Chapter 7 More Questions #2
He could hear a scrambling sound as she stood and hurried to the door. “Tucker?” She rattled the doorknob. “It’s locked on my side. Can you?—?”
He opened the door, and her delightfully disheveled figure appeared. “We need to talk.” His heart thudded with joy and longing at the sight of her. To cover his emotions, he reached out to remove a piece of straw from her tousled hair.
She fluttered her fingers playfully at him. “That’s what everyone says right before they break up. Should I be worried?”
“I wasn’t aware we were dating.” He let himself into the room and shut the door. “Are we?”
She blushed instead of answering.
He stepped farther into the room. “Yo, Chip.” His gut was telling him that a bad-cop routine wasn’t what the situation called for.
“Hey, sir.” Chip nodded sheepishly at him.
“Tucker,” Tucker corrected. “Just Tucker. Like Mal, I’m not old enough to be your parent.”
Chip jolted at his words. “You’ve been listening to our conversation?”
“It’s alright.” Tucker waved away his concerns. “You didn’t say anything incriminating.”
“Are you serious?” Looking outraged, Mallory hopped like a chicken into his path, slapping her hands on her slender hips. “That’s a complete violation of our rights…or something.”
“Or something,” he agreed with a dry chuckle. “Listen. About my offer earlier to go into business together…”
“Forget it,” she seethed. “People go into business with people they trust, not…” She waved her hands angrily between him. “Not whatever snooping, conniving, messed up…mess this is!”
“Messed-up mess?” He snorted, making her scowl harder.
Apparently, she preferred to fight. “What I am,” he informed her flatly, “is someone worthy of your trust. Someone who would never inflate your vendor fees or fabricate service charges.” He watched Chip, pretty sure he was looking at the person responsible for the fraudulent entries on the expense sheets for Evans Ranch.
“And I sure as all get out would never charge you top-dollar pest control fees for a company that hasn’t paid a single visit to your attic since they don’t even exist! ”
He gave the teenager the full blast of his sneer.
Chip looked thoroughly gobsmacked. “I-I can explain!”
“I bet you can.” Tucker lurched his way menacingly.
“Tuck,” Mallory protested, trying to dance into his path again.
He two-stepped around her. “As Mallory’s future business partner,” he informed Chip frostily, “it’s very much in my interest to clear up every anomaly on the financial records for Evans Ranch. And by anomaly, I’m referring to the way you and your family have been robbing her blind!”
Mallory gave a squeal of outrage on Chip’s behalf.
“I’ll tell you everything,” the eighteen-year-old exploded, sending her a look of supreme distress. “I’m sorry, ma’am…I mean, Mallory. I never meant to hurt you, or your ranch, or the steers. It’s just that…” He swallowed hard. “They made me do it,” he concluded on a crackling sob of remorse.
Tucker had already come to that conclusion himself. “The facts say you were seventeen when you started doctoring the books at Mallory’s ranch.” He made up that part on the spot, hoping to startle the truth out of the kid.
“Seventeen!” Chip made a strangled sound. “Dude, I’ve been doing this kinda stuff since the sixth grade.”
Boom! It was all Tucker could do not to turn around and point at the security camera in triumph. Chip’s sixth grade year had occurred long before his family had met and become employed by Mallory. It was a hefty checkmark in the column supporting her innocence.
“It’s not his fault.” She bristled at him like an angry kitten. “None of this is his fault! So help me, Tucker, I wasn’t kidding when I said I’ll apply to become his sponsor.”
He shook his head in wonder at her, making the words freeze on her lips. “Or we could apply together. What do you say, partner?” He held out a hand to her.
To his disappointment, her gaze latched onto it like it was a coiled snake.
Too bad. But he couldn’t afford to back down now.
“Not only will we be combining our extensive ranching experience, you’ll get all the benefits of a personal bodyguard while I’m around.
” He’d been working at Johnny’s Dairy in the evenings and on the weekends for the past year to avoid wallowing in his darker memories, but he’d give his second job up for her in a heartbeat.
Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
“I’ve also just been informed,” he added, knowing he needed to slip the most crucial detail in somewhere, “that all the backup we enjoyed today is an employee perk on my end. If you agree to be my partner, it’ll remain an employee perk, thanks to having yours truly in your court.
Otherwise, you’ll have to either fork over more money, or we’ll have to make do without backup the rest of the way to El Paso.
” He wanted her to know right up front that he wouldn’t leave her to face her enemies alone, no matter what.
That said, he didn’t relish the thought of doing it without backup.
Suspicion lit her gaze. “This feels like blackmail.”
“How so?” He glared at her. “I’ve stuck my neck out further for you than I have for anyone else on the planet.”
“If I say no, we’re dead.” Her lips twisted stubbornly. “If I say yes, we’ll have to put up with each other…indefinitely.”
“So, what’s it gonna be?” He gritted his teeth, knowing his fellow Lonestar investigators were probably laughing their rear ends off in the other room.
Chip stirred from his momentary stupor and came alive again. “Do I get a vote?” he asked in a small voice.
“No!” They shouted the word in unison without turning his way.
“What about my cell phone?” he whined.
Tucker tossed it to him to shut him up.
Mallory made a hissing sound at Tucker. “Fortunately for you, I like being alive.”
A smile tugged at his lips that he felt all the way to his soul, but he didn’t dare give in to it. “Let’s shake on it.” He held out a hand, instinctively knowing she would be a woman of her word. Resting on his palm was the cell phone he’d taken from her earlier.
“We’ll get to that.” She shoved the phone into the back pocket of her jeans. “But I’m gonna need an independent valuation of all assets first, and a fifty percent buy-in from both of us.”
It was a fair request, one that might require him to bring more money to the table to get started. “Deal.” He didn’t care what it cost. He was all in.
“I also want a fifty percent split of the workload,” she pressed. “I’m not putting in most of the elbow grease while you dedicate your best efforts to two other jobs. I don’t care how you do it, but you’re gonna pull your weight.”
He wouldn’t have it any other way. “Done.” He angled his head suggestively at the hand he was still extending to her.
This time, she shook it.
Something passed between them. Something raw and genuine. Something that climbed into the emptiest parts of Tucker’s heart and settled there.
He was reluctant to let go of her hand. “We’ll hit the road as soon as the storm clears. Try to get some sleep.”
Her eyes widened. “And pretend like World War III isn’t happening above our heads?”
His lips twitched. “If anyone can do it, my money’s on you.”
Humor sparkled in her gaze, filling even more of the empty places inside him. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Not true.” He shook his head playfully at her. “It just landed me a partnership at the ranch of my choice with the woman of my choice.” He’d almost called her the woman of his dreams, but he’d caught himself in the nick of time.
The humor in her gaze faded. “Let’s just hope neither of us lives to regret it.”
“I like your optimism.” He gently squeezed her fingers before letting them go.
“I was referring to the odds of us not killing each other. ”
He snorted out a laugh. Yep, his heart was toast.
One hour later
The SWAT team rolled up to Conrad Cavender’s ranch through the sleet and snow. Uniformed men poured out of two massive black armored vehicles and scattered across the darkened fields in search of the narco rustlers.
Tucker watched them spread like ants, aiming spotlights into the shadows.
“We should get some sleep,” Gil advised. “We’ll take shifts to keep an eye on what’s happening outside.”
“I’ll take the first shift,” Dave offered.
The rest of them stretched out on sleeping bags. To Tucker’s surprise, the night passed without a recurring visit from the cartel. He was almost disappointed at how quiet it remained outside.
Since he had pulled the last shift, he was awake when the snowstorm stopped. He and his coworkers emerged from the underground bunker into a world of whiteness.
The police kept them posted each time Chip texted his parents. His first message to them after the return of his cell phone was surprisingly short.
Cruz is in the wind.
Martina Silva’ response was equally short.
He’s fine.
Their exchange verified two important details: Cruz was in contact with the Silva family, and the Silva family was most definitely in cahoots with the narco rustlers.
Since Chip was still refusing to talk about his parents’ involvement with the gang, it had been little more than speculation on Tucker’s part up to this point.
“Lemme see what Luke has to say about this.” Gil dialed Sheriff Luke Hawling on speakerphone to see if what they’d discovered was enough to bring the Silvas in for questioning. It was, but the sheriff sounded reluctant to make a move this soon.
“Why not?” Gil looked incensed.
“It’s now a federal case,” Luke informed them blandly. “When you dialed, I was about to call you with the update.”
“Since when?” Dave protested, leaning closer to Gil’s phone.
“Since this morning,” Luke sighed. “Listen, I don’t like it any more than you do, but our cases have crossed. They’ll be running point from now on. A fellow by the name of?—”