Chapter 21
DIEGO
"DJ!"
"What the fuck do you want?"
"My guy on the inside says they've got a suspect for the hit." He's practically vibrating. "It's not us. It's one of his assistants. Found motive in his phone. We're clear, bro."
My brain is still half-asleep. "Good. Let me go back to sleep."
"Alright, alright—"
"Wait."
He stops.
I'm sitting up now, the fog burning off fast. "The girl from the bar. The one we took to Linda."
"Yeah?"
"She's his assistant."
A pause. "And?"
"Cops were on her tail yesterday."
"I'm not even gonna ask how you know that." He shrugs it off. "Good. Let her take the fall. We walk."
"I can't do that."
"Why?"
I glare at him across the dark room. I don't have an answer I can say out loud, and we both know it.
Raul's mouth pulls into a slow smirk. "Homie's got a crush."
"Are you going to help me or not?"
"What can we even do?"
"I don't know yet. Let me think." I swing my legs over the side of the bed. "You still need me for the panels today?"
"Yeah."
"I'll come by after I drop Ma at work."
The door clicks shut. I sit in the dark and stare at nothing.
Fuck.
I'm parked outside her complex before 3 AM. The humidity is thick enough to press against the windows, the kind of Miami night that makes the air feel like a presence. The cop car is still there, same spot, same officer as far as I can tell.
I pull out my phone.
What was the motive?
Call you in a sec.
An unknown number lights up the screen.
"Burner?"
"You know it." His voice is different on it, quieter, more careful. "To answer your question — they found texts. He was sending her graphic shit. Detailed. What he wanted to do to her, what he planned. Wasn't shy about it."
My jaw tightens. "How graphic."
"Graphic. And that's not even the worst of it. He had a photo album on his phone. Her, taken without her knowing. Up-skirt stuff. Hundreds of them."
The red comes fast. Not hot, just there, filling the space behind my eyes, my hands tightening on the wheel before I've told them to.
"That motherfucker," I say quietly. "He doesn't get to touch her. Not with his hands, not with his eyes, not with any of it."
"Well he definitely won't now," Raul says.
"How do they tie it to her?"
"They've got nothing solid and they want the case closed. It was being called an overdose until they found the vodka bottle. Without that, it stays accidental. With it, they need someone." He pauses. "They'll pin it on whoever fits the frame, bro. You know how this works."
The vodka bottle.
I left the vodka bottle.
I hit the steering wheel with my palm, the crack of it loud in the cab. "Fuck." Then again. "Fuck."
"I know."
"This is my fault. She's not taking the fall for my mess."
"Like what, though? What are you gonna do?"
I hang up without answering because I don't have one yet.
I give myself sixty seconds to think and then I drive to her apartment.
The kitchen window is still unlocked. I'm going to have a conversation with her about that. I get through it, drop onto the counter, scan the apartment. Then I see it on the counter beside her purse, folded and creased like it had been stuffed into a bag.
We're watching you.
I read it twice. Then I stand in her kitchen in the dark and feel the shape of the situation clarify into something I should have seen coming.
Raul was right. Textbook intimidation. Rattle a suspect until they run toward something stupid, or crack and offer up details they never should have. The cops don't have enough or they'd have moved already. They're manufacturing pressure and waiting to see what breaks loose.
They don't get to do that to her.
I go to her bedroom. She's tucked in, breathing slow and even, completely under. A few loose strands of hair have escaped her bun and are curved against her cheek.
I stand there for a moment longer than I need to.
Then I slide my arms beneath her knees and shoulders and lift.
She turns into my neck without waking, a small instinctive move toward warmth. God, she’s a deep sleeper. Thankfully. I hold her against my chest and carry her out through the apartment, out the front door careful and slow, and load her into the truck.
I still don't have a complete plan. I know she needs to be somewhere no one is watching, somewhere outside the radius of whatever the cops are building around her. The rest I'll figure out.
My uncle's storage facility sits off a downtown side street, the kind of place that's been in the family so long nobody questions why it exists. I punch in the code and pull through. She's still asleep when I check, her breathing unchanged, a quiet sound escaping her that might be a snore.
I carry her into the safe room at the back of the unit. It's not much. A metal-frame couch, a workbench, overhead lighting that hums. I've been in worse.
I set her down on the couch, pull the blanket from the shelf and tuck it around her. Then I look at the handcuffs on the workbench and hate myself a little as I pick them up.
One end around her ankle. One end around the couch frame. Then another chain for her wrists.
She can reach the blanket. She can sit up. She can't run in a panic before I can explain, and panic is the reasonable response to waking up here, which is the only reason I'm doing this.
That's what I tell myself.
I pull the door shut behind me and call Raul.
He picks up on the first ring.
"I took her."
Silence. Then: "You what."
"She's safe. Uncle's storage unit, safe room. But someone left a note on her counter. We're watching you."
"That's cops," he says immediately. "Classic play. Rattle a suspect, get them to do something stupid. Run, confess, contact someone they shouldn't." A low whistle. "Smart. And dirty."
"They don't get her."
"Okay. But what's the move? You can't keep a civilian locked up indefinitely."
"She's not just a civilian." The words come out before I've decided to say them.
Raul is quiet for a beat. When he speaks again the smirk is audible. "Your Goldilocks. Alright. Just don't get sloppy. Cops are already closer than I'd like."
"I won't."
I hang up. Stand in the dark outside the storage unit and listen to the city doing what Miami does at 3 AM, which is hum at a frequency that sounds almost like quiet.
She's in there. Safe, for now, which is the best I can offer.
The rest I'll figure out in the morning.