Holly Lin Box Set | Books 1-3

by Swartwood, Robert

  “Why?”

  “He wanted to capture … the Devil … for the cartels’ … reward. Ten … million dollars.”

  I whistle at the amount and glance at Ramon.

  “That would have been a nice payday, huh?”

  He says nothing.

  Carlos continues.

  “When it became … clear to him … I would not give … the Devil … to the cartels … he shot me.”

  There are bullet holes in both of them, so it’s hard to tell just how truthful Carlos is being right now. But still I crouch down in front of Ramon. He keeps staring past me, refusing to meet my eye, so I snap my fingers in front of his face.

  “Earth to Ramon.”

  He blinks and looks at me.

  “Is what your partner says true?”

  Ramon’s glare is so hard it could probably cut glass. I figure he’s not going to answer, but then he grunts out something that doesn’t make sense to me at first.

  “You should not even be here.”

  “Say that again?”

  “I thought you would be with your friend. There was no reward for you—the cartels don’t know who you are so they don’t give a shit—but they pay good money for journalists like your friend.”

  I’m not sure when it happens, but my body starts to shake. It’s subtle, but the rage is there, just beneath the surface. At any second it might explode, but before that happens, I need to get more information out of him.

  “You sent the tip about Miguel Dominguez’s body being found?”

  Ramon’s glare cracks as he sneers.

  “I did not send her to the right scene. I sent her to a place across the city. That was where the narcos picked her up.”

  He pauses, and his eyes light up with a sort of mischief.

  “You saw the video, yes? Then you saw exactly what they did to her.”

  Ramon sees my rage, and it causes him to smile. Not sneer as he had done before, but smile.

  “You could have been in the video, too. You could have been a star.”

  Nova moves away from his position against the wall.

  “This isn’t productive. We need to leave.”

  I hear his voice and I hear his footsteps, but both are distant. I keep my focus on Ramon.

  “How much?”

  He raises an eyebrow, like he doesn’t understand the question.

  I say, “How much did they pay you?”

  Now that he understands, he smiles again, and coughs out a laugh.

  “Two thousand dollars. American dollars.”

  He pauses again to see my reaction, but the rage is still just beneath the surface, so he continues.

  “It’s not the first time I sent a journalist like her a tip. I’ve done it before. There are many things I have done for the cartel. The money is easy. All I have to do is—”

  I’ve finally had enough. I stand up and raise my gun and shoot him in the face. It should be more than sufficient—the man is obviously dead—but I fire three more rounds into his face until there isn’t much left of his head.

  “Stop!”

  I glance back at Nova, see that he’s impatient to leave, but I’m not ready to go just yet.

  I turn back to Carlos.

  The older man can barely keep his eyes open. But he slowly shakes his head and offers up a weak smile.

  “I guess nobody … should piss … you off.”

  I crouch down in front of him.

  “I was the one who attacked Ernesto Diaz’s compound. I found the woman and the two children inside the house, and I took them with me up the coast. I dropped them off at that building. I intended on leaving the country, but I felt the woman and children still needed help, so that was why I returned. I didn’t get a chance to verify it upstairs, but somebody who knew the Devil said those murders were not done by the him.”

  Carlos’s eyes fall shut. He forces air into his lungs to speak.

  “When you helped … them leave the compound … did the woman … have an earring?”

  “No, she didn’t. Why?”

  Carlos’s head tilts to the side.

  “In my … pocket.”

  I reach into his pocket and pull out a familiar crumpled photograph.

  Carlos says, “Who … is that?”

  “I don’t know who she was, but she was a prostitute. Her sister said she had been working that street the previous night but never returned home.”

  “Do you see … her belly?”

  I do. She wears a halter-top exposing her midriff and a belly button ring.

  “What about it?”

  “The coroner … found only one … earring … on the body. But I … do not think … it was an earring.”

  I stare at the picture for several long seconds before I frown at Carlos.

  “So you think Miguel Dominguez got a call at the motel and he grabbed the prostitute and took her to the building and … what? He swapped out her body for Maria’s?”

  This causes Carlos to frown again. His face has somehow grown even paler, and his breathing has worsened. He barely has a minute to live, and I’m worried he’s going to die before I learn what I need to know.

  When he speaks next, his voice is barely a whisper.

  “Who is … Maria?”

  “The children’s nanny.”

  Carlos closes his eyes as his head slowly moves back and forth.

  “She … was not … a nanny.”

  I glance back at Nova, and then I lean forward to hear Carlos better.

  “Then who was she?”

  Fifty-Four

  Daniela felt like a prisoner.

  For four days now she hadn’t been allowed to leave the ranch house. She was allowed to leave her room, of course, but that was only to wander down the hallway to the bathroom. If she was hungry, food was provided. If she was thirsty, water was provided. If she felt like smoking, cigarettes were provided. At one point, just to be a bitch, she asked for cocaine, but the men keeping an eye on her—whom she had come to think of simply as her guards—just shook their heads and ignored her.

  She hadn’t seen her father since the day he brought her to the ranch house. Several times she asked the guards to call him for her, to put him on the phone, but the answer was always the same: he was busy and would return when he felt it was safe.

  Safe. That was a word Daniela had always taken for granted. She knew the company she’d kept was not the best, and there had always been the threat of some kind of danger, but she had never felt in fear for her life. Not like that night at the compound when the shooting started and Ernesto ordered her to hide with the children. That was the very first time she felt true fear. At that moment, safe was a mythical concept.

  Could she run? Probably. While her father had stationed guards around the ranch house—older men he could trust, retired policía no doubt—she didn’t think they would shoot her if she attempted to escape. They would chase after her, yes, and they might even manage to catch her, but they would not hurt her. At least, she didn’t think so. The men had been pretty indifferent toward her so far. None tried to make conversation with her. None even asked her questions. They simply brought her food and water and cigarettes and told her that her father would eventually come every time she asked them to call.

  The ranch house sat out in the middle of nowhere. There was electricity but no Internet. Books and magazines were provided, but she was never much of a reader. Still she would page through the magazines, looking at the same pictures and text, but absorbing none of it. Mostly she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and smoked.

  That was what she was doing on the fifth morning when her father finally returned.

  When the door opened, she expected it to be one of the guards bringing her breakfast, but in walked her father. He was already an old man, but he looked as if he had aged a decade in the past several days.

  He stood there for a moment in the doorway, simply watching her. Daniela stared back. A younger version of herself may have rush
ed forward, wrapped her arms around him, but that wasn’t the relationship they had. Not anymore. Whatever close ties they once shared had long since been severed, but in the end he was still her father and she was still his daughter, and like most fathers, he would do anything to keep her safe.

  Her father said, “Let’s go.”

  She wanted nothing more than to leave this place and never return. But still the stubborn part of her—the part that created the rift between them—forced her to stay motionless.

  “Where have you been?”

  Her father shook his head, impatient.

  “We do not have time for this. Let’s go.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Out of the country.”

  She had assumed this was the plan from the beginning. There was no way she could stay in the country after what had happened. She wasn’t that well known, but word spread quickly. If someone in the country happened to recognize her, it would cause a lot of trouble. Her father didn’t need to do this, not after how awful she had been to him, but again she was his daughter and he was going to do whatever it took to help her. Even if it meant putting his career on the line. Even if it meant putting his life on the line.

  When she didn’t move, her father grunted in frustration.

  “We do not have time to waste, Daniela. You have no idea just how much shit has happened in the past two days.”

  This made her pause.

  “What happened?”

  “Fernando Sanchez Morales is dead. Over two dozen of his men are dead. Half the town of La Miserias is dead. Two of my crime scene investigators are dead. The whole thing is a mess. We need to leave now.”

  The stubbornness keeping her in place finally snapped. She nodded and stood and started toward her father.

  She had taken only three steps when the gunfire started.

  At first Daniela wasn’t sure what she had just heard. It was only one shot, distant and almost indistinct, but then more quickly followed. She had never fired a weapon herself, but she could tell that the current gunfire was coming from several different guns.

  Her father stepped into the room, slammed the door shut. He locked it, though she didn’t think the simple lock would do much to stop whoever was outside. He moved past her toward the single window in the room. It was high and narrow, making it nearly impossible for them to escape.

  She said, “Don’t you have a gun?”

  He simply shook his head.

  The gunfire continued outside. It started to become sporadic, dissipating, until a few random shots rang out and then there was silence.

  Out in the hallway, slow, steady footsteps echoed off the hardwood floor.

  Daniela looked toward the window again. Maybe she could squeeze through it after all. Her father couldn’t, but maybe he could give her a boost and then she could—

  The door was kicked open with such force she jumped and cried out.

  A man entered, an American, his gun sweeping back and forth between her and her father while he scanned the room. When it was clear to him Daniela and her father were not armed, he stepped to the side and shouted.

  “In here!”

  Another set of footsteps came down the hallway. A lighter set. They did not hurry. They took their time. Just as the footsteps were right around the corner, Daniela closed her eyes. She knew these people were here to kill her, and for an instant she wanted to believe this was all a bad dream.

  Then all at once the footsteps stopped, and a woman spoke.

  “Hello, Maria.”

  Fifty-Five

  The woman just stands there, her eyes closed. She’s acting like a child trying to keep the boogeyman away. If she can’t see the monster, the monster can’t see her. The only thing she doesn’t get is that she’s the monster in this situation.

  “Or should I say hello, Daniela?”

  The woman opens her eyes. Stares at me for a long moment. Her mouth opens up a bit but no words come out.

  Her father says, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “It doesn’t matter who we are. What matters is that we know who you are. You are Comandante Geraldo Espinoza. You oversee the policía in this part of the country. And this is your daughter Daniela Diaz. When I first met her, she told me her name was Maria and that she was a nanny.”

  Espinoza frowns, clearly not following.

  “I’m the one who attacked Ernesto Diaz’s compound. I’m the one who saved your daughter and Javier Diaz’s children. I took them up the coast and I left them at that brick building in the middle of nowhere. I left them there, and then your daughter killed the children.”

  Espinoza doesn’t respond. Neither does Daniela.

  “You see, Javier threatened me and my family. So I killed him. I knew the only way to keep my family safe from retribution was to come here and take out Ernesto. So the research I did was mostly on Ernesto. I must admit, that was my own fault. Had I looked close enough, I would have learned about how Javier’s first wife died giving birth to their second child, and how a year later he married Daniela.”

  Still no response.

  “The way I figure it, Daniela, you thought telling me you were the children’s nanny would make it less likely that I would kill you. The truth is, had you told me you were the children’s mother—or stepmother in this instance—I probably wouldn’t have done anything to hurt you. Those kids needed you, especially after what had just happened. But then, well, you went and killed them.”

  “No.”

  Daniela nearly barks it. Her face has reddened, and she shakes her head adamantly.

  “I didn’t kill them.”

  “Okay. You didn’t kill them. But Miguel did.”

  The flatness of her eyes tells me I’m right.

  “So here’s how I see things played out. After I left you at that building, you ran up the drive to the phone. Maybe you thought about calling your father, but most likely not. After you married Javier Diaz, you became estranged from your father. Went years without speaking to him. So you didn’t call your father that night. You called Miguel Dominguez, who was either an old friend or boyfriend or maybe drug dealer. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

  Daniela says nothing.

  “So you tell Miguel what happened. How the Diaz compound was attacked and how you ended up a couple miles up the coast. How you don’t know what to do now. You ask Miguel to come get you, and like a loyal friend—or maybe a guy who has always had a thing for you and will ask how high whenever you tell him to jump—he leaves his post at the motel. As he leaves, he runs into a prostitute on the street. Maybe the idea came to him, or maybe … maybe you came up with the idea.”

  Still nothing.

  “See, that’s the one thing I’m not sure about, whose idea it was from the start. But one of you had the idea of copycatting the Devil. Miguel managed to get the prostitute in his car and brought her out to the building. I’m thinking at that point she probably wouldn’t have gone willingly, so maybe he had to stuff her in his trunk or something. But then he shows up, and he manages to kick down the door into that brick building, and then … what happened, Daniela? If you didn’t kill the children, did you at least watch Miguel when he did it?”

  She just glares at me.

  “So you cut the prostitute’s and the children’s throats and you leave them there in the building. Maybe it was Miguel’s idea after all, but I don’t think so. Remember when we were on the beach and you asked to come with me? At first you said I but then hesitated and changed it to we. See, it didn’t mean much to me then, but now I’ve had time to think about it. Something tells me you’ve always resented the children. They weren’t yours, after all, not really, and besides, they probably kept you from having a more exciting life. So when you saw the opportunity to eliminate them—to start over a new life all by yourself—you jumped at the chance. Told Miguel to pick up a prostitute and bring gasoline. Tell me, Daniela, was it Miguel who lit the bodies on fire
or was it you?”

  Still no answer.

  “Doesn’t matter in the end. Somebody lit the bodies on fire. But before you did, you didn’t properly search the prostitute. I’m guessing when you were hiding with the children in that closet you took off all your jewelry because already the idea of claiming you were the children’s nanny had entered your mind. So you wanted to make sure the prostitute didn’t have on any jewelry either. But you missed her belly button ring. How am I doing so far, Daniela?”

  No response.

  “Anyway, Miguel drives you away. He puts in an anonymous call acting like the Devil. He says he just killed a woman and two children and tells the policía where to find the bodies. Because crank calls like that come in all the time, only one car went out initially. Then your dad eventually showed up—I recognize you now, Comandante Espinoza—and despite your strained relationship of course he was devastated. And then when he heard about the phone call and how it went to the motel and the crime scene investigators determined Miguel had been working there, I’m guessing the name rang a bell to your father. And once it became clear Miguel had gone missing, your father decided to hunt him down. How long that took, it’s hard to say, but it couldn’t have been more than two days because that was when Miguel’s body was found. Did your father tell you how he cut up the body into different pieces and stuffed them in a trashcan? Probably tried to make it look like some narcos did it. In the end it doesn’t really matter, because he got information from Miguel and found you and then brought you out here to this ranch house in the middle of nowhere. And now that Fernando Morales is dead, I bet your father decided it was time to come get you. And since we’ve been keeping an eye on him, we followed him all the way here.”

  Daniela says nothing.

  “I’ll admit, you and Miguel almost got away with it. As far as anyone was concerned, the Devil killed you and the children. There was no way you could have known about the list.”

  This last part piques Espinoza’s interest.

  “What list?”

  “The Devil was killing the wives and children of certain cartel families as retribution for what happened to his own family.”