"Pull over," Valentín commanded.
Torres laughed and accelerated. "You're not really going to fall for her chatter, are you?"
Seeing the gun was one thing, hearing it fired in such close proximity was another. My head rang like a church bell, and I threw my arms protectively around Santiago as Torres screamed, clutching his thigh and trying to keep the car steady.
"The next one will go clear through your head," Valentín yelled in his ear, his free arm slung around the driver's throat. "Stop. The. Car."
Torres swerved off the road and into a nearby McDonald's parking lot where Valentín directed him into the farthest corner. We barely came to a stop before he got out and swung the driver's side door open, dragging Torres to his feet.
"Get in front," Valentín said to me and Santiago. He grabbed the car keys and slipped them into his pocket. With a grunt, Valentín dragged the limping Torres behind the gate where the trash containers were kept, and I watched the thug sink to the ground as Valentín unleashed all of his force with the weapon's butt against his skull. After assuring himself that nobody had seen anything, the cop closed the gate and got behind the wheel, tossing me his phone.
"Call the jewelry maker and give him a new address. On speaker."
I dialed Tee's number and gave him the new instructions to Calle Luna in Old San Juan, but then added, "Come alone."
Valentín looked at me alarmed. Tee got quiet on the other end.
Here came the switch that could seriously backfire. "Send Miguel and the others to the original address," I instructed Tee. "The other guys will be there, right, Valentín?" I didn't remind the cop this time that there was a child in the car and let him have his four-letter word moment. "You need to listen to me, Valentín," I said after he finished. "You're not going to win this. There are too many against you on both sides. Tell him, Tee."
"She's right."
"Tee?"
"What?"
"I need you to let him go. Do what you want with the others."
A hard laugh came across the speaker. "You're not making the rules here, Mel. Cardona isn't innocent. He's at least guilty of kidnapping and extortion."
"I know. But I don't believe he's in as deep as the others. You said that yourself. All I'm asking is a second chance for him."
"Forget it."
I glanced at Valentín, whose face was tight, his non-driving hand clutching the Baretta. "Valentín," I pleaded. "Take the deal. Promise you'll help to bring the others down in exchange for your freedom."
"There is no deal, Mel," Tee shouted across the phone.
I bit my lip. "We still have Santiago." This time I cupped the speaker so the latest in Rafael's lineage wouldn't hear clearly all of the unflattering words his father unleashed on me. "The last thing I want is to hold him hostage, Tee," I said after he was done. "Believe me I don't, but he's the only bargaining chip I have."
"You're bargaining for someone who's not innocent!"
"I know."
"Why then?"
Why? I sighed. Because Valentín brought me closer to Rafael, to Santiago…to you…no matter how warped it all went down.. "Because I need you to trust me that he deserves it."
Another laugh was all that came across the speaker.
"Tee?"
"Yes. I'm still here."
"We're getting close to Old San Juan."
Tee sighed. "I will never understand why you keep risking your life for people you barely know."
I smiled weakly. "If I ever figure it out, you'll be the first to know. Do I have your word that he'll go free?"
"Cardona. Is this what you want?"
Valentín snorted. "No, this is not what I want. But I don't have much choice in the matter now, do I? If I take her and the kid, I'll have you, your posse and mine on my tail. So given that I'm with my back against the wall, I'll take it."
"Trust me, it's a better deal than I would be giving you."
"Do I have your word, Tee?" I interjected.
"Yes. You have my word. Go to the original address. I'll meet you there. Everything needs to look as if it's going down as planned."
"We're short the driver."
"Make something up. That hasn't been a problem for you so far. And Mel..."
"Yes?"
"If anything happens to Santiago…"
"My word for yours. I'll keep him safe."
Tee exchanged a few words with his son, reassuring himself that the boy was still okay, and then it was just Valentín, Santi and me in the car again. I looked at the cop.
"You weren't going to get out of this any other way," I said. "Maybe this is a good time for you to move to New York; be a bit closer to where your daughter lives."
He glanced at me. "Maybe I should move to Miami. That's where you live."
I shook my head. "It's not like that between us. Don't move there on my account." I could already hear Elena groan at the mere thought of telling her I turned down the nice smelling detective for the eternal figment of my imagination. How many times on this trip had I promised myself – and Rafael – that this would end by the time I'd return to the airport? I looked down at Santiago's small figure huddled next to me, relieved that I now was at liberty to press my lips against his head and hug him. Rafael's roots were so deeply embedded in my heart it took my breath away to even think about pulling them out.
"It's showtime." Valentín parked the car in the long afternoon shadow thrown by a white-washed building. The second floor was fronted by a balcony with a dark blue wood banister running the length of the house. A double-wide, thick plank door opened to Valentín's touch, a long hallway leading past the stairs into an interior garden where we were now headed. No one else was in sight, but that just meant Valentín's buddies were good at staying invisible. He positioned Santiago and me behind a heavy cast-iron bench that allowed me a direct view toward the front door, but it was too dark in the hallway to see anything. He himself stayed off hidden to the side in the garden's far corner.
It took less than five minutes for the front door to open again, but it felt like an eternity as I stood there, my hands on Santiago's shoulders; two easy targets for invisible shooters.
I didn't recognize Tee until he'd stepped into the door frame leading into the garden. He carried a backpack in one hand. His hair was pulled back and he wore a shirt that hung loosely over his pants; a shirt like Rafael had worn so many centuries ago, with a narrow opening to the middle of his chest, a drawstring woven through it. In this moment, in this man, the past and present intertwined, and for a second, I forgot about the precarious situation in which we found ourselves, allowing a smile to slip across my face. Thank you, Rafael.
As Santiago recognized his father, I had to pull him back hard to stop him from running to him. Tee stepped slowly into the garden, looking in all directions before coming closer.
"Nice to see you followed my instructions to come alone," I said, motioning him to place the backpack on the bench and open it.
"Let go of my son first." The midnight in his eyes was bathed in bluish-white as he stared unflinchingly.
"Just as soon as you lift up your shirt and do a little spin," I said. Nice and loud so that hopefully Valentin's cronies could hear me. I wanted them to think I was clueless to the fact that he was supposed to hand me over to them. "Hate to have you surprise me with a gun on the way out. Lift your pant legs up, too."
Tee did as I asked, and I pushed Santiago around the bench just as he placed the backpack on it. I glanced inside, noticed the handle of the Glock between the wrapped pieces of jewelry. I pulled out one of the soft cloths, unwrapped a stunning necklace with deep red garnets in drop-shaped settings.
"Very nice," I said, nodding toward the shade-drenched corner of the garden from which Valentín emerged, his Baretta drawn. "You remember Valentín from the exhibit, I'm sure."
Tee's eyes narrowed and he clenched his jaw.
"He remembers," Valentín added, twisting his mouth. "Why don't we all go upstairs. Can'
t have you and your kid running around while we're still here. Nothing personal."
Santiago wrapped himself around his father's leg, and I hurried to grab the backpack before nudging the boy and his father inside and up the stairs. Valentín stayed behind us, and in the darkness of the unlit stairway, I pulled the Glock from the bag. It was heavy, and I hurried up a step. With me so close, the bag grazed Tee's leg and he came to an abrupt stop, spinning around. I passed him the gun just as Valentín raised his above my head, ordering him to keep moving. My body blocked the view, and Tee slipped the weapon under his shirt.
Per Valentín's orders we turned left at the top of the stairs. We passed two open doors. Despite the murky darkness of the encroaching night I could still make out that the first room was filled with book-lined shelves reaching from floor to ceiling. The second door opened to an office dominated by a broad desk. Valentín ushered us through a third door across the hallway into a spacious living room fronted by the balcony with the blue banister. The length of the room was lined with narrow double doors that opened to the balcony. Their white wooden slats were tilted to let in the evening breeze. Through the billowed sheers, streetlamps bathed half the room in a pale milky light. There was something quite romantic about the setting. The furniture around us evoked more the beginning of the twentieth rather than twenty-first century, and in a way it was befitting that no electricity lit the room from within. Despite the genteel ambiance of the place, it wasn't lost on me that the absence of more direct light was not in our favor.
"Where's Torres?" The question came from behind us. We turned around, and I tried to adjust my eyes to the gunmetal gray part of the room.
"Probably still vomiting at the McDonald's where I left him," Valentín said. I doubted the detective saw any more in the darkness than we did, but maybe it wasn't as important for him to see who spoke since he most certainly knew the person. "Don't know what he ate, but I wasn't about to smell that in the car. Told him we'd get him later."
"Valentín? Who is this guy?" I jutted my chin toward the shadowy figure.
The still only vaguely visible man laughed softly. "I can see why you would want to work with her, Cardona. She's not bad looking." Taking a few steps toward my supposed partner-in-crime. "Torres isn't answering his phone."
Valentín shrugged. "Probably dropped it in the car when he bolted."
The shadowy figure pondered this for a moment. Judging by his nod that sent another fuzzily drawn man to go check the vehicle, he wasn't convinced.
"Now isn't this nice." The doubter's words smacked of sarcasm.
I glanced at Valentín, but he just continued to point his weapon at Tee from his post along the wall, half way between balcony and door.
"All of us together at last." When the man stepped into the light, a smile painted brackets around his mouth. In the dim illumination I estimated him to be close to 50. He was clean shaven, with trimmed eyebrows and salt and pepper curls clipped to less than an inch. This was a sharp dressed man. Pleated pants, expensive shoes, a watch that would suggest either a master at saving money or someone with a healthy amount of consumer debt. Unless, of course, he had an alternate source of income that went beyond the salary of a police officer. As he sank his hands into his pant pockets, he nonchalantly exposed the badge clipped to his belt and the holster under his jacket. He stepped forward to get a good look at Tee, his smile broadening. "T.J. Guardán Rivera. Thought for sure we had seen the last of you when you left the force. Just our dumb luck that Cardona would pick you as a mark."
"Alejo Carbajal." Tee returned the man's smile, although it appeared more like two pitbulls baring their teeth while trying to figure out where best to sink them into each other. "All these years and you're still disgracing the department."
Carbajal's back hand came up so fast Tee never had a chance to duck. I saw the glimmer of an ostentatious ring on the policeman's hand just as it crashed hard enough against Tee's cheek to send him stumbling against one of the slatted balcony doors. As he scrambled back on his feet, Carbajal already waited for him with gun nozzle at the height of his forehead.
In all of this movement, I all but missed Carbajal's partners seemingly stepping out of the walls. As I clamped my mouth shut, trying to keep my thundering heart from escaping, I tried to see where Valentín was in all of this, and it was then that I recognized faces I preferred not to have seen again. Apparently the feeling was mutual.
"Since we're getting even…" The back of Domingo Vargas's hand seared against my face. My knees buckled and only my tight grip on Santi's shoulders helped me catch my balance. Tee leaped forward, but a hard shove from Carbajal separated him from me and his son.
Vargas didn't have a ring on, but he'd still managed to split the corner of my lip. I tasted warm blood as I tried cooling the spot with my tongue.
"Maybe that's not all I can give you," Vargas huffed. He reached for me, but Carbajal ordered him to step back.
"That's enough. I don't plan on being here all night. Open the back pack."
"Valentín?" One last voicing of my supposed surprise at this turn of events.
"Wake up sweetheart," Vargas said, grinning. "You're out of the picture."
"Hand over the back pack," Valentín ordered.
I searched his eyes in the dark, hoping for a sign that he was really just playing along, but it was impossible to read anything in his stony expression. As I loosened the string to open the back pack, a creak from one of the floorboards in the hallway diverted everyone's attention.
"Romero?" Alejo's question hung unanswered in the room. The creak apparently had not been made by the man he'd sent down to check the car. We all seemed to agree on that. In my mind, this was a good thing, but watching how quickly all of the men around me readied their weapons, I reconsidered.
The distraction was enough for Tee to move out of the line of Alejo Carbajal's gun. "Down!" He ordered, pulling out the Glock with one hand while yanking Santiago and me toward the floor with the other. The three of us took cover behind a nearby armchair. Aside from everyone's labored breathing, it was quiet. Too quiet. Nobody had fired yet, but everyone knew that it wasn't a question of if there would be gunfire so much as when and who would start it.
It almost would have been worth it to get smacked by Vargas again if that would've shortened the unbearable seconds it took before Miguel's voice rang from the hallway.
"Romero won't be coming back. Give it up, Carbajal."
"You're not going to shoot at fellow officers, are you?" Carbajal asked. "We're trying to wrap up a case here. Don't be screwing up months' worth of work. Just get the hell out of here and let us do our job."
"No can do, compadre," Miguel answered. "We're wrapping up a case ourselves that's been going on for years. Why don't you just come out with your hands up in the air. Make it easier on yourself."
Carbajal cursed under his breath, turning toward the armchair behind which we were huddled. We were the ones caught in the middle and as long as they had us, he knew Miguel and his men wouldn't just start firing.
I strained to see if Alejo Carbajal made any kind of signals to his men, but Tee's sudden grip around my neck stopped me from seeing anything. He pulled me hard with my ear against his mouth.
"You and Santi need to get out," he breathed.
I wanted to look him in the eyes, to ask how in the world he thought we would make it across the room and out the door without Carbajal's dogs pouncing on us, but Tee held me pressed tightly against him.
"The balcony," he whispered barely audible, nudging the billowing curtain with his foot. "Take it with you."
Looking up, I could see that the fabric would easily pull out of the clipped rings that held it to the rod, but Tee couldn't possibly be serious. Yet apparently he was.
"Far corner left," he added to his instructions.
The balcony ended just about three feet past the last of the double doors. There was plenty of space for anyone inside to aim for Santiago and me, especially since
we'd be right below the streetlamp. But I didn't get a chance to voice any of that as one of Carbajal's men was coming at us from the window side.
"Go!" Tee shoved me forward in the same instance as he rolled over, firing at the approaching figure.
I yanked the curtain down while throwing my body against the slatted door, shoving Santiago outside. Valentín dropped to the ground next to Tee, spun sideways and with a tinkling crash eliminated the street lamp and with it the shining halo over our escape spot. I scrambled after Santiago, but someone's hand reached around my ankle and jerked me to the ground. The curtain tangled around my arms. Kicking as hard as I could, I tore a ridge into my own leg before my heel crushed the fingers that were pulling at me. The grip loosened, and I crawled onto the balcony just as Tee's Glock spat a flash toward the direction of my attacker.
"Into the corner," I yelled at Santiago, who out of sheer panic followed my orders. A shower of wooden splinters rained down on us. I threw my body over his, scraping both of us along the floor.
"Get on my back," I huffed. "Like a monkey." Rolling just enough to the side to give him room to wrap himself around my back and waist.
There was no time to contemplate if the length of curtain would get us to the ground or if the fabric was even strong enough to hold us. Domingo Vargas stumbled onto the balcony just two doors away. As he lined up the barrel, I turned to face him squarely, hoping my body would shield Santiago from the worst of the imminent impact I expected. But just as Vargas fired, a slug coming from inside the room entered his left cheek. It upended his path and the meteor of his last shot stung only like another heated backhand across my upper arm. I didn't wait to watch him fall, but hurried to sling the curtain around one of the banister's wooden posts.
"Hang on," I said, barely able to breathe with Santiago's arms wrapped around my throat. I rolled over the banister and wrapped the curtain around both of my wrists just as the zing of another bullet flung wooden chips into the boy's face.
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