Evasive Action (Holding the Line Book 1)

by Carol Ericson

  “The heads were in the news. If he cared to check, he’d find that out.” She swiped the last bit of barbecue sauce from her fingers and crumpled the wipe in her hand. “Did those news reports mention any names—like mine?”

  “No, the location of the recovered heads was kept out of the news. Jimmy shouldn’t know that you’re involved in this at all. Even the identification of Elena can be explained by her fingerprints and her police record connecting her to Jesus.” Clay dug his fork into his potato salad. “I suppose Jimmy knows you’re from Paradiso if Adam already told him the story about your father.”

  “He knows that...but not much else—at least, not from me.” She’d never told Jimmy about Clay. It had seemed almost sacrilegious to share any details of her and Clay’s relationship with anyone else.

  She couldn’t imagine Adam would’ve told Jimmy that his fiancée had once been engaged to a Border Patrol agent. That wouldn’t have meshed with Adam’s plans of securing himself a drug-dealing brother-in-law.

  Clay grabbed her hand with his sticky one. “Are you okay? Are you sure you want me to do this?”

  “Yes. I’m just surprised you’re willing to go to these lengths to find Adam. I know he’s not your favorite person.”

  “He’s not my favorite person because I don’t like how he twists you all up. Look, I’m sorry the kid found his mother like that, but you don’t owe him a lifetime of chances because of it. He needs to get off drugs and start seeing a good therapist.” Clay disentangled his fingers from hers and handed her another wet wipe. “Sorry.”

  “I’ve told Adam that a million times. He tried therapy once or twice, but it didn’t work for him.” She shrugged. Adam was the only immediate family she had left. She couldn’t sit by and watch him self-destruct, but she’d never get pulled into one of his schemes again, and she should’ve recognized the setup with Jimmy as a scheme. She hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time. She hadn’t been thinking clearly since the day she left Clay.

  “You’re familiar with rock bottom, right?” Clay shoved his plate to the center of the table and planted his elbows on the linoleum.

  “Yes, of course.” She’d even hit it herself maybe once or twice.

  “Adam hasn’t hit yet because you won’t allow him to. That’s why he can’t hear the therapist. That’s why he can’t get clean. You’re not doing him any favors, April.”

  “And yet here you are ready to rush into danger to save him.”

  “I’m not doing this for him.” Clay’s eyes glowed with an intensity that made her stomach flip-flop.

  She wrenched her gaze away from his and tapped the window. “Is it dark enough for you?”

  “It will be once I take a bath with these wet wipes and pay the bill.” He ripped open another little packet and scrubbed his hands. “You direct me to Jimmy’s and a place to park where we won’t stand out. I’ll go in on foot and do some reconnaissance. I’ll keep my phone on vibrate, so you can serve as an early warning system in case someone comes.”

  “What if someone’s already there? What if a lot of someones are there? What if they have Adam?”

  “That’s a lot of what-ifs.” He raised one finger in the air at the waiter. “We’ll play it by ear. I told you, I’m not going to charge in there like a superagent. If Adam’s there and it looks like he’s in danger, we’ll call the cops.”

  “All right. I’ll let you call the shots, but you need to listen to me. I know these people.”

  “Don’t remind me.” He plucked the check from the waiter’s hand.

  “While you’re paying up, I’m going to wash my hands. I feel like I have barbecue sauce under my fingernails.”

  Clay squinted at his nails. “You probably do.”

  Back in the truck, April took a deep breath. “I hope this crazy plan of yours yields some results.”

  “You’re accusing me of crazy plans? The woman who ran out on two weddings?”

  She placed a hand on her belly. “If I hadn’t run out on that second one, where would I be now? Probably scrabbling through some tunnel beneath the border with Las Moscas in my future.”

  “Where would you have been if you hadn’t run out on the first one?” Clay didn’t wait for an answer to his rhetorical question, instead cranking on the engine to his truck and peeling away from the curb.

  April guided him to Jimmy’s compound. When he turned on the actual street of houses set back from the curb, gates and long driveways protected the residents from curious eyes and casual passersby.

  With her hands stuffed beneath her thighs, she tipped her head forward. “I’m going to slump down in my seat. Drive to the end of the cul-de-sac so you can get an idea of the layout and a sense of the house and grounds.”

  “How long is the street from this point to the end of the cul-de-sac?”

  “Less than a quarter of a mile.” She loosened her seat belt and scooted down. “The houses are not cheek and jowl. There’s some space between them.”

  “Is that how Jimmy was able to operate in relative privacy?”

  “Uh-huh.” The car veered to the right and her head bumped the glass. “After this bend in the road, Jimmy’s place is on the left. He has a tall white gate around his property, and you can’t see the house from the road.”

  “Got it in my sights.”

  “Is it all lit up?”

  “Nope.” Clay twisted his head to the side. “Some lights on the gate and softer lights down the driveway. Does he have sensor lights?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Clay swung the car around. “What’s out there past the end of the cul-de-sac?”

  “Nothing. Fields.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He didn’t slow down again on his way past the house. “Plenty of pickup trucks, so mine isn’t going to stick out. Do you think it’s okay to park at the top of the road? You’ll have a view of who’s coming in and out.”

  “You should be fine. Leave the keys in case I have to make a quick getaway.” She pinched his thigh. “Not that I plan to leave you in the lurch or anything.”

  “By all means, leave me in the lurch. Like I said, I can always come up with some story.” He hunched forward in his seat and pulled his wallet free from his pocket and tossed it in the console. “I’m not going to be caught with my badge and ID, either.”

  “But you’re keeping your weapon.”

  “Have to. It might just get me out of trouble.” He pulled into a dark space on the curb between two big, gated houses.

  “Or get you into trouble.”

  “Don’t worry, April. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I’m glad someone does because this is feeling more and more like a wild-goose chase.”

  “Have some faith in me.” He threw the car into Park and left the keys swinging from the ignition. “You never did.”

  “Never did what?” She glanced across at him, her chin pinned to her chest.

  “Had faith in me. You never had faith in me, April.” He slipped from the car and pushed the door shut.

  She popped up in her seat and tried to catch his silhouette in the rearview mirror, but he’d disappeared in the night, melding with the darkness.

  She waited several more minutes and exited the car on silent feet. She had no intention of letting Clay creep into the lion’s den on his own. Her brother, her problem.

  Hunching forward, she kept to the hedges along the dirt that functioned as a sidewalk.

  When she reached Jimmy’s house, she squeezed through the end of the gate and some bushes, the needling branches scratching her arms. She stumbled to a stop in the sudden darkness.

  Either Clay had gotten to work already, or Jimmy had sensed company and killed the lights outside. But why would he do that? Wouldn’t he turn on the floodlights to expose the intruder?

  Her gaze turned to the corne
rs of the house where she figured Jimmy’s security had stationed the cameras. Had Clay disabled them?

  She dropped to her hands and knees near the porch and peered into the cloak of darkness that enveloped the house. The strangeness of the scene caused pinpricks of fear to assault the back of her neck.

  Even when Jimmy went out of town, he didn’t leave the house in complete darkness. Clay wouldn’t have been foolish enough to cut off the power to the whole house. That would alert Jimmy and his goons, and if they had Adam, they wouldn’t fall for the trick and fan out to find the perpetrator. They’d be on high alert.

  She rose to a crouch and circled around the side of the house to the big windows on the great room that commanded a view of the valley. Nobody stopped her. Nothing tripped her up. She had a wide-open path.

  Her heart thundered in her chest, causing a muted pounding in her ears. She dropped to the ground again when she got close to the window and a yellow glow of light from a lamp in the room.

  She army-crawled on her belly across the wooden deck until her nose almost touched the cool glass of the window. Jimmy had fled. The guards, the henchmen, the security system...all demobilized.

  Maybe Clay had been wrong. Perhaps Espinoza had paid a visit to Jimmy’s compound looking for the man she knew as Gilbert and spooked them all into hiding. Of course, they’d fear Las Moscas finding out they were behind the double-cross more than they’d fear the law.

  She hoisted herself up, curling her legs beneath her. As her eyes adjusted to the low light in the great room, she detected movement.

  She held her breath, freezing in place, every muscle clenched into stillness. Then her breath hitched in her throat and her eyes widened to take in the sight of Clay bending over the dead body of Jimmy.

  Chapter Eleven

  April gasped, throwing out her hand to keep her balance and hitting the door, her ring scraping the glass.

  Clay’s head jerked up. He leveled his gun at her.

  She staggered to her feet, waving her arms above her head. With her heart beating a mile a minute, she grabbed the handle of the slider.

  Clay made a wide berth around Jimmy on the floor and yanked open the door. He reached through the space and dragged her inside. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “What the hell are you doing here? You killed Jimmy?” She shook off his hand and covered her mouth. “This is bad. This is so bad.”

  “Just stop.” He pressed a finger against her lips. “I didn’t kill Jimmy. He was dead when I got here.”

  Her relief caused the blood to rush to her head, and she pressed her fingertips against her temple. “Oh my God. H-how did he die?”

  “Someone stabbed him to death.”

  She poked her head around Clay’s frame and took in the saturation of blood on the Persian carpet, giving Jimmy a halo in death that he certainly never had in life.

  “Is there anyone else here? Dead or alive?” She hoped there were no live ones...dead ones, either.

  “There’s no one here. I could see in an instant the house was deserted, so I slipped inside. As soon as I entered this room, I could smell the blood.” Clay’s nostrils flared.

  April sniffed the air and then wished she hadn’t. Once you smelled that odor of liquid metal, you couldn’t get it out of your head—or your mouth.

  She ran her tongue over her teeth. “Is there any sign of a struggle throughout the house? Any sign of Adam?”

  “No Adam. Struggle?” He cranked his head from side to side. “I don’t see it.”

  “Las Moscas.” She clasped her hands in front of her, twisting her fingers. “They must’ve found out Jimmy was the one who sent those mules and then took care of business, but where are the others? Jimmy always had an entourage.”

  “Maybe Las Moscas took care of them, too, and their bodies are elsewhere. Maybe some of them convinced Las Moscas they didn’t know about the betrayal, and the cartel took them back into the fold.”

  “Where’s Adam, Clay?” She rubbed the goose bumps from her arms. “Now I’m more worried than ever. At least Adam had a relationship with Jimmy. If Adam did take that flash drive and gave it back to Jimmy, Jimmy might show some mercy. But Las Moscas? They don’t show mercy, do they?”

  “No.” He holstered the gun that had been dangling at his side all this time. “We need to talk to Kenzie to get a clearer picture of what went down at your apartment. We’ll leave this mess to the police. When Espinoza comes looking for Jesus or Gilbert or whatever he’s calling himself, it’s going to lead him to Jimmy Verdugo and it’ll be up to the Albuquerque PD to process this crime scene.”

  She clutched the neckline of her shirt. “We need to get rid of our fingerprints.”

  “I’ve been doing that.” He pointed at the sliding glass door. “Let’s take care of those—yours and mine—on the door and be careful not to touch anything else, not that your prints won’t be in this house.”

  “They will be, along with dozens of others. Jimmy had people coming in and out of this house all the time.”

  “But at least your prints don’t have to be anywhere near the crime scene.” Clay bunched up his black T-shirt in his hand and wiped down the handle of the sliding glass door, inside and out. “Did you touch the glass?”

  “No.” Her gaze darted to Jimmy on the floor, his head turned to the side, his handsome face in profile. “Clay, did you see a murder weapon?”

  “Nothing.” He slid the door closed and flicked the lock.

  “There’s so much blood on the floor. How do you know he was stabbed instead of shot?”

  “He was like this when I came into the room—on his back. I didn’t see any wounds, so I nudged him up and saw the carnage on his back and neck, slashing wounds that ripped his clothing. Also—” he aimed a toe at Jimmy’s chest “—there’s no exit wound. A bullet would’ve exited out his front.”

  She swallowed. “But no knife.”

  “Not that I can see. Las Moscas must’ve sent someone Jimmy knew for him to turn his back on the guy.” He ran a hand up her arm. “I’m sorry. This must bring back memories of your mother and that other crime scene. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Not yet.” She scanned the familiar room where nothing seemed out of place except the owner’s body on the floor. “I want to make sure Jimmy doesn’t have any pictures of me around the house. The police may make the connection between me and Jimmy soon enough, but I don’t have to make it easy for them, do I?”

  “In my search of the house, I found it devoid of any personal touches. Who knows if he really owns it? Who knows if his name is really Jimmy Verdugo? I’m sure you already know, a search on that name doesn’t return much.”

  “His entire life could’ve been a fake.” She shivered and clenched her teeth against the chill washing over her flesh. “And I could’ve been a part of it all. What plans do you think he had for me?”

  “If Adam was spreading lies about El Gringo Viejo being C. J. Hart, Jimmy probably wanted an introduction and a special deal for producing meth.”

  “For Adam to go that far, setting me up with Jimmy, he has to have some proof about our father.”

  Clay snorted. “Adam could’ve been playing Jimmy, too. Who knows? Maybe that’s why Jimmy snatched him. He found out about all his lies. Do what you have to do here, and then let’s bounce.”

  “Okay, I want to check his office. Did you go in there?”

  “I did and thought about you hiding on the balcony in your wedding dress.” He shook his head. “However irrational your actions, I’m glad you got out in the end.”

  “I am, too. I’ll be right back.” She jogged upstairs and used the light from her phone to look around Jimmy’s office. If Adam were safe somewhere, she’d be able to put this entire ugly chapter of her life behind her—and move on to the next ugly chapter.

  She opened the top drawer
of his desk, using her blouse to cover her fingers. The tokens from Las Moscas were still there. The cartel didn’t care if the police knew Jimmy had been one of theirs. Even better for them to warn others in their employ not to cross them.

  Her gaze swept his desk. Looked like Jimmy had already disposed of the framed picture he’d kept of the two of them. Good. It had all been a fake, anyway. A fake relationship with a fake person, a person Adam had done his best to mold after Clay. Did Adam ever tell Jimmy why he wanted him to act a certain way, like certain things? He may have mentioned an ex-fiancé in her past, but Adam never would’ve told Jimmy that ex-fiancé was Border Patrol.

  She blew out a sigh and turned on her heel. She didn’t need a fake. She had the real thing now.

  * * *

  BACK IN APRIL’S APARTMENT, Clay studied his former fiancée’s face. They’d returned to her place in hopes of being there for Adam. The danger to April in her apartment had disappeared with Jimmy’s death. A lot of things had disappeared with Jimmy’s death.

  If only Adam would come traipsing back in here, a smile on his hapless face, another scheme cooking in his brain, April could be free. As long as her brother remained missing, she’d stay hooked into his drama.

  She glanced up from her phone. “What?”

  “No luck reaching Kenzie?”

  She clicked the phone on the coffee table facedown. “I texted her.”

  “We could try the Albuquerque PD now. You could report your car as stolen. If Adam’s in the car, he’ll be found.”

  “And arrested for car theft.”

  Clay rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to press charges.”

  “If Adam is safe and driving around in my car, he would call me and tell me what happened unless he’s still worried about Jimmy. He wouldn’t know about Jimmy yet...unless he was there and Las Moscas has their hands on him now.”

  “April, you could come up with about a hundred different theories about Adam right now and still be wrong. There’s no telling what your brother is up to. Leave it for the police. If he gets arrested for drugs, it could be the best thing for him.”