Texas Hold 'Em (7 page)

Turning away, she opened her car door and reached inside to pull out a folder of creased paper. She spread the map over the hood of the cruiser, took a tiny flashlight out of her pocket, and flipped it on.

“Your mother was spotted around here a few months back, selling guns to a Mexican ‘businessman.’” He pointed to an empty area over the border, west of Aqua Frio. “We need to check that out first.”

“It’s crazy along the border in that area. It’s illegal for us to be there and too dangerous for everyone else.” She raised her face, and he caught a whiff of the soap he’d used in her bathroom that first night. He swallowed.

“Maybe so, but it’s neither for bikers.”

She gave him a begrudging nod. “You have a point.”

“Anyone we talk to will assume we’re there to raise hell or buy dope. We’ve already done both. We’ve also put out the word we want some work from Ortega.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“The guy in the trailer park had a sister in Ojinaga. We go there first and talk to her, maybe manage to hook up with some of Ortega’s men. Then we’ll play connect the dots—your mother, Ortega, the sister, maybe this guy you mentioned, too—Enrique? Anyone else we can get to talk to us. One of those people—or maybe all of them—can help us.”

“You realize this could be a wild goose chase, don’t you?” she asked. “None of these people could know anything about your informant, much less where my mother might be.”

“We have to start somewhere. It might as well be there.”

After another twenty minutes of discussion, Santos folded the map and handed it back to her. “Why don’t we meet here tomorrow night? You can hide your car in the barn.” He paused. “Does anyone on the other side of the border know you well enough to recognize you?”

She laughed. “They don’t even recognize me on this side of the border. All they see is a uniform.”

“I thought so, but I needed to ask. I don’t want someone else disappearing on me.”

She opened her car door and threw the map inside. As she started to get in the car after it, he put his hand on her arm and stopped her. “Why didn’t you tell me—?” he made a motion with his hand “—all this before now?”

“Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“I didn’t want to get my mother in any more trouble,” she said slowly. “She’s had a hard row to hoe, and I didn’t want to add to it. I thought if you knew you’d somehow make her life even harder, which, come to think of it, is exactly what you’re doing.”

“I wish you’d been honest with me.” He found himself lifting her chin once again, their eyes meeting in the darkness before he dropped his hand. “Things might have gone differently.”

Her eyelashes swept down to shadow her cheeks then back up. “I started to tell you once or twice,” she admitted, “but it always seemed like the wrong time. How do you tell someone you killed a guy when you were sixteen? It’s not like it just pops up in the conversation.”

“I would have understood.”

“Maybe.” She smiled sadly. “And maybe not. I’m not even sure I ever will.”

…

A last minute phone call from his boss made Santos late getting to the meet Austin Wells had set up with Dos y Tres, and when he finally arrived, the bar’s parking lot was packed. After a few minutes of searching, he found a spot in the rear of the building and backed the Harley into it, nose out. As Joaquim Guillermo came out of the shadows toward him, he thought about
The Conversation
and
The Kiss
. That’s how he referenced what had happened between him and Rose, with capital letters. He wanted to imprint
The Kiss
in his mind because he was pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen again. Despite their agreement, once she realized what was going on, she wouldn’t care about anything except getting his head on a platter, not his lips on her skin. As far as
The Conversation
went, he’d never forget it, period. It answered so many questions about Rose and her mother that he almost wondered why he’d never before considered the possibility of something like this, as unexpected as it was. She wasn’t the first woman who’d had to defend herself against a predator, and sadly, she wouldn’t be the last.

Joaquim had a bottle of Dos Equis in his right hand and a cigarette in the other. As Santos watched, the ACES sniper dropped the cigarette beneath his boot and crushed it, then poured the beer into a puddle beside it. Joaquim didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, and didn’t talk unless he had to. Those traits set him apart from the other ACES officers, but his primary virtue—and the envy of the team members, including Santos—was his patience. If there was any waiting to be done, Joaquim did it.

“Sorry I’m late,” Santos said. “Got a call at the last minute.”

“No problem.”

“Looks like Dos y Tres brought everyone in the chapter.” Santos peeled off his gloves and Joaquim nodded.

“How many?”

“Thirty, maybe forty.”

“Everybody already drunk?”

An expression of distaste crossed Joaquim’s patrician features. A second nod was his only answer.

Without another word, the sniper turned and headed back for the open-air dive. The cool, dry air was filled with the kind of tension only a bar full of testosterone-heavy men could produce. Santos wasn’t sure what he would have to handle inside. Despite Austin Wells’s assertion that his contact from a rival gang was interested in a joint protection run, cooperation between different clubs could be as tricky as Middle East negotiations. The Welcome Wagon ladies hadn’t damaged his bike; another gang had done that.

A blast of music assaulted his ears as he walked under the cover of the patio and headed for the bar. Austin was in the middle of what looked like a hot game of Texas Hold’em. When he saw Santos, he lifted his chin in acknowledgement. A man with a three-patch vest sat facing Austin, his back to Santos. At the same table, Bentley was playing, but he was paying more attention to the woman sitting on his lap than his cards. She must have been the blonde Austin had mentioned earlier. Bentley’s admiration for her was almost as obvious as the young lady’s charms. Santos turned to comment on it, but Joaquim had vanished. He did that frequently.

“A beer and a bump,” Santos called out to the man behind the bar as he walked up. The bartender’s name was Marion Langley, but no one wanted to risk his life by using his first name. He preferred Keeper, and that’s what they called him. Keeper brought him the two glasses, but didn’t linger; he was too busy to do anything but pour.

Santos surveyed the crowded room. All the ACES agents were present, as well as members from various other clubs. On one of the wooden picnic tables, five men stood around a pile of grease-covered engine parts that looked like they’d come straight from the bone yard. A lot of riders brought salvage parts to the bar hoping to trade for another piece of equipment they needed for their bikes but couldn’t find. A table with five women waited nearby, bored expressions on all their faces as they sipped their beer.

He emptied the shot glass first, then turned to the beer and took a long swallow, draining almost half. He’d been drinking enough on this assignment to make up for Joaquim’s abstinence, and then some. But when the job was over, the drinking had to be, too. The alcohol was going down way too smooth, and every time he thought for too long, he found himself thirsty. Rose’s confession hadn’t made things any easier. He was buried up to his neck in lies, half-truths, and dark secrets that wouldn’t stay dead.

His second round was sitting in front of him when Austin sidled up, the stranger in tow. “Hey, boss, I want you to meet Tony Barra,” he said. “This is the brother I’ve been telling you about.”

He’d seen the rider’s colors, the patches on the back of his vest, from across the room. Dos Y Tres, the top rocker had read, Refugio, the bottom one explained. The center pie showed three candles with two flames, each pillar held upright by a bony finger. Wings shaped like knives made up the background. As patches went, it was pretty tame unless you realized the image was actually a devil’s trident. Like the other men in the room, he was clearly a hardcore biker, one of the “one percenters” who supposedly gave the other 99 percent riders the bad reputation they didn’t deserve.

Santos greeted the man, then curled three fingers at Keeper with a nod. The drinks came, and they made their way to a quickly vacated table near the back of the room. Rank did indeed have its privileges.

They sniffed around the main topic until he sensed a subtle change in the man. He’d decided to buy the ACES story. Santos leaned closer to speak over the noise of the bar. “Flush tells me you might have some work for us.” Austin hated the nickname they’d come up for him and explained every time he could that it stood for the gambler’s term, and not the toilets. The clarification didn’t help; everyone still laughed.

“I may have,” Barra said. Beneath his vest, he wore a white pressed shirt, so clean he must have changed into it once he’d gotten to the bar. Santos was willing to bet no one teased him about his wardrobe. He could have been a salesman in an appliance store, except for his colors and the aura of pointless violence that hovered around him. “Dos y Tres has a job coming up, and we may need someone to get our six.”

As he stared into the man’s mud-colored eyes, Santos thought once again about the brick that had damaged his bike.

“Everybody in your chapter agree?” he asked casually.

“Don’t matter if they do or not. I’m the president. I make the rules.”

“That’s true. You’re in charge.” Santos took a drink of his beer. “So we’ll make sure you’re happy. Hell, we’re just like UPS. We deliver. Whatever you got to get somewhere, we’ll ride with it, and I personally guarantee it’ll get there safe, and so will your driver.”

“That’s a pretty big promise. That bitch of a sheriff here has made our life hell. We take the long way around Rio County, or she sics the dogs on us.”

“Leave her to me. I can handle that.”
If only
, he thought. If only her lips weren’t so soft, and her body didn’t curve just to fit his, and the dip right below her collarbone didn’t make him go weak with hunger for her touch.

Tony Ballas’s eyebrows met in the middle as he frowned. “If something goes wrong, you gotta answer to people besides me.”

Beside him, Austin stilled. Santos leaned back in his chair with a casual movement that hid his unwavering determination. This was what they’d come for, and he wasn’t about to show it. “You’re doing the hiring. Seems to me like you ought to do the firing.”

Ballas clearly agreed. His lips narrowed in the bar’s flickering lights, and Santos was sure he was going to talk about the people above him. Then he seemed to think better of his reaction, and his jaw loosened. “There’s new money coming in. I want a piece of it, and that’s why I’m talking to you. I don’t trust the lone wolves I’ve seen around here lately.”

He wondered if Ballas meant Carlos Hernandez, the man he’d run over at the trailer park. He’d been a paid hand with no affiliations to a cartel. He’d been a biker with no chapter as well.

“Maybe the wolves aren’t so lonely.”

“Maybe they belong to the big money,” Santos said. “I might have some info on that. We could trade names.”

“Trade names?” The other biker made a sound in the back of his throat. “Dead’s still dead, no matter what kind of trade you’re talking about.” He shook his head. “All I need is help. You interested or not?”

“No problem.” Santos held up his hands. “That works for us, too.” Now it was anger at himself that he hid. He should have been able to weasel out more info from the man. He’d just have to hope he might learn more on the run. He smiled grimly. “You know our rep, or you wouldn’t be here. We’ll cut our rate for the first run as a sign of goodwill, how’s that sound?”

This time it was Ballas who leaned forward, and thirty minutes later, the three men returned to the bar for fresh drinks to seal the deal.

He was one step closer to Ortega. It might take a million more. But Santos was prepared to take them—and more.

Chapter Eight

A shiny red pickup she didn’t recognize was parked in Silas’s driveway when Rose arrived the following evening. She closed her eyes against the blistering sunset for a second and remembered everything she’d shared with Santos last night. She was still kicking herself for telling him the truth. What on earth had come over her? She didn’t want to consider that the kiss they’d shared might have nicked her defenses and opened a hole big enough for her emotions to escape. No, she didn’t want to consider that at all.

As the cruiser cooled down and clicked in the heat, a quiet, still voice inside her head gave her another answer. The secret had festered inside her for years and, coming to west Texas and finding herself at loose ends, it had grown. The landscape was so empty, so vast, that she’d been forced to think about things she’d kept at bay for years. Santos’s arrival had not only brought up everything that was between them, it’d given rise to the secrets between herself and her mom. The perfect emotional storm, she thought regretfully. And it’d broken at just the wrong time.

She picked her way through the walking stick chollas in her grandfather’s front yard and knocked lightly on the screen door, peering through the wire mesh. “Can I come in?” Without waiting for Silas’s reply, she opened the door, its ancient hinges complaining at the effort.

Her grandfather lifted himself out of his recliner as she stepped inside, a smile breaking out across his face as he held out a hand. “Hey, baby, look who’s here.”

Her eyes went to the man on the plaid couch. After a moment’s struggle with his cane, Dan Strickland stood awkwardly.

She’d always wondered why Dan had returned to Rio County after his injury. He seemed so bitter and unhappy. Was he still searching for ways to fill the holes in his life?

Limping toward her, he smiled. “I got a new ride—bet you didn’t know it was me sitting in here bugging Silas.”

She shook her head and accepted his hug, feeling uncomfortable as she always did when he drew too close.

“It’s a nice looking pickup,” she said as she pulled away a little too quickly. “You always had a thing for red trucks, didn’t you?”

He grinned. “Maybe so, but this one is a business expense. I can’t be hauling around fancy-dancy hunters carrying $75,000 Purdys in a beat-up old Ford.”

Despite his leg, he’d become somewhat of a legend with his hunting guide skills.

“I can see your point,” she said with a smile.

Silas beamed. “Dan’s business is booming. He’s got more trips lined up this year than ever before.”

“Muleshoe, whitetail, even some javelinas. Plenty of dove and quail, too. I’m doing it all,” Dan said. “Why don’t you come with me sometime, Rose? I’ve got a group of women from Dallas going out in early November. I could work you in.” He held up both hands, palms out. “No charge.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I doubt I’d have the time.”

His expression went tight for the barest moment. She wouldn’t have caught it if she hadn’t been looking for it.

“I understand, of course. Duty calls.” He dropped his hands and stepped back. “Speaking of which, I need to get going myself.” He raised a salute to Silas, then tapped past her. “Take care.”

The door closed behind him, and the knock of his cane echoed down the sidewalk.

Silas dropped back in his chair. “Good Lord, Rose, give the guy a break. You could have been more tactful. Life’s hard enough for him already.”

“I didn’t come here to talk about Dan. I came to tell you Santos and I are heading for Mexico shortly.”

Her grandfather lifted one corner of his mouth. “Guess that explains why you’re not interested in Dan.”

She snorted. “I haven’t been ‘interested’ in Dan since I was seventeen. And I’m helping Santos look for Mom and hopefully find his informant. That’s it.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” he said when she finished explaining the trip.

Her glance fell on a ratty afghan lying on the arm of the couch. She remembered the smell of the wool and how warm it had felt draped over her as her mother had created it.“Even though it might hurt Mom?”

“She’s responsible for her actions just like we are for ours.” A fleeting expression of resolution crossed his face. He was a hard old man when it came to his daughter. “Law applies t’same to everybody.”

“I know that,” she said. “But—”

“But nothing. Santos knows what he’s doing, and you have to follow his lead. The men in these cartels aren’t the same kind of guys I used to lock up. You’re going to have to watch yourself, girl.” He reached for the coffee cup he always kept nearby. “Those sons-a-bitches are meaner than scorpions and just as poisonous. If they have Santos’s C.I., we need to pray for her.” He sipped from the mug before placing it back on the side table. Without meeting her eyes, he spoke gruffly. “Call me when you get back. I want to know you’re safe.”

“I will.” She rose to her feet and stepped to his recliner, kissing him on the forehead. The door squeaked one more time, and she was gone.

…

Santos switched off the Harley and nudged the chrome kickstand in place with a battered boot, throwing a leg over the seat. Jessie had called him an hour ago and asked him to drop by the bar. She’d sounded concerned. The evening’s festivities had yet to begin, but ZZ Top blared out the open windows, the smell of smoke, fried food, and beer floating out, as well. Brandy, the brunette who’d helped patch him up, started toward him as he walked inside. Jessie cut her off halfway across the dance floor with a push on the younger woman’s shoulder. The redheaded ACES agent flashed a grin at the hoots and hollers of the other bikers as Brandy retreated, her cheeks flushing brightly.

“We need to talk.” Jessie put a hand on his face and drew it down his cheek. She was a beautiful woman, tall and athletic, with incredible curves. As ACES’ “bad” girl, her supposed job was to run the prostitutes ACES said they employed four counties over. Anyone watching her and Santos would have thought they were heading straight for the nearest bed, which was exactly what they wanted them to think.

But she wasn’t Rose. The other night refused to leave his mind, the memory of her lips pressing against his, the feel of her body as he’d pulled her to him, the pain she’d shared with him. Why couldn’t he get it out of his mind, dammit?

He put his arm around Jessie’s waist and buried his face in her hair, halfway wishing another woman could satisfy him. “What’s up?”

“It’s Dickie.” She let out a moan then pulled back and grabbed him by the hand. “Come outside, and I’ll tell you.”

Until a few months ago, Dickie Barclay had been a houseguest of the State of Texas in El Paso for possession of a controlled substance, mainly crystal meth. When his jail time was over, he’d headed straight back to Rio County. He was a skinny, obnoxious biker who belonged to a peripheral club. No one liked him and no one wanted to be around him, but somehow he always managed to know the latest gossip. Every time he saw Jessie, he made a beeline for her. She’d put up with him so far, hoping one day her patience might pay off. Santos felt a flicker of hope at her words. Maybe Dickie had finally come through with something that mattered.

They slipped out of the beer joint and walked over to Jessie’s Harley. Leaning on the bike’s leather seat, he faced one direction and she faced the other. “Dickie has a video clip on a phone he wanted me to see this morning,” Jessie said without preamble. “I thought I should tell you about it. It could be nothing or not. I’m not sure.”

“Tell me.”

“It showed two women talking. They were standing on a riverbank, or maybe next to some water, I couldn’t tell exactly. One was older, a bleached blonde, kinda heavy-set.”

“And the other one?”

“Short, maybe 5’2”, brunette with hair to her shoulders, jeans, and a T-shirt. Hispanic.” She paused, her expression troubled. “The blonde’s hands were behind her. They might have been tied, or she could have just been holding them that way. I couldn’t tell if it was Lilith or not.”

None of them actually knew her; all they’d seen was a picture. He felt his whole body go cold. “What were they doing?”

“Just talking. The brunette was waving her hands around, but the other one never moved. The clip is short, less than 10 seconds.”

“Why did Dickie show this to you?”

“I don’t think I was supposed to see it,” she answered. “What he wanted to show me was something a little more…exotic.”

“Exotic as in…?”

“Two women, three men, a dog collar, whips, high heels. Should I keep going and be more specific?”

“I get the idea.”

“He was trying to find that masterpiece when I spotted this clip and stopped him. When I asked him about it, all I could get out of him was that ‘somebody big’ had ‘done something bad to a woman,’ and I didn’t need to worry about it. I got the impression he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“No idea who this someone big might be?”

“Not a hint.”

“Did he mention Tony Barra?”

ACES had done the protection run for the smuggler and his chapter but had gotten no more information. The Dos y Tres members weren’t happy about the ACES’s appearance in Rio County, or the ride along, and had made that clear. Santos had heard several of the riders laughing behind his back at the brick that had hit his Harley.

“Nope. But if Dickie had been aware of Lilith, and especially if he’d known she’s a C.I., he would have said so. He’d want the bragging rights on that one for sure.”

“Ortega didn’t get to where he is by being stupid. She was getting too close and learning too much. She even warned me she was going to press her chances.” ACES had had this discussion a hundred times already and his control began to slip. “Damn it to hell, this whole thing is turning to shit. What about the other woman? Did you recognize her?”

Jessie shook her head, her red hair catching the sun. “Don’t have a clue.”

“Anyone else in the clip?”

“Just the two of them.”

“Vehicles?”

“None that I could see.”

“Did you recognize anything at all about the location?”

“Nothing, but it was definitely around here. The landscape was empty and brown, except near the water’s edge.”

“Is there any way you could get me a copy of the video? Maybe steal the phone?”

“I got the feeling it wasn’t his phone. I think he’d found it, and everyone had been passing it around. I saw him slip it to Keeper afterwards.”

“What’d Keeper do with it?”

“He put it in his pocket and made a face at Dickie. I guess it was Keep’s.”

A cloud of dust kicked up as three bikers pulled into the parking lot. Their conversation was loud and crude as they dismounted and shuffled toward the bar.

Jessie waited until the men disappeared inside. “So what should I do?”

“The only thing you can do—keep digging.” Santos pushed off the bike as he grinned and straightened up. “And try not to become a star in Dickie’s next big production.”

…

Rose got out of the cruiser and walked up to her front porch with the key in her hand. Hesitating on the steps, she studied the empty street in front of her house. While she’d been at Silas’s place, the sun had sunk behind the mountains, leaving only a hint of light behind their shadows. In another minute or so, the street would be completely dark. Just down the road in Terlingua, an environmental group had come out against “light pollution,” saying outdoor lighting cut down on the ability to see the stars. Rose could understand their position. In a few hours, the stars would be sitting on the roof of her house.

She unlocked the door with a sigh and started inside, her mind a jumble of thoughts and images. About Santos, of course, but Dan, too. He’d been such a different person back in high school. Then again, so had she. If Santos had gone to their school and she’d known him, she was pretty sure she’d be able to say the same about him.

She stepped inside, took two steps, then froze, her senses suddenly focusing. The house was silent but something was very wrong. The air felt…disturbed. Someone who didn’t belong had walked through her home and left a trail.

She flipped the snap on her holster and slowly withdrew her weapon. Her glance made a circuit around the living room and then slid into the kitchen. Everything looked fine, but it wasn’t fine and she knew it. Keeping to her left, she walked into the kitchen, the counter against her hip as she made her way to the half bath. A quick glance told her it was empty. She cut her eyes to the back door. The lock was still thrown. No one had broken in, but she knew herself well enough by now to recognize the signs. Someone had definitely been inside.

Her hands clasping her gun, she headed for rear of the house to the bedroom and bath. The place was tiny, and Silas had built it for himself, leaving out as many nooks and crannies as he possibly could. He didn’t like hiding places, and for good reason. Doors made all cops nervous —you could never tell what was behind one.

With the wall at her back, she silently slipped down the hallway until she drew even with the larger bathroom. She pushed the door open with one foot, and it swung backward with a lazy motion, hitting the counter behind it then bouncing once, the thud unexpectedly loud. The bath was as empty as the other two rooms.

Her steps muffled by the carpet, she continued down the hall toward her bedroom. She stopped when a flickering light inside the room caught her attention. The beam painted the opposite wall with narrow ribbons that looked as if they were dancing.

Her finger tightened on her weapon, and she stepped around the corner.

A tall candle, precariously balanced, rested in the middle of her bed. The wick had burned halfway down, and the lurid figures painted on the outside of the glass container leapt manically around the flame. The glass in the window next to her bed had been shattered and a sudden gust of dry wind urged the light to flicker higher. But the room was empty.

She relaxed her grip slightly, her stare returning to the candle as she moved closer. The painted decoration showed an angel dressed in red armor with giant white wings. He was holding glittering gold swords in both hands, a vengeful and violent expression on his face. Underneath his booted foot a demon cowered, his terrified eyes peeking out from long-nailed fingers that covered his face, his hideous shape curled in a clearly useless effort to protect himself.