But who would protect her? She was out here on her own with no one to watch her back. No matter. She had a job to do.
She scanned the visitors’ parking lot. Seeing no one who seemed to be lying in wait for her, she got out of her car and headed inside the jail, where she signed the visitors’ log and showed her badge to the officer behind the desk.
“Luisa Moreno from the Federal Police. I’m here to meet with Salvador Perez.”
The log was divided into three columns: Date, Visitor’s Name, and Prisoner’s Name. She scanned the list of names to see if Salvador Perez’s name was listed and who might have come to see him. Fortunately or unfortunately—she couldn’t decide which—her search came up empty.
The officer came around the desk and patted her down, then waved her on.
“We’ve set you up in interview room number three,” he said. “It’s the second door on your right. Go in and have a seat. The guards will bring the prisoner in shortly.”
On her previous visit to the jail, Luisa had attempted to speak with Salvador Perez over the phone through a thick pane of glass. Surrounded by nearly a dozen other prisoners having conversations with their lawyers and loved ones, Perez hadn’t had much to offer other than advice on the myriad ways she could go fuck herself.
The surroundings for their second meeting had changed. The circumstances had as well. Would Perez continue to keep the secrets of an organization that wanted them both dead, or had the brutal murders of his family managed to convince him to share what he knew?
She placed her notebook and a small tape recorder on the table and waited for Perez to arrive. She pressed record when the door opened. Perez came into the room with a guard holding on to each arm. Shackles around his ankles forced him to shuffle rather than walk. The handcuffs around his wrists were secured to a thick chain wrapped around his waist, preventing him from raising his arms more than a few inches. The guards forced him into a metal chair and secured him in place by cuffing his hands to a metal bar bolted to the table and his feet to a thick ring secured to the floor.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to talk to you,” Perez said. “Talking to you is what got my whole family killed.”
“I didn’t get a chance to speak with the members of your family, Salvador. They were dead before I made it to Agua Dulce. Are you going to tell me who killed them, or should I wait for Gilberto Ruiz to take you out, too?”
Perez’s left eye twitched. Luisa had expected the mention of Ruiz’s name to elicit a reaction, though she hadn’t expected one quite so visceral.
“We arrested him this morning after he gave me this.” Luisa indicated the bandage around her arm. “If you ask the guards nicely, maybe the two of you can be cell mates after he’s processed.”
“You can’t do that. Ruiz is a stone cold killer. I’m just a…”
Perez’s voice trailed off. The guilty expression on his face was almost comical. If Luisa had caught him doing something other than indirectly admitting to having ties to the Jaguars’ organization, she might have laughed.
“You’re just a what? A wannabe? A little boy pretending to be a big man? After you spend a few hours with Gilberto Ruiz, we’ll see if you’re ready for the big time.”
Luisa slammed her notebook shut and rose from the table. Perez lunged toward her but, thanks to being cuffed in place, he didn’t get far.
“Wait.”
He stretched his hands as far as he could, pleading for her not to go.
Luisa resumed her seat.
“Do you have something you want to say to me?”
“I’m dead if I help you, and I’m dead if I stay in here.”
Perez balled his hands into fists. He looked like an animal caught in a trap. So desperate to escape he would gnaw off his own extremities if it meant he could find freedom.
“Then tell me who I’m looking for. Who’s the leader of the Jaguars? What does he look like? Where does he live?”
“I only know what I need to know. I take orders from a guy who takes them from someone else. Even the guy they fear the most isn’t the one in charge. He’s just taking orders like everybody else.”
“Names, Salvador. Give me names.” Luisa spread the photos of the four unidentified men on the table. “Who are they?” She tapped one of the photos with her finger. “This one has the same ink across his stomach that you do. Did you know him, or do you simply want to be him when you grow up? A nameless corpse with no one left to mourn him.”
He laughed bitterly. “Thanks to you, I already am.”
Luisa fought down a wave of guilt.
“Your family’s deaths are on your head, not mine, Salvador. They died because someone wanted to intimidate you into keeping his identity safe. What are you hoping to receive in return, a hefty payment for your loyalty? You’re more likely to get shanked in the shower or, if you’re lucky enough to make it out of here, shot execution-style in a back alley the second you hit the street.”
Perez stared at her wordlessly. He put up a good front, but she could see his façade starting to crumble.
“Like you said, you’re dead if you stay and you’re dead if you go. If you keep following the path you’re on, your life won’t be worth anything. But if you help me, you’ll have meaning. Help me, Salvador.”
“You’re making me out to be some kind of hero. Where I come from, snitches ain’t heroes. Even if I did help you find who you’re looking for, how are you going to protect me? You can’t even protect yourself.”
He let his eyes drift to the bandage on her arm, but Luisa didn’t take hers off his face.
“Why did you ask me to stay if all you plan to do is sit here and waste my time? Perhaps I should be talking to Gilberto Ruiz instead. Maybe he’ll be more willing to make a deal than you are.”
Director Chavez himself was on his way to interview Ruiz. Ruiz had been through this song and dance so many times Luisa suspected he was too tough to break. She hoped Perez wouldn’t see through her bluff.
Tears welled in Perez’s eyes and slowly rolled down his cheeks. He tried to knuckle them away, but his hands couldn’t reach that far.
“If I knew something, don’t you think I’d tell you?” He turned his face toward the wall, too embarrassed to show he wasn’t as heartless as he pretended to be. “My little sister was only four years old. When I think about what they did to her and the rest of my family…” His chains rattled against the table as his body shook with sobs. “I don’t know who the fucking leader of the Jaguars is. I can’t help you, Officer. I wish I could.”
Luisa waited for him to regain his composure before she tried again.
“Do you know who any of these men are?” she asked, indicating the photographs laid out before him.
Perez wiped his runny nose on his shoulder.
“The one with the tat? He’s my uncle, Marcos. When I was a kid, I wanted to be just like him one day. He had it all. Money, cars, plenty of bitches—I mean women. When I turned sixteen, he introduced me to a guy he said could get me paid. I started doing some work for him.”
“What was the man’s name?”
“Hernan Cisneros,” he said, naming the low-level dealer who had been arrested sitting on a five-million-dollar stash. “Hernan said if I worked hard, I could move up. He said he thought I could be a hitter like my uncle.”
“By hitter, you mean hit man?”
Perez nodded.
“Hitters have jaguar tattoos on their left forearm. They get one after they make their first kill. When I saw that bandage on your arm, I thought you might be one of us. But you can’t be because you’re still alive. When a hitter betrays the Jaguars, they kill him and cut off his tattoo. Except the tattoo comes off before he dies, not after, so he can feel the pain.”
“Is that what happened to your uncle and the rest of these men?”
Perez nodded again.
“Hernan killed my uncle and the other guys in those pictures because word came down from on high that they co
uldn’t be trusted to keep their mouths shut about who they worked for. My uncle liked to party. When he got too much mescal in his system, he liked to talk. A lot. Those other guys were the same way.”
“Did Hernan remove their tattoos?”
“He said the boss told him they didn’t deserve to wear them anymore. He tied each of them to a chair, peeled off their tats, and shot them in the head. When he was done, he was supposed to toss their bodies in a fifty-gallon drum, douse them with gas, and burn them, but I guess he either got lazy or ran out of time.”
Luisa scribbled furiously in her notebook. Even though the conversation was being recorded, she preferred to track it the old-fashioned way.
“What else did Hernan say?”
“That the boss knows all and sees all and we shouldn’t expect to get away with anything or the Carver would make us pay.”
“The Carver?” That was a new name. She hadn’t seen it mentioned in any of Carlos Ramos’s case files. She wrote it down and underlined it for emphasis. “Who’s the Carver?”
Perez shrugged. “Someone I never hope to meet.”
Luisa grilled him for another thirty minutes, but he didn’t reveal anything else of note. Instead of heading directly to the office, she stuck around the parking lot hoping to touch base with Director Chavez first. She wanted to know what, if anything, he was able to glean from his interrogation of Gilberto Ruiz.
While she waited, she sat in her car and tried to wrap her head around everything Perez had told her. She felt like she was trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together. She had assembled the pieces that formed the frame, but she couldn’t get the ones in the middle to fit.
She checked her watch. Twelve thirty. Finn should be on her way back from Chichén Itzá. She decided to call her now instead of waiting until tonight.
“Hopefully, her day was better than mine.”
When she powered up her phone and saw the video Finn had sent her, she realized her day was about to get much worse.
❖
Finn had set the ringer on her phone to vibrate so she wouldn’t draw any more attention from the relief bus driver than she was already receiving. She brought her cell to her ear when it buzzed in her hand.
“Luisa? Thank God.”
“Finn, what’s going on?” Luisa’s voice sounded concerned but calm. Free of the growing panic that was gripping Finn by the throat. “Are you all right?”
“I’m alive. That’s all I can say for now. Did you get the video I sent you?”
“That’s why I’m calling.”
“Is it real?” Finn asked. Her heart rate kicked up a few more notches as she waited for the answer.
“I don’t know yet. Several guests and employees from some of the neighboring properties reported hearing gunshots coming from the Mariposa. The resort’s head of security called the local police station to say everything was fine and the gunshots were part of some kind of exhibition being put on for the guests. As a precaution, local police were dispatched to check things out for themselves.”
“What did they find?” Finn gripped Ryan’s hand as they tried to offer each other support.
“They haven’t reported back yet.”
Ryan squeezed Finn’s hand to get her attention, then arched her eyebrows inquisitively. Her shoulders drooped in defeat when Finn shook her head to indicate Luisa didn’t have any more information about what was going on at the Mariposa than they did.
“I’m scared, Luisa. How did those people know my name? What could they possibly want from me?”
“If I’m right, they’re using you to get to me. Remember the Jaguars, the drug cartel you asked me about earlier in the week? I’m getting close to finding out who their leader is, but someone doesn’t want me to get any closer. They’re going after me and everyone I care about.”
“Some drug dealer wants to k-k-kill me to send you a m-m-message?” Finn pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to remain focused. “How does he know you and I knew each other?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t mentioned you to anyone. No one except the woman who lives across the hall from me, but I can’t see her being involved in this in any way. These guys are good. Someone must have seen us in Dallas and put two and two together. Where are you now?”
“On the bus. I know what road we’re on, but I can’t see a mile marker.”
“That’s okay. If I have to, I can use the cell towers to track your phone. Keep it powered on just in case. Are you headed back to the resort?”
“Yes. We left Chichén Itzá a little while ago, and we’re supposed to arrive at the Mariposa by two thirty. I have to admit I’m afraid to see what we might find when we get there.”
She couldn’t stop imagining what might have happened at the resort after Jill’s video went black. She hated to consider the awful possibility that the terrible images in her head might have actually come to pass.
“Everything’s going to be fine, Finn, but let’s focus on one thing at a time, okay? Did anything unusual happen during your trip?”
“Aside from receiving a video showing a group of armed m-m-men taking over my hotel and holding everyone inside h-h-hostage?”
“Focus, Finn,” Luisa said, gently but forcefully bringing her back to the subject at hand. “Focus and breathe.”
Finn felt her nerves begin to settle. How did Luisa know exactly what to say to help her control her stutter? Another question to ask her when this nightmare was over.
“Did anything happen in Chichén Itzá?” Luisa asked. “Did you see anyone or anything out of the ordinary? Anyone who might be following you?”
Finn glanced at Javier, who again seemed to be staring at her.
“Everything was fine on the first half of the trip, but we changed drivers for the return trip and the new one gives me the creeps. He keeps looking at me and I don’t know why.”
“What does he look like?”
“He’s Mexican. Short. Skinny. Dark hair. He kind of looks like one of the vendors I saw selling figurines in the market at the site, but I can’t say for sure. I wish I had paid more attention to his face than his hands.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. Take a look at him now and let me know if you think he’s the same man you saw earlier.”
Finn took a harder look at Javier. If she took away the baseball cap and sunglasses, he was a dead ringer for the man she had seen carving a jaguar from a block of wood.
“He’s wearing long sleeves now, so I can’t tell if he has a tattoo on his arm, but I think it’s the same guy.”
“Was the tattoo of a jaguar?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.” Luisa had gasped when Finn confirmed what type of tattoo the man had. She sounded really excited now. “Do you know his name?”
“Our guide said his name was Javier.”
“Javier what?”
“Richard didn’t say.”
“Can you take a picture of Javier without him seeing you do it?”
“I already did. I took several back at Chichén Itzá when I was watching him work. I planned to use them for my story. Wait. Those pictures are on my camera, not my phone. I can’t access them without a computer.”
She looked around the bus, but no one seemed to be pecking away on a laptop. Why would they? They were supposed to be on vacation, after all. A nice, relaxing escape from the troubles and pressures of the real world. So much for that.
“Hold on. Let me see if I can get another photo.”
She leaned into the aisle. Javier seemed to be looking at the road instead of her for a change. She quickly snapped a shot of his face in the bus’s oversized rearview mirror and ducked back into her seat.
“Did you get it?” she asked after she forwarded the photo to Luisa.
“Yes. It’s uploading now.” Luisa paused, then inhaled sharply. “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I think I just solved a mystery. I need to talk to my boss ASAP. Hold tight and l
et me know if anything changes. I’ll call you back as soon as I can, okay?”
Finn could practically hear the adrenaline coursing through Luisa’s veins. It sounded as loud as waves crashing in the ocean. “Luisa?”
“Yes?”
“Should I be worried?”
The length of time Luisa took to answer her question told Finn everything she needed to know.
“I’m going to get you out of this, mariposa. I promise.”
Finn bit her lip to keep from crying. She had been in dangerous situations many times before on her trips, but she had never felt as close to death as she did now.
“Ya’aburnee. Do you remember what that means?”
“I remember,” Luisa said softly. “It means ‘you bury me.’ But that’s not going to happen. No one I love is going to die today. That includes you, Finn. I have to go, but I will call you back, okay?”
“Okay.” Finn knew she couldn’t stay on the phone much longer without raising Javier’s suspicion, but she was reluctant to let go of her only lifeline. “Luisa?”
“Yes?”
“I love you, too.”
And when this ordeal was over, she hoped to be able to say it to her face.
❖
One of Luisa’s favorite guilty pleasures was action movies. The mindless car chases, countless gun battles, and laughter-inducing dialogue were as filled with empty calories as the popcorn she devoured while she watched them. Her favorite male action star was Jason Statham. In one of his early movies, he played a hit man who had to keep his adrenaline flowing or he would die. She needed hers to stop if she wanted Finn, everyone on the bus, and the women trapped inside the Mariposa Resort to live.
She took several deep breaths to try to get her nerves under control, but her nerves started jangling again as soon as she tried to figure out how she was supposed to be in three places at once. She needed to question Mrs. Villalobos to see if her suspicions about her were correct, she needed to be in Tinúm to intercept the bus Finn was riding in, and she needed to be in Cancún so she could help rescue the women who were being held hostage.
But where was she supposed to start? If she didn’t get to her apartment building in time, Mrs. Villalobos might escape and establish a false identity somewhere else. If she didn’t send someone to stop the bus, Javier could pull over and slaughter everyone on it. And if local law enforcement wasn’t able to penetrate the Jaguars’ defenses at the Mariposa, they could have a bloodbath on their hands.
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