But I wasn’t so happy. “We have to go to the office and get it!” I insisted, feeling no confidence about my ability to get along without it.
Candice laughed. “Girl, you’ve been managing just fine without it for the past half hour. Why would you think you still need it?”
“I just do!”
“The office is on the opposite side of town from Jamba Juice. You really want to waste an hour?”
“Yes.”
Candice rolled her eyes. “Fine. But at some point you’re gonna have to realize that you don’t need it anymore.”
“I can realize it on Saturday. Between now and then I get to hang on to Fast Freddy.”
T-Minus 00:25:48
M.J. had been holding on to the desperate hope that they could get to Abby in time to rescue her from the bomb right up until the cop with the bulldog face had shot Dutch in the back with a Taser gun.
Once he fell to the ground and M.J. heard the thump from his head striking the pavement, she knew Abby’s chances were nil.
And the scene only got worse as Dutch’s rigid body seized and jerked beside a dazed Margo. Candice jumped to her feet and rushed to his side, while Brody knelt on his knees and screamed at the cop who’d just shot Dutch.
“Get down on the ground!” the cops kept shouting at all of them, but most of their attention remained on Candice and Brody.
“Candice! Brody!” M.J. cried, fearing at any moment the cops might shoot them too. “Please! Just get down!”
For several tense seconds it looked as if things might escalate even further, but finally Brody bent forward and lay down on his stomach with his hands behind his head, and then Candice followed suit. M.J. felt sick as she lay on the wet grass and looked again at Dutch’s twitching body. His eyes were closed and she knew the fall had knocked him out. M.J. felt a burst of anger toward the cop who’d Tased him when he’d been cooperating. Still, she had to keep it together because Abby’s life hung in the balance, and up until they heard about an explosion, she wasn’t going to give up fighting to save Abby.
So she held very still and kept her hands laced together over the top of her head. Cooperating didn’t stop the adrenaline-fueled cop from jamming his knee into her back and roughly yanking her hands into a set of cuffs. Somewhere nearby she heard Gilley cry out, “Hey! Careful! I bruise like a peach!”
At last the police had everyone handcuffed, and one by one they were each pulled to their feet. Candice looked as if she were ready to spit fire, and Brody was arguing with the cop who had hold of him—but the officer clearly wasn’t listening to the young man.
Margo was the only one who hadn’t been put into handcuffs, and she was being looked after by another policeman who was helping her sit up. “Margo!” M.J. yelled. She’d be the only person who might be able to stop all this. “Tell them!” she begged the woman. “Tell them we meant you no harm!”
Margo was still pretty dazed, however, and she could only stare blankly at M.J.
In desperation M.J. looked around and saw Candice also arguing with one of the cops. “….then make the call! Ask for Special Agent in Charge Brice Harrison!”
But he wasn’t listening to her either. Instead he pushed her up onto the top step of the porch and went over to where several other cops were bunched together, no doubt talking about who would ride in which car.
M.J. was also roughly pulled over to sit down next to Candice and then Brody joined them as well, while Gilley was left to sit on the sidewalk, and Dutch was left lying on the ground, his hands cuffed behind his back. “Dammit!” Candice swore. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!”
“What can we do?” M.J. asked desperately.
Candice’s eyes filled with angry tears. “I wish I knew. We only had about thirty minutes to get to Abby when they showed up. Now I just don’t know what we can do.”
At that moment, three dark sedans came roaring down the street, screeching to a stop next to the police cars. Out jumped several men in formal suits and tuxes, all of them flashing bright bronze badges and guns.
The cops were caught by surprise, and in an instant several of them had their own guns drawn too. Then the shouting began, and the posturing. A very large officer stepped forward, his hand firmly on the hilt of his holstered gun, and from the small crowd of dark suits a man M.J. recognized also stepped forward.
“Brice!” Candice shouted, getting to her feet. Brice’s eyes flickered to his fiancé and her cuffed hands. Then they moved to Dutch lying prone on the ground, clearly unconscious, and a look of anger so intense flashed across his face that M.J. could only brace for what was going to happen now.
Chapter Twelve
“What now?” Candice complained as we hit another patch of backed-up traffic. So far our progress across town and back had been hampered by construction and a fender bender.
In hindsight I realized that it was a stupid idea to head back to the office to grab my cane. Something which, on the ride from the office to Jamba Juice, Candice made sure I felt a little guilty for. The projected hour delay had now turned into an hour and a half with all the traffic backups. Feeling bad, I switched on my radar, which had a pretty good navigation feature when I needed it. “I’m feeling like if you get off at the next exit and take the frontage road all the way down to Thirty-eighth, we can cut across to MoPac,” I suggested.
Candice frowned but inched her way forward to the exit, and sure enough, my suggestion paid off when not twenty minutes later we arrived in south Austin without further traffic delays.
By now, however, it was a quarter after ten and Candice and I still had a lot of ground to cover if I wanted to get to everybody on my list and chase down some of the new leads that Mrs. Padilla had provided for us.
After Candice parked in a slot at the Jamba Juice, I got out to hobble after her, leaning heavily on Fast Freddy, more for effect than for anything else. Candice’s sideways grin told me she wasn’t buying it for a Fast Freddy second.
“It’s mind over matter,” she told me, eyeing the cane pointedly. “The minute you realize you don’t need a crutch anymore, you’ll be free.”
“Can we just get inside and talk to the manager?” I grumbled. I didn’t want to talk about my cane anymore.
Candice held the door open for me and we found the place a bit of a mess. The counters were cluttered with straw wrappers, spilled Jamba Juice, and there was a pretty good crowd waiting for drinks—rather unusual for a weekday after rush hour.
Pushing our way to the counter, we inquired after the manager, and the girl behind the counter looked at us like she was seriously annoyed. “She’s not here,” she snapped, ringing up a sale and giving the patron some change. “And Ryan and I have been slammed all morning and I haven’t even had a chance to go to the back to try to call her.”
I leaned in to see a rather harried male crew member struggling to make smoothies as fast as his shaking hands could.
“Do you know when she’ll be in?” Candice asked.
“No,” said the girl. “Debbie’s normally here by eight, but she must be at a meeting or something.”
Candice set her card on the counter. “Please have her call me at her earliest convenience,” she said.
The girl nodded, but she didn’t even look at the card—too distracted by the woman in front of her ordering something called a Pumpkin Smash.
We left the store and headed back to the car. “What’s next?” Candice asked me.
“Did Brice call you back?”
Candice checked her phone. “Not yet. How about we swing by their office and see what’s up?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
We cruised over to the FBI offices and headed inside. The minute we were through the door, I came up short. The man I was working so hard to avoid was right there surrounded by the bureau boys and three other men who were definitely cut from the same cloth as my fiancé.
“The Rivers clan has descended,” Candice whispered.
“I wasn’t expecting his br
others to come into town until Thursday,” I said, slightly stunned at the sight of them all elbowing Dutch, and joking around with the rest of the bureau boys.
Mike—Dutch’s oldest brother—turned and spotted Candice and me still standing by the door. “Abs!” he shouted, and came running toward me. I braced for impact and before I knew it, I was swept up in a huge bear hug and carried into the room to be handed off one by one to Dutch’s two other brothers, Chris and Paul. “You keeping this little guy in line?” Chris asked me, ruffling Dutch’s hair. He was only eleven months older than Dutch, but he treated him like his baby brother.
“Doing my best,” I told him, pushing up that same practiced forced smile onto my face that’d been getting such a workout of late and counting the seconds until I could run out of there. (Okay, well, maybe hobble as fast as Fast Freddy would let me.)
“I’ll bet you are!” Paul said—by far the most boisterous of the bunch, he swept me up for another impromptu hug.
Dutch held up his arms and moved close to me. My radar binged with warnings for his safety the second he did, something that was getting harder and harder to ignore. “Hey, hey, hey,” he told his brothers. “Guys, give her some air, would you?”
“Aww, cut us some slack, Rolo,” Paul said, using Dutch’s real name—or rather his real name’s nickname. “You can’t blame us for wanting to hug this gorgeous babe, can you?”
And with that, Paul handed me back over to Mike. I endured it all, because that’s what Rivers women did. They never complained at being tossed around like a football between the brothers, and I’d learned that eventually they’d tire of the sport and set me down again.
Dutch must have read my mind because he intercepted the next pass and gently lowered me to the ground to wind a protective arm across my shoulders. “Hey, sweetie,” he said, bending down to give me a quick peck. “The clan surprised me by showing up at the house this morning. They heard it’s moving day tomorrow and they came in early to help us get settled.”
“Awesome!” I said, hoping I sounded totally on board with that. (Okay, so I was mostly hoping the Rivers clan didn’t break my furniture.)
“Thought I’d show them around the office before we head over for the final walk-through with Dave,” Dutch continued.
“Fantastic!” I said, all head nods and grins. I had to remind myself not to get caught doing the crazy eyes. “Say, have you seen Brice?”
Over Dutch’s shoulder I saw Candice in Brice’s office, but no sign of the boss man.
“He’s with Gaston at the Homeland offices.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?” I pressed.
Dutch eyed me quizzically. “You guys find something?”
The last thing I needed was for Dutch to get reinvolved with the case, so I fibbed a little (or a lot). “Naw. Not a thing. But he asked us to keep him updated, so that’s what we’re doing.”
“Okay,” he said, distracted by his brothers again because they were now jostling and ribbing one another. “Did you free up some time to come with me to do the walk-through at the house?”
“Uh…,” I said, thinking fast. “Cat called and she wants to meet with us.” (Thank goodness we didn’t have a pickle jar for big fat fibs.)
Dutch’s eyes shot back to me. “You told her we’re busy, right?”
“Well, she sort of caught me at a weak moment, sweetie. So I thought you and the Rivers clan could head over to the new house and take care of the walk-through, and I’ll handle Cat on my own.”
Dutch snorted. “You sure you’re up for it?”
“Candice is coming with me.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“I bribed her.”
“You promised her the money in the swear jar, didn’t you?”
I laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Okay, well, how about we meet back at the house around six and we’ll all head to dinner together?”
I gulped as my radar kept pinging, Warning, warning, warning! “Yeah, sure!” I said, though I had no intention of meeting up with him later. Even being near him in one of the safest places in the whole city made me nervous. “I’ll call you later and get the scoop on where to meet up.”
“Perfect,” Dutch said, leaning in for another sweet peck. He then hugged me and whispered, “Love you, dollface.”
My throat tightened and I found it hard to swallow. “I love you too,” I managed after a moment. “So much.”
And then he was letting me go, and he and his brothers were sweeping out of the office and I had the coldest chill come over me. I shivered against it.
“You ready to roll?” Candice said, nudging my elbow.
I jumped. “Uh, yeah. Where’re we headed?”
“I thought we’d feed you, then stop by Jed Banes’s.”
Normally I’m all over being fed, but today I wasn’t very hungry. “Sure.”
Candice led the way out of the office, and we both waved to the bureau boys as we left. Once we were headed down to the parking garage, I said, “I gather Brice is at the Homeland offices with Gaston.”
“Yep,” Candice replied. “Cox told me. They turn their phones off when they’re in meetings, but not their laptops. I sent Brice an e-mail to call us the minute he can break away.”
“What do you think they’re meeting about?”
“This case.”
I cut her a look. “Duh.”
Candice smiled as she unlocked the doors to her car and we got in. “Brice mentioned something to me last night that the Homeland boys are starting to doubt the whole terrorist-cell theory. That group in Yemen isn’t sophisticated enough to pull this off, and they can’t find a single member of the group who might’ve gotten into the States and set up a cell here. Still, they’ll argue to hold on to the jurisdiction, but they don’t have the local investigating skills that our guys do, so I’m fairly certain that Gaston and Brice will argue to get the case back.”
“And we’ve got the key to getting it back for them if we can just get word to Brice.”
“Yep.”
I sighed and glanced at Candice’s phone, which she’d put in the little cubby under the dash. “I wish he’d call.”
“He will, Abs. Not to worry. Now, where’d you like to go for lunch?”
I shrugged. “You pick.”
She turned her head to look at me quizzically. “Hey, are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah.” Candice cocked an eyebrow. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“There’s a new food truck on South Congress. Supposedly they have the best chicken sandwich and fries in Austin.”
That perked me a teensy bit. “I’m game.”
We ate at a picnic table in relative silence. The day was cold and overcast, so we ate quickly and got back in the car to head over to Jed Banes’s place. On the way Candice glanced a few times up at the darkening clouds. “Have you seen the forecast for the week?”
“No, why? Is it bad?”
“There’s a pretty big storm cell that’s moving in from the northwest. They say it’s going to be here through the weekend.”
I leaned forward to look up at the moody sky. “You mean it’s gonna look like this the whole week?”
“’Fraid so, Sundance.”
“Craptastic,” I groused. “Fecking craptastic.”
“Maybe it’ll clear up and be nice on Saturday.”
“I don’t have that kind of luck.”
Candice smirked. “Way to look on the bright side.”
We arrived at Jed Banes’s residence, which was no more homey than the last time we’d seen it, although there were perhaps a few more leaves on the sidewalk, and he hadn’t picked up his Sunday paper from the day before. Candice rang the doorbell and we waited to hear sounds of movement from inside, but nothing but the TV blaring came to our ears. Candice then gave the door three hard knocks. We waited some more, but nothing.
“Maybe he’s not home,” she said, but I was starting to get a pri
ckly feeling at the base of my neck. I leaned over to my right and took a peek through the window, as the blinds were open. The fact that it was overcast outside made it easier to see into the interior. A light was on across the room, and it was illuminating Jed’s ugly green sofa. A brown afghan was strewn over the right half of it and something about its shape caught my attention. Shuffling a little farther to the right, I cupped my hand around my eyes and really peered in.
“See him?” Candice asked me.
I stood up fast. “Kick the door in!”
Candice just stared at me in alarm.
“Kick it in!”
Candice snapped out of her surprise and backed away from the door. Raising her booted foot, she kicked hard and fast and the door shot inward. We both rushed forward and saw Jed Banes on the couch, bent double at the waist and slightly sideways, his face a sickening shade of grayish blue. “Jesus!” Candice said, rushing to his right side to feel for a pulse.
In the meantime I was digging through my purse, trying to find my phone. At last I had my hands on it, but when I pulled it free, my fingers were shaking so hard I found it almost impossible to dial. “He’s unconscious but still alive!” Candice said, and gently she eased him down to the floor, placing the oxygen mask by the side of the sofa over his face and cranking up the dial.
I finally had the emergency dispatcher on the line and begged for an ambulance, but I got thrown when the dispatcher asked me for an address. I had to head back outside and look at the number on the side of the house, but I couldn’t remember what street we were on. “Hamlet Street!” Candice shouted from inside when I called to her.
We waited the anxious four minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and Banes’s condition hadn’t improved since Candice put on the oxygen, but at least he hadn’t died on us. We then had to fill out a report for the police when they arrived, and there were lots of questions regarding our presence there in the first place and why we’d kicked in the door. Candice flashed her PI license and I flashed my FBI consultant’s badge, but that did little good to dissuade the suspicious cop from perhaps thinking we were clever would-be robbers posing as a PI and an FBI consultant. (I didn’t say he was the sharpest tool in the shed.)