by Brenda Novak
She turned her police radio down so low she could hardly hear it. She was in a poor neighborhood filled with aging tract houses, cracked sidewalks and weed-infested yards. Most of the folks who lived here had their own secrets to hide, so she’d rather they not know there was a cruiser parked on the street. Besides, the radio’s crackling made her even more apprehensive than she already was. Rod hadn’t wanted any backup. He’d claimed he wasn’t used to it and that undercover didn’t usually work that way, which was true. But that didn’t mean he was bulletproof.
As far as she was concerned, he should’ve been out of that house by now. How much longer should she sit and wait?
“Damn it,” she muttered when it grew even later and there was no sign of him.
She had to get closer, see what was going on. Maybe something had gone wrong and he’d been shot or overwhelmed by a number of men. Maybe, if she didn’t go in and help, he wouldn’t make it out….
Hoping Grant was still awake after collecting those fingerprints, she gave him a call.
“’Lo?”
His sleepy answer told her he was already in bed. “Grant?”
“What’s up, Chief?”
“Sorry to bother you again. I just… I’m investigating a safe house and wanted to let someone know where I’m at. That’s all.”
“A safe house?”
“Right. It might be owned by the Mexican Mafia. The address is 2944 Dugan Drive.”
“Okay.”
“You got that?”
“Oh, you want me to write it down?”
Would she have been so specific otherwise? Of course not, but Grant was new and young and he needed everything spelled out, so she did her best to keep the irritation from her voice. “That would be a good idea.”
“Is this in connection with the vandalism earlier?” He sounded confused, but more alert, as if he’d sat up.
“No, I’m working the UDA murders.”
“Do you need me to come over and back you up?”
“I don’t think so.” He wasn’t very experienced; if he came she’d only have to worry about him, too, and that wasn’t the kind of help she needed. “I’m actually backing up a consultant we have on the case. I wanted you to know where I was in the event that…in the event there’s a problem.”
“Okay. I get it. How about this? If I don’t hear from you in fifteen minutes, I’ll drive over.”
“Perfect,” she said, and hung up.
There still was no sign of Rod.
Checking for movement or activity in the other houses, Sophia got out of the car and closed her door quietly, then locked it. She couldn’t bring her rifle without looking antagonistic, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for someone else to get hold of it, either. Bad enough to get shot. Even worse to be shot with her own gun.
The windows of 2944 Dugan Drive had been blacked out. At first glance, it appeared as dark inside as all the other houses on the street. But there were three cars out front, not counting Rod’s Hummer. And there’d been some activity. Rod’s body had been silhouetted in light for a brief moment when he was admitted. The question was—what were they doing?
For all she knew, they had a meth lab in the bathroom or kitchen. The scent of harsh chemicals hung heavy on the warm air, like the smell of an overripe peach, suggesting someone in the area was cooking dope. She knew how unstable those compounds were, how easily a meth lab could explode. That alone made it dangerous to approach. And sometimes guys on crack didn’t feel pain. It could be very difficult to bring one down. Even for a Navy SEAL.
As she reached the yard, she was tempted to draw her gun and circle the house before knocking. She wanted to make note of the number of exits, the number of windows and the condition of the dilapidated cinder-block fence that partially enclosed the backyard. But if the people living in this house were really involved in smuggling—humans or drugs or both—or if they were cooking meth on a large scale, they’d likely have some surveillance equipment to protect the operation. Because of the heavy shadows, she couldn’t see any cameras, but she was willing to bet they were there, under the eaves.
Rather than risk being spotted by a surveillance system sneaking around in uniform and with her gun at the ready, which would certainly signal trouble, she decided to approach from the front and to do it boldly, as if this was a routine call.
She just wished she knew how many people were inside. Was Rod armed? After what he’d said to her at the meeting, she doubted it. Whether that decision turned out to be a good one or not depended on how this went down.
The front door loomed a few feet ahead of her, looking more daunting by the second. As she drew close, she recalled the murder Starkey had told her about not long after the split up. Hick, a fellow gang member she’d met once, had been assassinated by a Mexican drug lord, who’d cut off his head and mounted it on a spike along the border fence. Using that gruesome incident as proof of the rapid rise of violence in Mexico, the newspapers had made a huge deal of it, convincing Sophia, and probably many others, that something had to be done to stop the bloodshed. That drug lord was one reason she’d gone into law enforcement, that and the fact that she could make a decent living while helping her community. And she could carry a gun and knew how to defend herself. But the cruelty of his crime also gave her a clear idea of the type of men she could be dealing with here—men who were capable of calculated, merciless killing.
Refusing to let fear undermine her confidence, she managed a neutral expression in case someone was watching her from inside…and knocked.
No one answered.
After waiting two or three minutes, she knocked again.
Finally the porch light snapped on. A stout Mexican man, wearing a Paradise Taqueria T-shirt and a tattered pair of jeans, answered the door. Tattoos covered his arms and neck, diamond studs glittered from both ears and his shaved head gleamed with a sheen of sweat. “Can I help you?” he said.
His English was pretty good. Sophia was glad of that. At least she’d be able to communicate. “Yes. I’m looking for the driver of the white Hummer that’s parked right over there.” She pointed to Rod’s vehicle, which sat at the curb behind an old Mustang.
“What do you want with him?”
“He’s a suspect in a crime.”
“I don’t know who drives the Hummer. He doesn’t live here.”
She stepped back, pretending to search for the house numbers. “This is 2944 Dugan Drive, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the address I was given. Someone called in, said he saw the driver of that vehicle go inside this house.”
The man stared malevolently at Sophia—as if he wanted to choke her to death and toss her body aside. She was an inconvenience, and he obviously wasn’t sure what to do with her. But she wasn’t leaving here without Rod. If she had to pull her gun, she would.
He seemed to come to a decision. “Um, my brother’s got a friend over. Let me see if that Hummer belongs to him.”
“Thank you.”
The door closed and Sophia was left sweating on the doorstep, wondering whether she’d just made a huge mistake—or saved Rod’s life. Maybe she’d done neither. If Rod was already dead, she wouldn’t have much chance of walking away, either. Whoever killed him couldn’t let her leave knowing 2944 Dugan Drive was the last place he’d been seen alive. And there was another possibility. If Rod was actually making inroads toward getting the information they needed, her interruption might cut that short….
But she could only act on instinct, and her instincts told her Rod had been inside too long.
After an extended wait, she worked up her nerve and knocked again. Twice. The same man answered, but this time when he opened the door, she also caught sight of Rod. What lighting there was came from a back room. It was too dim to see much, but when Rod stepped closer, the glare of the porch light revealed marks on his face that hadn’t been there before.
“You wanted to talk to me?” He acted sullen, bel
ligerent, like a complete stranger.
Sophia played along. “Yes.”
“What for?”
Drawing her gun, she assumed a defensive stance. “I need you to come with me. You’re under arrest.”
“What’d I do?”
He should’ve been an actor. He was that convincing. Sophia only hoped she could hold up her end. “You were seen fleeing the scene of a robbery. With a weapon.”
She wasn’t sure the man sporting all the tattoos would let them walk off, but once she flicked the barrel of the gun toward the cruiser, indicating that Rod should precede her, he made no move to intercede.
“What about my Hummer?” Rod asked as he stalked past her.
“The towing company will pick it up within the hour.”
Sophia was afraid to turn away for fear the man at the door would pull out a pistol and shoot them both, or rush them from behind. But she had no alternative. If she didn’t keep up the charade, they’d have no chance of getting out of here.
Training her Glock on Rod as if he might make a break for it, she followed him to the cruiser, where she slapped him in handcuffs and helped him into the backseat. As far as she knew, the man in the doorway didn’t move. She imagined his eyes boring holes in her back as she loaded her “prisoner.” But once she got behind the wheel and glanced at the house, she could see that the door was already shut.
“You okay?” she breathed.
“I’ll live,” Rod said. “But, God, am I glad to see you.”
Resting his head on the back of the seat, Rod closed his eyes and listened as Sophia called Grant, the officer who’d dusted for prints at the motel earlier, to say she was fine and he could go back to bed. His jaw ached, he had a wicked cut on the inside of his cheek, and he’d been kicked in the stomach so hard he couldn’t draw a breath without pain. But if Sophia hadn’t interrupted when she did, he would’ve sustained a lot more injuries—maybe even a fatal one.
“What happened in there?” Sophia asked as she pulled out of the neighborhood.
He didn’t answer. He was too busy trying to recover.
“Rod?”
Opening his eyes, he met her concerned gaze in the rearview mirror. “Those guys weren’t happy to have a stranger show up.”
“What guys?”
“The six who beat the shit out of me.”
The car lurched as she punched the gas pedal. “Why were there so many? And what were they doing when you got there? Cooking meth?”
“No. I smelled that, too, but it must’ve come from a different house. There was no evidence of drugs I could see.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. It’s not the best neighborhood in town.”
“The guys in 2944 were feeding a group of illegals who’d just arrived.”
He couldn’t see her face—only her eyes—but he could hear a frown in her voice. “Why’d they start hitting you?”
“The man in charge decided that I needed some incentive to give them the answers they wanted.”
“What were the questions?”
He explored the depth of the cut in his mouth with his tongue before responding. “Mostly they wanted to know how I learned about the safe house.”
“Why didn’t you say you heard about it from a friend of José and Benita Sanchez? What could that hurt?”
“I tried. But they didn’t seem to know José and Benita, so that didn’t help.”
“You didn’t tell them you’re a cop?”
“Are you kidding? I’d already represented myself as a two-bit hood hoping to get a piece of their action. Suddenly changing my profession would’ve gotten me killed for sure.” He stretched his jaw to check that it still worked. “I shouldn’t have shown up without an introduction or a sponsor of some sort. In the interests of time, I tried to take a shortcut, thought I could lie my way around it, and that turned out to be a mistake.” He’d been so successful in past operations that he’d gotten cocky, hadn’t taken this one seriously enough. “A mistake?” she repeated. “You could’ve died back there.”
There were several minutes when he’d thought that was exactly what the outcome would be. “It was a distinct possibility.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be good at your job?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “I’m going to have to get you back for that one. When my head stops feeling like it might explode.”
“I almost didn’t follow you, almost didn’t go to the door,” she said. “What if I’d listened to you and stayed away?”
Her nerves were causing her to revisit the same thought over and over again.
“Like I said, I’m glad you didn’t. I owe you. If you have to say ‘I told you so,’ do it and get it over with.”
“I’m not saying ‘I told you so.’”
“Then what are you saying? That you should’ve gone instead of me? Do you really wish you had?”
“No. Of course not. It’s just… I don’t know. I’m upset that you’re hurt, and it makes me want to yell or hit something, even though that isn’t logical.”
“We’re both freaked out.” He’d done a dozen undercover jobs in which he could’ve been killed at any moment. Yet he’d survived them all relatively unscathed only to come close to goodbye forever doing pro bono work in Bordertown? What were the chances?
Jonah, who also worked for Department 6, had been shot in the back a year ago. He survived, but while Rod was with him in the E.R. he said something that seemed pretty damn apropos: It’s always the jobs where you think you can skate by, the ones you don’t expect to get you.
“So how will we get my Hummer back?” he asked. “We won’t. We’ll drop off the keys and let the towing company grab it. You’re done for tonight. If I’d shown up any later they would’ve killed you.”
Here we go again. “But they didn’t,” he pointed out. “You arrived in time, and I’m okay. So we can both relax. What could’ve happened doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Maybe we should’ve gone in together,” she murmured as if better planning might have changed the situation. But taking her in there wouldn’t have been an improvement. He shuddered to think of what they would’ve done to her.
“Then we’d both be planted in the backyard.” He braced against the sway of the car as she turned. “By the way, how long are you going to drive before you pull over and let me out of these handcuffs?”
“Oh, right.” The car slowed and the tires crunched on the rocky shoulder as she came to a stop. Seconds later, she opened the door and prodded him to lean forward.
Given the kick to his gut, it wasn’t a comfortable position, but he didn’t feel like getting out of the car, either. He swallowed a groan while she released him. Then he fell back, rubbing his wrists. “That was a close one.”
“Too close.” She turned his face to take advantage of the cabin light and clicked her tongue. “Look at you.”
Hoping to put her at ease, he attempted a playful grin. “Do I look tough?”
The worry didn’t leave her eyes. “No, more like you’ve been hit by a bus.”
“Do you feel sorry enough for me to take me in?”
“Take you in?” she echoed, letting go of him.
“I don’t have a motel room anymore, remember? I don’t even have a change of clothes.” He grimaced to make himself appear more pathetic. “And I really need to lie down.”
She bit her lip. “We haven’t checked the other motel. Maybe they have a room.”
“You’d leave me there like this?”
He saw her soften a little. “Good point. Maybe you should see a doctor.”
Now she was going too far. “I don’t need a doctor. Those boys were barely getting started. I just need some rest.”
“But I only have one bed.”
“I’ll take the couch.”
She pushed his hair to one side to examine some injury he couldn’t feel, thanks to all the others. “You don’t suppose you have a concussion, do you?”
“Why? Am I not making
sense?”
“You’re making sense, but…”
He gave up the games. “I’m fine, Sophia. I need sleep. That’s all.”
Letting her breath go, she straightened. “Okay, I’ll take you home. But if I wasn’t so relieved you made it out of there alive, I’d never go for it.”
“I should’ve told you how beautiful you are,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“When you lifted up your shirt earlier.” He allowed his eyes to slide shut. “It’s all I can think about.”
18
In the end, Sophia didn’t have the heart to make Rod sleep on the couch. He was too banged up. She helped him clean off the blood, put some antiseptic on his cuts, then guided him to her room, where he peeled off everything except his boxers and fell into bed. Less than fifteen minutes after they’d arrived at her place, she had a trail of clothing across her floor and he was taking up most of her bed.
“I’m such a sucker,” she mumbled. But she was on duty until four, which meant she had to go back to the station for a couple of hours. If she wasn’t going to be home, anyway, she couldn’t see putting someone who was injured on her uncomfortable leather couch, especially someone as tall as Rod. She’d figure out where she was going to sleep later.
She’d just opened her front door to let herself out of the house when a shadow loomed over her. Startled, she grabbed her gun before realizing it was Starkey.
“Whoa!” He raised his hands, eyes on the barrel. “What’s with the quick draw, Tex?”
Embarrassed, Sophia put it away. She was used to hearing Starkey’s motorcycle when he came by, but he’d wrecked it a few weeks ago and been borrowing vehicles from friends and other gang members ever since. An old Camaro sat across the street, engine idling. She thought there was someone behind the wheel, but she couldn’t make out who it was.
