Wild Fire: A Suspense Thriller (A Hawk Tate Novel Book 6)

by Dustin Stevens

  There was no way the person that had done this was returning. Not right now, there being no reason to do so. Martin was gone. If they wanted Serra dead, they had ample opportunity already.

  Same for the kids.

  All my going inside carrying a gun would do was make things extremely uncomfortable should Deputy Opie decide to peek in on me while I was still inside.

  Twisting my focus away from the truck, I instead concentrated on the world around me. I tried to listen for any sounds, hoped to pick up any out-of-place scents.

  More than a minute I stood, waiting, analyzing, before finally giving up on it, the world completely still, as if it too was in mourning.

  Turning for the front door, I ascended a trio of steps before passing inside. Coming to a pause with my heels just over the threshold, I waited to allow my eyes to adjust to the dim light, taking in everything around me.

  Despite the modern architecture of the outside, the interior was meant to resemble more of a North Woods lodge. Directly in front of me was an oversized living space, split log furniture with Pendleton blankets on leather cushions. On the floor was a flattened bearskin. Overhead hung a deer antler chandelier.

  Spread out wide to the right was an open kitchen and dining room. Same design as the living room, the kitchen table and bar stools all employed the same motif. Behind them, appliances of stainless steel lined the counter.

  Whoever the last person out had been earlier had turned off the lights. Thin sunshine filtered in through the front windows, illuminating a line of dried footprints across the hardwood floor, likely left behind by Serra when she stumbled back inside, and dust motes drifting through the air.

  Otherwise, there was absolutely nothing to intimate a crime had occurred the night before.

  Again, my thoughts returned to the man currently sitting in West Yellowstone. So badly I wished that he had said something when we met in my office. Or I had walked in to catch him going through something specific.

  That his damn face had registered in even the slightest way.

  Anything that might give me a bearing on what this was all about or what I should now be looking for.

  But none of that had happened. Not one thing to help me sort through all the cases we had worked and all the people we had no doubt pissed off over the years.

  Right off the top of my head, more than a dozen different people came immediately to mind. People that we had put out of business or sent to prison or in some other way interfered with their plans.

  People that needed someone to blame, something to fixate on in all the years since.

  People looking to make a statement now.

  Letting out a sigh, I again glanced around the space. The home that my friend had built with his family. The place that had been violated, that none of them would ever be returning to.

  Surveying the scene, I figured I had twenty minutes. A full third of an hour before my snooping became too obvious to ignore.

  As it turned out, I barely needed half of that.

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Much like the front seat of the Chrysler that Junior Ruiz had ridden on all the way back from Lompoc, the sofa in the front room of Esmera’s house was almost too soft. Utilizing overstuffed cushions and a brushed velvet covering, the piece seemed to swallow him whole, forming around his body.

  It left him feeling like he was trapped, pinned in place.

  A sensation he despised, eight years of ingrained response telling him to avoid. To jump up, find a wall and put his back to it immediately, never knowing who might want to prove themselves against someone like him.

  Forcing himself to remain seated, to not let his sister see any such thought occurring beneath the surface, he instead cast a quick look around the place.

  When he had first been sent away, his kid sister was still a senior at UCLA. Two hours north, she was in the center of Los Angeles, living the college apartment life.

  Buoyed by the occasional cash infusions from both Ruiz and their mother, she had a nice place she shared with a pair of roommates. Also both young Latinas – one a fellow student, the other a recent graduate – the three had done everything that was expected of a trio of beautiful young ladies in the big city.

  Hosting pre-parties every weekend before hitting the clubs. Saturday afternoons at the beach, sprawled out in the sand, making sure to be seen. Trips to the gym in full hair and makeup.

  More than once during those years, their mother had pulled Ruiz aside to express concern for the girl. She had not been a fan of her going away to the big city for school, wanting her to try something smaller - or even more preferable - staying home.

  She had worried that the life and all the trappings that went with it would be too much. That eventually Esmera would get hurt or end up pregnant or potentially something even worse.

  Each time such worries were brought to the fore, Ruiz had walked his mother back. He assured her that she had raised a good daughter, that she was just being young and having fun, would eventually make her way back and settle into the life she was meant to lead.

  A stance made easier to believe by the fact that he always had someone keeping an eye on her.

  Never once had he mentioned that to either one of them, just as he would never mention continuing to do so in the time since, the place he was now sitting in having proved his faith in the young girl correct.

  Now thirty years of age, gone was the blown-out hair and off-the-shoulder wardrobe. Missing also was the overdone makeup and bright nail polish. Even toned down were the loud banter and boisterous laugh, all things that had at one point been part of a calculated effort to draw attention. To fit into some sort of preconceived ideal.

  In their place was a woman that had aged much more than just eight years in his time away. With the exception of the occasional playful barb, her words were carefully selected, her gestures minimal and withdrawn.

  How much those changes could be attributed to his being away directly he could only guess at, though he couldn’t imagine the time had been all that easy on her.

  Certainly not with everything else that had happened as well.

  “You have a beautiful home,” Ruiz said, casting a glance about the place.

  Aside from the sofa he was now seated on, there was a pair of matching armchairs. All three of the same style, they were arranged in a horseshoe, a coffee table in the center.

  Opposite them was an entertainment center and a flat-screen television, a pair of electronic boxes of some sort on the shelf below them.

  Framing it on the wall to either side were a collection of photos, the left a collage of who Ruiz assumed to be friends. A few he recognized as the college roommates, many of the others he’d never seen before.

  On the right were family pictures, a series of regular snapshots all clustered around a single larger image in the center. Allowing his focus to settle on it, he felt folds of skin line up around his eyes, his core tightening slightly.

  “Thank you,” Esmera replied. “I bought it two years ago, after...well...you know.”

  Ruiz did know, his gaze not once moving, locked on the photo in the center of the spread.

  “Market in San Diego proper is so ridiculous right now, didn’t make sense to buy down there,” Esmera continued, her words barely registering with Ruiz.

  “Agents told me this area would be the next to skyrocket, so I figured I would do it before things got too expensive,” she added. “You always were the one that told me to invest early in something.”

  Only barely did Ruiz even hear what she was saying. It faintly registered she was discussing her decision to buy the place, though she could have been addressing the weather, or fashion, or the local sports team.

  All he could focus on was the photo.

  Ruiz felt the corners of his mouth draw upward as he glanced over to Esmera. “I always liked that picture of her. From back before.”

  Her mouth partially opened, ready to continue
discussing the area real estate, Esmera paused. A crinkle appeared for just an instant on her nose before dawning set in, her gaze tracking over to the same photo hanging on the wall.

  “She was a stunner, wasn’t she?”

  Matching her pose, Ruiz drifted back to the picture.

  To say their mother was a stunner would be a massive understatement. It assumed that she was merely the type of woman that could turn heads, when in fact she was more of what Ruiz would call a classic beauty.

  The kind of woman who only became better over the years.

  In a different time and place, she would have been a Hollywood icon. Mentioned in the same breath as Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly, her name would have been embossed on the Walk of Fame, her poster still hanging on walls across the country.

  Instead, she had put all her focus into raising her children, first Ruiz, and later Esmera, the little girl that was technically her niece but was brought in with open arms and without a moment’s pause.

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there,” Ruiz said. “I can’t even imagine what you must have gone through.”

  Flicking his gaze to his sister, he could see her eyes become glassy. Her jaw flexed, held rigid as she stared at the photo, her nostrils flaring just slightly as she pulled in breath.

  “She always loved you,” Esmera said, voice betraying the slightest crack. “Even after everything that happened.”

  Shifting her attention back over, letting him see the red tendrils threaded through her eyes, she added, “So many times she talked about driving up to see you. So much, she wanted to.”

  Still raw was the memory of the day he had found out about her passing. Funneled in through Burris, his young cellmate had done his best to offer the words kindly, but it hadn’t mattered. They could have been delivered with flowers and candy, and it still would have been a sledgehammer to the stomach.

  His mother, the woman that had raised him entirely on her own, had opened her home to Esmera when she was an infant and had nowhere else to go. The very same that had stood by his side, ever proud, even as she pretended not to know what it was he did for a living.

  Or of the various things that were involved with such a venture.

  Warmth rose to Ruiz’s face as he met his sister’s stare. Blinking twice, he pulled in air, letting the initial moment pass. “I know. But I just couldn’t. At the time, the notion of letting her see me in a cage, wearing that jumpsuit. It was just too much.”

  The last words they had spoken were shouted in anger three years into his sentence. So frustrated with his lot, with having the same conversation with his mother over and over, he had expressly forbidden her from contacting him again.

  Never would he have imagined it would be the last time they ever spoke. Just one more thing ripped away from him by those damn agents that had showed up that night.

  And one more reason why it had been imperative he got the concession from Jones just twenty hours prior.

  Even if everything went south from this day forward, if their plan proved to be nothing but wishful thinking, that much would be worth it.

  “I know everything that’s happened,” he said. “First me, later with mama, it couldn’t have been easy.”

  Pausing, he drew in a breath, adding, “I’m proud of you.”

  Pressing her lips tight, Esmera lifted the corners of her mouth. Staring back at him, she seemed to consider a handful of responses before finally settling on the one that Ruiz had been expecting since he first saw her that morning.

  “I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am to have you sitting here right now,” she whispered, “so please don’t take this the wrong way.

  “But what the heck is going on here?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The suit was originally purchased from Brooks Brothers. A conscious decision to avoid Armani or Brioni or anything else with an Italian name that would stand out anywhere beyond the largest of American metropolitan areas.

  Equally of concern was to avoid the light colors or linens meant to withstand warmer climates, just as obvious in most parts of the country.

  Instead, Tres Salinas had opted for a simple charcoal two-piece. He had underlaid it with a white shirt and a bright blue tie, textured but not patterned.

  In short, everything he could to blend in as much as possible.

  As much as a man that looked like he did could in a place like West Yellowstone, anyway.

  After being folded into his luggage for the last week, a pair of faint horizontal creases ran across the midsection and over the knees. Unable to do anything about them, not sure if anybody in a town such as this would even notice, Tres stepped out of his rental car at half-past-four in the afternoon.

  In his hand was a briefcase, the interior stuffed with a legal pad and a few random documents. Of those, the majority was nothing more than the rental agreement he’d signed hours before in Spokane.

  Not that he was in the slightest worried about somebody giving too much scrutiny. At most, they might peek inside, ensuring he wasn’t trying to sneak in a weapon or some form of contraband.

  Parked in the sole visitor stall outside the West Yellowstone Sheriff’s Department, Tres stepped out of the rental car. Pausing, he stood ramrod straight, assessing the front of the building, pretending to ignore the cold wind swirling around his body.

  Pushing inside the lapels of his suit jacket, rising under the hem of his slacks, it seemed to suck the air from his lungs, his body temperature plummeting fast.

  Still, he gave no indication of as much. From where he stood, he couldn’t see any cameras visible, didn’t notice anybody peering out through the pair of windows lining the front, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  And from this moment forward, he had a part to play. An act to commit to.

  Completing this newest charge was already going to be difficult enough. He didn’t need to compound things through foolish error.

  A thin layer of rock salt crunched beneath his dress shoes as Tres strode for the front of the West Yellowstone Sheriff’s Department. A moment later, he passed through the pair of glass doors, feeling the blast of warm air as he moved inside.

  Forcing himself not to linger, to maintain a stiff façade, he moved straight ahead, stopping only once he’d reached the reception counter just inside the door.

  As he did so, a middle-aged man with receding dark hair and the heavy shadow of a beard matched his steps on the opposite side. Dressed in a mud brown department uniform, he moved with both hands on his hips, a wary expression on his face.

  “Help you?” he asked, rolling his head slightly so as to peer the length of his nose at Tres.

  Never before had Tres been to Montana, though the man and his posture were both in line with what he’d expected. Thus far in his first few forays around town, he’d yet to see a single person that wasn’t decidedly Caucasian.

  Seeing someone with brown skin must have really been a surprise.

  Even more so for that man to be wearing a suit.

  “I’m here to see my client,” Tres replied. He was careful to keep his tone polite, masking any animosity he could already feel rising.

  Spreading his feet a few inches wider, the man shifted his hands from his hips to across his stomach.

  Sitting just above his folded forearms was a silver nameplate, Deputy Ferry stenciled across it.

  “Your client?” Ferry asked.

  “Yes,” Tres replied. “Young Hispanic man I understand was brought in early this morning.”

  A flicker of something moved behind the man’s eyes as the statement registered. His mouth shifted a bit to the side, his teeth jutting out over his bottom lip, gnawing at the edge of it.

  Clearly, the man wasn’t much of a poker player.

  “Hang on just a second.”

  Rotating on the ball of a foot, the deputy turned in the opposite direction. Leaving Tres where he stood, he wove his way past a handful of desks and mismatched chairs before disappearing thr
ough a door on the opposite side of the room.

  In the wake of his departure, Tres took a half-step back. He lowered the briefcase to the floor and thrust both hands into his front pockets, clenching his fingers, attempting to work some feeling back into the digits fast growing numb.

  So much he’d love to have the snow gear he’d been wearing just twenty hours before.

  Or even better, to get back on the road south, to a place where temperatures north of freezing weren’t such an aberration.

  Casting a glance around the place, Tres took in his surroundings, the office bearing out most every preconceived notion he’d had before arriving. On the floor was white tile that was started to yellow with age, the seams between them having expanded to cracks, or even gaps. The light fixtures up above used long tubes, filmy light and a faint hum both emitted in equal measures.

  In the air was a cornucopia of scents, ranging from bad coffee to body odor.

  In total, the sort of place that would make Tres take a long look at his service weapon every single day when he showed up for work.

  Still going through his assessment, his focus was drawn by the sound of voices drifting in from the open doorway in the back. Pulling his hands from his pockets, he again took up his briefcase, standing at attention as Deputy Ferry appeared before him, a second man arriving right on his heels.

  Older by at least a decade, he had sandy brown hair and a matching moustache, the same brown uniform covering his frame.

  The moment the two were inside the office, Ferry moved to the side, allowing the second man to take the lead. Striding directly forward, he made no effort to hide his open appraisal of Tres, waiting until the front of his thighs were almost flush with the desk before speaking.

  “Good afternoon, I’m Sheriff Latham.”

  Delivered as if it was supposed to mean something, that the title was one of importance in West Yellowstone, Tres nodded.

  Again, he was here to play a part, no matter how much it might pain him to do so.

  “Hello sheriff, my name is Juan Perez. I am an attorney here to speak with my client.”