I blink, remembering Ian and Luis have met before. I kept my cousin as far away from the Irish as possible, but there was one drunken night.
“Why was she outside alone?” I ask my cousin. “And why the fuck were you around?” I ask Ian.
“Oh, I needed to speak to her,” he replies, like that accurately supplies any information whatsoever.
“She needed a second,” Luis says.
“What?”
Fire flickers from Ian’s lighter. If he tries to light up in here, I’m going to kill him.
“All I saw was this tall, ugly fucker walking up to her,” Ian says. “She got in the car willingly.”
“I managed to get in the car and follow,” Luis says.
“And you came along?” I ask Ian.
“I told you I needed to talk to her,” he replies.
“We hit the highway, headed toward an airfield.” Luis pauses, his face glitching. He glances at Tyler. And Ian. Anywhere but me. “I-I’m sorry. We didn’t get there?—”
The fire inside me is killed by the cold sheet of terror. “What happened?”
“She took him out herself,” Ian says. “After he tried to strangle her.”
He got close enough to strangle her.
Tyler clears his throat. I hadn’t noticed him inch closer to me. “You’ll notice bruising on her neck. It’ll probably be sore. A lot of her will be sore,” he adds a second later, clapping my shoulder. “But she’s okay.”
“You don’t believe that,” the pessimist in me says.
A cautious expression clouds his face. “I’d be remiss as adoctor if I didn’t advise you to get her to a hospital. This isn’t like the bullet grazing.”
I choose to focus on work. “What do we know about the guy? What else?”
Clothes rumpled, face exhausted, Luis leans up against a wall. “I called Antonio to move the body. I talked to Leon.”
Luis shrugs his shoulders, not defending his actions. I nod, telling him it’s okay. I’m not mad about owing Leon a favor this once.
“We all agreed not to involve Elias,” Luis says, tugging a string in my heart. Another right call by my cousin. Elias is young, and he doesn’t need to be pulled too far into the shadows just yet.
“Good, okay.” I rub my forehead, keeping my voice calm so Luis understands I’m not going to chew him out again.
“There’s the issue of the plane,” he adds.
My neck cracks as I roll it around.
“There wasn’t a pilot,” Luis says. “And the airfield was empty. But. . .”
I get his point. Moving a body is one thing, but what the fuck do we do with a private airplane ready and waiting to go?
I glance at Tyler, who shrugs, at a loss too.
“You’re sure there was no pilot?” I ask.
“No, but there was a pair of handcuffs,” Ian says, indicating he had a mosey through the plane. “I’d say the guy knew how to fly and planned on keeping her locked up.”
“Any ideas?” I ask them, needing to know who this fucker is. I turn to Tyler. “A triggerman with their pilot’s license?”
