“Aren’t they all?”
“And thoughtful.”
“Yep.”
“And, well, loaded.”
“Ah.”
“He asked me out, and I just thought it would be nice to be taken somewhere special for once.”
“Macho Taco not doing it for you anymore?”
“We went out, but it didn’t take long for me to realize he was bat shit. In the most sincere sense of the term. Guy was crazy, Chuck. Certifiable. He was possessive and jealous from day one. Like he didn’t even try to hide it. You know, most of the time, the really bad ones at least put on a show at first. Make you think they won’t break into a jealous rage just for you thanking the waiter.”
“When it’s obvious like that, it’s an entitlement thing.”
“Makes sense. I’m not sure what came over me, why I did it, but I went out with him a second time.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“I shouldn’t have. I should have broken it off immediately.”
“Why didn’t you?”
One dark strand fell loose from her hairband. She tucked it behind her ear. “You’ll think I’m shallow.”
“Pari, there’s no shame in wanting something secure.”
“Oh, no, that wasn’t it. I just wanted to drive his Lamborghini.”
I fought a grin. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Pari we all know and love. Speed freak.”
“It was so stupid of me. I broke it off after the second date.”
When she mentioned the date, I felt a ripple of repulsion shudder through her. “What happened?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Bottom line: nobody leaves Hector without Hector’s permission.”
“He actually said that?”
“Repeatedly. He harassed me for weeks, but he didn’t do anything that the cops could trace back to him. Nothing I could call and report him for. Everything he did would have been his word against mine, and it started out small. The mirror on my car had been broken off. There were bullet holes in the plate glass windows up front. Then it all just escalated. My electricity got turned off. One of my regulars was assaulted when he left the shop. Then one day I came home to find all my clothes cut into pieces.
“When I confronted him, he said he tried to warn me. That I could never prove a thing. And that he had a lot of friends who could attest to his whereabouts.”
“So, you did try to report him?” Normally, filing a police report would be the first thing I’d tell a client to do, but this situation had gone beyond that. I grew worried there would be a police report out there with both their names on it—a.k.a. evidence.
“No. I wasn’t born yesterday, Charley. I know how these things work. He has money and connections and shady friends. Nothing I accused him of would’ve stuck.”
“That might be a good thing since you told the detective you didn’t know him.”
“It was stupid, though. I should’ve told the truth. I just panicked.”
“I’m so sorry about all this. I wish you would’ve told me.”
“Seriously, Chuck? You had enough problems to deal with. How often does your pregnant best friend have to seek sacred ground just to stay alive?”
“Well, there was that.”
“Also, by the time he started harassing me, you’d forgotten all about me.”
“What?” I stabbed her with my best horrified expression before realizing she wasn’t speaking metaphorically. I’d literally forgotten her. In my own defense, I’d forgotten everyone. “This happened during my stint in Amnesia-ville?”
“Yes.”
“Gawd, I’m the worst sort of friend.”
“True. You could try to think of others occasionally.”
“But you know, you could’ve called Uncle Bob.”
“I didn’t want anyone else involved. By that point, I was embarrassed.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
“No, I’m too smart for that shit. I mean, money? Seriously? The guy had the personality of bulldozer. But those wheels, Chuck.” She clamped her hands at her heart. “Twenty-inch polished aluminum alloys with Brembo brakes.”
“And some girls like diamonds.”
She snorted. “Please. Give me a 6.5-liter V-12 with a seven-speed manual transmission over a rock any day.”
“So, what happened?”
“A few nights ago, he came to the shop after I’d closed. Tre was back from California, but he’d already gone home for the night. Hector, as usual, was wasted. He attacked me. Said the only way a bitch left him was in a pine box.”
“Dude had serious abandonment issues.”
“Among others.”
I gave her a minute to gather her emotions. It didn’t take long.
“Bottom line, he flat-out tried to kill me.”
I eased forward and took her hand. Tears slid from behind her dark glasses. She swiped at them angrily.
“He was … he was choking me.”
I squeezed her hand to cover up the anger spiking inside me.
“He was so strong. I’ve taken self-defense and martial arts classes my entire life, and I still couldn’t fight him off.” She bit down and turned her face away. “I was on the verge of blacking out when Tre came back to the shop. He’d forgotten his wallet.”
“Thank God,” I said.
She nodded and swallowed hard before continuing. “He hit Hector with a baseball bat I keep for protection, but it barely fazed him. Whatever designer drug he’d taken was powerful. He went after Tre like a raging bull. We fought him for what seemed like hours before Tre finally got him in a headlock. He choked him out, and when Hector came to, he bolted.”
“Wait, he ran out?” I asked, a little surprised.
“Yes. But by the time it was said and done, there was blood everywhere. All over my office. All over the floor. All over the walls. Hector stumbled out after being beaten bloody, and two days later they found his body in the desert.”
“How long had he been dead?”
“According to preliminary reports, about two days.”
“The detective told you that?”
“Not exactly.”
Dread clenched my throat. “Pari, you didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Okay, that’s it. No more hacking government databases until all this blows over. They can trace that shit, you know.”
“I panicked.”
“I don’t blame you. But, Pari, why didn’t you call the police that night?”
“Tre convinced me not to. He knew him. Or, well, he knew his mother.”
“And?”
“Her name is Edina Felix. She’s a very powerful matriarch in El Paso.”
“Matriarch?” An odd term.
“She runs a few legitimate businesses that Tre swears are a cover for a huge crime ring.”
“Oh. That’s … ambitious of her.”
“Let’s just say the mental illness was inherited, from what Tre told me.”
“In what way?” I asked, growing even more concerned.
“They found the last girl who dumped one of her sons bleeding out in an alley with her face slashed.”
I eased back into the chair.
“They never pinned it on Hector, of course, but that poor girl.…”
“You keep saying girl. How old was she?”
Pari pulled off the sunglasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. Waves of terror washed over her. I had never known Pari to be afraid of anything. Or anyone. She was tough, resilient, and irreverent to anyone who tried to control her. But Hector really scared her.
“Pari? How old?”
“Sixteen,” she said at last. “The girl was sixteen.”
A shock wave rocketed through me, causing me to flinch visibly. Sixteen? Who does something like that to a sixteen-year-old?
“It was a few months ago,” Pari added.
“How old was Hector?”
“He was thirty-two.
“So, he was a child molester, too?”
“It would seem so.”
“Did the girl die?”
“Tre didn’t know. He didn’t think so, but her family moved away.”
“I need to talk to Tre.”
“Good luck. He’s gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t stick around to be sliced up and left in an alley,” she said in his defense. “He took off the day after Hector attacked me.”
“He just left you here?”
“What? No. It wasn’t like that. He begged me to go with him. It’s a little different when you have a business. I can’t just abandon my customers and leave town.”
“You can, actually,” I said, encouraging that very thing.
“Chuck, you know I can’t.” Her expression urged me to look for the deeper meaning, and it took me a moment to realize she was talking about the terms of her probation.