“Helped my family. I got in when I was Sophia’s age, man. Didn’t know any better. These guys, they all had money. My family didn’t. They offered me a job. End of story.”
If Dylan had been raised on the reservation, would it have been the same for him? He couldn’t judge, could he? There but for the grace of God, and all that. Maybe his mom had done him a huge favor by leaving the rez.
“That’s rough, man. Glad I’m getting the opportunity to help you make a change. It could have been me, too.”
Jimmy looked over at him. “Funny. I never wanted your help, but thanks. I’ve spent almost ten years trying to make people think I’m a badass. Guess I’d better break that habit, yeah?”
Dylan chuckled. “I would, if I were in your place. Hey, what did you say to Sophia?”
“Told her she could come to Alaska if she wants. I’ll take care of her until she wants to come back here. She will, you know. I hope she’ll stay with me until they forget about her.”
“All you can do is let her decide.”
“I know. But if I’m going to give her baby my name, I want to have a say in how he’s raised.”
“Don’t blame you. I’m trying to adopt my little brothers. Your grandfather getting killed actually helped my cause.”
“Shitty thing to say, ‘mano.”
“I know. Just being honest.”
“My grandfather was a good man. Why didn’t he want you to adopt your brothers?”
“He didn’t think I’m full-blood O’odham. Wanda has other information, though. He didn’t know everything. I’m sorry he was killed; we could have worked it out.”
“Thanks.”
They reached the airport sooner than they expected. Dylan winced as he put a one-way ticket to Salt Lake City, with a flight to Nome on Alaska Airlines after an eight-hour layover, on his credit card. Jimmy said, “I’ll pay you back, man.”
“You’re going to need to get some clothes in Salt Lake, but not too many. They won’t be warm enough for Alaska. You ever been out of Arizona, brother?”
“Sure,” Jimmy laughed. “South.”
“Ha ha. You have any cash?”
“Enough. You’ve done enough, man. Thank you.”
“You’ll be okay here until your flight? I need to get back to Alex and get the ladies to Dodge.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Good. Don’t give the TSA agents any reason to detain you. You do have a driver’s license, don’t you?”
“I have one.”
Dylan squelched his inclination to believe that the license Jimmy had may not be his own. He’d done his best for Jimmy, fulfilled his promise to Wanda, and more. It was time to get his own house in order.
FORTY-ONE
Saturday Afternoon
Thurston had sent two cars to the reservation this morning to continue the search for Wanda Lopez. He stayed in Dodge, expecting her to return eventually. Dylan Chaves and Alex Ward weren’t in town that he could determine, either. Thurston was certain that some kind of conspiracy was going down, but he couldn’t see the Ward girl being in on it, even if she was an annoying little brat.
That business out at the murder scene the other day was unbelievable. And the kid wasn’t even out of her teens. He’d heard she was working toward a degree in mass communications. She was going to be hell on wheels if they ever let her get in front of a camera.
To test his theory that Dylan was probably with Wanda, wherever she was, and Alex had tagged along, Thurston made an onsite call to the Ward home. Paul came to the door looking as if he’d just gotten up. Thurston looked at his watch, and then looked up to find Paul scowling at him.
“What do you need, Kevin? I assume you’re here for a reason.”
Caught off-guard, Thurston compensated with aggression. “Where’s your daughter, Ward?”
“Why? Has she done something that concerns you?” Paul shot back his answer with uncharacteristic assertiveness. Maybe he was in on whatever was going on too.
Thurston glared. “It concerns me if she’s with that boyfriend of hers. I’m about this far from getting a warrant for his arrest, too.”
“On what grounds?” sneered Paul “You’re on a fishing expedition and you know it. And what does my daughter have to do with it?”
“She showed up pretty quickly at the murder scene.”
“You’ve got to do better than that. Everyone in town knows she’s got a scanner everywhere she goes. Alex is a more dedicated reporter than I ever was. For the record, I don’t know where she is.”
Thurston was stymied for the moment. He wasn’t prepared to threaten Paul with anything, or his daughter either. But, he tucked Paul’s attitude away for further consideration. He’d bet his last dollar that all of them were up to something. He just couldn’t figure out what.
It didn’t make sense for Alex to be involved with a murder. In fact, it didn’t make sense for Dylan either, but the time of death wasn’t conclusive. Dylan had opportunity, as well as motive. If they could find the murder weapon and tie it to him, they’d have the main suspect. Wanda Lopez would just be a bonus.
“Tell her to come and see me when she gets home,” Thurston ordered.
“I’ll give her the message.” Paul didn’t give any indication that he thought she’d comply.
Thurston walked back to his department-issued SUV. He wasn’t at all satisfied with that encounter. He was far more comfortable when people were respectful, even cringing at his feet. It was the main reason he’d become a deputy, but he’d never admit that to anyone.
As he got back into the vehicle, the radio crackled. Thurston made an effort to control his annoyance as he answered. The last thing he needed was one of his men knowing that someone had gotten to him like Ward had.
“Say again. Dodge 1, I was out of the truck, please say again.”
A loud crackle made him jump and wince at the same time. These radios were the worst. No budget, Tucson said. If they had to put up with this shit, he bet there’d be a budget. He couldn’t make out who was talking, and the message was broken up. All he got was that someone was in the hospital at Sells. The guy on the radio was requesting his presence there. What the hell? What was going on that his deputy couldn’t handle?
With a curse, he tossed the handheld mic in the passenger seat. All right, he’d go to Sells. But if it was something the guys on the scene should be expected to handle on their own, there’d be hell to pay.
An hour later, Thurston stood at the door of Hector Lopez’s hospital room, speechless. Two of his men were guarding the door, with Wanda Lopez barricaded inside. In one hand, she held a razor-sharp scalpel she waved back and forth any time one of them tried to enter.
“Wanda, what the hell? Put that down, or I’ll have to add resisting arrest to your charges,” he said. He was rather proud of how forcible he sounded, considering his chest pain flared every time she waved that thing.
“I’ll put it down as soon as your storm-troopers agree to let me stay until Hector wakes up. I’m not going anywhere while my husband is unconscious.”
Thurston hesitated. He knew his warrant was bullshit. He’d love to make it stick, but the fallout later, especially if Hector was in really bad shape, could be more than he was willing to risk. “What’s wrong with him?”
“The pendejos that grabbed us on Thursday hit him with something. He’s got a brain injury. The doctors aren’t certain how bad. But he’s been unconscious ever since.”
Thurston gulped. That didn’t sound good. And what did she say? Someone grabbed them? He began to get a bad feeling that he had misunderstood her disappearance.
“What assholes?” he asked.
“Cartel, probably. One minute I was asking if anyone knew where my relative was, and the next I was waking up in a hole in the ground. They dumped Hector in with me a few hours later, I guess. I don’t know for sure.”
Wanda relaxed as they conversed, dropping the hand with the scalpel to her side. Thurston briefly consi
dered rushing her, but the thought of that thing slicing through his belly stopped him. Wanda may be an older woman, but he had no doubt she was at least as fast as he was. He’d slowed down a lot with the extra fifty pounds he’d put on since he joined the sheriff’s department. Instead, he focused on what she said. Cartel. Who else had said that to him lately?
Bill. He’d asked this morning as he went off-shift, about the motorcycle club that bought the Stars and Garters, wondering if they had contacts within the cartel. Thurston dismissed his question, figuring he was tired from the midnight shift. Now he wondered. There’d been evidence the young Latino Alex Ward nearly killed in self-defense last July was a cartel enforcer. Thurston hadn’t believed it, based mainly on the belief that a sheltered teenage girl like Alex couldn’t have fought off a pro.
He couldn’t make sense of why any cartel people would want to grab the Lopez couple, though.
“What makes you say that?” he asked.
Wanda made a show of closing her mouth and zipping her lip, raising Thurston’s ire again. How the hell was he supposed to do his job if the citizens wouldn’t talk to him?
“Wanda, I’m going to ask you one more time. If you don’t stop stonewalling me, and tell me what the hell’s going on, I’m going to have my men execute this warrant for your arrest, Hector or no Hector. Cooperate, and maybe we can reach an understanding.”
Wanda appeared to be considering his words. Before she opened her mouth again, she checked the clock on the wall. Why was she stalling?
“Okay, but before I say anything, promise me you won’t go off half-cocked, as usual. I want it in writing, and I want it witnessed with your deputies’ signatures.”
Thurston was backed into a corner. He didn’t want to let his men think a woman could get the best of him. He also didn’t want to make another mistake like the one he’d made last summer. “All right. But if you’re stringing me along, all bets are off.”
“I’m not,” she promised.
FORTY-TWO
Alex helped Sophia pack clothes for herself and the baby. Anna had left a while ago, promising to return with a case of diapers for Diego. She assured Sophia that her things, the baby’s and the case of diapers would be fine in the pickup bed when Dylan returned for them. The girl seemed distracted. Alex kept finding things she would have considered essential that hadn’t been packed yet.
When Dylan finally arrived, it was nearing sundown. They wanted to check on Wanda and Hector before leaving Sells, but Alex was getting anxious to be back on familiar ground. As soon as they loaded everything, Dylan drove them all to the hospital. Sophia agreed to stay with the baby in the pickup while they went in. Alex was relieved they left her there as soon as they got inside.
Pima County deputies were stationed near the information desk, and further down the hall. Alex couldn’t see a way to get past them without giving themselves away. The fact that the deputies were there likely had something to do with Wanda and Hector, a realization that she and Dylan evidently shared. They looked at each other at the same time, and Dylan steered her in a U-turn back outside.
“I don’t like the look of that,” he said.
“I don’t either. We can call to check on Wanda and Hector, once we’re out of here.”
Dylan opened the passenger door for her and ran to the driver’s side, not bothering to answer her. Apparently, he agreed with her one-hundred percent.
Dylan eased out of the parking lot and had them on the road toward home before either one of them answered Sophia’s questions about what was going on. Finally, Alex did her best.
“We don’t know, but whatever it is involves Pima County sheriff’s department. We’re going to go home and mind our own business for a while.”
Alex fell asleep almost immediately, waking up only when the pickup made a turn at Why. “What time is it?” she asked.
“A little after six. I’ll have you home in time for dinner,” Dylan’s answer was laced with the smile he had for her. It was funny how she could always tell he was smiling by the way his words sounded. She smiled back, even though it was getting too dark to see each other.
Alex looked over her shoulder at the baby in his car seat. He and his mom were both sleeping peacefully. “How long before Jimmy sends for her?” she asked.
“He’s worried about her, so I think soon. Probably as soon as he gets his first paycheck. Could be a couple of weeks, though.”
“I can’t wait to see Dad’s face when I bring her home,” she said, suppressing a yawn. “He’s going to flip out.”
“Well, I hope he does it in private. That girl’s as skittish as a new colt. The last thing we need is her bolting. I don’t want Jimmy to come back and demand an explanation from me.”
“What’s the deal with them, anyway? She told me she was afraid of him. Then he comes in, takes her in the bedroom for a few minutes, and she comes out blushing. There wasn’t time to... you know.”
Dylan was grinning again, she could tell as soon as he spoke. “My guess is, when he told her she could come with him and he’d take care of her, she took it as a proposal of sorts.”
“Was it?”
“Who knows? Stranger things have happened. He doesn’t know why she named him as the baby’s father; says he’s never been with her. But it worked out for him when he needed help to hide, so he went along with it.”
“She told Anna and me it was because it was Jimmy’s fault the father died.”
“Aw, shit, did we just help a murderer escape?”
“Not because of that. I guess he could be a murderer, but she said it was because the Gilas made a raid on a Los Reyes operation and some of them got killed.”
“Hmmm. The guys who had Wanda said something similar. They lost three men in a raid. Jimmy said he never told them to hit Los Reyes. It was on them, he said.”
“Sounds like everyone’s ready to point a finger, but no one’s ready to take responsibility,” Alex said, her voice turning prim. She didn’t mean it that way. She always hated when she came across as judgmental, and it happened too often. She’d have to remember that when she wrote the piece she was planning for her blog. It couldn’t sound that way, or it wouldn’t be as effective.
“You know what’s funny? I started out thinking Jimmy was a cartel thug, and I guess he was. But he doesn’t seem like one when I’m just talking to him. He joined to help his family.”
“I told you that woman seemed to think of him as a Robin Hood type.”
“So, does the Robin Hood thing seem valid to you? Someone becomes an outlaw because they can’t see a lawful way to make it in the world, and that’s okay?”
“Well, it was when Robin Hood did it. Those laws were made by corrupt men, and a few people were hoarding, not only all the wealth, but all the natural resources, too. It was break the law or go hungry.”
“The way he put it, it was about the same here.”
“But the cartels sell poison. And they exploit innocents to get it across the border. I don’t even think they care if the people carrying their bales of marijuana get caught or die out there. It’s a distraction to keep you guys from noticing the other people bringing in the really deadly stuff.”
Dylan’s face, lit now by the dashboard lights, turned toward her for a moment before he turned back to look at the road. “You don’t count pot as deadly?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m serious. Don’t you agree that smoking pot leads to taking more serious drugs?”
“Not at all,” she answered.
“Why not?”
“Because, I’m pretty sure my Nana has been smoking it since the 1960s.”
Dylan’s laugh rang out, loud enough to wake the baby, who started crying. That woke up Sophia. She soothed her little man as Dylan continued to laugh far longer than Alex thought necessary.
“I have to meet your Nana,” he said, when he was able to stop laughing long enough to get the words out.
“You’ll meet he
r next week, at Thanksgiving dinner,” she said, beginning to laugh herself. What a long, strange day this had been. She wanted to explore the question with Dylan a little more, but not with Sophia listening.
They pulled up to her dad’s house a few minutes before seven, and Dylan waited in the pickup with Sophia and the baby, while Alex went in to prepare her dad for their unexpected visitors. If he refused to take Sophia in, Alex wasn’t sure what Dylan was going to do. There certainly wasn’t any room for them in his mom’s trailer.
Inside the house, she betrayed her nerves by shifting back and forth as she went through the day’s events as concisely as she could. Grateful that her dad didn’t interrupt after first asking if everything was okay, she rushed the punch line.
“Long story short, Sophia’s in Dylan’s truck with the baby. We need to hide her here for a few weeks.”
Alex wanted to shrink into the floor tiles as her dad stared at her.
“Here. You mean we need to hide her in our home?”
“Yes, Dad. It will be fine. No one can link her with you and me. She’ll be safe here.”
“For how long, Alex?”
“Three weeks, a month maybe? Until Jimmy sends for her. He has to get a job and get his first paycheck.”
Her dad let her stew for another minute. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “All right,” he said, at last.
“Really, Dad? Just, ‘all right’? I didn’t think...”
Her dad was glaring at her. “When have we refused to help when we can? You say she hasn’t done anything wrong, but she’s in danger. We have a couple of guest rooms, and we can help. So, all right.”
She remembered him saying that once before, not that long ago. It would come to her eventually, but for now, she threw herself at him and hugged him tightly.
“I love you, Daddy.”
“Love you, too, kiddo. Let’s get our guests settled.”
FORTY-THREE
Once Dylan helped get Sophia and the baby settled in the Ward’s guest room, he pulled Alex outside for a private conversation. The evening breeze had come up, bringing the dry, sweet smell of the desert with it. She crossed her arms against the slight chill, and Dylan put his arms around her.
Fatal Divide Page 15