Ramon stood on sand, inches from the incoming surf, and stared out at the ocean.
Behind him, Carlos said, “Tell me why we climbed down here again.”
Ramon turned to him.
“I told you already.”
“Yes, and it didn’t make much sense then, so why don’t you try it one more time?”
Ramon stepped back, surveying the small beach.
“After I spoke to Samantha Lu and told her she was free to go, she stood up and stared out at the ocean for a couple seconds.”
Carlos lit a cigarette, blew out smoke through his nose.
“And?”
Ramon glanced up toward the top of the bluff, then back down at the beach.
“And I think she was looking for something.”
“Like what?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I thought maybe she was just looking at the ocean. But after what we now know about her …”
Carlos said, “We don’t know much.”
“No, but what little we do know is suspicious enough.”
“If she was looking for something down here, what do you think it was?”
Ramon was quiet for a moment, surveying the beach once again.
“I’m not sure. But we’re, what, ten miles down the beach from the Diaz place?”
“Give or take, sure.”
“How did the victims get here so fast? I mean, assuming they left around the time of the attack.”
Carlos was quiet for a couple seconds, thinking it over. He took one last drag on the cigarette, flicked it out into the water, and sighed.
“I hate it when you start to make sense.”
“You see my problem with this, don’t you? Not to take away from the fact that a woman and two children are dead, but how did they get here? They could have driven, yes, but not down the drive from the house and then onto the main road. Narcos were headed to the place while it was being attacked. The woman and the children would have been seen.”
“So the other options?”
“Walk down the beach is one that first comes to mind. But it would have taken too long. How long do you think it would take a woman and two children to walk the beach in the middle of the night? And let’s not forget they’re being forced against their will. The kids were probably crying. From the time of the attack to when they were—”
Ramon paused, the image of those three charred bodies flashing in his mind. He cleared his throat, tried again.
“From the time of the attack to when they were murdered, it doesn’t give us a very large window.”
Carlos nodded.
“I agree. So what’s the next option?”
“They took a boat.”
“A boat.”
“Makes much more sense than flying. There’s a possibility this guy has a helicopter, but it doesn’t seem too realistic.”
“So you think they took a boat.”
Ramon paused a beat, giving it some more thought, and then nodded.
Carlos said, “Okay, but there’s a problem with that theory.”
“Which is?”
Carlos spread his arms, motioning at the beach.
“There’s no evidence of a boat.”
“He obviously took the boat with him.”
“That’s not what I mean. Look at the sand. Any trace of a boat being docked here?”
“Maybe he kept it farther out. Dropped an anchor. Forced the woman and the children back onto the beach, had them walk up to the bluff, and then—”
Flash of those three charred bodies again.
“—and then did what he did.”
Carlos stared at him, not saying anything.
Ramon said, “I know I sound crazy.”
“No, you don’t sound crazy. That’s the troubling part. A boat makes the most sense. The question is where did he go afterward?”
“Maybe we need to start looking at places along the coast.”
Carlos looked out at the ocean and issued a heavy sigh.
“So you think Samantha Lu was looking for something down here.”
“I do, yes.”
“But you have no idea what she might have been looking for.”
“No.”
“It could be anything.”
“Yes.”
“I saw an empty water bottle on the trail leading down here. And over there by the rocks is a deflated soccer ball.”
“Your point?”
“My point is the only thing I see down here is junk. Do you think she was looking for junk?”
Ramon said nothing.
Carlos sighed again and said, “Do you think she had something to do with the murders?”
Ramon just gave his partner a look.
Carlos said, “Yeah, I’m having trouble on that point, too.”
“Seeing the smoke from the highway and coming here to try to help and finding the bodies—okay, I’m willing to believe that. But then she follows us into the city? And beats up those two pimps? And then takes out the kids those pimps sent to kill her? She doesn’t sound like any graduate student I know.”
Above them on the bluff, an officer called down to them.
“They’re here!”
The officer waved to them to come up and then disappeared.
Carlos said, “About time. The sun goes down in another hour.”
Ramon looked at his partner and took a breath.
“Ready for this?”
“Not climbing back up that hill, no.”
They started back up the trail that they had taken down twenty minutes earlier. Ramon was barely thirty and in shape and the climb didn’t faze him at all. Carlos, much older and overweight, needed to rest three times to catch his breath. When they reached the top they saw the building and the police cars still parked around it. As well as a new car that hadn’t been there earlier.
Carlos said, “Looks like they’re already inside.”
They were. There were two of them. Both males wearing khakis and polo shirts, their pistols holstered to their belts. They were crouched around the charred bodies which hadn’t been moved yet (they had been given strict orders from Mexico City not to move the bodies until somebody arrived). They glanced at Carlos and Ramon when they entered the building but didn’t give them more than a couple seconds’ attention before directing their focus back on the bodies.
Carlos said, “You’re the PMF agents?”
The Policía Federal Ministerial was a federal agency tasked with fighting corruption and organized crime. Once the Devil started targeting cartel families, President Cortez ordered a task force to lead up the investigation. Cortez wanted to stop the cartels, but he also wanted to make it known it was still illegal to murder the wives and children of those cartel families.
The men stood up and approached Carlos and Ramon. Each of them held out his hand.
One of them said, “Sorry about that. We thought you were just officers.”
Carlos introduced himself and Ramon to the men and the men introduced themselves to Ramon and Carlos. Their names were Ibarra and Serrano and they had been tracking the Devil for over a year. When they heard about the bodies being found this morning they got on a plane as soon as possible.
Ibarra said, “And now we’re here. What can you tell us about this?”
Carlos and Ramon told the agents as much as they knew. They didn’t hold back. They even went so far as to tell them about Samantha Lu and how she had evidently followed them into the city.
Serrano said, “So you don’t know where this young woman is now?”
Both men shook their heads.
Ibarra said, “What about Miguel Dominguez?”
Both men shook their heads again.
The agents traded glances and then turned to look once again at the bodies.
Ramon said, “It doesn’t sound like you’re too worried about either Miguel Dominguez or Samantha Lu.”
Ibarra shook his head.
“We’re not. We would certainly like to speak to both of them if possible—the phone call to the motel is especially interesting—but right now they’re not our focus.”
Carlos said, “Why is that?”
“Because neither of them is the Devil.”
Now it was Carlos and Ramon’s turn to trade glances.
Carlos said, “How do you know that?”
Serrano crossed his arms and turned back to the bodies. When he spoke next his voice was low and hushed, almost conspiratorial.
“Because by now we think we know who the Devil is. And he’s a ghost.”