Page 19 of Cartel King

I stay up all night reading her first book. I’m entranced by the end of the second page. The story completely sucks you in, and it is pretty fucking twisted, but it shows she’s as brilliant as I imagined. It takes a lot for anything to surprise me when it comes to human nature, especially in books and TV shows. I usually predict the ending before I finish the first quarter of the book, but this one blew me away.

I can honestly admit I did not see that ending coming. It wasn’t like she pulled it out of nowhere, and it made no sense. It made perfect sense, but completely surprising. I even flipped back to different parts of the story to see if she’d foreshadowed anything or planted any red herrings, but she truly hadn’t. The complexity of the story seemed so smooth when I came to the end until I stopped to think about what it must have taken to craft that story.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think she ran a criminal organization because there’re few other people I know who could plot something like this and make it entirely plausible. I read a lot of psychological thrillers. Maybe it’s a constructive outlet after what I do, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

No, that’s a pile of bullshit. I never blur those lines. It’s not escapism from everyday life. Just the opposite. Many of the books mirror the truth too much. I suppose it’s familiarity that makes the genre interesting to me. That’s an entire psychopathy I don’t need to examine.

I get the first report back from my guys at five a.m. It was too dark to see who got in the car and left an hour earlier, but the same car is back now. However, my guys are certain it’s different men who went into the house. One of my men sneaked out and spotted a dash camera pointed toward Ellie’s house, so away from him.

I’m headed there now to slip a note under her door before the sun’s up. I’m telling her I’ll be away for a couple days, but I won’t be. I want to give her some space to see who these people are and what they’re up to. If I’m a threat to her, then I need to know, and it’ll mean walking away for good. I hate that thought, but I won’t endanger her.

Even if I’m not the reason for it, I want to know anyway, so I can put protection in place for her. When I get home from that errand, I get cleaned up and head to my office. I downloaded five more of her books before I got out of bed. Now it’s time to dig a little more into Ellie McCann and find out who she is.

I’ve been working for the past two hours, and I’m no more informed about Ellie than I was when I started. Her name links to next to nothing except the publishing company, which isn’t a well-known one. It’s an anonymous LLC, which makes me question why there’re no names linked to it, not even hers.

There’re only three states where you can file an anonymous LLC. Delaware—which is a place plenty of people file regular corporations—New Mexico, and Wyoming. She said she grew up in D.C. and lived in New England, but this LLC is registered in New Mexico.

In order to have an anonymous LLC, there still has to be a Registered Agent. Someone who can receive mail and sign contracts. I struggle to find that, so I’m growing more alarmed by the moment.

Why does she need this anonymity?

Is Ellie McCann her real name?

I assume not, since there’s not a single record that matches up with her. Not a birth certificate. Not a social security number. Not a marriage license, a divorce decree, nor birth certificates for her children. Nothing. There’re a few mentions of her at book signing events, and her books are listed all over the place. But there are no official documents.

Does she have a stalker? Is there more to her ex-husband than she admitted? Did that motherfucker abuse her? Is she in WITSEC? Witness Protection, as most people call it.

There’s a reason for this, but I don’t know what it is. And while she said she likes puzzles, I hate them.

I look down when my phone buzzes on my desk.

“Hey, Martín.”

It’s a guy I have watching her place.

“Jefe,nobody’s come out of the house since those men went inside, but another car’s driven past three times already. There’s nothing that makes us think it belongs to somebody here on the street. It went up past the hill, but wasn’t there long enough for anybody to have bothered with the park, even if they were meeting somebody, then left. I don’t know why they’ve driven by a third time in the last two hours. They’re coming back down the hill now. Do you want us to do anything?”

“Get pictures if you can, but don’t engage. I don’t want anybody to make you.”

This isn’t cool. I’ve spent all day at this, and now it sounds like mychiquitahas some kind of stalker. It nearly kills me, but I wait two hours until it’s completely dark out before I head over to her house.

Chapter Five

Ellie

I peek through the spyhole, shocked to find Enrique on the other side of the front door. I open it.

“Hi.”

“Elodie, let me in.”

“What?”

“Let me in, Elodie. Now.”

Neither his tone nor his expression says I should ask questions. I step back, and he slips inside the door, pushing it shut and locking it behind him.

That should terrify the shit out of me, but it doesn’t. We stare at each other for a moment, and then he’s spinning me, so my back’s against the door as he devours me.

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