The woman just stands there, her eyes closed. She’s acting like a child trying to keep the boogeyman away. If she can’t see the monster, the monster can’t see her. The only thing she doesn’t get is that she’s the monster in this situation.
“Or should I say hello, Daniela?”
The woman opens her eyes. Stares at me for a long moment. Her mouth opens up a bit but no words come out.
Her father says, “Who are you? What do you want?”
“It doesn’t matter who we are. What matters is that we know who you are. You are Comandante Geraldo Espinoza. You oversee the policía in this part of the country. And this is your daughter Daniela Diaz. When I first met her, she told me her name was Maria and that she was a nanny.”
Espinoza frowns, clearly not following.
“I’m the one who attacked Ernesto Diaz’s compound. I’m the one who saved your daughter and Javier Diaz’s children. I took them up the coast and I left them at that brick building in the middle of nowhere. I left them there, and then your daughter killed the children.”
Espinoza doesn’t respond. Neither does Daniela.
“You see, Javier threatened me and my family. So I killed him. I knew the only way to keep my family safe from retribution was to come here and take out Ernesto. So the research I did was mostly on Ernesto. I must admit, that was my own fault. Had I looked close enough, I would have learned about how Javier’s first wife died giving birth to their second child, and how a year later he married Daniela.”
Still no response.
“The way I figure it, Daniela, you thought telling me you were the children’s nanny would make it less likely that I would kill you. The truth is, had you told me you were the children’s mother—or stepmother in this instance—I probably wouldn’t have done anything to hurt you. Those kids needed you, especially after what had just happened. But then, well, you went and killed them.”
“No.”
Daniela nearly barks it. Her face has reddened, and she shakes her head adamantly.
“I didn’t kill them.”
“Okay. You didn’t kill them. But Miguel did.”
The flatness of her eyes tells me I’m right.
“So here’s how I see things played out. After I left you at that building, you ran up the drive to the phone. Maybe you thought about calling your father, but most likely not. After you married Javier Diaz, you became estranged from your father. Went years without speaking to him. So you didn’t call your father that night. You called Miguel Dominguez, who was either an old friend or boyfriend or maybe drug dealer. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
Daniela says nothing.
“So you tell Miguel what happened. How the Diaz compound was attacked and how you ended up a couple miles up the coast. How you don’t know what to do now. You ask Miguel to come get you, and like a loyal friend—or maybe a guy who has always had a thing for you and will ask how high whenever you tell him to jump—he leaves his post at the motel. As he leaves, he runs into a prostitute on the street. Maybe the idea came to him, or maybe … maybe you came up with the idea.”
Still nothing.
“See, that’s the one thing I’m not sure about, whose idea it was from the start. But one of you had the idea of copycatting the Devil. Miguel managed to get the prostitute in his car and brought her out to the building. I’m thinking at that point she probably wouldn’t have gone willingly, so maybe he had to stuff her in his trunk or something. But then he shows up, and he manages to kick down the door into that brick building, and then … what happened, Daniela? If you didn’t kill the children, did you at least watch Miguel when he did it?”
She just glares at me.
“So you cut the prostitute’s and the children’s throats and you leave them there in the building. Maybe it was Miguel’s idea after all, but I don’t think so. Remember when we were on the beach and you asked to come with me? At first you said I but then hesitated and changed it to we. See, it didn’t mean much to me then, but now I’ve had time to think about it. Something tells me you’ve always resented the children. They weren’t yours, after all, not really, and besides, they probably kept you from having a more exciting life. So when you saw the opportunity to eliminate them—to start over a new life all by yourself—you jumped at the chance. Told Miguel to pick up a prostitute and bring gasoline. Tell me, Daniela, was it Miguel who lit the bodies on fire or was it you?”
Still no answer.
“Doesn’t matter in the end. Somebody lit the bodies on fire. But before you did, you didn’t properly search the prostitute. I’m guessing when you were hiding with the children in that closet you took off all your jewelry because already the idea of claiming you were the children’s nanny had entered your mind. So you wanted to make sure the prostitute didn’t have on any jewelry either. But you missed her belly button ring. How am I doing so far, Daniela?”
No response.
“Anyway, Miguel drives you away. He puts in an anonymous call acting like the Devil. He says he just killed a woman and two children and tells the policía where to find the bodies. Because crank calls like that come in all the time, only one car went out initially. Then your dad eventually showed up—I recognize you now, Comandante Espinoza—and despite your strained relationship of course he was devastated. And then when he heard about the phone call and how it went to the motel and the crime scene investigators determined Miguel had been working there, I’m guessing the name rang a bell to your father. And once it became clear Miguel had gone missing, your father decided to hunt him down. How long that took, it’s hard to say, but it couldn’t have been more than two days because that was when Miguel’s body was found. Did your father tell you how he cut up the body into different pieces and stuffed them in a trashcan? Probably tried to make it look like some narcos did it. In the end it doesn’t really matter, because he got information from Miguel and found you and then brought you out here to this ranch house in the middle of nowhere. And now that Fernando Morales is dead, I bet your father decided it was time to come get you. And since we’ve been keeping an eye on him, we followed him all the way here.”
Daniela says nothing.
“I’ll admit, you and Miguel almost got away with it. As far as anyone was concerned, the Devil killed you and the children. There was no way you could have known about the list.”
This last part piques Espinoza’s interest.
“What list?”
“The Devil was killing the wives and children of certain cartel families as retribution for what happened to his own family.”
Understanding ripples across the old man’s face.
“So it was really—”
I nod and cut him off.
“Yes, it was really the Devil who attacked the Morales compound.”
“Where … where is he now?”
“Dead. I killed him.”
“When?”
“Two nights ago. He went after Fernando Morales’s wife and son.”
Espinoza frowns, shaking his head.
“But there was no body. There were dead narcos and there were my two investigators and a few other bodies, but not the Devil.”
“That’s because we decided to take the body with us when we left. We buried it out in the middle of nowhere.”
“But … why?”
“If the public learned who he really was it might cause too many problems for President Cortez. Besides, the president sounds like a good man. He already lost his son once. He shouldn’t have to lose him again.”
Espinoza looks from me to Nova and then back to me. He takes a deep breath.
“If you are going to kill us, then get it over with and kill us.”
I smile at him and glance back at Nova who has kept his gun trained on them this entire time.
Nova has a bag strapped over his shoulder. The gun not once wavering in his hand, he lowers his shoulder to let the bag drop to the floor and kicks the bag over to me.
I stuff my own gun in the waistband of my jeans and then crouch down and zip open the bag. Before I pull out the contents, though, I glance back up at Daniela.
“Whose idea was it to kill the children, yours or Miguel’s?”
She doesn’t answer. Her eyes remain flat. Which, in a way, is all the answer I need.
I pull out the two sets of handcuffs, the two cans of lighter fluid, the pack of matches. I line them out on the floor and stand back up and clap my hands together. I ignore Espinoza and focus all my attention on Daniela when I ask my final question.
“So, are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?”