Page 34 of There Once was a Dancer
“So, maybe he had a good explanation. You never even talked to him about it?”
I shook my head. “I never…let him give me explanation,” I said, feeling stupid.
“Then you need to let him apologize, Cachi. If you like him so much, you need to give him another chance.”
I stared at him, trying to decide what to do. Marcello was older by a couple of years and much wiser than I was. I knew it had a lot to do with the way he took care of his younger siblings and how responsible he had to be when his mama was at work. Maybe I had been too immature when it came to Rex. I should have let him apologize to me or at the very least, let him explain himself. Everyone at the vet had loved him and based on the way he treated his sweet, little Lola, I knew he was a kind man. I suddenly realized I’d been the one in the wrong. I had to let him explain. It was the least I could do. If he’d given up on me, then I was the one at blame here.
“You’re right, Marcello. I give him chance.”
“You should give him another chance,” he corrected.
“I should give him another chance,” I repeated so that I wouldn’t forget the English.
Marcello reached out and patted my arm, smiling broadly. “Good. I like it when I see you happy, Cachi. And if it works out, maybe you can introduce me to him someday.”
I smiled, nodding. “Yes. I do that.” I heard boots crunching and looked over to see the guy in charge coming over to us just as a linemen’s truck pulled up and parked on the street nearby. When the man in charge started talking to us, I ignored the truck and turned to him, listening to him speak to us in Spanish and then concentrated on translating it for Marcello. It was the least I could do for the best friend a guy could have, because if it worked out with Rex and me, it’d be because I talked it over with my wise friend Marcello.
Chapter Nine
REX
It was hot and I was aching from lying on the hard ground. Mars had set up twenty yards to my right, having found a good location to see the guard gate from a different angle. He’d chosen it because it also had a line of sight between the tall Italian cypresses that had been planted along the high fence separating the multi-million-dollar private estates from Roscomare Road. Personally, I couldn’t understand people who liked to live in a bubble like this community. It’s why I’d spent all my savings and borrowed from my military pension to buy my own house. I liked the feeling of freedom that apartment or condo living lacked.
Then there was Lola. That girl needed her own yard and that’s all there was to it. In my opinion all this excessive and exclusive security was a bit over the top. Maybe these homeowners were worried that Spiderman would somehow want to scale the walls to get into the neighborhood of wealthy homes, maybe to take a dip in their pools or something.
By the time we’d parked and hiked back to the spot I’d chosen, the truck and the movers who’d been setting up the valet stand were long gone. The guard was still inside the security kiosk periodically popping his head out to speak to anyone driving up to be let in through the gate. Only my team knew that both the gate guard and the man running the valet stand were undercover FBI agents. They’d been put in place not only for their added guns, but to identify each car’s passengers as they drove up. Agents Wallace and Steele were both well-trained undercovers who were fully briefed on how to handle the partyguests and exactly what to do when they identified themselves. We weren’t taking any chances of losing Castillion.
I’d been lying on sticks and stones, feeling them poke me through my clothes and the heavy horse blanket I’d been stretched out on for the last two hours. I’d seen delivery men, several utility vehicles, and a few residents enter through the gate after speaking to the guard. He never let them go inside until he’d spoken to them then ducked inside the kiosk, presumably to call a homeowner to get permission.
All in all, I was extremely anxious to get the show on the road. It’d been years since I’d had to take up sniper position on the dirt. In a past life, I’d spent days lying on sand, but these days, I wasn’t used to the ants and other insects who seemed to enjoy my horse blanket a hell of a lot more than I did. I’d almost forgotten the art of watching and waiting for someone to pop their head out of wherever they’d decided to hide. I had to remain still because even wearing the ghillie suit, movement could be detected. Not that anyone would be checking out the hilltop across from the exclusive community.
“Monroe, Clifford, check in,” Candy said in the coms we wore.
“Monroe here.”
“Clifford ‘ere, sir,” Mars said.
“Good. Give us a heads up if you see a possible party-goer vehicle,” Candy said. “It’s four o’clock and Castillion will be arriving anytime now.”
“Yessir,” I replied.
“Will do, sir,” Mars echoed.
As Candy clicked off, I looked through the scope, counting our guys one by one. Candy had joined them along with twoof Lincoln’s guys, former Recon Marine, Max Prince, and Mac McCallahan, the huge ginger-haired Green Beret. That meant we had eight guys down there plus the two undercovers. Since most of the cartel crowd carried heavy firepower no matter where they went, we wanted as many guys as we could have on the scene, provided we found the guy we were searching for when it came to making an arrest.
Since we knew that most of the quinceañeras’s attendees would be teenagers and their parents, the plan was to have Agent Wallace let them all through the gate after checking their IDs and only arrest Castillion at the gate. If someone had a warrant, we’d already decided to let them go. They weren’t our target. All I could do was pray that we’d be able to capture him without incident. The last thing I wanted to do was to look through the window of a car and see a teenaged girl screaming at the top of her lungs because she just watched her father get his head blown off.
I scanned one side of the street as I looked through the scope, feeling sweat trickle down my sides to pool at my belly where I was hot under the ghillie suit. The camo fishing net with twigs and leaves on it had been draped over my body, and the added extra weight didn’t help. I also wore my tac pants and a long-sleeved shirt to keep from being eaten by insects, and until the sun went down instead of blazing overhead, I knew I was gonna be hot. There were no two ways about it. I swept the gun past the gate, noting how there were several valets standing around waiting for the first cars from the Hernandez quinceañera to arrive.
I counted eight valets as well as Agent Steele, who stood at the valet stand looking through what appeared to be a pad of claim tickets which I could only assume he planned on giving to guests as they arrived. He wore an earwig as well and plannedon announcing names as he handed out tickets. If the driver didn’t name the passengers in the car, then Agent Wallace at the security kiosk would demand IDs.
It was so strange—how normal it all was—as if notorious drug traffickers moving next door to Bel Air residents was something that happened every day. Hadn’t any of them ever watched Scarface? When we finally tried to arrest these guys would Hernandez or Castillion run out and scream, “You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!” I closed my eyes for a second, snorting softly.
“What is it?”
I lifted the edge of the ghillie suit and glanced over at Mars who quirked an eyebrow at me. He must have heard me laugh in the earwig since we were too far away from each other to converse. I grinned and shook my head, turning back to my rifle and dropping the edge of the drape. I glanced north, sweeping the street, seeing no cars coming from that direction so I slowly panned to the south. A line of three darkly colored sedans was slowly coming down the street several blocks away.
“Captain, we have three black sedans coming down the street from the south,” I said, knowing everyone on coms would pick up my voice. “They’re three blocks away, moving about forty miles an hour, sir.”
