Blue Diablo cs-1 Read online

  “You know”—Saldana eyed the wreckage in the parking lot of Cotulla Style Pit Bar-B-Q—“if you wanted my attention, you could’ve just called.”

  “Funny.”

  He sighed. “When the call came in, I just knew you had something to do with it.”

  I felt like that was a trifle unjust. I hadn’t blown out the windows at the warehouse or killed poor Maris. Chance is the one who attracts trouble like a lightning rod. My life in Mexico City had been pretty quiet. So by my calculations, I needed to stay away from him. Adventure followed him like a hound dog after a bone, and I’m not shamed to say I’d enjoyed enough excitement.

  “So you came out to see me?” I managed a smile for my mentor. Still didn’t know what I was supposed to do with him. “That’s so sweet.”

  “Slow day.” Jesse shrugged. “Just the usual gang stuff, so I thought I could spare a few minutes to take a look here.”

  There wasn’t too much to see. The formerly piss yellow Camry smoldered in half a dozen pieces, and the cars parked on either side weren’t in great shape either. If we hadn’t stopped for lunch, we’d be dead. Some people might call it coincidence, but we could thank Chance’s luck for that. We definitely had somebody on our tail, though. I suspected they’d planted the bomb when we went into the police station, and that took some stainless steel balls.

  Was it possible that our enemies had a guy on the police force? Someone who had a vested interest in making sure nobody ever found out what had become of Min? Well, shit. Jesse had known our every move since I made the mistake of trusting him.

  We shouldn’t stay with Chuch and Eva anymore. Maybe the mechanic had good wards, but you couldn’t charm a house against fire, gas leaks, or Molotov cocktails. It was so wrong that our enemies could aim such a wide variety of threats at us, and we didn’t even know whom we were fighting. Or why, for that matter.

  I felt numb. Though I’ve been burned out of my home and seen some scary things in my life, I’d never found a demon-chewed corpse before yesterday, nor had a vehicle blow up before my eyes. These people weren’t messing around; they’d kill us if they could.

  For the first time I wondered if we should step back and let it go. Maybe uncertainty was better than dying. After all, I’d lived for twenty years without knowing what happened to my dad. My mom and I figured he just left, though Twila tried to sell me a different version of events. Right now I had too many other things to worry about to focus on it, but it weighed on me nonetheless.

  Chance finished his interview with Saldana’s partner. We finally met the guy, Nathan Moon, and I’d been wrong about him all the way. Not a big, burly type. He was short, bowlegged, and paunchy with a sunburned, sullen face. I still bet he played bad cop.

  Shortly he proved it. “So you don’t have any idea why somebody would launch your ride?”

  I didn’t know what Chance had told Officer Moon, but I clammed up, courtesy of cops hassling me over the years. They always thought I was a charlatan, a grifter, or worse. Never mind the fact that Chance and I helped people; we didn’t talk the elderly out of their pensions. If Saldana wasn’t standing here, this would turn ugly. Hell, it might anyway. I didn’t know if I could trust him; in fact, things had gone drastically wrong ever since I took him into my confidence.

  I lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug and wished I had a long, tall glass of lemonade. “Maybe they thought it belonged to someone else.”

  “Drug dealing’s about the only thing that would get people so riled up around here.” Moon pretended to consider. “Maybe if a deal went bad or some money went missing. You think any of them drug dealers drive a Camry?”

  “I don’t know any,” I said sweetly. “So I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”

  Jesse elbowed his partner. “Cut the lady some slack. Remember that talk we had about not treating victims like perps?”

  I wasn’t sure I liked being classed as a victim, but I didn’t protest. The two cops exchanged a look, and then Moon stalked off to harangue one of the uniforms on scene. I imagined their office would be tense for a day or two. Or maybe Nathan Moon just acted like this all the time.

  We stood by in the heat while the bomb squad went over the odds and ends. Finally a guy came over, red-faced and sweating. “Here’s the timer. Looks like the remains of a digital watch. We’ll know more later, but it was definitely a DIY ignition. I reckon they made it out of stuff you can buy at Home Depot.”

  At that point, Saldana got involved in a discussion that went straight over my head. I swiped my palm across my forehead, ready to collapse somewhere shady and cool, but we didn’t have a ride. The rental car agencies would flip over their signs to closed after the busted engine block on the Suburban and now the exploding Camry. Once we established that the police didn’t need anything else from us, Chance shepherded me back inside.

  As I nursed a Diet Coke in the blessed restaurant air conditioning, he called Chuch. “Hey, is Eva home? Good. I need a favor, and after this we’ll call it even. I’m talking about wiping your debt.” He paused, listening. “Settle down. I’m not about to ask for a night with your wife. Do I look like Robert Redford?”

  I let my gaze wander up and down before answering, “Nope.”

  Chance scowled and made shushing motions at me. If he’d asked I would’ve told him he was more Ben Jelen than Robert Redford—better in my book. Even if the actor wasn’t almost a hundred, I never went for blond guys, not since a big jerk named Erik had cheated on me. I did like tawny highlights in Jesse Saldana’s hair, though. I also liked his sense of humor, his smile, and the way his ass filled out a pair of Levi’s.

  I didn’t like the fact that I was beginning to suspect he was dirty and that he’d been assigned to make sure we never learned anything useful about Min. He could’ve killed Maris, I realized. My presence in the apartment didn’t constitute an alibi, as I’d been sound asleep in another room. Maybe he hadn’t realized it would come to that.

  He’d sure as hell looked rough when I got up. I’d assumed he suffered from sheer sexual frustration, but—

  When I came out of the nightmare that line of thought evoked, I realized I’d missed the rest of the conversation, and Chance was regarding me expectantly, phone in hand.

  I blinked. “Huh?”

  “Chuch is giving us the Mustang. We’ll have to take better care of it.”

  “Wow. How much money did you loan him?” A fully restored 1972 cherry red classic amounted to a significant gift.

  He just shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. We’re even now.”

  “Do we need to find somewhere else to stay?”

  “I think it’s a good idea. I feel bad that we—I—dragged them into this. But I didn’t realize things would get this bad. Like Lenny, I thought it was a kidnapping at first. Calling in everything I’m owed, I could raise five hundred grand or so if they asked, but at this point I don’t think they will.”

  “They didn’t hurt her. I think she knew them, Chance, or perhaps the people they represented.” Never mind the ritual. I’d contemplated that first reading a bit, and I got a good look at her face before she dropped the pewter Buddha.

  His long fingers drew patterns on the scarred tabletop. Despite my best intentions I remembered a game we used to play, where I lay on my stomach and he wrote Korean characters on my spine. His mother had been teaching me the language and I had a knack for such things, but when Chance put his hands on me, I forgot every English word I knew.

  “Pretty sure you’re right. If we’re going to find the answers, we have to follow her trail. And that seems to lead to Boys Town.”

  Oh, joy. Was there ever such a twisted relationship? I couldn’t imagine another woman agreeing to accompany her ex to hang out with hookers. Sadly I couldn’t argue with his logic, as I’d come to the same conclusion myself. Maybe something we learned in the zona would bring the other loose threads into the weave, show the larger pattern.

  Shit, I sounded like Twila.

  Aft
er dropping some cash for the waitress, we went back outside to wait. Eva would follow Chuch in the Mustang, we’d take over ownership, and then... well. I didn’t know.

  That was the plan, at least. Chuch turned up by himself about fifteen minutes later. I climbed into the back of his Maverick. Listened to the two of them argue in the front.

  “You’re loco if you think I’m gonna cut you loose just ’cause it’s getting hard, primo. You’re my friend. I’m not gonna give you a car and say buena suerte when you got people trying to blow your shit up. I can help—you know that. I got contacts.”

  Chuch always said, “If your mechanic doesn’t know everything that goes on, then you need a new mechanic.” But his willingness to stick didn’t mean it was a good idea.

  “I know you can.” Chance sounded tired. “But I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you or Eva.”

  I never heard this tone from Chuch before. “If they look crossways at Eva, I’ll hunt them down and cut them open. Stake them out in the desert so they die slow.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Chance said, and I wondered what secrets hid in Chuch’s past. What didn’t I know about him? “But that won’t bring her back. I wish you hadn’t left her alone. There was a reason I asked you to have her follow in the Mustang, and not just because I wanted to keep from leading bad things back to your house, if they don’t already know we’re there.”

  Silence.

  The souped-up Maverick roared as Chuch stepped on the gas.

  Second Chances

  Once we got there, Chuch ran faster than I would have credited, calling Eva’s name.

  We found her in the kitchen, chopping carrots and bopping to her iPod. Chuch swept her in his arms, buried his face in her hair. She patted him with a perplexed look and then extricated herself. The sauce simmering on the stove smelled fantastic.

  “You guys really wanted this chicken casserole, huh?”

  “No, mi vida. Chance pointed out that you might not be safe here alone.”

  At this Eva raised a brow. “I know you’re not saying I can’t take care of myself, Jesus Maria Ortiz Obregón.”

  With that knife in her hand, she did look dangerous. Chuch took a step back and raised a hand in a placating gesture. “No, but—”

  “What he means to say,” Chance put in quietly, “is that you can’t defend yourself against random explosions.”

  “I guess that’s true, but I’m fine. Anyway, I’ve been working on the case, and you were right, IBC owns Southern Sanitation. The funny part is, I can’t find any names. It’s one of those... blind corporations? That seems shady, like they’re trying to hide something, you know?”

  I nodded, thoughtful. “I’m sure they are.”

  So IBC was the parent corporation. They owned the warehouse where Min’s purse was found, where she’d performed the ritual. They also owned Southern Sanitation, whose truck took her away. That was the link then. If we could burrow beneath the privacy screens and layers of legal crap, the names behind IBC would tell us everything we wanted to know.

  “If IBC does business in Texas, they must have a registered agent,” Chance said. “You can’t work without one. International corporations do it a lot, so people don’t know their money is actually going to Okinawa.”

  Before I could ask, Eva did. “What’s a registered agent?”

  Chance went into lecture mode. “The person or entity listed as the public point of contact for a blind corporation. This is the address you’ll find on all public documents. Having a registered agent offers a layer of protection against legal proceedings too.”

  “Now, there’s a sweet deal,” Chuch muttered. “For crooks.”

  Hm. While I was sure there were legitimate reasons for putting so much padding between a business and the public eye, I suspected IBC did not possess them. Call me psychic. But what kind of operation would benefit from the front of warehouses and a fleet of trucks? Smuggling immediately came to mind. Drugs, maybe?

  I glanced at Eva, whose casserole smelled delicious, but I didn’t want to derail my train of thought. “What does IBC stand for anyway?”

  She knew that off the top of her head. “Importaciones Bonitas Corporación.”

  “Pretty Imports Corporation?” I translated primarily for Chance’s benefit since he was the only one who didn’t speak some Spanish. “Guess that means the hidden owners come from a Spanish-speaking country.”

  Which narrowed it down to half the world. I sighed.

  “I wonder if we could get something out of visiting whoever fronts for IBC?” Chance turned to Eva with a single brow cocked in the inquisitive expression I’d once found irresistible. “Did you turn up the public address?”

  She left her casserole to go get an apple-shaped note-pad. “Sure. I wrote it down. When I Google-mapped the place, it looked like it was downtown.”

  Chance nodded. “We’ll check it out.”

  My stomach growled. Not to change the subject or anything, but, “You need any help with dinner?”

  “You can chop up the celery if you want.” Eva set the knife on the counter and went to Chuch at last with a knowing grin. Tugged on the bottom of his shirt. “So you were really worried about me, huh?”

  “That’s not even funny. You know I’d be lost without you, nena.” Chuch wore a look of absolute devotion that did strange things to my insides.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Chance propped himself against the counter, long and lean. “Forget dinner. We should get our stuff and go. Somebody wants us dead and I don’t want you two caught in the cross fire.”

  With his luck, he did well to worry. Maybe he’d learned something from our time together; people suffered all around him while he walked off without a scratch. Yeah, he had a double-edged “gift” all right.

  “Forget it,” Eva said.

  It amused me that a look from her cowed him more than anything Chuch could say. “You’ve got to teach me that look,” I said to her, smiling.

  She grinned back. To give myself something to do, I got the knife and diced up the celery. Eva layered it along with the noodles, carrots, and chicken and then poured the sauce over the top. She popped the casserole dish into the oven, set the timer for thirty minutes, and then washed her hands.

  “So are you guys really okay?” she asked. “Did the car actually leave the ground? I bet it’ll be on TV later. Did they interview you?”

  “The press hadn’t arrived before we left,” Chance told her.

  Thank God. Having my face on the news would be worse than I cared to contemplate, and it would undo a year and a half of lying low. Anyone who was still looking would know exactly where to find me. I hated that idea.

  “I have this idea,” she went on. “You think this Maris had something important to tell you, which is why they whacked her, right? So why not bring her back to ask?”

  “You mean like a séance?” Don’t ask me why I raised a brow over that. I guess because they’re so easy to fake. Most folks have played at communicating with spirits a time or two; it’s a sleepover staple. “Wouldn’t we need a medium?”

  “Chuch can do it. He won’t want to,” Eva added, as her husband backed toward the door. “But he can. His don deals with the dead. His tia Rosario totally possessed him one night after he had too much tequila because she wanted to yell at his cousin Ramon for giving her such a cheap funeral.”

  I stifled a laugh.

  “I’m trying to forget that, woman. You think that was easy to live down?”

  Chance appeared to be considering the idea. “We’d need something that belonged to Maris to guide us. It’s almost impossible to summon the right spirit otherwise.”

  I couldn’t believe I was about to suggest this. “Jesse used to date her, so he might have something of hers. That would mean bringing him in, though.”

  It would be a test, I decided. If he was working against us, there was no way he’d agree to help with something that could give us
vital information. And I needed to know which side he was on.

  “Jesse,” Chance repeated. “The cop, you mean?”

  “Yeah. Officer Saldana.”

  If I called him tonight, that would make three times in one day I’d seen or spoken to him. He was going to think I was crazy about him. Or just plain crazy. It didn’t matter what he thought, though, just what he said in response to this admittedly bizarre request.

  “It’s worth a shot.” By Eva’s expression, she knew Chuch hated the idea, but she enjoyed stirring the pot.

  “I’m not doing it,” Chuch muttered. “I wouldn’t know how to do it on purpose. Tia Rosario was just—”

  I said, “I bet I know some people who can help us with the ritual aspects of it. Can I borrow your computer?”

  The mechanic glared at me. “Not helping.” Then he relented, “Yeah, I guess.”

  Leaving them to bicker, I headed for his home office and sat down at the desk. He didn’t have a password, so the screensaver kicked right off. First I dug into my bag for the Area 51 log-in info, and then I brought up the browser.

  The site didn’t show so much as a picture before I entered the code, and then it took me to a bulletin board of all things, a plain gray bulletin board. As I surfed down some of the subject headings, though, it became obvious this was the real deal.

  Need help in Dallas, looking for exorcist.

  Have work for clairvoyant.

  Fifth down, I saw medium for hire and opened that one up. Since I type about four words a minute, it took me a good while to compose and send the private message. I didn’t know how soon we’d hear back, though.

  As I spun in the office chair, Chance gave me a start, standing silently in the doorway. Just watching me. I couldn’t read his expression, but then I never could. In the beginning his beauty had distracted me, but he always possessed a good poker face.

  He pushed away from the doorjamb. “You really think it’s a good idea, trusting him all the way?”

  I didn’t confide my private doubts; he’d enjoy it too much. Instead I hedged. “I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to trust someone all the way.”