by Debra Webb
Dan struggled to contain the fury. “Do we have a fucking clue where this sister is?”
Harper moved his head side to side. “But we do have one thing.”
“What the hell is that, Sergeant?”
A smile quirked one corner of the detective’s mouth. “Salvadore Lopez.”
24
9:30 p.m.
Jess held very still and listened.
She considered the time she had been in the vehicle: thirty minutes at the most. Music had blared from the radio the whole time. But not a radio station. A CD, she supposed. Her wrists and ankles had been secured with wide tape.
The two men had spoken in Spanish during the ride but they kept their voices too low for her to comprehend their conversation over the music. Her Spanish was pretty rusty but she would likely have picked up a word here and there if she had been able to hear.
Once they arrived at their destination they’d brought her into a building or house and shoved her into a corner. Wherever they were holding her it wasn’t far from downtown.
Puffing out a breath, she wished they had removed the damned bag. She hated not being able to see. She thought of those moments before the first bastard had grabbed her. Why hadn’t she been paying better attention? How had she allowed someone to sneak up on her like that? News vans had been parked all around Linn Park. Maybe that was the reason she’d ignored the one parked near her car. It damned sure hadn’t driven up while she was talking to Wesley. Her abductors had been lying in wait.
The floor under her felt like wood. No carpet. Not smooth enough to be vinyl or cool enough to be tile. The place smelled of stale tobacco and tequila. She would recognize that smell anywhere. She’d had too many margaritas once. Back in her college days. Way, way too many. She’d puked for two days.
Whoever was holding her had gathered in another room. The low rumble of voices was distinguishable but, once again, not the words.
Judging how long she had been here was a bit more difficult. Fifteen or twenty minutes maybe. Dan would have found her car by now. And her weapon. God, and her bag and phone. Her phone was probably dead. It had hit the pavement hard.
There went two hundred bucks and that was if she was due an upgrade.
She tried to recall if she had gotten the insurance plan and whether it covered thug damage.
Hopefully Wesley hadn’t thought she’d hung up on him. It was a shame he hadn’t gotten to finish telling her about what he’d found on Nina Lopez.
If she didn’t get out of here, the next life celebration she attended might be her own.
Working her hands and twisting her wrists as best she could, she hoped to loosen the tape. With her back to the wall and her hands behind her, maybe anyone watching her wouldn’t notice. She couldn’t discern any other presence in the room, but the bag over her head dulled her senses to a degree so she couldn’t be sure.
Footsteps warned that someone was entering the room. She listened to the steps, estimated there were at least three persons approaching her position. She braced.
“So this is the famous Deputy Chief Jess Harris. Woo hoo.”
The voice was female. Slight Hispanic accent.
“You have to stop this. This is crazy. This lady ain’t done nothing but try to help us.”
Male. Southern for sure.
“DeShawn?” Jess asked. “Is that you? Your grandparents have been worried sick.”
“See there?” the man she suspected was DeShawn said. “We can’t do this, Nina.”
Nina Lopez. Well, well. “You should listen to him, Nina. Your brother is not happy either.” Jess wished again that she knew what Wesley had been calling about. She could have used that right now.
“My brother is dead to me,” Nina snarled.
Young people. They made Jess want to scream. “Well, he may be dead to you but he’s very much alive and looking for you.”
The bag was snatched off her head. Jess drew in a grateful breath.
“He’s going to die at sunrise, jefa. And you’re going to help us make that happen.”
Jess looked from Nina to DeShawn and back. Both appeared to be unharmed. Nina looked ready for war. DeShawn, on the other hand, looked terrified.
“I already said what I had to say to your brother. I don’t think he and I have anything left to talk about.”
Nina flaunted a big smile. “You won’t need to do no talking. You’ll be too busy dying.”
She turned and strutted away. Poor DeShawn. He hadn’t had a chance against a sexy, streetwise girl like Nina. Her gangbanger friend followed her out of the room. DeShawn lingered near Jess.
“Are my grandparents okay?”
Jess nodded. “I sent them to stay with friends so Lopez couldn’t get to them.”
He swiped his hands over his face and shook his head. “I don’t know what’s happening. Everything is out of control.”
Jess had a pretty good idea. “It’s a power play. Nina wants what her brother has. It’s a battle as old as time. Sibling rivalry.”
DeShawn shook his head. “But she doesn’t want any part of the gang life. That’s why she left LA. She thought it would be different here.”
“Sometimes people show us what they want us to see.” Jess had a sneaking suspicion that DeShawn was beginning to understand that he was nothing more than a pawn in Nina’s plans. He was the bait to lure the police into her game. He was the perfect ploy. A good, upstanding young man who would have the community in an uproar to ensure he received the same attention as the white girls had a couple weeks ago.
Worked like a charm.
He squatted down and searched Jess’s face. “I don’t know what to do. She’s got five guys in there planning and plotting with her. There’s three or four more outside. I don’t have a weapon or a cell phone.”
Jess managed a faint smile for the kid. “Listen to me, DeShawn. I’m a deputy chief with the Birmingham PD. My job is pretty important, so you have to believe me when I say that I know the business of police work, right?”
He hesitated a moment but then he nodded his agreement.
“That’s right. I have my own unit with several detectives who do exactly what I tell them to do every day.” Most of the time anyway.
He wrapped his arms around his knees and waited for whatever she had to say next.
“So when I tell you what you need to do, you can feel confident that I know what I’m talking about, right?”
He nodded again.
“Good.” She leaned forward to put her face closer to his. “You don’t worry about Nina or her friends or me. The first opportunity you get, you run.”
His eyes widened in disbelief.
“Your grandparents are counting on you, DeShawn. You run as fast as you can, and don’t you dare look back.”
25
216 Aquarius Drive, 10:20 p.m.
Harper wound through the parking area until they reached the back of the meatpacking plant. He guided his SUV to the east perimeter of the property and shut off the engine. The lampposts were few and far between this far from the plant but Dan suspected the meager lighting and the seclusion were the reasons they’d been instructed to wait here.
This was the sort of business best conducted where no one would see.
“You’re telling me,” Dan asked, needing clarification now that he’d had time to get a grip on his composure if not his trepidation, “that Salvadore Lopez is going to show up here to talk? We have nothing to offer him,” he reminded Harper. “We don’t know where his sister is, but he wants to talk anyway?”
Dan just didn’t see that happening. This could be a major waste of time they didn’t have.
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Harper confirmed. “The two members of his clique I was interviewing when you called about Chief Harris conveyed a personal message from Lopez. He wants to work out this situation privately with you.”
“Are these the same people who told you Lopez had taken her and we had until sunup to produ
ce his sister?”
“That was the word from the folks blowing up their phones during the interview.”
Dan surveyed the deserted lot a third time, or maybe it was the fourth. “Pardon the hell out of me if I opt not to trust Lopez’s friends. Did he confirm Chief Harris is safe? Did he provide proof of life?” Damn it, they were wasting time here. Jess was counting on him and he was sitting in this damned SUV waiting for Lopez and some member of his posse to show up and, as likely as not, start a shoot-out. “The whole thing could have been staged.”
What were the chances that they could have this tête-à-tête without weapons being drawn?
“Lopez is supposed to explain everything when he arrives. It’s not an optimal situation, sir, but I didn’t see that we had any other choice.”
“And where exactly is our backup, Sergeant?” Dan felt ready to explode. He needed to do more than talk.
Tension thickened in the air for a beat. He was angry and sick with worry and damned terrified—all this he was taking out on Harper.
“We don’t have any, sir. That was the deal breaker for this meet.”
Dan laughed. He didn’t mean to, but this was just too much and, frankly, if he hadn’t laughed he might have just lost it. He railed at Jess all the time for taking risks like this and here he was following that same pattern. He had known damn well they didn’t have any backup before he asked. “I think Harris has rubbed off on you, Harper.”
“That could be the case, sir, but I have reason to believe this lead is on the level.”
Dan checked his weapon, then reholstered it. “You did the right thing. If Lopez had contacted me, I would have come alone if necessary.” Whatever it takes to get her back.
Harper glanced at Dan. “The man, Hector, who set this up is related to Jorge Debarros.”
“Christina’s father?” The thirteen-year-old had been missing for six years and Jess had waltzed into town and four days later solved the case. The remains discovered in the basement of the home of the couple who’d abducted Andrea a little over two weeks ago were those of Debarros’s daughter, Christina. He and his family had suffered all those years, wondering and worrying. Jess’s relentlessness had allowed them to finally give their little girl a proper burial.
“When Jorge saw the first newscast about Chief Harris’s disappearance,” Harper went on, “he called his brother Hector, who’s tight with Lopez. Hector and another of his clique were meeting with me at the time. They both appeared a little edgy when they got the news. Hector called his boss and Lopez asked for this meet.”
Dan checked the time. Jess had been missing for approximately two hours. A volatile combination of fear and fury churned in his gut. “Are we early or are they running behind?” If Lopez wanted this meet so badly, where the hell was he?
As if to emphasize his thought, the digital clock on the dash blinked to 10:35.
Had they been here only fifteen minutes? It felt like an hour and yet that fifteen minutes was fifteen too many to have squandered.
Harper checked his cell. “They just turned into the parking lot.”
Headlights came around the corner of the building and pointed in their direction. Dan cleared his mind, sharpening and narrowing his focus to the here and now. What happened next was critical to how this meeting would shake down and to finding Jess alive.
The Cadillac Seville parked in front of Harper’s SUV, leaving getaway room between the two front bumpers. When the lights had extinguished, the front doors opened and two men got out. They moved to the strip of pavement between the two vehicles and waited, hands held out to their sides in a voluntary stance of submission.
“The one on your right is Hector Debarros. I’m sure you recognize the other guy as Lopez.” Harper looked to Dan. “Ready, sir?”
“Let’s get this done.”
Braced for any sudden moves from their guests, they emerged from the SUV. When they reached the front of the vehicle, the man Hector spoke up. “Where are your weapons?”
Both Dan and Harper opened their jackets to show their holstered weapons.
“Where is Deputy Chief Harris?” Dan demanded. He had no desire to make small talk. Getting to the point was the only item on his agenda.
“I had nothing to do with taking your cop,” Lopez boasted. “My sister, Nina, is attempting a takeover. Her followers took your cop. There isn’t much time if you want her back in one piece.”
“Why are your own people saying otherwise?” Harper challenged.
“Nina has started a war,” Hector explained when Lopez looked away as if too ashamed or overwhelmed with emotion to say the rest. “She’s been collecting allies for weeks behind Salvadore’s back. A war is coming—”
Lopez held up a hand when Hector would have said more. “She ordered the execution of four of my people when she killed the Negro Jerome Frazier. That was her work, not mine. It’s your job to stop her. That’s all you need to know.”
Dan saw how this was shaping up. Lopez had a little uprising on his hands. He couldn’t exactly kill little sister without rubbing Daddy the wrong way. So he wanted the BPD to do it.
“We’re supposed to take your word for who killed whom?” Dan laughed. “I don’t think so. We don’t do family counseling. Maybe you can talk to your priest about your family issues.”
Fury hardening his face, Lopez stepped forward.
Dan braced for battle. Next to him, Harper did the same.
“Don’t do it for me,” Lopez said to Dan, his posture as cocky as his tone, “do it for your cop. Nina will kill her and spread the word that it was me who ordered the hit and brought the five-oh down on our people. She wants a war. She wants to win, and the only way to do that is for me to die. You kill me and she takes over. That part might not matter to you, Chief of Police Burnett, but it means everything to your lady cop.”
“Where is she?”
“I can tell you where to find her.” He studied Dan a moment. “But I warn you, Chief of Police Burnett, choose your most trusted men. Not all of them care if your lady cop survives.”
26
Saturday, July 31, midnight
Jess snapped to attention after dozing off and took stock of her surroundings as best she could in the dark. They’d turned off the one lamp in the room. There were other lights on in the house that filtered this way but not enough to make much difference.
The partying continued in the kitchen and dining room or whatever lay beyond the wall she leaned against. The music was loud enough that the wall vibrated. Definitely of the rap variety, with Spanish lyrics. She decided this was a small living room. There was a couch and an old box television set but it either didn’t work or had been left turned off.
No air-conditioning. It was stifling hot. Her wrists ached from twisting the tape back and forth, trying to wiggle out of it. Beneath the tape her skin was raw. She didn’t try to loosen her ankle restraints. One of the drunken goons checked on her from time to time. Whichever one popped in seemed to enjoy staring at her legs. It was best not to have him notice she’d tried to escape. When she got her hands loose, she would take care of the tape around her ankles. She would be loose already if not for her captor having gotten tape happy.
She hadn’t seen DeShawn again. She hoped he had taken her advice.
Nina Lopez had spun him a tale as sad as Cinderella’s woe-begotten saga and he had swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
From the signals Jess picked up when she and DeShawn talked, he was feeling a little disillusioned and frustrated. If Nina was picking up the same signals, it might be a little too late to turn his situation around.
For his and his grandparents’ sakes, Jess hoped not.
The laughter in the next room suddenly drowned out the music.
Maybe they’d all get shit-faced and pass out. How the hell had screwups like this managed to pull off kidnapping a deputy chief not a hundred feet from headquarters?
Maybe the problem was that Jess had been too distracted. Or ma
ybe it was just dumb luck.
DeShawn walked into the room. Jess sat up a little straighter. He glanced over his shoulder several times as he approached her. Maybe he was coming around to her way of thinking.
He squatted next to her. “I thought about what you said.”
“Good. You need to get away from these people, DeShawn.” She gave him a smile. “I’m proud of you for making the right decision.”
He glanced over his shoulder again, then pulled a knife from under his shirt. “But I can’t go without you.”
Damn. “Leave me the knife and go.” She looked him straight in the eyes. “This is not the time or the place to try to be a hero. Go.”
“No way, lady.” He sliced the tape on her ankles.
Jess scooted forward and let him do the same to the tape around her wrists. Then he gave the knife to her. “Come on.”
He ushered her out of the room and into a small, dark entry hall. “They’re all out back right now,” he whispered.
He’d just flipped the dead bolt when the overhead light came on.
“What the fuck?” a gruff male voice demanded.
A shotgun racked directly behind Jess. She flinched, then froze.
Apparently DeShawn did not understand that when the sound echoed right behind you, it was best not to move.
He turned around and got in the face of whoever was wielding the shotgun. “You gonna shoot me now?” he demanded. “I think you better ask Nina about that.”
While DeShawn ranted at the guy, Jess tucked the knife, a six-inch fixed blade as best she could estimate, into the waistband of her skirt and tugged her jacket down over it.
“Bring her to Nina,” the guy said.
His voice sounded vaguely familiar.
DeShawn took Jess by the arm and turned her around.
Jose Munoz, Lopez’s second in command.
Jess lifted her eyebrows at him. “I’ve seen what your friends do to traitors. I guess you’re not worried about losing your head.”