Free Dead South (A Bryson Wilde Thriller / Read in Any Order) by R.J. Jagger Page B

closer a cleavage took shape.
    Wilde’s eyes played there as he lit her up.
    When he brought them back up she was staring into them, reading his thoughts, his nasty little thoughts.
    He didn’t care.
    “Like I said, it’s just a theory. I’m not sure I should tell you. I don’t want you running off killing someone who might not have actually done anything.”
    She blew smoke.
    “Just tell me.”
     
    He leaned back, deciding, and then leaned in, close enough to lower his voice. He told her about the night in question, every stinking detail of it; how he tried to pick up Sudden Dance at the Bokoray, how he came out to find both her and Blondie gone, how Blondie showed up out in the county with a flat, the whole thing.
    She asked questions.
    He answered them.
    He didn’t hold back.
    He even told her about finding a body in the well, a body that belonged to a lawyer named Alley London.
    Finally he told her about searching Sudden Dance’s room. “She had a suitcase under the mattress with a lot of money in it, over five G’s. I think the money is why she ended up dead. I think she took it from someone and that’s who killed her.”
    Jori-Rey narrowed her eyes.
    “Rojo,” she said.
    “Rojo?”
    “Rojo. It was Rojo’s money. He’s not the one who killed her though.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he loved her.”
    Wilde wasn’t impressed.
    “If you’re saying they were lovers, and then she ran out on him and took his money in the process, I’d say that’s a pretty good reason for him to kill her.”
    “Ordinarily yes. Have you ever heard of Rojo?”
    He shook his head.
    “No.”
    “He’s not exactly what you’d call a nice man.” She splashed more whiskey in her glass and added, “You know where Paso del Norte is, right?”
    Wilde frowned.
    “I’m starting to feel stupid here—”
    “Don’t,” she said. “Paso del Norte is a border town in Mexico, right across the Rio Grande from El Paso. For the most part it’s a great place with really great people leading simple, honest lives. But a lot of it’s built on a darker element.”
    “Meaning what?”
    “Gambling, whores, bars, drugs, you name it,” she said. “Any of it that’s worth anything, Rojo’s got his hand in it, either directly or through extortion. He’s the devil of darkness.”
    Wilde mashed his cigarette in the ashtray.
    “And Sudden Dance was mixed up with him?”
    “Yes.”
    “It doesn’t make sense.”
    “It’s a long story but here’s the part of it that’s important,” she said. “Three years ago, while she was with Rojo, she started taking up with a man on the side. They fell in love, saw each other more and more, and then she got pregnant. Her stomach started to grow. She couldn’t destroy the baby, not in a million years, and told Rojo it was his. Rojo believed her. He was a happy man.”
    “Okay.”
    “When the baby came out it was half white. Rojo went into a rage the likes of which this earth has never seen. He found out who the man was and killed him with his bare fists right in front of Sudden Dance’s eyes. He didn’t kill Sudden Dance, though. He didn’t let her go, either; he would never let her go, that was the rule from day one. He forced her to stay with him, no doubt at that point hoping she’d fall back in love with him but if she wouldn’t then the hell with it, at least no one else would ever have her. He hated the baby with every fiber of his body. When it was four months old, Sudden Dance came back to the Villa one afternoon to find it gone. Rojo said he’d made arrangements for it to grow up someplace else.”
    She took a swallow of the liquor and leaned in.
    “Here’s the important part. He made it very, very clear that if she ever left him, he’d have the baby killed; it didn’t matter if it happened in six months or six years. If Sudden Dance ever left him, the child would die.”
    Wilde pictured the murder.
    “Was it a boy or girl?”
    “A girl, Maria. She’s two years old at