Page 73 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name
But it was too late. A dozen law enforcement officers converged on him like a pack of wolves. They dragged him to the ground, knelt on his back and legs, and shoved his face into the road grit.
She saw a blur of movement from the car. Sebastián had darted out of the passenger door and was rounding the front of the car.
The gunshot sounded like cannon fire. It was the loudest thing Julia had ever heard. It seemed to shred through the night, leaving tatters in its wake.
Deafened, everything seemed to play out before her like a silent movie. Sebastián’s body, caught in the car’s headlights, falling backwards, hitting the ground. Tequila barking, tail between her legs, running to and from in agitated circles. Daniel’s mouth open in an unheard roar. Behind her, red and blue police lights started strobing in unison, turning the forested lane into a sudden club scene.
Five agents restrained Daniel; one of their knees pressed his cheek. Yet, amid the chaos, he found her gaze.
And the look in them was one of pure hatred.
TWENTY
This room,this nightmarish room again. The red blinking light. The cup of water. The scarred table. The smiling assassin carved onto the table. The word “ME” scratched above it.
Someone had cleaned up her sick from earlier, but she could still smell it. Her eyes felt swollen; she dipped her fingers into her cup and pressed them to her eyelids.
When she squeezed her eyes shut, she could see it all play out in her mind’s eye. Sebastián’s body hitting the ground. A moment of suspended animation when no one seemed able to move. But she had. Maybe it was her quick-twitch dancer’s muscles or maybe it was just her desperation, but she’d made it to his body before anyone else did. Saw the gaping, sucking hole in his chest, the blood, the blood. It had already soaked through his t-shirt and was gleaming on the gravel.
She’d been useless, of course, unable to do much but hover her palms pointlessly over the wound, like some kind of faith healer. Too scared to touch him in case that would make the damage worse. As if she hadn’t done enough of that already.
He just stared up at the stars, gulping air in breaths that grew shorter and shorter.
Someone had hauled her off him and applied actual first aid. She’d heard Weck’s voice, and the dreadful woman had dragged her away and bundled her into a car.
She opened her eyes and ran her hands over her face. Looked around the tiny room. Now she wanted to be anywhere but here.
The door opened and Weck entered, clutching a brown paper bag and her best friend, the binder.
Julia kept her eyes on the table, tracing the stick figure with the gun. “Is he dead?” she asked dully.
Weck came to stand by the table but didn’t sit down. “He’s in surgery. The bullet punctured a lung and there are some fragments near his spine.” She paused, then added, “The doctor said he was very lucky to be alive.”
Julia snorted. “You mean, he’s lucky you people didn’t kill him.”
Weck said nothing. She didn’t even have the decency to look guilty about what had happened. In her mind, she probably thought she wasn’t.
The special agent placed the paper bag on the table and pushed it towards her. It had the name of a fast-food joint on it and smelled greasy. “You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” She sat back in her chair. “I did what you wanted. I gave you your probable cause to arrest him. Your Consolidated Priority Target, or whatever the hell you want to call him to dehumanize him some more?—”
“Castaño isn’t the CPOT,” Weck interrupted. “Terry Bidois is. He’s a high-ranking underboss inLa Eme. Shot-caller for the whole Chicago operation, from importation to distribution. Answers directly to Mexico. We’ve been wiretapping his phone for months but haven’t been about to make any headway on how he’s getting the heroin into Chicago.”
She placed the binder on the table, but Julia interrupted her before she could open it and show her any more of the horrors held within.
“I’ve seen him. He came to Daniel’s trailer once when I was there.” She swallowed, remembering her glimpse of him over Daniel’s shoulder as he was stashing her in his wardrobe. “Big white guy. Scary looking. A spider web tattoo on the back of his head.” She sighed, massaged her temples. “Daniel told me about him.”
“Perfect.” Weck pulled out a chair. “Nowyoucan tell me about him.”
Julia looked down at her hands. The ring that Daniel had placed on her finger only that morning caught the light, glinting crimson. She thought about Sebastián’s blood shining on the stones where he lay. And the look Daniel had given her, like she’d just ripped the heart right out of his chest.
Weck noticed her looking at the ring. “And then,” she said, “we’re gonna go pay a little visit to your fiancé.”
* * *
Eight plastic chairs sat in empty booths facing thick plate glass. The telephones hung from their cradles like dead weights, beneath stern signs warning that all conversations were being monitored. From beyond the concrete walls came the muffled echoes of barking orders, angry shouts, and the occasional clatter of something heavy hitting the floor.
The no-contact visiting area of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago was every bit as bleak as Julia had imagined.
