I’m focused on now. Today. Fall sales don’t matter to me if August sales are crap.”
Wilhelm grew quiet, his eyes wide with fear. Steven reveled in that look, the large man so stymied by common business sense he appeared on the verge of tears. None of his comrades in the kitchen staff were all that eager to help, either.
Further proof of their loyalty.
“See that you visit the tables personally this evening. I expect to see a difference in tomorrow’s receipts.”
He moved off, the quiet kitchen coming back to life with the rustle of pots as he headed for the main dining room.
Wilhelm needed to go. He toyed with firing the man on the spot, but common sense won out. They had a full set of reservations for three seatings a night through the end of the weekend. He detested the sniveling bastard but he needed him.
And he hated needing anyone.
Another shot of irritation speared through his midsection, cut off only by the hard buzz of his phone in his pocket. Steven dragged out the slim piece and nearly barked out a hello before he caught sight of the name on the screen. Pulse galloping, his throat was already dry as bones picked clean by vultures as he lifted the phone to his ear.
“DeWinter.”
“My place. Thirty minutes.”
“Of co—”
The phone had already clicked off before he could complete his sentence and Steven was oddly grateful for that fact. Conversations with the Duke were blessedly rare, but when they came it was better to take your lumps and move on.
As he dropped into the seat of his low-slung sports car five minutes later, the heat radiating around him like an oven, Steven DeWinter was forced to acknowledge the same thought in a matter of moments.
He truly hated needing anyone.
Reed skimmed the police report, the sounds of the precinct fading as he dived into the data. Robert Barrington might not have a rap sheet, but Charlie McCallum wasn’t so lucky. He’d been fairly clean since hooking up with Leah Tate, Cassidy’s sister, but before that he’d had some issues.
Disturbing the peace. A few suspicious vice notations about his presence at parties with drug paraphernalia, even if he managed to slide on actual possession. And a nice big DUI the summer he got out of college. Was it possible the love of a good woman had made him go straight?
Reed fought a snort and knew the facts already gathered told a vastly different tale.
Charlie’s present home in the city morgue, along with the confession Robert gave Cassidy that Charlie had been responsible for his wife’s death, suggested McCallum had never gone straight.
He’d just gotten better at hiding it.
“So what were you doing all that time, Charlie?”
Reed brought up a state database on his laptop and fiddled with a few search queries before shifting gears to focus on the mysterious disappearance of Robert Barrington’s bond paperwork. He’d already ordered up the video feeds from that day and should have them later this afternoon.
In the meantime, he was going to do some old-fashioned detective work and go visit his mother.
While he avoided dragging her into his cases, her knowledge of Dallas’s elite from both inside and out made her an invaluable resource. And while he wouldn’t quite say Charlie McCallum and Robert Barrington had been part of the city’s elite, they’d played in that world.
Desperately wanted in, if his suspicions were correct.
Twenty minutes later he pulled into the driveway of the Park Cities home his mother and Tripp made theirs. Despite the oppressive heat, the flower beds that surrounded the massive structure were full of bright, perky flowers that practically winked in the still air.
His mother answered the door herself and he was caught—as always—by the sheer, genuine beauty in her face. Diana Graystone Lange had always seen the world in vibrant, rich colors, and those same colors seemed to reflect back on her, projecting a vivid warmth. “Reed! Darling, come in.”
She ushered him inside before dragging him into a tight hug. Her head came just below his chin and her petite frame was slight in his arms. As always, she gave him one last tight squeeze before she pulled back, her smile warm and her gray eyes sharp.
She’d always had that ability. To keep her smile as a vivid beacon of distraction while her eyes did all the work. “While I’m delighted by it, what’s brought this midday visit?”
“I can’t have lunch with my mother?”
“You can have lunch with your mother. But since you rarely do so on a random weekday, I suspect you’re here for a bit more.”
He pulled her close in a side-armed hug as they walked down the long foyer toward the kitchen. “I think they need to give you the detective’s shield.”
“I’m a mother. It amounts to the same thing.”
A large pitcher of iced tea sat on the table, a thin cotton cloth wrapped around it to catch the sweat, and she poured them two glasses. “Tripp’s not joining us?”
“He said he might, but he was still at the club when I spoke to him a few minutes ago. I think it’ll just be us today.”
While he and Tripp had come to care for each other, Reed suspected the older man understood better than he let on that he needed to give the two of them space today.
“As a matter of fact, I do need to ask you a few questions.”
She handed him the glass and gestured him toward a seat at the kitchen table. Although they had a formal dining room that could seat the Dallas Cowboys football team, when it was just the two of them, his mother always insisted on the more insular warmth of the kitchen.
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense.”
“I caught a case last week. One that isn’t what it appears.”
He quickly filled his mother in on the past week, surprised to realize in the retelling just how much had occurred. The seemingly run-of-the-mill break-in at Elegance and Lace that had opened the strange turn of events that included fake copies of the British crown jewels in the floor, three genuine rubies that had lain nestled in with the fakes and two dead bodies.
“The crown jewels? As in the royal family and British crown jewels?”
“According to the landlady, yes.”
His mother refilled their glasses before crossing to pick up a quiche cooling beside the stove. “You realize just how unbelievable this is? I knew there were fakes made during the war, but they’ve always been a closely guarded secret, including the hiding place of the real jewels. But to think they saved the copies and that they were buried here all this time. In Dallas, Texas. How did they
