Page 139 of Lone Star

“I dunno. Not one they told me about.”

“Was anyone else doing any secretary work for them?”

“I dunno.”

Jenny glanced over, and Eden sent her a look of barest frustration.

Her voice stayed bright, though. “When we talked before, you told me about the night you discovered the Chupacabras were doing business at Sandoval’s. Can you elaborate on that?”

More thumbnail chewing, and another darted glance.

Jenny said, “They work on commercial vehicles there, right? So the mechanics were all in on it. A truck rolled in loaded down with cocaine, and the guys took it out of the wheel wells, or wherever, and then passed it along to local dealers. Right?”

Gwen’s eyes bugged. Her hand fell to her lap. “I don’t–”

“Either Sandoval and all his guys joined the cartel,” Jenny continued, “or they were working for them. Helping them fence product. My bet’s on the second one, and if you didn’t actually know about it, you wouldn’t look so damn scared right now.”

“And if you did know about it, and wanted to be well away from the cartel,” Eden said, picking up the thread, “you would confess all you know and be done with it. Why are you hedging?”

“I…” Gwen said,hedging. She glanced toward the door, a furtive look over her shoulder.

An alarm pulsed to life in the back of Jenny’s mind, a chime ofsomething’s wrong, something’s wrong. She could hear the whoops, could smell the smoke, but she didn’t know the source of the fire – not yet.

“Eden,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Eden said, not bright now, but grim. “Gwen,” she said, sharply, a crisp snap that brought the girl’s head around. “You need to understand that things will go badly for you if you’re less than honest with us.”

Jenny could see the way fear spiked, the flutter of lashes, the throb of the girl’s pulse in her throat, but she pressed her lips together until they whitened, and said nothing.

“Do you think they’ll take you back?” Eden said. “After you’ve been here with us? Why would you even want to go back?”

Still no response.

“Maybe you don’t want to,” Jenny said, “but you think you have to.”

Gwen’s lips parted, and she sucked in a breath. Bingo.

~*~

“I don’t…I mean…it was like I said before. I woke up, and it was dark, and there was that Father guy in the hood–”

Michelle waved him silent. “Yes. But I’m more interested in your role with the cartel.”

He frowned. “My role?”

“Yes.” She consulted her notes, though she’d already memorized them, wanting him to think she wasn’t all caught up. If he wanted to think she was useless because she was a woman, she might as well lean into it. “The aim of their intimidation routine was to get you selling for the cartel, right?”

“Right.” Tone guarded. She had to put him at ease; loosen his tongue. Benny was a talker; get him in the right frame of mind, and the words would flow like water down a steep hill.

“Where were you selling?”

He gave her a dubious look.

She channeled Fox and flashed her widest, falsest smile, one that Benny believed, if the lessening of tension across his shoulders was any indication. “It’s not like we’re cops, Benny. Come on. Just between us friends. I’m trying to put together the cartel’s big picture.” She gestured to her pad, which she’d carefully tilted up, its carboard back resting on the edge of the table, so he couldn’t see what she wrote.

He coughed a humorless little laugh – but was trying, smiling back. His shoulders went down another fraction. “If you figure it out, let me know. Shit knows what those guys are up to, you know?”

She laughed in turn, pleased that, though it was forced, it sounded almost real. She was rusty, but not so rusty as to be an embarrassment to the family name.

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