“He took my one thousand dollars,” Bianca said, “and made us millionaires. I was able to go back to school, and Amador opened his own welding and fabrications business when he was released.”
“He’s everything to us,” Amador said. “And not just because of this.” He indicated his surroundings with a gesture. “You’ve no idea how many times he’s saved my life. Even before we were in the pen together. He’s always been there for me.”
I was suddenly having a hard time seeing Amador assaulting anybody. He had a kind spirit, and I was willing to place a bet that he got into trouble protecting one of his own.
“And he’s clever,” he repeated, suddenly deep in thought again. “He’s not going to hide from just anybody. He’s going to hide from
“Charlotte,” Bianca said, her voice sad, “would you like some coffee?”
Amador nodded in approval. “We were going to have to be up in an hour anyway.”
“In that case…”
Like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey. We sat in their kitchen and talked for the next hour about Reyes, about what he was like in high school, what his hopes and dreams had been. And shockingly, they all centered around me. Amador didn’t know much about Earl Walker, the man who had raised Reyes, abused him mercilessly, because Reyes refused to talk about him. But he did say Reyes didn’t kill anyone, including Earl. I wanted to believe that.
Our conversation eventually wandered around to the Web sites. I told them about meeting Elaine Oake. Bianca giggled and cast curious glances at Amador.
“Tell her,” he said at last with a smile.
Bianca focused on me. “I didn’t have any money to invest when Reyes was studying the market, right? So he told me to call this woman who’d been trying to see him and who’d been offering the prison guards money to get information on him. And I did. I told her that my husband was his cellmate and that I could get her anything she wanted. She bought every ounce of information I had. Literally. With money. We were actually running out of things to tell her.” She laughed aloud. “That’s how I got the original thousand to invest.”
“You sold information?” I couldn’t help but laugh with her.
“Yes, but mostly insignificant details, nothing that could come back to haunt him. Every once in a while, Reyes told me to feed her something important from his past to keep her on the line. Still, there were a few things he didn’t want getting out that leaked through the guards. We had no idea how they were getting some of their information.”
Ah, I think I knew one. “Was one of those about his sister?”
Bianca cringed. “Yes. We have no idea how that leaked to a guard.”
“Reyes never talked about her,” Amador confirmed.
I was certain the U.S. marshals found out about Kim from one of those Web sites. Still, Amador was right. Reyes was ridiculously clever. Not that I didn’t already know that, but … Wait a minute. I studied him warily. “So, what about the pictures of Reyes in the shower?”
“How do you think we got the down payment for this house?”
My jaw dropped open. “Did Reyes know?”
He laughed out loud. “It was his idea. He knew she’d pay big bucks for them, and he wanted us to have this house.”
I sat stunned. He did it all for his friends. And yet he would have me believe he went around hurting innocent people? I doubted that now more than ever. But what if he died? Would he really lose his humanity? Was that even possible?
I’d been hoping to gather some kind of hint as to where Reyes might be during our conversation, something that the Sanchezes were perhaps unaware they even knew, but nothing struck me as being particularly salient. I gave them a card and rose from the kitchen table. Amador rushed off to hit the showers as Bianca walked me to the door.
“So, what did he say about me?” I asked her.
She giggled and shook her head.
“No, really. Did he mention my ass?”
I entered my apartment building, my head filled with all things Reyes and my heart filled with hope. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe just knowing he was still alive was enough to raise my spirits. I’d never realized I could hear his heartbeat, but thinking back, I’d always heard it, mostly in the twilight between awake and asleep, when semi-lucid dreams skated across the surface of my consciousness. The heartbeats would lull me deeper into oblivion.
As I slid my key into the lock, I heard Mrs. Allen down the hall.
“Charley?” she said, her voice weak.
Lord of the Rings, what now? The only time Mrs. Allen spoke to me was when her poodle PP ran off and she needed a licensed PI to find him. Prince Phillip was a menace, if you asked me. I highly suspected that whoever came up with the concept of poodles in general had sold his soul to the devil. Because, really? Poodles?
I turned toward her. If nothing else, I should get a plate of homemade cookies out of the deal, as Mrs. Allen considered homemade cookies payment enough for spending hours hunting down America’s Most Menacing. Which actually worked for me.
“Hey, Mrs. Allen,” I said, starting toward her. In the very next moment, I heard an odd thump. Then a flash of pain exploded inside my head as the floor came rushing toward my face, and all I could think before darkness swallowed me whole was,
Chapter Fifteen
WHERE AM I GOING AND WHAT AM I DOING IN THIS HANDBASKET?
A jolt knocked my head — the same head that had just been traumatized by a blunt object — against the side panel of the interior of a trunk. It startled me awake. But I quickly started losing ground, slipping back into oblivion with each beat of my heart. A rich, warm darkness threatened to overcome me, forcing me to push, to bite and claw back to awareness.
I focused on the sharp pain throbbing in my head, the fact that my hands and feet were bound, the hum of an engine, and the whir of tires on pavement beneath me. If this was Cookie’s way of finally getting me into the trunk of a car, she was getting a year’s supply of bikini wax treatments for Christmas.
“So, like, what are you doing?”
I forced my eyes open to the grinning face of a thirteen-year-old gangbanger named Angel. Thank goodness. Surely, he could get me out of this. He was leaning in through the backseat. At that moment, I would have killed a woolly mammoth to be incorporeal as well.
“I’m dying,” I croaked, my parched throat making me hoarse. “Go get help.”
“You’re not dying. Besides, do I look like Lassie?” His smart-ass smirk faltered for a split second, just long enough for me to see the concern on his face. That was bad.
“Who is it?” I asked, closing my eyes against the layers of pain throbbing in harmony against my skull.
“It’s two white men,” he said. Worry strained his voice.
“What do they look like?”
“White men,” he said with a vocal shrug. “You guys all look alike.”
I tried to release a loud sigh but couldn’t get enough air in my constricted lungs. “You’re about as helpful as a spoon in a knife fight.” I felt my shoulder holster for my gun, but it was gone. Naturally. And my shaky grip on consciousness was ebbing as well. “Go get Reyes,” I said, losing ground much faster than I could keep up.
“I can’t find him.” His voice sounded like an echo in a cavern. “I don’t know how.”
“Then let’s hope he knows how to find me.”
