LITMIR.BIZ

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for kidnapping.”

       She leaned forward with her chin resting in her hands, propped by her elbows. “You could arrest him,” she pointed out. “And then befriend him in jail. Like the mouse that took the thorn out of the lion’s paw and became its friend.”

       He made a face at her. “I can’t walk across the border and arrest anyone. I might have been born in Mexico, but I’m an American citizen. And I did it the hard way,” he added firmly. “Legally.”

       She grimaced.

       “Sorry,” he said after a minute. “I know you sympathize with all the people hiding out here who couldn’t afford to wait for permission. In some of their countries, they could be killed just for paying too much attention to the wrong people.”

       “It’s very bad in some Central American states,” she pointed out.

       “It’s very bad anywhere on our border.”

       “And getting worse.”

       He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. His big hand rested on the coffeemaker as he switched it off. “Who’s the mole in my office?”

       “I honestly don’t know,” she replied. “I only know that Sims told his friend, Cash Grier’s patrolman, about it. He said it was someone from a federal agency, working undercover.”

       “I wonder how Sims knew.”

       “Maybe he’s the mole,” she teased.

       “Unlikely. Most feds have too much respect for the law to abuse it. Sims actually suggested that we confiscate a six-pack of beer from a convenience store as evidence in some pretended case and threaten the clerk with jail if he told on us.”

       “Good grief! And he works for the police?” she exclaimed, horrified.

       “Apparently,” he replied. “I didn’t like what he said, and I told him so. He seemed repentant, but I’m not sure he really was. Cocky kid. Real attitude problem.”

       “Doesn’t that sound familiar?” she asked the room at large.

       “I never suggested breaking the law after I went through the academy and swore under oath to uphold it,” he replied.

       “Are you sure you didn’t overreact, my darling?” she asked gently.

       “If I did, so did Cassaway. She was hotter under the collar than I was.” He laughed shortly. “And then she beat the lieutenant on the firing range and he let out a bad word. She marched right up to him and said she was offended and he shouldn’t talk that way around her.” He glanced at her ruefully. “Hence, the rose.”

       “Oh. An apology.” She looked disappointed. “Your lieutenant is very attractive,” she mused. “And eligible. I thought he might find Miss Cassaway interesting. Or something.”

       “Maybe he does,” he said vaguely. “God knows why. She’s good with a gun, I’ll give her that, but she’s a walking disaster in other ways. How she ever got a job with the police, I’ll never know.” He didn’t like talking about Cassaway and the lieutenant. It got under his skin, for reasons he couldn’t understand.

       “She sounds very nice to me.”

       “Everybody sounds nice to you,” he replied. He smiled at her. “You could find one good thing to say about the devil, Mom. You look for the best in people.”

       “You look for the worst,” she pointed out.

       He shrugged. “That’s my job.”

       He was thoughtful, and morose. She felt even more guilty when she saw how disturbed he really was.

       “I wish there had been some other way to handle this,” she muttered angrily. “I hate being made the fall guy.”

       “Hey, I’m not mad at you,” he said, and bent to kiss her hair. “I just…don’t know what to do.” He sighed.

       “‘When in doubt, don’t,’” she quoted. She frowned. “Who said that?”

       “Beats me, but it’s probably good advice.” He put down his cooling coffee and stretched, yawning. “I’m beat. Too many late nights finishing paperwork and going on stakeouts. I’m going to bed. I’ll decide what to do in the morning. Maybe it will come to me in a dream or something,” he added.

       “Maybe it will. I’m just sorry I had to be the one to tell you.”

       “I’ll get used to the idea,” he assured her. “I just need a little time.”

       She nodded.

       But time was in short supply. Two days later, a tall, elegant man with dark hair and eyes, wearing a visitor’s tag but no indication of his identity, walked into Rick’s office and closed the door.

       “I need to talk to you,” he said.

       Rick stared at him. “Do I know you?” he asked after a minute, because the man seemed vaguely familiar.

       “You should,” he replied with a grin. “But it’s been a while since we caught Fuentes and his boys in the drug sting in Jacobsville. I’m Rodrigo Ramirez. DEA.”

       “I knew you looked familiar!” Rick got up and shook the other man’s hand. “Yes, it has been a while. You and your wife bought a house here last year.”

       He nodded. “I work out of San Antonio DEA now instead of Houston, and she works for the local prosecutor, Blake Kemp, in Jacobsville. With her high blood pressure, I’d rather she stayed at home, but she said she’d do it when I did it.” He shrugged. “Neither of us was willing to try to change professions at this late date. So we deal with the occasional problem.”

       “Are you mixed up in the Barrera thing as well?” Rick asked curiously.

       “In a way. I’m related, distantly, to a high official in Mexico,” he said. “It gives me access to some privileged information.” He hesitated. “I don’t know how much they’ve told you.”

       Rick motioned Ramirez into a chair and sat down behind his desk. “I know that El General has a son who’s a sergeant with San Antonio P.D.,” he said sarcastically.

       “So you know.”

       “My mother told me. They wanted me to know, but nobody had the guts to just say it,” he bit off.

       “Yes, well, that could have been a big problem. Depending on how you were told, and by whom. They were afraid of alienating you.”

       “I don’t see what help I’m going to be,” Rick said irritably. “I didn’t know my biological father was still alive, much less who he was. The general, I’m told, has no clue that I even exist. I doubt he’d take my word for it.”

       “So do I. Sometimes government agencies are a little thin on common sense,” he added. He crossed his elegant long legs. “I’ve been elected, you might say, to do the introductions, by my cousin.”

       “Your cousin…?”

       “He’s the president of Mexico.”

       “Well, damn!”

       Ramirez smiled. “That’s what I said when he told me to do it.”

       “Sorry.”

       “No problem. It seems we’re both stuck with doing something that goes against the grain. I think the general is going to react very badly. I wish there was someone who could talk to him for us.”

       “Like my mother talked to me for the feds?” he mused.

       “Exactly.”

       Rick frowned. “You know, Gracie Pendleton got along quite well with him. She refused to even think of pressing charges. She was asked, in case we could talk about extradition of Machado with the Mexican government.

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