Casey flipped open the phone and saw she'd missed three calls from Jose. Her heart took off at a gallop. The phone had been left on vibrate. She'd missed Jose's warning calls.
A fist hammered the metal door.
Casey hit dial on Jose's number.
The door shuddered under another pounding.
Jose answered his phone.
"It's me," Casey said. "I think he's here."
"Who? Where?" Jose asked.
"Domingo Mondo."
"Aren't you at your office?" Jose asked.
"Yes, and I think he's right outside."
CHAPTER 15
SILENCE HUNG BETWEEN THEM A MOMENT UNTIL JOSe SAID, "That's me. I'm outside."
"Jesus. You?"
He rapped twice on the door and said, "Me. Three times now."
He rapped three times.
"You're not pointing that.38 at me, are you?" he asked.
Casey looked at the gun in her hand and lowered it quietly into the drawer. "Of course not."
"Can I come in?"
Casey hung up the phone and went to the door, calling to him and putting her ear up to it just because she couldn't help herself. When he said his name, she threw the bolt and swung open the door. His big white smile glowed at her from the shadows of the streetlight. He'd slicked his dark hair back behind his ears and wore a clean white shirt, dark jeans, and cowboy boots that showed no wear.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"I tried to call."
"I know, I thought to warn me about Mondo. That made it worse."
"I'm glad you're being safe," he said. "I just put the redheaded wife to bed-so to speak. That little Roadway Inn down by the highway. I thought I'd see if you were around. Did you eat yet?"
Casey shook her head. "Are you shaking?" he asked, lightly taking hold of her wrist. "I'm sorry I scared you like that. I tried to call and then I saw the light on, so I stopped."
"I'm fine," she said, pulling away. "I'd love to get something, though. We could talk about Rosalita and a new case I've got that I think I'm going to need your help on."
"You like fried oysters?" he asked.
"Sure."
"Come on. Follow me. Del Frisco's has the best."
Casey shut down her computer, packed her notes into her briefcase, and followed him out into the back lot. She noticed for the first time the slight bow in his muscular legs. When he turned to say something, she blushed and looked away. He stood there, waiting for her to get into the Mercedes and start the engine before he nodded and climbed into his pickup. She followed him onto the Tollway and they headed north almost to the Belt Line.
Casey handed her keys to a valet.
"You know the hubcaps is gone on this, right?" the valet said.
"I try not to be too flashy," she said.
"Just 'cause I don't want anyone saying nothing."
"Try to keep it away from that Bentley over there," she said, angling her head toward the lot and the enormous car with its sparkling grill. "I don't want those wide doors chipping my paint when some P. Diddy guy swings it open."
Casey left the valet pinching his lip and stepped toward the door Jose held open for her.
"Very fancy," she said, looking around at the dark wood, the candles, and the linen tablecloths.
"I try to spend as much as I can, so if something happens to me my wife won't get a dime."
"You have a daughter, don't you?"
"And a life insurance trust in her name," he said, following Casey inside, "so if I do die, she'll be all set. The trustee is my mom and you know she won't let the ex see a penny of it. Cash, cars, my watch."
He rattled the stainless steel Submariner.
"Anything liquid," he said, "and even though it goes to my girl, she'll have her mitts all over it."
Jose had called ahead for a table and the hostess took them to it right away.
"I'm sorry. You don't want to hear crap like that," he said, leaning over his open menu. "That's no way to start a da-a dinner."
"This isn't a date, is it?" Casey said. "Is that what you were going to say?"
"I like working with you," he said. "I don't want to screw that up."
"You think I can afford to fire you?"
Jose rubbed his chin and said, "I think you'd fire yourself if you got the itch."
"Can I ask you a strange question?"
"Would you mind a strange answer?"
"Do men ever get a rash from sex?"
"Down in Juarez you're apt to, but I don't frequent those kinds of places."
"Not that kind of rash. I mean, like breaking out in hives on your chest."
"Can I wait until I've had a couple oysters?"
"I'm being serious," Casey said. "I had a client tell me her husband always breaks out in a rash. That's how she knows he hasn't been sleeping with his boss's wife."
"This sounds more like my paying clients," he said.
"I don't buy it," Casey said, ignoring his smirk. "Some women just don't want to know. You heard about Senator Chase and that hunting accident?"
"It was all over. Everywhere."
"This part wasn't."
Casey told him the story, as much as she knew. Jose's dark eyebrows dipped farther and farther toward his nose as she went on. When the champagne came, the waiter popped the cork and she stopped talking.
The waiter filled their glasses. Jose raised his and said, "I didn't mean to be goofy about it. Cheers, anyway."
"I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't gotten that kind of reaction from Norman Case," she said before taking a sip and nodding at her glass. "That's good. He's supposed to be a straight shooter."
"You think Chase killed this guy over the wife?"
"If it was an accident," Casey said, "why the rush to get Isodora out of the country?"
"Embarrassment?" Jose said. "Isn't Chase big on sending every Mexican without a swimming pool back across the border?"
"He didn't support the Immigration Bill, but who did?"
"It's how he didn't support it."
"I didn't follow it that close," Casey said.
"I did," Jose said, sipping his champagne. "I ever tell you I got a degree in poli-sci from Angelo State? Anyway, that man's a xenophobe."
"But these people lived on his ranch."
"Funny how they do that," Jose said, forcing a smile, "use these people like slaves until someone catches them. Then they say they didn't know and start calling them thieves and talk about breaking into the country."
"How can we find out?" Casey asked.
"It'll be hard to prove that it wasn't an accident," Jose said. "They said the guy jumped right up in front of him. No one else was there."
"Pretend the wife was with Elijandro," Casey said, eyeing the plate of deep-fried oysters the waiter set down. "Go at it like that and how do you prove it wasn't an accident?"
"You dig in," Jose said, stabbing an oyster and drowning it in hot sauce. "You ask questions. You start from the start. Eventually work your way around to the wife, but I'd save that. First you got the arrest report. Autopsy. Visit the scene. Even if it is in the Triangulo de Bermudas."
"Even I speak that Spanish," Casey said. "The Bermuda Triangle's in the Caribbean."
"We have our own here," Jose said. "The Mexicans around here are real superstitious about that corner of the county. There's a chief of police who don't like Mexicans and supposedly people have disappeared going through there."
"What do you mean? Arrested? Kidnapped?"
Jose shrugged. "Don't know, but when I was doing some undercover work right before I left the force there were these two bangers who almost went to war over a missing container full of people. One of the guys ran the route and the other's cousins were in the thing and it just disappeared."
"Maybe they didn't make it across the border," Casey said. "Or they got lost in the desert someplace."
"Right," Jose said, swallowing his oyster and holding his fork in the air. "Only the truck driver made a call from just outside Wilmer, so they made it across. That was the last time anyone had a line on the truck. Twenty people. Poof. Vanished.