DARK VENGEANCE, Part One
Page 13
Elías wasn’t stupid. That much was for certain. There was no way in hell he was going to buy that line of horse shit, and she sat, stiff-backed and anxious, waiting for him to call her on it. To her surprise, however, after a long moment, he sighed. “So much for that theory, then,” he remarked with a wan smile. Moving to stand, he continued, “And I’ve taken up enough of your time for one day.”
“Wait.” Lina reached out, catching him by the hand, giving him pause. She felt like shit for having lied to him, especially since he’d seemed to be so upfront with her—more than he should have been by his department’s protocol, she was sure. He’d come to her, one cop to another, and for a little while anyway, she’d felt like a cop again.
“Who’s helping you out on this?” she asked. When she realized she was still holding onto his hand, she let him go, feeling awkward and intrusive. “A…a partner, I mean? Do you have one?”
“No. Our regular homicide investigator, Sam Mueller, is off on a three-week cruise in the Bahamas, a wedding anniversary gift or something. I’m on my own until he gets back.” He arched his brow. “Why?”
“You told my old lieutenant you were going to hire me,” she said. “Maybe you could. For this case, anyway. You know, like an independent contractor.”
Because even if Brandon was wrong and the Davenants hadn’t followed them to Florida, even if the Cadanas next door weren’t really Brethren, too, then something sure as hell suspicious was going on—and too damn close to Brethren feeding habits for her to keep on dismissing as simple paranoia.
Besides, she thought, it would be the chance to work again, police work. To feel like I’m a cop again.
“I can’t authorize that,” Elías said. “Unfortunately I don’t have anything in my budget that would let me…”
“I’ll do it per diem,” she cut in quickly, standing now, wishing she didn’t sound so goddamn overeager, so desperate, for Christ’s sake.
He smiled at her, gentle and sympathetic. “As much as I’d like the help, I really can’t. I can’t divulge information on a case in progress. I’ve already technically told you too much.”
“I’ll sign a nondisclosure agreement.”
“Really, it’s not my call. And if my chief ever found out, then…”
“I won’t say a word. No one would have to know.” Please, she wanted to beg him, feeling ridiculously close to tears, and wanting desperately not to break down in front of this man—the first one she’d met since leaving the city who treated her like a cop, an equal. A partner. Please let me do this. You don’t understand. I need to do this, to get that piece of myself back again, because I thought it was lost forever.
He looked at her, his brow thoughtfully raised. “Alright,” he said finally. “In a completely unofficial capacity. And only because I still think you’re not telling me everything you know.”
Even though it was highly inappropriate and wholly out of character, Lina uttered a happy little cry and threw her arms around his neck.
He laughed, stiffening in reflexive surprise and blushing, she backed away from him. “I’m sorry. I just…I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s alright.” He shook his head with a slight smile.
“You just have no idea how much I’ve missed getting to do this kind of thing, working, I mean. Police work.” She sounded like a dumb ass, and felt her cheeks blaze with even more ferocious heat. “I’m really excited you said yes.”
“I can see that, yeah,” he assured her with a chuckle. “But, hey, I am, too. I’ve missed Mueller while he’s been out. It’ll be nice to have someone to brainstorm with again.”
Reaching down, he fished his wallet from his pocket and turned back the billfold, pulling out another business card. “Here,” he said, slipping a ballpoint pen from an inner jacket pocket. Turning the card over, bracing it against the leather fold of his wallet, he jotted something quickly—a street address. “That’s mine,” he explained as he handed her the card. “What do you say you swing out there tomorrow around lunchtime, maybe twelve o’clock? I’ll bring the case files and let you look over them.” Looking sheepish, he added, “I’d share them with you at my office, but that might not go over too well with the brass since this is all unofficial and all.”
“No problem. I understand completely.” She nodded, still giddy and pleased.
“Alright.” He tucked his wallet back into his slacks, then offered his hand to her again. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”
Lina accepted the shake, his fingers settling about hers in a warm, firm, confident grasp. “Same here.”
She stood behind the screen door and watched as he ducked back into his car. The Charger’s engine fired up with a low, throaty growl, and as he backed it out of Latisha’s driveway, he spared her a glance, another two-fingered wave, and—she felt fairly certain—a smile.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Earlier that morning, long before Lina or her mother had stirred, Brandon felt a heavy hand first clap against his shoulder, then offer him a shake, drawing his mind from the shadows of sleep. With a mute groan, he opened his eyes and blinked dazedly up at Jackson.
Are you awake? Jackson signed, bringing his hands in loose fists to his cheeks, then snapping his index fingers up in tandem, mimicking eyelids opening with significantly more enthusiasm than Brandon’s had only just demonstrated.
I am now, Brandon signed back, letting his scowling expression impart the fact he was grumbling as he held up his own hands with only his thumb and little fingers extended, then dropped them down.
Jackson gave him the thumbs-up, then flapped in beckon. Come on, he signed. Get up. Get dressed. It’s time to go.
Brandon glanced at his bedside clock, then groaned inwardly again. He’d crept back into Latisha’s lanai through the back door, having cut across the yard from the Cadana’s bungalow next door shortly after midnight but had remained awake for hours past then, too wide-eyed and excited to succumb to sleep.
No wonder I’m so fucking tired, he thought, forcing himself to sit up, then pushing his hair back from his face.
After Brandon’s tussle in the yard with Téo, Valien had invited him into his house. In the living room, he’d offered Brandon a seat on the couch while he’d crossed the room to a large cedar chest. Propping it open with his shoulder, he’d dug around inside, sifting past colorful crocheted blankets, slipping something out from inside. He carried it, small and swaddled, in the cup of his palm toward the coffee table with a sort of subdued, if not somber, reverence. As Brandon watched, Valien sat beside him, turning back the folds of old, graying linen. Nestled inside was a small, weathered stone statue—a squat, hunched over creature with protruding, bulbous eyes, a bald head and downturned mouth carved open to reveal triangular teeth inside.
This is one of the wayob, Valien had told him. Powerful spirits from ancient times who came to our ancestors in jaguar form, then mated with human women. We are the descendants of their offspring, the Nahual; given the gifts of the jaguar’s speed and strength, its very spirit.
The Abomination, Brandon had realized, wide-eyed and stunned, because that was what the figurine looked like to him; not a jaguar, but an almost exact, three-dimensional representation of the creature depicted in the medieval drawings from the Brethren Tomes as their own primitive ancestor. The story Valien told him sounded too similar to the one Augustus had shared about the Brethren’s medieval origins to be nothing more than coincidence.
Brandon and Valien had spent hours talking together the night before, with Valien describing to Brandon the social structure of the Nahual clans, or corillos, as he called them, the same term Jackson had used the night before. “We are made up of several families living in alliance together,” Valien had explained. “Once there were more than a dozen factions represented among us here. My father was our leader until he was murdered. Then control of the corillo came to me.”
This was apparently a common occurrence among the Nahual, Brandon discovered. Unlike
Brethren—some of whom, like Augustus, lived for centuries—Nahual seldom survived past the average human life expectancy, primarily because they were killed by their own kind. Or at least, their men were. As brutal as the Brethren ways of life had seemed to Brandon, the Nahual lived by even tougher, more vicious codes, where dominance wasn’t just determined, but continuously struggled for, fought over, died to preserve or obtain.
“My family allied with Siervo Perales Madeira’s corillo…” Valien pointed out an older man with graying hair standing across the room with Téo and another young man. “Those are his sons, Menico and Téo. There used to be more of us. Many, many more.”
What happened? Brandon asked.
Tejano Cervantes happened, Valien said, sounding unhappy. He leads another corillo —Los Pandieros, they call themselves. They’re enormous by pack standards—more than 200 strong. And when my father told Tejano we would not willingly secede to his control, he had him killed. The other families in our pack fell in with Tejano and Los Pandieros willingly, out of fear that their members would be next. That body you found earlier was Pepe Minoza Cervantes—Tejano’s brother, the one who killed my father.
The sun was only a faint orange glow along the eastern horizon when Jackson shoved the garage door up on its tracks, letting in a sudden huff of damp morning air. Amazingly, it was already warm out, thick and humid. When Brandon pulled on his helmet, straddling the back of the Suzuki as Jackson swung his leg around in front of him, he watched the tinted face plate abruptly fog up with moisture from his breath.
Glancing over his shoulder, his own helmet already in place, Jackson held his fist up and gave it a shake, a gesture that might have looked remarkably like he’d mimed jerking off, but in sign language simply meant, Hold on. Then, grasping the handles and depressing the clutch, he raised his hips from the seat, then stepped down again, swift and strong. The bike roared to life beneath them, a heavy vibration shuddering through Brandon’s legs and ass clear through to his teeth. He smelled the thick stink of exhaust fumes as they billowed out, trapped in the garage confines, then he watched Jackson shift gears again, and the bike lurched forward.
For a moment, Brandon tensed, hooking his fingertips beneath the edge of the seat beneath him, because the bike seemed so heavy, cumbersome and large, that there was no way it could stay upright, not balanced on two wheels. His breath caught, then Jackson shifted his weight, settling himself and stabilizing the motorcycle. The wind rushed into them and they were off, leaning in tandem as Jackson peeled out of Latisha’s driveway.
By the time they reached the motorcycle shop, the streetlights had started winking out one at a time around them, up and down the street. Jackson killed the engine, but while he swung his leg around from the seat, Brandon sat still a moment, his ass numb from the engine vibrations. He’d been expecting to sense Valien and the other Nahual upon their arrival, and felt no alarm at the tingling sensation as he did. Of the three bay doors on the stucco-covered garage, two were rolled open, letting out a spill of light.
Inside, Brandon could see many of the corillo members he’d met the night before. They stood together in loose clusters around several motorcycles in various stages of repair. Even from a distance, Brandon recognized Valien kneeling beside one in jeans and a white T-shirt, hard at work adjusting something on the bike’s suspension.
Jackson rapped his knuckles lightly against Brandon’s helmet, drawing his attention. Come on, he signed with a smile. He’d already pulled his helmet off and hooked it over the bike’s handlebar. Without waiting, or further invitation, he turned and strolled toward the nearest bay door.
Ducking his head, Brandon pulled his own helmet off. As he hopped off the bike, he saw Taya Parker come out of the garage, hurrying toward Jackson. Her mouth spread in a delighted grin, she threw her arms wide, then flung them around his neck. They kissed as Jackson hoisted her off her feet and spun her in a quick circle.
“You remember Brandon?” he saw Jackson say as he approached.
“Sure do,” Taya replied, still beaming. “How’s it going?”
Brandon smiled and shrugged, the quickest way to convey Alright, I guess, to someone who didn’t understand sign language.
“You two about ready to hit it?” she asked, looking up at Jackson, who stood with his arm around her.
“You bet,” Jackson replied, angling his head so Brandon could continue reading his lips. “Is Pilar here yet?”
Brandon blinked. Pilar?
Taya slapped Jackson on the flat, washboard panel of his belly. “Yup. Been here since seven. Just like me. You’re late.”
Jackson pretended to frown. “I am not.”
They tussled playfully together, winding up with Jackson ducking his head and catching Taya over his shoulder, lifting her up and leaving her to dangle, laughing and squirming, like a sack of grain.
“Put me down!” she cried as Jackson spanked her affably on the ass.
Even though Brandon had tuned out the sensation of Valien and his friends from his immediate awareness, when Pilar stepped out of the garage, he felt a shiver steal down his spine. Unerringly, his eyes and attention were drawn to her, magnet-like and irresistible. She wore a T-shirt and weather-beaten cowboy boots, her hands tucked casually in the hip pockets of her shorts.
“You guys remember each other?” Jackson asked.
Brandon nodded without averting his gaze from Pilar, even though the young woman looked anything but pleased to see him.
“Sure,” she said with a one-shouldered shrug, her brows narrowed as she glowered.
“Great.” Jackson clapped his hands together. “The gang’s all here. Let’s get going.”
Going? Brandon shook his head once, then signed, I thought you had to work.
Work on getting you laid, yeah, Jackson signed back with a grin.
Even though neither Pilar nor Taya could understand the sign language, Brandon still felt heat blaze suddenly, brightly in his face.
What? he signed to Jackson, his hand motions erratic and jerking, the deaf equivalent of stammering.
“Enough with the hand jive,” Taya complained with a smirk, snatching Jackson’s hands before he could gesture in reply. “Let’s get going. The sun’s almost up.”
Jackson nodded in agreement, then, holding her hand lightly in his own, turned and led her toward his motorcycle. While Brandon watched them, bewildered, Pilar took the words proverbially out of his mouth.
“Wait a minute. Where are you going?”
Jackson turned. “To the beach,” he replied. “Like we talked about.”
“Yeah, but…” Pilar blinked at Taya. “We talked about us going. Not…” she glowered at Brandon again, “…us.”
For his part, Brandon signed sharply to Jackson: I thought I was riding with you…?
No offense, but Taya’s my girlfriend, Jackson signed back, grinning again. You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? When Brandon stared, stricken, at him, he laughed. You can thank me later.
Thank you, hell… Brandon began to sign, but Jackson turned again, presenting his back to Brandon as he continued walking. Shit, Brandon thought, helpless and aggravated that he hadn’t seen this set up coming, that he’d walked right into it headlong and oblivious.
Feeling sheepish, because he could feel Pilar boring deep, vicious holes into him with her eyes, he hunched his shoulders and forced himself to turn around. Hey, he said. Look, I’m really sorry about…
Shut up, Pilar snapped, cutting him short. That slight cleft between her brows had deepened now, and hot, angry color had bloomed in her cheeks. Locking gazes with him, she said, Let’s get something straight right now—I was tricked into this. Since apparently you were, too, I’m not going to kick your ass right here in this parking lot.
Brandon arched his brow, caught off guard. Excuse me?
Come on. Still visibly fuming, Pilar turned, stomping back toward the garage. My bike’s this way.
Her bike, as it turned out, was the on
e Valien had been working on. He stood as they approached, wiping grease from his hands onto a rather tattered hand towel. “You’re good to go, hermosita,” he told Pilar. With a smile directed at Brandon, he nodded once. “Hey, acho. Long time no see.”
Yeah. Brandon was surprised but pleased when Valien stuck out his hand, then eased Brandon through the same series of affable hand grasps and gestures he’d seen him use with Jackson.
Watch out for my sister, man, Valien said as Pilar swung her leg over the leather seat of her bike, settling herself comfortably. She can be a real handful.
Kiss my ass, Valien, she growled, turning the key in the motorcycle’s ignition and kick-revving the engine to life.
Riding on the back of Jackson’s bike was one thing; riding with Pilar, he realized, would be another entirely. For one thing, her bike was smaller than Jackson’s, and the shorter seat length meant he’d been almost entirely pressed into her. He sat stiffly, rigid on the bench behind her, trying to find suitable handholds beneath him as she put on her helmet.
You’re going to have to hold onto her, Valien said, handing him a helmet.
But with Jackson, I’ve been… Brandon began lamely.
Pilar reached behind her, seizing him by the wrists. Jackson drives like my abuela—my grandma, she said, yanking his arms forward, forcing them around her waist. Grab on or fall off. Your choice.
He couldn’t hear her rear tire squalling against the smooth concrete floor, but he could feel it skittering for purchase beneath him before at last finding traction, the bike racing forward. Taking her advice, he locked his arms around her waist, holding on fiercely as she raced out of the parking lot and onto the street. When she leaned into a corner, the bike canted so sharply, had he reached out with his hand, he could have grazed the pavement with his fingertips.