Free Altercation by Tamara Hart Heiner

racing back for the kitchen.
    Mrs. Rivera met him in the living room. “Oh. I was going downstairs to greet you.”
    “I found something.” He was a little out of breath, and eager to get out. “Thank you. I’ll be by later.” He had a lot to get done and little time. Tomorrow he flew to Ohio.
    “Wait!” She held out several pieces of paper that had been folded into thirds. “I have this for you.”
    Carl took the papers. “What is it?”
    “A detailed list of the calls made from Gregorio’s phone last month.” She dipped her head, not meeting his eyes. “I requested it from the phone company. It came yesterday. I can do so for any month you want.”
    “Please do so for the past year.” He whirled away, ecstatic. “I’ll be in touch!”
     
    “Do you have a match on any of the pictures?” Carl spoke in the general direction of his office phone while he finished filing the pictures he had found in the Riveras’ house.
    “We’re still searching the Interpol database for most of them.” The male voice came back over the speaker in Carl’s office. “But we did find one so far.”
    “Yes?” Carl froze, one hand fingering the paperwork on his desk. “Who?”
    “The red-headed woman with the big sunglasses. Coming out of the coffee shop. Remember?”
    Carl yanked the file back open, pulling out all the pictures he had scanned over to the FBI. He found the woman, exiting what looked like a European café. “Yes. Who is she?”
    “Her name was Brigitta Mescaros. A Hungarian heiress, apparently living in Belgium.”
    Carl’s mind got stuck on one word. He picked up a pen, scribbling lines on a ripped envelope. “Was?”
    “Was,” the voice confirmed. “Brigitta died eight months ago.”
    “Where?” Carl wrote down the month. February. “In Belgium?”
    “No. Her body was found in Guadalajara on February seventeenth. Interviews with surviving relatives said that she had gone for a vacation.”
    “Who was with her?”
    “Nobody, apparently. She traveled alone.”
    A rich woman takes a vacation to Guadalajara . . . alone? “How did she die? Swimming accident?”
    The voice paused on the other end. “No. She was murdered. Machine gun fire.”
    Something tickled Carl’s mind and he spun around, spreading the papers from Rivera’s file all over his desk. The dates. Where were the dates?
    He found them. Catching his breath, he studied the hand-written dates that he had found inside the medicine cabinet. “I’ve got something here.”
    “Oh?” The agent’s voice rose in pitch. “What?”
    Carl stared at the photograph in front of him. “The first line from the paper I found at Rivera’s workplace. February 17. The Hand and Cisnero. Guadalajara, Mexico. Orange and Purple.”
    The agent gave a low whistle. “What does that mean to you?”
    “I’m pretty sure that Purple is Rivera. What it means is that Rivera was in Guadalajara, Mexico, on the same day this woman died. And he had a photograph of her in his office.”
    “You think he killed her?”
    Carl wasn’t sure how to answer that. He had not expected Rivera to be a murderer. A cheater, a liar, a scumbag, yes. But a killer? “Did anyone else die?”
    “I’ll check with the Mexican government.”
    “Do you know who Cisnero is?”
    “No. But I bet Interpol does.”
    “Please send me all the information you find on Cisnero. Also, will you fax over the file for Mescaros?”
    “Of course. And if you put anything together, let us know.”
    “Yep.” Carl turned the phone off, his mind whirling. Mescaros was dead. He wondered how she fit into this. Did Rivera meet up with The Hand and Cisnero and go on a blood hunt? Was it her bad fortune to be in Guadalajara at the time? Or perhaps they had planned to meet her.
    He thumbed through the other photographs, the faces blurring before him. Were all of these people dead? Did Rivera take them out?
    Who was this man?

Chapter Eleven
    H ey, Jaci! Come out here!”
    Amanda’s voice rang