by CW Browning
“No, no, no, no, no, no,” she cried out.
Blake held his hands up non-threateningly and stopped moving toward her.
“I'm here to help,” he told her, speaking in the same dialect of Spanish.
Surprise crossed her face and she stopped shaking her head, falling silent as she stared at him. She still rocked back and forth and Blake found himself starting to sway with her before he caught himself.
“I won't hurt you,” he told her gently. “You look like you've been hurt enough. I just want to ask you some questions.”
“Careful, Hanover,” someone called from across the room. “She's on something. Look at her eyes!”
“I see,” Blake answered in English. “Where's the other woman?”
“In the kitchen. We kept them separate so they didn't even see each other.”
“Good.” Blake nodded in approval. “Are these the only bodies? The ones in here?”
“Yeah. Rest of the place is clear.”
Blake nodded again and turned his attention back to the couch, moving closer.
“Did you see this happen?” he asked the woman, switching back to Spanish. “Did you see who did this?”
“La Calavera Catrina,” she said shrilly.
Blake stopped moving and raised an eyebrow.
“La Catrina?” he repeated.
The woman nodded, her hair falling across her eyes. She brushed it out of her eyes with a hand shaking violently.
“She comes to guide us to the afterworld,” she told him. “She came to take Jenaro to his father.”
Blake sighed and rubbed his forehead, looking down at the woman on the couch.
“La Catrina is a symbol, a deity, a representation of The Day of the Dead,” he told her. “She is not real.”
“HA!” the woman let out a loud, shrill laugh, her eyes wild. “You think what you will. I saw! I saw death! She was dressed in a flowing black dress and she came for Jenaro!”
“Why would she do that?” Blake asked in resignation.
“He would not pay tribute to his father,” the woman whispered, her eyes dropping again.
“Jenaro Gomez's father died fifteen years ago,” Blake said impatiently.
The woman raised swollen dark eyes to his face.
“I know. La Catrina came to take Jenaro to him, so he can learn from him,” she told him. “He would not pay tribute! Look!” The woman swung her arm out, indicating the living room. “There is no alter! There is no place for the ancestors to eat. There is no tribute here.”
“Yes, ok.” Blake shook his head and turned as John came up behind him with a red blanket in his hands.
“What the hell is she going on about?” John asked under his breath.
“She thinks Jenaro was taken away by a female skeleton who guards over the festival, The Day of the Dead,” Blake answered shortly, taking the blanket from him.
“Say what?”
John stared at him blankly and Blake smiled reluctantly.
“The Day of the Dead is a festival, still very prominent in her region of Mexico,” he explained quietly. “The story goes that for two days, the dead are allowed to come back to earth to eat and drink with the loved ones they left behind. However, they have to be guided back. The living do that by building alters on the eve of the festival to invite the spirits back. In her region, they play music at the alter to guide the dead back.”
“You're kidding, right?” John demanded.
“No.” Blake shook his head. “She says La Catrina came in here to take Jenaro to the afterlife because he didn't invite his father back.”
“For the love of...she's crazy!” John exclaimed. He watched as Blake moved forward and draped the blanket around the woman's shoulders. The woman had returned her gaze to the opposite wall and resumed muttering to herself. “What's she saying?”
“She's praying to the Holy Mother,” Blake answered, straightening up turning away. “She's praying for Jenaro's soul.”
“Good Lord.” John shook his head, staring at the woman on the couch as if she was a huge python curled up on the cushions.
“Quite,” Blake murmured. “You'd better get her down to the paramedics. Judging by the size of the bruises on her face, she's been used pretty hard by Jenaro.”
“You think her mind snapped?”
Blake glanced at him.
“She just told me that a female skeleton, dressed in a flowing black dress, came in here and did all this, then took Jenaro with her to the afterlife,” he told him. “What do you think?”
Stephanie glanced down at her phone when her text alert dinged. She picked it up and swiped the screen. The text was short and to the point.
The Nuñezes are safe now.
Stephanie glanced across the living room to where Jessica sat on the couch with her son next to her, watching a Disney movie. She had taken Alina's suggestion and took them out to a late dinner. Then, not knowing what else to do with them, she brought them back to her apartment.
She opened her mouth to tell them she could take them home, but before she got a word out, her phone started vibrating in her hand and Led Zeppelin started playing.
“Hello?”
“We secured Jenaro's place,” John told her. “Four of his men were dead when we got here.”
“And Gomez?” Stephanie asked.
Jessica looked over sharply on hearing the name.
“Not here.”
“Shit!” Stephanie exclaimed, standing up impatiently and heading into her kitchen. Once there, she spoke quickly, lowering her voice. “I just got a text from the Black Widow, saying the Nuñezes are safe. Where is he?”
“Given that little bit of information, I would guess with her,” John replied, also lowering his voice. “Here's what I know. When SWAT pulled up to the house, a man too short to be Jenaro was running out the door. He disappeared into the trees across from the river and was long gone. When we got up to the apartment, four of his men were dead, two women were unconscious, and there was some blood on the floor in an area where there were no bodies.”
“Meaning?”
“Blake thinks Jenaro was here, but either injured or killed, and then removed,” John told her. “I'm inclined to agree with him, especially after what you just told me. The blood pattern isn't consistent with spatter from any of the bodies we have here.”
“John!”
Stephanie heard Blake's voice in the background.
“Hold on, Steph,” John said.
Stephanie leaned on the counter, listening as John went into an area with a lot of background noise. She tried to make out the sounds, but they all blurred together until she clearly heard Blake's voice again.
“Look at this.”
“More blood?” John asked after a moment. “Isn't this where Death Chick was sitting?”
“She was sitting next to it, but yes,” Blake answered. “So, we have at least two missing bodies. Is that Stephanie on the phone?”
Stephanie glanced up as Jessica appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.
“Ms. Walker?” Blake spoke into her ear.
“Yep,” she answered as Jessica leaned against the door frame, watching her.
“Do you still have Mrs. Nuñez and her son with you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Jenaro is missing,” Blake told her. “I don't think he's still a threat, but you may want to set a couple of good agents on the Nuñez family to be on the safe side.”
“Already done,” Stephanie told him. “I've had a pair with her husband and daughter since this all began, and she's still with me. Tell me what happened.”
“I don't know yet, but I can tell you this, he was here.”
“How do you know?”
“There are too many of his entourage here, dead,” Blake answered bluntly. “This many of his men wouldn't be in one place if Jenaro hadn't been here. There's some blood on the floor, consistent with a small wound, and now I just found a much larger stain on the couch. This, I wou
ld say, is consistent with a much deeper and more serious wound.”
“I'll call Matt and get him into the lab,” Stephanie told him, glancing at her watch. “Get swabs of all the blood and give them to John. Tell him to get them over to Matt immediately. Let's see if we can get confirmation tonight.”
“Your basement gnome will be willing to go in at...ten o'clock at night to run DNA?” Blake asked incredulously.
“He will for me,” she assured him.
“I'll get the samples together.”
Stephanie disconnected and looked across the kitchen at Jessica.
“It looks like you're free of Jenaro,” she told her.
“Then why aren't you smiling?” Jessica asked softly.
“Because we don't have a body yet,” Stephanie said, hitting speed dial on her phone.
“Then I'm not free of him yet,” Jessica told her grimly. “I know this man. Many have thought they killed him before, only to find out they were wrong.”
“You know that woman who saved your life?” Stephanie asked her, putting her phone back up her ear as it started to ring on the other end. Jessica nodded. “Well, she's the one who says you're safe.”
Jessica stared at her for a beat, then a slow smile spread across her face.
“Then we just may be free,” she breathed.
Stephanie shook her head, smiling reluctantly at Jessica's absolute faith in Viper.
“Matt!” Stephanie said as a male voice answered the phone. “I need a huge favor.”
“I'm not going into work,” Matt told her. “I'm beat. I'm going to bed.”
“Please? I need you to run a DNA sample,” Stephanie said, drawing a loud sigh from him.
“Running DNA samples isn't like running a social security number,” he informed her. “It takes time. A lot of time.”
“Even if you're comparing it to DNA you already know?” Stephanie asked.
After a moment of silence, Matt sighed.
“You're checking to see if it matches someone?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And we know that someone has their DNA on file?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Jenaro Gomez.”
There was a heavy sigh on the line and Stephanie knew she had him.
“I'll be there in twenty minutes,” Matt said tiredly, “and you owe me huge for this.”
“Agreed.”
John jogged down the stairs of the row home, two evidence bags in his jacket pocket. Stepping out into the night, he glanced around. They had the street blocked off and coroner vans were pulled up onto the sidewalk, ready to take charge of the four bodies upstairs. The neighbors were huddled on their stoops, watching the activity with wide eyes as agents and techs swarmed in and out of the end house like so many flies at a picnic. An ambulance idled in the street, its lights still flashing, and John glimpsed one of the women sitting in the back, a blue blanket around her shoulders. He frowned and walked over to the ambulance, glancing inside. She was the only one sitting there.
John spun around, looking for the paramedic he had summoned earlier. He spotted him a few feet away, talking with one of the SWAT team.
“Hey!” he called, waving a hand.
The paramedic looked up and came over.
“Yeah?” he asked, glancing in at the woman in the ambulance.
“Where's the other one?” John asked.
The paramedic looked at him, confused.
“What other one?”
“The other witness,” John replied impatiently. “The other woman!”
“There wasn't another woman,” the paramedic answered. “Just her. I thought she's who you meant.”
“There was another woman,” John told him harshly. “She was sitting on the sofa up there.”
“Agent Smithe, there was no one on the sofa when I went up there,” the man told him, shaking his head. “I stopped one of the agents and asked where the woman was, and they took me to her.”
John stared at him speechlessly and the paramedic stared back, nodding.
“Well, where the hell did she go?” John finally demanded.
“I have no idea,” the paramedic replied with a shrug.
John turned away and ran a hand through his hair, looking around the busy street hopelessly. Another witness gone. Although, he admitted to himself as he turned away and headed toward his car, she was certifiably bat-crazy, so she wouldn't have been much of a witness. He shook his head, looking around again as he reached his car.
But where had she gone?
And how the hell had she disappeared from a room full of FBI and SWAT?
Chapter Thirty-Three
Alina sat with her back against a tree trunk, one leg bent, and her head resting against the bark. The woods were pitch-black around her and the sounds of the night creatures filled the air. The temperature had dropped and the bite of fall hung in the air, bringing with it the crisp clean scent of impending frost. Taking a deep breath, Alina closed her eyes, her senses tuned to the sounds around her, perfectly comfortable.
She smiled.
Blake and John had fallen for her performance hook, line, and sinker. She didn't have time to be as thorough as she would have liked with her disguise, but what she managed had apparently sufficed. The skirt and top went over her own clothes comfortably enough, hiding everything except the boots. Oddly enough, though, no one seemed to notice the boots. In the bedroom, on the dresser, Viper found enough make-up to hastily create a bruise to cover half her face, blending it to make it appear as if it was fading. Using red lip liner on her eyes, she smudged it in with her fingers to make them look red. At the last minute, on her way out of the bedroom, she spied some vapor rub. She rubbed it under her eyes and they swelled up, adding to the redness. Over all, she hadn't been entirely happy with the results, but it did the job. John hadn't looked twice at her, except to think she was crazy.
Viper shook her head slightly, her eyes still closed. She had been expecting Blake, but not John. That was a larger risk than she would have been willing to take, just to give Hawk an extra few minutes to clear the building with Gomez. However, it all worked out in the end.
Who knew Blake Hanover would turn out to speak the odd Spanish dialect unique to a tiny, southern region of Mexico? Alina smiled ruefully. He had genuinely surprised her, and that was hard to do these days. He had been thorough in his pursuit of the Cartel, she would give him that. He must have spent time in Mexico, tracking them and learning everything about them. Blake Hanover was not a common federal agent. Alina supposed she should have expected that. He was a Marine. They were all unpredictable.
Viper opened her eyes at the faint and distant sound of a motorcycle. She listened intently for a moment, then yawned and zipped up her jacket against the chill in the air. An owl hooted nearby and something went scurrying under some leaves behind her. The motorcycle grew louder as it came closer and little by little, the forest creatures around her stilled, hiding from the intruder heading in their direction. A few minutes later, the bike splashed into the creek and roared up the bank.
Alina blinked as it broke through the trees and caught her with its headlight. She didn't raise her hand to shield her eyes, but simply kept her eyes down until the light veered off her face as Hawk turned the bike. He pulled up in front of her and switched off the engine.
“How long have you been here?” he asked, pulling off his helmet.
“Not long,” Viper answered, standing. “Did you make it out ok?”
“Piece of cake,” Hawk replied, kicking down the kickstand and getting off the bike.
“And Jenaro?”
“Taken care of.”
Alina nodded and studied Hawk in the darkness thoughtfully.
“So, it's over then,” she murmured.
Hawk turned toward her, dark and forbidding in his black jacket and clothes. He reached into his pockets and pulled out her pistol, handing it to her. Viper took it and tucked it into her back holster.
“As far as the Casa Reinos are concerned,” he said. “If there are others out there considering trying to find me, this might make them think twice.”
He pulled out her leg holster and knife, handing them to her. She slid the knife back into her sheath on her ankle and tucked the leg holster into her pocket.
“Have you briefed Charlie?” Alina asked, watching as he pulled the bike cover out from under its pile of leaves and tossed it over the bike.
“Not yet,” Damon answered, securing the cover. “I will.”
“He needs to know you're compromised,” she said softly.
Damon glanced at her silently as he finished securing the bike. When he turned back toward her, he looked every inch like the dangerous assassin he was.
“I'm only compromised if they find me,” he told her steadily. “Jenaro's the first one who did, and he's not a factor anymore.”
“But he found you,” Viper pointed out, her eyes locking with his. “Don't make the mistake of thinking you're invincible. Regina compromised you, and you're still at risk. Charlie needs to know how close they got.”
“I'll handle it,” Hawk said shortly.
Alina pressed her lips together and clamped her back teeth together with a snap, but let the subject drop. She turned and walked away, heading through the trees toward the house. Hawk would do what he wanted, regardless of what she said, but she had voiced her concern. The rest was up to him. It was his life.
Hawk followed silently, a frown on his face. Viper worried he was no longer invisible in the world arena. Their anonymity was their greatest weapon, and Regina stripped his away when she circulated his photo. Charlie was perfectly aware of the risk in continuing to send him out into the field, but Hawk knew he had weighed those risks against real-time analysis of how many people actually saw the photograph. Harry had alerted Charlie as soon as Regina sent the communications, allowing him to get a good jump on containing the damage. Only Charlie knew just how much damage had actually been done, and he seemed to believe it was minimal.