Death, Taxes, and Cheap Sunglasses (A Tara Holloway Novel Book 8) (15 page)

Five cars sat in the restaurant’s lot, two near the front and the other three near the back in what was probably an employee parking section. Two eighteen-wheelers had been parked parallel to the far right curb. The bright yellow restaurant was well lit inside, making it easy to see the half-dozen people seated on the stools and the cook behind the counter flipping eggs and hash browns.

As I turned into the parking lot, taking a spot near the front, a young Latino man with short but messy hair and a dark backpack climbed out of the Sequoia and looked around. Fortunately, he gave the Audi only a cursory glance before heading inside.

Even with the outside lights, it was too dark for me to get a good luck at the man. Could he be El Cuchillo? I had my doubts. The photo of El Cuchillo online had depicted a man with his head shaved bald and a face crisscrossed with scars. Though scars wouldn’t be visible from this distance, this man looked too young and had too much hair to be the notorious, violent criminal. Given the backpack, this man looked as if he were a mule, moving either money or drugs. As upper management in the cartel, El Cuchillo wasn’t likely to do this type of grunt work.

I watched for a moment or two from my car as the Toyota’s driver walked past two men in flannel shirts, took a seat down the counter from them, and placed an order with the counter clerk. She nodded and served him a cup of coffee. He added two sugars, stirred, and took a sip, adding a third sugar when the first two packets proved insufficient.

Was the guy waiting for someone? Or was he simply having an early breakfast? Drug dealers, like nurses, truckers, and undercover federal agents, probably worked odd hours. Maybe he’d simply stopped for a stack of pancakes before heading on to his final destination.

Nick had told me to stay in my car and be careful, but I wanted to be as helpful as possible, too, without jeopardizing the investigation, of course. With my disguise in place, surely I could go inside, keep a better eye on the guy. Besides, I probably looked far more suspicious sitting in the car in the lot.

I whipped my comb from my purse, eyed myself in the vanity mirror, and did my best to comb my bed-head hair into some semblance of style.

“Yikes.”

Despite my best efforts, my hair looked puffy on one side and flat on the other, but it would have to do. I shoved the comb back into my purse, climbed out of the car, and headed inside, hunching my shoulders to hide my peaked nipples.

“Sit wherever you’d like,” called the waitress, gesturing with an orange-rimmed pot of decaf before refilling a mug for a stocky man seated near the end of the counter.

I slid into a booth in the corner where I could keep an eye on the man at the counter. Looking over the menu, I debated my options. Biscuits. Grits. Hash browns. Toast. Pancakes. Waffles. So many carbs, so little time.
Should I go with greasy carbs or syrupy carbs?
Hmm. Tough choices.

The waitress sauntered up with a steaming pot of regular coffee in her hand now. “Coffee?”

“That would be great.” I had no idea how long I’d be tailing the driver of the Sequoia. Might as well make sure I was properly caffeinated lest I nod off driving down the highway and end up in a ditch. Or worse.

When she finished filling my cup, the waitress set the pot down on the tabletop, pulled a pencil from behind her ear, and held her pad poised to jot down my order. “What can I get you?”

“Biscuits and gravy,” I said. “Extra gravy. Hash browns. Grits. The cheesy kind. And a pecan waffle.” Good thing these scrubs had a stretchy waistband, huh?

She made a note of my order.

I cocked my head. “Any chance you’ve got lite syrup?”

“
Lite
syrup?” She raised a brow. “You’re kidding, right?”

I shrugged. “You’re right. What’s the point, huh?”

She slid the pad back into the pocket of her apron, retrieved her coffeepot, and went behind the counter to submit my gluttonous order.

Pretending to be surfing the Net on my cell phone, I eyed my target over the top of the device. He looked to be in his early twenties and wore jeans, dark tennis shoes, and a lightweight gray windbreaker jacket, nothing remarkable. With the brighter indoor lighting, I could see that he had a thin mustache and a barely there beard, making him look like a Latino James Franco. He’d set his backpack on the floor in front of the stool next to him where it wouldn’t be underfoot.

What’s in the backpack?

Drugs?

Cash?

A college algebra textbook?

As I watched, the waitress slid a plate in front of him. He’d opted for scrambled eggs and hash browns all the way. The smells of onions and peppers wafted in my direction. He dug in, glancing around while he ate. In my peripheral vision, I saw him take a look my way. Instinctively, I froze in place, as if that would somehow make me invisible.
Stupid instincts.
Fortunately, his gaze didn’t linger long enough to notice my telltale reaction. He’d likely taken me for what I appeared to be, a nurse who’d stopped by for a meal after working the swing shift.

Phew.

Looked like I’d pulled off my disguise. Once again, someone had underestimated me. Usually it pissed me off when someone assumed a petite woman like me posed no threat. But sometimes, like tonight, being small and benign-looking worked to my advantage.

It took the cook only a minute to assemble my simple breakfast, and only a moment more for the waitress to bring it my way. I hoped it would take a little longer for the carbs to turn to cellulite on my thighs.

I gave the waitress a smile as she slid the plate in front of me. “Thanks.” Picking up my fork, I took a bite.
Yum.
Not as good as my mother’s homemade biscuits and gravy, of course, but not bad, either.

Headlights outside caught my attention. A dark pickup drove past and made its way to the back of the building. Shortly thereafter, a tall, thin, thirtyish white man in loose-fitting cargo pants and a green hoodie entered the restaurant. He had scraggly reddish-brown hair in need of a trim, with matching stubble on his cheeks and chin. His eyes scanned the room, taking in each of the customers as if he were assessing them. When he looked my way, I tilted my head and tapped my phone screen, pretending not to notice him or at least not to care. In reality, my heart was pitter-pattering in my chest, each of my senses on high alert.

He slid onto a stool two seats down from the man I was watching, my target’s backpack resting on the floor between them. As the recent arrival hooked his heels over the stool’s footrest, the cuffs of his pants rode up, revealing a pair of knobby ankles covered in dingy crew socks. The sock on his right leg had a suspicious bulge.

Damn.

The man’s armed.

Was he simply carrying the gun for protection? Or was he here to try to rob the place?

I was armed, too, of course, my government-issued Glock in quick reach inside my purse, which sat on the seat of the booth beside me. But if the guy tried to rob the place and I whipped out my gun to stop him, my target would realize I was law enforcement and that he’d been followed here.

Ugh.

I’d promised Nick I’d be careful.

I hoped I’d be able to keep that promise.

After a couple of minutes, my target finished his meal and stood from his stool, leaving his backpack resting on the floor while he stepped over to the register to pay his bill. I gathered my ticket from my table, preparing to follow after him. He returned to his spot to leave two singles for a tip, but failed to retrieve his backpack, instead heading toward the door without it.

Hmmm
 …

Something told me he’d left the backpack on purpose. Something also told me it was more important to follow the backpack now than it was to follow the Sequoia.

Though my target and Crew Socks hadn’t openly acknowledged each other, the abandoned backpack told me the two could be in cahoots. I sat back in my booth and sipped my lukewarm coffee, surreptitiously watching Crew Socks as he sopped up runny egg yolk with a biscuit and shoved it into his mouth, crumbs dropping from his lips to his hoodie.
Ew.
This guy could stand to learn some manners. Clearly his mother had not sent him to Miss Cecily’s Charm School as my mother had done for me.

He leaned to his right, reaching down toward his ankle.
Uh-oh.
I unzipped my purse and slid my hand into the inside pocket, feeling for my Glock. Fortunately, the guy merely scratched at a spot behind his ankle before returning his attention to his meal.

He ate ravenously, shoving an entire sausage patty into his mouth at once. It was a miracle he didn’t choke. Good thing since, as a purported medical professional, I might be expected to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. He washed the meal down with five loud gulps of soda and reached down to grab the backpack.

Yep. Definitely in cahoots.

Quickly, I left a tip and stood, figuring it would be less obvious I was following the guy if I preceded him out of the restaurant.

As I stepped up to the register to pay my bill, he stepped up behind me, stifling a sausage-scented belch over my shoulder.
Charming.

“How was everything?” the cashier asked as I handed her my ticket along with a ten-dollar bill.

“Delicious, as usual.” Heck, I could feel the fat molecules pooling on my thighs already.
Better do my glute exercises when I get back in the car.

I took my change, slid it into my wallet, and headed outside. Once I was seated again in Alicia’s Audi, I busied myself playing with the buttons on her radio, hoping I’d appear to be trying to find my favorite station. I stopped the scanner on a country station playing a song by Brazos Rivers, a superstar I’d recently busted for tax evasion. Hey, just because the singer didn’t pay his taxes didn’t mean he couldn’t belt out a catchy tune. Besides, the more royalties he earned, the quicker Uncle Sam could recoup the overdue taxes.

I was squeezing my glutes together and singing along—
“baby, if you’re willing, let’s do some horizontal drilling”—
as the scruffy guy came out of the diner holding the backpack by one strap. He scurried to his pickup in the back lot, opened the door, and tossed the bag inside, climbing in after it. As he drove down the other side of the building and pulled out of the parking lot, I started my car to go after him, driving slowly to the exit so he wouldn’t spot me behind him.

I hesitated briefly in the exit, giving him time to get a decent lead. As I paused, I noted a silver Dodge Avenger with tinted windows pull away from a pump at the gas station across the street. Through the windshield, I could see the driver and someone in the front passenger seat, though from this distance and with the tinted glass I could tell almost nothing about them. Judging from their size, they were either men or women tall enough to be supermodels or players in the WNBA.

The Dodge pulled out of the gas station and headed down the road after the truck, its driver following far enough behind the pickup that it seemed he didn’t want to be noticed.

Hmm.
Looked like I might not be the only one tailing the pickup.

Did the Avenger belong to law enforcement? Maybe someone working for the cartel? Or was its appearance mere coincidence and not related at all to the cartel case?

I stayed a couple of blocks behind the Avenger as we headed in a loose, impromptu convoy back onto 635. Using the field glasses, I took note of the license plate numbers on both vehicles and jotted them down to give to Nick later.

I narrowed my eyes at the vehicles ahead. “What are y’all up to?”

Was the driver of the Avenger some type of backup for the guy in the pickup, making sure he and the contents of the backpack arrived safely at their destination? Or was something else going on?

I had no idea what might happen, but I had to be ready for any eventuality. Reaching over to my purse, I pulled the zipper open, pulled my Glock from the inside pocket, and slid a magazine into the gun. I positioned the gun in the cup holder for quick and easy access.

The truck exited in Mesquite, drove past Town East Mall, and turned into a well-maintained, fully fenced apartment complex. The driver punched a code into the security system and the gate slid open to let him in. After he pulled through, the gate slid shut behind him. A moment later, the Avenger rolled slowly past the entrance to the complex before picking up the pace and heading off.

My tensed muscles relaxed. Though I enjoyed a little action every now and then, the last thing I’d wanted was to get in the middle of a shootout at night with a bunch of drug runners. Looked like any risk of that eventuality had now passed.
Thank God.

I pulled to the curb and cut the lights and engine. Cracking the door, I eased myself out, shutting it as quietly as possible. Tiptoeing to the fence that surrounded the complex, I peered over a line of bushes. The pickup was visible parked in a row in the center. Putting the binoculars to my eyes, I noted that the truck appeared empty. The driver must have already gone inside. But which unit he’d gone into was anyone’s guess. There were five expansive three-story buildings encircling the lot and, despite the late hour, lights on in at least a dozen units.

I crept back to Alicia’s car, climbed in, and headed in the direction the Avenger had gone. I drove a full two miles down the road, glancing left and right down the side streets, but there was no sign of it.

Pulling into a convenience store, I parked and used my phone to log in to the DMV records. Per my search, the pickup was registered to a man named Terrence Motley at a south Dallas address six miles or so from the apartment complex where he was now. The Avenger belonged to a Carlos Uvalde who purportedly lived in San Antonio, a large city located roughly halfway between Dallas and the Mexican border. The Sequoia was registered to a Lorenzo Vargas at an address in Del Rio, a small Texas town located west of San Antonio in the Rio Grande Valley, near the international border.