The Traitor

popped a tire and pulled off to fix it, but some asshole cop stopped to help.'

'What happened?' Santos repeated.

'The drivers freaked out and blew it.' Vargas paced back and forth on the expensive Persian carpet in front of his desk. 'Made the cop suspicious and he searched the rear of the van.'

Santos had known transporting the girls would be trouble. He'd tried to warn Vargas, but the boss wouldn't listen. 'The search won't be legal. The evidence will be thrown out in court.'

'It doesn't matter! They know about the girls!' Vargas' broad peasant face dripped with sweat. 'They'll trace the truck back to me!' he shouted.

'The courts will suppress everything. You do not need to worry,' Santos repeated patiently.

'You must take care of it!' Vargas shouted, spittle edging the corners of his mouth.

Santos made his voice low and deadly. 'And how shall I do that, Diego? Kill them all? The girls and the drivers? Is this your solution to everything?'

'Figure it out. I don't care!' Vargas screamed. 'Post the bail and get rid of the evidence. I'm not going to prison because some campesinos estupidos screwed up!'

'Sea tranquilo. No se atierre.' Be calm. Panic is dangerous.

Vargas swiped a hand across his brow. 'Yes, yes, you are right. But what about the truck?'

'Nothing is in your name, Diego,' Santos reminded him.

Vargas leaned heavily on the desk. 'This is true. This is true.' He bobbed his head up and down, calming himself. 'Contact Shirley. Make sure she takes care of everything. She will know what to do. Leave no traces in case the police come looking for the other ones.'

Vargas waved a negligent hand and Santos nodded, recognizing the dismissal. He let himself out of the office, closing the door quietly.

In the foyer Santos reached for the doorknob when Cory peeked her head around the corner. She looked fearfully toward her father's closed office door and then ran for Santos, grabbing him tightly around the torso. She looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes, brimming with tears. They seemed to say, Don't leave me alone with him.

He pried her arms away and knelt beside her, gave her a little squeeze. 'Don't worry, little one. Everything will be all right.'

'Do you promise, Tio Gabriel?'

'Si, pequena bebe. Prometo.' I promise, Santos thought, as he walked to the Cadillac. But how could he keep such a serious and burdensome promise?

Chapter Twenty-four

Rafe took two days to track the commercial van back to Vargas. With Slater’s connections he accessed Sacramento business licenses, company subsidiaries, and organizations they’d long suspected were a front for Vargas’ illegal activities.

As the sheriff's office had learned while investigating the councilman last year, most of his wide business activities could be traced back to his mother. A tangled web of dummy corporations, one a commercial van dealership, led straight back to Vargas through a subsidiary in the name of the elder Mrs. Vargas. Good leverage, Rafe mused, something he could use.

An interesting bit of information also came in from one of the few deputies Slater claimed could be trusted in Sacramento. Magdalena Vargas had been missing for several days. No one had seen or heard from her, but then again, no one seemed to be looking for Vargas' wife. Slater explained that she'd contacted him last year about domestic violence, but had withdrawn her complaint.

The story circulating about her disappearance was that she'd made an extended trip to Mexico. Had Vargas been worried his wife knew too much about his illegal activities? Rafe seriously doubted that Magdalena was privy to her husband's varied business affairs, but it was worth considering.

Torres had set Rafe up with a miniature office down the hall from hers. He swore if he turned around, he'd bump his shoulder on the opposite wall. The space was cluttered with several empty file cabinets and shelves ran along one wall. Rafe was pretty sure the so-called office had been a utility closet and wondered if Torres was punishing him for his many transgressions against her.

In a perverse way, he liked to see her get her dander up. She was magnificent when her eyes snapped with an internal fire, her breasts heaved, her jaw set. Oh yeah, better not go down that road, his head warned, even though his traitorous body had other ideas.

Rafe's cell phone chimed at the precise moment that Torres poked her head into the office where he sat at a desk so small it must have belonged to a midget. He didn't need to check caller ID. He knew by the ring tone that it was Max Jensen, but he let it go to voice mail.

'Aren't you going to get that?' Torres asked, leaning against the door frame, her arms crossed. Today she wore a gray skirt with a slit up the left side that reached above her knee and exposed a tantalizing stretch of thigh. Her legs were bare and she wore very high-heeled shoes, gray striped with the toe cut out. Red toenails peeked through the toes.

'Nah,' he answered looking her up and down. 'I'd rather talk to you.'

She raised her eyebrows as if she'd learned not to believe any of his bullshit, but he grinned in what he hoped was an engaging manner. 'What? You don't believe me?'

'About as far as I can throw you.'

'Have a seat, Torres.' He waved an arm around the room. 'Oh, sorry, the place isn't big enough for another chair.'

She laughed and perched precariously on the edge of the tiny desk, bringing her amazing legs too close for comfort. 'You are so full of it, Hashemi.' She looked around the small space. 'We need to talk. You want to go to my office? I believe it's a bit larger.'

'Hell, no, let's talk over lunch,' he answered, standing and grabbing his jacket where it lay on the file cabinet.

Torres glanced at her watch and frowned. 'Breakfast's barely over.'

Rafe's cell rang again and he flipped it open to look at the caller ID. Damn, he was popular today. DHS Agent McNally, the bastard, probably going to horn in on his case. 'I have to take this,' he said. 'I'll come down to your office in a few minutes.'

Torres simply raised those lovely dark brows and flashed an enigmatic smile. 'Sure, but I'll expect a full report on that call.' She nodded toward the phone he clutched in his hand. 'No holding back, Hashemi. Remember our agreement.' She exited the room gracefully, her slender hips swaying beneath the gray skirt.

Moeder van God! Rafe's Dutch was pretty damn good too.

'Agent McNally, no secret-agent codes from Homeland Security today?'

'Stuff it, Hashemi,' McNally said. 'What's new on your case?'

Rafe was pretty sure DHS already knew about the interception of the girls outside Reno, the human trafficking angle to the case, but he was certain McNally wouldn't be as interested in poor Mexican girls as the kilos of dope they'd found in the van. 'You heard about the girls?' he asked.

'Yeah, yeah, so what?' McNally's attitude confirmed Rafe's suspicions. 'That doesn't fund terrorists. Drug money does. What'd you find?'

Slater had kept the information on the girls as tight as possible so apparently McNally didn't know about the drugs yet. 'Just the girls,' he lied. 'Were you expecting something else?'

Silence wafted through the phone like a deadly virus. 'No, just wondered,' McNally said, his voice sounding like someone who'd swallowed a fish bone. 'Doesn't matter anyway.'

'Why's that?'

'Because there was a hit on the girls. They're dead.'

Rafe didn't care much for McNally or his bulldog tactics, but the shock in the agent's voice was genuine. 'Jesus Christ! All of them? What about the drivers?'