Chapter Thirteen
Peter adjusted himself on his motel bed, pillows against his back, computer on his lap, and cell head set in place. He’d just come back from dinner, booted up his laptop and finally, finally had something to report. The messages in his tracking folder gave him the first hope he’d had since that godawful night. And eased slightly the headache that had been pounding at him for days.
He speed-dialed an all too familiar number, then put the phone on speaker so he could work while he talked. The call was picked up after only one ring.
“Esai?”
“Well, well. Pedro. Is that a positive note I hear in your voice? How nice for a change.”
Esai Osuna’s voice always grated on Peter’s nerves. And he hated it when he and Miguel called him Pedro. That was a part of his life he’d long ago buried and had no wish to resurrect, regardless of circumstances.
“Isn’t it, though.” Hold the sarcasm. He has no sense of humor.
“Have you found the car?”
“No, not yet. But it’s just a matter of time. We have eyes on every kind of road in five states. We’re covered no matter which way she went. Besides, it’s only been a few days. She can’t have gotten far. But—”
“Dios! Are you crazy? She could be anywhere.”
“Not in the junker she bought,” Peter told him.
“How many men does it take for a simple job?” Esai demanded. “Do we not have enough cops on our payroll in enough states to make sure she doesn’t slip through?”
Peter was clicking keys on the keyboard. “That may not matter. I’ve found something else.”
“What do you mean, not matter? Exactly what is going on? Answers. I want answers. Right now.”
Peter ground his teeth. He had to get out of this whole situation. Somehow. But not before he killed these two arrogant assholes. Slowly and painfully.
“Remember those web sites I set up that you and Miguel blew off as a waste of time? Sites that would bounce back to me and identify anyone who logged onto them?”
“Yes, yes, yes.” Esai’s impatience bounced through the connection.
“You both were so sure that nobody who mattered would be stupid enough to Google us, right?” Peter was working hard to keep the smugness from his voice. But didn’t he deserve at least one Gotcha?
There was a short pause. “Are you telling me you actually got results from them? Can you tell from where?”
“Yes. Despite a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to camouflage the source, I tracked it back. You’ll never believe to where?”
“Spit it out.”
“The library in San Antonio.”
“Here?” The man couldn’t hide his surprise and excitement. “In my town? So good fortune is smiling on us for a change.”
“I’d say it’s at least patting us on the head.”
“But can you be sure it’s her? We don’t need any more false starts here, Pedro.”
Damn you, Esai.
“I think it’s an unbelievable coincidence that Kathryn has ended up in San Antonio.”
“If indeed it’s her.” Esai’s voice was cautious.
“But who else would suddenly decide to search for information on me and the law firm?” Peter protested. “The feds certainly don’t use public computers, and no one else has a reason to be interested.”
“We’d better hope so,” the man warned.
“I’d say she’s stopped running, at least for a while. She obviously feels pretty confident she won’t be found out for her to risk something like this.”
“Do you think she’ll stay put? She’s been a step ahead of us every time we’ve had a lead. Why won’t she take off now?”
“It’s a chance we have to take. This is the closest we’ve come to her since our…miscalculations.” And God, how he hated remembering those. “You should have someone check it out.”
“If she’s in the area, finding her car should be that much easier. I’ll put men on it right away, looking for the car and anyone who resembles the bitch. And you had better get yourself on the next plane here.”
“Me?” Peter sat up straighter, pain shooting through his head. “Come to San Antonio? What the hell for?”
“Listen to me, Peter.” Esai’s voice was deceptively soft. And calling him Peter rather than Pedro was not a good sign. “This is your mess. You need to be here to clean it up. And I’ll be watching while you do it. Send Mickey home and have Diego come back here with you. Let me know your flight details, and I’ll send a car for you.”
Peter felt a trickle of sweat work its way down his spine. He’d hoped to see the last of Esai’s pet. Diego Salazar was a stone cold killer. The two men had been together since they were teenagers in Mexico, scrabbling out any kind of living they could. When the cartel was established, Esai had made a place for him and Salazar was fiercely loyal to him. Peter knew that Miguel would get rid of the man in a heartbeat, but he had a cold-blooded, vicious streak that made him valuable in his own way.
“I don’t think we need to involve him in this just yet,” Peter protested. “He can—”
“He can get on the plane with you and make sure you get where you’re supposed to be going.” The threat was boldly implied. Don’t think of running, or else.
“Listen,” he began again.
But he was listening to a dead line. He disconnected the call.
Shit, shit, shit.
How much worse could things get?
When his phone rang fifteen minutes later, Peter had just finished confirming the plane reservations, telling Salazar to get a move on and packing his stuff. He looked at the number on the Caller ID and his stomach clenched.
“I understand you aren’t too excited about coming to the city,” the ice cold voice said. “Consider it an order from me.”
“No problem. I’m all set.” Peter did his best not to shout. He didn’t need this particular call. He was capable of taking care of things. More than capable. “I just don’t understand what I’ll be doing there.”
“When you get here, I want you to get in touch with Pendera at once. He’s your contact. See him in person. That always works best.”
“Has something more happened?” Peter massaged his temple with the fingers of one hand.
“We don’t know yet. That’s why we need information from him right away. If Kathryn’s in this area, we need to find out if somehow she’s made contact with anyone in his office. He should know about it if she has. And if he doesn’t, he needs to get busy and find out.”
So far they’d paid a lot of money to Efron Pendera, an assistant prosecutor on the U.S. District Attorney’s staff for South Texas. They expected him to pass information on the Strike Force progress but so far had received little in exchange.
“Fine. I’d planned to get with him anyway. What about her car? Any word yet?”
“We have people out searching for the car,” the voice answered. “We’ve drawn a hundred mile perimeter, and we’ve got people working within that circle. You are to call everyone on our payroll in the area that you recruited personally and enlist their assistance. If she’s passed along that data storage unit already…”
“If she had,” Peter pointed out in a tight voice, “you’d be talking to the U.S. Attorney instead of me.”
“You’re so damn sure of that, are you?”
“Yes, I am. She’s still got it.”
“Then find her. I want her, I want the drive, and then I want her dead.”
“Fine.” He fought to keep a controlled tone in his voice. “I gave Esai my flight information. And you’ll be happy to know he has Salazar sticking to me like glue.”
“I’ll be happy when this thing is resolved. Not before.”
The flight to San Antonio was bumpy, and sitting with Salazar next to him didn’t help. The only thing that made it bearable for Peter was flying First Class. He managed to consume enough scotch to smooth out the rough edges, then closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.
One of Esai’s henchmen waited at the airport to fetch them. His orders were to bring the two men to Esai’s home in Northwest San Antonio immediately. When the man walked into the house, Peter took one look and thought, Oh, shit.
Like Osuna, this was a man who would kill people like flies just for annoying him. He was well over six feet, his lean but muscular body clothed in an expensive-looking silk shirt and trousers. He was dark skinned with thick black hair, bushy eyebrows, and eyes blacker than coal. His heart was probably just as black.
Thin lips twisted in a cruel smile as he greeted Peter. “So. We have problems.”
“Which I’m working on,” Peter hastened to assure him.
“We’ll see. Now. Your quarters here are just temporary. You’ll be moving to the condo after tomorrow.”
Peter’s stomach clenched. Being at the condo would be like being in prison or worse. They’d watch his every move, breathe down his neck, ask a flood of questions that he might not be able to answer. “Why? What’s the problem? What’s wrong with me just staying right here?”
Esai shrugged. “I’d say nothing, but it’s not my decision. Meanwhile, I want to have the downtown library checked again in case she returns.”
“I don’t think she will,” Peter argued. “She got what she wanted. Or didn’t get it.”
It’s a stupid idea and will only cause another screw-up.
“I still think we can’t ignore the possibility,” Esai insisted.
“Well, I certainly can’t go. Send Salazar if you want to.” Peter tried to put a tone of authority into his voice. The worst thing he could do was to show fear. “On the remote chance she does come back, she’ll recognize me and run like hell. Besides, I need to keep in touch with the people who are looking for her car. She’s here. Somewhere in this area. We’ll find her.”
“Fine.” Esai gave him a hard look. “I’ll have your suitcase put in your room. You can set up shop in my den for the moment. Martha will bring you coffee. You smell like you could use it. Dinner is at eight.”
Peter dropped his jacket on a chair next to the desk, set up the laptop, and logged onto the Internet. Esai’s entire house was a wireless hot spot, so he was connected in just seconds. Then he opened his cell phone.
From the hallway, he heard the voices of Esai and Salazar drifting back to him. Then the door to the garage opened and a moment later a car pulled away.
And good luck on that.
He began his routine, calling everyone on the list who might have a lead on the car while searching his databases for a hit on the license plate. He had just finished a long and frustrating phone call with a state policeman on their payroll when his cell rang.
“This is Alfredo Morales,” a voice said.
Peter recognized him at once. A county sheriff’s deputy who’d been taking their money for years.
“You called because…”
“I found your car for you.”
Peter’s pulse picked up speed as his adrenaline level rose. “And the woman? Did you find her, too?”
“Not yet, but she can’t be far away. Not with the condition of the vehicle.”
Peter frowned. “What do you mean? Where did you find it?”
“In a repair garage in a little town just outside of San Antonio.”
“And?” Peter prodded impatiently.
“It’s been dismantled and the parts sold. The guy who owns the garage said it was abandoned on the highway, wouldn’t run, and he towed it in. No papers. No indication of ownership. He waited a day and claimed it as salvage.”
Peter thought a minute. “Any chance the guy that owns the garage knows more than he’s telling?”
“Nah. He’s an old guy who’s lived here all his life. He doesn’t need the money, just does this to keep himself busy.”
“Shit. So we’re no further ahead than we were before.”
“At least it pinpoints more closely the area where you might locate your female. If she had to ditch the car, she can’t be far away. There’s no bus service out of this town, for one thing.”
That meant Kathryn would have had to find more transportation, although Peter was learning, unpleasantly, how resourceful she could be.
“Look around everyplace. Tell everyone to do this as quietly as possible, but be thorough.” He rubbed his forehead. “Do your job. Keep your eyes open. Ask the right questions. I have an extra bonus for the person who locates her.”
“I’ll pass it along. These little towns aren’t any bigger than a flyspeck. A stranger’s sure to stand out.”
“Keep in touch.”
At least they had something concrete, for a change. Thank God for that. It might get the brothers off his back for a while. He held out little hope for Salazar’s trip to the library. A useless waste of time and in the end sure to cost them more than it was worth.
Anyway, Salazar wasn’t his call. People who thought they were so much smarter than he was had stopped listening to him. He had become a pariah in the organization, a situation he was damned determined to remedy.
He decided to hold onto the information about the car until he had something more concrete—like Kathryn herself. A rabbit he could pull out of his hat. No sense putting himself through the wringer for nothing.
He was doing a little experimenting on the computer, playing around with the best way to set up the financials and flow charts again, when Esai stormed into the den. Rage hung around him like a solid cloud. He jabbed the remnants of his cigar into a crystal ash tray with a vicious gesture.
Peter raised an eyebrow. He knew he was baiting the bear, but he couldn’t help himself. “Something else go wrong?”
“That fucking Salazar.” He began pacing the confined space. “He’s given us a little problem. Again.”
“Oh?” Peter swallowed a smile of satisfaction. He was sure his instincts had been correct.
Esai stopped pacing and planted himself in front of the desk. “We gave that idiot pictures to work with. Pictures that showed the woman with different looks. He probably threw them away.”
“What happened?” Peter down-sized his document and leaned back in his chair.
Esai pulled out another cigar and rolled it between two fingers. “He gave the people at the library the story we put together. Nothing complicated, so he couldn’t screw it up. He was supposed to be looking for his missing sister. His family had gotten an email from her and traced it back to one of the library computers. They’re worried about her. You know. All that shit.”
“And?”
“The people there were very nice. Not suspicious at all, he said.”
“So what went wrong?”
“The woman he spoke to became very excited. Told him how fortunate he was, because his sister was back again this very day. Even pointed out her out.” He made a rude noise. “Salazar swears she looked just like one of the pictures of our little bitch.”
Peter was sure what was coming and his stomach knotted. Not again. “Let me guess. It wasn’t her.”
“Not even close.” Esai flung his hands in the air.
Peter felt the bitter taste of bile in his mouth. “So when she turned out to be the wrong person, he…disposed of her.”
Esai nodded. “We have to hope that he got rid of the body successfully enough that she won’t be found for a long time. Miguel was right. The man is losing his touch. I should have listened to him and gotten rid of Salazar long ago.”
Peter raked his hands through his hair. “Christ, now what?” He turned back to his keyboard and closed the document he’d been working on. “We have another dead body to get rid of.”
“That’s the fucking truth.” Esai took down a bottle of brandy from the bar on one wall and poured himself a generous amount. “He damn well better make sure he doesn’t leave any traces when he does it.” He slugged down the brandy in one gulp. “Now more than ever we have to make sure she hasn’t hooked up with the feds. Call Pendera. Tell him it’s time to pay up.”
****
“Pendera here.”
“It’s Fleming.”
Peter leaned back in his chair, visualizing the swarthy Efron Pendera in his prosecutor outfit—well-fitting suit, crisp pale blue shirt, and conservative tie. He always thought the man had a handbook on how prosecutors should dress. From the background noises, Peter assumed he’d caught the man out on the street.
“What do you want?” The hostility and resentment in his voice were as sharp as a knife.
Too bad. The man doesn’t mind taking our money. Now he needs to work for it.
“It turns out our target has very nicely stumbled into the San Antonio area. We need to know if she’s contacted anyone in your office. Tell me exactly what’s going on there right now.”
“Cristo! I’m out here on the street, for God’s sake. Let me get to a more private place, and I’ll call you back.”
“Five minutes,” Fleming warned.
“I’ll do my best.”
Peter leaned back in the chair, his feet propped on the desk, and thought about Efron Pendera. The man had a gambling addiction for which there was apparently no cure. The Osunas had bought up his markers and very carefully explained that now he belonged to them. They’d had him on a short leash ever since. The problem was, he’d provided them with precious little in all this time, especially now when they really needed it.
Ten minutes later, Peter’s cell rang. “That’s a lot more than five minutes,” he accused.
“I had to get to a place where I could talk.” The strain in the man’s voice vibrated across the connection. “The street is too open for this kind of conversation, and there was no convenient place safe to duck into.”
“All right. It’s time to earn your money. God knows you’ve taken enough of it without giving much in return.”
“I keep telling you,” Pendera whined. “They don’t tell me a lot of things.”
“Then find a way to get them,” Peter growled. “Now listen. We want to know if they’ve mentioned any woman who might be connected to the Osunas. Or me, God forbid. Someone who might have…something to give them.”
“What kind of something?”
“Something that could send us all to prison. Does that shove that stick up your ass a little farther?”
“Madre Mia!” The man’s voice cracked. “What the hell does she have?”
“First, I want to know if anyone’s been talking about her. A witness. Whatever.”
“I haven’t heard anything.” There was a pause. “I meant to tell you this, but I knew you’d be pissed off. They’ve taken me off the major group for the Strike Force and given me other cases to handle.”
Peter wanted to hit something. “Did you manage to fuck up in some way? Are they suspicious of you?”
“No, no, no, no. Please, Pedro. I’m doing the best I can. They just decided to pare it back to the core team.”
“Your best at this point is going to get you a nice place at the cemetery if you don’t end up in prison first. I don’t care how you do it, but I need that information. Now. This woman disappeared from Tampa less than two weeks ago. Her car has finally been found in this area, which puts her far too close for comfort.”
Silence hummed over the connection.
“Efron? Did you hear me?”
“Okay. Here’s something. I haven’t heard a word about finding a female or anything like that. But something did happen this morning. I swear I was going to call you about it, but I was waiting to see if I could find out more information.”
“What are you talking about? Damn it, Efron. You know better than to hold back.”
“All right, all right. There was a meeting this morning between Jake Garza, Dean Morgan and Kane Barton. Since then, the three of them have been quieter than a church, talking only to each other. And everything behind closed doors.”
“And you didn’t see fit to call us and tell us at once? Are you nuts? I specifically told you anything out of the ordinary you were to report.”
“Pedro, I’m sorry.” The man was whining, a pathetic sound from a grown man. “I was waiting to see if it had to do with the cartel. They didn’t bring the Strike Force in on it so it could have been one of the other cases in play.”
“Damn it. I told you to call me Peter.” He blew out a breath and fought to control his impatience. Listen, pendejo. When we tell you to let us know about anything—anything—that’s exactly what we mean. You’d better do some digging. If this involves the woman, that would be very dangerous for all of us. I want to know everything they know. Do you understand?”
“I’ll do my best. Honest to God, you can believe me when I tell you that.”
Peter thought for a moment. He hadn’t intended to mention the flash drive, but Pendera was so stupid he needed a road map to know what to look for. “Has anyone mentioned a flash drive? A memory stick? Anything like that?”
“Flash drive? No. I swear to you. Why?”
“Never mind why. Just keep your eyes and ears open. Wide open. If you hear anything at all, no matter how insignificant you might think it is, I want to know at once.”
There was a long pause. An unsettling feeling came over Peter, a feeling that Pendera had been holding back.
“What else? I sense something rattling around in your brain.”
“Okay. I didn’t want to say anything, but…”
“But what, pendejo? I told you to keep nothing back.” Peter could almost smell the fear over the connection, and he didn’t like it.
“Since yesterday morning, I’ve been getting a feeling I don’t like at all.”
“What do you mean?” Peter was instantly at attention. “What kind of feeling?”
He heard Pendera muttering to himself, a prayer or incantation, and ground his teeth. What the hell?
“I-I heard Quinn’s name mentioned last night.”
“Quinn? Christ and all the angels.” The words exploded from Peter’s mouth.
Everyone in the drug business knew about Quinn’s vendetta against the Ramirez cartel and the ruthless way he’d destroyed it. Those who didn’t end up stuck in prison forever were dead. Even after four years, the story of the blood bath was a legend still whispered in the business.
“That’s all we need.” Peter’s head throbbed and pinpricks of pain stabbed behind his right eye. “I thought, after that disaster, he quit his job and went off to hide in the hills or something.”
“He did. But now it seems he and Garza have hooked up again.”
“Jesus. If by some vicious twist of fate Kathryn’s involved with him, we’re all screwed.”
“Absolutamente. You are right on that score.”
“How the hell would she even meet someone like him?” Peter shifted the phone to his other ear and reached in his pocket for antacid tablets. He was about to burn a hole in his gut. If the Osuna Brothers didn’t kill him, his body would probably self-destruct anyway. “You’d better find out. And pretty damn fast.” As he was about to disconnect the call, an unpleasant thought smacked Peter in the gut. “Efron, do you happen to know where Quinn lives?”
“No. No one does.”
“Bullshit. Someone has to. His friend Garza? Someone else in the office?”
“I swear to you…”
“Don’t swear. Just find out. Make it happen. You know what your options are.”
He snapped his phone shut with a vicious click. If Kathryn had somehow found her way to that devil, Quinn, they were all royally fucked and he might as well plan his funeral now.