J. Jance - Fire and Ice

“I don’t care about the other families,” Jaime said. “I care about my family.”

“Like hell you do,” I told him. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself. What you’re planning right now is premeditated murder. What happens to Luis if you go through with this? His parents are gone. Who’ll be left to take care of him? He’ll be devastated.”

Jaime wasn’t persuaded. “He’ll live,” he said.

“And what about the people who didn’t live?” I asked. “What about Marcella and Marco? Is your killing Miguel Rios going to bring them back?”

“Marco was scum,” Jaime spat back. “He deserved to die.”

“He didn’t,” I said. “He was working with the DEA.”

“Marco was a snitch?” Jaime returned. “Don’t make me laugh!”

“It’s no joke. Sheriff Brady told me all about it a few minutes ago. Marco was spilling his guts, and the feds were listening.”

“And they’re claiming that’s why he died?” Jaime scoffed. “I don’t think so.”

“But it’s true,” I said. “With Marco’s help the feds have spent months putting together a program that should bring down the whole cartel. It’s all supposed to happen in the next few weeks and it’s going to work-at least it may work if you don’t screw it up, that is. Because if you go through with this, Jaime, that’s exactly what will happen. The Cervantes guys will know someone is closing in on them and everyone connected to the cartel will disappear like a puff of smoke. It’ll take years to bring them back out into the open.”

“You expect me to believe all this?”

“Call Sheriff Brady,” I said. “Ask her.”

“You’re saying that’s why they killed Marcella, too, because of Marco?”

“We think that’s why, but we don’t know for sure. Now give me the gun, Jaime. Let’s get the hell out of here while there’s still time. No one needs to know you’ve been here. No one needs to know what your intentions were. We just walk back up the hill, nice as you please, drive away, and let things take their course. The DEA says they’re going to bring Rios in. Let’s give them a chance to do just that.”

I don’t think Jaime heard a word I said.

“Miguel Rios had Tomas Rivera kill my sister,” Jaime countered, going back to his original position. “For that he’s going to die.”

“Look,” I explained. “The Cervantes Cartel is like a case of cancer. Miguel Rios is only one little tumor in a whole system of tumors. If you take him out, it’s not going to make any difference, because the cancer has already spread-everywhere. With Marco’s help, the feds have a plan and an opportunity to take out the whole mess. If you blow this and they don’t succeed, then trust me, Jaime, you’ll be responsible for a lot more dead people in lots more places, and every one of those unnecessary deaths will be your fault. And your sister and Marco Andrade will have died in vain.”

“But Miguel Rios will be dead, too,” Jaime insisted.

“And most likely so will you, you stupid bastard!” I growled at him. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”

Suddenly I was transported back in time and space. I was standing at the bottom of a waterfall trying to talk Anne Corley out of doing something stupid. And I hadn’t been able to do it. Losing Anne had almost been the death of me. If I lost Jaime Carbajal, too…

The only thing left for me to do was beg. My voice cracked as I spoke. “Please, Jaime,” I said again. “Please don’t.”

Finally I seemed to have his undivided attention and maybe I was getting through, but just then I heard Mel’s voice shouting frantically in my ear.

“Yellow Hummer coming your way with a man and woman inside. I told them we’re from Windermere Real Estate. That you heard he might be interested in selling the property and you came here in hopes of getting the listing.”

But even though Mel was screaming at me, I didn’t take my eyes off Jaime’s face. I couldn’t afford to.

“Someone’s coming, Jaime,” I said evenly. “Give me the gun. We can still walk away.”

I don’t know how long we stood staring at each other, me with my hand outstretched and him sitting casually on the seat of the swing. Behind me I could hear the low growl of the Hummer’s engine as it wound down through the trees. Any moment it would burst into the open and it would all be over. It would be too late.

At last Jaime bent down, put the gun in the bag, and handed it over.

“All right,” he said, “but if it turns out you’re lying…”

The Hummer braked to a stop at the edge of the driveway. A man leaped out and came charging across the lawn. The woman stayed where she was.

“This is private property,” the man yelled. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Sorry,” I said. “Someone told me you were interested in selling.”

“Whoever told you that was wrong. Now get the hell out of here!”

Jaime looked at him with unmistakable fury, then looked away. He had made his choice and he was abiding by it no matter what it cost him because Jaime Carbajal was a man of his word.

“Sure thing,” I said to Rios, giving Jaime a slight shove in the direction of the driveway. “Sorry to bother you.”

As we trudged back up the driveway, I may have been huffing like a steam engine, but to my astonishment, my knees didn’t hurt.

Not at all.

By the time we reached the trees, Jaime Carbajal was sobbing. It could have been letdown or grief or even a little of both. At the top of the driveway, Mel was waiting in the Mercedes. She had the doors unlocked and the engine running.

“Get in,” she urged. “Let’s get out of here. We can come back for the other cars later.”

And so Mel drove. Like a bat out of hell, of course. After fastening my seat belt, I handed Jaime my phone. “You’d better give Sheriff Brady a call,” I said. “She’s waiting to hear from you.”

As Jaime took the phone, Mel glanced in my direction. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I couldn’t be better,” I said. “The good guys won.”

I was surprised when Jaime Carbajal asked if I would serve as a pallbearer at Marcella’s funeral, but given everything that had gone before, I could hardly turn the man down. Mel and I flew down to Tucson late Monday afternoon. Jaime had managed to catch an earlier flight. His sister’s remains, transferred to a deep-blue casket, traveled in the cargo hold of that same aircraft.

Mel and I sucked it up and flew commercial. Going to Disneyland was one thing, but I couldn’t see blowing thirty thousand bucks so we could go to the funeral on a private jet. Besides, once you’ve done that, flying first class seems downright affordable.

Mason Waters, looking miserable and uncomfortable in a rumpled sports jacket and a badly knotted tie, filed past us on his way to coach. He nodded in our direction, but he didn’t say anything. I was glad Jaime had invited him to come, but I was sorry about it as well. He was grieving, and I couldn’t help but wonder how he’d be received by Jaime’s parents and the rest of Marcella’s bereaved family.

I needn’t have worried. Jaime had someone waiting at the airport to pick Waters up and drive him to Bisbee. Mel and I had made arrangements to rent a car, and we drove ourselves. The last time I had driven to Bisbee I had been in another rental, an underpowered Kia that barely made it over the mountain pass just outside of town. This time our new Caddy DTS had no such problem. We checked into the Copper Queen Hotel, where we were booked into the John Wayne Suite.

By the time we got to the funeral home on Tuesday afternoon, it seemed as though Mason had been taken into the bosom of the Carbajal family. He sat in the front row, between a woman who turned out to be Marcella’s mother, Elena, and a scrawny teenaged boy who, I learned later, was Marcella’s son, Luis. I wondered if Jaime had told Luis yet that he had a full-ride scholarship to the college of his choice.