Ice settled in his gut. That wasn’t El Socio. No possible way. El Socio had his appendix taken out in elementary school.
How had the DNA analysis been so wrong?
He turned the page to tissue analysis.
There was a significant discrepancy between the original collected blood sample, the provided skin sample of the tattoo, and the DNA testing on the tissue and organs of the victim.
While they shared the same blood type, halotypes, and many common alleles, they came from two closely related but different people.
It was El Socio’s skin and blood, but not his body. The maimed body belonged to someone else from his family.
Sean took out the file of all known associates and examined it with fresh eyes. El Socio had brothers and sisters, but the brothers were too young. He had a large group of cousins.
There it was. One of the aunts that had married one of his uncles from the other side had a son just about El Socio’s age. The cousin was extremely high in their organization and had unquestioning loyalty to El Socio. If Sean remembered correctly, these two had grown up together as children in Puerto Rico.
Sean stared off into space.
There were only two logical explanations. One, El Socio had pushed the wrong button and a different gang was pushing back. Killed a relative and extracted a pound of flesh from El Socio.
Or El Socio had done it himself, and they had been played.
The second option was more likely. They’d been looking for a gang war, but nothing had ever erupted, which implied the murder was an internal matter.
What would have driven El Socio to murder his own cousin—his close friend and confidante?
El Socio had told them himself, and all paths led back to Lillian.
He was looking for his children. Whoever the mother was, she had gone to ground, remaining out of sight the moment El Socio got out of prison.
She’d never dare emerge until the word spread El Socio was dead—and he’d used his community to help spread it.
If no one had found the children at MetroGen, El Socio would have kept searching for his children at the other places Lillian saw patients.
The Spanish-speaking free clinic.
And her own apartment.
He found the memory card of the hallway camera, popped it into the computer program, and ran the feed backward.
And there he found the answer he sought.
Last Saturday evening, after the free clinic was over, an extremely pregnant Puerto Rican woman with two children clinging to her came to Lillian’s door.
He keyed on the video and listened to the conversation in Spanish. “Doctora Hernadez. It’s Vinita, Luisa’s sister.” Lillian opened the door, her face pale like death warmed over, or a woman who had been broken up with via note.
“Everything okay?”
“I think she has an ear infection. I couldn’t get to the clinic. Lo siento.”
“We’ve got to get your boy to a regular doctor. He needs more than his vaccines at the health department.”
“I know. I will,” Vinita put her hand on her heavily pregnant belly. Royce watched Lillian let Vinita into her apartment with a sense of growing horror. Her name sounded so familiar. He flipped to the list of girlfriends and found the missing person’s report, filed by her sister Luisa. Vinita Agosto hadn’t been missing. She’d been in hiding.
He called Lillian, hoping she was willing to speak to him.
It rang and rang and rang. He was about to give up when she answered.
“Lily, it’s me Sean.”
