Phoenix Burning

by Isabella Maldonado

  Veranda had a growing sense of unease as they walked by the sequentially numbered treatment bays, separated by curtains draped from the ceiling. When they arrived at bed seven, Diaz pushed the curtain aside and walked straight in.

  The area was empty. The gurney, gone.

  Without waiting for Diaz, Veranda spun and ran to the bullpen in the center of the ER. “Where’s the patient in bed seven?”

  The ER nurses studiously ignored her, tapping on their computers and speaking to each other.

  Frustration mounting, Veranda waylaid a passing orderly. “Where is Mia Pacheco?” she demanded, “She’s supposed to be in room number seven.”

  Diaz stood next to her and held up his badge. A harried look on his face, the orderly huffed, marched to room seven, and snatched a chart from a hook on the door. “They took her to radiology for x-rays a couple of minutes ago.”

  Veranda released a relieved breath.

  “Who’s her treating physician?” Diaz asked. “We need to speak with him.” He gave Veranda a sidelong look. “Or her.”

  The orderly’s eyes drifted down the page. “Chart says it’s Doctor Jones.” He frowned. “We don’t have a Doctor Jones. Must be some mistake.”

  Veranda and Diaz exchanged glances. “There’s no mistake,” Diaz said to the orderly. “The patient is a potential witness in a high-profile investigation.”

  Filled with profound dread, she voiced the inescapable conclusion. “Adolfo’s got her.”

  31

  Veranda stifled the urge to punch the orderly when he put both hands up in the classic don’t blame me sign.

  “No one told us we needed to enact patient security protocols,” he said. “Her name was listed right on the board. She should have been given an alias or admitted as a Jane Doe.”

  She was out of patience. “We can debate who’s responsible later. Right now, we need to lock this hospital down until we find her. That girl is in grave danger.” She lowered her voice. “If she’s not already gone.”

  The orderly grabbed a white hospital phone and shouted a series of rapid-fire coded phrases into the receiver. Moments later, an alert blared through the intercom system and lights flashed on wall sconces.

  An elderly security guard hustled toward them, radio squawking. He unsnapped it from the holder on his belt and listened. Over the din of the alarm, Veranda overheard a voice at the other end report a scuffle taking place between a patient and a nurse near the north side ER exit.

  Without waiting for details, she pointed at the north hallway. “Let’s go.”

  Diaz followed as she raced past the guard through a series of corridors toward the reported disturbance. She rounded a corner and spotted a petite teenaged girl standing barefoot in a hospital gown at the far end of a long hall. Next to her, a brawny male nurse grappled with a wiry Latino man in ripped jeans who sported a heavy beard. A wooden-handled hunting knife lay on the glossy tile floor between them.

  “Police, don’t move!” Diaz shouted, drawing his Glock.

  Both men stopped fighting momentarily, their attention on Diaz’s gun. The elderly guard, who had come up behind them, retreated down the corridor. She heard him holler into his radio to get backup and evacuate the area. Good, she didn’t want anyone else coming down the hallway.

  The girl seized the opportunity of a distraction. She grabbed the rails of a nearby gurney and rammed the bed into the bearded man’s hip. He stumbled back from the impact, pivoted, and bolted through the exit door behind him.

  Veranda called out to the male nurse, pointing at the girl. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  Diaz stayed tight on her heels as she dodged around the gurney and rushed out the exit door, head swiveling in every direction. The bearded man had vanished. Diaz pulled a portable radio from his waist and broadcasted a lookout for the suspect.

  When they came back into the hallway, the girl blinked up at them. Her slight body dwarfed by the hospital gown, she had dark circles under her sunken eyes that spoke of misery and suffering more eloquently than words ever could.

  She wanted to wrap the girl up and take her home. Instead, she tilted her head down and spoke softly in Spanish. “It’s okay, sweetie. You’re safe now.” She hoped a bit of reassurance would help establish trust, because she had to step into her police persona and do her job.

  She snatched a latex glove from a nearby wall dispenser. Not bothering to put it on, she draped it over her fingers and bent to pick up the hunting knife still lying on the floor. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and his prints will be on this,” she muttered, looking for something to use as a temporary evidence bag.

  Mia trembled violently when Diaz holstered his weapon and strode toward her. Tall, muscular, and imposing, he towered over her.

  “You’re scaring her.” Using her free hand, Veranda caught Diaz’s arm. “Can we switch tasks, Lieutenant?” It wasn’t her place to delegate an assignment to her supervisor, but the weapon had to be secured, and the girl seemed frightened of men.

  Diaz gave her a curt nod and eased the knife from her grasp, using the glove as a barrier between his skin and the flat of the blade.

  The male nurse held up a bright orange cardboard sleeve. “This is a portable sharps container. You can put the knife in and seal it.”

  “That’s perfect.” Diaz took the container. “And thank you for helping the victim before we arrived.”

  The nurse blushed to the roots of his auburn hair. “That dude hauled her off the gurney and tried to drag her out the door while she kicked and yelled. Saw him pull a knife on her.” He spread his hands. “Couldn’t just stand there and watch it happen.”

  “We’ll need a statement,” Diaz said, placing the container holding the knife on the gurney. “You’ll be busy a while.”

  “I’ll notify my supervisor.” The nurse trotted down the hall. “Be back in five.” He called over his shoulder.

  Careful not to make any sudden movements, Veranda approached the girl slowly, as if she were a fawn lost in the woods. She gentled her voice. “Hey there. Are you hurt? Did he cut you anywhere?”

  A silent shake of the head.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  The girl’s eyes lit up. “You’re Detective Veranda Cruz. I’ve seen you on TV … and I’ve seen pictures of you too.”

  “Then you know I’m here because you asked for me.”

  The girl peered around Veranda and flinched when she caught sight of Diaz again.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Veranda said. “He looks big and scary, but he works for the police department like me. In fact, he’s my boss, Lieutenant Richard Diaz. It’s okay to talk in front of him. And he speaks Spanish like we do, so he’ll understand what we’re saying.”

  The girl nodded but still looked apprehensive.

  Veranda reached out and gently took a small slender hand in hers. “Are you Mia?”

  “Yes. Mia Pacheco. I have a twin sister named Sofia and she … she … ” Mia burst into tears.

  She pulled her into a tight embrace. “It’s okay, you’re safe here with us now. May I call you Mia?”

  Mia nodded.

  Having dealt with many crime victims, she had learned the importance of this simple gesture. Asking permission to use a person’s name returned a sense of identity and control that had been stripped away. She found that affording this basic human right was often the first step in the healing process.

  She waited for the sobs to subside to sniffles. “You must have something important to say. You were so brave to ask for me.”

  “I had to tell you what happened.” Mia swiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I’ve been living with Señores Adolfo and Carlos Villalobos for almost two months. My mother brought Sofia and me here with their coyotes. They moved us around to three different houses since we arrived.” Mia’s words ceas
ed. She lowered her head.

  Guessing the reason the girl had abruptly stopped talking, Veranda stroked her hair. “It’s okay, Mia. We’re not concerned about your legal status.”

  Mia nodded, a nervous smile flitting across her delicate features. “My sister, Sofia, is the smart one. She was supposed to be in Arizona for a computer learning program, but the coyotes lied. They kept us. Said we owed them more money for our passage. They had promised us Mamá and I could work cleaning houses and offices, but that was a lie too. Instead, to earn money for them, they made us … made us … ”

  “You don’t have to say,” she whispered, pulling Mia back into her arms. She knew all too well what happened to female captives of the cartel. At some point, other detectives would interview Mia in detail about her time in Villalobos custody, but there was no need to drag her through it now.

  Avoiding further emotional trauma, she guided Mia to a different part of the story. Taking a tissue from Diaz’s outstretched hand, she offered it to the trembling girl. “Why did you need to speak to me personally?”

  Mia’s rapid breathing steadied. “Right after we got to Phoenix, Señor Carlos sent for Sofia. He told her she had to work on their computers. A guy named Nacho would supervise her. Nacho forced her to help him hack into the police department’s computers.”

  At Veranda’s raised eyebrows, Mia added, “That’s how the cartel found out about the raids ahead of time. Sofia told me everything when we had time alone to talk. Nacho read your emails and got copies of plans showing where your team was about to search. He told Señor Adolfo, and he moved all of us into a warehouse that wasn’t on your list. Then he and Señor Carlos and that horrible monster”—her frail body shuddered—“Salazar, flew to Mexico during the raids so they wouldn’t be around.”

  Veranda felt a tremble. At first, she thought Mia was shaking with fear again. Then she realized her own body was vibrating with pent-up rage. Slowly, she turned her head to look at Diaz.

  He stood stock still, mouth open, eyes wide.

  Veranda dragged her attention back to Mia, who had started to speak again.

  “While they were away in Mexico,” she said, her voice tremulous, fixating exclusively on Veranda, “Sofia tried to send a message to your email, but Nacho caught her. So Señor Adolfo told me I had to die.”

  Veranda glanced at Diaz and caught a triumphant expression on his features that told her they had both arrived at the same conclusion. And it was a game changer. Mia had just given direct eyewitness testimony implicating Adolfo in an attempted murder. Coupled with the rest of the intelligence the task force had gathered, it would be enough to get an arrest warrant for Adolfo.

  Mia wrung her hands. “That Felix guy I was in the car with, he was taking me out into the desert to kill me.” She finished on a whisper. “So I crashed the car.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to go through that, sweetheart.” Veranda hugged her briefly, mentally processing the new information.

  Mia’s voice grew stronger as she continued. “Sofia told me after Nacho hacked the police server, he figured out how to clone your cell phones. He got your team’s numbers off the emails, and he cloned them all. He listens in on every phone call and reads every text you all send to anyone in your group.” She scratched her head. “And he uses the phones track you. He’s got all you guys color-coded on a display map. Sofia said he makes her help monitor everything.”

  Veranda locked eyes with Diaz, the pieces finally falling into place. “You called to tell me about the car crash. You said you were taking me to Phoenix General hospital.” Her mind raced, making connections. “That’s how they knew where Mia was. How they beat us here.” She wrapped a protective arm around Mia. “That’s how they almost got her.”

  Mia nodded, tangled tendrils of hair escaping from her messy ponytail as her head bobbed. “And now the coyote they sent here to take me will tell them you came. Señor Adolfo will know I’ve told you everything. He’ll guess you’ll go to his new location.” She drew a deep breath, a slight smile turning up her lips. “Because I know where it is.”

  Veranda gripped Mia’s thin shoulders. “You can tell me where Adolfo is now? Where he hid everything before the raids?” Veranda imagined a treasure trove of suspects, evidence, and contraband, all in one place.

  Mia nodded. “You can’t wait though. You should go now. Señor Adolfo has lots of people. They’ll move everything out of there and hide it somewhere else.”

  Diaz signaled for Veranda to follow as he backed out of earshot. When she joined him, he spoke in a low voice. “There’s no proof of any of this yet. We’ll need computer forensics to check for traces of the hack, which could take days.”

  Veranda gritted her teeth and glared up at Diaz. “We don’t have days, Lieutenant. We don’t even have hours. You heard what Mia said.”

  He returned her glare. “We need corroboration. We’ve got nothing but the word of a teenage girl. Granted, she’s very convincing, and I’m inclined to believe her, but we can’t send our tactical team charging into a cartel stronghold without a search warrant. And a judge requires evidence.” He put his hands on his hips. “At the very least, we’ve got to articulate exigent circumstances.”

  “If Mia’s right, every scrap of evidence will disappear within the hour. If that isn’t exigent, I don’t know what is.”

  Silence stretched between them.

  A tentative tap on her elbow caused Veranda to turn around.

  Mia stood behind her. “There’s more,” she whispered. “I also know what happened to you last night.”

  32

  Ignoring the men behind him lugging boxes and crates through the warehouse, Adolfo’s finger tightened on the trigger. A fraction more pressure and Luis Patron’s head would explode in a shower of brain matter and skull fragments. The .50-caliber round chambered in the hefty titanium-gold Desert Eagle Mark XIX semiautomatic pistol aimed at Patron’s face would ensure he paid for his mistake.

  An hour ago, Nacho intercepted a phone call from Lieutenant Diaz to Veranda Cruz. Apparently, Felix crashed and ended up in the hospital with the little puta, Mia. Adolfo immediately sent Patron to grab the girl before she could speak to Diaz and Cruz, who were on their way, according to Nacho. Patron called twenty minutes later to beg forgiveness for missing his chance. Worse yet, he’d seen Cruz with Mia before he escaped.

  Adolfo wasn’t sure the girl knew their location, but she’d proven resourceful in the past and he couldn’t take any chances. Instead of celebrating Cruz’s death as he’d planned, he was scrambling to relocate before she kicked down his door.

  Three trucks, loaded with weapons and product, had already left for the border. Another stood waiting by the open bay doors as his men shuttled boxes into its cargo area. At the precipice of victory, defeat overtook him. And it could have been prevented, if the idiot quivering in front of him had managed to get that girl out of the hospital. He estimated he had about fifteen minutes before the police would find him, but he would make time to deal with his incompetent subordinate. In front of the others.

  Tears streamed down Patron’s hollow cheeks, dripping into his wiry beard. “P-please, señor, I got to the hospital as fast as I could. There was nothing I could do.”

  Adolfo scowled. “You could have done your job.”

  Carlos plopped a large cardboard box down and ambled over, a shark drawn to imminent bloodshed. He lifted a sardonic eyebrow. “Shooting the messenger, are we?”

  After everything that had gone wrong, his men needed to know he could be every bit as ruthless as any member of his family. “I won’t accept any more failure,” he said.

  A young girl’s agonized shriek interrupted him. He turned to see Nacho marching Sofia, arm twisted behind her back, to the moving truck’s front passenger cab. Sofia spun, jerked out of Nacho’s grasp, and sprinted toward the main warehouse door.

  Adolfo lowere
d his gun to watch as Carlos easily chased the girl down in a few strides. Clutching the nape of her neck, he pushed her down, forcing her to kneel on the cement floor. “Nacho, do you still need this puta, or do we kill her right here?” Carlos asked.

  The very sight of her boiled Adolfo’s blood. “That little bitch and her sister are the reason we’re in this mess.”

  “I-I still need her,” Nacho said, darting a glance at each of the two brothers in turn.

  Adolfo longed to use the bullet he’d intended for Patron on the girl. “She must be punished.”

  “Don’t worry about that.” Carlos yanked her to her feet and shoved her into Nacho’s arms. “When we get back to Mexico, she’ll be branded, just like her mother and sister. Then I’ll take my belt to her. When I’m finished, she will never dare to defy the Villalobos family again.”

  As Nacho led her into the vehicle, Sofia whimpered but didn’t struggle.

  Carlos turned to Adolfo. “Mention of her mother reminds me. What will we do with my women?” He pointed out the men, who had formed a brigade to pass crates into the truck’s cargo area. “There’s no more room in the vehicle with the equipment and our stash.”

  He had already made his decision. “We can’t take the women.”

  Carlos gave a defiant huff. “We can’t leave them here either.”

  He had no time for debate. “This truck is almost full. We only have one more vehicle coming, and it’s a van. We can put the last few items in it, but there isn’t room for any of the women.”

  “I’m not following.”

  He sighed, fighting for patience. Why did he have to spell it out? “When Detective Cruz arrives, all she will find is a burning warehouse.”

  Carlos frowned “And my women?”

  “Will be inside.”