My hermano lets out a loud cuss as I pull forward, back up, following the coupe. The driver heads east, zipping down a narrow street.
I slam my foot on the gas and the speedometer jolts. The engine strains. I hiss as the BMW punches through the intersection of a fresh red light. Cars let off a round of honks, slowing as they’d just pulled into the street.
“C’mon!” My palm stops a fraction from slamming into the center of the steering wheel. “Paciencia!” I growl low in my throat, easing the car to the curb next to an empty field. The face of my now enemy flashes before my eyes. I’d seen the culprit perfectly.
Reaching into my pocket, I grab my cellphone and dial the number of the person attempting to flee.
“Pick up, pick up.” At the sound of an automatic voicemail chiming on, I toss the cellphone in the passenger seat.
A few beats later, the flickering light of a trashcan bonfire catches my attention. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I watch the firelight play across the filthy face of a transient. It hits me. Peachy had a potential eyewitness. Those are unreliable. We’re not too far from where I slit LeAnna’s stalker’s throat.
Running my fingers along my jaw, I weigh my options. Wait and let my new enemy rat me out or let someone else go down for my magnificent stunt.
“You’re not like them.” Serial killers such as the BTK Strangler grew restless or angered by the sight of some other copycat pendejo stealing their glory. “The bum is no ángel. And the dead cabrón from the park shares no connection to my girls.”
I slip on a pair of gloves then open the center console to grab a candy bar out of the stash I keep for busy nights.
As I jog toward the trunk of my car, the transient argues in my native language. “What the fuck are you doing around here?”
The weak streetlight illuminates the knife I used on Peachy’s vic. I had considered dropping it in the bayou with the stolen Town Car, but intuition stopped me.
“Hey, you! This is my street corner.” A slight connotation of fear radiates from the old man as his hand searches beneath his soiled blanket.
“Relax, hombre.” I hold up the Snickers, smile friendly. The acrid scent of beer and piss meets me before I plant one boot on the curb.
“That a candy bar?” He perks up, opening another can of beer.
“Sí. I sell special knives, amigo. The Snickers is yours, all you gotta do is gimme your opinion on the knife.”
“Eh, hand it here.”
I crouch down. “See the handle there. Pearl. How does this feel?”
“That’s a good-looking knife you got there.”
“Sí!”
“How much would this run me?” He weighs the knife. His senses are slowed by inebriation. When he looks back up, I’m sauntering toward my car. “Amigo, your knife!”
I toss the candy bar. The knife’s discarded, sliding into the pile of all the man owns as he catches the chocolate. By the time I drive away, the transient is opening another beer. He cheerily lifts it to me.
“Fucking idiota.” I shake my head. My hand skims over the passenger seat for my cellphone. Half my focus on the road, I link myself into Dominic’s Apple Watch to find they aren’t headed to either of their homes but inland.
With kneaded eyebrows, I psych myself up to listen to their conversation. I can’t pretend their relationship doesn’t hurt. It’s like learning about Alejandra’s deception all over again. And the lovely lies of that puta, Carlotta.
The sound is fuzzy. Music plays low in the background. They’re still traveling.
“I don’t understand.” LeAnna’s voice rings in.
“What is it, mami?” Dominic inquires.
“Siobhan said Gramps probably called me a thousand times first, which is the norm. I don’t have a single missed call.”
“Shit.” I pull over again and view the application. After leaving the gym, I reconnected Dominic’s connection to LeAnna. I must’ve severed the link to her abuelo. I groan, fixing the problem in a few taps. Pulling off again, I find Peachy’s contact and dial her up.
“Hey, Dario. I could use your voice right now.” In the background are familiar voices of my old colleagues.
“You at Mulligans Bar?”
“Yeah . . . I almost had a lead. What are you doing up so late?”
I deepen my speech to sound heavy with fatigue. “I haven’t been able to sleep.”
“Were you thinking about my case? I feel like I should apologize for compromising your morals by asking for your help. I know the sleepless nights that come with this world. I have my fingers crossed that you prefer insomnia.”
“When you reviewed the traffic cams within a five-mile radius of the vic, there was a row of transients up the coast. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you send any of the rookies to question any of them?”
“We canvased the entire area but not . . . no. That section’s known for a harmless bunch. The precision of the murderer. The blatant disregard for witnesses. Too cocky, Dario. I highly doubt—”
“Peachy, listen. You gotta exhaust all leads. Make these pendejos take you seriously. Never take a person you don’t know at face value.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Dominic
During the long ride, I place my hand at the back of Aria’s headrest. With a baffled look on her face, she pops her cellphone in the palm of her hand. “I had cellphone trouble a few weeks back. Be glad yours is working now, mami.”
“You did?” Her eyebrows lift, then she returns to fidgeting with her phone. “Oh yeah, your number changed. But I’m not switching to iPhone 32, or whatever number they’re on now. I’m cheap as hell. I’ll ride with this one until the wheels fall off.”
“What’s wrong, chula? You seem worried about more than?” I ask, merging off the highway in a suburban area where housing tracks popped up years back. It’s the kind of place my parents imagined when fleeing Havana but never moved to.
“Well, I did mention my gramps is cantankerous, right?”
“Sí.”
“Mean. Surly.”
“Sí, mami.”
“Can I borrow your blazer?”
I start out of it. “Are you cold?”
“The turn’s up there. Nope,” she mutters the rest beneath her breath. “Gramps has a gun, er, two or three. If he sees me dressed like this and you . . . He’s from a completely different century, Dom. And Texas—is its own religion.”
I laugh until Aria shoots a hard glare.
“I’m serious. You may not be El Santo, but my gramps is El Crazy.”
A few minutes later, we’re parked in a narrow, slanted driveway. Aria stares ahead. An invisible burden weighs on her shoulders.
“This was my safe haven. No more drunk dad. No more being cursed and slapped around by my momma.”
She stops speaking. All I have from Aria’s past is what Mitch wrote in his background analysis, and what very little she’s shared with me. It’s not much, but it was enough to slaughter her image, and enough to soften the hunter in me. Her mami beat her? Mitch had information about how her papi died of alcoholic cirrhosis. There was not much on her mother, just that her grandparents moved to Florida.