Playing chauffeur to a convicted felon with a homemade knife who insisted on poking me in the ribs every time I hit a bump in the road had not been part of my plans for the evening. I had a case. I had places to be and people to see. And two horror movies just waiting to wreak havoc on my nervous system.
“Take the San Mateo exit.”
He startled me. I turned to him, a tad braver than an hour ago. “Where are we going?”
“My best friend’s house. He was my cell mate for over four years.”
“Amador Sanchez?” I asked, the surprise in my voice undeniable.
Amador Sanchez had gone to high school with Reyes and seemed to be Reyes’s only connection to the outside world before he was arrested as well for assault with a deadly weapon resulting in great bodily harm. Against a police officer, no less. Never a wise decision. What neither Neil Gossett nor I could figure out was how Amador and Reyes had ended up cell mates for four years. And Neil was the deputy warden. If he didn’t know how that happened, nobody did. Clearly Reyes’s résumé included more than just general in hell.
Reyes opened his eyes and turned to me. “You know him?”
“We’ve met, yes. When I was trying to find your body before.” I couldn’t help a quick glance at that very thing. Demons had attacked him by the hundreds, had practically ripped him to shreds, yet here he was, two weeks later, almost completely healed. From that event, anyway.
His mouth widened into a grin. “I take it he was a lot of help?”
“Please. You must have something on him.”
He laughed softly. “It’s called friendship.”
“It’s called blackmail and is, in fact, illegal in most countries.” I glanced over at him as oncoming headlights illuminated the gold and green flecks in his eyes. He was smiling, his eyes warm, soothing. They made my insides gooey.
I blinked and turned away.
“What time is it?” he asked after continuing to stare a long moment.
I looked at the clock on my dashboard. “Almost eleven.”
“We’re late.”
“Sorry,” I said, both syllables dripping with sarcasm, “I didn’t realize we were on a schedule.”
We pulled up to the Sanchezes’ house, a stunning trilevel Spanish-tiled adobe in the Heights with a stained glass entryway. It hardly fit the image of an ex-convict who’d done time for assault. It was much more of a tax-evasion rap, an embezzlement kind of stretch.
Maybe he stole it.
“Drive up to the garage and flash your lights.”
A little surprised by the level of thought he’d put into his escape, I did what he asked. The garage door opened immediately.
“Pull in and turn off the engine.”
I’d met Amador and his wife, and they were actually quite lovely. Nonetheless, the situation didn’t sit well, like Suzy Dervish in Girl Scouts before she got on Ritalin. “I don’t think I like this plan.”
“Dutch.”
I turned to him. His eyes were glassed over and he had paled. He’d obviously lost a lot of blood. I might could outrun him now.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said.
“You’re in no condition to be playing the white knight. Just let me go.”
Regret flashed across his face. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.” He reached over and took hold of my arm as if afraid I would bolt.
I’d been considering that very thing. How far could he chase me with his pallor?
“Pull in,” he said.
After taking a deep breath, I drove into the double-car garage and turned off the engine, not happy at all about having done so. The garage door closed—effectively locking me in with a band of criminals. The lights came on, and an entire family of them came out the side door toward us.
Reyes sat up straighter with only a slight wince and flashed a genuine smile at the man opening his door for him, Amador Sanchez. Amador’s wife, Bianca, stood back in anticipation, holding a small boy in her arms and the hand of a little girl. She waved at me through the windshield.
I waved back—apparently Stockholm syndrome worked fast—then watched as Amador leaned in and grasped Reyes in a burly hug.
“Hola, my friend,” he said, patting Reyes’s back aggressively.
Reyes’s jaw clamped shut as he bit back a curse.
“You’re late.” Amador Sanchez was a good-looking man in his early thirties with short black hair, hazel eyes, and the confidence that seemed to be bred into the Chicano culture.
“Blame the driver,” he said from between gritted teeth. “She kept trying to escape.”
Amador glanced at me and winked. “I can understand that, Ms. Davidson. I tried to escape his company for four years.”
Reyes laughed. He laughed. It was the first real laugh I’d ever heard from him. An odd sense of happiness emerged despite my inner turmoil.
“You’re hurt.” The man stepped back to get a look at him.
“Move, Daddy! Let me see.”
The little girl, gorgeous with long black curls, pushed past her father to get a better look. Her tiny brows snapped together. “Uncle Reyes, what happened?”
Reyes grinned at her. “I’m going to tell you something very important, Ashlee. Are you ready?”
Her nod sent curls bouncing around her head.
“Never, ever, ever crawl into the back of a garbage truck.”
“I told you it was a stupid idea.” Amador stood clicking his tongue at him.
“It was your freaking idea in the first place.”
Bianca pushed forward. “Then it was more than stupid.” She leaned over him and tried to peel the blood-soaked coveralls back from the wound, worry lining her lovely face. “I can’t believe you listened to him.”
“I can’t believe you married him.”
She narrowed her eyes on Reyes, though her expression held more humor than admonition. And love. Genuine, unadulterated love, and an unusual streak of jealousy slashed through me. They knew him better than I did, possibly better than I ever would. I’d never been jealous in my life, but lately it seemed to be the only emotion I could conjure when it came to the people in Reyes’s life.
“When you gonna come to your senses and divorce him?” he asked her.
I lowered my gaze. Bianca was nothing if not stunning. Like her daughter, she had huge sparkling eyes and long dark hair that hung in thick curls over her shoulders.