Promise Renewed (8 page)

She held up a finger. “Be right back after I get a coffee.”

“Have a seat. I’ll get it.” If anyone was out there, he didn’t want whoever it was to know the two were meeting. But hadn’t he convinced himself it was just his imagination?

“Thanks. I’ll have a latte, no sugar.”

It wasn’t like him to be so indecisive. He was the team leader because he was just the opposite. Knowing someone had put a bullet in his partner had changed something vital inside him. He hoped to get it back, but suspected that wouldn’t happen until the killer was behind bars.

He put her coffee in front of her, took a seat opposite. Even in an old pair of jeans and a faded T-shirt she was beautiful. Looking into those blue-green eyes did something to his insides.

Had he called her here because he was attracted to her? Couldn’t be. Not him. But this wasn’t a normal reaction. Most women he could take or leave. After a date or two his interest waned. Not one of them interested him further. Certainly, no one had ever caused the reaction his brothers claimed they had with their wives. Nor did they evoke any can’t-live-without-you heart stuff—none had stayed on his mind longer than a few minutes.

Gina Carlson might be different. Darin didn’t like the idea one iota.

She was his partner. His
new
partner. The only reason he was here now was to prove to himself he could trust her enough to bend the rules a bit if need be.

Heaving an inward sigh he got to it. “How did you come to be a cop?”

****

She took a sip of coffee, smiled. “I wanted to put the bad guys behind bars.” Not exactly true. She’d wanted to put one particular guy behind bars. A goal she hadn’t accomplished just yet. “You?”

Darin shrugged. She liked the way he handled himself on the job…the professional, firm manner when he arrested the kids. Truth be told, she liked him. Period.

That wasn’t good. Wasn’t professional. Her main purpose here was to investigate his partner’s death and make sure Darin Callahan had nothing to do with it or with the missing drugs.

How could she do a good job if she harbored secret thoughts about the man under suspicion?

To be honest, Chief Hamilton was convinced Darin was innocent. But Internal Affairs always investigated. HPD’s IAD hadn’t filed their report. Because of the captain’s unsubstantiated hints of wrongdoing, she’d been called in. Gina had been given a wide field to investigate, and it covered every member of the squad.

She watched him study her even as she studied him, as if making up his mind about something. “What’s up, Callahan? You didn’t call me here and throw all this cloak and dagger stuff about coming in the back door just to share a cup of java.”

He cleared his throat. “Your perfume,” he began.

“What perfume?”

“I could smell it when we did the bust. I can smell it now. It’s a dead giveaway.”

She leaned across the table. “I don’t wear perfume. It’s soap. And I’m not giving up soap because your sense of smell is sharper than most.”

He gave her a half-smile. Her blood heated up a notch. The man was way too attractive and she was acting way out of character.

“Sorry. But I don’t know how to begin to tell you the real reason for this meet.”

“Something to do with your partner’s death?”

Darin nodded.

“Then why don’t you begin there?”

He leaned closer to the space she set around herself, the one she kept everyone except her sister out of. She maneuvered back a notch.

“Tom Hunter was a good partner, an even better friend. I took him to the ranch a couple of times to meet the family. We told each other everything. At least I thought we did. But a couple of months ago he got real quiet. When I asked him about it he shrugged me off.

“It got so bad I pinned him down one night and told him I wanted an explanation. I thought I had pissed him off or something. Hell, I didn’t know. He laughed and told me he wished I was right. I pressured him to come clean. He promised he would when the time was right.”

“Nothing else? That’s all he said?” This was more than she knew from her files. She wanted to know more.

“He did say he’d accidentally uncovered something major, as he called it. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was. Just told me it was coming to a head.”

“How long ago was this?”

“The day before he was shot.”

She sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry. Sorry your partner was killed, and sorry you feel guilty. It wasn’t your fault. There’s the possibility if he had told you what he knew, he’d be alive today.”

“I know. It doesn’t help. Hunter is dead, and I still haven’t a clue who shot him.”

“What can I do?”

“Are you sure you want to get involved in this?”

She did her best to dampen her enthusiasm, but only partially succeeded. “I’ll do everything I can to help, but you know Homicide is investigating his death. They promised to keep us informed.”

“I know. But they’re not familiar with the drug trade. We are. By we, I mean the narcotics squad. As you know we haven’t found a single lead. Time isn’t on our side. I’m surprised the drugs aren’t on the street as we speak. Homicide doesn’t have any leads on Hunter’s killer either. I owe it to him to get to the bottom of this.”

“You have your suspicions though, don’t you?” She could see it in his eyes.

“I can’t see that amount of drugs coming here without one, or a coalition of the drug lords working in Houston being involved. They have the money
and
the connections. Someone involved with the drugs that night shot Hunter. Either the drugs were stolen from someone else, or one of the drug lords bought them and was moving them, I don’t know which. But we have to find whoever has them. When we do, we’ll have Hunter’s killer.”

“Have you thought of a way to confirm any of your theories?”

“I have. It will be risky. That’s why you’re here. I want to go undercover. It’s the fastest way to get to the truth. To do so, I’ll need help.”

“You don’t have the time.”

“I realize that it takes months, sometimes years to get embedded in an operation this big—”

“What if you’re a buyer?” she interrupted. “You could change your looks. We could put word out on the street a dealer is interested in making a big buy.” She eyed him up and down. “I was thinking of a New York dealer, but you’d never pass the test. You’d have to be from Texas with ties to Mexico. Do you, by any chance, speak Spanish?”

“Now why would you not think I couldn’t pass for anyone but a Texan?” he drawled. “But, yeah. I speak Spanish. Took it in college, mastered it on the job.”

“Good. You’ll need it.” She looked at him, wrinkled her forehead, contemplating the idea. “Your Texas drawl is a dead giveaway for the area you came from.” She paused, reconsidering her impulsive suggestion. “I don’t know about this…”

“It’s the only way I can see to get them in the open.”

“It would be too dangerous. The two of us could never pull it off without help.” Understatement. She had issues with the whole idea. But Darin was paying no attention to her roadblocks.

“I’ll go it alone then. I
will
find Hunter’s killer.”

He was serious. And there was no way she could allow him to do this alone.

“Okay. Let’s start over.”

Another cup of coffee and an hour later they were still bouncing ideas back and forth.

When Darin gave her an admiring look. Gina felt heat. For the first time in her life a man made her face warm. Not just her face, her entire body.

This was definitely not a good thing. She had a job to do—a serious one.

Out of the blue, Darin was making that job easier. Or was he making it harder by being so attractive? Should any of this bother her?

“Do you have enough connections to set up a background for our fictional buyer?” she asked. “These guys didn’t get where they are by dealing with strangers. They’d want proof you are who you say you are.”

“I don’t have it planned out just yet.”

If he didn't have a way, she had enough connections to pull it off, including false IDs. She could almost see his brain churning with options. “I repeat, we’ll need help. A few members of the squad maybe.”

He rubbed a hand through his hair. She wanted to smile at the way the gesture made the thick reddish-brown hair almost fall into his eyes. He raked it back, impatient to think through the logistics. “Might present a problem.”

Gina could see multiple problems, but wanted to hear his.

“We keep as close an eye as we can on the drug trade. We’ve arrested dozens of dealers, small and large. We have snitches that clue us in on much of it. The way I see it, for a load of drugs to make it to a warehouse and out again without a whiff of the deal getting to us they had to be confident HPD wouldn’t interfere. When Hunter showed up they were stunned enough to kill him. Is someone on the inside calling the shots? Is someone on a drug payroll as well as HPD’s so they can wheel and deal with greater ease? What makes me even more into this theory is seeing how our bust the other night should have been much bigger. Since it wasn’t, I want to know why. Even more I want to know if a member of the squad is involved.”

Darin looked at her, his eyes intense. “I have a difficult time thinking such thoughts. I’ve always trusted every one of my co-workers. Had to. Our lives depend on each other. Besides, they’re like a second family. I don’t want to think like this. So I have to go this alone. I’d like one person on standby if I need help. That’s why you’re here.”

Alone! Was he crazy?

“You’re going to do this alone and you want me on standby? Is that the deal?”

Darin scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll be careful and do everything by the book if I can.”

“And if not?”

“I’m hoping that situation doesn’t come up.”

Gina hurt for him. He wanted his partner’s killer in the worst way, but could ruin his career in the process. What was he thinking?

“I’d ask another member of the squad if I could. They’re all friends. It’s only…”

“You don’t know who to trust. Which is why you called me. You know I couldn’t be involved because I haven’t been here but a few days.”

His looked sheepish. “Right now, you’re the only one I know absolutely could
not
be involved.”

She sat back, crossed her arms over her chest. So there it was. Darin was innocent. Unless he’d learned who she was, why she was here, and had just set up an elaborate smokescreen.

But she couldn’t see such a scenario.

It was her nature to be suspicious. It was what made her good at her job. Hadn’t she learned her lesson the hard way when she was a kid?

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll think about it if we can agree on how to do it. If you decide to go the drug buyer route, we’ll set it up so I can be with you. Probably as your partner; maybe go a step further and be the partner with the money.”

He shook his head. “Not part of the deal. I go alone. You’re on standby.”

Really? Or did he want her out of the way so he would be free to do his own thing and no one would be the wiser? Damn her suspicious mind.

“Someone needs to be there to watch your back. It will need watching if this goes down. Even though you suspect a member of the squad could be involved, that leaves five who are not. Together, we’ll check out each one of them until we’re satisfied that person is clean, then go from there. An operation where you’re going after the big guys is dangerous. But you know that. We’ll need more help than just the two of us.”

He leaned closer, his mouth a thin line. “I don’t think you get it. I don’t want to risk anyone’s career but my own. That includes you and the squad.

She had to make him understand not only the risk—hell, he’d probably end up dead—but he could lose his career. She crossed her arms over her chest. “To do an undercover op like this, you’ll need more help than one lousy backup. It will take planning, backgrounds that can be verified, a disguise that won’t draw suspicion. I don’t think you have a clue what you’re getting yourself into.”

He sat back, his eyes on hers. She had to get through to him. Sure he wanted Hunter’s killer and he wanted the drugs, but it wasn’t worth dying to get them. And die he would if they went along with his so-called plan.

“What do you suggest?”

“I’ll have to have time to think on it. But I guarantee a one-man operation is doomed before it starts.”

“Okay, so what if we do bring in a few members of the squad? We don’t know who we can trust.”

“It shouldn’t be that hard. I’m the newbie. I want to get acquainted. At some point in the near future, I’ll visit each squad member in their home. I have a good eye for seeing things others can’t. It shouldn’t be hard.”

“We’ll have to check their finances, backgrounds, everything.” He paused. “I can have my sister and her husband’s company do that part.”

“Are they qualified?” She knew they were. And the more eyes they had on this the better.

“Highly. Trust me, this will work.”

Would it? Maybe. If everything fell into place as they planned. How likely was that? But she had no choice. It was go along or he’d go it alone and get himself killed. On her watch.

“Then we need to get to work.”

“I’ll start by having an outdoor party at my house soon. It’ll be an opening for you to get to know everybody a little better.”

“What reason will you give for the party?”

“New member of the squad. Someone does the honors whenever a newbie shows up.ˮ

“There’s another problem.”

“Oh?”

“Money. We’ll need lots of it to make this work.”

“Struck down before we begin,” he said. “Where the hell would we get our hands on so much cash?”

The dejected look on his face had her gathering her things. “Leave it to me.”

“Are you kidding? What are you, an heiress or something?”

“Rich uncle.” She winked.

She said a hasty goodbye and left through the back door.

This crazy plan wouldn’t be easy to carry out. It would be challenging and dangerous. Still, she was sure it could be done. After all, she’d gone undercover many times. But Darin? He was a Texas cop who wore boots and a Stetson, had a drawl as wide as the Rio Grande, and probably didn’t know the first thing about going undercover.