Second Grave on the Left - Darynda Jones Page 0,82

the streets incorporeally, and he hadn’t shown up in days. I was seriously considering firing him.

“Can you think of anything, Amador?”

He closed his eyes in contemplation. “He’s clever,” he said, his eyes still closed.

“I know.”

“No, he’s really clever. He’s a stone genius like I’ve never seen.” He opened his eyes again and looked at me. “How do you think we got this house?”

I stilled, his question piquing my interest.

“He studied the market while I was in prison with him, stocks and bonds, and he passed info through me to Bianca on what to invest in, when to pull it, and when to buy something else.”

“He took my one thousand dollars,” Bianca said, “and made us millionaires. I was able to go back to school, and Amador opened his own welding and fabrications business when he was released.”

“He’s everything to us,” Amador said. “And not just because of this.” He indicated his surroundings with a gesture. “You’ve no idea how many times he’s saved my life. Even before we were in the pen together. He’s always been there for me.”

I was suddenly having a hard time seeing Amador assaulting anybody. He had a kind spirit, and I was willing to place a bet that he got into trouble protecting one of his own.

“And he’s clever,” he repeated, suddenly deep in thought again. “He’s not going to hide from just anybody. He’s going to hide from you. He’s going to hide where he wouldn’t expect you to look.”

“Charlotte,” Bianca said, her voice sad, “would you like some coffee?”

Amador nodded in approval. “We were going to have to be up in an hour anyway.”

“In that case…”

Like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey. We sat in their kitchen and talked for the next hour about Reyes, about what he was like in high school, what his hopes and dreams had been. And shockingly, they all centered around me. Amador didn’t know much about Earl Walker, the man who had raised Reyes, abused him mercilessly, because Reyes refused to talk about him. But he did say Reyes didn’t kill anyone, including Earl. I wanted to believe that.

Our conversation eventually wandered around to the Web sites. I told them about meeting Elaine Oake. Bianca giggled and cast curious glances at Amador.

“Tell her,” he said at last with a smile.

Bianca focused on me. “I didn’t have any money to invest when Reyes was studying the market, right? So he told me to call this woman who’d been trying to see him and who’d been offering the prison guards money to get information on him. And I did. I told her that my husband was his cellmate and that I could get her anything she wanted. She bought every ounce of information I had. Literally. With money. We were actually running out of things to tell her.” She laughed aloud. “That’s how I got the original thousand to invest.”

“You sold information?” I couldn’t help but laugh with her.

“Yes, but mostly insignificant details, nothing that could come back to haunt him. Every once in a while, Reyes told me to feed her something important from his past to keep her on the line. Still, there were a few things he didn’t want getting out that leaked through the guards. We had no idea how they were getting some of their information.”

Ah, I think I knew one. “Was one of those about his sister?”

Bianca cringed. “Yes. We have no idea how that leaked to a guard.”

“Reyes never talked about her,” Amador confirmed.

I was certain the U.S. marshals found out about Kim from one of those Web sites. Still, Amador was right. Reyes was ridiculously clever. Not that I didn’t already know that, but … Wait a minute. I studied him warily. “So, what about the pictures of Reyes in the shower?”

“How do you think we got the down payment for this house?”

My jaw dropped open. “Did Reyes know?”

He laughed out loud. “It was his idea. He knew she’d pay big bucks for them, and he wanted us to have this house.”

I sat stunned. He did it all for his friends. And yet he would have me believe he went around hurting innocent people? I doubted that now more than ever. But what if he died? Would he really lose his humanity? Was that even possible?

I’d been hoping to gather some kind of hint as to where Reyes might be during our conversation, something that the Sanchezes were perhaps unaware they even knew, but nothing struck me as being