When you called, I’d just arrived home.” He entered the kitchen.
“Knowing my mama, she put the leftovers in the refrigerator for me to have later. It won’t take long to heat them up in the microwave. It’s lasagna. Mama is a great cook, a trait I haven’t inherited from her.” She crossed to the utility room and disappeared inside.
Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was clean and neat, with little evidence they had just eaten dinner. He was glad that Aubrey had help with her children. He’d been there for his mother after his father died in a ranch accident. He’d tried his best to do what his dad had done at the family’s ranch and go to high school, then later college. Being a parent was hard, but being a single one was even more difficult. Reflecting on Sammy showing him the picture of his father and his badge brought a smile to Sean’s face. But then he remembered Camy’s shyness, and he thought about his younger sister, who’d been a lot like Aubrey’s daughter.
When Aubrey returned to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, she shot him a look around the door. “Are you really hungry? There’s a lot here.”
He nodded. “I’m always really hungry when it’s a home-cooked meal. Can I help?”
“Put this plate into the microwave on three and a half minutes, please.” She gave him her meal with plastic wrap covering it.
Ten minutes later, they were seated across from each other at the table in the alcove. The aroma of lasagna teased his senses, but before digging in, he bowed his head and said a silent prayer for help from God in solving what was going on with the dead rat and Aubrey’s husband’s wedding ring. He didn’t have a good feeling about this. Someone was playing games—possibly deadly ones—with her, and it was likely connected to the cartel.
When he looked up, their gazes connected. He realized she’d been praying, too. Sean took a bite of his dinner, savoring the delicious Italian dish. “Mmm. Tell your mom this is great.”
Aubrey smiled. “I will. She loves to hear that. Once she thought about being a chef and having her own restaurant.”
“Why didn’t she?”
Her smile vanished. “My husband was killed. She told me the deal fell through, but I’ve always wondered if that was the case.”
“Speaking of your husband, tell me again what you recall about his death.”
She scooped up a forkful of lasagna and ate it. “When he didn’t come home from work, I tried getting in touch with him, and it went to voice mail. I left a message to call me. I thought I would get a return call, but as the night turned into the next day, I knew something was terribly wrong. Even before the kids were born, he always kept in regular touch with me throughout the day. I called the Weslaco office to see if they knew anything. They didn’t but said they would look into it and get back to me. I then called the Port Bliss Police Department and reported my concerns. That day was the longest twenty-four hours I’ve ever gone through.”
Around the time of her husband’s death, Sean had received the notification of his brother’s disappearance. When the police described Jack’s destroyed apartment and the blood at the scene, he’d known his brother was probably killed, especially given some of the people he’d associated with. “Do you know what Samuel was working on? When I took over shortly after his death, I only found two open cases he’d been looking into.”
“Which ones?” Aubrey reached for her iced tea.
“A shipment of guns missing and the disappearance of Jack McNair.”
She stopped in mid-motion and looked toward him. “Any relationship to you?”
“My younger brother. Did Samuel ever talk about him? There wasn’t a lot in the case file on his death.” On the side, he’d been searching for any information on his missing brother and had come up empty. According to everyone he’d talked to, Jack just vanished one day.
“Not that I can remember. When Samuel died, everything got crazy. I felt for months that all I was doing was going through the motion of living. Attending his funeral was one of the hardest things I’ve done. The coffin was closed due to the grisly nature of the murder.”
The pain in her expression and voice twisted Sean’s gut. From the pictures of Jack’s apartment, his little brother had been tortured, too. He wanted to know why. After two years of searching for answers, Sean hadn’t come close to solving his death, nor Samuel Madison’s.
“I couldn’t even box up Samuel’s possessions. Mama took care of that while I was trying to act like everything was all right for Camy’s and Sammy’s sakes and trying to keep up with two toddlers who didn’t understand where their daddy was.” She stared at her half-eaten lasagna for a long moment then lifted her head, looking right at him. “And now someone returned my husband’s wedding ring. It doesn’t make any sense. Why now?”
“If I knew that, I could figure out who killed him.”
“I want justice for my husband, but dragging it all up again also brings pain.”
“I know. I feel the same way about my younger brother.” Sean finished the last bite of his lasagna. “I need to leave, but if you think of anything more I should know, please call me. And if you receive another threat, call immediately.”
Aubrey rose and stacked his empty plate on hers. “I will. Should I notify the local police?”
He brought their glasses to the sink. “Yes, and the sheriff’s office. The guards at the courthouse need to be aware of what happened. I’ll be talking with the police chief and the sheriff about the incident. Tomorrow I’ll go look at the security tapes to see if there’s anyone acting suspicious. Also, I’ll check at Sweet Haven. It’ll give me a good reason to have a chocolate ice-cream cone. I might just have a triple-dip one. I haven’t been there for months, not like someone I know.” He grinned, winked and picked up his cowboy hat then set it on his head.
Aubrey accompanied him to the entry hall. “I appreciate you coming over. I wasn’t sure what I should do.”
He stepped out onto the porch and turned back to her. “Ma’am, it’s my pleasure to help you.” He tipped his cowboy hat then left her.
When he slid behind the steering wheel, he swung his attention to the front door. Aubrey still stood there, her petite body framed in the entrance. She had a reputation of being a tough judge, but at the moment there was nothing tough about her. Her vulnerability drew him to her.
As he drove away, he called the police chief. “Juan, I need a police car posted outside Judge Aubrey Madison’s house.”
“Why?”
Sean explained what had happened. “I’m looking into this threat, but with the trial she’s overseeing, she should have someone escort her to and from the courthouse as a precaution for the time being.”
“I’ll have one out there right away.”
“Thanks, Juan. I’ll keep you up-to-date on what I find out.”
“But you don’t have a good feeling about this?”
“No.” He thought about the recent cartel violence in the past few months. He was afraid Aubrey was caught up in the middle of what was going down. Bento Villa was the right-hand man for the head of the Coastal Cartel and like a son to Sanchez, who ran the whole organization from Mexico. Now the man was in jail and on trial for murder. And her husband’s murder had no doubt been carried out by a cartel member or possibly Villa, a hands-on leader, according to his informant.
* * *
Saturday morning before everyone else was up, Aubrey made another cup of tea and sat at the table, staring out into the backyard at the bright sunlit day. She’d gone through the house and opened all the blinds over the windows on the sides and rear of the house. She kept the front ones closed because there was a patrol car parked in her driveway.
When Sean called her last night to