A Texas Christmas: True Blue / A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel

“Good. Keep me in the loop.”

“I will.” She got up and started for the door.

“Cassaway.”

She turned at the door. “Sir?”

His dark eyes narrowed. He seemed deep in thought. He was. He had a strange sense that she knew something important that she was hiding from him. He read body language very well after his long years in law enforcement. He’d once tripped a bank robber up when he noticed the man’s behavior and deliberately engaged him in conversation. During the conversation, he’d gotten close enough to see the gun the man was holding under his long coat. Rick had quickly subdued him, cuffed him, and taken him in for questioning. The impromptu encounter had solved a whole string of unsolved bank robberies for the cold case unit, and their sergeant, Dave Murphy, had taken Rick out to lunch in appreciation for the help.

“Sir?” Gwen prompted when he didn’t reply.

He sat up straight. His eyes narrowed further as he stared at her. She was almost twitching. “What do you know,” he said softly, “that you aren’t telling me?”

Her face flushed. “No … nothing. I mean, there’s … nothing,” she faltered, and could have bitten her tongue for making things worse.

“You need to think about your priorities,” he said curtly.

She drew in a long breath. “Believe me, I am.”

He grimaced and waved his hand in her direction. “Get to work.”

“Yes, sir.”

She almost ran out of the office. She was flushed and unsettled. Lieutenant Hollister met her in the hall, and frowned.

“What’s up?” he asked gently.

She bit her lip. “Nothing, sir,” she said. She drew in a long breath. She wanted, so badly, to tell somebody what was going on.

Hollister’s black eyes narrowed. “Come into my office for a minute.”

He led her back the way she’d come, past a startled Marquez, who watched the couple go into the lieutenant’s office with an expression that was hard to classify.

“Sit down,” Hollister said. He went behind his desk and swung up his long, powerful legs, propping immaculate black boots on the desk. He crossed his arms and leaned back precariously in his chair. “Talk.”

She shifted restlessly. “I know something about Sergeant Marquez that I’m not supposed to discuss with anybody.”

He lifted a thick blond eyebrow. He even smiled. “I know what it is.”

Her green eyes widened.

“The suits who came to see me earlier in the week were feds,” he said. “I know who you really are, and what’s going on.” He sighed. “I want to tell Marquez, too, but my hands are tied.”

“I went to see Cash Grier,” she said. “He’s out of the loop. He can’t do anything directly, but he might be able to let something slip at Barbara’s Café in Jacobsville. That would at least prepare Sergeant Marquez for what’s about to go down.”

“Nothing can prepare a man for that sort of revelation, believe me.” His eyes narrowed even more. “They want Marquez as a liaison, don’t they?”

She nodded. “He’d be the best man for the job. But he’s going to be very upset at first and he may refuse to do anything.”

“That’s a risk they’re willing to take. They don’t dare interfere directly, not in the current political climate,” he added. “Frankly, I’d just go tell him.”

“Would you?” she asked, and smiled.

He laughed deeply and then he shook his head. “Actually, no, I wouldn’t. I’m too handsome to spend time in prison. There would be riots. I’d be so much in demand as somebody’s significant other.”

She laughed, too. She hadn’t realized he had a sense of humor. Her face flushed. She looked very pretty.

He cocked his head. “You could just ask Marquez to the ballet and tell him yourself.”

“My boss would have me hung in Hogan’s Alley up at the FBI Academy with a placard around my neck as a warning to other loose-lipped agents,” she told him.

He grinned. “I’d come cut you down, Cassaway. I get along well with the feds. But I’m not prejudiced. I also get along with mercenaries.”

“There’s a rumor that you used to be one,” she fished.

His face closed up, although he was still smiling. “How about that?”

She didn’t comment.

He swung his long legs off the desk and stood up. “Let me know how it goes,” he said. He walked her to the door. “It’s not a bad idea, about asking him to the ballet. He loves ballet. He usually goes alone. He can’t get girlfriends.”

“Why not?” she asked. She cleared her throat. “I mean, he’s rather attractive.”

“He wears a gun.”

“So do you,” she pointed out, indicating the holster. “In fact, we all wear them.”

“True, but he likes women who don’t,” he replied. “And they don’t like men who wear guns. He doesn’t date colleagues, he says. But you might be able to change his mind.”

“Fat chance.” She sighed. “He doesn’t like me.”

“Go solve that murder for the cold case unit, and they’ll lobby him for you,” he teased.

“How do you know about that?” she asked, surprised.

“I’m the lieutenant,” he pointed out. “I know everything,” he added smugly.

She laughed. She was still laughing when she walked down the corridor.

Rick heard her from inside his office. He threw a scratch pad across the room and knocked the trash can across the floor with it. Then he grimaced, in case anybody heard and asked what was going on. He couldn’t have told them. He didn’t know himself why he was behaving so out of character.

The man Gwen was tracking in her semiofficial disguise was an unpleasant, slinky individual who had a rap sheet that read like a short story. She’d gone down to Jacobsville and interviewed Officer Dan Travis. He seemed a decent sort of person, and he could swear that the man who was arrested for the murder was at a holiday party with him, and had never even stepped outside. He had told the assistant DA, but the attorney refused to entertain evidence he considered hearsay. Travis gave her the names of two other people she could contact, who would verify the information. She took notes and arranged for a deposition to be taken from him.

Her next stop was Patrol South Division, in San Antonio, to talk to the arresting officer who’d taken Dunagan in for the attempted assault on a college woman a few months ago, Dave Harris. He was working that day, but was working a wreck when she phoned him. So she arranged to meet him for lunch at a nearby fast food joint.

They sat together over hamburgers and fries and soft drinks, attracting attention with his uniform and her pistol and badge, conspicuously displayed.

“We’re being watched,” she said in a dramatic tone, indicating two young women at a nearby booth.