Give Him the Slip (11 page)

"I do mind. I want to know what's going on before I call
anyone."

He offered up that charming smile that Maddie had come to be
suspicious of. "Don't be difficult, please? Just make the call?"

Sara-Beth wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue at him while
she pulled a cell phone from her shoulder bag and punched in a number. Maddie
turned a belligerent look his way but kept quiet.

"Great," he observed to his brother. "Now they're
both pissed at me."

It made Maddie's heart feel good.

Mark Callahan smirked and leaned against a cottonwood tree.

"Sure. Thanks, Ben," Sara-Beth said a few moments later.
She thumbed the power button on her cell phone and said, "Well. I'm
surprised. Apparently, there's a memorial service scheduled for this
afternoon."

"That's fast," Luke said, frowning.

The reporter's instincts were on obvious alert as she added,
"The body's already been cremated."

"That's real fast," Mark said.

"And real unfortunate." Luke dragged his hand down his
whiskered jaw. "Without a body and short of a confession, murder can't be
proved."

Maddie's heart sank. She'd been afraid of that.

"Uh, murder?" Sara-Beth's purse slipped from her
shoulder.

"It would have been nice to have proof." Mark waved away
a yellow jacket circling around Sara-Beth's head, then handed her her purse.
"However, the manner of Gus Grevas's death doesn't really affect our
current business, does it?"

"What business, Devil?" Sara-Beth asked impatiently. She
turned to Luke. "What does Gus Grevas have to do with your
middle-of-the-night call to me?"

Luke shot Maddie a quick look, then said, "Someone was
growing magic mushrooms in Grevas's house out at the lake. Maddie found them
the day before yesterday. They're worth a lot of money."

"Which accounts for your earlier mention of mushrooms. So,
how much is 'a lot'?"

Luke rolled his tongue around his mouth. "Millions."

"Really!" Sara-Beth drummed her acrylic fingernails on
the picnic table and thought for a moment. "Whoa. You think there was
something suspicious about Gus's death, don't you? You think that sweet old man
was dealing drugs and somebody killed him? Come on, Luke. We're talking about
Gus Grevas. He volunteered to cut the lawn at First Baptist Church once a week
until his knees gave out on him just last year."

Maddie opened her mouth to answer, but something in Luke's
expression stopped her, a patience that she hadn't seen from him herself. The
reporter drummed her coral-colored nails some more. "Bee likes
puzzles," Mark said to Maddie. "She's always been sharp. Top ten
percent of our class. I expected her to end up working as an investigative reporter
at a big-city newspaper."

Luke nodded. "Instead, after I broke her heart by leaving
Brazos Bend, Jeff Branson caught her on the rebound and tricked her into
marrying him. They now have three children, and she works part-time for the
local paper."

"You're so full of it, Callahan," Sara-Beth murmured.
"And you almost got me. You shouldn't have mentioned my kids. Look, I
don't know what you have planned, but I don't think I want to get involved. I'm
happy writing family fluff for the
Standard."

"How old are your children?" Maddie asked.

"The boys are six and four. My little girl is two."

"Wait a minute, Bee," Luke chastised. "I told you I
had a real story for you when I called. You wouldn't have left ol' Jeff in the
middle of the night if you weren't willing to stir things up a bit at the
Standard."

"I was mad at him," she said with a sniff. "You're
his biggest hot button, and I was in the mood to push it."

Luke's lips twisted in a smirk. "Some things never change.
Sara-Beth, I wouldn't propose anything that might harm you or your family. You
should know that. What I propose is intended to keep everyone safe."

"Explain it to me."

To his brother, Luke said, "You'll find some jars in the back
of Maddie's van."

"You want me to check for prints?"

"Yeah. If we're lucky, our grower will be on the jars and in
the system."

"Priority?"

"Immediately. Plan A hinges on an ID."

"I'm on it."

Mark Callahan faded back into the trees, disappearing so quickly
and quietly that he caught Maddie by surprise. "My car keys..." she
began.

"He doesn't need them."

"Wow," Sara-Beth murmured. "You know the curiosity
is going to kill me. What is he, Luke? Just give me a hint. Three little
letters. FBI? CIA?"

"NYB."

None of your business, Maddie translated. Then, more interested in
her own concerns than Mark Callahan's professional pedigree, she asked,
"What's plan A? You said you intend to keep everybody safe, but I'd like
to know, safe where? Brazos Bend? Or am I going to have to do this again?"

By "this" she meant disappear again. Did he intend to
reveal her identity or not?

"Home to Brazos Bend," he said, the look in his eyes
conveying the message that he understood what she was asking. "Now, let me
tell Bee what's going on."

Luke explained how the mushrooms came to be in Maddie's
possession. "At this point, we can't concern ourselves with the hows and
whys of Gus's death. Our only goal is to fix it so that Maddie won't have drug
dealers waiting for her when she goes home. Hopefully, Mark will get us a name
and we can have him picked up before you cross the state line."

Sara-Beth turned to Maddie. "Why did you bring the stuff to
Sin? Why not go straight to the Brazos Bend police?"

Luke didn't give Maddie a chance to answer. "My father told
her to bring it here."

"Why? To meet up with Devil? I'll bet that means he's DEA. Am
I right?"

"No." Luke shooed away a fly that buzzed around Oscar's
bowl. "Remember that biker bar south of Miami?"

"I'll never forget it," Sara-Beth replied, wincing.
"I've never been so scared in my life."

Turning to Maddie, she explained, "Jeff and I were on a
second honeymoon headed for Key West when our car broke down somewhere south of
Miami. We couldn't get a signal on our cell phone, so we walked until we found
a bar. We went inside and... well... we knew right off we'd made a mistake. We
were getting ready to make a run for it when Sin walked out of a back
room."

"Bee, you need to know that I wasn't there to play pool with
my friends like I told you," Luke said.

Her blue eyes widened. "Oh, God, Sin. Don't tell me Jeff was
right. Tell me you're not a drug dealer!"

Luke couldn't help but laugh. "Your husband really doesn't
like me, does he?" As an aside to Maddie, he added, "They'd wandered
into the middle of an operation, and I had to talk fast to get them out of the
bar and on their way without blowing my cover."

"Your cover?" Sara-Beth asked.

"I was working undercover that day, Bee. Mark's not DEA. That
was my job."

"You?" The reporter's jaw dropped. She swayed away from
the table. "As in the Drug Enforcement Administration?"

"Yeah, me."

"But you're... I don't... Wow." She shook her head.
"That one I never expected. Your brothers, I can buy. They never seemed
quite so... rebellious, I guess. But you?"

Sara-Beth folded her arms and studied him, her mind obviously
working, until finally, she nodded. "So your father knew, of course. He's
kept tabs on you and your brothers all this time. What surprises me is that he
never bragged about it around town. He certainly never hesitates to boast about
Matt's accomplishments at the Treasury Department. But I guess with you and
Devil both working undercover—which I'm going to assume since no one's
talking—Branch didn't want to put you at risk. And now his caregiver is at
risk..."

Sara-Beth paused and flashed a smile toward Maddie. "A
caregiver all her clients appear to adore, and Branch wants the best help
available for her, so he sends her to you."

"It's one possible scenario," Luke agreed. "Only
problem is, Branch's information isn't quite up-to-date. I quit the DEA earlier
this month. I'm not in a position to help Maddie."

Sara-Beth frowned. "Why not?"

Maddie folded her arms and gave him a
yeah, why not?
arch
of her brow.

"I have no authority to investigate this case. It's not my
job."

"But it's your hometown."

"Which is why I called Mark. Look, between the two of us, we
can make all the arrangements for Maddie to turn over the mushrooms."

"And promptly be hauled off to jail?" Maddie snapped.

He held her gaze with a steady stare. "No. Explanations will
be made ahead of time. There won't be any trouble."

Sara-Beth dug a notepad and pen from her purse. "What's my
part in this plan of yours, Sin? If y'all can do the legal thing, why do you
need a reporter?"

"Insurance. I want you to take pictures and publish a
front-page story about Maddie's part in the haul. If you'll make it clear that
she"—he ticked off the points on his fingers—"no longer has the
mushrooms, doesn't have a clue about how they came to be in Gus's lake house to
begin with, and has no plans to pursue the question any further, that should
make it safe for her to go home whether we arrest the grower or not. With
everything out in the open, I seriously doubt anyone will give her any
trouble."

"Seriously doubt!" Maddie exclaimed. "You want me
to risk my life based on serious doubt?"

"Maddie, considering what we all know of Brazos Bend, it's a
fair assumption that we're not talking about folks like the Mendoza cartel, who
wouldn't think twice about slitting your throat if you touched their
property."

"I don't think that helps, Sin," Sara-Beth observed.

"If your suspicions are correct and the cops are
involved—"

"Cops?" Sara-Beth squeaked.

"—I think that only makes you safer. Unless you go back to
Brazos Bend and start snooping around and getting in the bad guys' way, they'll
leave you alone."

"So we're just supposed to let the murderers get away with
it?" Maddie demanded.

"Cops?" Sara-Beth repeated.

"There'll be an investigation into the drugs, Maddie. We will
see to it. Maybe these guys won't go down for murder, but they'll go
down."

"What about Gus's warning? If the cops are dirty—"

"Wait just one minute!" Sara-Beth exclaimed. "No
more until somebody clues me in to the cop comment. Are you saying that the
Brazos Bend police are involved in this? On the
wrong
side? Oh, wow.
This
is
a story." After a moment's pause, she added, "Too much
story. Murder and cops in Brazos Bend. This could be big. Huge."

"Dangerous," Luke warned.

She frowned at him a long moment, then sighed. "Yeah.
Dangerous. Not where I want to go at this time in my life. Besides, I work for
the
Brazos Bend Standard,
not the
Washington Post.
The only
investigative reporting I've done involves the ingredients of the secret sauce
Wilson's puts on their hamburgers."

"You have that recipe?" Luke asked, interest lighting
his eyes.

"I can't do anything that might put my family at risk."

"You don't need to, Bee. I'm not asking for an investigative
piece. In fact, I'm specifically asking you not to do an investigative piece.
Make it a strictly general interest story with no mention of Maddie's
suspicions or Gus's wild rambling or the Callahan brothers' involvement. That
way, everyone stays safe."

"It goes against everything I learned in journalism
school," Sara-Beth muttered.

Luke gave her hand a quick squeeze. "Maybe so, but you'll get
an A-plus in mommy school. Tell you what, I'll do what I can to make sure you
get the scoop when they bust these bastards. Hell, maybe you can write a
book."

Maddie rolled her eyes. Sara-Beth smiled. Luke gazed from one
woman to the other. "This will work. I'm sure of it."

Sara-Beth studied her fingernails. "I should be thrown in
journalism jail even for thinking about doing a puff piece about this."

"But you'll do it?"

"I'll do it. Only because I love you, Sin Callahan. And I owe
you for not telling Jeff about... well... you know."

"So, it's settled? Maddie? Are you on board with this
plan?"

Did it really matter whether she was or not? She had no other
choice. At least he hadn't told his girlfriend who she was. She leaned over,
tapped her forehead against the table once, twice, three times. "I can't
believe this is happening to me."

Luke reached out and stroked her hair as Mark Callahan came
strolling toward them on the trail. "I have a name."

"Already?" Sara-Beth gave her dark hair a toss. "I
don't believe that. Nobody gets information... whoa... are you Homeland
Security?"