Seven

Michael stepped around an old man spreading out a tattered blanket before dumping a box out onto it. Matchbox cars and antique lighters tumbled out along with bootleg DVDs and kitchen gadgets. “Perdóneme, señor,” he said. The old-timer shot him a glare as he passed, which he returned with a wry smile. He tended to have that effect on people.

Midmorning at Mercat Del Encants. People were everywhere, young and old, every shape and size. Ben blended perfectly. The kid played Hapless College Student to a T. Having changed into a pair of cargo shorts and a ratty AC/DC concert shirt, he flitted from booth to booth, smiling and chatting his way around the flea market.

Michael followed at a safe distance, trailing a sting of Pips, as he called FSS lackeys, behind him. Junior’s outburst must’ve rattled Shaw more than he let on if he sent a pack of his specially trained lapdogs to make sure they didn’t screw up. He began to wonder, same as Ben, what the boss was hoping to gain by recovering Leo Maddox. What had the Senator promised him in exchange for his grandson’s safe return?

Finally, after about an hour of fishing, they got a bite. Ben asked about the scarf girl, described her to an old woman surrounded by several boxes of VHS tapes. He said he’d seen her around a few days ago and he’d thought she was pretty. He confided in the old woman that he’d been hoping to find her so he could ask her out for coffee. The old woman gave him a wide gap-toothed smile.

Bingo.

“Let me handle it, okay? Her name’s Eliza,” Ben said as they wound their way through the market, heading toward the long low row of wooden structures that housed the food and more high-priced shops. “She takes one look at you, dude, she’s gonna rabbit.”

Michael looked down at himself and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Faded jeans and an old navy blue Hanes shirt. “What’s wrong with the way I look?”

“It’s not your clothes,” Ben said. “It’s this.” He waved his hand in Michael’s direction. “You. All of you. The whole thing. Everything about you is hostile. You need to relax.”

“Relax?”

“Yeah, relax.” Ben hitched the backpack he carried up on one shoulder. “Do some yoga. Kill a Pip. Take the stick out of your ass—something. Just do it before I get back with the girl,” he said before disappearing into the crowd, leaving Michael alone with a couple hundred people and a half dozen of Shaw’s walking, talking insurance policies.

Relax? Every breath he took, every second he lived, was because someone else had decided to allow it. How in the hell was he supposed to relax?

Michael took a few turns around the market, keeping a close eye on the dark maze of shops and lean-tos that Ben had disappeared into and then suddenly, there he was. Talking and laughing with a pretty young woman with large dark eyes and a shy smile. It was the girl from the surveillance video, and she was gazing up at Ben with a star-struck look as he led her though the marketplace toward a small outdoor café.

They took a seat and placed their order with the waiter. Michael did another lap around the tables and booths. The Pips followed. He watched Ben and the girl. Coffee and buñuelos made an appearance. Ben smiled and charmed the girl for several minutes, putting her at ease before signaling Michael by looking at his watch.

The girl looked up as he approached, and the smile perched on her face wobbled and fell. She shot a hurried glance at Ben before she started to shove herself away from the table. Ben’s hand shot out and gripped hers across the table. “Eliza … esta bien. Nadie va a danarte. Queremos preguntarte algo. Solo unas preguntas. Nada más, te prometo.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “Hablas inglés?”

The girl nodded slowly. “Yes, I speak English.” She looked up at Michael and shook her head. “But I know nothing worth telling. I sell scarves. I am no one.”

Michael took a seat next to her and leaned forward just a bit, dropping his voice to keep the conversation private. He could tell she was lying. “There was an American boy here with his mother a few weeks ago. He was small—blond with hazel eyes. You spoke to his mother, distracted her while your partner in the Yankees cap snatched him. We have it all on tape,” he said.

Her eyes widened just a bit, and she started to shake her head. “No. I don’t know what you are saying. I—”

“Stop. Just stop.” Michael used his fingertip to turn her face toward the crowd. “Do you see them? The men in suits, circling like vultures?” He paused, waited for her to nod. “They’re here for you. To make sure you tell us what we need to know. And when they start asking questions, I can assure you, it won’t be over coffee and doughnuts.” He watched the tears well up in her eyes as understanding took root.

She turned her face away from the crowd. “I can’t. You don’t understand. These men are very dangerous.”

“Who are they?” Ben said.

The girl shrugged, looked miserable. “I don’t know.” She swallowed hard, eyes full of tears again. “They took my brother first. Told me that if I helped them, they would bring him back, but … it’s been a very long time.”

“How long?” Ben said.

“Eight months.”

Eight months? Leo Maddox was taken only three weeks ago. A sick feeling began to form in the pit of Michael’s stomach. “Was the American boy the only one you helped abduct?”

Her eyes flooded with tears. She shook her head. “No. But he was the last. There has been no one since.”

Michael looked across the table at his partner. How many children could be taken in eight months?

“Eliza, where is he? Where do they take the children?” Ben said.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly, staring at the tabletop. She was scared, couldn’t look him in the eye. She knew more than she was letting on.

Michael leaned back in his seat. “You’re lying.”

She looked up at him. “I don’t know. But … the man who took the boy—the one you are looking for—he was not the man that usually comes.” She chewed her lower lip. She seemed to be deciding if she could trust them with the truth. “The man that usually comes is shorter, heavier. This man was taller, thin. He had a scar.”

“Where?” he said, the skin on the back of his neck going tight. He knew before she even answered him.

“Here,” she said, running her finger along her cheek. “It was long—from his temple to the corner of his mouth. I saw him once, in the street. He was getting into a big black car with an older man in a suit.”

“How do you know for sure it was him?” Ben said.

She looked at Ben. “I recognized the scar, and—”

The sudden impact of the bullet snapped the girl’s head back, its exit making a hole the size of a fist in the back of her skull. Blood sprayed across the plate of pastries, soaked into the white cloth that covered the table. Brain matter and even more blood splattered onto the bricks beneath their feet.

Ben and Michael stood and moved swiftly, away from the cafe, for the cover of a narrow easement between the café and neighboring bookstore.

Screams and shouts sounded from the café behind them, but neither one of them turned around. They kept walking—there was nothing they could do. The girl was dead.

“Fuck,” Ben muttered under his breath, shaking his head almost in time with his quick stride. “Someone didn’t want her talking.”

“I know who,” Michael said, stepping out of the alley where they’d parked there car. He gestured for Ben to stay in the shadows while he surveyed windows and rooftops for possible blinds. It was instinctual, the need he felt to protect his team. Ben ignored him and stepped out in the road alongside him.

“Well, Michael, are you going to share your answer with the rest of the class?” his partner chimed brightly while skirting the bumper to his side of the car.

“Reyes.” Just saying the name out loud made it almost too real to deal with. He should have taken him out a year ago, when he first found out that Alberto was targeting him.

“Reyes doesn’t strike me as the down-and-dirty type.” Ben pulled his door open before cutting him a doubtful look across the roof of the car. Sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer. “Besides, Reyes doesn’t have a scar.”

Michael thought about killing. Heard the crinkle of plastic sheeting beneath his boots. Felt the resistant tug of skin and muscle against his blade. Reyes, his lizard eyes flat and distant, watching as he got what he wanted. He yanked his door open and returned his partner’s gaze. “He’s not and he doesn’t—but his son does.” And is.

Now Ben smiled, but there was no humor in it. The sirens were close, but it mattered little to either of them. “How do you know?”

Michael shrugged and tried to unearth himself from the avalanche of memories he was suddenly buried under. “Because I’m the one who gave it to him.”