CHAPTER 5
Back when I was on the police force, first working in Narcotics, and then later in Homicide, Jacinto Amaya was the Holy Grail. There was no one Kona and I were as eager to bust. And there was no one who frustrated us more.
As the most notorious drug kingpin in the American Southwest, Amaya bore responsibility, either directly or indirectly, for the trafficking of pot, cocaine, heroine, peyote, LSD, crack, MDMA, roofies, and just about every other illegal drug I could name. All the evidence we could find suggested that he had a financial stake in prostitution, illegal gambling, and human trafficking, and that he’d had a hand in literally dozens of murders, including more than twenty committed right here in Phoenix.
The problem was, we’d never been able to prove any of this. He was smart, ruthless, cunning, and willing to use his wealth, his power, and the threat of violence to get his way. Kona and I were convinced that he had moles in the police departments of Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, San Diego, and at least a dozen smaller cities. And he had developed close friendships with some of the most powerful politicians in the country. That was how he stayed out of jail. Or so I had thought.
He and I finally met in person during the summer, and upon entering his home and seeing the way magic blurred his handsome features, I realized that he was also a powerful weremyste.
He had sought me out not only to hire me, but also to enlist me as a potential ally in his own personal war against Phoenix’s weremancers. I soon learned that he had as much contempt for dark magic and its practitioners as did Namid. At first I was surprised by this. I had thought that a man like Amaya, who lived his entire adult life outside the law, would have been drawn to the darker side of runecrafting. But as he explained to me, with a candor that was oddly refreshing, dark conjurers needed blood for their spells, and they tended to prey on the young, the disadvantaged and disaffected: the same people who fueled his drug sales, and who kept his prostitution businesses going. He didn’t want the competition, and he didn’t want to lose his clientele to blood sacrifices. Hardly admirable, I know. But he was sincere in his desire to defeat Saorla and the weremancers working with her, and at the time I was short on allies. I had some sense now of how Roosevelt and Churchill felt when they agreed to fight alongside Stalin.
If our association had ended there, I would have chalked up the interaction to experience and gladly moved on. But it didn’t. After our fight with Saorla and the others out in Wofford, which left my father’s trailer in shambles and most of his possessions ruined, Amaya offered me ten thousand dollars. He presented the check as an expression of his friendship and made clear that to reject either one would be a grave misstep, pun fully intended. I had no choice but to take the money. He swore that it was a gift, one that came with no strings attached. He wanted to help with the repairs on Dad’s trailer, and he wanted to thank me for work well done. But I knew better and so did he. He had meant that ten grand to serve as a sort of permanent retainer, and he was calling now because he had something he wanted me to do.
It occurred to me that Amaya still waited for me to say something and to offer him assurances that I wasn’t as horrified to hear from him as, in truth, I was.
“I wasn’t expecting your call,” I made myself say, knowing how ridiculous I sounded. I glanced at Billie. “I’m . . . I’m with a friend right now and—”
“Ah, of course,” Amaya broke in. “How is Miss Castle?”
I hated it when he did that. It was bad enough that he knew how to contact me and that he and his men had been to my home and to my father’s trailer. But every time he mentioned Billie’s name, reminding me in no uncertain terms that he knew everything about my personal life, it felt like he had aimed a nine-millimeter pistol at her heart. Too many of my magical enemies were using my love of Billie as a weapon; it was starting to piss me off.
“That’s none of your damn business,” I said, none too wisely.
“Careful, Jay,” he said, his voice silken. “No one speaks to me that way. Besides, you were the one who brought her up.”
“I assume you have business you wish to discuss with me, sir.”
I could imagine him smiling at my attempt to change the subject. “More than that. I have a client for you. Be at my home in forty-five minutes.”
He hung up before I could make an excuse or tell him to go to hell. I stared at my phone for a few seconds before snapping it shut and shoving it back into my pocket.
“Who was that?” Billie asked.
No secrets. Sometimes lying to her would have been so much easier.
“Jacinto Amaya. Apparently he has a client for me, and he wants me to meet this person tonight.”
“Your job really sucks, Fearsson.”
My laugh was as dry as dust. “So you’ve told me.”
“What isn’t his business?” she asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“You kind of snapped at him, which, given that it was Amaya, probably wasn’t such a great idea.”
“Right. He asked how you were doing.”
She blinked, sat back in her chair. “Great. Why are all of your friends so interested in me?”
“You mean Amaya and Saorla?”
“I’m using the word ‘friends’ loosely.”
“I’ll say.” I lifted a shoulder. “They’re trying to find ways to get at me, to control me. And they know I’m in love with you.” I said it without thinking, without hesitating. I didn’t consider exactly what I’d said until I saw the warm blush seep back into her cheeks.
We had yet to declare our love for each other. It had been there for a while now, smoldering beneath the surface. But until this moment, neither of us had spoken the words. I guess I owed Amaya a thank you.
“You’re in love with me?” she said.
“Does that surprise you?”
She shook her head. “You know I’m in love with you, too, right?”
For all my talk of how she would be safer without me, hearing those words made my heart do a little Snoopy dance. Yeah, I was totally hooked on her.
“I do now,” I said, taking her hand again.
Her smile promised a very nice end to our evening together. Unfortunately, I had an appointment at Jacinto Amaya’s house.
“I have to go.”
She canted her head to the side. “I don’t suppose you can call Amaya back and tell him to go screw himself, can you?”
“Not really, no. But I’ll be back.”
The smile deepened. “Good.”
I stood and began to clear the table. “In the meantime, don’t you dare do any of these dishes. That was an amazing dinner, and you have the rest of the evening off.”
She followed me into the kitchen, carrying plates as well, and when we both had set them on the counter, she stepped close to me, put her arms around my neck, and kissed me, her body leaning into mine, her back arching.
“What was that for?” I asked when we came up for air.
She kept her eyes closed. “To make sure you’re coming back later.”
She kissed me again.
“I think that should do the trick,” I whispered, my breath stirring her hair. “But if I don’t leave now, I’m not going to leave at all.”
I pulled away before she could kiss me a third time. She blew a raspberry at me. I strapped on my shoulder holster, knowing that Billie was watching me, trying not to look her way. She didn’t like any sort of firearm, and she really didn’t like that, working as a PI, I had no choice but to carry one. When the holster was in place, I grabbed my bomber from the chair, gave her a wink, and headed out to my car. I almost doubled back to tell her to lock her door, but I didn’t. This was a safe neighborhood; the only threat to her came from weremystes and beings like Saorla, none of whom would be stopped by a door lock. Besides, she didn’t need me scaring her by being overprotective.
Even at night, without traffic, the drive from Billie’s place in Tempe to Amaya’s mansion in the Ocotillo Winds Estates subdivision of North Scottsdale normally took close to half an hour. Amaya had given me barely enough time to say my goodbyes and get to his house; for all I knew, he had calculated the time and distance using an online map.
Ocotillo Winds was a gated community filled with new Spanish Mission-style homes, all of them huge, all of them protected by adobe walls and wrought-iron gates. Amaya’s house sat at the end of a short cul-de-sac. It might have been larger than the houses flanking it, but not by much. On the other hand, the walls surrounding the property were thicker, the paired gates blocking the driveway appeared sturdier. A guardhouse stood beside the gates and security guards armed with modified MP5s patrolled the driveway itself.
The first few times I’d come to the mansion, including one time after the explosion at Solana’s when I arrived unannounced and angry, the guards had been a bit rough with me. But I’d been to the house enough times now that they recognized the car and greeted me like an old friend.
Which is not to say that they didn’t order me out of the car, frisk me, and take my Glock. But they did it all with smiles on their faces, and though they didn’t lay their weapons down, they also didn’t have them aimed at the back of my head.
When the guards were convinced that I was unarmed and posed no threat to Jacinto, they pointed me toward the front door. It was open already, and a burly Latino man waited for me there, his black hair pulled back in a ponytail, a smile on his lips.
“Amigo,” he said, greeting me with a handshake and a slap on the back.
“Hey, Rolon. How’s it going?”
He shrugged, ushering me into the house. “Can’t complain. Got a new car. Lowrider, like Paco’s.” He flashed a toothy grin. “But faster, you know?”
I had to smile. Rolon and Paco were Amaya’s . . . Well, I wasn’t exactly sure what they were. Henchmen? Bodyguards? Trained attack dogs? Whatever Amaya called them, they were built like NFL linebackers, and I had no doubt that they would kill their grandmothers if Amaya ordered them to. But though they worked for the devil, I couldn’t help but like them. The truth was, I liked Amaya, as well. I feared him, and I didn’t trust him, and if there was a way I could have handed him over to Kona with enough evidence to put him away for life, I would have done it in a heartbeat. He was, however, a difficult man to hate.
Rolon steered me through the foyer into a grand living room with polished wood floors, exposed beams, and a bank of windows that was incandescent with the glow of downtown Scottsdale. Oaxacan folk art covered the walls and shelves of the room and the air carried the faint, sweet smell of burning sage and cedar, as if someone in another room had lit one of the smudge sticks used by the Southwest’s Pueblo people.
A lean man with perfectly styled silver and black hair turned at the sound of our footsteps and strode in our direction, his arms spread wide. He was dressed with elegance in a light gray fitted suit, a black dress shirt, and a sapphire silk tie. I had the vague impression of an olive complexion and dark, almond-shaped eyes, a winning smile and bold features, but until my eyes adjusted, I couldn’t make out anything with confidence. The blur of magic across his face was too strong.
“Jay,” he said, gripping my shoulder with one hand and proffering the other for me to grip. “I’m glad you could make it.”
I shook his hand, hiding my amusement. He had all but ordered me to his house, and now he was treating me like an old friend. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted two other people in the room, an older couple, who had gotten to their feet when Rolon and I entered. I wanted to dismiss Amaya’s greeting as something he did for show, to impress these other guests. But he was more complicated than that. The enthusiasm of his greeting, I knew, was as genuine as the menace that had shaded his voice on the phone. They were two sides of the same honed blade.
“It’s good to see you again, Mister Amaya.”
He nodded, his hand still on my shoulder, and steered me to his other guests.
“I’d like you to meet Eduardo and Marisol Trejo. They’re friends of mine, and they need your help. Eduardo, Marisol, this is Jay Fearsson. He’s the private detective I told you about.”
My first thought upon seeing them was that Missus Trejo was a weremyste. She wasn’t nearly as strong as Amaya—the smudge of magic on her face was subtle, though unmistakable. My second impression was that they appeared even more out of place amid the luxury of Amaya’s home than I did. Mister Trejo had nut-brown skin and hair as white and soft as a cloud. He was short, barrel-chested, and he wore a rumpled brown suit that fit him poorly. His wife was thin and had probably been a beauty as a young woman. Her eyes were a rich earthy brown, and her features were as delicate as his were heavy. Her hair was steel gray, and she wore what must have been her Sunday dress. It had a floral pattern, and it looked like it had been made for a larger woman. I wondered if Missus Trejo had been ill.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” I said, shaking his hand and then hers.
Amaya sat in a leather arm chair, indicating that I should do the same. The Trejos lowered themselves onto the couch once more.
“Tell Jay what you told me.”
“It’s our daughter,” Missus Trejo said, her voice devoid of any accent and stronger than I had expected. “Engracia. She has . . .” She shrugged. “I suppose you would say, she has run off.”
“I’m sorry. This must be a difficult time for you.” I pulled my pencil and notepad from my jacket pocket.
“We’re concerned for her, as you would expect. But this is particularly worrisome because she has her children with her. No one has seen either Engracia or the children since early this morning.”
I sat forward at her mention of the kids, and I searched Marisol’s face once more, taking in that soft blur of magic.
“Is she a weremyste?” I asked.
Missus Trejo glanced back at her husband before facing me again and nodding.
“This is why I called you,” Amaya said.
“How old are the children?” I asked, ignoring him for the moment.
“Emily is eight, Zachary is five.”
Mister Trejo pulled something from within his suit jacket and held it out to me. I hesitated before taking it from him. It was a photograph. The image was grainy—it had been printed on regular paper rather than photo stock—but I could make out the three faces. Engracia, the mom, was as fine featured as her mother, with dark eyes, dark hair, and a complexion somewhere between her mother’s and father’s. The little girl was the image of Engracia, though unlike her mother she wasn’t smiling. The boy had lighter skin, paler eyes, and a grin that could have charmed a hired assassin.
Naturally, my thoughts had already pivoted to Kona’s murder scene: a mom who was a weremyste, with two kids the same age as those of the woman who killed John Doe and sent his companion to the hospital. But I had no proof that this was the same family, and every reason to be skeptical of such a coincidence.
“You say they’ve been gone since this morning?”
“Yes,” Marisol said.
I chanced a quick look at Jacinto. He watched me, something akin to a warning in his eyes.
“Please understand,” I said, facing Missus Trejo again. “I sympathize. Naturally they’re dear to you, and it probably seems that they’ve been gone a long time. But—”
“You don’t understand, Mister Fearsson. Engracia and the children live with us now. They . . . they had to leave Engracia’s husband. She left our house this morning with the children, as she always does. We thought she was taking them to school and then going to work. She’s a physical therapist at Tempe Saint Luke’s Hospital, and Emmy and Zach go to Carminati Elementary. But later in the day the school called to ask why the children hadn’t come in today. And when we called Engracia at work, they told us she hadn’t been in either.”
“Are any of their belongings missing?”
Missus Trejo nodded. “Yes. After calling the hospital, I went and checked the room they’ve been staying in. Most of their things are gone.”
“Is it possible your daughter has gone back to her husband?”
“No!”
We all turned to Mister Trejo, who shrank back from our gazes, his cheeks coloring. But he shook his head and said, “No,” a second time. Even from that single syllable, I could hear the heaviness of his accent. “She no go back to him,” he said, eyeing me, his expression fierce. “He . . . he beat her. He’s no good, and she know that now. Finally.”
I shared a glance with Jacinto before facing the Trejos again. “Were the children beaten, too?”
“Not that we know of,” Marisol said. “It’s possible, though.”
I nodded, saying nothing. An expectant silence settled over the room, broken only by the ticking of a nearby clock. I knew that the others were waiting for me to speak, but I tried to ignore them. How many young mothers disappeared with their children each day in the Phoenix metropolitan area? Probably more than any of us cared to know. But how many of them were weremystes? And how many of those few had a daughter and son of the exact ages given by Kona’s witnesses? I wanted this to be coincidence. I had only just met Mister and Missus Trejo, but already I didn’t want to have to tell them that their daughter was the primary suspect in a murder investigation.
“What do you think has happened to them?” I asked Marisol.
“They don’t know,” Jacinto said, his tone derisive. You’d have thought I’d asked the dumbest question he could imagine. “That’s why I called you.”
I held up a hand, hoping to silence him in a way that wouldn’t tick him off too much. But I kept my eyes on Engracia’s parents. “What are you afraid has happened? And what do you hope has happened?”
Marisol said something to Eduardo in Spanish. He replied, his voice low, his words coming in a jumble. They spoke for several moments. I caught fragments of what they said, but couldn’t make out most of it. Amaya listened closely, and I guessed that he understood all of what they said. I wondered, if I asked him later, if he would be willing to tell me what had passed between them.
At last the Trejos turned back to me.
“The best we are hoping for,” Marisol said, “is that Engracia decided the children needed some time away from Phoenix. Leaving their father was hard on them. Perhaps she took them camping. They like to camp. Or maybe she would like to find a new place to live. She has spoken of moving to Tucson. Our other daughter is there. Rosa. We have spoken with her, and she has heard nothing from Engracia.”
Eduardo said something else, but Marisol merely glanced at him and shook her head.
Facing me again, she said, “Our worst fear is that Neil has them and is . . . is hurting her as revenge for leaving him.” Her voice broke, and a tear slipped from her eye.
“Neil is her husband.”
She nodded. “Neil Davett. Engracia took his name, as did the children.”
“And where does he live?”
Marisol gave me a street address in the North Mountain section of Phoenix.
I wrote that down, along with Neil’s full name and a few other things I wanted to remember from our conversation.
“Is Neil a weremyste, too?”
She hesitated before nodding. “I think that’s how they met.”
“Is it possible that any of this has something to do with magic?”
Marisol frowned, clearly puzzled by the question. “I don’t understand. Do you mean did someone use magic to make her disappear?”
“No, I—” I shook my head, unsure myself of what I was trying to say. I didn’t want to alarm her or her husband by bringing up the murders by the interstate. I caught Amaya watching me. He shifted his gaze back to Missus Trejo, but I had the distinct impression that he knew exactly what was on my mind. In the past, I had been shocked, and more than a little bit appalled, by his knowledge of what went on inside the PPD. Chances were he had known about the killings at the burger place before I did.
“What I’m trying—”
“Jay wants to know if your daughter has felt threatened by her husband’s magical abilities, or perhaps those of his friends.”
Actually, that wasn’t what I wanted to know, though it was an interesting thought. It made me wonder how much Amaya already knew about Neil Davett.
“Not that I know of,” Marisol said. “I suppose it’s possible.”
Amaya stood. “I think Jay probably has enough to start his investigation. Don’t you, Jay?”
His tone carried another warning. Standing as well, I said, “Yes, I believe so. Does your daughter have a cell phone?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Marisol asked, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “We’ve tried the number all day, but she hasn’t answered. I believe she has it turned off.”
As I would, if I were running away and didn’t want anyone to find me. “Can I have the number anyway, it might come in handy at some point.”
She gave it to me and I added it to my notes. “Does she have a passport, and more to the point, do the children have passports?”
Marisol’s cheeks blanched. “I don’t know. I don’t believe so, but . . . I’m sorry.”
I chanced another quick look Amaya’s way. He didn’t appear pleased. “It’s all right,” I said. “Thank you both. If I have additional questions I’ll be in touch.” To Amaya I said, “I take it I can reach the Trejos through you.”
Marisol and Eduardo got to their feet, both of them frowning, perhaps at the abrupt ending of the conversation.
“Mister Amaya, you know that we don’t have enough money to pay Mister Fearsson. We can’t even—”
Jacinto took her hand, the kind smile on his face completely at odds with the glower he’d given me moments before. “It is my expense, Señora,” he said. “Jay has worked for me in the past.” His gaze flicked in my direction. “And no doubt will again in the future.”
“But we couldn’t—”
“Of course you can. You are in need; Engracia may be in trouble. It’s the least I can do for you.”
She smiled, though she seemed to be on the verge of tears. “Thank you, Mister Amaya. God bless you.”
He kissed her cheek, then shook hands with Eduardo and wished him a good night in Spanish. “Paco,” he called.
Paco loomed in the arched entrance to the living room. He could have been Rolon’s twin—in size as well as appearance—except for the goatee and mustache he had grown since last I saw him. He nodded once to me before turning his attention back to his boss.
“Will you see the Trejos home?”
“Of course.”
“Use one of the SUVs. Take Rolon and check the house before you leave them. Understand?”
“You got it.” He smiled at the Trejos and led them out of the house.
Even after they had left the living room, Amaya said nothing to me. Only when the thump of the front door’s close echoed through the house did he remove his suit jacket and say, “Drink?”
“A beer, please.”
He walked to the wet bar near the bank of windows, took two bottles of Bohemia Stout from the refrigerator, and opened them both. Returning to where I stood, he handed me one and clinked the top of his against the top of mine.
“Sit,” he said, lowering himself into the leather chair once more.
I sat as well.
He sipped his beer and loosened his necktie. “I would have preferred that you not frighten her quite so much.”
“There were questions I had to ask. Otherwise I can’t do the job you’ve hired me to do.”
His expression soured, but he didn’t argue the point. “So, what do you think?”
“I think you know a lot more about what happened to Engracia than you’re letting on.”
Amaya glared at me, offering no reply for several seconds. “Gracie,” he said at last.
“Excuse me?”
“Her parents still call her Engracia, but she goes by Gracie. Gracie Davett.”
“That doesn’t sound very Latina.”
“How about that?” he said without a trace of humor. “Now answer my question.”
“How much do you know about the husband?”
“Very little. I’ve met Gracie once, and that was a few years ago. Marisol teaches Spanish at the school my daughter attends. She’s one of Chofi’s favorite teachers—that’s how I know her. I saw the magic on her and was interested to know more. I learned that she uses blockers and hasn’t cast a spell in years. I don’t think Eduardo approves of magic, although he and I have never spoken of it.”
“But Gracie casts, doesn’t she?”
He drank more of his beer. “You tell me.”
“She’s wanted for murder.”
His eyes widened enough to tell me that he hadn’t known this. “Thank you for not mentioning this in front of her parents.”
“Why would dark sorcerers be after her?”
“Because she’s not one of them. That’s all the excuse they need.”
“Is her husband one of them?”
“An interesting question. One you should check into as part of your investigation.”
I took a swig of beer. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was richer than most Mexican beers, and Amaya seemed to like it a lot. It was the only beer he had ever served me.
“I was wondering when we’d get to that. I take it you want me to find Gracie Davett.”
“And her children,” Jacinto said. “You’re to bring them here.”
“That might not be possible. If she’s wanted for murder—”
“Who did she kill?”
“The police don’t know yet. He wasn’t carrying any ID.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “In your experience, is that often true of the virtuous and blameless?”
“That’s not the point, and you know it. I can’t get in the way of a murder investigation without making myself an accessory.”
“Do you really think that a mother—at least any sane mother—would commit a murder in front of her young children?”
I’d been arguing the same point with Kona only a few hours before. So why did I resist agreeing with the man? Probably because he already felt like he controlled me, and because I felt that he did, too. And I didn’t like it. Still, I couldn’t deny that he had a point. “No,” I said. “But the fact remains, she’s wanted for murder, and the Phoenix police are going to be searching for her. Anything I do to get in their way is going to land me in a lot of trouble.”
“Then I’d suggest you prove her innocent.”
I should have known he’d say something like that.
Another thought occurred to me.
“What do you know about an older weremyste?” I asked. “Silver-haired with a trim goatee?”
“He and I have never met, but I’ve heard others speak of him.”
“Do you know his name?”
Amaya glanced down at his beer. “I don’t.”
I tried to decide if I believed him, not that it mattered at the moment. I wasn’t about to call him a liar to his face. “Did these others happen to mention that he could kill simply by laying a hand on someone?”
He raised his gaze to mine. “Yes, they did. You might want to avoid letting him touch you.”