Protector

She was staring at piles of paper haphazardly stacked on either side of a cleaned-off spot.

He gave her a haughty look. “I’ll have you know that those files are logically stacked in priority of need. I myself went through each one with no assistance from my secretary who doesn’t know how to file anything!” he added, raising his voice so that the demure, dark-haired young woman in the outer office could hear him through the half-open door.

“Lies,” came a lilting voice in answer.

“I can’t even find the menu for Barbara’s Café!” he shot back.

With a resounding sigh, the young woman walked through the door, dark-haired, slender and neatly dressed in jeans and a blue T-shirt with a knee-length sleeved sweater over it. “There,” she said, putting the menu neatly on his desk. She glared at him. “And the files would be in order, sir, if you’d just let me do my job...”

“Those are secret and important files,” he pointed out in his deep voice. “Which should not be the subject of local gossip.”

“I never gossip,” she replied blandly.

“You do so,” he retorted. “You told people all over town that I carry a sidearm!”

The secretary looked at Minette, rolled her eyes and went back out again.

Minette was distracted. She stared at Cash Grier curiously. Their very few meetings had been businesslike and brief, mostly when she interviewed him about criminal investigations—and there had only been a handful lately.

“I have trouble getting good help,” he said with an angelic smile.

“I’m the best help you’ve ever had, sir, because I can spell and type and answer the phone!”

“Well, you can’t do them all at once, Carlie, now can you?” he shot back.

There was a muttered sound, followed by the muted one of fingers on a computer keyboard.

“What can I do for you?” Cash asked belatedly.

“It’s about Sheriff Carson,” Minette replied.

“Yes. We’re working with his department to find out who shot him, although frankly, it’s causing some headaches.”

She nodded. “I just had a call from someone who said the next person they send would be a better shot. That’s just a summary. I brought the recording with me.” She took out a small cassette and put it on the desk. “We routinely record all our calls. We’ve had some issues in the past.”

“Yes, when someone tried to firebomb your office, I remember. He’s doing five to ten up in state prison, one of the few arsonists who ever got convicted.” Cash took out a small device from his desk drawer, inserted the tape Minette had brought and played it with his eyes shut. He did that again. He opened his eyes. “Northern Mexico,” he murmured, thinking aloud. “But with a hint of Mexico City. A native speaker. Calling from somewhere near a highway.”

“You got all that from a few words?” Minette asked, impressed.

He nodded, all business. “I still have a few skills left over from the old days, and I’ve dealt with telephone threats before. This is gloating, pure and simple. He thinks he’s too smart to be caught.” His eyes narrowed. “Hayes still at your place?”

“Yes,” she said. “He’s resisting attempts at rehabilitation and pretending that he doesn’t need all that nonsense.” She sighed. “He may never leave, at this rate.”

He got up from the desk, towering over her. “I’ll go out and have a talk with him,” he said. “I’ve been in his situation a few times. It might help. Mind if I hold on to that tape?”

“No. And if we get any more calls, I’ll bring them to you.” She hesitated. “I have two little kids living in my house, not to mention my elderly great-aunt,” she began.

“And you’re wondering how safe they are,” he replied. He smiled gently. “I’ll take care of that. No worries. You just save the world one article at a time.”

She laughed. “Okay.”

He walked her out. Carlie looked up from her desk with shimmering green eyes.

“The mayor called,” she told Cash. “He wants to know if you’re coming to the city council meeting.”

“No.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“I’ll tell you what to tell him...” Cash began heatedly.

She held up a hand. “Please. My father is a minister.”

Cash made a face at her and walked Minette to the front door. “I’ll see what I can do to motivate Hayes.” He hesitated. “Has he still got that huge reptile?”

Minette nodded.

“Is it living with you, too?” he asked with a grin.

She laughed. “No. I’m not going to be lunch for any enormous holdover from the dinosaur age,” she promised him.

* * *

Later, at Minette’s house, Cash was less humorous. Hayes had received a call, also.

“The coward was bragging about his marksman’s skill. He said that I moved or I’d be dead now,” Hayes muttered.

“Good thing you did move,” Cash replied. He drew in a breath. “I gather you’ve had the number checked out already?”

Hayes gave him a long-suffering look, and Cash laughed.

“Yes. It was a cell phone that’s no longer in service. Probably one of those throwaway types. We traced a call one of the cartel mules placed from our jail the day before I was shot. Same story.”

Cash nodded. “We’ve dealt with our share of those,” he agreed. He leaned forward in the chair he was occupying beside Hayes’s bed. “Lawmen make enemies,” he added. “But this is an exceptional one. Do you have any idea who’s behind the assassination attempt?”

Hayes nodded. “My investigator dug out a privileged little piece of dark information about a month ago. He was able to tie the death of a border agent with the one they call El Ladrón.”

“The thief,” Cash translated. He laughed. “How appropriate.”

“His men don’t call him that,” Hayes said. “Only his enemies.”

“We can only hope that he has enough of those to help bring him down.”

“He has one major enemy who’s fighting him for control of Cotillo,” Hayes said. “A reclusive, very dangerous leader of a South American cartel making inroads into the Mexican drug trade.”

“This reclusive drug trader, do we know who he is?”

Hayes nodded. “The son of an American heiress who ran away with a charming but deadly Mexican gang leader. He used his mother’s money to avenge his father, who was killed by agents of El Ladrón.”