The Survivors Club (32 page)

CHAPTER 56

On a warm spring day, Elena Christina Rojas was christened at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Nogales.

Danny invited everyone to the house afterward. Tess wandered through the rooms of their brick ranch, balancing her plate of blue corn tamales, apple empanada, and barbecued flank steak with her cup of punch. She now knew the exact definition of the word “beaming,” because Danny embodied it. His smile seemed permanently affixed to his face—pride, joy, and gratitude all wrapped into one. He stuck like a burr to his wife and his baby, his jokes a little less off-color.

His focus had changed. He was the same Danny Rojas who teased Tess and called her
guera
, the same Danny who looked for humor in every situation, but he now wore a mantle of fatherhood on his shoulders and Tess was acutely aware of it.
Father. Dad
. There was more to him now. Being a father was number one, just ahead of being a husband.

Tess threaded through knots of cops and friends and family, the low babble of voices, thinking that for all Danny’s wisecracks, he had this one very important part of his life nailed down.

He had someone.

He had two someones.

Tess had a new someone herself. Last week she’d visited Adele at the vet hospital and ended up paying the bill and bringing her home. Adele wouldn’t fit in Tess’s glass case of mementos, but she’d been precious to two homicide victims: George Hanley and Jaimie DeKoven, and was quickly becoming just as precious to Tess.

Peter Deuteronomy had somehow got wind of it and called her extension at work to offer her his extra coupons for PetSmart.

Tess walked out onto the patio, which had a view of the hills in Nogales, Mexico, and the golden grassland.

The sky an aching blue above.

It was beautiful out here—quiet. But Tess realized how tired she was.

She was haunted by nightmares. The violence she’d seen in Michael DeKoven’s house clung to her and would not let go. She’d always been good at compartmentalizing, always been good at filing things away. But Wade Poole beating Michael DeKoven’s head against the floor replayed constantly in her mind.

The sheer savagery of it left an indelible mark.

Meanwhile, Wade Poole was being treated better than ninety-five percent of the prison population. His brain cancer wasn’t advanced, and he still had days—even weeks—when he wasn’t affected by his illness.

Tess and Danny were still working to nail down all the murders the Survivors Club had committed. The killings spanned several jurisdictions—including New Zealand—but only one possible killing here in Arizona. The ex-soldier shot by a sniper. The DeKovens had been careful not to kill in their own backyard.

Brayden DeKoven was questioned but so far there had been no arrest. She’d lawyered up big-time. Tess thought they’d better hurry; the youngest DeKoven was certainly a flight risk.

Even on the incriminating tape of the family boasting about their crimes by the pool, she had managed to appear innocent. Tess had run the tape through her head many times: Jaimie and Michael drinking champagne, completely out of hand—and Brayden, trying to avoid the spotlight. Brayden, embarrassed by her drunken and drugged siblings, even shy—seemingly astonished at what they were saying. To anyone watching, it appeared that Brayden had just walked onto a strange movie set and had no idea what was going on.

That plain, innocent, sweet dumpling face.

There was a lot of ground to cover. Tess and Danny had no idea how many people had been killed by the DeKovens, but she guessed at least four, since one of the DeKovens had slapped the number five on Alec Sheppard’s chest.

She owed Alec a call. They’d been playing phone tag the last couple of days. She tapped in his number, and this time, he answered on the first ring.

“I want to catch you up,” Tess said.

It was a long story and it took some time.

Finally, they disconnected. Tess stared at the oak-covered hills of Mexico, cluttered with brightly painted houses that seemed to pile one on top of the other. Traffic whispered on the freeway below, but she listened for cars on the road outside Danny’s subdivision. She inhaled the sweet scent of star jasmine spilling over the parapet.

She heard tires on gravel and the sound of a car door opening and closing. Greetings inside the house, heard Danny’s voice floating out of the open sliding glass door. “I think she’s outside.”

Tess was aware that her heart was beating hard, pulsing in her ears. She hadn’t felt this way since grade school.

She turned to the doorway just as Max Conroy stepped outside to greet her.

THE END

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the experts who helped make this book a reality: John Cheek of Cops
’
n Writers; US Border Patrol agent Simon Keller; Ed Love, forensic firearm examiner; my wonderful husband, Glenn McCreedy, for his insights on cycling as well as his loving support; John Peters, weapon and skydiving expert; Sabine Peters, skydiving expert; Barbara Schiller, who helped me envision the DeKovens’ home in the Tucson foothills; William Simon, computer forensics expert and cheerleader, as needed; and Aleta Walther, San Bernardino County Parks Ranger and dear friend.

It takes a village to raise a book, and I am grateful to every one of the Thomas & Mercer team. Thanks to Courtney Miller, my acquiring editor, who has shepherded me through three books now, and to Kevin Smith, whose remarkable editing skills made
The Survivors Club
a much better story. And many thanks to the wonderful Thomas & Mercer Author Team: Danielle Marshall, Marketing Manager; Jacque Ben-Zekry, Author Relations (boy is she good at that!); Ali Foster, Merchandising; Reema Al Zaben, Production; Leslie LaRue, Marketing; Kaila Lightner, Merchandising; and Rory Connell, Marketing.

As ever, I owe a great debt of gratitude to Deborah Schneider and to all the folks at Gelfman Schneider who have helped guide me safely through the whitewater of publishing.

About the Author

GALEN EVANS

Hailed by best-selling author T. Jefferson Parker as “a strong new voice in American crime fiction,” J. Carson Black has written fourteen novels. Her thriller,
The Shop
, reached #1 on the Kindle Best-seller list, and her crime thriller series featuring homicide detective Laura Cardinal became a
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestseller. Although Black earned a master’s degree in operatic voice, she was inspired to write a horror novel after reading
The Shining
. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.