The Traitor

'You were driving?'

'Si. The car rolled over several times. Diego and I were trapped in the vehicle, but the girl was thrown from it.'

The noises had come through the walls separating the two motel rooms several hours after Santos had fallen asleep. The sounds woke him up and he lay in the darkened room, listening for signs that he was needed. Another loud thump.

He knocked on the adjoining door. 'El Jefe, is everything all right?'

No sound but the dull thud of pounding and then Diego's heavy breathing, a guttural nastiness that Santos knew well.

'?Diego, que usted?'

'?Nada!' the man growled through the door while the steady, sick thumping of flesh on flesh continued.

Santos shouldered the door open and took in the scene at a glance.

'Did she die quickly?' Isabella Torres asked.

'Yes. Instantly. She did not suffer. I tried to perform emergency medical aid at the scene.' He spread his hands in a sign of futility. 'But she was dead before the ambulance arrived. Very quickly.'

Great glimmering tears pooled in Isabella's dark eyes, but she did not allow them to fall. 'There was no police report?'

'There are ways to cover up such matters.'

'Of course.'

A long, sad sigh flowed from her mouth like a funeral dirge filling the room.

'Diego Vargas is a man with many faults, many sins,' he reassured her, 'but Maria's death is not one of them. He treated her with care. He may have been a bit in love with her.'

Santos looked at the unlit tip of his cigarillo and realized he was not speaking of El Vaquero at all, but of the long-ago, foolish boy-man who had been Gabriel Santos.

The room had been a bloody mess, and the girl ceased to breathe long after Diego continued to pummel her broken body with his fists and feet. Santos checked the pulse at her neck and closed the once-luminous eyes.

'Get this fucking piece of shit out of here,' Santos roared, sweat dripping down his face onto his already thickening body, his cock still hard and jutting from the thrill of beating the girl to death.

Santos could not revive her, and he was a long time cleaning up the mess.

'Is there evidence that I can use to tie her death to Diego Vargas?' Isabella Torres asked.

Santos shook his head, sadness and relief warring within him. 'The evidence disappeared long ago.'

'Then I will hang him with what you tell me.'

'Verdad.'

Chapter Thirty-seven

Three hours later, Santos had given the assistant district attorney all that she needed, and she had agreed to grant him full immunity in exchange for his testimony against Diego Vargas in a court of law.

'I'll need to run this by the district attorney.' Weary lines etched around her mouth and between her eyes. 'But I don't anticipate any objections.'

In fact, Santos knew that Charles Barrington would be delighted that the ADA had resolved the case without further media criticism. And he would likely garner the credit for himself instead of giving it to her.

'You can sign your official statement after it's processed,' she said. 'If Vargas finds out that you've informed on him, you won't survive long enough for the trial.'

Santos thought Isabella would not mind his death so much as losing him as a witness. He smiled and stretched his hand across the desk. Surprisingly, she extended hers and his large bear's paw engulfed her small hand like the mating of a giant and a dwarf. But her grip was firm and when she squeezed his hand, he knew that she was a survivor.

He was glad that he had not told her the truth about her sister.

Ay, ella era un angel que se vengaba. The little lawyer was an avenging angel.

As soon as Santos left, Bella contacted Rafe on his cell phone. 'It's done' was all she said when it went straight to voice mail.

Then she called Slater at the hospital. 'He gave you everything?'

'Yes.'

'Names, dates, places?'

'All of it.'

'That's great.' Slater's voice sounded strained over the line. 'How did you manage it?'

'I'll drop by the hospital and tell you later.'

'Bella, wait. Are you okay?'

'Yeah. Yeah, sure.'

The stress of the last few days rushed in like a storm to rip out her last ounce of strength. She hated the weakness, but she didn't want to return to her empty house. She didn't want her imagination about Maria to choke her mind like a poisonous vine.

She wanted someone to help her forget. She needed Rafe.

Although she didn't really want to spend time around Jensen, she did want Rafe. She wanted to cuddle, pour her heart out, cry for her lost sister, say her last goodbye.

Rafe could read the transcripted interview of the information Santos had given her. This was Rafe's case too and he should be in on the close of it. He wouldn't be happy about Santos getting off scot-free, but in the end he'd understand that the plea bargaining was all part of the prosecution chain. Vargas was the big fish.

Before going to South Highland Heights, however, Bella stopped by the hospital to look in on Slater. It was early enough that no visitors had arrived yet, and she was happy to get him alone.

After giving him the details on the Santos case, she waited for his comment, sure he'd be furious that she'd cut a deal with a man like Santos, but he remained silent.

'Aren't you going to say anything?' she finally asked.

'You did what you had to do, Bella. No shame in that.' Slater looked much better today and she now suspected his stay in the hospital would be shorter than she'd expected.

'You know how I hate these plea bargains,' she muttered.

Slater knew only the bare bones of her sister's disappearance. She didn't want to tell him about the new photo and the story Santos had spun about her sister.

She wanted to believe the tale of a car accident taking her sister's life. It was so much cleaner than the nightmares she'd had since she was old enough to know what stealing a teenaged girl meant.

She told herself that Santos would have no reason to lie to her. He'd gain nothing from that.

'Just be careful, Bella. Sometimes these things have a way of blowing up in your face.'

She looked at him sharply. 'Do you think someone will get to Santos before he can testify?'

Slater shrugged and swiped his big hand over his scruffy beard. 'Who knows? There's gotta be another leak besides Manuel Ruiz.'

'No one knows about the plea bargain but you, me, Santos, and Rafe. Even Sanderson doesn't know what went on inside my office,' she argued.

'What about the meet yesterday? Did you have backup?'

'They were cleared.'

'Anyone else?'

'No, no one… but… ' Her thoughts went to the phone messages she'd left Rafe and the company he kept. Her mind flipped to Max Jensen. Had he known about the first meet? Had he overheard details about the plea