Quarter to Midnight (A New Orleans Novel Book 1)

XAVIER THOUGHT HE was going to throw up. Because I killed someone.

I am a killer.

“Whoa,” Molly said. “Let’s start at the beginning. Tell us everything.

We’ll help you.”

He hoped that meant that they’d help him stay out of prison.

“You can’t tell the cops,” Cicely insisted. “They’ll never believe him.”

“We will keep your son safe,” Burke promised. “We have friends in NOPD, but I left for a reason. I get your concerns. For now, do as Molly’s asked. Tell us everything.”

“Maybe he needs a break,” Gabe said, sounding protective. That was one-eighty from where the man had been when he’d first walked through the door. Because he thought that I was Rocky’s secret son.

Poor Gabe. I’d have been upset, too.

You are upset.

Yeah, but because of what I did. Not what Rocky did.

“Xavier?” Molly asked gently. “Do you need a break?”

“No, ma’am.” His voice sounded rusty to his own ears. He cleared his throat. “But I wish that I hadn’t eaten so much lunch.”

Carlos got up, found a wastebasket in the corner, and set it down between them before retaking his seat. “Just in case.”

Love for his best friend welled up in his heart. “Pendejo,” Xavier muttered.

“At your service,” Carlos joked, but his eyes were deadly serious.

Xavier took strength from the hand Carlos clasped around the back of his neck. “So. Last night.”

He told them the whole story, from seeing the car to hearing the noise, to escaping through the window. To shooting the white man.

“Then we ran,” he finished with a shrug. “When we got back to my house the next morning with whoever was pretending to be Paul Lott, the body was gone.”

“Then how do you know the man is dead?” Molly asked. “Maybe he was able to leave your house on his own.”

“He was,” Cicely said tersely. “He drove himself to the ER. I . . . made some calls.”

“And you found out that he was dead,” Gabe finished.

His mother nodded, distrust in her eyes. She was poised at the edge of her seat, like she was ready to run away with her son right now. “My friend who’s a nurse on another floor of the hospital checked for me. I’d been asking about anyone who’d come in with a gunshot wound the night before.

It took a while because we didn’t have a name or a real description. But this guy checked himself into the ER about thirty minutes after he tried to kill Xavier. He didn’t have any ID or insurance. They rushed him into surgery and the doctor felt good about his chances, but the man died this morning at around ten o’clock.”

“You killed him in self-defense, Xavier,” Gabe said. “You protected yourself and Carlos—and he’s your family. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Nor I.” Molly lifted her hand as if taking an oath. “I’ll vouch for you if anyone finds out.”

“Same,” Burke said. “Let us do some checking. We need to know who that man was. Did he have a gun?”

“He did,” Carlos said. “I saw it in his hand when he grabbed Xavier’s shirt. He had his gun out, ready to shoot.” He shook his head, his voice going hoarse. “I was on the ground already. All I had was a stupid baseball bat and a golf club. I couldn’t do a thing to help.”

Xavier put his arm around Carlos and hugged him to his side. “You got me out of there once I dropped out of the tree. You ran with me, made me run faster, kept me calm. And then you called Manny. You saved me.”

Carlos had buried his face against Xavier’s side, his breaths coming fast.

And he was crying. After all of this, all the joking, all the keeping things light . . . Now his best friend was crying.

Xavier had to fight his own tears. If he started crying now, he’d never finish. And he wanted to be finished with this, so damn bad. “We’re okay,”

he murmured to Carlos, ignoring the sympathetic expressions around them.

Even Manny looked like he was about to cry. “Don’t, dude,” Xavier told the older brother. “I won’t be able to stop.”

Carlos pulled away, accepting the box of tissues that Molly pushed across the table. “Damn, everybody. I’m sorry.”

“It’s cathartic,” Molly told him. “You’d be surprised how many Marines I’ve seen cry.”

“Zero,” Carlos said, his tone self-deprecating, and Xavier hated to hear it.

“A whole lot more than zero,” Molly insisted. “Go on, Xavier. Let’s get this on the table.”

“Not much more to tell. We went into the house and saw the blood on the floor in the spare bedroom and the laundry room. And drops down the driveway.” He winced. “I think he took some of your good towels, Mom. To stem the flow.”

Cicely rolled her eyes. “Towels can be replaced. You can’t. So what do we do now?”

“We find out who hired the hit man,” Gabe said. “My guess is when the first guy failed, whoever hired him sent Eckert the hit man after Xavier.”

“He’s a real hit man? Seriously?” Xavier demanded. Molly had told them while they were driving, but it was so surreal. “Like on TV? This is . . . This is insane.”

“He’s a real hit man,” Burke said. “I never met him, but I knew him by reputation when I was with NOPD.”

“He pointed a gun at us when we blocked the exit,” Gabe said quietly. “At Molly, actually.”

“Road rage,” Molly said with a shrug.

“Shit,” Manny whispered. “That’s hardcore.”

“We stopped him from following you,” Molly stated as if she hadn’t had a gun pointed at her face. “He was pissed off. But the cops pulled him over, and Gabe saw them with the gun he’d used. He’ll get busted for that, and maybe he’ll give up the person who hired him.”

That was encouraging. Xavier hadn’t had time to think that far out. “That would be so nice. What about the man impersonating Lott?”

“NOPD got him, too,” Burke said. “My friend André, who’s a captain on the force, was in one of those vehicles you saw stop the white SUV. André’s brother is Antoine, who works for me. Good guys, both of them. I trust them with my life.”

“Do you trust them with Xavier’s if they try to charge him with murder?”

Cicely asked coldly.

Burke didn’t seem offended. “For now? Yes, ma’am. If that changes, you two will be the first to know.”

“What are you thinking, Burke?” Molly asked. “About the guy who died in the hospital?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “We need to find out who hired him, but we need to keep our interest low-profile for Xavier’s sake. I’ll get Antoine to see what he can find out. Finding out how the Paul Lott impersonator fits in is also critical.” He turned to Xavier. “You’re not the only one who’s been attacked. Someone had planned to attack Gabe last night. They tried to poison his dog.”

“Oh no.” Gabe stood up and dug his phone from his pocket. “I forgot about Shoe.”

“Your restaurant?” Carlos asked with a frown.

“No, my dog. His name is Shoe. Because he chewed shoes. It’s a joke,”

Gabe finished lamely. “He’s at the vet still, Burke. I want to go get him.”

“I’ll go get him tomorrow morning,” Burke promised. “If anyone is watching the vet, waiting for you to pick him up . . . Well, let’s not give them an easy target, okay? Xavier, do you have anything else you need to tell us or just want to say?”

Xavier quieted his mind and thought about Rocky, about the last time they’d seen each other. “He was worried. Rocky, I mean. He told me that he was getting closer, and that I needed to be aware of my surroundings. He didn’t want me to get hurt.” He frowned, trying to remember. “He said he’d make sure that Gabe understood everything, and that if anyone tried to hurt me, to find Gabe.”

“But he didn’t tell me anything,” Gabe protested. “Not even about you.”

“But he did leave a UPS box,” Molly said, her voice growing excited.

“Maybe he left a safe-deposit box, too. We need to check for any keys he might have hidden. Xavier, did he leave you a key?”

“Not after he died. He set a UPS box up for me when he was alive and I have a key to that, but I never got anything from Rocky after his death. Only got a letter from the lawyer, information about a trust he set up for me. I was shocked, because I wasn’t expecting anything. He’d given me so much when he was alive, and this trust is on top of all of that. It’s supposed to help pay for expenses in med school. I’ll give it back to you, Gabe. It’s rightfully yours.”

Gabe shook his head. “No, Xavier. He meant you to have it. Do you know who John Alan was?”

Xavier shook his head. “No, sir. I asked a few times, but Rocky would never say. Who was he?”

“One of the nights during Katrina, my mother miscarried a pregnancy.

They had planned to name the child John Alan. He was their second son.”

“Oh,” Xavier breathed, his eyes burning again. “He found me during Katrina.”

“Maybe that same night,” Gabe said sadly.

“He lost one son and found another,” Cicely murmured. “Oh, Xavier. That man had the kindest heart.”

“He did,” Gabe agreed, his voice gone gruff. “And if he wanted you to have that trust, then you should keep it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to call the vet about keeping Shoe a little longer.”

Molly rose with him. “I have to call home. I’ll be right back, though. Do you all have a place to stay?”

“No,” Xavier said.

“Yes,” Burke said. “They’re staying with me. We can talk about who’s guarding whom once we have everyone settled.”

“Thank you,” Cicely said. “I’ve got an overnight bag and Willa Mae brought a few things, but we’ll need a trip to the drugstore for toiletries.”

Burke shook his head. “Joy, our office administrator, already has it covered. Tell her what you need. She’ll make sure you have it.”

“Xavier’s got clothes at least,” Carlos commented. “The guy posing as Paul Lott insisted that he pack a bag.”

Willa Mae leaned forward again so that she could see Carlos. “But not you and Manny? You were all together, right? Why didn’t he let you two go home to pack a bag?”

Carlos cocked his head. “That’s true. Why was he so worried about your bag, X?”

“I have no idea,” Xavier said. “I mean, if he meant to kill me, why ask me to pack a bag? Why take the time for that?”

“I told you that he was watching you funny when you were packing,” Manny said.

“We need to figure that out,” Molly said. “Let me call home and then we can start making a list of what we don’t know. That will be first on the list.

Be thinking about it, Xavier. Gabe?”

“Right behind you.”

The two of them left, and Willa Mae made a dreamy sound. “How long have they been together?”

“Two days,” Burke said dryly. “But I think you’re onto something, Miss Willa Mae.”

“I usually am,” she said smugly.

And Xavier thought she just might be right.

The Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana

TUESDAY, JULY 26, 4:45 P.M.

Gabe ended the call with the vet’s office and finally relaxed into the visitor’s chair in Burke’s office. Joy, the office admin, had directed him here when he’d asked for a place to make a few personal calls.

He hadn’t really needed privacy for the calls. He’d just needed a minute or two to decompress. And to process. And maybe to allow the tears he’d been holding to fall.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” he whispered. Sorry that he’d believed the worst. Sorry that he hadn’t noticed that his father carried such a heavy burden. Sorry that he hadn’t been able to help.

Sorry that his father had been murdered for doing the right thing.

A light knock came a second before the door cracked open. “Can I come in?” Molly asked. “And it’s okay if you don’t want me to.”

He didn’t think twice before saying, “Yes, please. Come in.” Because he needed someone who’d sit with him and simply let him be. He needed Molly Sutton.

He didn’t move until she knelt before him, her palms flat on his knees.

“You okay, Gabe?”

He looked up to find her blue-green eyes filled with sympathy. And understanding. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

She flipped her hands over so that her palms were facing up and he slid his hands into hers. “That’s a perfectly acceptable answer. You’ve had a rough couple of days.”

He swallowed hard, but his words still came out sounding rusty. “Thank you.”

She smiled up at him. “For what?”

“Knowing that I’d need you.” He hesitated, then, once again, figured why the hell not. He tugged on her hands. “Sit with me.”

She eyed the chair. “I don’t think there’s room for both of us.”

“I know.” He tugged on her hands and she rose willingly, then eased onto his knee. He put his arms around her waist and tugged her closer until her cheek was resting on his shoulder. She slid one arm around his neck and then went pliant against him.

“He didn’t cheat,” she whispered.

Gabe’s eyes burned. “No. And I’m ashamed to have thought he had.”

“No,” she soothed. “It was a normal reaction given the information. And I don’t think you really believed it.”

He considered her words, then realized that she was right. Again. “Not really, no.” He was quiet for the next few minutes, taking comfort from her presence, finally close enough to smell her hair without feeling awkward.

Because it wasn’t awkward at all. It was . . . nice.

So very nice.

And her hair smelled like oranges.

“Why does your hair smell like oranges?” he asked, the words out before he could pull them back.

She chuckled. “It’s a shampoo for swimmers. Gets the chlorine out of my hair.”

He’d learned something new. “You swim?”

“Four or five times a week when I’m not on a case. Burke gives us a gym membership as an employee benefit. We’re more likely to catch the bad guy —and survive the bad guy—if we’re fit. I do the machines and swim laps and I’ve been taking Harper for swim lessons. Her therapist thought that getting out with other kids would be good for her.”

“Surviving the bad guy is preferable,” he murmured, making her chuckle again.

She didn’t say anything more as the minutes ticked by, allowing him to think. His brain slowed to a mostly normal speed, and then the truth hit him hard.

“Someone killed my father to stop him from investigating a murder. A murder his cop bosses didn’t want him solving.”

She stroked his hair and he hoped she’d never stop. “So it would seem.

Now it’s up to us to finish what he started. I won’t rest until we find out who killed that woman during Katrina. I give you my word.”

He knew she would. “They threatened my mother.”

“They did.”

“I want them to suffer. I know that makes me sound vengeful.”

She leaned back far enough that he could see her face. “I’m good with vengeful, Gabe. You won’t hear any argument from me. You should want them to suffer. You should want them caught. You should want to see them rot in prison. And if you want to see them dead, I wouldn’t blame you.”

There was something in her tone, something in her eyes that gave him pause. “Did you want to see your brother-in-law in prison?”

“Oh yes. For the rest of his life.”

He hesitated. “Did you want to see him dead?”

She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, he saw staggering guilt. “Yes.”

“Is . . . Is that why you killed him?”

She didn’t look away. “I killed him because he came after me with his fists. He came after me with his fists because I taunted him to stop him from beating on my sister.”

She’d used herself as bait. “You said he hit you.” And Gabe was glad he’d never meet the guy, because he’d want to hurt him for causing Molly and her family such pain.

“He did. And then he pulled a gun from underneath his shirt. Chelsea screamed. I just reacted.”

And, fortunately, Harper had been in her bedroom at the time. But she’d heard it. The poor baby had heard it all. Gabe wanted to say something. To comfort her as she had him, but he didn’t know what to say and didn’t think she was finished anyway.

She didn’t blink. “I don’t want to think that I planned it, but I knew he was carrying. He’d shot my father the night before. The cop took his service revolver after he killed my father with Dad’s own gun, but I knew he had others. They held him for questioning, but he was a cop with a sob story and friends in high places within the local police department. He lied about my father, said that Dad had molested Harper and that Dad had tried to kill him, so they said it was self-defense and let him go without charging him. And then he came straight home. To us.”

“Did you have a choice?”

“At that moment, I didn’t think about choices. He had a gun. He’d used a gun. He’d already given black eyes to both Chelsea and me. He was screaming that he was going to kill me because I’d clearly lied to his wife about his molesting their daughter.”

“But there was a video.”

“Which Chelsea hadn’t yet turned over to the police. She wanted to confront him first. I should have known that she’d do that, and maybe part of me did.”

“It doesn’t matter. He threatened you. You’re not to blame.”

“I also knew that if he did any time at all for raping his own daughter, it wouldn’t be enough, and then he’d be back. He’d try it again. If not to Harper, then to some other child. And Harper would be put through the additional trauma of a trial. So maybe I could have let him go. Maybe I could have let the justice system do its job. But at that moment, I just reacted.” She shrugged one shoulder. “It changed my life. People will always wonder if I really killed in self-defense or out of vengeance. I’d like for this not to change your life in the same way.”

“So, it’s okay for me to want them to die, but not okay for me to kill them.”

“Something like that. But if it comes to you or them, choose yourself. I’m sure as hell going to choose you. I will shoot them to save you. You need to be okay with that.”

“Oh, I am. Trust me. I am very okay with that.” Because he’d do the same for her. It was what partners did. And for the time being, she was his partner.

But it was more than that. He felt a connection with Molly Sutton that he’d never felt with any woman ever before. He wanted her, it was true.

But he wanted this more. This support. This . . . intimacy.

Another thirty seconds ticked by as they stared at each other. Then she tilted her head. “Xavier said that your father left you information.”

“I know. I don’t know what he meant.”

“Then, as much as I like sitting on your lap and as much as I think you need this break, we should be getting back to the conference room. We have a lot of work to do.”

He didn’t want to leave the quiet and comfort of this room, but he knew she was right. Except . . . “You said I could kiss you when this was over.”

She smiled. “I did.”

“I wish this was over right now,” he whispered hoarsely. “You don’t even know.”

Her expression changed, softening before her eyes became abruptly turbulent. He could feel her indecision, but even more, he could feel her yearning. She wanted him, too. Wanted this.

Whatever this was. Whatever it might become.

For a long, long moment she said nothing at all as the air between them thickened with anticipation. And arousal. Then her eyes cleared, the calm resolution that he’d seen so many times already settling his heart.

Which then nearly knocked out of his chest when she cupped his cheek and pulled his head down, brushing her lips against his. It was sweet and chaste and over far too soon. Even still, he was breathing hard.

So was she.

“What was that for?” he asked, barely controlling himself from kissing her again.

“A promise.” She caressed his lips with her thumb. “So that you know you’re not alone. Not in searching for answers or in wishing for this.”

Chest tightening, he swallowed hard, the thank you stuck in his throat. But her smile said that she understood.

She slid off his lap and onto her feet, then reached for his hand to tug him out of the chair. “Come on. We’ve got work to do. Will the vet allow Burke to get Shoe?”

The moment itself was broken, but she’d given him some of her strength and he held on to it as he forced his brain to shift gears. “They will. Shoe knows Burke since he’s visited my dad’s house a lot over the past few years.

They said Burke can pick him up tomorrow. Is your sister okay?”

“Yes. One of Burke’s men is going to stay outside our apartment again tonight, just to be sure. I think Burke’s going to be buying a company vehicle so that we can use it from now on instead of using our personal vehicles.

Especially on cases like this.”

Because people are trying to hurt us. Kill us. And that thought brought everything back into perfect focus.

“Let’s go pick Xavier’s mind,” he said. “Maybe he or his mother has some idea of what my father was talking about when he said he left me information.”

“Let’s hope.” She glanced at her phone for the time. “It’s coming up on dinnertime. I’ll call for pizza delivery later.”

Gabe made a face. “Not on my watch. I already took care of dinner. I heard poor Carlos’s stomach growling from across the table in spite of the sandwiches we all ate, and I don’t think Xavier ate much at all. I know that I didn’t and now I’m starving. I called the Choux and one of our cooks is bringing dinner for everyone.” He had to chuckle when Molly’s eyes lit up. “I assume that meets with your approval?”

She made a happy noise. “Dinner from my favorite restaurant two nights in the same week? Yes, please.” She took his hand and tugged. “Come on.

I’m starving.”

The Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana

TUESDAY, JULY 26, 5:15 P.M.

Standing in front of the conference room whiteboard, Molly clapped her hands and waited for the dinner chatter to quiet. She was going to concentrate so that she could keep her promise to Gabe. She was not going to think about how perfect his lips had felt when she’d kissed him. And she definitely wasn’t going to think about the raw desire in his eyes afterward. “I hope everyone got enough to eat.”

Everyone nodded but Carlos, but then he nodded when Xavier elbowed him in the ribs. “You ate three dinners,” Xavier hissed.

“For fuck’s sake,” Manny said, passing his plate to his brother. “I’m full.

You can have mine.”

Carlos mumbled his thanks, then continued to eat.

“Thank you, Gabe,” Xavier said, earning him a smile from his mother. “It was so good.”

“So good,” Carlos moaned around a mouthful of étouffée.

Manny elbowed him from the other side. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Carlos swallowed and turned to his brother. “Sorry, Mom.”

Cicely leaned forward. “Speaking of moms, does yours know where you are?”

“I called her,” Manny said. “Told her that we came to New Orleans on a whim. Which isn’t untrue.”

“Give Joy her number before you leave tonight,” Molly said. “Just in case.” She watched everyone on the Houston side of the table flinch, so she hurried on to keep them on task. “But this is the time when we throw everything we know on that whiteboard, so everyone focus.”

“My dad was murdered as part of a murder cover-up,” Gabe stated baldly.

Molly wrote that down. “We need the victim’s name. Xavier, you said that you didn’t know her name, but what about your address back then?”

He started to shake his head, but Cicely Morrow nodded. “We have the address in our records at home, but I can’t recall it. We do remember his mother’s name, though.”

“Monique Johnson,” Xavier said, his voice choked, then he pursed his lips hard. Tears had filled his eyes. “She died the night the levee broke and the floods came.”

Carlos put his arm around Xavier’s shoulders. “I’m sorry I never asked.”

“I wouldn’t have told you,” Xavier whispered. “It’s hard to remember.”

Molly gave him a few moments to regain his composure and pushed on.

“Rocky said that the murder victim’s body was gone, so somebody took her away after the rescue teams came through.” She wrote: Who took her away?

Was it her killer? She turned to the group. “What else?”

“My father had been investigating,” Gabe said. “He must have gotten close for someone to kill him now, after all these years.”

Molly wrote that on the board, then added: Who knew he was investigating?

“Good question,” Burke murmured. “I didn’t.” He looked at Gabe. “Have you heard from your aunt Gigi yet?”

“I keep getting her voice mail. Wherever she is, she’s got her phone turned off, and I don’t know any of her friends or neighbors to ask them. If Dad told her anything, she didn’t tell me.”

“We know she knew about John Alan Industries,” Molly said, then wrote: Aunt Gigi, lives in Montreal, president → John Alan Industries. “We know that whoever killed Rocky has his phone, but not his SIM card.”

Xavier looked up, a proud smile spreading across his face. “He hid his SIM? I told him to do that if things got bad.”

“It was in his truck,” Gabe said. “Hidden under the floor mat. Burke’s IT

guy has it.”

Burke took out his phone. “I’m texting him now to see what he’s found.”

“Hopefully we’ll find something on that card,” Gabe said. “Dad’s laptop was in his house, but wiped. We don’t know if Dad wiped it or his killer did.

His killer also planted cocaine in his pantry with the flour and sugar.”

Xavier sucked in a breath. “Sonsofbitches,” he snarled.

Cicely closed her eyes. “They had to tarnish Rocky’s name so that no one would believe whatever it was he either found or was on the verge of finding.”

Molly wrote all that on the board, then stared at it, still wondering about who’d known that Rocky was investigating. “Paul Lott called you about the inheritance, Xavier?”

“Yes’m. But not on my cell phone. Rocky gave me a burner. It was how he’d contact me.”

Gabe looked surprised. “My dad gave you a burner?”

“Yeah. He had one, too. He’d text my normal phone from his burner with something innocuous, like ‘Thirty percent off sale!’ I’d know then to check my burner. When he first gave it to me, I carried it everywhere, but after a while I left it at home because he contacted me so infrequently. Sometimes months would go by. Once a year went by, but that’s when his wife got really sick.”

“Okay, so his lawyer knew of you,” Molly clarified, “but not necessarily where you were.”

Cicely clenched her teeth. “Until Xavier called him for help last night.”

“But someone already knew where to find me,” Xavier said. “That guy followed me all day yesterday. Parked in front of our house.”

“And the man who Xavier called wasn’t Paul Lott,” Burke added. “He was already dead by then or killed right around the time Xavier called.”

Molly wrote: Was Paul Lott involved? Or did killer force him to tell about X? “That his killer just happened to be there at the exact time that Xavier called can’t be a coincidence. Either Lott was cooperating or whoever killed him had bugged his phone. Still doesn’t make sense, though. Why kill Lott when they already knew where Xavier was by then? It’s a five-hour drive to Houston and they’d been following him all day, so they knew Xavier’s location at least forty to forty-eight hours ago.”

“Or,” Burke said slowly, “there were two people searching for Xavier.

One found him first. The other found him after he called for help.”

Cicely rubbed her temples. “My head hurts.”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Xavier murmured.

“Hush, son. None of this is your fault, so you stop that thinking right now.”

Xavier’s lips quirked up. “Yes, Mom.”

“What did you pack in your duffel bag, Xavier?” Willa Mae asked quietly.

Molly startled. The woman had been so quiet, Molly had nearly forgotten she was there. “That’s right. Carlos, you said the Paul Lott imposter insisted that Xavier pack a bag. What’s in the bag?”

“Underwear and socks,” Xavier said, bewildered. “A few clean shirts and some jeans. We each grabbed our backpacks, too. Carlos was staying overnight, so he had his with him.”

“I don’t think he intended for us to follow him to New Orleans,” Manny said. “Carlos and me, I mean. I think he planned to kill us.”

Carlos flinched but nodded. “I agree.”

Xavier had closed his eyes. “Probably,” he croaked, then cleared his throat. “Paul Lott knew about the UPS box that Rocky set up for me, though.

That’s where he sent the paperwork I had to sign for the trust. But that’s in Baton Rouge.”

Molly wrote that down. “Which underscores that the lawyer didn’t know where to find you until you called. What about the intruder? Cicely, you said that you tracked down his body.”

She nodded. “I did. My nurse friend said that he’d survived the surgery and was expected to make a full recovery, but that he’d died. Which would have been good for Xavier, because he wouldn’t have . . . you know.”

“Actually killed him,” Xavier muttered hoarsely.

Cicely winced. “Right. But also good in that he can’t come after my son again.”

“I checked the news, and Houston PD’s posted a sketch of the man’s face,” Burke said. “The police are trying to identify him. He had no ID, and his car was reported stolen. I want to get into his medical records so we can know exactly what killed him.”

Xavier hung his head. “It was me. I killed him. What am I going to do?”

Carlos hugged him harder. “We’ll deal with it. I promise.”

Xavier shook his head. “You can’t promise that.”

“I can,” Cicely said. “So try not to worry. Although I know you will.”

Molly hoped the woman wasn’t thinking of saying she’d shot the man instead of her son. But she wouldn’t blame Cicely for wanting to save her child. It’s what I would do.

“Did the intruder have a cell phone?” Gabe asked.

“I’m going to find out,” Burke promised. “Don’t ask how,” he cautioned when Willa Mae opened her mouth, probably to ask.

The older woman shook her head. “Fine. I won’t. What about that Eckert, the hit man? Who hired him?”

Molly wrote the question on the board. “At least the cops have him alive.

Hopefully he has a cell phone and his communication can be traced.”

“Your mouth to God’s ears,” Burke said. “And the not-lawyer, too.” Then he looked at his phone. “Molly, photograph the whiteboard and erase it completely. Captain Holmes is here.”

Xavier lurched to his feet. “A cop? You called a cop? You said you’d—”

“You lied!” Carlos hissed through clenched teeth.

Burke put up both hands. “Please. I told you I was asking NOPD for help in catching the men who were following you. I haven’t lied. He wants to talk to you about the man who called you last night. He knows that you had an intruder. He doesn’t know that you shot him, and he doesn’t know that he’s dead. Captain Holmes is the cop who caught Eckert and the other guy while you got away. All he knows is that you know the man driving the white BMW SUV wasn’t the real Paul Lott. So, leave out the gun part for now, okay? And calm down if you can. If you can’t, we say that you’re just shaken from your ordeal. Got it?”

Xavier slowly sat down, nodding. “Got it. You trust this guy?”

“I do,” Burke said. “I’ve known him for years. He’s good. Still, keep the gun out of it. We won’t volunteer that information unless we have no other choice.”

Molly smiled her thanks at Gabe when he rose to help her clean the whiteboard. When she turned back to the group, Cicely was clutching Xavier’s hand and Carlos looked ready to leap to his friend’s defense.

“Guys, look at it this way,” Molly said logically. “He has information we need. We want all the details about Eckert and the Lott impersonator, and he can help with that.”

Xavier’s nod was grim, his body rigid, and his eyes suspicious. “Okay.”

Burke dialed Joy at the front desk. “Bring him back, please, Joy.”