Hearts of the Missing
Page 26
Nicky blinked dry gritty eyes as they waited for a response from the most powerful man on the pueblo.
“More questions, Agent Martinez? When I told you I’d cooperate fully, I hoped first to get a good night’s sleep.” He took a sip of his drink, sucking on the ice. “Where is Agent Laughton? And why is she here?”
Nicky returned his dark look.
“Agent Laughton is pursuing another lead,” Franco said. “And Sergeant Matthews has been an integral part of the Sandra Deering case from the start. We’ve just come from an interview of Dinah K’aishuni.”
If Nicky hadn’t been watching carefully, she would have missed the tiny start Santibanez gave at the mention of Dinah’s name.
Franco must have seen it, too. “You were aware she and her husband were visiting the reservation? Her responses to some of Sergeant Matthews’s questions led us back to you, sir.”
While Franco’s words were deferential, his tone was not. Internally, Nicky relaxed a fraction. He was here for answers, as was she.
“We won’t take up much of your valuable time, sir. Sergeant Matthews has a few questions. Sergeant?”
“Well, if this won’t take long,” Santibanez interrupted, “I won’t invite you to sit.”
A couple of Santibanez’s words slurred the slightest bit. Was he already drunk? Good. Nicky dove straight in.
“Dinah K’aishuni told us about a very disturbing event. When her daughter Maryellen was in high school, she was raped and became pregnant. The parents of the boy only acknowledged their son’s involvement after a DNA test proved he was the father.” She paused, then gave him one more piece of information. “FBI agents have been instructed to pick up your son, Mr. Santibanez.”
He barked out a harsh laugh. “Well, good luck proving PJ raped that girl. All you have is the word of a grieving mother who wants someone to blame for her own failings.”
Relief settled hard and fast inside Nicky, and she almost slumped with it. Santibanez’s statement cleared Ryan.
“And Dinah K’aishuni negated the Family Meeting agreement when she told you. About time. I was tired of forever paying out money to keep PJ’s past indiscretions hidden.” Santibanez tipped his head back and with a long swallow finished his drink. He walked to the sideboard, using a hand against the wall to steady his steps. Crystal clinked as the decanter knocked against his glass. “Pick him up! See if I care. The statute of limitations expired years ago anyway. Now, if you’re done—”
“Actually, the clock starts when the crime is first reported to law enforcement,” Nicky informed him. “After you banned your son from the pueblo, where did he go?”
“My son.” Santibanez made a rude noise. “His mother gave him money to travel around, drift for a year or two. When he showed up in Albuquerque, she made me get him a slot at Glynco in Conservation.”
He waved his drink at Franco, who eyed him narrowly, his phone pressed to his ear.
“When PJ graduated, I pulled a few strings, got him a job in Oregon, on a reservation.” Santibanez scratched his face and took another drink. “He ended up in Arizona, at San Carlos Apache. It made his mother happy he was so close.” He stared blankly across the room. “I hadn’t seen him for a long time, but he was there, volunteering for the Maryellen K’aishuni search.”
Nicky sucked in a gasp and stilled. Franco’s arm dropped to his side, his white-knuckled hand clutching the cell phone. He stared at Santibanez, eyes wide.
“You know what was so funny? When the FBI interviewed the volunteers about the murders, they thought I’d been accidentally put on both the New Mexico and the Arizona volunteer list. But that was Peter Santibanez Junior. They didn’t even speak to PJ.” His brows knit at their reactions and he swayed on his feet. “What?”
“Did it ever cross your mind your son had both motive and opportunity to murder Maryellen K’aishuni?” Nicky lashed out at him with her voice.
Santibanez pivoted and threw his glass against the wall. It shattered into a thousand pieces. “He’s not my son!” he screamed and dropped his head into his hands.
“No. He’s not, is he?” She let anger flow into her words as she marched toward him. “The DNA test done on Maryellen’s aborted fetus showed that, didn’t it? But that’s not the only reason you rejected him. His real father wasn’t Fire-Sky, was he? His blood quantum didn’t qualify him as a member of the tribe, did it? So you banned him from the pueblo. Purged him, like you’re trying to purge others because they don’t live up to your ancestral standards.”
Santibanez lifted his head and stared at her, brows in a straight line over his eyes. His voice shook as he answered. “Every living member of the Tsiba’ashi D’yini Pueblo is here only because of the bravery of our ancestors. Many of them sacrificed themselves—died—to maintain our culture and traditions. Purging this tribe of hangers-on is my duty.”
“He was raised for years by you and his mother on this reservation, with all of your traditions and culture,” Nicky said. “To what end? To be torn from the only family he knew? Now you’re doing the same thing to Victor Koyona. Do you know what one of his sisters said about him when she found out about his blood quantum? Now he is worth nothing. How would you like to be raised and then rejected by a culture that believes, because of your DNA, you are worth nothing?”
“Maybe Victor’s mother should have thought of that before she got pregnant and tried to pass him off as Tsiba’ashi D’yini,” he said, a sneer twisting his face.
“Like your wife did with PJ.” Nicky let the statement hang in the air. “PJ is murdering high-blood-quantum members of Fire-Sky, Mr. Santibanez,” she said. “And he’s using your DNA database to select his victims.” Everything was falling into place. “Was he dating Sandra Deering?”
Santibanez blinked rapidly and licked his lips. “How did you know?”
“Did you tell him David Saunders found out about Sandra’s missing heart?”
He pulled out his desk chair and sat with a thump. “PJ was with me when Saunders called and said he’d told the FBI about Sandra’s autopsy. That he’d been advised to leave town for a couple weeks.” Santibanez’s face was a gray mask. He wiped a shaking hand over his eyes. “You think PJ did that? Mutilated Saunders on Scalding Peak?”
“Yes. And I also believe he tried to implicate you.”
“My God.”
“But we don’t think he did it alone.” Franco stood next to her. “That one-guy, Jekyll-and-Hyde thing is ridiculous,” he said softly in her ear before he addressed Santibanez again. “Does he have any close friends? Who does he hang out with? Anything you can give us would help.”
“Any friends?” Santibanez twisted up his face. “Yeah. One guy stands out. I thought it was weird PJ would ever get to know someone like this, but he said they met in Mexico. Said he did some work for him and they, uh, they became friends. This guy moved up to Albuquerque a couple of years ago.” Santibanez shook his head, obviously trying to gather his thoughts. “He’s a doctor. Actually, a transplant surgeon. Works around the state on an organ retrieval team. His name is—”
“Meloni,” Nicky said. “Emilio Meloni.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
It seemed like she’d just fallen into a restless sleep when the buzzing of her cell woke her. She snapped on the lamp beside her bed and winced at the bright light. Her hand fumbled to put her glasses on and she peered at the phone’s screen. After midnight. Her gaze dropped—a text from Ryan.
I’m at the front door.
Savannah sank her head back on the pillow and exhaled. Thank God. Phone in hand, she kicked the bedcovers off her legs and, barefoot, hurried to the door, glad she’d worn leggings and a loose top instead of her baby-doll pajamas. She flipped the porch light on, disengaged the dead bolt, and swung open the door, ready to fling herself into Ryan’s arms.
And stopped dead.
“Hello, Savannah.” He smiled as his gaze slid down and back up her body. Skeezy PJ popped into her head.
“PJ?
What are you doing here? How did you—?”
PJ Santibanez walked toward her. Savannah scuttled back. Her heart beat double-time.
“How did we get past the FBI agents out front? Yeah. About those guys.” His head tipped to the side and he smiled. “Sorry.”
She whirled and dashed to the kitchen. If she could get out into the desert behind her house, she could—
The French doors to her patio slammed open with a bang, the wood frame splintered. Savannah screamed as two men in black jeans and shirts surged into her house, grabbed her arms, and flipped her around. Her glasses went flying and the world blurred. Hollow terror shot to her core and her knees collapsed beneath her, but the men kept her on her feet.
PJ sauntered into the kitchen, turned on the overhead light, and wrested the cell phone out of her hand. He waggled his brows and waved it at her as another man walked in behind him.
“Your phone. It’s infected, you know. Courtesy of your friend Nicky Matthews,” the second man said. “I bet she thought the FBI did it.”
Savannah tried to focus, but her body shook so badly, his face remained fuzzy. Medium height, slim. The skin of his head reflected the light above him. He stopped in front of her and she thought he smiled.
“You’re right, PJ. She is perfect. Perfect size, perfect sex, young, healthy.” The man pressed his palm over the top of her left breast. Savannah froze, voice trapped in her chest, tears burning. “Perfect heart.” His hand slid up to circle her throat. She whimpered and fought with everything she had.
“Hold her,” he commanded.
One of the men behind her grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her head back. Pain made her gasp. The bald man’s hand reached for her neck again, but this time two fingers pressed against her rapidly throbbing pulse.
“Strong heartbeat. Excellent. Mr. Salas will be very pleased. And you.” He addressed Savannah. “Genetically, you are a one hundred percent HLA null. Did you know that? Thank goodness I found out about the database when I did. It literally saved my life.” He touched her cheek with the tip of a finger. “Too bad it won’t save yours.”
“Su corazón. ¿Funcionará?” one of the men behind her ground out.
This time, Savannah knew the bald man smiled. She could hear it in his voice.
“Si, mi amigo. Perfecta.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Nicky hardly noticed the flashing lights of the slot machines or the thick smell of stale cigarette smoke as she and Franco hurried through the dark casino. Even after midnight it was packed with people who drove up from Albuquerque or down from Santa Fe and all the cities in between. The discordant clang of jackpots and a local rock band playing in a disco that was curtained off from the casino scorched her ears.
“Call Laughton,” she yelled to Franco. “Tell him we need the Albuquerque FBI here ASAP, and have him send a team to Meloni’s home and lab at OMI. And he needs to alert Fire-Sky police. Have them put out an APB on PJ Santibanez.”
Franco nodded and pressed his phone against his ear as they pushed through the bank of glass doors and into the heavy air of the coming storm. He relayed her requests as they jogged to her unit. When they arrived, he handed her the phone, lips pressed thin.
“He doesn’t believe—He won’t—” His teeth ground audibly. “He wants to talk to you.”
“What is it?” Nicky didn’t try to keep impatience out of her voice. She unlocked her truck and leaped inside.
“Bernal is with me now,” Laughton said. “We checked his alibi for the Maryellen K’aishuni search. He’s been cleared. I’m taking him back to Savannah’s place.”
“Martinez and I are headed that way, too.”
Franco climbed into the passenger side of Nicky’s unit and slammed his door. She handed the phone back to him. He hit speaker as they sped out of the parking lot and held the phone near her face.
“Before I proceed, I need more information,” Laughton said. “You’re saying there are two killers? Our profilers—”
“Listen,” Nicky interrupted. “The Jekyll-and-Hyde part is correct, but your profilers were wrong about a single killer.” She negotiated the turn onto the main highway through the pueblo. “There are two men, two killers. Hyde is PJ Santibanez. He uses his rage against the culture and traditions that rejected him. He’s subverted the Enemy’s Heart Ceremony, killing tribal members and taking their hearts so they become lost. In a way, it’s the same thing that was done to him when he was rejected by his father. He’s been torn from the heart of his culture and this is how he enacts his revenge. Emilio Meloni is Jekyll, precisely harvesting the hearts of selected individuals. I was at his lab. He experiments on human organs and hearts. He told me they were legally obtained, but I think he’s as twisted as PJ. Secure his lab immediately. Those organs need to be DNA-tested to see if they match any missing Fire-Sky tribal members.”
There was a heavy silence on the other end of the line.
“Meloni’s not keeping those hearts for testing,” Laughton said. “He’s our link to the Coahuilan drug cartel. I received a call tonight about Mariano Salas, the cartel boss. He’s on the move again. Our sources put him in Juárez. With his family. With his daughter.”
“What?” Franco said. Nicky flashed him a glance. His face was stiff with surprise. “I thought she was too sick to move. I thought her heart disease had progressed to the point where she was close to death.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Unless she gets a new heart. God. How did we miss it?”
His words froze Nicky’s blood. She pulled her truck to the side of the road and took the phone.
“HLA, Laughton. Fire-Sky individuals with pure blood quantum can be genetically identified by a high number of null HLA alleles. That’s what David Saunders showed with his DNA database. You’re a doctor. What does that mean?”
“Null HLA. Human leukocyte antigen. The proteins made by the HLA genes identify self. If these proteins are not made—or null—tissue and organs aren’t recognized as non-self or foreign once they’re transplanted into another body. They don’t get rejected.”
“That means pure-blood Fire-Sky Indians are the perfect organ donors,” Nicky said. “It’s only a six-hour drive to Mexico from here. If Salas is in Juárez with his daughter, then Meloni and PJ Santibanez have probably identified or even taken a victim for the heart transplant. They could be on their way now.”
Laughton cursed. “Put Franco back on,” he said.
Nicky handed the phone back to Franco. He wrapped his fingers tightly around her hand. She pressed her forehead to his, taking and giving comfort.
The night was far from over.
“Let’s get coordinated at Savannah’s place. I’ll call the agents watching her house,” Laughton said, “and tell them we’re on our way.” He hung up.
Nicky accelerated back onto the road. Rain spattered the windshield and the bright beams of her headlights punched sharp circles out of the darkness. Suddenly an animal darted out in front of the truck, a white flash that zagged across the wet blacktop and into the rain- and wind-washed chamisa at the side of the road. She gasped, hit the brakes, and swerved. Franco braced his arm against the dash as the truck stopped.
“Did you see that? Did you see—?” Her voice shook and adrenaline pumped dizzily through her body.
“It was a rabbit, Nicky, that’s all. Just a rabbit.”
“No, Franco. It wasn’t just a rabbit. It was a white rabbit.” She looked at him, his face illuminated in the eerie green light of the dashboard. “They already have their victim,” she whispered. “We don’t have much time.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Nicky hit her lights and fishtailed her unit onto the rain-slicked road. She gritted her teeth, hands tight on the steering wheel. Just a few more minutes.
About a mile from Savannah’s home, the cell phone rang again. Franco hit speaker.
“The men I stationed at Savannah’s house. They’re not answering. Neither is Savannah.” Laughton’s voice was clipped.
“We parked at Bernal’s. Come in quiet. Watch for us,” Laughton said. The phone clicked off.
Nicky cut her lights and used her truck to block one end of the road. Savannah’s home sat on the last street of the neighborhood, nothing but desert behind her. She and Franco would approach from the left. Ryan’s duplex was situated to the right. A distant streetlight only dimly illuminated the car stationed in front of Savannah’s house. There was no movement inside it.
The rain slowed to a gentle, steady shower. Thunder grumbled. Nicky stepped out of the truck and pulled her Glock. She slipped two more magazines into her back pocket. Weapon in hand, Franco motioned silently for her to move in behind him. Hunched, they ran forward, from parked car to parked car, until they stopped in Savannah’s driveway and crouched behind her white compact. Shadowy blurs traveled up the street from the direction of Ryan’s house. One man broke off and ran to the dark sedan parked at the curb. The other loped like a wolf around the back of the house next to Savannah’s.
Nicky and Franco crept to the edge of the long porch. Laughton met them there.
“Silva and Lwowski are unresponsive. I think they’ve been drugged.” He held out his hand. “With this.”
Franco picked up the vial and syringe. “Ketamine.”
Stomach hollow, Nicky forced herself to breathe evenly. She was no good to Savannah if she couldn’t stay focused. “We need to find her. Two entrances. The back door into the den. Front door into the living room,” she whispered.
Laughton motioned he’d go to the back.
She and Franco ducked low to avoid the curtained window. Then Franco stood, weapon in hand, Nicky at his shoulder. The door was cracked open and Franco pushed it hard, yelling, “DEA! Police!” as he rushed inside.