Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
I LOOKED DOWN at the photo Seb passed me and stifled a groan. A picture of Black had been left in the pack by accident. I vaguely recalled the team including it when they canvassed the hotel staff for witnesses, just in case the morbid needed to see who had died. His handsome face stared out at me from the shiny paper, and my soul ached with sadness.
It was him the Garcias had recognised. Charles. The English version of the Spanish Carlos. I knew Black had never met any of the family, but Eduardo had his sources just like I had mine. Although Black and I tried to keep pictures of ourselves out of the public domain, they must have seen a photo of him sometime.
“No, that’s Charles. He never called himself Carlos. Do any of the others look familiar?”
Seb’s brow furrowed in confusion. “No, no, he was always Carlos. I have never heard him called anything else. You recognise him? Why are you asking us, then?”
“Of course I recognise him. We were married for almost twelve years.”
Eduardo’s face, normally relaxed and friendly, clouded over.
“You were married to Carlos Ramos?” he thundered, leaping to his feet.
Huh?
He slammed his cane down on the wooden floor and advanced towards me. Okay, now I understood where he got his reputation from. He looked a little angry.
“What are you talking about? I was married to Charles Black. You know that.”
I stood up and faced him toe-to-toe, hands on hips. He may have been acting psychotic, but two could play at that game.
“Well, that’s Carlos Ramos,” he yelled, pointing at the photo. Spit flew onto my face, and I resisted the urge to wipe my cheek.
“No, it isn’t. It’s Charles Black.”
“It is Carlos Ramos, Emmy,” Seb told me, speaking more gently than his father. “The lack of beard confused me at first, but all three of us can see the likeness.”
I answered him without looking. I wasn’t about to break eye contact with Eduardo. “No, it definitely isn’t.”
“Yes, it is,” Marco said. “We must have a surveillance photo of Carlos somewhere we can show you. I’ll try to find it. That will prove that we’re right.”
Silence reigned for the five minutes it took him to get back. Eduardo sat back on the sofa, glowering, muttering something about me “consorting with the enemy.” I remained standing and stared out the window, not seeing much but my own reflection because of the darkness outside.
The eyes looking back at me showed my confusion. What on earth was going on?
Marco came back with two photos, which he put on the table next to the one of Black. I peered at them closely.
The first was taken from a distance with a long lens, the subject standing at an angle. The tiny figure didn’t show any detail, but the stance was pure Black. Upright, confident, hands clasped behind his back.
The second had been shot from much closer with Carlos slightly off-centre. There was a bit of blurring, but I had to admit they were right. The man bore more than a passing resemblance to my husband. If this wasn’t Black, it was his doppelg?nger.
“I met him once,” Marco said. “A couple of years ago, at a party, and he looks even more similar in person. They have the same eyes.”
I sat down. Well, my legs gave way and I plopped onto the sofa.
“How can this be? That’s Black, but it isn’t. He’s never had long hair like that.”
“Maybe he wore a wig?”
“I guess. But why? Why would he have another identity he didn’t tell me about? We didn’t have any secrets between us. We told each other everything.”
“I don’t know, angel. Not yet.”
Eduardo must have realised how shocked I was by the latest revelations, and he’d stopped looking at me with murder in his eyes. Instead, he took my hand, trying to comfort me.
“Who is Carlos Ramos, anyway?”
“He’s the eldest son of Hector Ramos. Hector Ramos is a rival of mine, and yes, he does supply the East Coast of the United States. He is also, how do you say, mad as a box of frogs?”
“Black’s father was American. He died when Black was sixteen.”
“Hector Ramos is still very much alive, unfortunately, and he is not a nice man. While I find it necessary to commit violent acts out of necessity, Hector Ramos does so because he enjoys it. He is ruthless.”
Great, a psycho. Well, I always said I liked a challenge. “So where does he live?”
“Further south than us, in the Amazonian region. As far as I know, his sons live with him as mine do with me.”
In a heavily fortified compound? This got better and better. “Sons? How many?”
“Carlos has a younger brother called Diego. I’ve rarely known Carlos to travel, although I’ve heard Diego makes regular trips abroad.”
“Well, Carlos can’t be Black. Black hasn’t even been to Colombia for years. The last time he came here was when I was…twenty-one.” In terms of my pretend age, anyway. “Three days into the trip, he got arrested and accused of shooting some street kid. The police claimed they had an eyewitness who saw him leaving the scene, which was rubbish. He only came here to advise a client on a security system. The cops locked him up for almost a week before he managed to escape, and once he got out of Colombia, he swore he’d never come back. That’s why Nate and I deal with all our business over here.” Then I thought of something else. “Wait, when he told me about it, he said they kept yelling ‘Give in, Carlos, we’ve got witnesses this time’ at him. It annoyed him to no end because they couldn’t even get his name right.”
“I’ve seen him here more recently than eleven years ago, Emmy,” Seb said.
“When was that photo taken? And where?” I pointed at the clearer of the two surveillance shots.
Marco turned it over and read the faint pencil scrawl on the back. “April 22nd, three years ago. In Cali.”
I got out my phone, opened Black’s calendar, and flicked back in time. Sloane was meticulous about keeping our diaries up to date. “Okay, three years ago, on April 22nd, Black was...on a yacht. Off the coast of Somalia, with me, and I’d certainly have noticed if he’d skipped off to Colombia for a few days.”
We’d been hunting pirates with me as the bait. We caught seven, plus I got a suntan and a fat cheque from the shipping company who hired us.
Marco voiced the question we were all thinking. “So, what’s going on?”
I had no answers. None at all. Just when I thought I’d relocated my brain after its absence in England, it took off again. “I just don’t know. There must be two of them. One person couldn’t be on two different continents at the same time.”
“Maybe it’s coincidence,” Seb suggested. “They say everyone’s got a double out there, don’t they?”
My gut told me otherwise. “No way. This is connected to the drug trade somehow. I’m sure of it.”
“Brothers, perhaps?”
“Black was an only child.”
“Are you sure?”
“A secret brother? No way. He’d have told me.” And even if he hadn’t, I’d have found out for myself, nosy little cow that I was. Stray paperwork, a whispered conversation… But I’d seen nothing.
“What if he didn’t know?” Seb asked.
“I suppose it’s possible, but how would that work? Either Black’s parents must have adopted him, or they gave up Carlos. He never had an inkling of either.”
Eduardo had simmered down from earlier, and now he gripped my upper arms as he looked into my eyes. “I don’t know either, angel, but we will find out.”
I truly believed he’d do his best. But would it be enough? My life had been tilted on its axis once again, and I didn’t know where to begin with unravelling this mystery.
“It feels like my whole life’s falling to bits at the moment.”
“We will fit the pieces together again. I promise you.”
Eduardo gathered me up in his arms, holding me tight. My eyes prickled as he kissed my hair, telling me everything would be all right. An assassin being comforted by a drug lord—how surreal had my world become?
A long minute passed before Eduardo let me go. “Let us rest. We will start our search for the truth in the morning.”
“There’s a friend who came with me, and he’s staying at the Coralia. He’s known Black longer than me.”
“I will send a car for him tomorrow. Now, we sleep.”