“Are you armed?”
“Yes.A gun.In my purse.”
“Good.”They reached Dewi’s floor, and she turned before releasing the woman’s arm.“I’ll be up in just a few minutes, okay?Can’t wait to catch up with you.”
She dropped Jacinta’s wrist, and the woman smiled.“I cannot wait to catch up with you!I wish you could stay longer.”
“Let me check in with the receptionist,” Dewi said, “because I’m really early anyway, and then I’ll come up for a quick chat.”
“Great!”
Dewi stepped out of the elevator and made a beeline for the bathroom in that floor’s lobby.The call with Alvarez had dropped on the way up, but she didn’t anticipate any problems.It would’ve been easy to have the chat in the elevator, riding up and down a few times, but she wanted full privacy and focus.
In the bathroom, Dewi finished her coffee and dumped the cup after wiping it with a paper towel.Then, with another piece of paper towel to prevent fingerprints, she used the bathroom, washed her hands, and headed to the stairwell.
Just as Alvarez said, the stairwell doors were unlocked.She used the sleeve of her hoodie to open it, and once it closed behind her, she carefully tucked her hair under her cap, pulled the hood into place over that, and made sure the IR lights were powered on.She waited to put the sunglasses on until she was on the next floor up and about to open that door.
Two minutes later, Dewi stood behind a closed office door with the woman.She took off her sunglasses, tucking them in the pocket of the hoodie.
Wasting no time and not wanting to sit, Dewi grabbed Jacinta’s wrist and led her over to the windows, the farthest she could get from the office door.Fortunately, no one could see into her office.
“Keep your voice down,” Dewi said.“We’re going to have a quick ‘come to Jesus’ chat, honey.You religious?”
“Catholic.”
“Hmm.Practicing?”
“Yes.”
“First of all, what’s the deal with your marriage to the old man…”
Ten minutes later, Dewi struggled not to hurl.Jacinta wasn’t the sweet, loving wife she was portraying, the “innocent” woman—she was a gold-digging bitch eagerly looking for loopholes in the contract and researching undetectable ways to kill off the baby before or just after it was born, hopefully after killing the old man with something like screwing with his medication to make it look accidental or like natural causes.
Jacinta despised Abundio.She didn’t know what happened to the old man’s daughter, Miranda, but she suspected Miranda was dead.Somehow, she’d hacked into the old man’s personal computer and found a bunch of information there from Manuel and Miranda—including inquiries about Carl and Mateo—plus she was developing more leads on her own, which explained her explorations and online activity.
There wassomuch…darknessin the woman.Dewi didn’t like to blithely toss the word “evil” around, but this woman made Faegan Lewis look like less of a douchebag.
And she wasdefinitelyevil.
If this child of hers were born, a boy, it probably wouldn’t live long if Jacinta had anything to say about it.And if it did, it was destined for a miserable life.
Dewi felt a tension headache threatening, which wasn’t something she usually suffered.“What, exactly, do you thinkisgoing on?”Dewi asked her.
“Werewolves.I want to capture and monetize them.”
“Even though they’re people?”Dewi asked.
She scoffed.“Whatever they are is an abomination against God!”she said.“Nothing more than animals!”
“Riiiiight,” Dewi drawled.“Anyone else know anything?”
“I have told no one.I doubt Abundio knows much.When he’s not ‘instructing’ me how to run this business, he’s busy secretly running the drug cartel that he thinks I know nothing about.”
Dewi breathed a sigh of relief.One less problem.“Okay, here’s how this works.You have a choice.You stop looking into this immediately, destroy all the evidence, and never discuss or share the information.Ever.If anyone asks you about it, you know nothing, except you are satisfied that it was complete bullshit Manuel made up because of a series of really bad drug-fueled decisions that got his people killed.”
Jacinta snorted.“Not likely!”
The dark wave of nasty energy from the other woman roiled Dewi’s stomach.
