Sam’s fingers twisted around the car’s door handle even as Rosa’s trailer shattered in a thousand pieces of aluminum and wooden paneling. A whoosh of sound billowed upward, swirling in flames and smoke to meld with the evening.
“What the—” Sam stumbled out of his car so fast he lost his footing and had to brace himself with one hand on the ground. Scrambling back inside, he picked up the radio and called dispatch. “This is Packard, I’m at 811 Elm, space 13. There’s been an explosion.”
The scent of heavy smoke and cinders scorched his nostrils as he hurried across the street. The sound of screams mingled with sirens. Fatigue disappeared as a gust of wind blew a piece of aluminum siding toward his car. Sam ignored the heat.
Rosa’s neighbor was facedown on the ground. Sam’s fist clenched as he hurried across the drive.
People poured out of the man’s trailer. Maybe it was the shock of having their next-door neighbor’s home blow apart, or maybe the drugs impeded conscious thought, but none of them had the presence of mind to deal with the fallen man. Sam dropped to his knees, pulling plastic gloves from his pocket and putting them on. A woman wailed and knelt beside him. Gingerly, after making an assessment of the injuries, he turned the man over. Blood gushed from a gash above the man’s eye, but Sam doubted it was serious. Head wounds made the biggest fuss for the smallest affliction.
“Is everyone else accounted for?” Sam plucked glass from the fallen man’s hairline.
“Yes, no, I don’t know,” the sobbing woman blustered. “Is Seth all right? He just stepped out for a moment. He wanted to—”
Through blistered, bleeding lips, Seth uttered, “Shut up, Margie.”
A fire truck arrived. Neighbors drifted back, mesmerized by the excitement but as obedient as schoolchildren when Sam herded them out of the way.
Sam watched the firemen take care of Seth. Only a fluke kept the houses next to Rosa’s safe. And the cat? Where was the cat? Too many people crowded the street. Sam set about separating potential witnesses from thrill-seekers.
The feds arrived and within moments were both talking into cell phones: their faces stone serious. A few moments of standing in front of them, waiting, told Sam they didn’t have time for him.
The neighbor, Margie, huddled on her front step watching the ambulance attendants. Sam’d come back and talk to her later, when her mind wasn’t distracted by the sight of her boyfriend’s vital signs being taken—when her boyfriend wasn’t telling her to shut up. Sam would play on her sympathy. After all, he’d been the Good Samaritan when Seth was moaning on the ground. She might not have made him for a cop.
Sam scanned the crowd, looking for the three exercisers. They might not even realize if they’d seen something, heard something. Anything. If statistics were to be believed, then whoever had set the explosion would want to view his handiwork. These women might be able to make identification. Unfortunately, if statistics were to be believed, then all three women would have different recollections.
His questions netted nothing. The women had been busy verbally dissecting a daytime soap. They’d greeted two park residents, and they’d noticed him. He, they specified, was the only stranger they’d noticed. Of course, maybe the man he wanted them to identify wasn’t a stranger to the Desert Caravan Mobile Home Park.
Every question he wanted to ask, every detail he wanted to pursue paled in comparison to what he already knew. A beleaguered woman trying to comfort her man. The man who had stepped outside with two beers.
The feds hadn’t been as rankled as Sam had expected. All in a day’s work for them, he guessed. Of course, they’d treated him like a gnat that needed to be swatted away. He might very well be the only Gila City police detective to have a stakeout literally blow up in his face. This would be hard to live down.
It was after midnight when Sam pulled into the precinct’s parking lot. He brushed a hand through hair dusted with soot. The need for sleep had disappeared along with Rosa’s roof. He would look into the Lucy Straus, Sandra Hill—and the need for those fake ID’s—angle later. Right now he wanted to figure out who Rosa’s real enemies were and what she was doing in Gila City.
Sam snagged a bottled water from the machine before heading downstairs. Sitting at his desk, he logged on to the computer and typed in his code. The scent of neglected cigarette smoke settled around him like a lonely cloud looking for a home. The desks outside his office were accusing in their isolation. Daytime at the precinct was a pulsating, heartbeat of energetic activity. Between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. was a morgue of oppressive silence.
A picture of a much younger Rosa froze on the screen. She was one good-looking woman. Sam hit Enter a couple of times and finally the next file opened. Rosa’s background was sketchy at best. She apparently had bypassed any youthful acting out. Although, Sam would call hanging out with the Santellises a crime. There were no reports of shoplifting, cruising violations or truancy. Now, her older brother was a different story. His name was cross-referenced with Rosa’s, and Sam would need weeks to sort through Frank’s file. Still, after what went down with Jimmy Handley, her fingerprints should have been on file.
Intrigued, Sam printed a few files and put them in a folder with a copy of the rest of Rosa’s information. Her personal data had tripled since the feds arrived. They wasted no time. The fax machine had belched at about five, and Rosa’s life story, as the feds knew it, was seared on paper for all to see by seven.
Sam separated the papers into three piles: personal information, newspaper clippings and FBI reports. The first pile chronicled birth through legal age. She’d broken an arm in third grade; she’d won a district spelling bee in sixth; and her wisdom teeth had been removed in eighth. This information was worthless. How could an arm broken in third grade be pertinent to Rosa’s crime? The feds must be desperate for information about the woman. Sam had been right—she was older than twenty-two.
Sam scanned the newspaper clippings next. Her career as a news item started with Jimmy’s death. One of the tabloids had a picture of Eric Santellis and her on the cover. The inside story said that she dated the drug dealer just for excitement. Hmm, interesting concept. The press had been hard up for photos of Rosa. Most seemed to be from a distant observer’s sketchy photo album. Sam studied Rosa’s high school graduation photo, and another of Rosa and Eric standing at the helm of a boat.
They looked happy, and for some reason that bothered him. The last few photos were of the “Have you seen…” type.
Sam started at the top of the FBI’s current file. Her GPA from high school earned her a scholarship. She’d taken a tour of Europe instead of going straight to college. This didn’t sound like a girl who would date a drug dealer for excitement. A glossy photograph fell at his feet. He picked it up and turned it over.
“Wow.” He whistled appreciatively and shook his head. Too bad the baggage she carried had organized crime stamped on it. Sam guessed this was what she looked like about two or three years ago: a bit skinnier, her hair somewhat curly and with that deep reddish shade so many women seemed to covet. Her eyes maintained a glimmer of innocence.
How could the woman have innocence in her eyes? It must be a trick of the camera.
Resolutely, he put the photo down, took a paper out of his desk and began charting a time line for Rosa. He figured out that up until age twenty-one, Rosa’s only flaws had been a wild big brother and her connection to the Santellises.
Her family had moved during junior high school, right after her older brother died of an overdose, and that seemed to have been enough to sever her and Eric’s adolescent romance. Chalk one up for Papa Cagnalia.
A snitch reported seeing her with Eric Santellis a month after her twenty-fifth birthday. Jimmy had been shot right after Rosa’s twenty-sixth birthday.
This scenario wasn’t making a whole lot of sense.
What happened after Rosa turned twenty-five? Why had she hooked back up with Eric?
He