The steel monster was trying to push us into the water, at least a fifty-foot drop, maybe more. Sure death.
“Alisa, unbuckle your seatbelt.”
She grunted as she struggled to click herself free. Wearing a seatbelt was the best restraint for being in a wreck, but the worst if we were trapped inside a car falling to the bottom of the bay.
My feet could feel the shimmering undercarriage of the car scraping the metal railing.
Then it happened.
The car popped up for a moment, then slammed back down. But we weren’t level. The weight of the car was now more than fifty percent over the edge.
Finally, Alisa’s seatbelt flew off, and she slid against the door, broken glass all over her and the car.
“Dammit, Booker! What now?” she screamed through cries.
With oxygen barely reaching my brain, I surmised we had three options: Stay in the car and wait for the steel monster to send us flying into the water, trapped inside the car; kick out the front windshield and try to grab hold of the metal caging and climb to safety; or jump out of Alisa’s window far enough from the path of the falling Camry so it would not crush us when it slammed into the water.
I wasn’t the type to sit and hope for the best.
I unlatched my seatbelt and gravity dropped me on top of Alisa.
“Fuck, you’re heavy,” she groaned.
“Sorry.”
Peeling myself upward, the car dropped another two feet. How the car hadn’t fallen into the sea almost directly beneath us was a miracle. I guessed that the metal railing or cage had hooked into a piece of the car. But with the constant slamming, we could be airborne in mere seconds.
“Alisa, give me your hands.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to lower you through the window. We’re going to swing back and forth and then I will vault you away from the car as far as possible.”
“And I’ll fall a hundred feet into the ocean? Are you fucking crazy?”
“I think it’s closer to fifty feet.”
“I’ll die.”
“Do you want to drown instead, or maybe have a piece of metal pierce your chest?”
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”
Giving me her hands, I helped her to her feet, which straddled the open window.
Her knees trembled, and we both glared through the jagged window opening, the bay water the color of thick pea soup. She looked up at me with terrified eyes, metal and rubber squawking worse than my blue macaw ever had.
“I won’t let go until we’re both ready.”
A wretched squeal, then we dropped another foot. I slipped on broken glass, and my leg dropped through the open window. Alisa yelled out and almost lost her balance. I quickly pushed my way back to a crouched position and took Alisa’s hands.
“I hate heights,” she said, staring through the hole. “I’m going to die, one way or another. I can’t do this, Booker.” She sobbed and looked up at me.
“Force yourself to picture success.”
She sobbed more, and her knees shook uncontrollably.
“Let’s do this. Come on!”
She grabbed my hands and squeezed to the point where it almost stopped my blood flow.
“I got you.” I looked straight into her eyes, and I could see fright. But she believed me. “Lock your ankles together until you’re hanging below the car.”
I lowered her through the opening, hoping like hell the steel monster wouldn’t send us crashing into the water. Down on my knees, glass burrowed into my skin as I tried to get Alisa as much clearance from the car as possible.
The car shook, and I fell forward against the frame, my shoulder just missing the opening. I didn’t let go of Alisa, but she swayed to the side, one arm higher than the other.
“Booker,” her voice quivered.
Back on my knees, I called out. “Go with me, Alisa.” I pulled her body away from me, then back toward the bridge and me. “On the count of three, okay?”
“Okay.”
“One.” She kicked her legs to torque her body farther away.
I could feel my heart pounding my chest, mostly out of concern for Alisa. What would happen when she hit the water? Would it be far enough from the path of the Camry when it fell? Would I ever see her again? I had no idea how to launch myself away from the car wreckage.
“Two.” Like a high wire act, she was fully committed.
With veins popping out of my forearms, I grunted as I swung her back toward me.
“Booker!”
A man’s voice.
Alisa had hit the apex of her swing, started to kick out her legs. I could feel her loosen her grip on my hands, as sweat dripped down my arms.
“Booker! DEA on the scene!”
With my arms already shaking from the stress of holding her up, Alisa’s left hand slipped through mine. I lunged down and grabbed her forearm just before the right hand slipped out.
“Hold on to me!” I grunted out.
As she reached up, I grabbed just below her wrist, still slick with sweat.
“You’re coming back in.”
“What?”
Perspiration drained off my entire body, falling into the bay and Alisa’s beehive hair. I forced out a breath and focused my strength to pull her back into the car with me. Her elbows appeared, then her beautiful head of hair, followed by the rest of her curvaceous body.
She hooked her arms around my neck and buried her face in my neck.
Then she kissed me.
15
The crackle of a handheld radio jarred my concentration away from the crane hoisting the mangled Camry back onto the bridge. At least a dozen workers wearing yellow hard hats were positioned around the scene, either holding cables to guide the car to a safe landing or to instruct the others on how to complete the task. Off to the left, the steel monster—an enormous tow truck—wasn’t nearly as menacing as it was an hour earlier from where I sat on the back end of an ambulance. The tow truck’s engine was silent, the hood dented and scratched, as two crime scene technicians searched the vehicle.
Glancing to my side, a paramedic wearing rubber gloves cleaned the wound on the side of Alisa’s head. She winced a bit, tried to touch her hair, but the young man gently pushed it aside.
“Hope you got insurance.”
Maggie Calero had just approached us after huddling with her former DEA buddies for a few minutes.
“Funny.” Then I turned to Alisa. “We did get insurance, right?”
“Insurance. What’s that?” She rolled her eyes, then the corners of her mouth turned upward just a bit.
“Sarcasm. You gotta love it, especially when I didn’t think either of us would make it out alive.”
Touching the edges of a Band-Aid on the back of my hand, I looked at Maggie just as Alisa spoke up.
“Now you’re saying you thought we were both going to die? What was all that crap about picturing success?” Alisa peeked out from under the elbows of the paramedic, her crumpled forehead telling me she didn’t appreciate my updated opinion on our odds of surviving.
Maggie angled closer. “Alisa, both of you are lucky as hell to be sitting here. If Booker had a plan to get you out safely, it was probably because of two things: his training and the fact that he cares about you.”
Maggie’s phone buzzed, and she turned away while studying the small screen.
Alisa looked into my eyes and held the gaze for a few seconds, neither of us flinching, neither of us saying a word. She reached out her hand while keeping her head steady for the paramedic, and I took hold of it like I had earlier. This time the grip was tender. Her soft fingers interlaced mine, and I gently rubbed her hand with my thumb. I pushed back the urge to lean down and kiss her hand. I wasn’t sure why—why I wanted to kiss it, why I felt like I couldn’t.
Or shouldn’t.
“Okay, you lovebirds,” Maggie interjected, a laugh behind her voice. “You do know that life-threatening situations bring people together li
ke nothing else.”
Alisa quickly glanced at me.
“But I hear those relationships never work out. Nothing replaces the adrenaline rush or the adventure they shared. Sparks don’t fly unless you light a match.”
Just as quickly, Alisa turned her attention back to the paramedic.
“I think we’re done here,” he said while removing his rubber gloves. “Your wound isn’t too deep, and I couldn’t find any glass. You can take over-the-counter meds for pain.”
“Thank you.” She squeezed an eye shut while touching the bundle of hair near her wound.
I felt a tap on my knee. Maggie tilted her head, as if I should join her off to the side.
Lifting up, my overstressed legs wobbled a bit, and then I shuffled over to Maggie, our backs to the paramedic truck.
“Garza’s got some information on Alisa’s sister. Do you think she’s open to hearing it, or do you want to play go-between?”
As Maggie had informed us once we’d been hoisted safely back on the bridge, Garza was the lead DEA agent in charge of the investigation of Benjamin Luna, the man who’d refused to tell me why he had a loaded semi-automatic handgun in his office desk drawer. Luna had been under surveillance by Garza’s team for the past six months. The DEA was trying to capture enough evidence to bring down Luna’s entire drug-smuggling operation, which had grown into one of the largest in the region. From what Maggie alluded to earlier, new lines of communication with Cuba had also opened up new illicit revenue opportunities for the likes of Luna and his band of followers.
I’d never been so happy to hear about a law enforcement surveillance operation. The DEA saved our asses from plummeting into Biscayne Bay with two tons of metal, rubber, and glass crashing on top of us.
Maggie and her former colleague Garza had been huddled at a small outdoor café drinking coffee when he received a call from his team saying they’d heard the conversation between Luna, Alisa, and me. Once we left the office, Luna called one of his goons and instructed him to use his tow truck to shove our vehicle off the road and into one of the many water inlets dotting the city. Garza dispatched his team, including a helicopter, to locate us.
Scratching my goatee for a second, I thought about everything Alisa had endured in the last few days. The traumatic events had shredded her emotional fortitude. Yet I knew if I started protecting her now, she would eventually find out, then likely fall deeper into despair, thinking that no one truly respected her desire to understand every detail of the investigation as soon as it was available. I did respect Alisa, which is why I could only answer one way.
“Thanks for being mindful of her emotions, Maggie. But she needs to hear it at the same time I do.”
She nodded. “Give me a minute.” Plugging a finger in her ear, she lifted her cell and began speaking.
A few moments later, a man wearing a navy blue T-shirt and mirrored sunglasses came out of a crowd of folks still working the crime scene.
Handshakes all around, as if a coin were about to be tossed in among us.
“We need to talk. I know a quiet place close to here,” Garza said, both arms on his waist. With machines still beeping and cranking, it was difficult to hear. We shared head nods and followed the DEA agent through the crowd, over to his unmarked, generic sedan.
During the five-minute drive, I gathered my thoughts about our dual investigation—finding Natalie and identifying the person or persons responsible for killing her friend Jade. Earlier, when Luna had denied any role in Natalie’s disappearance, it sounded believable. Now, I questioned my instincts.
Had I been wrong about Luna? Maggie didn’t give me any clues about what Garza would share with us. Given the absence of conversation in the car, I could feel my gut twist into knots by the time tires crunched gravel in a half-filled parking lot.
As our shoes echoed off the wooden planks on the front porch of Mario’s Cantina, Garza lifted his chin toward a silver-haired man wiping down a table on the other side of a screen door. “Okay if we take the normal spot on the back porch?”
Still hidden behind his shades, Garza never broke his stride as we waited for the answer, which consisted of a subtle head nod.
“What can I get ya?” Tossing down four napkins, the man with silver hair appeared at our table that overlooked the bay, trees, vines, and shrubs covering the area surrounding us. We were the only patrons on the back patio.
All of us ordered something icy and alcohol-free.
Sitting on two wooden benches, Maggie was across from me; Garza across from Alisa. The DEA agent had a baby face, his face hardly showing any beard stubble. I wondered if he had the experience to deal with the likes of Luna and others in the drug-smuggling business. As I’d seen up close back in Dallas, people in the drug business don’t play games. They’re either desperate or desperately seeking huge sums of money. Murder is second nature, nothing more than a means to an end.
Alisa had stared out the window the entire way over. She hadn’t communicated much at all since we’d held hands on the back of the ambulance. Perhaps she was trying to recharge her batteries. But I was almost certain that her mind was on her sister.
As soon as glasses landed on the table, I took a sip and let the carbonation tingle my throat.
“Maggie says you have some information you’d like to share,” I said.
“Yeah.”
He appeared to glance at Alisa, although I could only see the reflection of the silver-haired man placing salt and pepper shakers on the tables behind me. I looked over my shoulder.
“Nothing to worry about with Mario,” Garza said, sipping his drink and releasing an “ah.”
“Good to hear.”
“He’s ex-DEA.”
I looked at Maggie. “Who isn’t ex-DEA around here?”
She shrugged her shoulders as Garza offered more evidence of a safe haven. “We have this place swept for bugs a couple of times a month, just to ensure that no one has found our little meeting spot.”
Mario walked by, and I could see him wink at Garza, courtesy of the mirrored shades.
“I don’t know if you have an aversion to sunlight, but do you mind…?” I motioned for him to remove his glasses.
“Not a problem.”
The moment he pulled the glasses off, I knew why he wore them in sun or shade. A cluster of pink, mangled skin gathered just outside his right eye. A thin scar, like a fishhook, snaked under his eye.
“I got this on my first undercover assignment.”
“That sucks.” I wanted to ask if that was last week when he was in high school, but I knew he’d earned his stripes even if he did look as young as Alisa’s sister. “Did you get him?”
“Her. It was a teenage girl high on meth, swinging a switchblade. She was the leader’s girl. And yes, we got him, and sent her to rehab.”
Garza folded his hands in front of his sweating glass and peered at Alisa.
“I can handle it. Tell me what you know. Please.” Her voice was unwavering, but quiet.
He closed his dark eyes for a second. “As you’ve heard, we’ve been monitoring Benjamin Luna for six months. We’ve followed him with agents on the ground, set up or planted audio surveillance in places we couldn’t get a camera, and have a good amount of video. We’ve got ninety-eight percent of his life chronicled in one format or another.”
He paused and took a sip of his drink, and Alisa watched every movement, her body calm, at least on the outside.
“About a month or so ago, your sister Natalie was in Miami—”
“For a photo shoot. I know,” Alisa interjected.
“Right. Just to be transparent, we were aware of the multiple calls Luna made to your sister. We discussed it internally, but at no time did we feel like your sister was in danger. Not from Luna.”
Alisa twisted her head just slightly, her face suddenly rigid.
“What’s with the qualifier?” she asked.
“Our assignment was to track and record everything Luna said or di
d. If he crossed paths with a person who we believed might be connected to his drug operation, then we would splinter off a separate team to monitor that person’s movements, the best we could with our limited budget.”
“Okay…”
Clearing his throat, Garza kept his eyes on Alisa. “While our team listened in the night Luna and the crew went clubbing, we heard a side conversation. It was muffled, hard to pick up. It involved Natalie.”
“What did you hear?”
“At first, every other word, at best. We had to run it through some special software to parse out the background noise, pinpoint the voices we wanted to pick up. It was almost dawn before the team had a clear understanding of the conversation.”
“Why give us this full timeline?” I asked.
“It’s all important. Booker, you should know that,” Garza said, glancing at me.
He was right, but I could see Alisa’s body growing tense. I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t want care or comfort right now. She needed to hear the truth.
“Is my sister okay?”
“I can’t speak for right here and now, but the next morning, our team spotted her at a brunch with the crew, including Luna.”
“That makes sense, right? Despite Luna’s unwanted overtures, she was there to do her job.” I poked a finger into the table.
Garza turned his hands palms up. “That’s why we didn’t reach out to any other authorities about what we heard on the audio recording. She appeared to be safe.”
Alisa brought a hand to her face then shook her head twice. “What the hell are you trying to tell me, outside of covering the DEA’s ass in case I sue you?”
I rested a hand on Alisa’s arm for a brief second. I didn’t want it bitten off.
“Alisa, it’s not what it seems,” Maggie said. “Give Garza another chance to finish.”
She plopped her elbows on the table. “I’m listening.”
“Natalie and this man were heard discussing…a hookup,” Garza said.
“Okay, my sister’s a slut. No big news there. Is that what this is all about?” Agitation filled her voice.
BOOKER Box Set #2 (A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense): Volumes 4-6 Page 17