Chapter 4 #2
“Alpha Pallás—” He eyed me when he said the name, holding himself as if bracing for a slap.
When no violence came, he relaxed again.
“—was technically the manager, but he didn’t do much day-to-day, especially during the last six months.
Esperanza Pacheco ran things when he was gone, which was more and more often in the weeks leading up to… you know.”
I tried to bring the person he was talking about to mind. “The bartender? The older woman?”
“No, you’re thinking of Nancy Yorba. She retired a few months ago. The person I’m talking about worked graveyard.”
“I didn’t spend time here after dark. I don’t think I met her.”
“Esperanza's the best. Started out waiting tables, but she did pretty much everything around here after a while. Even though she wasn’t paid to do it, she set up our work schedules and put in orders to suppliers to keep us running. The boss even had her doing payroll the last few months, though he didn’t compensate her for taking on the extra work. ”
“Typical Floyd. This Esperanza sounds capable. Do you know where I can find her?”
“She’s a friend of mine.” He gave me that blinding smile again. “We live in the same apartments. I know she could really use the work right now, too. La Paloma doesn’t have many openings these days.”
That was the truth. Our unemployment rate was one of the highest in the country. “Call her. See if she’ll meet us here. I’d like to run some things by her.”
“Right now?”
“No time like the present, right? If she’s not available, maybe we can set something up for tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Alpha Betty.”
Yikes. That was better than Alpha Lennox, but not by much.
While Dylan went outside to call Esperanza Pacheco, I studied Floyd’s office with a fresh eye.
It looked better, but it was still a mess.
Thick black plastic trash bags lined the wall where the bookcases used to be.
A row of cardboard boxes packed with bookshelf items sat atop the emptied filing cabinets—including a small box of family photos I thought Ronan and Rory might want.
Pictures of their moms, things like that.
I’d destroyed the more heinous photos, and there’d been plenty of them.
To the great and mighty surprise of exactly no one, Floyd Pallás had been a trophy hunter.
He’d kept photographs of things that would bring me nightmares for years to come, mostly because some of the worst photos were dog-eared, as if he’d taken them out of their boxes over and over again like a gloating, deviant monster.
There were other types of shifters featured in the pictures, but there were so many more wolves.
It made me sick to my stomach to see the things he’d forced them to do for his camera.
Many of his victims were in the pack today.
I wondered how relieved they’d be when they found out the incriminating photos were gone.
I picked up my cell, brought up Mason’s number.
“Alpha,” he answered.
“Hey, Mason, I want to reopen Floyd’s bar as soon as possible. I’ve got the old manager coming over right now. Do you know her? Esperanza—”
“Pacheco,” he finished. “Good kid. Listen to her. She knows that place inside and out.” A piercing howl rent the air. It wasn’t a happy sound. “My apologies, Alpha, but I’m in the middle of something. May I call you back in an hour?”
“Yes,” I lowered my voice to the tiniest whisper. “Are you hurting one of our wolves, Second?”
“Yes and no, Alpha,” he replied.
“Yes, you’re hurting them? No, the wolf isn’t one of ours?”
“Exactly.” He ended the call.
Dylan returned a couple of minutes later with Fennel. I was perched on the edge of Floyd’s desk, staring at the bags of shredded depravity.
“She’ll be here in ten minutes.”
“Thanks.”
Fennel meowed then leapt onto the desk beside me. Without tearing my gaze from the bags, I lifted a hand to pet him.
Dylan looked at me, concern in his blue eyes. “You okay, Alpha?”
“Yeah. Tired.”
He eyed the filing cabinets and boxes. “Not the physical kind though, huh?”
“No,” I said, “not the physical kind. Although, I’m not going to be jogging around the block anytime soon, either.”
He grinned and leaned in like he wanted to chuck me on the shoulder but changed his mind at the last minute. Instead, he went into the hall and grabbed the two trash bags I’d dropped then headed for the ones lining the wall. The ones filled with shredded awfulness.
“I’ll take these to the dumpster.”
“Not those. They have to be incinerated. The others are okay.”
He nodded approvingly. “Got anything else that needs to go out then?”
In fact, I did. He and I were on our second trip out to the dumpster with non-sensitive garbage from the office when Esperanza arrived.
The woman was much younger than I’d anticipated.
According to Dylan, she was five years older than his twenty-two, which made her eight years younger than my thirty-five.
She was also an alpha, like Dylan. I was no expert, but they felt about equal in power.
I’d have to ask Ronan or Mason to be sure.
She pulled up in a late model Mazda with a busted passenger window that had been badly repaired with cardboard and duct tape. There was too much exhaust coming out of the back of the car and an insistent rattle that reminded me of glasses clinking in a dishwasher.
“Hello, Alpha Lennox. Dylan.” She bounced out of the vehicle, keys and purse in hand, and came toward us, bowing her head slightly as she approached me. Her black hair flowed over her slight shoulders.
“Oh gods, please don’t do that deference thing,” I said. “And I’m Betty. Alpha Betty if you must.”
Her smile spread to her cognac-brown eyes. “I’m Esperanza. Nice to meet you, Alpha Betty.”
We went inside, and Esperanza flicked on the dining room lights. “Looks like I was the last person to clean here,” she said, running her slender fingers over the back of a bar stool.
“Let me get this straight. You tended bar, waited tables, set up the schedules, put in the orders, did the payroll, and cleaned the place?” My mouth fell open. “Did you ever sleep?”
Her hundred-watt smile dimmed. “Not much.”
I sighed. Every time I learned something new about Floyd Pallás, it was awful. Although I wished to the highest of heavens that I hadn’t been the one to kill him, I was immensely glad he was no longer walking the earth.
Esperanza and Dylan walked me through the restaurant, Esperanza sharing information on everything from the names of regional wholesale beverage distributors to the type of paper towels used in the bathrooms.
Eventually, we ended up at the door to Floyd’s office. Esperanza halted at the threshold and turned her head away. She wouldn’t even look into the room.
“You can come in,” I said in what I hoped was an encouraging tone. “I’ve been cleaning it up. The mice have been relocated to a nearby field, and the stinky furniture is gone—most of it, anyway.”
“I’m not allowed,” she whispered, head lowered.
I glanced at Dylan, who was watching Esperanza. His teeth were clenched and his hands balled into fists at his side, yet when he spoke, his tone was gentle.
“It’s okay, Espie. Alpha Betty isn’t like that.”
Esperanza’s chin hit her chest. Her entire body shook. I wasn’t a wolf, and even I could taste her fear. Dylan’s eyes flashed gold—he looked away before she could see them.
The tension in the room was one pluck shy of a guitar-string break.
“If it makes you feel any better,” I said, “I had my gnome partner cremate the carpet.”
She lifted her head. Her round brown eyes were soft and damp. “Alpha, I have no idea what to do with the sentence that just came out of your mouth.”
Dylan’s mouth twitched. He blinked, and his eyes went back to human.
“My partner, Cecil. He’s an ecological anarchist, a master gardener, and an expert in magical explosives. Does that help clear it up?”
The corners of her mouth lifted. “It does not.”
“Fair. He’s kind of hard to explain. You’ll meet him later. He’s looking forward to destroying the last of the old alpha’s shredded files. For now, they’re staying locked up in this room, which is protected by numerous locks and a brutal witch spell.”
Her head jerked up. “The files?”
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “Alpha Betty destroyed everything in the cabinets.”
“Everything?” She looked at me with eyes filled with unvarnished hope.
“Photos, thumb drives, files, everything that son-of-a-bastard had squirreled away in his shitty little room,” I said. “The computers have been wiped clean and will also be destroyed, just to be safe.”
“To be safe,” Esperanza echoed. She swallowed, took a deep breath, and faced the office. “Oh wow. It looks so different.” She took a hesitant step inside. “Bigger.”
“I’m thinking it would make a good break room, given the size,” I said.
“Yes, it would.” I watched her venture further into the room with the slow, clumsy steps of a skittish deer. Rage poured into me, because now that I saw her in the room, I realized I’d seen her there before.
In Floyd’s photos.
Damn him straight to hell.
Esperanza didn’t get too far into the office before she backed out again. She didn’t feel comfortable in there, and I didn’t blame her. I could remodel the place, but I couldn’t erase what Floyd had done.
Still, I had to do something.
“Question for you, Esperanza,” I asked. “How do you feel about demolition?”
“Yes. Sledgehammers. Massive, heavy sledgehammers,” Dylan said, in perfect understanding. “The kind that do a lot of damage.”
Esperanza shook her head. “I don’t have any construction experience.”
“None necessary. We’re not building anything,” I said. “We’re tearing it all down. Right down to the godsdamn studs. Tomorrow morning, if you’re available. You’ll be compensated for your time, both of you.”
“Tearing it … down?”
“That’s right.”
She lowered her shoulders and lifted her chin for the first time since entering the room. “I can be here at eight.”