Page 96 of Chaotic Curse
I step back, keeping one eye on Reyes’s crumpled form as I answer.“Hey.”
“We got a hit on the DNA from the notes,” Vinnie says.“It matches someone on the Austin sex offender registry.Clifford Haynes.Not Reyes.”
I glance down at the unconscious man at my feet.“You’re kidding me.”
“No.Are you at his place right now?”
I rub at the back of my neck.“Something like that.”
“Hawk—”
“Fuck.I’ll be in touch.”I hang up.
So Reyes isn’t guilty of this particular thing.Doesn’t matter.He’s guilty of something.He was one of them—one of the men who used Daniela when she was just a girl.And he was involved with her father, so he wasn’t exactly a Boy Scout no matter how you slice it.
I scan the room.I can’t leave him here.He’ll wake up, call the cops, scream battery, and that’ll be that.
The camera outside his movie room is a dummy, but I haven’t been paying attention for any interior cameras.If he doesn’t have any—and that’s a big fucking maybe—he might not have enough evidence to put me away, but he certainly has friends in the States who can take care of me the old-fashioned way.
I kneel and check his pulse.Strong enough.I grab the silk belt of his robe and bind his wrists behind him.Not perfect, but it’ll hold long enough to get him to the car.It’s dark now.I leave him for a moment, hoping he doesn’t wake up in the time it takes for me to run the two blocks, retrieve my truck, and get him loaded.
He doesn’t.Thank God.I watch my back as I carry him—he fucking weighs a shit ton—into my truck.
I know where to go.
My nightmares began in my father’s office when he shot me and then Ted.
But they end in the abandoned barn on the border.Where Eagle shot Diego Vega—or at least a man hethoughtwas Diego Vega.And then someone dug up the body.
Reyes is quiet on the drive except for an occasional groan.Two hours later, I arrive.
I drag him inside the barn, tie him to one of the support beams with a rope I keep stashed in the truck.When he comes to, we’re going to have another conversation—one where he tells me everything about Colombia, about what he did to Daniela.I’ll record the whole thing, and then maybe I’ll find a way to make sure it sticks in court.Worst case, we’ll each have dirt on one another, and mutually assured destruction will keep us both safe.
I step back, running my hands through my hair.
First Jordan.Now Reyes.Both seemingly the wrong men.
Who’s next?Gordon Brown?Dani didn’t seem to recognize the name.
How many more names are tangled in this chaotic web?This chaotic curse?
30
DANIELA
The next morning,I’m back at culinary school.
The air outside is already warm, the kind of sticky Austin heat that wraps itself around you like cling film, but inside the building it’s cooler—smelling faintly of bleach from the mop buckets the janitors roll through every morning.
When I step into the kitchen classroom, the smell changes.Cocoa powder.Freshly opened bags of flour.Stainless-steel counters gleam under the fluorescents, each one already set with mixing bowls and measuring cups.
I scan the room.No Jordan.
Odd.He’s usually here early, fiddling with his knives or wiping down his station like he’s prepping for a health department inspection.
Chef Charleston stands at the front, a big silver mixing bowl cradled in one arm.“Good morning, class.Today we’re applying heat.”His voice carries to every corner of the room.
That earns a few chuckles—after technique drills, measurements, and ingredient lectures, this is what everyone’s been waiting for.
