“If the ladies would please join me in the salon for after-dinner cocktails, I believe the gentlemen will have brandy and cigars in the study.” Yancy led the way out, followed by the somewhat bewildered ladies.
Arturo forced a smile for his two most important guests and also led the way to his study.
Yancy waited until the waiters had taken all the drink orders before she sat down on the sofa arm next to Jennifer, who had collapsed against the couch. She saw from the fixed look in her daughter’s eyes and mouth that she was fighting tears. As the drinks were being served, Yancy grabbed a strong margarita for Jennifer and offered it. Jennifer took it, her hand shaking so much it spilled slightly.
Yancy sliced her a look, trying to cover Jennifer’s nervousness by raising her own mojito. “Salud.” As the women sipped their cocktails, Yancy sliced a sideways gaze at her daughter. When Jennifer just sat there, shaking, Yancy leaned over her as if to whisper in her ear but used her body to shield the way she snapped the stretch bracelet against Jennifer’s wrist. Jennifer’s blue eyes sharpened a bit.
Leaning forward, she took a deep sip. Then, cradling her stomach with her free hand, she leaned forward, gagging. Yancy put her glass down on the table and grabbed up an ornate cloisonné bowl to hold it in front of Jennifer. She was not surprised when Jennifer’s pretense became real. She vomited into the bowl.
With moues of distaste, the women closest rose and got out of the way. Yancy accepted an older woman’s handkerchief and wiped her daughter’s mouth when she was done. “I’m so sorry, ladies. I need to get her to the bathroom and help clean her up. Forgive me.”
Yancy nodded sharply at a hovering waiter, who took the soiled bowl away.
Yancy put her arm about her daughter’s shaking shoulders and led her past the stairs toward the back of the house. They stayed in the guest bathroom for a good ten minutes, Yancy genuinely concerned as Jennifer vomited again into the toilet. “Did you take the pills I gave you?” she asked sharply.
Jennifer nodded. “I feel dizzy.”
Too many drugs, too much alcohol, too little food. At least that’s all she hoped it was. Jennifer was so scattered, Yancy wasn’t sure she trusted her when she said she’d taken the morning-after pills. Yancy tenderly wiped her daughter’s face with a wet hand towel. “Can you keep it together another hour or so? Then we’ll be out of here.”
Jennifer took a deep, shaky breath, both hands cupping her obviously still nauseated stomach, but she turned first for the door. “What now?”
“I’m taking you outside for some fresh air.” Which was exactly what Yancy told the hovering servants. As they passed, she eyed the closed study door, hearing raised male voices. Good; they were embroiled in tough negotiations. Or an argument; even better.
Yancy walked Jennifer down the back steps to the bench in the rose garden. She looked at the time on her cell phone. Her ally in the security kiosk had given her a five-minute window: 12:20 to 12:25. He was going to pretend a flicker in the power, long enough for her and Jennifer to climb the back fence where she’d scaled it before and meet Jesús and his driver as they exited the compound. The many security cameras fixed on the road and the wall would be dark just long enough. . . .
Five more minutes. Yancy kept wiping her daughter’s brow with the handkerchief. This wasn’t an act. Jennifer was both clammy and nauseated. Yancy hoped she’d be able to make it over the wall. A guard circling the grounds holding a submachine gun eyed them as he passed, but he recognized them, saw Jennifer’s distress, and walked on. Yancy heard the crackle of a radio as he receded around the corner, but she couldn’t hear what he said.
Time crawled. Never had four minutes taken so long. Yancy counted two more armed guards. The dogs were loose, but she’d befriended them and they knew her. One even trotted up to be petted. He sniffed Jennifer but seemed to sense her distress and that she was no threat. He wandered off.
Two minutes left to the blackout. Yancy heard the study doors open and then male voices coming into the hallway. Now. No more time. She jerked Jennifer up and led her to the wall. She boosted her onto the lowest part, but Jennifer’s heels gave her no purchase. She slipped back down. Yancy knelt and undid the heels, then did the same with her own, leaving them sparkling on the grass.
This time Jennifer made it up and over, though there was a tearing sound as she struggled against the rough wall in her fragile silk. Yancy’s dress was looser at the hem, and she lifted it around her waist without a second thought, scaling the wall with the ease of someone physically and emotionally tough. Both women dropped down behind the bushes next to the road, staying in the shadow of the wall. The road was quiet, vacant. No sound of an approaching car. She checked the time: 12:30 exactly.
Her heart hammering against her ribs, Yancy pushed Jennifer down so they were both crouching behind the shrubs, waiting another interminable minute. Still only a moonlit, quiet road, no opening of the electric gate. 12:32.
Yancy debated whether they should take their chances and run, but she knew people were likely to start leaving soon, so they’d be seen unless they took to the wooded hillside . . . with no shoes. Another two minutes and then finally, the gate opened and a black limo eased onto the road in front of the mansion. As it passed them, she couldn’t see the driver or the passenger in the tinted bulletproof windows, but the trunk clicked open. Yancy led Jennifer around it and was moving to help her in when the moon appeared from behind the clouds and shone brightly enough for her to see inside the trunk.
Something was huddled inside already. A pile of rags in this expensive vehicle? Yancy bent her head to peer more closely, and only then did she see the dark, wet stain still spreading on the pile of fabric.
She reared back. The pile of fabric was an expensive tuxedo.
Suddenly, the truth hit her. She didn’t need to see the face to know it was Jesús, or that he was dead. Somehow he’d either betrayed her or been discovered . . . Every instinct bade her run, but she knew it was too late.
Both limo doors opened. Tomás got out of the driver seat and Arturo got out of the other side. She lifted her chin and met flat black eyes that didn’t catch a glimmer of the moonlight. She’d seen that look before, but it had never been directed at her.
Jennifer shrank away against her mother, and Yancy automatically put her arm around her daughter.
“So, you arranged this, sí, mujer?” Arturo asked almost conversationally. Two more men got out of the limo, and her heart sank when she saw the two Chechens. Both held machine guns. “How enterprising. Well, what are you waiting for? Get in. Your carriage awaits.”
Yancy looked down into the occupied trunk, back at him. “I was playing along, trying to get more information from Jesús.”
An ugly smile stretched his sensual mouth. “Good lie, but still a lie.” He held up a tiny book.
Yancy’s spine wilted when she recognized her tiny log of his illegal activities.
“You were so busy, querida, it was easy to send my men to search your room after Jesús told me you were paying him to smuggle you out after the party.”
Run, run, Yancy’s instincts screamed, but she looked at the two Chechens, who had tightened their grips on their machine guns. She stayed put.
A cynical smile stretched Arturo’s full lips as he continued with satisfaction, “My men have had the pleasure of Jesús’s company in private for the last twenty minutes. He was as weak as he was disloyal. It was obvious to me in the study that he was enamored of you. Under . . . persuasion, he told us everything. All the times you slept with him, the bribes you intended to make him with the jewels I gave you.” He took a small switchblade from his jacket pocket and snicked it open. “We are being watched, so we mustn’t disappoint them, no?”
Yancy shrank away, so panicked she didn’t give much thought to his last comment, but he only cut a small piece of fabric from the hem of her dress and then did the same with Jennifer’s gown. He gave both scraps to the Chechens, who nodded, as if they knew what
to do with them.
A gun poked Yancy in the ribs. “Get in,” said the older Chechen in his accented Spanish.
Her stomach roiling, Yancy hiked up her skirt and clambered into the trunk, moving as far away from what used to be Jesús as she could. Jennifer soon followed, over Yancy’s pleas and protests that her sick daughter be allowed to get into the car. Jennifer retched as she climbed, so unsteady that Tomás had to lift her inside the trunk. He was not gentle. Red marks appeared on Jennifer’s arm and leg where he gripped her, forcing her over the lip of the trunk.
Arturo hovered against the fitful moonlight like the shade he was. With rough hands, he jerked off Yancy’s necklace and earrings, sticking them in his pocket. Then, with a cold smile at his new associates, he said, “Enjoy them, compadres. Use them and then discard them at your leisure, or take them home with you, if you like the taste of treachery. I don’t want to see them again.”
The trunk slammed closed, leaving Yancy in the dark with her sobbing, retching daughter. The bitter taste of her own failure blended with the copper scent of blood. She felt the stickiness of it everywhere, no matter how she shifted away, along with a few heavier, slimier bits that she didn’t want to identify. Only by biting down on her lip to stop herself from screaming was she able to face the knowledge of what would happen to them next.
Yancy Russell, who had been strong enough for many months to carefully plot their escape in the face of threats, abuse, and sexual assault, stared blankly into the darkness, unable to utter a word of encouragement as she listened to her daughter’s sobs.
CHAPTER 11
The next day, Emm was at the interview fifteen minutes early. She’d dressed primly for the occasion in her plain white cotton blouse and plain black pant suit, as if denying the wild sensuality Ross had aroused yesterday. She knew it was a lie, Ross knew it was a lie, but maybe Abby wouldn’t.
In any case, she completed the masquerade with small gold earrings.
Ross met her in the waiting area exactly one minute before the appointed time. His eyes caressed her up one side and down the other, and his lips quirked, as if he caught the unspoken message. She merely shook his hand briskly and gave him a look back that said, Just business. His expression went blank. Without comment, he led her into his office. Abby already sat in one chair. She nodded a greeting with a stiff smile that set Emm on alert. She hadn’t known Hermione Abigail Doyle for very long, but she knew her well enough to realize Abby didn’t do subterfuge any better than she did herself.
Something had happened.
Ross waved Emm into the other chair and didn’t waste time. “Here’s the phone and Internet communication file for Yancy.” His earlier teasing had been replaced with a stony expression she hadn’t seen since he’d stopped her on the road outside Amarillo. That seemed eons ago now.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“In a moment.” He only nodded slightly at the communications file. While she read, he stated the facts of the interview into a small recorder and had her sign a release. Then she flipped through the few pages quickly, but other than more phone calls between Yancy and Curt than she’d ever suspected, she saw nothing unusual that alarmed her. She recognized an area code for Miami a few times, and something tickled the back of her brain, but she realized it wasn’t immediately relevant even as she tried to memorize the number for later.
She shrugged. “I’m sure you both know Curt shows up often. Yet they broke up over a year ago, and most of the calls are incoming from him.” She looked at each of them in turn, knowing Ross wouldn’t be happy to hear she’d confronted Curt herself with her suspicions. She wanted to see if they’d questioned him before she relayed her own information.
When she waited, he snapped off the recorder and answered her question as clearly as if she’d voiced it. “Yes, we brought him in for questioning, and he didn’t try to hide the fact that he still cares about Yancy. He told us himself about his calls to her and they seemed relatively innocent in nature. Invitations for lunch, sharing his purchase of his new car, that kind of thing. He said he tried to maintain a friendship with her because she mattered to him.”
“Did you know Yancy told him she was going to threaten to turn Brett Umarov in to the DEA for drug trafficking if he didn’t leave Jennifer alone, and she suspected he was involved.”
Ross and Abby both stiffened. “Who told you that?” Ross demanded.
“Curt did. And he also claimed he warned Detective Ruiz, who took his statement on the matter shortly after Yancy disappeared. Yet, from all accounts, Ruiz let Brett go without a further investigation, even though a search of the band’s recording studio turned up drugs in small quantities. ”
Ross looked at Abby, who had immediately opened her laptop and brought up a file. She paged through some information, stopped, and scanned a page. She nodded. “There is a report, but it’s very abbreviated, states only that the former boyfriend came in to give a statement claiming his former girlfriend had named Brett Umarov as being involved in drug trafficking for Los Lobos. Ruiz stated he sent a junior detective to question Brett, but the man came back saying it was a dead end. End of report.”
Ross stared at Emm so long and so harshly that she shifted uncomfortably, feeling as if she was sitting in the hot seat. “Satisfied yet that we’re doing our job?” he demanded.
She tilted her chin up at his look, also hearing his unspoken accusation clearly. “Yes, I questioned Curt. He claimed he had to take a second mortgage on his condo to pay for renovations. He also claimed he bought the Carrera with royalties from his new book. That should be easy enough to check. It cost 150k.”
At Ross’s nod, Abby turned her laptop on the front of his desk so Emm could see it.
She explained, “We just got this yesterday at my request. The publisher agreed to share Curt’s royalty statements with, shall we say, a bit of persuasion—and a subpoena—from our friends at the DEA.”
Emm scanned the summary report. It showed a healthy 50k in royalties in the last year, but not near enough to pay for such an expensive vehicle, as Curt had claimed. His mortgage record also showed only a first lien, with no second. She leaned back, unsurprised. “So he lied. Twice. What now?”
Ross said, “The problem is, if we bring him in for more questioning he’s likely to panic and run, or to alert whomever he reports to in the pipeline that we’re probably on to him. While financial records like this indicate a smoking gun, it’s not enough to prosecute. We need evidence of the actual laundering because the money trail will lead us to the head of the cartel with enough evidence to storm the compound and, ultimately, win convictions in both Mexico and here.”
Ross rounded his desk and rested his hips on the front edge so his knees almost touched Emm’s. Perhaps it was silly, given the way she’d yielded to him body and soul—was it only yesterday?—but she scooted her chair back, not wanting to touch him. His mouth tilted up derisively at the corners, and she could see he thought it was silly, too.
But he only said, “Emm, you’re going to blow this entire investigation and possibly further endanger Yancy and Jennifer if you don’t stop interfering. Not to mention you could be grabbed yourself.”
Emm ground her teeth together, but she managed evenly, “I don’t care. I’ve played nice, trying to follow the rules, and every law enforcement agency I’ve dealt with, including the Texas Rangers, seems too tied up in red tape to make any real progress.” When Ross sucked in an angry breath, Emm scraped her chair back and stood. “Curt Tupperman is involved in all of this, and I’m going to find out how and bring you the evidence you say you need.” She turned for the door, but Ross caught her arm.
He stuck his face into hers and enunciated each word with cold finality. “If you don’t cease and desist, you’ll not be watching anyone or anything except your career swirling down the stainless-steel toilet in the ladies’ jail.”
Emm pushed him back. “Get out of my face. If you try to arrest me, you’ll find ou
t I do know how to be a Rothschild when pressed. Nice turn of phrase, the press . . . I wonder how Curt’s competitors would like a whisper of this story? I can tell you he’s not very popular. I don’t think the Rangers would come off very favorably either. Three women, all taken from the Baltimore area, one dead, the other two about to be.” Emm tapped her fingers against her chin, as if contemplating. “Come to think of it, my grandfather has connections both at the New York Times and the Washington Post.”
Ross and Emm stared each other down. Check, countercheck, stalemate.
Ross took a deep breath and looked at Abby, who nodded infinitesimally.
He backed off and went to another file buried on his desk. He brought it back around, lancing her with those deep blue eyes that now gleamed with a hint of sharpened obsidian. “If you let word of this leave this office, I will have you arrested. This is highly confidential information, but it seems to be the only way I can convince you that we are proceeding as quickly as we can to shut down all of this cartel’s operations, including drug smuggling, human trafficking, and, recently, identity theft. They’re also trying to branch out into Europe, we think, with the Chechens as partners. Prices for their products are as much as triple on the continent. This Chechen connection will be a very lucrative partnership for Los Lobos if it gets finalized, and it will make them even harder to shut down. There are huge Eastern European mob alliances on the East Coast, which we think may be the reason for the Baltimore-Dallas-Amarillo-El Paso trafficking route.”
“So shouldn’t Mexico do all it can to stop them now?” Emm asked hopefully. “Before they finalize this deal?” She slumped back into the chair.
Ross pulled a picture from the file. “About twenty-four hours ago, Jesús Cerritos, a known lieutenant of the man we know as Arturo Cervantes, was found dead in a Dumpster in a bad part of Mexico City. In his pocket was a piece of blue silk, along with another piece of black chiffon studded with rhinestones. The Mexican police found traces of vomit on the blue silk and have sent it to us for full analysis. We can get age, genetic type, and some other information from it, but without a matching sample of DNA we can’t confirm it belonged to either Jennifer or Yancy.”
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