Give Him the Slip (31 page)

"Look, last night was wonderful," she finally continued.
She didn't meet his eyes. "It was honestly the most romantic, exciting
night of my life. You ended my two-year sexual drought in a blaze of Bananas
Foster glory, and I will never, ever forget it. But it would be stupid of me to
make a life decision on a sexual high."

Sexual high? Dammit, did she have to always think the exact same
thing he did?

And why did it make him feel so empty? What had he been expecting
her to say? That she might, just might, have deeper feelings for him?

You're a fool, Callahan.

He raked his fingers through his hair and tried to tell himself he
was glad somebody made sense. That it was nice to hear he'd rung her bell—not
that he'd had any doubt about that. That he should be glad he was off the hook.
Yet, he felt damned lousy. How crazy was that? After a night of the absolute
best sex of his life, he felt like his own heart had been chopped into tiny
pieces and auctioned off.

One fact especially stung. "You don't trust me."

"I trust you with my life, Luke. But to trust you with my
heart... to put the little I have left at risk...? Maybe we
could
make
it. You could be the answer to all my prayers and worth giving up my life in
Brazos Bend. But this has all happened so fast. Too fast. I need more time to
be sure, but our time is up, isn't it?"

Unable to deny it, Luke simply shrugged, and after that, there
didn't seem to be much to say. In the end, she was right. It was time for her
to return to her life, and for him to figure out what the hell he was going to
do with his. "You, uh, want a cup of coffee?"

Her smile went bittersweet. "Yes. Let me get it. After all,
you cooked breakfast."

They ate their meal in an awkward silence. Maddie's gaze kept
flicking toward him, then away. Finally, she sipped her orange juice, then
confessed, "I lied to you last night."

He looked up from his plate. "Oh?"

"Last night wasn't the first time I tasted Bananas
Foster."

He set down his fork. "Really."

"I didn't want to spoil your surprise. I had it once in the
French Quarter at Brennan's restaurant."

"Really?" he asked, his mind elsewhere. So she wanted to
shift back into neutral, did she? Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. There'd
been too much, too fast. Both of them needed to coast for awhile.

They each had scars to deal with. Scars of a different kind, but
scars nonetheless. If he could say something— anything—to make a difference,
he'd do it, but there simply wasn't anything left to say.

The reality of that made him downright sad.

Enough. Just stop it. Don't ruin the time you have left.

He wanted to end their "tomorrow" on a good note. He
wanted her to be able to think of him and smile. But how to go about it? Luke
drummed his fingers on the table.

Maddie set down her glass, dabbed daintily at her lips with a
napkin, then slowly, sultrily, licked her lips. "Yes, really. They served
dessert at breakfast."

Good Lord, she'd done the thinking for both of them.
Maddie
Kincaid, you are one special woman.
A smile played on his lips as he asked,
"So, how's your sweet tooth this morning, Red?"

Founded in 1858, Mossman Market remained the premier grocery in
Brazos Bend despite the influx of national chains, so when Maddie said she
wanted to pick up a few personal items before returning to Branch's house, Luke
charted a path to Mossman's. "I'll go in with you," he told her as he
switched off the engine. "The Garza sisters don't stock my brands of junk
food."

Inside the store, Luke grabbed a shopping cart, then proceeded to
trail Maddie around. Spying a fresh stack of Parker County peaches, she veered
into the produce department. They'd made it no farther than the tomatoes before
being reminded of the realities of small-town shopping.

"Luke Callahan," came the crisp, superior-sounding voice
of Miss Mirabelle Fontaine, a recently retired teacher at Fain Elementary.
"While I'm happy to note that you're buying vegetables, I'm disappointed
to see that you've no more common sense than you had as a ten-year-old. Do not
stack the peaches on top of those tomatoes."

"Hello, Miss Fontaine," Luke said. "Yes, Miss
Fontaine."

When she'd passed by, Luke leaned toward Maddie and murmured,
"Fourth grade was the longest year of my life."

In the shampoo aisle, a thirty-something blonde batted her
eyelashes at Sin and recalled the time the underage teen shoplifted a bottle of
Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill on her behalf because the girl simply couldn't
stand the taste of beer.

"You stole a bottle of wine?" Maddie commented as Luke
steered her toward the cookies.

"Strawberry Hill. Nasty stuff. Cost me a night in jail."

"For stealing?"

"Nah. Fighting. Matt and me. He was a wine snob even back
then. Said the least I could have done was swipe her a white zin."

Maddie laughed. Tooling around Mossman's with Luke had a
distinctly domestic feel to it, and despite her better instincts, she couldn't
help but enjoy it. This is what life might have been like had she taken him up
on his offer. Little mundane chores accomplished together. Or maybe, she'd do
the shopping and he'd help with the unloading and putting away. She'd reward
him, of course, for his efforts, and they'd end up atop the kitchen table
with...

Stop. Don't go there. You'll only cause yourself more grief.

They tarried in the baked goods, then moved on to ethnic foods.
Distracted by the selection of hot sauces, Luke failed to pay attention to
where he steered the shopping cart. He ran right into Austin Rawlings.

"Sorry about that," Luke said in answer to the district
attorney's yelp. "I was distracted by the picante. You ever try Mrs.
Renfro's brand?"

Austin ignored his question. "When I saw your car in the
parking lot, I decided to stop. Where the hell have you been?"

"Well." Luke arched a brow. "Looks like somebody
got up on the wrong side of the bed."

Austin gave them both a good once-over, then his lips flattened as
a knowing look entered his eyes. "You should have stolen a couple moments
to check your messages. I've been trying to call you two since yesterday."

"What's wrong?" Maddie asked. "It's not Branch, is
it?"

"No." Austin offered her a quick, reassuring smile.
"We've had a break in the Grevas case and I need to ask you a few
questions."

"What break?" Luke demanded, morphing into all-business
cop mode.

"The Dallas police called yesterday afternoon trying to
retrace the movements of a stiff found at White Rock Lake. Vic's name was
Bartolo. He was muscle for a Dallas-area loan shark with ties to
Louisiana."

"Shreveport?" Luke asked.

"Yes. He had a receipt from the Dairy Princess on the day
Grevas was killed, and his prints matched some we found in Grevas's truck. It's
not positive proof that he was the killer, but the circumstantial evidence is
enough to satisfy me."

Luke shot his words like bullets. "How did he die?"

"Execution-style shot to the head. Body was dumped in a park
at White Rock Lake."

"Huh." Luke absently loaded three varieties of Mrs.
Renfro's hot sauce into Maddie's cart. Maddie could all but see the wheels
turning in his head. "Have the Dallas cops brought in the banker?"

"Yeah. They didn't get anything from him."

Maddie tried to catch up, working to put together the pieces of
information Austin Rawlings had imparted with those that had been hovering on
the edge of her consciousness since the alcohol-and-sex haze had faded from her
brain. "Austin? Let me see if I have this straight. You think this Bartolo
guy killed Jerry Grevas?"

"I don't have definitive proof, but yes, I do."

"And you're surmising that Jerry borrowed money from a loan
shark to cover the gambling debts he ran up in Shreveport." Money he owed
the mob. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul.

"Yes."

"And when he couldn't pay, the loan shark had his minion, Mr.
Bartolo, kill Jerry."

"That's my theory."

"Then why kill the minion? That makes no sense."

Luke tossed a bag of tortilla chips into the basket as Austin
said, "I don't know the answer to that. It's one of the reasons I wanted
to talk to you. Maddie, have you run across anything in Gus's stuff that
strikes you as curious? Anything unusual at all?"

Maddie considered the question. Much of what she'd removed from
Gus's house could be considered unusual. His collection of plastic turtles
certainly fit the bill, but she doubted Austin needed to know about those. She
recalled Gus's gimme caps and his Matchbox cars, but she didn't think...
wait—the box. She recalled how Jerry screeched about needing some box the night
he attacked her. She didn't know anything more about any box now than she had
then and she'd already told the police about Jerry's demands. "No. I can't
think of anything, Austin."

"This Bartolo guy's death ties up the case in a nice pretty
bow, doesn't it?" Luke observed. "No need to keep looking for
Grevas's killer. No need to keep digging here in Brazos Bend."

Something about his manner was a little bit off, Maddie thought.
He'd said it as if he didn't necessarily believe it.

"That's the way I see it," Austin agreed. "So, your
job here is basically done. Maddie is safe. You can leave town."

Maddie startled. Her heart dipped to her knees and she turned a
sharp look toward Luke. He gave Austin Rawlings a tiger's smile and drawled,
"I'll think about it."

Austin looked disgusted with Luke's noncommittal tone. He turned
back to Maddie, asked her a few more questions regarding the mushroom stash. He
promised to call her if he learned anything else from the Dallas police, then
took his leave.

Maddie mulled over Austin's news while she finished her shopping,
shaking her head in amazement at the amount of food Luke loaded into the cart.
She wondered whether the bags would all fit in the sports car's little trunk.

It turned out she'd been right to wonder. Luke arranged then
rearranged the bags in the back of the Maserati, grumbling all the while about
missing his truck. Maddie's musings returned to Austin's comments and she
asked, "You don't think the Fratellis had anything to do with this Bartolo
fellow's death, do you, Luke?"

"As in offering him up to protect Marco's continued forays
into the family business?"

She nodded. "Exactly."

"No." Luke rescued a loaf of bread from certain
squishing by handing it to her. "I made some calls, checked some sources
since I've been in town, and I simply don't believe our Fratellis are involved
in anything more than nickel-and-dime business. No drugs. Certainly no
murder."

He slammed the trunk shut and added, "I couldn't ignore it if
I did, Maddie."

No. He was too much a federal agent to do that. "Do you think
Austin is on the right track? That there was another loan shark involved?"

"It's possible. He had to get the money to pay off the
Fratellis somewhere. My hunch was that he'd already sold at least one crop of
mushrooms and got the money that way, but who knows?"

Maddie stared at a mud splatter on the Maserati's back bumper.
Something about that statement bothered her, too, but she couldn't figure out
quite what it was. "And you think Bartolo's death has nothing to do with
me?"

"Could be. I'd like better proof—especially given your
involvement—but sometimes the bad guys kill each other and save the cops the
trouble. In my experience, drug dealers are always popping each other off, and
the DEA can't necessarily tell who did what to whom when the bullets stop
flying."

"How can we find out if that's the case here?"

"I don't know that we can." Luke rubbed the back of his
neck. "Bottom line, we may never know what happened. Rawlings might be
right on in his deduction. Bartolo could have had loans of his own that got him
offed or he could have run afoul of his boss some way. Hell, an angry husband
could have taken him out. I'm glad Rawlings is confident of his theory, but...
I don't know, Maddie. This news makes me feel better than I did an hour ago;
however, something still smells fishy to me."

Luke's instincts left Maddie uneasy, but before she could comment,
they were treated to yet another show of smalltown reality when one of Branch's
neighbors, Margaret Swan, stopped to comment on the fact that she'd seen Maddie
and Luke depart in the Maserati last night, but the car never came home. "It
was bad enough that you told the whole town on television that you had the hots
for our Maddie, but to flaunt your affair that way... it's not right. You're
still the same irresponsible scalawag you were years ago, aren't you?"