The way I saw it, if we took Emily out of the equation, if her testimony was no longer needed, both she and Phillip would be safe. But in order to do that, I would have to get some kind of confession on tape. Some hard-core incriminating evidence that would convince the DA he didn’t need Emily’s testimony, nor did he need to prosecute her for making a false statement. She was trying to save Phillip, after all. He was willing to go to prison for a very long time to get out of his life of crime. Would that hold any weight with the DA? Would he take that into consideration when charging him with money laundering for a known crime family? He would almost surely want Phillip to testify, and that was the whole point. He simply couldn’t, not without placing his ex-wife and children in terrible danger. Crime bosses didn’t see the world through the same eyes as the rest of the world. They saw it and everyone in it as a means to an end, the end being wealth and power.

I went to the front desk of the motel and told them I’d lost my key to room 217. Getting another one didn’t take too much finagling, once I showed them my PI license. Most people had no idea it meant next to nothing in the grand scheme of things. Now I just needed to get Garrett over there to wire me up and have Reyes on standby. When Mendoza contacted me, I would be ready.

I hurried back to my apartment for supplies and to begin the initial setup of my ingenious plan. I called Cookie on the way, making sure she was ready for phase two of said plan. Once I got to my apartment, I put the battery back in my regular phone, took a seat at my kitchen table, and waited for Cookie’s call.

* * *

I parked Misery across the street from the Crossroads Motel at a medical clinic and started toward the room the FBI had conveniently paid for clad in a large sweater, a blond wig, and dark sunglasses. If the Mendozas were listening when Cookie called pretending to be Special Agent Carson, or Sack, as I’d called her several times throughout the conversation, they would believe that Emily Michaels was being held in room 217.

Garrett would show up soon, dressed in a suit. He would play my FBI protector when Mendoza’s men showed up. It was a dangerous role, one he’d not only agreed to but insisted upon playing. I figured if we were going to work together, he should probably get used to the idea of my being used as bait. It just worked so well so much of the time. Reyes wasn’t at the restaurant when I’d called over there, and he wasn’t picking up his cell, but I figured whatever situation I got myself into, I could summon him in a heartbeat. As long as I wasn’t concussed or drugged or bleeding out so profusely I couldn’t focus. It would probably take hours for Mendoza to gather his forces and execute a plan.

I’d just put my foot on the first rung of the stairs when a car screeched to a halt behind me. Alarm spiked and dumped adrenaline. It was too soon. I’d only just called, and Garrett wasn’t there yet. But sure enough, a man got out and encouraged me rather roughly to get into the car with them.

That was how I found myself in the back of a dark sedan, wondering if they thought I was Emily or not, and wondering as well if being Emily or just plain old Charley would be more dangerous in this situation.

The plan had been to lure Mendoza’s men to the hotel, capture them, then get them to turn against their boss. So far, my plan wasn’t going precisely according to specs, but all hope was not lost. I still had a supernatural nigh fiancé with a hair trigger and a penchant for severing spines I could call upon should the situation demand. I could do this.

“Would you remove that ridiculous wig,” a man with a heavy Mexican accent said to me. I had no idea who. My sunglasses were so dark and the windows of the sedan had been tinted, so it was impossible to see. But I could tell as the tires screeched beneath me that I was facing the wrong direction.

We were in a stretched car with two backseats facing each other when someone ripped off my wig and glasses. It was very uncalled for. I could only assume the man sitting across from me was Mendoza himself. It surprised me that he would come in person.

“That was a nice try, Ms. Davison,” he said as he clipped the end of a cigar.

He wore a white suit, impeccably tailored, and yet he didn’t look at home in it at all. He was overweight and wore enough gold to require an armored car service to sport him about town. He was like cheap cologne on a billionaire. He didn’t belong. Everything about him screamed cliché, like he’d taken his cues from ’80s movies about Colombian drug lords.

I smoothed my hair down after having half of it ripped out by one of the men on either side of me. Clearly they had never heard of bobby pins. I’d wedged that wig on, thinking it would be there awhile.

Mendoza wasn’t taking any chances with me. Both his men had pistols jammed into my rib cage, and I recognized one of the guns as the one that had been pointed at my head. I glared at the man holding it. He smirked.

We took the onramp to I-25.

“You were quite the challenge, but after everything I’d heard about you, I had expected no less.”

“I feel challenging,” I said for the sole sake of being a smart-ass. I could afford to be. And I didn’t like being manhandled against my will. Or having pistols jammed into my sides. One bump, one reflexive squeeze, and there would be no way to dodge a bullet from a gun that close, no matter how fast I could slow time. Perhaps it was time to summon my ace in the hole. But I still didn’t really have anything incriminating on him. And I never would. All the recording equipment was back at the hotel room. If I could get to my phone, I could at least record our conversation, but how I was going to manage that with Dumb and Dumber on my ass, I had no idea. Maybe if I pointed out the window and said, Look! A bird!