Fade the Heat

by Colleen Thompson

  The driver gulped deep breath after deep breath and released them one by one. It cleared his head enough to fight back panic.

  And he smiled at the realization that he’d had the answer all along.

  He could do this. He’d watched and listened for so many years that he could think this thing out—he could further the contact’s goals and fix this—with the same skill as the man he had both hated and admired all his life.

  As he waited in the car, Jack watched Reagan talking to her photographer neighbor, the strawberry blonde whose telltale Adam’s apple and huge feet had brought Jack to the conclusion she must have begun life as a man.

  Not that Jack gave a damn about such trivia, especially after what he’d been through tonight. Though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d broken down and wept, he didn’t give a shit about that either—didn’t care about anything but finding Luz Maria, hugging her—and then possibly strangling her with his own hands.

  It occurred to him that she might have set up this whole thing at Sergio’s prompting. That the terrifying phone call and “crash” had been a put-on to clear the way for Luz Maria to run off with the father of her child.

  Was it possible his sister could have done something so hurtful? He could barely credit the idea, but up until this evening, he would have bet a year’s salary that she would never get mixed up with a violent radical group, either. Or risk his career by passing on one of his patient’s records.

  Some part of him whispered that it was easier to be furious with Luz Maria than to imagine she’d ended up like the poor, broken creature lying on the asphalt not fifty yards behind him. A person could get past rage, but that kind of grief—the sort of suffering the murder victim’s family would endure—would forever blight the lives of the survivors.

  And no matter how angry he was, how frustrated at the way she had allowed Sergio to brainwash her, Jack would always love his sister enough to hope that she remained both safe and happy. And to imagine some point in the future when the two of them might resolve their differences and heal.

  Reagan opened the driver’s-side door and climbed in. “I’ll take you home now, Jack. You need to wait there with your mother.”

  “But I thought we would go look—”

  “I’m sorry, Jack.” She shook her head. “But running all over the city isn’t going to help. Checking out more bodies won’t help, either. I’m worried about Luz Maria, too—that phone call really shook me. But tomorrow, if they’ll still have me, I’m going to help with the arrangements for my captain, a man I know for sure is dead.”

  If they’ll still have me…

  Swallowing hard, Jack wondered what he could not bring himself to ask: Had one of the firefighters on the scene recognized him and accused her, much as her friend Beau had this morning? Or was her conscience warring with her empathy? Either way, something had made her draw back from him in the minutes since the two of them had comforted each other.

  Yet the reason didn’t matter half so much as the painful suspicion that she was about to disappear from his life, to barricade herself behind the fire department’s unyielding wall of blue. “You’ll call me if you hear anything?”

  The car coughed and sputtered as she tried to start it. She pumped the gas pedal, then popped the dashboard with the bottom of her fist. “I’ve flooded the damned thing. It’ll take a minute before it wants to start up.”

  “About my sister,” he repeated. “If you find out anything, you won’t make me wait for an official phone call. Will you?”

  The look she shot him was decidedly annoyed. “You really think I’d do that? Then you don’t know me at all.”

  “Maybe I’d like to,” he said, so softly that the words faded into the sounds of the old engine turning over. “Maybe I’ve caught a glimpse of something under that tough-girl act of yours. Something I think might be worth the effort to uncover.”

  He thought he heard her swallow, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Instead, Reagan flicked on her turn signal and waited until the officer directing traffic waved her out into the lane.

  “Under other circumstances,” she said as the car picked up speed, “I might—I might see something in you, too, and some possibility for—”

  She shook her head and seemed to fight to force her next words free. “But these aren’t other circumstances, Jack. They’re about the worst that you can get.”

  “I won’t argue with that.”

  “Good thing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, or about what’s happened to your sister. I’ll want to hear, too, no matter what the hour.”

  He nodded. “I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I do.” Heaven only knew, Reagan deserved that much consideration.

  “You sure Luz Maria didn’t give you any idea where she was going?” Reagan asked.

  He hesitated, weighing the instinct to protect his sister against his need to talk through the situation. It occurred to him that Reagan would almost certainly run to the authorities with anything he said, especially if she thought it had something to do with her captain’s death.

  Jack took his time in speaking, choosing his words as carefully as if the wrong combination might explode. “There’s a man she’s been seeing lately. His name is Sergio. I’ve never known much about him, but what I do know, I don’t like. Dresses in black to go with his cycle, sports a hard-ass attitude. You probably know the type.”

  Reagan made a face. “The dangerous bad boy. I dated a few of them myself—before I figured out they’re a lot more trouble than they’re worth.”

  Irritation spiked through him at the thought of Reagan running around with such losers, but he roughly shoved aside the thought.

  “Unfortunately, I think Luz Maria’s a few years away from that conclusion.” If she lives long enough.

  “Are you worried that this Sergio might have been the one following her?” Reagan asked. “Were they having any trouble that you know of?”

  He hesitated, then decided to come clean. Whether she’d run to the FBI or the police or even the media, Reagan had earned the truth. And it was bound to come out anyway. “Big trouble, I’m afraid. This evening, I saw Luz Maria’s boyfriend on the news, in a background story to do with BorderFree. He’s—he’s one of them.”

  Reagan sucked in her breath sharply. “You lied to me? You told me last night you didn’t have a thing to do with those murdering sons of—”

  “I was telling you the truth. I don’t and never have. But my sister admitted tonight that she knew of Sergio’s involvement. Not only that…”

  He hesitated, every instinct warning him against implicating Luz Maria in the theft of medical records—and the chain of events that had led to Joe Rozinski’s death. Suspecting that Reagan would be out for his sister’s blood if she heard that now, he instead settled on the news that had rocked him earlier. “Right before she asked for my car keys, she told me she’s pregnant. She begged me for the chance to at least tell Sergio before she ended things, even if she wasn’t sure how he’d take the news. She swore she’d go with me to talk to my attorney in the morning.”

  “Sergio wouldn’t be the first scumbag to run out on a pregnant girlfriend,” Reagan said as she turned toward the Heights. “But if Luz Maria has information on him, and if she let it slip that she was thinking of going to the authorities…”

  “I know,” Jack said miserably. “I know what an idiot I was to let her go, but if you’d heard her promise…She said she’d come right back.”

  “I don’t doubt for a minute that you did what you thought was best.” As they passed a working streetlight, panes of dim illumination swung through the moving car. “But on the other hand, did you ever consider that your little sister could have lied to you? Maybe she was just saying what you wanted to hear, looking for an out.”

  He nodded, somehow both offended and relieved to hear Reagan voice the same suspicion that had occurred to him. “I can’t completely rule out that possibility,” he admitted. “Especia
lly after listening to her spout that bullshit dogma the way she did last night. She might as well have been quoting from their manifesto—as if those nutcases from BorderFree-4-All had brainwashed her.”

  For some time, Reagan drove in silence. When she finally did speak, her voice had grown harsh.

  “I’m sure it’s easier for you to think your sister’s some kind of victim—or a sweet little innocent who’s been led astray by big, bad Sergio,” Reagan told him, “but if she faked that call tonight, nothing can excuse her actions. And if she had some part in that arson, any part at all in what amounted to the murder of my captain, Luz Maria had better damned well stay missing. Otherwise, I promise you, I’ll haul her ass straight to the task force on my own.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  As the Trans Am reached the Heights, it slipped past a hodgepodge of beautifully restored Victorians, newer town homes, humble one-stories not unlike her own house, and the occasional down-at-the-heels bungalow poised for some investor to snap up. But the familiar landmarks barely registered—only the fact that she remained inside this car with Jack Montoya.

  The same Jack Montoya who’d been lauded as a hero by BorderFree-4-All.

  During the past two days, her interviews had strung out endlessly. Every agency in North America seemed hell-bent on hearing her story about the man in the green car and questioning the nature of her relationship with Jack. Time and again, she’d gotten her back up at the tone of the investigators’ questions and the clear suspicion of Jack that more than one had voiced. She’d thought the task force had fallen into the blame-the-victim routine, the lazy route to finding some poor scapegoat for the arson—and maybe for the higher-profile San Antonio bombing, too.

  But Jack’s revelation about Luz Maria’s lover cast a new light on the subject. Reagan thought about her passenger’s insistence that he’d only learned the truth this very evening, and thought, too, of how Detective Dough Gut would scoff at the claim.

  Sure is awfully convenient, how you just happened to hear it for the first time tonight, the cop sneered inside her head as he tapped out another cigarette inside the mommy mug. Or did you just decide that selling out your little sister might buy your own freedom?

  Reagan slid a glance Jack’s way, only to see his head canted forward, his lips moving as if in silent prayer. Prayer for Luz Maria’s safety, she was certain—not his own.

  Instead of selling her out, was he covering for his little sister, even risking his own future to keep her out of danger? Though her own mother hadn’t set much of an example, Reagan knew that plenty of families held together, no matter what the cost.

  But even without blood ties to blind her, Reagan could not escape the memory of the clipped scream she’d heard on Jack’s cell phone—or the suspicion that Luz Maria had already paid the ultimate price for her involvement with murderous radicals.

  As Reagan turned onto the street where Jack and Luz Maria’s mother lived, the echo of that frantic cry conjured up the horribly mutilated body she and Jack had gone to see. The darkest corners of her imagination manufactured the poor woman’s last moments—with a soundtrack of the phone call that Peaches and Reagan had received.

  “I’ll pick up my mom’s car in the morning,” Jack told her as they approached the purple bungalow.

  Before she could respond, her car’s single working headlight caught a movement, a silhouette passing in front of a lit window along the house’s side. She stopped short, pointing at it. “What’s that?” she asked Jack.

  Instead of answering, Jack jumped out of the car and shouted, “Sergio? I need to talk to you, man.”

  “No, Jack,” Reagan called after him. “What if he has some kind of wea—”

  It was no use. Jack was gone already, disappearing around the back of the house, hot on the heels of the stranger, who had turned and run.

  Jumping from her idling car to get a better look, she could tell the direction they had taken by the outraged barking of several neighborhood dogs. As she shut the passenger-side door, Reagan considered following, but only for a moment. She might be in good shape otherwise, but her lungs were in no condition for a footrace—even if she were dumb enough to tear off into the darkness after two larger, stronger men.

  Instead, she climbed back behind the Trans Am’s wheel and jammed it into gear. For once, the heap didn’t disappoint her but instead put its big V-8 at her disposal, squealing around the corner ahead, then slowing only enough to make the next one without fishtailing. Despite her fear for Jack, Reagan grinned with the pleasure of the big engine’s response and her body’s answering surge of pure adrenaline.

  There—she saw a man break out of the bushes between two houses and hop over a chain-link fence. Before she could react, he disappeared into the band of shadow between a detached garage and the far higher security fence surrounding the parking lot of a boarded-up old corner grocery store. She raced toward the driveway and slammed on the brakes, blocking his exit.

  As she looked around for Jack, she realized that if Sergio wanted to escape, she’d left him little choice but to go through her.

  A second man—Jack—clambered over the chain-link fence and looked wildly up and down the street. She wanted to shout at him, to warn him where she’d seen the runner disappear, but like so many other things, the passenger-side electric window wasn’t working.

  A fraction of a second later, she saw Jack’s head whip toward the sound of an engine revving. Before she realized what she was hearing, a motorcycle buzzed out of the narrow opening, swerved around the hood of her car, and took off down the street.

  Seconds later, Jack climbed in the car. “Go, go, go!” he shouted. “Catch him.”

  Reagan floored the accelerator, blowing through the same stop sign the motorcycle’s rider had ignored.

  “Was it really Sergio?” she asked over the deep roar of the engine.

  “It’s—him.” Jack was struggling for breath. “But—but he took off before I could ask him anything.”

  “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you first and ask questions later.” Reagan was gaining on the motorcycle and its rider, but she had no idea what she’d do if she caught up to him. The man was probably a terrorist, wanted by the FBI and half a dozen other agencies. And if he’d really hurt or killed Jack’s sister, chances were that he’d do anything to keep from getting caught.

  “I can’t let him go without finding out if he’s seen Luz Maria, if she’s broken up with him, or if they’re running off together,” Jack said. “If we let him shake us off, I might lose my last link to her.”

  Though she knew that pushing seventy through the black tangle of mostly residential streets was dangerous, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse Jack. For one thing, Reagan suspected that Sergio was the key, too, to finding out who had set the fire that killed her captain. And even more importantly, she wanted to catch Sergio for Jack. Not only for Luz Maria’s sake, but because in spite of Reagan’s efforts to keep her distance from Jack, she’d begun to think of the two of them as partners…and maybe even something more.

  She slowed briefly, rolling through another intersection, then into an area dominated by warehouses, salvage yards, and an abandoned body shop. Most glowed with security lighting, which apparently served as a convenience to the gang-bangers who regularly painted every exposed surface with their signs.

  In the instant before they splashed into the first pot hole, she recognized the emblem of the West Side Kings. Their seat belts jerked them backward, and Reagan fought to keep the wheel from tearing from her grip. Gritting her teeth, she swerved around a rutted stretch of road that she recalled hearing had suffered a water-main break a few days earlier. The narrow street remained wet, its pot-holes hidden by deep puddles.

  Recovering from the jolt, she watched the more agile cycle widen the distance between them.

  “We’re never going to catch him if he hits an open lane,” she said. “The car’s fast, but that bike’s faster. We’ve got to catch him before he reac
hes Washington Avenue.”

  The engine raced as she pushed down the accelerator. A scrawny cat chose that moment to launch itself into her path, and she swerved to miss the little sucker by a whisker.

  The motorcyclist gained more speed—too much more. As he passed another security light, the bike suddenly lurched sideways. Another pothole, Reagan guessed, as the rider wobbled, over-corrected, and lost the battle to stay upright. Tires sliding out from underneath him, he went down, bumping, skidding, and spinning along the rutted asphalt until he finally came to rest.

  The accident could have torn his leg off. Should have, at the very least, put the guy out of commission. But as the Trans Am slid to a stop beside the cycle, Sergio pulled himself out from beneath it and half ran, half staggered toward the gap between a recycling center and a leaning, boarded-up old house nearly hidden behind a swath of weeds.

  Before Reagan could say anything, Jack leapt from the car. She threw the car in park, then followed, shouting at him, “Wait!”

  Behind the high security fence surrounding the recycling center, a pair of huge rottweilers barked savagely, their thick toenails tearing at the metal links.

  Sergio lurched to the left, to head around the back side of the abandoned house. Jack was gaining on him, but Reagan’s lungs were already burning, screaming in protest. She would never catch the two, so instead she circled around the front of the old house, hoping—as well as dreading—that she would intercept the injured man.

  Almost there.

  Jack was closing the gap quickly, leaving only yards between him and his sister’s lover.

  A security light—perhaps tripped by a motion detector—flooded the space between the old house and the snarling, leaping dogs. Colors splashed before him: the faded yellow-green of thigh-high, tangled weeds, the glistening, dark crimson that soaked the leg of Sergio’s jeans.

  Despite the blood and his awkward gait, Sergio reached down to pick up a dented, rusting metal trash can, which he knocked into Jack’s path.

  Too close to avoid it, Jack flew over the overturned can, his knee smashing into something hard and hidden in a tangle of sharp thorns.