family.”
Navarro kept his fury bottled. He tried to remind himself that Walker wasn’t a useless worm. Navarro had hired him and his men on a handful of previous occasions, years back when he was still Navarro as well as more recently, in his new guise as Nacho, one of Navarro’s lieutenants “from the old days.” The American had always come through. Navarro needed to keep him on track just a little longer—at least, until he could take over himself, which he now realized he’d need to do.
“All right, you want to pull out, I understand. But I still have the second half of your payment, which I’m sure you’d like to collect.”
“And I have a package here I’m sure you’d also like to collect, amigo . Am I right?”
Navarro bristled at the man’s insolence, but Walker was right. He had something Navarro wanted, something he wanted badly. “Agreed. How about this then? Do one last little thing for me, and you’ll get paid in full.”
The man didn’t take too long ruminating over it. “What?”
“Just find them. Find out what happened to the woman, and find Reilly. I don’t need you to do anything more than that. Just find them and tell me where they are. I’ll take care of the rest. Do we have a deal?”
Walker demurred for a moment, then said, “Fine. I’ll have a lock on their location by tomorrow night.”
SUNDAY
13
T he pickup was, well, awkward.
Tess’s plane landed pretty much on time, and I was there waiting for her after leaving Alex with Jules, who turned out to have the gentlest of manners with him, no doubt aided by a smile that should be designated as a global warming hazard, and spending most of the morning at SDPD’s shiny headquarters on Broadway, going through their mug shot database and working with a police sketch artist to come up some visual cues to put out there. Tess was one of the first off the plane, walking briskly and trailing a small roll-on, and although she looked like a summer breeze on legs in her light linen dress and with her bouncy hair, it only took our eyes to meet for me to see the tense undercurrent that was bubbling underneath.
We hugged and kissed quite perfunctorily, like a couple whose marriage had passed its sell-by date. We limited ourselves to some superficial chit-chat about Nevada and the flight as we made our way out of the terminal, where I got hit by a combo of the furnace-blast midday heat and the memory punch of, yet again, treading the same sidewalk Michelle had died on less than twenty-four hours earlier.
It was all still too raw for me. I’m pretty sure Tess caught the look on my face as I glanced at the pavement, but she didn’t ask about it and just stayed with me as I led her to the parking lot. The bureau had arranged a loaner for me to drive around in, a Buick LaCrosse that, if you could overlook its unfortunate name with its oh-so-idiosyncratic capital C , was a pretty decent car.
I was stowing Tess’s bag into its trunk when I felt her hand on my arm.
“I’m really sorry for your loss, Sean.”
Her hand slid up my arm and guided me around to face her. I pulled her close and kissed her, a sudden, deep, starved kiss that just as quickly felt a bit weird to me. I found myself pulling away gently and hugged her instead, avoiding her eyes and cradling her head against my shoulder. We stood there like that for a long moment, without saying anything, then I finally said, “I’m really glad you’re here.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” she half-smiled.
I gave her another kiss, still too brief, and we were on our way.
She asked me about Alex, about how he was doing. The kid was in bad shape. He’d spent the night next to Jules, waking up intermittently with night terrors every couple of hours, one of which had caused him to wet himself. Much as I was desperate to be with him and help him through this, I could still see his discomfort every time I tried to get close to him, and I’d decided to pull back and
Navarro kept his fury bottled. He tried to remind himself that Walker wasn’t a useless worm. Navarro had hired him and his men on a handful of previous occasions, years back when he was still Navarro as well as more recently, in his new guise as Nacho, one of Navarro’s lieutenants “from the old days.” The American had always come through. Navarro needed to keep him on track just a little longer—at least, until he could take over himself, which he now realized he’d need to do.
“All right, you want to pull out, I understand. But I still have the second half of your payment, which I’m sure you’d like to collect.”
“And I have a package here I’m sure you’d also like to collect, amigo . Am I right?”
Navarro bristled at the man’s insolence, but Walker was right. He had something Navarro wanted, something he wanted badly. “Agreed. How about this then? Do one last little thing for me, and you’ll get paid in full.”
The man didn’t take too long ruminating over it. “What?”
“Just find them. Find out what happened to the woman, and find Reilly. I don’t need you to do anything more than that. Just find them and tell me where they are. I’ll take care of the rest. Do we have a deal?”
Walker demurred for a moment, then said, “Fine. I’ll have a lock on their location by tomorrow night.”
SUNDAY
13
T he pickup was, well, awkward.
Tess’s plane landed pretty much on time, and I was there waiting for her after leaving Alex with Jules, who turned out to have the gentlest of manners with him, no doubt aided by a smile that should be designated as a global warming hazard, and spending most of the morning at SDPD’s shiny headquarters on Broadway, going through their mug shot database and working with a police sketch artist to come up some visual cues to put out there. Tess was one of the first off the plane, walking briskly and trailing a small roll-on, and although she looked like a summer breeze on legs in her light linen dress and with her bouncy hair, it only took our eyes to meet for me to see the tense undercurrent that was bubbling underneath.
We hugged and kissed quite perfunctorily, like a couple whose marriage had passed its sell-by date. We limited ourselves to some superficial chit-chat about Nevada and the flight as we made our way out of the terminal, where I got hit by a combo of the furnace-blast midday heat and the memory punch of, yet again, treading the same sidewalk Michelle had died on less than twenty-four hours earlier.
It was all still too raw for me. I’m pretty sure Tess caught the look on my face as I glanced at the pavement, but she didn’t ask about it and just stayed with me as I led her to the parking lot. The bureau had arranged a loaner for me to drive around in, a Buick LaCrosse that, if you could overlook its unfortunate name with its oh-so-idiosyncratic capital C , was a pretty decent car.
I was stowing Tess’s bag into its trunk when I felt her hand on my arm.
“I’m really sorry for your loss, Sean.”
Her hand slid up my arm and guided me around to face her. I pulled her close and kissed her, a sudden, deep, starved kiss that just as quickly felt a bit weird to me. I found myself pulling away gently and hugged her instead, avoiding her eyes and cradling her head against my shoulder. We stood there like that for a long moment, without saying anything, then I finally said, “I’m really glad you’re here.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” she half-smiled.
I gave her another kiss, still too brief, and we were on our way.
She asked me about Alex, about how he was doing. The kid was in bad shape. He’d spent the night next to Jules, waking up intermittently with night terrors every couple of hours, one of which had caused him to wet himself. Much as I was desperate to be with him and help him through this, I could still see his discomfort every time I tried to get close to him, and I’d decided to pull back and
Similar Books
