Strong Rain Falling: A Caitlin Strong Novel (Caitlin Strong Novels) (16 page)

“There is always trouble,
mi hermano.
”

Locaro grinned. “This is different. I can tell. Ever since we were children, I’ve been able to tell.”

“Tell what?”

“The face you make when someone crosses you. So calm, pleasant. Almost like you’re grateful to have a chance to destroy them.”

But Ana Guajardo’s expression remained flat. “And there are several now I must destroy.”

P
ART
F
OUR

Boots above the knee and leather leggings, a belt three inches wide with two rows of brass-bound cartridges, and a slanting sombrero make a man appear larger than he really is, but the Rangers were the largest men I saw in Texas, the State of big men. And some of them were remarkably handsome in a sunburned, broad-shouldered, easy, manly way. They were also somewhat shy with strangers, listening very intently, but speaking little, and then in a slow, gentle voice; and as they spoke so seldom, they seemed to think what they had to say was too valuable to spoil by profanity.

Richard Harding Davis,
The West from a Car Window

34

A
USTIN,
T
EXAS

Caitlin Strong was standing in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel Austin the next morning, when Fernando Lorenzo Sandoval emerged from the elevator enclosed by three of his bodyguards. He spotted her a few moments after her eyes fixed upon him, enough time for her to see his appearance was dapper and polished as always. Not a single black hair out of place and bronze skin so even in tone and shade that his face looked to be sprayed on. His cream-colored linen suit fit him perfectly over tasseled loafers with no socks. Caitlin imagined in another life he might have been a movie star, bearing a strong resemblance to a famous Latin actor whose name she couldn’t recall but thought might have begun with Fernando as well.

Sandoval smiled in recognition, but the gesture seemed forced. As he moved to approach her, casting an unspoken signal to his bodyguards, Caitlin could feel the confident air and swagger befitting the most hunted man in Mexico nowhere to be found, sucked out of him by worry over the fate of his missing son. His gaze held hers, seeming to grasp some meaning, some portent, in it, enough so that his eyes had begun to mist up by the time he reached her.

Caitlin had been to the elegant Four Seasons before, but remembered the lobby being brighter. This morning it seemed only half the lights had been turned on, casting the rich mauve, cream, and olive tones in a twilight-like glint, Sandoval’s face looking shiny under the spill of a single fixture that found him as he reached her. He stretched his right arm outward, she thought to shake her hand, but then his grasp fastened on her elbow instead, the grip flaccid and quivery.

Caitlin held his stare as long as she could, more passing between them in those moments than any words could produce because there were no words that could capture the pain of the news she had brought with her. Looking at him in the glare of a bulb that seemed ready to burn out, she felt glad she’d insisted on being the one to do it.

Sandoval had separated himself from his family to keep them safe under new identities layered so deeply even the cartels wouldn’t be able to find them. Every step he’d taken, every move he’d made in the last few years had been done to make his own children safer, looking forward to the day when he could put all this behind him and return home.

Over now. Finished. Done. All for naught.

“Let’s go outside, Ranger,” Sandoval said, his voice cracking and hand slipping off her elbow.

35

S
COTTSDALE,
A
RIZONA

“Why we going to visit someone none of us even likes?” Dylan had asked that morning after Cort Wesley told him and Luke where they were going.

“Figure it out,” Cort Wesley said, not in the mood to parse words.

“’Cause you don’t want to leave us alone.”

“Close enough.”

“What else?” Luke asked.

“I’ll explain later.”

“What’s wrong with now?”

Cort Wesley shot his younger son a look, normally enough to silence him but not anymore, not today.

“You figure Aunt Araceli might know something that can help you figure this out,” Luke surmised, “why someone’s after us.”

“Help?” Dylan chimed in, rolling his eyes and flipping the hair from his face. “She didn’t like Mom, she could care less about us, and she hates Dad.”

Luke looked to his father to say his brother was wrong about that, but Cort Wesley could only muster a shrug.

*   *   *

He’d called Araceli Ramirez, Torres being her maiden name, the night before.

“What do you expect me to do?” she’d interrupted, before he was even finished explaining things to her.

“Help me figure this out, that’s all,” Cort Wesley said, keeping his tone low and measured.

“Here’s what I’ve figured out so far: my sister’s dead because of you.”

“And somebody tried to kill your nephews two nights ago.”

“Wouldn’t have happened if you’d let me have custody like I asked.”

“You were a stranger to them.”

“And what the fuck were you? How about a criminal, an ex-con, a contract killer, a mob enforcer, a drug dealer? How’s that?”

“I was never a drug dealer. And none of that had anything to do with Maura getting killed.”

“No? Then what did?”

“Something else. My fault, all the same—I’m not denying that. I just wish you’d keep your facts straight,” Cort Wesley finished, immediately regretting the break in his tone but unable to stop himself now. “I’m going to say it again. Someone came after your nephews and it was because of Maura, something in her past.”

“How the hell you know that?”

“I do, that’s all. You may not think you know anything that can help, but you’re the only one who might. Just let me know if we can head out your way tomorrow,” Cort Wesley said, emphasizing the “we
.
”

“Knock yourself out,” Araceli Ramirez told him.

*   *   *

She’d been married twice, the first time to a Major League baseball player whose arm she’d broken in a tussle after he’d come home drunk and belligerent one night too many. Her second marriage was to a Phoenix-area businessman who owned a chain of car washes and was president of the local Chamber of Commerce. Cort Wesley thought they had two kids, but it might have been three.

They’d taken a seven a.m. Southwest flight to Phoenix, arriving in really no time at all given the time differential. Cort Wesley rented a car, insisting on printed-out directions because he hated the talking monstrosities that seemed to enjoy telling him that he’d missed his turn. Bad enough his kids were already smarter than he was; he didn’t need a machine that was too.

Let On-Star, or whatever it was called, try raising two teenage boys now targeted by contract killers.

Somehow that thought made Cort Wesley smile, as almost everything did when he was alone with his boys. Circumstances aside, he’d learned to appreciate the company he knew was fleeting, even with their typical teenage back-and-forth banter. Luke had gotten to the age where he wasn’t afraid to snap back at his brother and, for his part, Dylan had begun to appreciate Luke was no longer a pushover. Maybe even grudgingly accept that his younger brother now was pretty much a spitting image of him from four years ago.

When they’d witnessed their mother murdered as she stood in the front doorway.

That thought shocked Cort Wesley back to reality and he busied himself with the directions to Araceli Ramirez’s home that he’d committed to memory. She lived in Pinnacle Peak Heights, one of Scottsdale’s finest neighborhoods—perfectly befitting the wife of a car wash and Chamber of Commerce baron. The name suggested a gated community with fake cops patrolling in tiny fuel-efficient cars with police lights affixed to the roofs.

As it turned out, the community wasn’t gated, just lush and spacious with plenty of space between homes on lots that looked to average well more than an acre. The whole community just didn’t look real, more painted onto the desert, and Cort Wesley actually wanted to touch a home or some landscaping just to make sure it didn’t rub off on his fingers. The palm trees and garden shrubbery looked to be of a uniform height amid lawns so well manicured he figured they might have actually been artificial turf. He’d heard fake grass was quite the rage in the desert these days and wondered what it felt like underfoot.

The street on which Araceli Ramirez lived featured a beautiful view of the mountains overlooking the scene to the east, and he imagined the lit-up city would look just as spectacular to the west after dark. Cort Wesley wasn’t at all jealous, but he was surprised by the means with which his boys’ aunt found herself living.

“My older sister’s a bitch,” Maura used to say, whenever Araceli came up in conversation. “A real bitch.”

Man, he could almost hear Maura’s voice in his head right now.

“Why you smiling, Dad?” Luke asked him, while Dylan remained lost between his headphones.

“I was just thinking of your mom,” Cort Wesley said, instead of making something up.

“Man, check this place out,” came Dylan’s voice from next to him in the front seat.

He’d spotted Araceli Ramirez’s address ahead of his father. A beige-colored stucco exterior enclosing four thousand square feet of living space off a large circular drive on a cul de sac. Cort Wesley pulled in slowly, figuring the car wash business must be very good indeed based on the majestically maintained landscaping amid a fenced two-acre spread within which the palatial two-story home was centered. The sun beat down on it from a cloudless sky and, as Cort Wesley wound his way toward the clay-colored cantera stone walk fronting the house, the automatic sprinklers snapped on.

Real grass, he realized, having figured Araceli more for the fake kind based on what he knew of her.

Dylan and Luke trailed him out of the rental car and up the walk, passing a tiered fountain dribbling water en route to the front door. And that’s when Cort Wesley stiffened, something making his defenses snap on. He knew that sensation all too well, mostly from war, some inexplicable part of his brain and being picking up some cosmic vibrations his conscious mind had missed. He’d given up trying to figure it all out and just accepted it since it had saved him so many times.

But why now, why here?

Almost to the door, Cort Wesley froze, making sure his boys were shielded behind him.

“Dad?” he heard Dylan say, holding off on a response.

Because the front door was cracked open six inches maybe, enough for Cort Wesley to feel the cool air fleeing from inside and hear the steady hum of the central air conditioner.

“Stay here,” he told his sons, and eased his way though the door.

36

A
USTIN,
T
EXAS

The Four Seasons had been built amid a lavish garden setting on San Jacinto Boulevard in the center of Austin. It faced Lady Bird Lake, just a five-minute walk from the bustle of Congress Avenue and ten from a bridge a massive colony of vampire bats called home, having roosted on its underside for literally decades.

Caitlin hadn’t even asked D. W. Tepper about the availability of the chopper provided to Company F by Jones. Instead, unable to sleep soundly, she rose before dawn and found Cort Wesley in the very same spot on the front porch where she’d left him. Driving long distances, especially along briefly empty stretches of the flat Texas four-lanes, was great for clearing her head, though not this morning. This morning she was bringing news of a child’s death to a father.

Now she sat with Sandoval in matching adjacent, cushioned chairs shaded by twin umbrellas in the hotel’s open parklike area en route to the pool. To Caitlin it had the feel of a golf course minus the flags, holes, and bunkers, the light green grass moist with a recent watering and trimmed close to the ground. Trees rimmed the space and Caitlin thought she might have heard the bubbling of a fountain intermixed with traffic sounds that reminded her she was in a city.

She looked at Fernando Lorenzo Sandoval, trying to find the right words before she simply eased the school photo of his son Daniel from her pocket and extended it toward him. He took the picture in a trembling hand, barely regarding it before wiping his eyes and returning his gaze to her.

“Where?” he managed.

“He was found with four other children in a Texas ghost town called Willow Creek.”

Caitlin caught Sandoval’s eyes raising at the mention of the town, the spark of recognition clear. But then his expression flattened again, his lips started to quiver. He eased his upper teeth over the lower one to still them.

“How?” Sandoval asked, squeezing the arms of his chair so tight his hands flushed with red.

“Why don’t we leave that for another time?”

“How?”
he repeated.

Caitlin leaned forward, canting her body to ease closer to him and stopping just short of reaching out to touch his arm. “Mr. Sandoval, sometimes you need to just trust your friends about certain things.”

“And you’re my friend?”

Caitlin nodded. “I believe I am, sir, yes.”

Sandoval held her gaze, his eyes going glassy again. “I wonder if you hadn’t saved my life in El Paso, if my son would still be alive.” He swallowed hard. “This was my fault, wasn’t it?”

“On the surface, that would be my first thought, but—”

Shaking his head now, as he interrupted her. “All the precautions I took … Everything thought out, every possible layer of protection … I didn’t just give my family a new identity, I built them a new life entirely separate from mine.” Sandoval started to swallow again, but his throat seemed to clog before he finished the effort. “I haven’t even seen Daniel for almost a year now. Except once, when I showed up at one of his soccer games. In disguise so no one would recognize me, even him. I promised myself I’d only watch a few minutes to avoid risk. Then I promised myself I’d leave at halftime, then after a little of the second half.” His eyes grasped hers desperately. “I was still standing there when the team left the field. Daniel walked right past me. His team won in overtime.” He stopped long enough to take a deep breath. “I moved my wife and daughter into hiding as soon as word reached me about my son. If this was the work of the cartels…”