Evasive Action (Holding The Line Book 1)

nose piercing.”
His pulse ratcheted up another few notches. “Lots of women have nose piercings.”
“Look again, Clay.” She folded her hands in her lap, twisting her fingers. “The piercing is a star, a small, gold star.”
Clay’s tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth. He didn’t have to look. They’d already noted the star piercing on the woman’s nose.
Lifting her chin, April placed a hand over her heart. “It’s true, isn’t it? You’ve seen the piercing.”
“If you do know who this is—and I’m not conceding that you do—how do you know her? Who is Elena?”
Her fingers curled against the skin of her chest. “I met her at Jimmy’s.”
Clay closed his eyes as a stifling dread thrummed through his veins. When he’d believed that the cartel had left the head on April’s porch because of him, it had angered him. If they’d left it there so Jimmy could send some kind of message to April, that scared the hell out of him.
His lids flew open. He couldn’t let April know how much her words had struck terror into his heart.
He smoothed his palms over her arms, pulling her hands away from her throat where she’d scored it with red marks from her nails. He laced his fingers with hers.
“In what capacity? What was she doing at Jimmy’s?”
“Sh-she is, was, Gilbert’s girlfriend.”
“Gilbert is the man you overheard talking with Jimmy in his office when you were out on the balcony?”
She nodded once, dropping her chin to her chest. “What does it mean? Did Jimmy kill her or have her killed?”
She jumped up from her chair so fast and with so much force she knocked him over and he braced a hand against the floor.
She buried her hands in her hair and screamed, the sound launching Denali to his feet. “I can’t believe I was with that man. I can’t believe Adam would set me up like that.”
Clay grabbed the edge of the table and hoisted himself up. “I’m not defending Jimmy here or trying to tell you he’s a great guy, but I don’t believe he had Elena murdered.”
“You think it’s some great, cosmic joke that I met a woman at Jimmy’s who winds up murdered and beheaded at the border and her head makes it to my front porch?” She stooped down automatically and patted Denali, frantically circling her.
“Can you sit down a minute? You’re making Denali and me nervous.” He grabbed the back of the kitchen chair. “Sit and drink some tea. I can get you something stronger if you want.”
She wedged a hand against the nearest wall and her whole frame shuddered. “The tea will do.”
She crossed the room and took a seat.
He pulled the other chair around to face hers and straddled it. “Let’s slow down and think a minute. Jimmy belongs to Las Moscas, right? You saw the wooden tokens in his desk drawer. He wouldn’t have those for any other reason than that he belongs to that cartel.”
“That’s right, and you told me Elena had one of those clutched in her cold, lifeless hand.”
Clay huffed out a breath. April was going to get herself wound up again. “She did, but the other agents and I never believed that she was one of Las Moscas’ mules. They killed her and left that token in her hand as a warning to others not to mess with Las Moscas.”
“Mess with them? As in work against them?” She tucked the shimmering strands of her hair behind one ear as her eyes began to lose their glassiness.
“We interpreted the whole ugly scene as another gang moving into Las Moscas territory and Las Moscas reclaiming that territory in the most brutal way possible.”
“You think Elena was working for a rival to Las Moscas and that Jimmy and Gilbert are those rivals?”
“I have a strong suspicion that’s what happened.”
“And why me?” She finally made a grab for the iced tea glass, almost knocking it over. She saved it and took a long gulp. “Why leave her head on my porch? I didn’t even realize Jimmy knew about that house.”
“You can be sure Adam told him all about you. Perhaps he even told him about me.”
“That’s bad, Clay. That’s really bad news.” She grabbed the back of his chair. “What if he thinks I’m over here giving you all kinds of information about him and his operation?”
That’s exactly what he feared.
Shaking her head back and forth, her brow creasing, she said, “He was stupid to leave Elena’s head on my porch, knowing I could identify her.”
“That’s just it. Jimmy wouldn’t kill his own mules. He didn’t leave the head on your porch—Las Moscas did.”
April blinked her wide eyes. “That’s so much worse. It’s terrifying enough to deal with an evil that you know, but Las Moscas? Do you think they tracked me down through Jimmy?”
“If Jimmy was part of the cartel, I’m guessing somebody in Las Moscas knows all about his relationships.”
She clasped her hands, which had finally stopped trembling, between her knees. “What now?”
“Do you know Elena’s last name?”
“I don’t. Never heard it. I know Gilbert’s, though. His is Stanley. Gilbert Stanley.”
“He’s not Latino?”
“He is.” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “Half, like you.”
“When you met Elena, was she in the company of an older, white woman?”
“She was not.”
“Do you think the girlfriend story could’ve been a cover, or do you really believe she and Gilbert were a couple?”
“I don’t have any idea. I didn’t spend much time with them. She did go into Jimmy’s office one time and I did wonder why she was in there when I had never been. They must’ve been giving her instructions then.” She tapped her fingernails on the glass, rocking the slivers of ice left in the tea. “You’re going to have to turn all this info over to Detective Espinoza, aren’t you?”
“Of course. He needs to ID those heads.”
“That means you’re going to have to tell him how you know the name of the woman with the pierced nose. You’re going to have to