The Impaler

Chapter 23

The little girl whispered her secret in his ear—lit a fire under his ass and put him on West Hargett Street in twenty minutes. Markham didn’t wait to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez. Instead, he sent Marla back inside to tell her aunt he’d been called away and that someone else would stop by later to explain everything to her parents. Schaap was on his way back to the Resident Agency from the NC State campus. Most important for the FBI was that they get everything coordinated before the media got wind of Canning. Most important for Sam Markham was that he kept Marla Rodriguez’s secret.

“To the grave, señorita,” he said as he cruised down West Hargett Street.

He couldn’t believe he’d gotten so lucky; couldn’t believe that an eleven-year-old girl could have possibly kept secret the most important lead in the investigation thus far. Yet at the same time it all made sense: her love for her brother, her need to protect him from the wrath of her family. And then there was the lack of media attention because of the initial gang angle. It was almost as if the deck had been stacked against Jose Rodriguez from the beginning. But rather than feeling anger or frustration toward his little sister for not coming forward, curiously, Markham loved her for it.

Angel’s, was what she told him. Angel’s.

Markham parked his SUV in a lot about a block away from the club—recognized it immediately from the silver Mylar banners that hung vertically along the length of the building like angel wings. Despite its renovations, he could tell that the club had once been a pair of connecting storefronts. However, what stuck out to him the most was the orientation of the “dead” space—the parking lots, the sidewalks, the narrow alleyways between the buildings. Lots of places to hide and watch.

Angel’s took up nearly the entire block. Billed itself as a “nightclub complex” and sported a marquee over the front door that read: