He strained to hear her voice.
"I know what it means to lose someone you love."
Santos knew the emotion raging in her face was genuine. She could not be such a good actress as to fool him. Imposible. "What do you propose, Ms. ADA?"
"Full immunity in exchange for Vargas."
He roared with laughter. "¡Un qué idiota usted debe pensarme! What an idiot – "
"I understand Spanish," she snapped. "And I don't think you're an idiot, Mr. Santos."
"To betray the man for whom I have worked nearly twenty years? What could possibly induce me to commit such folly?"
"Complete immunity from prosecution," she repeated, standing taller.
"Pero." He smiled and spread his hands as if at the antics of a very young child. "But that is what I have now."
Isabella turned fierce again, the combatant preparing to attack. "We will catch Vargas," she spat, her nostrils flaring, "and when we do, you will go down with him. Hard. Your hands are very bloody and you will have to pay a price for that."
Santos sat on the bar stool she'd just vacated, his knees nearly bumping her leg. "Let me tell you a story, Ms. Torres."
He interlocked" his fingers between his legs. "When I was a young boy, my father was arrested by the federales. Starved. Beaten. Tortured."
She slumped against the counter, staring at him, her face ashen, her body taut.
"My father would not tell them what they wished to know." He shrugged. "Finally, they brought my mother and my sister into the village plaza. 'We will rape and murder them in front of you,' they said, 'if you do not give us the information we need.' He confessed, of course."
Santos smiled without joy. "You see, él creyó sus promesas."
"He believed their promises," Isabella repeated.
"Sí, but they cut off his penis and stuffed it in his mouth anyway. He bled to death."
Isabella shuddered and Santos knew that his story had made its point. "What happened to your mother and sister?"
"I do not need to tell you that, do I?"
She remained silent, her dark eyes wide and incredibly beautiful.
"So, I ask again, how do I know I can trust you to keep your word?"
She acted as though she would not answer. After a moment she slung her bag over her shoulder and walked to the foyer, composing herself, he believed. There she turned and stared at him across the room. A steely look had returned to her face.
"Look into my eyes and tell me you don't believe me," she said. "I don't lie."
"All attorneys lie," he smiled. "I know this better than anyone."
He sighed heavily and stretched his big body as if he were bored with the whole conversation. "But I will take your proposal into consideration."
"Don't take too long," she warned. "I may regret my generous impulse. The deal won't be on the table forever." She slammed the door behind her when she left.
Santos gazed at the closed door for a very long time. "Touché," he said to no one.
Eventually he cleared away the remains of the dinner and sat out on the patio to disassemble his weapons. After he had cleaned them, he stored them in the cutaway behind the kitchen sink. These tasks were merely ploys to avoid looking at the picture, but he would not let his curiosity rule him.
Finally, he prepared for sleep. He sat on the edge of the bed, retrieved the snapshot from his nightstand, and lay down to examine the worn photo. Every detail of what Vargas had done to the girl for a period of five years flashed through his memory, and with them, a rage so unfamiliar he could not breathe for the storm of it.
A vague glimmer of an idea stirred within him, but he thrust it aside. ¡Es imposible!
Nonetheless, tomorrow he would search the public records. He would find out who Isabella Torres once loved so much and lost long ago.
When Bella pulled into the driveway of her small bungalow, she recognized the car parked at the curb. She punched the remote control to raise the garage door and eased her compact car into the tiny space. Through her rearview mirror, she watched as Rafe climbed out of his car and stalked toward her. His body looked tight and angry.
"Where the hell have you been?" he yelled as she swung her legs from underneath the steering wheel.
She grabbed her briefcase, stood up, and slammed the car door before answering. "Good evening, Agent Hashemi. Wasn't lunch enough of a visit for you? And since when have you begun monitoring my comings and goings?"
They'd lunched earlier, an uncomfortable situation where all she could think of was how handsome he looked despite the scruffiness of his five-o'clock shadow and his mussed-up hair. He'd constantly run his fingers through the dark curls, while she'd tortured herself with the memory of the crisp feel of thickness beneath her fingers.
"Smart-ass," he retorted, blocking her way. "Answer the question. Where have you been?"
"If you must know, working the case."
At lunch she hadn't even hinted at what she planned to do – meet Santos on his own turf. Hashemi would've quashed that idea without consideration.
They'd talked a little about the case, more about each other, light inconsequential chatter that said little. But the tension beneath the banter spoke volumes.
Her words now seemed to calm him. "Oh, that's good. What part of the case?"
She shifted from one foot to the other, wanting to get rid of him and soak in a hot bath. "Look, it's late, I'm tired. Let's talk about this tomorrow."
"No," he insisted, taking her keys from her fingers before she could protest. He walked to the back door, keyed the lock, and punched the remote to close the garage.
He looked back at her. "Are you coming?" Without waiting for an answer, he opened the door and disappeared into her laundry room. What an insufferable, bossy ass! Fuming, but resigned, she followed him into the house.
Chapter Twenty-six
By the time Bella had walked through the laundry room into the kitchen, Rafe had already removed his jacket, flung it over a wing chair, and sprawled comfortably on her living room sofa. She placed her briefcase on the tiled floor, hung her jacket in the entry closet. Toed off her shoes.
"How about something to drink?" he asked from his place on the sofa.
"You're not going to be here that long," she snapped.
"Maybe not, but I'm not leaving until I know where you've been and what you've done."
She blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Now you're starting to sound like mis hermanos, my brothers. And maybe I was working on the case at the office."
"Nope, you weren't. And you don't have to translate Spanish for me. And," he flashed a cocky grin, "maybe I already checked the office."
"Look, Hashemi, you have no right to make demands about how I spend my time."
"I like the way you pronounce my name," he responded irrelevantly. "I'm the lead on the case. I have every right."
He was so damned infuriating. "I'm the ADA on the case," she countered.
"We've had this conversation already." He rose to meet her, stood inches within her personal space, and put his capable hands on her shoulders. She shivered and pushed him away a second too late to be effective. Damn pheromones!
"Okay, truce," she said, lifting her hand in surrender, stepping back to put distance between them. "I'll tell you what I've done – but you can't get angry."
He looked suspicious, but nodded.
"And remember, I don't have to give you an explanation at all."
"We're supposed to be working together," he reminded her, stopping when he caught the mutinous look on her face. "We'll talk about that after I hear what you did today."
Buying time, thinking how much to tell him, she looked into the refrigerator. "Beer or wine?"
Settled with a glass of fine rosé, Rafe propped his feet on Bella's coffee table while she tucked hers beneath her. This position was beginning to look both familiar and dangerous, but she didn't ask him to leave again. They spoke around the case for nearly thirty minutes before she decided to tell him about her proposed deal with Santos.