Fierce Defender: Book 2, Hard to Handle trilogy (4 page)

“Hey, sweetie,” her friend said, “I’m sorry to call so early, but I need a huge favor.”

“Sure,” she told Trish. She owed Trish and Tyler a lot for the fresh start they had given her. “What can I do for you?”

“Tyler had a few too many last night and left the car down at the bar. Mitch and Flynn put him into a cab. I can take one back to get it before I have to leave for work this morning, if you’re in a rush, but I was hoping…”

“Of course I’ll take you by to get it. It’s not out of the way.”

“You’re a sweetheart. It’s way out of the way, but I love you for not mentioning it.”

Dreaming of hot coffee as she drove, Eva had taken her friend into town to pick up the car. They found it right where Tyler had left it, covered in a fine coating of Texas dust.

Sensing something was wrong, before Trish got out, Eva asked her, “Is everything okay with you and Tyler?”

“Sure, why?” Trish asked. It was weird, but her friend’s “Why?” almost sounded like “What do you know?”

“No reason,” Eva replied. “It’s just that Tyler doesn’t often go out on a weeknight, and even less often without you…”

Trish’s eyes brimmed with tears as she admitted, “We had a fight. I’m sure everything will be fine. He’s just been a little distant lately.”

“Oh, honey,” Eva said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“It’s okay,” Trish told her. “It’s not your fault. I’ve been crying about everything lately. I think maybe that’s what’s pushing him away. He’s afraid to say anything in fear it might bring on a bad mood and a torrent of tears. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“You want to have lunch today? We can talk. I’m off at one-thirty, but if you have your lunch earlier, I’m sure Cheryl wouldn’t mind if I left for a while.”

Trish nodded and wiped her tears. “That would be nice. I can do one-thirty. You want to meet me at the Wendy’s down from the school?”

“I’ll be there,” Eva promised her.

After she waited for Trish to get in her car and start it up, she headed to work. The drive from Sutherland Springs to Stockdale was short, but she was running late. It didn’t matter. She was glad that she had been there for Trish. It made Eva sad to hear that she and Tyler were having problems. They were the couple who had restored her faith in love. She had even restarted her novel, and the love story she was writing was loosely based on their close relationship.

But now Eva was at work. While Cheryl kneaded out the dough to make the morning’s delectable creations, she talked non-stop, telling Eva the newest rumors that were flying around town. Eva nodded and said, “Mm hmm,” in all the appropriate places, and was even mildly interested at a few points. Cheryl was still talking a few minutes after six when Eva turned the sign in the window to “Open” and unlocked the front door of the bakery. Almost immediately, the bells on the door jangled, and Eva turned to see her brother Hank come in the door.

“Hank!” she cried, going over to give him a hug. She was happy to see him, although surprised.

“Hi, Evie. How are you?” he said.

Eva held him back at arm’s length to have a look. He seemed healthy, and he even had a little suntan across his face.

“I’m great, Hank. Surprised to see you, though. How are you? What are you doing here?”

Hank laughed. “One question at a time, sis. I’m good, better than I’ve been in a long time. I’m here to see you, and meet with Grayson later today.”

Eva led him over to the counter and said, “Sit, I’ll get you some coffee.”

Cheryl waved at him from the back, and Hank waved back. He seemed embarrassed to see her again, no doubt after the way he had acted in the past. At least she was smiling at him and didn’t look like she had held a grudge.

Glad she had already filled the pot, Eva set a cup in front of him and poured. “You want a muffin or something?” she asked when his cup was full.

“No thanks, Eva. I need to talk to you about something.”

“Oh no,” she said with a grin.

“It’s not bad, well, not compared to what I was mixed up in before. Grayson said that he got approval to put me in Witness Protection. That’s what he wants to talk to me about today.”

“That’s good,” Eva reckoned. Looking at her brother’s face, however, she could tell that he didn’t feel the same. “Why is that not good, Hank?” she asked.

“Evie, you know I don’t do well on my own. I don’t have a knack for making friends, and I’m not even very good at getting a date. We both know my horrible track record when it comes to relationships. I don’t want to be sent off to a strange city, probably in another state, and be all alone, Evie. I don’t want to go. I want to be here, close to you.”

Eva put the coffee pot away and came back over to her brother. “Oh, Hank. I know that it’s a scary prospect, starting over. But new beginnings aren’t all bad. I came here looking for one, and look how happy I am. I have great new friends and a new relationship.” Cheryl, who was clearly straining to hear their conversation, cleared her throat. Eva added, “And I have the best job and the greatest boss in the world.”

Hank looked up at Cheryl and smiled. Then he said, “I’m happy for you, Evie. But we both know that I’m not like you. I don’t make friends like you do. I’m afraid of being completely alone.”

Eva put her arm around her brother. “How about I talk to Grayson with you? Maybe we can figure something out that’s not so lonely for you.”

Hank nodded. “Okay, I’m willing to talk to him. But I wanted to warn you that I might just back out.”

Eva sighed. “Fair enough,” she said.

******

Brownsville, Texas

DEA Field Office

Tuesday Morning, 8:00 A.M.

Gray and Freeman were sitting in the field office waiting for the arrival of Special Agent in Charge Gomez and Supervising Special Agent Lewis and the director of the DEA. They were meeting at the Brownsville Field Office under the cover of secrecy. It tore Gray apart that it was all happening because of Samuel.

The previous day, Gray had reported to his supervisors what Barry had told him. They had all taken note of Sam’s phone call just after the meeting had ended. Gray had asked Sam who he had to call in such a rush, and he’d told him some bull about forgetting to remind Tammy to pick up one of his suits at the cleaners. The bosses told Gray and Freeman to go ahead to Brownsville, and they would meet them there with the director the next day, after they saw how the raid on the house that Sanchez had gone to went. Gray and Freeman had arrived in Brownsville the previous afternoon.

Gray tried not to dwell on what he had done. If he was right about Sam, he had no choice but to take action. As a snitch, Sam was putting the lives of his Brothers in Arms at risk every day. If Gray was wrong, however, he would feel like hell as they tore his friend’s life apart, trying to find something to connect him to Heston. But as sick as it made him, he was sure that he wasn’t wrong.

He told himself that, for the time being, he would stick to trying to find out what the Brownsville agents knew about Gilberto Sanchez and what he had been doing in Texas this past weekend. The agent they had spoken with on Monday, a good friend of Freeman’s named John Greene, told them that his informant had reported Sanchez was there for “business” but claimed that he didn’t know who the old man was meeting with.

The informant was a “sometimes” driver for Sanchez, when his regular driver was unavailable. He told Greene he had driven Sanchez to a ramshackle house on the south side of town. He said there were three “brainless-looking apes” in the front yard, and the old man had just barreled through, as if they weren’t there, and gone up to the front door. He stood there banging on it as the apes looked on, and finally it was answered by a hot little “señorita” in a short black robe. Sanchez went inside for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then one of the apes removed the two suitcases that Sanchez had loaded into the trunk of the car and took them inside. Sanchez came out, and the driver had then taken him to Brownsville Massage and waited another forty-five minutes for the old man to come out. He then drove him home to Matamoros.

“How does he just jump back and forth across the border like that?” Gray had asked Greene. “Is he a U.S. citizen?”

“No,” Greene said. “The driver says that the border patrol agent looked at whatever the old man handed him and flagged them on through. On his way back, after he’d dropped off the old man, the same agent tore the car apart searching it and hassled him almost to the point of a strip search. The driver is a U.S. citizen.”

“Hmm, I’d like to talk to that border patrol agent,” Gray told him.

“So would I,” Greene said. “My guy couldn’t give me a name, though, only a description and the gate he was working. When I got there, it was a female agent, and she claimed that she had been there all day.”

“Nice,” Gray said. “Have you been to the house yet?”

“No,” he had told him. “For that, we were waiting on you. I did check it out a bit. It’s owned by a slum lord and has been since the seventies. This guy owns most of the crap properties in that area, and he doesn’t care who he rents to as long as they pay cash on time every month. It’s been used off and on as a crack house, and for a while, I think there were several hookers who did business out of the place. There’s been more police action there than a Dunkin’ Donuts over the years. I remember responding to a few ‘shots fired’ and ‘domestics’ there myself, back in the late nineties when I was still on patrol. It’s a prime piece of real estate. Wait ‘til you see it. I was thinking we should head down there now. Ya’ll ready?”

Both confirming that they were, Gray and Freeman had retrieved their flak gear and weapons from Gray’s car and rode in the DEA van with Greene and his partner, a guy named Johnston. They also took two local police units with them, just in case. They had no idea what they were rolling up on. When they got there, the cyclone fence was standing open and there were no signs of the “three brainless apes” the informant had said were guarding the front door. Moving in formation, they approached the house with Greene in the lead while the uniforms held back near the gate.

Greene knocked on the door and announced, “DEA, open up!” He shouted it twice, and then they used the battering ram to shatter the door open. Going inside with their guns drawn, they did a search of the house top to bottom. It was a quick search, considering the whole house was only about eleven hundred square feet. Greene gave the all clear and then the real search began. That, too, was a bust. Whoever Gil Sanchez had gone to see hadn’t left so much as a piece of trash behind.

“Damn,” Greene said, frustrated. “We should have come out as soon as I talked to the driver.”

“What time was that?” Gray asked him.

“About eleven o’clock,” he estimated.

Gray looked at Freeman, and then back at the other agent, and said, “That would’ve been too late as well. Our meeting was over by 8:30.”
And Samuel had already been on the phone.

Buns in the Oven

Sutherland Springs, Texas

Tuesday Afternoon

Worried about her brother, Eva had called Zack after talking to Hank. Her brother’s safety was the most important thing to her. She’d naturally find it very difficult to say goodbye to him if he was placed into Witness Protection, but she’d rather have her brother alive than dead. If she couldn’t convince him Witness Protection was his best option, she hoped Zack could. Her brother admired Zack. Knowing this, Zack had told her to send Hank to their house while he waited for Gray.

After giving her brother the invite, she returned to the phone. “Hanks says you’re the best boyfriend in-law ever.”

“Yeah, well, tell him his sister will thank me later,” Zack baited.

“She will?” she said with a giggle. “How will she do that… exactly?”

“Oh, well, I didn’t want to get into details and get you all hot and bothered while you were at work, but if you insist…”

Eva thought better of it and stopped him. “Whoa, we better wait. I don’t want you hot and bothered at work either.”

“In my case,” he told her, “I could just go in the locker room and take a cold shower.”

“We’ll just hold off,” she insisted. “It’s a good sign they asked you to stay on for the afternoon. Let’s not ruin your reputation at work just yet.”

“Okay,” he said with a sigh, “but I expect my payment tonight, or you’ll owe me interest and penalties.”

“Oh… penalties…” she said with a big smile.

When she hung up, Hank shook his head. “You two are disgusting.”

She giggled again. “Jealous.”

“Ugh! You’re my sister.”

“Ew!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t mean like that. I meant you’re jealous that we’re so happy.”

“Oh, yeah,” he admitted. “I am, a little bit.”

***

After Hank left for her house, Eva threw herself into her work, thankful when the clock struck one-thirty. She went straight to meet Trish at Wendy’s. Her headache had subsided after talking to Zack. He was a miracle worker. She wanted a clear head while talking to Trish, who was already waiting for her when she got there.

“Hey girl,” Eva greeted when she found her sitting in a booth near the back. Then she saw Trish’s face. “Oh my goodness, what’s wrong?”

Trish put on a forced smile. “Nothing, really.” But she looked like she wasn’t sure herself. Her eyes had a faraway glaze to them, and she looked pale.

Eva sat down across from her. “What did Tyler do? Do I need to go kick his ass?”

Trish laughed. “No, but he did do something. He got me pregnant. I threw up before I went to work this morning, and yesterday I was so nauseated that I could hardly even get out of bed. I finally decided to buy a test on my way in today. I just took it, here, in the bathroom.”

“Oh, Trish!” Eva said. She wasn’t sure how her friend felt about it, so she decided to remain cautious. “Congratulations?”

Trish shrugged. “I guess. Tyler doesn’t want us to have kids yet. He says we’re not ready. We’re not even married.”

“That’s what he said when you told him?” Eva asked her, ready to actually go kick his ass.