Sitting there with his sister in the ominous air pulled Gannon back to Buffalo.
He is eight; Cora is thirteen. They are terrified waiting at their kitchen table. They’d been in the yard, Cora lobbing a baseball to him when he popped one that went up, up, so far up that it landed with enough velocity on their father’s new Ford to leave a fracture that spider-webbed across the windshield. Mom’s aghast. “Holy cow, Jack, Dad’s new car. He’s going to be sick about this, just sick!” Cora telling her, “Don’t blame Jack. It was my fault, Mom. I should have caught it. It was an accident, I swear.” At that moment Cora is his hero. Dad says nothing, works overtime and fixes the problem. That’s the way he did things. Jack felt horrible but loved Cora for being the big sister protector.
Despite all the pain-soaked years between them, despite her mistakes, his misgivings and the wounds, she was still his sister.
And she needed him.
He clasped his hand over hers. “Hang in there, okay? It’s going to be all right. Just hang on.”
Cora took his hand, squeezing it, until they saw Hackett’s sedan arrive out front. He was alone and sober-faced when he entered, pulling a chair to the end of the table.
Cora steeled herself and hit him with her question.
“Is my daughter dead? If it’s true, I want you to tell me right now?”
The two men at the counter turned.
Hackett kept his voice low, choosing his words carefully.
“We found no evidence at this scene to confirm that.”
“Please stop talking that way,” Cora said. “I took a polygraph, like you wanted. I told you everything, like you wanted. I may not have lived a perfect life, but please, can’t you show me a scrap of respect. She’s my child and I think I deserve to know the truth.”
Hackett loosened his collar.
“Two homeless men who’d been drinking in a boxcar claim they witnessed a possible drug deal go sideways. They say they saw two figures deposit a body into the trunk of a car. Then the car drove off. The men were frightened and stopped a patrol car. They led the deputy to the location, where he found an abandoned Cherokee SUV matching the vehicle we’ve linked to Galviera,” Hackett said.
“Our people have been working the scene since 3:00 a.m., going full bore. Fingerprints in the SUV match Galviera’s and we found blood traces consistent with his type.”
“What do you think happened here?” Gannon asked.
“In his call to Cora,” Hackett said, “Galviera indicated he was going to fix things. He said that he was going to see Tilly. We suspect the cartel lured him here with the intention of torturing him into giving them their money.”
“Oh Jesus, what about Tilly?” Cora asked.
“They may have used her as the bait. The cartel may have lured him with the promise of seeing Tilly.” Cora moaned.
“We can’t rule it out,” Hackett said.
“They’re just theories, Cora.” Gannon tried to comfort her.
“He’s right,” Hackett said. “Just theories, but we can’t discount another concern-that Cora was present when Eduardo Zartosa, the youngest brother of Samson Zartosa, leader of the Norte Cartel, was murdered.”
“But I never knew who that boy in San Francisco was until now.”
“It doesn’t matter. We have to assume that Samson Zartosa knows now and take that into account. Think about it. Through circumstance, he is now holding the child of the woman involved in his little brother’s murder, the woman whose boyfriend has stolen from his operation. That’s about as bad as things can get. You wanted the truth. Well, that’s it.”
Cora tried to keep herself from coming apart, staring off at the helicopters in the distance, circling the rail yards like giant vultures.
Please, God, help me find her.
Hackett’s cell phone rang. He turned away slightly to take the call. It was short and he finished by saying, “I’ll head that way now and meet you there.”
Cora saw something troubling in his expression.
“What is it? What’s happening?”
“I can’t tell you right now, I have to go.”
“Please!”
“I’m sorry, I’ll keep in touch.”
When Hackett got to his car, Gannon stood, tossed some bills on the table. “Let’s go. I could hear part of the call, something about a homicide. We’ll follow him.”
66
Phoenix, Arizona
“O h, Jesus.”
Salazar’s and Johnson’s severed heads stared up at Galviera. Across from him, Tilly’s screams were muffled by the tape over her mouth.
“You have thirty seconds to tell us where you’ve put our two million dollars,” Angel said. “Or I will add a new one to the collection.”
Galviera turned white and was breathing hard.
“There’s more money. Please take them away. I’ll tell you where it is.”
“They will remain to inspire you to tell the truth.”
“I rented several storage lockers under the name of Pilsner at JBD Mini-Storage in Phoenix. The two million is in locker 787A, northwest sector of the yard. You need the gate code and the key for the steel lock on the unit. The money is in two sports bags. The code and key are in the hollowed section of the heel of my right boot.”
Angel nodded to Tecaza, who yanked off Galviera’s right boot and twisted the heel, extracting a metal key and a folded business card with numbers jotted in pen on the back.
He held them up for Angel.
Tecaza and Limon-Rocha entered JBD’s address into a GPS, preparing to go retrieve their cash now as Angel stood before Galviera.
“To ensure you are not working with police, I’ll call my associates every twenty minutes. If they do not answer me, I will remove the girl’s head.”
In the time that Limon-Rocha and Tecaza were gone, Galviera tried to soothe Tilly.
“It’ll be okay, I promise. Soon they’ll have what they want and they’ll let us go. I am so sorry for this, Tilly. It’ll be okay now. Soon you’ll see your mom and everything’s going to be fine. I promise.”
Tilly could not stop shaking. Her widened eyes seemed even larger as she kept them on Angel. Her stomach knotted each time he made a phone call. She thanked God each time his call was answered.
Angel occupied himself by eating potato chips and chocolate cupcakes, drinking Coke and playing a hand-held computer game, the soft beeping and ponging sound a cruel juxtaposition to the horror he’d put on hold.
An hour after they’d left, Limon-Rocha and Tecaza had returned. They placed two sports bags on the table and started counting the bundled cash, counting twice to verify the amount.
The totaclass="underline" $2,176,000.
“Back the car into the hangar close to the table-” Angel nodded to Galviera “-and load all the money in the trunk, with the shovel and the pick.”
“Wait.” Galviera struggled. “Aren’t you going to let us go?”
No one responded. As Limon-Rocha and Tecaza loaded the car, Angel checked Galviera’s bindings and the handcuffs on his wrists and ankles.
“What are you doing?” Galviera winced when Angel tightened the cuffs.
“Get him ready,” Angel said.
“Please,” Galviera said. “I’m begging you, please!”
“Mr. Galviera, did you believe for one moment that after stealing from us you would come out of this alive?”
No more pleading or begging. This was how it was done.
Angel pulled on a large rubber apron and a surgeon’s clear face shield, then set a gas-powered chain saw on the floor next to Tilly.
Galviera bucked wildly against his restraints. Tilly screamed under her tape. Angel kept the saw on the ground, expertly threw the on switch, the throttle, and adjusted the choke. He jerked the engine’s crank cord. It popped to life, filling the hangar with a deafening roar.
Gently squeezing the throttle trigger, Angel lifted the saw and very carefully leveled it at Tilly’s neck. The engine was turning at nearly thirteen-thousand rpm, powering the teeth in the semichisel chain. Tilly could feel the air rippling as Angel brought it closer. Her eyes bulged as she thrashed in vain away from the eighteen-inch blade.