“I’m trying to help you.”
He rubs his face with both his hands in frustration, stretching it into a funny expression. “Does she drive you this crazy?” he asks Paige.
“Every day.”
“Hey!” I say to her. That wasn’t nice. I turn back to David. “I’m serious. This has something to do with the disappearance of Elizabeth Viramontes.”
David acquiesces. “You think Elizabeth has something to do with the seven dead detectives?”
“That’s righ—seven?” I ask. The number has grown since I’ve been in the car.
David nods. “Seven.”
I take a deep breath. “The bloody prints. Those belong to Hugo Escalante.”
David looks into the living room, where the crime scene technicians are photographing the stairs. What he probably doesn’t notice—but I certainly do—is another technician carrying down a plastic bag filled with a handful of gray feathers. Melchora was here, too.
“Carmen’s thug?” He turns to me. “Why is Hugo Escalante going around killing detectives? What does any of this have to do with the kidnapping of Elizabeth Viramontes? What does Snyder have to do with this?”
I steel myself. I have a theory, but I need David to listen to me until I finish. “You said Ed worked in—”
“Detective Snyder,” David interrupts.
I’m already losing him. I remind myself that he just lost his partner. “Sorry. Detective Snyder worked in the Gangs and Narcotics Division.”
“That’s right.”
“Did all the other detectives killed today work in GND?”
“No,” David says definitively. “Not all of them. And they weren’t from the same divisions, either.”
“Well, Detective Snyder was no longer with GND, but did the other detectives previously work in GND?”
David stands there, staring at me. I can see the wheels turning in his head. Finally, he says, “Don’t move,” and walks away. I follow him. He turns back to look at me.
Before he can say anything, Paige chimes in. “You know she’s not going to listen to you.”
“Let’s go,” he grumbles and keeps walking. I follow on his heels as he approaches a technician with a tablet computer. “Cortez, can I see that?” David grabs the computer from him. He taps into the device then turns to Cortez. “Who were the other detectives found today?”
“Let’s see. Bill Bryce at Rampart. Miguel Nuñez at Rampart. Simon Shaw at Hollenbeck. Michelle Lin at Pacific…”
David waves him off. “Okay. Stop.” He keeps typing into the tablet. Reads. Types again. Reads. Types again. Reads.
When he looks at me, I can tell my theory was accurate. All the detectives recently murdered have worked in Gangs and Narcotics at one time or another. David tosses the tablet back to the technician.
“Do you want the other names?” the tech asks.
Instead of answering, David grabs me by the elbow. I allow him to pull me this time. We head into an empty room.
Paige follows, and David closes the door once the three of us are inside. By the look of the desk, filing cabinets, and stacks of papers, this must have been Snyder’s office. There’s even a framed picture of the woman who was murdered with him—his wife.
David takes a seat in a chair and appraises me. “What’s going on in that brain of yours?”
Paige leans against the desk with her arms crossed, and I suddenly feel like I’m about to make a presentation to my classmates. Here goes. “All the detectives were at one time or another involved with the LAPD investigation into the Galeana Cartel.”
“How did you know?” David asks.
“I told you. This has something to do with Viramontes.”
“You know there are some things I can’t discuss.”
“Can we cut the BS and work together on this? People are dying, David.” He doesn’t answer, but I can tell I’m finally getting through to him. “How did you know I was working on her case?” I continue. “Why all the activity around her?”
Paige turns, angling her body toward David. I take a step forward, and suddenly, he’s on the hot seat as we converge and hover over him. He takes a deep breath before speaking. “A few months ago, Carmen Viramontes reached out to the LAPD. She wanted to make a deal. Testimony. Evidence. Names. In exchange for immunity and permanent residence in the US for her and her daughter.”
Carmen was trying to go straight. That must have been cause for alarm if anyone in the cartel found out.
“I can’t imagine there would be a lot of people happy about that,” Paige says, echoing my thoughts.
“Not just that,” David adds, “but her whole empire is incredibly complex. The electronics business—a money-laundering front. Her bank, same thing. There are networks upon networks invested in this operation. Farms—coca, marijuana, poppy. Smugglers. Distributors. Not to mention the competitors she was willing to implicate. A woman like that threatens to unravel an empire…”
“And everyone becomes an enemy,” I finish.
If Hugo were with the spirit when they killed Ed—Detective Snyder—then he must be working with Melchora. Hugo must have found out what Carmen was trying to do.
“The LAPD was working with the DEA on this one,” David says. “I’m not in Gangs and Narcotics anymore, but this task force was close to getting all the evidence they needed to shut down the empire and take down her accomplices and competitors.”
“Until Elizabeth was kidnapped,” Paige says.
“That makes sense,” David adds. “A buddy who was on the Galeana case told me that Carmen Viramontes went radio silent two weeks ago. After all the work, all this time, she suddenly became a ghost. We weren’t sure if she was alive or had left the country. But that would have been around the time Elizabeth disappeared. A few days later, some girl with black hair and yellow eyes shows up at her front door and gains access to one of the most heavily fortified drug compounds in Los Angeles.”
Darcy Caine, to the rescue.
“How were you communicating with Carmen in the first place?” Paige asks. “You said no one has ever seen her.”
“We were talking to the only person she trusted.”
“Leona,” I say.
David nods. Leona did a lot of the talking when I met with Carmen, not
