Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

he’ll do is hold me hostage
.
Lean on the horn
,
goddammit
!
Get us out of this
!
    But you can’t get good help anymore.
    Libby waved. Just like Mom and Uncle Warren had popped in for some TV snacks instead of our last meal on the planet. Waved! I still can’t get over it.
    After we dumped the puffers in the bathtub, Warren said, “Now. Food. Rebecca, get in that kitchen.” He started murdering chips and Pepsis the instant we were in there, but he had great concentration. He could eat half a bag of chips while tracking me like a man in love. The opportunity I needed didn’t materialize.
    “I really can’t tell you what a marvelous night it’s been. What a splendid four days, for that matter. Do you know you three have really made my day?”
    I said, “Why’d you kill Sadie, Warren? You said it had nothing to do with the pearl—so what was it?”
    He lifted a know-it-all finger. “Ah-ah, young lady, I said no such thing. It had everything to do with the pearl. Just not the usual thing.”
    “So are you going to tell us or not?” He was having such a great time I already knew the answer. Even if we didn’t want to know, we were going to.
    But before he could get up a head of steam, I heard a funny clicking sound—outside, I thought; running steps. Then the familiar household sound of metal against metal—a key in the door. It could be only one person.
    “Run!” yelled Julio. “Esperanza, run for your life!” Warren crossed the living room in three or four steps, jerked the door open. Esperanza must have frozen. Warren pulled her inside, fat fingers circling her upper arm, gun pointed at her head. I could hear a car driving away.
    Julio started to coo the usual dumb things: “It’s all right, baby. Everything’s going to be—”
    I could have cried.
    “Shut up, Julio.” Warren slapped Esperanza’s face. “You’ve been a bad boy.”
    I flew out of the kitchen like a mother wolf, flung myself at Warren. Warren squeezed Esperanza’s arm so tight it turned red as I watched. He leveled the gun at the bridge of my nose. Esperanza screamed.
    “Everybody cool out!”
    He meant chill out; I prayed she wouldn’t correct him.
    She didn’t. Everyone froze.
    Finally I said, “Esperanza sometimes faints. Let her go, please.”
    He flung her into my arms. “What’s happening?” she whispered.
    I stroked her hair. How did you explain madness to a ten-year-old? “Why are you home?” I said.
    “Amber got sick. We went to the emergency room and then Ricky dropped me off.” She was still whispering.
    Julio kept quiet, knowing, I suppose, that anything he said would be used against his daughter.
    “Okay, okay, we’re going to make a few changes. First, we tie up Esperanza.” Warren tied her to a chair with some clothesline he must have found on his search. “And now, we hogtie Julio.” He had me do it while he held the gun to Esperanza’s temple. To make double sure, he didn’t let me untie the wrists and ankles. I had to do the hog-tying above the other bonds, which had now turned Julio’s skin an ugly purple.
    Pretty soon it became clear why he was doing it—he was going to amuse himself with the rest of us, and he was afraid of Julio, even tied up.
    That meant he wasn’t all that much afraid of me, which might be good. I had a secret weapon now. When Julio yelled and Warren left me alone, I’d worked a Seconal into my palm, pulled the capsule apart, dumped the contents into the salsa for the
huevos
, and tucked the empty capsule halves back into my sleeve. With luck, the salsa would mask the taste.
    My hands shook as I built the
huevos rancheros
. The eggs had finished poaching during the excitement, a good thing considering Warren’s eagerness. It was all I could do to keep him at bay while I put together my version of the dish: the eggs served on a tortilla smeared with refried beans—in this case, bean dip—the whole thing topped with lots of salsa and tomatoes, then sour cream and cheese.
    Warren retied me and ate standing at the counter.
    “Excellent,” he said. “You pass.”
    I nodded, humoring him.
    “I think you’re good enough to cook for the whole family. You hungry, Julio?”
    Julio shook his head.
    “I bet you kids are. And Rebecca’s going to make you a lovely bouillabaisse, aren’t you, Rebecca? Fugu bouillabaisse.”
    Fugu, of course, is another name for puffer.
    “They say it makes great sashimi. If you eat only that, you’re relatively safe. But