“His problem. He was standing over our bed, staring down at you. Figured he needed a lesson.”
“Wait. What?” I ripped Reyes’s arm from around Angel’s throat. Or, well, Reyes let me rip his arm away. “Angel, what’s going on?”
Now free, Angel doubled over, coughing and choking and being generally pissed off.
I knelt beside him. Patted his back. That’d help. “Rey’aziel, he probably had something to tell me. Now we’ll never know. I think you crushed his larynx.”
“Sorry.” Reyes stood and headed for the bathroom. He wasn’t sorry. Poor Angel.
Angel tried to make it to a chair in the corner. I half helped and half dragged him toward it. He tried to push me away. I slapped at his hands and helped, anyway.
“What’s wrong?” I asked when he could breathe again. No idea why he’d need to. I figured it was out of habit.
He sat holding his throat and glaring toward the bathroom.
“Angel, what? Is it Beep?”
Reyes was at the door in an instant, suddenly as curious as I was.
When Angel didn’t answer as quickly as he’d have liked, he stalked toward him.
I held up a hand and cast him a warning glare. “I think you’ve done enough, Mr. Farrow.”
He stood back, every muscle in his body coiled, ready to spring into action should anything have happened.
“It’s your uncle,” he said, his voice hoarse.
Alarm rocketed through me. “What about him? Did he find Guerin?” Grant Guerin. The lowlife slated to kill Ubie. The whole reason we had eyes on the curmudgeonly man.
Angel shook his head. Coughed again. “No, he’s at a hotel room. Some dive a few blocks from here. He’s been watching one particular room all evening. Some guys just pulled up in a rental, and now your uncle is gearing up like he’s preparing for World War III.”
“What? Show me.”
I rushed to throw on some clothes. Reyes did the same.
“You’d better hurry. When I left, he was headed for the door. If Captain America hadn’t tried to kill me.”
“If I’d have wanted you dead —”
“Seriously, guys?” Then I glared at Reyes again for good measure.
He lifted a shoulder. “He should learn to knock.”
Before they could start arguing again, I took Angel’s hand. “Show me.” I dematerialized beside him. Reyes followed suit. Angel wanted to ask me about this spiffy new ability, but he remembered why he’d come, and he disappeared.
Following Angel was a little more difficult than I’d expected. Reyes took my hand and led me, and we were there in a split second, standing in front of one of the sleazier hotels Albuquerque had to offer.
“There.” Angel pointed. “Room 212.”
“Thanks, hon.” Uncle Bob was already inside. The door was closed, so I did what any self-respecting PI would do. I dematerialized again and eavesdropped.
“He doesn’t speak English,” a man said.
I slipped into a tiny hotel room. Reyes appeared beside me. Angel on the other side of the room.
Uncle Bob seemed to be holding the entire place hostage. A total of nine men. Nine. And they’d been in the middle of a meeting, by the looks of it.
“Yes,” Uncle Bob said. “He does.” Then he aimed one of the two guns he had drawn at a man in his early fifties. Bad haircut. Hideous mustache. Like something out of a seventies discothèque. “And I know why you’re here.”
“Dutch,” Reyes said, drawing my attention to a table.
I stepped over and took a peek. There was a briefcase open with a stack of papers inside. And on top was a surveillance photo of yours truly.
Oh, no. This couldn’t be the same people. I looked at Reyes. “This can’t be the same people.”
“Robert killed them, but they could be from the same crew.”
“He doesn’t know what you are talking about,” the speaker of the house said.
“Sure he does.” Uncle Bob put his best grin forward. “Charlotte Davidson.”
The man Ubie was most interested in let a smile slither across his face. “Is that her name?”
“Doesn’t matter. You aren’t leaving here alive.”
“I think we might, my friend.” The man started to stand.
Ubie tightened his hold on his gun.
The man raised his hands in surrender and sat back down. “I think you came here not expecting so much” – he spread his hands, indicating his cohorts – “company, no?”
“I knew exactly what I was getting into, Valencia.”
“I think maybe you are lying.”
“I think maybe you are nervous.”
I had never seen Uncle Bob so determined. So… furious. It radiated out of him. Hot waves of anger.
“See, I’m the one who killed your little crew two years ago.”
The man stilled, clearly not expecting that.
“They knew about her. They were going to get her for you. I found out, and, well, this is my town. I don’t like it when Colombian drug barons try to steal women and eat them.”
“My men knew about the witch?”
Witch?
“They did.”
Witch?
“Certain people in certain crowds know about how she has some kind of extrasensory perception.” Uncle Bob chuckled. “But trust me, they don’t know the half of it.”
“How did you find out we were here?”