When the men disappeared, Carlotta escorted Viola to a small bathroom. The woman took a thick fabric vest out of a cupboard. “Remove your robe and put this on.”
Viola did. It was a little big. Then again, so was the robe. “Bulletproof?”
“Exactly,” Carlotta said. “The warehouse holds a half-million dollars’ worth of products and cash at any given time, so it’s heavily defended. When you arrive this morning, you will face some risk. Call me sentimental, but I prefer not to lose you.”
The corners of her mouth had turned up at her little joke, but Viola didn’t see the humor. Carlotta was only sentimental about Heidi.
“Go out front at nine. I suggest you spend the travel time to compose yourself. The people you will meet this morning are dangerous but superstitious. You will worry them much more if you behave like a ghost. Let Diego do most of the talking.”
Chapter 8
Mount Evans Motel, Idaho Springs
Overnight, Athena had come up with a plan for finding Viola.
After a generous breakfast, she called Viola’s accounting firm. The young woman’s boss, Regina Hernandez, was already hard at work. Athena introduced herself as Carol Winter, a consultant to the FBI, then said, “We’re having trouble figuring out whether Viola was a random victim or specifically targeted. Do you have any thoughts on the question?”
“All I can say is that she was an up-and-coming star. Reminded me of me thirty years ago. But she’s more tactful. I doubt anyone would wish her harm.”
“No unhappy clients? It’s hard to believe any professional person can keep everyone happy.”
“Until she came along, I wouldn’t have believed it either,” Regina said. “Everybody loves Viola because she shows that she has their best interests at heart.”
Athena tried the opposite tack. “Okay, how about possible emotional attachments? Maybe a client or a Romeo?”
“Viola’s a quiet girl, unassuming. Men are generally idiots when it comes to women like her. I even suggested I’d fix her up with one of my cousins her age, but she refused. She’s studying hard for the CPA exams, she told me. No time for boys until that’s over.”
Athena was missing with every swing of her bat. “How visible is she? Any publicity? Awards?”
“Well, she graduated with honors from CU. I don’t know whether the school talks up its best students. The only visibility I know she received recently was indirect. The Denver Business Journal recently ran an article about our firm’s Hispanic business team. Because I’m the leader, the article mostly focused on me, but a picture included in the article showed all five of us. And the paper added a side bar with a short bio for each group member, including Viola.”
“Okay,” Athena said. “That was a long shot, but they do sometimes come in. Could you email me a copy of the article?”
Regina agreed and hung up. When Athena read the article and reviewed the picture, she agreed that Viola was an up-and-coming young accountant but hardly mentioned. Athena and Beau were spinning their wheels.
Was Viola impressive enough for someone who needed an accountant fluent in Spanish to perform some shady work? That seemed unlikely, but so did every other scenario. With no better leads, Athena hacked her way into the Journal’s subscriber list until she found 238 subscribers who had Hispanic last names. She began crosschecking them with Federal and state criminal databases.
-o-o-o-
Before she finished, it was time for second breakfast, as the hobbits liked to call it. She waddled with Beau a couple of blocks to the closest café and she fed herself and Leo again. Still no sign of labor pains. Maybe he was so happy in the womb that he’d refuse to pop out on his own. Because she knew the exact date of conception, she knew he’d already spent his full-term in utero.
While she ate, she outlined for her boyfriend the theory that some crook needed an accountant.
Beau listened without interrupting until the end then asked, “Why would somebody who needs an accountant grab a kid who recently graduated from college? Wouldn’t you want the head of that group, or at least somebody with long years of experience?”
She shrugged. “I thought about that. Got no good answer. Maybe the kidnapper thought she was a slim, younger woman, so easier to grab. The group leader is a woman, but she’s known for being very aggressive. Of the bunch mentioned in the article, Viola would have been the easiest to manhandle.”
She paused then said, “Yeah, I know, I’m grasping at straws.”
Beau patted her hand. “We all are. Getting nowhere on this case. All we can do is try our best in the time we have to give to Viola. On the plus side, I found seven potential hiding places last night before I smashed the burn phone to bits. I’m hopeful at least one of them will work out. We’ve got great candidates, and the leading one is an old ranch house up in South Park.”
As he gave her the details, she had to agree it sounded like a good hiding place. But she pressed him for the details on three other candidates so they’d have options. Both of their lives and Leo’s would depend on making the right choice.
-o-o-o-
Thirty-eighth and Sheridan Avenues, Denver
Diego drove Viola in a black Cadillac sedan with dark-tinted windows. She sat in the front passenger seat. Thank God he wasn’t much for small talk, but he did apologize for almost raping her the day before. His excuse was that he’d thought she was destined to be a whore anyway, so what would be the harm?
She accepted his apology—as sick self-serving as it was—to shut him up. It worked. But instead of thinking about how she should act like a ghost, as Carlotta had wanted, Viola thought up ways to escape. Getting out of the compound had been the first essential step. Now, she had to keep her eyes open for an opportunity.
Pablo drove one of two black SUVs in front of them. For some reason, they pulled behind an abandoned gas station, and Diego followed.
Eight muscular men piled out of the two SUVs and suited up with full body armor, including helmets. Each wore a pistol on his hip, and Pablo handed everyone on his team an assault rifle or a sawed-off shotgun.
Viola couldn’t believe they had to be this heavily armed to visit one of the family’s own companies, but that only proved she was ignorant about their world. Maybe Pablo wanted to avoid violence by showing overwhelming strength. Or maybe the mother of all gang wars was about to begin.
The men butted each other with their helmets and punched one another in the arm. Seemed to be psyching themselves up for a more-exciting-than-usual audit.
“Ready?” Pablo called.
“Si!” his men yelled back. They really did seem eager for action. What a sick bunch.
Diego brought along his billy club and a massive revolver. “Dirty Harry’s gun,” he said several times, meaning it was a .44 Magnum.
Pablo’s men piled back into their SUVs and tore out. Diego kept a hundred yards back. Viola’s stomach flip-flopped. Breakfast had been a mistake. But it was too late for second thoughts.
“Remember,” Diego said, “stick with me, no matter what. If the situation goes bad, Carlotta insists that I take you away. Pablo and his fighters will take care of themselves.”
Viola asked, “Why are we treating Sanchez like an enemy? There could be an innocent explanation for his messed-up financials.”
“Carlotta thinks over a hundred grand is missing, over a period of time. We’re not talking about one mistake, but lots of them. Ricardo has either lost his mind, or he’s already working for another cartel. Pablo and I are both sure Ricardo has betrayed the family. If he fights back, we’ll leave none of the guards alive. You are a true premonition of death.”
Fuck! She wondered whether her pitiful life, too, was about to end. Tears welled in her eyes as she thought of her mother being left alone to take care of herself.
The two SUVs ahead pulled into a parking lot in front of an old brick warehouse. A sign read Montezuma Pottery. Several concrete steps led up from the
pavement to a door marked Office. A man with a pistol in his hip holster stood outside the door.
Fifty feet to his right, a second man with a rifle stood at a loading dock next to a half-closed garage-style door. This kind of security was unlike any pottery store she’d ever seen.
Pablo jumped out of the SUV closest to the office. He raised his pistol and yelled in Spanish, “Choose fast.”
The guard reached for his pistol, but before it cleared the holster, Pablo shot him. The bullet hit him in the forehead and snapped his head back. Blood and brains splattered across the bricks behind him.
Pablo and the three men in his vehicle raced up the stairs.
The second SUV headed for the loading dock. The man there turned to duck underneath the half-open door, but not quickly enough. Two men in the second SUV stuck pistols outside of their open windows and cut him down.
“Good start,” Diego said to Viola. They were still on the street in front of the parking lot. “The fight should be over soon.”
He stopped a hundred yards from the office. All of Pablo’s men disappeared inside the building. One of them kicked the head of the dead man on the loading dock as he passed the inert body.
Seconds later, a couple of muffled gunshots sounded in the warehouse, then silence.
Diego lit a cigarette and blew several puffs out his open window until his phone rang. “Si?”
After listening for a moment, he said, “Naturally, I never had any doubt.”
He disconnected the call and took a deep drag on his cigarette before tossing it. “They killed two more bastards inside. Pablo’s happy. I’m sorry I missed it, but here comes our chance to have fun.”
Viola shivered. “How can you be happy about four men dying?”
“Because I’ve worked for years with the two guys outside. They betrayed me and the family, probably because they got offered more money by another cartel. Pablo thinks it’s Rojas.”
“What’s next for us?” Viola asked.
“Pablo and his men will hit the Rojas’s main warehouse, ten minutes from here. Hopefully, they’ll take the assholes by surprise. You and I will remain here to figure out how much Ricardo and his wife have stolen.”
Diego drove to the office entrance. He led Viola inside, his billy club in one hand and his revolver in the other. She carried a briefcase filled with the things she might need to perform an audit.
They passed through a reception area where several chairs had been knocked over. The air smelled like someone had set off fireworks. No bodies, thank God.
They next entered a second room about twenty feet square. It contained a dozen adults sitting on the floor and leaning back against one wall. Three were women.
Two of Pablo’s guys grinned and pointed pistols at their prisoners. The prisoners’ hands had been pulled behind their backs, and their ankles were bound together. One of them had a nasty cut over his right eye that was bleeding freely.
The other side of the room contained two desks and several filing cabinets. An old, shoulder-high safe sat in the corner near the desks. To keep it from being hauled away, someone had riveted it to the floor.
One of the Santiago fighters said, “Pablo will be back soon. He and the others are making sure no one is hiding inside the warehouse.”
A moment later, he arrived, holding a Hispanic boy about sixteen by one arm. The kid’s eyes were open wide, and a bloody bruise marked his left cheek. His hands had been zip-tied behind him.
Pablo shoved him roughly against the wall at the end of the line of prisoners.
“Congratulations again,” Diego said with a wide grin.
“Child’s play,” Pablo said. “I will leave Juan here with you to keep an eye on these traitors. All their guards are dead. I’ve already talked to Carlotta. She’s sending six more men to make sure this building stays in our hands.”
Diego patted him on the back. “You did all the hard work! Good luck at your next stop.”
Pablo nodded, and said to his men, “Vámonos.” As he walked past the line of prisoners, he pulled a pistol from its hip holster and shot one guy in the face.
The others screamed and tried to roll away.
He yelled, “Quiet!”
The room fell silent.
“That was to settle an old score,” Pablo said. “As for the rest of you, Señora Santiago will decide who lives or dies. If it were up to me, I’d take you all out, including the boy. Maybe she will, too.”
Pablo and most of his men took off. Diego and Juan forced a large, well-dressed man with salt-and-pepper hair into a plush leather swivel chair behind one of the desks. They taped his wrists to the armrests and his torso to the seat’s back.
“Ricardo, my friend,” Diego said with a smirk. “Holy fuck, you are in a world of trouble, chico. I can’t imagine how you get out of this. But if you cooperate, you won’t suffer much before you die.”
He pointed at Viola. “La Llorona wants to know how much you’ve stolen from the family that treated you so well.”
Diego nodded at Viola, her cue to open the safe using a combination Carlotta had given her.
Everybody stared at Viola. Do I really look that weird?
With no warning, Ricardo tried to break loose from the chair. He strained against the duct tape, but Diego and Juan had done a thorough job. Ricardo couldn’t break loose.
Still, he managed to stand, and he swung the chair around like a whale’s tail, aiming for Diego.
Viola gasped with surprise, even though she was ten feet away from Ricardo. Her tongue tingled from a blast of adrenaline. This world was so incredibly violent, and worse, she was bound to suffer soon.
Diego must’ve expected Ricardo to pull something because he stepped back for a second to let the chair swing by then brought his billy club down hard on Ricardo’s closest knee. The man screamed in agony and collapsed to the floor. The chair pressed down on him.
Juan and Diego roughly righted the chair and its occupant. The poor man rocked from side-to-side shrieking.
In a calm voice, Diego said, “Shut up, or I’ll break more bones.”
Ricardo wheezed but quieted down.
“La Llorona,” Diego said, “sorry for the interruption. Please continue.”
It wasn’t like she had any choice. If she didn’t do what Diego wanted, he’d kneecap her, too.
She hurried over to the safe, not happy about being Carlotta’s sharp sword of retribution, but fear was a powerful motivation. Carlotta expected her to do her accounting work. A memory of her last accountant’s mangled corpse flashed through Viola’s mind.
With trembling hands, she opened the safe, but it took two attempts. The top three shelves held four long black trays, each filled with bags of drugs or bottles of pills. The bottom half of the safe contained a dozen individual bundles of cash—each wrapped in plastic—and a cashbox.
Diego positioned a chair behind the desk and swept aside several piles of papers to give her a clean working surface.
Chapter 9
Viola breathed in and out a few times to settle herself then sat.
Carlotta had told her to conduct the audit in front of as many witnesses as possible, but the jefa hadn’t told her why. Viola assumed she’d wanted the prisoners to be able to see for themselves that the Santiagos had been cheated.
Viola began counting the money first. Each bundle contained a hundred bills separated by denomination. She checked random bills, and they all seemed to be authentic. Then, she counted the loose money in the cashbox.
As she worked, she looked up from time to time to confirm that everyone was transfixed by the cash. It turned out that the bundles and cashbox totaled $46,387, a far cry from the half-million bucks Carlotta had told Viola she should find.
Her stomach churned with worry, even though she wasn’t responsible for the shortfall. Will Carlotta shoot the messenger?
Diego shook his head and swore.
Next, Viola inven
toried the drugs. Each of the packages was labeled with the codes Carlotta had explained to her. Viola occasionally tested the various drugs to ensure they were what they were supposed to be. All were genuine narcotics, but the inventory fell far short of the amounts that should’ve been present.
Viola double-checked every step to make sure she wasn’t making a mistake. The combination of cash and inventory should’ve totaled $562,806, based on the wholesale drug prices Carlotta had provided to Viola. Instead, the total of cash and inventory added up to only $239,649. Over $323K was missing.
After she triple-checked her results, Diego took her back to the reception area.
“Now comes the fun part,” he whispered. “Ricardo and Guadalupe have to answer for this theft. I’ll find out how much money they have available to repay the family.” He patted his open left palm with his billy club.
“Why will he tell you? If you torture him, he’ll say anything to get you to stop.”
Diego rolled his eyes. “But he knows you and I will confirm what he says right away. Plus, he loves his son Felipe. If he deceives us, he knows I’ll take my anger out on the boy. Why would any father die with that on his conscience?”
“Who says he has a conscience? He sure doesn’t have any brains, or he wouldn’t have stuck around here after stealing the money.”
The thug snickered. “He stayed because he thought Rojas would protect him. And four armed men should’ve been enough, but Pablo caught them by surprise.”
At least part of his explanation made sense. Ricardo had to know he couldn’t lie for long without being tortured terribly. “How can you stand doing this work?”
Diego beamed. “My father was an enforcer for Fernando back when the cartel was just starting. Papá taught me the business. You can get used to anything, and I get a kick out of beating on assholes. Plus, this work pays very well.”
With a grin, he lit another cigarette. “By now, we’ve given Ricardo a chance to think about how much his kneecap hurts. He won’t want to hurt anymore. Ask him about his assets. Carlotta will want to know everything.”
Anointed (Vanished Book 3) Page 6