Once in the air, I resisted the urge to go back to sleep myself since I’d barely gotten a wink after the incident outside my house. I kept getting up last night and checking the front windows. Thankfully, I never spotted the black Explorer again.
Pulling out my laptop, I began working on the presentation. For the next couple of hours, I pored through thousands of digital family photos, looking for those special gems of my father-in-law. It was a surreal exercise with everything going through my mind right now. The photos on my laptop screen told a story of a faithful and committed family man who had been there for every moment of my life over the past sixteen years. Joe had been present at every single one of my girls’ birthday parties, school plays, sporting events, and dance recitals. Every backyard barbecue and swim party. Every Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Nearly every vacation. My girls had not celebrated a single event in their lives without Papa being there with a front-row seat. Neither had I. The weight of reality hit me again, and tears began to well in my eyes. I did not know at the moment how to balance the shock of my recent discovery with the pain that still filled my heart about his loss.
I shut my laptop and stared out the plane window as the sun slowly rose into the eastern sky. Sitting there, I began to realize how much I’d used this pursuit of truth behind our family money the past two days as a desperate distraction from having to deal with my own personal heartache. I didn’t want to think about how much I already missed Joe. I didn’t want to admit how scared I felt about having to lead my family forward without him in the seat next to me. I had relied on him for so much. Joe had been like a lighthouse for me, always bringing me safely back to shore. None of this new discovery made any sense to me. Why would Joe have done this? He must have had a legitimate reason. He must have gotten caught up in something with his murdered Mexican client that compelled him to go on the run. But I couldn’t reconcile the plane crash that killed Joe’s father and the millions of dollars he had hidden in the Caymans that he’d used to fund my company. Was that money stolen? How much more was still out there? Is that what eventually caught up with Joe and Ethan and got them both killed?
My thoughts were interrupted by my phone buzzing in my pocket. I had used the in-flight Wi-Fi option to stay connected with my messages. I pulled it out and found a new text message from Raul in Matamoros.
Raul: I’ve made an ID on the man in the photo. His name is Antonio Perez. He’s a CNI agent.
I pitched my head. CNI agent? I quickly searched on my phone and discovered the CNI, or the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, was Mexico’s equivalent of the CIA. This caused me to curse out loud, which caught the attention of the sixtysomething woman who was trying to sleep in the seat next to me. She peered over, gave me a seriously wrinkled frown. I apologized before going back to my phone.
I quickly responded to Raul.
Me: CNI? What is going on?
Raul: I don’t know yet. And I’m getting serious pushback from my superiors about why I’m even asking questions about this guy. Something is clearly up. I’ll keep you posted.
Me: Gracias.
I eased back into my seat, fought the urge to curse again. Why would someone from Mexican intelligence be involved in Joe’s and Ethan’s deaths?
TWENTY-SIX
My plane touched down midmorning at Reagan National. Once inside the airport, I made a quick phone call to the El Paso Times because it looked as if the same reporter who had written the story about the murder of Joe’s old client thirty-five years ago was now one of the newspaper’s senior editors. I asked a receptionist to speak to Felix Rodriguez and was thankfully put right through to him.
“This is Felix,” answered a hoarse voice on the other end.
“Felix, my name’s Alex Mahan. This may be a long shot, but are you the same Felix Rodriguez who wrote a story in the El Paso Times thirty-five years ago about the beheading of a businessman named Eduardo Cortez?”
He kind of laughed. “Well, that’s a blast from the past. But, yes, I wrote that. Why’re you asking?”
“Digging up information for a lawyer here. Cortez was an old client. Just need a minute of your time to ask a couple of questions.”
“A minute is all I’ve got, pal. So fire away.”
“You remember much about the happenings around that murder?”
“Not much. But I remember it was one of the worst crime scenes I’d ever covered.”
“Was anyone ever prosecuted?”
“Nope. But it seemed pretty clear it was the work of one of the cartels.”