A thought that – as harrowing as it might seem – he was not about to let interfere with the moment.
Allowing the smile to grow larger, Ruiz began his march again, eschewing the sidewalk and cutting a diagonal path across the small patch of grass separating him from the lot.
The last time Junior Ruiz had seen his sister Esmerelda was the night he’d been arrested. Barely out of college at the time, she was now just past thirty. As the distance between them diminished, he could see that her form had rounded out some, but otherwise she looked exactly as he remembered.
Just as he’d hoped she would.
“Baby sister,” Ruiz said. With each step, he allowed the smile to grow broader across his face, extending his arms before him.
“Big brother,” Esmera replied, the same smile gracing her lips. Using her hips, she leveraged herself up from the side of the car before stepping forward, meeting him halfway. Going straight in, she slid her hands around his waist, burying her face in his chest as she pulled him in tight, clasping her hands behind his back.
Going rigid for just a moment, his every instinct programmed to avoid contact of any sort, Ruiz slowly pushed aside the reaction. His muscles relaxed as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, drawing her in. Placing his nose against the top of her head, he inhaled her scent, lilacs and jasmine filling his nostrils.
Easily the best thing he had smelled since stepping inside.
Holding the embrace for several moments, neither wanting to move, Esmera was eventually the first to break. Releasing her grip, she stepped back, her cheeks wet, eyes puffy.
Blinking quickly, she lifted a finger to the corner of her eye, straightening an eyelash as she glanced from him to the front gate. “How old are those clothes?”
“You remember,” Ruiz replied. “You were there.”
“Yeah, I guess I was.”
“My style needing an update?” Ruiz asked.
“More like a fireplace,” Esmera answered, shoving out a wet chuckle. “You stink.”
Unable to stop the single crack of laughter that spilled forth, Ruiz felt the smile return. Reaching out, he clasped her shoulder, giving it a squeeze, using the grip to steer her back toward the car.
“Yeah, well, guess what? You now get a nice, long drive home with me and my smelly clothes inside a warm car.”
“Like hell,” Esmera replied. Popping open the driver’s door, she stood with one hand balanced atop it, watching him circle around the front. “I brought a whole bunch of rope. You’re not messing up my car, I’m tying your ass to the hood.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ramon Reyes couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a full night’s sleep. If forced, he would guess at some point five or six years before, though there was no way of knowing that definitively.
Long enough in the past that he wasn’t sure what anything more than four hours of rest would even feel like. If it would be too much, leaving him feeling sluggish and lethargic, his system used to running on an elixir of adrenaline and caffeine.
At the moment, the latter of those two sat on a saucer in front of him, the smell of fresh ground Cuban roast wafting up at him. Rumored to be the strongest on the planet, he had long since bypassed the usual miniature cup in favor of a full-size mug, the beverage practically calling to him from the edge of his desk.
So badly he wanted it. To reach out and grab it, upending the bottom, taking down more than half in a single pull.
But he wouldn’t. Not right now, with more pressing matters at hand.
Part of being in charge meant showing everyone that he was in control. Not just of the operation, but of everything, right down to his own impulses.
A fact that was true now, perhaps more than ever before.
Seated behind his desk, already Reyes was dressed for the day. Having barely slept the night prior, he’d been up long before any need for an alarm, showering and into the office overlooking the property hours before the sun.
Already, this was one of the busiest times he could remember since ascending to the top spot.
Now, this.
To look at him, there was no way of knowing that he had been awake ninety of the previous one hundred hours. Adorned in matching slacks and vest, a sharp crease ran the length of the sleeve of his dress shirt. Links held the cuffs in place.
His thick hair was recently barbered, gelled into place.
Rings and a watch adorned his hands and wrist. His skin bore the effects of a life spent in places perpetually graced by the sun.
Everything carefully selected and maintained, no small part of his role was to convey the proper image, even if at this point it was largely only to those he employed.
Seated perpendicular to his desk, Reyes sat with elbows braced on the armrests of his chair. One ankle raised to the opposite knee, his fingers were steepled.
His focus was on the phone before him, the receiver lying flat, the call switched to speaker.
“You get eyes on?” Reyes asked.
“Si,” Hector replied over the line. Even speaking his native tongue, his thick accent was apparent. “Walked out five minutes ago.”
Despite having expected the information, Reyes couldn’t stop the small clench that tugged at his core. The same one that had surfaced a week before, it wasn’t hard to pinpoint the exact moment it had first arrived.
What was infinitely more difficult was trying to ascertain when there might be any hope of it receding.
“Just him?” he asked.
“Si,” Hector repeated. “Stepped out alone. Some puta waiting for him.”
Reyes’s brows came together slightly as he flicked his gaze across the desk to Arlin Mejia. The only man that spent anywhere near the amount of time Reyes did inside the office, he too was already dressed for the day in gray slacks and a black pinstriped dress shirt.
Unlike Reyes, though, he was starting to show the effects of the recent stretch they’d been on. His already-thinning hair was heavily oiled, his scalp peeking through the ridges left behind by his comb. Bags hung under either eye, his chin and nose both appearing especially pointed.
A combination of age, stress, and dehydration.
“A woman?” Reyes asked.
“Si,” Hector replied. “Younger. Short, thick.”
“Esmerelda,” Mejia whispered.
Rocking his head back slightly, Reyes accepted the information. The younger sister, she had already moved north by the time he onboarded, his only interaction with her being a small handful of events over the years.
Ones like the night that everything had shifted.
Letting the news settle, Reyes sat in silence, pondering this new development.
By all accounts, Junior Ruiz had gone completely quiet while inside. Nobody had reportedly been to visit him in a long time. His phone calls and letters had started as a trickle before drying up to nothing.
An outcome that Reyes could have only hoped for when first taking over years before.
According to the contact at Lompoc that was paid very well to monitor such things, Ruiz and his sister hadn’t spoken in ages. Not even in the last week, when word first broke that he might be getting out.
Yet, somehow, there she was, the dutiful sibling standing on the curb, waiting to drive him away.
One more item that made zero sense in all of this. One more thing that now needed to be monitored, taxing an organization that was already spread thin, focusing on other areas.
“Anybody else?” Reyes asked. “Media or anything?”
“No,” Hector replied. “Right before sunrise, not a soul around.”
Again, Reyes shifted his gaze to Mejia.
The original sentence for Junior Ruiz had been forty years. Convicted for multiple drug offenses – the list including trafficking, distribution, and a handful of related other charges - the court had been seeking to make an example of him.
Prosecutors had gone after the maximum sentences. Judges had postured, taking every oppo
rtunity to grandstand against everything the man and the enterprise he worked in represented.
The media had had a field day, a major score in the decades-long war on drugs.
Now, just eight years later, twenty percent through a stay that was said to have no chance at early release, he was walking out under cover of darkness with absolutely zero fanfare.
Junior Ruiz. The man that had been one of the largest players in the market for over a decade, credited by many for ushering in the second boon of cocaine traveling north across the border. Someone whose footprint was so large, his exit had created a vacuum that resulted in a veritable free-for-all across Baja, an eventuality Reyes himself was still benefitting from, even it had forced him up into California years before.
No part of it seemed to fit.
“Where are you now?” Reyes asked.
“Half-mile back on the 101, headed south.”
Nodding, Reyes superimposed the information onto the map in his mind.
As best he could tell, the stretch of land they were now on was easily the most remote portion of the entire drive. From there, it was straight on into the greater Los Angeles area, everything becoming a dense mass of city and suburban sprawl all the way to San Diego.
Close to twenty million people all stacked into a single corridor.
Every road, every hotel, every airport, being a possible destination, Reyes with no way of knowing where Ruiz was headed.
So badly, he wanted to tell Hector to speed up. Catch them from behind, run them off the road, and grab Ruiz. Put a gun to the back of his sister’s skull and demand to know what was going on, how he had gained his freedom, before wrapping both up as nothing more than loose ends.
But that wouldn’t be wise. Not with so many eyes cast his direction, watching to see how he would proceed. Not with a small handful of his own staff still holdovers from the old regime, people who cut their teeth long ago, back when Ruiz was still in charge.
And certainly not with whatever juice Ruiz had leveraged in gaining his freedom lurking nearby.
“Okay, Hector. Stay on them, report back if anything changes.”
“Si,” Hector replied a third time, cutting the line.
In the wake of it, Reyes remained seated as Mejia raised himself from the chair. Leaning forward, he lifted the phone from the desk, returning it to its cradle.
Watching him, Reyes remained silent, continuing to work through things in his mind.
“You’re built to withstand this,” Mejia said, settling himself back into his seat. “The reign of Junior Ruiz ended years ago.”
Shifting only his gaze, Reyes looked across at the older man. “This – all of this – was his. You know it. I know it. Every single person we do business with knows it.”
Lifting his brows just slightly in a shrug, Mejia said, “The key word being was. But, like anything, time moves forward. Things change.
“Ruiz might have been El Jefe in 2010, but today he’s just a name. A hand people will make a point to stop and shake before coming to see you.”
Both of those things, Reyes already knew. Just as he knew that Hector was the best urban tracker around. He would stay on them as long as it took, keeping him apprised of whatever may occur.
Still, things didn’t quite feel right. There were too many layers, too many moving parts, any one of them capable of bringing down all that he’d been working toward for the last eight years.
Lowering his hands, Reyes reached for the coffee still resting on the edge of his desk. Taking up the mug, he allowed a single swallow, feeling the nutty warmth run back over his tongue.
Body craving more, he returned it to its original saucer, carefully placing it back in the same spot.
Appearance was of the utmost importance.
Now, more than ever.
“You worked closely with him, right?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Mejia replied. “I was a warehouse guy back then. Nothing more than a hired hand.”
“Still, you know him,” Reyes countered. “Must have heard about some of his contacts, seen how he did business.”
Lifting his gaze from the steaming mug, he stared across at Mejia. “Best guess, what the hell is all this right now?”
Chapter Nineteen
After that first sentence, Pally continued prattling on. He fired off a handful of questions, all pertinent and useful I’m sure. But I didn’t hear a single one of them.
All I heard was that first sentence. The bombshell that Shawn Martin - my friend, one of my mentors - was dead.
And it had happened at the same exact time that some guy had showed up at my office and tried to use an exploding door to get to me.
Hitting me every bit as hard as the shattered remains of the door had smashed into Kaylan, I felt the air slide from my lungs. My chest and my stomach both pulled tight, a dull ring settling into my ears.
My mouth dropped open, all else fading to the background.
No longer did I notice the cold. Or the smell of blood on my shirt. Or even see the hospital before me.
All I could focus on were those six words, playing on repeat.
“Stop,” I whispered. Despite barely being audible, Pally fell silent immediately, giving me the moment I needed.
Things were moving too quickly. From seeing Kaylan tossed back to this instant, it was all going too fast. I was being too reactive, allowing instinct and emotion to take over.
I had to stop, to think about what was happening.
“Martin is dead?” I asked, going clear back to the beginning. Even if it was a foolish question, Pally’s answer bound to be exactly the same as the first time he said it, I needed to hear the words.
I had to start there and work my way forward.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last night,” Pally said. “Serra called 911 just after midnight.”
Serra was Martin’s wife. A wonderfully nice woman that was also my friend, and a friend to my wife before her passing.
“Last I heard, they were in Washington, way outside the city,” I replied. “That still the case?”
“Yes.”
Grunting softly, I nodded, even knowing there was nobody there to see it. “Midnight there would be one o’clock here. Obviously, it wasn’t the same guy, because he’s still sitting in the West Yellowstone jail, but it couldn’t have even been a team.
“No chance someone makes it from here all the way over there in that amount of time. Not without a damn private aircraft, anyway.”
“Right,” Pally agreed, “but even if they weren’t working together, have to think these are connected, right? What are the odds of both of you getting hit within hours of each other?”
He didn’t bother to continue the thought, though he didn’t need to. He was right, and we both knew it.
No chance that this occurred, states apart, years after we both retired from the public sector, on the same night by coincidence.
I didn’t believe in the damn things to begin with, and even if I did, this would have been a stretch.
“What happened?” I asked. No part of me wanted the answer, though I still needed to hear it. For comparison purposes, if nothing else.
A clatter of keys was the first response. A moment later, he said, “Details are sparse, but the gist is a single shooter approached the home on foot. Shawn and Serra were both out back in the hot tub.
“Guy waited until they both slid down, came tearing out of the woods behind their house. Plugged him in the back of the head, backhanded her with the barrel of the gun to keep her quiet.”
By the time he was done, my eyes were clamped down tight. My hands had curled into tight fists, the clench in my core having migrated outward to my entire body.
There was a time not that long ago when nobody would have gotten within a quarter mile of Martin’s place without him knowing it. When he was still on the job, spent his days staring at active threats, he made sure every inch of his property and the surroun
ding area was secure.
Even more so after what happened to my family, I’m sure.
The years since must have eroded some of that. Moving to the mountains, leaving the life, he allowed his vigilance to come down.
And apparently someone had been out there, waiting.
“Meaning the shooting probably took place even earlier,” I said. “That was just the first she was able to make it to the phone.”
Pausing, as if considering it for the first time, Pally said, “Yeah.”
Silence again fell as we both sat and chewed on things. We each added what the other had shared, trying to make things fit.
“Diggs?” I asked.
“Out of the country on assignment,” Pally said. “I reached out to him, same as you. He’s deep in the muck, undercover.
“I got a message his way, but who knows when he’ll get it.”
After retiring, Carl Diggs had spent a year or so bouncing around in civilian life before deciding he missed it too much. Without a wife or kids, he’d been too untethered. He felt his skills were going to waste, his bank account suffering, and had decided to go into the private sector.
Soldiers for hire, if you were the one collecting a paycheck.
More commonly known as mercenaries to everybody else.
Of the original team, Martin was the lead, Diggs his deputy, me the swing guy. Pally was on comms, and a man named Don Hutchinson was our handler and overseer out of the Southwest Headquarters.
To this day, nobody knew where Pally lived, myself included. Hutch had died two years ago at my hand.
That was everybody.
And, again, way too much to be considered coincidence.
My mind raced. It tried to put everything from the last hours in context, attempting to add in years of prior history and case logs from our past time together.
“Who the hell...” I muttered, thoughts spilling out, my head unable to hold them all in. “And why now?”
“I don’t know,” Pally replied, taking the internal monologue as questions aimed his direction. “I’ve got every system I have working on that as we speak.”
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