Carla, p.1
Carla, page 1
Praise for A.M. Pascarella
Nourish, hard-edged, and memorable Las Vegas procedural.
Booklife.com
In Maria, A.M. Pascarella has created a heroine with uncommon depth.
Bestthrillers.com
Maria and Carla are captivating figures, and readers will be eager for them to return.
Kirkus Reviews
Carla
A Maria Varela Mystery
Book 5
A.M. Pascarella
Copyright © 2024 by A.M. Pascarella
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Hurricane Arabella: A Michael Shale Thriller
About the Author
Prologue
Carla was so tired.
Why was she so tired?
She tried to open her eyes but couldn’t. Tried moving her head, but that didn’t work either. She tried to remember where she was or how she’d gotten there, but everything was so hazy.
A door opened behind her. She heard footsteps. Someone approached and pressed against her back. She felt something smooth like latex.
What the hell was going on?
She pushed her eyes halfway open, a blinding light. Her eyes shut. She tried so hard to open them again, but opening them hurt. She tried to shake her head, but her head wouldn’t move.
Sensation returned to her arms and legs. She felt something holding her tightly at the wrists and ankles. She started to struggle, but everything was so tight, she couldn’t do anything but strain against whatever bound her.
A hand touched her eyelids. Pulled them up.
She saw a mirror. And then she saw what was behind her.
She looked right at the reflection and said, “Fuck you.”
1
Maria looked into the bathroom mirror. She’d come in here for a minute of peace and ended up spending the whole time fighting back tears. She splashed water on her face. Dug the heel of her hands in her eyes.
How the hell had Michael let Carla go?
Even as she thought it, she knew Michael hadn’t had a choice. Carla was going to leave regardless of what he said, but still, why didn’t he go with her?
She looked up at the ceiling. Closed her eyes.
Tried not to visualize the picture she’d been sent.
Failed.
She started to sob.
She pounded her fist against the sink.
She didn’t have time to break down now. She only had time to hunt. And once she found Carla, and she was safe and tucked away at home, Maria was going to find whoever had taken her and remove him from this planet. That police officer on the reservation was right.
Some people had no reason to be breathing.
* * *
Millie was waiting for her outside.
“The FBI is working on tracing the message you got, and Captain Hiller is putting together a team to retrace Carla’s steps. They’ve already identified possible cameras and are reviewing video from the area,” Millie said.
“What about her phone?” Maria asked.
Millie shook her head. The phone wasn’t on and wasn’t transmitting a location for 911. Either it had been disabled or the signal was being blocked.
Maria nodded. Looked down the hall toward the room holding Les’s materials.
“How are you holding up?” Millie said.
“I’m fine,” Maria said.
“If you want to talk to someone, the department-”
“I don’t have time for that right now. Where’s Dunleavy?” Maria asked.
“He’s off securing the video footage,” Millie said.
Maria stepped around Millie.
“Where are you going?”
“I have work to do,” Maria said.
“Maria, you’re involved. You’re a victim. Let us help you,” Millie said.
“I am letting you help. I’m going to work my case, though,” Maria said. She put her hand on the doorknob. It was locked. She looked back at Millie.
“Maybe you should take some time,” Millie said.
“Maybe you should open the fucking door,” Maria said.
Millie shook her head. Pulled a keychain out of her pocket.
“When this is over, you and me are getting in a ring,” Millie said.
“I prefer parking lots,” Maria said.
* * *
Dunleavy had everything set up just like it had been in Les’s office, with the corkboard up against the far wall and the notebooks on a table facing it. A box sat on a chair. She flipped up the top and saw more notebooks, older, frayed. Pieces of paper with notations. They looked to be the remnants of previous investigations.
She picked one notebook up and flipped through it. Saw the name of a mayor who had been voted out of office almost five years ago. She pawed through the rest of the materials in the box. Saw nothing of interest and pushed the box aside.
She sat down and pulled the two notebooks that she’d looked through in Les’s office to her. The empty one, she put aside, but she flipped through the other one, hopeful to see something new now that she’d learned more about the case and the people involved. She stopped on a page with the addresses. None of them were meaningful to her. Especially these addresses in Phoenix.
Why was Les interested in Phoenix if he was investigating people in Vegas?
Maria saw the numbers Dunleavy had talked about. They must have been important because they were written neatly in order on their own page with a big box drawn around them. Maria pulled out her phone and searched for folio numbers. The structure of the numbers was exactly like a folio number, but just as Dunleavy had said, none of the numbers were attached to any Las Vegas addresses.
And if they were Phoenix addresses, they were useless to Maria.
Maybe she could come back to them later, when she could focus on Les’s murder again. Maybe they were attached to some kind of shady mortgage company, but Carla had only been missing a couple of hours when the photo had been sent to her. There was no way she could be in Phoenix.
Then Maria remembered the RV. Could there be another RV?
She pulled her phone out and opened the picture. Forced herself to really look at it. Not at Carla, looking at Carla shackled to the chair, tore her soul in two, but Maria looked at the rest of the picture, the background, the floor, the mirror. Carla was definitely in a house. Next to the mirror was an electrical outlet. The flooring was wood and shone in the overhead light.
She had to be in Las Vegas or nearby.
But how was she going to find her?
Maria returned to the notebook. She saw a page with the number $2500 underlined three times. Written underneath the number was “Ask T to cover DM expense.”
Could T be Tom? Who else would it be? Maria doubted another attorney who handled Les would have a name that started with a T. Sure, it wasn’t impossible, but it didn’t seem likely, which meant that Tom had lied to her. Not the most surprising part of her day, but still, it pissed her off. She’d been stupid to believe that Tom would be honest with her.
And the expense. DM. Dillon Mathers. If that assumption was correct, she had her whole understanding of the case wrong. If Les needed reimbursement for Dillon, then Dillon was working for Les. But why would he be on the board then?
Asking Dillon seemed like the only way to find out.
* * *
The ride to Dillon’s house took a solid twenty minutes but felt like two hours. Every light seemed to be red, and every other car was choosing today to drive a solid five to ten miles under the speed limit. She needed to relax, and she knew it, but she was damned if she knew how she was going to be able to.
When she finally made it to Dillon’s neighborhood, she found herself speeding down the residential street way too fast and had to force herself to slow down. If she hit some kid on a skateboard, she was never going to find Carla.
Dillon’s garage was closed, but she saw lights on in a window. She parked her car in his driveway. Thought over how to go about questioning him. Everything was jumbled together in her head. She normally had Michael to sound ideas off of, but by herself, she fe lt lost.
If Dillon was getting reimbursed for services from Les, that meant he was working with Les. It could have been a honey pot operation, using Dillon’s OnlyFans models to go after Patrick. According to what Luisa had said, that wouldn’t work, but that changed the whole framework of the case.
She’d tell Dillon that she thought maybe he was involved in a different way, and now she wanted to clear him. He had to be nervous. Connor was a cop, and right or wrong, that was an advantage for Connor. But Dillon was just some leech. She’d play on that. See if she could get him to open up. Make him believe she wanted to help. But what was she really hoping to get out of this? She wondered if this was a waste of time.
Maybe. Probably.
But she couldn’t think of anything else to be doing right now, and standing still and doing nothing wasn’t an option. She got out of the car and headed up the walkway. The front of the house looked like every other house on the street. No garish decorations or suggestive statues. Just a plain cement block walkway lined by decorative rocks. Nothing to provide a hint that a man suspected of murder and kidnapping was living inside.
Maybe there was an opening there. She’d need to find out how close he was with his neighbors. Personal reputation mattered, and probably even more in his business. For all the assumptions about the sex work industry, Maria doubted those women would want to work with someone that didn’t make them feel safe.
A pressure point was forming in her mind.
She pressed the doorbell. Heard a buzzing through the door. She stood there, waiting.
Footsteps approached the door and stopped on the other side.
“I don’t have anything to say to you. Call my attorney,” Dillon said. He wasn’t even bothering to open the door.
“I just have some follow-up questions,” Maria said.
“Attorney,” Dillon said.
“I’m trying to clear you,” Maria said.
A pause as Dillon processed what she was saying.
Maria could feel her heart catch in her chest. If Dillon refused to speak with her, she’d have to either leave or kick in the door, and she wasn’t sure what option she was going to choose.
And she didn’t even know if Dillon could help.
How had she ended up here?
The door swung open. Dillon was wearing sweatpants and a wrinkled t-shirt. His hair stuck up in puffs. It was late in the day. What had he been doing that led him to sleep the whole day away? Maria would have put a month’s salary on Dillon having spent the whole previous night pacing around his house worrying about what was going to happen to him. Most people were never arrested, so they couldn’t understand how stressful the experience was. It was something the television shows and movies couldn’t capture, the pressure of living with the weight of a prison sentence hanging over your head. Sleepless nights were the least of it.
“Why would you want to clear me?” Dillon said.
“Because you were working with Les, and why would you kill him if you were working with him? And if you were working with him, you probably have some information that would be helpful to me. Now, I’m not sure what you’re into, but there has to be a reason you’ve been holding out. It’s probably some terrible advice you’re getting,” Maria said.
Dillon smirked. Told Maria she was way off.
“Why was Les asking for reimbursements for you? What service were you providing?” Maria asked.
Dillon’s eyes narrowed. He started to tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about, but Maria didn’t let him get started.
“I’m going to assume it had something to do with your models. I know you were going to parties with them and leaving alone, which sounds like a delivery service to me,” Maria said.
“I don’t deliver anything or anyone. The women I work with are free to do whatever they want. We go to parties. Sometimes they go home with me. Sometimes they meet someone they want to get to know better,” Dillon said.
“It’s just you and me here. Save the bullshit for someone else,” Maria said.
Dillon started to close the door.
Maria stuck her foot in the doorway.
“Connor, he’s a cop. He understands the system. But you, you’re just a regular guy. Who’s really looking out for you?” Maria said.
“What is it you want?” Dillon said.
“I want to know what you were doing for Les. I want to know exactly how Ariella was involved,” Maria said.
“Ariella’s dead,” Dillon said.
“I know. I was there when she died,” Maria said.
“Bullshit, that was in California. Now leave. I have nothing to say to you,” Dillon said. He leaned forward and stuck the heel of his palm in her chest to push her out of the doorway.
Maria took the hand and spun it, locking the arm in place. She grabbed Dillon by the front of his shirt and forced him into his house. The door swung shut behind them. She pushed his arm up and pulled him forward, swung her right leg behind his leg and then pushed him as hard as she could. The back of his knee hit her leg and bent, and he collapsed to the floor. She followed him down and pressed her knee onto his chest.
“What the fuck?” Dillon said.
“You just assaulted a police officer,” Maria said.
“I just wanted you to leave,” Dillon said.
“Well, you’re stuck with me now,” Maria said.
Dillon stared up at her. His nostrils flared. He tried to turn his torso to buck her off, but she had her weight firmly planted on his chest, and she pinned his right hand to the ground with her left foot. He bucked again, and she punched him once in the face. She reared back to hit again.
He turned his face away from her.
Blood started to trickle out of his nose.
“Are you done being an idiot?” Maria asked.
“How is this legal?” Dillon asked.
Maria ignored the question because it wasn’t. She’d barged into his house without a warrant, without even a logical reason for being here. She wasn’t even sure if any of this was going to get her closer to Carla, but she needed to try.
“Now no more bullshit, Dillon. Start using your head. I’m trying to help you. If you didn’t kill Les, you need to start talking,” Maria said.
Dillon was straining to breathe. Her weight pressing on his chest was making it hard for him.
“I’m going to step up and back, and if you try anything else, I’m shooting you,” Maria said.
Maria stood up. Stepped back into the foyer.
Dillon sat up. Eyed her from the floor. He rubbed his chest with his hand. Some blood dripped off of his nose and down his lips. He sniffed.
“Oh my god, I’m bleeding,” he said. He stood up and walked down the hallway. Turned into a doorway. A faucet turned on and water poured out.
Maria pulled the baton from her belt and extended it. Walked down the hall. At the doorway, she looked into the kitchen. Dillon was leaning over a sink and washing his face off.
He stepped away from the sink and looked for paper towels. He was pinching shut his nose with his right hand and had his head leaned back.
“What did you do to my nose?” he said.
“Don’t resist and you won’t get hit,” Maria said.
“This isn’t an arrest. This is a home invasion,” Dillon said.
“Are you done whining?” Maria said.
“You assaulted me, but I’m whining. Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth?” Dillon said.
“You put your hands on a police officer. You should consider yourself lucky to only have a bloody nose. Now, can we get back to why Les was reimbursing you?” Maria said.
