I’d called 911 and reported what happened. The local sheriff’s department arrived quickly, took our guns, cuffed us, and questioned us about the four dead bodies on the ground.
Carter refused to say a word, staring aimlessly into the forest.
I told them who we were, that we’d followed Lonnie and Mo out here so that we could talk to them and had seen what was happening to Malia. We’d had no choice but to shoot. I told them to call Wellton. They probed further, but I gave them nothing else, preferring to wait on Wellton. They were annoyed by that and kept the handcuffs on us while we sat in the dirt.
Wellton emerged from the pines and walked toward us from the other side of the clearing.
“Oh, look,” Carter said. “A forest dwarf.”
Wellton was halfway across the circle when he whistled at one of the deputies and motioned for him to head toward us.
They reached us at the same time.
Wellton pointed at us. “Unhook ’em.”
The deputy looked uncertain. “Uh, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to do that.”
Wellton glared at him. “I didn’t ask what you were supposed to do. Do it or you’ll be wearing your own set.”
The deputy’s cheeks reddened, but he produced a key and promptly unlocked both of us. He hurried away, taking the cuffs with him.
Wellton glared at me. “I said you could poke around. I didn’t say you could go around killing people.”
“Hey, we-” I started, but Wellton kept going.
“You drive out here and just start taking target practice?” he asked, his eyes flaring with anger. “I asked you to help me out. I didn’t ask you to drag me into multiple murders. Which part didn’t you understand?”
“I understood all of it, Wellton,” I said, irritated. “But we had no choice.”
“Yeah, you did,” Wellton fired back. “You could’ve put the guns away and called the cops before you started blowing people away.”
“They were going to rape her,” Carter said quietly as he stood up.
We let that hang in the air for a moment and it seemed to temporarily diffuse Wellton’s fury.
“Who is she?” he asked.
“Malia Moreno. They brought her here,” I said, standing up, dusting off my shorts.
Wellton blinked quickly, chewing his bottom lip.
“Deacon Moreno’s sister,” I said, answering the question he was trying to put together in his head. “Carter and I met her yesterday.”
Wellton turned around and watched the medical examiner’s people cover both of the bodies.
He turned back to me, confusion tightening his features. “They killed the sister of a big-time gang leader? How’d she get here?”
“Lonnie and Mo. The two guys that put me in the hospital.”
“You saw them bring her here?” Wellton asked.
I recounted how it all went down.
Wellton looked at Carter. “Guns are yours?”
Carter nodded.
“Registered?”
Carter didn’t move.
“We’ll take them in to confirm ballistics and what Noah’s told me,” Wellton said, his anger percolating again. “I’ll see what I can do about getting them back to you. Maybe.”
Carter said nothing.
“There was another shooter,” I said.
Wellton didn’t understand. “What do you mean, another shooter?”
“Somebody jumped in from where we were watching.” I pointed up to the spot. “Whoever it was was with us, though, not against us.”
Wellton looked up at the ledge. “They weren’t shooting at you?”
“No.”
Wellton ran a hand through his short hair. “Either of you get a look at who was up there?”
We both shook our heads.
He exhaled, clearly puzzled. “Alright. We’ll check for casings and anything else we can find up there.” He turned around and looked at Malia. “Tell me about her.”
“Lonnie shot her,” I said. “He was the only one near her at the end. I’d already put the other guy down.” I explained the rest of the chaotic scene, going back to when we’d arrived up until the sheriff’s people got to the scene.
Wellton took a deep breath. “Peter Pluto hires you to find his brother, Linc. You find Lonnie and Mo at Peter Pluto’s house. Pluto’s dead and they nearly kill you. Then they come after you again.” He chewed on his bottom lip again for a moment. “You go looking for Deacon Moreno, talk to him and his little sister, and then she ends up here on the end of a rope pulled by one of the guys that killed your client. Which puts us back where we started.”
“It’s not Noah’s fault,” Carter said.
“I don’t know why they went after her,” I said, thinking Wellton was insinuating the same thing.
“I didn’t say you did,” Wellton said. “But it seems like your conversations with the Morenos might have triggered this.”
I didn’t see how or why that was possible, but I could see the trail of his logic. I was positive, though, that we hadn’t been followed into either Moreno’s neighborhood or to the campground, so I found it hard to believe that this was a reaction to something Lonnie and Mo had witnessed.
“No way all of this is a coincidence, though,” Wellton said.
“Not a fucking chance,” I said, shaking my head.
“Then how does it all tie together?”
I shook my head again, frustrated at hearing it all laid out in front of me. I couldn’t connect the dots. And I didn’t know why Malia was brought here, but I knew that it couldn’t have just been for random reasons.
The people from the medical examiner’s office lifted Malia’s covered body and placed her on a gurney. Clouds of dust rose up into the air as they rolled the gurney away and I felt an empty pain in my gut.
“There’s one thing that seems to connect all of this,” I said, wondering how long the image of Malia’s face would haunt my thoughts.
Wellton shoved his hands in his pockets. “What’s that?”
“Linc Pluto,” I said.
“Who you haven’t been able to find,” Wellton reminded.
“I’m gonna find him,” I said, surprised by the edge in my voice.
“We cleared his apartment, by the way,” Wellton added. “Found the weapons and brought them in.”
The medical examiner’s people came back and picked up the body of the kid I’d shot. The image of him over Malia flashed in my head. I can’t say I felt badly that he was dead.
“You find anything else there?” I asked.
Wellton shook his head, but I could tell he was thinking about something else.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m thinking about what happens when Moreno hears about this.”
Carter let out a low, long whistle.
“Yeah,” Wellton said, acknowledging Carter’s whistle. “Moreno’s gonna go off.” He paused. “And you two could be on his list.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you were here,” Wellton replied. “He’ll find out one way or another. And he’s gonna hold everybody who was here responsible.”
Carter shrugged. “We’re on a lot of lists.”
Wellton shifted his gaze from Carter to me. “I know. Just watch your asses. I’ll do what I can to put it out that you were the good guys here. But a guy like Moreno may not give a shit.”
At that moment, I didn’t care about Deacon Moreno. He could do whatever he needed to do. I was concerned about only one person.
Linc Pluto.