KILLER DATE (SCANDALS) (10 page)

Nick
didn’t let his technology issues avert his focus as, once again, we relayed our story.

“We don’t actually know him
,” I explained.  “We were sitting in her…uh…living room when all of a sudden he crashed against her front door.”

Nick was fast if nothing else.  “Did he say anything about why he was there as opposed to
, say, next door?”

“
He did actually.  We opened the door and he said,
They took her. 
Then he passed out.”

“
Her?  Do you know who he was talking about?”  He seemed to be pecking at more characters than were spoken.

“My sister
,” Jenny answered, her voice quivering.

He looked at Jenny and squinted
, then pecked out enough characters to spell out
sister.
  “So you
do
know him?”

“
No, but I think he was dating my sister.”

“What’s your sister’s name?”

“Angela.”

“And where is she?”

Jenny looked at me for guidance.  My shoulders lifted.  I didn’t know this guy from Adam, but then he’d already given us more information about Miguel than we had been able to find out by ourselves. “
If
he’s DEA, he might be able to help us.”

Nick seemed pissed as his piercing gaze pinned me
to the wall.  “
If
I’m DEA?  Really?  Want to see my ID, Boy Scout?”

I
tried to out-stare him, but this guy was clearly a professional ball-buster.  This wasn’t the hill I wanted to die on.  I flashed him my best stage smile and calmly answered, “Glad to have you on-board.  Maybe you can help us find her sister sooner.”

“You?
  Why would you be finding her sister?”

Christopher stepped forward and introduced himself first, then the rest of us.  “
Jenny came to our firm…Scandals, to get help finding her sister who went missing last week.”

Nick looked at Jenny
, a little too long from my point of view, and eventually back to us.  “You guys have a decent reputation.  Sorry to hear about Roger, by the way.  A real loss.”  Nick’s tone wasn’t all that sincere. In fact, I thought he sounded a little condescending as he added, “It must have been a real shock to you kids.”

That told me he either really
hadn’t known Roger or this take-your-tablet-to-work day really had him fucked up.  “That’s an understatement.”  Like they say,
all change is loss and all loss must be mourned.
I just haven’t fully decided what loss to mourn, but I wasn’t likely to share my feelings with this asshole.

Nick
turned to Jenny.  “So, when was the last time you talked to Angela?”

“
Today…or yesterday, I guess.”

“Did she say anything about this guy Miguel?”

“She said she was in love with him, and they were okay.”  Tears filled her eyes and she struggled to hold it together.  “I guess that wasn’t exactly true.”

“How long had they been dating?”

“Until Monday, I didn’t even know he existed.  It was her little secret…I mean, we live together, and she never said a word to me.  She has a tattoo studio just off campus, and we found a photo there of her with a guy…who turned out to be this Miguel person…maybe.  I can’t really tell by his face because he was so beat up.  But I recognized the tattoo on his shoulder.”

“So
, you already searched her studio?”  Nick’s narrowed gaze focused on me.  “What else did you kids find?”

His attitude rubb
ed me wrong.  He was acting like I was a rank amateur.  Okay…so, I was, but he didn’t know that. “Nothing that told us where she’d gone,” I spoke up, anxious that Jenny not tell him everything we’d found.

“
Then she called you?” he asked, still focused on Jenny.

“Yeah.
  Out of the blue…like there was nothing wrong.”

“Did you ask her
where she was?”

“Ye
s.  All she said was she was okay, and she’d explain it all later…when it calmed down.  Then she hung up.  But she called me again yesterday and seemed to be happy…and alive.  I had no idea anything was going on…until Miguel pounded on my front door.”

“How did he know where you live?”

Jenny shook her head.  “I have no idea.  I work a lot, so for all I know, he could have been there with my sister, doing…God, I don’t know…”

“And now you have no idea where she is?”

“Not a clue.  Miguel’s the only one who can tell us.”

Nick
wrapped his hand around the back of his neck and rubbed.  His eyes were closed tight and he exhaled.  He lifted the tablet up and started tapping in notes.

“
Nick!”  A man’s voice from behind us called.

“What the…
?  Are there GPS chips in these tablets?  Who the hell knows I’m here?” Nick looked past me and smiled. “Shit!  Brady!”

Brady
walked toward Nick.  “Do you know how much trouble I’d be in if I screwed up another one of their precious tablets?”

Nick met
Brady part way.  “How the hell are you doing, man?” Nick said as they man-hugged.  They must have some history.  I raised my eyebrows toward Jenny.

“I’m
Brady Zane, Austin PD…and you guys are?”  Before we could answer, his gaze moved to Christopher, and he smiled.  “Dude, it’s been a long time.  Keepin’ busy?”

“We’re doing okay.  This is Killeen and Reno, two of Roger’s kids and Jenny.
”

Brady’s gaze lingered a long moment on Killeen, then focused on us.  “So, you two are the ones who found the victim?”

I gave him an abbreviated version.  I guessed he already knew everything there was to know about the incident and was just testing us. 

“How did your friend get shot?”
  He had a worse bedside manner than Nick’s.

“Ahh
, we’ve been down that road,” Nick spoke up.  “They don’t actually know Miguel, but Jenny here says her sister…Angela, took off with him about a week ago, and she’s been missing since then.”

“
Where’s Miguel now?” Brady asked.

“
Surgery.  The nurse told us it would take about eight hours,” I answered.

Brady
and Nick said simultaneously, “Nurse Oster.”

“
Everything takes eight hours with her,” Brady added.

“Christopher?
”  Yet another man joined this impromptu meeting.

“Jerry
? How the fuck are you?  What are you doing here?”  Christopher seemed truly shocked by Jerry’s arrival.  They shook hands with the enthusiasm of old friends.

“I
was in the neighborhood and Krispy Kreme isn’t open yet, so I just came over to update Brady about Alfonso Rodriguez.”

“
Any relation to Miguel Rodriguez?” Christopher asked.

“His cousin.
  Why?”

“
Found him in a warehouse downtown.  Looked like there was a shoot-out.”

“Was he…?”

“DOA.  Why did you ask about Miguel?”

Nick nodded toward the double doors leading to the surgical area.  “In there, getting his holes plugged.”

“Brings a whole new meaning to a family reunion, doesn’t it.  Did you toss the place?”  Brady asked.

“Didn’t find much
.  It looked like they were having some sort of meeting and got jumped.” Jerry pulled a plain black clam shell cell phone from his pants’ pocket.  “This was on the floor.”

“Burner?”
  Christopher asked.

“Probably
.  Only one call was made on it.”

Brady
took the phone from Jerry, flipped it open and pressed the redial on the key pad. “Must be impor…”

The ring of a cell phone startled everyone.

Jenny scrambled through her purse and pulled out her cell phone as all eyes focused on her.

“Is
this the number she called you from?”  I knew the answer by the horror on her face.

“Oh my God!”
  She stared at the phone as if it was a poisonous snake.

“I hate to ask but any sign of
a young woman?”  Nick asked Jerry bluntly.

“None.
  A lot of blood though.”

I heard Jenny stifle a sob and I stepped closer to her.

“Any witnesses?” Brady continued.

“
It was an industrial area, so there weren’t many people around.  But no one saw or heard anything…of course.”

“
She’s must be more important to them alive than dead…for now,” Brady concluded.  “We need to move fast on this.”

Jenny’s
fingers dug painfully into my arm.

“
What’s this about?” Christopher asked.

“This isn’t the place to have th
at discussion.  Okay?” Brady warned him.

“Jenny’s our client and
it’s her sister.  She deserves to know, and so do we, so let’s get at it,” Christopher said.  “Speed is of the essence, so stop fucking around.”

A long moment of silence followed
, then Nick took a single step closer and spoke in a soft voice so no one outside our group could overhear.  “The leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel is Ricardo Rodriguez, and his oldest son is Miguel…the kid in there.  Ricardo is an old man and has been trying to ease out of the family business for about a year now.  He’s made his millions, and he has turned it over to his two younger brothers, Ignacio and Vicente who are struggling to make what’s left of the old cartel work.  They’ve been controlling the I-35 corridor through Texas and Oklahoma for more than twenty years.  Old business connections are hard to change.”

Nick glanced around to make sure we were still alone in the room.  The old man had long ago
left to go sit with his wife in ICU, and there was no one other than our strange little group.  Nick continued, “But there’s a new cartel in Texas that has been trying to muscle into the Sinaloa’s business, and they’ve been applying the pressure hard.  The last thing we want is for the two cartels to go to war.  All hell would break loose just like it did in Miami in the eighties, and the malls and streets would be covered in shell casings.  The streets wouldn’t be safe, and Austin Vice isn’t equipped to become Miami Vice.”

“
The Veracruz cartel?”  Brady asked.  “Shit!  I didn’t know they’d crossed the border.”

“
Them and ten million other illegals.  The border’s a fuckin’ joke,” Nick snorted.  “They’re headed up by Sergio Valdez.  He has one son, Hector, who is about Miguel’s age.  The difference is that Hector is crazier than shit and wants to rule the world.”

“So, you think he’s got my sister?”  Jenny’s voice shook, and I wrapped my arm around her.  For a minute, I thought she was going to collapse, and she accepted my support gratefully.

“I hope not, but….”  Nick words trailed off.

“I thought I’d heard that
Miguel and, I assume, his dead cousin Alfonso, didn’t want anything to do with the family business,” Jerry mentioned

“Yeah,
as far as I know, they never were involved.  Both of them were playing it straight…you know, going to college and trying to be model citizens.  But you know what they say about blood being thicker than water.”

“How’s that working out for them?” Brady commented sarcastically.

I gave him a dirty look, and he just shrugged.  He definitely needed a refresher course in sensitivity.

“
So, how did Angela get wrapped up in all that?” Jenny asked.

“Probably pretty innocently,” Nick told them.  “
You said she was a student at UT.  Or he might have gotten to know her through her tattoo parlor.”

“Tattoo parlor?  That’s odd.”  Brady jotted down a couple notes, then commented, almost too casually as if he was fishing for information we might be hiding
. “We’ve had dozens of Mexican males show up in the Travis County morgue, all with recent tattoo removals…you know laser treatments.  Someone has been helping them with that.  It’s not an easy process.”

Jenny and I exchanged a quick glance.  Both of us were thinking of the receipt we had found in Angie’s shop.  Tha
t was an important piece of the puzzle, but we didn’t want to throw it out there yet…especially in front of Brady and Jerry.

“
These guys’ identities are often illustrated in their tattoos,” Nick said.  “It’s like a brand…you know, like cattle…marking what cartel they belong to, whether or not they’ve been in prison, how many people they’ve killed or any gang relationships.  To change their identities or to avoid us figuring out who’s who, they’ve started removing or altering their tattoos.  It has become big business.  Anyone who goes to the trouble of removing their fingerprints is pretty dedicated to anonymity.  Eliminating a tat is nothing.”  He turned to Jenny.  “Do you know if your sister knew anything about tat removal?”