The Kiss after Midnight (The Midnight Trilogy) (17 page)

“We’ll be right down,” Juan said. He nodded toward the open door, and Jorge got up and slammed it shut. He returned to his seat and waited for Juan to light his cigar.

Juan left it in his mouth for a moment and stared at the hundreds of books on the three wall-mounted shelves opposite him. The red walls gave the room a Victorian look, with the computer and printer on a desk in the corner lending a modern touch. “So,” Juan said, “where are we with things?”

“Hector needs assurances that we’re not involved in any sort of turf war,” Jorge said.

Juan stood up. “Turf war? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s been watching the news, Juan. He’s not a stupid man. He knows something’s up.”

“Telling him what’s really going on will just put us in a weaker position, here and in Tirianna.”

“I don’t consider that an option.”

Juan puffed on his cigar for a few moments. When someone knocked on the door, he nodded at Jorge.

“Yes?” Jorge shouted.

Reynaldo stepped in, his slicked-back hair gleaming. “They’re ready downstairs.”

Jorge and Juan rose to their feet. “Is my nephew down there?” Juan asked.

“No, not yet.”

Juan nodded, and Reynaldo shut the door. Juan took two more drags on his cigar before stubbing it in the ashtray. “We’ll have to do this another way. I know Hector. He was always going to stall this deal even if all this Tobias nonsense didn’t happen. Let’s make it impossible for him to continue wasting our time.”

“What do you propose?”

Juan scratched his silver hair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Not now. I’ve got my family downstairs.”

“What about the other thing?”

Juan took a deep breath. “Nothing changes. You know what you need to do.”

Just then, the front door slammed shut and they could hear the loud voice of Antonio. “Where the fuck is he?” he shouted. “Where the—”

The sounds of a scuffle and the breaking of glasses followed. Juan frowned at Jorge and rushed down the stairs. He arrived to see Antonio rolling on the floor beside Reynaldo, both men throwing punches. Fernando, Rico, Eduardo and Andrés were in the midst of the fracas, trying to pull the men apart.

Miriam held on to Juan’s wife, Gloria, and his two daughters as they huddled against the wall. The other guests—three middle-aged women and their husbands—had also fled from the table.

Jorge rushed forward.

“Stop this,” Juan shouted. “Now!”

Antonio relinquished his grip and stood up, straightened his suit and wiped a deep cut over his right eye. Reynaldo wiped some blood from the bottom of his nose and straightened his red-stained suit.

Juan approached Antonio with rage in his eyes. “What the fuck are you doing?” His daughters winced. “It’s your mother’s birthday, for God’s sake. And you, her only child, walk straight in and start fighting.”

Antonio glared at Reynaldo. “He ... He’s the one who caused all that shit on Washington Street. You told me to find Tobias and that’s what I was doing, but this bastard had to get involved.” He charged toward Reynaldo again, but Rico held him back.

“Are you actually as stupid as you look?” Juan shouted. He stepped closer to him. “Out of respect for your mother, I’ll wait until it’s a better time to talk. Perhaps you should do the same.”

“No,” Antonio shouted. “We’ll sort this out now. Am I handling it or not?”

Juan shook his head. “You messed it up.”

“And
he
didn’t?” Red surrounded Antonio’s pupils. “She was my girlfriend. It goes without saying that I have to do this.”

Juan gestured for Antonio to go upstairs.

Andrés started to follow them, but Jorge held him back. “It’s a family thing now. Let them sort this out.”

After his uncle entered, Antonio shut the study door and kicked a chair to the floor.

“That’s enough,” Juan said. “No more of this childish behavior. You’re my brother’s kid and I love you, but you’re not helping yourself.”

Antonio took hold of Juan’s hands. “Have I not represented you properly, Uncle? I’ve done everything not to make you look bad. And now that this guy murders my girlfriend, you give it to Reynaldo of all people.”

“Jorge,” Juan snapped, stepping back. ‘I gave it to Jorge, not that it should matter. I’m the boss of this family, am I not?”

Antonio looked at the floor.

“Do you even understand what’s at stake here? We’re about to secure a deal with Hector. With him on our side, our family will be unstoppable. We’ll have all of Tirianna and everything that comes with it. I don’t need any more incidents like what happened yesterday.”

“That’s what happens when you—”

“Your men also messed up. I know Reynaldo handled it poorly, and Jorge will answer for that, but the problem is you. Your mind isn’t right, nephew. The coke is turning your head into mush. You’re not thinking straight.” He pointed to the door. “People are telling me you’re a liability and that you’ll bring this family down. I tell them that you’re blood and you’ll change for me, for your mother.”

Antonio stepped toward his uncle, a scowl etched into his face. “And do you think I’m a liability?”

Juan embraced him. “I owe your father so much. If not—”

Antonio pushed him away. “Fuck my father!”

Juan’s mouth hung open.

“I’ve had enough of you using him as an excuse. You stand there almost every day telling people that there’s nothing you won’t do for him, but where were you when the prosecutors were tearing him apart, huh? You killed that man on the docks, not him. But he still took the blame for you. He looked after you like he had been doing his whole life. If you really loved him, you would have told the truth. You didn’t love my father. You just feel guilty for leaving him to rot in a cell, a cell you should be in right now.”

Juan reached for Antonio’s shoulder, but he pulled away. “It’s not as simple as that. We both did what we felt was best for the family. It was your father’s choice as much as mine. But we both agreed that you would not be made to suffer for our decision. That’s why I’ve been looking after you all these years.”

“Don’t give me that sentimental bullshit.” Antonio clenched his fists. “You either see me as valuable or not. I’m not my father and I’ll never be, but I’ve got to know where you stand right now. Don’t fucking stand there and say you’re looking after me. If you were, you’d put a bullet in anyone who says I’m a liability.”

Juan walked forward with his hands up, as if pleading for calm. “I know you’ll do your best for this family. You’ll run everything one day. We’ve always known that. But first, you have to go easy on the drugs. Do it for me.”

Antonio took a few steps back and opened the door. “If Reynaldo gets in my way again, I—”

“He won’t.”

Antonio nodded and rushed down the stairs. Juan followed him but stopped at the top. He saw Antonio kiss his weeping mother on both cheeks and hand her a large present Rico had been holding.

Antonio glared at everyone else in the room before nodding at his men, and they followed him out of the house. His mother dropped to the floor in a stream of tears.

Tom looked through file after file of eyewitness statements, but nothing shouted out to him. He still had not seen a clear description of either suspect. He stared at his right trouser pocket, where he kept the last of what he so desperately craved. He sniffed and quickly wiped the trickle of coke drainage from his nose, his breathing labored.

Emma sat two feet from him, going through yet more statements. He dropped his pile and approached the window.

“Had enough?” she asked.

“Are we really getting anywhere?”

While she continued searching, a thick-set, heavily bearded man walked in with a DVD case. “The surveillance tapes you asked for,” he said to Emma.

She took them and looked at Tom. “So you gonna take a look at this with me or you gonna keep on sulking?”

“I’m not sulking. I just wonder whether we’ll actually get anything.”

She lowered the blinds and inserted the DVD into her laptop, which was situated on the oak table in the center of the room. A picture appeared on the sixty-inch LCD screen on the opposite wall, depicting views of the parking garage from the entrance and all three floors.

Tom sat beside her and watched. They focused on the entrance, watching cars come and go. After about ten minutes, a tall woman with short hair appeared on the screen holding a gun.

Tom rose from his seat. “That’s her. That’s Annabel.”

Annabel fired multiple shots before running out of view. Emma leaned forward. Then a man with dark hair that reached his shoulders appeared. He stood looking in the direction in which Annabel had run.

Tom walked toward the screen. “Pause it.”

Emma halted the video. Tom tilted his head left and right as he studied the man. “Why’s he just standing there?” He put a finger to his temple. “Go forward slowly.”

They watched as the man hovered near the entrance for a moment before darting into the parking area.

“Where did he go?” Tom shouted.

Emma stood and looked intently at the sixty-inch screen. “There, on the third floor!”

They both took a step forward and watched the man walk toward a row of cars before stopping. Tom frowned as he waited for some sort of movement. The man then turned around full circle as if looking for something.

“Rewind,” Tom shouted. “Rewind. We’ve got him.”

Emma rewound the video and advanced it forward frame by frame as the man spun around until his face stared directly at the camera. Tom moved closer and squinted to get a better look, but the picture was too blurry.

Emma took an image of the screen and moved it to her photo-editing software. “I can clean it up.”

Tom looked at her anxiously. “How long?”

Emma didn’t answer but tapped furiously on her keyboard. Tom returned to his seat, his hands trembling. He looked toward his pocket, fantasizing about inhaling his secret source of comfort. He looked at the concentration on Emma’s face and assumed it would be a while, maybe long enough for him to take a quick comfort break.

“I’ve got it,” she said.

He stared at the screen but still saw only the blurry picture. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Hang on.” Emma pressed a number of buttons before an enhanced picture of the man came up. The high cheekbones and the bright blue eyes were unmistakable.

“It’s him,” Tom said. “It’s Tobias.” He scratched his three-day old stubble. “But what’s he doing?”

Emma returned to the main video and resumed playback.

Tobias looked around for a few seconds before walking to another part of the garage, where he could barely be seen behind some pillars. He seemed to be pressing something in his hand.

Emma paused the video. “What’s he doing?”

Tom motioned for her to continue with the playback. No more than five seconds later, a car’s headlights flashed on and Tobias ran toward it.

“Pause it,” Tom shouted. “A car was waiting for them. That’s why they went to the parking garage, to get a car. He even had the keys in his hands. Someone’s helping them.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “Who?”

“I have no idea. Who would want to help them? Not Juan or Antonio. No, they want them dead.”

“Maybe Tobias has people helping him out.”

“Or Annabel. We already know she was a hit at the academy, with some powerful friends, no doubt.” He walked toward the window, hands on his head. “What if we’ve been looking at this all wrong? We’ve always been trying to figure out who Tobias really is, but have we done the same with Annabel?”

Emma shrugged.

“I mean, what do we really know about her other than what Nathan’s told us?”

Emma picked up the landline phone. “Is Nathan in the building? ... Can you get him a message to call me as soon as he can? ... Yes, Emma Green.” She hung up.

“I think we need to find out everything Nathan knows about her. And I mean everything.” Tom paced up and down. The anxiety was heightening his craving. “I’ll be right back.”

***

Tom snorted two lines of cocaine before opening the stall door. As he walked to the sink, he turned sharply at the sound of the stall door slamming shut. Sweat poured from his face, and his eyes darted around the restroom. When a chubby-faced man walked in and nodded at him, Tom nodded back. Fighting the urge to run out of the building to get some fresh air, he settled for splashing cold water onto his face. In the mirror, he studied his messy brown hair and stubble. He saw red eyes that should have been white and wished he had not dabbled in narcotics again.

He walked out of the restroom minutes later, his lips still occasionally twitching. As he headed back into his office, Emma was speaking to Nathan as they looked at her laptop screen.

“What have I missed?” he asked.

“Tom,” Nathan exclaimed. “How are you, pal?”

Tom shook his friend’s hand. It felt slightly greasy, as if he had just finished a meal without washing his hands. His tight brown cardigan didn’t do much to hide his gut. “I can’t complain,” Tom said, sniffing. He glanced at Emma, who looked at him curiously. He turned back toward Nathan. “So, what have you got on Annabel?”

Nathan clicked on a thumbnail and the image of a young girl with dark pigtails and a warm smile filled the laptop screen. Emma smiled adoringly, with both hands on her chest.

“Annabel Lopez at just 9,” Nathan said, “a few days after first arriving in the states.” He brought up a photo of her looking glum and standing between a middle-aged man with dark hair and a brunette woman. “She was born Annabel Vásquez on the twenty-first of October 1980 in Mexico City. Her father was Mexican, and she had an American mother. They both died in a car crash when she was 5. She ended up in foster care after that and found a home with Chico and Isabela Lopez.” He pointed at the man and woman on the screen. “They brought her to the United States in 1990, when she was 9. They lived with Isabela’s sister in a three-bedroom apartment where Annabel had to share a room with two others.”

“What a life she’s led,” Emma said.

“Less than a year after arriving in the states, Isabela filed a number of reports with the police. It appears that her husband was physically assaulting both her and their adopted daughter, so much so that the ten-year-old Annabel tried her utmost to stay at friends’ rather than going home.