Down Among the Dead Men (A Thriller) Read online

  Except the killers.

  Ainsworth pointed to the floor.

  “There were three of ’em right here.” He stood in the center of the room, an odd half smile on his face. He looked a lot like his son. “Three women. All Mex. Two of ’em with their throats slit and the third shot straight through the heart.”

  “What about the American?”

  “On the bed. Pretty little white gal and another local. The Mexican had been gutted, and the American had taken at least two bullets to the chest.” He shook his head. “Whatever happened in here, it musta been one helluva party.”

  Vargas nodded. “How do you know the white girl was an American?”

  Something shifted in Ainsworth’s eyes. As if he’d been thrown off guard by the question.

  “I just know, is all.”

  “How?”

  “She looked it, for one. Had that well-tended thing going. Never seen a hard day’s work in her life. Plus she was wearing a USC sweatshirt. Go, Trojans.”

  “That doesn’t mean much. Did she have any kind of identification on her? Driver’s license?”

  Junior, who stood in the doorway, said, “We didn’t touch anything. We didn’t take—”

  “Shut your tamale trap,” Ainsworth snapped. Then he turned again to Vargas. “You think we find a bunch of dead bodies, we start checking IDs? You’re just gonna have to take my word for it on the American thing.”

  And all at once Vargas understood. These two Texas shit kickers had not only found the bodies, they’d ransacked them, too. Cash, jewelry. Anything they could find. It wasn’t likely they’d gotten much for their effort, but Vargas had no doubt they’d done it.

  But why, then, call the local police and report their discovery? That part didn’t make sense.

  “If she really was an American,” he said, “then why is this the first time I’m hearing about it?”

  Ainsworth shrugged. “Try looking at it from Chihuahua’s point of view. You find a bunch of dead wetbacks, it’s nothing really new. It makes the papers, maybe a couple of local news shows. They do their Casa de la Muerte bit, but in the end it’s the same old, same old. A run for the border gone wrong.”

  “Except these were nuns.”

  Another shrug. “So that adds a juicy little twist to the story, maybe gets a little traction north of the border, gets the Jesus huggers all in a bind. But in the end, it’s something you can contain because, let’s face it, a dead wetback’s a dead wetback.”

  He paused, scratching his chin.

  “But think about it. You throw a nice, creamy white American gal into the soup, and all of a sudden you’ve gone international. You’ve got the U.S. embassy involved, the family, maybe the FBI, a shitload of press, and a lot of angry goddamn Texans coming down into Juárez and Tolentino and shootin’ at citizens. It’s a national fuckin’ nightmare.”

  “So you’re saying the police covered it up?”

  “You’re a bona fide genius, you know that?”

  “I’m just trying to get it all straight,” Vargas said. “You have any idea who this American was?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Angie,” Junior blurted out. “Her name was Angie.”

  Ainsworth turned sharply, eyes blazing. “Didn’t I just tell you to shut the fuck up?”

  “But I heard her say it, Pa.”

  Vargas felt another chill slice through him.

  He glanced at the blood on the mattress, then looked at Ainsworth. “She was alive?”

  Ainsworth shook his head.

  “He’s just imagining things. He does that sometimes. Engine’s runnin’, but nobody’s drivin’.”

  “But I heard her, Pa. She said it when—”

  “Goddammit, Junior!” Ainsworth shot past Vargas, grabbing the front of Junior’s shirt, and shoved him through the doorway, into the hall. “Get back outside. Go see if Sergio’s here yet.”

  Vargas felt something tighten inside his chest.

  “Who’s Sergio?”

  Ainsworth turned. “Friend of ours. Wants to meet you.”

  “Me?” Vargas said. “Why?”

  “I don’t ask questions, Pancho. I just do what I’m told.”

  And before Vargas could say anything more, Ainsworth put a fist in his face.

  10

  Beth

  BETH STOOD AT the ship’s bow, looking out at the moon-dappled Pacific, and at that moment she could think of no sight more beautiful.

  They were rolling along at a fairly good clip, the sound of the roaring ocean rising toward her. The cool, damp wind felt wonderful against her skin. Made her feel alive.

  She was alone out here, Jen fast asleep in their stateroom, the rest of the passengers inside at the casino, the variety shows, the late-night buffets, the dance club—no doubt still buzzing about the crazy girl who had flashed her boobs in the middle of the dining room. And despite her initial disappointment that she and Jen wouldn’t be partying along with them, Beth now realized that she was, in some small way, relieved that Jen had passed out.

  Life was safer that way. Easier.

  Beth loved her sister. She really did. But sometimes she could be so…taxing. Twenty-nine years old and still a child.

  Peter Pan on an endless spring break.

  Beth herself had matured fairly quickly. A matter of necessity, really, after their parents died in a plane crash in Brazil. They had moved in with their grandmother at the time, but Gramma Jean hadn’t been in the best of health, so it was up to Beth to take charge of the wild one.

  It was a familiar story, and not a particularly earth-shattering one at that, and Beth did her best with the meager skills she had. But it had never been enough to tame the girl.

  Jen hadn’t always been such a handful. In fact, in her younger years, long before the crash, she’d been considered the “quiet” one. She was so shy that she couldn’t muster up the courage to buy a candy bar in a convenience store and big sister Beth was always forced to come to the rescue. Even as they got into their teen years, Jen kept mostly to herself, spending her time with books and schoolwork.

  But the crash had changed that.

  They got the news from their school headmistress, Mrs. Llewellyn. A chartered jet had gone down in the Brazilian jungle, no survivors found. At first, Beth and Jen had grabbed onto the hope that there’d been a mistake, a mix-up of some kind, but that hope was shattered when their parents’ bodies were shipped back to Santa Barbara.

  After the funeral, it seemed as if some foreign entity had invaded Jen’s soul. Her shyness gene receded and died. And back at school, she began sneaking away with the older girls to smoke cigarettes in the woods. And God knows what else. She openly flirted with the school gardener, a part-timer from the local college, who was a good six years older than her.

  Jen was possessed, Beth often thought, by some crazed demon who looked and sounded a lot like the old Jennifer but was most certainly an impostor.

  When Mrs. Llewellyn told them that they’d be leaving the Academy at the end of the school year to live with their grandmother up in San Luis Obispo, Jen screamed and went running from the room, and kept on running, only to be found, hours later, sitting in the Academy clock tower, threatening to do a swan dive into the shallow waters of the school fountain.

  A crowd gathered, their classmates snickering, Mrs. Llewellyn shouting for Jen to come down, but Jen refused, and it was up to Beth to climb into the tower and talk her out of this silliness. This hadn’t been Mrs. Llewellyn’s idea, of course, but Beth the Dutiful had known what she needed to do, so she did it, despite the headmistress’s commands for her to stop.

  By the time she climbed out onto the ledge and sat next to Jen, Beth could hear sirens approaching.

  “What are you doing?” she asked softly. “Why are you up here?”

  “It’s all their fault,” Jen said. She was fifteen at the time, just two years younger than Beth. Tears in her eyes.

  “Mom and Dad?”

  Jen n
odded. “If they loved us, they wouldn’t have gone. Or they would’ve taken us with them and we could all be in Heaven together.”

  “It was a business trip. They couldn’t take us.”

  Jen looked at her, defiance in her gaze.

  “And what about the week in Paris? The cruise around the Greek islands? Where those business trips, too?”

  Beth didn’t respond.

  “Face it, Sis: They didn’t want us around. This school is more of a family to us than they ever were.”

  “They had a business to run.”

  “And kids to raise. But what did we ever get out of them besides holidays and summer vacation? I’m almost glad they’re dead.”

  “Stop it,” Beth said.

  Jen was quiet for a long moment.

  Then: “I don’t want to live with Gramma Jean. I don’t want to leave school.”

  “I know. Neither do I.”

  “And Gramma Jean’s not gonna be too happy when she finds out about…”

  Her voice trailed.

  “About what?” Beth asked.

  The tears welled up in Jen’s eyes.

  “I think I’m pregnant.”

  11

  IT TURNED OUT to be a false alarm.

  Thank God.

  Jen’s menstrual cycle had merely been thrown off-kilter by the emotions of the last few weeks, and after three days of panic she began to bleed and told Beth she’d never been happier in her life to use a tampon.

  But just the fact that Jen was having sex was shocking enough to Beth, who herself had not yet met a boy she was willing to lose her virginity to. And although Beth wanted to stay at the Academy as much as Jen did, she thought that moving in with Gramma Jean might turn out to be a good thing.

  It didn’t.

  But they did their best to cope.

  Besides her health troubles, Gramma Jean was not the most loving grandparent in the universe, and Beth began to understand why her own mother had been so aloof.

  She made a vow to herself that if she ever had kids—and she fully intended to one day—then she would love them like nobody’s business. And when she died, you’d never hear a single one of them say they were almost glad it had happened.

  The two girls settled into life at San Lucas High, Jen immediately starting up where she left off at the Academy. Instead of in the woods, cigarette breaks were taken behind the band building. A quick way to make friends. And because the school was co-ed, Jen was never short of potential boy toys. It didn’t help that she’d developed into a first-class stunner, with nearly every male in school lusting after her. Including some of her teachers.

  “Just remember how scared you were when you were sitting up on that ledge,” Beth warned.

  “I don’t think anyone ever got pregnant giving blow jobs,” Jen said.

  Beth certainly couldn’t argue with that.

  Now, standing at the rail, she let the ocean breeze wash over her, thinking about the last ten years. Ten years that felt like a hundred.

  While Beth went off to college and law school, Jen stayed true to her nature and continued to play wild child, eventually getting married to a tattooed motorcycle mechanic named Bradley—who was a sweet enough guy but no match for Jen. When he wanted to stay home, she wanted to party. When he wanted to go for a Sunday ride, she was too hungover to climb onto the back of his bike.

  The marriage lasted three years. And only that long, Jen explained, because of their “monster” sex life.

  Beth herself had used her time a bit more productively. She graduated from law school, spent a year clerking for a Santa Barbara Circuit Court judge, then snagged an ADA post with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.

  And fell in love.

  His name was Peter, a young assistant prosecutor, and there was a time she thought he could do no wrong.

  But, oh, how times change.

  Thinking about Peter, however, was too painful right now, and as much as she loved looking out at the ocean, she was still wearing her dinner dress and starting to get cold. Better to go back to the cabin, slide into bed for the night, and hope that Jen had learned her lesson.

  Tomorrow would be a better day.

  At least Beth was determined to make it one.

  She was about to head for the door or hatch or whatever the hell you called it when—

  “Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

  Startled, Beth turned and saw the silhouette of a man sitting in the shadows behind her on one of the deck chairs.

  Had he been there all along?

  Her face must have shown her surprise, because he said, “I’m sorry, did I frighten you?”

  An accent. Slight but unmistakable.

  Then he rose, moving into the moonlight—one of those big movie moments, where time seemed to momentarily stand still. He was in his mid-thirties. Hispanic. Dark hair pulled into a ponytail—not a style Beth particularly liked, but that didn’t much matter, because he was so damn gorgeous he had no trouble pulling it off.

  Buffeted by his presence, she felt herself take a slight step backward.

  “I did frighten you.”

  “No,” she said. “I mean…a little, I guess.”

  She tried a smile, but it was an awkward one at best. Thirty-one years old, a prosecuting attorney for one of the biggest cities in the world, and here she was, suddenly acting like a complete spaz.

  Get a grip, girl.

  “You thought you were alone out here. It was rude of me to sit in the dark and watch you. Even worse to interrupt.”

  Beth shook her head. “It’s no big deal. I was headed back inside anyway.”

  “Oh? Then let me apologize by buying you a drink.”

  Beth hesitated. After four years with the DA’s office, she was naturally suspicious, but such an offer didn’t exactly fall into the realm of criminal behavior.

  Still, at this point in her life, it was hard for her to believe that anyone would be even remotely interested in buying her a drink, let alone someone who looked like this. She couldn’t help wondering what his angle was.

  “That’s kind of you,” she said, “but there’s nothing to apologize for.”

  He nodded. “No apologies, then. Just the drink.” He held out a hand to shake. “My name is Rafael Santiago.”

  Beth hesitated again, then took the hand.

  12

  Vargas

  “WHERE THE HELL you been?”

  “His car wouldn’t start,” the one called Sergio said. “Thing’s a piece of shit.”

  Vargas was barely conscious. Head throbbing. Wrists bound with a rough piece of rope. He could feel himself being half-carried, half-dragged somewhere but was afraid to open his eyes. Opening his eyes might mean another fist to the face—or worse, a fresh new blow to the head—and he sure as hell didn’t want that.

  But then, he didn’t want any of this, did he?

  “You find out what he knows?” Sergio asked.

  “Peckerwood comes on like he’s the beaner answer to Woodward and Bernstein, but I don’t think he really knows squat. I mentioned the American gal and he was completely clueless.”

  “Who the hell are Woodward and Bernstein?”

  They came to a stop.

  “Forget it,” Ainsworth said. “Where’s Junior?”

  “Right behind you, Pa.”

  “Here, take these and open the trunk.”

  Vargas heard the jangle of car keys as Junior did what he was told. There was the faint but unmistakable thunk of his trunk latch being released, the groan of its hinges, then he was hoisted upward and dropped inside as if he were nothing more than a bag full of rocks.

  Pain shot through him as his tailbone came into contact with something solid—the spare tire, which was hidden in a well beneath the carpeted lining that served as the trunk floor. There had once been a thin particleboard divider covering the well, but somewhere in the last several months it had broken in two and he’d tossed it aside. He couldn’t remember when.
>
  It took everything he had to keep from groaning. Then the hands grabbed him again, taking hold of his legs, and bent them so he’d fit all the way inside.

  “We’d better wrap some tape around his mouth,” Sergio said. “And truss up his ankles, too. In case the asshole wakes up halfway there.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Safe house in Juárez. He’s waiting for us.”

  “He? You mean the man himself?”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. I thought he only came out on special occasions.”

  “I guess this is special.”

  “Doesn’t sound like they’re planning a prayer meeting. What the hell does he want with this idiot, anyway?”

  “Why do you care? You got problems of your own.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s pretty pissed at you and the retard.”

  There was a shuffle of movement; then Sergio squealed.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Call him that again, you little shit, and I’ll gut you right here.”

  “All right, all right! Jesus, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

  There was a beat of silence, more shuffling. Vargas fought the temptation to open his eyes.

  Then Ainsworth said, “I don’t know what he’s so upset about. Me and Junior did what we were told. Wasn’t even our mess to begin with, and he got what he wanted, didn’t he?”

  “What he wanted was this whole thing erased. But you two blew it.”

  “Like it’s our fault the only honest cop in Chihuahua decides to get curious before we can finish?”

  “And you think calling out to the guy made it any better?”

  “He saw our truck, asshole. Was staring right at the plate. Besides, we signed on as couriers, not garbage collectors.”

  “Maybe, but even you’ve gotta admit it was pretty stupid leaving the American woman alive.”

  “We ain’t killers, either. Shape she was in, it was only a matter of time, anyway. And it all worked out in the end. So you tell the man, he’s not happy with us, he can shove the whole goddamn arrangement. We’ll go back to raising chickens for a living.”