True Blue & Carrera's Bride: True Blue / Carrera's Bride

“I have a file on him,” she said. “He likes strawberry ice cream, his favorite musical star is Marco Antonio Solís, he wears size 12 shoes and he plays classical guitar. Oh, he was an entertainer on a cruise ship in his youth.”

“I did know about that. Not his shoe size,” he added with twinkling dark eyes.

“He’s never been romantically linked with any particular woman,” she continued. “Although he was good friends with an American anthropologist who went to live in his country. She’d found an ancient site that was revolutionary and she was involved in a dig there. Apparently, there are some interesting ruins in Barrera.”

“What happened to her?”

“Nobody knows. We couldn’t even ascertain her name. What I was able to ferret out was only gossip.”

He folded his hands on his desk. “So, you’re a fed, I’m one detective short and you’re supposed to be heading a murder investigation for me,” he said curtly. “What do I do about that?”

“I’ve been working on it,” she protested. “I’m making progress, too. As soon as we get the DNA profile back, I may be able to make an arrest in the college freshman’s murder, and solve a cold case involving another dead coed. I have lots of information to go on, now, including eyewitness testimony that can place the suspect at the murdered woman’s apartment just before she was killed.”

He sat up. “Nice!”

“Thank you. I have an appointment to talk to her best friend, also, the one who took the photo that the suspect showed up in. She gave a statement to the crime scene detective that the victim had complained about visits from a man who made her uneasy.”

“They’ll let you continue to work on my case, even though you’re a fed?”

“Until something happens in the general’s case,” she said. “I’m keeping up appearances.”

“You slipped through the cracks,” he translated.

She laughed. “Thanksgiving is just over the horizon and my boss gets a lot of business done in D.C. going from one party to another with his wife.”

“I see.”

“When is Mrs. Pendleton going to talk to the general, did the DEA agent say?”

He shook his head. “It’s only a work in progress right now.” He leaned back in his chair. “I thought my father was dead. My mother told me he was killed when I was just a baby. I didn’t realize I had a father who never even knew I was on the way.”

“He loves children,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but I’m not a child.”

“I noticed.”

He glared at her.

She flushed and averted her eyes.

He felt guilty. “Sorry. I’m not dealing with this well.”

“I can understand that,” she replied. “I know it must be hard for you.”

She had a nice voice, he thought. Soft and medium in pitch, and she colored it in pastels with emotion. He liked her voice. Her choice of T-shirts, however, left a lot to be desired. She had on one today that read Save a Turkey, Eat a Horse for Thanksgiving. He burst out laughing.

“Do you have an open line to a T-shirt manufacturer?” he asked.

“What? Oh!” She glanced down at her shirt. “Well, sort of. There’s this online place that lets you make your own T-shirts. I do a lot of business with them, designing my own.”

Now he understood her quirky wardrobe.

“Drives my boss nuts,” she added with a grin. “He thinks I’m not dignified enough on the job.”

“I’m sure you have casual days, even in D.C.”

“I don’t work in D.C.,” she said. “I get sent wherever I’m needed. I live out of a suitcase mostly.” She smiled wanly. “It’s not much of a life. I loved it when I was younger, but I’d really love to have someplace permanent.”

“You could get a job in a local office.”

“I guess.” She shrugged. “Meanwhile, I’ve got one right here. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was at first,” she added. “I would have liked to be honest.”

He sensed that. He grimaced. “It’s hard for me, too, trying to understand the past. My mother, my adopted mother,” he said, just to clarify the point, “said that the general was only fourteen when he fathered me. I’ll be thirty-one this year, in late December. That would make him—” he stopped and thought “—forty-five.” His eyebrows arched. “That’s not a great age for a dictator.”

She laughed. “He was forty-one when he became president of Barrera,” she said. “In those four years, he did a world of good for his country. His adopted country.”

“Yes, well, he’s wanted in this country for kidnapping,” he reminded her.

“Good luck trying to get him extradited,” she cautioned. “First the Mexican authorities would have to actually apprehend him, and he’s got a huge complex in northern Sonora. One report is that he even has a howitzer.”

“True story,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Pancho Villa, who fought in the Mexican Revolution, was a folk hero in Mexico at the turn of the twentieth century. John Reed, a Harvard graduate and journalist, actually lived with him for several months.”

“And wrote articles about his adventures there. They made them into a book,” she said, shocking him. “I had to buy it from a rare book shop. It’s one of my treasures.”

Chapter 6

“I’ve read that book,” Rick said with a slow smile. “Insurgent Mexico. I couldn’t afford to buy it, unfortunately, so I got it on loan from the library. It was published in 1914. A rare book, indeed.”

She shifted uncomfortably. She hadn’t meant to let that bit slip. She was still keeping secrets from him. She shouldn’t have been able to afford the book on her government salary. Her father had given it to her last Christmas. That was another secret she was keeping, too; her father’s identity.

“And would you know Pancho Villa’s real name?” he asked suddenly.

She grinned. “He was born Doroteo Arango,” she said. The smile faded a little. “He changed his name to Pancho Villa, according to one source, because he was hunted by the authorities for killing a man who raped his younger sister. It put him on a path of lawlessness, but he fought all his life for a Mexico that was free of foreign oppression and a government that worked for the poor.”

He smiled with pure delight. “You read Mexican history,” he mused, still surprised.

“Well, yes, but the best of it is in Spanish, so I studied very hard to learn to read it,” she confessed. She flushed. “I like the colonial histories, written by priests in the sixteenth century who sailed with the conquistadores.”

“Spanish colonial history,” he said.

She smiled. “I also like to read about Juan Belmonte and Manolete.”

His eyebrows arched. “Bullfighters?” he exclaimed.

“Well, yes,” she said. “Not the modern ones. I don’t know anything about those. I found this book on Juan Belmonte, his biography. I was so fascinated by it that I started reading about Joselito and the others who fought bulls in Spain at the beginning of the twentieth century. They were so brave. Nothing but a cape and courage, facing a bull that was twice their size, all muscle and with horns so sharp…” She cleared her throat. “It’s not PC to talk about it, I know.”

“Yes, we mustn’t mention blood sports,” he joked. “The old bullfighters were like soldiers who fought in the world wars—tough and courageous. I like World War II history, particularly the North African theater of war.”