Chapter 3

She wasn’t crying, but she wanted to. She was about to meet with the biggest asshole in Arizona, Joaquin Marquez. She should have talked to her Adam, but she just couldn’t bring herself to involve that good man in what she had gotten herself into two years gone. No, she had to clean up her own mess.

She waited in the parking lot of the same motel where they had always met, The Scratching Post, talk about dumb names for a motel.

This was going to be the end, the absolutely last time. She was going to let the asshole know that her future brother-in-law, Rodney Barnes, was going to be brought into play if he didn’t leave her alone. Rodney Barnes had influence and resources. Pimps and druggies were no match for him and what he could bring to bear.

She fingered the butt of the pistol she had in her purse; it was her fiancée’s. She’d brought it with her in case thug number one or one of his henchmen decided to get rough.

She was supposed to be shopping. She’d be doing some of that after she dealt with her problem. Jesus, she hoped he’d get the message and back off. He just had to.

She saw three men; one was Joaquin; she didn’t know the other two, but they were his boys that was obvious. They were climbing the stairs of the two-story motel to room 215.

She got out of the car and headed for the stairs and then for the room, following the men to where she would be putting an end to the harassment and fear that the man, Joaquin Marquez, had beset her with.

The main door was open; well, it was August, and it was hot, very hot, even for mid-August in the desert; had to be 110 at least.

The big man saw her at the screen. “Chica, I’m glad you took my invitation seriously,” said Joaquin. “Come in, come in.” He opened the screen door for her, and she did enter.

“Ramon, get me a few packages over there, please,” he said. Her gaze followed the man she now knew as Ramon. He brought a handful of the small packages to his jefe. Each one had four pills, special pills, meth.

“I don’t want any more of the stuff,” she said. “As I told you three days ago, I’m getting married and I’m done with the stuff.”

“No, no, Chica. You need it and I need you,” he said, giving her a leering come on, invitation.

“Not now, not ever again,” she said. “My fiancée’s brother can crush you. You do not want to mess with me or him or my fiancée.”

He approached her and slapped her hard, literally spinning her around, but she did not fall. She did stumble back toward the door. She reached into her purse and pulled out the .38 caliber snub-nosed revolver.

The big man smiled. “What, you going to shoot me, and what about my friends here?” he said. He made to slap her again, but then the gun went off, seemingly without her even pulling the trigger, but she had pulled the trigger.

Joaquin Marquez slipped to the floor; shock painting his face as his consciousness faded forever. The two men beside him at first took a step back away from the woman, but then the unnamed man rushed her first and then Ramon. She fired again this time twice. She hit both men in the chest felling them in a heap on top of their jefe.

She just stood and stared at the three men. They were dead. There was no doubt about that. But her life was over. She thought about her baby. She thought about the man who had saved her from the street some months before. He’d abandon her now. He would have no choice. She was going to prison—forever! Then the tears came.

Someone had to have heard the shots. She dropped the gun and sat down at the little table across the room. The door was still open; well, except for the screen. She was sweating, her sweat mixing with her tears.

But nobody came. The whole building was quiet as far as she could tell. She saw the phone in a small niche in the wall. She had to call the police and try to explain what had happened. But no, she had to call Adam first, and beg him to see to the care of Briana. He’d do it; he was that kind of man. She picked up the phone and made the call.

“Adam, I need you. I need you now. Something bad has happened,” she said, in answer to my hello. She sounded calm, but desperate, and I wasn’t all that sure about the calm part.

I was on my way to her in less than a minute. I knew from the tone of her voice that it had to be something to do with her ex-pimp. She’d been more or less coherent after her initial plea for help, so I’d just told her to sit tight that I would be there in a hurry.

She had given me the name of the motel and the room number: The Scratching Post, room 215. I knew it, never been to it, but driven by it before. It was one of those weird names somebody’d come up with that nobody ever forgot. Oh yeah, I knew right where it was, and it was not a place where a single mother should ever go. Of course, my woman was not going to be a single mother much longer.

I pulled into the place not twenty minutes after taking the call; I’d been at home. It was summer, and I was home reading case studies from the reading list that I knew I would be dealing with when school was back in session come September.

I pulled in, parked, and surveyed the numbers from the front seat of my car. I saw it, well, the room that had to be it: second floor, the end of the walkway. I got out and didn’t run, but I did hurry-walk up to the room she’d told me.

The door was ajar, the screen door. The main door was wide open. I entered. I saw immediately what she’d meant by bad. Then I saw her.

Her face was tear stained. My gun, I knew it was my gun, lay on the floor at her feet. A few feet farther on were three dead men—three!

I took the seat next to her at the little table.

“Okay,” I said. “Tell me.”

“He was waiting for me outside of our place three days ago. We argued. he told me to make damn sure I came here today. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me and he wanted me to take some more pills. I showed up, Adam, but only to make damn sure he’d never bother me again.