In Desperation

15

Mesa Mirage, Phoenix, Arizona

The flowers were yellow.

There were almost two dozen daffodils, carnations and roses arranged in a yellow ceramic vase with a yellow ribbon and a card for Cora Martin.

The vase was belted to the front passenger seat of the cab that had pulled up this morning to the tangle of police and news vehicles outside Cora’s house.

Since her televised appeal yesterday, people from across the city had brought her balloons, stuffed toys and notes of support. After passing their gifts to police at the line, most well-wishers spoke to the media, offering their teary consolation for Cora.

The cabdriver who’d delivered the yellow bouquet stopped to talk to insistent reporters after he’d handed the vase over the tape to a sheriff’s deputy. “Sir, just a few words please, sir!” The deputy gave the vase a quick inspection before taking it around the back to investigators who were checking each item.

The female Phoenix police officer who’d accepted the flowers passed a wand over the vase then delicately probed the stems with latex-gloved fingers. A detection dog from the K-9 unit sniffed the bouquet before the flowers were taken inside. The FBI agent who’d received them started to set them in the living room with the other items but reconsidered.

She saw Cora on the sofa, hands cupped around a mug of coffee. Her hair was pulled back and her sleep-deprived eyes brimmed with sadness as if she were gazing into an endless pit.

“These look pretty, don’t you think, Cora?”

The agent glanced at Gannon, who was standing nearby, checking his cell phone messages, then she set the vase on the coffee table. The fragrance generated a weak smile from Cora.

“All yellow,” the agent said, “for hope.”

But Cora feared she was running out of hope. Aside from last night’s false alarm at the Burger King in Tempe, the FBI had received no strong leads on Tilly.

Where was she? Why hadn’t Lyle called? Where was he?

And she’d heard nothing from the kidnappers.

The alarm ringing at the back of Cora’s mind grew louder, filling her with doubt. Had she been wrong to go to the police? The way she’d been wrong about so much in her life, running away from her family and making so many mistakes. But that was the past. She’d left it behind and had been rebuilding her life, piece by piece.

Why was this happening?

Was it somehow tied to the unforgivable act she’d committed all those years ago? Stop. It made no sense to think like that because it had nothing to do with Tilly’s kidnapping.

But what if karmic forces were at work?

Guilt began to tighten its grip on her.

“Are you going to open it?”

The agent indicated the envelope that Cora still held in her hand. She opened it to a simple white card, with an embossed garden scene. She unfolded it, expecting, as with the other cards, an expression of sympathy or something encouraging.

She stopped breathing when she read:

You called police. You pay the price. Remove the flowers and look in the water. Find GALVIERA or more will come!!!

Cora couldn’t move.

“Is something wrong?” Gannon had been watching her.

Cora’s hands trembled as carefully she lifted the flowers from the water. She was afraid to look but forced herself to pick up the vase, tilt it and slowly peer into the water.

Shock hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest.

Her stomach lurched as she felt the earth move under her.

“What is it?” Gannon said.

“Are you all right?” the agent asked.

Cora dropped the vase. It shattered on the coffee table.

“Oh Christ!” said the agent, incredulous, staring at the two white orbs that had fallen from it to the floor. They looked like small boiled eggs. Each had swirls of pink fleshy strands and blue irises.

Eyes.

“My baby!!!”

Cora released a raw heart-stopping shriek and began flailing at the air.

“Jesus!” Gannon rushed to her.

After reading the note without touching it, Hackett seized a radio and called to officers outside in the front yard.

“Eight-sixty. Who made the last delivery? The yellow flowers in a yellow vase, who brought that?”

“Seven-O-one. Cabdriver with Flying Eagle. He’s out front talking to the press.”

“Grab him!”

“Say again eight-sixty?”

Cora’s screams had interfered with Hackett’s transmission.

“Grab him now! Keep it low key and bring him around back!”

Cora screamed and screamed until she passed out.

Eventually, Gannon and the others got Cora to her bedroom.

Paramedics were called to tend to her while FBI crime scene experts cleared the living room and began investigating the note, pieces of the vase and its grisly contents.

Outside, at the back of the house, Hackett and Larson went at Velmar Kelp, the taxi driver who’d delivered the flowers.

“Like I told you, I just delivered them,” Kelp repeated. “I stopped for coffee at Zeke’s Diner on the west side, at Central and Eighty-Second Avenue and this guy came up to me, all busted up about the missing girl and whatnot and gives me two hundred bucks to deliver them,” Kelp said. “What’s going on?”

“It looks like you’re involved in the kidnapping, Velmar.”

“What? You’re crazy.”

“A shit storm is about to come down on you so you’d better give us the truth now.”

“I just delivered the flowers for some guy on the street, I swear!”

“Did this guy have the address?”

“No. I got it from my dispatcher, from First Eagle bringing fares to the house here, you know, news people. And the Republic story today gives the street and whatnot.”

The FBI refused to let up.

Did Kelp get the guy’s name, a card, a phone number? What did he look like? Any scars? Tattoos? What about his clothing? The way he spoke? Show us the cash he gave you. Were there witnesses? Did he ask for a receipt? Was anyone else with him? Did he get into a vehicle?

Their questioning grew into an unyielding interrogation until they convinced Kelp to ride with them to Zeke’s Diner where he’d received the flowers. Supported by Phoenix detectives, FBI agents canvassed the area and searched for security cameras, all while pressing Kelp for more details.

They demanded he volunteer his fingerprints.

At Cora’s house, the FBI evidence team processed the vase and note for latent prints. It was when they undertook the gruesome task of examining the eyes that their interest deepened. Something ran counter to the assumption. Something was different. They needed to conduct more tests but one of the forensic experts said: “These are characteristic of Sus scrofa, recently isolated.”

It took a sedative and several hours to calm Cora.

By the time she woke, Hackett had returned and was with Gannon and a few other people in her room. Taking stock of their faces, Cora braced for the worst.

Tilly was dead.

“Cora,” Gannon started.

She stifled a guttural moan.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

“The eyes are not human,” Hackett said.

She blinked in confusion.

“They were removed from a dead pig. They’re pigs’ eyes.”

“Pigs’ eyes?”

“They can’t belong to Tilly, or anyone else,” Hackett said.

Overcome with relief and fear, Cora buried her face in her hands.

“They just wanted to pressure you, send a message,” Hackett said.

“To prove they’re evil fucking bastards?”

“Cora,” Hackett said, “we still need to collect your fingerprints.”

She stared at him.

“My fingerprints? But you already have Tilly’s. Why do you need mine? How will my fingerprints bring Tilly back?”

“We have to process the prints of everyone who touched the vase, the card and other things,” Hackett said. “We talked about why we needed your prints at the outset when ERT started their work.”

She remembered but said nothing.

Hackett then indicated the fingerprint analyst next to him with a laptop.

“We’ve got an electronic scanner. No ink, no mess. It won’t take long.”

Cora hesitated and Gannon tried to help the situation.

“I gave mine. Cora, it’s routine.”

“To create elimination prints,” Hackett said. “To help isolate prints that should not be present.”

Cora still hesitated.

Hackett and Gannon exchanged glances.

“Is there some reason you’re reluctant?” Hackett asked. “We want you to volunteer your prints but we can get a warrant for them, if we have to.”

“No,” she said. “I’ll give them.”

“Good,” Hackett said.

The technician set things up on her kitchen table, positioning Cora in a chair. But when she placed her fingers on the glass platen, raw, exposed, her mind thundered with a memory and her fingers trembled. “I’m going to need you to relax,” the analyst said.

“Sorry, I’m still a bit jittery from everything.”

“I understand.”

“Maybe if I took a hot shower, it might help me relax.”

The tech nodded and she took her hand away from the scanner.

Cora was coming apart.

In the shower, she tried in vain to hide from everything, contending with her guilty heart. Needles of hot water stung her, like the sting of mistrust she felt whenever Jack looked at her.

Steam clouds rose around her and carried her back to the point when her life first began to darken. Cora was sixteen and her friend Shawna had convinced her to go to a party downtown.

“There’s going to be older college guys there.”

Cora had never done anything wild like that in her life.

“Time for you to bust out, girl,” Shawna told her.

At the party, the people were older. Way older. There was talk that some were ex-cons on parole. Cora was uneasy and begged Shawna to leave. But Shawna was having fun and kept passing Cora these fruit drinks the older guys kept making.

Cora started feeling woozy.

Someone took her into a bedroom, told her to lie down…don’t worry you’ll be fine…relax…the walls started spinning…the bed was flying and she felt someone undressing her…she couldn’t resist…couldn’t move…the first man stood over her, climbed on top of her…when he finished another man followed him then another as she faded into oblivion…

Cora didn’t know how she got home that night.

Did someone look in her wallet for her address and drive her?

When Cora woke and realized what had happened to her, she climbed into the shower and scrubbed herself raw. She wanted to peel off her skin.

She wanted to kill herself.

How could she have been so stupid?

Shawna never knew. She’d left the party earlier, thinking Cora had left without her. Cora never told anyone what had happened. Not Shawna, not her mother, not anyone.

She was too ashamed.

She wanted to apologize to her parents, wanted to make herself invisible. She wanted to die.

In the time that followed, Cora thought she could handle it, but she couldn’t. She’d turned to drugs. It was the only way she could survive. Her mother and father tried to get through to her, tried to help her.

“What’s wrong with you, Cora?” Her mother sensed something had happened. “You’ve changed. Tell me, what’s wrong?”

Cora was so ashamed she could never bring herself to talk about it and soon grew angry at her mother’s concern, her prodding. It led to one argument after another, until the last one before she left home at seventeen. With Rake.

A nineteen-year-old heroin addict who’d convinced her that her destiny was to live with him and his friends in a drug-induced splendor by the sea in California. She was so stupid. After Rake vanished, there were other addicts. For years she drifted in a drug-addled haze.

Then came that night, that horrible rainy night in California.

She’d struggled to blot it out of her mind, to never think of it, or all the events that came later that had cast her into a pit so dark she thought she would not survive. It was while she was lost in the darkness that she’d become pregnant with Tilly.

At that time Cora never realized that Tilly was her tiny point of light. She was too terrified. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t go home. Ever. She was ashamed. She was scared. She went to a clinic.

But she couldn’t go through with it.

She went to a church and prayed and soon it dawned on her that this was her miracle. This was her reason to start over. She’d been given a second chance with this baby.

This new life.

But it always came back to that awful night in San Francisco.

The incident was always there. Close to the surface, breaking into her thoughts like flashes of lightning.

Don’t think about it.

The blood.

Stop.

So much blood.

Stop.

Blood on her hands.

Now she was being punished for the sin she’d committed that night.

Cora was so afraid she couldn’t breathe.

Forgive me.

Standing in the shower Cora stared at her hands.

Were they still red with blood?

Overcome, she fell against the shower wall and slid to the floor, lost in a whirlwind of confusion.

She could not let anyone find out about that night in San Francisco. She had to protect Tilly.

How did this happen?

Where was Lyle? How could he do this?

She could not survive without Tilly.

16

Somewhere in Arizona

Lyle Galviera swallowed hard.

This was the last one. It totaled $1,153,280.

All bound with elastic bands in brick-sized bundles of tens and twenties and stuffed into six nylon gym bags.

He was careful to keep his back to the security camera as he zipped the last bag closed. He set it with the others in the self-storage unit, a corrugated metal five-by-five space he’d rented from JBD Mini-Storage at the edge of Phoenix. He snapped the steel lock, tucked the key in his boot and exhaled.

The unit was air-conditioned but Galviera was sweating because the plan, this critical plan, had gone to hell when someone had kidnapped Tilly.

Why? She had nothing to do with anything.

Why, goddamn it? Goddamn it. God-fucking-damn it.

Dragging the back of his shaking hand across his dry mouth, he forced himself to keep cool. He had to fix this. All right, what could he do right now?

Stick to the plan.

It was all he had.

Adjusting his ball cap and dark glasses, he returned to JBD’s security office. When the acne-faced kid at the counter saw him, he stopped bobbing his head, tugged at his earphones and ceased playing a game on his cell phone.

“I forgot to give you some of our data, Mister…” The kid had to consult the clipboard with Galviera’s information. Galviera had rented the self-storage unit moments ago for fifty a month using a counterfeit driver’s license. “Sorry, Mr. Pilsner, here you go.”

Galviera accepted the brochure.

“And sorry, dude…I mean, sir…I also need you to sign the release that you understand our rules.”

Galviera glanced at the sheet and took up the pen.

“Only you have 24-7 access to your unit at JBD,” the kid said, “unless you give someone else your gate code, your keys and unit number. JBD has no access to your unit. As the tenant, you’re responsible for your unit and anyone you give your information to.”

“Fine.” Galviera signed. “Thanks.”

His knees nearly buckled walking to his battered Grand Cherokee. He had just finished securing $5.1 million of drug cartel cash in several locations. Before Tilly was kidnapped he was supposed to meet his cartel people to finalize his share of his biggest and last deal.

The kidnapping changed everything.

Am I caught between two cartels?

Somehow Galviera’s people had to fix this. They had to help find Tilly. Alive.

But things kept changing so goddamned much.

If this didn’t go down right, he was a dead man.

As he drove, he tried to think.

Today was Tuesday, or was it Wednesday? He wasn’t sure. Last Friday, according to the original plan, he was to fly from Phoenix to California, ostensibly for Quick Draw company business. No one knew the truth: that he was really flying to L.A. for his last deal with his cartel partners.

But before boarding his flight in Phoenix, Galviera, as instructed, went to a pay phone, deposited a stream of coins, called a temporary number and checked in with Octavio, his chief cartel associate.

“The situation has changed,” Octavio had said. “We’ve learned that a competitor is now disputing ownership of our routes and demanding payment.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“You are likely being followed.”

“Followed? Jesus Christ! You said there’d be no complications!”

“Listen to us.”

“No, you listen. I’m the one holding the goddamned money. I’m the target. You guaranteed no complications. I did not sign on for this bullshit. What do I do now?”

“You shut up. You listen. And you live.”

Galviera listened.

“We must take very specific action. We’ve made arrangements. Abandon your flight to L.A. and drive to San Diego immediately. On the way, stop at a public phone and call the number I give you, at the time I give you. Tell no one. Before you leave, get rid of your cell phone.”

Galviera got to his pickup truck and headed alone for California. Octavio had advised him to stop in Yuma, where a “friend of ours” had exchanged Galviera’s F-150 for a Grand Cherokee, gave him paperwork for it and counterfeit ID.

“In San Diego, collect the cash. All of it,” Octavio said.

“All of it?”

“All of it. Then drive back to Phoenix. Break up the total and secure it in the locations we’ll provide. Then you will meet us in the Phoenix area at the specified address on the specified date and time we will give you. Do not deviate from our instructions.”

Galviera followed them to the letter.

Making the six-hour drive across California and Arizona loaded with over five million in cash was unnerving, but it went OK. It was after he’d returned to Phoenix and was in the process of storing the money that the news broke of Tilly’s kidnapping and the link to him.

Who was behind it?

How did they know Cora worked for him? How did they know how to find Cora’s home? How did they know she had a daughter? Christ, they’d better not hurt her. How did everything turn to shit?

Now, as he drove to the meeting place, the knot in his gut tightened.

Galviera saw himself in the mirror, gaunt and looking like something that should be flushed. How had his life come to this? Hell, he sponsored three Little League ball teams. He’d worked hard for his piece of the American dream.

Now he could lose it all.

His father, a bus driver, had died, leaving his mother to support him by cleaning offices before she died from a heart attack. Galviera dropped out of college to work full-time as a bike-riding courier. Then he got a truck and started his own business delivering packages by day, pizzas at night. He built it into a major regional courier company but then married a nutcase, who preferred ferrets to children.

When she caught him cheating with an office worker, she got an asshole lawyer and tried to steal his company. It forced Galviera to hide assets, get creative with numbers. He kept his company, but the battle left him poorer and bitter.

He vowed to never get married again.

The stress of his divorce led to his gambling addiction, which he’d kept hidden. It was his lame bid to try to recoup some of what he lost in his divorce settlement. He ran up heavy gambling debts but had always cleared them.

Along the way he’d hired Cora from an agency. She was pretty, but unlike most of the empty-headed agency bimbos, she had brains and a mature attitude.

He liked her. Really liked her.

She’d had a hard life but was a strong, independent single mother. He liked being with her and he liked Tilly. She was a smart, sharp kid. He liked having them in his life.

They made him feel whole.

Sometimes he and Cora talked about marriage but he was gun-shy.

“Not sure I’m ready to go down that road again,” he’d always tell her.

Around the time the economy tanked, Galviera made some bad investments, just when company bills were mounting. He was facing an overdue $1.9-million payment. If he couldn’t make it, he’d lose Quick Draw. He kept negotiating extensions but time was running out.

Quietly, he asked around for financial help.

His out-of-state bookie knew a guy, who knew a guy who knew people who were interested in an arrangement that could help him.

A meeting was set up in a hotel in Tijuana.

The investors wanted a very confidential off-the-books arrangement to have Galviera’s company deliver religious items made in convents and monasteries in Mexico to select addresses in the U.S.

The deal would involve special codes, contacts and payments. In a short time, it would earn Galviera a lot of cash. The beauty of the plan was that Galviera’s clients would handle everything-customs and inspections, any “difficulties” that might arise.

The truth: he was dealing with a drug cartel.

To agree meant a pact with the devil.

They smiled and assured him there would be no complications. They assured him they would take care of all risk. They assured him that with sufficient notice, he could end the arrangement for any reason at any time.

In desperation, Galviera took the deal.

And it went well.

The shipments flowed, and he collected and secured cash payments according to the instructions he was given. For his work, his first earnings totaled $976,000. A second payment a month later, was $1,034,000. The next was going to be just over two million dollars. All of it tax free. With the two million to come, Galviera would clear his debt, end his partnership with the cartel and focus on his company.

That was his plan before Tilly was kidnapped.

He’d never expected this to happen.

There were to be no complications.

Goddamn it. God-fucking-damn it.

Now, as he adjusted his grip on the wheel while pulling up to the Broken Horses Bar, he checked the time. Fifteen minutes to five. Octavio and his partner specified meeting here at five.

The building’s chugging air conditioner dripped water over a fractured metal door that creaked when Galviera entered. He kept his dark glasses on, letting his eyes adjust to the lack of light while he dealt with the stench of stale beer and hopelessness.

A large TV on mute loomed over the wooden U-shaped bar where several pathetic cases were perched. There were a few wooden chairs and tables on the main floor, while along the wall, high-backed booths offered privacy.

Galviera ordered a beer at the bar and carried it to the booth, where he took a long pull and did his best to keep himself from shaking.

Christ, the TV was tuned to FOX. They were showing his face as a “person of interest,” up there for the whole goddamned world to see.

He lowered his head.

Adrenaline surged through him.

He had to do something.

But what? What could he do? If he went to the police now, while sitting on five million in cartel money, he was a dead man.

That would seal Tilly’s fate.

Be calm. Stay cool. He had to fix this.

Stick to the plan. That was all he could do.

He glanced at the time. Damn. It was flying. Now it was fifteen minutes after the hour and no sign of Octavio.

What happened to them? They were never late.

Galviera took another pull of his beer.

His hands were shaking. He was a mess. He needed those guys to walk through that door so they could take care of the money, so he could give them their share and fix this.

They could deal with the people who had Tilly.

It had to be their competition, whoever that was.

I’m trapped between two cartels.

Octavio could give them their cut, convince them to release Tilly unhurt on the street or something-like that other kid, a few years back in Houston. Just let her go, no questions asked.

Everything would be settled.

It was now thirty minutes after the hour.

As Galviera eyed the clock over the bar, his Adam’s apple rose and fell with each passing minute. Thirty-five minutes after the hour, forty, forty-five.

No sign of Octavio and his partner.

At the top of the hour, the news came on. A few stories in, Tilly’s face appeared on the screen.

Staring at Galviera, imploring him to do something as the minutes ticked down.

17

Mesa Mirage, Phoenix, Arizona

The incident with the eyeballs was horrifying.

Tension in Cora’s home mounted as the investigators hammered away at the case. Watching her go to pieces as she reckoned with the rising stakes in her daughter’s kidnapping, Gannon struggled with the questions that were plaguing him.

Who was Cora?

Was she just his sister, with a niece he’d never met-and might never see? Or an ex-drug addict with secrets, caught in a deal gone wrong?

At times he found himself looking upon her as the detached journalist, trying to determine what was true. Was Cora a victim in this thing, or a player? Again he came back to her reference to “karma,” which made him question if the kidnapping was tied to her years as a drug user. And her reluctance to volunteer her fingerprints was another question.

But when Gannon considered what he knew, the picture clouded.

Seeing your child kidnapped, then believing her eyeballs had been delivered to you was beyond comprehension.

In his years as a crime reporter Gannon had seen so many people collide with unimaginable horror. Through it all, he had come to learn that there was no guide on the proper way to react. People blamed others, or themselves. They looked for the guilty, or they looked guilty.

Reason and truth were always fugitives.

So at times he found himself looking upon Cora as more than a former drug addict who’d devastated his family in Buffalo over twenty years ago. She was no longer lost to him. She was a near-middle-aged single mother, who had made mistakes, who had human failings.

The person he needed to forgive.

For at seventeen Cora had been his best friend, the guiding light who’d nurtured his dream to become a writer before she ripped his life apart. Yes, she’d resurrected years of pain, but they’d found each other. And seeing what she had become underscored what he had become-a loner, a truth-seeker.

Gannon’s regard for her whipsawed with each passing minute.

He loved her. He hated her. He ached for her. He suspected her.

Now, as he checked his cell phone for messages, he grappled with the old wound that Cora had carved into him, realizing that it ran so deep he didn’t know where he stood. Didn’t know where to place his trust, his instincts or his love.

Of one thing he was certain: he was in the middle of a huge story.

Up to now, he’d been swept up by events. It was time he took journalistic control of matters, time he started digging into the case. With an eye on the investigators at work, he’d placed a call on his cell phone to a number in Buffalo, New York.

It rang several times.

“Clark Investigations,” a female voice said. “Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

The voice belonged to Adell Clark, a former FBI agent who ran her own one-woman private investigation agency out of her home in Lackawanna, where she lived with her daughter.

Several years back, Gannon had profiled Clark after she was shot during an armored-car heist. They became friends and Adell became one of his most trusted sources. Hell, she was his best source. After Cora’s press conference, Gannon had texted Adell, asking her to poke around within her connections-and she had plenty-for anything that might help him on this case.

Her message cue beeped but he didn’t leave one, deciding to call her back later. He tried another number.

“WPA, Henrietta Chong.”

“Henrietta, it’s Gannon. Are you hearing anything new out there on my niece’s case?”

“Sorry, nothing new, Jack. Say, what’s up with that cabdriver? The word going around is that he dropped off a note from the kidnappers or a message or something?”

“Or something would fit for now.”

“Can you tell me more?”

“No, I can’t. Keep me posted if anything breaks.”

Gannon then called WPA headquarters in New York and updated Melody Lyon, leaving out the eyeballs part, telling her nothing new had happened since the takedown in Tempe. As he was hanging up, his attention went to the FBI agents.

Hackett had called a quick huddle around one of the worktables. By their body language and the tension in the air he could tell there’d been an important break. A couple of agents were typing rapidly on laptops, while others were making cell phone calls.

Once more, Gannon heard someone say “EPIC,” the term for the El Paso Intelligence Center, and guessed that something critical to the investigation had suddenly arisen from there.

The unfolding scene was not lost on Cora, who’d been watching from across the room.

“Something’s happening,” she said. “What is it, Jack?”

Hackett approached them, hands extended to quell expectations.

“There’s been a development but we’re not sure it-”

“What?” Cora repeated. “Did you find her?”

“I can’t release details at this time because-”

“Jack!” Cora pleaded. “What’s happening?”

“Let him finish, Cora,” Gannon said.

“We’ve had a lot of tips and this newest one is cross-jurisdictional-”

“Cross-what? What’s that mean?” Cora was frantic. “Is my daughter dead? If she’s dead, you tell me right now!”

“All I can tell you is that we have a lead that requires more investigation and it’s going to take time. I know it’s frustrating-” he glanced at Gannon “-but I’m sorry, that’s all I can release right now.”

“No, that’s not acceptable!” Cora said. “I have a right to know what’s going on! You tell me what’s happened!”

As Gannon and another detective tried to get Cora to rest, Gannon’s cell phone rang. He excused himself and went to a quiet corner to take the call, expecting Adell Clark or Henrietta Chong.

“Gannon.”

“Jack, it’s Isabel Luna.”

“Yes.”

“Something has come up near Juarez, something very important.”

“What is it?”

“Jack, it’s related to your niece’s kidnapping.”

“Did you find her? What is it?”

“All I can say is that it’s tied to the kidnapping. I’m sorry, that’s all that was revealed to me.”

“Was it the kidnappers who called you? Who’s your source?”

“I can’t tell you any more at this moment.”

Gannon shot Hackett a look over his shoulder, thinking the two matters were linked.

“Isabel, tell me what you know. Maybe I should pass it on to the police here.”

“No, tell no one about this! Because I have also learned that the task force investigating your niece’s case may have been infiltrated by a cartel.”

“What? I don’t believe this. Are you certain?”

“My sources here have heard this.”

“Jesus.”

“Jack, I think it’s very important for you to return to Juarez immediately. There’s something you need to see.”

18

Chihuahuan Desert, Northern Mexico

Dust clouds trailed the white 1999 Chevrolet Blazer slicing through the eroded stretches and dried arroyos of scrubland some thirty miles outside of Ciudad Juarez.

Out here, the police scanner mounted to the dash was picking up mostly static. The driver, Arturo Castillo, a news photographer with El Heraldo, adjusted it and glanced in the rearview mirror.

Jack Gannon was in the backseat searching the desolate expanse for a hint of what awaited him. After Isabel Luna had called him in Phoenix, he’d left for El Paso with Cora’s pleas echoing in his ears.

“Don’t leave me, Jack, please!”

“I have to check something out.”

“What? Where? Why won’t you tell me?”

Hackett was out of earshot but eyeballing him from across the room, where he was working with the other investigators, watching coldly but not interfering.

“Cora, let me check this out. I don’t have details, just a lead from a good source.”

“Jack, please don’t go. Something bad has happened. I feel it.”

A few hours later, when his jet landed in El Paso, Gannon made his way across the border to the offices of El Heraldo. Luna, true to her word, had arranged to rush him to “a location in the desert.” Now, as the Chevy Blazer bumped along the dusty road, Gannon shifted his attention to Luna. She was sitting in the front passenger seat and when she’d finished sending a text message on her phone, Gannon came back to the question he’d asked earlier.

“How solid is your information?”

“My source is unassailable.”

Twenty minutes later, Castillo, guided by the odometer reading and directions Luna gave from her notebook, shifted the transmission of the Blazer into four-wheel drive and headed off road and over the parched grassland.

Two miles in, they came to a fast-flowing irrigation stream. Castillo chose a narrow bend and carefully forded it. The water rose to the running boards as the Chevy wobbled over the stony bottom.

After they’d gone another two miles, a small ranch came into view. As they got closer, Gannon discerned a rickety house that looked as if it was about to collapse and a ramshackle barn. The place appeared to have been abandoned for years…until now. A handful of police vehicles were concentrated at the barn, which was encircled with police tape.

Luna, Castillo and Gannon approached the four uniformed officers leaning on the cars just outside the police tape.

“We are from El Heraldo and the World Press Alliance,” Luna said in Spanish as the three showed their ID. Tapping her notebook against her hip, she added: “Let me speak to the person in charge here.”

A hot breeze kicked up grit as Luna stared into the implacable reflection of the first officer’s sunglasses. A long, tense moment passed before he spoke into his shoulder microphone.

A terse response crackled over the radio. Then, in a move that surprised Gannon, the officer lifted the tape for them to approach. Through the gap-toothed boards of the barn, he saw a car was parked inside.

A man in blue jeans, a polo shirt and cowboy boots, with a badge clipped on his belt near his sidearm met them at the entrance. As he handed over his ID, Gannon noticed the blue latex gloves he was wearing. Taking stock of Gannon, Castillo and Luna, the cop spoke in Spanish with Luna. Gannon soon figured that this cop was asking questions as Luna responded with string of sí…sí…sí’s. Gannon guessed they were questions about him, as this cop-save for a quick scan of the empty horizon beyond them-never took his focus from him.

The detective was in his late thirties, about six feet tall with a firm build. He had a few days’ growth deepening the craggy features of his face, accentuating his piercing hooded eyes.

“Come inside,” he said in English. “Follow me on the path marked on the ground by tape.”

What was going on? This press access to a crime scene was astounding. As Gannon struggled to figure it out, he was assaulted by the stench of excrement mingled with putrid meat. Something was humming. Flies. Blinding beams of sunlight gleamed through the barn’s walls and Gannon needed a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. Several other men in plainclothes were reviewing notes and items by an open barn window.

Gannon saw that the car was a four-door Chevy Caprice, late model with Texas tags…a rental, maybe? The windows were tinted and reflected the flash from Castillo’s camera as he began taking pictures.

The detective opened the driver’s door. The keys were still in the ignition and the indicator chimed softly.

Pong. Pong. Pong.

The outrush of foul air was overwhelming. From what Gannon could see, the driver was resting clumsily on the steering wheel and his passenger was leaning against the window.

Pong. Pong. Pong.

As Gannon heard the buzzing of insects and studied the spaghetti-lace pattern of black and browned blood everywhere, he realized that both corpses were headless.

Pong. Pong. Pong.

Flies from inside the car swarmed Gannon. One tried to go up his nose and he felt bile erupting along his throat.

Pong. Pong. Pong.

Staggering, he drew a deep breath and dragged the back of his hand over his mouth.

“Are you going to be okay?” Luna asked.

Gannon swallowed hard, hurried out and doubled over in the shade side of the barn, letting sweet-smelling breezes do their work, inhaling fresh air until he felt well enough to stand and face Luna and the detective.

“This is my stepbrother, First Sergeant Esteban Cruz.”

“We have Coke and bottled water, Jack,” Cruz offered.

Gannon said he was fine.

“This is your case?”

Cruz nodded as Gannon glanced around warily.

“Don’t worry. It’s safe for us to talk here,” Cruz said. “These men are not corrupt. Each can be trusted.”

“So what happened? What have you got here?”

“A ranch hand from the next property was out here yesterday morning hunting rabbits when he found them.”

“Who are the victims? What’s the link to my niece?”

Cruz unfolded a piece of thermal fax paper and gave it to Gannon. It was a photocopy of Lyle Galviera’s business card, front and back. The back bore handwritten numbers…possibly codes or accounts.

“We found this on one of them,” Cruz said.

“Is one of them Lyle Galviera?”

Cruz shoved a stick of gum in his mouth and shook his head.

“So who are they?”

“We think they were Galviera’s cartel partners. We fingerprinted them late last night.”

“Why are you telling me this? Why call me down here?”

“To help you understand the gravity of your situation,” Cruz said.

“Is it more serious than what is in there-than having my niece kidnapped by monsters?”

“To begin with, we believe that someone involved in the multiagency investigation of your niece’s abduction in Arizona may be on a cartel payroll.”

“Yes, Isabel said that on her call. So what are we dealing with?”

“Those two dead men are ex-U.S. law enforcement. The one in the driver’s seat is Octavio Sergio Salazar. He was fired from the LAPD a few years back for alleged corruption involving drug shipments in California. The other, John Walker Johnson, was fired from U.S. Customs. He was alleged to have taken bribes in exchange for border access. Not long ago, Salazar and Johnson began double-dealing with cartels that were warring with each other.”

“So what happened?”

“Our ex-cops went rogue to start carving out their own U.S. routes while dealing with at least two cartels. We’re not sure which ones. We think that Lyle Galviera was partnered with the ex-cops, using his courier company, and that he’s holding the missing millions for Salazar and Johnson. And we think the cartels believe the cash was stolen from them.”

“Where did you get all this intel?”

“There are a number of longstanding investigations on both sides of the border. When your niece was kidnapped, people in police intel on both sides of the border started connecting dots.”

“Does the FBI know what you’ve told me? They should be told so they can find my niece and get her out before all of this explodes.”

“They’ve been told. In fact, several U.S. federal agents are due at this scene at any moment because of the U.S. link. But Isabel and I wanted you to know the truth, to ensure it stays pure, because of the suspected infiltration of U.S. and Mexican police by cartels.”

“The people who have Tilly have given my sister five days to find Galviera. We’re losing time. Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“He could be dead somewhere.”

“If that were true,” Cruz said, “we would know. The cartels would want the world to know that death is the price for stealing from them.”

“So he’s likely out there with five million dollars and scared to death.”

“It’s only a matter of time before the cartels find him.”

“You think they know where he is?” Gannon asked.

“The bodies have been here a few days. Salazar and Johnson were probably killed before your niece was taken.”

“That gives you a bit of a timeline then?”

Cruz nodded.

“There’s more. Before they were killed they were tortured. We think they were lured out here and probably tortured for information about Galviera and the money. This was a double execution by a sicario.”

“An assassin?”

“Yes. And we found this.” Cruz glanced at Luna before showing Gannon a crime scene photo copied on his cell phone. The picture showed a small glass that looked like it was used for tomato juice.

“I don’t understand.”

“This is the signature of The Tarantula.”

“The Tarantula?”

“He’s a top assassin. He started professionally killing as a boy. With each high-profile killing he is known to toast La Santa Muerte, the goddess of death, with the blood of his victims.”

Gannon exhaled.

“This was a message killing,” Luna said. “The cartels have a complex structure for message or revenge killings. The cartel first does all the groundwork, setting up everything for the assassin to arrive and carry out the key executions. It’s very ritualistic and disciplined.”

“So this goes beyond getting their money back?”

“Yes. Having The Tarantula involved means cartel bosses want the world to know that everyone connected to this theft of the cartel’s money will die,” Luna said. “If the cartel finds Lyle Galviera first, they will torture him for information on their money, then kill him. And then they will have no use for your niece. Because she can identify them, they’ll kill her, too.”

“Given that they’ve already found and executed these two competing cartel members,” Cruz said, “it won’t be long until the cartel finds Galviera. No matter what happens, Galviera and your niece are marked to be revenge kills.”

19

Mesa Mirage, Phoenix, Arizona

Hours later, as his jet lifted off from El Paso International Airport, Gannon recalled something the Irish writer Oscar Wilde had said about there being only two tragedies in life.

“One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

That pretty much covered it for him. As the wounded brother, there were times in his life that he’d ached to see his sister again, was willing to give anything to find Cora.

Well, he’d found her.

And as the hard-driving reporter, he had been hell-bent on finding a drug cartel assassin to write about; he had begged Isabel Luna to help him.

Well, they’d found one: a blood-drinking death-toasting killer called The Tarantula.

And he’s coming for my niece.

When the plane leveled off somewhere over the Rio Grande, Gannon opened his laptop and clicked to the missing poster of Tilly. Her eyes sparkled as they met his. She looked so much like a younger version of Cora, her face radiating innocence and hope as she implored him.

Help me. Find me. Before it’s too late.

He was her uncle. He was her blood.

Man, after the horror with the eyeballs, and then seeing those headless corpses in that car a short time ago, the thought of a cartel hit man targeting Tilly… Something caught in Gannon’s throat. He turned to the window, looked beyond the clouds and back on the few hours he’d just spent in Mexico.

After they’d left the desert crime scene, he, Castillo and Luna returned to El Heraldo’s newsroom, where he had called Melody Lyon in New York. Absorbing the grisly details she’d said: “We need to get this story on the wire now, Jack.”

“I’ll write it here, but we have to hold back on some of it.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re way too close to this. I need to protect sources.”

Lyon weighed his point.

“I’ll let you write it the way you think it needs to be written, this time.”

“Okay, but can you get Henrietta in Phoenix to seek FBI comment?”

“Fine, just ship me the story ASAP. And Jack? Are you still there?”

“Yes?”

“Are you sure you want to stay on this? I can put other people on it if it ever becomes…becomes…”

“Becomes what?”

“If it ever becomes too much for you, Jack.”

“I’m in too deep, Melody.”

She let a moment pass before speaking. “We’re praying they find Tilly safe and bring her home.”

“So am I.”

Turning from the window back to his laptop, Gannon called up the story he’d sent earlier to headquarters and reread it, fighting to distance himself from the fact he was writing about his own family.

The execution murders of two former U.S. law enforcement officers who were found beheaded in the Mexican desert may be tied to the recent kidnapping of an 11-year-old Phoenix girl, according to police sources.

That was how it began, a tight nuts-and-bolts exclusive that provided few details. It did not report the victims’ names or anything on the assassin. Gannon had filed it from Juarez before returning to El Paso for his flight. By now his story should’ve gone around the world on the WPA wire and been posted online everywhere with Castillo’s crime scene photos, the ones suitable for family viewing-police vehicles near the barn.

Luna was writing a similar piece for El Heraldo.

The story beat the Associated Press, Reuters, all of Gannon’s competition. It was a WPA win that should make New York very happy, especially George Wilson, head of all foreign news. It would satisfy Gannon’s employer, whose resources he needed to find his niece.

His niece.

Suddenly he was jolted by another concern.

Should he have alerted Cora that the story was coming, explained what he knew so that she could brace for it? But it would’ve been a risk to call her. He couldn’t ignore suspicions that the task force had been infiltrated by people working for the cartel.

No, he had no other option but to get the story out.

For the rest of the short flight, Gannon considered how the execution in the Mexican desert of two American ex-cops would bring more to bear on Tilly’s case. Now as the landing gear rumbled down, he searched the blurring ground for answers. There had to be something he was overlooking, something he could dig into. He had to do more to find Tilly, and he had to do it fast.

Time was working against them.

The story was getting bigger.

The first thing Gannon noticed as his cab approached Cora’s house was that there were more news people out front, including a few satellite trucks from Los Angeles, Tucson and Las Vegas.

“Hey, Gannon! What about the executions in Mexico?”

He gave the pack an apologetic wave and went to the back door.

“Come on, Jack, give your pals here a break!”

In the ride from the airport to Mesa Mirage, he’d checked his BlackBerry for developments. His WPA story was the big one. The Los Angeles Times, Yahoo and the New York Times had already put it up on their sites. The Arizona Republic had posted it, too, along with a news features on ever-widening neighborhood searches for Tilly and prayer vigils by church groups.

The moment Gannon stepped inside Cora’s house, she rushed to him.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I couldn’t.”

“You should’ve warned me, Jack! I was going out of my mind! Oh my God, is it true? Are the murders connected to Tilly? Who are the officers?”

Mounting worry had deepened the lines carved into her drawn face. He started to take her aside.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“No.” He felt a hand on his shoulder. “We need to talk.”

Gannon turned and met Hackett’s scowl as the FBI agent backed him into a corner and dropped his voice to a menacing level.

“How did you learn about the homicides in Mexico, Gannon?”

Hackett’s question went beyond concern over a press leak.

That Gannon knew about a major break at the same time the FBI had been informed underscored Hackett’s worst nightmare as the lead investigator: The sickening possibility that had dogged him with that memo on cartel infiltration of U.S. police ranks.

In the icy silence that passed between them, each man knew. By Hackett’s body language, by the fury behind his eyes, Hackett telegraphed his fear of a potentially compromised investigation. It was there slithering in the air, that someone, anyone, among the half dozen agencies involved in the case, including those in Texas and Mexico, could be on a cartel payroll.

It rattled Hackett that Gannon had gotten so close.

“I don’t expect you’ll give up a source,” Hackett said, “but I’ll warn you, if you jeopardize our case I’ll charge you with obstruction.”

“It would be better if you accepted that you have your sources and I have mine. And we both want the same thing.”

“Just watch yourself.”

“Excuse me, I’d like to talk privately with my sister.”

“Listen up-if you have information relevant to this case, you’d better share it.”

Gannon made a point of lifting his chin to inventory the agents and officers in the house.

“Right, why don’t you tell me about the two dead ‘cops’ in the desert, Agent Hackett? Then we could talk about sharing, about trust.”

Hackett grimaced then left.

Cora was alone in her bedroom, looking at pictures of Tilly. Gannon’s stomach tensed after he’d shut the door. Trust. Did he trust her? Could he trust her? She touched her tears that fell on the photos in the laminated album.

“Cora, I need you to help me find her.”

She nodded.

“We have no time. I need you to tell me the truth about everything.”

“I’ve told you everything.”

“I think you’re holding back.”

“I told you I made a lot of mistakes in my life.”

“Stop the bullshit! I have seen what they do and what they are going to do to Tilly. You have to tell me everything so I can help.”

“Oh, God!”

“Why did you call me?”

“Because you’re a good reporter and I thought you could help me find the people who took Tilly, so we could bring her home.”

“Are you part of this?”

“No!”

“Cora, what did you mean when you said you’re being punished for past sins, that it’s karma? What the hell do you mean?”

“Jack, I-I don’t know-”

“Stop this! They’re going to kill Tilly!”

“I know. I have to protect her. We have to find her.”

“Then tell me something that could help, damn it, Cora!”

“Maybe Tilly’s father knows something.”

“I thought you said he was out of the picture?”

“He is. I haven’t seen him since I was pregnant.”

“Why do you think he could help?”

“He’s a police officer with the LAPD.”

20

Mesa Mirage, Phoenix, Arizona

They’d met when she was working as a waitress at a North Hollywood bar and still messed up on drugs. Ivan would talk to her. He was a tough patrol cop, divorced because of the job. Cora dated him. Then she got pregnant. It took a long time before she could bring herself to tell Ivan.

His reaction was seared into her memory.

He drove her to a clinic somewhere around Wilshire Boulevard, slapped five hundred dollars in her hand and told her to “take care of it.” She got out and he drove away.

The clinic was a decaying building that smelled like a veterinarian’s office where they put down dogs and cats.

Cora was so afraid.

“You’re too far along,” the nurse said.

Cora took it as a sign. Overwhelmed, she went to a church and prayed until she’d reached the decision to keep her baby. This was her one chance to save herself. She took a city bus to a community support agency. They counseled her, helped her get clean for her baby. It was hard, very hard, but she had Tilly alone.

And she raised her alone.

Cora never saw Ivan Peck again.

Later, she’d bumped into one of the girls from the bar who told her that Ivan was a cheating asshole who was married when he was dating Cora. Everyone knew. Didn’t she know? And this girl had also heard that Ivan got caught up in some kind of cop scandal.

“Scandal? What kind of scandal?” Gannon had asked Cora.

“I don’t know.”

“Was it corruption, use of force, what? Was it in the papers?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ivan Peck may be linked to Salazar, the dead guy in the desert. He was ex-LAPD.” Gannon consulted his notebook. “Did you know a cop named Octavio Sergio Salazar?”

“No.”

“I need to contact Peck.”

“Why, Jack?”

“Maybe Peck knows something about Salazar, something that could help. Do you have any idea if he’s still on the force?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think, Cora!”

“Jack, it was more than eleven years ago, I don’t know.”

“I need to find him.”

Gannon immediately dug into Ivan Peck’s background.

He called his best source again: Adell Clark, the ex-FBI agent turned private investigator in Buffalo. This time he got through.

“Jack, I am so sorry,” Clark said. “I’ve been tied up with an insurance fraud. I got your messages. I saw the news out of Phoenix. It’s just awful. It breaks my heart. I want to help. Tell me what you need.”

Gannon confidentially related every aspect of the case to Clark.

“I need all I can get on Octavio Sergio Salazar and John Walker Johnson. But first, I need everything you can get on Peck right now. I’m assuming he’s alive. Adell, I need to confront him face-to-face to find out if he can help us. He’s Tilly’s father. He’s got a stake in this. I know I’m grabbing at straws but we’re running out of time.”

“Okay, I’ve got some friends with the LAPD. I’ll make calls and get back to you as quick as I can.”

Before ending the call, Gannon gave Clark both names Cora had used and her date of birth then asked Clark to check if his sister had any arrests, warrants or convictions.

He then requested urgent help from the WPA news library. Then he went online and used every database the WPA subscribed to, to search for more on Salazar, Johnson and Peck. He scoured property records, state and municipal records. At the same time, he searched news archives for anything on an assassin known as The Tarantula. He texted Isabel Luna in Juarez and pressed her for updates on the executions in the desert, the cartels, anything.

Nothing new, Luna responded. Will alert you when I know more.

The news library got back to him with more on the ritualistic worship of the bogus La Santa Muerte, or “Saint Death.” By collecting the blood of their victims to honor the “narcosaint,” the hit men believed she would protect them while they exacted vengeance on their enemies. The images of the corpses in the barn flashed in Gannon’s mind when his cell phone rang.

“It’s Adell. I got nothing on Cora. I’m still working on Salazar and Johnson but I have more on Ivan Peck. Ready?”

“Okay, Adell.” Gannon pulled out his pen and notebook.

“He’d been on the job roughly ten years by the time he’d met Cora. He left the department about a year ago. In all, he had twenty years with the LAPD, starting as an officer on a foot beat, then a black-and-white patrol. He was with SWAT, working his way up the officer ranks until he made Detective I.”

“Any problems?”

“Hold on. He’d been assigned to the Vice Division then worked Robbery, Homicide, Gangs and Narcotics. He was decorated, received the medal of valor.”

“For what?”

“It’s posted on their site. He was off duty, traveling on an L.A. freeway, when a school bus blew a tire, rolled and caught fire. He helped lead the rescue of twenty children, their teacher and driver. They all survived.”

“So he’s an all-star-apart from cheating on his wife and impregnating my sister.”

“Well, it was sometime after Cora that he actually did get divorced. His ex claimed he hit her, punched her one night after she’d asked him about his affairs. That triggered a slow downfall, which led to his troubles on the job.”

“What kind of troubles?”

“He was suspected of being…under the influence is the term I got, of some of L.A.’s gangs, notably those with ties to the Tijuana cartel.”

“Really?”

“Over his last years with the department, it was alleged he stole narcotics, used excessive force and beat suspects.”

“Bet he didn’t get a medal for that. Was he ever charged?”

“No. He went before a Board of Rights, at least four times. He was written up, given temporary desk duty, never charged or threatened with termination. They never had enough evidence. After he clocked in twenty years, he hung it up, took his pension.”

“Where is he?”

“He runs his own detective agency in downtown L.A.”

“Can you give me the address?”

“I’ve got it right here.”