She texts Billy because she feels she has to:
So sorry for everything. Felix has been kidnapped by the Sinaloa Cartel, as you know by now. It happened just after we talked at the park. I’m about to square things up with a man who’s been haunting me for years. You are a strong and loyal friend and I adore you. I’ll be hard to get a hold of for a while.
Teddy Delgado’s third email comes through a few minutes later.
Dear Ms. Blazak,
I’ll be starting off for Laguna Beach in just a few weeks. A friend is driving me to the Oceanside transit center where I’ll get the Coaster to San Juan Capistrano. After that it’s still pretty far to Laguna but I have some bus money.
How is Joe? I know you’re taking good care of him. I watch your video about him a lot. I contacted Joe’s DEA handler, Aaron, just to make sure he saw your story, and he told me he’d seen it. Turns out, Joe was unhappy and ran away from him not once but twice, and the second time Aaron looked all over San Diego County but couldn’t find him. Joe had a chip but nobody notified Aaron. Aaron thought he was dead. This was like over a year ago. Then you found him in Tijuana! I think God personally watches over Joe.
I have been enjoying your stories. When I get to Laguna I’ll come to the Coastal Eddy.
Oh, if you want to play the game that Joe loves most, it’s like hide-and-seek. You give him something to smell, then you make him stay and hide it in a really impossible place to find. Indoors or out. It can be something that doesn’t have a strong smell. He’ll find it, though. He always does, so you have to give him really good treats when he does. You’ll see how happy it makes Joe to make you happy. I taught him that game. Back in our house before Mom and Dad. I was the first one who noticed that Joe has the best nose in the world. Even his trainers at Excalibur told me so.
Have you thought of a fair price I can pay for Joe? I’m hoping to leave Laguna with my dog back!
Sincerely,
She watches the sunrise scrunched down in the front seat, head just high enough for her to see Inland Frontier Realty through the steering wheel. The western, saloon-look building sits alone on the outskirts of Anza, windblown tumbleweeds stacked against a chain link fence. Not much around. The Circle K is way down the road, the DQ half a mile away. She feels like a fool, hunkered down here, hiding from nobody. Her whole body is sore from the shotgun chase and the cold night in a steel Jeep.
Jason Graves’s Escalade with the rearing horse and roping wrangler on the doors bellows to a stop in the same parking spot out front, just feet from the hitching rail. A moment later the door opens and he swings his pale boots to the ground. Dust rises from the gravel parking lot. Jason unlocks and goes in and CLOSED becomes OPEN.
She gets out and crosses the street, the heavy Model 12 cradled in her arms, fully loaded, a hand on the sliding forearm.
She marches past the hitching rail, up the steps, and onto the wooden porch. Throws open the door and steps in in. Jason’s behind his desk. His mouth opens, and his face goes pale.
Bettina levels the shotgun at him. “You touch your phone, and I’ll blow it out of your hand.”
“Bettina.”
“Correct. I thought your memory might improve.”
Jason’s wide-eyed face looks like a child’s.
“I came here for an apology,” she says. “And I won’t accept a denial of the truth. If you can’t or won’t remember what you did, I’ve got John Torres lined up to talk to the UCI campus cops. I’ve read his statement. It’s detailed and graphic. It would also make a real easy post. Talk about viral potential. I even took pictures of the house, and the room where it happened.”
Almost none of which is true, except that she has talked to John Torres and he’s still willing to tell the cops what he saw that night.
“Please don’t do that,” says Jason. “I tried to put it out of my mind. For years I did. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I saw you. Thinking about it, like, every second. I’m not just sorry, Bettina — I’m really, really sorry. I was horrible and there’s no forgiving what I did and I’m so sorry I hurt you. I won’t ask you to forgive me. I won’t even ask myself to do that. But don’t tell the world. Don’t tell my wife and children. Please. I beg you.”
“I want you to feel like I did.”
“I have money.”
“You’ll need it for the Escalade. Thanks for the confession and apology. Wipe the slobber off your lips, Jason.”
Bettina kicks open the door and hustles back down the steps and blows out the right front tire of the SUV. Pumps the gun and destroys the left tire, then rounds the Escalade, steps back a few yards and blasts the Inland Frontier sign and its rearing horse and roping wrangler not just once but three times, the big 12-gauge, #6-shot pheasant loads crushing through the paint and bending the metal into a giant pucker that takes up almost the whole door.
She goes back inside, finds Jason still at his desk, trembling and loading a big revolver.
“No, please,” he says, dropping the gun and cartridges to the floor.
“Stand up and kick it here.”
Jason lurches up, manages to kick the gun on his second try. The revolver spins across the floor, cylinder free and two cartridges spilling out. It stops just short of Bettina’s boot.
“I want to hear you apologize again.”
“I did it. I assaulted you and I apologize!”
“Say ‘rape,’ Jason. Use that word.”
“I tried to rape you but I didn’t. I didn’t.”
She takes his revolver back outside, heaves it over the chain-link fence and into the tumbleweeds.
Quickly stashes her shotgun in the sleeping bag, jumps into her seat and fires up the engine. Stomps on the gas and fishtails out of the parking lot in a storm of gravel, sand and dust.
Screams “Yeeesss!” for her new freedom, for the improved, industrial-strength fire she believes is inside her now. For the burden of vengeance lifted. For the liberty to feel something for a man besides suspicion. All of this locked away by Jason Graves until today.
And most of all for her plan — hatched last night in a fearful dream in the back of the freezing Wrangler — to get Felix back.
A bold and beautiful plan.
If he’s alive, she can get him back.
Home in Laguna, Bettina emails Alejandro Godoy:
Dear Mr. Godoy,
As you know your men kidnapped Felix in Laguna Beach yesterday. They treated him roughly but they were respectful of me and did not harm me or the Dog. I appreciate your $10,000 very much and would like to offer it back to you as partial payment for returning Felix to me.
Here is my offer: I will tell the true story about you — the one that you said the newspapers never tell. It will focus on you but also on your giving Felix back to me, to show your caring side, the side of you that loves children and dogs, as you told me once. But I have to be factual too. I will present you as a dangerous and sometimes violent man, and the leader of a powerful drug cartel.
I will also interview you on video for my newspaper, Coastal Eddy, so you can tell your story in your words. You understand that an interview with El Gordo would be picked up by probably every news outlet in the known world. So, if you don’t want your face seen by millions and millions of people, then we’ll just do the print and e-paper version of my story without pictures.