or six times we spoke over the last twenty years. I grew up in Miami, so when I had the chance to start a new life and come home, I took it. You have no idea what it’s like for a Puerto Rican woman who’s married to a mob boss while living in Savannah. That place is not my style. I hated every breath I took there. But that’s where the money was,” she said, shrugging. “And I like money. And I liked the house okay, but the Feds seized all that when they arrested Carmen.”
“No one from the FBI found out you and Vince were in contact?” Kate asked.
“Pssh, please,” she said. “The FBI don’t care about me or Vince. He was just a local cop to them. But he and your daddy did all the work so far as I could see. They actually listened to me. The FBI gave me this new face and a new identity, but Vinny gave me respect.”
“I’m more interested to know how you didn’t end up in prison,” Kate said. “I’ve read those case files forward and backward. Your nickname was Reina in the de Salva organization.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“Queen,” Kate answered. “So I wonder how you managed to escape a life in prison, while your husband and two of your sons went to federal prison.”
Angelica smiled, her black eyes sparkling with good humor. “I knew I liked you. And I think you know the answer.”
“You turned your husband over to the Feds,” Kate said. “Gave them their case in exchange for your freedom and protection.”
“Whoa,” I said. “You sent your husband and most of your family to prison and you didn’t move to Alaska or the North Pole? How are you not terrified they’ll find you?”
She shrugged. “What are they going to do to me from prison?” she asked. “Besides, I’m not without my own resources and security. I’m well protected. I saw the two of you coming from a mile away, and still got the drop on you.”
“That’s true,” Kate said. “You called Vince, didn’t you? He wouldn’t have come unless you’d needed him. And you’ve not stopped scanning this place since we got here. You’re nervous and you wanted us to all be in public. Why?”
“Me, nervous?” Angelica asked, putting a hand to her chest. “I’ve never been nervous a day in my life.”
“I didn’t peg you for a liar,” Kate said, and then the tension in the car skyrocketed and I wondered why Kate was antagonizing the woman with the gun. And then I remembered that Kate had a gun too inside her purse, though I was hoping the two women didn’t have a showdown in public on the pier. This looked like the kind of place where everyone was armed.
Angelica sighed. “Fine,” she said. “And nobody likes a know-it-all. I’ve felt eyes on me the last couple of months. I haven’t seen anyone, but something I learned while being married to Carmen was you always listened to your instincts. There’s no new neighbors on my street. No daily joggers I don’t recognize. When I’m in my car and feel as if someone is following me I’ll watch the cars behind me, but they always turn off.”
“Carmen died a couple of months ago in prison,” Kate said. “Did your instincts start tingling before or after?”
She narrowed her gaze in thought. “After.”
“What about your sons? Do you ever hear from them?”
Her smile was sad. “No, never. They were loyal to their father. They didn’t understand why we had to stop.”
“Why did you stop it?” I asked. “You had everything you could ever want?”
“All good things must come to an end, sí? We would not have lasted much longer where we were. There is always someone younger and hungrier who wants what you have. Our home base was in Savannah because it was easy and ripe for the taking. But it was also easy access to surrounding states and the gulf.”
“You mean drugs?” Kate asked. “Everything is easily transported along the waterways and through the bayous. Drugs have always been a problem in Savannah. From what I remember about the case, your husband insisted he had no idea about the drugs coming into the city.”
“No,” she said. “Carmen did not have that much ambition to run drugs. He said it was too messy and the stakes of getting caught were too high. You see, Carmen was twenty years older than I was when we married, and he was very