The Stars Shine Bright (44 page)

My pruning shears were covered with sand.

“What're these?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Looks like gardening tools.”

“You've never seen 'em before?”

The bitter bile rising in the back of my throat tasted of omission mixed with commission. I swallowed all the
oughts
and
shoulds
and pleaded
forgive me
.

“When I was out there this morning, I saw some kids fooling around. Handler said they play with his irrigation line. That's how the horses get stuck in the mud.”

“Those kids wouldn't destroy it.”

“Pardon?”

His head was swinging. “I know those punks. That irrigation line's their favorite toy. No way they'd cut it up.” He pointed a thick finger at the blanket. “How many you smuggle out?”

“Excuse me?”

“To pay for that sweet car?”

I shook my head, flabbergasted.

“You don't want to give me a straight answer? Fine.” He raised his voice, directing it at the blanket. “Yo, Loopy.”

The same woman looked out.

“This
chiquita
,” Joiner said, “you know her? I want the truth.
Verdad
. Then I'll let you go.”

She shifted her eyes, looking at me for a moment. Her expression seemed both desperate and resigned, a woman so tired and worn out she was past rational thought. Her dark eyes seemed to weigh the offer. She opened her mouth, about to say something, but another expression crossed her face, wrinkling her forehead. Then her face went slack, like some last flicker was snuffed out.

“Me no know,” she said.

“Liar.” Joiner held up the bag, shaking it. At me. “I'll find out what's going on here. Believe me.”

I believed him. And I thought of my gloves, flung into the trees. The pieces of my shirt on the barbed wire. My DNA on the steel prickles. My flashlight. By the morning light, it would all be found.

“You can't keep me here,” I said, “without charges. And I still have a phone call left.”

“You know what your mistake was?”

I waited.

“Handler said you showed up at his place all fancy-schmancy. But you came back at night practically in camo. Just happened to drive down that road, nowhere near the highway. And you just happened to see the horse in the river, when somebody cuts his water line. I know what's going on.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. Drugs. That's how you paid for the car. Somebody on that ranch. What, they messed up a deal and you're getting even?”

I didn't reply.

The female desk attendant reappeared at the end of the hall. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Ortiz!”

Joiner pivoted and spread his black shoes into a wide stance, drawing his shoulders back. He glared at the woman walking toward us. Small enough to be called petite, she wore plain dark slacks and a blazer. She walked purposefully, so straight and even that her black curls didn't bounce. The hair framed cheekbones prominent as Pueblo plateaus, and when she glanced at me, quickly, her eyes were like two pieces of the night sky, each lit by one white star.

“Or-tease.” Joiner reached down and adjusted himself. “How're they hangin'?”

“Better than yours.”

“Except I have the equipment.”

“No, what you have are fantasies.” She smiled with joyful disdain. Her teeth were large and white and balanced the strong upper half of her face. She nodded in my direction without looking at me. “I'm taking that one.”

“What?” Joiner said.

“Open the door.”

“Why her?”

“None of your business.”

The big head swung toward me. “What's the FBI want with you?”

I tried to look scared, which wasn't that hard. If Ortiz was an agent, I was in trouble. Big trouble.

“FBI?” I said. “I don't want to go with the FBI.”

Joiner crossed his arms, smug that I'd seen his side of things. “I know about the drugs,” he said. “I'm onto this case.”

“Read the statutes, dummy. She was on Indian land. That's federal jurisdiction.”

“But”—he pointed at the yellow blanket—“immigration. That's federal.” His voice was rising. “Those two Mexes have been here all night.”

The slur didn't have any visible effect on Ortiz. Until she spoke.

“Open the door, before I make you sorry you came to work tonight.”

His head hammered at the air. “Something's going on.” He keyed open the cell door. “And I'm gonna find out what.”

Ortiz ordered me to turn around and place my hands behind my back. The woman under the blanket lifted a corner to watch. Her eyes filled with more unspeakable expressions. I thought I saw sympathy. But mostly I saw gratitude, that she wasn't the one getting hauled away. Ortiz slapped cuffs on my wrists, squeezing them tight.

“My dog,” I said. “I'm not leaving without my dog.”

“Joiner, did she have a dog?”

He slammed the cell door shut behind us. “It doesn't have a license.”

“Fine. I'll add it to the list. Bring it to my car.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

S
pecial Agent Ortiz led me out of the police station. I saw early morning light drawing an outline over the mountains in the distance, like a glowing white pen. The agent stood five-foot-four in sensible shoes, but her grip on my arm felt like somebody twice her size. She was pressing her thumb into the tender spot above my elbow, making sure the pain radiated down to my wrist, where the cuffs cinched tight enough to make my fingers feel numb.

A maroon Chevy Blazer was parked in the loading zone. She opened the back door and leaned into me. Whispering.

“Brace yourself. Yakima's only so big.”

She yanked my arm back just as some primal instinct clicked inside my head. I dropped my right shoulder. Too late. Her tight fist connected with my solar plexus, doubling me over. I gasped, staring at the ground, and felt my stomach convulsing.

“Cute dog,” she said.

I turned my head, still struggling to breathe, and saw Madame running from the station's front door. A blue rope was tied around her neck. Joiner held the other end, jerking it. But the dog pressed forward anyway. Choking. Just like me.

Ortiz shoved me into the Suburban's backseat. I leaned my forehead against the cage wire that separated the front seat. My esophagus was opening and closing like a baby bird begging for food.

Ortiz put Madame in the back, then jumped into the driver's seat. She turned the key.

Joiner stood at her open window. “What about those Mexes in the cell?”

“Let me guess. You caught them cleaning motel rooms.”

“No papers is no papers!”

“Call INS.”

Immigration.

“But you said I should always call you first.”

“
Next
time. Don't you listen? I said call me next time. This is this time.”

She burned rubber out of the parking lot. I heard Madame's claws scrabbling. I turned my head. The rope was still around her neck. It reminded me of the nooses Rosser packed up in the state lab. But all I could do was stare out the side window, watching dawn orchestrate ochers and pinks and diaphanous blues. By all appearances, a day of promise. Only I knew better.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

She sat close to the steering wheel, probably so she could get her short legs to the gas pedal. “Agent Stephanson.”

I nodded.

“And you're lucky that guy back there didn't shoot you.”

I wasn't about to get into my philosophy of luck right now. Not with this woman.

“Joiner's trigger happy?”

“Joiner's problems go way beyond that. I meant those freaks on the Handler ranch. That's where he picked you up. Right?” Her dark eyes stared into the rearview mirror.

I nodded. “But I didn't see any weapons out there.”

“Wake up and smell the enchilada.” She pulled a hard right turn.

I leaned against the door, listening to Madame slide across the plastic floor mat. “Our background check on Handler didn't show any violent priors.”

She lifted her dark eyes again. “I've been watching them for two years. Ever heard of Elf?”

I remembered the tattoo on the dreadlocked woman. Elf. “Yes, I met her.”

“What?”
Ortiz pulled herself up, hands on the steering wheel like she was going to rip it off the dash. “You what?”

“Elf. The redhead. I saw her tattoo.”

“And I'm the one stuck in the sticks,” she muttered. “Hey, big shot, ELF is an acronym. Equine Liberation Front.”

I closed my mouth.

“Haven't you heard of them?”

I shook my head.

“Think PETA on steroids. They're totally nuts. ELF bombed a research building a couple years ago. University of Washington. Killed a grad student. The lab tested mechanical devices on animals—equipment that would be used for amputees. But these nuts don't care about people. Only animals. They later fire-bombed a pharmaceutical lab in Oregon. It was using equine placenta for a potential cancer drug.”

She stepped on the gas. Madame's claws sounded like scuttling crabs.

When it seemed safe to speak, I said, “Why would they be on Handler's ranch? He's breeding racehorses.”

“Because racing goes against the animal rights philosophy?” Her eyes seemed to glitter in the rearview mirror. “It's a cover. I'm convinced. They want us to look the other way.”

The residual spasms in my solar plexus said Special Agent Ortiz didn't look the other way for anyone, or anything. I tried to be grateful that she'd hauled me away from Joiner. But it wasn't that simple. She was small, but built for war. She met my gaze in the mirror.

“If you'd called me,” she said, “I could have told you all this.”

“I'm working undercover at Emerald Downs racetrack.”

“That's why you were at Handler's?”

“A horse was kidnapped.”

She took the exit for central Yakima, speeding through the city. It looked flat and empty at this hour. A lone man walked down a sidewalk, leaning as though fighting a strong wind, although the litter in the gutter lay motionless.

“It doesn't fit with animal rights,” I said. “They left a note. They're going to kill the horse in forty-eight hours.” I couldn't see my watch but pressed my face into the cage, trying to read the dashboard's digital clock. “That was about forty hours ago.”

“What did the note say exactly?”

“‘Forty-eight hours, then we start killing.'”

She turned into a parking lot next to a square white building. Two cars were in the lot, both the standard-issue sedans typical of law enforcement. Ortiz drove the SUV. Which meant she probably managed the Yakima field office's equipment, or she had some rural specialty. Migrant workers, immigration. That would explain why Joiner thought she was coming for the other women in the cell. She tapped in a code on the remote clipped to her visor. The building's garage door rose. She parked by the elevator.

“Do I need to brace myself again?”

Her grin was too large for her face. “That was for your benefit. Not mine.”

She grabbed something off the front seat and hopped out. When she opened my door, I saw a briefcase in her hand. She grabbed my elbow, flung me from the car, and smiled.

“I wouldn't want to ruin your cover,” she whispered.

Madame barked. Stuck inside the vehicle. Ortiz let her out, then used my elbow to steer me to the elevator. Madame followed, her tail hard and straight, like a billy club. Ortiz glanced at the dog.

“She's cute, but she's mean,” she said.

We never see our mirrors, I decided.

On the second floor, she led us down a bare hallway to an unmarked door with a security pad. Ortiz typed in the code and pushed the door open with her foot. Madame walked in first, scoping the space. The field office's interrogation room. Metal table bolted to the floor. Cheap chairs on either side. Acoustic tiles on the ceiling, with the smoked-glass dome protruding. The somewhat concealed camera.

Ortiz unlocked my cuffs, and despite the numb fingers, I managed to slip the rope off Madame's neck. She thanked me with a wag, then lay at my feet under the table, eyes on Ortiz. The agent didn't sit. She kept a military at-ease posture, hands clasped behind her back. There was a certain percentage of agents who came to the Bureau through the armed services, and I was certain she was among them. And something else. Like every kid who'd been told they'd never amount to anything, Special Agent Ortiz was proving her worth, constantly, bitterly, making sure that accusation was wrong.