“So, you don’t know who Dutch is?” I asked, fishing for more information.
“One of the guards tried to find out for me. I’d offered him a hefty sum, but by then Reyes had caught on to me and the guard was fired. Reyes is very intelligent. You know he has two degrees. Earned them in prison.”
“Really? That’s amazing,” I said, feigning ignorance. If she figured out I knew more about Reyes than I was letting on, she would likely become a pit bull to get at it. Or she would offer me a lot of money that I wasn’t sure I could turn down. Especially now that Reyes was doing his darnedest to get on my bad side. “You couldn’t possibly give me the name of your current informant?”
“Oh, no. That would be a breach of confidentiality. And I’ve already been warned to cease and desist my exploits. I can’t risk getting this person fired or myself arrested.”
Did she not realize what a private investigator did? “Why did you ask me if I knew Reyes well?”
She chuckled, completely oblivious of the fact that deep down inside, I wanted her dead. “Reyes doesn’t see anyone. Ever. And trust me, dozens of women have tried over the years. He gets more mail than the president. But he never reads a single one.”
That made my innards happy.
“Really, this is all on the site. I try to warn newbies who visit that he won’t see them or read their letters. But each and every fan thinks she will be the one he falls in love with. They have to try, I suppose. I certainly can’t blame them. But of all the women who’ve tried, I’m the only one he’s ever seen.”
I could feel the lie all the way to my marrow. She’d never laid a naked eye on the man. That made my innards happy, too.
“So, how did you find out about Reyes?” she asked, finally growing suspicious of my presence.
“Oh, I’m on a case, and his name came up.”
“Really? In what capacity?”
I tore my eyes off him and turned to her. “I can’t really say, but I do need to ask you a few questions.”
“Questions?”
“Yes. For example, do you know where he is at the moment?”
She offered a patient smile. “Of course. He’s in a long-term-care facility in Santa Fe.”
“Oh,” I said. Cookie cast a sideways glance in my direction, encouraging me to put the woman in her place. Just a little. “Actually, he was scheduled to be taken off life support last week.”
This time, she froze. I’d surprised her, and it took her a moment to recover. “I’m sorry, but that’s not what my resources have told me,” she said, blinking those false eyelashes repeatedly.
“Well, then, you need to find new resources. He was scheduled to die, Ms. Oake. Instead, he woke up and hightailed it out of the medical facility.”
“He escaped?” she asked, her voice a high shriek. This was much more fun than I’d expected it would be. And her surprise was genuine. She had no idea where Reyes had absconded with his body. I was torn between relishing that fact and despising it. We were no closer to finding him than we were before. I’d turned back to look at his writings again as Elaine sought a chair, her legs apparently weak.
The drawing, the one that looked like art but still said my name, was actually a sketch of a building. I stepped closer and breathed in softly.
“Oh, that’s an old building,” Elaine said from behind me. “We don’t know where it is, but we think it’s somewhere in Europe.”
I turned back to Cookie, gestured her my direction with the hint of a nod. Her brows slid together and she inched closer, casting cautious glances over her shoulder. When she stood beside me, she studied the drawing and gasped softly as well.
“I’ll bet you’re right,” I said. “It looks European.” Except it was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and both Cook and I lived in it.
My gaze traveled back to the postcards. “Can I see where those postcards are from?” I asked.
Elaine was busy fanning herself. She forced her body out of the chair and went around to the other side of the display case to open it. “Do you think he’ll come after me?” she asked as she handed them over.
“Why would he do that?” I asked, only slightly interested. Both postcards were from Mexico. They had Reyes’s prison address, but no return address and no message whatsoever. Which was way more interesting than Elaine’s sudden need to jump into panic mode.
“H-he knows who I am,” she said. “He knows I’ve paid money to get information on him. What if he comes after me?”
“Can I keep these?”
“No!” She snatched them back.
Okay. Possessive much? “Look, here’s my card,” I said, handing it to her. “If he comes after you, call me. I really need to take him in.” Cookie and I turned to leave.
“Wait, no, that’s not what I meant.” She followed us, her heels clicking along the Spanish tile. “What if he comes here to kill me?”
I stopped and eyed her suspiciously. “Is there a reason he would want you dead, Ms. Oake?”
“What? No.” She was lying again. I wondered what she’d done, besides paid people to spy on him for years.
“Then I really don’t see a problem.” I turned again to leave.
She rushed around us and blocked our paths. “It’s just, I … everyone…”
“Really, Ms. Oake, I have a case to solve.”
“Here,” she said, handing over the postcards. “I’ll give you these. I have them scanned into my computer anyway. I just need you to call me the minute he’s found.”
I glanced at Cookie, my face the epitome of reluctance. “I don’t know. That would be kind of like your breach of confidentiality.”
“Not if my life is in danger,” she squeaked. “I’ll hire you.”
My earlier conclusions were wrong. This was totally interesting. “First, I already have a client. I could hardly take on another concerning this case. That would be a conflict of interest. And second, why would your life be in danger? Are you afraid of Reyes Farrow?”
“No,” she said with a nervous grin. “It’s just that, well, we’re married.”
Cookie dropped her purse and tried to catch it midair. In the process, she knocked over a vase. When she lunged for the vase, she slipped on the tile and overturned an entire table. A lovely handblown piece of glass flew in my direction, and all I could think as I caught it was, Really? Again? We were going to have to practice muscle control.
“Married?” I asked after the table crashed to the ground. Cookie righted it and replaced the glass orb, a sheepish expression on her face. “You’re going to have to be completely honest with me, Ms. Oake. I happen to know Reyes is not married.”
Elaine eyed Cookie a long moment before answering. “It was a silly argument,” she said, refocusing on me, “and, well, I sort of let people believe that we were married. One of the other site owners said she and Reyes were writing each other, which was a lie and I knew it, then another said they were dating—dating!—so, I upped the ante, so to speak. They think we’ve been married for six months.”
After a melodramatic rolling of my eyes, I refocused on her. “Why would they even believe you?”
“Because, I … well, I sort of forged a wedding license. It’s all on the Web site. Well, not the fact that I forged it.”
Now that I had a bargaining tool—namely, her desire to live—I turned back to the display cases. “Just what are you offering in exchange for my services?”
* * *
“John Hostettler,” I said into the phone as Cookie and I drove into Santa Fe to grab a bite to eat.
Neil Gossett was on the other end. “He’s one of my guards.”
“And he’s one of Elaine Oake’s informants.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.” He would, of course, need some kind of proof, but that wasn’t my problem. “And I forgot to bring up something else odd.”
“Besides you?”
“You’re funny. I ran into Owen Vaughn the other day. He’s a city cop now. What the hel
l did I do to him?”
He sighed. “You mean when he tried to maim you with his dad’s SUV?”
“Yes.”
“I’d always wanted to ask you the same thing. He never told us. Just got really weird.”
“You mean weird like you?” I asked.
“You’re funny.”
Cookie and I ate at the Cowgirl Café before leaving Santa Fe. We ate in silence, studying the papers and pictures we’d obtained from Elaine—especially the grainy ones—both of us stunned speechless. We drove home the same way.
“I’m going to go through these files on the Hana Insinga case,” Cookie said when we pulled into the apartment complex.
“Okay, I’m going to run to the office and check messages and, I don’t know, do something productive.”
“Okay.” We were both in another world, both worried about Mimi and Reyes.
As I crossed the lot to Dad’s bar, I realized I had slipped into a bit of a depression. Who needed PMS when I had RAF? Mood swings apparently came with the job. But I couldn’t get past the fact that I had not seen Reyes all day. Not once. And his wounds, from what little I saw, were mortal, even for a supernatural being.
Had he died in the night while I slept in the warmth and comfort of my bed? It had been a fitful sleep, but still, I wasn’t being tortured. Or maybe he’d died while I was having coffee with the Three Stooges this morning, or while I was having tea and crumpets with Stalker Chick.
Seriously, how long could he have lasted? He healed faster than the everyday human, but I couldn’t imagine him surviving even a few hours with those wounds, much less days.
I cut through the bar to get to my office. Dad was nowhere in sight. I thought about seeking him out, but a couple of guys turned my way the minute I stepped inside, frosty mugs in hand, so I ducked into the stairwell before they could act on their nonexistent chance to hit on me. I checked messages and e-mail before typing in the words that had brought me so many sleepless nights, so many heated dreams and illicit fantasies. I clicked on SEARCH, and approximately three seconds later, a list of Web pages loaded, each resplendent with the name Reyes Farrow.
I needed to find out how much they knew. Did they know what he was capable of? Did they know his background? Did they know what his idea of the perfect date was?
The hours passed in a fog.
In the end, I came to two conclusions. One, none of them had a clue who or what Reyes really was. And two, there were some lonely-ass women in the world. I went from being consumed with jealousy to simply incredulous and even a little sympathetic. It’s not as if I could blame them. Reyes was nothing if not magnetic, his gaze in each and every picture hypnotic, a born heartbreaker. No wonder hordes of women desired him, craved him despite his criminal record.
Remarkably, there was one tidbit of information that pretty much stunned me speechless. It was a good thing Mr. Wong didn’t talk much. Or, well, ever. I felt astonished beyond the ability to converse. Under a tab on Elaine Oake’s Web site titled “Unconfirmed Rumors” was one section that explained a lot.
It is an unconfirmed rumor, and quite frankly we here at Reyes Farrow Uncensored are skeptical, that our beloved Rey has a little sister. A thorough search of state and county records would indicate to the contrary, but we all know what a secretive man our guy is. As always with Reyes Farrow, anything is possible.
She sounded like a gossip columnist. Surely that was how the U.S. marshals found out about Reyes’s sister, Kim, but how the hell did Elaine get that information?
I was actually a little surprised that none of the stories Neil told me had leaked onto any of these sites. I was certain Elaine would have paid a small fortune for such things. Maybe Neil had covered it up as much as possible. I’d have to ask him about that.
Before I knew it, the clock struck three. Metaphorically. I hadn’t stayed up this late since that Twilight Zone marathon a few weeks back. I shuddered to think about how many cups of coffee I’d drowned my sorrows in over the last few hours. Which would explain the uncontrollable shaking I was experiencing.
Hoping sleep would not evade me completely, I decided to see if Dad was still downstairs before I hit the sack. He usually went home between midnight and two, but it never hurt to check. Either way, I could raid the kitchen. A quick bite might help me sleep.
Maybe it was that fifth cup of coffee, or even that sixth, but I had a strong sense something was not quite right at Calamity’s when I got downstairs. The place was pitch black, as it should have been, but a light filtered into the room from underneath Dad’s office door. My stomach was a little queasy as I weaved around tables and barstools. Maybe I’d just hunt down some soup when I got home instead.
I opened the door. Dad’s light was on, but he wasn’t there. As mundane as that sounded, a jolt of adrenaline rushed straight to my heart. Because now I could feel a twitch of fear emanating from the kitchen. I could feel disorientation and dread as well, but the fear overrode everything else. I ducked behind the bar and grabbed a knife before making my way around to the kitchen door. The closer I got, the more overwhelming the fear became. With the warmth that surrounded the emotion, the texture and scent of honey-lemon cough drops, I knew it was Dad. And he was doing it all on purpose. Almost as if he were warning me to stay away. But he didn’t know I could feel other people’s emotions. Did he?
I had no choice but to ease as quietly as I could through the swinging doors that led into the pitch-black kitchen. Once inside, I inched into a corner to allow my eyes to adjust. Why I didn’t carry night-vision goggles on my person twenty-four/seven, I would never know.
Before I could get my bearings, the lights flickered on and I suddenly found myself just as blind as I’d been before. I raised a hand to block the blast of light and squinted into a stark whiteness. That’s when a beefy arm came into view with a knife much longer than my own. It rocketed toward me so fast, my one and only thought consisted of probabilities. If my calculations were correct, taking into account the weight behind the swing, and the length and glistening sharpness of the blade thrusting toward me, this was going to hurt.
Chapter Twelve
YEAH, BUT WHAT IF LIFE HANDS ME PICKLES?
—BUMPER STICKER
At the very moment I was supposed to die from a razor-sharp blade rushing toward my heart, a spike of adrenaline coursed through my veins, and the world seemed to slow around me. I looked at the knife as it inched closer. I looked at the man’s face, thick and furious, a snarl twisting his features. Oh yeah, he wanted me dead. Which sucked, ’cause I didn’t even know him. Then I glanced to the side. My father sat gagged and bound on the kitchen floor. Another dose of adrenaline spiked when I saw the blood streaming down the side of his head, his eyes wide with fear, but not for himself. For me.
The knife was closing in. I looked back just as the tip broke the skin over my heart. Before I could second-guess myself, I ducked and the world came rushing back. The man, unable to stop his forward momentum, flew toward the wall behind me. As he flew past, I raised my own knife, and between his own lumbering weight and the force of my upward thrust, I sliced into his throat.
He stumbled over some boxes and launched headfirst into the wall, knocking himself senseless and dropping the knife. I kicked it under the stainless steel prep tables and rushed to my father’s side, all the while keeping a wary eye on my would-be murderer. The man grabbed his throat as blood spewed through his fingers. He made gurgling sounds, too.
I felt kind of bad, but he started it.
About that time, I heard sirens. Maybe Dad had been able to trip the silent alarm before the man disabled him. I tried to get the gag off, but there were just so many layers—the man liked him some duct tape—and I realized I was coming down off an incredible high when the world darkened and I lost my balance, falling into the cabinet beside me. I took in a lungful of air, righted myself onto the balls of my feet again, then went in search of the end of the duct tape, which was apparently as elusive as the end of a
rainbow. It didn’t help that my fingers were shaking uncontrollably.
I heard a couple of uniforms burst in through the back door. “We’re in here,” I called out, studying my attacker. He was flailing like a fish on dry land, trying to squirm over the boxes and hold on to his severed jugular at the same time.
The cops entered the kitchen cautiously before one of them rushed to my side to help. The other one called for backup and an ambulance.
“That man tried to kill me,” I said to the cop, appalled. I didn’t know the officer. He was young, probably a rookie.
He glanced over his shoulder as he unwound the duct tape from my father’s head, then back at me. “I think you won,” he said with a wink.
For a moment, pride swelled within me. “Yeah. I did win.” I refocused on Fish Man. “Come at me with a really pointy blade, will ya.” The other cop had handcuffed the man and was now applying pressure to his neck with a dish towel. I hoped he wouldn’t bleed to death. I’d never been the direct cause of someone dying.
The rookie managed to get the tape unwound.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” my dad said, his voice hoarse.
I hugged him to me as the cop continued his quest to release my dad. Duct tape galore decorated almost every inch of him. Dad and I were both shaking and teary eyed.
“Are you hurt?” I asked him just as Uncle Bob stormed into the room, an EMT team on his heels.
“Leland,” he said as he knelt down. He leveled a long, cold stare on Fish Man, then turned back to us. “We didn’t get the signal.”
“What signal?” I asked, becoming very wary.
My dad glanced at the floor as Ubie explained. “Caruso has been threatening your dad for a couple of weeks now, which is pretty much in direct violation of his parole. We’d placed men to keep watch, but we’d also worked out a signal if he should show up.”
“He sort of surprised me,” Dad said, his voice sarcastic.