“You want to test them? I don’t.” McNiel glanced toward the door. “We have to assume that Kane is waiting to see what my next move is. When I get out of here, I intend to take a long drive up the coast. If they want to follow me, they’re in for a long ride. And while they’re tailing me, I’d suggest that if you have any intention of preserving your career, you take action at the first opportunity.”
“This would have been a hell of a lot easier getting past the armed guards if we hadn’t just enhanced our building’s security.”
“Find a way around it. Because the security’s the least of your concerns. If they get what’s on that hard drive, you and I will be sharing a cell in the federal penitentiary along with the rest of our team.”
“Cheery thought.”
“Not as cheery as the fact that no one’s supposed to be in that building. Which means no one’s going to think twice if you’re killed after having been caught breaking and entering.”
24
North of Ensenada, Mexico
The offshore breeze swept through the courtyard of the Orozco Villa, bringing with it a faint and refreshing tang of salt. Tex breathed in deep. After the cloying scent of death still evident inside the house, he was grateful to be standing outside.
When McNiel had ordered Tex to Mexico, he thought it was going to be a short trip. Fly in, advise Pedro Venegas of the Federal Ministerial Police that he’d be in the area, talk to Orozco about the possibility of his still having a copy of the Devil’s Key, recover it if he did, then fly out the next day. No one said anything about walking into a mass murder scene. Or that a witness might have survived.
Apparently this last fact was being kept off the record. In light of the sensitive nature of the investigation, Venegas felt it best to let everyone assume that Orozco’s entire family had been killed. Once Venegas had informed him that it was possible Orozco’s daughter might have escaped, he couldn’t just leave.
It was also why he’d called in Tony Carillo to help. For one, Carillo was familiar with Venegas, apparently having dealt with him in the past. Two, Carillo had experience working homicides, whereas Tex did not. Being a spy and investigating espionage was not the same thing as working a murder case. Three, even though Carillo had every reason to hold a grudge about the debacle with his condo being searched, Carillo owed him big-time, and he was calling in his marker. Of course, he also sweetened the deal by adding that it was, after all, Mexico in January, and on the government’s dime, so to speak. At least until someone got wise and cut off his credit card, and judging by what was going on back at the office, that was likely to happen any time. He only hoped Carillo’s credit card still worked, because Carillo was expecting a lobster dinner with margaritas at the conclusion.
Carillo stood a few feet away, talking to Venegas about his preliminary findings, both men with their backs to a wall covered with bougainvillea vines, the bright pink flowers shimmering in the breeze. The petals were so bright, they could be seen from the beach below, something Tex noticed when he’d first arrived.
While the two men went over the particulars of the case, Tex walked across the brick pavers out the drive to take a look. The villa property held a clear view of the coast from its perch on top of the hill. It was too far away to hear the break of the waves, or see anyone on the beach. Earlier this morning, Tex had gone down there to see if he could find anything. Tire tracks were visible where a vehicle had pulled onto the shoulder of the road, but nothing detailed enough to figure out what sort of tires or provide any useful leads, because it could have been a tourist, stopping to snap a photo. And since the beach had been empty, and he wasn’t sure what, if anything, he’d hoped to find, he’d returned.
Carillo walked over, interrupting his thoughts. “You ready to go back in?”
“Not really. I don’t think anything prepares you to see an entire family slaughtered. Not even in my business.”
“Not in mine, either. But you never know when you might have missed something the first time around, now that they’ve gotten the bodies out. Venegas says the locals are insistent on it being a cartel hit.”
“Highly unlikely, considering the reason we were coming here. Unless you believe in coincidence.”
“Which I do not.” Carillo looked out over the wall toward the beach. “What we need to do is determine if Orozco’s daughter really did escape. Orozco, apparently, wasn’t big on permanent identification, and they don’t have a positive ID on the girl who was killed. Right now it’s only a suspicion on Venegas’s part.” They stood there in silence, watching the ocean, though, at least in Tex’s mind, not really seeing it. Eventually Carillo put his hand on Tex’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Tex nodded, then followed him into the villa. Venegas walked in after them. The windows had all been opened, to allow the breeze to air out the scent of dried blood. The main living area was where two of the bodies had been found. The young woman who was believed to have been Orozco’s daughter, and the man believed to be her husband. The third and fourth, Orozco and his wife, were in what was clearly his office, a room with a view of the courtyard, a large desk, and a wall safe, which stood open, and was now empty.
“How much cash did the officers find in there?” Carillo asked Venegas.
“Several thousand dollars, American.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing. If this thing they were searching for was in there, it was not when the officers arrived. It was, however, standing open.”
“That’s an awful lot of money to leave lying around.”
“Agreed. So we know that is not what they were after.”
Carillo said nothing, just looked at Tex, who eyed the open desk drawers, as well as the rooms beyond that were in similar disarray. “I’d have to guess it wasn’t in there, and they hoped to find it elsewhere. Assuming it was here at all.”
They finished walking the downstairs, where the fifth body had been found, Orozco’s brother-in-law, in a hallway just off the kitchen leading to a back door, undoubtedly as he tried to flee. Carillo directed Tex and Venegas to the upper floor, going from room to room. It was clear that someone had searched this part of the house, especially the master bedroom, which opened up to a wide veranda. Carillo made a cursory search, then walked outside, though what he was looking for, Tex had no idea.
Tex was flipping through an address book he found on the floor that had probably landed there when someone pulled the drawer out of the nightstand, when Carillo called him over. The veranda opened up to the backyard, and beyond it and the bougainvillea-covered wall, the ocean.
“Find something?” he asked, walking over to where Carillo stood at the balcony’s edge.
“Look there.” He pointed to the terra-cotta tiles on the balcony’s floor. Muddy footprints.
Tex noted they pointed toward the house, but had originated from the wrought-iron balcony’s edge, where he could see the heart-shaped, leathery leaves of some vine that had twisted its way up a trellis from the garden below.
He walked over to look into the backyard that could grace the cover of any gardening magazine, with its meandering paths of crushed rock and well-tended flower beds. Stone benches inset with brightly colored Mexican tiles were interspersed throughout, giving one any number of places to sit and enjoy the view. At the far end of the yard stood a child’s swing set, the empty swings moving as the breeze swept in from the coast and across the stretch of lawn, a reminder that a very young child had lost the only family she’d known.
Tex forced his gaze from the swing set to the ground below the climbing vines, noting the area appeared to have been disturbed, probably when someone climbed up the trellis. “Undoubtedly a point of entry, but by whom? We have the witnesses on the beach who picked up the little girl, saw a man who matched Orozco’s description get into a car with two men. Who was this, then?”
Carillo put his foot next to on
e of the prints. “Pretty small for a guy. Could be a child, but I’m thinking a woman.” Then, careful not to disturb the prints, he stepped over them and to the bedroom, calling out to Venegas, who was going through a box he’d found up in the closet. “Can I see those crime scene photos again?”
“Of course.” They were in his portfolio, which he’d set on the bed, one of the few clean surfaces that didn’t have fingerprint powder upon it. He opened it, then handed the photos to Carillo, who looked at each in turn.
Carillo pulled out one photo and held it up. “Anyone see footprints there?”
Tex took it from him, saw it was of the master bedroom veranda. Other than a few yellowed leaves from the vine scattered about, the tiles looked clean, he thought, handing the photo to Venegas. No footprints anywhere.
“Someone,” Carillo said, “entered after this place was processed.”
Tex picked up the rest of the photos, looking at each one. “If the entire family was killed, who was here and why? Someone searching for whatever the killers were searching for? Or Orozco’s daughter?”
“The latter,” Venegas said. “At least a good case for it. There were armed officers out front, protecting the premises. Whoever came in knew the ins and outs.”
Carillo examined the photos again, one by one. He paused on a shot of the main living area, the young woman’s body by the front door. “The girl lying there. Does she look pregnant to you?” He handed the photo to Venegas.
“She was allegedly not very far along. Four-five months. A girl slightly overweight, how can you tell?”
“I’m not the expert,” Tex said, “but I think you’d be showing, at least a little.”
“The girl,” Venegas said, “has no prints on file. But this is a small village and that’s to be expected. So we cannot disprove it until the autopsy is done.”
“No time to wait,” Carillo said, then walked through each of the bedrooms again, this time going through the closets. “The clothes tell me that the girl in the photo is not the girl who wore these clothes, which are definitely too small.”
“You think it’s possible the daughter survived?” Tex asked. That would be a break they truly needed.
“Why not?” Carillo said. “Either she wasn’t here at all, or she got an early warning of what was taking place. Her window overlooks the courtyard.” He nodded in that direction, then walked over, looked out. “Let’s say she sees her father being brought in at gunpoint. She’s not very likely to go running down there. You’ve got someone killed right there at the front door, and someone at the back. So maybe she hears the shots and escapes down the trellis. Or she wasn’t here at all. One way to possibly tell . . .” He walked over, picked up a shoe from the closet floor, then carried it out to the veranda off the master bedroom. The sizes matched.
Tex walked over to the balcony’s edge, and eyed the garden wall and the thick vines covering it. “We might want to have a closer look at the perimeter.”
They found the hidden gate beneath the bougainvillea leading to the chaparral-covered hillside beyond, like stepping from a lush oasis into a different world, this one brown and dull. The dirt was dry on the outside of the wall, the footprints almost nonexistent. But it seemed there was a worn path through the low shrubs, the gritty soil freshly disturbed as though someone had recently walked upon it.
They followed the trail and as they crested the hill into a shallow valley, they saw a ranch house with a few donkeys in the yard behind a barbed-wire fence. Venegas nodded at it as they walked down the hill. “Perhaps she came here for help.”
“You’d think they’d call the police,” Carillo said.
A sharp crack echoed across the valley as dirt sprayed up beside them.
Tex dove to the side where a few small boulders offered some cover. Carillo followed, but Venegas stood there, pulled out his badge, holding it up, trying to flash it in the sunlight. “Policía!” he yelled.
He was a braver man than Tex—or far more foolish—because he didn’t move. Nor did he draw his own weapon.
Several tense moments passed, and the only thing Tex heard was a donkey braying, then Venegas saying, “Por favor. Debemos aquí ayudar—”
“I know who you are. It’s the other two I’m worried about. Keep your hands where I can see them!” A female voice. Speaking English with a faint Mexican accent.
Venegas kept his hands up. “They are friends. Here to help.”
“You tell those other two I want to see their hands up in the air.”
Tex peered between the boulders and saw a woman on the porch, pointing a long gun at them. She was dressed in blue jeans and a plaid shirt and wore a baseball cap.
“Now!” she ordered.
Tex rolled to his side, put up his hands. Carillo waited a heartbeat. When no shots were forthcoming, he rose, keeping his hands up about shoulder level.
“The three of you walk up here. Nice and slow.”
They walked down the hill toward the house, and as they neared, Tex saw she was in her late fifties or early sixties. Hard to say, since her skin was tanned and leathery, her arms muscled, as though she did a lot of the ranch work herself. Her light brown hair, flecked with gray, was pulled back in a ponytail beneath the cap, and he could see her eyes following their movements, her gaze fixed on their hands, not their faces.
When they reached the ranch house, she lowered the barrel to about their knees and Tex felt infinitely better. Until a curtain moved at the front window, and he wondered if someone inside had a gun on them, as well.
“Who are you two?” she asked.
And Tex said, “James Dalton, reporter with the Washington Recorder.”
“Newspaper? That’s a new one. You?” she said, pointing her gun at Carillo.
“Tony Carillo, ma’am. Special agent, FBI.”
The front door flew open, and a young woman with dark hair and blue eyes, and a slightly rounded stomach, stepped out, pointing a gun right at Carillo, saying, “You know an agent named Sydney Fitzpatrick?”
“I do.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you right where you stand.”
Clearly they’d found Robert Orozco’s daughter.
And she apparently was nursing one hell of a grudge against Sydney.
“Maria!” the older woman said. “Put the gun down before you hurt someone.”
“But she is the reason my parents are dead. And the reason my daughter is missing. If she had not come here, seeking my father—”
Venegas said, “Your daughter is safe. And in good hands.”
Her eyes welled with tears, and she leaned against the side of the house as though suddenly losing the strength to even stand.
“The gun, Maria.”
She lowered her weapon.
Her guardian did not. “You,” she said, raising her rifle at Carillo. “You never answered Maria’s question. Why shouldn’t we shoot you?”
Tex realized he needed to defuse this fast. “He came here to warn her father that he might be in danger.”
The weapon came down slightly. “Why?”
Carillo looked directly at Maria. “Someone is killing everyone who saw this list your father gave to Sydney Fitzpatrick. They’re after Sydney, and we knew they’d be after your father.”
“But my father didn’t have this list,” Maria said. “He gave it to this Sydney Fitzpatrick.”
“Maybe they thought he had a copy.”
The girl looked at the older woman, her mouth parting as though she wanted to say something, but the woman shook her head, saying, “Senor Venegas. Maria’s daughter . . .”
“Senora. I do not yet know your name.”
“Lucia.”
“Lucia. As I said, safe. A couple found her on the beach. The child had a cell phone in her pocket belonging to Senor Orozco with a text telling whoeve
r found her to contact me. That is how I was notified.”
“Why would he ask that you be contacted? As I understood it, he had an eminent distrust of law enforcement.”
“Because I had called to warn him of the danger, after Senor Carillo called to let me know. So you see, we are here to help. That has always been our intent.”
“I remember the call,” Maria said. “He thought there would be more time . . . When can I see her? My Rosa. When can I get her back?”
“Soon,” Venegas said. “As soon as we know it is safe for you and for her. But if you could, por favor, help us in this, our questions. Do you know who they were? These men who killed your family?”
Maria shook her head. “But I remember after the FBI agent came. I heard my father talking to my mother once about la llave del diablo. He said it was the key to banks, to corporations, to everything, but one had to know the secret.”
“What secret?”
“I don’t know. He never said. But what he wrote on the back of the card, my mother said was important.” She slipped her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a worn business card, then, turning it over read, “The Devil’s Key. RC has 112.”
25
Venice, Italy
A few days ago, if anyone had told Piper that she’d be staying in a convent called the Piccole Ancelle del Rio near the Academia in Venice, she would have said they were high on drugs. And yet here she was, minus the body piercings and pink hair, dressed like a novitiate, and very much enjoying her work in the kitchen, helping the sisters clean up and then prepare the mother superior’s late night tea. Although it was her first day, the good sisters had willingly taken her in and put her right to work. Life here was so different from anything she’d ever known, and she was excited about learning all she could of the order. She couldn’t wait for morning, if only because Sister Anna promised her that there was nothing more beautiful than the daylight pouring in through the pointed Moorish arches of the tall, fourteenth-century windows.
The Kill Order Page 15