Free The Devil's Elixir by Raymond Khoury Page B

accentuate my sense of loss.
    “I don’t get it,” I fumed. “She said they weren’t after a kill. She said one of the shooters had her in his sights back at the house, but didn’t take the shot.”
    “Maybe one of them screwed up,” Villaverde offered as he hung up. “You said it yourself, bullets were flying all over the place.” He hesitated, his expression uncertain, then added, “Maybe the one that got her was meant for you.”
    My stomach flooded with acid. It was something I’d been wondering about, along with second-guessing everything I’d done, every decision I’d made from the moment Michelle had called.
    “Yeah, that’s a great feeling right there,” I grumbled. I tried to shake away the anger and the remorse and focus on what had to be done. “Okay, so what have we got to go on besides her phone? CCTV footage from the hotel, ballistics from the hotel and from the house . . . what else? Fingerprints? Blood from the shooters?”
    Villaverde nodded. “We’ve got lots of DNA to work with, from the house and from the mess you left behind in the parking lot. I don’t know what the score is on the camera footage, but forensics are running what they got through NCIC.”
    “What about neighbors?”
    “Homicide’s had people out there since her nine-one-one call, but I can’t see much coming out of that. What are they going to get? The van’s plates?”
    I remembered seeing the shooters’ van in the hotel’s parking lot, but in the heat of the moment, my eyes hadn’t registered its plate. It was irrelevant, anyway. Stolen, rented with a fake ID—either usually did the trick.
    “I need you to go downtown and look at some faces,” Villaverde said, referring to the monster database of mug shots on tap. Not something I was relishing.
    I nodded grudgingly, wondering about who these guys were and going over what I’d seen, what their faces and their moves told me. They were tough and committed, and they moved well together, like they’d had a lot of practice doing it. It made me wonder what else we’d find out when we finally did track them down.
    “They’ve got two guys down, either seriously hurt or more probably dead,” I said.
    “They’re not about to roll them to any ER,” Villaverde replied. “Best case, we’ll find their bodies dumped somewhere sometime soon, but I’m not holding my breath. More likely they’ll end up as worm food in one of the canyons or out in the desert.”
    Which is what I would have done, if I were them. The thing is, you’ve still got to cover all possible angles, in case the bastards who killed Michelle and whoever was calling the shots for them slipped up—which, luckily for us, they sometimes did.
    “They lost two guys in one morning. You know of many crews that can take that kind of damage without blinking?” Before Villaverde could answer, I added, “We need to reach out to the DEA.”
    “Why?”
    “Michelle couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to come after her. The only thing she could think of was that maybe it was some kind of blowback from her years on the job. We need to ask them about that.”
    Villaverde’s face contorted, like this was news to him. “I know the ASAC who runs their local office. I’ll give him a call.” He thought about it for a moment, then asked, “Was she based back east with you?”
    I shook my head. “No. Mexico City.”
    “Mexico? Is that where you were posted, too?”
    “No, I was Chicago.”
    “So how’d you guys hook up?”
    “I was down there as part of a multi-agency task force. We were chasing down a new outfit that was cooking up some seriously pure crank that was hitting the street. I’d been backtracking the trail through some Latin Kings gangbangers they were supplying.”
    “Operation Sidewinder?” Villaverde asked.
    “Right. Anyway, Meesh was already there, working out of the DEA’s main digs at the embassy, hitting the kingpins where it hurt most—in their wallets. It didn’t