Graciella listened to what Stuart Ramey was saying, but at first she could barely comprehend the full extent of the disaster. “Frigg stole my money?” she demanded at last.
“Not just your money,” Stu corrected. “She took all the Duartes’ liquid assets, yours included. The only thing left is real property, so when it comes time to lawyer up, you’ll all be using public defenders.”
“She can’t get away with this.”
“What are you going to do about it,” Stu asked mildly, “call the cops? Or send in a hit man like you did on Ron Webster? Or Arturo Salazar?”
Graciella’s heart fell. It wasn’t just the money. Ramey and Frigg knew about Webster and Arturo? Did they know about her mother, too?
“El Pescado won’t stand for this,” she warned. “He’ll come after you and destroy you.”
“Let me point out that Felix Duarte is currently in jail,” Stuart said, “and you’re the one who put him there.”
“I put him there? How could I?” Graciella protested. “He was arrested in Phoenix. I had no idea he was even coming to Phoenix.”
“But Frigg knew,” Stuart countered. “The transfer from El Pescado’s account to the charter outfit gave that game away. As for that tip to the DEA? It may not have come from you, but as far as the cops are concerned, it had your name on it.”
Graciella hung up then because with those few words, she knew her life was over—not just life as she knew it, but life itself. If she had access to her money and her fake IDs right then, she might make a run for it and be able to go into hiding, but even then Felix would most likely find her. In jail or out, he would hire someone to track her down and kill her, just as he had hunted down each of her mother’s attackers. Graciella wanted to howl and scream and bay at the moon, but she didn’t.
“We need to turn around,” she said.
“We’re not going to Cottonwood?” the driver asked.
“No, take me back to Phoenix.”
“Where in Phoenix?”
“I don’t know. To a hotel, I guess. Drop me off at a nice hotel.”
Which is how Graciella Miramar ended up spending the last night of her life at the Arizona Biltmore. It was almost three o’clock in the morning when she finally checked in. There was a single parking attendant waiting by the driveway when she stepped out of the Escalade. The lobby was completely empty of customers. The lone clerk would later recall Ms. Miramar as being very subdued in her dealings with him, although he certainly remembered her paying for her room in cash out of an impressive roll of bills.
“Will you be needing assistance with your luggage?” he asked after handing her a map and providing instructions for locating her casita.
“No, thank you,” she said. “I can manage. Is there a minibar in the room?”
“Of course, madam, a fully stocked minibar. We also have twenty-four-hour room service.”
Her casita was at the far back of the property. From the time she left the lobby until she reached her door, she walked the ramped and well-lit walkways without seeing another soul, and that was just as well. She had always been alone, even during the years when she had lived with her mother, and she would be alone now, too. Graciella understood how the cartels handled snitches. She would do this on her own terms—calmly, carefully, and deliberately.
Once in the room, she didn’t bother undressing, nor did she call for room service. She raided the minibar instead, opening the bottle of Merlot and dining on packages of potato chips, cheddar-flavored popcorn, and peanut M&M’s.
She didn’t turn on the television set. One of the twenty-four-hour news outlets might have told her more about El Pescado’s arrest, but she already knew as much about that as she needed to know. There was no sense in learning more. Instead, she sat there drinking her wine, snacking, and thinking about Frigg. It was revolting to have been done in by a damned machine. Owen had told her the AI was smart, but Graciella had gravely underestimated her opponent, and now she was done.
She thought about writing a suicide note, but decided against it. The less said the better. Let the cops puzzle it out. Either they would put it all together or they would not. It was none of her concern.
She finished the first bottle of wine and opened a second one—Cabernet, this time. By then she was slightly drunk, but not as drunk as her mother had been on her last night, and for some reason, that made Graciella giggle. She poured herself a fresh glass and set it on the coffee table while she unsealed the envelope and opened the two packets of fentanyl. She placed the patches on the backs of her hands, and then sat there sipping from that final glass and watching as the poison gradually seeped into her system. When the opioid overdose finally did its work, the half-empty glass fell from her lifeless limbs and shattered on the tile floor.
• • •
Later that day, just at noon, a housekeeper knocked on the door. When no one answered, the maid used her passkey to enter. She was the one who discovered the body, slumped over but still sitting mostly upright on the sofa. And the only sign of violence in the room? That single broken glass.