He sighed. He had been a very young man then, easily captivated by a pretty girl, but he did not think it was his youth that caused him to remember this particular one. Ella era muy hermosa – she was very beautiful in a fragile, unearthly way. But with a strange core of strength in her, like the tensile of thin wire.
Santos turned off the light and contemplated the long journey to pick up Diego at La Casa de Mujeres. Ay, he despised the ugliness of this part of the business.
"Why is Torres so bent on making this case?" Rafe asked as he and Slater waited in the sheriff's small office. "She's resisted the drug angle with Diego Vargas from the start. Doesn't she understand it'll be easier to prosecute that case than the human trafficking?"
"You'd better let her explain her reasons for that… when she knows you a little better," Slater answered, his feet propped up on the edge of his desk.
Rafe assessed the office. Crammed with several filing cabinets, Slater's desk, and the guest chair, it offered little room to turn around. A wide window looked out into the bullpen where he could see Torres talking on one of the phone lines.
She gestured wildly with her hands, the receiver tucked under her chin. A moment later she slammed down the receiver and spat air through her lips so hard that Rafe saw the loose brown strands tangle around her mouth.
Catching his eye through the window, she froze a moment, her lips still pursed, color starting to rise in her cheeks, a pretty pink color even in the harsh fluorescent lights of the bullpen. She frowned and then gestured for them to join her in the bullpen.
"Let's go to my office." She gathered her folders from the purloined desk of a broad man with the face of glistening coal who stood respectfully to the side.
A smile carved the man's face. "You reckon I can have my desk back now, Ms. Torres?"
"What? Oh, sure, sorry, Waylon. I'm in a mood today. Thanks." The smile that lit her features transformed them into the woman more like the one Rafe had first met in the bar.
Torres' office was more expansive than Rafe had expected for an assistant district attorney. Located at the end of the second floor of the courthouse and wedged between two courtrooms, it maintained the elegant, polished-mahogany look of the historic old building.
She'd made the place her own with a few personal effects scattered throughout – a photo of a young girl, maybe six or seven with an older girl who had Isabella's same large dark eyes and wide smile. Another picture of the two women Rafe had seen in Stuckey's Bar with Torres and an older woman, their mother he guessed.
"Have a seat." Torres indicated two large, comfortable-looking chairs in front of a highly polished but alarmingly cluttered desk.
"What's up?" Slater asked casually, crossing his foot over a knee and sinking back into one of the deep chairs.
Rafe took the other one which faced the west end of the building and a floor to ceiling bank of windows that overlooked the side lawn of the courthouse.
"Santos," she answered in a clipped voice. "That's what's up." Her lips flattened in a tight line as if the name on her lips was bitter.
Rafe looked up in surprise. "Vargas' henchman?"
"And his attorney of record, too." Her dark eyes were large in her pale face. "Nevada County picked him up for speeding. A friend of mine works in the sheriff's office up there." She slanted a look at Slater that might've been a token apology for stepping on his toes.
Slater shrugged and spread his hands wide as if he couldn't care less.
"Anyway, it was a bogus move. They wanted to have a reason to look inside the vehicle."
"Find anything?" Slater asked.
"Thirty grams of marijuana, single bag."
"Just enough to be a little trouble, right?" Slater thought a moment. "Was Santos alone?"
Torres nodded.
"Where was he coming from?"
"South. Maybe on his way to La Casa de Mujeres." Rafe noted her perfectly accented Spanish and the smug look Torres flashed him.
"Picking up Vargas, you think?"
"Likely."
The cryptic, short exchange irritated Rafe. "What the hell are you two talking about?"
"The house of wom – " Torres began.
"I know what the damn phrase means," he interrupted. "What's that got to do with Vargas' drugs?"
"Diego Vargas owns two whore houses in Nevada County," Slater explained, "both legit. But Torres thinks he's running at least one illegal brothel where he supplies his customers with… special requests."
Rafe lifted his brows, but he already knew the answer.
"Underage girls," Isabella provided flatly, "some of them as young as seven or eight."
"Jesus." He hadn't known that, but he should've.
"Right," she confirmed sarcastically, "but I don't think Jesus had that much to say about it. You still think the drug angle is more important?"
Rafe shook his head dismissively. "That's not the point – which one's more important. We could butt our heads against that wall all day. What we can actually convict Vargas on, what'll hold up in court is the main thing."
"So you say." Torres tapped her foot, still standing behind her desk even though both the men were seated in front of her.
Rafe looked from Slater to her and back again. "You have any intel on an illegal house? Any idea where it's located? Evidence of ownership by Vargas?"
Torres shook her head, and Rafe figured it cost her to admit to that weakness in her case.
He made a hand gesture as if her silence made his point. "Then let's talk about drugs. How is Nevada County holding Santos with barely more than an ounce of weed? He should've been out already."
"They're pushing it," Torres admitted.
"Tell them to spring him," Slater suggested. "You're right, Bella, it was a bad move on their part."
"He was doing sixty-nine on I-80 coming over Donner Pass," she complained. "They ran the plates when they pulled him over, saw it was registered to Santos, and used his parole from Chino to search the vehicle."
"That's legit," Rafe said.
"Yeah," Slater answered, "but dumb. Now Scarface knows he's being watched carefully."
"Scarface?" Rafe asked.
"You've seen his picture?" Slater countered.
"Actually, no. I've been looking at Vargas. He's our main concern," Rafe answered.
"Vargas already knows he's on our radar," Slater commented. "Santos, not so much. Maybe."
"You should watch out for Santos," Torres warned, the same distasteful set to her mouth.
"The power behind the throne," Slater added.
"How do you mean?" Rafe asked.
Torres finally collapsed in a heap on her chair. "Diego Vargas is a very evil man," she explained, carefully formulating her reply. "But Santos? He's not only bad, he's smart."
"Like a fox," Slater added.
Chapter Nineteen
The last time Isabella Torres had seen Santos face to face was in Councilman Diego Vargas' office on a prior case. That meeting hadn't gone well then, and she dreaded confronting the man again. Now he seemed even more of a giant as he stood for arraignment while she watched from the rear of the courtroom.
Nevada County had decided to press forward on the drug charges although they were likely to be dismissed. Possession of the small amount of marijuana, not repackaged in individual baggies for sale, was a ridiculous charge, and in any other county wouldn't have been worth the court's time. Bella could tell by the look on the magistrate's face that this judge also didn't appreciate the waste.
A short, round attorney, expensively dressed in a black, light-weight suit, stood beside Santos, dwarfed by his client. Santos dipped his head to hear the lawyer whisper in his ear and then stood with military precision, looking neither left nor right, but straight toward the judge's raised podium.
"Your honor," the attorney intoned, "I respectfully request the charges against my client be dismissed and ask the court to sanction the aggressive actions of the sheriff's department in bringing Mr. Santos here on these ridiculous charges."