With the doorknob still in hand and the door wide open, Taylor decided to make a break for it. He felt the sun on his face as he stepped his left foot through the threshold. His right foot never felt the freedom of the pavement outside the door. The gloved hand of their visitor gripped him by the shoulder.
Taylor spun. Off-kilter, he fell backward. His body slammed into the door, closing it.
Looking into the man's eyes which peeked from under the brim, he could see two faded scars, small circles that looked like burst stars just under the man's right eye. It was the last thing he saw before the bullet passed through his head.
Six
Azul pulled the ambulance to a stop in a strip mall parking lot. It sat idling in front of a Kenmore appliance store. Both businesses on either side were vacant. And from the looks of it, had been for a very long time. Hatch leaned forward and looked past her kind-hearted chauffeur.
Through the driver's side window, Hatch saw across the street to a building that looked more like a sandcastle than a police department. The light brown stone exterior blended into the dirt berm behind it. The sign affixed to the chain link fence topped with razor wire read, “Policia Municipal, Nogales.” Beyond the fence, the steepled front with an arched, clear glass window at the center above the main doors looked more like a church than a law enforcement headquarters.
"Across the street," Azul pointed in the direction of a guard station by a pedestrian access gate, "at that little hut. You see it? That's where you check in. Tell them you're there to speak with one of the officers and they'll tell you where to go."
"Thanks." Hatched grabbed the door handle.
"Look, it's not my business—but if I can help…"
He let the question linger. Hatch noticed it was the third time he'd tried to bring it up without asking, but once again, Hatch offered nothing to satiate his thirst for understanding. Not that she didn't trust him. In their short time together, he'd proved that he was trustworthy. No, Hatch's disregard of his offer came from a different place. Protection. The people she was going after wouldn't hesitate to hurt anybody remotely connected with her and she knew this. The less he knew the better.
"You've been a great help, Azul. I can't thank you enough. I owe you." She took his hand in hers and shook it. "And I always repay my debts.".
"No need. The pleasure was mine."
Hatch exited, stepping on a half-eaten chicken wing overrun with ants. A nearby dumpster added its foul contribution to the weighty heat of mid-morning.
Just before shutting the door, Azul said, "You know where to find me, if you ever need me."
"You're right about that." Hatch chuckled and slapped a hand on the blue ambulance's side panel.
Hatch waited for a gap in traffic and then hustled across the six lanes to the sidewalk in front of the station. Out of the corner of her eye, Hatch watched as Azul pulled out of the lot and headed back in the direction they'd come from.
A short, fat officer crammed himself into the wooden guard shack after arguing with an older woman. Whatever her complaint had been, the officer met her with resistance. The squat officer folded his thick arms across his ample belly and struck a pleased look as he watched the woman turn and stomp off. Hatch took the slight incline in the walkway to the guard house and passed the irate woman who cursed in Spanish until she was out of earshot.
All the effort in thwarting the older woman's claim caused the floodgates to unleash. Sweat poured out of the portly man's forehead. The unfit police officer scrunched his brow at the sight of Hatch approaching. His face screwed up in a question mark when he realized she was American.
"Can I help you?" he asked in broken English.
"I'm looking for somebody."
The officer whose nametag read Torres cocked an eyebrow followed by a toothy grin. "Mexico is a big place."
"I'm looking for a girl. A teenager. Seventeen. I need to speak with one of your detectives."
He looked ready to gaff her off, just as she'd witnessed him do to the older woman moments ago. But instead, he surprised her. "In through those doors. That's the main lobby. Someone inside will help you."
She turned and started to the door when Hatch heard Torres say, "ID." She turned to see his opened moist palm. Hatch hoped she could avoid using any official identification, but time hadn't been on her side and she had not been able get a quality fake. Besides the hunter killer team sent to silence her in Colorado, nobody was officially looking for her.
Reluctantly, Hatch fished out her license and handed it to him. She was grateful he did nothing more than eye it for less than a second before handing it back to her with a clipboard. A ballpoint pen was attached to the metal clip by a rubber band. "Sign."
Hatch was grateful the officer didn't write it. In the best impression of the worst doctor handwriting ever, she signed it using a name combining a little girl she loved more than anything with the man who'd saved her life. Daphne Nighthawk was scribbled in the first available line. She handed it back to Torres. He returned the clipboard to the rusty nail without even looking at her signature mark.
Quietly grateful, Hatch pocketed the license. "I know it's not my business, but what was the deal with that woman?"
"You're right, it's none of your business." The guard retreated deeper into his shack like a turtle retracting into its shell.
Hatch walked away and into the main lobby.
Seven
She first heard the screams upon entering through the dark tinted glass doors of Nogales' municipal police department. The screams, more of high-pitched wails, reverberated through the open space of the lobby with megaphonic proportions.
Hatch spent time inside a variety of federal, military, and local police department lobbies across the US and overseas while serving as an MP. Combative people in the lobby were nothing out of the ordinary. The mayhem wasn't always caused by a criminal either. She'd seen plaintiffs become convicts when lost in the heat of the moment. The door closed behind her as she surveyed the chaotic events taking place.
A wild-eyed man was wearing nothing but a frayed pair of jeans wrapped around his ankles and exposing his red boxers. Once inside, Hatch waited for her eyes to adjust from the bright light of outside to the incandescent light of the interior of the lobby. In the clarity that followed, she realized he was not wearing red boxers. They were, in fact, white. The blood covering them gave them a red hue. The leakage stemmed from several long gashes on the combatant's head and skull.
He kicked wildly at the two officers restraining him. A handsome officer with an amused look on his face stood nearby, far enough away to not be directly involved in the melee. He gave an authoritative nod of his head to the bigger of the two cops holding the blood covered man. The larger officer drove a wooden straight stick baton across the top of the man's head. In the US, this type of blow would've only been authorized under a deadly force encounter. He delivered an additional blow that caught the shirtless man in the side of his neck before the fighting stopped altogether.
The two officers wearing the unconscious man's blood on their green fatigues dragged him away in cuffs. Something about not wanting to stay a night in a Mexican prison came to Hatch's mind. This experience reminded her of the truth behind its meaning. She hated to think of the conditions Angela Rothman was experiencing at this very moment.