Before he sent his brother there, he wanted more information about Nikki’s case.

Tony picked up the coffee, sipped, and apparently
decided to clear the thick air with a change of conversation. “Did you mention Ellen’s phone call to Jack to Nikki?”

“Yeah. She wouldn’t even entertain the idea that Ellen was up to something with her ex.” Dallas studied his brother’s expression. Dallas’s gut said Tony knew something else.

“What you got?” When Tony didn’t answer, Dallas went for another question. “Have you talked to Ellen Wise yet?” Because he’d heard Tony’s phone conversation, Dallas didn’t think Tony had, but…

Contrary to what Dallas believed, Tony nodded. “Doctors let me see her at six this morning.”

So who was it that Tony was going to see in a couple of hours? Was it about the robbery and shooting at the convenience store? If so, maybe a witness could help Nance. He stored that information to chew on later.

“And what did you learn?” When Tony didn’t answer, Dallas decided to push. “Damn it, Tony, if you can’t share anything, why the hell should I share with you?”

“Ellen didn’t see the attacker,” Tony offered. “She only remembers seeing someone in a ski mask. Bigger and taller than she was. But when I asked her if she knew of anyone who would want to hurt her, she said the only person she’d managed to piss off lately was Jack Leon.”

“So she admitted to knowing him?” The thought of how Nikki was going to feel clouded his excitement at discovering something new.

“No,” Tony added. “She said Leon had been calling Nikki at the gallery and sending flowers.”

“Nikki told me that.” She hadn’t told him everything, but Tony didn’t need to know that. And as soon as she
woke up, Dallas planned to have a chat. He needed more information if he was going to do this job right.

“Ellen said Leon’s last message sent her over the edge. She said Nikki was just getting over the jerk. So Ellen called Jack back and told him to stay the hell away from Nikki. Ellen said Jack got ugly, called her a bitch, and told her to get her nose out of his business. When he hung up on her, she called him back.”

“Which explains the two phone calls,” Dallas said.

“Yeah,” Tony admitted. “So we’re back to square one. We got fingerprints at Nikki’s place and the gallery, but who knows if they belong to the perp? Other than a vague description of Wise’s attacker, we’ve got nothing. We don’t even know if the two crimes are connected.”

Dallas set his cup on the table a little hard. “Oh, hell, they have to be.”

“I know.” Tony held up his hand. “It’s coincidental otherwise, but…” He raked his hand over his face. “I keep thinking we’re missing something. Something obvious. Something Nikki Hunt isn’t telling us.”

“We’re probably missing something, but she’s not hiding anything.” He remembered the look in her eyes when she stared at the snapshot of her and her grandmother. “She’s an open book, Tony. She’s like Mom was. Remember how we could read her? Whatever she was feeling showed in her eyes.” The words hadn’t left his mouth when he recalled the sadness that played in his mother’s eyes when she’d visited him in prison. His gut twisted as he realized how upset she’d been about him during her last year of life.

Tony chuckled. “You knew your ass was grass before she opened her mouth.” He pulled his coffee to his lips and sipped. “Damn, I miss her.”

“Me, too.” Dallas sipped his own coffee and realized this was the first time they’d talked about their mom since he’d been out of prison. Probably because it hurt too much. Just losing his mom to cancer was hard. Losing her while he’d been unjustly put behind bars was hell. And while his mom had never questioned his innocence, she died not knowing he’d been cleared. How unfair was it that the last year of her life, when she’d been almost too sick to do it, she’d visited him once a week? For that reason alone, Dallas wanted to be the one to put a gun against the forehead of the man responsible for framing him, and Dallas personally wanted to pull the trigger.