by Kelly Irvin
“Understood.”
Eli jerked his head toward the men. Natalie nodded. “Go on, kids, but don’t make a mess.”
Screeching like mini-banshees hyped up on caffeine, Ava and Cullen roared from the living room. “Eli’s back! He’s back.”
Not back. So not back. Gabriella opened her mouth to protest. Eli shook a finger at her. Who did he think he was?
“A kid by the name of Alberto Garza died in front of Gabriella in the parking lot of her restaurant around midnight. One gunshot to the chest. Before he died, he mentioned Gabriella’s brother—by name.” Eli eased into the worn cream-colored, brushed-leather chair with matching ottoman where he used to sit after Natalie let him in the house on Sunday mornings. He’d pull Gabriella onto his lap when she arrived home from church so he could read the funnies to her. “I’m thinking that name means something to you two.”
Morales looked at Crawford. Crawford studied the hardwood floor under his feet as if trying to decode a secret message inscribed there.
“Okay.” Eli stretched his long legs and leaned back in the chair. Looking for all the world like someone about to take a much-needed nap. “Let’s talk about the weapons Garza had in the trunk of his car, which we found parked at Main Plaza, the driver’s-side window shot out.”
“What weapons?”
“You share. I’ll think about sharing.”
“Look, Officer—”
“Detective.”
“Detective Cavazos, this is a multiagency task force operation involving not only the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” Morales sucked in air, his face red from the effort to spit out all those fancy names. “It is designed to take down gun smugglers who have supplied as many as thirteen thousand assault-style rifles to drug cartels in the last year. More than four thousand people have been killed by illegal weapons in Mexico in the last year alone, six hundred of them police officers. Do you get my drift? One agent, one dead college kid, cannot be allowed to compromise this operation.”
Eli smiled. “I never said Garza was a college student.”
Morales didn’t smile back. “Be that as it may.”
“Since when is the U.S. government concerned about murders of Mexican citizens in Mexico?” Gabriella joined Eli in the fray. “I would’ve thought you would be focused on crimes that affect U.S. citizens—that tends to be the American way.”
“Oh, don’t let them fool you into thinking this is some kind of altruistic effort to help our neighbor.” Eli spoke before the Feds could respond. “Washington has known for years that the guns are being used by cartels that smuggle drugs into this country. Those drugs kill American citizens. Drug dealers use these weapons to kill our law enforcement officers too. Isn’t that right?”
“Again, be that as it may.” Morales had a sour look on his face. “This is a top priority for the Justice Department. We will bring down this smuggling ring. No individual will stand in the way of completing the mission.”
He glanced as his cohort. Crawford nodded. Morales focused on Gabriella. “We’re not just looking for your brother because he’s dropped out of sight.”
Jowls meowed a pitiful high-pitched meow. Gabriella loosened her grip. “What do you mean?”
“Last night, Laredo authorities found one of our . . . informants shot to death on the bank of the Rio Grande a few miles from downtown Laredo.” Morales’s somber expression spoke volumes. “Jake Benoit’s service weapon was found at the scene. Laredo PD officers believe it to be the murder weapon. They’ve decided your brother is a person of interest in a homicide investigation.”
Jake was wanted for murder.
Chapter 5
Idiots. The Laredo PD thought Jake was a murderer. The rushing sound in Gabriella’s ears made it hard to think. Natalie’s cry of disbelief pierced the fog. “It’s okay, Sis.” Her attorney experience kicked into overdrive. “It’s totally circumstantial. This dead informant was involved in gun smuggling and probably drug smuggling. If—and that’s an enormous if—Jake killed him, it was likely in self-defense. And why would he leave his weapon at the scene? He’s a law enforcement officer. He’d never willingly give up his weapon.”
“Agreed. The question is, why did he leave the scene?” Morales’s tone suggested he thought she might actually have the answer. “We’re concerned for his well-being since he hasn’t called in or returned to work.”
Because he’d been forced to leave? Gabriella’s stomach heaved. The image of her grinning brother shoving suitcases in the back of his SUV the day he’d moved to Houston for his first assignment with the ATF flitted through her mind. “He would never do anything to compromise his work. What do you think happened on that riverbank?”
“Honestly? We don’t know.” Morales rubbed bloodshot eyes. “That’s one of the many reasons we need to talk to him. Miss Benoit—Gabriella—your brother is one of us. If he’s in trouble, we want to help him. If he’s done something he shouldn’t have, we want to know why. We need to find him before Laredo PD does.”
Crawford dropped a business card on the mahogany coffee table that overflowed with food magazines and restaurant supply catalogs. “If either one of you hear from your brother, please notify us immediately.”
Both agents stood. Eli and Gabriella did the same. “If you hear from our brother, you are expected to notify us immediately.” Gabriella stretched to her full five-ten height. She extracted a Courtside business card from her wallet. “I need to charge my cell phone, but it’ll be back in service shortly. You may also call our home number or contact Detective Cavazos.”
Morales plucked the card from her hand, peered at it for a second, and then handed it to Crawford, who stuffed it in his suitcoat pocket.
As soon as they were gone, Gabriella hugged Natalie. “Are you okay?”
Her sister nodded, but she held Gabriella tight an extra second or two. “When do we leave?”
“We?” Gabriella touched Natalie’s forehead. Cool. Yesterday’s fever had abated. “Nat, the kids need you here, and you’ve been sick.”
“I’m fine. I’ll get Marty to stay with the kids.”
Martin Little, the artist and sometimes carpenter who lived next door, was the epitome of a good neighbor, and the kids loved him. “I know Marty will do it, honey, but what about your appointments? The kids aren’t the only ones who need you. So do your patients.”
Natalie specialized in juvenile trauma–related disorders. Her young patients relied on her, as did her own kids, to whom she’d been mother and father for two years. “I’ll reschedule them. What about you? You have a restaurant to run.”
“I can trust Vic to handle things for me for a few days. I’ve done it before. And you’ll be here if she has any problems.”
Natalie’s silky hair fell forward, hiding her face. Her hands clenched on her lap. “I can help. Jake is my brother too. Don’t underestimate my ability to help.”
Two years of this. Two years of trying to get used to the idea that her sister, the one who’d been the ballerina in grade school, the one who’d made the high school soccer team, the one who dragged Gabriella from the couch to go jogging, two years of getting used to that fireball being stuck in a chair. “I absolutely know you can help, but the kids need you.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Eli broke in finally, his face lined with empathy that softened his sculpted features. “Neither of you is going anywhere until I can go with you.”
Natalie’s gaze turned suspicious as it swung to Eli and back to Gabriella. “I’ll check on the kids.”
Gabriella tugged her phone from her purse and plugged it in while her sister wheeled toward the kitchen. Then she started up the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
She glanced down at Eli, standing at the bottom of the stairs, his hand on the intricately carved oak banister as if he was contemplating following. He wouldn’t dare. “To pack—”
“Stop. Just
stop.” Eli took two steps toward her. She backed up, caught her Reebok on the thick rose carpet runner, and plopped down. Eli moved two steps closer. The stairs creaked under his weight. His knees—worn from years of playing basketball and running—creaked with them. “There is no reason for you to go off half-cocked.”
“You heard them. I have to find Jake before Laredo PD does. I’m an attorney, and he’ll need one.”
“And we’ll find him. I’m not letting you go down there and start turning over stones in Laredo. I know what kind of monsters live under those stones. Just give me time to follow up on a couple of things here in town.”
Yeah, a 150-mile drive in that horsepower-heavy, shiny black Charger with a hemi followed by adjoining hotel rooms. So cozy. She could insist on rooms on separate floors at opposite ends of the hotel. Why? Because she was afraid the famous Cavazos charm would overcome her sense of betrayal? The sneaking suspicion weaseled its way past her defenses. Never. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”
“Go with me, and Natalie’s more likely to be willing to stay here. She won’t let you go alone.” Eli crossed his arms. “What’s more important to you? Keeping that torch of self-righteous anger and indignation toward me blazing or finding your brother?”
Gabriella catapulted down the stairs and jabbed his chest with her finger.
“Self-righteous? Self-righteous?” She sputtered and stopped. He was right. Finding Jake was more important. Eli had connections to Laredo PD. He carried not one but two weapons. In a violence-prone border town like Laredo, that would be a huge plus. When she swallowed, her pride and anger made a bitter sandwich that lodged in her throat. “When can you go?”
“As it happens, Garza was from Laredo. Which makes sense if Jake knew him. The Garza family lives there. Sarge agrees the trip is necessary. Which works out well.” Eli’s phone trilled. He glanced at a text message. “Dunbar will track down friends here and Garza’s roommate at the university. I need to hit the Discount Sporting Goods Store on south Roosevelt. After that we can go.”
“Why the store?”
“The database shows that’s where Garza bought guns—on six different occasions. He spread it out over a six-month period. I need to have as much information as possible before I talk to the family.”
“I’m going with you.”
“No. You’re going to get a few hours of sleep first. You’ve been up for twenty-four hours straight.”
“So have you.”
“Try forty-eight hours, minus thirty minutes here or there.” Eli’s smile matched his sardonic tone. “Worried about me?”
“If you don’t let me pack my bag, stick it in the trunk of your car, and leave with you right now, I’m going to Laredo without you. I’ll have at least an hour’s head start.”
His brown eyes contemplated her with a steely gaze that made her want to drop hers. But she didn’t. He growled. Did all men sound so childish when they didn’t get their way? “Fine. At the store you stay in the car. The powers that be will have a fit if they think I’m allowing you to be involved in this investigation in any way.”
“Why are you allowing it?”
“Technically, I’m not. I’m just giving you a ride so you can check on your brother.” He stared up at her, his face suddenly crowded with familiar emotions. Pain danced with regret while loneliness looked on, always the wallflower. Eli whisked them away just as quickly. “It’s the only way I know to keep you out of trouble.”
Gabriella whirled and ran up the stairs without responding.
What could she say, really? Eli Cavazos had always been the trouble for her. The only question now was whether he was bigger trouble than what waited for her in Laredo.
Chapter 6
So many choices for murder and mayhem. The sheer number and variety of firearms stuffed into the tiny sporting goods store wedged between a hair salon and a taquería on Roosevelt Street was irritating. Eli wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, glad to be out of a blazing afternoon sun. Dozens of hunting rifles, assault rifles, and sniper rifles stood at attention on two long walls, dwarfing the other less eye-catching displays of rods and reels and hunting paraphernalia. A massive collection of handguns lay spread under glass like an enormous, deadly smorgasbord.
Waving a hand in front of his nose in an effort to fight off the odor of something acrid and unidentifiable, he strode down the narrow aisle. Gabriella nipped at his heels. She’d refused to stay in the car. The image of Alberto Garza’s lax features floated in his mind’s eye. Better to keep her where he could see her.
He flipped his badge open in the direction of a skinny Latino with a scar across his nose who was bellowing in Spanish on the phone. His name tag identified him as Joe Gonzalez. His free hand jabbed the air as he punctuated his points. He was upset about a delayed shipment of ammunition.
He perused the badge without interrupting his conversation. Turning his back on them, he dropped his volume until Eli could no longer hear his words. A few seconds later he laid down the phone and faced them. “What can I do for the San Antonio Police Department today?”
He made the switch to English with no discernible accent.
“Alberto Garza.” Eli smoothed a computer printout and handed it to Gonzalez. “He purchased these firearms in this store.”
Gonzalez shrugged and took the list of serial numbers. “Look around, Detective. We sell lots of guns in this store. Business is good.”
“I’m thinking a twenty-two-year-old college student buying an FN PS90 rifle might have caught your attention.”
Gonzalez picked up a soda can and sucked on it. He wiped at his mouth with the back of a hand that had black grease under its fingernails. “I don’t have a lot of conversation of a personal nature with customers. I don’t know whether they go to school or run pig farms or cut open brains for a living. I run the background check, I have them sign the paperwork that says they’re not buying the firearm for someone else, and I collect their money. That’s all the law requires. Besides I’m not the only one who works here. He could’ve dealt with one of the other guys.”
“Why don’t you look up his records? Someone also sold him an FN Five-seveN, a Barrett M107A1 long-range sniper rifle, and a Beretta M9. Sound to you like he planned to do some deer hunting?”
“If you insist.” Gonzalez burped and turned to a dirty keyboard perched on a desk behind the counter. While he displayed his prowess in the hunt-and-peck style of typing, Eli watched Gabriella peruse the merchandise under the glass counters. Hunters saw sport. Some people saw self-protection. Others saw a Second Amendment right. Gabriella, as a former prosecutor, probably saw old cases.
As a police officer he saw faces. The face of a pregnant woman whose husband shot her in the chest with a .22 Smith & Wesson during a domestic dispute. The face of a teenager who killed himself playing Russian roulette with a parent’s loaded .38 Special in front of his two best friends. The face of a convenience store clerk named Ralph after a guy with a 9 mil walked in and put a bullet in his head for the twenty-four dollars in the register, a carton of Marlboros, and a six-pack of Dr Pepper.
“Okay, yeah, so I remember the kid.” Gonzalez looked up from the computer screen. “He said his cousin was a collector and had gotten him into guns. He put the first purchase on layaway and came in about a month later and paid cash. He came back a few weeks later and bought the FN. He seemed real excited about starting his own collection.”
Eli exchanged glances with Gabriella. Real excited. He slapped both hands on the glass, fighting the urge to lean over, grab the guy by the neck, and squeeze him like a zit. “Garza is dead. He had three of these weapons in his trunk. You sure you don’t have any ideas what he might have been doing with these guns?”
Gonzalez burped again, with less gusto. “He said he was starting a collection like his cousin’s.”
“Collection? One of the weapons you sold him was an engraved AR-15 assault-style rifle. I’m
not a psychic, but I’m pretty sure the ATF is going to be paying you a visit in the very near future. The AR-15 showed up recently at a murder scene where three Mexican police officers were blown away in Aguascalientes.”
The eloquence of Gonzalez’s shrug said the story wasn’t a new one, but a sheen of sweat appeared on his flaccid skin. “All right, yeah, I remember the AR-15. It was beautiful, really beautiful.” Gonzalez could’ve been talking about a woman, the way his tone softened. “Garza came around a few times with someone else first. The other guy was doing the shopping. He was looking at AR-15s mostly. Only I couldn’t sell him anything because he had a felony conviction. A few weeks later Garza came in on his own and bought the AR-15.”
“What guy? Who was he?”
Gonzalez drummed his fingers on the counter, wrinkled his nose, and stared at the rifles over Eli’s shoulder. “You know how many people come through this store in a day, in a week, in the last six months? He didn’t buy anything. He’s not in my records.”
“But you remember Garza was buying for a convicted felon.”
“I have no way of knowing what Garza did with the gun after he bought it. I can’t stop someone from buying a gun and then three weeks later selling it to someone else.” Gonzalez took a swipe at his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “It’s beyond my control—the control of any gun dealer.”
“You know all the signs of a straw buyer. You could’ve given the ATF a heads-up.” Eli pounded his fist lightly on the counter that separated him from Gonzalez. “He might still be alive if you had.”
“If he got into something illegal, he has no one to blame but himself. Besides, I’m not the owner. I’m the manager. I do my job and let the Feds do theirs. If that’s all, I’ve got inventory to do.”
“Did you know Garza was the nephew of a gun seller in Laredo? Manuel Figueroa?”
“He’s Manny’s familia?” Gonzalez shrugged. “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Manny is good people.”
