She took one of the pistols out of the shopping bag, then put the shopping bag in the floorboard on the other side of her legs.
“What’s wrong?” Rip asked. “Who was that?”
“A man named Diaz.”
He heaved a weary sigh. “I’ve heard about him.”
“How?”
“I overheard Susanna and True talking.” Rip stared out the window. “I’m guessing he knows about Susanna.”
Startled, Milla stared at him, and kept her hand on the pistol. He rubbed his eyes. “She’s careless sometimes. She says things she shouldn’t, forgets how sound carries. Her home office, for example, seems to amplify sound. I’ve overheard conversations for years, but only in the past few months have things started to come together for me. She was talking to him on the phone one day, and—I don’t remember exactly what she said, but the meaning was pretty clear. Something about how much money they’d earned with the babies, though the hullabaloo about Justin had nearly gotten them caught. Earned. She actually said they earned the money.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Milla asked. “Go to the cops?”
“Lack of evidence. Hell, no evidence. Just some phone calls that I heard only her side of. She asked True if he was sure this Diaz guy was coming up empty and they didn’t have to worry. I don’t know what True said, but it was obvious he took Diaz seriously. So I did some investigating on my own, did more eavesdropping, and found out there was going to be a transfer of some kind of cargo behind the church in Guadalupe. I know a few hard-asses in Mexico myself. I contacted one of them, told him Diaz would appreciate knowing about this, hoped it worked. Then I called you, used a fake accent and told you Diaz would be there. I didn’t know for sure, but there was a possibility. Guess I was right, huh?”
Rip was the anonymous caller. He had to be; otherwise he couldn’t have known about that night. “He was there,” she said, her throat tight.
Rip bowed his head. “When I found out what she’d done . . . I’ve loved that woman for twenty years, and I never knew her. It was the money, I guess. We were almost bankrupted paying back our student loans, credit card bills, you name it. She isn’t good with a budget. I’m not either, truth be told. That’s why we went to Mexico, to get away from the bill collectors for a year. The money situation got much better that year, and now I know why. She was selling babies. Hell, she delivered them, she knew their sex, age, general health.”
And the poor Mexican women had traveled considerable distances to reach the clinic so they could have a real doctor in attendance during birth. The kidnappings would have been spread out over a sizable area, and who would ever think to ask who had delivered the babies? Since Susanna had had no contact with them once they left the clinic, she had never even blipped on the radar of suspicion.
“She sold Justin,” Rip continued. “They got a lot of money for him. I’m sorry, Milla, I don’t know where they sent him. I’ve gone through all of her paperwork, but there’s nothing about what happened to the babies. I don’t think she cared.” Tears gathered in his eyes. “She said they’d kept you busy chasing your own tail for ten years. They’ve been hindering you every way they could.”
“What are you going to do?” Milla asked, her voice thin. This hurt. She was shocked and hurt and angry. Susanna was lucky she wasn’t within reach at that moment, or Milla would have done physical damage to her.
“I don’t know. Divorce, obviously. I haven’t left her because I wanted to be in a position to snoop. Can I testify against her? I don’t know if I can make myself do it.”
“Diaz thinks she’s involved with black market organ transplants, that they’re killing people and selling their organs.”
Rip stared at her, his mouth working soundlessly. Finally he managed to say, “She—she couldn’t do that. That’s beyond—”
“The ‘cargo’ that was transferred in Guadalupe that night was a person.”
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” All color washed out of Rip’s face and he closed his eyes. He looked as if he was going to vomit.
Milla felt as if she might be sick, too. She checked the time and a spurt of adrenaline had her starting the car with quick, jerky movements. “We have to get to the cantina. Pavón might already be there.”
“I thought you said he probably wouldn’t—”
“There’s always a chance.”
23
Pavón reached the Blue Pig early; he wanted to be here when the bitch arrived, he wanted to watch her wait for him. Talking to her on the telephone had made his heart beat faster, and the excitement had given him an ache in the crotch that he wanted to rub. He had waited and waited, hiding out in that foul boat, every day that he spent cowering like a little girl eating at his soul. He needed to find out where Diaz was before he made a move on the woman, and that was not easy.
But fortune had at last smiled on him. One of the fishermen mentioned to his cousin that the tracker Diaz had been to Matamoros looking for Enrique Guerrero. The news was both frightening and reassuring: it was good because this fisherman also said that Enrique had fled south, from which Pavón could assume that Diaz had followed; it was bad because he had no doubt Diaz would find Enrique, who could not be trusted to keep his mouth shut about anything. He would sell his mother to the devil to keep himself safe, though with Lola as a mother, one couldn’t truly blame him. Still, Pavón had to assume that what Lorenzo had known, Enrique knew. And what Enrique knew, Diaz would shortly know.