lightly. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you, Bernie.”
She beamed.
He caught her hand in his and held it tight. He leaned back against the seat, clearly concerned. “I sent a text to Paulie. Did you tell Sari about it?”
“No,” she said. “She’s been in court all week and then she had to go and depose a witness in an assault case she’s prosecuting. And honestly, we’ve been pretty busy at work all week, too.”
He was weighing it in his mind. He knew Cotillo was after him, that the man could also target Bernie. But it wasn’t the way Cotillo did business. He’d already sent a cleaner after Mikey. That was how he handled threats. Aiming a car at a woman and missing her by several feet, that wasn’t the way a man used to violence did business.
Bernie’s hand in his tightened. “Maybe it was just an accident,” she said. “People do lose control of their cars for all sorts of reasons.”
“Yeah. They do. But it’s suspicious.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder and laughed. “That’s you. Suspicious.”
He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve spent my whole life being suspicious. It’s why I’m still alive, kid,” he teased.
“I suppose so.” She looked up into his eyes. “It could be somebody from my own past, from my family’s past, still hunting vengeance, you know. Daddy was almost killed once for it.”
“How many years ago was that?” he asked.
“Well, quite a few,” she recalled.
“It’s more likely that it’s somebody connected to me,” he said. “But in any case, the feds will hash it out.” He slid an arm around her shoulders. “Your coworker Jessie has changed,” he commented. “Even Paulie said Sari’s talking about it.” He glanced down at her. “Is she pretending?”
She laughed. “You really are suspicious. She said that it was hard to come from the city and get used to a small town, that she was used to having to be on her guard with people.”
“Did she say what city?”
She shook her head. “She came down here from San Antonio. But she’s originally from somewhere up north, I think, like her friend Billie who works at the courthouse. They room together.”
He frowned. He hadn’t considered that the two of them were both from up north. “Have they been here a long time?”
“Not really. Jessie’s only been here a few weeks. I believe she and her friend moved from San Antonio together. Billie knew somebody at the courthouse who wanted a temporary secretary after his got sick. They know the cook at Barbara’s, too—he’s from New Jersey.”
Mikey felt his heart stop and start again. He hadn’t been asking the right questions. Neither had Paulie. What if the two women and the cook were part of Cotillo’s bunch? If nothing else, the timing was right. He was going to suggest to Paulie that they get somebody to keep an eye on those three as well. It was too convenient to be a coincidence.
“You’re worried,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.
He smiled at her. “Nothing major,” he said. “Just thinking. We’re going to see the Alamo. No worries for today, at least. Okay?”
She grinned. “Okay!”
* * *
They walked around the old fort like tourists, holding hands and watching leaves drift down out of the trees.
“It’s going to be Halloween next week,” he pointed out.
She grinned at him. “Are we going trick-or-treating, then?”
He burst out laughing. “Oh, that would be one for the books, wouldn’t it?”
“I used to go when I was a little girl,” she recalled. “Mom and Dad would drive me up to some of the nice neighborhoods in San Antonio door-to-door so that I could get candy. We had only a couple of close neighbors, and they didn’t celebrate it at all.”
“Paulie and I went with a bunch of the guys from our neighborhood,” Mikey recalled. “This one house, a little old lady always invited us in for hot chocolate. It was a hoot. She’d been a Hollywood agent in her younger days. She could tell some stories!”
“I’ll bet!”
“I imagine kids in Jacobsville have a great time at Halloween. And the other holidays.”
“They do. Christmas is the best time, though. They stretch garlands of holly and lights all over the streets and across them. There are Christmas trees everywhere, and the local toy store has trains running in the window.” She sighed. “It’s just magic.”
He chuckled. His hand tightened on hers. “Grandma always made Christmas special for me and Paulie,” he said. “Of course, we had to go