Southtown (Tres Navarre #5)(56)

The interior of Maia’s new apartment was also a duplicate of the old—high ceilings, white wal s, pristine tile work, milk carpet, a slight scent of jasmine in the air.

She’d re-created her living environment in Texas with such eerie precision it belied the risk she’d taken coming here—the career and reputation she’d left behind, the savings she’d burned, the chance she was taking on a guy who’d let her down before.

If asked, she would say the move was a life decision. The time had been right for her to reinvent herself.

She hadn’t moved just to be closer to me.

She would also swear her new home looked nothing like her old.

Maia shed her white jacket, folded it over the kitchen stool.

The gun in her holster looked enormous compared to the size of her hands, but I knew it fit her grip perfectly. The .357 was her preferred weapon. Anything small er, and she felt poorly anchored.

“You can’t negotiate with Wil Stirman,” she told me. “You know that.”

I picked up one of the articles she had printed from the Express-News archives.

Human Trafficker Brought Down by Local Investigators 4/29/95.

Last night, working in conjunction with San Antonio police on the recent slayings at a Castroville ranch, two prominent local private investigators took part in a dramatic firefight leading to the arrest of Will Stirman, the alleged mastermind of a human trafficking operation which may have supplied the Castroville murderer with his victims.

None of the information was new to me. Late April, just as Ana DeLeon had said. Barrera and Barrow were portrayed as heroes. The statement from the SAPD’s media relations officer was careful y restrained.

While we never condone private citizens taking the law into their own hands . . .

No reference to missing money or a dead child. Soledad’s death wasn’t mentioned until the last paragraph—a completely subordinate fact, like a broken window.

“Tres.” Maia sounded more insistent now. “If Stirman lost his family . . . he’l never let Erainya go. You’l have to find him before he cal s the meeting. You’l have to kil him.”

It was jarring, hearing her say that, but I wasn’t surprised. Maia was the ultimate pragmatist when it came to sociopaths. She knew them. At her old San Francisco firm of Terrence & Goldman, she had been responsible for defending some of the richest sociopaths in the country. Under the right circumstances, Maia would have no problem putting a bul et through Wil Stirman’s forehead. She would not lose a moment’s sleep.

“I’l find him,” I promised.

But I was stil looking at the article. Late April 1995.

Nobody wants to live in hell, vato. Nobody.

I imagined Fred Barrow—a big, brutish man with blood on his hands, his breath stinking of guilt and hate and violence, and a suitcase ful of cash in the trunk of his car. I thought about what he might do with seven mil ion dol ars. I thought about Erainya’s note from H., the package from Fred.

“You wasted time, coming up here,” Maia said, sadly. “Three hours you should’ve spent looking for Stirman.”

Domino moments are rare. One seemingly incongruous piece of information slips into place, and suddenly you’ve got a chain reaction of unanswered questions that al go down, one after the other.

Investigators live for domino moments. On the other hand, the pattern you discover can sometimes scare the hel out of you.

“It wasn’t a waste of time,” I said. “I have to—”

I stopped.

Jem was standing in the kitchen doorway, holding his Game Boy.

“The batteries are dead,” he announced.

Maia held out her arms. “Come here, sweetheart.”

Jem came over and let her hug him, but his eyes were on me.

The kitchen floor was turning to liquid under my feet.

I said, “How long were you listening, champ?”

“Awhile,” he admitted. “I want to go with you.”

Maia tried to stroke the bangs out of his eyes to no avail. “You can’t, sweetheart.”

He pul ed away from her. “That man wants me to come. I want to help my mother.”

Maia looked to me for support.

I remembered Wil Stirman’s voice on the telephone, his tone that I hadn’t quite been able to decipher: We’ll all be better behaved with the kid around.

“I’l tel the man to let her go,” Jem continued. “He won’t hurt me. I’l talk to him first. Then if you have to, you can shoot him. That wil be fairer.”

His chin jutted out stubbornly, like his mother’s. He sounded like he was describing a game plan rather than asking permission.

Not for the first time, I marveled at how much he’d changed since his preschool days.

He’s still only eight, I reminded myself.

So what had I been doing at eight years old? I’d already found the keys to my dad’s gun safe. I’d shot and gutted my first deer at the ranch. I’d spent hours hanging around the guards’ desk at the Bexar County Jail, where my dad had his office. I already knew the difference between a con and a civilian. I’d had plenty of conversations with guys like Wil Stirman, and I’d known instinctively—or at least I thought I knew—which ones would hurt a kid, and which ones wouldn’t. If somebody had told me, at eight years old, that Wil Stirman had taken my mom and I couldn’t try to help her . . .