by Jo Robertson
The nurses across the way gave them a strange look, but Rafe supposed they were used to displays of grief in a hospital. Bella sobbed until her tears soaked the front of his shirt and then pulled back to look at him. "I keep thinking of Maria," she whispered.
"Ah, baby, don't do this to yourself."
"I can't help it. Maria left home just like Esperanza did. She kissed us and said goodbye, took a flight to San Diego and a bus across the border with a group of her friends." She wiped her nose with the heel of her hand.
"And that's the last we heard of her, the last we saw her." She clutched at his shirt sleeve. "Just like Esperanza."
"What did the police do to find Maria?" Rafe knew they wouldn't have done much, couldn't have done much except make official contact with the Mexican police.
And a young Mexican-American girl like Maria – she would've been easy to kidnap, easy to hide down there. The family didn't have a chance in hell of finding what happened to Bella's sister.
She shrugged. "They made a lot of noise, but in the end we knew that her being Latina was a disadvantage. No one was going to look for a poor immigrant man's daughter."
She smiled bitterly. "Maria wasn't even born in this country. They weren't going to search for her too hard."
"I'm sorry." Rafe rubbed her shoulders through her thin shirt.
She straightened up, a determined look on her face. "Vargas had something to do with Maria's disappearance."
Rafe's arm fell away. "Bella, be reasonable. You can't know that for sure."
She clenched her fist against her chest. "I know it here," she insisted.
"Even so, even if you're right, Vargas wouldn't remember one girl twenty years ago. And if by some chance he did, he'd never admit it."
She sighed deeply and slumped against him again. "You're right, but this thing just ... sometimes it consumes me."
"You can't let what happened to your sister get in the way of nailing Vargas for what we know he's guilty of," Rafe reminded her.
She'd thrown on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt when they'd left her house, but she now shivered, whether from the cold room or the topic, Rafe couldn't tell. He draped his jacket over her shoulders, picked up their empty coffee containers, and threw them in the trash receptacle across the room.
When he walked back to their table, he sat down and searched her face intently. She seemed calmer now. "We have to talk about what this attack at the safe house means."
Nodding, she clasped her fingers together on the table top and leaned forward, all business.
"The hit was bloody and messy," he said. "They meant to kill everyone, including Harris and Slater, the other deputies, along with the girl."
She spoke solemnly. "No witnesses."
"Let's start with who had access to the safe house, hell who even knew about it."
She ticked them off on her fingers. "You, me, Slater, and the three deputies assigned to guard Esperanza. Six people," she said bitterly. "Harris is Slater's right-hand man; McKidd and Ruiz I don't know."
"What about the Nevada police?"
"They knew she was being transported, that Slater signed her out, but they couldn't have known where." She bit her bottom lip and clutched his hand. "Rafe, we didn't even know until an hour before we arrived at the safe house."
"They could've been followed from Nevada."
She began shaking her head before he'd finished. "Not with Harris and Slater riding shotgun. No one gets by Ben. He's too good."
Rafe remembered the bullets that Waylon took. "How is Harris recovering?"
"One bullet barely missed an artery and the other was a through and through. Lots of blood loss, but he was very lucky."
"The killers must've thought Harris and Slater were both dead. They wouldn't have left anyone alive," Rafe said. "McKidd and Ruiz were killed at the scene."
"Harris is out of surgery and stable now."
"We should talk to him again."
But an hour later, when they made their way up to the third floor, Harris was under sedation, a unit of the blood he'd lost pumping in through an IV tube. They decided to let him rest. Slater was still in the operating room, a team of doctors working feverishly over him, but a surgical resident came out and told them he was holding his own.
"You go," Bella told Rafe, standing close to him. "You've got work to do on the case. I'll wait here and call you when there's something to report."
Rafe nodded. He hated to leave her alone like this, but he needed to get to the morgue, see if they'd identified the dead bodies of the two intruders, and then call his DHS contact. Find out how the hell Vargas' team got to the safe house so fast, where they got their information.
He pulled her tighter and she didn't resist him when he lifted her chin, tracing his thumb along her lower lip. "You going to be okay?"
Her mouth quivered but she nodded bravely.
"That's my girl." He touched his lips to her mouth briefly and hugged her, liking the warm, full softness of her against him. "We'll get this son of a bitch, Isabella," he whispered in her ear, the hair at her temple soft against his cheek. "I swear to God we'll get him."
#
Rafe's cell phone rang as he was climbing into his car.
"Hashish, old man, where are you?"
"Max? What the hell?" He inserted the key in the ignition and fastened his seat belt with his free hand. "Where am I supposed to be?"
"Uh, at the airport? Picking me up?" Jensen laughed. "Dude, you forgot about me, didn't you?"
"Ah, Christ, Max, all hell broke loose here." He backed the car out of the parking space and headed toward Douglas Boulevard. "Yeah, I forgot. Okay, I'm about an hour away. Hang out till I get there, okay?"
"Nah, I'll get a taxi. Just give me your motel and room number and I'll meet you there."
"You sure, man?"
"Hell, yes. Don't worry about me, Hashish. I'm a big boy. I know how to make my way around."
Rafe stopped by the courthouse to pick up the coroner's report and a stack of documents. When he reached his motel over an hour later, Max was waiting inside the room.
He'd flashed his police badge and finagled the desk clerk into letting him in. Now he sat on the worn floral occasional chair, his feet propped up on a coffee table, a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and a glass in the other.
"How long you been here?" Rafe asked, surprised the detective had gotten there first, considering the distance from the airport.
"Just walked in." Max took a deep swallow and refilled his glass.
Judging by the near-empty bottle, Rafe knew it wasn't his first drink. Even though Max was close to being wasted, he didn't slur his words. Rafe remembered that in college, Max could drink his frat brothers under the table and still ace an early-morning exam the next day.
"So, what's the big disaster here in Podunk, California?" Max asked.
"Our sole witness in the Vargas case – the girl I told you about – was murdered this morning," Rafe said, suddenly bone-weary and wanting to sleep more than anything else.
"No shit!" Max exclaimed. "What happened?"
Max already knew about the hit on the transportation van and the deaths of the other eight girls and the drivers. Because the two men had California drivers' licenses, Rafe had asked Max to run their names through the L.A. databases. No hits, but Rafe had figured the licenses were fakes anyway.
"Long, sad story," Rafe answered, loosening his tie and slipping off his shoes.
He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his linked fingers. "Christ, Max, I'm so tired of this crap. Vargas and his organization have destroyed so many lives." He thought of Isabella and her sister Maria, of the drug overdoses and the girls sold into prostitution. "If I don't nail this son-of-a-bitch soon, I'll go nuts."
"You will, old man, you will."
Rafe shrugged and flipped open his cell phone. "God, I hope so." He punched in the speed dial number for Agent McNally at the Department of Homeland Security.
"Excuse me
just a minute." Rafe stepped into the bathroom, lowered the toilet seat, and sat down.
When McNally answered on the other end of the line, Rafe went through the security code protocol even though he felt like a fool. Through the crack in the bathroom door, he could see Max laughing and made a circle with his forefinger at his temple.
"Did you find anything on the prints?" Rafe asked when McNally paused long enough for him to get a word in. He'd called DHS to run the prints on the Mexican van drivers when Max hadn't come up with anything.
"Zip. Which is suspicious in itself."
"What about the girl Esperanza?"
"The Mexican police don't have anything on her, not even a missing person's report."
"Damn." Rafe rubbed at the growing pain in his right temple.
"You've got a leak on your end, Agent Hashemi, and you'd better plug it quick."
"Or what, McNally? Or you'll take over the case? Don't be an ass. And don't be so sure the leak isn't on your end." He snapped the phone shut, wondering just how long it'd be before his superiors pulled him off the Vargas case.
"Trouble?" Max asked when Slater left the bathroom.
"A shit storm," Rafe growled. "There's a leak from somewhere and I'm worried it's in my own department."
"Anyone in mind?" Max asked.
Rafe took three aspirin, downed them with a swig from the liquor bottle. "Not a single idea."
Rafe parted company with Max thirty minutes later, and on the way back to the courthouse, he ran the names over in his mind again. Who he'd talked to, even tangentially, about the case, who'd have access to his files, who could be bought off and who couldn't.
By the time he arrived at his temporary office, he'd narrowed the list down to two people, and he didn't think either one was capable of this kind of betrayal. The leaks had to be in one or both of the two county sheriffs' offices. Or Homeland Security.
Not in DEA.
Chapter Thirty-one
When Slater was wheeled from recovery to his room in the intensive care unit, the nurse warned Bella to limit her visit to the allotted five minutes. "He's stable, but critical," the horse-faced woman in her starched white uniform ordered, "so don't tire him out."
Bella stared at his swollen and bruised face. Tubes and IV lines, along with an oxygen hookup and other machinery made him look like a recovering Frankenstein. He was naked from the waist up and his chest bandaged in criss-crossed sections. His eyes jerked under the closed lids.
The purple and red flesh of his left shoulder contrasted starkly against the white bandage that covered the spot where the first bullet had been removed. A second bullet had struck a rib from the back, but fortunately missed the lung and the spine. Another bandage wrapped around his right thigh where the third bullet penetrated the skin and barely missed the femoral artery.
"Slater," Bella whispered, touching his arm gently.
He grimaced briefly and opened his eyes a moment later. "Hey, Torres. Glad you're here." He struggled to sit up.
"Oh, no, big fellow. The nurse will skin me alive." Bella carefully pressed him back on the slightly-elevated bed. "And where else would I be but here at a time like this?"
He groaned. "Whoa, I'm weak as a kitten. World's spinning a little."
"You've been through major surgery." She fiddled with the covers and plumped up the pillow. "But the doctor says you'll be fine. Eventually."
He sighed and glanced at the tubes and machines surrounding him. "A hell of a thing."
She pulled up a chair beside the bed and sat down. "I was worried about you." She patted his arm, almost afraid to stop touching him. "Your mom called. She'll be here tomorrow."
"And Kate?"
"She's flying back from D.C." Slater's girlfriend Kate Myers was on special assignment in Washington.
"I don't want them to worry about me." He stared down at his hands, the tube that ran from his arm, the monitors on his chest.
"Can you recall any details of what happened?"
Slater's jaw tightened under the pallor of his skin. "I've been remembering them since my mind crawled out of the damn anesthesia."
His eyes clouded with pain when he looked up at her. "Manuel Ruiz – that damn Ruiz – he was the leak in the department. In my own house!" His fist tightened on top of the covers and he winced when the IV line pulled.
"Ruiz, the new deputy?" Bella gasped. "How do you know?"
"He killed Harris."
"No, no, Harris is okay, recovering, probably faster than you. Big bump on his head, though, You saved his life, Ben." She lowered her voice. "Not McKidd, he's dead."
"Ah, hell, McKidd was a good man." Slater breathed a bleak sigh. "I saw the second shooter go down from my bullet, but when I passed out, Ruiz was aiming his weapon at Harris' head. I was sure he'd killed Waylon."
"No, he's okay, but are you sure about Ruiz, Slater? He's dead, too."
"Hell yes, I saw his face. He was definitely after me and Harris, probably killed McKidd, too."
"I can't believe it," she said. "He seemed so ... friendly."
"How could I have made a mistake like that? I vetted Ruiz personally."
"He must've been deep," she said, covering his hand.
He shook his head, throwing off the words of comfort. "I trained him myself. I totally bought that young Hispanic pulling himself up by his bootstraps crap!"
"Nothing popped on him?"
"Nothing. No priors, no gang affiliations. Zip."
"That's all you could've done," she said, "but it makes you wonder why something didn't flag on him when you ran the check. A person doesn't go overnight from a clean record to a hired killer."
Slater was silent a moment, thinking. "Only one way he could've gotten by my screening."
Bella shook her head and frowned, not understanding.
"Deep cover, like you said, but with an assist from someone with deep pockets," he said with grim satisfaction. "Vargas must have recruited Ruiz, kept him clean for years, and placed him in my house."
"To be used like this," Bella finished, understanding at last. "When he needed him inside a police department."
"To silence a witness," Slater ground out.
"He was supposed to kill all three of you – Harris, McKidd, and you."
"Son of a bitch!"
She frowned thoughtfully. "But why get rid of Ruiz? Why would Vargas invest so much in an inside man and then kill him?"
Slater shook his head silently, suddenly looking wan and weary.
"Time for me to go." Bella watched the head nurse stroll by and peer through the glass doors of the ICU room. Checking up on her, she supposed. "The East German nurse just slipped by, spying on us."
Slater tried to laugh, but clutched his side. "Tell Harris to visit me before he's discharged."
But at that moment Harris popped into the hospital room, glancing guiltily behind him and hopping in on a crutch. When his eyes fell on Slater, stretched out like a mummy on the narrow bed, wires all over the place, his face turned dusty. "Ah, hell, Sheriff, are you as bad off as you look?"
"I always liked your tact, Waylon."
"Sorry, sir."
"Looks like you're healing up nice."
Harris tapped his thigh, wrapped in a waterproof cast. "Yeah, I was pretty lucky. The bullet cracked the bone, caused a slow bleed. Otherwise I'd be dead."
He hovered over Slater's bedside and looked seriously into the sheriff's face. "And, 'course, a slug to the head woulda been the end of me." Harris looked solemn while gratitude molded his dark face. "Thanks."
"What are you talking about?" Bella asked, feeling panic rise in her throat. "You didn't tell me about a bullet to the head."
"Slater managed to deflect a bullet meant to kill me. Damn Ruiz – excuse me, ma'am – he tried to take me out. Me, his partner." Anger and indignation glistened on his brow like a slick sheen of sweat.
"Well, Ruiz is gone now," Slater said with deadly pleasure. Bella had never heard him so satisfied over someone's d
eath. "One of the assassins shot him."
"Vargas doesn't want anyone alive to testify against him," Bella said.
"Probably he'll have the last shooter alive killed, too," Harris said, turning to Slater. "What about you? How long before they let you go home?"
"A week, maybe," Slater answered, but Bella was certain it'd be longer. Dark shadowy smudges lay beneath his eyes, and he looked drawn and bone-tired.
The nurse entered, eyeing both Bella and Harris. "What's going on here?" she demanded in a strident voice. "I thought I made it clear – one patient at a time, five minutes, no more."
Properly chastened, Bella kissed Slater on the cheek. "I was just leaving," she murmured, heading for the door.
But Harris simply glowered at the nurse, and against the threat of his large frame, she retreated with a loud humph and a noisy stomp. Bella waited quietly at the door.
"Better get back to your bed, Harris," Slater advised, catching Bella's eye, "or the East German nurse will have your ass."
Harris laughed his deep belly chuckle and then turned solemn. He gripped Slater's hand, the one without the IV catheter, and squeezed hard.
"Ben," he choked out, "I ... I can't ..."
"I know, Waylon. Me too," Slater said gruffly. "Go on, deputy, get out of here."
#
All Bella could think of as she left the hospital was coming up with a proposal to entice Santos into turning on Diego Vargas. She had a twinge of guilt at keeping the plan from Slater, but one voice of opposition – and Rafe's was loud and clear – was as much as she could handle.
How on earth had Vargas managed to maintain cover so deep in Bigler County? A rabidly vicious man, nonetheless, he wasn't particularly clever. He tended to react rather than act. She didn't think he could have kept such wide-range and tight control of his organization without a lot of help from men far smarter than him.
Santos, for one. And a whole slew of traitor cops – Sacramento, Nevada, even in Bigler County where Slater was so scrupulous about investigating his new candidates. The hierarchy and organizational structure had to have been in effect for years, decades even.
The enormity of it boggled her mind.
