picked her way through the debris to the other side of the room. Along with everything else, there were five cigarette butts scattered in the mess, all of them Payasos, the local Guatemalan brand. Kneeling down she stilled. Haden didn’t smoke. Acting on instinct, she lifted them one by one with the end of her knife and, ripping a page from a nearby book, wrapped the cigarettes up in the paper before dropping the packet into her pocket. She didn’t know what the cigarettes might tell her later, but information was information and years of training wouldn’t let her ignore it.
She studied the bookshelves. They had obviously been bumped during the struggle, books and photos tumbling out of their shelves to the floor beneath. Something silver glinted in the light but before she could tell what it was, the room went dark again. The baby had gone silent, she realized, and the neighbor had doused his lamp.
Stepping closer, she bent down anyway and dug through the debris with the edge of her knife. She had to push aside a heavy candle and then move a travel book on Machu Picchu, but she finally reached the thing that had caught her attention.
It was a picture frame, she realized. And it held a photograph of her.
RETURNING TO THE SAFE HOUSE, Meredith called Cipriano Barrisito immediately. The need to rush was long past—the blood had been shed days ago—but she couldn’t hold back her sense of urgency.
He answered as before, right on the third ring. “Did everything go as you wanted?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “My friend may have a bigger problem than I first thought. I need you to go to his barrio and ask some questions.”
“Dígame.”
She gave him the address of Haden’s neighbor then said, “Send someone over there right now. They have a young child and they probably don’t sleep too soundly. I want to know if they heard any…noise at the house next door.” She took a sip of the drink she’d poured for herself before grabbing the phone. “It would have happened over the last two days, maybe three.”
Barrisito hesitated. “What would this unusual sound have been?”
“Just ask them. When you find out, call me back.”
She was on her second drink when the phone rang, its strident sound making her jerk so hard, a splash of tomato juice and vodka spilled from her glass onto her blouse. The stain reminded her of the ones she’d seen in Haden’s house.
“Night before last, they heard a car on the street behind them,” Barrisito confirmed. “Then men talking loudly.”
“How many?”
“At least two, maybe three. They weren’t sure.”
“Did they recognize anyone?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“A fight, but they ignored it,” he said. “This is Guatemala. You don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. It might get chopped off.”
“How long did it last?”
“Not long.” He paused. “When it was over, they said one man left the house and walked away. They saw no one else after that and they’ve seen no one since.” He spoke quietly. “If your friend was somehow taken to the place my cousin told you about, I would leave this alone.”
“I don’t think that’s him,” she said quietly, the feeling she’d had at Haden’s returning. Death had been in there. She’d felt it. “Rosario said only one gringo was there. I doubt that it’s Haden. It may be Brad Prescott, though.”
“Whoever he is, leave him be. Fidel Menchez controls everything in that part of the country. Everything between Guatemala and Mexico. And he’s not a pleasant man.”
She tried to focus. “Tell me more.”
“There’s nothing more to tell. For a small fee, he will guarantee safe passage for the other men’s couriers who must pass through his area but if you do not pay, you end up in his prison.”
“Is there no way out?”
“I’ve heard of bribes helping, but the price, it is too high for most.”
“How big is this place? Are there that many couriers going back and forth?”
“He has other ‘prisoners’ as well. For his friends—his paying friends—Menchez will help out with someone who needs to be ‘disappeared.’ They go in, they don’t come out.”
“Why not just kill them?”
“Killing would be easier,” Barrisito conceded, “but you have to remember where you are. This is Guatemala. Everything can be used as a bargaining chip. One never knows when a trade can be made. Why waste the bullet?”
Meredith’s mind spun as he talked, her plan coalescing quickly, the seed for it having already been planted the minute the hooker had mentioned her friend’s visit to the prison.
“You’re loca,” he said after Meredith explained what she wanted to do. “These people are not the kind you are accustomed to dealing with. They have no honor. You do not understand.”
“I’ve worked with their ilk before.”
“I do not think so,” he said. “If you had, you would not be around to tell about it.”
“I can handle myself,” she said grimly. “You just hold up your end. That’s all you need to worry about.”
She took a bath and went to bed but the sun came up a few hours later and found her still awake, thoughts of Haden plaguing her. In her heart, she knew he was dead and the heaviness that weighed her down was both shocking and unexpected. She analyzed her reaction further, her emotions rising to the surface. The idea of Haden being gone left her completely adrift, but at the same time, she felt a twisted relief over the fact that she hadn’t been the one to cause the situation. She shook her head in total confusion. What the hell was wrong with her?
Through the chaos one thought registered. If Haden and Prescott had been working together, then maybe Brad Prescott might know what had really happened at Haden’s home. She coudn’t leave without knowing the truth.
Turning her mind away from her thoughts, Meredith got out of bed and made some notes about what Barrisito’s hooker had told her. When a glance at her watch told her the market had opened, she made a quick trip to one of the boutiques and then stopped at a postal service. After filling out all the forms and sealing up the cigarette butts she’d retrieved from Haden’s house, she printed the address on the front of the lab she used in D.C. The butts might reveal nothing, but the chance they might reveal something was too great to ignore.
After returning to the house, she packed the clothing she’d bought into a small bag she found inside one of the closets, leaving the rest of her personal items in place. If things went the way she planned, she would be back during the early hours of Saturday morning and on a plane to Houston the following afternoon.
The clock chimed noon when she locked the house and left. The tote on one shoulder, her purse on the other, she walked briskly down the narrow street going the opposite direction she had the night
