Flamingo Road
Page 27
“You ain’t gonna see me again, so I’m gonna tell you something you need to know. The man you killed in Baltimore? He’s the shithead who killed your father.”
My wild carnival ride stopped spinning. Everything halted, and slowly the fragments came together. These Santerias had been pushing drugs at Pimlico. Wendy. She’d been in on it. My father had found out. They had killed him. Wordlessly, I stared at Shyra, knowing I was right.
“Who ordered the hit?”
She pointed her rifle at Valera’s body on the porch. “That piece of shit. He’s the one paid the man to do it.” As if she’d reached a decision, she nodded to herself. “You and me are even now, cop lady.”
She climbed inside the truck and fired it up. Dirt and sand spun from the tires as she revved the engine, tore down the drive, and disappeared down Flamingo Road.
42
It wasn’t long before a convoy of cops and ambulances barreled down the dirt road and spun into Alvera’s place.
Finding dead bodies, so many weapons and shell casings, the senior officer was inclined to hold me there for questioning. But a female EMT with tired eyes that had seen too much death looked me over and insisted I go to the hospital with Calixto.
“This woman’s injured, drugged, and suffering from hallucinations,” she said.
The officer relented, and I grabbed the EMT’s arm.
“What about him,” I asked her, staring at Calixto who was on a stretcher and already inside the ambulance.
“He needs blood, but I think he’ll be okay.”
My body sagged with relief, and after that things got a little fuzzy.
* * *
When I finally arrived at home that night, and convinced myself that Jilly was really there and safe, I downed several shots of vodka, and took a hot shower.
As the water and steam enveloped me, I thought about Shyra, realizing Valera must have ordered her to break into my apartment. His thugs had seen my car and license plate the day they attacked Zanin, Jilly, and me. Since Zanin was a known enemy to Valera, and I’d been with him, they’d run my tag and Shyra had broken into my apartment to find out what I knew. Since I kept my laptop with me, they’d learned nothing.
I finally fell into a tortured, restless sleep in the wee hours. In the morning, I crawled out of bed around nine. Though my head still throbbed painfully, the nausea was gone. I called the hospital, but they refused to give me information about Calixto, so I wandered through the house looking for Jilly and Patrick.
Hearing tires on the gravel out front, a sudden fear gripped me, but I made myself go to the front door. When I stepped under the portico, I saw two parked vehicles. One was a FedEx van, the other Zanin’s Tahoe.
In his usual uniform of jeans and work boots, Zanin was taking a cardboard box from the FedEx guy, who waved at me before climbing back into his van. It felt odd to walk into such a normal morning. The FedEx van circled the drive and disappeared behind Patrick’s jungle of plants and bushes.
I eased out from under the portico and stepped onto the stone terrace, closer to Zanin.
“Jesus Christ, Fia, what happened to you?”
“I had a little run-in with Valera,” I said, not wanting to get into a long explanation.
Moving closer, I glanced at the package he held and saw the words FRAGILE, LIVE ANIMALS.
“Oh,” I said, “my Bluesters. I should get them inside.”
“Fia, wait,” he said, staring at my face, putting his hand on my arm. “For God’s sake! Tell me what happened. You should have called me, let me help you.”
“It all happened too fast,” I said.
The front door opened, and Jilly came out to join us. Her hair shone, her sapphire earrings gleamed, and her eyes were bright. My heart filled with so much emotion, I couldn’t speak.
Jilly wasn’t having that problem. “I can’t believe you guys saved Last Call! It was so cool when I came home last night and there she was … in the barn!” Her smile could have lit up half of South Florida. She caught sight of the box I was holding. “Are those the Bluesters?”
“Yeah, you want to put them in their terrarium and give them some food?”
“Sure,” she said, “but you two have to come out back and see Last Call.”
“In a minute,” I said.
She nodded, took the frogs, and went inside. I stepped into the shade of the portico and Zanin followed, his gaze meeting mine.
“So what happened?” he asked.
I told him the gist of the story and he pressed his lips together, shaking his head.
“I wish you could have reached me somehow. I can’t believe those two guys took you like that.”
“It worked out,” I said.
“And this Calixto guy, he saved your life?”
“Yes, he did. And we cleaned out Flamingo Road and the drug problem at Gulfstream, at least for now.”
“I’m not sure I like you being a cop. You seem to be in pretty tight with these law enforcement guys, huh?”
Was he jealous? “I am law enforcement,” I said, suddenly sad to realize that whatever this thing was between Zanin and me, it didn’t seem to be working.
“You’re going to leave, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Eventually. Gunny will assign me somewhere else. But I’ve got two weeks off, so I’ll be here a while. Come on,” I said, “let’s go see Last Call. Jilly will love you forever for rescuing that filly and bringing her here.”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
We walked through the house, out the sliding door, and stopped. The sun shone on Jilly who was in the paddock with Last Call, her arms wrapped around the filly’s neck. Patrick was nearby scrubbing out the water trough with a long-handled brush.
Seeing the girl with her horse made Zanin smile. “So Jilly will be all right?”
“She’ll never get over what happened to Cody, and now she’ll have to deal with additional trauma and more night terrors,” I said. She wasn’t the only one. I’d awakened more than once the night before, envisioning the man I’d killed in Baltimore knifing my father to death. I’d heard the screams of the man I’d thrown into the hog pen, and the ceaseless sound of gunfire had echoed in my head.
“She went through a lot,” I said, trying to shake off my own lingering shock.
“What about that kid, Angel?” Zanin asked.
“From what the cops said last night, he hadn’t realized what he was getting Jilly and himself into. Didn’t understand the connection between Alvera and Serpentino. Alvera’s men beat the boy up pretty bad. At least they sent him back to Serpentino alive. After that, he was too terrified to say anything to help Jilly.”
“An unpleasant lesson about life,” Zanin said.
I nodded, watching the girl in the paddock. She was finger combing Last Call’s mane. The horse craned her neck and pressed her nose against Jilly’s side.
“You did good when you saved that horse, Zanin.”
His face brightened a little. “I guess Last Call will go a long way toward healing her.”
“Might save her life,” I said.
43
That afternoon, Gunny drove me to the Hialeah Hospital, where the ambulance had brought Calixto and me in the night before. My memory of that event was spotty. I’d been suffering from flashbacks, had still been terrified, and apparently had assaulted one of the EMTs when he’d tried to wheel Calixto away from our ambulance and into the hospital.
Once they’d gotten me under control, the doctors had rushed Calixto into emergency surgery, and the staff had tried to keep me overnight for observation. They’d been worried about my behavior, the drug in my system, and a concussion.
I might be a while recovering, but Calixto would take longer. The bullet had burst into the right side of his chest, ripping through a lung before blowing out through his back. But once I’d known he was out of danger, I’d insisted on going home, needing to see for myself that Jilly was okay. A Broward County sheriff had driven me from the hos
pital to Patrick’s.
Now, as Gunny and I entered the hospital’s surgical unit and approached the nurses’ station, I caught my reflection in the shiny surface of a paper towel dispenser and winced. I really looked like hell. Gingerly, I fingered the purple swelling on one cheekbone. The scratches on my face and neck that had scabbed over and the dark circles under my eyes didn’t help, either.
A vigilant nurse eyed Gunny and me suspiciously from behind the counter. She told us Calixto was sleeping, and checked our identification as if hoping to find something wrong with it.
“You can go in,” she said resignedly. “Five minutes, but don’t tire him out okay? I had to let those FBI folks in earlier. You people should just leave him alone.”
We promised not to agitate him and went down the hall to find the room number she’d given us. The night before had been so crazy, and I’d been too out of it to know what to ask. Now I had a million questions.
I stopped walking and put a hand on Gunny’s arm. “FBI?”
“Let’s see how Calixto is, and then we can talk,” he said.
We entered Calixto’s room. He looked small and fragile in his hospital bed. Tubes were attached to his arms, and monitors crowded around his body. Thick surgical dressing covered the right side of his chest. Feeling like a voyeur, I pulled my eyes away from the smooth skin and beautifully defined muscles on his left side.
His face was pale. Someone had cleaned the dirt off. His eyes were closed, but he seemed to breathe normally.
There were two chairs in the room and I eased into one, moving slowly since I’d severely strained muscles, ligaments, and tendons during my stint as Wonder Woman the night before. With the concussion and a hangover from the strong opiate injected in my blood, I felt like an old woman and groaned like one as I sat down. I worried about more flashbacks, too.
Gunny stood at the foot of Calixto’s bed, his focus on his agent.
“So, what’s with the FBI?” I asked him.
“You sure you want to hear this now?”
I spread my palms and nodded toward Calixto. “He won’t care, and it’s not like we’re doing anything else.”
Gunny sighed and folded his arms across his chest as if protecting himself. “Luis Valera has been branching out into human trafficking.”
I flinched, pretty sure I knew what was coming next.
“The FBI,” he continued, “was after a Miami man running a particularly nasty trafficking operation. Valera was one of his suppliers. He was snatching up some of these kids that come into the country illegally. You know, the ones that come in through Mexico with the government dropping them off in towns and cities without paperwork?”
I nodded.
“They’re vulnerable,” he said, “free for the taking. Valera would give them to the man in Miami for a cut.”
I closed my eyes, trying to shut out images of children forced into slavery. “That’s what he was going to do with Jilly, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Our silence seemed to fill the room, the only other sound being the beep of Calixto’s monitors. The machines kept time with the pain throbbing in my head.
“Go on,” I said.
“Calixto’s a damn good agent. He’d worked with the FBI in the past on a joint task force. They wanted him again.”
“For Valera and the trafficking?”
Gunny nodded. “So he went in undercover, using the identity of a distant cousin to Valera’s family. A guy who died recently in Cuba, a guy that Valera had never met.”
I nodded.
“The plan was for Calixto to deliver one of these kids to Miami, replacing her with an undercover agent. They were going to bust the operation once Calixto received cash for the trade.”
“But Jilly showed up,” I said.
“That wasn’t a problem. Calixto was going to leave with Jilly, stash her with an agent, pick up the replacement, and finish the job.”
“Then I showed up.”
“You were a problem.”
“People tell me that,” I said. “So the guy in Miami will get away?”
“We don’t think so. With Valera dead, your buddy Morales was talking up a storm early this morning. Knows all about the operation in Miami.”
“What about Serpentino?” I asked.
“Morales apparently had plenty to say about him and Copper, too.”
“Good.”
We were both quiet a moment. I tried to digest what Gunny had told me, but gave up, concentrating instead on how glad I was that Jilly and Calixto were alive.
“You did great work, Fia. Good job getting Craigson out of there by the way.”
God, I’d forgotten all about the chemist. “So he’s all right?”
“Safe at home with his wife.” Gunny paused. Still standing, he stretched his arms, and with a little groan, sank into the other chair. “You and Calixto will make a good undercover team in the future.”
“Me and Calixto?”
There was a rustle in the hospital bed. Calixto’s eyes were open, and once again a warm brown. He tried to speak, but nothing came out. Gunny and I hurried to him and leaned close.
When he finally spoke, his voice was a grating whisper. “You have a problem with that, McKee?”
“Me and you? No,” I said, “no problem at all.”
“Good.” A smile barely touched his mouth, then his eyes closed, and his breathing eased into the steady rhythm of sleep.
Gunny and I tiptoed from the room, and I closed Calixto’s door gently. We rode the elevator to the lobby level and stepped through the automatic doors into the Florida warmth and late-afternoon sunshine.
* * *
When we arrived at Patrick’s house, Gunny cut the engine on his rental car and we climbed out. As we stood on the gravel near the portico, the sun highlighted the streaks of red in Gunny’s faded hair, making them gleam.
“So, Ms. McKee, after this case, do you still want to work for the agency?”
“Yes,” I replied, and studied his face a moment. “What about you? Still want me as an agent?”
“Absolutely.”
I felt some of the tension in my shoulders let go. “So what’s next?”
A glint of amusement lit his eyes. “Take it easy, Fia. You’re too much like a race filly. Right now, you need time off. You have to take care of that concussion and I’ve got someone I want you to see about the mental trauma you’re having from that drug.”
“Okay.”
“But don’t worry. There’s a lot coming up.” He nodded to himself. “You might work the Triple Crown races, the Breeder’s Cup, or wherever a problem crops up. Might even send you to Europe.”
“Europe?” I imagined sleuthing at France’s Longchamp Racecourse with Calixto and smiled.
“Even Australia or Japan,” Gunny was saying.
“Wow,” I said, but Gunny was right. I needed to heal. Learning how and why my father had died had opened a door for acceptance. I would work my way through that door. Maybe find peace on the other side.
“Okay then, Fia,” Gunny said. “I’ll call you next week.” He moved back to his rental, cranked the engine to life, and rolled down the gravel drive. Moments later, he disappeared into Patrick’s jungle.
I let the sun warm my back for a while, then turned to my brother’s house. It felt like home, as I went inside.
ALSO BY SASSCER HILL
The Fia McKee Mysteries
Flamingo Road
The Nikki Latrelle Racing Mysteries
Full Mortality
Racing from Death
The Sea Horse Trade
Racing from Evil
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SASSCER HILL was an amateur steeplechase jockey, as well as a horse owner who bred, raised, and rode race horses for thirty years in Maryland. Her first published novel, Full Mortality, was nominated for both the Agatha and Macavity Best First Mystery Awards. Born in Washington, D.C., Hill earned a BA in English Literature from Franklin and Marsh
all College. She now lives with her husband, dog, and cat, in Aiken, South Carolina, where she still enjoys horseback riding. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Also by Sasscer Hill
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.