Dial (14 page)

She walked toward Caylin, struggling to get the phone out of her pocket. “We need to have a girl talk,” she yelled in her fellow SG's ear. “Someone's calling.”

Caylin danced away from Pedro, and the girls headed for a semiprivate, semi-well-lit corner of the club. “What's the message?” Caylin asked.

“I don't know. . . .” Theresa yanked on the phone one more time, and it came free from the pocket. “But I'm never wearing these pants again.” She glanced down at the phone. Uh-oh. It was a text—from Danielle.

“Trouble,” Theresa said to Caylin. They leaned over the phone and read the message:

New evidence backup deployed

arriving 2100 hours

effect house arrest immediately

That was the sum total of the emergency message. It was both cryptic and terrifying—the worst combination.

“What the—” Caylin started. “Ohmigod.” She stared at Theresa. “Do you think this means . . . ?”

“Jo's theory,” Theresa confirmed. “She was convinced that there was more to the mission than we thought.”

“Which almost d-definitely means that D-Diva was telling the truth—” Caylin stuttered.

“And Chico is the Big Boss!”

The girls froze.

“Jo is home alone with him!” Caylin yelled. She glanced at her watch. “And 2100 hours is in . . . fifteen minutes.”

“We've got to find her!” Theresa grabbed Caylin's arm, and the girls sprinted toward the exit. Jo's life was in serious jeopardy . . . and she probably didn't even know it.

•  •  •

Click. Click. Click, click, click, click.
The gun hadn't gone off. Jo opened her eyes, realizing that she was still alive. Yes!

In front of her Chico was fumbling with the Longhorn. Oops. Apparently the pistol wasn't in the same prime condition it had been the morning the old man had used it to kill Judge Carreras. What a pity.

“Out of commission for too long, huh?” Jo asked. “Get used to it, Chico, old boy.”

She reached behind her and pulled a five-foot spear from the wall. In one fluid motion Josefina Mercedes Carreras whipped the spear through the air low to the floor and swept Chico's legs out from underneath him. A deep sense of satisfaction settled over her as she watched him crash toward the cement floor.

“Ohhh!” Chico grunted as his head hit the ground.

Bang!
The heretofore defunct Longhorn discharged one of its rare bullets—which landed in Chico's left thigh. His grip on the gun loosened, and it flew from his hand and landed several feet away from his body.

“Ooohhh . . . ,” Chico moaned in pain, writhing on the cement floor. “I'm hurt! I'm hurt!”

“A fine bit of symmetry,” Jo commented, taking delight in throwing Chico's words back in his ugly face.

She took a step toward the pistol and bent over to pick it up. But her hand froze. No. She couldn't pick up the filthy weapon that had taken her father's life.

Chico was staring at Jo's motionless hand. “Go ahead,
Josefina. Pick up the gun. Point it right at my heart. Or blow my brains out if you prefer.”

He was taunting her, daring Jo to sink to his own level. But she wasn't going to do it—she wouldn't give Chico the pleasure. “Forget it,” Jo said. “I'm not scum like you. I'm not a killer.”

Chico's face relaxed. She could read relief through the pain, and it infuriated her. “Aaahhh!” Jo screamed at the top of her lungs as she lifted the spear and held it over Chico's body.

“No!” Chico cringed in fear.

Jo let the spear drop to her side. “Psych.” But Jo's heart wasn't really into her faked attack. This was no joke. She was looking for revenge—and justice.

“I can get the authorities here in a matter of minutes,” Jo informed Chico. “This is it for you.”

Chico was holding his leg, muttering to himself. “A girl. A man brought down by a useless girl. . . . Oh, the shame.”

Jo glanced over at Diva, who had begun to moan. From this moment forward, she would think of her new friend as a sister. Truly, Jo owed her soul to the girl who
had had the courage to pick up the phone and call The Tower. Maybe now there was something Jo could do to repay that favor.

“I will be the fool for all to see,” Chico was blubbering. “Society will never again respect me. I will die in prison, a fool.”

Jo leaned over Chico, still wielding the spear. “I'll make you a deal.”

He stopped blathering long enough to look at her. “What is this deal?”

“If you vow that you and your associates will leave Diva and her family alone for the rest of their lives—that you'll never order revenge on them—I won't tell the authorities that I was the one who brought you down. I'll spare you the embarrassment.”

Chico nodded. “Yes, on my honor, I vow. Just do not humiliate me before my people.”

Jo stared at the pathetic old man in response. Let the Big Boss worry about his manhood for a few moments, she figured. Jo liked to see him squirm.

•  •  •

“Over here!” Caylin screamed. She and Theresa had just located the secret door.

Danielle raced to their side. “Here, people!” she cried.

Flashlights in hand, Caylin, Theresa, Danielle, and about twenty other American and Brazilian agents thundered down the stone stairway. At the bottom they rushed through Chico's private den and burst through yet another door.

“Jo!” Theresa yelled. “Jo!”

Caylin stopped short behind Theresa. Thank goodness. Jo was sitting on top of an antique desk, staring at a writhing Chico as if she were in shock—but by all appearance physically unharmed. On the floor Diva was lying down, her eyelids fluttering.

“Are you all right?” Caylin had run to Jo's side.

“I'm fine now. But I think Diva is going to have a headache in the morning.”

Tower agents flooded the small room, surrounding Chico. There must have been a dozen semiautomatic guns pointed at the monster's head. “I was shot!” Chico yelled.
“Some men ran in here and shot me before those brats came in!”

Caylin glanced at Jo. “Is that what happened?”

Jo shrugged. “Close enough.”

“Oh, Jo, we should have listened to you,” Theresa said, approaching Jo and wrapping her in an embrace. “You were right about Diva all along!”

“Let's go, Chico,” Danielle said. “We'll worry about the mystery men who shot you back at Tower headquarters.” She turned to the Spy Girls. “By the way, I spoke to Uncle Sam on the way over here, and he assured me that you're all getting a raise.”

Several agents hoisted Chico to his feet and more or less dragged him toward the door. “I don't know who they were. . . . They were wearing masks.”

“You'll have plenty of time to think about the shooters' identities while you're rotting in jail,” one of The Tower agents assured him.

Caylin knelt beside Diva as Chico's hysterical voice faded in the distance. “Diva? Are you okay?”

Danielle gently felt Diva's head, looking for signs of
injury. “I think she's going to be fine. But Jo is right—that'll be a nasty bump in the morning.”

Caylin turned her attention back to Jo. “Are you really okay? Chico didn't hurt you?”

Jo smiled. It was a small, slightly sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I really think I am going to be okay now . . . better than okay.”

Caylin grinned. At last, their friend had the answers she had been searching for. Now Jo could begin the healing process in earnest.

“Papá!”
Diva suddenly screamed.

Caylin whirled around. The man they had mistakenly believed was the Big Boss was standing at the door of the arsenal, grinning at his daughter. Diva sprang off the floor and launched herself into her father's arms.

“I am free,” he told Diva, holding her close. “At last, our whole family is free.”

Caylin felt tears well in her eyes and turned to look at Jo. There was a smile on Jo's face and tears in her eyes as she stared at Diva's reunion with her father. Finally—they had found a happy ending.

•  •  •

An hour later Theresa studied the faces of the people who had gathered in the conference room of The ­Tower's Rio headquarters. For the first time in days, she felt totally relaxed. Diva was sitting in between her father and Jo, alternately laughing and crying as the group pieced together the whole story of what had gone down—both during the mission and four years ago, the day Jo's father had been murdered.

“Chico wanted me to kill your father,” Mr. Sanchez—yes, she had finally learned Diva's last name—was saying to Jo. “He told me that if I didn't do the job, he would make life very hard for me and my family.”

“What happened?” Caylin asked.

“I saw Jo and her father, talking so happily with each other. I had a daughter—Diva—who was the same age as Josefina.” He paused to give Diva a brief hug. “Well, as soon as I saw them, I knew there was no way I could go through with it. I could not kill a man.”

“Go on,” Theresa urged him.

“Chico was waiting in the getaway car. He sensed my hesitancy, and he followed me to the car where Jo and her
father were sitting. Finally he came up behind me and shot Judge Carreras with that pistol.”

“I knew I had seen your face,” Jo said quietly. “But at the time I didn't realize that it was Chico who put the gun to my father's head. . . . Everything happened so fast that day.” Tears were streaming down her face.

“Anyway, as soon as he pulled the trigger, Chico ran away and jumped into the getaway car. I was left there to be arrested at the scene of the crime.”

Caylin continued to listen to Mr. Sanchez's story. It was a prime example of the truth being stranger than fiction. After Mr. Sanchez's arrest, Chico had hired a high-powered attorney. Between the lawyer, Chico's contacts in the Miami police department, and the truly insufficient evidence, Mr. Sanchez was eventually acquitted. After that, Chico had followed up on his promise to make Mr. Sanchez's life miserable. Since he had the real murder weapon, he swore that if Diva's father ever disobeyed him again, Chico would get in touch with American authorities and anonymously supply the missing pistol.

“But I have always been haunted by that day,” Mr. ­Sanchez said. He turned to Jo. “I don't know if you can
ever forgive me for being there that morning, Josefina, but I want you to know that I will live with the events of that morning for the rest of my life.”

Jo turned to Diva's father. “I forgive you,” she said. “And I think my father would have forgiven you too. Your family was as much a victim in all of this as mine.”

“I'm just glad that Mr. Sanchez had enough hard evidence to identify Chico as the real Big Boss,” Theresa commented. “If The Tower hadn't realized how much danger Jo was in from Mr. Sanchez's statements in jail, who knew what might have happened to our third Spy Girl?”

Jo smiled. “Don't forget those mystery men. They were there.”

Danielle frowned. “I'm not even going to go there. . . .”

“Let's focus on the fact that Chico's reign of terror is finally over,” Jo said. “I think we all have a reason to celebrate.”

Diva leaned over and hugged Jo. “You are all our family now,” she said, tears running down her face. “We are forever in your debt.”

Caylin hadn't realized that her own cheeks were wet with tears. All of their missions had been amazing. But this
one—it had been the best. Their week in Brazil was one the Spy Girls would remember forever.

•  •  •

“I feel truly peaceful for the first time in four years,” Jo said quietly. “And I think my dad would be proud of me.”

“I'm sure he
is
proud, Jo,” Caylin assured her. “He's probably watching us right now and smiling.”

After the post-post-sting debriefing, the girls had retired to a hotel close to the airport. They had changed into their pajamas, but all three of them were still wide awake. Especially Jo. She had come through this rite of passage intact, and she felt better for having faced the past. For the first time in four years, she felt that she could remember her father without dwelling on the tragedy of his death. And that was a gift for which she would always be grateful.

“I think we all learned a lot on this mission,” Theresa commented. “For instance, in the future, if Jo tells me I can trust someone, I'll listen to her.” She grinned sheepishly. “I can't believe I ever doubted Diva's sincerity.”

“We all did,” Caylin reminded her. “Let's face it. The evidence didn't exactly work in her favor.”

Jo was about to chime in encouraging words to Theresa when there was a knock on the door of the hotel room. “Let me guess. It's the Avon lady.”

She went to the door, half expecting to find one of Chico's emissaries waiting with a gun in his hand. Instead she opened the door and found an ultracute Tower agent.

“I have a little present for you girls,” he told them. “Courtesy of Uncle Sam.” He handed Jo a white envelope, then took off down the hall.

“What's in it?” Theresa asked, climbing off the bed. “Are we getting a bonus on top of our raise?”

Jo opened the envelope and pulled out three tickets. “They're VIP passes to the big Kinh-Sanh benefit concert that's going to be at Madison Square Garden next week,” she announced.

Caylin bounced excitedly. “New York, New York! Hey, you think this is another vacation?”

“Maybe.” Jo studied the tickets, a smile on her face. “Or maybe . . . we're about to start a new mission?”

“Fasten your seat belts, Spy Girls,” Theresa said. “I think we're in for another thrill ride.”

GAIA MOORE IS BRILLIANT AND BEAUTIFUL. SHE'S TRAINED IN THREE KINDS OF MARTIAL ARTS, HAS A REFLEX SPEED THAT'S OFF THE CHARTS, AND CAN BREAK CODES IN FOUR DIFFERENT LANGUAGES.