somebody in her den. His mind seemed to spit out only the most dangerous facts, like rocks from a lawn mower.
“Ana DeLeon can help us,” the coach said. “I told her I’d come by.”
“You’ve already talked to her?” the woman demanded.
“I haven’t told her anything yet, but she can be trusted.”
“No.” The woman was adamant. “I’ll take care of this myself. With Sam, if he’s got any guts. But you can’t go to the police, honey. You can’t do that to me.”
Her tone made the coach hesitate.
The coach put his hand inside the courier envelope. “If Stirman just wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. He’s pressuring you. What does he want?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured.
The coach wasn’t buying it.
Sam wished he could lie for her. He wished like hell he could remember what they were trying to hide. Most of all, he wished the woman had fired this young man a long time ago. No wonder she did so badly in the business. Never hire operatives who are better than you are.
“I’ll wait on talking to DeLeon,” the coach decided. “And you two won’t do anything stupid. That’s the trade- off.”
The woman wiped her nose. “I have to take care of Jem.”
“Austin.”
She winced.
“There’s no one better suited to protect him,” the coach said. “You know that. And Jem likes her.”
He offered Erainya the phone.
Reluctantly, she placed a call.
“Maia,” she said into the receiver. “It’s Erainya Manos. Yeah, I bet you didn’t. Listen, I… Tres and I… we have a favor to ask.”
Another minute making arrangements, and the woman hung up.
“I’ll take him up in the morning,” she said. “Jem and I can spend tonight at J.P.’s.”
The coach nodded.
He looked at Sam. “One more condition. You tell me what you’re holding back. Now.”
He hadn’t asked Erainya Manos. He had picked out Sam as the weak link, just as Sam would’ve done in his place.
Sam tried to keep the panic off his face. He stared at his notes, but he knew they wouldn’t help him.
Places. He did best with places. This den, for instance. The past had come back to him when he sat here.
He thought about the ax murderer, McCurdy. The ranch near Castroville. He remembered something about Gloria Paz, the woman who’d gotten away.
Don’t be alone with the coach, he warned himself. He’ll try to manipulate you.
But Sam needed a delay. Time to remember. He needed a place.
“The third witness,” he said. “You can hear it straight from her.”
That threw the coach off balance. “I thought she was long gone.”
Sam felt the initiative shifting back to him, the way he liked it.
For once, he wasn’t afraid of not remembering.
He was afraid that once he got to the McCurdy spread-once he breathed the evil air of that ranch house again, the stone walls would tell him more than he wanted to remember, and some of it might be about him.
“I’ll pick you up in the morning,” he told the coach. “I’ll show you why if you were going to kill anybody, Will Stirman would be a damn good candidate.”
10
“Have to walk a piece,” the deputy told us. He swung open the gate. “Road’s out ’cause of the floods.”
I gave him credit for understatement. The strip of yellow mud that led into the McCurdy Ranch looked like it had been used for heavy artillery practice. About a half mile back in the soaked hills, I could just make out the glint of a metal roof.
“Gloria Paz?” Barrera asked.
“Still there.” The deputy spat a stream of brown tobacco between the bars of the cattle guard. “Last owner set this place up as a trust. She gets to live here free the rest of her life. Damned if I know why. Then the bank gets it.”
“You know about Will Stirman?” I asked.
He gave me traffic cop eyes-like he could either shoot me or wish me a nice day. It was all the same to him. “We got worse problems. Evacuating this whole area. One more day of rain, that dam upriver is going to break. This whole valley’s gonna be under ten feet of water.”
“You warn Ms. Paz?”
“She ain’t going nowhere.”
“How do you figure?”
He made a dry, rasping sound that might’ve been a laugh. “You’ll see.”
He touched the brim of his hat and ambled back toward his cruiser.
Barrera looked wistfully at his mustard BMW, sitting useless on the side of the two-lane. We hiked into the ranch.
After a few yards, my boots were caked in limestone frosting. I was dripping with sweat. The mosquitoes were having a picnic on the back of my neck.
Barrera looked perfectly cool. His shirt and tie betrayed no speck of mud, not a single wrinkle. Something they taught at Quantico, I guessed. Staying Starched Under Stress, Course 2101.
“You’ve been out here since the trial?” I asked.
Barrera looked at me blankly. He returned his attention to the muddy slope. “No.”
He was never what you might call a sparkling conversationalist, but during the hour trip to Castroville, he’d been even less effervescent than usual.
That could’ve been because he had a lot on his mind, which was a guess. Or because he didn’t like me, which wasn’t.
“Who was the last owner of this place?” I tried.
“Businessman from San Antonio. Died a while back. Don’t remember his name.”
“He let Gloria Paz live here for free?”
No response.
Okay. Thanks, Sam. That clears it up.
I wished I was in Austin with Erainya-getting Jem settled, seeing Maia Lee, keeping the peace between the two heavily armed women in my life.
But Barrera was the key to understanding Stirman. I was sure of that.
He’d brought me out here to tell me something he didn’t want to say in front of Erainya. If I could get through the morning without killing him, I might find out what.
I tried to keep my mind off the mud and insects. I appraised the McCurdy spread from a business point of view. It struck me as more scenic and a lot less useful than my own family ranch in Sabinal.
The terrain was rocky and uneven-hills and limestone cliffs hugging the Medina River Valley, poorly suited for crops or cattle. Tourism might’ve worked. Summer cabins for tubers. Or goat ranching. Exotic game. But the McCurdy land didn’t appear to have been managed for any purpose in a long time. Cattle feeders stood rusted and empty. The barn was falling apart. A single emaciated heifer stood under a mesquite tree. Three vultures waited patiently on the branch above.
We were almost on top of the ranch house before I realized it was abandoned-a limestone shell in a thicket of live oaks. The windows were square holes of crumbling mortar. The doorway was an empty frame. The roof had
