Traitor, The (19 page)
"I'm going to be there with you when you make the deal."
Rafe braced himself against the bathroom door, his fingers gripping the top of
the door jamb.
"No, I have to do this alone." Her face warm with
insistence, Bella ran a brush through her hair. "And besides, Santos won't
deal if you're there."
"He won't go for it anyway," Rafe argued, "and
if I'm there at least I can add some pressure."
"No," she repeated, turning back to the mirror.
Shirtless, the pair of shorts revealing his long legs, Rafe
glared at her. The flesh of his chest was burnished copper with dark tendrils
of hair curling around the middle and funneling downward to disappear beneath
his waistband. "He's got to know the feds will give him a better
deal."
"Santos knows the feds could send him anywhere in the
country," she countered, "and he won't go out of state. Besides, it's
my deal to make," she insisted stubbornly.
"That's stupid, Isabella." Rafe's dark brows
slashed in the middle of his forehead like sharp swords. "A man like
Santos is too dangerous for you to confront alone. Don't even consider it."
His bossy tone rankled her and she took a breath to lash out
when Rafe's cell phone buzzed on the dresser top. He held up a finger to
indicate they weren't finished with the conversation.
Eyeing her through the bathroom door, he barked into the
phone. "What?"
After a moment, he continued in a more controlled tone.
"Ah, Max, shit, man, I forgot to call you." He ran his fingers
through his hair and the ends stood up wildly. "Sure, yeah, whatever you
say."
He nodded, listened a moment, and then repeated an address
as he jotted it down on note paper. "Fine, I'll see you there."
He turned back to Bella. "Max," he said
unnecessarily.
"Your cop friend from L.A.?"
"Yeah, he split from his wife and flew up to get his
mind off the situation."
"Why all the way up here?"
"He was raised in northern California. I think his
family still has property somewhere. He gave me directions." He laughed
shortly, waving the note paper. "He probably wants a distraction from his
personal problems. Thinks getting involved in my case will help."
"Why is he helping you on the Vargas case?" she
asked curiously.
He shrugged a little too casually. "Max is an old
friend."
"Have you told him about Santos?"
"He knows there's a leak, knows you have someone who's
going to testify against Vargas."
"But he doesn't have a name."
"No," he said shortly, more angry with himself
than Isabella because he knew better than anyone that in the vault meant in –
the – vault. No one got to know anything. He followed her back into the
bathroom.
"Look ... I've known Max since fifth grade. He's not
the leak."
Her eyes looked sad. "Are you sure?"
"Hell, yes!" He raked his fingers through his
hair. "Maybe." He thought of the discrepancies over the last few
years, of how Max had been privy to everything – Lupe's identity, the
deliveries and pickups of the drugs – God dammit, everything! "Ah, Jesus
Christ!"
Instead of berating him as he deserved, she wrapped her arms
around him. "We don't know what's true yet."
"It's my business to know!" He hugged her tightly.
"But Max ... God, he'd have to be in some kind of deep shit."
"We can't do anything about it at the moment," she
whispered in his ear, kissing his lobe. "Santos knows how to take care of
himself. And as soon as he signs the plea agreement, I'll get him in protective
custody."
He looked askance at her. "You think he'll go?"
"Not gently," she laughed. "But he'll go. He
wants Vargas as much as I do."
"Really? Why?"
She shrugged and shook her head. "Don't know. Don't
care," she spoke into his mouth, "but after Santos is secured, you
can approach Max, discover the truth. If he's on Vargas' payroll, Santos will
give me his name."
She blew into his ear. "Right now I just want to put
the whole Vargas case behind us. Just for tonight." She deepened the kiss
and he let himself sink into the soft warmth of her face, her body and returned
the kiss until she was breathless.
They'd shed their clothes by the time they reached the
bedroom. As she leaned backwards onto the bed, he pulled her upright. "No,
I just want to look at you a minute."
He ran his hands over her breasts, reveling in the soft
peaks that hardened a moment later beneath his thumbs. His hands traced the
length of her waist and hips and traveled down her thighs nudging them apart
with his hands. He knelt in front of her and traced his tongue around her navel
and dipped lower. "God, you are so beautiful."
"Wait," she said. "I'm feeling grubby. Let's
shower first."
"I like that idea."
He stepped into the shower and adjusted the temperature and
spray, then pulled her in after him. He took the brunt of the pulsating water
so her hair wouldn't get wet.
She wrapped her legs around his hips and leaned her back
against the shower wall. "I can't wait," she breathed. "I want
you. Now!"
"Huh uh," he panted, "I want to bury my face
between your legs until you scream."
"Oh, God, don't talk like that. I'll explode."
"Then we won't wait." He thrust hard into her and
felt her core already tightening and pulsing around him, and a few moments
later he climaxed hard into her wet, slick body. The throbbing seemed endless
and he felt the intense clutching of her inner muscles around him for a long
time.
Afterward they washed each other slowly and languidly and by
the time they'd dried off, he was ready for her again. She turned the overhead
fan on to cool their still-hot bodies and they tumbled naked on the bed. He
slid down her body and lifted her knees around his shoulders, sank his mouth
into her sweet, hot center and kissed and teased until she cried out in
pleasure-pain. "God, Rafe!"
He rode her climax with his mouth and his tongue as she
gripped his hair and lifted her hips toward his face for greater access. She
came for a long time and he felt a possessive pride in giving her pleasure like
this.
He slid back up her body, turned her hips around, and sank
his face into her nape. Her hair formed a dark curtain around across the pillow
as he breathed in the scent of her soap and shampoo and sex.
One hand teased the now-sensitive nub and the other played
with her nipples. The hard, hot length of him pushed hard against her soft
hips, a fierce warrior demanding access to the castle. Jesus, he wanted to
mount her again like a stud horse after a filly in heat.
"Are you a filly?" he whispered, nuzzling her
neck.
"What?" Her voice was heavy with the drowsiness of
a body sated with sex.
"Are you up for another one?"
She must have felt the hard length of him against her ass –
how could she miss it? She giggled and turned around, draping one leg over him
and finally straddling his body. His cock lay pointing straight up for all the
world like a dangerous weapon.
"Shall I disarm you?" she teased, grabbing him
with her small hand and beginning a rhythm before bending over to wrap her
mouth around the tip of him.
He groaned and gave himself over to her ministrations,
banishing every thought of Max's possible treachery from his mind.
#
Bella applied her makeup with Max Jensen on her mind,
thinking how he and Rafe had a long history, but she barely knew the man.
Rafe watched her in the mirror, thinking about Isabella's
meet with Santos today. "Change your mind. Let me go with you when you
bargain with Santos. Please."
She shook her head, but kept her voice even, smiling gamely.
"I'll be fine. The wild beast likes me, remember?"
"That's what I'm afraid of," Rafe muttered. "Scarface
likes you too much."
"I'm counting on that to get what I want from him."
"It's a dangerous game you're playing."
He reached for her as she wrapped her arms around his
middle. He smoothed her hair back from her forehead. "Santos is like an
alligator. He strikes with cunning unpredictability when you least expect it.
You can't know what he's going to do from one minute to the next."
"I know what I'm doing." Bella allowed the
smallest note of exasperation to creep into her voice. "You have to trust
me on this."
Rafe glowered at her as she twisted out of his arms and
applied a final coat of lipstick. She half expected him to argue further, or haul
her over his shoulder and carry her off cave-man style to some imagined safety.
She braced herself for more discussion, but he simply stared
at her, a calculating expression on his face. As he spun around to leave the
bathroom and make his way through the bedroom where they'd begun the discussion,
she wondered what plan he was concocting.
Slipping on a robe, she caught up with him in the small
kitchen where he'd just poured himself a cup of coffee. She stood beside him at
the counter, reached in front of his large body and pulled down a mug for
herself. They stood silently side by side, him leaning against the countertop,
her facing the coffee percolator.
Rafe sighed. "All right. I won't force you to let me in
on the meet with Santos."
She smiled. "Good."
"Even though I could."
She merely lifted an eyebrow.
"I could take over the entire investigation. Make my
own federal deal with Santos. Get to him ahead of you."
She dropped her jaw. "You wouldn't."
Suddenly serious, he turned her to face him. "Yes,
Isabella, I would. If I thought it would do any good, if you wouldn't go off
half-cocked and do something reckless out of sheer stubbornness. But for now I'll
settle for you acting responsible around the thug."
The tone of his voice, worried and sympathetic at the same
time, warmed her. She leaned against him, drawing a little comfort for the task
ahead. She had to cut a deal with a monster in order to catch what was
undoubtedly a larger monster.
Santos was the devil incarnate. Of that she had no doubt. He'd
been responsible for the death and destruction of countless victims in his role
as legal counsel and enforcer for Diego Vargas' drug cartel.
But she had a personal stake in seeing that Vargas went away
for the rest of his natural life. She believed he had a hand in her sister
Maria's disappearance twenty years ago, even though she had absolutely no
proof.
"What are you going to offer him?" Rafe asked at
last.
"I'll take the death penalty off the table," she
answered promptly, knowing Santos wasn't the kind of man who'd submit to life
in prison.
Rafe shook his head. "He'll never go for it."
Bella shrugged.
"What do you expect from
him?"
"As much as I can get. Vargas and his connections for
sure, more if I can get it."
"For life without parole? Santos is a wild animal. He
won't let himself be caged like that."
She knew Rafe was right. She read the concern for her safety
on his face. "I'll be okay," she said, edging away. "Don't
worry."
Rafe captured her face in his hands, the long brown fingers
rubbing across her cheeks, the thumbs trailing sensually over her lower lip.
She caught his thumb between her teeth as she rested in the cradle of his
thighs.
"I'll be careful," she promised again. "I
won't let him trick me. I just need to get everything from him that I possibly
can."
"Don't let him hurt you, Isabella," Rafe whispered
into her ear, his breath warm at her temple. "I'll have to kill him if he
hurts you."
#
Rafe had no intention of letting Bella meet with Santos,
even in broad daylight, without sufficient protection. And that meant him
tailing her, along with an agent and a deputy. He figured what she didn't know
couldn't hurt her.
After dropping by the Sacramento field office, where he'd
enlisted another agent, he stopped at the hospital to check on Slater, whose
condition was much improved. The sheriff told Rafe everything he remembered
about the attack at the safe house.
Who else, Rafe wondered, had Vargas gotten his hooks into
early on and set up as an informant for the cartel? What other traitors led
secret lives of betrayal that'd gotten Luis Rodriquez and the girl Esperanza
killed?
After leaving Slater, Rafe secured his seat belt, started
the ignition, and swung his car onto the freeway, heading toward the courthouse
where he knew Isabella was pounding out the deal she planned to offer Santos.
At a gas station while Rafe filled up the car's tank, Max
Jensen called again. Rafe slipped on his sunglasses, merged with the traffic on
Interstate 80, and put his cell on speaker mode. "What's up, Max? Did I
forget something else?"
"Hashish, old man." Max's voice held an undertone
of forced conviviality.
The strain of his marriage must be getting to him, Rafe
thought, as a squiggle of uneasiness wormed down his back. "Are you okay,
buddy?"
"Nah, Hash, I'm a fucking mess."
Rafe attempted humor. "Just like my case, huh?
"Sounds like I came just in time to rescue your ass."
Max's tone didn't quite measure up to his words and Rafe made a quick decision.
"I'll be there in a few hours," he said and
disconnected. First he'd observe Bella's meet with Santos, then he'd attend to Max.
Thirty minutes later he watched Isabella leave her vehicle
and wend her way through the American River Parkway. If she was going to broach
Santos alone, he'd be sure to have her back.
The two men were shouting at each other, their voices loud
and vicious, certain to wake up Corazon who slept in the other room. Santos
clenched his jaw and tightened his fists until they became great sides of beef,
weapons to kill with a single blow.
When he stepped into Vargas' office, the noises ceased
abruptly. Diego planted his feet on the rug in front of his desk, his florid
face even ruddier than usual, a white dress shirt pulled tight across his gut,
and a blue-patterned tie choking him off at the neck.
In front of him stood Max Jensen.
"All I'm sayin' is you've got a traitor in your
organization." He punched his bony forefinger into Diego's chest.
"And I'm not fuckin' going down because you can't control your
cartel."
Santos stepped between the two men and nudged the policeman
aside. He took Vargas by the arm and led him to his great leather swivel chair,
then brought him a glass of water. "What's wrong?" he asked, turning
back to Jensen.
"Someone's going to name names," he grumbled.
"Dates, times, places – Christ, God! – everything!"
Santos knew the little ADA would not have released his name
to anyone she was not positive she could trust. Who then? "How do you know
this?"
"Never mind how I fucking know! Vargas' whole operation
is crumbling around him, and I'm not gonna be destroyed in the process!"
Santos took one step forward and not-so-gently shoved the
man into an armchair. He loomed over him, planting both arms on either side of
the chair. "How?" he asked again without raising his voice.
Jensen licked his lips as if he were thirsty. Santos knew he
was buying time and did not want to give his source.
At last Jensen sighed heavily "What does it matter
now?" He struggled to rise, but Santos' arms kept him bound to the chair
as if they were steel ropes.
"¿Cómo?"
Santos' voice was a deadly
whisper.
"Hashemi, the DEA agent, told me. Rafe Hashemi."
"Ah!"
Jensen peered around Santos' arm to catch Diego's eye.
"We've been friends since we were kids."
Santos took a calculated risk. "So tell us, Detective
Jensen, who is this great traitor who has infiltrated
El Vaquero's
organization? Who is the man with the
cojones
to attack a man like the
councilman?"
"I – I don't know the name yet," Max muttered.
Santos turned back to Vargas, spread his hands, and shrugged
elaborately.
"No puedo luchar al enemigo que no conozco."
Vargas' small pig eyes, flat and emotionless, stared at Santos
for several moments. Then he swung them back to Jensen.
"What'd he say?" Jensen demanded.
"'He cannot fight an enemy he doesn't know,'"
Vargas answered, bouncing his eyes back and forth between the two men as if he
could not determine who to trust.
"Verdad,
it is true. When you
hand me an enemy I can see, touch, whose blood I can taste ... " The words
spewed like venom from his mouth. "Then come back to me."
"I'm telling you – "
"Get out!" Vargas roared.
Santos followed the detective out through the gates to the
rental car parked just inside the drive. "When you discover who this ...
traitor is, see me personally." He flashed a warning smile. "Do not
disturb
El Vaquero's
peace of mind needlessly again."
He thought the detective would protest. Indeed, his fists
clenched and his eyes narrowed. "You tell Vargas to be careful," he
warned. "Some big shit's gonna hit the fan. I'm not having the turds land
on me."
Without another word, he stepped into the car and drove off.
Detective Jensen was now a huge problem, Santos thought. One
they would have to soon deal with.
When he returned to Diego's library, the man was pouring a
large glass of brandy. He devoured the drink in one gulp, swiped at his thick
lips with the back of his hand, and threw himself heavily into his chair.
"Get rid of that detective. He is more trouble than he's worth and I do
not want anyone to trace him back to me."
Santos stared down at Diego from his position by the bar.
"Are you certain? He has provided us with excellent information over the
years."
"Fuck, yes! And make it so the body is never
discovered."
#
The meet with Santos took place in an area off the American
River Parkway near Discovery Park. Bella left her car in the designated parking
lot and walked the short distance alone as Santos had insisted.
Several officers in plainclothes, probably handpicked by
Slater, waited in a copse of trees by an unmarked car. They looked armed and fiercely
protective, and she made them immediately.
Rafe had battled her over the location, the time of day, and
the lack of guards, but he appeared to have stayed away. Or at least kept well
hidden.
She'd made it clear that Santos wouldn't talk to her unless
he was certain he couldn't be overheard. Or recorded. She carried her cell
phone ready to speed-dial for help, and although she didn't feel completely
safe, she wasn't really concerned that Santos would harm her.
Killing an ADA was an audacious, but stupid move, and Santos
was too crafty to let emotion rule him. She was relying on that. In fact, she
suspected that it'd been Santos who'd kept Diego Vargas in check these last few
years.
Anyway,
El Diablo,
as she'd heard Santos called, had
made the contact this time.
At this hour of the day, the area was lively with bikers and
dog walkers, and Bella waited at the place Santos had designated. She heard him
before she saw his bulk looming through the shadows of the trees, even though
he trod carefully. She guessed he didn't want to startle her.
As he approached, he searched the area around them with
those fathomless black pits. He reminded her of the
gigantes y cabezudos
of the Spanish festivals of her childhood. His face had the same wooden
features of the papier-mâché figures as he patted her down, careful not to touch
her intimately.
Afterward, he began without preliminary. "I have
decided to tell you everything that you want to know."
Her surprise must have shown. "What caused you to
change your mind?"
His pause was so long, she thought at first that he might
not answer.
"I have been with Diego Vargas since I was a young man,"
he explained, "over twenty years."
At the word twenty, she jerked involuntarily, telling
herself the years meant nothing. Santos worked for Vargas twenty years; her
sister had been missing twenty years. It was nothing but coincidence, nothing
but an agony of decades for her and her family. And for Santos? She didn't know.
Bella shifted her stance, looked away. "So? What do you
want me to say? That you've worked for an animal like Diego Vargas for enough
years that you've become an animal, too?" She hadn't intended to vomit up
the pain so caustically.
A faint smile carved his beautifully damaged mouth, but he
said nothing.
"I've drafted a deal. Are you ready to look at
it?" she asked sharply.
After a long silence, he said, apropos of nothing, "I
have a picture. You look very like her."
Bella trembled and covered her mouth to keep from crying
out. She didn't pretend not to understand and was furious about the possibility
that a man like Santos had a picture of her beloved sister.
Silently she held out her hand while he reached inside his pocket
and placed a snapshot carefully in the center of her palm, closing her fingers
over the worn edges.
She peered at the photo, not really able to make out the
features. Perhaps it was a picture of Maria. Or it could be her mind playing
tricks on her.
"How did you get this?" she demanded.
"I will tell you that later," he said, "after
our agreement is complete. I can tell you what happened to her. I imagine that
information would be very valuable to you."
"I can't bargain with you for personal reasons,"
she answered even as her fingernails dug into her palms and the beginning of a
plan scurried through her mind.
"But you can bargain with me to get
El Vaquero.
Consider the information about Maria a bonus. And perhaps you will feel
generous enough to give me a bonus in return during your negotiations."
She knew he spoke the truth when he mentioned her sister's
name. "You bastard," she whispered as he retrieved the photo from her
lifeless fingers.
"Yes," he said, "that is true, for my father
never married my mother. Think about what I can give you. Not only Diego Vargas
but ... "
He spread his hands in an old-world gesture and smiled with
those beautiful white teeth, but the look in his eyes reminded her of a snake
ready to strike.
#
"Uncle Santos?" The voice over the cell phone was
small, quiet, and sounded very, very young and frightened.
Santos was shocked to hear Cory's voice on his cell number
because only Diego and a few close advisors contacted him by this means.
"Ay,
Cory, mi pequena muchacha querida. ¿Cómo estás?"
"Okay, I guess." She sniffled. She had been
weeping.
"How did you get this number, little one?"
"I have Papa's phone," she whispered. He could
imagine the small girl, slender and dark like her mother, hunched over the
phone, fighting back tears she could not quite control.
"Where is your papa?"
"He's sleeping. He snores real loud." She paused
and then rushed on in a tumble of words. "Uncle Santos, he's been drinking
... a lot."
"Where is he, Cory?" he repeated.
"He ... he's in my bed," she sobbed, "and I
can't go to sleep because he's so loud."
A rage wholly unfamiliar to Santos squeezed his chest. Rage
mixed with a helplessness also alien to him strangled his breathing.
Pinche
cabrón,
he ranted silently as he had many times before about his boss.
But this time, he vowed silently, the pig would be stopped.
#
Rafe followed the directions Max had given him to the house
in South Highland Heights.
Max greeted him at the door of a ramshackle stucco dwelling
whose lawn needed mowing and whose trim needed painting. "So, the Vargas
case is a mess, huh? Good thing I'm here to solve it for you."
"Yeah, man, I could use a fresh set of eyes." Rafe
looked around the porch landing at the general air of neglect and lifted his
eyebrows in inquiry. He knew Max was a neat freak.
"Uh, listen, this is my grandma's place. She's in a
nursing home, but her only son, my Uncle Brian, hasn't gotten around to selling
the house yet. He's letting me bunk here for a while in exchange for keeping an
eye on the place."
"Sounds great. I'm in that lousy extended-stay
motel."
"Hey, Hashish, why don't you grab your stuff and stay with
me? It'll be great, just like old times at Stanford."
Rafe hesitated, wanting to spend time with Isabella, but wondering
if they'd complicated matters by moving their relationship up a notch. On the
other hand, maybe distance would be good until the case settled.
He wasn't ready to share his feelings about her with anyone just
yet. Even with his best friend.
And, on top of everything, at the far back of his mind, that
little warning jiggled. "Hell, why not?" he finally answered.
He left Isabella a voice message, giving her details of
where he'd be, explained that his old friend needed him, and he'd contact her
after she sealed the deal with the informant. Caution made him leave out
Gabriel Santos' name.
This would buy him time, he told himself. He'd know when he
looked Max directly in the eye. His old friend couldn't lie straight to his
face and get away with it.
But the cold suspicion that maybe he'd been betrayed chilled
his heart.