Dance of the Bones (28 page)

“What about you? Can't you drive me? Shouldn't we both go?”

“I'm at the house waiting for someone who may be able to give us a line on Lani's cell phone. I'm going to wait here until I hear back from him.”

“Shouldn't the cops be doing that—­tracing her phone?”

“Maybe they should,” Brandon said, “and maybe they are, but she's my daughter, Diana. Dan was able to learn that Rojas passed through the checkpoint west of Three Points a while ago, coming in this direction. If Lani's somewhere here in town, that's where I'm going to be, too. I'm guessing Dan's on his way to Tucson as well. That's why I want you to be there with the kids, in case . . .”

Brandon stopped talking at that point. He didn't want to think about the worst-­case scenario, much less say it.

“I'm on my way,” Diana said. “We'll leave right now. But if you find out where she is, Brandon, don't do anything stupid. Promise?”

“I promise,” he said.

Brandon had his fingers crossed when he answered. He glanced at Bozo lying nearby on his heated bed. “You won't tell on me, will you, boy?”

The dog thumped his tail. That was all the response Brandon needed.

GABE DID NOT LIKE AGENT
Howell. She was blond and smelled like some kind of flower, but there was something mean about her. If she was from the FBI, why wasn't she out looking for Lani instead of sitting here asking him stupid questions?

With his parents flanking him, Gabe had told Agent Howell everything he knew: about Tim leaving the diamond-laced pea­nut butter jar with him for safekeeping; about how Henry had burst into the house looking for it sometime that morning; about waking up in the box with Tim next to him; about how the two of them had managed to get free of their bonds, if not free from the box.

“But how did you know the José family was involved in smuggling diamonds?” Agent Howell insisted.

As far as Gabe knew, the four diamonds he had taken from the peanut butter jar were still hidden in the pocket of his jeans. Gabe had almost died for those diamonds. I'itoi had told him they were his, and he didn't want to give them up.

“I saw one,” he said. “I couldn't see what was so important about a jar of peanut butter, so I took out a spoonful and spotted one of the diamonds.”

Gabe had actually seen more than one of the stones, but that was a lie he could live with.

“You're sure you had no idea about the diamonds before that?”

“Agent Howell,” Delia Ortiz said firmly before Gabe had a chance to reply. “This interview is over.”

“But—­”

“Gabe has explained that he was helping a friend without the slightest idea of what was really going on. It sounds as if you're coming dangerously close to accusing my son of being actively involved in a smuggling operation, so the next time you speak to him, it will be in the presence of our attorney. In the meantime, I suggest you get the hell out of his room and start doing the rest of your job, like tracking Dr. Walker-­Pardee, for instance.”

Gabe looked at his mother in surprise. He had never before heard her use her tribal chairman tone of voice outside of council meetings, not even when she was angry. He looked back at Agent Howell. She seemed poised to voice an objection, but then thought better of it.

“Yes, ma'am,” she said, slapping her notebook shut. “We're on it.”

Gabe waited until Agent Howell left the room before turning to his mother. “This is all my fault, isn't it? If I hadn't walked off the mountain . . .”

“Hush,” Delia said, hugging him close. “None of this is your fault.”

“Mr. Rojas was going to kill us, wasn't he?”

“Yes,” Delia said. “I believe he was.”

“And now he's going to kill Lani.”

“I hope not,” Delia said.

Gabe was silent for a moment. “Where are my clothes?” he asked. “There's something in the pocket that I need to have.”

“Those clothes are filthy,” Delia objected, but Leo was already on his feet.

“They're out in the tow truck,” he said. “I'll go get them.”

Leo left the room and returned a few minutes later carrying a black plastic yard waste bag. When Gabe opened it, the stench was enough to make him gag and set his eyes watering, but he found the jeans and gingerly extracted the four diamonds.

“What are those?” his mother asked, eyeing his closed fist.

“They're my divining crystals,” Gabe said. “I need them.”

HENRY KNEW THAT THE COPS
had to be looking for Dr. Pardee's car by now, so he couldn't just drive around in the bright red Fusion forever, but he couldn't afford to show up at Jane Dobson's house empty-­handed, either. He had left the original jar of peanut butter, the one with the diamonds in it, locked in his garage. He needed a replacement in the very worst way. That meant going to a grocery store where there would be ­people, surveillance cameras, and most likely at least one off-­duty cop. Right that minute, though, he was actually more afraid of Jane Dobson's reaction than he was of facing down a shopping center security guard.

He knew the woman kept large amounts of cash in her home because that's how she'd paid him and Max and Carlos José—­in cash. He'd hand over the goods, and she'd reach into that huge purse of hers, drag out a stack of bills, and count out whatever was due. That meant she probably also had some kind of weapon. It would be either on her person or else nearby, and she would know how to use it.

So tonight, when Henry handed over the peanut butter jar and she reached for the purse, that was the moment when he'd have to get the drop on her. If he didn't nail her then, he wouldn't get a second chance. And if things went as Henry hoped, he'd have a pile of cash and a new escape vehicle as well. The cops would be looking for a missing Fusion, not Jane Dobson's Acura.

He stopped in the far corner of the parking lot of a down-­at-­the-­heels mall that held a dead gas station, a Fry's, a struggling Target, a barbershop, and a check-­cashing store. Pulling in behind a shuttered taco truck, he glanced over at Lani. She was still out cold. That was good. Carlos and Paul had come around a lot sooner than this, but then again, they were almost twice her size, and size probably made all the difference.

His phone rang. “Hey, Francisco,” he said. “What's the word?”

“We've got a guy named Manuel who built a new tunnel down in Douglas. That'll get you as far as Agua Prieta. Using that costs an extra five over what I already quoted.”

It was a lot of money—­money Henry didn't actually have right that minute. “It's okay,” he managed.

“You want help going farther south than that, you'll need to deal with Manuel at the time. He's good, but he's not cheap.”

“Where do I meet him?”

“Can you make it to Benson by midnight?”

“Sure.”

“Exit the freeway at the first Benson exit. There's a dead bowling alley just to the left after you come off the exit. Wait there. Someone will come by, pick you up, and ditch your vehicle. ¿
Comprendes?
”

“Got it,” Henry said.

He looked at his watch, estimated the distance to the store, and looked at Lani again. He couldn't risk having her wake up too soon and cause some kind of attention-­getting fuss here in the parking lot. He only had three syringes left and four glass vials. Would that be enough to take care of both Lani Pardee and Jane Dobson? He certainly hoped so, but if he had to get more physical than that, he would. After all, he had taken out both Carlos and Paul, hadn't he? Maybe the next ones would be easier.

Still, just to be on the safe side, he reached into the gym bag on the floorboard of the passenger side of the vehicle and located one of the remaining vials, then plunged the needle of a loaded syringe into Lani's upper arm. The way she jumped when the needle penetrated the skin made him think that maybe she wasn't as far under as he had thought she was, but he hoped that would hold her for a while. If he left her here sleeping, he might have time to pick up the peanut butter and maybe even some new duds. If someone was sending out an APB on him, it might be a good idea to have a ­couple of changes of clothes.

 

CHAPTER 26

WHEN WINTER CAME, THE INDIANS
returned to their village in the desert. But the next summer, when they brought their horses and cattle back into the foothills, they returned to the deep water hole near Baboquivari. And even before they reached the charco, they could hear the sound of Shining Falls, singing and laughing.

LANI AWAKENED TO THE SOUND
of a door slamming shut and the smell of peanut butter in the air. Peanut butter? Why peanut butter? Was Henry hungry and making a sandwich?

She looked around. The car was parked in the driveway of a two-­story house with lights on downstairs. There were houses on either side with no lights showing in either one and very little traffic on the street. She guessed that they were in a residential area somewhere in Tucson, but she had no idea where. Then her eye caught the slowly moving lights of a descending airplane. That put them in the southwest side somewhere near Tucson International Airport.

Lani tried pulling her arms loose, but the tie wraps didn't give. Her shoulders were screaming in agony from being trapped in one position for such a long time. How much time had passed since Henry had given her that first shot? Long enough for him to drive from Sells to Tucson. And after the second one? Long enough for night to fall.

Henry Rojas was clearly fleeing for his life. That meant that once he finished whatever he was doing in the house, he would most likely kill Lani. What would happen if she could somehow open the door and fall far enough out of the vehicle so that her body was half in and half out? Maybe a passerby would notice and stop to help. The only problem was that there were no ­passersby—no cars driving slowly through the neighborhood and no one out walking a dog. And when she did attempt exiting the vehicle, it didn't work. Henry had locked the car. She could reach the door handle, but not the button to unlock the door.

Resigned to her fate, Lani settled back against the car seat as best she could. What would happen to Angie and Micah? Dan was a good man and an excellent father. If she was gone and he was left alone with the kids, he'd do a great job of raising them. She also knew that her parents would do everything in their power to help.

But just thinking about Dan made her want to weep. Only yesterday he had tried to warn her about the dangerous smugglers she and Gabe might encounter out near Ioligam, and he had been right. The dangerous smugglers had been there all right, but it turned out that none of them were strangers, not at all. As for Henry Rojas, someone who should have been above reproach? He was likely the most dangerous of them all. Dan hadn't seen that one coming, and neither had Lani.

She tried to keep an eye on the street. Trusting the drug to keep her sedated, Henry hadn't bothered to gag her. If someone came by, she intended to scream her head off. Otherwise, she knew that her best chance of living was to continue doing just what she'd been doing all along—­pretending to be asleep. It seemed unlikely that he'd do whatever it was he planned right here in the car. He'd need transportation of some kind that wasn't filled with either a dead body or blood and gore. She could only hope that at some point he'd have to loosen the tie wraps that bound her. That would be her one opportunity to fight back.

“I'll head-­butt that son of a bitch all the way into next week,” she swore to herself. “Then I'll run like hell.”

AVA LOOKED AT HER WATCH
again and wondered what was taking so long. At this point Henry was over an hour late in making the delivery, and she was growing impatient. Or maybe Jane Dobson was the one worrying and watching the minutes tick by. At this point, it was hard for Ava herself to remember exactly who she was at the moment or who she would be at any given time. That was something to bear in mind. As of now, Ava Richland was over. Going forward, Ava would always be someone else.

The problem was, she had a long drive ahead of her tonight. It would take at least five hours to reach the Border Patrol checkpoint northwest of Brawley, California. She wanted to pass through that around midnight, a time when the guards would be tired and traffic would be light. Jane Dobson would drive past the officers in her properly licensed vehicle. Then, somewhere north of there but south of Indio, Jane Dobson would disappear for good, shortly after Ava Richland.

At that point the Acura's Arizona license plate would go in the trunk. Weeks earlier she had commissioned one of her operatives to steal a California plate from a similarly colored Acura. Then, with the stolen plate in place, she would assume the guise of Kate Worthington for the remainder of the trip. And once in L.A., Kate Worthington would also evaporate when Jane Carruthers went into Postal Minders to pick up her preshipped packages of diamonds.

As for Henry Rojas? She hoped it would be days or maybe even weeks before anyone stepped inside Jane Dobson's abandoned house to find his body. Earlier in the day she had asked one of the neighborhood kids for help loading her luggage into her car in the two-­car garage. In passing, she happened to mention to the kid that she was on her way to visit her dying mother and wasn't sure when she'd be back.

Waiting for the garage door to open, Ava concentrated on remaining calm. She touched her purse with the toe of her shoe. The extra weight told her that her weapon was where she needed it to be. The Glock semiautomatic was much smaller than the .22 she had used on Amos Warren and Kenneth Mangum. The .22 had originally belonged to her philandering father. Twelve-­year-­old Ava had found it hidden in the bottom drawer of his dresser the day her mother threw the man out of the house. Ava had taken the gun, hidden it in her own dresser, and used it twice before ditching it in a Dumpster at a gas station somewhere in Portland on her way home from Seattle.

As for this one? It was new. She hadn't spent any time firing it, but at close range, that wouldn't matter. She worried about the sound of gunfire. Occasional gunshots in this dodgy neighborhood weren't all that unusual, but unwelcome attention was something she could ill afford. If she could avoid shooting him, she would.

With that in mind, what Ava was really counting on was Henry's soft spot for tequila. They'd shared a slug or two of that on other occasions when he'd dropped off shipments. This time, she had prepared a special barbiturate-­laced bottle of Jose Cuervo. She'd set it out on the coffee table along with a single shot glass, a plate of lime slices, and a shaker of salt. And if that didn't quite do the trick? If something more was required, she was pretty sure she'd be able to make it look like suicide.

Ava had watched the local news at six. She had followed the piece on the reservation shooting with avid interest, but there had been few details. Stories about two unidentified males being gunned down out along the border didn't get much traction these days. Just before the broadcast ended, there had been a brief breaking news alert about a disturbance at the state prison in Florence in which two ­people had died and one was injured. The smiling young blond anchorwoman breathlessly promised more details on the ten o'clock edition.

Ava fervently hoped that the two dead victims were the right dead victims, but she didn't plan on hanging around long enough to make sure. She'd be well on the road before it was time for the ten o'clock news.

The minutes crept by. She had poured herself a glass of wine that sat untouched on the table next to her chair. There was no point risking having wine before embarking on an all-­night drive, but the wine provided camouflage and gave her a reason for not joining Henry in having some of his tequila.

For hours now, the only sound in the house had been the quiet growling of the fridge as the motor switched on and off and the occasional banging of ice machine cubes rattling as they dropped into the plastic bin. The sound she was waiting for was the slow creak of the garage door opening, but that one didn't come. Instead she was jarred by the sound of her doorbell.

Doorbell? Are you kidding? What the hell was the man ­thinking?

BOZO LAY ON HIS BED
while Brandon paced the patio, waiting and worrying. When Amanda Wasser called to report that John Lassiter was out of surgery and in the recovery room, he was relieved to hear the news, but it was all he could do to keep from snarling at her. He hurried Amanda off the phone because he wanted the line open in case Todd Hatcher called.

He already knew there was no way he'd be able to keep his promise to Diana—­no way he'd be able to stay out of it. After all, Lani was his daughter. He didn't want to trust her fate to a bunch of inexperienced patrol officers who might shoot first and ask questions later. And Brandon knew in his gut that Dan Pardee would be on the same page.

Henry Rojas was Navajo and Border Patrol. If Brandon and Dan could get to Henry, they might be able to talk him down or take him down. The problem was, they had to find him first.

When Todd's call finally came, Brandon didn't bother with the niceties.

“Did you find her?”

“Did,” Todd said. “Sorry it took so long, I had to jump through several extra hoops, but the phone seems to be stationary in the 5800 block of a street named Calle de Justicia. Do you know where that is?”

“No idea,” Brandon said, “but I'll find it.”

“The trouble is,” Todd continued, “I have the block number but not the actual address.”

“Don't worry,” Brandon said. “If my daughter's there, I'll find her. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

Brandon was already heading for the garage when he thought better of it. Turning around, he sprinted back into the house. In the laundry room, he pawed through the collection of bathing suits that stayed there year round. It took a moment to find the tiny thonglike thing that passed for Lani's bathing suit.

Diana was right. Going there by himself was dangerous. Going there without backup was even worse, but it turned out Brandon had just realized he did have backup—­backup guaranteed to arrive on the scene at the same time he did.

Bozo was on his bed, eyes closed. “Hey, Bozo,” Brandon said. “Do you want to go to work?”

The dog's transformation was instantaneous. One moment he was dozing on his posh heated bed. The next moment the dog was on his feet at full attention, looking quizzically at Brandon as if making sure he had heard right. When Brandon nodded, the dog sprinted for the garage and the Escalade with no sign of the aging animal's game shoulder or crippling limp. Brandon Walker had said the magic go-­to-­work words, and Bozo was already locked, loaded, and back on the job.

As Brandon fumbled with the GPS, keying in the address, Bozo sat in the backseat, panting over Brandon's shoulder. Once they were under way, Brandon hooked up his Bluetooth and dialed Dan.

“Someone has just located Lani's phone. It's currently pinging in the 5800 block of a street called Calle de Justicia.”

“Calle de Justicia?” Dan repeated. “Never heard of it.”

“It's not far off I-­10 at Craycroft.”

“Have you called the cops?”

“Not yet. I'm going there now to check it out visually. It may be the phone's there and Lani isn't. The GPS says it'll take us twenty-­eight minutes.”

“Who's us?” Dan asked.

“I invited Bozo to come along for the ride—­for backup.”

“Good call,” Dan said. “I've got Hulk with me, too. But don't do anything stupid, Brandon. If you don't call the cops, I will. If anything were to happen to you, Diana would kill me.”

His voice came to a strangled halt, and Brandon heard the silent words Dan Pardee couldn't utter. “And so will Lani.”

“Really,” Dan resumed after a pause. “You can't expect the two of us to go after him on our own.”

“I know all about Tombstone courage,” Brandon said, acknowledging Dan's warning, “but if Henry is holding Lani hostage, do you want cars with sirens blaring and cops with guns running around all over the place? Besides, by my count, with the dogs in our corner, it's four to one. Where are you?”

“I stopped at Three Points. If Henry's headed to Mexico, Sasabe would be the nearest border crossing. If he's headed north, he might have cut across to I-­10 at Cortaro Road. Okay. I've got the Calle de Justicia address in my GPS. It'll take me forty-­five minutes at least. If you want it to be four to one, you'll have to wait until Hulk and I get there.”

“Got it,” Brandon said. “And for God's sake, do not speed. None of us can afford a speeding ticket right now, most especially Lani.”

A FURIOUS AVA MARCHED ACROSS
the room to the front door, banging her walker on the tile. Henry had parked out on the driveway instead of in the garage? What in the world was the matter with the man? What was he thinking?

At the door she paused for a moment and got herself back under control. A steaming-­mad Ava Richland would never pass for an ailing Jane Dobson. Only when she had herself fully in hand did she turn the key in the dead bolt.

Henry stood on her doorstep, holding up a gym bag and looking sheepish.

“Did you get the shipment?” she demanded.

He nodded.

“And Tim's taken care of?”

He nodded again.

“Well, come in then,” she said, standing aside. “Why didn't you use the garage?”

“I left the clicker in the other car,” he said.

Ava hadn't turned on the porch light. She peered out the door. In the dim light, she caught sight of a strange car parked in the middle of her driveway. She sighed. She'd have to move it into the garage as soon as possible, but for right now, she supposed it was fine to leave it where it was. She didn't want Henry to think she was overly anxious or that anything was amiss.

“That's all to the good, then,” she said, trying to sound relieved. “Come have a seat. I know for a fact that you've had a tough ­couple of days.”