“This is something different. A smartphone holdup?” He was smiling, still the friendly bartender.

“I just want to show you a photo.” I held up the phone. My sister stared back at him.

“Remember her?” I said. “Wendy Wainwright sends her regards.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I gave Ex just enough time to process the photo before I spoke again. “Wendy asked me to find you, only I’m not sure whatever she plans next is a good thing. I don’t know if you murdered Dr. Vítor Calvo, or if something else happened that night.”

He was no longer smiling. He turned, still holding his shoe, as if he planned to take off, but Teo was standing in his way. “Don’t go yet.” Teo put his hand on Kearns’s shoulder. “We’re just going to talk.”

Ex reached up to grab his hand, but Teo changed his stance and stepped behind him, where he was harder to dislodge.

I switched from Wendy’s photo to the text I had punched in at the table, holding it out again. “I’ve put everything I know about you into this. How you worked at one of my father’s resorts. How you were with my sister in New Mexico the night Calvo was murdered. Where you are now and what you’re doing. Unless you agree to talk to us, this will go out to the authorities in Santa Fe.”

“What good is talking to you going to do?”

This time, honesty was the best policy. “I’ll tell you, but can we do it somewhere else?”

“I’m fine right here.”

Teo dropped his hand. “We’re not trying to frame you,” he said, then he followed with a stream of Spanish. Ex looked surprised, then answered in Spanish before he turned to look at me.

I had no idea what had been said, but his expression was a shade more promising.

I took advantage. “Wendy’s my sister, and she really did ask me to find you. But I only tracked you down because I want to hear your side of what happened.”

He gave a skeptical laugh. “You don’t trust your own sister? You’re not planning to turn me in?”

“Sister or not...” I realized the irony, since Wendy fit better in the “or not” category. “We’re in your country and you have the power. No cop is going to take what we tell them seriously. Your family owns this resort. We’re foreigners. By the time somebody in New Mexico looks into this, you’ll be somewhere else.”

“So tell me again. Why should I speak to you?”

I held up my phone. “This might not work immediately, but it’s a first step.”

“I saw some benches,” Teo said. “Better to be comfortable.”

Ex was weighing his options. I had to alter the balance. “If I had to make a guess, Ex? I’d say Wendy used you. And one thing I’ve learned since Calvo’s murder? She’s good at that. In fact she’s using me right now. That’s why I ended up here.”