Speak of the Devil (27 page)

He looked at her, looked at the wall, looked back at her again. “Carla.”

“My boss, Carla? Carla Martinez?”

“Yes.”

Anna’s hand dropped from his arm.

“We were working on a double-homicide case,” Jack said softly, “spending all our time together. Nina and I were drifting apart. After the baby, our sex life was close to nil. Nina was barely home, caught up in her own investigations. When we did talk, it was to fight. Except for Olivia, everything I did on a daily basis was connected to Carla. When Nina was threatened by MS-13, it was right after she’d learned about my . . . mistake.”

Anna suddenly understood Carla’s coolness when she learned Anna and Jack were together. Carla had always been very warm and supportive of Anna—except on the subject of Jack.

“How long did this go on with Carla?”

“I don’t know. A few months. It ended when Nina was killed. I could barely look at Carla anymore after that.”

Anna stared at him. How could all this history surround her, and she be unaware of it? She felt like a child walking through a park filled with flowers and statues, not realizing it was a cemetery.

“Were you ever going to tell me you dated my boss?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This was the worst thing I ever did. I cheated, and it killed my wife. At least, I thought it did. It’s not something I enjoy talking about.”

He hung his head and rubbed his temples between his thumb and middle finger.

Anna took a deep breath. She could chew him out, but what good would that do? Her rebuke wouldn’t be any more persuasive than four years of crushing guilt. He was human, he’d made mistakes. But his mistakes were in the past—and they were sins he’d committed against Nina, not her.

Anna had regretted that she didn’t know the younger version of Jack. But there were benefits, too. He’d made mistakes and learned from them. Those mistakes had shaped him into the man he was now, a man she trusted and admired. The man before her was wiser and better than the one who’d married Nina. And he was going through an incredibly hard time.

“I forgive you,” she said. She meant it, although she didn’t really have standing in this matter. “Sometimes good people do bad things. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”

He smiled ruefully. “You sound like a defense lawyer.”

“Don’t tell anyone downstairs,” she said. “You’ll ruin my reputation.”

“God, I don’t deserve you.” He traced her jaw with his thumb. The anger in his eyes was gone. He cupped both her cheeks in his hands. “I love you, Anna. So much.”

He kissed her with gentle urgency. When they pulled apart, he continued to cup her face, gazing down at her as if he were studying some rare and precious treasure.

“What’s our next step?” Anna asked.

“We go downstairs and ask Grace where I can buy a replacement table.” He nodded toward the sitting area. “Then we try to enjoy what’s left of our party. We’ll figure out the rest tomorrow. Together?”

“Together,” she agreed.

He took her hand, and they went back down to the party. Although their mood was grim, she felt closer to him than she had all night.

41

When Anna woke the next morning, they were in their normal sleeping positions, she on her side, Jack spooning her from behind. From the silence in their suite, Anna guessed that Olivia was still sleeping. Anna was a little hungover from the champagne last night, but felt safe and warm pressed against Jack. She turned to face him, expecting to find him sleeping. His green eyes were open. She wondered if he’d slept at all.

“I have to see her,” Jack said.

Anna’s heart skipped a few beats. “I’m not sure the Marshals will let you.”

“They’ll let me.” He spoke with the confidence of a man who’d been in law enforcement a long time and knew his way around an agency.

“She’s been hiding from you all these years. Maybe she doesn’t want to see you.”

Her words were unkind, but she wasn’t sorry. What she said was true. Nina didn’t deserve Jack, and he should be able to see that. And . . . Anna was nervous about how Jack would feel when he saw his wife.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to see me. But she doesn’t have much choice now.” Jack sat up and ran his hand across the stubble of his head. He looked exhausted but determined. “I want to see her as soon as possible. Today, if I can make that happen.”

“Today?” Her heart fluttered again. “She’s been gone for four years. Why the rush?”

“It’s hard to explain what it was like, living with the guilt. Now that I know she’s alive, I won’t be able to do anything else until I see her.”

She nodded but felt sick at the idea of Jack meeting Nina in some hotel room. In the years since Nina had “died,” Jack had practically canonized her—in his memory, she was the perfect wife and mother, dead because of his mistakes. Anna had never thought herself the jealous type, but, she realized, she’d never really been tested on that front before. She’d never loved someone as much as she loved Jack, or worried about losing him.

“I’ll come with you,” she said.

She could read the struggle on his face: He didn’t want her to come—but he didn’t know how to tell her. She smiled back at him. She wasn’t giving him an easy out. Finally, he nodded.

“Okay.”

She tried not to let him hear her sigh of relief.

They went through the motions of a “normal” hotel morning with Olivia. But it all felt different to Anna, like a routine coming to its end. How long could Anna play mother without telling Olivia that her real mother was alive? How long would Jack stay with her now that he knew his first wife was alive?

While Jack showered, Anna focused on talking to Olivia about school, making her breakfast, and packing her backpack. They went into Olivia’s room to pick an outfit, and Anna looked at the picture of Nina Flores that sat on the nightstand next to Olivia’s bed. The framed smile that used to seem sweet now seemed to gloat. When Olivia went to the closet to get her boots, Anna turned the frame around.

She helped the little girl put on her coat and her cutest hat, a knitted tiger with ears. Jack came out of the shower, clean-shaven and dressed. Anna gazed at the two of them, trying to emblazon the scene in her memory. This was her family. At least for today.

“Let’s take a picture,” Anna said. She set the camera to auto, pulled Jack toward her, and posed with her arms around the girl. “Someday we’ll want to look back and remember when we were a family living in a hotel.”

“Cheese,” said Olivia.

• • •

Anna drove Jody to the airport later that morning. The sky was gray, tossing down sporadic handfuls of rain. Anna had to keep readjusting the windshield wipers. She could feel Jody watching her worriedly. She told her sister the rough outline of Nina’s discovery—without mentioning the circumstances of her fake death, or the fact that she was in Witsec.

“I hate to leave you now,” Jody said.

“I’m fine.” Anna smiled as convincingly as she could.

Jody kept looking at her. “What are you gonna do, Annie?”

“About what?”

“You know what.”

“What’s there to do?”

“Stop playing dumb blonde. I know better. Are you gonna postpone the wedding?”

A wave of heavy rain hit the windshield with a clatter. Anna put the wipers on high. They swished furiously back and forth, slicing through the downpour.

“No.”

“Don’t you think Jack might need a little time to come to grips with this?”

“He hasn’t mentioned it.”

“Right, because men are so communicative.”

“Hey, just because Brent can only talk about the Lions and beer doesn’t mean Jack can’t speak up if he needs me to hear something.”

“Ouch.”

“Jo, I’m sorry.” Anna slowed the car and wished she’d put the brakes on her tongue instead. “That was terrible. I don’t mean to take this out on you. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re under just a little stress. Death threats, wedding planning, trial prep, ghost wives.” Jody looked out at the Potomac River, flowing dark and angry to their left.

They drove in silence for a while, each sister mulling how to get the conversation back on track, neither wanting to end the visit with a fight. The rain stopped, and the wipers began squeaking across dry glass. Anna turned them off and steered the car onto the airport exit ramp.

“What would you do?” she asked quietly.

“Me?” Jody said. “I’d do the wrong thing, that’s for sure.”

Anna pulled the station wagon to the curb in front of Terminal B. All the guys she’d ever dated flashed before her eyes, and the image was like the depiction of human evolution, starting with a chimp, going to a hunchbacked caveman, and ending with a tall man walking upright. Jack was the best man she’d ever known. She adored him. And the fact that they were getting married was a testament to her own evolution.

“I’m in love with him,” Anna said. “I’m not going to let him go.”

“Okay.” Jody nodded. “Then fight like hell to keep him. Whatever you do, I’ve got your back.”

“Thanks, Jo.” Anna blinked back tears. “I love you.”

“You, too.”

They hugged tightly, then hauled Jody’s suitcase from the back of the station wagon. A minute later, Anna watched her sister’s puffy red jacket disappear into the cavernous mouth of National Airport. She stood next to the car, letting the cold October drizzle spatter her face.

• • •

“I was supposed to kill her,” Gato said, pointing at Anna.

“Yeah, we got that,” Samantha said.

Anna noted the reassuring bulge where Sam’s gun was holstered by her side. Anna sat next to Sam in a conference room of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Across the table sat Gato and his newly appointed lawyer. After a long night of questioning by Sam and McGee, Gato had been arraigned in a sealed courtroom and appointed counsel this morning. The judge understood their purpose, and appointed a sharp-eyed lawyer named Seth Pinsky, who was known for being a good defense attorney for cooperators. Pinsky would secure the best possible deal for Gato, because the prosecutors knew Pinsky would help his client be the best possible witness: principally, making sure he avoided the temptation to lie, minimize, or cover up.

“So why didn’t you kill me?” Anna asked. “Why are you sitting here, talking to me instead?”

“I don’t want to kill anyone anymore.” Gato was bruised and handcuffed, but looked more peaceful than the night before. “I’m done with MS-13. I want to get back on the right side of things.”

Anna consulted her internal truth detector. After years of listening to people’s stories, she’d developed a fair ability to sort fact from fiction. She believed Gato was telling the truth now. If she called him to the stand at trial, he would be a terrible witness—she was sure he’d done awful things that a jury would hate. But he could offer testimony no one else could.

If the case went to trial, Anna and Sam would have to work many hours with Gato and his lawyer to prepare his testimony. Anna was not naive about Gato’s willingness—or ability—to tell the unvarnished truth. As valuable as it was to hear about a crime from an insider, a cooperator’s description of events could not be relied upon uncritically. He might embellish or downplay his role in the crimes; he might omit or have suppressed unflattering details; and he might offer self-serving or unbelievable justifications for his own actions. Gato’s testimony had to be scrupulously checked, probed, and tested against the other objective evidence.

“Okay,” Anna said. “So tell me about the people who want to kill me.”

They spent the day talking to Gato. He told them about how he became an MS-13 member. He told them about the various cliques in the area, and who belonged to which group. He spoke of shootings and robberies, assaults and rapes. He described his rise through the ranks of the Langley Park Salvatruchas, the gang’s operations, and their raid on the Monroe Street brothel.

“I didn’t know Diablo was going to cut the doorman’s head off,” Gato said. “But I wasn’t surprised.”

“Tell us about Diablo,” Anna said. “What’s going on with his face?”

“He did that to himself. It helps his power in the gang. I met him before he did it, back when he just looked like a man—and he still spooks me.”

“How did he do it?”

“Operations. He got a surgeon in El Salvador to do it for him. He had the horns implanted in his head, and his nose operated on. It took a long time to cover his whole face with tattoos. He got his teeth filed down.”

“It helps him because some people think he’s really the Devil and has supernatural powers,” Anna said.

“Yeah, but it’s more than that. Diablo always felt like he had the Devil in him. The doctor let him look on the outside like he felt inside.”

“How did he get to be so powerful in the gang? Was it just his appearance?”

“No.” Gato tapped his chest. “It’s what’s underneath. In a gang full of crazy fuckers, he is the craziest of all. You never know what he’s gonna do.”

“Did Diablo have anything to do with Maria-Rosa’s death?”

“He greenlighted her. He knew I loved her. Whoever killed her deserves to die.” He stared at the table, then seemed to shake himself. “For this kind of information, how much time am I gonna serve?”

“It’ll be a long time, and it depends on a lot of factors. But with your cooperation, it’ll be a lot less than Psycho and Diablo. And you’ll serve it in a jail for cooperators, out of the general prison population.”

“What if I could help you capture all of them—the whole gang?”

“The more you assist law enforcement, the more credit the court will give you.”

Gato looked to his attorney. “Go ahead, tell them,” Pinsky said.

“Thursday night,” Gato said. “Halloween. There’s gonna be a
generale
.”

“What’s that?”

“Big MS meeting. Not just our clique, but men from all along the East Coast. Diablo, and maybe a hundred homeboys will be there.”

“Where?” Sam asked.

Gato shrugged. “No one will know till the day before. And they won’t tell me if I’m in here.”

“Would you be willing to wear a wire?” Sam asked.

“Can’t wear a wire to a misa or
generale
. We strip. I told you, we’re not stupid.”