Cold Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 3) (13 page)

Chapter 22

H
e sat on the bed in the room that Cara had left, and his brain turned over possibilities.

She is so expert at this. It’s been her whole life, on the road, in the wind. She could go literally anywhere. Anywhere in this country, anyway.

He doubted she would risk international borders. There was no need, and she hadn’t shown any inclination to do it so far, though so much of her history was a blank to him that he couldn’t completely rule it out.

She didn’t seem to do planes, either. He had no doubt she had fake IDs, good ones, and credit cards, certainly. Pre-9/11 she might have traveled that way unimpeded. Now it was far too much of a risk. And she seemed to like the road. She was proficient at stealing cars, and perhaps she also made use of buses. Anyone with cash could buy a ticket. But he doubted she would easily stomach the loss of control that riding a bus would entail.

The Bay Area held its own particular challenges to tracking her, being that public transportation was so easy and accessible. The hotel was steps from the BART station—not merely a station but a transfer station, the hub of four different routes on both sides of the bay.

It was the same problem he had just faced with Jade, who very likely had disappeared that same afternoon from the exact same station.

The thought was so startling it brought him to his feet.

Did they meet?

Have they somehow been in contact?

Jade couldn’t have visited her in the jail. Minors weren’t allowed without an accompanying adult.

But if Jade has a fake ID of her own . . .

He forced himself to sit down, slow down, think. It was so very unlikely.

Is it?

He felt his thoughts veering wildly out of control. Paranoia, conspiracy.

No such thing as coincidence . . .

The jail had records of Cara’s visitors. He was already digging in his coat pocket for his phone to call Singh when he realized he couldn’t ask her to check into the visitor list. Because she would find his own name as perhaps Cara’s most frequent visitor. It would have to wait until he could look into it himself.

But maybe, just maybe, finding Cara meant finding Jade, too.

So do that. Find her.

He walked the room, thinking.

She could have boarded to ride the train in any direction, gotten off anywhere to boost a car . . .

And then?

She would be far, far away. But beyond that, there was little he really knew about what drove her. Except that whatever she did next would be accelerated by the cycle of the moon.

And it would involve blood.

He reached for his phone again and called. “Lindstrom checked into a room at the Hyatt—”

Epps didn’t wait for him to finish. “Singh filled me and Jones in. You there?”

“Yeah. She booked the room but was never really here. Maybe five minutes, if that.”

There was a beat on the end of the line. “So start searching for stolen cars,” Epps said wearily.

“Always,” Roarke answered. “But the Hyatt has the BART station right here. She could be on any side of the bay by now.” He paused and looked out the tall windows in front of him. The city lights floated eerily in the fog. “It’s the BART station closest to where Jade’s taxi dropped her off.”

There was a silence at the other end of the phone. “What the fuck . . .?” Epps said softly.

“I don’t know,” Roarke said. And there was more silence between them. Roarke finally broke it. “Look,” he said. For a moment he had no idea what he was going to say after that. “Call Mills. Let him know. I’m going to Molina now. I doubt she’ll tell me anything, but . . .”

“Right,” Epps said heavily. “Right.”

Chapter 23

O
n the opposite side of the bay, she walks along the chilly, Christmas-lit sidewalks of Shattuck Avenue near the BART station in downtown Berkeley, passing trendy restaurants and microbreweries, cinemas, small retailers.

She must be on the road again as soon as possible. She should be on it now. But there is work to be done before she leaves, and it is far too early in the evening yet for that, and she has preparation to do.

She has been on the road and under the radar for a long, long time. Certain behaviors are natural to her. There is always a contingency plan. When she followed Roarke to the mountains last month, she knew the risk of apprehension was great, and she’d stored her false identities, her cash, her cards, and her master keys—keys with teeth filed down to fit pretty much any car of a particular make—in a rented PO box in a nearby town. She has several such drop locations in various cities she finds herself returning to; there is one here in Berkeley, which she has just visited to pick up cards and papers.

For lodging she favors airport hotels, where clerks are accustomed to a high turnover and to travelers who stay for only half a night, even just a few hours, due to flight delays. Motels along major highways are also good. Sometimes she is guided to the seedier kind of inner-city motel that rents by the hour, where she can perform her own kind of cleanup. There are several of that sort on University Avenue, with an eclectic mix of patrons: students needing more privacy than their dorm rooms provide, misguided tourists on a budget, and, of course, dealers of all kinds.

She checks in to one of the motels after stopping at several of Berkeley’s ubiquitous secondhand stores to buy some scruffy clothes—student attire—as well as travel disguises: several wigs, makeup . . . and other items she will be needing for what is to be done later in the night.

As she lies back on the creaky bed, the image she has been blocking all day comes into her mind again. The girl with the body art and the wild mane of hair, standing over the dead pimp, lying in his own blood.

But that she must hold for later.

Now, as she told the lawyer, she sleeps.

Chapter 24

T
he sky was growing dark, but it was not long past business hours, and Molina’s office was in the Mission, walking distance from Roarke’s apartment. It was not a walk that many people would want to take at night. The stroll led him past the BART station at Sixteenth and Mission, a drug hub, where the mist under the sodium vapor street lighting seemed actually green from the clouds of marijuana smoke. Dealers and other criminal elements scattered like cockroaches when they saw Roarke coming.

The shops he passed were heavy on the taquerias, bodegas, and botanicas, with their candles and herbs and charms
.
As he continued down the street, deeper into the heart of the Mission, he slowed, noticing that the iron grillwork set around the trees was decorated with cavorting
Dia de los Muertos
skeletons.

Everywhere
,
he thought. It was an uncanny manifestation of Bitch’s mythmaking.

As he stood looking at the dancing skeletons, he recalled the Santa Muerte masks and costumes he had seen at the courthouse, and Singh’s words came back to him in a rush.

“There is something larger at work . . . a force beyond the simply human. A female vengeance against outrages.”

It occurred to him that in some way, the saint had saved Cara. A surreal and slightly insane thought.

He felt a cold touch, like eyes on the back of his neck, and turned sharply to survey the dark street. But nothing moved but a few shuffling shadows. Homeless, drunk, lost . . . all of the above.

His pulse spiked as his phone vibrated in his coat pocket. He picked up, bracing himself for whatever was coming.

“Nothing to report,” Epps said into his ear. “Just thinkin’ of Lindstrom being loose. Wanted to make sure you made it home okay.”

Even though he understood that his agent was concerned for his safety, Roarke felt a rush of irritation at the question.
What does he think, that I’m with Cara?

He forced himself to answer calmly. “Just walked in,” he lied. “Get some rest. We’ll regroup in the morning.” He disconnected and walked on.

The building where Molina had her office was a former warehouse with a run-down brick facade, yet there was something about the structure that made it stand out: a certain elegance in the moldings and scrollwork. He found a side entrance and located her nameplate beside the steel door, in Spanish and English: “The Offices of Sra. Julia Molina,
Abogada
, Attorney-at-Law.” He buzzed the intercom, and an accented voice answered only, “
Digame
.”

“Special Agent Roarke, to see Ms. Molina.”

There was a long pause, then the door buzzed open with no further comment or instruction. He stepped into a hallway lined in Spanish tiles. The original elevator was nothing more than a freight lift, but the steel doors had been burnished to a dull gleam. He rode up to the third floor, where he rang and was buzzed through a second set of locked doors.

Inside, the offices were decorated in the weathered style of the Mission, but there was nothing cheap about anything here. He looked around at the hammered-metal sculptures, the murals, the crude folk art, the softly gurgling fountain that looked as if it had been excavated from some crumbling roadside church, and knew that some skilled decorator had achieved this weather-beaten, vaguely religious effect at no small expense.

A Latina receptionist regarded him impassively from her antique desk.
Before Roarke could speak, a voice came from behind.

“Agent Roarke.”

He turned to find the diminutive attorney studying him from the doorway to the inner office. She looked him up and down.

“I can’t say this is a surprise, but I don’t see what good you think it will do, coming here.”

Roarke wasn’t sure himself. “I’m just asking for a minute.”

After a moment she moved back, offering him passage.

“
Pase
.”

He stepped into a long, high-ceilinged, rectangular loft with a desk area, a meeting space with sofa and chairs, and one entire wall of bookshelves. More folk art was scattered in the room, and the light was low, shining in mosaic patterns from cutout metal lanterns and candleholders.

The lawyer closed the heavy plank door behind them and walked to the sofa area without taking a seat. Instead she stood by a wide window, watching him.

Roarke was about to speak when his eyes rested on a familiar statue among the rest of the folk art in the office. At the statue’s feet were a small pile of cigarettes, an airline-size bottle of tequila, flowers, perfume, bread, water, candles . . .

An altar to Santa Muerte.
And the candles in front of the skeletal figure were lit. Looking at it, Roarke felt a disquieting sensation that he couldn’t quite identify.

He turned to Molina. “I didn’t realize you were a practitioner.”

“A petitioner,” she said, and Roarke sensed some secret amusement. “There are higher authorities than the law.”

He stared at her, wondering if she could possibly be serious. “It was a smart play, that Santa Muerte stunt today. Very mediagenic.”

The lawyer’s face closed. “I assure you it was no stunt. No gringo can really understand about
La Santísima Muerte.
The men of the Church have tried to destroy her, but the people keep her alive in their prayers. Because Santa Muerte is a saint who
does
something. The other saints have failed us, Agent Roarke. Santa Muerte is the court of last resort. She does not fail. She does what must be done.”

Everything in him was rebelling against her words. “Even if murder is what it takes? Is that what your saint is about?”

“To do whatever it takes to
right wrongs
.
Sometimes death for one is salvation for another.” The lawyer watched him through the haze of candlelight, her face as inscrutable as the saint’s. “You tell me that your way is working, Agent Roarke, and I will call you the liar that you are.”

For a moment Roarke was without words. He knew she was right. She was watching him, and she nodded.

“So ask what you know I cannot tell you.”

Until this moment Roarke had had no idea what he was going to ask, or say.

“I get it. Lindstrom’s gone.”

The lawyer opened her mouth but Roarke continued. “Right. Until she’s called back into court she’s not a fugitive—yet. I have no legal jurisdiction. It doesn’t matter. I’m not looking for her. I’m looking for Jade.”

The lawyer was still. “How could I possibly know where the girl is?”

“I think she came to see—” He stopped himself just before he said
Cara
. “—your client. I think she visited her in jail.” He’d called the jail’s visitor desk, but it was too late in the day to get the information he needed.

“You’re wrong,” the lawyer said.

Roarke looked at her. She was impassive. He couldn’t pretend to read her, though he sensed that she was telling the truth. But whether she was or not, he was sure he would get no more from her on that subject. No matter. He would find out.

“Then I’m looking for the blogger who calls herself Bitch.”

Molina’s eyes widened in what Roarke read as mock surprise. “And why would you ask me?”

He felt hot impatience. “I know you’ve been feeding information to her all along. So, fine, that’s what your clients pay you for. But there’s a sixteen-year-old girl at stake now. I want to find her before she does something that lands her in prison for the rest of her life.”

Molina looked at him, a long, hard look, sparing him nothing. “You’re an interesting case, Agent Roarke,” she said softly. “But I’m not sure you know what you’re dealing with. Have you ever asked yourself if you’re the right man for this job?”

“Only every day since it started,” he replied, and meant it.

“I would say you are not. I would say there is no man right for this job. I would say that men should have nothing to do with this. It is a problem of such proportions it can only be solved by women.”

He glanced at the Santa Muerte altar, at the shadows dancing over the skeletal face. Then he looked back to Molina. “Or by a saint?” he asked her, with an edge.

She smiled thinly. “
Es tiempo para un nuevo camino.
”

Roarke struggled with the Spanish. He understood her to be saying, “It is the hour for a new road.”

Molina watched him in the moving candlelight. “
Vete a casa
, Agent Roarke. Go home. Go home and save yourself.”