“Lo and behold, fifteen minutes before picking up the sedan, he pulled in driving another equally nondescript vehicle with California plates.”
For the untold time of the day, information Pally gave me landed heavy and hard, fireworks exploding across my mind. My eyes went wide as I considered it, my subconscious forcing my foot forward, causing it to press down a bit harder on the gas.
“You don’t think-“
“He’s headed back there to make the swap?” Pally finished. “I don’t know. At some point though, he’ll either have to ditch it or switch them out.”
Flicking my gaze to the clock on the dash, I considered the hour, running the math in my head.
West Yellowstone and Snoqualmie were roughly equidistant from Spokane. I couldn’t imagine him running much faster than me, not wanting to draw attention after everything that had happened at the clinic.
If I hurried, I stood a chance at intercepting him.
At the same time, there was no way of knowing if he would even make a run on Spokane. A handful of different factors would play into it, beginning with if he thought Latham got his plate number and including how many viable shots he had at nabbing another.
“Has the rental been returned anywhere else?” I asked.
A quick sequence of keys rang out before Pally said, “Nope. Avis still has it listed as rented, not expected to be returned until tomorrow.”
The fact that Salinas had gone back through West Yellowstone told me something. It showed he was planning to go north, which didn’t mean he had to be headed back for his car, but it hinted at it strongly.
Best guess, he was doing exactly what I was now doing. He’d brought his own vehicle up because it was the easiest way of transporting things he might need. Clothing. Surveillance equipment.
The gun that killed Shawn Martin.
While at least part of that was with him now, I couldn’t imagine him wanting to leave any evidence tied to multiple offenses unattended in an airport parking lot. Especially knowing he needed to ditch the car he was now driving anyway.
Just like there was no chance I was willfully ignoring the chance to get at this guy, even if it did turn out to be nothing more than a couple of hours sitting in a parking lot.
“You’ve got eyes on the car with the California plates in Spokane now?”
Chapter Forty-Six
Despite the man’s extreme proficiency in a variety of skills that were beneficial to the organization, basic communication was not one of them. Sitting in the chair normally reserved for Arlin Mejia, Hector sat ramrod straight, his hands repeatedly running down the front of the black cargo pants he wore. Beads of sweat were plainly visible on his cheeks and forehead, underscoring the twist of scruff spread across his jaw.
They even stained the underarms of the royal blue t-shirt he wore, a damp inverted triangle having formed just beneath his chin.
Seated across from him, Ramon Reyes took full measure of the man. Leaning forward in his own chair, his elbows were spread wide to either side, fanned out almost like wings. Forearms lying flat on the desktop, his cuffs had been returned to their usual position, his fingers laced before him.
To look at him head-on, there would be no indication that anything had gone wrong. Still as fresh as the moment he first stepped into the office fourteen hours earlier, his eyes were clear. He spoke evenly, tone never rising or falling.
All in spite of the spiking mix of thoughts he had locked inside.
“Did he give any indication as to how he knew you were there?” Reyes asked.
Hands continuing to move down his thighs, Hector cast a glance to Mejia standing off to the side, arms folded, a deep frown accentuating the lines of his face.
“No,” he said, his thick lilt distorting the response just slightly.
“But he just walked straight out the front door, down the sidewalk, and came right over to you?”
“Si.”
Flicking his gaze over to Mejia, Reyes considered the information a moment.
“Was he armed?”
“No.”
“Did he make any threats?”
“No.”
Pushing out a long breath through his nose, Reyes used his elbows to leverage himself back away from the table. Moving until he rested flush against the padded leather behind him, he kept his fingers laced, balancing them in his lap.
Twice already they had been through every second of the interaction with Junior Ruiz. First with Hector telling the entire story, and then again with Reyes breaking down every aspect in excruciating detail.
Now they were just to the point of belaboring things, Reyes realizing that his questions were starting to take on the appearance that he was merely hoping for the answers to change.
As a standalone encounter, Reyes might have been able to accept things at their face value. Perhaps Hector had gotten a little too close and been spotted, or Ruiz’s release from prison had made him a bit more cognizant of his surroundings than usual.
But coming on the same day as him becoming a free man more than a decade before it should have even been a possibility, Reyes couldn’t square it.
“And after he left you the note,” Reyes said, shifting his eyes down to the small piece of blue paper in the center of the desk, “he just turned and went back inside?”
Mouth open to respond, Hector contemplated his answer for a moment before twisting his chin an inch to the side, his eyebrows rising just slightly. “Si.”
Once more, Reyes felt a series of pinpricks rise through his chest. Little bits of light flashed through his mind, his brain attempting to line up what he’d just discovered, hoping that this one tiny aspect would somehow fit.
Like so much else in the last weeks though, it simply refused.
Snapping his heels up under him, Reyes drew himself to full height. Pulling his hands back and clasping them behind him, he said, “Thank you, Hector. I appreciate you coming down to talk with us.”
Jerking his gaze up to follow the unexpected movement, Hector’s jaw sagged a bit more. Only his eyes moved, the whites of them flashing against his dark skin and beard, flicking from Reyes to Mejia.
“If we need anything else, we’ll be sure to be in contact.”
Taking another moment, slow realization set in for Hector. Closing his mouth, he dipped his chin half an inch before twisting sideways over the arm of his chair.
Without a word, he turned and departed, nearly sprinting out of the room.
Rooted in place, Reyes watched as he left. He even stood still and tracked the man’s progress on the stairs outside his office, waiting until he heard the main door below open and slam shut before turning his attention to Mejia beside him.
Shoulders visible sagging, he pulled his hands around to his waist, shoving them into the front pockets of his slacks.
“What the hell do you make of all that?”
Taking a step forward, Mejia seemed to consider his usual seat, making it as far as the veneer of Hector’s sweat still spread across the leather before thinking better of it. Choosing to remain standing, he kept his arms folded, the frown in place.
“I mean, how many times have we used Hector before?” Reyes asked, not waiting for an answer to his opening inquiry.
“Several,” Mejia conceded. “Double digits, anyway.”
“And has he ever been spotted before?”
“Never. When it comes to this sort of thing, the man is practically a ghost.”
Turning perpendicular to his desk, Reyes began to pace. With each stride across the floor the soles of his shoes let out a distinctive din, tapping against the polished tile floor.
Making it as far as the wall, he turned on a heel, retracing his steps.
“Exactly,” Reyes said. “A damn ghost. And yet, somehow Ruiz walks right up to him on the street, lets him know he’s been aware of him all day.”
Offering a guttural click from deep in his throat, Mejia bobbed his head twice in agreement. “You think he has h
elp?”
“Don’t you?” Reyes asked. Pulling a hand from his pocket, he extended it before him. “Guy gets released after eight years, strolls out at five in the morning, not another soul around? Somehow just knows the best tracker we have is watching him?
“Somebody’s pulling strings for him, don’t you think?”
Again, the same sound could be heard. Shifting his attention to the desktop between them, Mejia took a moment, considering the question, before saying, “I think the days of El Jefe are over. Whatever is going on here, whatever he is trying to play at, is nothing more than the dying gasps of someone that doesn’t yet realize time has passed them by.”
On the back end of a loop across the space, Reyes turned his shoulder just inches from the wall. Looking back in the opposite direction, he stared at Mejia, running what the man had just said through his mind.
“And this business with the parlay tomorrow?”
“Optics,” Mejia said. “The man has been inside a long time. The last anybody saw of him, he was pinned to the ground at a party he was hosting and carried away.
“That’s a bad look for someone like Junior Ruiz. So bad that the very first thing he’ll want to do is begin running damage control on his image.”
Keeping his gaze on Mejia another moment, Reyes shifted his focus out through the wide opening lining the back end of the office. Past the vegetation bunched tight around the house they were in, he could see the warehouse they’d been in earlier in the day, a series of security lights illuminating it on the far end of the spread.
Moving under their glow was a pair of guards, each on opposite ends of the structure. Matching them on the backside was another pair Reyes knew, keeping the same spacing, walking in the same even stride.
Eight years ago, none of this would have seemed possible. Not the spread they were currently operating from, or the new direction the business was moving in.
Not even the country they currently called home.
Stuck in the old ways, Ruiz had been content to do things as they always had been.
“So you think this is nothing more than peacocking? Ruiz trying to give himself some whiff of legitimacy? Maybe try to get in on the fringes, make it look like he’s still somehow involved?”
His gaze still on the warehouse, Reyes pulled his attention from the warehouse, switching his focus to Mejia standing behind the desk.
“Like I said,” Mejia replied, “the days of El Jefe are over. You have nothing to worry about.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
The way most car rental agencies worked was through barcode scanners. A simple sticker affixed either in the bottom corner of the front windshield or inside the driver’s side door. Rarely did attendants even bother to notice license plates, using their handheld device to scan in a return, print a receipt on the spot, and hand it off.
A process made even quicker and more efficient in a place like Spokane.
Especially late at night, with temperatures hovering right around thirty degrees.
Even at that, Tres Salinas had opted against going through the process. There simply wasn’t any need to. The car had been rented under a false name and credit card. The inside had been wiped down, any trace of him eliminated.
There was nothing that could lead anybody back to him.
And it wasn’t like he could see too many people getting in a fuss over it, the car parked less than three hundred yards from where he’d first picked it up.
Changed out of the suit he’d been wearing in West Yellowstone, Tres was back in the jeans and Seahawks sweatshirt. Covering his top half was the down coat he’d worn the night before, the heavy lining managing to keep his upper body warm, cold air swirling around his ankles and rising beneath the cuff of his pants.
Everything else he’d bothered to take with him on the short jaunt was wadded into a single duffel bag. Hanging from a strap over one shoulder, he could feel it bouncing against his back as he walked as fast as he darted across the short-term parking lot.
A far cry from most of the airports he’d been to in his life, there was no tower structure protecting him from the weather. No bright lights or endless rows of vehicles.
In their stead was merely a single open expanse, completely exposed to the elements. Spaced at even intervals were sodium lights on stanchion poles, a few stray snowflakes floating down beneath their filmy glow.
The trip to West Yellowstone couldn’t quite be considered a success, though it was far from a disaster. His interaction with the sheriff and his deputy was much more than he would have liked. The entire scene at the medical clinic was a debacle of the highest order.
Having to stop and swap license plates with a mid-sized SUV with those annoying stickers of a stick figure family in the back window was something he’d rather never have to do again.
His ribs hurt like hell.
But the simple fact remained, Luis Mendoza – and any chance he ever had at pointing a finger at the people who had sent him – was dead.
Of everything, that was most important.
Threading his way between a pair of pickup trucks sitting up high on oversized tires, Tres emerged to see the car he had driven north from California parked in the row before him. On the passenger side, a hunter green sedan had parked too close to him, no more than a couple of inches separating the vehicles.
To the left was an open space, a bald patch in the light film of snow covering the ground showing whoever was there to have pulled out recently.
Keeping his pace even, Tres extracted his left hand from deep in the pocket of his coat, the cold seizing on his exposed fingers. Sucking in a sharp breath, he reached around beside him, grabbing the bag and pulling it forward, balancing it atop his hip.
Coming up alongside the car, he stopped beside the rear door and unzipped the side pocket of the bag, thrusting his hand down inside.
Splaying his fingers wide, barely did he touch the cold metal of the keys when he saw it.
Nothing more than a flash of movement, a quick reflection moving across the window beside him, pure instinct caused Tres to snap his body downward. Adrenaline leaked into his system as he jerked his attention up, catching a flash of metal as it swung down at him in a hard arc.
Jerking up his left arm, he twisted the bag out in front of him, using it as a shield against the incoming blow.
Just barely able to get the front edge of it there in time, the duffel caught enough of the incoming object to deflect it from crashing directly down on Tres’s head. Pushing the trajectory several inches to the side, hardened steel instead smashed into the top of his shoulder.
Feeling the joint separate on contact, bright lights erupted before Tres’s eyes. His mouth gaped, sucking in a sharp intake of air. A loud buzz sprouted in his ears, spiking fast before evening out.
Barely able to keep himself upright, Tres spun with the force of the blow. Dropping to a knee, he twisted to his right, dropping the duffel behind him.
Pain hurtled the length of his body, sweat instantly rising to his features. Right arm pinned tight to his side, he used his left to try and push himself upright.
Staggering, he made it no further than a couple of steps before a second blow landed. This one coming in from the opposite direction, it was a boot buried square in his midsection, a vicious kick that lifted him from the ground, flinging him against the side of his car.
Coupled with the existing injury to his rib, an electric shock surged through his entire midsection. His breath seized tight as bright lights flashed across his vision.
His right shoulder mangled, the arm virtually worthless, there was no way for him to break his fall as he tumbled down, landing hard on the frozen asphalt. Again, every pain receptor in the joint ignited, every muscle and nerve ending he had seizing tight, almost paralyzing in the hold it had on him.
Under the combined weight of the blows, he lay sputtering on the ground, his mind unable to compute everything that was happening. Locked in survival mode, it told h
im only to breath, to do something about the searing agony gripping him.
Seeing a pair of feet appear before him, it was all he could do to lift his gaze. To see the man standing there, a tangle of hair and beard covering his features.
The look on his face pure venom as he stepped forward and lashed out with another kick, this one sending his world straight to black.
Chapter Forty-Eight
It took everything I had, every iota of self-restraint I could muster, not to end Tres Salinas in the Spokane International Airport parking lot. To not just step forward with the tire iron and start lashing at his unconscious body curled up against the rear tire of his sedan.
To not use the studded soles on the hiking boots I wore and just go to work on him. Beginning with the smaller bones in the hands and feet, I’d then go after his wrists and ankles, knees and elbows, systematically continuing what had started with his shoulder.
All the while making him pay for what he had done to Shawn Martin.
For what happened to Kaylan, even if he wasn’t the one directly responsible for it.
As much as I wanted to do all that, for as much as the bastard deserved it, I had managed to hold off. Not from some last second intervention of my conscience and damned sure not out of some sudden concern for fellow man.
Because right now, I needed answers from him.
Answers I had no way of getting if he was dead.
Instead, I had left him folded up beside the car on the frozen pavement. Moving off at a jog, I’d made my way back to the truck and fired it up, swinging around and sliding into the vacant parking stall beside his car.
Working with the radio and the headlights off, I tried to be as quiet as possible. The combination of the day of the week and the time of night was able to give me some coverage, ensuring the lot was desolate as I worked.
Heart racing, sweat coated my features as I left the engine running and climbed out. Each breath extended before me in a white cloud, my internal temperature running much hotter than the air around me.
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