Chapter 11
Eleven
Luca reached over and tapped the dash screen, answering the call from Detective Mike Martinelli. He hadn’t heard an update about Jenkins since early this morning, when it had been touch and go.
“Hey.” Luca sat back in the seat, his hands in his lap, watching out the windshield where two men had entered a bar that hadn’t opened for the day.
“Ready for an update?” Mike said. “Everything is quiet here at the hospital.”
“I’m on surveillance with Hammer. He’s in the car with me. I appreciate you helping me out on your day off.”
The clock on the dash read 4:30 p.m.
He would sleep at some point, but it hadn’t happened in more than twenty-four hours. Kira would be even more exhausted than him. She was the one who’d worked an entire shift at the hospital last night.
Hammer said nothing, probably still deep in his thoughts about Jenkins and his brother Mack.
“Alden is out of surgery and stable. You guys told Mack what happened to his father, right?”
Luca watched a car pull into the bar parking lot and stop at the far side beside a lamppost. The occupant didn’t get out. “I told him, and Rowan went to pick him up.”
The fact Kira had passed it on so quickly impressed him. She was the kind of woman who knew that someone was going to be upset by news and made sure they got the information as fast as possible, not waiting for the police to trickle information down from the jail.
“Ralph Rousseau lapsed into a coma.”
Luca hissed out a breath.
Mike continued, “The tox screen came back with something called silent lily. It’s from a rare plant called moonshade lily that originates in Guatemala.
It can be distilled into a clear liquid that’s tasteless.
Kira explained the whole thing to me when she showed up to take over for Dr. Torres.
It’s lethal, so Ralph must not have ingested that much.
They have no idea when he’s going to wake up, or if he even will. ”
“Makes you wonder if Destiny is going to go ahead with this gala, given the condition her husband is in right now.”
“I haven’t heard anything,” Mike said.
“And Kira is okay?”
“She looks like she needs a nap. But she’s currently reading the newspaper to Francisco and drinking coffee.”
Luca said, “Did they do the procedure on him?”
“They need his lab results to look a certain way before that. Apparently they’re hoping for tomorrow or the day after.”
“Heads up.” Hammer motioned to the entrance of the bar, where the two men they had been following emerged and headed to their car.
A third vehicle came in, pulling alongside the car that had parked by the lamppost. Something was exchanged between two open windows, and then both drove off. “Drug deal.”
But nothing to do with them.
“What’s that?” Mike asked.
“Don’t worry, we’ll report it,” Luca said. But right now, they had other issues to worry about. “Who are these guys Homeland told the Marshals about?”
All the information Saxon had was that both men were connected to Francisco’s cartel. He had received two headshots and a description of their car.
“It came in as a BOLO. The whole PD has been on the lookout for these dudes, and thankfully, one of our patrol cars spotted them quickly,” Mike said.
“The two of them are mid-level enforcers for Francisco’s cartel, the one his nephew forced him out of.
If they’re suddenly in town, it’s because the cartel found out that Francisco is here and they want to kill him before he’s able to testify. ”
“Copy that.”
The car the two men had climbed into pulled out, and Luca gave it a few seconds before he eased into traffic behind them.
There was an art to hanging back far enough that they wouldn’t be spotted as a pursuing vehicle, but remaining close enough they didn’t lose the other car.
Being in an old truck wasn’t exactly inconspicuous in the city, but this part of Colorado was rural enough that there were plenty of other Ford trucks on the road.
“We have eyes on them.” Luca gripped the wheel. “If they approach the hospital, we’ll let you know.”
Mike said, “I’ll keep an eye out just in case they’re decoys. Any movement on your cameras?”
“I haven’t had any notifications.” Luca trusted his system, but he still activated the cameras and checked they were operating well regularly. Just to be double covered.
“Gotta go.” Mike hung up the phone.
Luca glanced at Hammer. “That’s good that Jenkins is out of surgery.”
“If he dies, it would solve a lot of problems.”
Luca winced. There wasn’t a lot of love lost between the two men, considering the way Alden Jenkins had treated Hammer as an adolescent—using him as a punching bag.
But the guy was Mack’s father, and no one wanted Hammer’s half brother to be torn up with grief or regret over what he might’ve done differently.
The bottom line was that Jenkins had treated Mack not so differently from Hammer in the end. But hope always longed for a better outcome. Like the restoration of a relationship, even when the worst kind of hurt had been dished out.
God was able to save people out of even the most wretched of situations.
After all, He offered salvation to everyone. Not just supposedly good people or those who cleaned themselves up before they came to Him.
Everyone.
“But he’s still Mack’s father,” Hammer said.
Luca was relieved to hear that. “If he does recover, maybe there’s still a chance he can repent and ask both of you for forgiveness.
” Then he added, “I contacted Deputy Marshal Butler and asked him to transfer my brother to the Renegade Correctional Facility so that there’s at least someone in the prison who can look out for Jenkins and keep this from happening again. ”
He turned a corner in Southwold, an area south of downtown that had some rough neighborhoods.
“Thanks.” Hammer shifted in his seat. “I appreciate you doing that. And I’d love to believe that Jenkins can change, but I’ll be waiting for some fruit before I trust that he’s become a different man.”
“No one’s asking you to do anything other than that.”
The car they were pursuing pulled over, sliding into a space at the curb in front of a row of storefront restaurants.
The kind with awnings and tables outside.
Where late at night, the lively evening crowd spilled onto the street.
A place where the restaurants were authentic and never had enough seats for their customers.
“I didn’t know there was a Middle Eastern restaurant over here.”
Hammer said, “It’s good. I took Sierra there last week. She’s not a big fan of spicy food, but she gave a couple of things a try. You should take Kira when you guys get a night off.”
“Right now, that doesn’t seem like it will happen for a while. Both of us need sleep more than a night on the town.”
Hammer glanced at him.
“Separately, in our own beds.”
“Just checking.” Hammer grinned. “Anyway, I showed Sierra a picture of her, and she said that Kira goes to Redeemer Community Church over in North Eagle with us. She just goes to the early service, and we’re always at the later one. So I never saw her there.”
“That would’ve been a surprise.” Luca had been shocked enough to see her name on the email for that Marshals meeting in Judge Mullinax’s chambers.
Hammer chuckled. “I’d have probably thought she was there to assassinate us at church and freaked out.”
“Good thing you didn’t, then.” Again, the protectiveness he felt toward Kira welled up in him. Not that she couldn’t take care of herself. The point was that he wanted to be there as backup. A partner. Or someone to stand in front of her and take the hit on her behalf.
Not only that, but he needed the chance to prove to her that he was the kind of guy who would pitch in with dishes and laundry. Housecleaning and home repairs. Even getting a tall ladder to change the battery in the smoke alarm on the vaulted ceiling in her apartment.
To get her to take a chance on him, because he would always try to make it worth it. So she’d never regret choosing him.
“You’re gone for her.”
Luca didn’t need to tell Hammer that he was right. “Can we just do our jobs here?”
“You’re the one the Marshals asked for. I’m just here for the entertainment value.”
“And gas money.”
“If you make it worth my while, I could take my family to Florida in the winter. Get some sun.”
“We’ll see.”
Hammer chuckled again. The easy laughter from this family man was a welcome change from the guy Luca had lived with for the past few years. The same kind of change he wanted to happen within himself.
The front door of a tapas restaurant opened, and a man emerged from under the red-and-white-striped awning. He wore a suit and had a familiar face. “That’s Dr. Torres. He’s the one doing the procedure on Francisco.”
“So they’re going after the doctor to get to Francisco?”
“Maybe.” He watched the two men emerge from the vehicle and follow Dr. Torres along the street, away from where Luca had parked. “Let’s go.”
Dr. Torres turned the corner into an alley between two red brick buildings. The man would be around the corner in seconds.
“Drive over there,” Hammer said. “It’ll be faster.”
Whatever these two men from the cartel were going to do to Dr. Torres, Luca had to stop it from happening.
He threw the truck into Reverse and peeled out of the space, slammed it into Drive, and hit the gas.
Not concerned with how much attention he was drawing to himself.
He checked there were no pedestrians and bumped the curb into the alley.
The two men had Dr. Torres backed up against the side of the brick building, both of them in his face. Luca spotted a knife at the doctor’s throat. Not going for any tactics with finesse. Apparently, these two men had chosen a bolder approach to getting what they wanted.