Betrayal's Shadow (28 page)

Not the keen, interactive group of men Turen remembered from the days of Xavier’s rule.

This atmosphere reeked of distrust, lies, and secrets. The stillness was ripe with disconnect between his brethren, a presence unfamiliar and almost painful to sense.

Again, Salvatore seemed none the wiser to the discord. Was the man made from stone?

“This woman went to a lot of trouble to extract her pound of flesh.” Salvatore scrutinized the room, back like a bloodhound on his train of thought. “Your enemies are growing, Turen. First Xavier, then poor Isabella and now this human are all out for your blood. Rather unlike you. You were always the arbitrator. The good moral citizen.”

Turen mentally ground his teeth, refusing to answer the taunt.

“Or perhaps this is a trend,” said Kamau. “Hell, Grimm garnered Xavier’s wrath. That defies belief. Maybe some of these people are just a little unhinged.”

The comment brought a series of chuckles and a welcome distraction. Turen confirmed the interjection was no accident as he met the man’s dark gaze.

“The event is overrated. The woman was a tiny thing with little strength, limited skill, and no investment in my death. The pound of flesh she sought was Turen’s.” Grimm leaned back, elbows on the next riser, his posture casual as if the conversation were about the weather.

Not fooled, Turen heard the play of humor in Grimm’s words. Mia’s skill was exceptional. She had followed his instruction without fault, her placement of the blade well-chosen and precise to avoid organ damage. He wasn’t sure he could have faked an attack as well. The comment confirmed Grimm’s awareness of the same. The healer covered his knowledge with silence. Whatever the reason, Turen accepted the gift. It wouldn’t save Mia, but it bought him time.

“This woman needs to be found and dealt with,” Salvatore continued.

“The incident was dangerous but instigated by Xavier.” Tsu’s voice rang out calmly in the tense quiet.

“She lured our people to a place of her choosing with the intent to kill, with an ability to manipulate both well-seasoned Guardians and Xavier.” Salvatore’s voice elevated an octave and echoed from the chamber’s high stone ceilings.

“Still, she’s only human. Perhaps we should question her to determine her threat level first?” Tsu persisted in an even tone.

“Attacking one of our own doesn’t require evaluation,” countered Salvatore. “She must be eliminated.”

“I’m fine.” Grimm played with a small blade in his hand, balancing the flat section on his finger as he spun it around. He waved his other hand, dismissing the attack’s severity and the discussion. “I would think to find out what she knows is sufficient. Our nature isn’t to kill, especially humans.”

Turen narrowed his eyes as he recognized the blade. Mia’s blade. Grimm met his stare, making no more comment.

“We will send a team. If she resists, she will be terminated,” Salvatore concluded as if his word sealed the discussion.

“Terminate a human female without provocation?” countered Leonis. “That is a grievous breach of our covenant. To pull a whole team to seek her as well will expose more of our small ranks to Xavier. No doubt he is pursuing the woman also.”

Salvatore scowled. “Our protection is paramount, and this woman is a risk.”

“Since she’s determined to take my head, it makes more sense for me to track her down. If I determine she warrants it, I can always bring her in. Unless someone thinks I am now incapable of handling one human female?” Turen offered as he canvassed the room.

“I agree.” Tsu’s comment, immediately followed by Grimm’s agreement and Leonis’s concurrence, trailed into a round of grumbling assents that filled the room before Salvatore could interject.

Salvatore turned his scowl to each of them in turn. “So be it. You don’t require backup?”

Turen raised an eyebrow. “For one tiny woman? I disarmed her last night and would have dealt with her had I not still had Xavier’s shackles and the rest of his small army to deal with.”

“It is regrettable he held you so long without our knowledge,” Leonis muttered, effectively cutting off Salvatore. “We shouldn’t have given up our search when we found no sign of you, but our leads all proved dead ends. Much like with Isabella.”

Several of the warriors nodded in silent agreement.

Salvatore gave them a blank stare and spun back, his gaze riveted on Turen. “Why keep you so long? Why not just kill you and be done with it?”

Turen rubbed his hand across his the back of his neck and avoided Salvatore’s gaze. “He never confronted me. His second in command instigated most of the abuse. I would still be there now if not for the peculiar incident in the park.”

Sensing a chill in the silence, he glanced up. Salvatore’s eyes had narrowed with a dangerous glint.

He met Salvatore’s gaze straight on. Placing the fight in the park in any sort of positive light was a subtle slap to all the negative propaganda Salvatore had worked through the meeting. Yet Salvatore could hardly take him down for it in front of the group. Turen broke the gaze first, submission less his objective than keeping Salvatore’s ire from bleeding into a change in the search for Mia.

“Find the woman. I will expect your report soon.”

Turen nodded and stood. Grimm still stared at him, Mia’s blade flipping back and forth, over and under his fingers, the steel twirling like a quarter doing tricks.

The crowd of men dispersed from the room, and Turen
folded
away.

Regardless of Grimm’s reasons for covering for Mia, Turen wouldn’t risk her well-being with any of his kind. It would just take one stray comment or one implied risk for Salvatore to enact his termination of Mia. If others refused, he knew Salvatore would perform the task himself.

That wasn’t going to happen. Ever.

***

The occasional dogs scampered past, and the distant infantile cry of a lone coyote cut through the night in the low-lit streets at the edge of one of Tucson’s poorer neighborhoods.

The low sloping hills covered with proud saguaro cactus and delicate orange trees weren’t what made the more affluent subdivisions such a contrast to this street of homes. The promise of violence here, lost youth wallowing in the shadows of evil, created the line.

Turen ambled down the street. His eyes shifted from house to house as he listened with his mind and his ears, alert for a movement or a shadow.

His gaze and intuition tracked through the dark to the curved porch arches of each bungalow, searching for a hostile presence. At two o’clock in the morning, there should be no activity. But Euclid Street was more in tune with the comings and goings of the drug traffic from the fringes of Nogales to be asleep with the pace of the rest of the city.

From behind two twenty-year-old Toyotas, he canvassed the homes and stepped off the street to lean against a gnarled mesquite tree. The limbs gave no cover, but he only needed camouflage, not a place to burrow for protection.

The anger and frustration of the last several weeks spiraled in a tight knot. He was ready for a confrontation.

He had followed Mia’s pattern throughout New York City for two weeks. With the exception of two of her trails, she’d done well covering her tracks. Those two paths Turen wiped clean, her traces now gone from the city. He’d left none behind, and she’d left no path to follow farther.

His pride in her did nothing to diminish the threat.

The Internet provided Mia’s portfolio of work: her articles, her publications, her joint ventures in publishing and research. Those findings and her brief partnership with one J.T. Mason had brought him here. Her past intersected with his second goal to find out more about Isa’s death and the cop she’d turned to for help in contacting Xavier.

Greasing palms and following leads to get more information on Marco Valencia had unearthed some strange connections. Not the least of which was the scrutiny Marco and Isa’s death had garnered from Mason, crime reporter and writer. The man and the author had been the focus of a series of interviews by Mia several years ago.

Turen didn’t believe in coincidence. Mia had found a way to poke into Isa’s death, and he’d erase her presence on this path as well. However, the more he searched, the more intricate the details wove.

Marco Valencia turned out to be somewhat of an enigma. A promising high school athlete and student, Marco had lost an older brother to gang violence—death in a desert shootout between drug dealers over boundary disputes. Marco’s history had been hard to probe. Turen wasn’t proud of his unauthorized
fold
into the Tucson police building and search through the department files, but he owed Isa closure.

Valencia’s enrollment and graduation from the police academy preceded a marked absence in the police ranks. He’d dropped so low from the radar that his resurfacing under the auspices of the local gangs hadn’t elicited notice from law enforcement. He wasn’t recognizable to the seasoned force, and his arrest file reflected he’d received no special treatment.

Without the human constraints of locked doors and badge access, Turen searched both the police data files and those of the local ATF. The resultant find: Marco Valencia had quietly re-established himself in a new profession as an agent in deep cover.

“You lost or something, brother?” The rough, aged voice came from the porch on the other side of his tree.

“I know where I am.” Turen glanced away from the man and across the street to the house belonging to Manuel Esperanzo, Marco’s gang brother.

“This isn’t a good neighborhood for you, man.” The man appeared bent and old. Turen guessed he suffered more from hardship than age.

“Good to know. You might want to go inside.”

The man shook his head and wandered off as if he’d done his penance for the day and God couldn’t blame him if Turen was an idiot.

The rumble of an engine preceded a low-rider pulling up to park in front of Esperanzo’s house. A heavy man in a dark wife-beater and jeans pushed out of the driver’s side. His shaved head reflected no light from the dim street lamp due to the tattoos blending in a Rorschach blot over his skull.

Manny Esperanzo walked around to the passenger side, yanked open the door, and dragged a young woman from the car by her wrist. He shoved her up the broken concrete walkway until her stumbling aggravated him enough to grab her arm and pull her behind him.

Turen pushed away from the tree and headed toward the house as the screen door slammed behind Manny and the whimpering girl.

Turen couldn’t fix Isa’s death.

He couldn’t help the young agent probably bowled over by Isa’s beauty and persuasive techniques. She’d been sweet and innocent, though she’d developed flirtation to an art form. No human male in his right mind would have turned Isa away.

Marco would have appealed to Isa: young, strong, subversive, and a highly trained operative. Isa would have appealed to Marco for all the obvious reasons. Quite the match.

With Marco dead and information leaked about his undercover affiliation, Manny was left holding the proverbial bag with his gang and suppliers. Loyalties were fickle, and guilt by association was a way of life in illegal businesses if the ATF records were any indication. Unfortunately, Manny’s record reflected he operated according to a specific hierarchy principle. Instill fear in those below you and always pick on people weaker than yourself.

Turen pulled open the screen door without knocking. He couldn’t save Marco, but he could do something for Marco’s kid sister, who Manny had just dragged into his house to auction off as a slave. The kid was missing only an hour from her college dorm room. Manny’s stink, which allowed Turen to isolate this residence, had been all over the stairwells and back exit from the dorm lobby.

Manny’s misconception in thinking this act would elevate him back to a respectable level with his peers was shortsighted. Turen glanced around the dim room. His presence hadn’t immediately registered on the small group of men in the dirty bungalow.

“Who the fuck are you?” A scrawny male behind Manny had finally taken notice.

Turen shook his head and held out his hands. “I’m just here for the girl.”

Manny gave a big smile, flashing a mouthful of gold grills. Several of his cohorts followed along with the laugh, but two men shifted around behind Turen.

“She’s mine.” Manny tugged at the girl’s arm and pushed her to the floor at his feet. “You can’t just walk into my house disrespecting me. People disappear for doing that, man.” Manny sat and pointedly wrapped the meaty fingers of his right hand around his gun.

“She is coming with me. Now.” Turen stretched a hand to the girl, his palm out and his gaze turned away from the split lip, the bruised cheek, and the rip in the college sophomore’s sleeveless tee.

The girl’s eyes widened, her pupils tiny despite the low light in the room. Manny’s fingers dug into her shoulder, and she winced, the pressure pinning her to her spot.

“What’s it to you? You a cop or something?”

“I’m a friend of Marco’s. I’m taking his sister home.”

A total of three sidled behind Turen, the remaining two on either side of Manny, drawing weapons from the back of their waistbands. “You’re too funny, man.”