Give Him the Slip (23 page)

Sometime during the past seventeen years, Brandon had lost his
hair. Scooter had gained about fifty pounds, and tall, skinny ol' Bobby had
grown some guns.

Hell, he'd missed these jerks.

Luke sauntered up to the table, plunked down an empty beer mug,
and said, "Buy me a drink, assholes."

Scooter kicked back a chair and nodded toward the pitcher in the
middle of the table. "Sit down and pour your own, Sin. Bobby's fixin' to
tell us about the striper he caught up at the lake this morning."

It was as if seventeen years had never happened.

Bobby told his fish tale—be damned if Luke believed he caught a
twenty-pound striper on a ten-pound line—then Brandon talked about their plans
to attend a gun show in Fort Worth the coming weekend. Only after driving
arrangements were settled did Scooter turn to Luke and say, "Heard about
your TV appearance last night. Leave it to Sin Callahan to disappear for years
and still manage to bag the second-prettiest girl in town."

"Second-prettiest?" Luke asked, taking a sip of his
beer.

"Can't say she's better lookin' than my Laura. Wouldn't be
right."

Laura... Laura... "Laura Wilson?"

"Laura Havens." Scooter tugged his wallet from his
pocket and flipped it open. "We've got us two boys and a girl. I suspect
my Peanut'll be the second-prettiest girl in town before long, but since she's
still cue-ball bald, in all fairness, I can't claim the spot on her
behalf."

Luke stared down at the family portrait, his mouth agog. Scooter reproduced?
Three times? "Damn, Scoot. That's a fine-looking family. It's a crying
shame they couldn't have done better than you, though."

"That's what they tell me." Scooter's smile was smug as
he returned his wallet to his back pocket.

Luke glanced at the other two men. The absence of wedding rings on
their fingers didn't tell him anything, since rings were a hazard in the
factory. "What about y'all? You wearing leg shackles, too?"

"Two years to Penny Fenton," Bobby said. "No rug
rats yet, but we're starting to think about it."

Brandon shook his head. "Not me. I was hitched to Samantha
Parker for a year and a half, but that didn't work out."

"She wanted him to keep his dick in his pants when he was
around other women," Bobby drawled. "Imagine that."

"It's reassuring to know not everything's changed around the
old hometown since I've been gone."

"So where you been all this time, Sin? Whatcha been doin'? I
take it that's your high-dollar ride in the parking lot?"

Luke told them a mix of fact and fantasy intended to promote the
reputation of fast-lane living that he needed to attract the element he
intended to infiltrate. The fact his old friends obviously didn't approve
shouldn't have surprised him or bothered him, but it did. In fact, it left him
darn near speechless when ol' pot-pushing Scooter leaned back in his chair and
said, "Hell, boy. Don't you think it's time you grew up?"

If you only knew, Westridge. If you only knew.

Luke decided to lay his cards on the table, so to speak. "I
gotta say, I'm surprised. I figured there'd be a better-than-even chance that
when I came back to town at least one of y'all would be in jail and the others
cooking up meth or peddling blow. When Maddie told me about Jerry G's trailer
house full of magic mushrooms, I figured he was probably growing 'em for
Brandon."

The three men shared a guilty glance.
Bingo,
Luke thought.

Bobby looked downright miserable. "I might as well have
killed the guy myself."

Luke leaned forward. "You in business with him, Bob?"

"Hell, no." Bobby Hargett shot him a mean look.
"This isn't high school, Callahan. I'm no goddamned drug pusher or a
sorry-ass user, so if you came here looking to score some of that shit off me
you're a goddamned loser and you can just take your gay gold chains and fancy
cars back to wherever the hell you came from and leave us the hell alone."

Luke drew back, his palms out. "Whoa, there. Your mama never
did get you to clean up your mouth, did she? I didn't mean to hit a hot button.
It was just a question. I've been gone a long time. I don't know what all
you've been doing in the meantime, and you have to admit, the comment about
killing him was a curious one."

Scooter drained his mug, then plunked it down hard onto the wooden
table. "Had nothing to do with drugs. We stopped messing with those ten
years ago."

"It was gambling," Brandon said quietly. "A few of
us started taking road trips to the riverboats in Shreveport awhile back. Jerry
came along with us once."

"He was helping me with my taxes," Bobby confessed.
"I invited him."

"He got hooked." Scooter rubbed the back of his neck and
grimaced. "Got to be a real sickness with him. Apparently, it got him in
some trouble."

"He told me a couple weeks ago that he owed some nasty people
a whole lot of money." Bobby shoved back his chair and stood. "I'm
whipped. I'm headed home. Good to see you, Sin."

Luke watched the others watch him leave, then casually observed,
"Bobby always did feel responsible for stuff that wasn't his fault."

Brandon nodded. "He doesn't need to be working at the plant.
Man should quit fighting the call and be the preacher he was meant to be."

Luke had never thought about Bobby Hargett that way, but now that
Brandon had brought the idea up, he couldn't disagree. "Y'all think Jerry
got taken out on a hit?"

"I'll bet Cowboys-Redskins tickets that he was growing those
mushrooms to pay the bastards off."

"Cops know about this?"

Both his old friends shook their heads. "Nah," Brandon
said. "We may have grown up, but Chief Harper hasn't. Old bastard still
gives me grief every chance he gets. I'm not about to help him do his job.
Grevas was bound to get it sooner or later, Sin. When you owe bad guys money,
they collect." He paused, sipped his beer, then added, "Besides,
since Gus is gone, it's not like it matters to anybody else why Jerry Grevas
died."

"Well, now, that's not quite true. It matters to Maddie
Kincaid. She's the one who ditched the mushrooms. It'd be nice to know that
whoever offed Grevas won't come gunning for her next. If he had partners, they
might look her way for some payback. I can't leave until I know she's not part
of the collection process."

Scooter and Brandon shared a long look, then Brandon reached for
his wallet and turned over a twenty-dollar bill to his friend, saying,
"You were right."

"Of course I was right." Scooter pocketed the money.

Luke sensed he'd been had about something. "Right about
what?"

"That you wouldn't have changed. I knew from the minute I
heard what you said to Joe Brown last night on TV that you wouldn't leave it
alone. Especially factoring in the hot redhead. I halfway expected you to show
up at the plant asking your questions. Two things about you, Callahan."
Scooter ticked them off on his fingers. "You never could leave a puzzle
alone, and you have a streak of white knight about you as wide as the Brazos at
flood stage."

"The hell you say." Luke sat back in his chair hard.

"What have you really been doing all these years, Sin?"
Brandon asked. "Are you military? That's my guess."

Son of a bitch.
"Now, why in the world
would you think something like that?"

"Mark's military, isn't he? Mrs. McConnell spotted him
getting off the subway in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon stop. Said he was
all dressed up in a uniform with lots of ribbons on it. She knew it wasn't you
because he was chatting up some woman and he laughed. Mrs. McConnell knows his
laugh. Anyway, I don't for a second think that your dad kept y'all apart like
he said, and since Mark's your twin, since he's military, it makes sense that
you would be, too."

"I don't think you're military," Scooter said. "I
think you're a cop."

"You guys are a few melons shy of a bushel, aren't you?"
Luke couldn't believe they'd pegged him so fast. Hell, he'd worked undercover
in some of the ugliest neighborhoods, bars, and barrios for years and nobody
saw through his cover. Why this pair, who hadn't seen him in seventeen freakin'
years?

"We know you," Scooter said, answering his unasked
question. "People don't change their bones."

"But I was a hell-raising badass son of a bitch!"

"Not until your mother died," Brandon allowed. "By
then, you were already cemented."

"My father sure as hell didn't think so."

"He didn't know you. We did. Nah. You're here either to trace
the drugs, catch the killer, or protect Marvelous Maddie. But what I really
want to know, Sin, what we're all curious about, is this. Is it just part of
the story, or are you really sleeping with the delectable Ms. Kincaid?"

Luke stared at the men sharing the table with him, noted the
prurient interest in their eyes and the leering grins on their faces. "You
fellas are something else, you know that? You may be 'grown up' with jobs and
wives—"

"Ex-wives," Brandon put in.

"—and responsibilities, but you're still the immature a-holes
you used to be. Are you sure you graduated high school?"

Scooter said to Brandon, "He hasn't bagged her yet. I'll take
back that twenty."

Luke's chair scraped against the floor as he rose. He tossed a ten
on the table for the beer and said, "Think I'll call it a night. See you
around, boys."

Their laughter followed him out and Luke couldn't help but grin a
bit. Coming home wasn't all bad, after all.

He whistled the old Brazos Bend High fight song as he headed for
his car, but the tune died as he noticed the folded paper slipped beneath the
driver's-side windshield wiper of his Maserati. He slipped the paper into his
pocket without reading it, then started the car. His tires crunched on gravel
as he pulled out of the P-2 parking lot and turned toward what once had been
home.

He kept careful watch on his rearview mirror and only after he
determined that he wasn't being followed did he pull over beneath a streetlight
and open the note. He recognized Bobby Hargett's handwriting:
Fratelli's.

Luke made the connection. Fratelli's restaurant. Marco Fratelli.
The bookie they'd used in high school. Originally from Jersey.

"Jesus, Jerry. Not too smart getting in debt to the
mob."

Maddie awoke and for the first time in days climbed from her bed
without groaning, moaning, or whining. Encouraged, she padded into the bathroom
and stripped off her nightshirt, then stood before the full-length mirror to
take inventory.

A little black, a bit of blue, a little more green, and plenty of
yellow. Definitely not her best, but acceptable.

She twisted her torso. Touched her toes. Lifted her arms above her
head and stretched. "Not bad," she murmured. "Definitely
doable."

Man, was she doable.

She'd been thinking of this fling for days now. Having decided to
go through with it and lounging around with little to do but think, she'd spent
way too much time wondering how sex would be with Luke Callahan. Where would he
take her? Would he be gentle or rough or a little of both? Would he make her
laugh, make her sigh, make her scream?

She wouldn't mind screaming. It'd been a long time since she'd had
a good scream.

She knew he'd be good. Men like him always were. She already knew
he could kiss like a million bucks. It didn't make sense that he'd fall short
in the rest of it.

Not that anything about him suggested short.

Maddie closed her eyes and gave her head a quick shake when doubts
started to filter in. A part of her recognized that she was focusing on sex and
Sin in order to avoid thinking, about murder. About danger. About whether or
not whoever killed Jerry Grevas also held a grudge against her.

Luke had some theories in that respect. He'd spent the last few
nights haunting the bars in town for information about the local drug supply
while Maddie stayed at Callahan House fretting about his safety. Not his
physical safety—she had complete confidence in his abilities. No, Maddie
worried about his legal status. Luke didn't have his badge anymore. What if
Chief Harper raided wherever he was? The man was granite-headed where Luke was
concerned. He'd never bend the rules, and Luke could end up at the Woodman unit
just like Maddie had!

Well, not really, since the Woodman unit was women only and Luke
would be smart enough and connected enough to get out of trouble, but it would
take time and energy to solve. Time and energy he could better spend with...

No,
warned her Wicked Inner Wanton.
Don't go there. There's no
future there. That way lies heartbreak, and haven't you had enough of that from
the men in your life? It's a fling, Maddie. No-strings sex. Getting your bell
rung. Your chassis lubed. Do not try to make it anything more!

In fact, it might not be anything at all. Maybe she and Luke
simply weren't meant to be. Maybe they'd missed their chance. After all, she
wasn't by nature a needy woman. She preferred standing on her own two feet to
depending on others, especially when "others" had a Y chromosome.
History had taught her the value of that. Now that she felt better, she didn't
feel so... needy.