Chapter 57
DEL RIO’S FACE was puffy, bandaged. A carbon-fiber-and-canvas girdle wrapped and supported his torso. He was flat on his back, hitched to several machines and an IV, but breathing without a tube.
“I’m spending too much time in hospitals,” I said in weary greeting. It was past ten. Other than two twenty-minute catnaps, I hadn’t slept in nearly forty-eight hours. I should have listened to Justine, gone home, slept hard. But I felt I had to be by Del Rio’s side. It was my duty, and my honor.
Del Rio smiled, coughed, looked at me through a medicated haze. “They say it will all heal.”
“You can’t know how happy I was to hear that news, Rick,” I said, grabbed his hand and shook it. “How happy all of us are.”
“Don’t feel jack now, Jack,” Del Rio said. “But they got me on all sorts of stuff supposed to reduce the swelling.” He paused. “What-all happened? Nobody’ll tell me anything.”
I gave it to him in broad strokes, the death of Bud Rankin, the chase at the pier after the explosion, the identity of the kiteboarders, the sheriff trying to say Private should take the fall for the whole fiasco.
“What did I tell you?” Del Rio rasped.
I raised my hands in surrender. “I should have listened to you, but we had and have immunity. Anyway, FBI’s involved now. In both cases.”
“Both?”
I summarized Justine and Cruz’s trip to Mexico, the release of the Harlow children, and their spare and fuzzy recollections of their capture and captivity.
Del Rio closed his eyes. For a second I thought he’d lost consciousness, but then he said, “Those sounds she heard, the Harlow girl. Sounds like loading coffins on an airplane, right?”
I thought about it, nodded. “Could be, or something like it.”
“There’ll be paperwork on that somewhere,” he said. “You can’t just go flying bodies around in coffins.”
“That true?”
“Well, you’d think.”
I couldn’t argue with his logic, said, “I’ll have Mo-bot look into cargo flights to Mexico the night they disappeared. Guadalajara.”
Del Rio nodded, glanced at the clock. “I don’t remember you saying Fescoe or anyone else got another demand from No Prisoners.”
“Because there hasn’t been one, at least to my knowledge.”
“More than twenty-four hours,” he said. “No more killings either.”
He was right. What did that mean? Anything? Or was No Prisoners just trying to lull us into thinking—
“Where’s it all going next?” Del Rio asked. “Private’s end of things?”
“Justine and Sci are returning to the Harlows’ ranch in the morning along with a team of FBI techs, see if there’s anything they missed,” I said.
“Justine done with the kids?” he grunted. “Couple of hours of mind-flogging doesn’t seem enough for her.”
I shrugged. “She offered to go back in the morning. But Sanders wanted to give the children time to get settled into his house before they were talked to again. I have to admit, he seems very protective of them. They all do. Camilla Bronson and Graves. Justine’s arguing that I should send people back to Mexico ASAP. But the FBI’s already heard her story and they’ve got more clout.”
“No Prisoners?”
“I want No Prisoners because of what he did to you,” I said coldly. “But I have no idea what Private’s official role will be going forward.”
My cell phone rang loudly. “Shit.” I wasn’t supposed to have the damn thing on. I glanced at the caller ID and was taken aback.
I hesitated, clicked ANSWER. “More slanderous accusations to throw my way?”
“Jack,” Bobbie Newton sighed. “I just have to draw the line at someone disrupting my God-given First Amendment rights.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“How are they, the poor li’l darlings?”
I could tell she’d been drinking. Bobbie liked to drink, early and often, another winning aspect of her character.
“Who?” I said.
“Coy boy,” she said in a scolding tone.
I let the silence grow, knowing it would drive her crazy, personally and from a journalistic point of view. Bobbie had broken the story of the Harlow kidnapping and the release of the children. No doubt about that. But stories like the Harlows’ disappearance required near-constant updates to feed the cable, Internet, and network news monsters.
“Give Camilla a call,” I said. “I’m sure she’d love to talk.”
“Camilla Bronson carries grudges,” Bobbie said.
“And I don’t?”
“C’mon, Jack. That’s old news. Live and let live.”
I waited several beats, then said, “Tit for tat, Bobbie?”
“What’s the tit?” she demanded, and I heard ice cubes clink against glass.
“An update on their physical and mental condition, the little we know about the day of the kidnapping,” I said.
“Mmmmm, that is tempting,” Bobbie said. “The tat?”
“Who tipped you off? Was it Maines?”
“A good journalist never reveals sources,” she protested. “You know that.”
“Too bad, then. Gotta go, Bobbie.”
“Wait, wait!” she cried. “Okay, okay. You go first.”
“Nope,” I said, and stayed silent. “Offer’s good for ten seconds.”
Five seconds went by. Then nine. I was about to end the call when she said, “Terry Graves.”
That threw me. Why would …?
“I’m waiting for my tit, Jack,” Bobbie said.
“Sorry, Bobbie, your information came in a second after tit deadline.”
“What? You … you lying son of a—”
I ended the call, feeling like balance had been restored in the universe. You can only take so much grief from one person before you give it back.
I looked at Del Rio, hoping to … He was sleeping.
There was a recliner in the room. I sat in it, shut off my cell, kicked back, shut my eyes, and drifted off to a place where there were no mass killers, no celebrities, and no conniving attorneys, not like my hometown at all.