Jo Robertson - The Traitor

While in Max's bathroom, Bella had made a cursory check of all the rooms. No Rafe. She had no choice but to leave.

She would never know what prompted her to turn back after she left Max Jensen in the near house. Perhaps the smug look on his face, perhaps a sense of combativeness.

Maybe she was the "little warrior" Santos had called her.

Whatever changed her mind, twenty minutes from the seedy neighborhood, she veered right into a Taco Bell parking lot, made a u-turn, and headed back the way she'd come, all the while punching in Rafe's number on her cell phone. Each time it went direct to voice mail.

Where are you, she wondered, worry a lump of fear in the middle of her chest.

If Rafe had intended to confront Max Jensen directly, why had he gone off, as Max claimed? Jensen's name was not among those Santos had revealed in his recorded statement, so where was the proof against Max?

Maybe her instincts were wrong. Maybe Max was just what he appeared to be – a good detective and a good friend to Rafe.

When she reached the house in Highland Heights, she heard muffled voices and didn't bother with polite knocks this time. She pounded on the front door.

"Let me in, Max! I know Rafe's in there." She twisted the knob. Locked. "Open up!"

A moment later the door jerked open and Max grabbed her arm before she could react. He shoved her into the living room, still holding her upper arm in a vise-like grip.

She saw Rafe, bloody and beaten, struggling to stand against the far wall. "What did you do to him?" she screamed.

"It's your fault, you little bitch. We were like brothers and I had to stuff him in a bloody closet to hide him from you! I thought I'd killed him! You turned him against me."

He's mad, she thought. Insane.

"Keep her out of this, Max." From the corner of the room Rafe's voice was thready and he looked barely able to stand. His shirt was smeared with blood.

"Shut up, Hashemi." Max's voice quavered with drink and delusion.

Bella thought she detected a wound in Rafe's upper left chest. Bullet? God, the blood loss was horrendous. "Let me tend to him. He's losing so much blood."

"Why didn't you just fucking tell me who it was?" Jensen's voice resonated crazily, tinged with panic. "Who made the deal to give Vargas up? It didn't have to come to this, Hash."

Santos pulled his weapon and stepped into the kitchen from the concrete floor of the patio.

"Stop it! Let me go!" Isabella shouted, anger tinged with fear in her voice.

A loud smack and a harsh gasp.

Santos was an expert marksman. He had no doubt of his prowess in that area, but through the open door, he saw Jensen holding Isabella in a death grip, his gun arm wrapped around her chest and waist from behind, a knife glinting at her throat.

Her cheek bore a large red mark where Jensen had slapped her and her blouse was torn. One shoe lay across the room, the heel broken.

"You bitch!" Even as Jensen snarled the words, Santos could hear the slurring that indicated he was under the influence of drugs. His eyes were wildly dilated and his face flushed.

Santos stepped into the room, holding his weapon leisurely at his side. "Detective Jensen." His voice was a calm contrast to the chaos in the room.

"Santos!" His eyes bulged out of their sockets and he shook his head as if to clear his vision. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"You and I – we have unfinished business."

Understanding slowly crawled over Jensen's face. "You! God, you screwed me over, you son-of-a-bitch!"

"Easy, Detective Jensen."

Santos turned to Isabella. "Are you all right, Miss Torres?"

She nodded without speaking, but Jensen did not loosen his grip on her.

"Let Miss Torres go, por favor."

"Fuck no!" Jensen screamed.

"I do not like to make requests more than once, but for you I will. Let the assistant district attorney go."

Santos heard his own voice, calm and deadly, a sign to those who knew him that his anger was barely controlled. "And I will not cut out your tongue."

What happened next occurred within seconds, but to Bella they seemed unbearably long. She saw Santos raise the gun he'd dangled so carelessly from his fingers at the same moment she felt the sharp prick of the knife at her neck and smelled the coppery odor of her blood trickling from the wound.

Instinctively she collapsed her legs beneath her, shifting her weight so that Max's body was exposed. She heard the loud report of the weapon in the small room and smelled the acrid odor of the gunshot residue.

Max toppled to the floor as a red flower blossomed on his chest and the knife and gun clattered from his hands.

Santos stepped forward, kicked the weapons away and checked Max's pulse, but Bella knew by the vacant look of his eyes, that he was already dead.

"Are you all right?" Santos asked, helping her to her feet.

As the shock of the near fatality reached her brain, Bella began trembling, her teeth chattering and her knees weak. Santos led her to the single chair and pushed her head between her legs even as she struggled to get to Rafe.

"Breathe slowly and deeply," he advised. "In and out. Slow. Muy bueno." His voice was a deep rumble that was oddly comforting.

After a moment she slapped his hand away and scrabbled to catch Rafe as he tumbled to the floor. "Towels," she shouted, and surprisingly, Santos did her bidding.

She staunched the blood flow and felt for a pulse. "Call 911," she ordered.

"Lo siento mucho," Santos replied, a near comical look on his face. "I'm very sorry, but I cannot remain." He dialed emergency and relayed the information to the operator.

A moment later she looked up to see him standing over her. "Thank you," she whispered, wondering at the oddity of the situation. Of Santos being their rescuer.

She looked up at him through her lashes. "Max Jensen was the one name you didn't give me," she reprimanded, hearing the petulance in her voice. "You held out on me."

Santos laughed. "I see you are recovered, poco combatiente, and ready to do battle." His white teeth gleamed in his burnished face.

As he knelt beside her to press another towel on Rafe's chest, she noticed his hands for the first time.

They were lined with white scars slashing through the dark skin, but they were well-shaped, the fingers long and perfect like an artist's. Suddenly she remembered his first name, which she'd remained ignorant of all the months she'd been working on the Vargas case until she took his statement this morning.

Gabriel. She stared at his hands and imagined the fingers gently tapping out the sweet, haunting notes of a trumpet.

Bella ran a finger down Rafe's bare chest, in a highly distracting movement. "Do you want to talk?"

"About what?"

She lifted one slender shoulder, her face quiet and sympathetic. "Max."

He shook his head.

As they sprawled across her wide, comfortable bed, they'd discussed the ramifications, all angles of the case until they were both sick of it, Rafe imagined. Disgusted by the wide ring of human trafficking, the sordid circle of drugs and dealers, the abuse of Magdalena Vargas and her daughter.

Gabriel Santos had arranged for the girl to live with her mother's relatives in Mexico. Magdalena Vargas was still missing. Diego Vargas awaited trial in Placer Hills.

Isabella stretched her leg across him, her pretty toes painted a rich crimson which he found wantonly attractive. "Tell me a little about him," she urged.

"Max? God, just like he said. I was a skinny dark-skinned kid whose mother was some kind of hippie reporter in the Middle East."