The girl gathered up her textbook and notebook and headed down the squeaky hardwood floor of the hallway.
The man stood at the kitchen sink, ran the tap, scrubbed the oil and grease from his hands with hot water and soap, trying to piece together exactly what he would do, what they would need to take, what they could leave. As he looked up to see if the car was backing down the driveway, there was a knock on the door.
He walked over, stared through the screen at the woman standing on his porch.
“Out here in the boondocks,” he said, “when someone tells you to get the hell off their property, it’s usually a wise thing to—” Now she was holding something up against the screen, and when he saw it, his stomach turned.
FBI credentials. A crippling weakness spread into his knees.
“Relax,” she said. “If I were here to take you in, you’d already be in handcuffs.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I believe you’re innocent, Mr. Innis.” Her words stopped him cold.
“And why is that?”
“Because your wife . . . Rachael. She wasn’t the first. Or the last.”
THIRTEEN
As Will filled a pot with water from the tap, he glanced over his shoulder at the FBI agent seated at the kitchen table.
“How’d you find us?”
“Year and a half chasing down your aliases. What are you using now?”
“Joe Foster.” The pot was full. He set it on the stove, turned up the gas, took a seat at the kitchen table across from Kalyn. The woman had draped her coat over one of the chairs, laid her briefcase on the hardwood floor. “Which field office you out of?” Will asked.
“Phoenix. So, I’ve been dying to ask—why’d you run?”
“My daughter has cystic fibrosis. I had to assume her mother was dead, and this Ajo detective had a giant hard-on for me right out of the gate. I figured there was a decent chance I was going to be charged. I don’t know how familiar you are with CF, but it’s a terminal disease. Most people who have it never see their thirtieth birthday. I wasn’t taking a chance that my daughter would die without me there by her side.”
“But she’s okay now?”
“We’ve had three good years. That’s not to say she won’t get sick again.”
“How are you making a living?”
“Web design. I work out of my house.”
“Must be hard, knowing what everyone thinks of you. What they think you did.”
“Look, we have a new life now, and it’s pretty good. I know what happened the night my wife went missing. My conscience is clear.”
“You shouldn’t have run.”
“If you aren’t here to arrest me, what is it you want?”
Kalyn reached down and lifted her briefcase. She opened it, pulled out a manila folder. The first thing she handed Will was a map—New Mexico, Arizona, SoCal. Red
“What’s this?”
Kalyn scooted her chair beside his, laid down a photograph of a woman smiling, with ski slopes in the background. Reflective sunglasses. Enormous down jacket.
“Suzanne Tyrpak. Disappeared in July of 2000 between Gallup and Albuquerque.” She dropped another photograph on the table. “Jill Dillon.” She pointed to an
A strange silence settled in the house. Chimes clanging in discordance on the front porch. Will feeling like it wasn’t just Kalyn and him in the kitchen. Ghosts present. He glanced down at the photographs, lined up side by side, and a chill pushed through him.
“Oh my God,” he said.
“You noticed.”
“These women could be sisters.”
“I know. The dark eyes. Curly black hair.”
“Is that a coincidence?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll show you what isn’t.” Kalyn took four more photographs from the folder, spread them out. A Lexus. Honda Civic. Ford Explorer. Rachael’s Jeep Cherokee. In each photograph, the driver’s side window was busted out. “You can’t see it here, but the right front tire on all of these cars was punctured.”
“So this is like a, um—”
“An MO. Yes.”
“Were any of these women ever found?”
Kalyn shook her head. “Your water’s boiling.”
Will got up from the table and took two mugs from the cabinet.
“I have peppermint, green tea, and Earl Grey.”
“Peppermint, please.” Will dropped the tea bags into the mugs, and as he poured the boiling water slowly over them, Kalyn said, “I think I know who took these women.”
Will set the pot of water back on the stove, turned off the gas, his hands trembling now.
He stared at the floor and took deep breaths. “You think? Or you know?”
“I’m about eighty percent sure. Let me ask you something. You were a defense attorney. You somewhat familiar with how the cartels operate?”
“Sure.”
“Ever heard of the Alphas?”
Will carried the cups of tea over to the table and sat down. “No, what’s that?”
“There used to be an antidrug paratroop and intelligence battalion called the Special Air Mobile Force Group. These were Mexican soldiers, but they were trained at the School of the Americas. In 1991, a large contingent of this elite military force deserted and went into business with the drug traffickers. I guess the profit margins were too lucrative. Today, they’re known as the Alphas, a gang of high-paid mercenaries, primarily tasked with protecting loads of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana smuggled into America by the Gulf Cartel. No one knows how many there are, but estimates run from one hundred to two hundred members. They’re superbly trained, and they operate more like commandos than your run-of-the-mill cartel thugs. They’re fiercely loyal. Their handiwork is obvious. State-of- the-art weapons. Military-style cover and concealment tactics. And they’re brutal. Currently offering fifty-thousand- dollar bounties for the assassination of U.S. law-enforcement officers.
“Now I have contacts and informants in every border town in the Southwest, and I’ve learned that a handful of the Alphas dabble in human trafficking. Let me tell you, information about them is damn near impossible to come by. My informant in Nogales wouldn’t even say this one guy’s name out loud. He insisted on writing it on a piece of paper. And he wouldn’t have done that, but he’s a tweaker. I bought this name for two grand.”
“What name?”
“Javier Estrada. You know it?” Will shook his head. “You sure? You never represented this guy or—”
“No. You have a photo?”
She shook her head.
“And what makes you think these Alphas are involved?”
“Couple of things.” Kalyn sipped her tea. “First off, there was something about the crime scenes that always bothered me. No blood, and aside from the bashed windows, no sign of rape or violence. And it seemed to have been done very professionally. Plus, the bodies never turned up. That always bugged me. If these women were just
