“Good. Send me the address to this number. I’m on my way.”
“What’s up?” Torres was sitting up in bed. She could just make out his form in the darkness.
“Just work. I need to go to Carrizo Springs.” Beth tried to sound nonchalant but her voice wouldn’t cooperate. Thoughts were firing at her, memories, only freshly buried.
“Tonight?”
Beth continued getting dressed. She pulled on a pair of fresh jeans and a T-shirt. “Yeah I shouldn’t be long.” Beth let out a rush of air. “No that’s not true. I don’t know how long it will be.” She considered telling him that there had been another hit but she wouldn’t. Torres was out. He didn’t need to be sucked into it.
No that was a lie. The truth was she needed him to be out. She needed a beacon on shore guiding her back to normality so she didn’t lose herself in this sea of depravity.
“I’ll be back…later.” Beth opened the safe where she kept her gun and slid it into its holster.
It took just over an hour to reach Carrizo Springs. Raul Garcia’s house was on the corner of a main street backing onto a gas station. It was nothing fancy, just a small stucco bungalow on a busy street. If he was on the Zetas or Treintas pay roll, he certainly hadn’t invested the money into the modest house or the old minivan in the driveway with a broken taillight and an exhaust held up with duck tape.
There was a rusted swing set in the yard and two bicycles lying in the grass.
“I’m Special Agent Thomson.” Beth held up her badge for inspection but the officers guarding Garcia’s door merely nodded and made room to let her past.
Beth’s breath caught when she saw the scorpion painted on the door, a dark maroon colour that had already dried and begun to crack. “That’s not spray paint,” she said to no one in particular. “Has it been tested? I need this tested.”
The younger looking of the two officers spoke. “Yes, ma’am, it’s blood.”
Beth nodded. “Human?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the officer said almost apologetically. He was young, still fresh-faced and alert, still eager, not yet beaten down by the job. Give it another few years.
“It needs to be tested to see if it’s a match to any of the victims.”
Another officer joined them at the door. “Jamison?” she guessed.
The detective smiled and nodded. He looked to be about forty. He was tall but slight. The Longhorn belt buckle around his waist was more than decorative; it kept his trousers anchored around his slim hips. He was bald now but based on his pale freckled skin and green eyes, he had been a redhead.
Jamison reached out and shook her hand. “Good to meet you, ma’am. Thank you for coming out tonight, well this morning now.” His smile was wide like this was a social call and he really was pleased to meet her.
Beth nodded. She did appreciate Texas manners. A man could be standing over a dead body and he would stop to exchange pleasantries with a lady.
“Any news on his family?”
The smile on Jamison’s face faded. “Yes, ma’am. Four bodies have been found off 83, just south of Crystal City. No ID yet.”
“Decapitated?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Beth took a deep breath. It wasn’t a surprise but still…another family torn about by Los Treintas. She shook her head. “Has the husband been informed?”
“No, ma’am. We were waiting for you. I thought you would want to question him first.”
She nodded again. “Thank you.” Jamison had done her a favour. He knew that once Raul Garcia was told the fate of his family, he would be inconsolable. His use as a witness would be more than compromised; he would be useless to the investigation. While there was still hope, Raul would do whatever he could to bring his family back alive. “Can you please call Victim Services? Have them on hand. He is going to need all the support he can get. And intercept any packages that are sent here or to his work. I can’t stress that enough.”
The heads of his family would already be in transit. The Los Treintas were predictable if nothing else. The heads were always sent to the family as a warning, as if losing a loved one wasn’t painful enough. Bile rose in the back of her throat as her body responded to the memory of the night her sister was murdered. She had never seen her dismembered head. She knew it had been sent because she had read the coroner’s report, but she had been spared seeing it. Someone had made sure it never reached her. She wasn’t sure who she had to thank for that, either Torres or Jessop, but she was grateful. She would do her best to extend the same courtesy to Raul Garcia.
“Can you please send me a copy of your case files? I don’t care how small a lead, I would like to see it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Beth took a deep breath. Time to get to work; time to figure out what made Raul Garcia a target. She stood at the threshold and surveyed the house; no high ticket items that would be out of keeping with a Border Agent’s salary, no flat screen televisions or abundance of electronics, just beige-coloured walls covered in framed photographs. Every wall had at least one family picture but most had several. There were school pictures, wedding pictures, candid shots taken at the lake or at birthday parties. Picture after picture of smiling children and their devoted parents. Grief pierced her veneer, tiny niggling shards of sadness found their way to the centre of her chest but she ignored them.
Judging from the pictures he had three kids: two primary school-aged sons and a preschool-aged daughter. They were beautiful, so young, so innocent. Beth’s throat constricted. She forced herself to look away. She couldn’t think about them right now.
Beth stepped over the pile of discarded shoes in the hallway. Even if she hadn’t seen Raul Garcia’s picture on the wall, she would have immediately recognized him as the victim. He was slumped over on the couch, his hands scrunched into fists, his eyes vacant. She recognized every emotion written on his face because she had felt them all, the anger, the disbelief, the frantic need to do something even though there was nothing to be done.
“I’m Special Agent Thomson – Beth. My name is Beth.” She didn’t reach her hand out to shake his because Raul had lowered his head into his hands.
She considered telling him she understood what he was going through but she didn’t, he wouldn’t appreciate it. No one understood anyone else’s pain. The sad truth of it was everyone was alone in their despair. People could empathize and support but they would never really understand the depth of anguish, they could never feel it. Grief was isolating and unique, singularly different for every person. Had anyone told her they understood what she felt when Paige was murdered, she would have laughed or screamed. No one could ever understand someone else’s pain.
“Special Agent? Like from the FBI? Did you find them?!” Raul asked as he jumped to his feet. He shoved his hand into his pocket. “Here. Take this. You’re going to need a recent picture of them.” He flicked through the pictures in his wallet until her found a picture. “Here.” He thrust the small picture at her. His hand shook as his fingers grazed hers. “It’s the boys’ first day of school. Amalia’s hair is longer now but it still looks like her. This will be OK, right?” His eyes pleaded with her.
A boulder lodged in the pit of her stomach. His family was never coming home but he didn’t know it yet. The enormity of that settled on her, squeezing out all the air from her lungs. She closed her eyes and silently counted to ten. For a moment she couldn’t speak. It was too real again. A month ago it was her waiting for news. She was the one in denial, hoping against hope that everything was going to be OK. This month it was Raul. Next month or next week it would be another family destroyed. How many more lives would the Treintas ruin?
Beth stared down at the photo. His whole world was represented in this