Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,7
custom-made. He hadn’t needed it in Jacobsville, but this was unknown territory, and it was dangerous not to go heeled. He had a concealed carry permit, but for Jersey, not here. He supposed he’d have to go see the sheriff in Jacobs County and get one for Texas. That would be Hayes Carson. He knew the sheriff from three years ago. They got on.
Santi opened the door and got in behind the wheel. “All the bags are in the trunk, chief,” he told his boss. “We need to stop anywhere else before we head south?”
“Not unless you’re hungry.”
“I could eat.”
“Well, there’s a nice restaurant in a better part of town. Let’s go looking.” He glanced out through the tinted windows at a young man who was giving the limo a real hard look. “I’m not overjoyed with the clientele hereabouts.”
“Me, neither.”
“So, let’s go. We’ll drive around and see if we can find someplace Italian. I think Paulie said a new place had just opened recently. Carlo’s. Put it in the computer.”
Santi fed it into the onboard GPS. “Got it, chief. Only three blocks away.”
“Okay! Head out.”
* * *
They were well into their plates of spaghetti when Mikey noticed a couple of customers in suits giving them a cursory inspection.
“Feds,” Mikey said under his breath. “At the second table over. Don’t look,” he added.
“Know them?”
“Nope,” Mikey said.
“FBI, you think?”
Mikey chuckled. “If they were, Paulie would have mentioned that I had a tail here in the city.”
“Then who?”
“If I were guessing, US Marshals,” he replied. “The big dark one looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite place him. He was working with Paulie during the time I spent in Jacobsville three years ago.”
“Marshals?” Santi asked, and he shifted restlessly.
“Relax. They aren’t planning to toss our butts in jail. There’s this thing called due process,” Mikey said imperturbably. “We’ll have fewer worries down in Jacobs County. Jacobsville is so small that any stranger sticks out. Besides, we’ve got shadows of our own.”
“Good ones?”
“You bet,” Mikey replied with a smug grin. “So eat your supper and I’ll move into my new temporary home.”
“I don’t like being down the road in a motel,” Santi muttered. “Even with all the other guys watching your back.”
“Well, I’m not sharing the room,” Mikey said flatly. “It’s barely big enough for me and all my stuff, without trying to fit you into it. No room for another bed, anyway.”
“I guess you got a point.”
“Of course I do. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to get hit until they track me down here.”
“The limo is going to attract attention,” Santi said worriedly.
“Yeah, well, no more attention than the gossip will, but there’s not a place in the world I’d be safer. Strangers stick out here. Remember, I told you about Cash Grier’s wife being tracked here by a contract killer, and what happened to him?”
Santi chuckled. “Yeah. Grier’s wife hit him so hard with an iron skillet that he ran to the cops for protection.”
“Exactly. Nobody messes with Tippy Grier. What a knockout. A movie star, and she’s married to the police chief and has two kids. I never thought Grier could settle down in a small town. He didn’t seem the sort.”
“That’s what everybody says.” Santi paused. “I feel bad about that poor girl we almost hit,” he added, surprisingly, because he wasn’t sentimental. “She was nice, and we thought she was trying to play us.”
“We come by our suspicious natures honestly,” Mikey reminded him. “But, yeah, she was nice. Needs looking after,” he said quietly. “Not that she seems the kind of woman who’d let anybody look after her.”
“I noticed that.”
Mikey glanced at his watch. “We’d better go.” He signaled to a waiter for the check.
* * *
Bernadette was reading in bed. The pain was pretty bad, a combination of the rain and the fall. She needed something to take her mind off it, so she pulled out her cell phone, on which she kept dozens of books. Many were romance novels. She realized that her condition would keep most men away, and it was nice to daydream about having a kind man sweep her off her feet.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the big dark-haired man who’d done that earlier in the evening. He was kin to Paul Fiore, who was married to Sari Grayling. Bernie worked with Sari in the local DA’s office. She wondered if she could get away with asking her anything about the man, who’d been very kind to her after mistaking her for