Gage (Texas Boudreau Brotherhood #16)

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

T aking a good look around the dark, dank, sweaty-smelling bar filled with bearded, tattooed men wearing motorcycle vests and leather pants, Suzanna Dawkins knew she’d made a mistake. Pausing in the doorway of what was little more than a seedy biker bar, she felt like she might shatter into a million pieces. She’d never set foot in a place like this before, and if she had any choice, she’d turn and sprint in the opposite direction as fast as her legs would carry her. But she didn’t have a choice. This dismal, depressing excuse for a watering hole was where she was supposed to meet the man who’d help prove her innocence.

Gage Newsome. Of course, her cousin and Navy SEAL Brandon McKinney swore up and down Gage would help her. Said Gage owned him a favor and helping Suzanna would be a big one. Since it felt like she was neck deep in the middle of the Mississippi River, and about to go under for the third and final time, she’d take all the help she could get. Barely keeping her head above water, every minute spent waiting for the police or the FBI to show up on her doorstep and slap handcuffs on her and haul her away to prison. She really wished her cousin could help her, but right now he was out of the country on an assignment for good old Uncle Sam, and she was stuck looking for a stranger.

Pulling the large messenger bag close against her side, she scanned the dimly-lit interior, made harder by the large dark glasses she wore in a vain attempt to remain incognito. Though she doubted anybody frequenting this kind of place would be looking for her. More often than not she found herself attending fashionable soirees and haute cuisine dinner parties, not down and dirty free-for-alls in public barrooms.

But she was here for a reason, and her best bet was to find a man named Gage Newsome. Brandon had described him, but in typical male fashion, he’d been skimpy on the details. Something told her this was kind of a friends in low places type deal. She didn’t put a lot of faith in tall, black hair, and probably sporting a sullen expression. Yep, those had been Brandon’s exact words. Unfortunately, that described half the guys in here. The other half leered at her like she was the last piece of Godiva chocolate at a chocoholic’s convention.

When her gaze lit on a man seated with his back against the wall, her breath caught. It had to be him. And her cousin definitely hadn’t described Gage Newsome adequately. Though she couldn’t tell how tall he was, slouched in his seat, his dark hair was nearly black with bluish highlights peeking out beneath the bar’s sparse lighting. Even from across the room, his brown eyes sparkled, whether with humor or anger was yet to be determined. Not overly muscled, she could still see he was no slouch. She’d bet he boasted a six pack, maybe even an eight pack, beneath the tight black T shirt.

Get your head out of the gutter, girl. You’re not here to ogle some stranger. You’re here to get help. You’re not leaving until he agrees to do some digging, otherwise you’re about to spend the rest of your life in a concrete ten by ten cell.

Steeling her will, she straightened her backbone and pushed her hair back from her face before marching across the barroom floor, stopping in front of him. “Are you Gage Newsome?”

“I’m Gage. Have a seat.” He gestured toward the seat across from him. Sliding onto it, she swallowed past her suddenly dry throat. Anxiety spiked as she studied the man seated across the table, and she had the sudden urge to get up and run as fast as her legs would carry her. When she’d first spotted him, she’d almost felt lightheaded because there was an instinctual desire to turn tail. This man wasn’t a pushover or a flunky. No, he was a hunter, she could tell. One who wouldn’t give up on catching his prey.

Which was a good thing, because she needed somebody who wouldn’t quit, wouldn’t give up on helping her. And she desperately needed help if she was going to stay out of prison for something she didn’t do.

“Brandon McKinney sent me.” She barely got the words out.

“Figured as much.”

She took a deep breath, trying to steady her already quaking nerves. Laying the messenger bag on the table, she kept a death grip on the handle, afraid to let it out of her sight. Every bit of data she’d gathered was inside, things she’d be turning over to Mr. Newsome if he agreed to help her. Unfortunately, there was pitifully little in the way of actual evidence to point toward her innocence.

“Brandon said you’d help me.” She didn’t add that Brandon stated Gage owed him a favor, and he’d sworn that Gage wouldn’t say no. Normally, she wouldn’t even think about calling in somebody else’s debt, but at this point she was desperate enough to clutch at any lifeline, no matter how flimsy.

“What exactly do you need help with, Miss…?” He let the question trail off.

She glanced around the bar before whispering, “Dawkins.”

“Ms. Dawkins. What did McKinney tell you I could help with exactly?”

She took a deep breath, reached for his beer, and drained the glass. Placing it down gently on the table, she stared into his eyes before responding.

“He promised you’d help prove I didn’t murder my husband.”

Gage didn’t move, didn’t flinch at her blunt words, simply watched her closely. Something about the way he sat motionless, silent, reinforced her first impression that he was a hunter, but now she pictured him as a huge cat, predatory and deadly, and all his focus was on her.

“Did you?”

Two little words, yet she had the feeling he was weighing her answer, gauging her honesty. “No.”

Without breaking eye contact, he raised a hand toward the waitress and then showed two fingers. She fought the urge to squirm, but Suzanna Dawkins had been taught from an early age ladies didn’t show vulnerability, didn’t let others see weakness.

“I only know what’s been in the news. Why don’t you tell me what happened?” His voice was soft, a bit of huskiness to it. It was barely audible over the loud country music playing on the jukebox in the corner.

“So you do recognize me?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t when you first walked in. Thought you looked familiar. I’ve been in and out of the country quite a bit over the last few months, so I don’t know everything about your situation, other than your husband was found dead in your home.”

“Yes.”

“Just yes? Pretty sure you’re going to have to elaborate a bit if you want me to decide whether I’m going to be able to help you or not.”

Panic clutched at her chest, making it hard for her to breathe. Brandon had told her it was a done deal, that Gage Newsome would help prove her innocence. Was he going to back out? She couldn’t let that happen. He was her last resort. Nobody else would even look at her case. The police weren’t looking for another suspect, they were ready to railroad her straight passed the courthouse and into a jail cell. Her husband’s company and its executives simply wanted the case closed, and the will probated, so they could pocket her husband’s fortune. She didn’t care about the money, she never had. At least not for herself. They could have it all, and she’d gladly sign any papers they wanted to turn over the business to them. Except that wasn’t what her husband had wanted, and she’d made him promises, and meant to keep them.

“A little over six months ago, my husband had his annual physical. Everything came out perfect, and for a man of his age he was declared healthy. A few weeks later, he had a business trip. London followed by Edinburgh, and then Paris. While he was in Paris, he started feeling strange. He didn’t really think much of it at first. Told me he was a little lightheaded when he stood up. Again, he pretty much ignored it because he felt fine otherwise. We attributed it to him having caught some kind of bug. It happens sometimes when you’re traveling, especially foreign travel.”

She stopped and nodded thanks to the waitress who deposited a beer in front of her. Wrapping her hand around the bottle, she lifted it and took a long swallow, wetting her parched throat. She’d never enjoyed the taste of beer, but she wasn’t about to say anything to Mr. Newsome—Gage—in her mind she’d been calling him that ever since Brandon told her about his friend. The one who had friends and connections in places he couldn’t even begin to match.

“Did he go back to the doctor after he got home?”

Suzanna nodded. “He didn’t want to but I insisted. Steven was never sick. I could probably count on one hand the number of times he’s had a cold or the flu since I’ve known him. But he couldn’t shake whatever was making him dizzy. It got to the point where he refused to drive himself anywhere. He hired a full-time drive, because he refused to put anyone in danger. His doctor couldn’t find anything wrong, even did a battery of tests. Steven had brain scans, MRIs, CAT scans, and every kind of blood work imaginable. He even had an appointment scheduled with a neurological specialist two days before…” Her voice trailed off, because she couldn’t bring herself to say the word died. Though he’d been gone for months, the pain of his death still ached.

Gage leaned back against the vinyl backing of the bench seat, one hand wrapped around his beer bottle. She noticed he hadn’t taken a single drink of the beer the waitress had delivered, though he’d been listening intently to her story.

Did he believe her? Nobody else did, not even her family. Friends she’d had for years had distanced themselves after Steven’s death, especially once rumors and gossip columns began printing speculative pieces suggesting she’d killed her husband. Though they didn’t have a motive, everyone suggested she’d offed him for his money.

“Tell me about the morning your husband died.” Gage’s voice sent a chill down her spine. The sound was harsh and gravely rough but it didn’t frighten her. No, it was the dangerous glint in his gaze that had her straighten in her chair, because she refused to be cowed by anybody. During her marriage to Steven, she’d gone from being meek and shy to gaining self-confidence and had grown into a self-assured woman.

“I suppose you’d need to know my husband and I didn’t normally share a bedroom. Steven was a restless sleeper, often having night terrors, and would thrash around in his sleep. He was afraid he’d accidentally hurt me, so our bedroom suite was reconfigured to contain two complete bedrooms with a living area between them. Similar to what you’d find in one of the larger high-end hotels.”

“That was considerate of him. I know several people who suffer from night terrors or bad nightmares. They can be scary for the uninitiated or someone who isn’t used to dealing with them.”

“Exactly. Anyway, no one outside our staff knew we didn’t share a bed.” It was embarrassing talking to a perfect stranger about not sharing a bed with her husband. It honestly wasn’t anybody’s business except hers and Steven’s, but Brandon emphasized she needed to be totally honest with Gage if she wanted his help. “I’m sorry, it’s just hard baring my soul, my intimate secrets with somebody I don’t know.”

“Mrs. Dawkins, outside the necessity of needing to know about the details of your husband’s death, I couldn’t care less about your sleeping arrangements, or whether or not you shared your husband’s bed.”

Heat flooded her cheeks at his words and she knew her face flushed bright pink. It wasn’t so much his words as the almost emotionless way he said them, she had the sinking sensation he wasn’t going to take her case.

“Mr. Newsome, I’m sorry. My husband and I are…were…very private people. But, as I was saying, Steven and I didn’t normally share a room at night. But the night before he—died—Steven asked me to stay with him. He’d had a couple of drinks after dinner with a business associate, Donald Blackthorn, and said he didn’t want to be alone. I don’t know, there was something in the way he said it, a bit of melancholy in his voice that worried me.”

“There was someone else who’d seen your husband the night before he died?”

She nodded. “Yes. Donald and his wife came over for supper, then Steven and Donald went into the study to discuss some business, and I entertained his wife, Elizabeth. It wasn’t unusual to have business associates or acquaintances visit our home. Donald and Steven had been in meetings all day with a company they’d considered contracting services with. I’m assuming when they went into his study, they were talking about whatever they’d learned at their earlier meeting.”

“Do you know who the company was?” She could see she’d piqued Gage’s interest at the mention of Donald and his wife. It wasn’t as if that evening hadn’t played out a thousand times in her head, ever since Steven’s death—no, Steven’s murder. Might as well call it was it was, because the police and the district attorney’s office certainly classified it as such.

“Sandoval Enterprises.”

Gage closed his eyes and took a deep breath, a pained expression crossing his face. It was the first emotional response she’d noticed since walking through the door. Obviously the name meant something to him, but what?

“Mrs. Dawkins—”

“Please, call me Suzanna.”

“If the police are deeming your husband’s death a homicide, an autopsy must have been performed. What was the official cause of death?”

Tears prickled the back of her eyelids and she blinked rapidly, fighting to keep them from falling. Though she hadn’t been in love with her husband, she’d cared about him and for him. They’d shared a life together, one the rest of the world wouldn’t understand, and he hadn’t deserved what happened to him.

“He was stabbed to death. In his bed. I woke up to find my husband covered in blood lying next to me. The knife was on the floor beside the bed. The police claim it had my fingerprints on it.”

“Stabbed? That’s a violent and messy death. Unless he was drugged or restrained, he would have fought back, struggled. You didn’t wake up? You said you were sleeping next to him. Hard to imagine you didn’t see or hear anything.”

His emotionless tone broke through the icy shell that seemed to encase her emotions, and she finally lost it. Slamming her hand onto the tabletop, she deliberately kept her voice low. The last thing she wanted was to attract attention.

“No, I didn’t hear anything. No, I didn’t see anyone attack my husband in our bed. No, I didn’t take the knife and plunge it thirty-seven times into his chest. No, I did not kill him, though I can tell just like everybody else you don’t believe me. So, thank you for your time, Mr. Newsome.”

Grabbing the messenger bag, and clutching it against her chest started to rise, but froze at Gage’s chuckle.

“Finally. That’s what I wanted to see, Suzanna. Emotion. Not the ice princess who’s sat across from me since you got here. I needed to see how you really feel, to gauge if you’re telling me the truth.”

“I haven’t got a reason to lie to you, Mr. Newsome—Gage. I’m asking for your help, though you don’t seem inclined to give it.”

“It’s easy for someone to lie when they’re suppressing their emotions. It’s when the fire of passion lights, when tempers flare, that’s when it becomes harder to keep the truth from spewing forth. I believe you, Suzanna.”

At his words, it felt like a weight lifted from her shoulders. For the first time since this whole fiasco started, someone actually believed she was telling the truth, that she hadn’t murdered her husband in cold blood.

“Thank you. You’ll help me, then, prove I didn’t kill Steven?”

“As long as it’s understood, whatever evidence I find will be turned over to the authorities. I’ll be looking for anything that might clear you of the alleged crime. But—and I want to make this abundantly clear—if what I find shows you are guilty, that will be given to the police and the district attorney to use toward prosecution. I’ll take the case, as long as you understand that I won’t be playing favorites, and I won’t bury anything I find that might incriminate you. If you are guilty, tell me now. Don’t waste my time, because I will bury you if you lie to me.”

“I would expect nothing less, Mr. Newsome.”

Gage stood and walked around the table, holding his hand out to her. She stared at it for the longest time, knowing once she slipped her hand into his, there’d be no turning back. For better or worse she’d be inexplicably tied to this man—this stranger. It was a matter of trust. Could she trust him? Should she trust him? The only thing she knew about him was what Brandon had told her, and that had been precious little.

With an inaudible sigh, she placed her hand in his, knowing with that simple action her fate was sealed.

“We have a deal.”