As far as she was concerned, he should’ve been out of that house by now. How much longer should she sit and wait?

“Damn it,” she muttered when it grew even later and there was no sign of him.

She had to get closer, see what was going on. Maybe something had gone wrong and he’d been shot or overwhelmed by a number of men. Maybe, if she didn’t go in and help, he wouldn’t make it out….

Hoping Grant was still awake after collecting those fingerprints, she gave him a call.

“’Lo?”

His sleepy answer told her he was already in bed. “Grant?”

“What’s up, Chief?”

“Sorry to bother you again. I just… I’m investigating a safe house and wanted to let someone know where I’m at. That’s all.”

“A safe house?”

“Right. It might be owned by the Mexican Mafia. The address is 2944 Dugan Drive.”

“Okay.”

“You got that?”

“Oh, you want me to write it down?”

Would she have been so specific otherwise? Of course not, but Grant was new and young and he needed everything spelled out, so she did her best to keep the irritation from her voice. “That would be a good idea.”

“Is this in connection with the vandalism earlier?” He sounded confused, but more alert, as if he’d sat up.

“No, I’m working the UDA murders.”

“Do you need me to come over and back you up?”

“I don’t think so.” He wasn’t very experienced; if he came she’d only have to worry about him, too, and that wasn’t the kind of help she needed. “I’m actually backing up a consultant we have on the case. I wanted you to know where I was in the event that…in the event there’s a problem.”

“Okay. I get it. How about this? If I don’t hear from you in fifteen minutes, I’ll drive over.”

“Perfect,” she said, and hung up.

There still was no sign of Rod.

Checking for movement or activity in the other houses, Sophia got out of the car and closed her door quietly, then locked it. She couldn’t bring her rifle without looking antagonistic, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for someone else to get hold of it, either. Bad enough to get shot. Even worse to be shot with her own gun.

The windows of 2944 Dugan Drive had been blacked out. At first glance, it appeared as dark inside as all the other houses on the street. But there were three cars out front, not counting Rod’s Hummer. And there’d been some activity. Rod’s body had been silhouetted in light for a brief moment when he was admitted. The question was—what were they doing?

For all she knew, they had a meth lab in the bathroom or kitchen. The scent of harsh chemicals hung heavy on the warm air, like the smell of an overripe peach, suggesting someone in the area was cooking dope. She knew how unstable those compounds were, how easily a meth lab could explode. That alone made it dangerous to approach. And sometimes guys on crack didn’t feel pain. It could be very difficult to bring one down. Even for a Navy SEAL.

As she reached the yard, she was tempted to draw her gun and circle the house before knocking. She wanted to make note of the number of exits, the number of windows and the condition of the dilapidated cinder-block fence that partially enclosed the backyard. But if the people living in this house were really involved in smuggling—humans or drugs or both—or if they were cooking meth on a large scale, they’d likely have some surveillance equipment to protect the operation. Because of the heavy shadows, she couldn’t see any cameras, but she was willing to bet they were there, under the eaves.

Rather than risk being spotted by a surveillance system sneaking around in uniform and with her gun at the ready, which would certainly signal trouble, she decided to approach from the front and to do it boldly, as if this was a routine call.

She just wished she knew how many people were inside. Was Rod armed? After what he’d said to her at the meeting, she doubted it. Whether that decision turned out to be a good one or not depended on how this went down.

The front door loomed a few feet ahead of her, looking more daunting by the second. As she drew close, she recalled the murder Starkey had told her about not long after the split up. Hick, a fellow gang member she’d met once, had been assassinated by a Mexican drug lord, who’d cut off his head and mounted it on a spike along the border fence. Using that gruesome incident as proof of the rapid rise of violence in Mexico, the newspapers had made a huge deal of it, convincing Sophia, and probably many others, that something had to be done to stop the bloodshed. That drug lord was one reason she’d gone into law enforcement, that and the fact that she could make a decent living while helping her community. And she could carry a gun and knew how to defend herself. But the cruelty of his crime also gave her a clear idea of the type of men she could be dealing with here—men who were capable of calculated, merciless killing.

Refusing to let fear undermine her confidence, she managed a neutral expression in case someone was watching her from inside…and knocked.

No one answered.

After waiting two or three minutes, she knocked again.

Finally the porch light snapped on. A stout Mexican man, wearing a Paradise Taqueria T-shirt and a tattered pair of jeans, answered the door. Tattoos covered his arms and neck, diamond studs glittered from both ears and his shaved head gleamed with a sheen of sweat. “Can I help you?” he said.

His English was pretty good. Sophia was glad of that. At least she’d be able to communicate. “Yes. I’m looking for the driver of the white Hummer that’s parked right over there.” She pointed to Rod’s vehicle, which sat at the curb behind an old Mustang.

“What do you want with him?”

“He’s a suspect in a crime.”

“I don’t know who drives the Hummer. He doesn’t live here.”

She stepped back, pretending to search for the house numbers. “This is 2944 Dugan Drive, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the address I was given. Someone called in, said he saw the driver of that vehicle go inside this house.”

The man stared malevolently at Sophia—as if he wanted to choke her to death and toss her body aside. She was an inconvenience, and he obviously wasn’t sure what to do with her. But she wasn’t leaving here without Rod. If she had to pull her gun, she would.

He seemed to come to a decision. “Um, my brother’s got a friend over. Let me see if that Hummer belongs to him.”




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