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I couldn’t even count on Rodrigo. Instead of staring me down with his normal hatred, he just watched me go with a blank look on his face.
All I could think of was Hector’s words: whoever those two chingados were, they weren’t Santa Muertes.
If they weren’t Santa Muertes… then who the fuck were they? And how was I supposed to find out?
Actually, the answer came pretty quickly. I just resisted like hell at first.
I was standing on my deck again that night when it came to me. I was looking out at the darkness, and just like that I figured out what I had to do.
I didn’t want to. I hated the fucking idea. My ego hated it even worse. But I was desperate.
And desperate times call for desperate measures.
I called Kade and filled him in on what Hector had said.
“…whoa,” was his only response.
Then I told him what I was planning.
“…okay. Can’t hurt,” was all he said, but that was enough reassurance for me that my plan wasn’t insane.
“I’ll call you after I know more,” I said, and hung up the phone.
21
Fiona
Two weeks back in LA and I still hadn’t found an apartment yet. Sid gave me hell about it every day, but he still let me crash on the couch in the back room. Normally the sofa was for catching some shut-eye when we were rotating on a heavy stakeout. I wasn’t the only person Sid employed, and the couch saved people from having to go home, especially if they lived farther away and had to be back in a couple of hours for their shift.
The couch was a plaid-covered, ripped and torn monstrosity with a thousand stains of mysterious origins. It was probably older than Sid, but I could sleep just about anywhere. Plus, there was a kitchen sink and a mini-fridge five feet away. I showered at the gym where I still had my membership, and did my clothes around the corner at the coin laundromat. All in all, it was workable until I got a new place.
I’d only looked half-heartedly. Searched a few online services, but never even went to see anything in person. Part of it was that if I actually got an apartment, I was accepting it was all over. That I would never know who killed Ali, and all my sacrifices and efforts and time in Richards had been for nothing.
And, maybe most importantly, that any chance I had with Jack was dead.
He was in my thoughts constantly. I couldn’t stop thinking about him – his eyes, his voice, his body. The sex, which I came back to seemingly every time my mind wandered (which was a lot). I ached from not feeling his touch, from not having his arms around me, from not tasting his mouth and lips. I thought of him when I went to sleep, when I woke up, and pretty much constantly in between.
But it was over. No matter how agonizing that was, I had to accept it.
Which is why hearing his voice took me by surprise.
I was making a pot of coffee in the back room when I heard him in the main office:
“I’m here to see Fiona.”
His sexy rumble was like something out of a half-forgotten dream – except it wasn’t a dream; he was twenty feet away in the other room, just barely out of sight. Hearing his voice immediately triggered a tsunami of emotions. My legs trembled, my heart thudded, and my stomach filled with fear.
“Fiona?” Sid said, playing dumb. “Nope, don’t ring a bell.”
“I owe her a couple grand,” the voice said, “but she moved and shut off her phone. You sure you don’t know a Fiona Christenson?”
That was obviously a ploy, but Sid wasn’t biting. “You’re an odd one, aintcha?”
“What do you mean?”
“It means I never met a guy before who goes around tryin’ to find people he owes money to. Usually it’s the other way around.”
“I made a promise.”
