Rick Mofina - In Desperation

Gannon and Cora barely had time to take in the polished stone floor, thick leather sofa, light wood walls and a floor-to-ceiling painting that resembled a tiger’s hide.

“This way, please.”

The young man led them down the hall and into a corner office that conveyed a sense of ordered diligence. Two walls of windows overlooking the city; a wall of mahogany bookcases; a neat desk, everything organized and in place; a framed photograph of a handsome man and a girl who looked about the same age as Tilly. That’s good, Gannon thought.

“Lauren Baker-Brown.” A woman in a peach suit with a pleated skirt came from around her desk to greet them.

“I know this is serious and urgent. Thank you, Chad, please close the door.” Baker-Brown took her seat and provided a brief résumé. She’d been a county prosecutor seven years and private criminal attorney for six years. She was seasoned. She took up her pen and made a note of the time on her yellow legal pad. “Let’s get started. Bring me up to speed.”

For the next thirty minutes, Baker-Brown listened to details of Cora’s situation, including a brief history of her life as a drug addict. She made notes to outline a defense, if it went that far.

“Okay, let me give Special Agent Hackett a call, then we’ll talk again. You can wait in the conference room. There’s a TV in there. You can watch news or whatever you’d like.”

Half an hour later, Gannon and Cora were back in Baker-Brown’s office.

“All right, seems we have a new wrinkle. Two detectives from San Francisco have just arrived in town. They want to interview you about your time there, once you’ve taken your polygraph test.”

Gannon’s attention pinballed from Baker-Brown to Cora.

“What happened there, Cora? Is it connected to Tilly’s kidnapping?”

“Maybe,” Cora said.

“Maybe?” Gannon said. “Is that the most you can tell us?”

“Cora,” Baker-Brown said, “is there something more you think I should know? We could ask Jack to excuse himself. It’s all lawyer-client privilege.”

Cora stared into her empty hands. Her past had caught up to her.

“No, let them ask their questions. I will answer as best as I can. San Francisco was twenty years ago, a bad time.”

Gannon said nothing, prompting Baker-Brown to resume steering the session.

“Here’s how I see things, Cora. The FBI is either going to clear you as a potential suspect, or, acting on their suspicions that you may have been involved in your daughter’s kidnapping, they will start to build a case against you, likely by tying your time in California to Lyle Galviera’s dealings with the Norte Cartel. Now, in my view, based on what I could garner from Hackett, much of what the FBI has at this time seems flimsy, circumstantial, which does not bode well for them. But you say your memory of your time in San Francisco is hazy. And, you’ve said that, despite your past, you had no knowledge of Lyle’s relationship with the cartel. That’s a stretch for a jury, which would not bode well for you.”

Gannon and Cora said nothing. He glanced at his sister. She was trembling, gripping the arms of the chair as Baker-Brown continued.

“To take the polygraph would demonstrate that you have nothing to hide and are willing to do whatever is necessary to help find Tilly. To refuse is your absolute right. But a refusal will stigmatize you in the court of public opinion. It creates the impression that you do have something to hide. Any innocent, concerned parent would take a polygraph in a heartbeat to find their child, that sort of thing. And believe me, even though juries are supposed to be impartial, they are in step with the emotions of a community, often by osmosis.”

“I want to take the test now. Anything to find Tilly.”

“All right. I will alert the FBI and we’ll call a cab.”

Few words were spoken during the ride to the FBI’s office. Cora sniffed and twisted a tissue in her hands. Gannon’s phone rang with two more calls from the WPA in New York and one from the bureau in Phoenix. He didn’t answer any of them.

The cab stopped in front of the FBI’s Phoenix headquarters on Indianola Avenue. As Baker-Brown, Cora and Gannon walked the few steps to enter the brick-and-glass building, Gannon heard his name called.

It was Henrietta Chong and a WPA news photographer, who fired off several rapid shots of Gannon, Cora and her defense attorney entering the FBI building.

Chong and the photographer were approaching them.

“Any comment on speculation the FBI now has Cora under suspicion?”

No one responded.

“Jack? Any comment on this turn in the case?”

Gannon knew this was his fault, unless Hackett had tipped them.

He shook his head, his stomach tightening.

Las Vegas, Nevada

Tilly Martin’s face beamed at Vic Lomax from the big flat-screen TV.

It was followed by the scowling mugs of Ruiz Limon-Rocha and Alfredo Hector Tecaza of the Norte Cartel. Then Carlos Manolo Sanchez, the young one. Then Lyle Galviera stared at him. Then the replay of Salazar and Johnson, the dirty cops murdered in the desert south of Juarez.

And here again was the footage of Cora pleading alongside the FBI.

That stupid fucking bitch .

Lomax had canceled his meeting on wagering trends and revenue-per-room percentages, locking himself away in his glass-wall office overlooking The Strip to replay the latest network news reports on the Phoenix kidnapping.

This new information disturbed him. He watched, tapping one of his business cards on his chin.

Lomax knew the drug trade well and figured the young one, Sanchez, was likely a Norte hit man. This was not good. The heat was increasing, all of it brought on by that fool, Galviera, and his stupid bitch.

Cora.

Never in a million years did Lomax expect to see that skank again.

Then, after all these years, comes this shit with her kid, and her reporter brother comes right to his house.

Right to my goddamn home! I should’ve killed the fucker .

Now the shit keeps piling up and the Norte Cartel has gone into full vengeance mode on Galviera.

And now it’s getting too close to me.

Lomax had his own operations with his own business partners.

But his connection to Cora would cost him. Those Mexican motherfuckers were going to drink Galviera’s blood and cut off the head of anyone remotely linked to him. There are truths in the universe that must never be challenged, and one of them is that you do not rip off the Norte Cartel and expect to live.

No matter what he did, his connection to Cora was a liability. He had to do something to remove the risk.

The best defense is a good offense .

He turned the business card over.

A phone number was penned on the back, a very important phone number that Lomax had paid fifty thousand dollars to obtain.

He had a cell phone on his desk, one he’d taken from his casino’s lost and found. He’d use it to call the number, then have a staff member toss it in the fountains at the Bellagio.

Calling the number was dangerous, but it was Lomax’s only way to get his message to the very highest levels of the Norte Cartel-to its very heart.

Because the information he had exceeded any rip-off.

Lomax knew about Cora, Donnie Cargo and the mystery surrounding the murder of Eduardo Zartosa-little brother of Samson Zartosa, the head of the Norte Cartel.

Whether Lomax’s information was true or not didn’t matter to him.

As long as it’s true enough to save me .

He held the phone steady, checked the card and started pressing numbers on the keypad.