Matt—The Callahan Brothers (Brazos Bend Book 2) (34 page)

Matt shook his head in wonder. To Branch, he said, “I swear, Mark is right. You are the most manipulative, underhanded, scheming SOB I have ever run across and considering my occupation, that’s saying something.”

“Now, son ...”

“Stop it.” Matt rubbed his temple. He needed to think this through. Counseling. Twenty years ago it might have helped, but now? Luke might agree to it—Maddie would badger him into it. Mark? Not in this century.

And right now, being called down here for this crap in the middle of an operation? He’d thought the old bastard was dying!
 

“It’d be a complete waste of time, Doctor. I know I’m not in the mood for it, not after this stunt. Besides, I don’t have time for it.” He had a stalker to catch. And probably, a woman’s temper to soothe.

The doctor responded, “You need to be aware I think that resolving these matters is imperative for your father’s long-term health. These types of stresses easily could cause serious health consequences.”

“Stresses?” Matt snapped. “I could tell you a thing about stresses.”

The doctor tucked his pen into the pocket of his white lab coat. “Then perhaps you should make an appointment for a checkup yourself.”

“Will you at least consider it?” Branch asked. “Talk to your brothers?”

“Mark won’t consider it, Dad.”

“Luke, then. You and Luke. That’d be a start, right?”

Matt felt his cell phone vibrate. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked the number. Luke. “I have to take this. Look, Branch, go home. Luke and I will come by in a couple of days and talk about this, okay? No promises, but it’ll give you a chance to come clean with him about everything. He’s not going to be real happy with you, either.”

Branch nodded, his smile shaky, his eyes bright with hope. Matt turned away from him and answered the call. “Hey. Hold on just a minute and let me get somewhere private.”

“Sure.”

A minute later, he walked out the hospital’s front door into the sunshine. “Okay, what do you have?”

“Trouble. I made the deal with Romo work, and after he talked to his wife, he talked to me. It’s a good thing I checked, Matthew. The woman in Torie’s photographs? The one with Marlow who we identified as Esteban Romo’s wife’s younger sister? We didn’t have the whole story. She’s related to Alejandro more closely than a sister-in-law’s sister. She’s Alejandro’s wife. Pilar de Romo.”

Matt burst out with a disbelieving laugh. “You’re telling me that Collin Marlow had an affair with the wife of the head of a terrorist organization?”

“Yep.”

“Good grief, he’s lucky he just got shot.” He thought about the situation a moment longer. “Which explains why he didn’t kill her, too, at the time,” Matt said. “I’ve wondered about that. She must have been a damned fine actress.”

“Actually, that’s exactly what she was. Esteban and Alejandro saw Marlow escort her onto his boat. Think about the series of pictures and the point at which the Romos arrived. Pilar claimed Marlow forced her, and Alejandro bought it. Esteban says his brother was blind where his wife was concerned. He believed her until he saw proof.”

“Torie’s pictures?”

“Yep.”

“How did they get hold of them?”

“Romo claims that an American DEA agent used them in a sting operation.”

Matt’s curses lasted almost a full minute and fear shivered down his back. “Do we have a drug lord after Torie? Is this some sort of Latin machismo revenge attempt?”

Luke thought for a moment before answering. “I don’t know. Esteban said no, but I don’t know that I believe him. He makes my skin crawl. Oh, and he also claims his brother will have him out of jail by the end of the week. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he’s right. He did give me another lead, though, and I’m on my way to the local insane asylum now to check it out.”

“The what?”

“Santa Maria Hospital. Apparently Alejandro decided he couldn’t kill the mother of his son for cheating on him, so he shut her away with the crazies. I have time to try to see her before my flight out. She might be able to give us a different viewpoint.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

“If you don’t hear back from me in an hour, call in the cavalry. I wouldn’t want to get lost inside a South American insane asylum.”

The brothers discussed a few more details, then ended their call. Matt took a moment to collect himself. He’d lived some tension-filled days in his life with the Company, usually as the hunter, sometimes the hunted. He’d always thrived under stress. He truly loved the adrenaline. Yet, the stress of dealing with his father left him feeling like a man twice his age.

And now he had to face Torie. He let out a grim sigh and headed for his truck. Maybe he’d make a quick run by the florist, first.

***

The scent of blueberry muffins filled the air. Bought fresh from the oven and piled into a picnic basket, they provided perfect camouflage for the .22 revolver snuggled at the bottom of the basket. “How delicious.”

Laughter spilled from smiling lips. Bright eyes gazed around the crowded bakery in search of a decoy. Couples garnered less scrutiny than a single. Hmm ... so many to choose from.

Ten minutes later, on the road again. How easy this was! Small towns, small minds. Conventional minds.

Although the trap they’d set showed a measure of ingenuity. It might have worked had they faced someone with less experience at deception, less accustomed to dangerous circumstance. What a mistake to reveal themselves under the watchful eyes of their prey, hiding in plain sight.

What a delightful, fatal mistake.

***

“Matt Callahan doesn’t know how big a mistake he’s made,” Torie muttered as she slammed her bedroom door. With short, jerky movements she yanked her shirt over her head. “He thinks drug runners and Peruvian terrorists and Asian warlords are dangerous? Wait until he gets a load of me.”

Curled in the center of the bed taking a nap, Gigi lifted her head.

“Right, Gigi?”

Gigi answered with three short yips that Torie took as affirmative. She stripped off her slacks and underwear, then grabbed her swimsuit from the bureau drawer. She needed exercise to burn off some of this anger before she faced him, or she might just go for her gun again.

Mark had refused to talk to her about what Matt had or had not done, but the guilty look in his eyes had given him away. His determined refusal to speak had revived the temper that had been reduced to a slow simmer by Helen’s news. The jerk. He was just as bad as his brother.

Dressed in her swimsuit, she slid her feet into flip flops, then grabbed a towel from the connecting bath. “You want to come down to the water with me?” she asked Gigi, scooping her up into her arms. “If I don’t burn off some of this energy I’m going to explode and start screaming.

As she headed out the door, her gaze snagged on her handbag with its built-in holster and the pistol stored within. She reached out and grabbed it. She might need it. After all, wasn’t she just another minnow in the lake?

Bait.

Matt had better beware. Maybe this time she’d plug one of his boats. Or maybe she’d just sink it.

***

“What do you think, Mrs. Booth? Roses?”

“You can never go wrong with roses. Just how big a doghouse are you in?”

He thought about it. “Two stories. And a garage.”

“Better get two dozen, then, honey. Long stems. And red.”

“Think I’ll buy three.”

“You’ll need to write a card.” The florist handed him a blank card and a pen.

He frowned down at the plain card, then eyed the round display case. “Don’t you have one that I can just sign?”

“Yes, but you don’t want that, Demon. I’ve been doing this for over thirty years now and you need to listen to what I say. A two-story doghouse requires a handwritten note. And it must say something more than ‘‘Love, Matt.’ Take your time. I’ll be a few minutes fixing up your flowers.”

Aw, man. Matt picked up the pen and tapped the end against the counter. He never had been good with words.

***

The parking lot at Four Brothers Vineyard was full once again. Visitors milled conveniently in the vineyard and took pictures in adjacent wildflower-dotted fields. Next year, they could call this the Texas Wine, Wildflower, and Revenge Tour.

It did have a certain ring to it.

How simple to carry a picnic basket and link arms with the decoy. How easy to stroll right past the guards who’d given themselves away by rushing the man in the tasting room, to smile and offer a refreshing bottle of water on the warm afternoon. How effortless to blend, separate, disappear over a hill.

To put the silenced weapon against the back of a head and pull the trigger.

Pilar de Romo gazed down at her first kill impassively, mildly surprised at her lack of emotional response to having taken a life. She’d grown up around violence, had witnessed sudden death for as long as she could recall. Still, she’d expected to feel something. Oh, well.

She retraced her steps until she spied the first security man. Adopting an air of panic, she rushed forward. “Help me, sir. Please. There’s something wrong with my boyfriend. This way. Follow me this way.”

When she judged them safely isolated, she fired again and earned kill number two. A short time later, number three proved just as easy.

Pilar continued her walk. Topping the hill, she stopped and gazed down at her target. “What a pretty house.”

Now emotion flowed.

Feel the power.

Feel the hate.

Crave the kill.

***

“You need to listen to this, brother,” Luke Callahan said when Matt answered the phone on his way out of the florist shop. “I have a bad feeling about it. She escaped.”

His arms full of roses and his thoughts on his Torie troubles, Matt was slow on the uptake. “Who escaped what?”

“Pilar de Romo. She disappeared from the asylum three months ago, but no one reported it because, frankly, they’re afraid of Alejandro.”

The wife. Hmm. Timing would work. She would have had to have access to some resources. Matt carefully stored the roses on the floorboard of his truck, then said, “The incidents haven’t had a feminine feel to them, but at this point we can’t eliminate anyone. I’ll make some calls, see what I can find out about her or where she might be. Good job, Luke. Thank you.”

“Glad to be of help. So, any sign of trouble around there?”

Matt let out a scornful laugh. Where to start? “From someone other than Branch, you mean? No. We had a little excitement this morning when Helen Bradshaw’s secret husband showed up, but that’s it so far.”

“Sounds like there’s a story there, but my plane is about to board. See you tonight.”

Matt made a quick call to Mark, asking him to pass word to the men standing guard to be wary of women in addition to men. “They should be doing that already,” Mark replied.

“I know.” Matt waved to an acquaintance entering the florist’s, then added, “Still, every potential suspect we’ve given them is a man. A reminder to watch everyone won’t hurt.”

“I’m on it. Anything else?”

“Yeah.” Matt started his truck and pulled out onto the road. He heard yapping sounds through the phone. Paco, probably. Little rat dog had taken a real shine to Mark. “How’s Torie?”

“You might want to don your body armor before you come into the house,” Mark replied.

Matt heard the familiar squeak of the kitchen screen door and made a mental note to shoot it with WD40 when he got home. “I’m eight minutes away. How about you provide me cover when I get there?”

Rather than answer, his brother made a sound. A pain-filled grunt. The screen door slammed shut like a gunshot. “Mark?” Matt demanded. “Mark!”

Nothing.

Matt stomped on the gas pedal. “Mark!”

He heard a scream. Torie? Helen?

Then a laugh that turned his blood ice cold.

Chapter Eighteen

Excitement hummed in Pilar’s blood as she watched Mark Callahan fall. Though it had taken two shots, it was much more fun than the others because she’d owed him. He was the man who’d triggered the surprise she’d left for Torie Bradshaw in LA.

She walked through the kitchen door he’d opened to let out the dog, who now stood beside the prone body barking noisily. She took aim at the dog, but the scream diverted her attention. Torie Bradshaw screamed and rushed to the man’s side, sliding down on her knees crying, “Mark.”

“Back away from him,” Pilar said, using a two-handed grip to keep the gun pointed toward the woman. “Slide the phone over to me. His gun, too. Take it from its holster very carefully.”

The blonde hesitated, but when Pilar shifted her finger back onto the trigger, she did as instructed. “Who are you?”

“You don’t recognize me?” Pilar stooped, picked up the phone, and flipped it shut. “After all those photographs you took? Why, I’m hurt, Victoria.”

“I’m not—” She broke off abruptly. “What do you want?”

Exhilaration filled Pilar and she giggled. “Why, to make you pay, of course. You cost me everything. So, tell me, did you enjoy my little gifts? I’m quite the photographer myself, don’t you agree? Do you know that you snore when you sleep?”