could no longer put off, so he hurried.
He was certain the loose-lipped Barrington would inadvertently leak the deal to someone, who would get word to Jensen. Taking out a police detective was a serious matter, but in this thing, Vargas was correct, if not for the right reasons. Jensen presented a dangerous threat to Santos, who had hoped the detective could remain as his informant long after Vargas was sitting in a federal penitentiary or state prison.
Now he realized the timing of the matter was all wrong. Santos would have to create his own network of informants after Vargas was gone, and after all, that was probably the wise thing to do. Arrangements, of course, would be made regarding Diego Vargas, and Santos was confident
When he arrived at the ramshackle place where Jensen was staying, he drove slowly by the house for a cursory look and then parked some distance away. He walked casually down the street.
No children played on the streets. No teenagers loitered on doorsteps. No housewives gardened nor old men walked their dogs. The neighborhood bore the stamp of careless neglect, a community running steadily downhill from middle class to low income.
When he approached the house, he walked stealthily around the side yard, through the unlocked gate, and paused at the corner of the back patio. The door was open and through the screen he heard voices.
'I didn't hurt her, Hash. I let her go. That's gotta mean something.' Max Jensen's voice, jittery and manic.
The other voice was muffled as if the man spoke around a swollen tongue. 'What happened to you, Max? God, what made you turn like this?'
The questions were full of anger, but anguish too. Santos could hear the pain in the other man's voice.
'Fuck you, Hashemi!' A loud, sickening whack of metal against flesh. A sound Santos was well familiar with.
Another scuffle while Santos ducked his head around the back patio sliding door. Jensen faced away from him, kicking the bleeding body at his feet. Without warning the man on the floor grasped Jensen's ankle as it aimed one last blow toward his head. Jensen went down with a thud while Hashemi struggled to stand upright.
Santos was not eager to intervene in a contest between two gringos, both law enforcement men, but he did not like to see an uneven match, and Jensen had both the pistol and a wicked knife in his hands.
While in Max's bathroom, Bella had made a cursory check of all the rooms. No Rafe. She had no choice but to leave.
She would never know what prompted her to turn back after she left Max Jensen in the near house. Perhaps the smug look on his face, perhaps a sense of combativeness.
Maybe she was the 'little warrior' Santos had called her.
Whatever changed her mind, twenty minutes from the seedy neighborhood, she veered right into a Taco Bell parking lot, made a u-turn, and headed back the way she'd come, all the while punching in Rafe's number on her cell phone. Each time it went direct to voice mail.
Where are you, she wondered, worry a lump of fear in the middle of her chest.
If Rafe had intended to confront Max Jensen directly, why had he gone off, as Max claimed? Jensen's name was not among those Santos had revealed in his recorded statement, so where was the proof against Max?
Maybe her instincts were wrong. Maybe Max was just what he appeared to be – a good detective and a good friend to Rafe.
When she reached the house in Highland Heights, she heard muffled voices and didn't bother with polite knocks this time. She pounded on the front door.
'Let me in, Max! I know Rafe's in there.' She twisted the knob.
A moment later the door jerked open and Max grabbed her arm before she could react. He shoved her into the living room, still holding her upper arm in a vise-like grip.
She saw Rafe, bloody and beaten, struggling to stand against the far wall. 'What did you do to him?' she screamed.
'It's your fault, you little bitch. We were like brothers and I had to stuff him in a bloody closet to hide him from you! I thought I'd killed him! You turned him against me.'
He's mad, she thought. Insane.
'Keep her out of this, Max.' From the corner of the room Rafe's voice was thready and he looked barely able to stand. His shirt was smeared with blood.
'Shut up, Hashemi.' Max's voice quavered with drink and delusion.
Bella thought she detected a wound in Rafe's upper left chest.
'Why didn't you just fucking tell me who it was?' Jensen's voice resonated crazily, tinged with panic. 'Who made the deal to give Vargas up? It didn't have to come to this, Hash.'
Santos pulled his weapon and stepped into the kitchen from the concrete floor of the patio.
'Stop it! Let me go!' Isabella shouted, anger tinged with fear in her voice.
A loud smack and a harsh gasp.
Santos was an expert marksman. He had no doubt of his prowess in that area, but through the open door, he saw Jensen holding Isabella in a death grip, his gun arm wrapped around her chest and waist from behind, a knife glinting at her throat.
Her cheek bore a large red mark where Jensen had slapped her and her blouse was torn. One shoe lay across the room, the heel broken.
'You bitch!' Even as Jensen snarled the words, Santos could hear the slurring that indicated he was under the influence of drugs. His eyes were wildly dilated and his face flushed.
Santos stepped into the room, holding his weapon leisurely at his side. 'Detective Jensen.' His voice was a calm contrast to the chaos in the room.
'Santos!' His eyes bulged out of their sockets and he shook his head as if to clear his vision. 'What the fuck are you doing here?'
'You and I – we have unfinished business.'
Understanding slowly crawled over Jensen's face. 'You! God, you screwed me over, you son-of-a-bitch!'
'Easy, Detective Jensen.'
Santos turned to Isabella. 'Are you all right, Miss Torres?'
She nodded without speaking, but Jensen did not loosen his grip on her.
'Let Miss Torres go,
'Fuck no!' Jensen screamed.
'I do not like to make requests more than once, but for you I will. Let the assistant district attorney go.'
Santos heard his own voice, calm and deadly, a sign to those who knew him that his anger was barely controlled. 'And I will not cut out your tongue.'
What happened next occurred within seconds, but to Bella they seemed unbearably long. She saw Santos raise the gun he'd dangled so carelessly from his fingers at the same moment she felt the sharp prick of the knife at her neck and smelled the coppery odor of her blood trickling from the wound.
Instinctively she collapsed her legs beneath her, shifting her weight so that Max's body was exposed. She heard the loud report of the weapon in the small room and smelled the acrid odor of the gunshot residue.
Max toppled to the floor as a red flower blossomed on his chest and the knife and gun clattered from his hands.
Santos stepped forward, kicked the weapons away and checked Max's pulse, but Bella knew by the vacant look of his eyes, that he was already dead.
'Are you all right?' Santos asked, helping her to her feet.
As the shock of the near fatality reached her brain, Bella began trembling, her teeth chattering and her knees
