Dangerous

Before Jon could reply, Kilraven walked out the door.

RICK MARQUEZ STILL had his arm in a sling and he was like a man standing on a fire ant hill. “They won’t let me come back to work yet,” he complained to Kilraven. “I can shoot with one hand!”

“You haven’t had to shoot anybody in years,” Kilraven reminded him.

“Well, it’s the point of the thing. I could sit at a desk and answer phones, but oh, no, I have to be at 100 percent before they’ll certify me fit for duty!”

“You can use the free time.”

“Yeah? For what? Watering Mom’s flowers?”

Kilraven was studying the dead bushes at the front porch. “They look dead to me.”

“Not those ones. These ones.” He let Kilraven into the living room, where huge potted plants almost covered every wall.

Kilraven’s eyebrows lifted. “She grows bananas and coffee in the house?” he exclaimed.

“Now how do you recognize coffee plants?” Marquez asked with evident suspicion. “Most people who come in here have to ask what they are.”

“Anybody could recognize a banana plant.”

“Yes, but not a coffee plant.” Rick’s eyes narrowed. “Been around coffee plants somewhere they don’t grow in pots?”

Kilraven grinned. “Let’s just say, I’m not a stranger to them, and leave it at that.”

Rick was thinking that coffee grew in some of the most dangerous places on earth. Kilraven had the look of a man who was familiar with them.

“I know that expression,” Kilraven said blandly, “but I’ve said all I’m going to.”

“I know when I’m licked. Coffee?”

“I’d love some.” He gave Rick a wry glance. “Going to pick the beans fresh?”

Rick gave the red berries a curious look. “I do have a grinder somewhere.”

“Yes, but you have to dry coffee beans and roast them before you can use them.”

“All right, now you’re really making me curious,” Rick told him.

Kilraven didn’t say a word. He just kept walking.

They went into the kitchen where Rick made coffee and Kilraven fetched cups. They drank it at Barbara’s kitchen table, covered by a red checkered cloth with matching curtains at the windows. The room was bright and airy and pretty, like Barbara herself.

“Your mother has good taste,” Kilraven commented. “And she’s a great cook.”

Rick smiled. “Not a bad mother, either,” he chuckled. “I’d probably be sitting in a cell somewhere if she hadn’t adopted me. I was a tough kid.”

“So was I,” Kilraven recalled. “Jon and I kept our parents busy when we were boys. Once, we got drunk at a party, started a brawl and ended up in a holding cell.”

“What did your parents do?”

“My stepmother was all for bailing us out. Our father, however, was an FBI agent,” he added quietly. “He told her that rushing to our defense might make us think we could get away with anything and we might end up in more serious straits. So he left us there for several days and let us sweat it.”

“Ouch,” Rick said, wincing.

“We were a lot less inclined to make trouble after that and I only recall getting drunk and going on a bender once in my adult life.” That had been after he found his wife and child dead, but he didn’t elaborate. “Of course, we were really mad at Dad. But now, looking back at it, I’m sure he did the right thing.”

“Life teaches hard lessons,” Rick agreed.

Kilraven nodded. “And one of those lessons is that we don’t go alone to a meeting with a potential informer. Ever.”

Rick flushed. “First time it ever came down like that,” he said, defending himself.

“There’s always a first time. When I was just a kid, during my first month with San Antonio P.D., one of the detectives went to a covert meeting with a crime boss and ended up in the morgue. He was a friend of my father’s.”

“It does happen. But if we don’t take chances from time to time, we don’t get clues.”

“True enough.”

“Not that I mind the company—I’m going stir crazy down here—but why are you here?”

Kilraven glanced down at the coffee cup. “Two reasons. First, I want to know if you got a look at your attackers.”

“They blindsided me,” Rick said with disgust. “I don’t even know if it was one guy or two. I woke up in the hospital.” He raised his eyebrows. “Second reason?”