“Where’s your cell phone?” I asked. “They can listen in that way, too.”
He glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
Piper shook her head. “Did you two ever consider that I’m not some piece of property you can trade back and forth like a damn lawn mower?”
My beeper was sitting on the front console. It went off.
Raul Delgado rolled down the driver’s window and threw it out.
“While you’re tossing,” I said. “Get rid of your cell, too.”
“It’s turned off.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It’s the property of the Dallas Police Department. No one is listening in.”
“I’m not worried about the local heat,” I said. “You need to—”
He pulled abruptly to the shoulder of the highway, just south of the Inwood Road exit. An abandoned bar and a tire store were just across the access road.
Traffic whizzed by, a torrent of cars headed north.
“Quit telling me what to do,” he said. “I need the cell and I’m trying to help both of you out.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way.” I leaned forward. “But we don’t need your help. The way things are going, it’s likely to be the other way around.”
Silence. An eighteen-wheeler zoomed by, buffeting the SUV.
Delgado craned his neck, looking south. “You’d think there’d be a marker, wouldn’t you?”
“What?” Piper glanced at me and then back to the front. “What are you talking about?”
“They built an arena there.” He turned back around. “Where the silos used to be.”
Neither Piper nor I spoke.
“That’s where they took us. The old power plant. By the grain silos.”
“Where your brother died,” I said.
“Where they killed him.”
I didn’t reply.
Raul Delgado looked in the back like he was seeing me for the first time. He fished a key out of his pocket and handed it to Piper. “You can uncuff him.”
Piper did so as he pulled a cell phone from his pocket.
“Why were you two in that office?”
“Tremont worked for Hannah McKee.” I rubbed my wrists. “A fact you neglected to mention.”
“She doesn’t know anything about what happened to the boy.”
“How can you be so sure?” Piper asked.
No response.
“Who is she to you?” I said.
Raul opened his door.
Wind gusted through the inside of the vehicle. Piper and I were silent.
He stepped outside, walked to the front of the SUV, then tapped some keys on his cell phone.
“He’s having a breakdown of some sort,” I said. “His eyes, did you see them?”
“He’s been through a lot in his life.”
“And we haven’t?”
“This isn’t about us, Jon.”
“Then why are we here with him right now?”
She didn’t reply.
Raul Delgado returned to the vehicle a few moments later.
“We should get off this highway.” He slid the transmission into drive. “There’s somebody you need to meet.”
He drove down the shoulder until he reached the exit for Inwood. Then he took the off-ramp and headed south toward the river.
Ellis County, Texas
2011
Raul Delgado padded across the wood floor and peered outside. His unmarked squad car sat in the gravel driveway, gleaming in the summer sun.
He was at Bobby’s ranch.
The rains had been good that year, so the pastures were green, dotted with cows that were fat and healthy-looking. The cattle kept their heads low, chewing on grass, tails swishing at flies.
Bobby, nearly seventy and with a heart condition, lived in Dallas in order to be close to his doctors and the bar he’d opened years before, Sam Browne’s. The cattle operation was run by a neighbor, the house still furnished but unoccupied.
Raul was wearing a pair of boxer shorts, nothing else.
His suit and gun belt were on a chair. The chair sat underneath a Nirvana poster, the edges curling with age.
Junie lay on the bed. A tangled sheet covered her from the waist down, bare breasts exposed to the sunlight filtering into her childhood room.
On the bedside table was a nearly empty bottle of chardonnay and two glasses. Junie’d had most of it, Raul just a taste.
“Come back to bed,” Junie said.
Raul stared at the endless horizon. No clouds in a pewter sky.
“You want some more wine?” Junie poured herself another slug.
“I have to go.”
“Aw, really?” Her tone was pouty. “Don’t you want to stay for a while longer?”
Raul didn’t reply. But he made no move to put on his clothes either. Instead he turned and looked at her.
Junie was thirty-nine.
In the years since they’d met, she’d made a life that Raul would have never imagined.
Her fourth divorce was final a few months ago. Despite repeated attempts, she could never get pregnant again, not after the miscarriage during her second marriage.
She flitted around the peripheries of the North Dallas social swirl, an environment that she could ill afford. Charity fund-raisers and fashion galas, usually as the guest of her aunt, who was increasingly reluctant to pay. Girls’ trips to places like Cabo and New Orleans, weekend getaways that she financed with MasterCard.
An artificial existence that left Raul bewildered. He donated his time and money to a variety of progressive causes—environmental charities, the ACLU, immigration reform. When he mentioned these organizations to Junie, she looked at him like he was speaking Korean.
They inhabited the same city but were worlds apart.
Despite her obsession with cosmetic surgery and the latest Botox treatments, neither of which she’d availed herself of as of yet, she was still beautiful, at least in Raul’s view.
Her face was unlined, stomach taut, breasts firm. The eyes, however, showed her age. Not so much sad as they were weary. Except when she’d been drinking. Then they were animated like the old days, alive with the possibility that something marvelous lay ahead.
He turned away. Stared outside again.
A few moments passed.
From the other side of the room came the rustle of sheets, the creak of bedsprings. Then bare feet padding on the floor.
An instant later her breasts pressed against his back, arms around his stomach. Lips to his ears. Whispering.
“Don’t you want to fuck me again, Raul?”
He could smell her—perfume, sweat, and wine.
“I want to do it hard this time.” She ran a finger underneath the waistband of his boxers. “Fuck me hard, Raul. Real hard.”
He closed his eyes as his body responded. “Please. Don’t talk like that.”
She chuckled, nipped his ear. “Tough-guy cop doesn’t like dirty words.”
They’d been meeting like this for two months. They weren’t dating. They didn’t have dinner together, no nights out at the movies.
Just the sex.
Fuck buddies, that’s what Junie called them.
Raul had run into her at Parkland Hospital, the location of her Junior League volunteer placement. He’d been there with Tremont Washington, the boy he’d met at the state fair a few months before. Tremont had a twisted ankle.
The next night she’d showed up at his condo. Three minutes later, they’d been in the bedroom, tossing clothes every which way.
Lately, they’d taken to meeting at the ranch, away from prying eyes. Neither could say why they wanted to keep their relationship secret. Just that they did.
Perhaps it had something to do with Tremo
nt Washington. Could it be that they didn’t want him to know about their status as . . . fuck buddies? Or was it because they didn’t want Bobby to know?
Raul had no idea; they never talked about it. He just knew that both of them had made a conscious but unspoken decision to keep their activities secret.
He looked at his watch. He would have to hurry if he wanted to get back to the office before he picked up Tremont for dinner.
He’d been spending a lot of time with the boy, taking him to school, buying him stuff, trying to make the child’s passage in life a little easier.
Junie had been around for much of that, their only activity together that didn’t involve getting naked.
She treated Tremont like an exotic piece of art. Fragile, likely to break. Interesting only in the abstract sense, like a vase in a museum. She was distant with the boy and Raul couldn’t tell if it was because she was afraid of feeling something for him or if the maternal instinct had been forced out of her by the death of her own mother when she was a child.
A hawk flew across the horizon, alighting on one of the cottonwoods by the creek.
Junie licked his neck. Her fingers were still inside the waistband of his boxers. They caressed the sliver of flesh where leg joins torso.
His pulse quickened, body continued to react.
The kissing and the groping stopped.
He turned.
She stood at the foot of the bed, naked, his handcuffs dangling from her fingers.
“Put these on me, Raul. Then let’s do it.”
He shook his head.
“Really?” She snapped one side to her wrist. “You liked it before.”
He didn’t reply. He had liked it before, with the handcuffs and the dirty talk and the leather belt slapped against her ass just like she wanted.
Sex with Junie was raw and dangerous and unlike anything he’d ever experienced in his life. When they were together, he was exhilarated and more than a little fearful. When he was apart from her, he was consumed by the thought of their next time together.
She jingled the cuffs.
Raul was powerless. Her nakedness, this house, the way she gave herself over to him. He could not resist her.
So he went to her and did what she wanted. He handcuffed her, looping the metal around a bedpost so her arms were restrained above her head.
Then he mounted her, thrusting hard and fast like she wanted him to.
When they climaxed together, her chest flushed red and tears welled in her eyes, streaming down her face after a moment.
She always cried afterward, just a little.
At first Raul wondered why.
Now he just held on and tried to keep his mind from going to the dark places where images of his brother dwelled along with Wayne’s crushed face.
He removed the cuffs, and they dozed for a while. When they awoke, the shadows were long. So much for going back to the office.
Junie drank the last of the wine. “I’ve got a new job.”
“Yeah?” Raul moved across the room to his clothes.
Junie’s work history, much like her love life, had been somewhat checkered. Lots of jobs for a year or so at a time. The titles of her positions had always been nebulous—office manager, sales consultant, director of web marketing.
“A nonprofit,” she said. “They try to find work for people who are mentally challenged.”
Raul pulled on his pants.
“They need someone to run the organization. Somebody with the right connections in town.”
Raul pondered the idea. Working for a nonprofit might actually be a good fit for Junie. Because of her aunt, she knew a lot of well-to-do people, potential donors.
“That sounds like a great idea, Junie.” Raul buttoned his shirt. “You’ve always liked to help—”
“I told you.” Junie stared at him, eyes cold. She was half-dressed, skirt and bra. Blouse in one hand.
He realized his mistake. “Sorry.”
“That’s not my name. Not for years and years.” Her tone was frosty. “That’s my middle name. My kid name.”
“I forgot.”
“Talk to me like an adult. Call me by my real name, Raul.” She slid her blouse on. “Call me Hannah.”
- CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR -
Lysol presses the End button on Hannah McKee’s cell phone.
His people are still not answering. None of them.
He’s on his own, without a lot of options.
The next step is to call his attorney and activate the escape plan.
That’s the equivalent of going nuclear, however, and he’s not real keen on treading down that particular road. The escape plan means never coming back to Dallas, probably never seeing his children again. Never watching his oldest even start college.
Hannah is sitting on the floor of the makeshift orphanage, hands duct-taped behind her. Jamal is running from crib to crib, trying to shush the ever-growing number of crying babies.
The noise is giving Lysol a headache. He looks at Jamal, says, “Can’t you shut them fuck-trophies up?”
The boy doesn’t reply. He glances at a clock on the wall and goes to the next crib with a bawling baby, rocking several others as he walks by.
“They’re hungry,” Hannah says. “He can’t feed them all by himself.”
“Maybe if their mamas were here, they could feed them.” Lysol drops her cell phone on the dining room table. “Just a thought.”
One infant shrieks. The sound, a piercing wail, seems to start at the base of Lysol’s spine and shoot its way up to his brain.
“You have all the answers, don’t you?” She smirks. “The gangster with the plan. The great Lysol Alvarez, king of West Dallas.”
Her words bore a hole in his skull. They jangle around with the crying babies.
In all his forty-two years, Lysol has never craved anything so much as he does a single hit of ganja right now, just a taste to mellow everything out, to make the screaming infants and the bitchy white woman a little more tolerable.
Instead of sparking up some of Jamal’s stash, however, he allows the anger and frustration to wash over him. He strides across the room, grabs the lapels of Hannah McKee’s blazer and shirt, and yanks her to her feet.
“I got more options than you do, white girl.” He gets in her face. “I can walk away anytime I damn well feel like, and leave your skinny ass here while I call CPS.”
Her smirk deepens.
Anger turns Lysol’s vision red on the edges.
He grabs her throat, squeezes.
She continues the infuriating smile. Then she cuts a look toward the table.
“There’s the phone.” Her voice is a croak. “Go on. Give CPS a ring.”
He lets go. She’s called his bluff.
Several more infants start to cry, increasing the overall noise level.
Lysol strides to the window, peers through the shades.
A police car has stopped across the street, headed in the opposite direction from the one a few minutes before.
A cop gets out. A white guy in his twenties. He leans against the hood of his vehicle and pulls out a cell phone. Not doing anything too threatening right now, but not going away either.
Several of Jamal’s boys are milling around the front yard, playing and roughhousing with each other. Lysol’s not worried that they’ll say anything to the officer about his presence. No street kid would tell a cop, especially a white one, anything. It’s ingrained in their DNA. Do not talk to the Man. Ever.
But what does worry him is if the cop starts doing a door-to-door, looking for a wounded guy in a gray linen suit who was shooting at a dude on Singleton.
If a cop comes to this house, knocks, and hears eleventy-seven babies crying when a ten-year-old answers, there’s a high probability he’s coming insid
e.
Therefore, Lysol has to shut the babies up.
Which means they need to be fed.
Hannah McKee is still standing where he left her, still sneering at him.
“Where’s their food?” he asks.
“Their formula?” she says. “That’s what infants consume. Not food.”
Her tone is condescending.
“Yeah. Their formula. Where is it?”
“It’s in the kitchen,” Jamal says. “Needs to be heated up first.”
“Can you do that?” Lysol asks.
The boy nods.
“You’re my number-one man, Jamal.” Lysol smiles. “Get to it.”
The boy beams and scampers away.
Lysol turns to Hannah McKee. Pulls a knife from his pocket, a lock-back Spyderco. He flicks open the blade and approaches her.
Her smirk slowly disappears. She inches backward until she hits the wall.
He keeps walking. When he’s about a foot away, he says, “Turn around.”
She hesitates and then complies.
Lysol slices the duct tape away, frees her hands.
“Okay. You can turn back now.”
She does as requested, rubbing adhesive off her wrists.
“Now take your clothes off.”
She stops rubbing, eyes wide.
“You heard me. Strip.”
“W-what?” Her voice is timid.
“You need to help Jamal feed these babies,” he says. “And I don’t want to worry about you running away or finding a weapon and hiding it somewhere.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Naked white woman, cruising down the streets of West Dallas.” He shakes his head. “I don’t see that happening.”
She gulps, face pale.
“It’s real simple,” he says. “You take your clothes off, you won’t be a threat.”
She crosses her arms like she’s cold and then immediately uncrosses them.
He slides the knife under the top button of her blouse. Slices the threads.
The button drops to the floor. The fabric shifts open, exposing the tops of her breasts encased in a black bra.
“You can keep your panties on,” Lysol says. “I’m not an animal.”
Hannah McKee stares at him for a long moment. Then she slowly takes off her blazer and unbuttons her blouse, dropping both to the floor.
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