“So how are things progressing, Enrique?”
Rick set the bill for the sprinkler system on the Ping-Pong table and moved toward the older man. Only Justus called him Enrique. “No problems yet.”
“You know, I’ve launched many ventures over the years, but none of them have been as important as this one. This one is for Ryan.” His chin jutted forward emphatically, as if Rick could forget how intricately involved Justus’s son had been in the initial idea of Phoenix, the Hispanic gang rehabilitation center. Ryan had given it the name, believing that, like Rick, others could rise from the ashes and become new again.
Rick looked at the old white man staring at him with violet-blue eyes. They were Ryan’s eyes…yet different. At that moment, Rick missed Ryan as keenly as he ever had.
“I haven’t forgotten, but I’m not doing this because of Ryan. This center isn’t a memorial. It’s vital. And working with gang members isn’t going to be easy. Theirs is a different world.” Rick unconsciously rubbed a hand across the tattoos on his chest before catching himself. “There will be resistance in the gang community, resistance that might not be pleasant.”
“We can deal with thugs. You of all people should know that.”
Rick raised an eyebrow. Justus shifted his gaze away, a small measure of retreat. Old Man Mitchell knew better than to remind him of who he’d been. “You’ll have to trust me. I can do this.”
“I want to be involved.”
Rick tamped down his anger. “You are involved.”
Justus snorted. “I’m only the bank.”
“Si,” he said, just to remind Justus of how different they still were. “That has been your role since the beginning, and it is a most worthy role. You can’t relate to the men who will come here. I can. I know the path they’ve walked. I know the pain and regret.”
Justus didn’t flinch. “I know regret, too.”
Rick nodded. “I know, but that doesn’t change the fact that the men who come here will have almost nothing in common with you. Other than wanting to shake free from the life they now lead.”
“Fine. I didn’t come here to oversee you.”
Rick felt a moment’s relief, then a prickling arose on his neck. Justus wanted something.
“I have a request. It’s quite, ahem, delicate.”
Rick crossed his arms. He didn’t need this now. Justus had employed Rick when he’d first come to live at Cottonwood and since then he’d done many things for the man before him. Nothing illegal, but some of those tasks made him feel uncomfortable in his skin. Of course that had been before Ryan died. Before Justus’s stroke. Before he had changed. Before Rick had tired of being Justus Mitchell’s lackey. Yet, Rick owed Justus more than he liked to admit.
And he owed the man’s late son.
If it hadn’t been for Ryan, Rick would not be the man he was today. Ryan’s death had bound him to the Mitchells with invisible ties that would never be severed.
“What?”
Justus’s eyes closed for a moment, before opening and piercing him with their intensity. “I have a daughter.”
“You have a daughter?”
“Si,” he said to be annoying. Satisfaction flashed across his face before he continued, “No one knows about her. Well, rather, they don’t talk about her.”
“Why?”
The old man rolled a bit closer, banging into the foos-ball table and causing the little soccer men to spin. The low pendant light cast a gray pall on his pasty skin. “Her mother was a waitress over in Oak Stand. I’d been with her five or six times, but there could have been others. She didn’t seem the choosy type. The child could have been mine, or not. I never bothered to find out.”
“Then why worry about her now?” Rick eased himself onto the corner of the new pool table. The green felt was stiff beneath his fingers—very different from the one at the deli in the barrio where he’d won money off leathery broken men. He’d been a ten-year-old hustler with the instincts of a shark.
“Because of this.” Justus’s eyes shifted to the tray on the motorized wheelchair. The debilitating stroke had caused him to lose mobility in his right arm. His left arm was weak, but he could use it.
Rick picked up the folded paper. The heaviness of the paper spoke much about the sender of the letter. This woman meant business.
He unfolded it and read silently while the old man watched him. The note was brief and to the point. The woman wanted money to keep quiet.
“Well?” Rick said, refolding the paper. “You want me to kill her?”
Justus laughed at his jest. It was a running joke between them. Justus didn’t need a Hispanic jack-of-all-trades to take out his competition. The old man could crush whomever got in his way. Money was his weapon, always had been, and Rick knew the power of that particular sword.
“No, I want you to bring her to me.”
Rick stiffened. He didn’t have time to play nursemaid to some upstart claim to the Mitchell fortune. He had a center to open. The rehabilitation center was the promise Justus had made him the year after Ryan died, and starting next week, Rick would be attempting the near impossible—bringing gang members from the streets of Dallas to the countryside of East Texas for a chance to change their live’s direction. It was a bold undertaking, but Rick wanted to give others what had been given to him. A second chance.
“I can’t. I’m no longer employed by you. My focus is on the center.”
“I can’t trust anyone else.” The old man rolled even closer. So close Rick could smell his Aramis cologne, see the deep grooves around his shocking blue eyes. “Please.”
“I have to focus on Phoenix.”
“You must do this for me, Enrique. This is all I shall ask. One last favor and I will sign the land over to the foundation. Think about it. The center would be secure.”
Rick felt his heart pound. Mitchell did not part with much in life. The center was funded through Ryan’s foundation. They’d received some federal money, but much of it came through the foundation. Justus was now offering something more. “All for finding this woman and bringing her to you?”
The old man smiled. White veneers flashed, a gold crown winked. “Finding the girl won’t be hard. She used a post office box. Probably thought I hadn’t kept tabs on her, but, of course, I always have.”
Rick glanced at the folded note in his hand. It had not been signed. Just a post office box number given. The girl lived in Las Vegas. “Of course you would. You always know your enemies.”
Something flashed again in Justus’s eyes. It was an emotion Rick had seen before in those blue depths, and he knew it well. Regret stared at him in his mirror each and every morning.
“She’s not an enemy. There is much of me in this girl. She’s determined.”
“And underhanded,” Rick said. “How can you admire a girl who would threaten to ruin you unless you give her money?”
“It’s not so different than what I would have done once. She’s got her back against a wall. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have heard from her. Besides, there’s not much left to ruin, is there? Other than the money, of course.” The smile Justus gave reminded Rick of a clown in a fun house. He supposed the atrophy on the man’s right side was to blame, but still, he couldn’t help the prickles that crept along his skin.
The only sound in the room was the