Miami Midnight

by Alex Segura

  “Kathy Bentley?”

  Dave and Kathy turned toward the sound of footsteps.

  Nisha Hudson, followed by two uniformed Miami officers crowded into the small kitchen area. She scanned the room warily before settling her gaze on Kathy.

  “Yes?”

  “Nisha Hudson,” she said. “I work Homicide. We met briefly when your boyfriend got caught up in that Silent Death business at Eddie Rosen’s house. These gentlemen are—”

  “Officers Johns and Rucka, ma’am,” the younger cop said. He was clean-cut and friendly-looking, his partner in many ways his opposite—older, gruff. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Okay,” she said, stepping toward them. “What about?”

  “Were you residing at 8570 Southwest 28th Street?” Rucka said, his voice low and terse.

  “I’ve been staying there, yes,” she said. “With a friend.”

  “Pete Fernandez?” Johns asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the nature of the relationship, ma’am?” Rucka asked, his eyes on Kathy’s very visible baby bump.

  “That’s none of your business,” Kathy said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me and get to the point, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “We’re trying to find your boyfriend,” Hudson said. “I’m worried he might be in some serious trouble—probably stemming from whatever happened to him in Cuba a few days ago.”

  “Well, he is in trouble, but that seems to be his permanent setting of late,” Kathy said, growing more impatient. “And he’s not my boyfriend, really.”

  “We’re trying to locate Mr. Fernandez,” Johns said.

  “Join the club,” Dave said, the words a low mutter.

  “And you are?” Rucka asked.

  “Dave’s a friend,” Kathy said.

  “You have a lot of friends,” Rucka said, a smirk etched on his face.

  “Again, what is this about?” Kathy asked, crossing her arms. “Am I under arrest?”

  “No, not at all,” Johns said. “We just need to locate Fernandez.”

  “He’s not here,” Kathy said, exasperated. “I don’t know how else to say that.”

  “Has he been staying at his house?” Hudson said. “That’s what I really need to know.”

  “Not lately,” Kathy said. “He was in Cuba until recently.”

  “I saw the news,” Hudson said. “Boy sure knows how to get himself tangled up in shit, I’ll give him that. But I mean, has he stayed there recently—as in, this morning?”

  “I have no idea, for the umpteenth time. I haven’t seen him there, so if he’s been staying there, he’s done a great job of sleeping in the utility room.”

  “We get it, lady,” Rucka said. “We just thought he might want to know his house had blown up.”

  “I was also hoping to make sure he wasn’t in the damn house when it happened, either,” Hudson said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” Rucka said, his voice flat. “That house is a burning pile of rubble. We’ve got the fire under control, but everything inside is a loss. Not that a funeral is ever good, but lucky for you there was somewhere you had to be. Otherwise, you’d be dead.”

  RACHEL ALTER SLID the key into the front door lock. She didn’t want to let on she knew someone was behind her. She wheeled around, her hand slipping into her small bag and pulling out her police weapon. She clicked the safety on instinct, before her brain could process the man standing before her.

  “Pete?”

  He looked different. Worn out. His clothes rumpled and dirty, hair out of place. The beard less intentional and more unruly. His eyes wild. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a long, long time.

  “We need to talk.”

  Alter motioned for him to come in. He followed.

  “The kid’s asleep, so please keep your voice down. I was just taking out the trash,” Alter said as she sat down on the leather sectional in the townhouse’s living room.

  “With your police issue?” Pete said. “Nervous about something?”

  “What do you want?” She was wearing a black T-shirt and sweats. It was late. She’d been asleep or about to doze.

  Pete didn’t really care. “It’ll only be a minute,” he said.

  “Does anyone know you’re back?”

  “I flew back a few days ago,” Pete said. “Some people know. Now you know. I’m not hiding.”

  “You’re not out and about, either,” Alter said. “Why?”

  “Los Enfermos want me dead. They killed Harras. Emily is on the run, too,” Pete said. “I thought I was just holding up a tangle of different threads—my mom, Javier Mujica, Emily—but it’s all one thing, I think. I’m just not sure how they line up yet.”

  “Pete, I don’t know much about Mujica, you know—”

  “Let me finish.”

  Alter sighed and pulled her legs up to her chest, a defensive posture.

  “Mosher is dead.”

  “Mosher?”

  “The first cop on the scene of my mother’s murder, remember?” Pete said. “He was retired, too. Living up in Boca. I called his younger brother, trying to find him. He told me Mosher just died. Killed himself. Overdosed on his own meds.”

  “Well, shit, that’s unfortunate.”

  Pete scoffed.

  “What?” Alter asked.

  “No one knew about Mosher,” Pete said. “Only the people who’d read Valdez’s original report, and that has been buried for years. It’s also not reflected in the case files you gave me. The only other people who’ve spent time with Valdez’s original notes on the case are me ... and you.”

  “You have my file. There’s nothing else.” Alter said, incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am dead serious,” Pete said, still standing, pacing slowly around the small living room. “And you’re wrong. There has to be something else. Something more. These inconsistencies aren’t coincidental, Rachel.”

  Alter started to get up. “I’m going to have to ask you to—”

  Pete shook his head. “Now, I’m not great at computers. Not my strong suit. I can search on Google and type in Word, but I’m not a hacker, not by any means,” he said. “I was the kind of reporter that was great with quotes and color. I could paint a picture. The in-the-trenches stuff didn’t interest me. But my partner is the total package.”

  “What does Kathy have to do with anything?”

  “She did some digging,” Pete said, stopping to face Alter. “Found some interesting stuff.”

  “Cut to the chase, okay? It’s late.”

  “You don’t have a sister.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “There’s not much history for Rachel Alter before 2000,” Pete said. “But there’s a lot of backstory for Raquel Altunes. Raquel Gallegos-Altunes.”

  “Who?” Alter said, her voice cracking.

  “Raquel,” Pete said, sitting across from Alter, “is you.”

  “So what?” Alter said. “I changed my name. The PD knew that. I don’t get along with my family. When my sister died—”

  “You don’t have a sister,” Pete said, his voice seething now. “But you do have a brother. A half-brother.”

  Alter remained silent.

  “Kathy didn’t believe it at first,” Pete said. “Gallegos is a common enough name. And you did a nice job of covering your tracks before you became a cop. Going to school out of state. Changing your name. Cutting off contact with your family. So, by the time you came back to Miami, you were a new person. Rachel Alter. Green detective assigned to the cold case squad.

  “But something bugged me,” Pete continued. “The name stuck in my craw. Kathy’s too. See, about five years ago, we knew an Ana Gallegos. We thought she only had one kid—one adult child from her only marriage: Raul Aguilera. Do you remember him?”

  “No idea what you’re talking about,” she said, her response robotic and without feeling. “Please leave.”

  “Raul Aguilera was
FBI. He and his partner, Robert Harras, were working a serial murder case in Miami five years ago,” Pete said. “The killer turned out to be a nutjob named Julian Finch. He was paying homage to the earlier killings of Rex Whitehurst. Remember him?”

  “Sure,” Alter said. “Anyone from here does. I remember Finch, too. But what’s your point, Pete? I’ve asked you to leave, and I’m just about ready to—”

  “Call the cops?” Pete asked. “Go for it. I think they’d like to hear what I have to say.”

  Alter’s shoulders slumped.

  “Thing is, Julian Finch didn’t work alone,” Pete said. “He mimicked Whitehurst, but he became his own thing. Killing young girls—girls who were off the grid—by pretending to be a real estate agent looking to help them. He knew I was on his heels. Knew Kathy and I had pieced part of it together. So he came after us. He blew up my father’s house. He kidnapped Emily. But we kept coming. One thing we didn’t know, though? He had a helper. A protégé. A direct link to Whitehurst. The original killer’s own almost-stepson—Raul. Harras’s own partner was taking part in the murders, covering up for his guru. The clue that broke the case for us came from Ana Gallegos. Your mother.”

  “This is absurd,” Alter said. “I’ve heard enough.”

  “Ella isn’t your sister’s baby,” Pete said. “She’s Raul’s. No matter how well you covered your tracks, you couldn’t erase an actual person. Who found out? Who used the truth against you? I don’t think you’re a bad person, Rachel. But I do think someone’s been threatening you, forcing you to feed me bad intel. And it stops now.”

  “I never asked for this,” Rachel said, her words bubbling up slowly, methodically. “I never wanted to be part of that ... group ... that family.”

  “Who came to you?” Pete asked. “Who found out?”

  “I—I don’t know, honestly. It wasn’t one man. They all worked for the same person,” Alter said. “But they knew. They knew Raul had a daughter. They knew the mother had disappeared. They said they’d tell the world. I just—I couldn’t destroy Ella’s life like that, but I also had a right to my own, you know? I worked hard to become a cop. I didn’t ask my brother—half-brother, someone I knew like a distant cousin—to become a serial killer’s sidekick, okay? So why do I need to get saddled with that? Plus, what they asked of me was so minor. It was almost clerical. To just let them know if anyone came digging around certain files. To lose some paperwork in certain cold cases. Graciela Fernandez was one.”

  “There were others?”

  “Yes,” Alter said. “One other.”

  “Javier?” Pete said, stepping toward Alter. “Javier Mujica?”

  Alter nodded.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Pete asked.

  Alter shrugged.

  Pete walked toward the door. He peered through the peephole but couldn’t make anything out. He stepped back.

  “Your porch light is out,” Pete said.

  That’s when he saw the gun in Alter’s hands. The police weapon she’d pointed at him earlier.

  “He was unhinged, officer, said he couldn’t get over seeing his friend killed in Cuba and wasn’t sure where to go,” Alter said, her eyebrows raised slightly. “He was asking me for help, for some kind of way out of the trouble he was in. Then he attacked me. I had no choice. My niece was sleeping upstairs.”

  “You don’t want to go down that road,” Pete said.

  Before she could react, he cut loose with the kick, which sent his heel into her midsection. She folded into herself, the gun clattering to the floor. Pete picked it up and slid it into the back of his waistband before standing over Alter, who was curled into herself, clutching her stomach.

  “Get out,” she said, the words almost inaudible, overpowered by the loud, pained groan that followed. “Go.”

  “Not yet, Rachel,” Pete said. “Not before you tell me who set this up. Who wanted you to bury my mother’s murder?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Pete wheeled around.

  A masked figure stood a few feet away from them, long revolver drawn—a silencer at the end of the weapon’s barrel.

  Pete pulled Alter’s gun from his belt and pointed it at the Silent Death. “Novo’s dead. Who’re you?” Pete asked. “Is there a Silent Death waiting list? Like Slayer potentials?”

  “Cállate,” the man said. “You know nothing. And that’s how it will end.”

  Pete shot first, sending a bullet into the masked man’s left knee. As the figure crumpled to the ground, he sent his heel into the Silent Death’s face. The man’s gun skittered further into the house. Pete stepped closer, crunching his boot on the Silent Death’s outstretched hand. The Death responded with a muffled scream.

  Pete leaned forward, his gun pointed at the Death’s head as he yanked the dark, wrap-like mask from his face. He wasn’t sure who he expected to see—Mujica? Emily? Angel Padura? Someone else? But the eyes and pained expression that looked back at him were those of a stranger.

  “Who are you?” Pete said, standing up.

  “Don’t you remember, bro?” the man said, his teeth coated by a red sheen of blood.

  “Stu Lovallo?” Pete said. “The drummer? The creep who followed Emily around? What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “It’s over, man,” Lovallo said, the loony grin still plastered on his face despite the growing pool of blood forming under his knee. He was on another planet. “You’ve been playing it all wrong. You think you’ve got it all figured out? They’re ten steps ahead of you. Nice house you have, by the way. Well, used to have.”

  Pete turned around.

  Alter was still curled up on the floor, head in her hands, the front door swinging open.

  Pete walked toward it, each step picking up speed. As his foot hit the sidewalk, he was in a full-on sprint.

  HE KNEW IT was gone before he pulled onto his street. The smell of smoke invaded his lungs from what felt like miles away. By the time he saw the black clouds emanating from where his house, the small three-bedroom he’d bought with his own money—his goddamned house—once stood, he knew it was gone.

  Pete Fernandez was not the nostalgic type. The world had pushed him into his role. Murders, explosions, lost homes, and lost friends left little room for scrapbooks, picture walls, or mementos tucked in his wallet. It felt like his life was being destroyed annually, with each year wrecking a different part. He’d gotten used to it. But that didn’t soften the sting. At least not this time. It didn’t stop the wetness from forming on his cheeks as he pulled his car in front of a pile of debris and burning cinder that had once been a house.

  He saw Kathy, huddled next to a nearby police car, the lights flashing as uniforms cordoned off the area. The fire truck was a few feet away, a few Miami firefighters dousing what remained of the flames. Maintenance. This was a full-on loser. Nothing to recover. Pete didn’t need a forensic analysis to come up with that conclusion.

  He put the car in park and stepped out.

  She saw him immediately. In the few days he’d been off the grid, she’d grown—the baby, their baby—had grown. He felt a sharp pang of regret. For doing what he’d done—drunk, sober, always. When he could no longer handle the world, when he needed a minute to reconnect, he’d disappear. It’d been cruel and stupid of Pete to think, Cuba trip or no, that going dark would be a good idea. He expected a punch in the face.

  Instead, she pulled him into a tight hug, her breath hot on his neck.

  He pulled back. God, he’d missed her. What had he been thinking?

  “Pete, Jesus,” she said, her voice angry and pleading at the same time, like a cornered fighter with a few more rounds to go—demanding another chance to win. “Where the fuck have you been?”

  “Just—looking…trying to figure this out,” Pete said, surprised by his own muffled voice, choked by emotion, by the release.

  He’d sped over from Alter’s place, sure he’d find Kathy dead, their future cut shor
t by a mysterious killer. The relief that the only loss he’d have to deal with was a pile of ash that had once been a house slammed into him like a hurricane wind.

  Kathy pushed him away, her hands still clutching his neck. “Trying? Trying what?” she said. “We thought you were dead. Someone destroyed your house. Harras is gone. What is happening?”

  “I think we—”

  “Pete Fernandez?”

  Pete and Kathy both looked toward the street, where an attractive, thirtysomething woman with black hair stood. She wore a stylish blue business suit.

  “Yes?” Pete said.

  “Hi. Dayna Anderson. I’m a PI based in Los Angeles,” she said, a forced smile on her face, as if she were debating whether she should say anything about the dystopian nightmare playing out behind them. “Guess I’m catching you at a bad time, blurg.”

  “Sort of.”

  “An attorney I work for wanted me to deliver this in person,” she said, handing him a thick package, about the size of a large magazine. “Nice excuse for a mini-Miami vacation. For me, I mean.”

  Pete took the heavy envelope and had to grip it with both hands. He didn’t respond to the investigator’s joke.

  “Sorry, I keep blocking out the whole ‘house on fire’ thing,” she said.

  “Who sent this?” Pete said, looking over the delivery.

  “No idea,” she said, still smiling. “But they put a ton of requirements. Said to make sure only you got it, in person—” She paused and pulled out a notebook from her back pocket. Nodding, the smile fading. She tried to recover it, but faltered.

  “So, my client was working on executing someone’s last will and testament,” she said. “One of the requirements was this be delivered to Pete Fernandez … upon the death of Robert Harras.”

  DAVE MENDOZA LIVED in a nondescript, barely furnished townhouse in Kendall, off 130th Street and 92nd Avenue. It didn’t feel like a home because it wasn’t one—at least not to Dave. It was one of his parents’ myriad real estate holdings, and one of the few that wasn’t yet gobbled up in legal wrangling. Now, it was serving as temporary housing for Pete and Kathy as well.