When she remained silent, looking as if the answer to her dilemma lay on the wall behind him, he decided to make the situation more complex. He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out the second photograph, the vivid colors speaking louder than any of his words. Turning it face down on the desk, he pushed it carefully across the smooth wood until it touched her splayed hand.
He noted the tremor in her fingers as she tapped the edge of the picture. She knew. At some instinctive, primal level, she understood the significance of the photo.
"I've already seen this," she said, easing one corner toward her.
"Not this one. It will change your mind," he said simply, not bothering to keep the sorrow out of his voice. He received no pleasure from telling her about the picture. From showing it to her.
Slowly she turned over the photo, confusion furrowing her brows, a look of puzzlement in her dark eyes. He recognized the exact moment when the truth dawned on her.
Her eyes widened in disbelief and then closed in agony. "It's Maria." Her fingers covered her mouth as if she'd vomit the grief out of her body.
"Sí, your sister."
She swiveled around in her chair, presenting her back to him. He barely heard the muffled sounds of her grief. Ay, a strong woman.
She had immediately recognized the significance of the bright dress and garish makeup on the face of the young woman in the photo. Santos waited for the emotion to pass, for Isabella to absorb the pain of seeing the photograph, to ask for the details of her sister's life.
"Is she alive?" The question came from a stone voice, as though she had cemented her sorrow behind a wall.
"Do we have an agreement?" he countered.
"Be specific."
Santos' voice was fierce with certainty. "There must be no misunderstanding in this plea bargain. Full immunity for particulars about your sister's death."
He knew if she gave her word, she would see that the agreement held. She would not break her bond. But her pause was longer than he had anticipated.
Did the little lawyer desire his incarceration so badly that she would forego information about her beloved sister? Had he misread her?
But finally she nodded, bobbing her head up and down as though she could not stop the action once it was in motion.
"Is she alive?" she repeated, her voice an immeasurable sea of torture.
"No."
He thought he heard a small sigh.
"When did she die?"
"Within a year after she disappeared."
Anger whipped her around, and the wet splotches on her face glinted like sun on steel. "She was taken, kidnapped. She did not disappear."
He inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Sí, she was kidnapped. Secuestrado."
"And you had something to do with it."
"Sí, along with Diego Vargas."
She flinched at the name. "I knew it."
"I can give you specific details," Santos offered, locking eyes with her, "of your sister's last months."
Chapter Thirty-six
Rafe hadn't been this drunk since college.
He had to hand it to Max. The man still held his liquor like an Irishman. They'd spent hours reminiscing and yakking about the good old days, talked about Max's wife Shirley and what had gone wrong with the marriage.
All the time Rafe realized his good friend Max was keeping him under wraps.
Rafe hadn't mentioned the Vargas case. Not once, although Max had broached the topic several times and Rafe had deflected the questions, acting far more inebriated that he was.
Finally Max had laughed and said, "I'm too damn curious for my own good."
"Killed the cat, they say." Rafe chuckled, the sound hollow to his ears.
"Bite me, old buddy." Max laughed again and pointed Rafe toward the guest room.
Now this morning, sprawled half dressed on a bed without linens, Rafe squinted blearily through the slats of the blinds, then eyed his wristwatch and groped for his cell phone. Not on the bedside stand where he'd left it. Crap, Isabella would worry about him, probably had left several messages.
After relieving himself and splashing cold water on his face, he walked cautiously, favoring his pounding head, into the kitchen where his shoes and jacket lay near a bar stool. His tie and trousers were neatly draped over the bar itself. Max's work, surely not Rafe's.
No phone.
"When did you know for sure?"
Max's voice sounded behind him and Rafe whirled, reaching for his weapon, which he realized immediately wasn't holstered where it should be, securely under his left arm.
It dangled from Max's fingers.
He'd known, dammit! Why had he been so careless? He'd known! In his gut he'd known all along.
Rafe considered bluffing it out, but knew by Max's expression that it was a lost cause. "For sure? Right now."
Max scratched the back of his head, retrieved the missing cell phone from his pocket, and shook his head with a genuine look of remorse. "I'm really going to hate this, Hashish, old man."
"Then don't do it." Rafe took a half step forward.
"Too late for that, I'm afraid. I'm in too deep."
"We can work something out, Max." Another half step forward. "Please."
"I can't go to prison, Rafe. You know that, even federal. I'd be dead within a month."
"Protective isolation." Another half step.
"Don't bullshit a bullshitter, Hash. I know the reality."
"Why?" Rafe asked and heard the echo of anguish in his own voice. "Was it the money?"
Max laughed bitterly. "Fuck, yes. What else? You know what a cop makes. You know Shirley's tastes. And L.A., man, who can live there without having a fortune?"
Filthy lucre, Rafe thought. People dead because Max wanted money.
Max must've read the disgust in Rafe's expression. "Don't judge me, Hashish." His voice hardened. "Don't you dare judge me. I tried, God knows I tried hard to resist."
He brandished the gun dramatically, emphasizing his point. "It was just the little stuff at first. You know how it goes." He laughed bitterly. "Or maybe you don't. You got the lucky breaks all your life. You don't have a wife and kids. You don't know what it's like."
"I'm sorry," Rafe murmured, thinking how true it was. He didn't know. He'd rather die than dishonor his commitment to the department. He felt like weeping or howling or just lashing out with his fists.
But he stood quietly and eased another half step forward. "I'm really sorry, Max."
"Yeah, me too."
Rafe anticipated the move a millimeter of a second before it showed in Max's eyes, spun sideways and kicked out, landing the intended blow to Max's shin before the gun exploded and he felt the sharp, deadly burn in his upper chest. Ah, shit, he thought as he toppled to the floor.
Santos waited patiently while Isabella Torres paced the interior of her office, pausing occasionally to stare at him as if the sun rose or set tomorrow based on her imminent decision. Perhaps for her it did.
After several long minutes, he dangled the bait again. "I can tell you every single detail – names, places, dates – but I do not think you will wish to know them all."
Indeed Santos wished he did not know about the last years of the girl's life, the final moments of her suffering.
He'd come upon Maria several months after she'd been delivered to La Casa de Mujeras. Sheer accident caused him to be in the hall at that moment on that particular night. She still had some fight remaining in her then, a defiance and will not yet broken that he admired.
Ay, she was so very beautiful and as a young man he was half in love with her at the moment he first looked at her. When she saw him, she recognized him and threw her slender body into his arms, clutched his waist, and begged him to return her to her home.
But Santos knew there was no going back for the lovely Latina. She could not return from the difficult road she had walked. He wanted to explain this to her, but at that moment, Diego stepped from the room he usually occupied when he stayed at the whore house.