Fearless (2 page)

“Your father would be proud of you,” Haynes interjected. “Especially now that you’ve cleared his name of that child abuse charge.”

“It won’t bring him back,” she said dully. Her eyes narrowed. “But at least they finally found the man who killed him. He’ll never get out now. If he ever goes up before the parole board, I’ll be sitting there with pictures of my father at every hearing for the rest of my life.”

They didn’t doubt it. She was a vengeful woman, in her quiet way.

“Come on,” Marquez coaxed. “You need a rest, anyway. It’s peaceful in Jacobsville.”

“Peaceful,” she nodded. “Right. Last year, there was a shootout in Jacobsville with drug dealers who moved hundreds of kilos of cocaine into the city limits and kidnapped a child. Two years before that, drug lord Manuel Lopez’s men were stormed on his property in Jacobsville in a gun battle where his henchmen had stockpiled bales of marijuana.”

“Nobody’s been shot at for two months,” Marquez assured her.

“What if I’m recognized by any leftover drug smugglers?”

“They won’t be looking for you on a farm. San Antonio is a big city, and you’re one of dozens of assistant district attorneys,” he pointed out. “Your face isn’t that well known even here, and certainly not in Jacobsville. You’ve changed a lot since you went to school there. Even if someone remembers you, it will be for the past, not the present. You’ll be a quiet little woman from San Antonio with health problems watching over several fields of vegetables and fruit, thanks to your friends, the Pendletons.”

He hesitated. “One more thing. You can’t admit that you’re related to them, or even that you know them well. Nobody in Jacobsville, except the police chief, will know what you really do for a living. We’re giving you a cover story that can be checked out by any suspicious people. It’s foolproof.”

“Didn’t they say that about the Titanic’s design?”

“If she goes, I have to go with her,” Haynes said firmly. “She won’t take her medicine if I’m not there pushing it under her nose every day.”

Before Glory could open her mouth, Marquez was shaking his head.

“It’s going to be hard enough to help Glory fit in,” he told Haynes. “If she takes you with her, a gang member who might not recognize you alone might recognize the assistant who goes to court with her most of the time. Most of the gangs deal in drug trafficking.”

Glory grimaced. “He’s right,” she told her assistant sadly. “I’d love for you to go with me, but it’s risky.”

Haynes looked miserable. “I could wear a disguise.”

“No,” Marquez said quietly. “You’re more useful here. If any of the other attorneys find out something about Fuentes, you’re in the perfect position to pass it on to me.”

“I guess you’re right,” Haynes said. She glanced at Glory with a rueful smile. “I’ll have to find a new boss while you’re gone.”

“Jon Blackhawk over at the FBI office is looking for another assistant,” Marquez suggested.

Haynes glared at him. “He’ll never get another one in this town, not after what he did to the last one.”

Marquez was trying to keep a straight face. “I’m sure it was all a terrible misunderstanding.”

Glory let out a chuckle in spite of herself. “Some misunderstanding. His assistant thought he was very attractive and asked him over to her place for dinner. He actually called the police and had her charged with sexual harassment.”

Marquez let out the laugh he’d been holding back. “She was a beautiful blonde with a high IQ and his own mother had recommended her for the job. Blackhawk phoned his mother and told her that his latest assistant had tried to seduce him. His mother asked how. Now she’s outraged over what he did and she won’t speak to him, either. The girl was her best friend’s daughter.”

“He did drop the sexual harassment charge,” Glory pointed out.

“Yes, but she quit just the same and went online to tell every woman in San Antonio what he did to her.” He whistled. “I’ll bet he’ll grow gray hair before he gets a date in this town.”

“Serves him right,” Haynes muttered.

“Oh, it gets worse,” Marquez added with a grin. “Remember Joceline Perry, who works for Garon Grier and one of the other local FBI agents? They gave Jon’s work to her.”

“Oh, dear,” Haynes murmured.

Joceline was something of a local legend among administrative assistants. She was known for her cutting wit and refusal to do work she considered beneath her position. She would drive Jon Blackhawk up the wall on a good day. God only knew what she’d do to him after the other secretary quit.

“Poor guy,” Glory murmured. But she grinned.

Haynes glanced at Glory with a worried look. “What are you going to do on the farm? You wouldn’t dare go out and hoe in the fields, would you?”

“Of course not,” Glory assured her. “I can can.”

“You can what?” Haynes frowned.

“You have heard of canning?” Glory replied. “It’s how you put up fruits and vegetables so that they don’t spoil. I can do jam and jelly and pickles and all sorts of stuff.”

Marquez raised an eyebrow. “My mother used to do it, but her hands aren’t what they used to be. It’s an art.”

“A valuable skill,” Glory said smugly.

“You’ll need to wear jeans and look less elegant,” Marquez told her. “No suits on the farm.”

“I lived in Jacobsville when I was a child,” Glory reminded him with a forced smile, without going into detail. Marquez was old enough to have known about Glory’s ordeal. Of course, a lot of people didn’t, even there. “I can fit in.”

“Then you’ll go?” Marquez persisted.

Glory sat back against the desk. She was outnumbered and outgunned. They were probably right. San Antonio was a big city, but she’d been in the same apartment building for two years and everyone who lived there knew her. She’d be easy to find if someone asked the right questions. If she got herself killed, Fuentes would walk, and more people would be butchered in his insane quest for wealth.

If her doctor was right—and he was a very good doctor—the move right now might save her life, such as it was. She couldn’t admit how frightened she was about his prognosis. Not to anyone. Tough girls like Glory didn’t whine about their burdens.

“What about Jason and Gracie?” she blurted out suddenly.

“Jason’s already hired a small army of bodyguards,” Marquez assured her. “He and Gracie will be fine. It’s you they’re worried about. All of us are worried about you.”

She drew in a long breath. “I guess a bulletproof vest and a Glock wouldn’t convince you to let me stay here?”

“Fuentes has bullets that penetrate body armor, and nobody outside a psycho ward would give you a gun.”

“All right,” she said heavily. “I’ll go. Do I have to ramrod this farm?”

“No, Jason’s put in a manager.” He frowned. “Odd guy. He isn’t from Texas. I don’t know where Jason found him. He’s…” He started to say that the manager was one of the most unpleasant, taciturn people he’d ever met, despite the fact that the farm workers liked him. But it might not be the best time to say it. “He’s very good at managing people,” Marquez said instead.

“As long as he doesn’t try to manage me, I guess it’s okay,” she said.

“He won’t know anything about you, except what Jason tells him,” he assured her. “Jason won’t have told him about why you’re there, and you can’t, either. Apparently the manager’s just had some sort of blow in his life, too, and he’s taken the job to get himself over it.”

“A truck farm,” she murmured.

“I know where there’s an animal shelter,” Marquez replied whimsically. “They need someone to feed the lions.”

She glared at him. “With my luck, they’d try to feed me
to
the lions. No, thanks.”

“This is for your own good,” Marquez said quietly. “You know that.”

She sighed. “Yes, I suppose it is.” She moved away from the desk. “My whole life, I’ve been forced to run away from problems. I’d hoped that this time, at least, I could stand and deliver.”

“Neat phrasing,” Marquez mused. “Would you like to borrow my sword?”

She gave him a keen glance. “Your mother should never have given you that claymore,” she told him. “You’re very lucky that the patrol officer could be convinced to drop the charges.”

He looked affronted. “The guy picked the lock on my apartment door and let himself in. When I woke up, he was packing my new laptop into a book bag for transport!”

“You have a sidearm,” she pointed out.

He glowered at her. “I forgot and left it locked in the pocket of my car that night. But the sword was mounted right over my bed.”

“They say the thief actually jumped out the window when he brandished that huge weapon,” Glory told Haynes, who grinned.

“My apartment is on the ground floor,” Marquez informed them.

“Yes, but you were chasing the thief down the street in your…” She cleared her throat. “Well, you were out of uniform.”

“I got arrested for streaking,” Marquez muttered. “Can you believe that?”

“Of course I can! You were naked!” Glory replied.

“How I sleep has nothing to do with the fact that the guy was robbing me! At least I got him down and immobilized by the time the squad car spotted me.” He shook his head. “I told the arresting officer who I was, and he asked to see my badge.”

Glory put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

“Did you tell him where it was?” Haynes asked.

“I told him where he could put it if he didn’t arrest the burglar.” He moved restlessly. “Anyway, another squad car pulled up behind him, and it was an officer who knew me.”

“A female officer,” Glory told Haynes, with glee.

Marquez’s high cheekbones actually seemed to flush. “The burglar’s tote came in handy,” he murmured. “At least I got to ride back to my apartment. But the story got out from the night shift, and by the next afternoon, I was a minor celebrity.”

“What a pity you didn’t get caught by the squad car’s camera,” Haynes giggled. “They could have featured you on that TV show,
Cops.
”

He glared at her. “I was robbed!”

“Well, he didn’t actually get to keep anything he took, did he?” Haynes asked.

“He fell on my new laptop when I tackled him,” Marquez scoffed. “Trashed the hard drive. I lost all my files.”

“Never heard of backing up with hard copy, I guess?” Glory queried.

“Who expects to have someone break into a cop’s apartment and rob him?”

“He does have a point,” Haynes had to admit.

“I guess so.”

Marquez looked at his watch and grimaced. “I have to be in court this afternoon to testify for a homicide case,” he told them. “I can tell my boss that you’re going to Jacobsville, right?”

She sighed. “Yes. I’ll go tomorrow morning, first thing. Do I need a letter of introduction or anything?”

“No. Jason will let the manager know you’re coming. You can stay in the house on the property.”

She hesitated. “Where is the manager staying?”

“Also in the house.” He held up a hand. “Before you say it, there’s a housekeeper who lives in the house and cooks for the manager.”

That relaxed her, but only a little. She didn’t like strange men, especially at close quarters. She decided that despite the summer heat, she’d pack thick cotton pajamas and a long robe.

J
ACOBSVILLE SEEMED MUCH
smaller than she remembered it. The main street was almost exactly the same as it had been when she lived nearby. There was the pharmacy where her father had gone for medicine. Over there was the café which Barbara, Marquez’s mother, had run for as long as she could remember. There was the hardware store and the feed store and the clothing boutique. It was all the same. Only Glory herself had changed.

As she turned onto the narrow paved road that led to the Pendletons’s truck farm, she began to feel sick at her stomach. She’d forgotten. The house was the same one she’d shared with her mother and father, until her mother’s explosive temper had shattered Glory’s young body and their family. Until now, she hadn’t thought about how difficult it might be, trying to live there again.

The old pecan tree in the front yard was still there. She spotted it before she saw the mailbox beside the narrow paved driveway. Years ago, there had been a tire swing on the tree.

The real surprise was the house. The Pendletons must have spent some money remodeling it, because the old clapboard house of Glory’s youth was now an elegant white Victorian with gingerbread woodwork. There was a long, wide front porch which contained a swing, a settee and several rocking chairs. Far behind the house was a huge steel warehouse where workers were putting boxes of fresh corn and peas and tomatoes and other produce from the large fields on all sides of the house and warehouse. The fields seemed to stretch for miles into the flat distance.

She pulled up in the graveled parking lot under another pecan tree and cut off the engine. Her small sedan contained most of her worldly goods. Except for her furniture, and she hadn’t even considered bringing that along. She was keeping her apartment in San Antonio. The rent was paid up for six months, courtesy of her stepbrother. She wondered when she’d get to go home.

She opened the door and got out, just in time to see a tall, jean-clad man with jet-black hair and a mustache come down the front steps. He had a strong face and an athletic physique. He walked with such elegance that he seemed to glide along. He looked foreign.

He spotted Glory and his taut expression grew even more reserved. He moved toward her with a quick, elegant step. As he came closer, she could see that his eyes were black, like jet, under a jutting brow and dark eyebrows. She had the odd feeling that he was the sort of man you hope you never meet in a dark alley.

He stopped just in front of her, adding up her inexpensive car, her eyeglasses, her windswept blond hair in its tight bun and her modest clothing. If he was measuring, she thought, she’d fallen short.

“May I help you?” he asked coldly.

She leaned heavily on the car door. “I’m the canner.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

She swallowed, hard. He was very tall and he looked half out of humor already. “I can can.”

“We don’t hire exotic dancers,” he shot back.