'Actually, I'd prefer to meet you. Where are we going?'
'The destination is part of the surprise, I'm afraid.' His expression remained steely and unreadable. 'Compromise is not an option.'
'We won't be riding together?'
'Sorry to say, no. I have business to attend to elsewhere . . . prior to our little engagement.' Cavanaugh leaned forward in his chair, his pale blue eyes casting a chill. 'Join me. Find out what the mystery is all about.'
Diego stared at the man, searching his face for something he would never find—the truth. Yet for the sake of the missing girls, he really had no choice. 'I'd love to. Count me in.'
Finally, Brogan smiled.
CHAPTER12
Downtown San Antonio
3:45 p.m.
Diego pulled into the parking lot of the Wells Fargo Bank on North St. Mary's Street. Without hesitation, he got out and went into the lobby. Not speaking to anyone, he picked up a brochure and sat in a grouping of chairs designated for loans and new accounts. Sitting behind him, off to the right, a man busied himself with a similar activity.
Diego watched the comings and goings of the people in the bank, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The lobby would close soon.
'Can I help you with any thin', sir?' A petite older woman in a gray business suit and a string bolo tie smiled at him, her head cocked to one side. Sprayed in place, her big Texas hair looked more like a silver helmet. And her slick colored lips matched her fingernails.
'No thank you. I'm waiting for someone.' Diego looked down at his bank brochure to avoid a second look at the hair.
With her thick Texas accent, the woman kept talking, 'I see you've got one of our brochures.' She raised both eyebrows and waited, the same smile frozen on her face.
'What?' He shrugged. 'You going to charge me for reading it?' The minute he said it, Diego regretted his impatience. He only wanted to get on with business and get out of there. Fortunately, the woman took the high road and ignored his shoddy manners.
'No, silly.' She giggled with a hand across her lips. 'I just wanted to see if I can explain anything to you. You might have a question.'
'If it's in English or Spanish with plenty of pictures, I think I'm good.' Diego returned her smile. 'Thanks anyway.'
'Well, call if you need anythin'. We're fixin' to close up shop, but I'll be right over yonder.' She pointed and walked away, her sensible pumps echoing across the lobby floor.
After a long moment, the man near him spoke, without turning his way.
'Nice. I think she likes you, Galvan. I never knew you were such a hit with the blue hairs,' Mike Draper said with rare amusement in his voice. 'Those Latin good looks are a real magnet.'
'Is that why you won't leave me alone?'
Diego fought back a smile, catching Draper's reaction from the corner of his eye. The man almost choked and mumbled under his breath, 'Male bonding is overrated.'
With a double dose of testosterone added to his already gritty voice, he got down to business. 'Talk to me, Galvan. What's going on?'
Diego indulged in a grin and slouched deeper into his chair, raising the brochure for cover.
'I had an interesting conversation with our man a couple of hours ago. He wants to have dinner tonight. A real covert affair. He's got a limo picking me up at the estate by eight. No destination. No details. The man likes surprises.'
'Well, I don't. What the hell is this all about?' the FBI man questioned.
'He says he's got a proposition for me, something worth my time. Apparently, I've earned his respect in the loyalty department.' Diego cocked his head to the right, his voice low. 'If it makes you feel any better, he said killing me would be a waste of a bullet. High praise coming from him.'
'So he uses a knife. Dead is dead,' Draper argued. 'I don't like it. We gotta talk about this.'
'Nothing to talk about. If we want to find those missing girls, I'm gonna have to take the risk,' he insisted. Whether Draper went along with this or not, it didn't matter. Diego had made up his mind.
A long moment of silence went by with nothing coming from the fed. Diego tightened his jaw and waited. He searched the faces of the few remaining customers in the lobby. No one stood out. No one watched them. A teller shut the main door but stayed to let the stragglers out.
'You've already convinced yourself, I can tell. And I see your point. But you're not going in without surveillance, maybe some high-tech toys.'
'The fancy cell phone you gave me is good enough. I'm not getting caught with any 007 spy shit on me. Cavanaugh would kill me on the spot. Tomorrow when I wake up, I don't want to find myself dead. I'd be real disappointed.'
'Don't worry. I'll keep our surveillance discreet. But you're playing by my rules. You're not going it alone, Galvan.
Diego winced. 'Knock off the lousy Spanish, Draper. You've got all the sincerity of an Anglo politician trying too hard for the Hispanic vote. And believe me, we're not friends.'
The fed ignored him. 'You got anything else?'
Diego's thoughts turned to Rebecca. He didn't want to tell Draper about Cavanaugh's specific interest in her. If her backside needed protecting, he preferred to handle it himself. Literally. He'd struggled over what was best, but in the end, he couldn't rule out the FBI when it came to her safety.
'I got a favor to ask.' Diego made eye contact.
'A favor?'
'You owe me, Draper. Don't give me attitude.'
'I'm FBI. Attitude is what I do.' The man shrugged. 'Okay, don't get your boxers in a bunch. What is it?'
'You remember the local cop I was telling you about a while back? The one looking into the arson and murder at the theater?
'Yeah.'
'Well, I think Cavanaugh has taken an interest in her. I don't know what it's about, but I think you should put surveillance on her for the time being. Just for a couple of days. Something is going down, I can feel it.'
'Is this a hunch of yours, or you got something to back it up?' the fed asked.
'Yeah, call it a hunch.'
Draper looked like a suspicious man, but to his credit, he didn't give Diego any more lip.
'Okay, consider it done. I'll have someone on her by this evening. Anything else?'
'No, nothing.' Diego got up to leave. 'I gotta go.'
He tossed the bank brochure onto his vacant seat. When he looked at Draper, the man had a stern expression on his gaunt face and something else on his mind.
'Cavanaugh is dangerous. Nobody knows it more than you. Don't turn your back on him tonight. This smells like a stinkin' trap.'
'Yeah.' As Diego walked toward the door, he muttered under his breath, 'I know.'
The Riverwalk
4:50 P.M.
The first chance he got, Diego hit a pay phone to call Rebecca on her cell. He had memorized the number she'd given him. And using a pay phone to make contact served his purpose. He didn't want his call to a cop to show up on his billing records.
Rebecca told him to come to her place. She was already home. When he arrived, she greeted him at the door with a fierce kiss.
