Texas Hold 'Em (Smokin' ACES) - By Kay David Page 0,44
little after five a.m., and all she could think was that the town definitely matched its name. The streets were empty and dark, lacking any signs of life except for a few lights glowing from behind windows with tightly closed curtains. Some flicked to one side as the big Harley rumbled by.
At the end of the main street, they spotted the unmistakable blue lights of a police car flashing one block over. Cutting the engine, Santos coasted to the curb and backed the bike into a parking spot, pointing to the rusted sign on the corner. Someone had spray-painted over part of the letters, but they’d left enough to make out the name of the street if you already knew it.
“Calle Cinco,” he said softly over the intercom they shared in their helmets. “What do you think’s going on?”
She took her helmet off and set it on top of the saddle before running her hands through her hair. “I’ll go see. One person will attract less attention than two.”
“No. We’ll both go.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Don’t you trust me?”
“You, I trust.” He tilted his chin toward a car heading in their direction. “Them, I don’t.”
A speeding vehicle rounded the corner on two wheels and raced for the spinning blue lights. As the car swept through the glow of a nearby bar’s neon rainbow, she recognized the black and white paint job. It was a Policía Federal Mexicana cruiser. “That’s not good.”
Santos nodded grimly. “We’ll need to be careful. Stick to the shadows. I don’t have answers for the questions they’d ask.”
They eased toward the direction of the lights, keeping their backs to the buildings along the sidewalk. The cops’ raised voices grew louder as they drew close, but there was no sense of urgency in their tone. She would have understood even if she didn’t speak Spanish. Cops all spoke the same language.
Someone was dead.
She glanced at Santos in the inky darkness. His expression was hidden, but the set of his shoulders told her he understood as well. Had something already happened to Carlos Hernandez’s sister?
They retreated into a recessed doorway across the street from the crowd of men in black uniforms with Mexican flag patches on their sleeves. Mixed in with the federal cops were local law enforcement officers. They looked as if they’d stumbled onto a party they hadn’t been invited to.
An ambulance waited but the lights on top of the vehicle were off. “Damn. We’re too late.”
“It might not be the sister,” Santos countered. “Let’s go one street over and see if we can move in closer from the back.”
The house behind Concepción DeLeon’s home had been abandoned. Dodging cobwebs and empty beer cans, they walked through the broken front door straight to a sagging porch that spanned the rear of the hovel. The sound of scrabbling nails preceded them, the flick of a skinny, hairless tail catching Rose’s eye before its owner disappeared into the gloom. From the small deck’s elevated position, they had an even better view than they’d expected.
Santos’s soft curse said it all.
On a tiny concrete pad big enough for two chairs, the naked body of a woman had been staked out, each arm and leg anchored with a rope to a short metal rod. She looked to be in her late twenties, maybe older. Her dark hair shone in a grotesque parody of beauty, the soft light by the back door bathing a body that was slim and toned. She had been pretty, but she wasn’t now. Her café con leche skin was dotted with myriad small round burns and a series of equally small cuts. She’d been tortured before her wrists had been slit, and she’d been left to die.
The door of the house burst open, and a sobbing woman ran out, one of the soldiers stumbling behind her trying to halt her progress. The woman took in the sight, shrieked, then covered her mouth, collapsing against the uniformed man who’d finally made it to her side. Her agonizing cries filled the air. “Concepción… Dios mio, Concepción!”
For a second, Rose wished she could cover her ears and her eyes, then the shellac of hardness she’d been forced to adopt as a police officer fell into place. The cartels were equal-opportunity purveyors of suffering. Race, religion, family…nothing mattered but money. The crying woman crumpled to the ground, and despite the soldier’s best efforts, he went with her.
“Son-of-a-bitch. We getting shit for information now.” Santos pivoted and headed for the front of the