Body Heat. Brenda Novak

so involved in drug and gun trafficking that she faced a different kind of risk from the one posed by her stepfather.

      So she’d broken free, moved out on her own and migrated to the opposite extreme—law enforcement. After feeling so vulnerable, both at home and with Starkey’s pals as she became more aware of what they were really like, being able to protect herself had meant everything to her. She loved being a cop. But there was one person from the Starkey era she couldn’t let go of, and that was Starkey’s son, Rafe. She didn’t care that he wasn’t technically hers; she’d taken care of him those three years she’d been with Starkey—especially the two years she’d lived with him—and she wouldn’t walk out on the boy. His real mother was a crackhead who’d sell her soul for another bump. In many ways, Sophia was all Rafe had.

      And she loved him. It came down to that.

      “Someday I’m going to move,” she added, and forced herself to search the dead woman. There was nothing in her pockets except some nuts and a folded piece of paper with several words written in Spanish.

      Sophia expected it to be a paper prayer. A lot of illegal immigrants carried them. But it wasn’t. It was a love note.

      Although Sophia wasn’t fluent in Spanish, she could read and understand most of what she heard. She’d taken two years of Spanish classes in high school and she’d come into contact with it almost constantly since, via the ranch hands who frequented her stepfather’s feed store and the Mexicans she apprehended. Fortunately, that was enough to be able to decipher the few sentences she saw written there.

      “You’re beautiful. Will you marry me? I love you. José.”

      This woman had left behind everything she owned except this note? That meant it had to be important to her. She was wearing a thin gold band. It wasn’t very expensive, but it was a wedding ring all the same. Obviously, she’d said yes to that proposal.

      Tears welled up in Sophia’s eyes. Trying to hide her reaction, she ducked her head, but Dr. Vonnegut immediately caught on that something was wrong.

      “Hey, you okay?”

      She averted her face. “Fine. Just doing my job. Why?”

      “You’re acting strange.”

      Was it so strange to experience grief for these people? To feel that their deaths mattered?

      She swallowed in spite of the lump clogging her throat. “I think the guy’s name was José.”

      “José what?”

      “That’s what I have to find out. And this—” she gazed at a face that, in life, would’ve been as pretty as the note suggested “—this was his wife.”

      “Dumb wetbacks,” he mumbled.

      Sophia whirled on him before she could stop herself. “Shut up!” she shouted. “Just…shut up!”

      Anger quickly replaced his initial shock. “You’re not cut out for this job. I knew it when they hired you,” he said. Then he got up, removed his plastic gloves and stomped away, leaving the bodies to the boys from the morgue, who put bags around the victims’ hands, in case they could recover some sort of trace evidence, and began wrapping their corpses in clean white sheets.

      Ignoring the stares of the people who’d been looking on, Sophia pinched the bridge of her nose and struggled to compose herself. She had to be careful. There were enough sexist jerks in Bordertown who thought her job should’ve gone to a man—even though the only viable candidate was a criminal himself.

      Her cell phone rang. As she pulled it from her pocket, she hoped it might be Rafe. He’d give her something good to hang on to, help her get through this. But it was too early for him to be up. And as soon as she saw the incoming number, she knew a bad morning was about to get worse: It was Wayne Schilling, the mayor.

      3

      The voice on the other end of the phone stopped Roderick Guerrero in his tracks. Because he hadn’t recognized the number, he’d been curious enough to answer. But from the moment he’d heard the word hello, he’d known it was his father, although they hadn’t spoken in years—ever since he’d graduated from BUD/S training and received his Naval Special Warfare SEAL classification. He still couldn’t say how Bruce Dunlap had found out he was graduating, or the time and date of the ceremony. Roderick sure as shit hadn’t told him. But someone had. After all the years Dunlap had chosen to ignore him—even lied about their relationship—he’d flown to California to attend and looked on; acting as proud as any other parent. The only difference was that his wife sat at his side, her lips pressed tight with disapproval. Edna was the kind of woman who walked through town looking down her nose at everybody. Roderick disliked her even more than he disliked his father.

      He didn’t know what to say and had no desire to say anything, so he hung up. He felt no obligation to Bruce. It wouldn’t have mattered if Bruce had been calling to offer him a million-dollar inheritance. Roderick didn’t want his father’s money, his advice, his legacy or his love. His love least of all. He didn’t even use his father’s name. Legally, he wasn’t a Dunlap, anyway. He was a bastard and as such had been an embarrassment to his wealthy white father all the time he was growing up. As soon as he was old enough to contest his mother’s wishes, he’d taken her name instead. She hadn’t been happy about that. He was related to the wealthiest man in town and she wanted everyone to know it. It gave her a sense of pride, a connection to something more through him.

      Or maybe she enjoyed it for other reasons. Maybe she got some pleasure from knowing her son’s very existence grated on Edna. But Roderick wanted to distance himself from the Dunlaps and all they represented as much as they wanted to distance themselves from him. He was satisfied with his mother’s name. Guerrero meant warrior. That suited him better. He’d been fighting since the day he was born.

      Milton Berger stuck his head out of the conference room a few feet down the hall. “What are you doing?”

      Roderick had almost forgotten that his boss was waiting to be debriefed on his latest assignment.

      “Nothing.” He started to slide his cell phone into the pocket of his khaki shorts when it rang again.

      “Can you shut that off and get your ass in here? I don’t have all day!” Milt snapped. As sole owner of Department 6, Milt couldn’t seem to focus on any one thing longer than five minutes. He was too busy juggling. Always in a meeting or on a call, he wasn’t an average workaholic; he was like a workaholic on speed. Roderick was beginning to think the fortysomething-year-old never went home at night.

      But he didn’t care what Milt did in his off-hours. Milt wasn’t the kind of guy Roderick liked spending time with. Milt had six operatives, and every single one of them thought he was a bona fide asshole. What did that say about a guy?

      As his phone continued to jingle, Roderick’s thumb hovered over the red phone symbol that would send the call to voice mail. It was his father again. Why the hell was the old man making an effort now? At thirty, Roderick was no longer a dirt-poor Mexican boy with no prospects and no family beyond a weary mother who’d come into the country illegally when she was barely twenty and cut lettuce in the fields of the selfish jerk who’d impregnated her. Whatever Bruce wanted, it was too late.

      But Milt’s impatience grated on Roderick almost as much as his father’s untimely call, so he answered out of spite. “How did you get my number?”

      “What the hell!” Milt complained.

      Roderick ignored him.

      “I’ve been keeping tabs on you.”

      The question that immediately came to Rod’s tongue was why, but he knew his father’s answer wouldn’t make sense to him, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it anyway, so he went with “How?”

      “Jorge mentions you from time to time.”

      Jorge was Bruce’s overseer. He was also the closest thing Rod had to a grandfather