There was something I’d never heard in his voice before. Fear.
“The coyote.” Fury mixed with terror surged through me. He was a dead man.
“Two men. They broke in, blasted the door with a shotgun, locked my mom in the closet—”
“Oh my God.” My mind was racing. Rosalie. Two men took Rosalie. I was almost afraid for him to get to that part—maybe if he didn’t say it again it wouldn’t be true.
“One guy shot the other.”
Now my head was really spinning. I couldn’t quite grasp what he was saying. The words he strung together made no sense.
“There’s a dead man in my mom’s house.”
“Who is it?”
“Never seen him before.”
I closed my eyes for a second, and his next words seemed to come at me from very far away. “The other guy left with Rosalie.”
I knew I should ask about his mother. I knew his mother wouldn’t have gone into a closet willingly.
“Your mother? Is she okay?”
“The paramedics are checking her out right now. She’s trying to put on a brave front, but I heard her tell them she got hit in the head with a gun.”
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
Rosalie was gone. Taken by a man so ruthless he’d killed his cohort and beat a sixty-nine-year-old woman. Please let Rosalie be safe. Please let Mrs. Hunt be okay. I didn’t like the woman, but she was the mother of the man I loved. In other words, I’d kill anyone who hurt her.
I heard some commotion in the background. “I have to go,” he said. “The detectives are here. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”
“I’m on the next flight home.”
I hung up.
The next flight wasn’t for five hours. Despite my mind whirling from what James had told me, I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept well in the car the night before.
I rummaged through my bag until I found an old sleeping pill. I swallowed it and curled up in a seat in an empty alcove and tried to sleep—again with my black leather biker’s jacket draped over me. I put my boots up on my suitcase and had a makeshift bed.
At one point, after I’d finally fallen into a light, uneasy sleep, some idiot tried to strike up a conversation with me. I kept my eyes closed behind my dark glasses. A friend joined him and I heard them talking about me.
“Shake her shoulder.”
“No you.”
“You.”
“Come on, man. I dare you.”
“How much?”
“Dunno. Ten bucks.”
“Twenty and you’re on.”
I hissed, “Touch me and you die.” My voice immediately silenced them.
Soon their footsteps faded away, and I tried to fall back asleep but couldn’t. I was fighting back panic about Rosalie and Mrs. Hunt. I kept telling myself it would be okay, but I didn’t believe it. A ball of fear had settled in the pit of my stomach. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I should’ve never left her alone. I should’ve never let James take care of her. I should’ve never sent her to Marin County. I made so many mistakes. I sat up, grabbed my stuff and headed to the airport bar. On my way there, I called James.
“Anything new?” I could hear voices and beeping noises in the background.
“We’re at the hospital. They wanted to check mom out a little more. They don’t think she has a concussion, but hard to tell.”
A ball of anxiety formed in the pit of my stomach. “Are there any leads on Rosalie?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Please call me if you find out more.” He knew what I meant—if there was bad news.
“Of course.”
We were both silent for a few seconds and then he said, “I better go.”
“I can’t wait to see you.”
“I’m sure it’s driving you crazy being there and not here, but try to relax. There’s nothing you can do here right now. We’ll figure it out. We’ll find her. Don’t beat yourself up. Just be strong. We’ll get her back. Your job right now is to relax until you get here.”
Hearing this, I wanted to cry. This is why I loved James. He got me. Sometimes even more than I got myself.
I didn’t trust myself to answer beyond a sniffled, “Thanks.” I hung up before he could say more. I thought about what he said—relax.
There were only a few things that could help me relax, and only one of them was legal. I knew I needed a clear head, but at this point, I still had four hours until the plane would even set down in San Francisco, and it would take me another hour to get to Marin. I sent a text to Tony to ask if he could meet me at the airport and drive me.
Once he confirmed with “Anything for you, Gia. You know I’m your bitch,” I found a restaurant with a full bar and plopped down on a stool. And then I started to drink.
“I need two whiskey’s straight up—and that’s just to start,” I said and winked at the bartender. He was not amused.
I downed the first one. And then the second.
The anxiety and fear I felt inside imagining Rosalie’s scared little face was unbearable.
How did parents do it?
I barely knew this girl, and I was utterly sick with worry for her. I’d never felt so weak or vulnerable. If this was what it was like to be a parent, well, fuck that. No way.
On my third whiskey, I was starting to lose my balance on the bar stool. The clean-cut businessman beside me reached over and touched my lower back to keep me from falling off. I nearly karate chopped his neck before I realized he was simply trying to help.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Sure you are.” He gave me a tight smile.
“Fuck you.” I said and got up. A few gates down I found another bar. This time I got a shot of tequila, downed it, and then headed toward my gate.
As soon as I was settled into my seat on the plane, I realized what a total mistake I’d made. My mouth was so dry I could barely swallow, and even though I still felt drunk, my head was already starting to throb. I signaled for the flight attendant.
I held up a one-hundred-dollar bill. “How much water will this buy me.”
He frowned. “We don’t take cash.”
I looked around. Nobody else was paying attention. I tucked it into his palm and closed his fingers over it. “If you could just keep the bottled water coming, I’d be very appreciative.”
He returned to the front of the plane. Within a few seconds, he’d brought me three water bottles. “I’ll bring more when those are done.”
I gulped them down with several aspirin and sat back as the plane took off, hoping for the best. By the time we landed in San Francisco, I’d downed five bottles of water, used the airplane bathroom twice, and still felt buzzed.
Tony honked as I stumbled out of the terminal, pulling my dark sunglasses on.
I hopped in the front seat. “I’ve got a fucking hangover, and I’m still drunk,” I said in greeting.
“Lovely,” he said. He smiled, flashing his one gold tooth at me. Tony was an ex-con and didn’t even try to hide the prison tat on his neck. But he was practically an upstanding citizen now. Otherwise, as he put it, his “old lady” would kick his ass out. Besides he wanted to walk the straight and narrow so he’d be a good role model for his grandkids. But I still knew he might have connections so I asked:
“You got any good drugs? I mean something to take away the pain?”
“Gia.” He sounded so disappointed in me.
“Don’t judge. I’m fucked up because I’m worried sick, okay?” I could tell I sounded ultra-defensive. “There’s a little girl and I was supposed to keep her safe and some fuckers kidnapped her and it’s all my fault.” I threw my head back against the seat in frustration.
“That sucks.”
“Tell me about it,” I said.
He handed me something. Some pill that materialized out of thin air. “Here. Don’t make a habit of this. It’s a painkiller.”
“Oh, man I owe you,” I said. “My head is pounding. I’m so stupid. I need to be sharp. I need to find who took Rosalie and kill them.”
Tony put his hands on his ears. “La la la. I don’t hear you. I’m not gonna be an accessory to murder.”
“Very funny,” I said and lightly punched his shoulder. The car swerved. I swore. “Put your hands back on the wheel. The last thing I need is to die before I can find her.”
He rolled his eyes, but he was once again firmly gripping the wheel.
I didn’t say much the rest of the drive as I tried to formulate a plan to find Rosalie, but the fact was, I didn’t have any idea even where to start.
James stood waiting in the driveway of his mother’s place. Tony said he’d be parked at the end of the driveway until I was ready to go home. I wasn’t sure James would be coming back with me to the loft, and the last thing I needed was to be stranded at the Wicked Witch of the West’s house.
Behind James I saw plywood boards covering where the double front doors had been shredded by shotgun blasts.
“Homicide just cleared the scene. They left right after the hearse a few minutes ago. Mom fell right asleep; poor thing is exhausted. When she got back from the hospital, everyone was trying to get her to lie down, but she said she wasn’t going to rest until they got the ‘damn dead body’ out of her house. I mean, you can’t blame her.”
“Nope,” I said.
“Let’s talk out back so we don’t wake her. I’ve got coffee.” It was only three in the morning, but I obviously wasn’t going back to sleep.
“Thank God.” I realized my head was pounding. “Can you put a shot in it? Hair of the dog?”
He gave me a look, but I saw him reach for a bottle of whiskey. God bless him. I glanced down the hallway leading to the bedrooms but didn’t see anything in the shadowy darkness.
On the back patio, I pulled up a lawn chair by the pool. James handed me a mug. I glanced at the house behind us as I took a gulp. I could taste the bite of the alcohol.
“What did they say at the hospital about your mom?”
“Ended up giving her an MRI. No concussion. Too hard-headed I think.”
I didn’t laugh at his joke.
“Thank God,” I said. My own words couldn’t have surprised me more. My body sagged in relief. If she’d been seriously hurt, the guilt would’ve been overwhelming. James would say otherwise, but he’d have always blamed me.
“Here’s what I found out,” James said. He went on to tell me exactly how it had gone down.
His mother had just turned in for the night when two men in masks blasted through the front door with shotguns. His mother grabbed a baseball bat and raced for Rosalie’s room.
One of the men intercepted her. He grabbed her from behind. She fought him and he hit her on the side of the head with the gun.
The blow to the head had stunned her, but didn’t knock her out. As she lay on the ground, she kept her eyes closed and pretended to be unconscious but kept an eye on the men by peeking out under her eyelashes.
James paused and took a long sip of his coffee.
“She’s kind of a badass,” I said.
“Keep listening,” he said. He grinned. He was proud. I was filled with shame for disliking her so much. I’d have to really try to be more open-minded. Later. Right now, I only had energy to find Rosalie.
They left her alone for a few minutes.
“That’s when Mom decided to play hero. She stood up, took a lamp, followed them into Rosalie’s room, and was about to bash one of the kidnappers in the head when the other one noticed and drew a gun on her. The man she was about to hit—the one who had pistol whipped her, put up a hand and yelled, ‘No!’
“Mom said the other man seemed startled and just sorta stared at the second guy. Then he said, ‘You know Carnegie—’ and his partner shot him right between the eyes before he could finish.”
“He grabbed Rosalie by the wrist and while she screamed, he shoved Mom into the closet and locked it. Rosalie’s screams grew further away until Mom could no longer hear them.”
When James finished, I had a million questions to ask.
“He shot him for saying that name—Carnegie.”
James nodded.
“It sounds like they were pros.”
“Get this,” James said. “Shooter dropped his gun at the scene.”
“I’m sure it was clear of prints or identifying marks.”
“Clean as if it’d just come off the assembly line.”
“For sure pros.”
“Yeah.”
“Cops?” I said.
James stared at me.
It wasn’t like we both hadn’t thought it.
“Or worse,” I said.
I closed my eyes. We were playing with the big boys now.
“What about the men’s voices? What did your mother say?”
I already knew that James had quizzed her. He hadn’t worked as a detective for fifteen years for nothing.
“Neither had an accent.”
I narrowed my eyes thinking about that. No accent. American, then? Did that make it more likely they were working for the chief? Besides the coyote, who would want Rosalie?
Opening my eyes, I shook my head as if to clear it, but it was still racing with dark thoughts. “How did your mom get help?”
“I called a few hours later, and when she didn’t answer, I called for a welfare check. Deputies found her in the closet. I came straight up.”
That made me think.
“Did you call Rosalie’s burner phone when all this happened?”
His eyes widened. “No. I didn’t think to do that.”
He reached for his phone, but his hand paused in midair.
“Did they find her phone in the bedroom?” I asked.
“I don’t know. They just left, the crime scene tape is still up. But her backpack is right inside on the counter.”
I opened the sliding glass door as quietly as I could in case Mrs. Hunt was still asleep.
Rosalie’s backpack was on the counter. Her phone wasn’t in it.
James came in beside me.
“Let’s check her room.” He spoke in a low voice.
In the guest room, the bed covers had been thrown on the floor and Rosalie’s clothes had been scattered. A large blood stain had seeped into the carpet near the bed.
“I’ve called some crime scene cleaners,” James said.
That was one thing that always surprised me—police and medical personnel don’t clean up after a tragedy or violence in a private building. It’s up to the owners to deal with it themselves.
I sifted through Rosalie’s clothes and bed covers but didn’t find the phone. I searched all the drawers, under the mattress, and between the wall and the headboard, but there was nothing.
James watched me. “She might have it.”
I nodded. It would be too dangerous to call her. She would have to call us.
“Too bad it’s a burner. We can’t use “Find My Phone” or anything,” he said.
We both sat there in silence for a few seconds.
“What now?” he asked.
“You’re the detective.”
It worked. He smiled.
“They’re checking for prints. But the guys wore gloves. It might take a while to get an identity on the one guy—see if he comes up in NCIC.”
“I think our only lead is what my mother heard the kidnapper say. Does it mean anything to you? Carnegie?”
I shook my head. I grabbed my phone and searched Carnegie in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dozens of names came up. “Can your sergeant help us narrow it down?”
“Let’s try something better,” James said.
I followed him into his mother’s small home office. He logged onto her computer and searched a special police database he somehow still had access to.
“Got it. I’ll check them out deeper, but nothing on the surface sets off an alarm.”
“I’ve got an idea,” I said. I dialed Danny and asked him to search all Carnegie’s in the state for someone who might be involved in human trafficking.
Within the hour, he’d called back. “I think I’ve got a possible,” he said.
“Let me have it,” I said.
“A Joe Carnegie. A big philanthropist apparently. Upstanding citizen.”
“Keep going,” I said, raising an eyebrow at James, and putting Danny on speakerphone.
“Check your email,” Danny said.
I pulled up an article featuring a Joe Carnegie and scanned it before saying, “That’s from some fucking conspiracy-theory-right-wing-mumbo-jumbo group.”
“Ignore that part and look at the two pictures,” Danny said.
The first photo was of Joe Carnegie in a tux, standing beside a beautiful blonde woman at some fancy San Diego gala. That picture was side-by-side with another. It showed a man who bore a striking resemblance to Carnegie standing next to a swarthy man in camouflage military clothes holding a bazooka. It was hard to tell for sure if it was Carnegie because the photo only showed him in profile.
“Same dude,” James said.
“Who’s G.I. Joe?” I asked.
“That’s G.I. Juan to you,” Danny said.
“Huh?”
“The guy in camo is believed to be the cartel leader’s right hand man. Juan Suarez.”
The cartel.
“Thanks, Danny.”
“No sweat,” he said. “I’ll text you any details I can find on him—address, city of residence, etc.”
“You are a rock star,” I said.
When the line disconnected, I squinted and turned to James. “Can you blow up the photo?”
James did, but it didn’t help. If only his head wasn’t turned away from the camera. When James clicked to make it original size again I stared at it for a few seconds. The two men were standing in front of a plane at what appeared to be an airport. I caught glimpses of other planes in the background. “Wait,” I said. “What’s that?”
I pointed to a small dot at the bottom of the picture. James blew it up. It revealed a small white bird with a black head and orange beak.
“Looks like a bird, Santella.”
“That’s it.”
“It’s a bird,” James said. “A cute little bird, but a bird.”
I smiled. “Allow me.”
I’d seen a poster about it at the San Diego airport.
Taking over the keyboard and mouse, I quickly pulled up a website and read out loud:
“The California least tern is an endangered species. The last remaining populations of tern can be found nesting near the runways at the San Diego airport…”
I leaned back so James could see the picture of the bird—a small white bird with a distinctive black cap and a bright orange beak.
At that moment, I got a text from Danny. It listed an address for a Joe Carnegie. In San Diego.
Grabbing my phone I logged onto the airline website. “I need to head back down south.”
James glanced back toward the hallway. “I think I need to stay here with my mother. At least until I’m sure they aren’t coming back.”
“That makes sense.”
I sensed her before I saw her.
Mrs. Hunt was standing in the doorway. She wore a peach silk robe belted tightly over what looked like peach silk pajamas. For the first time since I’d met her, she seemed feeble.
“James?” Her voice was wobbly.
“Right here, Mama.” He was at her side in a second.
She pretended like I wasn’t there. That was fine.
“It’s nearly four in the morning,” she said.
“James,” I said in a low voice. “I’m going to head back to the loft, check on Django, and see if I can figure out where to start.”
Out in the driveway, Tony saw us come out and drove over. Once I was in the passenger seat, James stuck his head in my window and searched my face.
“How was San Diego?”
I hadn’t had a chance to tell him anything.
“She’s dead. They strung her up on a tree.”
“Jesus Christ.” James scowled. “What kind of monsters are they?”
“The worst kind.”