“If I had a name, I might be able to help you.” Esteban’s sudden tension said we were on thin ice. If he worked for Montoya, we might find ourselves in the middle of a firefight, outnumbered and outgunned. Guys like these hired on with whoever paid best.
I sensed Chance’s increased focus. We needed luck now more than ever, but would Chuch gamble on it?
“Montoya,” he said finally.
“No shit.” Esteban appeared relieved and took a sip of his Patrón to cover that. “Looks like we can do some business. See, I work for Escobar . . . well, way down the food chain, but I hear he’s always happy about anything that fucks up a Montoya.”
That seemed to imply there was more than one, but we were only interested in Diego, whose name we’d gotten from that poor girl. Otherwise, I didn’t follow; nor did Chance by his expression. So we both sat and waited for Chuch to respond.
“Rivals, huh?” he grunted.
Esteban nodded. “I-35, among other things.”
That was enough for me to piece things together. Escobar and Montoya headed up rival cartels, and that was great news for us. If this guy didn’t know where we could find the son of a bitch who had Min, he might tell us who did.
I was impressed, but not surprised, that Chance sat quiet all this time, letting Chuch do his thing. Handsome as my ex was, you’d think he suffered from a surfeit of ego, but nope, not so much.
Chuch looked thoughtful. “This is a good deal for you, mano. If we mess him up, you tell your boss you played a part in it. If we get our cards punched, you know nothing about it. Should we talk terms?”
For the first time, Esteban asked about us. No introductions had been made until that point, but he was too smart to go forward without knowing all the factors in play. “Slow your roll, cuz. Who’re your silent partners?”
“Friends,” Chuch said without hesitation. “They got my back in this.”
Chance didn’t leave it there. “Montoya took my mother,” he added quietly. “I don’t stop coming for him until I’m dead, or he is.”
You’d think a guy who worked for the highest bidder wouldn’t give a shit about that. Not so. Esteban narrowed his eyes and slammed his fist on the table, drawing looks from the other patrons. He crossed himself and then spat as if to ward off a curse.
“Mierda,” he swore. “Only sons of bitches go after women or children to get to us.”
I decided not to counter his assumption that Montoya had a grudge against anyone other than Min. It seemed better to exploit his righteous indignation. If he found out Chance’s mother knew dark rituals and how to summon the Knights of Hell, he might lose sympathy.
“True.” Chuch finished his beer, and I noticed he’d been nursing the same one all night, probably to keep himself sharp. “How much will it cost to get you to send a question up the food chain for us?”
“One K for my time,” Esteban said. “I’d do it for free, but . . . you know.”
“No problem. A man has to know what he’s worth.” Chuch gave a half smile and peeled off ten bills from a roll he brought out of his pocket. “I’ll leave you my cell number. Call me when you know something.”
“It’ll take time,” Esteban warned us. “But we should be able to get you a list of their compounds. You’ll have to figure out where he’s taken her.”
“Can do,” Chance said.
He’d dowse the list for us. And if that didn’t work, Booke might be able to scout them. Surely he could tell us where she was. For the first time, I didn’t feel hopeless. With Montoya’s pet warlock blown to shit, we had a real shot, assuming he hadn’t killed Min days ago. If we couldn’t manage salvation for Min, then we’d wreak vengeance, closure for Chance. I preferred the former, but I’d take the latter.
Esteban was still staring at Chance with an odd, haunted look in his dark eyes. “It happened to me too. My sister, Rosita.” He brought a rosary from his pocket. “This is all I have left. They never found a body, just . . . this.” By the pain I saw graven on his face, she never would’ve left it behind if she had a choice. It looked like a family heirloom.
I gazed at the antique silver necklace with a mixture of horror and resignation, knowing I might be able to touch it and give him an answer. Chuch offered a nearly imperceptible nod. Men who worked for the cartels would have seen many things over the years, most of them weirder or more horrific than what I did.
“May I see it?” I held out a hand, bracing myself. I knew it would be bad.
Beside me, Chance tensed, but Chuch checked him. Esteban seemed surprised but he passed it over nonetheless. A deep breath prepared me as best I could, and then I dropped the natural focus that prevented me from reading an object.
Pain seared me in black, licking waves. My vision flickered and spiraled inward, dumping me into Rosita’s last moments. I felt her confusion and anguish as the man reared above her. I sensed her desperate desire to live while the agony of live wires sizzled in my palm. I bore it all—Rosita’s pain and the anguish of my mother’s death simultaneously. When I came to myself, I was weeping, the rosary on the table.
“What the . . . ?” Esteban took the necklace like it was a snake, staring at it in bewilderment. “Is she okay? Should I call a doctor?”
Chance was already getting some ice for my palm. He knew the drill. I hoped he had the balm somewhere in his pocket, as this had been a bad one.
For at least five minutes, my teeth chattered too badly for me to speak. Chance rubbed my back and tended my palm while Chuch asked me with his eyes what I’d seen. I didn’t want to do this; Christ, I didn’t want to tell Esteban. But maybe knowing would be better than uncertainty.
Through raw waves of nausea, I managed to say, “It was someone she knew. She wasn’t afraid of him at first. He came to the door, they spoke, and she agreed to go with him. I can never hear what they’re saying, but I recognized your name on the man’s lips. I think he knew you too.”
It would kill me to tell him the rest. My uninjured hand curled into a fist as I watched the merc’s eyes close. His throat worked, but he didn’t question what I knew or the manner in which I’d acquired the knowledge. His eyes opened. “Tell me the rest.”
Chance rubbed my back. I drew in another steadying breath. “They got in his car. It was an old metallic green El Camino; she didn’t notice the plates. He took her to . . . a lake. I think it was a lake.”
“Lake Casa Blanca,” Chuch offered, low. “It’s the only one nearby, so it must’ve been, if it happened here.”
Esteban sat as if he’d turned into a pillar of steel. “Mierda! I know someone who drives a green El Camino. I used to work with him. But go on.”
I just couldn’t go into detail, not aloud. It’s bad enough I’ll see this again and again in my dreams.
“He tried to kiss her. She slapped him. He . . . raped her. Hit her. Choked her.”
He punched her in the face as he penetrated her, came just before she died. Poor Rosita hadn’t even been spared that, clutching her rosary in bloody hands. It must have spilled onto the shore when he dragged her body into the water, and the bastard didn’t notice in the dark.
“Tell me what he looked like,” Esteban demanded. “I think I know who it was, but I want to be sure before I kill him.”
“He stood a head taller than her,” I said slowly, visualizing him in my mind’s eye. “He wore a black jacket, jeans, white shirt. He had a heavy mustache, acne scars on his cheeks. And he had tattoos on his fingers. Letters. They spelled something.”
“D-E-A-T-H,” the merc said quietly. “He thinks he’s a real badass, the right hand of death.”
“If they search the lake, I bet they find her,” Chuch put in. “I’m sorry, mano.”
In answer, Esteban gave Chuch back the thousand bucks. “I would’ve paid a lot more to find out what happened to her.” To my surprise, the small man hugged me around the shoulders, a short, hard embrace that almost hurt. “It’s been years, but I know where to find the hijo de la chingada.”
The bastard deserved to be called worse than that. I felt vaguely astonished at how readily he’d accepted my gift. Yet there was no other way I could’ve picked up on those details, especially the car and the man’s description. Perhaps he’d seen other gifted at work.
“Good luck,” I murmured as Chuch stood.
That didn’t begin to encapsulate my feelings, but Esteban just studied me, as if he knew. “I’ll be in touch.” He folded to his feet as I did—a gentleman, oddly enough.
When we quit the bar, relief rushed through me. Who knew what might’ve happened if Chance hadn’t been there, or Chuch?
We drove back to the house in silence, me nursing my sore palm, the guys lost in thought. A man would die as a result of tonight’s work—no trial, no jury, just an execution. I had no doubt of it, but I didn’t doubt he deserved it either, not after what I’d seen him do to Rosita—and probably others after her.
Before we went inside, Chuch checked the wards. Though the warlock was dead, we couldn’t be too careful. As we came into the living room, we found Kel still watching TV. That made me smile despite the pain. He didn’t glance away from the moving images on the screen. The light glazed his skin, cast his tattoos into sharp relief. Butch bounced around my ankles until I picked him up and scratched him between the ears.
Eva was in the office, doing more research on the Net. “I never knew it was so bad,” she said as we came in. “It’s crazy. Last September, gunmen burst into a club and threw five severed heads inside as a warning. The people who took Min are not fucking around.”
I thought we’d established that. Then again, Eva hadn’t seen some of the things I had. That made a difference.
“They’ve joined forces with malevolent powers.” Kel spoke from the hallway. “Using demons and dark magick where simple force fails. If we do not stem the tide, they will consolidate their control over the country, and drugs will be the least of their crimes.”
Was he thinking about the girls, stuffed into crates like so much produce? God knew they would haunt me.
Chance reached for me as if he sensed my thoughts. He hugged me around the shoulders and I leaned into him for just a moment. “Montoya owns IBC, doesn’t he? Selling girls into slavery pays a whole lot better than waste management.”
“I’m pretty sure he does,” I answered. “That’s the only connection that makes sense. But proving it would be harder.”
Kel turned then and his smile chilled me. “We don’t need proof. We need to know where he lives.”
“I got that covered too, primo.” Chuch grinned. “If I can’t find out about it, it ain’t worth knowing. Now I’m just waiting for Esteban to get back to me.”
“You weren’t the only ones who found something,” Eva said with a smirk. “I called your cousin Ramón and asked him to go check out the address for the registered agent that fronts for IBC.”
