Tempted by Fate (14 page)

“Seems like your gut was right once again. I swear you’ve got some kind of freaky ESP, just like your
grammie. My big gut is only useful for packing in more of May’s good food.” He patted his round belly. “I assume you think she’s connected to the case.”

Without a doubt. Only he was reluctant to admit that to his partner, and that disturbed him. “She doesn’t fit the profile.”

“But you must think she’s involved. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have asked the wonder kid to dig into her background.”

“He’s a supergenius, not a wonder kid,” Ramirez said mildly.

Taylor waved his massive paw. “Whatever. I’m saying you’ve caught a scent and are hot on her tail.”

Ramirez laughed without amusement. “That would be an accurate assessment.”

His partner stood. “They finally got me an address where the PI lived. It was like he didn’t want to be found. I’m off to check it out.”

“Do you need backup?”

“Nah. It should be routine, right?” Taylor said as he pulled on his wrinkled suit coat.

Ramirez shook his head at the yellow stain on his partner’s shirt. Taylor tended to wear as much food as he ate. “Mustard?”

“Curry. Went to an all-you-can-eat Indian restaurant with Meeks for lunch.”

“Does May know you’re going out with pretty coworkers?”

“Heck, no. But she knows I’d never step out on her. She keeps me in line with her meat loaf. That dish would make an atheist believe in God.” He grinned. “You think Meeks is pretty?”

Compared to the other Homicide inspectors, Meeks was a goddess. He used to think she was very pretty, but that was before he’d met a certain tall blonde. “She’s prettier than you.”

“That’s not saying much.” Taylor’s grin turned conniving. “Want me to set you up with her? You know she’s new in town and could use a friend.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. You going sometime today?”

“Yeah.” He gave a two-finger salute. “See ya tomorrow.”

Hand on the file, Ramirez waited until his partner was gone to open it. The first several pages were details about Sophie Mitchell, confirming everything Weinberg said—where she lived, details on her business, her passport information, and the list of dates she left and reentered the country, etc. It looked legit, unless you were suspicious by nature. Plus, it looked too perfect, just as the kid said. He had to give it to Weinberg for having good instincts.

Ramirez flipped through a few more pages until he got to the real information about Willow Tarata. Looking closer, Willow seemed to come into existence twenty years before. There wasn’t much on her there, either, beyond a well-used passport record. He saw no credit cards, no bank accounts. Over the past ten years, Willow’s activity had waned, which was directly opposite to Sophie’s, probably by design.

Was
Willow
another fabricated identity?

Probably, at least a little. But deep down, he suspected
Willow
was closer to the truth of who the woman was than
Sophie. Sophie
didn’t ring true at all.

He turned the page, read Weinberg’s barely legible handwritten notes, and stopped. Skimming slowly
through the page, he ignored the notes to focus on the facts. Then he read the kid’s notes again:

I was dicking around, doing random searches on events and stuff, and I noticed a pattern between this chick’s activity and certain unexplainable deaths all over the world. Coincidence or hit man? You decide.

After reading Weinberg’s notes half a dozen times, Ramirez looked into Sophie Mitchell’s profile. Sure enough, Sophie’s travels abroad coincided with questionable events. Weinberg included a brief report on each victim.

Jaw tight, Ramirez read through the profiles. Most of the men were criminals, or linked to questionable activity. Some people would say the world was better off without them, that whoever took them out did everyone a service. But to him, murder was murder. Being justified didn’t make it right. He scrubbed his face. No one but the courts had a right to decide another person’s fate. There was a reason there were rules. Without rules everyone would be running around like half-cocked vigilantes.

His gaze settled on the bland passport picture clipped to the front of the folder. Her features were all familiar—the high cheekbones, full lips, and long, straight hair. But she looked flat. Lifeless. Empty.

He shouldn’t have felt like he knew who she was. She’d faked everything the few times they’d been together—except when he’d kissed her. That alone was evidence that she wasn’t empty, and she definitely wasn’t lifeless. Inside, something was driving her.

To commit murder?

He frowned at the report. The words
hit man
rang in his head, loud and clanging.

He’d have to find out. And if she was some kind of assassin, he’d have to find a way stop her, even if he didn’t like it.

W
illow managed to get out of the motel under the radar, meaning she didn’t have to engage with the woman down the hall. Instead of running along the coastline, she decided to run to the Mission and back. To check out Ramirez’s house.

She ran by it once, taking in all the details. Unlike some of the other gaudy houses in the neighborhood, it was clean and simple—light blue with white trim, recently painted and kept in good condition.
Homey,
she decided, surprised.

The garden in front was lush but also trimmed neatly. She had a hard time seeing him doing gardening, but she didn’t have a hard time seeing him shirtless in the sun, sweat gleaming on his chest.

She cleared the lust from her throat and ran to Cesar Chavez Street before she turned around and headed back. She’d gone a block when her phone vibrated. Taking it out, she checked the caller ID. Morgan. She answered the call.

Before she could say a word, Morgan said, “Someone breached my walls.”

“That’s a euphemism you’ve never used before.”

“Willow, I’m serious. Someone breached my walls.”

Willow stopped running. Morgan never sounded serious like that, unless she was really freaking out. “Tell me what happened. What walls?”

“The walls I’ve built around your identities. Someone’s torn them down and pissed all over my territory.”

She automatically wondered if it was Ramirez, but as soon as she had the thought, she dismissed it. He wasn’t the usual corrupt law officer; she’d dealt with enough to know the type. Ramirez radiated integrity. Besides, she doubted he had the skills to break through all Morgan’s defenses. “Who do you think it was?”

“I don’t know. Whoever it was covered his ass really well. I can’t trace him.” A loud crash sounded, followed by the
plink
of broken plastic. “I’ve
never
not been able to trace someone.”

“That means Sophie Mitchell is compromised?”

“All the aliases are compromised. Ten goddamn years of work, down the drain with one stroke of the keyboard. The only thing they haven’t gotten to is the corporation, but even that is only a matter of time at this point.” Another crash.

Willow considered planting calm thoughts in Morgan’s head, but she knew her friend well enough to know she would have hated having her thoughts tampered with, almost as much as she hated her computer systems messed with. “It’s hardly worth destroying your office over. This was bound to happen eventually. We’ll create a new corporation. Our clients will still know how to find us.”

“No, it wasn’t. You don’t understand this, do you?”

“Explain it to me.”

“Forget the company. Your identities are compromised,” Morgan said slowly, as if she were talking to a four-year-old. “The bastard got into all the files, including Willow Tarata’s.”

Willow stopped cold. “Shit.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“And you don’t know who?”

“No, but hell if I won’t find out. This kind of talent only works for the government and the rich. Have you pissed anyone off that I don’t know about?”

“Other than the local police?”

Morgan growled with frustration. “This isn’t the moment to find a sense of humor.”

Willow didn’t bother to explain she wasn’t joking. “Let me know when you find something out.”

She ended the call and began running again. She needed to think. Ramirez had to be eager to uncover her secrets, but did the San Francisco police have that kind of talent? Probably not. Plus, Morgan was beyond meticulous where her work was concerned. If someone cracked her security measures, they would have had to go beyond what the law allowed.

Could it have been the Bad Man? Maybe.

“Most likely,” she added under her breath. She’d felt him breathing down her neck for years, searching for her the same way he’d searched for her mother. If she had a commission for every bounty he’d taken out on her over the years, she and Morgan would never have to work again. Maybe he was closing in on her, just as she was closing in on him.

She slowed to a walk the block before and took her time as she walked by Ramirez’s house a second time. It looked like there was a separate residence downstairs. Did he live there, or did his grandmother? As she was counting the number of windows, an older woman came out onto the porch. It had to be his grandmother Elena Ramirez. She had a proud bearing, with milky coffee skin, hair that was salt, sprinkled with specks of pepper, and piercing dark eyes. Just like Ramirez. Willow expected the woman to do something—begin gardening or retrieve her mail—but she just stood there watching her.

A shiver went down Willow’s spine as the sharp gaze focused on her. Willow nodded politely and began to stroll to keep the woman from becoming suspicious.

Elena waved her over.

Willow stopped, uncertain what to do, but the woman waved more insistently. Willow told herself to go, since this was a good opportunity to get more information on Ramirez. Besides, she was curious about the woman, so she opened the gate and went up the short walkway.

Ramirez’s grandmother waited for her patiently, her gaze never wavering. Willow had the strange sensation that the older woman was peeling away all her layers, down to the naked center of her soul, dark stains and all.

She fought the urge to turn and run, instead taking the scrutiny head-on and striding up the porch steps. She suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable. No one had looked at her with such clarity since her mother had died.

The woman nodded, like she’d come to a decision. “Come in.” She turned around and walked into the house.

Intrigued and confused, Willow trailed obediently after the woman. She stepped into a warm, colorful entryway.
To the right was an equally warm living area, lined with picture frames on the walls and other surfaces.

Fighting the urge to stop and look, Willow walked past it to the next room, the kitchen.

Elena Ramirez stood at the stove, stirring a pot of soup, which smelled delicious. “Sit. I’ll make you tea.” The woman looked over her shoulder and frowned. “And my
posole
is almost ready. You need food. Wash and then sit.”

Willow could only stare, completely at a loss for words. She was positive she didn’t need to eat, but she wasn’t sure she could tell this woman that. Not without serious repercussions. This was all new to her—she’d never had a grandmother. She had no idea how to deal with one. “Please don’t go to any trouble. I still have to run back, and I’m not hungry, anyway.”

Elena filled a kettle with water and set it on a burner. “There are many kinds of hunger,
mijita.
”

She didn’t like the endearment, but she didn’t know how she could explain why without sounding like a madwoman. So she stuck to the basics as she washed her hands. “Your home is nice, and the neighborhood seems friendly. Have you lived here long?”

“Long, and yet it seems like only yesterday that we moved in.”

“We?” she asked as casually as she could, drying her hands as she sat down.

Elena turned around, an eyebrow raised. “Me and my grandson, Ricardo, of course.”

Willow saw Ramirez in the woman’s expression, and it made her feel something curious in her chest. “It must be nice living with your grandson.”

She humphed, taking down a set of opaque canisters from the shelves and carefully measuring the tea leaves into an old china teapot. Replacing the canisters, labels out, she took a bowl and filled it with whatever she was cooking. Turning, she set it and a spoon in front of Willow.