“What do we do next?”
Ellis glared at him, “Before you screwed the pooch on this, we were gonna threaten Dario with hurting his mom, and vice versa, so they’d both keep their mouths shut about everything. Now, we’ll have to get dirty.”
“Dirty?”
Ellis looked at him with cold, angry eyes. “I killed a twelve-year-old kid five minutes ago. Shot him in the back. So, that dirty.”
RL clenched his fists, wanting to punch Ellis in the face, but held it in and said, “Okay.” He averted his eyes so Ellis wouldn’t see his anger. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.
They drove to a hidden low-water crossing on the river and the big-tired Dodge Ram had no trouble driving across the Rio Grande. When they topped out on the Mexican bank, Ellis said, “You can’t go back. Kincaid saw your face.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to be patient. Meanwhile you stay over here.”
“Where? I don’t have a house in Mexico.”
“We get up here a little further, I’ll make some arrangements.” He gunned the engine to get the Ram over a steep hump and onto a level road. When he stopped again, Ellis pulled out his phone.
“Who you calling?”
“The new jefe for this area, from the Sinaloa Federation. His name’s Santos Quiroga, and he’s a tough young guy. Smart, too. They brought him in here because this is a fringe area, with other groups fighting over it. He’s here to put things under one roof, like the new Sheriff in town.”
“How high up is he?”
“Like a Lieutenant. For now.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“We did some work together last year, further south and further east out around La Linda.”
“What did you do out there?”
“There was a group wanting to take over that area.”
“And?”
“They won’t take over anything now.”
They sat in the cool air-conditioned truck and waited for someone to show up, and all the while, RL felt sweat trickle down his spine while he sat beside Ellis.
**
Two vehicles: one ambulance and one Suburban from the fire department reached Erica on the highway. Buddy and Brandi talked to her, treated her head wound and put her in the ambulance.
When they arrived, Hunter had already carried Dario’s body to the road and she sat there, holding him. Santino and Bobby were still banged up from the wreck, but wanted to help so drove the roads. They arrived first.
The first thing Santino saw was all the blood on Hunter’s arms and shirt front. “Is she hurt?”
Bobby said, “I think the blood is Dario’s.” He felt his heart sink. “Oh, damn.”
They opened the back of the Suburban and slid out a stretcher and medicine bag, carrying it to the woman and boy.
Bobby said to Hunter, “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Someone in a tan colored Dodge Ram shot him. Whoever it is, is friends with RL because they stopped and picked him up.”
“And left Dario.”