Garrett stepped closer to Pérez and stared down at the man. The cartel boss had his mouth open, with his dead eyes glazed over. Two bloody holes had dented his skull, and bigger exit wounds spilled brains onto the couch cushions.
Pérez was dead.
When Kinkaid stepped back into the room, he helped Dr. Hernandez with the gag as he stared down at Pérez.
“Please . . . don’t shoot me. They have my wife. I only did as I was told . . . so they wouldn’t kill her. You have to believe me.”
The doctor had stayed on his knees to beg for his life. He had no idea who they were. All he saw were their guns.
“Where’s Ramon Guerrero . . . the other man who was here?” Garrett asked.
Before the doctor answered, Alexa came into the room, escorting a frantic woman in a housedress and apron, who was crying.
“Carlos, thank God you are safe.” The woman rushed to her husband’s side and fell to her knees, hugging the man who had nearly gotten her killed, all because he wanted to earn extra money working for the cartels.
But Garrett got his answer on where Guerrero had gone when an engine started. And after they heard a loud crash of grinding metal, Kinkaid rushed to the window.
An SUV burst through the garage door and ripped it apart, with Ramon Guerrero at the wheel. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Ramon had given himself an edge—at the expense of his boss, Pérez. And if he was going to run, he didn’t want Pérez coming after him for his betrayal. That was why he’d killed the man.
“That’s my wife’s car. He’s stealing my car.” The doctor stared at them, like they should care. He actually looked as if he expected them to give pursuit.
“You’ve got a dead cartel boss on your sofa. A stolen car is the least of your worries, man.”
Garrett shook his head and fought a smile as he gave Kinkaid a sideways glance.
“But I had nothing to do with that,” the doctor argued. “That man killed him, not me. He shot him in the head twice, in cold blood. You have to believe me.”
“Oh, I do. But I don’t think you’ve fully grasped the situation.”
“What do you mean?”
“That”—he pointed to the dead man on the couch—“that could’ve been you and your wife.”
The doctor looked stunned as he clung to his sobbing wife, but not half as stunned as when Garrett, Kinkaid, and Alexa turned to go.
“Wait a minute. Are you leaving? The police . . . what do I tell the police?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something. Doing what you do for the cartels, I’m sure you’re good at lying to cops,” Garrett said as he walked through the foyer on his way out, with Kinkaid and Alexa beside him.
“We’ve done as much as we can do here,” Garrett said.
And as they left out the back of the house, he stopped before they made their exit. He grabbed Kinkaid by his good shoulder.
“It’s over, Jackson. Pérez is dead. I know it’s not the way you wanted it to end, but there’s nothing more for us to do here.”
It took Kinkaid a while to respond, but eventually he nodded, and Alexa did the same without saying another word. They had no choice. After Guerrero’s gunshots, any neighbors within earshot would have heard the noise and reported it. The police would be coming soon.
Ramon Guerrero hadn’t been their target. Like the other men who had dropped their guns and run from the hacienda—not wanting to die for Pérez—Guerrero was no different. They hadn’t come for him.
Kinkaid’s vendetta was over, and he’d done what he came to Mexico to do. He’d brought down the Pérez cartel, and their actions had cut off the head of the snake. They’d all have to settle for that, but Garrett could tell by the empty look on Kinkaid’s face that it hadn’t been enough.
From experience, Garrett knew that revenge didn’t always come delivered with a nice tidy bow, just as Alexa had tried to tell him. And no matter how justified, vengeance wouldn’t bring the only thing that Kinkaid would’ve wanted in return—his wife and child back. Their memory would always be tainted by the violence that had ended their lives, and Jackson would have to live with that.
Of all people, he understood Kinkaid’s pain and his sacrifice. And Garrett knew the burden of guilt. He had more than his share of ghosts who would haunt him until the day he died. He only hoped that Kinkaid would eventually find peace and learn how to live with an ache that would never go away.
Jackson Kinkaid deserved better.
La Pointe, Wisconsin
Jessie had spent the rest of the morning into the late afternoon locating the few people who had actually reported seeing kids at the DeSalvo place during the week of Angela’s murder. And after she’d exhausted those leads, she hit the ones she’d found in the newspaper archives—the colorful rumormongers of the town.
While Chief Cook and Sophia Tanner had been reluctant to talk about the old murder case, the people she’d tracked down were just the opposite. They all wanted to rehash it again, and they even embellished their original stories, probably fueled by the rumors they’d helped spread after things had died down. It was human nature. Everybody wanted their fifteen minutes of fame. And it had been in her best interests to keep them talking.
The few who had officially reported seeing the children to the police were consistent in their descriptions of a dark-haired little girl and a sandy-haired younger boy, while other townspeople ranted about DeSalvo running something illegal at her place. None of what they’d said ended up in Chief Cook’s evidence box, and she could see why. It didn’t take someone living in La Pointe to realize some folks loved having an audience. And a newcomer to town was gullible enough to listen to whatever they had to say without calling them on their bull.
So what had turned out to be a promising start to her day had ended in frustration by late afternoon. With food to go from Lotta’s Lakeside Café on Main Street, near the ferry dock, she unlocked her motel-room door, and after she tossed stuff onto the table, she collapsed on her bed to stare at the ceiling.
She’d hit a dead end, but she still had Sophia Tanner in her sights. And the bastard who had tailed her the other day had gotten better. Earlier, she’d felt him but never actually seen him. If she was going to catch him in the act, she had to get cagey.
But just as she was figuring out how to do that, she got a call on her cell. She got up and grabbed her phone off the table and answered on the third ring.
“Hey there, Harper. What’s going on? Great timing, by the way.” She ran a hand through her dark hair and paced the room.
“Hey, Jessie. I’ve got you on speaker because I’m here with Sam,” Seth said. “Say hi, Sam.”
“Hey, Jess.”
“Sam has something you need to hear,” he said.
“Shoot, Sammie.”
Jessie chewed a hangnail on her thumb. She was so wired, waiting to hear what they had to say, that she stared down at the carpet as she paced, unable to look in any of the mirrors. She was afraid what she might see in her eyes.
“Millstone isn’t your father, Jessie. You hear me? I got my lab guys to confirm that. We had to search through evidence, but we found what we needed to make sure. It just never got digitized for the database, but that’s fixed now.”
Sam’s voice got muddled in her head. After her friend had said that the son of a bitch who had tortured her wasn’t her father, tears filled her eyes, and she had a hard time breathing. She sank onto her mattress when her legs felt wobbly.
“Oh, my God. Just give me a minute.” She sucked air into her lungs like a drowning woman. And when she could finally speak, she said, “Thank you, guys. Not knowing has been killing me. That’s good news.”