Read Online Texas Hold 'Em by Kay David - Free Book Online Page B

more trouble than he knew how to handle. And that was saying a helluva lot.
    His phone began to chirp as he unlocked the door of the ranch house and walked inside. Austin Wills answered his hello. “Can you talk?”
    The agent had gone across the border to check out a serious card game, hoping he could pick up some info at the same time. He spoke in Spanish, and Santos answered in kind. “Fire away.”
    “Bad choice of words.”
    “You might be right, especially considering what happened early this morning.”
    “I heard. You okay?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “What about Rose?”
    He and Rose had had a small circle of friends when they’d been together. Austin had been in it. He hadn’t told Rose the agent was in Smokin’ ACES to protect her, but also to maintain their cover as long as possible. “Bumps and bruises. Nothing close to what Nasty gave me the other night.”
    “She probably would have handled him better than you did.”
    Santos grinned, the moment of levity sorely needed. “You want something specific, Wills, or did you just call to bust my balls?”
    “Both,” the agent replied. “I’ve given you the hard time, so now here’s the rest. I just found out Dos y Tres is having that chapter meet tomorrow night, then they’re heading for the roadhouse. You in?”
    They’d been trying to get a meeting with the Dos y Tres bikers for weeks. They did protection runs for Ortega when he had a lot of cash to transport. Hooking up with them, even just to party, would put ACES one step closer to their goal. “Have we been invited?”
    “More or less. Bentley’s after this slick little blonde who rides with them, and she implied we’d be welcome—or at least he would be.”
    “Sounds good to me as long as Nasty and his gang won’t be there.”
    “Don’t worry about him, buddy. I’m sure you’ll win next time.” Santos heard a quick inhalation. “They’re coming. I gotta go.”
    The phone went dead. He hoped no one else ended up that way, too.
    …
    The minute Santos had left, Rose phoned the station and asked King for an update. He gave her advice instead, telling her to stay home and take it easy. She told him to mind his own business and tell her what was happening. She shouldn’t have bothered to call. They’d learned nothing about the weapons or the dead man.
    Hanging up, she took another two aspirin, then gingerly pulled on a clean uniform and tried to make herself presentable.
    Ten minutes later, with a fresh cup of coffee in the cup holder and a piece of toast in her mouth, she pulled into the station’s parking lot.
    Lydia looked up as Rose walked in. “What are you doing here? I thought you went home to rest.”
    “I don’t need to rest. I need to find out who was shooting at me.”
    “King has got everyone in the county out looking, but he’s had no luck. Go home,” she begged.
    “Info back on the dead guy’s fingerprints?”
    Lydia looked at her with resignation. “Surely you aren’t serious to ask me a question like that?”
    Rio County was so far down the totem pole they normally didn’t get that kind of information out of headquarters for days. “How about the autopsy? Do we know when it’s scheduled?”
    The nearest medical examiner’s office was in Lubbock County. It was an all day affair just to get the body transported. Getting results from there was an even bigger nightmare than the fingerprint situation.
    “We have a little problem there.”
    “You mean worse than usual?”
    Lydia cut her eyes toward her computer panel, avoiding her gaze. “A state trooper took the body so they can do the autopsy in Austin. You know how they are—they think they can do it better than anyone around here. ME said they would copy us on the report—whenever it was done.”
    She might never see that paperwork. The idea something like that might happen hadn’t even crossed her mind, but should have. How could she have been oblivious to Santos’s connections in Austin?
    “Have