Shelter (28 page)

             
An involuntary shiver tingled up her spine. She was not a nervous person, but after last night, she was thoroughly rattled. Learning that Carlos had a dark side she hadn’t known about had her doubting her perceptive skills. And being the target of a shooting – she was no dummy; she’d watched enough
CSI
to know that if her boyfriend was the only Silver Plate employee’s boyfriend peddling drugs, chances were high the message had been meant for Carlos – had her nerves a jumbled mess. She’d finally turned in around four in the morning, only to startle at every creak and groan of the house. She’d stared at the popcorn ceiling and held her breath as the tree outside the window danced around in the wind, scraping against the siding. She didn’t want anyone to know where she was, not even Sean, she realized. Especially not Sean.

             
“At home,” she told him, butterflies kicking around behind her breastbone. She was standing with one hip resting against her kitchen counter, staring down into the sink full of soapy water and dishes she’d been washing when she’d given in to her niggling worry and called the undercover detective.

             
“Alone?”

             
“No. I’ve got my boys with me: Colt, Ruger, Smith and Wesson.”

             
He chuckled. “Oh, so you’re that kinda girl, huh?”

             
“Absolutely.”

             
“Shit.” He sounded thoroughly amused, his laugh deep and echo-y over the phone. “A’ight, but still, I’d feel better if you went and stayed with your folks or something.”

             
Maybe it was a lifetime of being subjected to her mother’s orders and advice, but her instinct was to rebel against him on this one. “Are you saying that to cover your ass with your boss?”

             
“No,” the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”

             
Alma wet her lips and took a deep breath, held it a moment, and ordered herself to stay calm as she exhaled in a slow, steady stream of air that doubtless rustled across the receiver of her cell. “I appreciate that. Can you do me a favor, please?”

             
Another pause, like he continued to be surprised by her responses. “Maybe.”

             
“Keep Carlos alive too.”

             
“Do my best.” And then the dial tone sounded in her ear.

             
Alma hit
end
on her own cell and stayed leaning against the counter a moment, letting it support her weight. When she let her gaze slip out of the sink and down to her toes, her eyes landed instead on the ever-expanding swell of her stomach.

             
She left the dishes where they were and crossed the house into the master bedroom. The space had two large windows: one across from the bed, the other beside it, in the nook where her desk was positioned so she could overlook the side yard, a section of their chain link fence, the neighbor’s house and the street. On either side of the desk, and the window – through which she glimpsed and saw nothing out of the ordinary – were his-and-her closets with sliding, shuttered wood doors. Sam’s was on the left, and that was where she went, pushing the door wide with a subtle creak.

             
Before that fateful day in which she’d found the bloody clothes in Carlos’s apartment, she’d boxed up some of Sam’s things – what she could bear to part with – and had made room. There were still some hanging shirts though, flannel and t-shirts alike, and she paused a moment, the scent of her husband still clinging to the fabric. Then she pushed them aside so she could get to the big Browning gun safe.

             
It took three tries, but she finally recalled the combination and the heavy locking bolts slid to the side. The sharp tang of WD-40 wafted out, filled up her nostrils, and she recalled countless memories of watching Sam stand in front of the safe, recalled the somehow soothing clicks and snaps of his weapons as he’d checked the magazines, moved ammo around and obsessively checked on his cache.

             
She shut her eyes as they started to burn. Her chest tightened and her hand fluttered to her stomach.

             
“I’m not gonna give you this unless you promise me you’ll use it if you have to.” Sam’s obsidian eyes had never been more serious, and yet, so full of gentle support. He was a hard man, he lost his temper, he didn’t hold her hand in public. But as she stood with him in front of his gun safe, a .38 revolver held out to her, there was fierce sort of kindness in his face. No one else would have seen it, and if they had, they wouldn’t have labeled it ‘kindness’. But that’s what it was. He loved her so much, the emotion in his deep voice was so thick; he couldn’t imagine a scenario in which his girl refused to defend herself. It caused him physical pain to imagine anything happening to her.

             
She closed her hand around the wood grip of the handgun, taking its weight in her grasp, keeping her wrist firm, not like those wimpy chicks who were scared of the weapon. Guns didn’t frighten her. They were the only things that came close to keeping her as safe as Sam did.

             
“I promise,” she said.

             
She opened her eyes and was confronted with the rack full of long guns. Her .38 was under the pillow, her .22 in the drawer in the living room, so she reached for the 12 gauge shotgun shells up on the shelf.

             
Her fingers brushed something slick she hadn’t expected and after a quick, patted inspection with her hand, she discovered a short stack of photos. All of her. Her with Sam.

             
She passed her thumb over his face in the first picture: his beautiful, spooky-intense face.

             
Sean had told her to go to her parents, had wanted her to be safe. But she wasn’t taking this mess she was in to her parents’ doorstep. Sam had always tried to protect her, now it was time to protect herself. And her unborn child.

             
“I love you,” she said to the picture. “And your stupid cousin.” The photos went back on the shelf and she pulled down the ammo she needed. Then she sent up a message that was half prayer, half intonation to her husband, wherever he was. “Please give me the strength to keep my promises.”

**

Sean was halfway to his place – his real apartment where he’d crashed for about two weeks before he’d been assigned to his undercover gig – when he remembered that he couldn’t go there. He’d almost said
fuck it
, figuring his cover was mostly blown anyway, but then, like the good little cop he was, he went back downtown, through some of the worst goddamn traffic in all the United States, and went behind his fake desk in his fake office in the building space that had been rented under false pretenses.

             
Aisha was out, probably back at headquarters. He’d had five calls from fellow detectives telling him that plug-pulling was imminent on the Dolman case – codename Rockefeller. He wasn’t even sure he cared anymore if the case was closed; he had two people he was interested in keeping safe, both of them Moraleses.

             
He was choking down the burger he’d picked up on the way in, the thing tasting like cardboard on his tongue, when his cell rang yet again. He answered it and hit the speakerphone button. “What?” he asked around a mouthful.

             
“It’s Jim,” his fellow, non-undercover detective identified himself. Jim was the real deal, had worked narco in California, just tan enough to not stick out like a pasty white guy. Smooth, professional, he was all job, and he never missed a damn thing. “I just got done cross-checking all suspicious persons within a fifty-fuckin’-mile radius of Dolman.” Which meant he’d looked at possible associates and then had dug deeper, feeling out every little root and tendril of possibility that led away from the Dolman machine.

             
“Anything?” Sean asked, not too hopeful.

             
“Morales works for Good & Green Landscaping,” Jim said, and Sean knew he was restating known facts so the logic jump he was about to deliver wasn’t too out of left field. “That crew’s been on that Dolman Plantation property in Marietta since October. I pulled everything I could get on the guys who work with Morales and I think I got a hit.”

             
Sean waited.

             
“Salvador Rubio. He’s worked for Good & Green about two months, got busted in 2008 for possession. H and blow. Charges in 2006 for possession with intent to sell.”

             
“Jail time?”

             
“Not so much as a night. Bail was always posted and the charges just weren’t followed up on.”

             
“Who posted?”

             
“Dolman.”

             
“Shit.” Sean started connecting the dots in his head. He pushed his burger away, what he’d already swallowed landing like a hunk of lead in his gut.

             
“It gets better,” Jim continued. “The guy’s family: a mom and a brother named Sal.”

             
Sal had never provided a last name, but this was sounding more than coincidental.

             
“We got a warrant and pulled financials,” which was impressive given the less than twenty-four hours the boys back at HQ had been working on this, “and Rubio had twenty-grand wired into his account about twelve hours ago.”

             
Sean scowled at the empty air across from him. “A hit,” he said knowingly. Because in his experience, sums of money that large weren’t friendly gifts, they were payments for dirty deeds. “Did you call the foreman over at the landscaper?”

             
“Yeah,” Jim’s voice took on an edge for the first time. He sounded grim. “Guy skipped out of work two hours ago with a company truck.”

             
Sean was up from his chair in a rush, scrambling across his desk for the keys to the Escalade he’d been driving himself since the night before. “Call Cobb PD,” he said, already moving toward the door.

             
“And tell ‘em what?”

             
“To get a car out to Alma Morales’s house.”

29

             
Alma had not officially quit her job yet. She didn’t have to call in sick yet since the café would be closed for repairs through the rest of the week, and when Emily and Sharon both called to check on her, she’d assured them she was fine, her legs were tender, but would heal, and had said nothing about her intention to stop working at Silver Plate. They didn’t know she was the cause of the shooting, and she wasn’t going to alarm them with the news unnecessarily. Plus, it felt like absolute, total defeat to throw away the one job she’d been able to acquire. So she spent the morning on the couch, her laptop balanced on her thighs, browsing through the job board postings in search of a new source of income.

             
She jumped about a foot, her Dell sliding off onto the couch cushion when a loud knock sounded at the front door. She was not, she was proud to say, overly paranoid. But she was very aware that she didn’t live in Mr. Roger’s neighborhood and it paid to exercise caution when people knocked on your door.

             
The living room had a clear view of the entry hall and the sidelights on either side of the door. It was a bright afternoon and she saw, through the little rectangles of glass, a man standing on her front stoop, jeans, a work boot, and the sleeve of a khaki-colored shirt visible. Then his face popped in front of one of the small windows and she saw a big friendly smile set in a darkly tan face. The wedge of black hair she could see and the dark complexion made her think he was Latino. And most importantly, she now recognized the shirt. It was a Good & Green work uniform: short-sleeved – he wore a black long-sleeve tee under it – and with the familiar company script set inside a green oval above the breast pocket.

             
He waved at her and Alma knew ignoring him was still an option, but she was no longer concerned. Undoubtedly, Carlos hadn’t shown up for work and one of his buddies on the job was coming to see where he was.

             
Her snub-nosed .38 was on the couch beside her, and as she stood, she twisted so she could slide the weapon into the back waistband of her jeans without him seeing it. She stood, made sure her shirttail covered the butt of the gun against the small of her back, and headed for the door.

             
Alma kept the security chain in place as she threw the dead bolt and cracked the door. “Are you looking for Carlos?” she greeted.

             
The guy – he was decidedly Latino up close, darker than Carlos – bobbed his head and kept grinning at her. “Actually,” his grin slipped and he gave her an apologetic look. “He sent me to get his stuff. Said he was moving out and didn’t want to bother you.”

             
A little chime sounded in the back of her head, like the beep of her cell phone when it was alerting her that the battery was low. A subtle warning. Nothing about the guy made her uneasy; he looked friendly, harmless, and kind of dopey.

             
“Really?” her heart sank a little. Carlos had come by to check on her the night before, but he couldn’t come to collect his things? Moving out? It made sense – he had brought bullets and danger to her door. And as far as he knew, she hated him. Which she should. She should really hate him.

             
“Yeah.” He extended his hand as if he intended to shake hers, then realized there was only a slim opening between them. “I’m Salvador.”

Now she placed him, recalling that she’d seen him the day the Good & Green guys had come into the Silver Plate for lunch.
She’d heard Carlos talk about him before, how he was like that kid on the playground who always wanted to tag along where he wasn’t wanted. How he’d thought he and Carlos were friends, though Carlos had never considered them such. The way he smiled at her reminded her of someone who’d always wanted to belong and who was willing to try too hard to be welcomed into someone’s inner circle of friends.

             
And that was what left her unsettled. Carlos was not friends with Salvador. Mike, sure, Alex, you bet. But not Salvador.

             
“He sent
you
?” she didn’t much care if she sounded rude. Having a hundred rounds pumped out of an automatic weapon to send her a message had left her less than accommodating.

             
Salvador shrugged, twitched a sideways half-smile. His big eyes took on a puppy-like sadness. “I know we’re not friends or anything. Carlos thinks I’m a pain in the ass. But I had to head back to the shop and he’s…” he chewed at the inside of his cheek and gave her an assessing look, like he wasn’t sure he should say what he was about to. “He’s real broken up about you guys splitting. I don’t think he had the heart to come over here again. So I offered to help him out. Guess he’s pretty bad off if he’s willing to let me give him a hand.”

             
Alma sighed and rested her temple against the doorjamb. Carlos was the kind of person who dwelled on mistakes and poor decisions. She’d seen it while they’d been together and had tried to ignore the tension and reflective silences, the strange facial expressions. His dealings with Sean had been eating away at him for a while, so she could envision just how “bad off” he was now. She didn’t know if she wanted to try and work things out, if it was even safe to do so. But she knew she had to do what was best for her baby, so she nodded.

             
“He’s got a few bags in the bedroom. Hang tight and I’ll bring them out.”

             
Salvador looked a little disappointed to be left standing out on the porch, but he would have to get over it.

             
Even though she knew it was the best thing, it felt like there was a boulder lodged in her chest as she went to the bedroom and collected his clothes and shoes, his toiletries from the bathroom and zipped them all up in his three big duffel bags. She had to lug them one at a time to the front door because they were so heavy and she was so sore from diving to the ground the night before. She was heading back for the third when Salvador knocked at the window. Again, using the chain, she cracked the door.

             
“Let me carry those,” he said. “Pregnant people shouldn’t be moving around heavy stuff.”

             
She didn’t correct him when he said “pregnant people” – after all, only women could get pregnant – and instead closed the door, removed the chain, and opened it again. It was embarrassing because she’d always prided herself on her fitness. She had been semi-addicted to exercise for a while, of course, pre-Sam’s death and pre-pregnancy, but still, she hated that she was winded so easily.

             
“Thanks,” she said as Salvador grabbed the first two bags and headed out toward the Good & Green truck parked in her drive.

             
Alma watched him go and return, noting the jaunty spring to his step. He seemed truly happy to be helping. The Carlos she’d known for the past eight years wouldn’t have found so much fault with Salvador. Clearly, the drug business had killed the objective, sweet-natured guy she’d known and had turned him into a cynic.

             
“The last one’s in the bedroom,” she told Salvador when he came back through the door. “Just down the hall there,” she indicated with a wave.

             
“Okay,” he flashed a grin and moved past her.

             
“It’s the room on the - ” the word
right
died in her throat as she turned and saw his hand rushing toward her face.

             
Salvador’s smile was gone, a snarl in its place, his friendly eyes now black with aggression. But he was standing a little too far away from her, and it gave her time to see his arm come swinging at her, and she saw the edge of the piece of pipe he’d slipped out of his sleeve into his palm.

             
She ducked.
Whoosh
. The blow went over her head. Alma gasped in a deep breath and reached for the gun at her back.

             
Pain ignited in her shoulder and sent her reeling to the side. Her gun hand went limp a moment as a spasm raced along her nerve endings and left her hand a twitching, useless hunk of bone and flesh.

             
“Shit!” she saw that he had the pipe fully extended now, one end in his hand, the other end obviously what had hit her shoulder hard enough to make the arm numb.

             
In the span of two heartbeats, she let shock and disbelief surge through her – this man who she didn’t know had come to her door, tricked her into letting him in, and was now going to kill her – cursed herself for her own stupidity, tried to beat back the terror that gripped her insides, and decided that this was one of those situations Sam had always warned her about. One of those protect-herself-or-die situations, because as Salvador hefted the pipe and came at her again, she wasn’t so stupid that she thought he only intended to rob her, or rape her, hurt her. He wanted her dead, and it didn’t matter why.

             
Alma tucked and rolled, a fresh stab of pain in her arm telling her that the joint hadn’t been knocked out of its socket and that she would regain use of it once the shock wore off. She reached for her gun again, but had to raise her arms to shield herself as he came at her.

             
“Hold still, little cunt!” he hissed at her, arcing the pipe up over his shoulder and bringing it down.

             
Alma rolled onto her back, the .38 digging into her spine, and brought her knees up to ward off the blow. The pipe hit her in the ankle and she yelped loudly in pain.

             
“Shut the fuck up!”

             
He doesn’t have a gun
, she thought wildly. If he did, he’d have shot her in the back of the head rather than giving her a chance to fight back. She kicked hard, catching him in the stomach. He grunted, then grabbed the sole of her Converse sneaker. The shoe came off in his hand and she pulled her legs out of the pipe’s reach, giving him one good kick to the knee with her shod foot. It didn’t buy her much time, but she crab walked backward on her hands, her shoulder functional again, though it hurt like a motherfucker.

             
Her shoulder blades hit the couch and she was stuck. Salvador was charging toward her, pipe raised, his face a twisted mask of rage.

             
Alma sucked in air through trembling lips, her whole body trembling really, her pulse thundering in her ears, louder than any other sound in the room. The door was still open and bright afternoon sun was pouring in across the carpet. It seemed especially terrible to be killed in the sunshine, while the rest of the world was getting ready for Christmas.

             
I don’t wanna die.
However depressed she’d been right after Sam’s death, whatever she’d muttered into her pillow, she had never, and did not, want to die.

             
Her hand curled around the butt of the .38 and she whipped it out from behind her back.

             
The pipe connected with her hand and she registered a loud
crunch
. “Ahhh!” she screamed the same second her trigger finger twitched reflexively, her hand’s last effort as it broke.

             
The revolver bucked against her palm, the shot rang out, and dust exploded in a spot across the room where the round had gone through the wall. It hadn’t hit Salvador at all, and he was raising the pipe again, malicious glee shining in his eyes as the gun fell out of her hand.

             
Alma threw her arm over her head and dove along the couch to get away from him, but he struck her. On the calf, the thigh, the point of her hip.

             
“Stop it!” she shrieked, tears pouring down her face, blurring her vision. She could feel the bruises already forming and got onto her side, using her good arm to try and shield her belly. She panted and screamed. “Help me!”

             
“
Shut up
!”

             
Her baby, her little Sam. Even worse than dying, was knowing she’d lose him too. That without her living, breathing body, he couldn’t exist. And even worse, what if he only left her half-dead, and the baby didn’t make it.

             
“NO!” she yelled back at him as he fell on top of her and brought the pipe down against the side of her head.

             
A sound like a bell ringing echoed inside her skull. The world became black in front of her eyes. Alma sucked in a breath and thought she swallowed her tongue. But she thrust her broken hand beneath the couch, the pain in her head, and side, and legs, making the pain of her broken thumb just that much more bearable. She grabbed the barrel of the 12 gauge with all the meager strength she could gather and pulled it out.

             
Salvador was all impassioned fury now, and his blows weren’t as hard as they should have been, weren’t as accurate either. He chipped the coffee table, thumped against the couch cushions.