In Desperation

62

Phoenix, Arizona

At dawn, climbing out of a short, troubled sleep on Cora’s sofa, Jack noticed the task force agents huddled around the laptops on the kitchen table.

One of them-was that Detective Coulter?-was whispering on a cell phone with a heightened degree of intensity.

Something’s going on. They’ve got something.

Hair tousled, Gannon wrapped a blanket around himself, smelling fresh coffee as he went to them.

“What do you have?”

All eyes turned to him before Coulter, who was with Phoenix PD’s Home Invasion and Kidnapping Enforcement Task Force, shook his head.

“Nothing, Jack.”

“Bullshit.”

“Nothing that’s confirmed,” Coulter said.

“Well, what is it you think you have?”

“Jack, we can’t tell you anything right now. Agent Hackett-”

Gannon looked around quickly.

“Where is he? He’s usually here before the sun rises.”

“He’s out in the field.”

“Out in the field, where? Doing what?”

No one responded. Tension mounted until Gannon’s cell phone rang.

“Jack, it’s Henrietta. Can you talk?”

He turned away from the investigators, pulling up his bitterness at her for ambushing him outside FBI offices before Cora’s polygraph exam.

“I’m not giving you an interview.”

“No, that’s not it. And I’m sorry about the FBI thing, but I had to do it. You’d do the same thing if the tables were turned.”

It took a second for him to agree. He’d only himself to blame, anyway, for calling her and asking about defense lawyers.

“My sister’s not a suspect.”

“Our story never said she was. We reported that she hired a lawyer and the FBI said she was cooperating on the case.”

“Is that what you called to tell me?”

“I got a call from one of our stringers who sleeps with his police scanners on. Seems there’s a lot of chatter about something in the south. We don’t know for sure, but one cop apparently blurted something on the air that ‘this is related to the kidnapped girl’ before a supervisor shut him up. We’re doing all we can to get a location. I’m rolling south now.”

“Call me when you get it.”

Gannon took a quick shower and woke Cora, telling her, “Get dressed quick. Something’s going on.” Then he ate a bagel and gulped some coffee, all within twenty minutes, and confronted Coulter again. “Are you guys going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Jack, we can’t.”

Gannon strode out the front door to the driveway. The few news crews who’d arrived already were gossiping over take-out coffee and high-fiber muffins. When they saw him, camera operators reflexively hoisted their cameras to their shoulders and someone shouted a question.

“Hey, why does your sister need an attorney?”

Reporters scrambled to ready microphones, incredulous that he was coming to them, until he held up his palms.

“No interviews. I need your help.”

“Come on, Gannon.”

“Have any of your desks heard any chatter about something going on at the south end related to the case?”

Most people shook their heads. Gannon studied the pack, looking for telltale signs. He saw one reporter on his cell phone and trying to take notes, ignoring Gannon. The only time you can afford to ignore a primary source on a major story is when you know something bigger. The reporter met Gannon’s stare. “Who are you?”

“Sonny Watson, AZ Instant News Agency.”

“What?”

“New online news service.” Watson glanced around.

“Sonny, has your desk heard anything going on this morning in the south end, related to the case?”

Again, Watson looked around, reluctant to answer. Gannon figured he was adhering to the code of keeping exclusive information from a competitor.

“Kid, we’re all going to find out,” Dave Davis, a seasoned TV reporter with the FOX affiliate, boomed. “Half of us likely know already anyway.”

“They think they have a major crime scene at the NewIron Rail yards. We’ve got somebody there already. That’s all I know.”

Reporters called their desks while hurrying to their cars.

Gannon returned to the house for Cora. They rushed to her Pontiac Vibe and used the GPS system to direct them to NewIron.

“Please, please don’t let this be Tilly!”

“Take it easy, Cora. We don’t have many facts yet.”

Gannon’s gut twisted as they threaded through traffic while Cora prayed out loud. He got her to call Henrietta Chong, who’d just arrived at the scene.

“They’re so tight-lipped. No one knows anything,” said Chong. “I think I see a good source. I’ll call you back.”

“I think it’s bad, Jack,” Cora said. “It has to be bad if they won’t tell us anything.”

It took another fifteen minutes before Gannon and Cora reached the location. The area was an immense industrial graveyard of old factories and warehouses. As they neared the NewIron Rail yards they came upon scores of emergency vehicles lined up and blocking the entrance. News trucks dotted the road. Reporters were gathering around a cluster of police-types near a gate cordoned with crime scene tape. A breeze jiggled the brilliant yellow in festive juxtaposition to the hopelessness of the drab depot.

Gannon searched in vain for Hackett, Larson-anyone who could tell him what they’d discovered.

Reporters had encircled someone who was with the County Sheriff’s Office.

“We have nothing to say,” he told them. “We’re supporting the FBI.”

“Jack!”

Henrietta Chong tugged on his arm, pulling him and Cora away behind a satellite truck out of sight of the pack.

“What’s going on?” Cora asked her.

“Listen, I just got this from a deputy I know. This is way off the record, but late last night two homeless guys who were sleeping in a boxcar flagged down a patrol car. Turns out they think they witnessed a murder in the yards, some kind of confrontation. They saw a body being hefted into the trunk of a car that drove off.”

Protective of Cora, Gannon challenged the information.

“That’s pretty vague. How do they link this to Tilly?”

“There’s an abandoned Cherokee in there that matches the one they linked to Galviera.”

“Oh God, no!” Cora whispered. “If they’ve killed Lyle…oh Jack, what about Tilly? Oh please, God, no!”

The sky above them split as a TV news helicopter hammered overhead, transmitting live footage that interrupted morning shows across Arizona. Soon the story would go national with Breaking News on a major development in the local story.

“…on what police sources say is a major crime scene linked to the case of Tilly Martin, an eleven-year-old Phoenix girl who was the victim of a brazen kidnapping from her home by a drug cartel to settle a debt with her mother’s boyfriend, missing Phoenix businessman Lyle Galviera…”

63

Phoenix, Arizona

Lyle Galviera’s head throbbed.

He tried to move but couldn’t. He was tied to a chair.

He tried to see but he was blindfolded.

He heard only the echoed drips and creaks of an infinite space, like an enormous warehouse, punctuated with bursts of sporadic chatter from emergency scanners, like police dispatches.

Push the fear aside. Concentrate.

Footsteps approached behind him and someone removed his blindfold.

Galviera’s eyes opened wide.

Taking in his surroundings, the airy vastness, the high ceiling, he recognized that he was in an abandoned hangar. Sitting a yard or two from him on a worktable, legs dangling playfully, was a young man wearing a shoulder holster, showing the grip of a handgun. He stared at Galviera while he ate potato chips from a bag and sipped from a can of soda.

“You know why you’re here, Mr. Galviera?” Angel asked in Spanish.

Is that the sicario? Think.

Galviera did not respond as his eyes swept over the array of his sports bags, lined up on the floor between them. All were open displaying bundles of cash.

“It seems,” the young man said between chips, “that we have a discrepancy on the amount of our stolen property. You’ve provided us with three million, when our calculation shows the amount owing to be five.”

I need the two million. I can’t give it up.

“That’s all there is.”

“Don’t lie. That’s not all there is.”

“Where’s Tilly?”

“Our agreement was a simple one. You return our stolen property, all five million, and we return the girl. We’ve shown you the girl. We’ve kept our side of the agreement.”

“Where is she? I need to see her.”

Ignoring the question to sip his soda, the young man said, “You have failed to keep your part of the agreement. You’ve misled us and that is a mistake.”

I’ve got nothing left to bargain with. No leverage.

“No. It’s all there.”

“Your first mistake, Mr. Galviera, was to conspire to steal from us.”

“No, I never did that. What have you done with Tilly?”

“I will give you the opportunity right now to tell us where the rest of our property is so we can retrieve it and conclude our dealings.”

Either way, I am dead. If I get out of this, I’ll have Tilly and two million.

“But that is all there is. I swear.”

“You swear?”

“Salazar and Johnson controlled everything,” Galviera said. “They used my company for distribution for a limited term. All fees collected were stored until each collection period, then everything went to them to process to you.”

“So, Salazar and Johnson are responsible for any discrepancies?”

“Yes. It was them.”

Someone other than the young man cleared his throat. Galviera saw two other men, older men, watching from the periphery.

“This complicates the situation,” Angel said. “Let’s simplify it. Salazar and Johnson were stealing from us. They’d planned to set up their own cartel, the Diablo Cartel, to compete with us. With your help, they stole five million dollars from our organization for that very purpose.”

That’s what happened and they know it.

“I had no part in that.”

Something coiled; something out of sight was being prepared.

“I am afraid you are not being truthful, Mr. Galviera. I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of your situation.”

“I do. With the utmost respect, please, I’ve brought you the money. Give me Tilly and we’ll close the matter. I’m telling you the truth. That is all the money there is.”

Angel signaled to Limon-Rocha and Tecaza.

In an instant they left, then returned, carrying Tilly. She was bound to a chair by rope and chains. No hope of escaping this time. They set her down opposite Galviera. Her mouth was taped.

Angel hopped from the table, tugged on white latex surgical gloves, then picked up a sports bag that had been behind him and out of sight.

“I think you need an illustration to understand.”

Angel opened the big bag, reached into it and retrieved a round object that was slightly smaller than a ten-pin bowling ball. Then he reached into the bag for a second similar object, placing both on the ground before Galviera.

“You see, this is what happens when you lie to me.”

Amid the mass of hair, decomposing flesh and open eyes, Galviera met the faces of Octavio Sergio Salazar and John Walker Johnson.

64

Greater Phoenix, Arizona

“Goodness, girl, slow down!”

Olive McKay scolded herself as her old Silverado SUV bumped along the dirt road leading to her friend Virginia’s house.

Olive was running a titch late this morning but that was no reason to spill all the food she’d made the night before for the charity potluck-pecan tarts, a pineapple upside-down cake and pasta salad. Thank goodness she’d put it all in the cooler and belted it to the rear passenger seat.

Virginia’s double-wide emerged into view. Olive tooted the horn as she wheeled up, noticing that Virginia had left her front porch light on. Odd. Being a penny-pincher on a tight budget, Virginia just never did that.

She’s probably a bit preoccupied this morning.

Olive got out of her SUV, intent on helping load it with Virginia’s food as quickly as possible. Raising her hand to ring the doorbell, she paused.

The door was ajar.

Did she leave it open for me? That’s strange. She always keeps it locked, on account of the teenagers who sometimes get out of hand, out at the old airfield.

“Virginia?”

What’s that clicking?

“Hello! Virginia, it’s me, Olive! We have to get going. Flo said we should be there by now!”

She listened harder to the soft vibrations. What is that?

“Virginia?”

Olive’s smile melted as the first icy thread of concern slithered up her back. What’s that rapid clicking? The door creaked as she slowly pushed it open, seeing tomato juice all over the kitchen floor and thinking, what a mess. Then…that can’t be tomato juice…the consistency and the color’s not right. As the door swung wider. Olive saw a foot, then a leg, both legs, and Virginia lying on her back with a knife handle rising from her chest, her hand twitching in the puddle of blood.

Olive’s scalp tingled. Her skin prickled with gooseflesh.

She called 911 and screamed for an ambulance, for police, for God to come right away because Virginia had been stabbed.

So much blood. Too much blood.

Olive took her friend’s hand. It was still warm.

“You stay with me, Virginia.”

Red foam bubbled at Virginia’s mouth as she moaned, crying out to her dead husband, to Clay, to Olive, trying to tell her.

“…the girl…please…”

“Don’t try to talk.”

“…missing girl…news…bad please…”

But Olive couldn’t understand.

She didn’t remember the sirens, the paramedics, the deputies pulling her away, working on Virginia, starting an IV, slipping an oxygen mask over her mouth, lifting her to a board, the gurney and loading her into the ambulance.

The deputy had to catch Olive before she collapsed, watching the ambulance wail down the same bumpy road she’d taken moments ago in her Silverado.

Virginia died en route to the hospital.

The same hospital where her husband had died, the same hospital she was helping with her potato salad and apple pies for the charity potluck.

65

Phoenix, Arizona

As TV helicopters circled overhead Cora stared blankly into the press and police chaos at the NewIron Rail yards.

“Tilly’s dead. That’s it, isn’t it?” she said, waiting in her car with Gannon while he left another cell phone message in his attempt to reach Hackett.

“I know this is hard, Cora.” Gannon tried to console her. “But until we know everything, we know nothing.”

“Henrietta Chong said that they’d found Lyle’s car, that witnesses saw a body. I can’t take it anymore, Jack, I just can’t.”

She covered her face with her hands.

“You’ve got to hang on to hope while we still have it.”

Someone tapped on Gannon’s window. He turned to the clean-cut face of a uniformed deputy, who’d approached from behind.

“Jack Gannon and Cora Martin?”

“Yes.”

“Deputy Wadden. Agent Hackett is in there at the scene.” Wadden nodded to the storage tank tower and the lines of railcars. “He got your message and requested we get word to you.” Wadden’s shoulder microphone bleated with a coded transmission. “One moment, please.” Wadden leaned into it, responding with a numeric code before resuming matters with Gannon and Cora.

“I’m parked behind you. Please follow me in your vehicle.”

“What’s going on?” Gannon asked.

“I’m going to lead you to a location a few blocks from here. Agent Hackett said he’d meet you there in fifteen minutes.”

The sign in the window of The Bluebird Diner said, Today’s Special $1.99 Fish N’ Chips. Two men in their fifties were hunched over the counter, wearing faded T-shirts and jeans. The talk wafting from under their worn ball caps concerned pensions and a major league pitcher.

Gannon and Cora waited alone in a booth for Hackett.

From his days on the police beat at the Buffalo Sentinel, Gannon knew that investigators often took people away from the scene and the cameras in order to tell them the worst news. He steadied himself by staring at the milk clouds swirling in his coffee while Cora took deep breaths, her fear tightening around her.

Sitting there with his sister in the ominous air pulled Gannon back to Buffalo.

He is eight; Cora is thirteen. They are terrified waiting at their kitchen table. They’d been in the yard, Cora lobbing a baseball to him when he popped one that went up, up, so far up that it landed with enough velocity on their father’s new Ford to leave a fracture that spider-webbed across the windshield. Mom’s aghast. “Holy cow, Jack, Dad’s new car. He’s going to be sick about this, just sick!” Cora telling her, “Don’t blame Jack. It was my fault, Mom. I should have caught it. It was an accident, I swear.” At that moment Cora is his hero. Dad says nothing, works overtime and fixes the problem. That’s the way he did things. Jack felt horrible but loved Cora for being the big sister protector.

Despite all the pain-soaked years between them, despite her mistakes, his misgivings and the wounds, she was still his sister.

And she needed him.

He clasped his hand over hers. “Hang in there, okay? It’s going to be all right. Just hang on.”

Cora took his hand, squeezing it, until they saw Hackett’s sedan arrive out front. He was alone and sober-faced when he entered, pulling a chair to the end of the table.

Cora steeled herself and hit him with her question.

“Is my daughter dead? If it’s true, I want you to tell me right now?”

The two men at the counter turned.

Hackett kept his voice low, choosing his words carefully.

“We found no evidence at this scene to confirm that.”

“Please stop talking that way,” Cora said. “I took a polygraph, like you wanted. I told you everything, like you wanted. I may not have lived a perfect life, but please, can’t you show me a scrap of respect. She’s my child and I think I deserve to know the truth.”

Hackett loosened his collar.

“Two homeless men who’d been drinking in a boxcar claim they witnessed a possible drug deal go sideways. They say they saw two figures deposit a body into the trunk of a car. Then the car drove off. The men were frightened and stopped a patrol car. They led the deputy to the location, where he found an abandoned Cherokee SUV matching the vehicle we’ve linked to Galviera,” Hackett said.

“Our people have been working the scene since 3:00 a.m., going full bore. Fingerprints in the SUV match Galviera’s and we found blood traces consistent with his type.”

“What do you think happened here?” Gannon asked.

“In his call to Cora,” Hackett said, “Galviera indicated he was going to fix things. He said that he was going to see Tilly. We suspect the cartel lured him here with the intention of torturing him into giving them their money.”

“Oh Jesus, what about Tilly?” Cora asked.

“They may have used her as the bait. The cartel may have lured him with the promise of seeing Tilly.” Cora moaned.

“We can’t rule it out,” Hackett said.

“They’re just theories, Cora.” Gannon tried to comfort her.

“He’s right,” Hackett said. “Just theories, but we can’t discount another concern-that Cora was present when Eduardo Zartosa, the youngest brother of Samson Zartosa, leader of the Norte Cartel, was murdered.”

“But I never knew who that boy in San Francisco was until now.”

“It doesn’t matter. We have to assume that Samson Zartosa knows now and take that into account. Think about it. Through circumstance, he is now holding the child of the woman involved in his little brother’s murder, the woman whose boyfriend has stolen from his operation. That’s about as bad as things can get. You wanted the truth. Well, that’s it.”

Cora tried to keep herself from coming apart, staring off at the helicopters in the distance, circling the rail yards like giant vultures.

Please, God, help me find her.

Hackett’s cell phone rang. He turned away slightly to take the call. It was short and he finished by saying, “I’ll head that way now and meet you there.”

Cora saw something troubling in his expression.

“What is it? What’s happening?”

“I can’t tell you right now, I have to go.”

“Please!”

“I’m sorry, I’ll keep in touch.”

When Hackett got to his car, Gannon stood, tossed some bills on the table. “Let’s go. I could hear part of the call, something about a homicide. We’ll follow him.”

66

Phoenix, Arizona

“Oh, Jesus.”

Salazar’s and Johnson’s severed heads stared up at Galviera. Across from him, Tilly’s screams were muffled by the tape over her mouth.

“You have thirty seconds to tell us where you’ve put our two million dollars,” Angel said. “Or I will add a new one to the collection.”

Galviera turned white and was breathing hard.

“There’s more money. Please take them away. I’ll tell you where it is.”

“They will remain to inspire you to tell the truth.”

“I rented several storage lockers under the name of Pilsner at JBD Mini-Storage in Phoenix. The two million is in locker 787A, northwest sector of the yard. You need the gate code and the key for the steel lock on the unit. The money is in two sports bags. The code and key are in the hollowed section of the heel of my right boot.”

Angel nodded to Tecaza, who yanked off Galviera’s right boot and twisted the heel, extracting a metal key and a folded business card with numbers jotted in pen on the back.

He held them up for Angel.

Tecaza and Limon-Rocha entered JBD’s address into a GPS, preparing to go retrieve their cash now as Angel stood before Galviera.

“To ensure you are not working with police, I’ll call my associates every twenty minutes. If they do not answer me, I will remove the girl’s head.”

In the time that Limon-Rocha and Tecaza were gone, Galviera tried to soothe Tilly.

“It’ll be okay, I promise. Soon they’ll have what they want and they’ll let us go. I am so sorry for this, Tilly. It’ll be okay now. Soon you’ll see your mom and everything’s going to be fine. I promise.”

Tilly could not stop shaking. Her widened eyes seemed even larger as she kept them on Angel. Her stomach knotted each time he made a phone call. She thanked God each time his call was answered.

Angel occupied himself by eating potato chips and chocolate cupcakes, drinking Coke and playing a hand-held computer game, the soft beeping and ponging sound a cruel juxtaposition to the horror he’d put on hold.

An hour after they’d left, Limon-Rocha and Tecaza had returned. They placed two sports bags on the table and started counting the bundled cash, counting twice to verify the amount.

The total: $2,176,000.

“Back the car into the hangar close to the table-” Angel nodded to Galviera “-and load all the money in the trunk, with the shovel and the pick.”

“Wait.” Galviera struggled. “Aren’t you going to let us go?”

No one responded. As Limon-Rocha and Tecaza loaded the car, Angel checked Galviera’s bindings and the handcuffs on his wrists and ankles.

“What are you doing?” Galviera winced when Angel tightened the cuffs.

“Get him ready,” Angel said.

“Please,” Galviera said. “I’m begging you, please!”

“Mr. Galviera, did you believe for one moment that after stealing from us you would come out of this alive?”

No more pleading or begging. This was how it was done.

Angel pulled on a large rubber apron and a surgeon’s clear face shield, then set a gas-powered chain saw on the floor next to Tilly.

Galviera bucked wildly against his restraints. Tilly screamed under her tape. Angel kept the saw on the ground, expertly threw the on switch, the throttle, and adjusted the choke. He jerked the engine’s crank cord. It popped to life, filling the hangar with a deafening roar.

Gently squeezing the throttle trigger, Angel lifted the saw and very carefully leveled it at Tilly’s neck. The engine was turning at nearly thirteen-thousand rpm, powering the teeth in the semichisel chain. Tilly could feel the air rippling as Angel brought it closer. Her eyes bulged as she thrashed in vain away from the eighteen-inch blade.

As the saw’s raging teeth came within half an inch of Tilly’s skin she prayed and thought of her mother.

Angel was practiced.

A quick touch was all it took.

67

Phoenix, Arizona

A Maricopa County patrol car blocked the entrance to Virginia Dortman’s property. Cued by an approaching vehicle, the sheriff’s deputy got out, adjusted his hat and went to the driver.

Hackett extended his FBI credentials. The deputy studied them and waved him on. Hackett drove nearly a quarter mile down the lane leading to Virginia’s double-wide trailer, where he counted ten emergency vehicles lining the road. Yellow crime scene tape zigzagged among the trees surrounding Virginia’s house. He heard a yelp and saw a K-9 unit scouring the property. Another deputy stood at the tape.

“Sir, Agent Larson is by the ambulance.” The deputy nodded to a far corner.

Larson was with two county investigators standing at the open rear doors of an ambulance, where a distraught woman in her sixties was being tended to by paramedics. Upon seeing Hackett, Larson stepped away, paged through her notebook and updated him.

“The deceased is Virginia Dortman, the apparent victim of a home invasion. She was discovered by her friend, Olive McKay, the woman in the ambulance.”

“And the link to our kidnapping?”

“When Olive found Virginia, she was alive and talking. Olive is trying to remember her friend’s last words. She insists it was about our case.”

Hackett and Larson joined the other investigators respectfully listening while Olive, contending with her shock, did all she could to decipher Virginia’s last words.

“I’m sorry,” Olive said, “but this is so hard.”

“We understand, ma’am,” Sheriff’s detective Hal Atcher said. “If you could just try for us again, it’s very important.”

“It was something like, the missing girl on TV, and bad please.”

“‘Bad please?’” Atcher repeated.

“That’s what it sounded like.”

“Could it be bad police?” Hackett offered.

“It could be, but I’m not sure. This is awful, awful, awful!” Olive sobbed.

“Thank you, Olive. Thank you,” Atcher said. “We’ll give you a little break while you wait for your husband to get here.”

Atcher and his partner, Brad Gerard, introduced themselves after stepping aside to give Olive a respite with the paramedics.

“What do you make of this, Earl?” Atcher asked.

“I don’t know. I just got here. Did you find anything that places our people at this scene?”

“Nothing yet. It’s all fresh, like the thing you got going at the rail yards.”

“Right.” Hackett took stock of the area’s isolation and the cluster of buildings dotting the horizon. “What’s that way over there?”

“That is the old Spangler Airfield. Used to service crop dusters until it closed in the 1950s and was abandoned. I believe the family estate is hoping for a mall development but over the years parceled off some of the border property, like this lot that Virginia and her husband bought.”

“What’s the Dortman family situation?”

“No records. Lem is former military. He was a trucker until he died a year ago. Virginia was a librarian. Their son, Clay, is a U.S. Marine posted overseas. We’ve sent word to him. We’re going to start a canvass, but the neighbors are about an eighth of a mile apart on property surrounding the airfield.”

“Excuse me, Agent Hackett?” A deputy nodded to the police tape. “That gentleman there talked his way to the line. He says he needs to speak to you.”

Hackett winced, recognizing Gannon and Cora at the tape. They’d followed him. He signaled that he would speak to them later and returned to the detectives.

“Okay, what I would do-” Hackett nodded toward the abandoned airfield “-is send a few units over there right away because-”

“Hal, we got something!” The radio in Gerard’s hand blurted and they heard a bark. The group turned to a county crime scene tech approaching, gripping a large digital camera in her gloved hands. “Clarkson and Sheba found it. It’s a shoe, child-sized. I flagged it. It’s in the yard out back. Alone. No other items. Have a look.”

The investigators crowded around the screen and examined the photo of a small sneaker. Larson thumbed through her notebook to Tilly’s clothing description, then went back to the photo.

“Earl, that pretty much fits… Earl?”

Hackett waved to the deputy to admit Gannon and Cora to the scene and the group.

“We’ll get an identification from the mother.”

Gannon and Cora, questions written on their faces, hurried to the group and looked at the photo.

“Is that Tilly’s shoe?” Hackett asked.

Two seconds of intense concentration was all Cora needed before her eyes brimmed with tears and she nodded.

A dog yelped and the group’s attention turned to the expanse of shrub and grass stretching beyond them to the airstrip. Sheba, the police dog, was tugging Sheriff’s Deputy Clarkson toward it.

68

Phoenix, Arizona

Three Sheriffs’ SUVs cut a fast-moving line over the scrub, stretching toward the abandoned buildings of the airfield.

A hot wind lifted desert detritus with the dust clouds churning in their wake. Their wigwagging emergency lights underscored urgency. Deputy Pate was driving the lead car. FBI Agent Bonnie Larson was his passenger. As they arrived, Larson scanned the structures. No vehicles, people or indications of activity.

“Let’s start with the hangar. The doors are open,” Pate said into his shoulder microphone. “Chet and Marty, take the east entrance. We’ll take the west. Somers, Briscoe, take the back side.”

“Ten-four.”

Pate got his shotgun, Larson unholstered her Glock-27 and they positioned themselves on either side of the hangar’s west doors, which were open to a gap of some fifteen feet. Larson’s heart rate picked up and she started processing the situation.

One thing for sure: It was quiet.

Deathly quiet.

Before Hackett pulled away from Virginia Dortman’s property, he made a judgment call.

He had no grounds to detain Gannon and Cora, but he knew that after he’d invited them to identify Tilly’s shoe-evidence that she’d been present-they’d get to the airport, one way or another.

“I’ll lead you in. You follow me in your car. But you do as I say,” Hackett instructed Gannon before they set out across the expanse to catch up to Larson and the deputies.

Hackett knew it ran up against the rules, but it was a matter of control. They were closing in on Tilly’s kidnappers and he couldn’t risk Gannon rushing off on his own and jeopardizing the work of the task force.

Not at this stage.

Hackett would keep an eye on him.

As they neared the buildings, Hackett saw the SUVs and the deputies holding their positions. In his rearview mirror, he found Gannon and Cora’s small Pontiac. He lowered his window, stuck out his arm, signaling for them to stop and keep back, way back, behind him.

At that moment the radio on Hackett’s passenger seat crackled with a dispatch from Larson.

“We’re going in, Earl.”

Waiting for their eyes to adjust to the light, Larson and Pate inched around the big doors and assessed the hangar’s interior.

Soaking wet trash and rags were strewn everywhere.

Disgusting.

No sounds, until Pate’s command boomed. “Maricopa County Sheriff! Come out with your hands open and held up above your head!” No response.

After a full minute and a few soft dispatches on the radio, they moved in. Larson was suddenly reminded of her grandfather’s cabin in northern New York; the gas smell of his small outboard motor. Before she became an agent, Larson worked as a state trooper. In that time, she had seen people who’d been shot, drowned, burned, frozen, stabbed and buried alive but she’d never seen anything like… Oh Jesus… She was overcome as she and the deputies realized what the garbage was…

“Oh Jesus Christ…oh Christ!”

Staring at the drenched rags, Larson soon picked out arms, legs, a head, then another, all severed.

The floor was slick with blood.

Larson saw the blood-splattered chain saw. “Oh Jesus!”

Struggling to make sense of the scene, she stepped back and held the back of her hand to her mouth as some of the deputies shouted and pivoted with their weapons extended, wary of suspects at the scene.

Someone got on their radio and called for an ambulance.

It didn’t matter. Everyone was dead.

Larson’s radio crackled.

“Bonnie, I heard shouting. What do you have?” Hackett asked.

Outside, the wind had carried the chaos beyond the hangar and over the desert to Hackett’s car, where his radio blurted Larson’s response.

“Homicides, at least three, possibly more. They look fresh.”

“Any indication on the victims?”

“Three adult males, two appear to be in police uniforms. They could be our kidnappers with the Norte Cartel. It looks like we have additional body parts, two severed male heads. It’s really bad, Earl- I’ve never-”

Upon hearing the distant voices of alarmed cops, Gannon and Cora rushed from their car to Hackett’s.

“What is it?” Gannon leaned into the open passenger window.

“What did they find?” Cora’s eyes were rimmed with tears.

At that moment Hackett’s radio crackled with another dispatch from Larson as she fought to keep control of her emotions.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, Earl. Do not come in here. You do not want to see this!”

That transmission stole Cora’s breath. Hackett fumbled to turn down the volume but he had the radio with the loose swivel knob.

“What is it?” Cora’s eyes bulged. “What’s happened?”

Hackett shot a look to Gannon that demanded his help.

“We don’t know for certain,” Hackett said. “They’re assessing the scene.”

“Is my daughter in there?”

Gannon tried to pull Cora back to the car but she broke away, ran toward the hangar before he caught her. She fought him, battled furiously, refusing to surrender to the horror that awaited her while Gannon and Hackett got her back to her Pontiac Vibe.

Hackett radioed for an ambulance.

They opened the front passenger door, Cora sat sideways, her feet on the ground, staring inside her car, the car she drove Tilly to school in, the car they drove to church in, to the mall.

Then Cora stared at the hangar, shaking her head.

“It’s not true. She’s not dead. Because if she’s dead, it’s my fault,” Cora said. “She can’t be dead. Tell me it’s not true, Jack. You tell me my daughter’s not in there!”

“We don’t know, Cora.”

“Oh God.”

Her shoulders shook as she sobbed. She slid from the passenger seat to the ground, pounding the sand. Gannon slid to the earth with her, holding her as the dust swirled around them, as sirens wailed and helicopters hammered the sky. They stayed that way while investigators processed the scene.

Two scared kids in a Buffalo kitchen, waiting for Dad to get home.

There are times in your life when you think, this is it. Everything important ends here. Gannon thought it was all over, that day in the kitchen when he was eight. He’d never forget that look in his father’s eyes like something was lost. They’d wrecked his new car. All those overtime shifts he’d worked.

They’d taken something from him.

And Gannon thought it again when he was twelve and Cora, Mom and Dad were screaming at each other before she left. At first, all he felt was disbelief. Cora had to be kidding, she wasn’t really running away. But time passed, tightening on him like a vice, crushing him with the truth: Cora was gone for real. Gone for good.

He’d lost his big sister.

How would he overcome the blow?

He’d reached another ending when his parents died in the car crash and he watched their caskets lower into the ground.

He’d lost his family.

Then days ago, out of the blue, he received a miracle in the form of Cora’s call. Across a chasm filled with pain, he found the sister he thought he’d lost forever. He learned he had a niece.

But the miracle came with a tragedy.

His niece’s face in the FBI’s gallery of kidnapped and missing persons.

He sees the family resemblance and wants to reach out and hug her.

It can’t end here.

It just can’t.

Gannon was numb, oblivious to how long he and Cora had kept a vigil in the desert until Hackett tapped his shoulder.

“We’ve conducted searches of every building, Jack, and we have not located Tilly.”

Cora blinked as if staring into a pinpoint light of hope.

“That means she’s still alive?”

“There’s reason to hope so.”

At that moment, Gannon’s cell phone rang and he climbed to his feet and walked away to answer it.

“Jack, this is Isabel Luna. We need to meet immediately. I have information.”

“Isabel, this is a bad time. I can’t come to Mexico.”

“I’m not in Mexico. I am in Phoenix.”

“What?”

“I have information that is critical to your case. Tell no one about this call and come alone to meet me at this location. Do you have something to write with?”

“Isabel, you’d better tell me.”

“Jack, this is absolutely critical to your case. Do you understand?”

Gannon glanced around to confirm he was out of earshot.

“Okay, go ahead.”

69

Somewhere South of Phoenix, Arizona

Isabel Luna leaned against the airport rental she’d parked under the shady canopy of a pine grove near an abandoned mission that had been built by Franciscans in the 1800s.

She was about to check her watch again but saw chrome glint from an oncoming car. As it slowed to a stop, she saw Jack Gannon behind the wheel. She recognized his sister, Cora, from news pictures, in the passenger seat.

Gannon got out, uneasy as he scanned the isolated surroundings.

“Why are you here? What’s going on?” he asked her.

“Do you know where my daughter is?” Cora was desperate.

“This is my sister, Cora. Tilly’s mother.”

Luna nodded to her, but she was slightly annoyed at Gannon. She’d told him to come alone.

“Cora, this is Isabel Luna, the journalist I met in Juarez who’s been helping us.” Gannon’s attention went to Luna. “What’s the important information you have on Tilly?”

“A meeting has been arranged.”

“A meeting? About what? With who? Where?” Gannon looked to the few empty buildings next to the old church, now fearing that they’d made a mistake leaving Hackett at the airstrip.

“Please, if you know, tell me where my daughter is,” Cora pleaded.

Luna glanced around without answering.

“Isabel-” Gannon’s frustration was mounting “-we’ve just come from some very bad scenes to this godforsaken place. We don’t know where Tilly is or if she’s been hurt. Your call offered us hope.” Gannon again surveyed the buildings, bereft of life. “Why did you come here from Juarez? What’s going on? What do you know? If you don’t give us some answers, I’ll call the FBI, I swear, Isabel.”

Luna glanced at her watch.

“I’m sorry I have to be cryptic,” she said. “Please, come with me.”

They walked to the old church. Gannon saw fresh tire tracks in the sand near the front and sides, evidence of some sort of recent activity.

Are there other people here?

The old white building was constructed of clay brick, pocked and weatherworn by time. Its shutters dangled in surrender, the doors to the entrance had fallen off.

Upon entering they were met in silence by statues, heads bowed as if to hide the leprous disfigurement from the plaster that had blistered on their faces, hands and bodies. The roof had holes. Water had seeped into the walls and bled around the shattered stained-glass window. The wooden floors creaked as they moved forward, gazing at the rotting wooden pews leading to the altar.

The church was empty except…

Cora gasped.

A young man was perched on the prayer rail of a pew with his back to the altar and his feet on the bench. Facing the arrivals, he waited calmly. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. A massive cross bearing the crucified Christ looked down on him and the world below.

“Are you Angel?” Luna asked.

The young man nodded but held up his hand, stopping them cold a distance away at the back of the church.

“Father Ortero sent me. I am Isabel Luna, a reporter with El Heraldo.”

Recognition twigged briefly and died in Angel’s eyes.

“And the others?” he asked. “You were instructed to come alone.”

“They are associates, here to bear witness to your legend and verify your account so police cannot lie. This is Jack Gannon. He is a correspondent with the World Press Alliance, one of the largest newswires in the world. Beside him is his assistant.” As Angel considered the situation, Luna reached into her shoulder bag. “Before we start, may I take your photo?”

Gannon stared in confusion at Luna. Cora was going to burst. She refused to believe Tilly was dead. She would never accept it, not while she could still fight to find her.

“Please,” Cora whispered, “let’s get out of here and go back.”

Luna ignored her. Gannon noticed Luna was trembling as if she were standing before a rattlesnake.

“A photo, Angel?” Luna pressed. “To verify this moment in history?”

Wary and exhausted, he nearly smiled before he turned slightly to indicate two large sports bags on the altar. Gannon saw Luna’s attention dart to the windows at the side of the church, then back to Angel.

“My donation to Ortero’s church is in the bags,” Angel said. “Two million dollars. I have made my confessions to him. You will tell my story, then go to police with my offer to exchange information for a deal.”

Light flashed as Luna took Angel’s picture without his objection. She stepped forward and took several more, licking her lips in nervous tension.

“Enough,” Angel said. “Let’s get started.”

“Certainly.” Luna opened her notebook, nodding to Gannon, who, not quite understanding, pulled his out as well. “First,” Luna said, “as the Norte Cartel’s number one sicario, how many people have you killed?”

“As of today, one hundred and ninety-five.”

Cora stifled a low cry.

“And you will confirm that you work under orders from the leader of the Norte Cartel, Samson Zartosa.”

“Yes, that is true.”

“And did he instruct you to murder the editor of my newspaper, El Heraldo?”

Luna’s question exhumed a memory. His face confirmed what she knew: She’d found her father’s killer. The realization caught up to Angel, but he shrugged.

“Perhaps. I just told you, I had nearly two hundred jobs-”

Near and unseen a soft muffle echoed. Instinctively, Cora started toward Angel.

“Tell me where my daughter is. Where’s Tilly?”

In one motion, Angel reached down for the AK-47 assault rifle he’d kept out of sight and pointed it at Cora.

Gannon pulled her to him.

“You look familiar to me,” Angel said to Cora.

“I am the mother of the child your people stole and I want her back!”

“What is this?” Angel face contorted with rage. “I trusted the priest!”

Gannon noticed a shadow, a tremor of light outside.

In an instant, Angel yanked Tilly up from under the pew and locked his arm around her neck. Her eyes were filled with fear.

“Mommy!!!”

“Tilly!” Cora struggled against Gannon.

“Nobody move or I will kill her!” Angel said.

“Let her go!” Cora said. “I did not kill Eduardo Zartosa.”

“What?” Angel was confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Look at you!” Luna shouted. “Using a child as your shield in a church. You are a coward who will never see heaven!”

“Neither will you!”

As Angel steadied his gun to shoot Luna, Gannon saw a piercing sunray reflected from a window on the scope of a sharpshooter’s rifle as the muzzle flashed.

The sniper’s bullet smashed into Angel’s temple, tore through his skull and removed the back of his head. This was how Angel Quinterra-the sicario, the son of an alcoholic garbage picker from the shantytown near the Juarez dump-died. With his cranial matter splattered on the feet of the crucified Christ.

Tilly ran into Cora’s arms.

Luna and Gannon turned to the window where Esteban Cruz, Isabel’s stepbrother, lowered his rifle.

Numbed, the five of them moved to the front steps of the old mission.

They waited in the sunlight as Cora freed Tilly from her bindings and held her as she trembled.

“Mommy, he killed Lyle…he killed them all… I thought I was going to die!”

Cora hushed and soothed her as both of them sobbed softly.

Gannon called Hackett and told him what had happened. Hackett said they were already on their way.

“A priest in Mexico had called the task force. He was concerned about the safety of a reporter from Juarez, who he believed had key information on the case. Then we got a call from a Mexican cop on the case.”

Afterward, Gannon called Melody Lyon in New York.

“It’s over, Mel. We found Tilly. She’s traumatized but alive.”

“Thank God.”

“You can put out a story alert. I’ll file something over the phone later.”

“Thanks, but wait. Jack, how’s your sister doing?”

“She’s going to be okay.”

“And you?”

“It doesn’t matter about me.”

After hanging up, Gannon and Cora thanked Luna and Esteban and they looked to the horizon, saying little until they heard the sirens.

70

Arizona

It rained the day they buried Lyle Galviera.

The funeral was held about a week after the FBI and the County had processed the scene and the medical examiner released the remains to his family.

Cora and Gannon attended the service.

Mourners offered condolences and kind words to his mother. Later, at the funeral reception, they huddled in quiet groups and grappled with the tragedy, asking questions no one could answer.

“How the hell did he think he would come out ahead, doing business with a freakin’ drug cartel?”

Ed Kilpatrick, the operations manager, was among the last people to talk with Cora and Gannon at the gathering.

“How are you holding up, Cora?”

“Minute by minute, Ed. Thanks.”

“And Tilly?”

“She has nightmares and sleeps in my room. She wasn’t physically hurt, but the counselor said to expect stages of post-traumatic stress. He said that she might be able to progress through it all. Tilly told me she shut her eyes through the worst of it with the chain saw, but that she’d heard everything.”

Ed shook his head.

“Thank God you got her back.”

Cora nodded and touched a tissue to her eyes.

“Jack-” Ed turned to Gannon “-looks like the press had a big part in stopping the cartel. I see the police arrested quite a few people on both sides of the border. It’s a hell of a thing.”

“A lot of people, cops and reporters, worked on this and a lot of people got lucky when they needed to get lucky,” Gannon said.

“Forgive me, Cora-” Ed went back to her “-I know this may not be the proper time, but there’s a company out of Albuquerque that’s looking to take over Quick Draw, clear the debt, restructure but keep all the staff. In fact, they plan to expand. Looks like we’ll be okay.”

Cora patted his hand.

“Thank you, Ed.”

“Just don’t want you to worry about that.”

Cora and Gannon turned, surprised to find FBI Agents Hackett and Larson waiting to talk with them after Ed left.

“Our condolences,” Hackett said.

“And our prayers for Tilly, and you, to heal,” Larson said.

Cora nodded with a smile.

“Listen-” Hackett cleared his throat “-we’re sorry things got intense and we went hard at both of you. These things get complex, and no one ever tells us everything at the outset.”

“I didn’t help much at the start,” Cora said.

“What’s the latest on the San Francisco homicide?” Gannon asked.

“SFPD and our people in Las Vegas have issued warrants for Vic Lomax. So far no one’s located him.”

“Is he facing charges on Eduardo Zartosa’s death?”

“Yes, based on Donnie Cargo’s statements. Also SFPD processed the gun again. This time they were able to find a print that belonged to Lomax,” Hackett said. “By the way, if you need anything more for that story you’re working on, let me know. How’s that going?”

“Can we get the full deathbed statement from Cargo?”

“I’ll see what we can do.”

“Thanks. The WPA is writing a series on Tilly, cartels, everything. I’m working with Henrietta Chong, our bureaus and Isabel Luna. Isabel told me the priest, Father Ortero, was our link to Angel and that the Vatican has posted him to Spain.”

“That’s right. He’s retired.”

“What about Esteban Cruz? What kind of trouble is he facing?”

“The ex-SWAT team sniper. Yeah, he broke a few rules. But we heard that our State and Justice departments and the Mexican government have agreed to regard him as a zealous cop investigating a homicide who followed a complex lead here in hot pursuit. He ultimately saved lives.”

“No reprimand?”

“I doubt it,” Hackett said. “But there’s a lot of heat out of Washington about this kind of crime spilling from Mexico into the U.S. and that laws are being flouted.”

“Not all of them,” Gannon said. “The law of supply and demand is certainly being respected. We demand dope and cartels supply it.”

Several days after the WPA released its series, before Gannon was scheduled to fly back to New York, Jack, Cora and Tilly went to the Grand Canyon.

On their way, Gannon got a call from Hackett.

“That was a good feature.”

“Thanks.”

“Pruitt said San Francisco Homicide particularly liked your story on Eduardo Zartosa’s murder. It appears Samson Zartosa liked it, too, given that you spelled out exactly who killed Eduardo. Here’s a tip. This morning, Las Vegas Metro found Lomax’s corpse in the desert. They found his head on a stick next to it.”

“So Cora’s cleared?”

“Our intel indicates the Norte Cartel is satisfied that it exacted vengeance for the rip-off, but more importantly, for Eduardo’s murder.”

“What about things with Cora and San Francisco?”

“Clear. The D.A. will send her a letter, thanking her for her cooperation.”

“Thanks, Earl. I’ll alert our Las Vegas bureau about Lomax.”

Gannon told Cora the old San Francisco murder case was closed.

She turned to the horizon.

In their short time at the Canyon, he tried to get to know Tilly.

“I think it’s awesome that I have an uncle who’s a reporter in New York City,” she said.

“I think it’s cool that I have a niece who can text faster than I can write when I’m on deadline.”

Gannon stole glances at Tilly whenever he could, amazed at how she resembled Cora at that age. It warmed him, because something he thought he’d lost had come back to him. When he wasn’t looking at Tilly, he gazed across the great gorge. In their private moments, he and Cora had reconciled the gulf of time that had passed between them.

“I’m sorry for being a bad sister. I should’ve come home.”

“I was a terrible brother. I should have looked for you, but I was angry.”

“We lost so much.”

“Other people have it worse, Cora.” He shrugged. “Next to Mom and Dad, you were the most important person in my life. You changed my life, gave me direction. My bond with you never ended.”

“I was just so guilty and ashamed of the mistakes I’d made. I believed I had put my family in danger. I wanted to bury that, keep it hidden. I could never bear to face you, Mom and Dad again.”

“That was the biggest mistake of all.”

“I know and I was coming ’round to dealing with it. The fact I had Tilly and was getting my life on track was all part of it. Can you ever forgive me?”

“I did, the moment you called for help.”

Cora hugged her brother.

“Want to join us for Thanksgiving in Phoenix?”

“Sure. What about Christmas in New York?”