“I figure the walks will do me good. Lately my hourglass figure has too many hours and too little glass.”
Vega laughed then wished he could take it back. He never understood why a woman with a Harvard law degree couldn’t accord her body the same confidence she accorded her mind. “I think you look beautiful, nena. Even if you are picking up steaming piles of—”
“Mock me, mi amado, and I’ll make you do it. See you in—what? An hour?”
“Sure thing.” Vega hung up and drove his unmarked Pontiac Grand Am out of the parking lot. He’d pulled the short straw getting this silver hunk of junk this morning. It had four wheels and working brakes but the interior lights worked only intermittently and the heater was lukewarm at best. He preferred the cars he used to get when he worked undercover in narcotics: Humvees and Land Rovers and Escalades. Drug dealers drove in style.
He kept his police radio on and listened for any reports of car emergencies or accidents in the area. Wickford was a lousy place to break down, especially in winter after dark. There were almost no streetlights and the estates were set so far back from the road, it would be difficult for anyone to summon help. Vega was anxious to be off duty. But even so, he’d never leave someone stranded if he had the power to help.
The radio was quiet so he took a shortcut he knew through the back roads of Wickford that would put him on the highway. He made a left then a right down several narrow, winding streets, some of them unpaved, all of them no wider than a cow path. He passed huge, dark velvet expanses of lawns slashed by moonlight and shadowed by hundred-year-old trees. A few miles to the west where Adele lived, Lake Holly’s downtown blazed with delis, pizzerias, and row frames strung with Christmas lights and inflatable Santas on thumbprint lawns. But here, the darkness was broken only by the occasional high beams of a car.
A dispatcher’s voice broke the silence. “Ten-thirty-two in Wickford. Report of shots fired.”
Vega sat up straight. A ten-thirty-two was local police code for a home invasion. From the sound of it, an armed home invasion. Vega listened for the address.
“Private residence at Six Oak Hill. Homeowner reports push-in robbery and assault. One confirmed suspect though there may be others. Suspect is male. Hispanic. Medium build and complexion. Late forties or early fifties. Wearing a black puffy jacket, dark jeans, and a tan baseball cap. Suspect may be armed.”
This is it. These are the guys we’ve been looking for. All of Vega’s senses turned razor-sharp, as if he’d just gulped a double espresso. He’d stood next to the body of that retired school principal, dead of a heart attack these bastards caused. He’d seen pictures of that poor teenage girl in Quaker Hills, her flesh a map of swellings and bruises that only hinted at the even greater violation beneath. He’d heard the water-cooler rumors that that poor rookie in Connecticut was so traumatized after his encounter; he’d quit the force. If Vega could be the guy to stop it all, right now, that would be an absolute high—the kind of high every cop lives for.
He typed Six Oak Hill into his GPS. He was two streets away. He could be on the scene long before any of the Wickford patrols or an ambulance responded. He grabbed the speaker on his department radio.
“County twenty-nine,” he said, identifying his unmarked vehicle to dispatchers. “I’m on Perkins Road in Wickford. I’ll take this in. Alert local PD that a plainclothes Hispanic detective will be on scene in a silver Pontiac Grand Am.” Vega didn’t want to get shot by some townie cop who mistook him for the perp.
He turned off Perkins Road and raced over to Oak Hill—a steep ridge of newly constructed estates on four-acre expanses of lawn. Deep pockets of woods blocked the road from any of its neighbors and its high elevation kept the trees on adjoining roads from spoiling the view. There were only a few houses on the cul-de-sac. Six Oak Hill was a sprawling red-tile-roofed hacienda at the end of a long circular driveway. There were no vehicles parked on the street but that didn’t mean one wasn’t parked nearby. From what Vega had learned about the gang’s operations, they sent a forward party of one or two guys. Only after they’d secured the property did they bring a getaway car.