Seventy-three

Despite Amelia’s encouragement, Alvarez didn’t say a word. Didn’t move. He was still wearing the same clothes he’d had on the last time she’d seen him—khakis and a navy blue polo with the Yuma PD insignia embroidered over his left breast, his service weapon, a Glock 22, secured in his holster. He looked like he’d simply gotten lost on his way to the station break room, not like he’d just stomped a priest’s face in and kidnapped someone.

“Hey, Nulo,” she said, careful to keep her tone pleasant. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Her greeting went unanswered. Big surprise.

“You need to take your mom into the living room,” Sabrina said to Val quietly. Instead of doing what she asked, Val seemed to dig in deeper.

Uhh, darlin’. I got something to tell you and you aren’t gonna like it.

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Vega finally said, his tone telling her he was seconds away from bolting. “Who’s Melissa?”

“My mother has Alzheimer’s,” Val said quietly while shooting her mother a quick look. Amelia was too absorbed in her kitchen duties to pay attention to what she was saying. “She thinks Agent Vance is an old friend of mine.” Recovered, she shifted her gaze toward Sabrina, a carefully composed expression on her face, hand extended in front of her. “You are Agent Vance, aren’t you? My sister told me how taken our mother was with you.”

Listen to me, darlin’ …

She nodded, taking the offered hand and shaking it like the woman in front of her was a total stranger. Drawing her hand back, she settled it on the grip of the Kimber that rode her hip, flicking a glance in Alvarez’s direction. “Ms. Hernandez, I need you to, please, take your mother into the living room and wait for me there. Do you understand?”

Val’s expression went from defiant to understanding in an instant, her gaze drifting across the table to land on the man in front of her. “Okay,” she said, standing slowly to reveal a large, swollen belly. Holding her hand out to her mother, she smiled. “Come on, Mamá, let’s go see if Wheel of Fortune is on.”

Amelia cast her gaze around the kitchen, shaking her head. “I’m in the middle of—”

“Now, Mamá,” Val said, softening the command with a smile. “Please.”

Suddenly, Amelia looked confused, like she wasn’t sure what was happening. Moving the griddle off the stove, she switched it off. “Okay …” She took Val’s offered hand, allowing herself to be pulled along. “Have you seen Cuervo?” Amelia said to her daughter as she walked past her on her way out of the kitchen. “Ellie will be so upset if she doesn’t come home.”

She watched Alvarez bristle at the question. Cuervo was Spanish for crow. It was also the name that’d been engraved on the ID tag belonging to the mutilated cat Father Francisco found in the prayer garden last night. That must’ve been what he read in the report that set him off. Knowing they were close to figuring out that Ellie was on his kill list.

As soon as they were gone, Sabrina pulled her Kimber off her hip. “Take a seat, Vega,” she said, “The three of us are going to have a talk.”

Vega came into view, sliding into the seat Val had just vacated. Alvarez flicked his gaze as the man sitting across from him. Something passed over his face. Distaste, bordering on disgust.

In the next room, the television clicked on.

“Where’s Ellie?”

Alvarez didn’t answer. Didn’t look at her either. He just sat there, hands resting on the table in front of him, eyes straight ahead, hooked into Vega while his expression grew darker and darkened by the second. That’s when she noticed the safety strap on his holster was unsnapped. She hadn’t seen him do it.

Darlin’, we gotta talk …

“There’s something you need to understand about me, Alvarez,” she said quietly, her tone held just above the gameshow chatter drifting in from the next room. “I’m not a patient person and I frustrate easily. Neither of those things are working in your favor right now.” She thumbed the Kimber’s safety off. “Where is she?”

“Why are you asking me?” Alvarez turned his head just a bit, lowering his gaze before aiming it at her face. His hands twitched on the table in front of him, inching closer to its edge.

Darlin’ …

Sabrina sighed, ticking the barrel of the Kimber upward just a bit, aiming it at his knee. The movement stopped him cold. “Also, I hate repeating myself.”

“Think about it,” Alvarez said, tone tight with anger. “If I knew where Ellie was, do you really think I’d be here?”

“I don’t know,” she said, walking toward him. “You’ve kinda gone off the rails today, Nulo.” Aiming the barrel of the Kimber center mass, Sabrina stooped slightly to lift the Glock off his hip. “Not that you’re exactly a poster boy for stability under normal circumstances.”

“What are you talking about?” he said, watching her as she tucked his service weapon into the small of her back. His eyes bounced up to her face. “What happened?”

“You tell me, Nulo.”

“Please,” he sighed, hands curling into fists. “I need you to stop calling me that.”

“Why?” she said, leaning against the counter. “It’s your name isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t,” he said, tone low and insistent. “My name is Mark Alvarez.”

“But that’s not who you really are, is it?” She looked at Vega. He was staring at Alvarez like he was barely grasping what was happening around him. “It’s just a made-up name you gave yourself to try to restore the identity they took from you.”

Melissa, I need you to listen now …

“Who’s they?” he said, voice raised, face pale. “I don’t know what or who you’re talking about. I just came by to see Ellie—”

“You’re lying,” she said through clenched teeth. She thought of the pair of women in the living room. “You didn’t come here to see Ellie because you took her. Just like you were going to take her mother.”

“What?” He cut a look at Vega before shaking his head. “Why would I take Ellie’s mother?”

“Because she’s the only one left to know who you really are.”

Alvarez narrowed his eyes at her. “And who is it that you think I really am, Agent Vance?”

“I think you’re a kid they used to call Nulo,” she said in a conversational tone that was at total odds with the tense set of her jaw. “I think you’re the guy who raped Rachel Meeks.” From the corner of her eye, she could see Vega stiffen in his seat and she shook her head at him, a warning to stay put. “I think you’re the guy who’s killed a half dozen women between here and Tucson. I think you’re the guy who planted evidence on Stephanie Adams to lure me here.”

“No.” Despite his denial, it was obvious the name and her accusations affected him. He was shaking, gaze pinned to the table in front of him. “I’m Mark. Detective Mark Alvarez with the Yuma Police Department. I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t take anyone.”

“Sure you did, Nulo.”

He shook his head, short choppy twists of his neck like he was trying to shake her loose. “Stop calling me that.”

“You did all those things,” she said, chipping away at the façade he clung to. “They needed to pay for what they’d done to you. They threw you away. Pretended you never existed. I understand why you’d want to punish them. Your brother. Your father. They all abandoned you. Left you to rot … but what did any of those women ever do to you?”

Alvarez’s hand curled into fists, knuckles pressing into the hard surface of the table. “Shut up.”

“You know what I think?” she said, pushing at him with her words. “I think you killed those women because they got the second chance your mother never did.”

Melissa …

Alvarez shot up from the table, the chair slamming into the wall with the force of it. “I don’t have a brother. Or a mother and father. I don’t have anyone. I never did.”

“That’s not entirely true, is it, Nulo?” she said, levering herself off the counter to face him down. “You had Wade.”

Melissa …

“You were there. You saw him the night he left Melissa Walker in the garden at Saint Rose,” she said to him, piecing it together as she went. “You saw what he did to her and you liked it.”

“No.” He shook his head, looking at Vega, trying to find someone who believed him. “No, I saw someone, but I—”

“You reached out to him. Wrote him letters and he wrote you back. Told you things.” She tightened her grip on the butt of the Kimber, so tight she couldn’t feel her fingers. “He made you feel like you belonged. Taught you how to kill.”

“That never happened. I never wrote those letters,” Alvarez said, unclenching his hands. “When I saw them, how they were signed, I knew—”

“That it was only a matter of time before you were caught. You knew we were working on finding Graciella. She was your aunt. The one who rented you the PO box. When you saw those letters, you left the station. You went to Saint Rose to kill Father Francisco—your father.” She smiled at him, the lift of her mouth feeling predatory. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that you didn’t quite get the job done.”

Melissa …

“What?” Alvarez looked like he’d just been punched in the gut and he turned, wheeling his gaze toward Vega, who’d been sitting quietly, growing more and more pale with each word spoken. “What is she saying?”

“He protected you,” she said. “When I asked him who you were, your father refused to tell me, even though he had to have known who you were. What you’d done. He protected you, and you stomped his face in.”

Alvarez sank into the chair he’d just vacated, shaking his head, his gut-punched stare replaced by one that said he was seconds away from vomiting.

Sabrina!

The word—her own name, shouted within the confines of her head—stopped her cold, forcing her to listen.

It ain’t him. This guy, whoever he is … he ain’t him.