“It has to stop somewhere,” I said.
Abalos’s head whipped around. He glared at me from the driver’s seat. I thought he was going to say something else, instead his knuckles cracked squarely into the bridge of my nose. For a moment I saw nothing. The only sensation came when his next shot popped my lip open, then I heard Flor screaming.
“You’re out of your mind!” Arlen growled.
“You want it next, Grandpa?”
I opened my stinging eyes. Blood flowed from my mouth into my lap.
“Jerry?” Arlen asked. “Jerry, can you hear me?”
I nodded at him.
“He’s fine.” Abalos ripped the shifter, and we started moving.
Getting my bearings was challenging, but through the windshield I saw the taillights of the car holding DJ and now I could see that Alicia was in there too, thank God. We meandered deeper into the neighborhood around the Hildon building, going past crumbling houses and empty lots. Within a few minutes, we turned into a driveway and Abalos put the car in park. He got out, walked to Flor’s door, and pulled her out.
While he carried her into the house, I hoped against hope that I could figure a way out of this, and Flor would be all right. But with the building in front of us being a rundown house and not a police station, I was having a hard time keeping that thought.
Arlen was more concerned about other things. “Bad news,” he said. “There’s a backhoe in the front yard.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I said.
“Maybe you aren’t considering the subtext, but in my experience, Jerry, being abducted and taken to a construction site has never ended well for the abductee. Typically, it’s an outstanding place to hide a few bodies.” He set his gravest glare on me. “They mean to kill us.”
Abalos came back for Arlen first. Then, it was my turn.
He undid my seat belt, grabbed me by the neck, and pulled me out. I tumbled to the muddy ruts that served as a driveway, landing on my ass.
“Come on, I gotta get home to my family soon.” He forced me to my feet and marched me through the front door.
Inside, the house was dark. I could see well enough to know I was in an entrance hall of some kind. The walls were decorated with framed pictures and crosses, as if whoever lived here had only run out to grab a gallon of milk. But I knew that wasn’t true. Straight ahead, at the back of the house, I saw kitchen counters and part of a table.
Abalos led me to the left, into a large room. His accomplice stood in the near corner, pointing his handgun in the direction of my wife, DJ, Flor, and Arlen, who all knelt in front of a large, rectangular hole dug through the floor. They turned and looked at me. Alicia’s face twisted in horror.
“Jerry, what happened to you?”
“He tripped and fell,” Abalos answered. “No more questions.”
I was marched beside Arlen.
“On your knees.”
The floor was muddy and cold, and the chill lanced up from my knees, threatening to freeze out my brain. I had to keep it back. I needed my wits now, more than ever.
To my right, past Arlen, I heard Flor quietly sobbing.
“It’s okay,” Alicia whispered. “I promise we’ll be okay.”
I’d heard that phrase out of her mouth more times than I’d like to admit. I hoped Flor took it to heart as much as I did in my darkest hours.
“Why don’t y’all quit dicking around and bring your boss out here?” DJ asked. “Where’s Rachel Little? Has she even got the guts to see us off, or are you two gonna do all the work, like you did with Blunt?”
Abalos and the other man looked at each other in confusion.
“What did you say, acho?”
“Surprise,” DJ said. “I seen what you did to my friend Blunt, along with your third amigo. Too bad I painted Dos Santos’s bathroom wall with his own face, but before I did, he told me all about Rachel Little, and how she put you up to all the murdering you been doing. I wish he were here now, trying to explain how he isn’t some yella’ coward.”
Abalos stomped around the hole. He took his pistol out from under his suit jacket. I thought DJ was done for. Instead, Abalos pistol-whipped him across the jaw and blood splattered across the wall.
He grabbed DJ by the chin, forcing him to look up. “You think you’re tough? You think killing cops makes you somebody?”
DJ smiled at him through a bloody mouth. “Why don’t you just shoot me, hombre?” he mumbled. “Or do you gotta wait for Miss Little to come out and give you permission?”
Abalos threw him to the ground, then went back to his position on the other side of the hole.
“She isn’t coming,” I said to DJ. “Rachel Little was never part of this.”
Abalos stomped to me, then grabbed me by my hair and pulled until my chin jutted out. He pressed the end of his handgun to my throat.
“Did I tell you to talk?”
“Officer Abalos, there’s no need for that.” Into the dark, musty living room stepped Tamara Price, her eyes settling on me. “I knew you were sharp, Jerry.”
Flor was the first to react to Tamara. “You put my mama in jail?” she screamed. “How could you do that? You were supposed to be her friend!”
“Let him go,” Tamara said to Abalos, ignoring Flor. He released my hair. “And why did you put Arlen Burkhart in handcuffs? I specifically asked you not to do that.”
“I didn’t know which one he was, ma’am,” Abalos said. “Safer to restrain them all and figure it out later.”
“Safer? And yet you beat this man?” She motioned toward me. “Does that seem like a safe thing to do? What if he were Arlen Burkhart?”
Abalos shrugged.
“Let Arlen go.” Tamara said flatly. “He’s the gentleman you didn’t beat.”
Abalos motioned for the other man to keep his pistol trained on me, He crossed to Arlen, then used a small knife to cut through his restraints and helped him stand.
“I tried to tell him who I was,” Arlen said to Tamara. “I won’t repeat exactly what he said, but he very rudely stated he didn’t care to learn my name.”
“Officer Abalos, we’ll discuss this matter later.” Tamara wasn’t pleased with his on-the-job performance.
As Abalos walked to the other side of the hole, Arlen noticed me watching him.
“Is there something on your mind, Jerry?”
“So much for a Snyder and a Burkhart working together again.”
Arlen frowned at me.
“He has interests that don’t concern you, Jerry,” Tamara said. “Did you really think Arlen would burn a fortune to keep you happy?”
“Maybe for a minute or two,” I said. “But when he told me you were next in line for CEO, I knew you couldn’t be trusted. So, I kept an insurance policy. Journalists around the world are going to print with stories written on the information from Dr. Markel’s laptop.”
Macy would keep up her end of the deal. I promised her more work from Armstrong in exchange for her help.
Tamara’s brow wrinkled. “You think newspaper articles are going to help you right now?”
“Let’s find out,” I said. “If everyone stuck to their embargoes, the first batch of articles should have hit about an hour ago.”
“Hildon has had a thousand bad articles written about it,” Tamara said. “You’re not scaring me. The company has more than enough money to pay out lawsuits.”
I couldn’t help but smile. My busted lip stung.
“Sure,” I said. “But how about you? Think you’ve got enough to cover four counts of conspiracy to murder? Last I checked, a person can’t pay out a life sentence.”
Even in the darkness, I swore I saw steam coming from Tamara’s ears.
“You should check The Wall Street Journal,” I said. “They seem like a timely bunch.”
She pulled her phone out of her pocket. The glow of the screen put a feverish color in her eyes as she searched for the article, then found it.
“No,” she whispere
d.
“The best way to solve a murder is to answer a simple question—who benefits? If you didn’t stop the Poraxim scandal from breaking, you’d take over a company headed under—your career would be over.”
Suddenly, I heard the familiar sound of a helicopter’s blades chopping through the air. It was low, but recognizable—a sound I learned to listen for and appreciate during my time in the service. Salvation.
Tamara pulled her eyes from her phone. “None of this changes the math in this room, Jerry.” She motioned at Abalos and the other man with an open palm. “You should’ve turned me in yesterday.”
The helicopter was louder now. Loud enough that Arlen looked through the window. I felt like I could exhale again. We’d all get through this. We were too close not to.
The deep thudding of a chopper’s rotor couldn’t be ignored. It made the walls shake. Abalos looked up at the ceiling. Being a cop, he must’ve known what was coming.
Light flooded through the front window.
“That’s a bird!” Abalos said.
“A what?” Tamara moved toward the window. Not a smart move. La Uniformada would spot her. Abalos snatched her away before she hit the light.
Her face trembled with panic. She was cornered with nowhere to go, nothing to do. Her life was over.
“Kill them,” she said looking into my face.
“What?” Abalos asked.
“I said shoot them, Abalos!”
For a moment, I think he understood the futility of their situation. He knew killing us would solve nothing—in fact, if he, Tamara, Arlen, and the other officer survived, they would be up against four additional counts of murder.
Still, he raised his pistol at me.
He was a desperate man with nothing to lose, a man at his most dangerous.
Arlen leapt at Abalos.
I didn’t waste a split second. Before Arlen and Abalos hit the ground, I was launching myself at Abalos’s partner. I didn’t know his name. It didn’t matter. I had to beat him into submission with my arms behind my back. Failure meant watching my wife, my partner, and a little girl getting murdered before my ticket was punched too.
Surprise was my only weapon. That, and my skull. He was too busy watching Arlen go for Abalos to notice me coming at him like a missile. I jumped like I meant to fly through the front window, leading with the top of my head, aiming it directly at his chin.
I connected. Jawbone drove into the crown of my skull as his teeth crunched together. My vision fuzzed, and I heard glass shattering and I realized I must’ve put his head through the front window. When I saw the dark, dirty floor again, a pistol was lying at my feet like a prize.
Only problem was, I couldn’t simply bend over and pick it up.
Abalos had Arlen in a headlock near his hip, taking complete control of Arlen’s body with one arm free.
With Arlen handled, his attention turned to me. Abalos pointed the pistol at my head. In the beam from the helicopter’s spotlight, I saw sweat trickle down between eyes mad with desperation. He was going to kill me without a word.
Then DJ’s prosthetic leg twirled through the air at Abalos. There was a sound like a metal baseball bat cracking a dinger to the upper decks. Abalos staggered and let go of Arlen.
“Get down!” I jumped, kicking my legs out in front of me, landing flat on my butt.
When I hit the ground, I think my palms slapped the grip of the handgun. The zip ties had cut off most of the circulation to my hands, so I wasn’t exactly sure. Did I have the grip, or the slide? I had to work fast. Abalos was shaking his head, clearing out the cobwebs.
I thought I felt a steel loop—maybe I had a finger under the trigger guard. I went with it, awkwardly trying to get the muzzle pointed in the right direction.
Abalos raised his weapon at DJ.
Whether my aim would hit Abalos or Arlen, lying on the ground in front of him, or the floor beneath me, or even myself, I didn’t know until I took a shot.
I fired.
The muzzle flash was hot against my back. In the time it took to blink, I battled against the near certainty that I’d muffed the shot. What was I thinking? I might as well have tried to hit the moon, or maybe throwing the handgun at Abalos would’ve worked better.
Then the cloth of Abalos’s jacket rippled out from the point of impact, like the surface of a pond disturbed by the first raindrop of a hurricane. He cried out. He dropped to the floor, holding his hip. Not a great shot, but with the circulation to my fingers cut off, I’d gladly accept a shattered pelvis.
Behind me, the front door busted in.
“Policía! Policía!” A dozen men barked all at once.
They flooded into the room, pointing guns at Abalos, at me, and DJ. Even at Tamara Price, who remained frozen against the wall, horrified at the chaos she’d unleashed.
“Drop the weapon!” someone bellowed in English.
They’d get no argument from me. I let go of the handgun, then was pushed to the ground, and searched—never happier to have it happen.
“It’s all right!” I said to whoever would listen. “We’re not armed! We’re hostages!”
“Let him up! He’s my informant,” a familiar voice said.
Detective Collat helped me to my feet. Another officer cut the zip tie off my wrists; as the blood rushed in, my hands felt like beehives at the ends of my arms. Nice to know they hadn’t lost all sensation.
“How in the hell did you find us?” I asked.
“I was in position on the south end of the Hildon building, waiting for you to signal me when I saw these men stuff you and your friends into their cars,” Collat said.
“Imagine that, a cop actually doing his job,” DJ quipped as he pulled his leg back on. He grinned at Detective Collat.
“It’s been known to happen from time to time,” Collat replied.
“I guess y’all aren’t all bad,” DJ admitted.
Collat smiled at him—the first time I’d seen him do anything but grimace.
Two days after that night where we all faced death together in an empty house near San Juan Bay, Alicia, DJ, Flor, and I gathered at the Bayamón Correctional Complex.
With Tamara Price’s capture, Gabriela had been cleared of all charges against her.
Flor eagerly waited in her wheelchair, a clear morning’s sunshine gleaming on her face. The bouquet of flowers in her hand bounced on her knee. We’d been waiting in the parking lot across from the prison entrance for an hour already, and if she had to wait another minute, she might explode.
Luckily, it didn’t come to that. Gabriela came through the gate, beaming. Flor squealed at the sight of her, and Gabriela ran to her daughter, wrapping her in a hug.
“Those two back together is the sweetest thing I ever saw,” DJ said, leaning against the car next to me, his face bruised and his right arm back in a sling. As bad as he looked, we all agreed I was the uglier one. The bridge of my nose was black and uneven as a lump of coal, the bone broken clean across, but I was happy to have made it through our ordeal with nothing worse than that.
“You know, Dep, it’s good to have someone you can rely on,” DJ said.
“Agreed, Dudley.”
He looked at me and laughed. “You’re embarrassing me, man.”
We didn’t have to say it to each other, but I believed DJ and I both knew that despite our differences, we were better together. I could get used to having him as a partner.
I wrapped my arm around Alicia’s shoulders and pulled her close. “When we’re done here, what do you think about looking up those sailing lessons?”
“I think I need another month of doing nothing.” She dropped her head back on my shoulder. I kissed her.
“Nothing but sailing,” I said.
As Flor and Gabriela picked through the bouquet of flowers, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
“If that’s Armstrong, tell ’em we died on the way to San Juan,” DJ said.
I pulled out my phone and saw it wasn’t a call at
all.
“Nope, we’re still alive,” I said, showing DJ the screen. “It’s an alert Macy helped me set up yesterday. Hildon is in the news again.”
“Already?” Alicia turned to see my phone. “What did they do this time?”
“A bankruptcy court is making them file Chapter Seven. They’re liquidating everything.”
“They’re toast?” DJ asked.
“Buttered on a plate. The next thing they’ll announce is when the auction starts.”
“Maybe I can get that projector they used at the party?” DJ wondered aloud.
“But if they’re auctioning all of Hildon’s assets, doesn’t that mean Flor won’t get her cure?” Alicia asked. “The patent to Anthradone is an asset.”
She was right. That dampened the mood. At least Flor and Gabriela were too busy catching up to hear us talking.
“Man.” DJ said. “Who’s going to tell them?”
Gabriela kissed Flor’s forehead, the two of them in their own world. My stomach sank, but then a solution hit me.
“I’ll bid on the patent,” I said. “I’ve got the money. In fact, I don’t care how much it costs, I’ll buy it.”
“But you need someone to actually make the drug,” Alicia said. “Unless you know someone who can do that.”
I didn’t know any pharmacists, or geneticists, or whatever “ist” would be able to make Flor’s treatment. “We can’t give up on her. We’ll find somebody out there.”
My phone rang in my hand. This time, an actual call. One I especially didn’t want to answer, but I did anyway.
“Arlen.” I walked from the car, away from everyone else.
“How’s your morning, Jerry? Did Flor’s mother get released from prison?”
“Yep,” I said, looking over my shoulder at her. “She’s talking to Flor right now.”
“Give her my regrets. I would have liked to be there when she was released,” he said. “Unfortunately, it was impossible to break my prior obligations.”
“Right. The island. How’s it look?”
“Pretty as a postcard. God’s own getaway, with white sand, thick mangroves, lots of sunshine and plenty of space for another home, if you should ever desire…”
Wayward Sons Page 41
