Traitor, The (12 page)
In Torres' office on the second floor, the three of them speculated
about the death of the drug dealer. Isabella relaxed behind the desk, her feet
propped up on one edge, her shoes off. Pretty red-painted toenails peeked from
the hem of her slacks. She'd removed her jacket and slung it across the back of
the chair, and the firm outline of her breasts showed beneath the sheer white
blouse when she locked her fingers behind her head.
"Why murder the drug dealer, someone so low in the
organization?" she mused aloud.
Rafe slouched against a wide bookcase filled with law books
and case law journals to the right of the desk. He found it easier on his
imagination to think of Isabella by her last name and he figured it bugged her a
little. "Someone was worried we're getting too close, Torres, that we'd
squeeze information out of him."
"Or it could be retaliation for the botched buy,"
Slater suggested. The sheriff lounged in a comfortable arm chair that he
occupied with annoying familiarity.
Torres bit her lower lip. "But he wasn't killed in the
same manner as Lupe."
"Close enough," Slater answered. Rafe had already
filled the sheriff in on the details of the hit on his C.I.
"The message they're sending this time is for us, not
the other dealers in Vargas' network." Rafe added. "This murder was a
cover-up, not retaliation. The dealer's death was efficient, smooth, and quick,
and not nearly violent enough. Someone didn't want us getting to him."
"Bloody, though," Slater argued.
Torres' phone rang and she reached for it before Slater
could comment further. "Torres." A moment later she grimaced and
shook her head in disgust. "What can I do for you this morning, Mr.
District Attorney?"
She made a finger-down-her-throat barfing motion, and Slater
patted her shoulder, mouthing to Rafe, "Charles Barrington."
Rafe speculated again about the care-free relationship
between Slater and Torres. He couldn't figure out if they were an item or had
been an item. Maybe they just had a brother-sister relationship, but whatever
it was, he felt a surge of jealousy at their easy-going friendship.
"Yeah, okay. Right," she continued, making a
yackety-yak motion with the thumb and fingers of her right hand. Suddenly she
stopped fooling around, straightened up, and became all business. "When?"
Slater edged forward in his chair, tension in his big body.
Torres grabbed a pencil and pad. "Where?" Pause. "How
many?" She slammed down the pencil and said, "I'm on it." She
hung up and leaned back in her chair, locking her fingers over her stomach, a
grim but smug look on her face.
"What?" Slater asked.
"A deputy sheriff coming back from Reno, off duty, and
yes, one of ours, comes across a large delivery van in the breakdown lane
headed east on I-80." She leaned forward, elbows on the desk blotter. "Being
the Good Samaritan that all Bigler County deputies are, he whips his car
around, crosses the freeway divider – illegally of course – and like a good Boy
Scout, proceeds to help the two men change a tire."
Slater folded his arms, apparently amused at the roundabout
way she told the story. Rafe rubbed his hand through his hair and tried not to
scream an obscenity. He made a hurry up motion with his hands and got a frown
for his efforts.
"Anyway, also being a good detective, he notices the
heavy weight of the freight on the tires, the general shiftiness of the two men
in the cab, and the super heavy-duty locks on the back of the van. He grows
even more suspicious when the men appear panicky about receiving his help and
then hears faint noises from the back of the van."
"What kind of noises," Rafe asked.
Anger tinged with fear preceded her answer. "Human
noises."
Rafe had no doubt what was in that truck and precisely where
it was headed.
"Probable cause?" Slater asked.
"Likely not enough," Torres answered. "But he
bullies them into opening the rear anyway. Guess what he finds?"
"You tell us, Torres," Rafe said although he was
sure he knew the answer.
He recognized a brief flash of pain in Torres' expression.
When she answered, her voice was barely above a whisper. "Nine young
girls, half-naked, half-starved, dirty."
"Where were they headed?" Rafe asked.
"Vargas' whore house." Slater's answer showed he understood.
She nodded and her eyes turned flinty. "Young girls, ten,
eleven, maybe."
"Christ," Slater said. "Babies."
"Something else," Torres added. "And you'll
like this part, Hashemi."
"Yeah? What's that?" he asked.
"Ten kilos of high-grade heroin in the tire wheels."
"Will the search stick in court?" Slater asked.
"Doesn't matter," Rafe answered for Torres. He
knew if he pulled in his Homeland Security buddies, they could bypass the
courts altogether, although he knew she wouldn't like that.
"Let's go check it out," he said, glancing at her
face and noting the distress there. He hoped she wouldn't be too emotionally
involved to be effective in the case. "We need to be careful how we handle
this," he admonished, looking to Slater for backing.
"We can't be sure the truck belongs to Vargas until we
investigate further," Slater said.
Torres agreed. "The registration wasn't in his name."
"Maybe not, but ten to one he's involved," Slater muttered.
#
Santos opened his mouth to ask Corazon another question about
her mother when Vargas walked up behind her, placing his meaty hand on her thin
shoulder. "You're late," he snapped and motioned for Santos to enter
and follow him down the hall.
Vargas rarely invited Santos into this inner sanctum. He had
been to the house many times over the five years Vargas had occupied the
mansion, but seldom went beyond the porch and the grounds. He had patrolled the
perimeter of the property, guarded the family at the pool area, but had almost
no occasion to be inside the house.
Vargas walked to his office with the agitated gait of a man
beset with many problems. Was Magdalena one of the problems and had his boss
found a way to deal with it?
Santos remained standing while Vargas stood behind his desk,
shuffling through a stack of papers. "Where is Magdalena?" Santos
asked casually.
"Why the fuck do you care where that slut is?"
Vargas snarled, looking up from his desk to pierce his bodyguard with those
vicious eyes. An air of edginess surrounded him as if he waited for a reason to
vent his anger and give in to the violence that was always just beneath the
surface.
Santos shrugged. "I do not care. I was just making
conversation."
"Well, don't," Vargas snapped, returning to his
task of sorting papers. A moment later he looked up as if he'd just considered
something. "Magdalena's gone on a shopping trip." He laughed falsely.
"That woman loves to spend my money, eh?"
"Where?"
"To Mexico. She will be gone a long time." Vargas
looked Santos in the eye and he understood what his boss meant. Magdalena may
or may not have gone to Mexico, but she was not returning. Ever.
Santos had been with Vargas long before Cory was born. He had
attended every significant event of the child's life, watching her grow from a
beautiful baby to a young girl. He knew the answer, but had to ask nonetheless.
"Why did the little one not go with her mother?"
Vargas snorted as if something foul had entered his
nostrils. "You know Magdalena. She never was much of a mother. She said it
would be better for Corazon to stay here ... with me."
A chill like icy fire trailed up Santos' spine. He heard a
small sound from behind him and turned to see the girl standing in the doorway.
She did not look at him, but stared straight ahead at her father with an
expression too knowing.
Fucking pig! His own daughter! But somehow Santos had known
this day would come. From the moment the little one was born, he'd understood
what would happen to her one day. And he knew that Magdalena was not strong
enough to fight Vargas. Even for her beloved daughter.
Vargas' attention zeroed in on Cory hovering at the doorway.
"What do you want?" he growled.
For a brief moment, she glowered back, a look both defiant
and cowering, then ducked her head.
"Nada, Papa, nada."
She
turned and closed the door softly behind her.
Vargas slumped into the desk chair. "Magdalena's
affairs are not what I called you here for."
Santos noticed that this office, like Vargas' downtown
office, was devoid of family pictures. Just the portrait of him with Cory and
her recent school photo.
"What has happened?" Santos asked.
"Something's gone wrong with the Reno shipment."
"What?" Santos asked.
"The truck from Manzanillo was intercepted outside
Reno," Vargas answered. "They have the girls." His face twisted
in an ugly scowl.
"¡Campesinos!
Fucking Mexican peasants! Low riders!
They popped a tire and pulled off to fix it, but some asshole cop stopped to
help."
"What happened?" Santos repeated.
"The drivers freaked out and blew it." Vargas
paced back and forth on the expensive Persian carpet in front of his desk. "Made
the cop suspicious and he searched the rear of the van."
Santos had known transporting the girls would be trouble. He'd
tried to warn Vargas, but the boss wouldn't listen. "The search won't be
legal. The evidence will be thrown out in court."
"It doesn't matter! They know about the girls!" Vargas'
broad peasant face dripped with sweat. "They'll trace the truck back to
me!" he shouted.
"The courts will suppress everything. You do not need
to worry," Santos repeated patiently.
"You must take care of it!" Vargas shouted,
spittle edging the corners of his mouth.
Santos made his voice low and deadly. "And how shall I
do that, Diego? Kill them all? The girls and the drivers? Is this your solution
to everything?"
"Figure it out. I don't care!" Vargas screamed. "Post
the bail and get rid of the evidence. I'm not going to prison because some
campesinos
estúpidos
screwed up!"
"Sea tranquilo. No se atierre." Be calm. Panic
is dangerous.
Vargas swiped a hand across his brow. "Yes, yes, you
are right. But what about the truck?"
"Nothing is in your name, Diego," Santos reminded
him.
Vargas leaned heavily on the desk. "This is true. This
is true." He bobbed his head up and down, calming himself. "Contact
Shirley. Make sure she takes care of everything. She will know what to do.
Leave no traces in case the police come looking for the other ones."
Vargas waved a negligent hand and Santos nodded, recognizing
the dismissal. He let himself out of the office, closing the door quietly.
In the foyer Santos reached for the doorknob when Cory
peeked her head around the corner. She looked fearfully toward her father's
closed office door and then ran for Santos, grabbing him tightly around the
torso. She looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes, brimming with tears.
They seemed to say,
Don't leave me alone with him.
He pried her arms away and knelt beside her, gave her a
little squeeze. "Don't worry, little one. Everything will be all right."
"Do you promise,
Tio Gabriel?"
"Si, pequena bebé. Prometo." I promise,
Santos thought, as he walked to the Cadillac. But how could he keep such a serious
and burdensome promise?
Rafe took two days to track the commercial van back to
Vargas. With Slater’s connections he accessed Sacramento business licenses,
company subsidiaries, and organizations they’d long suspected were a front for
Vargas’ illegal activities.
As the sheriff's office had learned while investigating the
councilman last year, most of his wide business activities could be traced back
to his mother. A tangled web of dummy corporations, one a commercial van dealership,
led straight back to Vargas through a subsidiary in the name of the elder Mrs.
Vargas. Good leverage, Rafe mused, something he could use.
An interesting bit of information also came in from one of
the few deputies Slater claimed could be trusted in Sacramento. Magdalena
Vargas had been missing for several days. No one had seen or heard from her,
but then again, no one seemed to be looking for Vargas' wife. Slater explained that
she'd contacted him last year about domestic violence, but had withdrawn her
complaint.
The story circulating about her disappearance was that she'd
made an extended trip to Mexico. Had Vargas been worried his wife knew too much
about his illegal activities? Rafe seriously doubted that Magdalena was privy
to her husband's varied business affairs, but it was worth considering.
Torres had set Rafe up with a miniature office down the hall
from hers. He swore if he turned around, he'd bump his shoulder on the opposite
wall. The space was cluttered with several empty file cabinets and shelves ran
along one wall. Rafe was pretty sure the so-called office had been a utility
closet and wondered if Torres was punishing him for his many transgressions
against her.
In a perverse way, he liked to see her get her dander up.
She was magnificent when her eyes snapped with an internal fire, her breasts
heaved, her jaw set. Oh yeah, better not go down that road, his head warned,
even though his traitorous body had other ideas.
Rafe's cell phone chimed at the precise moment that Torres
poked her head into the office where he sat at a desk so small it must have
belonged to a midget. He didn't need to check caller ID. He knew by the ring
tone that it was Max Jensen, but he let it go to voice mail.
"Aren't you going to get that?" Torres asked,
leaning against the door frame, her arms crossed. Today she wore a gray skirt
with a slit up the left side that reached above her knee and exposed a
tantalizing stretch of thigh. Her legs were bare and she wore very high-heeled
shoes, gray striped with the toe cut out. Red toenails peeked through the toes.
"Nah," he answered looking her up and down. "I'd
rather talk to you."
She raised her eyebrows as if she'd learned not to believe
any of his bullshit, but he grinned in what he hoped was an engaging manner. "What?
You don't believe me?"
"About as far as I can throw you."
"Have a seat, Torres." He waved an arm around the
room. "Oh, sorry, the place isn't big enough for another chair."
She laughed and perched precariously on the edge of the tiny
desk, bringing her amazing legs too close for comfort. "You are so full of
it, Hashemi." She looked around the small space. "We need to talk.
You want to go to my office? I believe it's a bit larger."
"Hell, no, let's talk over lunch," he answered,
standing and grabbing his jacket where it lay on the file cabinet.
Torres glanced at her watch and frowned. "Breakfast's
barely over."
Rafe's cell rang again and he flipped it open to look at the
caller ID. Damn, he was popular today. DHS Agent McNally, the bastard, probably
going to horn in on his case. "I have to take this," he said. "I'll
come down to your office in a few minutes."
Torres simply raised those lovely dark brows and flashed an
enigmatic smile. "Sure, but I'll expect a full report on that call." She
nodded toward the phone he clutched in his hand. "No holding back,
Hashemi. Remember our agreement." She exited the room gracefully, her
slender hips swaying beneath the gray skirt.
Moeder van God!
Rafe's Dutch was pretty damn good
too.
"Agent McNally, no secret-agent codes from Homeland
Security today?"
"Stuff it, Hashemi," McNally said. "What's
new on your case?"
Rafe was pretty sure DHS already knew about the interception
of the girls outside Reno, the human trafficking angle to the case, but he was
certain McNally wouldn't be as interested in poor Mexican girls as the kilos of
dope they'd found in the van. "You heard about the girls?" he asked.
"Yeah, yeah, so what?" McNally's attitude
confirmed Rafe's suspicions. "That doesn't fund terrorists. Drug money
does. What'd you find?"
Slater had kept the information on the girls as tight as
possible so apparently McNally didn't know about the drugs yet. "Just the
girls," he lied. "Were you expecting something else?"
Silence wafted through the phone like a deadly virus. "No,
just wondered," McNally said, his voice sounding like someone who'd
swallowed a fish bone. "Doesn't matter anyway."
"Why's that?"
"Because there was a hit on the girls. They're dead."
Rafe didn't care much for McNally or his bulldog tactics,
but the shock in the agent's voice was genuine. "Jesus Christ! All of
them? What about the drivers?"
"Yeah, all of them." After a long moment, McNally
rallied. "Thought you were Muslim, Hashemi."
"Yeah, that's why Homeland Security shouldn't do their
own thinking," Rafe said quietly, snapping the phone shut.
Shit! This was a disaster. How could Vargas possibly have
gotten the intelligence in time to make a hit on nine girls and their Mexican
drivers? And how was he going to break the news to Isabella?
#
Bella paused outside Hashemi's office, not at all ashamed
that she wasn't above eavesdropping. When she heard the click of his phone, she
hurried back to her office. Hashemi was playing footsies with Homeland Security
and something had happened. The reference to the drivers meant a snafu in the
system.
At her desk she reached for her phone. "Slater,
anything new on the girls?"
She knew something was wrong by the prolonged silence on the
other end of the line.
"I'll be right up," he said. "Wait for me."
"Slater, what the – ?" The line went dead.
What was going on? And how did the Department of Homeland
Security learn something before the D.A.'s office did? Damn, she should be the
first contact person on any new development, but she knew DHS had their sneaky
little spies everywhere. Slater had better have a good reason for keeping
information from her.
By the look on his face a few minutes later, Bella knew he
did. He shut the office door behind him, but remained standing, his arms
dangling at his side. He looked tired, spent, and worried. A worried Slater was
not something Bella was accustomed to seeing.
"What?" she said, rising from her chair, leaning
her fingertips on the desk blotter. "What's going on?" She heard the
rising panic in her voice, felt a strange buzzing in her ears as her fingers
and toes went deathly cold.
"Sit down, Bella."
"Damn you, Slater! I'm not some fragile doll that
breaks under the pressure of bad news."
Slater sank into the arm chair opposite her. "Nevada
County assisted in arresting the van drivers and taking the girls into
protective custody." That he avoided her eyes was a bad sign. "During
the transport from the hospital to the jail this morning, a van forced the
transporting vehicles off the road. There were six of them armed with
semi-automatics. Very quick, very professional."
Bella dropped into her chair and buried her face in her
hands.
My god, how could this have happened?
After a moment, she raised
her head. "How did they know? How could they possibly get to them so fast?"
Slater shook his head and rounded the desk to put his large
hands on her shoulders. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "It's
not your fault, Bella. Hell, no one's to blame."
At that moment Hashemi strode into the room, his face a grim
reflection of Slater's. "You heard?" He sat carefully in the chair Slater
had just vacated and scrubbed his hands down his face. "Christ, it was a
bloodbath."
Bella winced and felt her shoulders start to shake.
"A little tact, Hashemi, all right?" Behind her Slater's
voice sounded harsh.
Rafe's eyes met hers across the desk. "Sorry, I wasn't
thinking."
He shifted restlessly in the chair, his elbows on his knees,
hands clasped. "At least there's some good news. God knows how, but one of
the girls escaped the attack. I didn't get that from DHS. They think everyone's
dead. My agents have her under guard at a local hospital. No one knows about
her." He paused meaningfully. "And no one knows about the heroin."
"You don't trust anyone," Slater confirmed.
"The department, DEA, DHS, anyone could be dirty."
Rafe nodded.
"How is she?" Bella asked.
"Stable, and she'll survive," Rafe answered. "When
she's well enough, we'll transport her to a safe house in Placer Hills,
probably tomorrow. I've got two of my best men watching her."
"She'll need round the clock protection," Slater
said. "I'll put Harris on it. He can be trusted."
Hashemi nodded. "If Vargas can get to the van like that
and take out potential witnesses so fast ... hell, he can get to anyone."
"Not to Harris." Slater turned to look out Bella's
window, his shoulders set and his face pensive. "You've got a major leak,
Hashemi. You need to plug it up before more people get killed."
"Don't you think I know that?" Rafe's face turned
dark and an angry blush crept up from his white collar. "God, I want
Vargas so bad I can taste it."
Bella rose and walked around the desk, leaning against the
edge. "Vargas is a maniac, an insane madman. We'll get him on any charge
we can make stick." They all realized it was a kind of truce.
Slater moved across the room and paused at the door. "I've
got county business looming ahead of me," he said with a wry smile,
"but I'll personally oversee the transport of the girl."
Bella nodded. "We can't let anything happen to her."
"It won't." Slater walked down the hall, his shoes
clicking loudly on the linoleum flooring.
Bella and Rafe were silent for long minutes after he'd left.
The weight of this latest discovery lay between them like a fog of grief and
disappointment.
"Come on, Torres," he finally said. "Let's
have that late breakfast."
"I'm not hungry," she murmured.
"Early lunch, then," he wisecracked, but she could
see his heart wasn't in it.
Last night Bella had started putting together a proposal for
using Santos as a wedge against Vargas. Dangerous business, but she was
convinced Vargas' only weakness was his reliance on Santos. And she'd seen
something in the bodyguard's flat, dark eyes that had spoken to her in some
crazy way. She wanted to approach him alone.
Without his boss around. Without anyone knowing what she was
doing.
#
Santos did not mind the intrusion of the attractive Latina
ADA into his personal life. He had not completely forgotten how to admire a
pretty, young woman. What he minded very much, however, was the uncanny
resemblance the woman bore to the dead girl whose picture he carried with him
always.
ADA Torres approached him at his home, a sacrosanct habitat.
At first, this seemed a violation. The persistent ringing of the doorbell
interrupted his dinner, and he ignored the annoying sound for a while, but when
it appeared the intruder would not leave, he wiped his hands on a kitchen towel,
tucked his handgun into the back of his trousers, and looked through the
peephole before opening the door.
The woman occupied the small landing to his condominium like
an avenging angel, holy retribution surrounding her like a refiner's fire.
¡Ay,
madre del Dios!
This one was a starving dog with a scrap of bone. She would
not go away.
"Assistant District Attorney Torres." He barred
his teeth and looked down his nose at her. "To what do I owe this
pleasure?"
The strap of her purse hung over her shoulder and even in
her high heels she barely reached his chest. She planted both fists on slender
hips. "We need to talk."
"We have nothing to say to each other."
"I think we do, Mr. Santos."
He grinned then, amused that such a little one could be so
fierce a warrior. She reminded him of little Cory when she tried to defy her
father. "Why should I talk to the district attorney's office? To do so
would only disadvantage me."
He moved to shut the door on her, but she inserted her foot
into the doorway. He glanced down, back up to her face again, and flashed a
warning. "That is a dangerous move, Ms. Torres. Perhaps you should
reconsider invading my home in this bellicose manner."
"Bellicose?" The woman smiled mockingly. "You
have a fancy repertoire of language, Santos." He noticed she'd dropped the
courteous salutation. "Perhaps you should consider how much trouble you
and your boss are in."
"And why should you concern yourself with our troubles?"
"Let me in and I'll explain."
He assaulted her with his eyes, hoping to intimidate her. "As
I explained, there is no advantage to me in giving you access to my home."
"How will you know if you don't hear what I have to
say?" When he hesitated, she pressed her advantage. "Five minutes. If
you don't like what I say, I'll leave."
What was it about this one that caused him to open his door
to her, to gesture her into the entry and then into the small kitchen where he
prepared tamales and a giant salad? He could only conclude that she had piqued
his curiosity. Why else would he make so incautious a gesture?
