AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I took a few minutes to gather myself and allow the heaviness between us to subside before I continued with my questions.
“Let’s get back to Ansley?” I announced, opening my book back up and grabbing the pen.
“Okay. I met Ansley at the shelter, as I said. We talked from time to time but nothing heavy. One night, the both of us were working late. She invited me to her apartment a few blocks away to just hang out and have a couple of beers.” She gave me the address before continuing. “We had drinks and talked. Later that night, after way too much tequila, she told me her full story. How she met a guy, fell hard, and moved in with him. They were supposed to get married. Anyway, things were going well for a while until he started drinking and doing drugs. Then the abuse started. She tried to leave him a few times, but he’d always promise to do better. One night, he beat her pretty badly. That’s when she realized he would never stop. So she left him. She went to the shelter under a different name. Her apartment was also under a different name.”
“Do you think Ansley Ruiz is her real name?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest. I believe that Ansley is her real name, but I just don’t know about the last name.”
I made a note to have Danny do a deep dive in the shelter’s records. Maybe we could find something. We may also find something once we’ve checked out the apartment.
“Good, Phoebe, thank you. I’ll get Danny on this. Hopefully, he’ll find something. What about family? Her parents? Do you know if she was a native? If her family lives here?”
“She never spoke about…wait. She did say her mom died, but I don’t know how or when. Other than that, she didn’t mention any family. A lot of us kept our personal information to ourselves.”
“Understood. Is there anything else you want to…?” I trailed off when my phone vibrated. I picked it up and found Danny had texted me with news. He had found Ansley, but her last name wasn’t Ruiz. It was Muñoz.
Shit…
I texted back,as in Carlito Muñoz?
Danny replied back in seconds.Yes…
Fuck…
I blew out a long sigh, dread seeping in my pores. Carlito Muñoz was a new player in the Dallas underground scene. He had just planted roots here, in from Houston, where he wreaked havoc by taking other cartels and gangs’ territory, and he didn’t ask nicely. We had gotten word of him through our counterparts in the HPD and other departments in counties around the city. From what we gathered, the fucker was a menace. He was psychotic and didn’t care about innocent life. If they got in his way of a mark, it was the victim’s fault, not his.
As soon as he heard about his daughter, shit was going to get very messy.
“Is there something wrong, Detective?”
I blinked and focused on a concerned Phoebe.
“No, not really. Danny has identified your friend as Ansley Muñoz.”
“Muñoz? So, it wasn’t Ruiz?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
She blew out a breath. “That’s good then, right?”
I snorted but didn’t reply. Instead, I typed back.Check out anything on Ansley Ruiz. It’s the name she’d been using, according to Phoebe.
I addressed Phoebe.
“We’ll see what Danny comes up with. Now back to Ansley. You said that she had called you saying she had left some items at Santos’s place. She needed you to go with…” I trailed off again when Danny replied with another message, one that had my blood boiling.
There’s a missing person’s report under two names: Ansley Muñoz and Ansley Ruiz. One from Houston and the other right here in Plano, by non-other than Miguel Santos.
That’s why the name sounded familiar, not the last name, but the first, Ansley. Her case had crossed my desk because of Santos.
I looked into the soft, troubled brown eyes facing me, doing my best to keep my shit in check. It was time to get to the bottom of the secrets I knew she was hiding. No more fucking secrets.
“Danny just told me that there was a missing person’s report out for Ansley.” I glanced at my phone and saw Danny had sent me the report. I scrolled through and found the information I needed. I continued speaking and reading, keeping my eyes on the small screen in my hand. “Apparently, she disappeared about four months ago. Walked out of her home and never returned. She left most of her belongings there and was never heard from again.” I looked up and met a pair of wide eyes. “Tell me,” I went on to say, “when did she arrive at the shelter? Around four months ago?”
Phoebe didn’t reply right away. She was too busy glancing everywhere around me except bringing her attention to me. A telltale sign that she was thinking hard of a comeback, a lie surely ready to fall from her lips. Before I could warn her about lying, telling her that I knew more than she could possibly imagine and that lying to me wouldn’t end well for her, she let out a long sigh, her body caving into itself.
“Yes,” she said finally. “She came to the shelter looking for help. But she was afraid that her boyfriend would find her again.”
