Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2) (29 page)

I hope you enjoyed
you foray into Ted and Chris’ world.

Reviews are the
life blood of independent writers. I need your reviews to give my work
credibility and convince new readers to take a chance on an unknown author. If
you liked the book, I ask you to write a review of
Hacker for Hire
on
Amazon.com, Goodreads or where ever you go for your book information. Thank you
so much, it means the world to me. If you didn’t like it, then forget about it.

I’d love to hear
your comments and criticisms. Who knows, maybe some of your ideas will appear
in a future Ted Higuera novel. To contact me
click here
or use the
Contact Penn form on my web site at
www.pennwallace.com
.

There’s plenty
more to come. When next you see our intrepid pair, they will go deep into the
Mexican drug wars to save Ted’s little brother.

For now, if you
liked this story, you can browse my other books and short stories at
http://www.pennwallace.com/index.html
.

If you liked Cat,
you have to read my short story about one of her early cases,
The Mirror
Image
, available on Amazon.com and on my web site
this
summer.

Pendelton
C. Wallace

5/9/2014

At
Casa Mary Lou

La Paz, Mexico

Coming Soon . . .

Continue to follow
Ted and Chris’ adventures
.

The next Ted and
Chris novel will bring us into the present day. Ted is still working for his
father in LA and Chris and Candace have just graduated from law school.

A sudden,
traumatic event in Ted’s life plunges Ted and Chris into the heart of Mexico’s
drug wars.

Enjoy a preview of
the first chapter.

The Mexican Connection

By

Pendelton C. Wallace

Chapter 1

West Seattle

“DEA!”

The front door of
the cozy West Seattle home burst into splinters.

“Mom!” ten-year
old Kayla screamed.

Lisa jumped up,
dumping the bowl of popcorn from her lap.
The Little Mermaid
played on
the TV. Lisa froze. Kayla screamed at the top of her lungs.

Men dressed in
black combat fatigues, carrying automatic weapons and shields burst into the
room.

“On the floor,
now!” the leader shouted.

Lisa and Kayla
stood frozen to the spot.

“Under the sea,
under the see-eee-eee . . .” Sebastian sang on the TV.

“I said get down.
Now!” the man repeated. He grabbed Lisa by the shoulder and shoved her to the
floor.

Before she knew
what was happening, another black-clad officer pulled her hands behind her back
and hand cuffed her.

“Clear,” a woman’s
voice shouted from the kitchen.

“Clear.” This time
it was a man in Lisa’s bedroom.

The men swarmed
into the kitchen, burst through the basement door and flooded downstairs.

“Mom, what’s
happening?” Kayla, laying face down on the carpet next to Lisa, screamed.

“On your feet.”
This came from a small, trim man in a brown suit.

One of the cops
pulled Lisa to her feet.

“I’m District
Attorney Anthony Pertocelli.” He waved a folded paper in her face. “We have a
warrant to search the premises.”

Lisa just stared
at the man with her mouth open.
What are they doing here?
She thought.
Why
have they broken into my house?

“Petrocelli,” a
man in a windbreaker with SPD on the front yelled. “Down here.”

The little man in
the suit turned and dashed into the kitchen.

“Mom,” Kayla
sobbed. “Who are these people? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know
honey.” Lisa tried to think. It was so hard in the confusion.

Why are they
here? What do they want?

“Where’s you
husband, ma’am?” the woman in a SPD windbreaker said. “We have a warrant for
the arrest of James Adams.”

Lisa just stared
at the woman.
A warrant for Jimmy? Why? What’s going on?

“I asked you a
question.” The woman’s harsh tone startled Lisa. “Where’s your husband?”

“Ah . . . he’s not
here.”

“I can see that.”
The woman stepped forward and put her face right in Lisa’s face. “Where is he?”
she shouted.

“Away. On
business. . . “

“Scooooore.” The
man called Petrocelli came prancing back into the living room, tossing a
plastic wrapped package a little bigger than a brick up and down in his hand.
“At least ten kilos. High-grade coke.”

“Petrocelli!” the
policewoman shouted. “Gloves. You’re getting your prints all over the
evidence.”

Petrocelli ignored
her. “Arrest her,” he said.

“You have the
right to remain silent,” The woman in the SPD windbreaker turned to face Lisa.
“You have the right to an attorney. . . “

Lisa tuned her
out. This nightmare couldn’t be happening. Her mind raced.
What had they
found? Why was it there? It couldn’t really be cocaine, could it? They must
have planted it, but why?

“I’ve alerted CPS
about the girl,” the woman said to Petrocelli. “They’ll be here to take her to
a foster home.”

“Kayla . . . No!” Lisa
came to life. She tried to move to her daughter, but the woman and the man in
the SPD jacket grabbed her arms. They dragged her towards the door.

“Kayla . . . “

“Mom!”

“We got no troubles,” Sebastian sang on the TV. “Life is
the bubbles. Under the sea. Under the sea-eee-eee.”

****

East Los Angeles

The
El
Chaparral
restaurant was usually closed on Sundays. The light yellow stucco
building with arches and a red-tile roof surrounded by palm trees, cactus and a
parking lot usually sat empty. Papa felt that his employees should be home with
their families on Sundays.

This was an
exception. Music blared from the open door. A mariachi band in full charro
costumes filled the stage in the dining room. The buffet was set up on a row of
tables against the wall. A couple of hundred people wandered though the dining
room and around the plant covered patio with terracotta tile floors.

Ted had
substantially upgraded the facility. A Puebla tile covered fountain flowed in
the middle of the patio. The patio itself had been carved out of the parking
lot. Giving up parking for extra dining space had been a tough decision,
especially because it meant an extensive upgrade in the kitchen too.

Ted Higuera was
catching on to the restaurant business. He was smart enough to realize that if
he was going to add room for an extra fifty diners, the kitchen had to be able
to handle the load.

“Papa, Papa,”
Esperanza, Ted’s younger sister and co-manager yelled. “
Ven aquí
.” (Come
here.)

Papa, a short
sixty-something Mexican man with a Pancho Villa mustache, looked up.
“¿Que
pasa?”

“We can’t find
Guillermo. Have you seen him anywhere? It’s time to make speeches.”

Esperanza Higuera,
or Hope as her Anglo friends called her, was a tiny dark beauty with luxurious
black hair down to the middle of her back and deep, dark eyes. This was her big
day; she flittered around the restaurant in a flower-print dress with just
enough cleavage to interest the boys, but long enough not to raise Papa’s ire.

After five long
years at Cal State LA, she earned a bachelor’s in business with flying colors.
Not quite the Summa Cum Laude that her big brother, Ted, had earned at the
University of Washington, but not bad for a
chica
from the
barrios
.
Now she wanted to enjoy her graduation party.

“Where did The
Mouse get to?” She dashed out the side door and into the parking lot.

“Guillermo Raton,”
she knew her little brother hated being called “The Mouse,” “What are you doing
out here?”

Guillermo sat on
the hood of a fire-engine red 1970 Boss 302 Mustang convertible, surrounded by
three of his
amigos
. The legendary muscle car had belonged to Tio
Ernesto since before they were born.

“Oh my God,”
Esperanza yelled and swatted at Guillermo’s hand.

The joint went
flying across the parking lot.

“Hey, sis. Back
off.” Guillermo hopped off the hood of the car and grabbed for the doobie.
“Yow!”

A Reebok Cross
Trainer came down on his hand. “Forget it, you little turd.”

Guillermo looked
up to see his oldest brother, Ted, attached to the foot.

”And stay the hell
off of Tio Ernesto’s car. You know how he fusses over it.”

“Not Tio’s car
anymore.” A shit-eating grin spread across Guillermo’s face. He held out his
right fist chest high.

Ted and Esperanza
stared at Guillermo’s hand. He opened his fist, like a magician. Only, instead
of a rabbit or dove, he dangled a set of keys from his fingers.

“Mine. All mine.
Tio gave it to me for a graduation present. Since he only has daughters, he
thought I should have it.”

“Dude!” one of
Guillermo’s friends shouted and high-fived Guillermo.

“What . . .”
Esperanza’s mouth hung open. “Celli loves that car.”

“You get your ass
in there and make Papa proud.” Ted’s eyes glowered. “This is your big day too.
I can’t believe you’re doing shit like this now.”

Guillermo
straightened up. “What’s the big deal? It’s just high school, man.”

“Cut the crap.”
Ted grabbed his little brother’s bicep and turned him around. “You know it
means a lot to Papa. He never got to go to high school. And don’t give me that
barrio
shit either. You act like an adult for once.” He shoved his brother towards the
restaurant entrance. “And pull up your pants.”

Guillermo did as
ordered. He pulled up his pants and marched back into the restaurant.

Ted turned towards
his little sister. “Hey,
chica,
you look beautiful.”

“Oh you,” she
slapped at his shoulder. “I bet you say that to all of your sisters.”

“As a matter of
fact, I do.” Ted put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “Let’s
go have a party.” They strolled in lockstep after Guillermo.

****

Seattle

Lisa had never seen
a jail cell before. She had never even been in a police station. Yet here she
was, a tall good looking woman with long light brown hair and brown eyes,
sitting in her pajamas in an iron cage off to the side of a busy room full of
cops at desks.

“Wha’ ju in for,
babe,” a short, round Latina woman said as she plopped down on the bench next
to Lisa.

“I . . . I don’t
know . . .” Lisa’s mind had not yet caught up with reality. She pulled her
pajama top close around her neck.

“C’mon. A pretty
mama like ju. Ju musta done some bad chit.”

“The police burst
into my house.” The scene replayed in Lisa’s mind. What had she done to deserve
this? “They said there were drugs in the basement. They must have planted them.
They want my Jimmy.”

The Latina woman
flung her hair back out of her eyes. “What kind of drugs?”

“Coke, cocaine.
They said they found a bunch of packages. They couldn’t have. We don’t do
drugs. And guns. They said they found guns. I won’t allow guns in the house.”

“Middle class
crime.” The dark haired woman snorted and held out her hand. “I’m Angie. Looks
like ju in pretty deep chit.”

Lisa stared at the
proffered hand. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know what’s going
on.”

“You talked to
your old man? He knows what’s goin’ on.”

“Jimmy? He’s out of
town. Out of the country. He’s in the import/export business. He’s on a trip to
Vancouver.”

“Ju better get a
hold of him, Mama. Ju don’t wan’ him walkin’ back into this mess.”

“Lisa Adams.” A
tall police woman with a clip board in her hand opened the cell door. “The
Dicks want to talk to you.”

“But I’m not
dressed.” Lisa folded her arms over her chest. She was mortified, being out in
public in her PJs. “I don’t even have a bra on.”

“Let’s go.” The
police woman took Lisa by the arm.

The police woman
led Lisa to an interrogation room where two men waited. The first was the small
district attorney that led the raid on Lisa’s house. The other was a large man
in a badly crumpled suit.

The big man, over
six feet tall and big around as a house, pulled out a chair for Lisa. “Sit here
Mrs. Adams.”

He sounded polite
enough.

“Mrs. Adams, I’m
detective Peterson. This is DA Petrocelli. We have a few questions for you.”

Lisa sat down and
stared at the men. She was still too dumbfounded to speak, too embarrassed to
look them in the eye. The little man couldn’t keep his eyes off of her sagging
breasts. Ever since she nursed Kayla, the darn things hung down to her
kneecaps.

“Let’s start with
your husband,” the big detective said. “Where is Mr. Adams?”

“He’s out of town.
Out of the country.” Lisa kept her arms crossed over her chest. “Kayla! What
have you done with my daughter?”

“She’s safe Mrs.
Adams. She’s with a foster family in Child Protective Services care.”

“No.” Lisa started
to stand. Petrocelli put his hand on her shoulder and held her down. “She’s
only ten. She needs me.”

It was cold in the
interrogation room. Lisa’s nipples were hard. Another source of embarrassment.
Since nursing Lisa, they were so long she had to wrap them around a pencil to
get them in her bra.

“I’m afraid it may
take some time to work this whole thing out,” Peterson said. “If you’ll just
cooperate and answer our questions, we’ll be able to get you out of here much
faster.”

“Let’s start with
the coke,” Petrocelli said. “How long has your husband been storing it in your
basement?”

“Coke?” Lisa tried
to think. “He doesn’t do drugs. He has nothing to do with that.”

“What do you take
us for?” Petrocelli shouted. “We’re not stupid. Your husband has been one of
Seattle’s major distributors for years.”

“No, we have a
child. Jimmy wouldn’t do drugs.”

****

After two hours in
the interrogation room, Lisa was exhausted. She still had no idea what they
wanted from her. How could she give them information she didn’t have? Jimmy was
not a drug dealer. She had no idea how the guns had gotten into her basement.
She didn’t know any of Jimmy’s business associates.

Jimmy was a
legitimate businessman. He ran an import/export business from their home. They
could check out his computer if they liked. It had all the records.

No, she didn’t
know when Jimmy would be back. He worked like that. Sometimes he’d be gone a
couple of days, sometimes a couple of weeks. He didn’t know when he left where
his trip would take him. It just depended on the kinds of deals he found.

For some reason,
that horrible little man didn’t believe her. The big detective was nicer. He
tried to help, but every time he did something nice, the little district
attorney yelled at her.

And the way he
looked at her, like she was naked. A cold shiver ran down her spine.

She was in tears
when she was returned to the holding cell.

“How ju doin,’
Mama?” Angie asked.

“I . . . I don’t
know . . . It’s . . . it’s awful. They’re accusing Jimmy of horrible things.”

“Where is ju
husband? How come he’s not here to bail ju out?” Angie sat down on the bench
next to Lisa.

“He’s away.” Lisa
wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’ve got to call him.
He’ll know what to do.”

“Ask for ju phone
call. They gotta let ju make one phone call.”

Angie put her arm
around Lisa’s shoulder and pulled her close. Lisa’s head slumped down on
Angie’s shoulder.