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EVERYONE SAT A LITTLE straighter when Manny announced the incoming call from Fozzie. Had they located Rambler? Manny grabbed a sheet of paper and took notes.
Not putting the call on speaker? The glances exchanged around the table said Fish wasn’t the only one who wanted to hear both sides of the conversation, although Manny’s side was mostly Roger.
“ETA four hours.” Manny put the phone down and met each one’s eyes in turn. “Grab your gear, assemble at Blackthorne Five. We’ll finish briefing en route.”
Go bags in hand, Dapper Dan, Scrooge, and Fish scrambled for the door. Manny followed. Was he going with them? Usually, he ran things from HQ. Was it because they were going after one of their own? Or was it a matter of available manpower?
Telling himself it didn’t make a damn bit of difference, Fish hoisted himself into the helo and took a seat, grabbing a headset from the seat pocket. He settled it over his ears, then fastened the harness. Cheese was in the pilot’s seat. Manny took the copilot’s station.
Seconds later, Hotshot and Olivia jumped on board. Both looked rested and relaxed, no signs of Olivia’s injuries. From the way the two looked at each other, Fish wondered if Hotshot had joined Olivia on her enforced R and R.
If Fish had had doubts about the lengths Blackthorne would go for one of their own, they dissolved like the sugar Nana put in her coffee. They were covering all contingencies. Scrooge’s specialty was a sharpshooter, and both Hotshot and Olivia had medical training.
Once they were airborne, Manny’s voice came through Fish’s headset.
“According to T-Bone, via his limited opportunities to communicate with Fozzie, Rambler left the group with one of the tour guides, which T-Bone interpreted as being sent to rendezvous with the smugglers. T-Bone couldn’t do more than observe without blowing his cover. The last he saw was Rambler being forced to strip and put on a different set of clothes.”
Fish swiveled his lip mic in front of his mouth. “Did they discover the tracker? What if they gave his clothes to one of the smugglers?”
“If the tour guide found the tracker, Rambler’s cover would have been blown,” Dapper Dan said.
“Best case scenario, the tracker ran out of juice and nobody found it,” Manny said. “Worst case, they found it and Rambler met with an unfortunate accident.”
Nobody spoke. Accidents along the Rio Grande were probably common and easy enough to fake. Drowning in the rapids—Fish shuddered at the thought—or snakebite, or a hiking mishap, or dehydration. A black stain on the tour company’s image, but Fish was certain they’d have a way to whitewash it.
Jumping the gun, aren’t you?
“T-Bone say how they’ve explained Rambler’s disappearance?” Scrooge asked.
“Said he found a group of hikers, didn’t like the river, so he went off with them,” Manny said.
Manny went on to explain the mission. Cheese and Fozzie would run recon from the helo. The rest of them would pose as vacationers enjoying a river trip. They’d get close to the spot where they’d lost Rambler’s signal and set out from there.
“No confrontations,” Manny said. “Do not, I repeat not, mention Rambler to the tour guide or anyone in his group. This is an extraction operation.”
Unless they found someone willing to blow the whistle on the Falcon. If that happened, Fish was going to have a lengthy discussion with Manny about expanding the scope of the op.
Once they’d received their assignments, everyone settled in, catnapping—or in Scrooge’s case, sawing major wood.
Fish woke from a dream about Lexi, totally inappropriate in present company. He twisted in his seat, glanced at the others. No open eyes, so he adjusted himself and took a long pull from the water bottle under his seat.
Outside, the sky below was a dark gray pillow streaked with white and gold. Were they in for weather?
Minutes later, Cheese’s “Rise and shine, campers. Seatbacks and tray tables, you know the drill,” came through his headset. Everyone stirred and snapped awake.
Not that the seatbacks adjusted or there were any tray tables, but Cheese enjoyed playing an irreverent airline captain. And, Fish admitted, it did lighten the mood.
“We’ll be dropping gear in a clearing a click from the river where there’s an access point,” Manny said. “Should be an easy hike, with no cliffs to scale. By the time you hit your spot, Cheese and Fozzie will be your eyes in the sky.”
Fish crammed the contents of his go bag into a more manageable backpack and waited his turn to descend. The six of them roped down, following the pallet containing the raft and the requisite accoutrements for a river trip. Fish took his share of their supplies, and they headed off, Dapper Dan on point, Scrooge bringing up the rear.
Above, the sky was a study in shades of gray, highlighted with streaks of burnt orange. Looked like the weather was holding. Birdsong wafted from the scattered pines. In the distance, sounds of rushing water announced their goal.
Fish adjusted his earwig and lip mic. Team communication was more important than the sounds of nature. He wiped sweat from his brow and was glad for the cloud cover and the approaching dusk.
Dapper Dan called a halt. “This is the spot.”
Fozzie’s voice came through Fish’s headset, and from the way everyone touched their earwigs and gazed upward, they must be hearing him, too.
“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, mates, but I’m not picking up any heat signatures in a five click radius. If this is where they stripped Rambler, it’s possible they took him anywhere. Put him on another raft, hiked up to a road, put him in a vehicle.”
Alive? Dead bodies didn’t give off heat signatures.
After scouring the terrain, they had evidence this was a pullout. Lunch break, perhaps, or an overnight spot. The river traffic wasn’t restricted to specific areas for camps, although Fish imagined the guides had their own routes mapped out, their own stopping points. For those not part of official tours, who knew?
The good news. Didn’t seem to be a freshly dug grave anywhere, but with a river filled with rapids and rocks, why go to the trouble?
Manny reported their findings to Fozzie. “Where’s the tour group?”
They were moving on to part two of the mission. Find the group, talk to T-Bone, hope for more intel. Hope for a miraculous return of Rambler.
“Downriver, mates. Get in the boat and you’ll catch up. They’re making camp, setting up for dinner.”
“Figure we have little over an hour of daylight left,” Manny said. “We’ll set up camp not too far from where Rambler’s group should be.”
Fozzie broke in. “There are currently six official tours operating in this area, plus I can see a couple of kayaks and two more rafts that aren’t connected with a tour. Generally, the tour guides know each other. They try to keep some distance between their camps, but the next available landing spot is much farther downriver. My guess is things might be crowded.”
“Which gives us a good excuse to make contact,” Dapper Dan said.
“No extreme measures,” Manny said. “We have a job to do, but it doesn’t include having Blackthorne spinning why there was a shootout on the river.”
“Let’s do it,” Dapper Dan said.
Everyone changed into rafting attire from the supply pack, swapping jeans and cargo pants for shorts, hiking boots for rubber-soled water sandals. As they paddled downriver, which was thankfully calm, Fish wondered if Blackthorne wouldn’t mind spinning a shootout if it took out a drug smuggling ring.
***
TELEVISION SOUNDS CAME through the door, along with “One minute.”
Lexi waited, and the door opened. Mrs. Shortt stood there, a baby on her hip and a toddler parked in front of the television set, sucking her thumb and singing along with a jingle about being a good helper.
Lexi put the woman in her mid-thirties. Reddish-brown curls perched in a loose knot at the top of her head. Hazel eyes shone bright against her light, freckle-splashed complexion, devoid of makeup. Faded jeans, a checked oversized shirt over a navy tank top. Bare feet.
“Mrs. Shortt. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Alexis Becker, Sofia’s Big Sister. We’ve met in passing once or twice. I’d like to talk to you about Cataline. It shouldn’t take long.”
The woman gazed at Lexi for a moment. “Yes, I remember you. It’s Julie. Please, come in. It’ll be nice to talk in complete sentences for a change.”
Not the reaction of someone who knew her neighbor was dead. Lexi squared her shoulders and entered the apartment. The polar opposite of Cataline’s. Clean. Smelled like pine. Nothing lying around in heaps. Lexi didn’t count a few scattered toys as anything other than the inevitable clutter when you had kids. An ironing board was set up in a corner, with a plastic basket filled with laundry beside it, a rack with two freshly pressed men’s button-down shirts hanging nearby. Lexi didn’t own an iron. She sent everything to the cleaners. Always had.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Julie asked. “Or tea? Juice?”
“Juice,” the toddler squealed. “Juice, juice, juice.”
“I’m fine,” Lexi said.
Julie raised the baby above her head, resulting in a delighted giggle. “Let me put this one down for her nap, and take care of the juice monster. I’ll be right back. Make yourself comfortable.”
Lexi sat on a floral-print sofa. The toddler waddled over and gave a drooly grin. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Lexi made a silly face.
“Patticakes, are you bothering the nice lady?” Julie returned with a sippy cup and handed it to the child.
“Juice.”
“Yes, it’s juice. You can watch your show again.” The child plopped onto the floor, alternating between sips of juice and sucks of her thumb.
Julie gestured to the ironing and said, “I hope you don’t mind if I work while we talk. I make a little extra money taking in laundry.”
“Of course. Go ahead,” Lexi said.
Lexi decided there was no point in sugar-coating the news, or in taking a circuitous route. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but Cataline has passed away.”
The woman blanched and set the iron aside. “No. That’s impossible. When? How?”
Lexi explained what she knew.
“Drugs? Cat? Never. No way. She never took drugs.”
“That’s my understanding as well. The police are looking into it.”
“Sofia. Oh dear God, what will happen to her?”
“That’s part of the reason I’m here,” Lexi said. “She doesn’t know yet. She’s at school, and we—I—thought it would be better to let her have the day play out as normally as possible until I had more information. Do you know if Cataline had made any emergency provisions for Sofia?”
Julie flapped a hand in front of her eyes, as if to wave off the onset of tears. “Cat was twenty-five years old. Who thinks they’re going to die at that age?” She picked up the ironing and attacked the shirt as if it might fight back in protest.
After a moment, she paused and glanced at her toddler, then at Lexi. She shook her head. “I watch Sofia sometimes. She and DeeDee get along, but I couldn’t—maybe a night or two, but—”
Lexi interrupted. “Nobody would ask you to take Sofia in, even for a short time. I’m trying to arrange for her to stay with me.”
The woman’s smile held relief. “I know Sofia likes you. She talks to DeeDee about her Big Sister a lot.”
“One last thing,” Lexi said. “I’m aware that Cataline ... entertained ... in her apartment. Did anyone seem to have a grudge? Have any reason to want her dead?”
“I can’t honestly say,” Julie said. “I know what she did. I didn’t approve, but Cat would never have listened to me.”
“Did you know any of them? A name or two?”
Julie’s headshake loosened her hair, which tumbled to her shoulders. “I kept as far away as I could. I wanted no part of it.”
Lexi sensed fear, as if the woman wanted no part of it because she thought it might bring danger to her or her family. “Do you think it’s possible that one of the men could want to harm Cataline?”
She shrugged. “Today, anything is possible.”
“If you had to single out one man who might have a motive, who would it be?” Lexi wondered if Sofia had mentioned she was with the police department to DeeDee, but since Julie wasn’t asking, Lexi let it slide.
Julie frowned, as if she’d had enough broken promises in her life not to trust what Lexi said, but she seemed willing to consider it.
“A man, very tall, very skinny. He had a snake tattoo running around his neck and down his arm. But more than that, I don’t know.”
Lexi stood. Tattoos were searchable. “Thanks for your time, and I’m sorry for your loss. I can let myself out.”
Lexi left the woman to her ironing, and, she expected, to her grief.
She called for an Uber, telling the driver to pick her up at the corner two blocks from the apartment building. Before she put her phone away, it buzzed with an incoming text.
K. Nauck.
New phone. TTYL.
She texted back. Know a man tall skinny snake tattoo?
A response came seconds later. Nat His Trans 1430.