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“But—”
“Go on about Crisco. What else do you know?”
Her expression was pained; her mind torn between shoving my arm away and staying put. Luckily she did the right thing.
“He and Evan drove around a lot together,” Brynne explained. “I remember that much. I’m not sure, but I think he’s the one who introduced him to… well…”
“The Lozanos.”
She nodded promptly. “Yes.”
We watched together as the dark-haired man jumped into a blue BMW convertible. He turned the key and the engine roared to life. A second later he tore out like an asshole, leaving the acrid scent of burnt rubber and exhaust behind him.
“He’s getting away!”
My arm still crossing her body, I held her firmly in place until the car was at least halfway up the block. At that point I started my own engine and pulled smoothly back into the street.
“No he’s not.”
Fourteen
BRYNNE
We followed our target all morning, and well into the afternoon. He stopped at a bodega first, then a series of cafes, followed by an auto body repair shop. An hour later he visited a pawn broker’s in Webster, then ate lunch at some open-air market on the outskirts of town.
Each time we stopped I wanted to jump out of the car and throttle him, this guy who’d gotten my brother so involved with drugs and whatever else. I wanted to wrap my hands around his skinny tattooed throat and squeeze as hard as I could, not stopping until his eyes popped out or until he told me where Evan was.
“We should grab him,” I told Santiago, on more than one occasion. “We could make him talk.”
Each time he only shook his head solemnly. His answer made me feel helpless. His silence made me angry.
Still, I was glad to finally be out of the basement. Just happy to be getting a little sun and some fresh ocean air. Santiago never made me duck my head or roll up my window, no matter what part of town we were in. He drove stealthily even in his big old dinosaur of a car, and hung far enough back that Crisco never once even looked in our direction.
Despite my best efforts he said less than a few dozen words to me all morning and refused my every plea to stop for food. Even so, I couldn’t help but admire his focus. Santiago spent the day surveilling everything from beneath two thick, beautiful brows, while clenching and unclenching his square-set jaw. His eyes were sharp and intelligent. His pouty, pretty-boy mouth ended in the kind of lips that were perfect for kissing.
Somehow I got a few things out of him, but not much. I learned that he was a first-generation American Venezuelan. He’d grown up in New Mexico before joining the Army, became a Green Beret, and met Silas and Cody while “in country” although he wouldn’t say exactly where or how.
Beyond that Santiago was grimly silent, which pretty much left me alone with my thoughts. These included the incredible events of last night, which I was tempted to run through my mind again and again. With Santiago sitting next to me however, that seemed wrong. And so I did what I always did when I had nothing to think about:
I thought about Evan.
As before, I tried to map out a more detailed timeline of his downward spiral. My brother had stopped working a few months back, around the same time he’d gotten involved with drugs. At first they’d been soft drugs, and he’d still been functioning. But as things got harder he began spending longer stretches of time outside the house — without any explanation as to who he was with, or what he was doing. And that’s when everything went from bad to worse.
“Psst…”
I turned, and Santiago was pointing again. Crisco was back in the street once more, looking greasy as ever, only this time he had two friends. One of them was a red-headed woman. The other was a tall, blond-bearded man with mirrored sunglasses.
“Know either of them?” Santiago asked.
I stared for a while, trying to remember. The woman didn’t look like anyone I’d seen before. The man however…
“Does the blond guy have a hook-nose?”
“Yes. Actually, he does.”
“Pretty sure I’ve seen him once then,” I confirmed. “My brother bought him a drink in a bar.”
Santiago’s piercing eyes remained locked on the trio’s conversation, as if trying to read their lips. His concentration was unwavering.
