"And he's stalking me?" Jessica's voice quivered.
"Possibly" "What should I do?"
"Keep to your normal routine," Gabe said.
"We'll be watching Bernardo."
"What about me? Who'll be protecting me?"
"There will be a plainclothes officer following you when you leave work," Kerney said.
"You'll be under constant observation."
"For how long?"
"Until the situation is resolved. I'd like to take a look inside your apartment."
"What for?"
"To make sure Bernardo hasn't been there."
"Do you think he may have?"
"It's possible. I'll need your key."
"I have a spare." Jessica reached for her purse, extracted a key chain, and gave Kerney a house key with a shaky hand.
"I never should have moved here," she said.
"I hate this town."
Kerney sent Gabe off on a door-to-door canvas of one part of Jessica's neighborhood while he covered the other. He worked the street behind Jessica's apartment, half expecting to find Gabe gone when he returned.
The last place he stopped was a one-story adobe with a deep portal and territorial moldings around the windows. An old hacienda that had somehow survived the neighborhood's late-nineteenth-century conversion to Victorian architecture, it had been transformed into apartments with a series of doors that opened on to the portal.
At the last apartment, a young man, no more than five four, answered Kerney's knock. Kerney showed him Bernardo's picture.
"I saw him sitting in a pickup truck," the young man said, pointing to a spot across the street.
"When was that?"
"On my way to my one o'clock."
"He was just sitting in the truck?"
"That's all I saw."
"How long was he there?"
"I don't know."
Gabe was waiting on the sidewalk in front of Jessica's apartment when Kerney turned the corner.
"Did you get anything?" Gabe asked as Kerney approached.
"Bernardo was parked a block over at about one o'clock. Did you?"
"Nothing."
With Gabe at his heels, Kerney checked the front door, found it locked, walked to the backyard, and tried the rear door to the empty apartment.
The doorknob turned and he stepped inside the kitchen of the empty apartment.
Gabe moved to the sink.
"This window is unlatched," he said.
"I think Bernardo is ready to make his move," Kerney said.
"I hope you're right. Chief," Gabe said as he stared out the window.
"What's Orlando got to do with this?" he asked softly, almost to himself.
It wasn't Kerney's question to answer. By now, Gabe had to suspect Orlando and Bernardo were somehow linked together in the Luiza San Miguel slaying. Maybe Orlando had been just a witness to the rape and murder, or maybe he was an equal partner in the crime. Whatever fell out, it was impossible to dismiss Orlando's disappearance as a coincidence.
"Let's see what pans out," Kerney replied.
They took a quick tour of Jessica's apartment to check the layout.
Bernardo threw the empty beer can out the truck window and popped open another one. There were only a few old dudes fishing along the shore of the lake at the Maxwell National Wildlife Refuge. The wintering waterfowl were gone for the season and without the birds as an attraction nobody but fishermen, a few curious tourists, and occasional picnickers came to the place during the spring and summer.
Situated on the high plains a few miles outside of Las Vegas, there wasn't much to the refuge-just marshes, the lake, cornfields planted to lure and feed migrating birds, and a view of the mountains.
Bernardo swallowed some beer, thought about Jessica Varela, and got a warm feeling in his groin. Everything he knew about her told him she was going to do exactly what he wanted, the way he wanted. Which meant he'd be able to save the best for last. That made Bernardo smile. He was going to have a real good time.
He finished the beer, flipped the can out the window, and fired up the truck. Everything was set to go. The cops were off his case, Orlando was dead and buried, and Jessica would be all alone in her apartment with no downstairs tenants for him to worry about. It couldn't be better.
On the highway into town, a state police cruiser passed him going in the opposite direction. He smiled and waved, and the cop waved back.
He watched in his rearview mirror. The cop kept heading south without slowing. Cops, including Orlando's old man and that gringo with the limp, were stupid fuckers.
He checked the time. He had a couple of hours of work to do at home in the horse barn. Then he'd eat supper, clean up real good, and get ready for his date with Jessica.
Beasly and his prospective renters showed up late and didn't leave until eight o'clock. Kerney and Gabe waited until they drove away before approaching the house.
Ben Morfin, who'd been glued to Barela since he'd been sighted on the highway, came on Kerney's handheld as they crossed the street.