Second Chance Hero (16 page)

David checked his watch. Ortiz wasn’t going to let this go. He’d figured something out and he was looking for confirmation. David couldn’t give him what he wanted. “Look Ortiz, I know what you’re hinting at, but if there was anything going on you needed to know, you’d know.”

“Ah,” Ortiz smiled as he sat back in his chair, making it readily apparent he was in this for the long haul. “Maybe you should look at this a little more closely, David. Whether you want to admit it or not, we both know Lil’s involved in this somehow. You can tell me how or not, I don’t care. But in the last week Degas has suddenly started making mistakes, started letting us get close. He doesn’t do that, David. Ask yourself why he would change a pattern years in the making.”

David
had
asked himself that more than once over the last few days. And then he’d blown the questions off because he enjoyed the time with Lil. It was easier to accept that they were close to catching Degas than to see he was playing them all in some deadly game.

“I’m not much for coincidences,” Ortiz said. “And Lil’s name cropping up all over the place tells me something’s going on. Maybe now you want to tell me what that something is.”

Maybe he should. Ryan was so damn focused on bringing Degas down he’d put Lil in danger in a heartbeat. Maybe Ortiz did need to know.

Ortiz continued, “Something smells off to me about this whole thing. Something forced. Degas doesn’t operate like that. Unless he’s been pushed. I can’t help but wonder how Lil fits in there.
 

As Detective Ortiz spoke, David knew, he had to tell. Ryan was going to kill him. “She’s working with me.”

“You?” Ortiz didn’t exactly look surprised.
 

He was dead. “I work with Federal Agent Ryan Jamison. I’ve spent the last few years looking for the Degas-high school connection with the missing girls.”

“You’ve been working with the Feds.”

“Yep. Five years. On the side. On my own.”

“Like an independent contractor.” Ortiz’s voice was a combination of fury and incredulity.

“I think the proper term is lone wolf. But yeah.” Damn.

“And you brought Lil Palmer into this?”

“Not exactly.”

Ortiz was done with questions and answers. “Maybe you better tell me exactly what’s going on here Martinez.”

So David did. He told Ortiz about Rafe, about Ryan, about Lil refusing to leave.

When he was done, Ortiz was shaking his head. “I can’t believe this. I can’t freaking believe this.”
 

His beeper sounded and he looked down, frowned. “I’ve got to take this. You go get Lil. Bring her here. I’ve got to talk to the people who saw Nancy Valdez last night, but then I’m going to want to talk to both of you.”

David watched him leave and knew he was totally screwed. The Feds were going to shut him down. But worse than that, it was over. Lil was out of it. Their time together finished. And that hurt more than anything.

He stood, saw the message on his phone and knew it was from Lil. Yep. He frowned when he heard her voice.
 

The next message had him more worried.

He started out of the interview room at the same time Ortiz burst back in.

“You better come with me now.”

David’s heart dropped, his stomach rolled. The look on the detective’s face could only mean one thing.
 

Lil.
 

“What’s going on Ortiz?”

Ortiz confirmed it with his words. “Lil Palmer had an urgent call in to me. She reported to an officer on duty at the school. She’s not there now.”

No way. “What the hell do you mean she’s not there now?”
 

“She’s gone. She’s not in the building. But there’s a teddy bear sitting on her desk. Maybe you better start telling me the rest of your story.”

The car stopped outside an ancient building. Lil figured it was a church. Beside her Anna shuddered, her tears long since subsided.

The driver, a thuggy looking man in wrinkled desert fatigues, yanked the back door open, told them to move.

Lil shook her head, held Anna’s hand. Stared at Degas. “Where are we?”

Degas barely spared them a glance. Instead he spoke to the driver. “If they don’t cooperate, you know what to do.”

The driver sneered and Anna squeezed Lil’s hand, whispered, “I don’t want to die.” Her voice cracked on the last word. Lil didn’t know how to comfort her. She didn’t know what the answers were, but the man outside the door had a wicked looking gun, and she figured he’d use it with little provocation.

She stepped out of the car and prepared to do damage. No way was he going to hurt her or Anna without a fight.

Instead the man simply pushed them forward, told them to walk. Now that she was out of the car she could see the building was definitely a dilapidated church. One left empty for who knew how long. Empty but not unused.

She wondered if this was one of the churches Solidad wrote about. If the Hernandez family had used this church to help girls escape, or if Degas used this church to imprison them.

They walked through a side door and dust flew. The musty scent of decay and fear surrounded them. This church wasn’t abandoned. But it was no longer used for the Lord’s service.

Degas walked ahead of them and disappeared around a corner. Lil thought they’d follow his lead, but instead another armed guard, also dressed in fatigues, met them. This one leered at Lil, then turned his attention to Anna.
 

Beside her, the girl shrank as the men laughed at the possibilities for “this one” and then called her vulgar names in Spanish. Lil willed Anna not to listen, not to be afraid. Ryan, David, Detective Ortiz, all knew what was going on. They were close to breaking Degas. They’d ride to the rescue. They had to.
 

Unless Ryan was working with Degas. She cleared the thought from her mind.

The gunmen steered them toward a staircase and Anna stumbled, nearly falling. The driver yanked her upright, told her to be careful. They inched the rest of the way down the dark, dingy stairs, one tiny pink bulb serving as the only source of light in the narrow hall.

Lil almost laughed at the pink light. Somehow it seemed macabre in this setting. This clearinghouse for the girls Degas had taken, sold, who knew what else.

They reached the end of the stairs and the driver pushed open a door. The concrete floor echoed as they followed him down a hall, through two rooms to a locked door.

He reached to his belt, and the ring of keys jingled as he found the right one.

Lil prayed she and Anna weren’t separated. She didn’t want to go in the locked room at all, but if they tried to take Anna she didn’t know what she’d do.

The guard pushed the door open, stood aside and motioned for them to walk inside. As they passed, the guard brushed against Anna and the girl whimpered. The guard laughed, called her a whore and stepped back. Intimidation. Lil fought the urge to kick the guard, curse at him, yell for Degas to be a man, even though she had no idea where he was.

But to give in to the urge would only put Anna at more risk. Put her at more risk too.

The hallway they walked through now was smaller, darker, colder. The concrete slab echoed with the slap of their footsteps.

Beside her, Anna held her head high. Her chin trembled with fear, but she wasn’t giving in to it. Wasn’t letting the men behind them know how terrified she was.

Lil couldn’t imagine what Anna was thinking. She knew what she was thinking. She wanted to live. She wanted to escape. She wanted to do whatever Degas demanded to keep Anna safe. This was going to kill David. Kill him.

The hallway ended with another door. One of the guards pushed past them, opened it, told them to go, go, go, with a sweep of his hand. A cigarette behind his ear nearly fell and he grabbed it while his comrade in arms laughed.

Lil didn’t like the look on the man’s face. He was a bully. A bully now being laughed at. A bully with a gun and two helpless women. He’d been in the position before, and the women had disappeared. Were they gone forever? She put her arms around Anna’s shoulder, prayed, tried to find a connection with any higher power that might be out there. They needed a miracle. They were under a church. It fit.

They crossed the threshold and Lil blinked. The white light inside this room glared. In the corner she heard a whimper, a moan.
 

Oh dear Lord.

Nancy.

And then, Miguel.

She started forward to one or both of them but was yanked back by a heavy hand on her shoulder.

The guard shook his head. Cursed. Told her to hold out her wrists.

Beside her Anna was backing away from the other guard and his handcuffs. Shaking her head. “No. No. No.”

“Do what he says, Anna. For God’s sake do what he says.” Nancy’s pained voice filled the room and Anna stopped fighting.

The guard called her a good girl, leered as he clicked the cuffs in place. As he locked them to an iron post. One of twelve that ran from floor to ceiling. New. An addition to the macabre clearinghouse for human flesh.

Oh please God let David get here. David or Detective Ortiz or anyone
. They were close. They had to know. They had to.

The handcuffs clicked, pinched and she closed her eyes. Fighting now would get them nowhere. Nancy was right.

Once she was locked in place like so much chattel, the guards left. No comments. No promises or threats. They just clicked the door shut and left them alone.

She wanted to be happy, should be overjoyed. Miguel was alive. In this room with its Virgin Mary statue, its Crucifix, its twelve iron bars promising something vile. Nancy was alive too.
 

If they were alive, there had to be a reason.

She started to speak, but she didn’t know what to say. How do you reassure people held captive that all would work out?

“Ms. Palmer. I’m so sorry. I….” Miguel’s whispered words trailed off and a large lump formed in Lil’s throat.

“Oh Miguel,” she tried to sound confident. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. How could you?”

She didn’t add that he’d been right. That the authorities were close to breaking Degas. She couldn’t. Not yet. Not when she didn’t know. Not when Nancy could be a traitor.

Miguel’s face was bruised. His lips bleeding. One eye swollen shut. A tear rolled down his face and her heart broke seeing it.
 

“Is Rafe…”

She gulped back her own tears. “He’s safe.”

He had to be. That bear, it wasn’t Rafe’s. It couldn’t be.

Miguel nodded, told Anna he was sorry for her too. Once the guards left, David’s sister had started crying silently. Seeing Miguel so beaten, so sad, seemed to give her courage. She told him it wasn’t his fault. And then she turned to Nancy.

“I saw you at the concert,” she accused.

Nancy’s clothes were torn, her face dirty. One of her sandals broken. She hadn’t been beaten, but Lil figured there might be worse things than physical beatings.

“I was there,” Nancy said, sounding even worse than Miguel. “I was stupid. I was….”

Her voice trailed off and Lil knew then. Her friend was not guilt-free. Somehow she’d been complicit in this. In all of it.

“You thought you could mix with a man like Degas and not get burned?”

Nancy shook her head. “It wasn’t like that.”

“It was sure like something. Look at us, Nancy. Look at Miguel.”

Nancy didn’t. She turned her head away instead.
 

Had she been turning her head away all this time.

“You work with these girls. How could you?”

“How could I?” Her voice broke and she shook her head again. “How could I not? He’s taken so many. I thought…”

Lil bit her lip to keep from screaming at the woman sitting there looking so pitiful, so lost. She’d done this to herself.
 

“I didn’t mean for this to happen, Lil. I meant to find Miguel. If I found him, I thought I could find some of the others. That’s all. I didn’t help him take the girls. I swear I didn’t. He wanted close to you. That’s all. And I helped him there.”

“Me?” Lil couldn’t begin to imagine why. “What am
I
to these people?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy said. “He didn’t care about you until this week. But suddenly you were everywhere. I don’t know. I swear. Maybe it was because he thought Miguel and Solidad had told you the truth. I don’t know.”

The truth. She wanted to laugh, to cry. There were so many different truths and none of them added up. “But you knew Solidad and Miguel’s family were helping the girls. You knew that.”

Nancy nodded. “I knew and I wanted their help, too. You don’t know what it’s like. To watch them disappear. To know some are alive. We get phone calls sometimes. Hang ups usually. Two years ago a girl named Danielle called. Told her mother she was coming home. And then nothing. You don’t understand.”

No she didn’t.

But she knew Miguel’s family was dead. And she knew Degas got his power because people who feared or wanted something from him helped him.

Nancy was one of those people.

She turned her head away and found Anna composed now. The tears were gone. The face set in an impassive frown.

“My brother will be here.”

Nancy laughed bitterly. “We can only hope.”

Everything inside Lil stilled. Nancy wasn’t talking about a rescue. Not with that laugh.
 

“What did you say?”

Nancy shrugged, winced. “Your knight in shining armor. We can only hope. He’s near, don’t you think? He’s working with someone right? Or he’s investigating something related to Degas and he’s gotten too close. Degas wants David. There has to be a reason.”

Why would Degas want David? This was business. Nothing personal. Or maybe not. She looked hard at Nancy and wondered if her former friend was fishing for information to feed Degas?

“Degas is after David?”

“He has to be.”

And he’d get him through her and Anna.
 

She had to stop him.

Their door opened before she had a chance to figure out how.

Degas walked inside, a ring of keys clinking at his side. A silver gun at his waist.