The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [90]
“Maybe they were looking for my dad,” Kate offered in a small voice.
“I don’t buy it,” Reggie said. “Your schedule’s never been predictable, has it, Mark?”
“Not really.”
“And if they were there for you, what would have put them on to Kyle? They couldn’t have been expected to know what your family looked like. On top of which, why bother mixing you up with Munoz at all? If they wanted to hit you, too, why not do it another day? Why make things so complicated?”
The answer hit me like a bullet. It was the mention of family that did it.
“What?” Kate demanded apprehensively, her eyes fixed on me.
“They weren’t there for Kyle, or for me. They were there for Claire.” I sagged against the wall, my knees weak. “They’d researched my family. They knew Claire left the apartment at the same time every night to go to work. But she didn’t go that evening, because I’d flown to London on short notice.”
The shock I felt was reflected on Claire and Kate’s faces.
“Reggie?” Claire breathed.
“Makes sense,” he answered softly. “They’d painted Munoz as a violent woman abuser and put him together with the car on the security video in the right time window.”
I shook my head at him, loath to have him speculate on the details, but Claire caught the gesture out of the corner of her eye.
“Enough,” she said angrily. “Stop trying to protect us from the truth. I want to know exactly what Reggie thinks was supposed to have happened that night.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He reached for a cigarette and then caught himself.
“My best guess is that Roxas—the girlfriend—lured Munoz to the motel and kept him busy in bed while a guy wearing a similar coat took the car. He and an accomplice or two drove uptown to grab Claire. Could have gone a couple of different ways from there, but, bottom line, Claire and Munoz were supposed to have been found dead together the next morning—in the motel, or in the car, or somewhere else. Cops looking into it would have figured things went south somehow with the hooker, so Carlos went out looking for entertainment. He grabbed Claire off the street, and then things got away from him. Murder-suicide. Maybe they even planned to have Roxas put a call in to 911 as the hooker, saying some john she picked up went crazy and tried to beat the crap out of her, and that she had to flee down the fire stairs. It wouldn’t have taken a lot to sell the story, given the security video and his supposed history.”
I felt sick to my stomach.
“Gallegos told me that Carlos’s enemies wanted to discredit him, to embarrass his political allies. The Venezuelan press hammered him for having been with a hooker when he died. Imagine what they would have done with this story.”
“Suppose you’re right,” Claire said. She was ashen and breathing heavily, but she looked stronger than I felt. “Why Kyle?”
“Maybe they improvised—which confirms they had a motive beyond just discrediting Munoz.” He glanced at me pityingly. “Only one common result of hurting a man’s wife or child. To incapacitate the man.”
“It had to have been something I was working on,” I whispered. “Something they wanted me to leave alone.”
“And they didn’t want to come right out and kill you,” Reggie added, “because the police would have dug into possible motives. This way they discredited Munoz, knocked you for a loop, and maybe even sent a message to some third parties about what happens to people who don’t play ball. It all fits.”
“And if I hadn’t flown off to London unexpectedly, it all would have worked.”
Our stunned silence was broken by Reggie’s cell phone. He checked the number and answered it, stepping into one of the bedrooms to talk.
“Gallegos,” Claire said urgently. “You need to get to him, Mark. You need to find