The Traitor

by Jo Robertson

  Her eyes widened in disbelief and then closed in agony. "It's Maria." Her fingers covered her mouth as if she'd vomit the grief out of her body.

  "Sí, your sister."

  She swiveled around in her chair, presenting her back to him. He barely heard the muffled sounds of her grief. Ay, a strong woman.

  She had immediately recognized the significance of the bright dress and garish makeup on the face of the young woman in the photo. Santos waited for the emotion to pass, for Isabella to absorb the pain of seeing the photograph, to ask for the details of her sister's life.

  "Is she alive?" The question came from a stone voice, as though she had cemented her sorrow behind a wall.

  "Do we have an agreement?" he countered.

  "Be specific."

  Santos' voice was fierce with certainty. "There must be no misunderstanding in this plea bargain. Full immunity for particulars about your sister's death."

  He knew if she gave her word, she would see that the agreement held. She would not break her bond. But her pause was longer than he had anticipated.

  Did the little lawyer desire his incarceration so badly that she would forego information about her beloved sister? Had he misread her?

  But finally she nodded, bobbing her head up and down as though she could not stop the action once it was in motion.

  "Is she alive?" she repeated, her voice an immeasurable sea of torture.

  "No."

  He thought he heard a small sigh.

  "When did she die?"

  "Within a year after she disappeared."

  Anger whipped her around, and the wet splotches on her face glinted like sun on steel. "She was taken, kidnapped. She did not disappear."

  He inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Sí, she was kidnapped. Secuestrado."

  "And you had something to do with it."

  "Sí, along with Diego Vargas."

  She flinched at the name. "I knew it."

  "I can give you specific details," Santos offered, locking eyes with her, "of your sister's last months."

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Rafe hadn't been this drunk since college.

  He had to hand it to Max. The man still held his liquor like an Irishman. They'd spent hours reminiscing and yakking about the good old days, talked about Max's wife Shirley and what had gone wrong with the marriage.

  All the time Rafe realized his good friend Max was keeping him under wraps.

  Rafe hadn't mentioned the Vargas case. Not once, although Max had broached the topic several times and Rafe had deflected the questions, acting far more inebriated that he was.

  Finally Max had laughed and said, "I'm too damn curious for my own good."

  "Killed the cat, they say." Rafe chuckled, the sound hollow to his ears.

  "Bite me, old buddy." Max laughed again and pointed Rafe toward the guest room.

  Now this morning, sprawled half dressed on a bed without linens, Rafe squinted blearily through the slats of the blinds, then eyed his wristwatch and groped for his cell phone. Not on the bedside stand where he'd left it. Crap, Isabella would worry about him, probably had left several messages.

  After relieving himself and splashing cold water on his face, he walked cautiously, favoring his pounding head, into the kitchen where his shoes and jacket lay near a bar stool. His tie and trousers were neatly draped over the bar itself. Max's work, surely not Rafe's.

  No phone.

  "When did you know for sure?"

  Max's voice sounded behind him and Rafe whirled, reaching for his weapon, which he realized immediately wasn't holstered where it should be, securely under his left arm.

  It dangled from Max's fingers.

  He'd known, dammit! Why had he been so careless? He'd known! In his gut he'd known all along.

  Rafe considered bluffing it out, but knew by Max's expression that it was a lost cause. "For sure? Right now."

  Max scratched the back of his head, retrieved the missing cell phone from his pocket, and shook his head with a genuine look of remorse. "I'm really going to hate this, Hashish, old man."

  "Then don't do it." Rafe took a half step forward.

  "Too late for that, I'm afraid. I'm in too deep."

  "We can work something out, Max." Another half step forward. "Please."

  "I can't go to prison, Rafe. You know that, even federal. I'd be dead within a month."

  "Protective isolation." Another half step.

  "Don't bullshit a bullshitter, Hash. I know the reality."

  "Why?" Rafe asked and heard the echo of anguish in his own voice. "Was it the money?"

  Max laughed bitterly. "Fuck, yes. What else? You know what a cop makes. You know Shirley's tastes. And L.A., man, who can live there without having a fortune?"

  Filthy lucre, Rafe thought. People dead because Max wanted money.

  Max must've read the disgust in Rafe's expression. "Don't judge me, Hashish." His voice hardened. "Don't you dare judge me. I tried, God knows I tried hard to resist."

  He brandished the gun dramatically, emphasizing his point. "It was just the little stuff at first. You know how it goes." He laughed bitterly. "Or maybe you don't. You got the lucky breaks all your life. You don't have a wife and kids. You don't know what it's like."

  "I'm sorry," Rafe murmured, thinking how true it was. He didn't know. He'd rather die than dishonor his commitment to the department. He felt like weeping or howling or just lashing out with his fists.

  But he stood quietly and eased another half step forward. "I'm really sorry, Max."

  "Yeah, me too."

  Rafe anticipated the move a millimeter of a second before it showed in Max's eyes, spun sideways and kicked out, landing the intended blow to Max's shin before the gun exploded and he felt the sharp, deadly burn in his upper chest. Ah, shit, he thought as he toppled to the floor.

  #

  Santos waited patiently while Isabella Torres paced the interior of her office, pausing occasionally to stare at him as if the sun rose or set tomorrow based on her imminent decision. Perhaps for her it did.

  After several long minutes, he dangled the bait again. "I can tell you every single detail – names, places, dates – but I do not think you will wish to know them all."

  Indeed Santos wished he did not know about the last years of the girl's life, the final moments of her suffering.

  He'd come upon Maria several months after she'd been delivered to La Casa de Mujeras. Sheer accident caused him to be in the hall at that moment on that particular night. She still had some fight remaining in her then, a defiance and will not yet broken that he admired.

  Ay, she was so very beautiful and as a young man he was half in love with her at the moment he first looked at her. When she saw him, she recognized him and threw her slender body into his arms, clutched his waist, and begged him to return her to her home.

  But Santos knew there was no going back for the lovely Latina. She could not return from the difficult road she had walked. He wanted to explain this to her, but at that moment, Diego stepped from the room he usually occupied when he stayed at the whore house.

  Without a word, he jerked the girl from Santos' arms and cuffed her with the back of his hand. When she landed on the carpeted hall, he kicked her with the toe of his boot, but not too hard because damaged merchandise was not valuable.

  Isabella Torres turned toward the window, wrapping her arms around her waist as if to keep the core of herself – heart, lungs, soul – from spilling out.

  While he waited for the attorney to make her decision, Santos remembered the night Maria had died, five years after she'd been among the very first vanload of girls that came over the border from Mexico.

  Diego was in a foul mood that matched the nasty fog settling in the Central Valley during that winter. As his driver, Santos kept one eye on the dangerous, fog-slicked road and one on the rearview mirror where Diego sat with the dull-eyed and lackluster girl. She had aged ten years since Santos had last seen her, track marks on her arms i
ndicated the drugs used to subdue her, and she no longer spoke to anyone, let alone appealed to the boss's bodyguard.

  When Diego began to paw at the girl's clothing, she simply lay back on the leather upholstery and spread her legs. Santos knew she would not last long. Already she was past the age of girls that held Diego's interest. In truth, Santos did not know why the boss had kept her so long. If she did not die of a drug overdose, she would surely perish at the hands of Vargas' insatiable violence or one of the patrons he passed her off to.

  When Isabella Torres turned back to him, Santos saw the steel in her jaw and the determination in her eyes. "Yes, I want the details," she said. "I want to know every single moment of her life after she was stolen from us."

  "Pero, por supuesto. But, of course. Ask the questions and I will answer."

  "Did she suffer?"

  Santos shrugged. "How does one measure the suffering of another person?"

  "Don't play games with me," she snapped. "You are getting – what did you call it? – an excellent deal." She sat down, leaned forward across the desk, her hands bracing her tight body. "Did. She. Suffer?"

  "Solamente un poco. Only a little. She was not passed from man to man as the other girls were, but stayed with one protector the entire time." A lie, but perhaps a small consolation, although, in truth, Santos did not know why he bothered with it.

  "Vargas?"

  "Sí."

  "You expect me to believe a man like Vargas treated her well?" Her face had lost all color, but her voice dripped with scorn.

  "Believe what you wish, but Diego Vargas was a younger man then and he seemed fond of her in his own way. Perhaps his later ... proclivities were not fully developed."

  She nodded slowly. He realized with surprise that she believed him and took some comfort in the false knowledge.

  "How did she die?"

  Santos had driven the girl and Vargas to a very upscale motel. The fog was a deadly blanket that made further driving northeast to Sacramento impossible. He booked two adjoining rooms, one for himself and one for the girl and his boss. Why Diego had taken the girl with him on this particular trip Santos did not know at the time, but later the truth of his boss's actions became clear. He had another, younger girl waiting for him in Nevada.

  "She perished in a car accident," Santos answered. "She and Diego were going from Los Angeles to Sacramento by automobile. Passing through Modesto, we hit a severe fog bank. That is when the accident occurred." So easy to sequester a lie within the truth, he thought.

  "You were driving?"

  "Sí. The car rolled over several times. Diego and I were trapped in the vehicle, but the girl was thrown from it."

  The noises had come through the walls separating the two motel rooms several hours after Santos had fallen asleep. The sounds woke him up and he lay in the darkened room, listening for signs that he was needed. Another loud thump.

  He knocked on the adjoining door. "El Jefe, is everything all right?"

  No sound but the dull thud of pounding and then Diego's heavy breathing, a guttural nastiness that Santos knew well.

  "¿Diego, qué usted?"

  "¡Nada!" the man growled through the door while the steady, sick thumping of flesh on flesh continued.

  Santos shouldered the door open and took in the scene at a glance.

  "Did she die quickly?" Isabella Torres asked.

  "Yes. Instantly. She did not suffer. I tried to perform emergency medical aid at the scene." He spread his hands in a sign of futility. "But she was dead before the ambulance arrived. Very quickly."

  Great glimmering tears pooled in Isabella's dark eyes, but she did not allow them to fall. "There was no police report?"

  "There are ways to cover up such matters."

  "Of course."

  A long, sad sigh flowed from her mouth like a funeral dirge filling the room.

  "Diego Vargas is a man with many faults, many sins," he reassured her, "but Maria's death is not one of them. He treated her with care. He may have been a bit in love with her."

  Santos looked at the unlit tip of his cigarillo and realized he was not speaking of El Vaquero at all, but of the long-ago, foolish boy-man who had been Gabriel Santos.

  The room had been a bloody mess, and the girl ceased to breathe long after Diego continued to pummel her broken body with his fists and feet. Santos checked the pulse at her neck and closed the once-luminous eyes.

  "Get this fucking piece of shit out of here," Santos roared, sweat dripping down his face onto his already thickening body, his cock still hard and jutting from the thrill of beating the girl to death.

  Santos could not revive her, and he was a long time cleaning up the mess.

  "Is there evidence that I can use to tie her death to Diego Vargas?" Isabella Torres asked.

  Santos shook his head, sadness and relief warring within him. "The evidence disappeared long ago."

  "Then I will hang him with what you tell me."

  "Verdad."

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Three hours later, Santos had given the assistant district attorney all that she needed, and she had agreed to grant him full immunity in exchange for his testimony against Diego Vargas in a court of law.

  "I'll need to run this by the district attorney." Weary lines etched around her mouth and between her eyes. "But I don't anticipate any objections."

  In fact, Santos knew that Charles Barrington would be delighted that the ADA had resolved the case without further media criticism. And he would likely garner the credit for himself instead of giving it to her.

  "You can sign your official statement after it's processed," she said. "If Vargas finds out that you've informed on him, you won't survive long enough for the trial."

  Santos thought Isabella would not mind his death so much as losing him as a witness. He smiled and stretched his hand across the desk. Surprisingly, she extended hers and his large bear's paw engulfed her small hand like the mating of a giant and a dwarf. But her grip was firm and when she squeezed his hand, he knew that she was a survivor.

  He was glad that he had not told her the truth about her sister.

  Ay, ella era un ángel que se vengaba. The little lawyer was an avenging angel.

  As soon as Santos left, Bella contacted Rafe on his cell phone. "It's done" was all she said when it went straight to voice mail.

  Then she called Slater at the hospital. "He gave you everything?"

  "Yes."

  "Names, dates, places?"

  "All of it."

  "That's great." Slater's voice sounded strained over the line. "How did you manage it?"

  "I'll drop by the hospital and tell you later."

  "Bella, wait. Are you okay?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, sure."

  The stress of the last few days rushed in like a storm to rip out her last ounce of strength. She hated the weakness, but she didn't want to return to her empty house. She didn't want her imagination about Maria to choke her mind like a poisonous vine.

  She wanted someone to help her forget. She needed Rafe.

  Although she didn't really want to spend time around Jensen, she did want Rafe. She wanted to cuddle, pour her heart out, cry for her lost sister, say her last goodbye.

  Rafe could read the transcripted interview of the information Santos had given her. This was Rafe's case too and he should be in on the close of it. He wouldn't be happy about Santos getting off scot-free, but in the end he'd understand that the plea bargaining was all part of the prosecution chain. Vargas was the big fish.

  Before going to South Highland Heights, however, Bella stopped by the hospital to look in on Slater. It was early enough that no visitors had arrived yet, and she was happy to get him alone.

  After giving him the details on the Santos case, she waited for his comment, sure he'd be furious that she'd cut a deal with a man like Santos, but he remained silent.

  "Aren't you going to say anything?" she finally asked.

  "You did what you had to do, Bella.
No shame in that." Slater looked much better today and she now suspected his stay in the hospital would be shorter than she'd expected.

  "You know how I hate these plea bargains," she muttered.

  Slater knew only the bare bones of her sister's disappearance. She didn't want to tell him about the new photo and the story Santos had spun about her sister.

  She wanted to believe the tale of a car accident taking her sister's life. It was so much cleaner than the nightmares she'd had since she was old enough to know what stealing a teenaged girl meant.

  She told herself that Santos would have no reason to lie to her. He'd gain nothing from that.

  "Just be careful, Bella. Sometimes these things have a way of blowing up in your face."

  She looked at him sharply. "Do you think someone will get to Santos before he can testify?"

  Slater shrugged and swiped his big hand over his scruffy beard. "Who knows? There's gotta be another leak besides Manuel Ruiz."

  "No one knows about the plea bargain but you, me, Santos, and Rafe. Even Sanderson doesn't know what went on inside my office," she argued.

  "What about the meet yesterday? Did you have backup?"

  "They were cleared."

  "Anyone else?"

  "No, no one ... but ... " Her thoughts went to the phone messages she'd left Rafe and the company he kept. Her mind flipped to Max Jensen. Had he known about the first meet? Had he overheard details about the plea bargaining? Did he know about this morning's deal?

  "What, Bella?" Slater looked alarmed and the last thing she needed was him getting his blood pressure up when he was still recovering.

  "Nothing, nothing at all. Rafe's checked everyone out, so it's fine." She arranged the covers around him and plumped his pillows. "You take care of yourself, okay?"

  He grabbed her hand and pressed it against his chest. "Keep Rafe close to you," he warned. "He'll protect you."

  She laughed, kissing his cheek. "How do you know?"

  "Because I can see it in his eyes."

  "What do you see?"

  "He's half in love with you, Bella. He'll keep you safe."