Shutter(73)

The bar was as bustling with the lunch crowd as it had been in my dream. We headed straight to the bartender, Vargas still gripping my arm.

“Can I help you?”

Garcia pulled his jacket back to show the badge on his waistband. “Can you show me where the storage room is?”

The bartender looked at Garcia’s badge and pointed to the back of the building. Garcia led us down the same hallway I had seen Erma take during my dream. The room was deep, rows of tall metal shelves packed with boxes and bar supplies. I hadn’t seen exactly where Matias had put the bag, although I remembered it was toward the back of the room. But there was just an old medical sink in the corner.

“You’re sure it’s here?” Vargas was shoving aside boxes, his hold on me loosening in the heat of his search.

Garcia moved methodically along the rows, bending to peer into shadows. “Matias said it was.”

“How do you know he told you the truth?” I piped up.

Garcia straightened up to level a look at me across the shelves. “Because he knows what happens to people who lie to me. He knows I keep my promises.”

I wondered if Erma had been one of his promises. I wondered if Garcia had threatened the rest of Matias’s family too. “He’s gonna kill you when he gets out.”

“No, he won’t.” Garcia stopped right where I was standing and crouched to open the blue cupboard below the sink and remove the duffle bag. “He’s dead. It’s really easy to take care of that when they’re in the pinta.” Garcia brought his face close to mine. “You’re fucked.” He looked at Vargas. “Take her to the car. I’m taking whatever they left in the lockbox.”

Vargas wrenched me down the hall toward the elevator.

“What do you need me for, Vargas?” I struggled to pull my arm away. “Let me go.” Vargas just laughed. He was way too strong for me to fight.

I tried to think about what I could do to prevent my impending demise. As we turned down the hallway, I saw there was a couple waiting at the elevator bank. This was my moment, my chance to escape.

“Let go of my arm!” I shrieked over their conversation. “He’s trying to hurt me!”

“Is there a problem?” The man broke away from his date to take a confrontational stance by Vargas. The elevator bell rang.

“There’s no problem here,” Vargas was saying, “This woman is under arrest.” In that moment I heaved myself away from him with all my strength, wrenching my arm out of his grip. I ducked under the man’s arm and into the elevator, desperately seeking the close door button and punching it with one shaking finger. I watched the man bodycheck Vargas, who was still shouting that he was a police officer. The last thing I saw was the woman’s round eyes on me as the doors slid blessedly closed.

My heart pounding, I listened to the elevator bell ding past each floor. What were the odds that it didn’t stop again before reaching the bottom? Or that Vargas didn’t extract himself and beat me down the stairwell? Should I get off before the bottom? Or risk making a run for it? At least on the street there would be witnesses.

When the doors opened again on the ground floor, I didn’t give myself time to feel grateful for my reprieve. I took off down Central Avenue, sprinting until I couldn’t breathe.

With Ignacio Marcos and Matias Romero dead, Cedric Romero was the only one standing in the way of Garcia taking the entire cut. He stole Erma from her mom and her child, endangered me and all I ever cared about in my life—my grandma, Mr. Bitsilly, Mrs. Santillanes, Shanice, and Philip. It didn’t matter if IAB was investigating Garcia, if Angie Seivers finally believed me— my photos were no protection against his revenge. How could I trust the law enforcement machine to stop and prosecute a dirty cop—or, as a lot of officers would see it, to turn on one of their own, who had risked his life going up against some of the most dangerous criminal entities in the United States? Even if Garcia went to jail, I would never be safe from his network of influence. Justice would never be enough. I was never going to escape this until Garcia was dead.

I had one last idea: I needed to get to Cedric Romero. He needed to know that Garcia was going to kill him, to erase the Marcos cartel from the entire equation. My legs ached, but I wasn’t far from Pino’s Upholstery.

As I rounded the corner on Broadway, a city bus screeched to a stop in front of me. I never in my life had been so happy to see the bus. I got on and sat in the first seat, dripping with sweat even in the winter air. I could feel everyone on the bus staring at me.

“Are you all right, miss?” The bus driver looked at me in his mirror. “Do we need to call anyone?” I felt a tickle on my brow as blood oozed from the bump on my forehead. I couldn’t even speak. “You just hold on there, young lady, I can call dispatch.”

“Just get me to Fourth Street.” I wiped the blood away with my sleeve. “I can get help.”

Cedric Romero was the last thing holding Garcia back from getting his big payday from the Sinaloa Cartel. I was riding the bus to Garcia’s next murder.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

f/8

PINO’S UPHOLSTERY WAS farther down Fourth Street, at the northern end of a long-forgotten neighborhood. The cinder block and stucco building stood wedged between houses on one side and the railroad tracks on the other. When the bus stopped at Fourth and Hannett, I headed toward the exit.