INFORMANT Page 16

  I watch as she opens the door and greets Ronnie with a smile. They settle on the stoop to chat.

  Beckett frowns. “You know that guy?”

  “Yeah. That’s Ronnie Hoyt, my brother-in-law. Jess’s husband.”

  Beckett nods, but doesn’t say anything. His gaze is intently fixed on Ronnie, and I try to see him as Beckett might. Ronnie’s wearing torn jeans and an army jacket, the sleeves rolled up to show off his ink. His shoulders are slightly hunched forward as he talks to my mom. Everything about him reeks of trouble. He looks like the kind of guy you see loitering in front of liquor stores, the kind of guy you’d hope wouldn’t sit next to you on the bus.

  “He’s actually a mechanic,” I say, defending Ronnie against an accusation that hasn’t been made—except maybe in my own mind. “He and Jess are saving up to buy their own garage, so he got a job doing deliveries at night.”

  Beckett nods again. The tension leaves him. Whatever he was thinking about Ronnie is gone. My mom takes the food and holds out a couple of bills to Ronnie. We watch as he makes a big show of refusing the cash. But in the end, of course, he pockets the bills. He flies down the stoop, jumps in his car, and peels out. His taillights disappear in the distance.

  An awkward silence descends.

  “I’d invite you in,” I begin, but Beckett shakes his head. He knows I can’t. Maybe, when this is all over, I’ll be able to introduce him to my family. But not now. Right now Kylie Porter and Thomas Beckett Smith are just two strangers who happen to be taking the same chem lab at San Francisco State.

  “You’ll like the food,” he says.

  “Oh? You eat at the Lucky Dragon?”

  “Not recently, no. But I know the place. There were rumors flying around last year that the owners were using the restaurant as a front to run drugs. The DEA had the place staked out, so I ate there at least three or four days a week.”

  My stomach flips. I freeze, staring at him.

  “Relax.” Beckett gives a small laugh. “We couldn’t find anything conclusive, so we dropped it. Just rumors, I guess.”

  “Oh,” I manage. “Okay… well, see you.”

  I step out of his car, my heart in my throat and my head spinning. Maybe the DEA dropped it, but I sure as hell am not going to. I think about the fat wads of cash Ronnie’s been bringing in delivering Chinese food.

  Delivering Chinese food. Right. Suddenly it all makes perfect sense. The fucking idiot is running drugs. I don’t care how good the money is. I don’t care how badly he and Jess need it. Ronnie is done. Retired. He is getting the fuck out of the business.

  Day Sixty-Six

  Afternoon

  There’s a message waiting for me on my cell when I get out of class. It’s Jess. “Hey, I’m calling to blow you off,” she announces with a laugh. “Tessa and Therese just dropped by and they’re kidnapping me.” In the background, I hear the shouts and laughter of my sister’s two best friends from high school. “Mom’s watching Dally, so we’re all going shopping.”

  I hear Therese tell Jess she needs new mom jeans, only with a higher waist and a lot more saggy in the ass.

  “Screw you, Therese,” Jess retaliates with a laugh, “at least I don’t wear leopard print skirts so short my crotch catches a breeze.”

  They shoot teasing insults back and forth, the phone apparently forgotten until Jess says into the receiver, “Anyway, we’ll be at the Dale City mall. Come join us if you can. Text me!”

  And with that, she’s gone. Shit. So much for talking to her about Ronnie and the Lucky Dragon. I guess that’ll just have to wait. I tuck my phone away and nibble my lower lip uncertainly.

  Ricco hasn’t been at school for the past two days (I haven’t seen him since our excursion to the Mission), and I’m pretty sure Beckett’s already left campus. Now what do I do?

  The answer presents itself in the form of Brad Morris, my sleazy scientific ethics professor. He’s standing in the quad looking uber-professorial in a tweed jacket, one knee bent as he rests his foot on a low garden wall. A light breeze teases the wavy locks of his thick blond hair. He’s surrounded by four female students, all of whom are looking up at him with rapt adoration.

  Incredible. I don’t know how he does it. The guy must have some kind of mental camera that constantly fixes his poses to maximum advantage. I almost hate to interrupt him. But I do, anyway.

  “Hey, Professor Morris. Remember that ethics situation we were talking about? Do you have a minute to give me some advice?”

  He looks at me. His expression is blank at first, then slightly annoyed. “I’m sorry?”

  “You know—advice about my friend. My Latino friend. The guy you saw me with at the farmer’s market a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Ah.” His eyes light up as recognition sets in. “Yes, I do remember now. I take it you’ve done some research since we last spoke.”

  “I have, but I’m still a little confused. As you said earlier, I think I’m in over my head. I was hoping you might be able to give me a little insight. Help sort things out.” I try my best to look helpless and worried. I want information, and if the only way to get it is to play to his ego, that’s fine by me.

  It works. Brad gives his brows a lofty arch. A supercilious smile curves his lips. “I thought you might reach that conclusion,” he says.

  With a parting nod to his other students, he invites me to join him in his office for coffee. The space isn’t overly large, but at least it’s private. And, no surprise here, although he has a desk and chair for himself, the only seating option available for visiting students (the vast majority of whom are probably female), is a sofa. I perch on the edge of a cushion and look at him

  “What do you know about Ricardo Diaz?” I ask directly.

  He makes a show of toying with his pen, drawing the question out. “Why don’t we begin with what you know,” he counters.

  “His family is affiliated with The Corporation—the Cuban mob.”

  He cuts me off. “Affiliated?”

  Fair enough. We’re talking straight. “No, not affiliated. His father, Miguel Diaz, runs The Corporation. He’s the top man. He’s got his hands in everything from drugs, racketeering and extortion, to murder. His uncle, Juan Diaz, not only assists with the operation, but likes to dabble in prostitution on the side.”

  “Very good, Miss Porter, you’ve done your homework. But I suspect you’re not here to just relay the information you found on a Wikipedia page.”

  All right, so Brad Morris isn’t as much of an idiot as I thought. I lean forward. “What can you tell me about Julio Juarez?”

  “Julio Juarez? The same Julio Juarez who’s been missing since Friday night?”

  And he’s got connections. I’m impressed.

  “Is he a rival of Miguel Diaz?”

  “Just the opposite. Julio Juarez runs the show here in San Francisco. He handles the entire west coast operation—San Diego to Seattle. Or at least, he did.”

  “He did?”

  Brad purses his lips. “That’s all I’m comfortable saying at the moment. Anything else would only be conjecture, rumor.”

  My mind is racing. It occurs to me that I’d seen Julio Juarez before that awful night in the alley. That’s why the pieces came together so easily when Beckett showed me his photograph. I already knew who he was, even though I hadn’t fully processed it. He was at the suite at the Fairmont Hotel the night Miguel Diaz’s men found Dally’s baby monitor in my backpack.

  I stand. I’m too keyed up to sit any longer. Every nerve in my body has been lit like a fuse. I turn away from Brad Morris and give myself a little space to collect my thoughts. There’s no window in his office—it’s really little more than a cinderblock cell in the basement of the philosophy department—so I stare unseeingly at a poster advertising a study abroad program.

  Finally I’m ready to speak. “Let’s say Miguel wasn’t happy with the way things were being run. Before he had Julio Juarez… taken out… he’d have a successor in mind,
wouldn’t he?”

  “That would be standard business practice, yes.”

  My hands are trembling. Here’s the crux of what I need to know. What I have to know.

  “Ricco isn’t involved. Ricco wouldn’t have anything to do with it, would he?”

  “Miss Porter,” Brad drawls. He rocks back in his chair, his fingers steepled as he watches me. He has the darkly satisfied air of an attorney who has just trapped a witness who’s been lying under oath. “I think you know the answer to that.”

  He’s right. I do know the answer. But I wait to hear it from him.

  Finally he says, “Ricardo Diaz is the heir apparent. He’s slated to take over the entire west coast operation. From what I’m hearing, he already has. A busy job, I imagine. He certainly hasn’t been around campus lately, has he?”

  I am still for a long moment as I absorb this. “But I thought—” I stop abruptly, unwilling to sound any more ridiculous than I already have. “I saw a photograph of Ricco lying in a hospital bed. He’d been badly beaten. I was told his father’s men did that in order to coerce him into joining that family business. I heard he moved to San Francisco to get away from Miguel.”

  Brad doesn’t bother to hide his amusement. “Did Ricco tell you that?”

  No. Of course not. Someone else crafted that pretty little lie. Beckett. He lied in order to lure me into working for the DEA. And he kept lying every time he saw me, encouraged me to see Ricco, and didn’t tell me the truth.

  Alternating waves of pain and fury surge through me. My heart feels as though it’s being cleaved in two. He’s been using me the whole time, but I never understood the depth of his deceit. Fuck. I didn’t realize knowing the truth would hurt so much. I want to run away, but I’m too numb to move. I turn to see Brad watching me intently.

  “Why are you telling me all this?” I ask. “What’s in it for you?”

  “Starting in January, I’ll be a public defender, remember? Your friend Ricco will need someone who knows the system from the inside out. Someone who has contacts with judges, cops, reporters, criminal investigators. I’ve got the resources he’ll need to make his transition go very smoothly. And I think he’ll find my retainer fee very reasonable.” He pauses and gives a modest shrug. “A quarter of a million down and he can call me night or day.”

  “Really. A quarter of a million. Is that all?”

  “I don’t come cheap. Put in a good word for me, and I’ll kick something back to you. Here, you can start by passing my number along to Ricco.”

  “You already gave me your card.”

  He waves that away. “That’s an answering service. I want to give you my private line. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”

  I punch in his cell number and leave.

  Day Sixty-Seven

  Night

  Beckett’s not expecting me.

  He pulls open his apartment door and his gorgeous blue eyes widen at the sight of me. I don’t blame him. I’m a mess. A steady rain has been falling all afternoon, and I’ve been walking long enough to be thoroughly drenched. The connecting bus from SFSU to Nob Hill never showed up, and every cab I saw already had passengers tucked inside, so I had no choice but to walk across town to Beckett’s place.

  I’m so wet I’m actually dripping. A shallow puddle pools at my feet.

  “Jesus, why didn’t you call me?” he says with a laugh as he pulls me inside. He leaves me in the foyer and comes back with a towel. He grabs my backpack and tosses it aside, then tugs off my sodden denim jacket.

  I stand unspeaking, childlike, as he rubs the towel over my head and up and down my limbs. When he deems me sufficiently dry, he pulls me into his arms, as though intent on erasing the icy numbness of my body with the heat of his own.

  “Kylie,” he whispers. His warm breath fans my temple. His fingers trace the slender column of my neck, and then brush lightly along my collarbones. It is a soft, exploratory touch, and I can’t help the shiver that runs through me in response.

  For a second, I almost weaken. Yes, even knowing what I know, I want one more night with him. One more night to lie in Beckett’s arms. One more night to pretend that he and I can somehow make this work. That’s my genetic gift, remember? The emotional cancer that runs through the female side of my family. The Porter women are masters of lying to ourselves. Of seeing men the way we want them to be, rather than the way they really are. But there’s simply too much at stake now for me to indulge that weakness.

  I take a deep breath, and then slowly let it out.

  “When were you going to tell me?” I ask.

  His dark head is bent. The stubble on his chin tickles my cheek as he nibbles my earlobe. “Tell you?” he murmurs.

  “About Ricco.”

  He pulls back slightly. His brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

  I shove him so hard he actually staggers backward. “Don’t!” I scream. “Don’t lie to me any more, Beckett!”

  He quickly regains his balance. Anger flashes through his eyes. “Jesus, Kylie. Lie to you? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Ricco. Ricardo Diaz. Tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  God damn him. “Tell me that truth, Beckett. Tell me that Ricco’s not some innocent biology major trying to get away from his sociopathic father. He’s in this, all of it, and he’s in it deep. He’s every bit as dirty and dangerous as his father. You set me up to seduce a monster, Beckett, and you didn’t give a damn what happened to me in the process. I’ve never been anything to you but bait. A lure you could dangle in front of Ricco to get inside The Corporation.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Bullshit. That’s bullshit and we both know it.”

  My throat is raw and hoarse. My lungs burn with the effort of dragging in air. For a long moment, neither of us speaks. We simply glare, taking each other’s measure like warriors battling to the death in some ancient arena.

  Beckett is the first to move. He shakes his head, drags a hand through his hair. “Look, maybe it started that way, but—”

  “Do you remember our first night together, up on the rooftop?” I interrupt.

  He gives a tight nod. A muscle along the side of his jaw ticks, but he doesn’t speak.

  “I fucking fell in love with you that night.”

  “Kylie—”

  “You can’t do it, Beckett. No matter how much you want to, you can’t bring Emma back.”

  He recoils as though I’ve slapped him. “This isn’t about Emma.”

  “Of course it is.” My chest aches and a lump forms in my throat. My eyes lock on his. “That’s all this is about: You hate Miguel Diaz more than you care about me. So you’re going to keep trying to bring him down. Nothing’s going to get in your way, not even me. You’re never going to give up. Never.”

  “I’ll keep you safe.”

  “You can’t.”

  “When I told you I would die for you, I meant it.” His shoulders are rigid with tension. Anguish plays across his face. “I would, Kylie. I swear to Christ, I would.”

  “I know.” I lift my hand and lightly stroke his jaw. “I believe you. But I can’t wait for things to get to that point. I don’t want to die, and I definitely don’t want to watch you die.”

  “Kylie—” His hand wraps around mine, squeezing it as though he never means to let me go.

  “Stop,” I choke out. “Just stop it, Beckett. Stay away from me. It’s over. I’m out. Tell Reardon I’m done. I can’t do this any more. I won’t be here to watch you die.”

  I spin away from him, grab my backpack and my coat. I fly down the stairs of his building and race out into the pouring rain, disappearing into the dark safety of the night.

  Day Seventy-Seven

  Afternoon

  The Karma Café is hopping. A busload of hungry tourists was just dropped off at our door. Jim, our ancient hippie chef, is manning the kitchen grill while Shari and I run plates and pour coffee out front. W
e’ve run out of our daily specials, but nobody seems to mind. Even if the sky is gray outside, inside the Karma the music’s loud, the food’s good, and the retro tie-dyed t-shirts are flying off the shelves.

  I’m in a groove—fully locked in waitress zone. A crown of daisies sits on my head as I move from table to table, chatting with tourists and hustling for tips. I’m desperate to keep myself busy, so I’ve been grabbing every shift I can. That’s my life now: I go to school, work long hours, and then fall into bed too exhausted to think about anything.

  It’s been ten days since I last saw Beckett. Twelve days since I last saw Ricco. Neither one’s been anywhere near SFSU, a fact for which I am eternally grateful. Ricco’s left several messages on my cell, but I haven’t returned any of them.

  All I’ve heard from Beckett is silence. Absolutely nothing.

  I tell myself that’s a good thing. He’s respecting my decision. I only wish it didn’t hurt so much.

  A family of four pays their bill and leaves, so I grab a plastic tray and bus the table. The next group slides in before I’ve even got it wiped down. “Welcome, folks,” I say, keeping my voice bright and cheerful. “I’ll be right back with some menus.” I lug the tray into the kitchen and park it by the sink. Grabbing a fistful of menus, I spin around to dash back out to the dining room.

  Jim’s voice stops me. “Turn off your goddamned phone, would you?” he grunts from his place in front of the grill. “It’s been ringing like crazy. Driving me bat shit.”

  Odd. Frowning, I reach for my purse, grab my phone, and check the screen.

  Jess. Over and over, at least a dozen calls in the last half an hour.

  “Order up!” Jim shouts.

  Ignoring him, I grab the phone and press dial. She picks up immediately.

  “Hey Jess, is everything—”

  “Kylie,” she says, her voice caught between a sob and a scream. “Oh, my God. Kylie, they took him! They took him!”

  “What? Jess, what? They took who?”