Shattered Silence: Men of the Texas Rangers Series #2 Page 6

  Then she smiled and transformed her average features into a look of radiance. “I’m Serena. I live in 156.”

  He wrenched his attention from her face, and it fell onto the wheelchair she sat in, one hand on the wheel. “I’m Kyle,” he managed to get out, his words thready. Questions scrambled his thoughts until he couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Serena cleared her throat, peering around him, her long ponytail swinging with her movement. “You’re blocking my way.”

  He blinked. “You want to come in here?” He jerked his thumb toward the room behind him with all the exercise equipment.

  Her gaze fell to her lap, drawing his focus to the fact she was dressed in workout clothes with sweatbands around her wrists. “I use the gym every day, trying to get into shape to race.”

  “Race? How? You are . . .” Heat blazed a path across his face, and before he made a total fool of himself, he stepped out of the doorway to let her pass him.

  She rolled herself into the room then looked back at him with that dazzling smile on her face. “I’ve challenged myself to participate in a wheelchair race in San Antonio in April. I intend to win.”

  The two women and three men in the room greeted Serena as she planted her chair in front of a rack of weights. Serena struggled to pick up a twenty-pound one. Kyle hurried to her and grabbed it before she dropped it into her lap.

  “How long have you’ve been lifting weights?” Kyle placed the barbell back on the rack.

  “This is my fourth time. I did five pounds the first day then added five every day after that.”

  “It’s better to build up to a higher weight gradually. I’d work with fifteen again.”

  “Do you lift weights?”

  “Yes, for the past two years.”

  “Good, then you can help me. Give me some pointers. I only have two weeks till the race. I need to build up more strength in my puny arms.” She raised one to show him her biceps. When she squeezed her upper arm, she laughed. “See? Flab.”

  Kyle thought about the apartment, boxes still cluttering much of the space in the living and dining rooms, then he stared down at Serena, her grin fading at his prolonged silence. “Sure. I can help you.” If his dad could be working today instead of unpacking, then he could teach Serena how to lift weights correctly.

  “Señor Morales?” Cody asked when a medium-size man with a patch over one eye and a clubfoot limped down the hall toward the nurses’ station on the second floor at the hospital.

  The orderly slowed and surveyed Cody. Wariness entered the man’s eyes. “Sí. I’m busy. I can’t talk right now. I have another patient to see to.”

  “You have the time. A nurse is taking care of it.” Cody waved his arm toward an empty office behind the counter. “Let’s talk in here.” After he trailed Luis Morales into the room, Cody said, “Tell me about what happened earlier this morning.”

  “I smelled the smoke when I left for work. As I neared Ruiz’s house, I saw the smoke. That’s when I called 9-1-1. That’s all,” Luis said as though he’d rehearsed it over and over.

  “Nothing else? No one else?”

  “Sí. No es cosa de mi incumbencia.”

  “What happens where you live is your business. A neighbor is dead.”

  “Sí, he’s a criminal. So why are the police trying to find his killer? Loco, if you ask me.”

  “How do you know he’s a criminal?”

  “By the company he kept. Ruiz terrorized the neighborhood. Good riddance.”

  “So there were many people who wanted him dead?”

  “The whole neighborhood, but none of us would have killed him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Most of the people who live on Javelin Road are older. Women.”

  “You live there.”

  “We know how to mind our own business. Safer for us.” His dark eyes narrowed. His jaw clenched. “As much as I’m glad he’s gone, I didn’t do it.”

  “But you’re holding something back. What?”

  “I have nothing to tell you. I know nothing.” He pivoted and limped away.

  Frustrated, Cody started to go after the orderly but stopped. He wasn’t going to say anything else and Cody didn’t have a lot to go on in order to ask the right questions, at least not now. After going through the crime scene, Cody intended to look into Luis Morales. It wouldn’t be the first time a criminal called in his own crime.

  He headed for the stairs, trying to call the landline in his apartment for the third time. No answer. Then he called Kyle’s cell. Still no answer. Worry knotted the muscles along his neck and shoulders. With two murders in two days, he didn’t care to have his son walking around an unfamiliar town, especially without letting Cody know where he was going. Kyle knew that, but probably didn’t care his father would be concerned.

  Cody put pieces of evidence in a lock box in his SUV. “Maybe what we found in the house will lead us somewhere. Certainly my conversation with Luis Morales didn’t produce anything of value other than that the neighbors, including Morales, hated Ruiz.”

  “There isn’t much here either. Most of the evidence went up in flames,” Liliana said.

  “Which was probably the reason for the fire. I won’t be surprised if the autopsy shows the man was dead before the fire. We have the barbwire and metal gasoline can.”

  “Minus any fingerprints.”

  “We still need to see if we can find where these are sold around here.”

  “I can tell you. The Super Store, where everyone shops in Durango.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll start. Are there any hardware or feed stores in town?”

  “Yes, two feed and one hardware store. But barbwire is common around here as well as gasoline cans.”

  Cody shut the back of his SUV and leaned against it, his arms folded over his chest while he studied the remains of the house. “At least we know who was murdered. This doesn’t feel random. According to your mother’s friend, Victor Ruiz was a bad man. So who did he anger enough to be killed?”

  “Torturing him first.”

  “To make a statement, for information, or to make him feel as much pain as possible?”

  “Could be all three. Could be drug related.”

  “Let’s go check the garage. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “I hope so. We could use a break.” Liliana halted in front of what was left of the detached garage. “We certainly didn’t find much of anything in the house. It was too far gone. Maybe there will be something in here that will help us figure out who Victor Ruiz is.”

  “Besides being a criminal, according to Luis Morales. I called the Texas Ranger in Brownsville to look into Ruiz. See if he can find out anything about the man. Vague assumptions by the neighbors aren’t enough.” Cody opened the side door into the partially destroyed building, its roof gone.

  “Some of this is still intact.” A tan van parked in the garage had pieces of the caved-in roof on its top as did the concrete floor.

  Cody’s inspection of the back of the vehicle revealed a cleaned area with wooden benches along the panel sides of the van. No windows except two darkened ones in the front seat and the windshield. A black curtain separated the front from the back. “Someone didn’t want anyone to see inside here.”

  “Wonder what he used this for. So far Officer Vega hasn’t discovered any place that Ruiz works. So where’s his money coming from? What’s he living on? He paid cash for his house.”

  “Does he have a bank account?”

  “Not that Vega can find in town.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t transferred it here from Brownsville. We might know more when the ranger in Brownsville calls me back. I’ll dust for fingerprints. I couldn’t pull any from the house. Maybe in here.”

  “Ruiz might not be his real name. Fingerprints would be good to have. Señora Emilia gave the sketch artist a good description of Ruiz, so we have something to go on.”

  Cody took out his kit to dust the door handles and the steerin
g wheel first.

  Liliana began searching the rubble on the floor, mostly charred pieces of the roof. In the back of the garage was a padlocked lid on a freezer. She had a bolt cutter in her car. After retrieving it, she snapped the lock off and lifted the top to peer inside. Cold air blasted her face. Stacks of frozen food lay before her. But she knew appearances weren’t always what they seemed. She started removing the cartons and containers until she reached the bottom level—full of different sized guns and rifles.

  “I’ve got something here. Lots of weapons. I even see a .38. Maybe it’s the gun that killed our Jane Doe.”

  “I’ve got a couple of fingerprints on the steering wheel and driver’s door.”

  An hour later, after transferring all the additional evidence to Cody’s SUV, he slammed down the lid on his lock box, then closed the back of his car. “At least we have some evidence to plow through in the next few days. It’s a start.”

  Liliana started for her Chevy. Her day began early and was ending late. If it hadn’t been for Señora Emilia’s cinnamon rolls, she wouldn’t have eaten anything for lunch. Pausing at her car door, she glanced at Cody. He gave her a smile and slid behind his steering wheel. His engine roared to life, then he pulled away from the curb.

  Liliana studied the destruction before her. Something nagged her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it churned her stomach, an uneasiness shivering down her length. She felt watched.

  5

  Watching from a distance as the new Texas Ranger and Liliana Rodriguez leave the crime scene, I relax the tense set of my shoulders. They don’t have a clue who killed Anna. They don’t even know who she is. The thrill of pulling the trigger that second, then third time on Anna surges through me. I saw the life go out of her eyes— eyes that mocked me only a moment before. Her lips pursed in surprise—silenced forever.

  And now the same with Victor Ruiz. He thought I was a nobody. He took my money and didn’t care that Anna wasn’t going to stay with me. He knew she was double-crossing me, and he got what he deserved. I can still remember the coyote’s screams of pain. Victor might have been a bully, but he couldn’t take it for long. He’d given up Anna’s lover—or at least a clue to where she was going.

  Only a couple of people knew whom she was coming to see. I’ve taken care of the coyote I paid. Now I need to track down the other one. Then I’ll be safe and can go back to being nobody.

  But the thought of being a nobody leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. For the first time in my life, I feel like what I do matters. How can I go back to being invisible?

  The coyote didn’t deserve to live. I made a difference. Too bad no one will know what I did to make Durango a better place to live.

  Thirty-six hours later, after a Sunday spent trying to settle into his apartment and run a few clues down, Cody gulped down the last of his coffee then put the mug into the sink. Thank goodness Sunday was a quiet day. After two murders in two days, we certainly didn’t need a third one. “Ready, Kyle? We need to get to school to enroll you.”

  When he didn’t hear anything from his son, Cody went into the hall to call out again and found Kyle standing by his bedroom door, a scowl on his face, clutching his backpack.

  “C’mon. We have an appointment with the school counselor to set up your classes.”

  “I don’t wanna go. I just left my old school. Can’t I take a couple of days off before I start a new school? Just because you don’t, doesn’t mean I can’t. We still have some boxes to empty. My room’s a mess.”

  Since when had his son cared about a clean room? “Prolonging this won’t make it go away.”

  Kyle raised his head and stabbed him with a hard glare. “I can homeschool myself. I don’t need to go to high school here.”

  If his son wasn’t so dead serious, he would have laughed at the suggestion right on top of wanting to stay and clean his room. “I know how you feel. It’s scary going to a strange school, especially in the middle of the year.”

  Cody hadn’t thought it was possible Kyle’s scowl could deepen, but it did. “You don’t know how I feel. At the very least, you could have let me stay in Houston and finish my sophomore year at my old school. Nate said I could stay with him.”

  “No.” Cody ground his teeth to refrain from saying anything about the man his ex-wife had married. Forcing deep breaths into his lungs, he moved toward Kyle. “You are my son. I can’t leave you behind. And I do know how you feel.”

  Kyle snorted. “Yeah, sure.” He plowed past Cody in the narrow hallway and strode toward the front door.

  Tell him why you moved him across Texas to live in the middle of nowhere.

  Cody quickly followed before his son stopped and came up with another reason he didn’t want to go to school. When Cody climbed into his SUV, for a second the lingering scent of lilacs teased his senses. A reminder of Saturday and Sunday with Liliana that had ended with no real clues to the identity of the killer or killers caused him to pause in starting the car. Yesterday afternoon they had gone back to both crime scenes. Nothing new had revealed itself. The debris in Ruiz’s house wouldn’t be removed until tomorrow under police supervision.

  His son shifted in the front seat and said, “Let’s get this over with,” as though he were a criminal forced to stand in a lineup.

  Cody backed out of his parking space in front of the apartment building. “When I was a kid—”

  “Hold it, Dad. Not some story about how you walked through two feet of snow to get to school.”

  Lord, patience. He’s hurting and lashing out at me. “I grew up in San Antonio. There’s rarely two inches of snow there. So no, you won’t get that story. What I wanted to say is that when I was fourteen we moved to Austin and I had to leave behind all my friends. Dad lost his job and—”

  “Stop it. Losing a job is different from losing a mother. So you don’t know what I’m going through. Yours is still alive.”

  The muscles in his neck knotted, spreading pain down his back and across his shoulders. “No, but nine months before we moved, I lost my little brother. That’s probably why my dad lost his job. He fell apart, started drinking.”

  “Granddad?”

  Maybe if I ease into the subject of Nate, Kyle will listen.

  “Yes. The family fell apart. My mom moved us to Austin where her parents lived.”

  “But they aren’t divorced. They live together now.”

  Cody turned onto the street that led to the high school. “Yeah. It took Mom leaving to finally get through to Dad. He stopped drinking, pulled his life together, and came to Austin. Mom didn’t take him back right away. He got a job and had to prove to Mom that he had changed. But I understand what it’s like to have your life totally disrupted.”

  “You had a brother killed? How old was he?”

  “Five. He ran out in front of a car.”

  “Why didn’t I know this?”

  “Because Mom and Dad never talk about it. That’s their way of dealing with the tragedy. It didn’t help me, though. I needed to talk about it.” Cody pulled into a parking space at the school and angled toward his son. “So if you need to talk about your mom, I’ll listen. It’s hard losing someone close to you.”

  “I can’t talk to you about Mom. You two divorced. Barely were on speaking terms.” Kyle shoved open the passenger door and exited the SUV.

  And Kyle blames me for that. This didn’t go well at all. So much for trying to explain about Nate. Maybe after we form a stronger bond, Kyle will be ready to listen to the truth about Nate and his suspicious activities. All I know is that Nate won’t see Kyle again if I have anything to do about it.

  With a sigh, Cody quickened his pace and caught up with his son as he entered the two-story, brick building. The bell for class rang as Kyle went through the metal detector. The security guard took his son’s backpack and began searching it. Cody showed the man his badge and was waved on through. Without looking any further, the guard zipped up Kyle’s backpack and handed it to him. Wa
iting on the other side, Cody checked for the main office where they were to sign in.

  “I thought he was gonna pat me down until you showed him your badge.” Kyle slung his backpack over one shoulder, trailing after Cody toward the office. “I guess there’s one advantage to having a cop for a father.”

  At the counter, Cody wrote their names on a sheet of paper. “We’re here to see Mrs. Lopez.”

  “I’ll let her know you’re here,” an older woman said, coming from around her desk and walking toward the back of the complex of smaller offices.

  A boy thrust open one side of the double doors into the reception area and stomped inside, throwing his body into the nearest chair and slouching in it with his legs sticking out and blocking the pathway. The teen dropped his head and stared at his stomach.

  A man stepped out of the assistant principal’s office and said to the teenager, “José, I’ll see you now.”

  “I haven’t done anything wrong. Why do you always pick on me?” the boy said in Spanish and remained where he was sitting.

  The assistant principal cut the distance to him and nudged his feet. “Sit up.” Glaring at the teen, he waited until he finally complied with the request then continued in English, “I want to hear your side before a decision is made. Now you have a choice. Either tell me about the incident, or I’ll make my decision on the facts that I’ve been given without your input.”

  The boy shot to his feet. “So you can appear to be fair. No way.” He pushed past the man and rushed out the office, the double set of doors banging closed.

  The assistant principal glanced at Cody, noted his silver star on his shirt and said, “I’m sorry you had to witness that.” He moved forward. “I’m Mr. Gonzalez. May I help you?”

  Cody rose and shook the man’s hand. “We’re waiting for Mrs. Lopez to enroll my son in school.”

  “Are you taking over for Al Garcia?”

  “Yes. Did he have a lot to do with this school?”