Free Stranger Danger by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy Page A

my
sister.”
    Words would
never express the compassion and sympathy but she tried. “I’m so sorry, mi corazon. ”
    Distance stretched
between them, miles more than the floor space, and his eyes darkened to
midnight black as he nodded. “Me too, querida, all the more because I took the call on my first week back.”
    He didn’t have
to tell her or describe what he’d seen, because she read the anguish in his
eyes. Though as he did, she listened because as much as he needed to tell, she
had to hear him.
    “By then, Ted
had retired and I had a new partner, a rookie named Lucy Alexander.   She asked a lot of questions, but I didn’t
really mind.   Going back to work didn’t
seem so different, even after such a long time.   I got back into the groove until we took the call, shots fired and at
least one civilian down.   When we
answered the call, I never imagined it would be my sister.”
    Sara could
hardly imagine. She ached to comfort him but something about the harsh
expression he wore warned her to keep her distance for now.
    Santiago lit
another smoke and exhaled. “We got out of the cruiser and I walked over.   I knew it was Areli as soon as I saw her by
the hair, the poofed up pompadour she wore with a bow.   She was face down in a puddle of blood, and I
knew she was dead before I checked her pulse.   She’d had a hard life. I’d tried to help her so much, but seeing her
dead, it hit me.   I cried right there at
the scene, tears running down my face.   My partner didn’t know what to do, didn’t understand at first it was
personal.   I couldn’t even touch Areli,
cover her up or move her.”
    He paused and
a single ragged sob burst from his mouth.   Then he sighed, crushed out his smoke and finished the story. “I got my
shit together, though.   Called it in,
waited for backup and all that.   They
took me off the case as soon as they realized the victim was my sister.   I made the arrangements for Areli once the
medical examiner released her body.   I
took care of the funeral and saw her buried.   The official verdict named M13 as responsible.   Two weeks later, they announced they wanted
some Hispanic officers to go into an undercover operation to infiltrate the
gang.   I volunteered so I could pay those
bastards back for Areli.   And to make a difference if I could.   I failed to save my sister, but I thought
maybe I could save someone else’s.”
      “That
was two and a half years ago,” he said.   He held another cigarillo between his fingers, but didn’t light it. “I
became Javier Morales.   I spent the first
six months establishing a life for him and becoming Javier.   I have documentation, everything from a birth
certificate and driver’s license to a work history.   I started hanging out where M13 people hang
and then I got in, became part of it as Javier.”
    When he spoke
of his undercover alter ego, his face shifted. He wore a harsher expression
than any she’d seen, and his eyes glittered, sharp as a knife edge.   “What’s it like?” she asked in a voice so
hoarse her throat ached. “Are Mara
Salvatrucha as bad as I’ve heard?”
    “Worse,”
Santiago said. “It’s beyond anything you can imagine, la muñequita.   They live for
blood, for violence, for death.   There’s
no commandment they don’t break a hundred times a day, nothing they respect but
the gang and their code.   A pack of
wolves has more honor , more respect.   They kill for sport. Plus they use drugs,
drink, and any available body for cheap thrills.   Money and power are their gods.   If you don’t watch your back, there’ll be a
knife in it. I could trust no one.”
    Sara couldn’t
imagine anything worse. “It sounds like hell,” she said “How did you live like
that?”
    He smiled but
without mirth, a wicked, cruel grin. “I did everything they did,” he told her.
“I was one bad hombre. ”
    Her blood
dropped below freezing. “You killed?”
    “ Si, I have,” he