Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,33

the wife department. My Sari would give all the movie stars a run for their money.”

“She’s a doll,” Mikey agreed. He sighed. “Well, what are you guys doing about Cotillo while he’s plotting to have me and Tony killed?”

“We think he has somebody locally,” Paul said, suddenly somber. “We don’t know who. There are several people who just started working in Jacobsville recently, some of them with pronounced northern accents, like mine and yours.”

Mikey grimaced. “I think I met one of them. She works with Isabel in the DA’s office. A woman named Jessie.” He shook his head. “Apparently she likes rich men and she’s predatory. She actually got my cell phone number and called to ask me out.”

“I’ll bet that went over well,” Paul replied tongue in cheek, because he knew his cousin inside out. Mikey didn’t like aggressive women.

“It didn’t go over at all,” Mikey replied. “I told her the number was private and I wasn’t interested. Then I hung up and blocked her number.”

“I never attract women who want to date me.” Murdock sighed. “I guess you have to be handsome.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Murdock, except the way you make coffee,” Paul said. “And I did save you from that visiting attorney who mentioned how the ficus plant needed fertilizer.”

“Yes, he was looking right at me when he said it,” Murdock said and sighed. “Not my fault. Nobody else in the office will even try it.”

“I would, but I’m never at my desk long enough.”

“I live on the damned telephone,” Murdock said heavily. “I get picked every time the boss needs information that he has to get from people out of town. I spend most of the day tracking down contacts.”

“You should apply for the SWAT team,” Paul suggested. “You’d do well.”

“I’d get somebody killed is what I’d do,” Murdock returned. “I don’t think fast enough for a job like that. I guess, all in all, information gathering is important work and I’m pretty good at finding people.”

“He used to be a skip tracer for a detective in Houston,” Paul told Mikey. “He was good.”

“I still am,” Murdock said with a grin. “I tracked down an escaped murderer just a few days ago by calling his mother and telling her I was an old Army buddy. She told me exactly where he was. Sweet lady. I felt really guilty.”

“People break the law, they do time,” Paul said. “That’s the rules.”

“Rules are for lesser mortals,” Mikey said with a hollow laugh. “I never followed any in my life.”

“Until now,” Paul said, with twinkling black eyes. “Rules are what’s keeping you alive.”

“Well, that and Bernie, I guess,” Mikey said, and a faint ruddy color ran along his high cheekbones. “We went to the drive-in earlier. We were having a great time until Grier tapped on the window.”

“What movie did you see?” Agent Murdock asked.

Mikey cleared his throat. “It was some sort of action movie, I think. The title escapes me.”

“I’ll bet it does,” Paul said under his breath. “Isabel told me that Bernie poured coffee over ice when she went to get a cup, and then she toppled a bookcase, all in the same day. And she’s not clumsy.”

Mikey’s eyes twinkled. “Well, well.”

“She’s a sweet woman,” Paul said. “Sari’s protective of her. That woman, Jessie, who works in the office, gives her a hard time.”

“DA needs to take care of business and fire her,” Mikey muttered.

“He’s given her fair warning that she’ll lose her job if she causes any more trouble,” Paul replied. He put his hands in his pockets. “Back to the matter at hand, though. I phoned Marcus Carrera and asked him how things were going. He says Tony’s getting restless. He doesn’t like hiding from some cheap hood who wants to take over his territory. He’s fuming that he didn’t anticipate trouble from that quarter when the guy first moved in with his goons.”

“If he comes back, he could die over here,” Mikey said. “He knows that Cotillo will have people watching and waiting.”

Paul nodded. “That’s what I told Carrera. He said he’ll talk some sense into Tony and make sure he stays put, no matter what it takes. He’s got some old friends from his gangster days helping out. And he hired a group of mercs, one of whom used to live here—that Drake guy whose sister married the veterinarian, Bentley Rydel. Kell Drake, that was his name.”

“That’s some formidable backup,” Mikey conceded. “I hope he won’t have to stay there too long. But