Texas Hold 'Em (Smokin' ACES) - By Kay David Page 0,55
one dares to go after the man at the top, but if he was such a big shot, why did he run like a rabbit when the big wolf came?”
“Who’s the big wolf—?”
She waved off Santos’s question, her hand fluttering in a gesture of uselessness. “I told him he was going to get eaten. I told him it was even better to be arrested than dead. He didn’t listen to me. And now he’s gone.”
“Mama…” Marcos switched to Spanish. “That’s enough! You don’t know these people. They could be co—”
“Silencio!” Confident they couldn’t understand, she tilted her head to where Santos sat. “Cops don’t look like that. They want to help people. This man has a stone for a heart.”
“Please…anyone can look any way they like these days.”
“I’m not talking about his clothing, bebo. Look at his eyes,” she ordered. “Cops don’t have eyes like that.”
Like Rose, Santos gave no indication he understood. “You shouldn’t mess with El Brujo—” he started.
“Who said anything about someone named that?” she interrupted sharply. “I didn’t mention that name. You must have dreamed that up.”
She threw her palms up to stop him from answering. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t say another word. I don’t want to know more. Marcos will go to Juan’s house this afternoon, and then I’ll decide what to do.” Her expression told Santos Juan’s mother knew Marcos was going to break into Juan’s house, and she approved. She just wanted to keep her own hands clean in case Juan reappeared.
He lifted his gaze to Juan’s brother. “I can go with you,” he offered. “You might need some help.”
The silent communication they exchanged was one Santos usually shared with other cops. It was an acknowledgement that they both knew something bad was waiting for them.
Still, Marcos looked as though he wanted to refuse, until his mother spoke. “Take him,” she ordered in a voice that brooked no argument. “Don’t wait any longer. Go now.”
As Santos stood, Marcos reached for a jacket hanging over one of the chairs. He stopped and pointed his finger at Rose as she started to rise, too. “Not you. You wait here with my mother.”
“She goes where I go,” Santos said. “I’m not leaving without her, so if you want my help, she comes with us.”
Marcos looked at his mother, and she nodded wearily. “Take her, too,” she said. “And bring me back some answers.”
Chapter Thirteen
Santos had a bad feeling the minute they pulled into Juan Enrique’s driveway. Something strange was going on, and he was afraid he might be about to learn what that something was. Maybe Enrique’s mother had been expecting him and Rose, and the whole missing-my-son drama show had been a setup. The look Juan’s mother had sent Rose had clearly been a suspicious one. Had she seen a resemblance between Rose and someone else, someone like Gloria?
He turned to Marcos as they approached the front door. “You haven’t been in the house since your brother’s been gone?”
“I’ve been inside,” Marcos said. “I just didn’t tell mamá, because there was nothing to tell. But now, I feel different. I don’t know why, but I do.”
Reaching the front door, Santos put his hand on Marcos’s chest and stopped him from putting the key in the lock. “Maybe you killed him yourself. And maybe you feel different now, because you know he’s been lying inside, dead, for a week. That might make you not want to open the door.”
He’d already told Rose on the bike’s intercom he’d been planning to provoke Marcos to see what he’d do. She stiffened at the sudden tension in the air despite the advanced notice.
“Juan’s my big brother.” Marcos reached up and knocked his hand away. “We don’t do things like that on this side of the border.”
His glare intact, Santos stepped back and let him unlock the house. The heavy wooden door swung open, and the smell hit him like a hammer pounding a nail.
Rose followed the two men inside until Marcos turned around and jabbed his fingers in her direction then at the door. “You. Outside. Right now.”
Rose’s eyes met Santos. She obviously understood that she had to act like the biker chick she was supposed to be, and not the sheriff she really was. She pivoted to return outside where she could act as Santos’s lookout.
He and Marcos found the body in one of the bedrooms at the rear of the house. Turning away with a howl, Marcos punched his fist through the nearest wall,