Traitor, The (10 page)

Chapter
Nineteen

The last time Isabella Torres had seen Santos face to face was
in Councilman Diego Vargas' office on a prior case. That meeting hadn't gone
well then, and she dreaded confronting the man again. Now he seemed even more
of a giant as he stood for arraignment while she watched from the rear of the
courtroom.

Nevada County had decided to press forward on the drug
charges although they were likely to be dismissed. Possession of the small
amount of marijuana, not repackaged in individual baggies for sale, was a
ridiculous charge, and in any other county wouldn't have been worth the court's
time. Bella could tell by the look on the magistrate's face that this judge
also didn't appreciate the waste.

A short, round attorney, expensively dressed in a black,
light-weight suit, stood beside Santos, dwarfed by his client. Santos dipped
his head to hear the lawyer whisper in his ear and then stood with military
precision, looking neither left nor right, but straight toward the judge's raised
podium.

"Your honor," the attorney intoned, "I
respectfully request the charges against my client be dismissed and ask the
court to sanction the aggressive actions of the sheriff's department in
bringing Mr. Santos here on these ridiculous charges."

Frankly, Bella agreed with him.

Judge Schwartz frowned, his florid face a study in
irritation, and after several moments of back and forth sniping between the
prosecutor and the defense attorney, he finally groused, waving his hand over
the podium. "Enough," he pronounced. "Time served and a thousand
dollar fine."

He banged the gavel and gave the defendant a hard look.
"Mr. Santos, don't let me see you in my court again. Case dismissed."

Santos shrugged inelegantly. His attorney whispered again in
his ear while the bailiff removed him to the back of the courtroom to await the
short return to the jail and his imminent release. Bella waited impatiently
through the tedious process, alternately pacing the sidewalk and sitting in the
small lobby. She didn't want to miss the opportunity to confront Santos head
on.

When he finally exited through the chain link fence, Bella
quickly blocked the way. "Mr. Santos, I'm Isabella Torres. I'd like a word
with you."

The black, flat eyes slid over her with less concern than if
she were a fly buzzing round his head. "See my attorney."

He moved around her, but she stepped in his way again. He
stopped inches from her so she was forced to crane her neck to look up as he
towered over her like a teacher over a disobedient student.

Narrowing his eyes, he raked his gaze down her body and up
again, as if he were undressing her. No, she amended, nothing so sexual, more
as if he were stripping her soul bare. She was grateful she'd worn four-inch
heels today, although it hardly put them on an equal footing.

Bella suppressed a shudder and returned his look
unflinchingly. When he examined her features more closely, for a moment she saw
some emotion flicker within those obsidian eyes, a struggle for memory, and
then recognition. It lasted a long ten seconds and then vanished. She shook her
head, certain she'd imagined it.

Looking at a spot over her head, Santos reached into his
breast jacket pocket and fingered a piece of paper. The ragged edges showed
from beneath his long, dark fingers.

After a few seconds his face split into a grin, wide, white
teeth flashing in his scarred face. "I have heard interesting things about
the young assistant district attorney who fights so daringly in court. What
does such a fierce warrior as yourself want with a humble Mexican man like me?"

They shifted aside to allow others to pass and Bella found
herself pressed nearly chest to chest with Santos. His enormous size felt
suffocating. "You're Diego Vargas' attorney, right?"

At his sudden scowl, she continued, "That isn't
privileged information. It's a matter of public record."

"Yes, I represent Mr. Vargas," he answered at
last.

"Mr. Santos," she mocked. "Are you sure a man
with the vile inclinations of Diego Vargas should be called 'Mister?'" She
hadn't meant to start so aggressively, but couldn't seem to help herself. She
despised Vargas, and by association, this stone-faced man who guarded him.

Santos' face went hard, a granite slab transposing his dark
visage. "You are speaking of my client, Assistant District Attorney
Torres," he reminded her. "What do you want?"

"Like I said, I want to talk to you."

"About my client?" he scoffed.

"Yes." She watched his face carefully, both intrigued
and repelled by the brutishness of his body, the intense stillness of his face.
Almost as if all emotion had been stripped from him, flayed off by a master's
cruel whip.

"Un hombre sabio no traiciona secretos."
Santos
said softly.

Bella clearly understood the phrase.
A wise man doesn't
betray secrets.

"Are you sure?" she asked.
"Algunos
secretos robarán un alma de hombre
."
Some secrets will steal a man's
soul.

Santos' eyes widened slightly before his carved lips smiled
and without a further word, he walked toward the parking area. She realized she'd
surprised the bodyguard, and she doubted he was often taken unawares.

She called a warning after him. "I can subpoena you,
Mr. Santos."

He paused, turned, and smiled grimly at her. "Perhaps
you should not call
me
señor,
either," he said then strolled
toward a dark gray BMW in the parking lot.

From her angle Bella could see him pull what looked like a
rectangular paper the size of an index card out of his jacket. He stared at it
long moments before he replaced it and eased his giant's body behind the wheel.
She continued to track the car until it made the turn toward the highway.

Diego Vargas was Santos' only client. She'd known he wouldn't
talk to her, but she'd tried anyway on the off chance that she could trick him
into saying something damaging. Instead, she'd tipped her own hand.

The drive back to Placer Hills passed in record time, and when
Bella arrived, she reported to Slater about the results of Santos' day in
court. Neither was surprised by the outcome.

She worked through lunch and beyond, ensconced in her office
on the second floor of the courthouse. Today was one of the few days she had no
court appearances and she wanted to take advantage to catch up on paperwork and
research.

A brief knock on her open office door caused her to look up
to see Agent Hashemi framing the doorway. Without preliminaries, he dove right
in, the accusation strong in his voice. "Why are you being so damn
stubborn about the drug case?"

"Well, hello, there, Agent Hashemi. And good afternoon
to you, too."

Torres made that little moue that Rafe had found endearing a
few nights ago, but which now just annoyed the hell out of him. "Answer
the question, Torres."

He sat down in the comfortable chair opposite her desk and
shook his head at the mess cluttered in front of her. How could she work in
this chaos? "Why are you digging in your heels?"

The look Isabella flashed him would've killed a lesser man,
Rafe decided, but even with her color high and her lips pursed tight against
her teeth, she looked pretty damn good.

"You haven't given me anything, Hashemi," she
answered mildly, continuing to riffle through papers. "Not a damned thing.
So tell me how I'm the one who's being stubborn."

He shrugged his shoulders and shifted in his seat. "Okay,
what do you want to know?"

She thought a moment, staring through the doorway into the
dimly lit hall and the rickety elevator. He could see the wheels turning in her
head and almost laughed. She wouldn't appreciate the humor in her bargaining
for information he planned to give her anyway.

"I want to know what you found in that alley."

He smiled to himself. It had to be hard for her to mention
the alley and conjure up images of the night they met. "Blood."

"Blood?"

"Yeah, you know, that red, viscous liquid?"

"I know blood," she snapped. "Whose?"

"Ex-con by the name of Morris Sullivan."

"Oh." That stopped her for a minute. "I don't
know the name. Is he dead?"

"Don't know. We can't find a body." He looked
away, thinking of Lupe's mangled torso.

She pounced on his hesitation, probably thinking he was
holding back. "What else aren't you telling me?"

"The human blood was covered up with animal blood."

"Someone didn't want you to know about Sullivan." It
wasn't a question, and he liked how her mind wrapped around the problem so
fast.

"I thought maybe your office could tie Sullivan back to
Diego Vargas," he suggested, getting up and casually walking around the
office, noticing how much more spacious it was than Sheriff Slater's.

"Sullivan, that's Irish." Bella frowned, concentrating.
"You think a white ex-con would be mixed up with the Mexicans?"

"Strange things happen in prison."

She nodded as if she'd just come to some important
understanding. "Is that why you told me about the blood in the alley? Because
you wanted my help on Sullivan?"

"Yeah, probably." He grinned unrepentantly. "I'm
pretty much a bastard."

"That's what I figured," she said, but with a
smile that made his heart skip a beat or two.

Rafe tried again, this time gentling his voice because he
sensed something grievous under the surface of her smooth façade. "Why are
you so hell bent on ignoring the drug case, Torres, when it's much easier to
prosecute than human trafficking?"

She lowered her eyes, but not before Rafe saw a flash of
pain in them.

"Okay, never mind about that," he said, unwilling
to probe into whatever had caused that distress, unwilling to hurt her more.
Time enough to pour salt in the wounds later, he thought. "How about
another
quid pro quo?"

She raised those dark chocolate eyes to meet his and from
his higher position he noted how they were lushly surrounded by thick black
lashes.
Aha, a spark of interest.

"What do you have in mind?"

"Tell me what happened at the Santos arraignment."
The Nevada court proceeding was information he could easily obtain, but he
wanted to broker a truce with her. Five minutes later, she'd given him the
shortened version, but he didn't mind. He still believed any information about Santos
wasn't significant enough to pursue.

"I think Santos is the key," she said, completely
upsetting Rafe's train of thought.

He perched on the edge of her desk and leaned forward. "How
so?"

"Santos is the attorney of record." She held up
her fingers one at a time. "He's been with Vargas a very long time. He's
moved from thuggish bodyguard to closest confidant. We should be tailing Santos
as closely as we follow Vargas."

Rafe considered. "If there are secrets, you think
Santos will know where the bodies are buried?"

She nodded, started gathering up her papers and stuffing them
into a battered briefcase. The top of her desk remained as cluttered as when he'd
walked in, but Torres seemed ready to call it a day.

An impulse he'd no doubt later kick himself for took over
his brain and the words tumbled out of his mouth before he had time to
reconsider. "How about we get a late dinner?"

She glanced at the clock before saying, "Oh, I don't
know if that works very well for us, Hashemi."

"Why's that?" he pressed.

She walked to the door where he trailed her out and watched
her lock up. "Because every time we eat or drink together, we fight."

"Not every time, Torres." He grinned and watched
the flush creep up her neck to paint her pretty cheeks a dusky rose beneath the
golden skin.

Chapter
Twenty

The leggy blonde staggered out of the downtown Sacramento
bar ahead of the guy, groped in her jacket pocket for her keys, and pressed the
unlock button on the brand new, silver Lexus. All riiiight, he thought, this
babe has green. Or else Daddy does. Slightly less drunk than the girl, the guy tried
to wrestle the keys from her grip.

"Nuthin' doin,' pretty boy," she laughed and then
hiccupped loudly. "Oops, sorry." She burst into a series of giggles
that both of them found hilarious.

"Hey," he warned, "it's your ride."

"Damn straight. Come on, Shel," she urged the
dark-haired girl just coming out of the bar. The brunette tottered on
alarmingly high heels. "Thas right, girl, get going."

The second girl – Shelby, the guy thought her name was –
climbed into the back of the Lexus and immediately stretched out on the seat.
For some reason the blonde – what the hell was her name? – burst into another
round of laughter. Come to think of it, the whole situation was pretty hilarious.

The blonde climbed into the driver's seat and fumbled with
inserting the key into the ignition. "Damn key. Whas wrong?"

After a few tries she made it, and by this time, the guy had
settled into the passenger seat and hooked up his seat belt. The broad wasn't
sober enough to drive and he didn't want to be scraped off the asphalt. This
reminded him of the drunk driving video they'd watched in high school –
Red
Asphalt
– which he'd found unbelievably comical, and he started laughing
again.

The blonde looked so adorable trying to figure out what to
do next with the car that he reached over and kissed her soundly on the mouth,
sticking his tongue hard between her lips. God, he hoped he could get it up
with all the booze in his system. Shame to miss doing this one.

The girl in the back seat started to snore softly as they
peeled away from the curb on Sixteenth Street. The blonde got a dozen or so
blocks from the bar without an accident and approached the onramp.

They'd left the bar before midnight, too early to call it a
night. "Hey, I got an idea," the guy said. "Take the next ramp,
no, not there, next one." He directed her south on Interstate 80, and they
lurched onto the freeway. "I just 'membered where we can get some really
good smack."

"Oh yeah, baby, I like that idea," she said,
running her hand up his thigh and lingering over his crotch.

God, he really hoped he could keep a hard-on. Maybe the H
would help. After turning east on Highway 50, he directed her to the Folsom
turnoff and pointed the way toward a middle-class neighborhood in an older
section of Folsom.

When they arrived at the blue-trimmed stucco house shrouded
in shrubbery and barely visible from the street, he stumbled from the car and
lurched toward the porch. No light on. These people liked to stay under the
radar.

A few minutes later, he made the exchange and returned to
the Lexus. "Babe, this is primo H. You'll like it."

"Where to?" she asked, staring at the white
glassine packets.

"Turn right onto Auburn-Folsom. Let's go to the lake."

"Great plan," she said, starting up the car. "Beale's
Lake, right?"

Twenty minutes later they pulled up to the barricaded
entrance gate at Beale's Lake, and the girl – Joanie was her name, he suddenly
remembered – parked the car in the turnabout. They left Shelby in the backseat
of the car sleeping off her drunk, and hauling a blanket out of the Lexus'
trunk, walked the short distance to the beach.

They spread the blanket on the sand near the water. The lake
was closed at this hour and the beach deserted. He used to come here all the
time when he was a teenager. The park was closed, but he knew the rangers
hardly ever bothered anyone unless they built an unauthorized fire on the
beach.

After settling down, the guy produced the packets and
prepared the heroin for snorting. Then they both lay back on the blanket and
looked at the night sky. In minutes he could feel his heart rate slow down and his
blood pressure drop. Euphoria swept over him like a warm blanket, a surge of
pleasure that was better than sex.

He glanced at Joanie, but she'd already closed her eyes. God,
this was great stuff. He thought he said the words aloud, but wasn't sure.

When he looked over at Joanie again, he saw her lips had
turned blue and her body was very pale in the light from the moon. With effort
he propped himself on an elbow and opened her lid, looked at the pinpoint
pupils. Damn, she probably wasn't used to the good stuff. Was she going into a
coma?

Fuck, he thought mildly, but couldn't bring himself to get
worked up about it. Why was this his problem? He didn't know how to do CPR, so
what the hell could he do?

Anyway, he didn't want anything to interfere with the
melting away of all his troubles. He lay back down and stared at the stars,
feeling the girl's body begin to tremble next to him.

As she convulsed, he wondered why she was bumming his high.

#

"Not every time," Rafe repeated as he followed Isabella
to the elevator. He remembered the night she had spent in his apartment, the
excitement and thrill of all that soft fullness and warm passion against him. He
knew she was thinking the same thing by the way she avoided his eyes.

He shook his head and warned himself off. It was just as
well she'd refused his dinner invitation. "Suit yourself," he said
with as much nonchalance as he could muster when she refused a second time.

She cleared her throat and jabbed at the button. They
stepped into the elevator and rode down to the first floor in silence.

The antique old Otis was slow as molasses in January and
Rafe couldn't wait to hit the bottom floor and head back to his motel, but
after they'd gone through the metal detectors and said goodnight to the on-duty
guard, Isabella's voice stopped him.

"I guess I have to eat," she muttered, sighing
theatrically, "but you'd better not fight with me again."

He laughed, relief and trepidation mixing together as he
wondered what the hell he was getting himself into.

They decided to take her car, but as they walked toward the
parking lot, she turned to him. "You know, I'm not all that hungry." She
looked up at him from beneath impossibly thick lashes. "How about I fix us
something light at my house? Would that work for you?"

He hesitated. That would more than work for him, although he
wasn't sure being alone with her was a good idea. She probably wanted to worm
more information out of him.

Before he could think better of it, his maverick tongue
overrode his brain. "Sounds good. I'll follow you in my car."

Isabella pulled her car into an attached garage to the left
of a neat, bungalow-style home in Placer Hills, a few miles from the courthouse.
Rafe parked his on the street and walked up a long path of flagstones across a
deep, beautifully tended lawn to meet her at the porch landing. Riotous with
color, rose bushes lined the front of the house and what looked like every
space possible.

The front double-doors had impressive stained glass windows
from waist high up to the top. Too easy to break into, Rafe thought, but inside
the foyer, Torres coded numbers into what looked like a sophisticated alarm
system.

The front entry opened into a long hall, a huge great room
to the right and the kitchen to the left where she headed after hanging their jackets
in the entry closet. He wandered down the hall, examining the small, one-story
house, two bedrooms and a bath angling off to the right and what looked like a
master bedroom and bath, along with a small utility room, to the left.

The kitchen was small and cozy, a recessed window over the
sink looking out over all the crazy colors of her front landscaping. She would
enjoy standing there and looking out at the mass of flowers, and he briefly
imagined her dressed in skimpy night clothes, her hair mussed up and drinking
her morning coffee.

While Isabella prepared several turkey and cheese
sandwiches, Rafe leaned against the stove beside her and admired the taut
stretch of her breasts beneath the filmy blouse. When she bent over to retrieve
potato chips from a lower shelf, he watched the play of her ass beneath her
slacks and thought of gripping the firm flesh with his hands.

A sharp image of his hands and mouth on her, his fingers deep
inside her slapped him back to reality. He shifted uncomfortably and moved to
sit at the table in the small kitchen alcove while she brought the sandwiches
on plain white plates which she set on floral placemats.

"Why don't you get the drinks?" she asked as she
reached for glasses in a high cupboard.

He looked inside the refrigerator. "Beer or soda?"

"I'll take soda." She filled the glasses with ice
from the ice-maker and smiled at him. "Anything wrong?" Her voice
sounded too innocent for her not to be aware of how his damn body reacted to
her.

He shook his head and plopped down the cans on the table. They
ate quickly and discussed the case for a while in the kitchen.

Afterward they moved to the great room where several deep
sofas in a natty fabric and a wide-screen television decorated the high-beamed
room. "Wow, look at that puppy."

She grinned. "My single indulgence."

"Funny," he said as they took their seats on the
sofa facing the screen, "you don't seem like much of a TV watcher."

"Oh, I'm an avid sports fan – the Forty-Niners, the
Lakers." She laughed. "A gift from my dad and three older brothers."

"Who'd have thought?"

He turned to face her and placed his arm along the sofa
back. She kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet underneath her. Music she
had turned on earlier wafted from the stereo system on the far wall.

In the dim light, she looked soft and vulnerable. They
listened to the sounds of Ella and Louie on the stereo. Obviously her tastes
ran to jazz.

Later, they watched the news and then Letterman. Rafe found
he enjoyed just sitting quietly with her, a sharp contrast to the physicality
of their initial meeting. Finally he dared bring up the sensitive issue between
them. Why was her stance on the human trafficking charges so much stronger than
on the drug trafficking? Hell, what did it matter what they got him on as long
as they put that scum Diego Vargas away?

Her voice muted and quiet, she made the usual moral argument
about the destruction of innocent young girls. The degradation of woman and the
heinous reality of abuse, rape, and sodomy. But Rafe intuited that there was
much more that she wasn't saying. "What else," he murmured, "what
else drives you like this, Isabella?"

At first he was sure she wouldn't answer him, but then her
voice hitched in her throat and she spoke so low he had to tilt his head
forward to hear. "I had a sister once – Maria."

When she didn't go on, Rafe asked, "What about Maria?"

Long moments followed in which Bella stared across the room,
tension in every line of her face and body. "She disappeared. Maria went
on a trip to Mexico for her high-school graduation, and she never came back."

"And you think – "

 She interrupted him, angry tears in her eyes which she
tried to dash away with trembling fingers. "I don't know what I think,
Hashemi. All right? I just don't know."

Fat tears rolled silently down her cheeks, her beautiful
mouth trembled so that the only thing he could do was cover it with his own. He
swore his only intention was to comfort her, nothing more, but she groaned as
his lips touched hers and answered his kiss with a responding hunger that flamed
the fire.

He ground his mouth into hers, ran his fingers through her
thick hair, pulling out the pins that held it up, and tangled his fingers in
the soft thick curls. He kissed her neck, pressing his mouth down her flesh
until he got to the top of her blouse.

He undid the first two buttons to run his fingers along the
swell of her breasts at the top of her brassiere. When he followed with his
mouth, he felt her shudder in his arms and wondered if she'd climax from just
this much. He felt the painful, hard thrust of his erection against his slacks
and pulled her onto his lap, continuing his assault on her mouth and neck. God,
she felt so good, tasted so delicious.

Bella squirmed in his lap and he knew she could feel the
hard, hot thrust of him against her ass. He reached inside her bra and caressed
one breast, lightly pinching the nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She
moaned and began her own assault of his jaw and neck.

He flipped her on her back and quickly ripped off his shirt
and undershirt before he stretched out on the sofa, half covering her body with
his own. He framed her face with his hands, holding himself off her body with
his elbows. His breathing was labored and unsteady.

"What are we doing here, Torres?" he muttered.

"I don't know. I don't care," she answered, eyes
closed as she kissed him hard, her tongue smooth and urgent in his mouth.

God, she was like a drug. He couldn't keep his hands off
her, couldn't leave her alone. He wouldn't be satisfied until he was deep
inside that sweet, soft body, until he pounded away at her like –

An annoying buzz sounded in his pants pocket.