Cliff Diver (Detective Emilia Cruz Book 1) (24 page)

The pool was deep
and she had to tread water. Kurt pushed wet hair off her face and then he
kissed her.

It was a glorious
kiss, the deep open-mouthed kiss she’d been waiting for. Emilia wrapped her
arms around his neck and felt him grin against her mouth. Kurt pulled them both
under the water without breaking the kiss. The slide of his wet body against
her own was almost more than Emilia could stand.

They surfaced
again, this time inside the dark grotto created by the curve of the waterfall.
Kurt’s mouth was insistent and Emilia felt strong and sexy and crazy and reckless.
She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his arms, reveling in the way he
felt and responded to her. He was by far the best kisser she’d ever
encountered, not that she’d had time for many, and she felt as if she could
drink him in all night.

They found air at
the same time. Emilia broke away and under the waterfall, feeling the water
pound her back and legs as she swam through the rough water where it cascaded
into the pool. She was aware of Kurt beside her, his body long and straight and
more pale than hers.

They surfaced at
the other end of the pool, near the table set for dinner. Emilia held onto the
side of the pool with one hand and to Kurt’s shoulder with the other. As their
lips met again the distinctive ring of her cell phone broke through the rush of
the waterfall and the thunder in her head. Emilia wiped wet hair off her face
and gave Kurt a rueful look. “So close.”

“Get it,” said
Kurt.

Emilia hauled
herself out of the pool, found her phone and hit the talk button. “
Bueno?
”

It was Alan
Denton, the Pinkerton agent. His Spanish was roughly accented, not half as good
as Kurt’s, and he was clearly unhappy about speaking with her. Emilia had a
difficult time understanding his words and he asked her twice to repeat herself
before the conversation made any headway.

“I’d like to speak
with you regarding the kidnapping of the Morelos de Gama child,” she said
again, this time more slowly. “It might be important in the context of the
death of Fausto Inocente.”

“The cop found murdered
off Punta Diamante?” Denton asked. “You’re investigating?”

“Yes,” Emilia
said. She watched Kurt pull himself out of the pool, his shoulder muscles
bunching and relaxing. Candlelight flickered over his wet body as he reached
for a towel. “Is there a time we can meet?”

“I can’t be seen
to meet with some two-bit Mexican police,” Denton sounded appalled that she
would even ask. “My clients trust me.”

Emilia swallowed
anger. “I just have a few questions and I’d rather not do it over the phone.”
Like Horacio Valdez Ruiz, how Denton reacted would be as important as the words
he said.

Kurt expertly
twisted the cork off a bottle of champagne and filled two flutes. His movements
had both fluidity and precision and again Emilia was struck by how different he
was from the other men she knew. He had nothing to prove to her, she realized,
he’d already proven everything he needed to prove. To himself.

“Look, in my
business, involvement with the police always means trouble.” Denton’s voice was
testy, as if he knew he was speaking to someone who smelled bad. “I don’t have
anything for you, Detective.”

“Ten minutes,”
Emilia said.

“Sorry,
Detective.”

“You name the
place,” Emilia parried.

By the time she’d
convinced Denton to meet and pinned him down to a place and time, the magic of
the evening was gone. Emilia knew she had no business at the Palacio Réal with
a
gringo
man who lived like Alan Denton; with a pliant world in his
hand, able to shape it into anything he wanted. It wasn’t her world where
success was nothing more than a small sharp-edged stone, if anything at all.

Emilia broke the
connection and looked around. Kurt was sitting at the table watching her. A
waiter noiselessly served two plates of seafood and fancy rice then
disappeared.

“I have to go,”
Emilia said, conscious that she’d gotten herself into a ludicrous situation.
She was wearing a bathing suit she couldn’t afford, with her toothbrush in her
purse, expecting to have a relationship with a
gringo
man who could have
his pick of any Mexican woman who passed by.

“What’s the
matter?” Kurt stood up.

“I’m sorry. Work
stuff.” Emilia felt herself blushing furiously and was glad it was too dark for
him to see. She retrieved the pareo, stuck her feet into her sandals, and
gathered up her things. “I’ll return the bathing suit. I never meant to--.”

“Wait a minute.”
Kurt swung around the table to put his hands on her shoulders. His body blocked
the path back to the main part of the hotel. “Who was on the phone?”

“A work
appointment.” Emilia held her bags in front so she wouldn’t surrender to the
closeness of his warm skin, to the urge to press her face into his shoulder and
smell the clean water scent of him. “Something else to follow up,” she said. “I
have to go.”

“You have to do it
now?” Kurt wasn’t letting go.

Emilia couldn’t
meet his eye. “It’s late,” she said flatly. The night sky was starry and the
candles around the pool glowed but she felt the darkness close in.

“I haven’t made it
a secret that I’m interested,” Kurt said. “You’re a smart woman, you’re cool under
fire, and you’re damn attractive.” He lifted his chin at the pool. “I was
pretty sure you were interested, too.”

Emilia shook her
head. “I’m sorry. This isn’t going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“It just can’t.”

“I thought you
weren’t afraid of anything but I was wrong.” Kurt dropped his hands. “You’re
afraid of me.”

“I am certainly
not afraid of you.” Emilia adjusted her load as the slippery plastic hotel bag
threatened to escape her grasp.

“Then what is it?”
Kurt demanded. “Fear of intimacy? Sex? I doubt it.”

Before Emilia
could even stammer out a denial he rolled on. “You’ve bought into this
country’s unspoken rules about the haves and have-nots, Emilia,” he said. His
words had a clipped edge to them. “I represent something you’re not supposed to
want and that phone call reminded you.”

It was a shot to
the heart and Emilia took refuge in an instant fortress of self-righteousness.
“You’re very presumptuous thinking that I have feelings for you, señor,” she
said.

“You’re a crappy
liar, Emilia,” Kurt said.

Her fortress
needed a higher wall. “Maybe I’m not impressed with a man who swanks around all
day drinking cocktails,” Emilia said. “Chatting with tourists and giving orders
to Mexicans.”

Kurt’s face
tightened. “Sometimes I talk on the phone, too.”

“Thank you, señor,
for a most interesting evening.” Emilia turned and hustled herself down the
steps toward the lights of the main part of the hotel.

Kurt came after
her and grabbed her arm, sending the plastic bag slithering down the stairs
ahead of them. “What the hell just happened here?”

“I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”

“This is how you
want to leave things? Me pissed off and you too afraid to live your life?”

“Kurt.” She meant
to sound tough and independent but the word came out in a beggar’s voice, like
a dry tear. Emilia felt like an idiot. There was nothing she could say, no
explanation she could give that would make sense to a man like him.

“Come back when
you’ve figured out what you’re really afraid of, Emilia,” Kurt said quietly.
“Just don’t take too long deciding.”

“I’m sorry,”
Emilia whispered.

“Me, too,” Kurt
said.

☼

A sign advertising
sharpening services was on the gate. The grinding wheel was set up in the
courtyard. Emilia unlocked the front door and tossed her purse and the hotel
bag on the sofa. Her head pounded in time with her empty stomach, two
mojitos,
and a refrain in her heart that said she was the biggest idiot in the world.
She pushed open the door to the kitchen and stopped.

Her mother and
Ernesto Cruz were in each other’s arms. Their mouths were locked together. They
were fully involved in the kiss, unaware of Emilia, unaware of where they were.

Emilia backed out
of the house. She found herself walking the cracked streets of the
barrio,
unconsciously making her way to the church. It was very late when she rang the
rectory bell.

Padre Ricardo
opened the door and let her in. If he was surprised to see Emilia on his
doorstep in a red bathing suit and matching pareo, he didn’t show it.

“I just need to
sit for a while, Father,” she said.

He turned on the
altar lights and they sat in a pew. Emilia was drained, too numb to even form a
coherent thought. The numbness scared her, though, as if she’d reached a
breaking point. She’d turned into a zombie, one that got pushed and pulled by other
people. Squeezed in the middle by what everyone else wanted and expected and
would use her to get. She’d be numb forever and she’d never feel anything real
again. Not love or passion or anything having to do with Kurt Rucker.

She didn’t know
how long she and Padre Ricardo sat side by side without speaking. The old
priest’s presence was a comfort, a rope to hold onto before her sanity
completely left.

“Difficult
investigation?” he finally asked.

“I’ve given
everything to this job, Father,” Emilia said. She looked straight ahead to the
altar, to the large figure of dead Jesus with his arms spread wide and nailed
to the cross. The crucifix was life size and affixed to the back wall. It was
painted Italian porcelain, the pride and joy of the small parish.

“You’ve worked
very hard to get where you are,” Padre Ricardo said.

“Everything.”
Emilia felt her eyes burn. “I don’t have any friends. I don’t have nice clothes
or go to parties. I’m not married.”

The priest sighed.

“I have worked so
hard.” Emilia couldn’t suppress a soft sob and hated herself for the weakness
it represented. She jammed a fist into the other hand. “As hard as I could. No
one was going to be a better cop. A better detective. A better fighter.”

“I doubt there is a
better police officer in all of Acapulco.” Padre Ricardo’s voice was soothing.

“I’m a liar,
Padre,” Emilia said. From its perch to the side of the cross, the fat paschal
candle in its bronze holder flickered as if disappointed with her words. “I do
it all the time. I lie to everybody without thinking twice about it and I’m not
even any good at it.”

Padre Ricardo
smiled. “I remember when you told the school that you were an orphan and lived
in the rectory so your mother wouldn’t have to come to the school for
something. I forget what, now.”

“Science day.”
Emilia sniffed. “There’s someone . . . he knows me too well. He could tell that
I was lying to him tonight.”

“Do you want to
tell me about him?”

Emilia sighed. At
some point she wasn’t going to be numb anymore and the pain was going to be
very sharp and heavy. “When I got home Mama was kissing Ernesto Cruz in the
kitchen,” she said.

“Ah.” Padre
Ricardo looked pensive.

“A real kiss,”
Emilia said miserably. Like the way Kurt had kissed her.

“How old is your mother,
Emilia?” Padre Ricardo asked.

“Forty-six,”
Emilia said.

“Does she deserve
a chance at happiness?” Padre Ricardo asked gently.

“He’s married to
somebody else,” Emilia said.

“Maybe you have to
let Sophia work this out for herself,” Padre Ricardo said.

“You know she--.”

Padre Ricardo cut
her off. “For once, Emilia, don’t do it for her.”

Chapter 22

The entire
squadroom was there, eating her doughnuts and drinking her expensive coffee.
Emilia had two doughnuts herself, making up for the lack of dinner last night
and the bare mouthful of coffee she’d managed to choke down while watching her
mother and Ernesto Cruz beam at each other across the breakfast table.

All of the
detectives had brought in their uniforms, hanging them up on the handles of the
filing cabinets or the edge of a bulletin board. Draped in navy blue, the
squadroom looked like the tent of a somber ocean-going circus.

Despite the full
house, the meeting was both subdued and tense. It was clear that no one was
looking forward to the funeral that afternoon. Emilia knew that most of the
detectives were waiting for her to take her revenge on Gomez while he
studiously avoided her. Meanwhile, everyone was running out of steam on the
Inocente investigation. The only item of note was verification that the
security guard Bruno Inocente had reported for drinking on the job had indeed
been drunk that night. Macias and Sandor had tracked down both the supervisor
and the former guard and gotten statements. All agreed that Bruno and Rita
should not be considered suspects. Emilia didn’t mention the attempted bribe.

“Does anybody have
anything on the El Machete gang?” Emilia asked as the meeting broke up.

“El Machete?”
Silvio frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“The Ruiz
killing,” she said in what she hoped was an offhand manner. “I heard he was El
Machete.”

“Bad bunch.”
Macias paused to swallow a bite of doughnut. “They’ve got some girls, some
gangbang stuff going on in a neighborhood over by the cathedral.
Sicarios
for
hire, mostly hits for the Zetas.”

“I looked in the
files,” Emilia said. “Nobody’s ever had a case with them.”

“We brought in a
guy maybe a year ago,’ Loyola said. He gestured with his hand against the
opposite forearm. “Had a big knife tattoo.”

“That’s them,”
Silvio said.

“Couple questions
about a robbery.” Loyola scratched his head. “Didn’t have much.”

“
El teniente
said we couldn’t hold him,” Ibarra corrected him. “Let him go the same day.”

Nobody had
anything else and the group dispersed. Emilia drove out of the police station
lot and headed south toward the beaches. The sky was overcast but the tourists
would still be out, showing off sunburned bodies, eating overpriced hamburgers
and being pestered by kids to buy shell ornaments and string bags.

She turned onto la
Costera and headed south on the busy avenue, following a caravan of minibuses
swathed in varying shades of rust. The big hotels were behind her and the rocks
and old fort of Farallón de San Lorenzo jutted into the bay on her left. In a
few minutes she saw the signs for the two beaches occupying the small peninsula
that formed Acapulco’s southwest edge. She followed the signs touting the
Mágico Mundo water park but sheared off before the turnoff and found the public
parking lot. It was already full and she had to circle twice before finding a
spot.

The sounds and
smells of Playa Caletilla hit hard as Emilia climbed out of the car. The noise
of boat engines competed with the shrill cries of beachgoers and shouts of
vendors. The mayor had been incensed when some website had listed Playa
Caletilla as one of Mexico’s three dirtiest beaches but the website had
probably been right. It was one of the cheapest places for a family to spend
the day and was generally packed with scores of people bobbing in the water
between the shoreline and small boats at anchor just a few yards away. Beach
umbrellas formed a long undulating line of color and the air enjoyed a mix of
seaweed, diesel fuel, and coconut oil.

The hotels that
lined the Playa Caletilla were five or six stories, far less grand than the
spectacular hi-rises that rose along the main curve of the bay or the dramatic
architecture of Punta Diamante. This was the spot for locals to splash in the
water and eat seafood from the stalls of the men who dove for oysters or scooped
up fish in their nets.

It had been a
surprising choice when Alan Denton had suggested it, but now she realized why
he’d feel comfortable talking to her here. Neither was likely to be recognized
in the setting amid the throngs of holiday sun-seekers.

With her gun in
her bag and her jacket left in the car, Emilia was just another girl in a tank
top, jeans and sunglasses sauntering along the
malecón
, checking out the
food stalls and watching kids jump in and out of the water while heavyset mamas
sat under umbrellas and watched. The beach curved around the edge of the
peninsula and in the distance the Hotel Caleta was a handsome white bulwark
ringed with bright blue umbrellas.

As promised,
Denton was at the ice cream shop across from the entrance to the beach. He was
a slight man in a blue polo shirt, jeans and loafers, with a copy of
El
Economista
tucked under his arm so she’d recognize him. He had on aviator
sunglasses so she couldn’t see his eyes, but he didn’t look
gringo
the
way Kurt did. Denton was dark and sharp-featured as though there was Arab blood
in his lineage. His coloring allowed him to blend into the sea of Mexican
faces.

Emilia got herself
a lemon gelato in a sugar cone and left the ice cream shop. Denton followed her
a moment later, licking a chocolate cone.

“Detective Cruz?”
Denton didn’t extend his hand to shake hers.

“Thanks for
meeting me.” Emilia walked slowly along the boardwalk. They were just another
couple enjoying the weekday sun and fun.

“You said you
wanted to talk about Fausto Inocente.” Denton’s accent gave him away even if
his face didn’t. “You realize I barely met him?”

“I know,” Emilia
said. She licked a lemony drip off the hand holding the cone. “But he was
involved in the Morelos de Gama kidnapping.”

“Okay.”

“I want to know
how the money got delivered to the kidnappers.” The ice cream was cold and
delicious but was combining with the doughnuts for an adrenaline-like sugar
rush.

“That was your man
Inocente’s end.” Denton bit, rather than licked, his ice cream and the top of
the cone disappeared.

“Morelos de Gama’s
accountant said that the ransom was in pesos.” Emilia watched Denton for some
kind of reaction. When he merely bit into the cone again, she went on. “He said
that the family withdrew cash from a number of accounts and turned it over to
you to oversee the transfer.”

“So?”

“So the actual
ransom that the kidnappers took was in dollars.”

“Is this some
trick?” Denton asked. The execrable accent didn’t hide his sudden fury. “A
blackmail trick? Tell Morelos de Gama I played loose with his money?”

“I want to know
what happened between the time Morelos de Gama gave you pesos and when the
kidnapers dismantled a car to get at a six million dollar ransom.”

“What are you
talking about?” Denton’s fury subsided into confusion.

The Pinkerton
Agency was the preeminent private security company in Mexico; the ultimate in
personal security, the refuge for the country’s rich when they had to deal with
kidnappings, blackmail, or extortion. Alan Denton might not be a friend but his
reaction told her he was a professional and would work with her to make sure
his reputation wasn’t tarnished.

Emilia bit into
her cone as he’d done, trying to finish the gelato before it melted and ran
over her hand in a sticky, lemony mess. “The actual ransom that the kidnappers
took in exchange for the Morelos de Gama child was six million in counterfeit
dollars concealed in a vehicle brought to Mexico by a couple named Hudson from
Flagstaff, Arizona. I know, because I found the money in the car and left it on
the side of the road. I didn’t know there was a connection between the fake
money and the child until we came back to get the car and there he was.”

Denton stopped by
a trash can bolted to a metal stand. It was already overflowing with plastic
cups and food wrappers but he tossed in his wadded up napkin and it didn’t
spill out. The Pinkerton agent was used to taking risks, Emilia decided, but he
was also accustomed to things going his way.

“So you think I
took the pesos?” he asked. “Pulled some sort of fast switch?”

“You’re
Pinkerton,” Emilia said. “I doubt it.”

He glanced at her
as they started walking again and Emilia took another bite from her cone.

“I told Morelos
we’d handle it but he insisted we bring in Inocente,” Denton said. “Seemed to be
a big deal for him. Said they were close family friends, that he could be
trusted and would take the big risks.”

“You just accepted
what Morelos de Gama said about him?”

“No, we checked
him out. Looked good. A lot of solid business connections.” Denton still had
the magazine with him. He tapped it against his thigh as they walked.

“His brother
Bruno,” Emilia supplied. “A lawyer named Sergio Rivas.”

“I’m told you
don’t get much better in Acapulco than those two,” Denton said.

“So how did Fausto
help?” Emilia finished the cone and scrubbed her hands with the napkin.

“We’d set up the
command center at the Flamingo,” Denton said, naming a well-known hotel. “Three
rooms, rotating so no one could tell who was in which room and when. I took the
money out of Lomas Bottling in a rolling suitcase. Wasn’t trailed back to the
hotel. I passed over the money to Inocente and he set up the trade. The kid
showed up two days later in that car and we figured the cop had done his part
all right. Now you’re telling me something else?”

“Inocente picked
up the money?”

“Yes. Morelos set
it up. Inocente showed me his badge, knew the code. Gave us a signed receipt.”

“Is that the only
time you saw him?”

“Yes. We wanted to
stay as far away from the police as possible. For obvious reasons.”

Emilia rummaged in
her bag with still-sticky fingers and took out the identification photo of Lt.
Inocente. “Just to make sure. Is this the person who picked up the money?”

Denton pulled off
his sunglasses. His eyes were dark and deepset; reinforcing the Arab look. He
studied the picture then shook his head. “No. The guy I met was bigger. Broad
face. Tough looking, like a wrestler. Short hair. No moustache.”

Silvio.
Emilia felt her chest thump in a mixture of fear and triumph and sugar. She
stowed the picture in her purse. “Where were you a week ago Tuesday?” she
asked.

“New York,” Denton
replied. “I stayed at the Plaza for a conference. Go ahead and check.”