Down Among the Dead Men (A Thriller) (27 page)

This stopped her. She turned.

“What?”

His dark eyes didn’t waver. “I know the man who shot you.”

62

B
ETH WASN’T QUITE
sure she’d heard him right.

“How could you possibly know who shot me? The police can’t even figure it out.”

“Until yesterday, the police didn’t know what I know. So why don’t we sit back down and I’ll lay it all out for you.”

Beth had half a mind to suggest he go fuck himself, but what if this wasn’t a ruse? What if he was telling the truth?

There was a time when she could spot a lying witness with very little effort. But when she looked into his eyes, she saw nothing there that gave him away one way or the other.

Moving back to her chair, she sat and crossed her arms in front of her, feeling much like she did when she took a seat at the prosecution table, challenging a defense attorney to a courtroom duel.

“All right,” she said. “Make your case.”

Vargas returned to his chair and sank into it, keeping his right shoulder still as he moved. The source of his pain.

He was quiet for a moment. Seemed to be searching for a place to start.

“A couple months ago,” he said, “I was watching the news on Channel Z. You know it?”

Beth nodded. They covered events relating to the local Hispanic community but also broadcast news from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

“There was a report that never got much traction up here,” Vargas continued. “About an abandoned old house near Juárez, where several women were found shot. A couple of them had slit throats. They called it the House of Death.”

He waited, as if expecting a reaction, so she gave him one. “Sounds like a run for the border gone wrong.”

“That’s exactly what the local
policía
thought. And as much as I hate to admit it, it’s the kind of story I usually forget about five minutes after I’ve seen it. But for some reason this one resonated. Maybe I was feeling sentimental that day. My parents were illegals when they first came here.”

“This is fascinating,” Beth said, “but what does it have to do with Albuquerque?”

He looked at her. “None of this sounds even vaguely familiar to you?”

She looked right back. “Two months ago I was in a coma. So, no, it doesn’t sound familiar. Should it?”

“You really
don’t
remember, do you.”

Okay, she thought. She’d given him enough slack. It was time for him to get to the point or get the hell out of here.

“What I know is that I’ve got a gap in my brain about the size of the Grand Canyon that seems to have swallowed up everything that’s happened to me for the last ten months. So if you know something that might help me fill that gap, I wish to Christ you’d get to it, because I’ve got some important magazine reading to do.”

He studied her with those unapologetic eyes again, then found his backpack and unzipped it, pulling out a small netbook computer.

“My brother was pretty much a mess after his injury, and one of his biggest problems was his long-term memory. He had gaps, just like you.”

He lifted the lid of the netbook, pressed a key, and the computer began to hum, its small screen coming to life.

“I know every brain injury is different,” he said, “so this may not work in your case. But we discovered that we could sometimes help him with visual cues. A photograph of the family at Christmas might be enough to bring on at least part of the memory, like putting a piece of a jigsaw puzzle in place.”

Beth gestured to the laptop. “So I assume that’s what you’ve got there. A piece of the puzzle?”

“Right,” Vargas said. “But what I’m about to show you is pretty shocking.”

“I’m sure I can handle it.”

“These aren’t family photos. I doubt your doctor would approve.”

Beth sighed. “I’ve prosecuted rapists, pedophiles, and murderers, so there isn’t much I haven’t seen. Now, are you going to keep me in suspense forever or are we gonna get on with this?”

Apparently satisfied with her response, Vargas ran his finger along the touch pad, put the pointer over an icon, and clicked.

A photograph filled the screen. A black-and-white shot of two dead women on a mattress soaked with blood.

Beth had seen enough crime scene photos in her time to know exactly what she was looking at. But what she’d never seen was
herself
in a crime scene photo, and one of the women lying on that mattress was surely her, USC sweatshirt and all.

The sight of her inert, bloodied body rendered her momentarily speechless.

Vargas tapped the touch pad again, showing her a new photo, shot from a different angle. Then a third, more distant shot that included most of the room and three more dead bodies.

“These were taken right before they realized you were still breathing,” he said.

Beth struggled to find her voice. “Before
who
realized? I don’t see a head wound, and this sure as hell isn’t a Taco Bell parking lot. What’s going on here? Is this where I think it is?”

“The House of Death,” Vargas said. “You were one of the victims.”

“That’s impossible. How could I…”

But it
wasn’t
impossible, was it? The evidence didn’t lie. She was no expert in Photoshop manipulation, but she was pretty sure these were genuine.

But how had she gotten there? And why?

Beth reached across and tapped the touch pad, going back to the first photo. She stared at it, trying with everything she had to summon up the memory. But no matter how hard she concentrated, nothing came. It was a dark shape in an even darker room, and she’d need a much brighter light than a few photographs could provide.

“Please,” she said to Vargas, “tell me everything you know.”

“It’s not all that much. Most of it happened after these were taken, not before. With a lot of rumor thrown in for good measure.”

“I don’t care,” Beth said, feeling a sudden urgent need wash over her. A need to
know.
“Tell me what happened to me. Tell me how I got here.”

63

Vargas

S
O VARGAS TOLD
her, laying it out just as he had twenty-four hours ago, for Detective Pasternak.

He told her what was fact and what was rumor, about the nuns and Rojas and the Ainsworths, and about Pasternak’s promise to take the investigation into her shooting down to Juárez.

But none of it broke through.

None of it was able to penetrate the wall her injured brain had erected around that part of her past.

When she had first appeared in the courtyard and introduced herself, Vargas had been surprised that she was walking on her own and seemed so clearheaded. The way Pasternak had described her, Vargas had thought this visit might be premature. But it had quickly become obvious that in a few short weeks she had made more progress than Manny had made in fifteen long years.

Vargas had also been surprised to discover that she wasn’t the woman from the passport photo. There were vague similarities, yes, but it was obvious to him now that the discrepancies between the passport and crime scene photos had nothing to do with age or gunshot wounds. It was much simpler than that.

The passport photo was merely a keepsake.

Crawford was the older sister.

And to Vargas’s further surprise, he found himself attracted to her. She may not have been as drop-dead gorgeous as her sibling, but she was beautiful in her own way. And smart and vulnerable and not afraid to speak her mind.

And he liked that.

He liked it a lot.

“Is any of this helping?” he asked.

She stared at the image on the computer screen for a long moment, then lowered her head, looking down at her hands in her lap.

They were trembling.

He shifted his gaze to the scar on her scalp, the tufts of hair growing around it, and had the sudden urge to reach out and place his palm against it, wishing he could somehow heal her wounded psyche with his touch. Make her whole again.

In his imaginary movie, her face would light up and all of the pieces of the puzzle that were missing would come to her in quick, dramatic flashes and he would pull her into his arms and kiss her, celebrating the miraculous breakthrough.

But, once again, reality intruded. The conveniences of Hollywood wouldn’t play here.

She looked up at him now, and there were tears in her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said softly. She wiped her tears with her sleeve. “At least now I know
how
it happened. How I got this way. And that’s something, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “But maybe you’re better off not remembering.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. I’d be happy to suffer a little emotional distress if it meant a fully functioning brain.”

“Point taken,” Vargas said. “So let’s try one last thing.”

She looked at him quizzically as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the string that held the hooded skull ring. La Santisima.

“The boy I told you about. Junior? He took this from you when they found you in the house.”

He placed it in her hands.

Beth stared at it, her brow furrowing.

Then suddenly she was crying again, a flood of uncontrolled tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my God.”

64

V
ARGAS FELT HELPLESS
, wanting to console her but not quite sure how to go about it.

“What is it? Do you remember something?”

“Yes…,” she said. “I-I mean, no, not in the way you think. This is the ring my sister Jen picked out for me in Playa Azul. She had one just like it. We bought them from a street vendor, right before she disappeared.”

Beth clutched the ring tightly in her hand and closed her eyes, getting lost in the moment. Then she looked at him, wiped her tears again.

“Sorry about that.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he said, then nodded to the ring. “Do you know what that symbolizes?”

She looked at it, shrugged. “I figure it’s some kind of spooky, goth thing. I’m sure the kids love them.”

“It’s no goth thing,” Vargas said. “I’m pretty much convinced that what happened to you in that house may be related to a religious cult.”

“What?”

“That hooded skull is the symbol of La Santisima. Holy Death.”

Beth said nothing, but her face suddenly went pale, and Vargas knew he’d struck a nerve.

“What is it?”

“La Santisima. I’ve heard that before.”

“Where?”

“From Rafael.”

Vargas was at a loss. “Rafael?”

“Rafael Santiago. We met him and his sister Marta on the cruise the night before Jen went missing. They took her back to their cabin. And I’m pretty sure they had something to do with her disappearance.”

“Are these the two the police checked into?”

She nodded. “But they don’t believe me. No one believes me. My own doctor thinks the Santiagos are a figment of my imagination.”

Vargas, who had his own share of credibility problems, could sympathize.

“What was it this Rafael guy said about La Santisima?”

“I ran into him on the street in Playa Azul. Although I’m not sure it was an accident. And he started talking about spirituality and some other bs to try and justify the fact that he was boffing his own sister.”

“What?”

“It’s too disgusting to even get into. But he told me that they were blessed by La Santisima. That we all are.”

The words sounded chillingly familiar to Vargas. Unfortunately, it didn’t really mean all that much.

“Let’s not get too excited,” he said. “Worship of La Santisima is pretty common in Mexico. This might just be a coincidence. Did he mention anything about La Santa Muerte or a guy called El Santo?”

She thought about it, then shook her head.

“But Jen said that Marta Santiago was a
bruja
and claimed that she could speak to the dead.”

“I’m afraid that’s pretty common, too,” Vargas said. “My own aunt liked to tell us she was a
bruja
. Scared the hell out of me. But the only dead person she ever spoke to was her husband, and usually to curse him out.”

He could see the disappointment in Beth’s eyes. He felt it, too.

Her shoulders slumped and she said, “So what happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Now that I’m a big fat bust, your story’s at a dead end—no pun intended. Where do you go from here?”