Midnight Abduction
Page 20
“Wrong name—” Espinoza kicked at a pile of sand “—and wrong description.”
Clay and the other Border Patrol agents packed it in, and left the scene to the coroner and the homicide detective. On the way back to his truck, Clay poked Dillon in the back. “You taking some time off?”
“Heading to a rodeo in Wyoming. Can you hold down the fort?” Dillon swept his hat from his head and tossed it onto the passenger seat of his truck.
Jerking his thumb over his shoulder, Clay said, “Unless we find the head or the drugs, especially the drugs, there’s not much for me to do on this one.”
“The drugs will be on the street by the time I come back.” Dillon nodded toward the new agent, hanging back, the green around his gills matching his uniform. “You think he’ll work out?”
“He’ll be okay.” Clay leveled a finger at Dillon. “I remember your first dead body. You didn’t do much better.”
Dillon scooped his hair back from his forehead and flashed his white teeth. “I guess you’re right.”
“Don’t break that pretty face riding one of those bulls.” Clay turned and strode to his truck with Valdez waiting by the passenger side.
“You getting in or staying out here?”
Valdez’s eyes bulged briefly. “Just didn’t want to sit in the truck without the AC. Is that it for the day?”
“That’s it for my day. You’re gonna go back to the office and write up this report. Make sure you check in with the sheriff’s department to see if you can add anything before you send it to the Tucson Sector.”
They both climbed in the truck, and Clay cranked on the air. They’d gone several miles before Valdez turned to him, clasping his hat in his lap.
“Do you think they’ll find the head? What do you think Las Moscas did with it?”
Clay raised his stiff shoulders. “I don’t know. Don’t think about it too much, kid. It’ll make you...”
Clay drilled the desert horizon with narrowed eyes. He didn’t finish his warning to Valdez because he didn’t know what it made you. What had it made him? Bitter? Hard?
He blew out a breath. The work hadn’t done that.
A half hour later, Clay pulled his truck into the parking lot of the Paradiso Border Patrol Office—one of several offices in the Tucson Sector.
For the most part, the residents of Paradiso chose to remain blissfully ignorant about the dangers at the border. The violence of the drug trade didn’t affect them directly, so they were able to carry on with their daily lives—despite people meeting bloody ends several miles down south.
Livestock, lettuce and pecans had been kind to the folks of Paradiso. Its close proximity to the tourist trap of Tombstone hadn’t hurt, either. They lived in a bubble. There hadn’t been a murder within the city limits since...Courtney Hart.
Clay left Valdez in the office and swung by Rosita’s to pick up a burrito on his way home.
As he slapped his cash onto the counter, Rosita put her hand on his. “We heard news of a body at the border.”
Once the Paradiso PD was involved, news traveled fast. He couldn’t blame them. The residents had a right to know—whether they cared or not.
“Unfortunately, that’s true.”
“Drugs?” Rosita’s dark eyes shimmered with tears, and a knife twisted in Clay’s gut.
Rosita’s youngest son had gotten hooked on meth—it hadn’t ended well.
“Yeah, probably a mule.”
“A girl?” She clasped her hands to her chest. “We heard it was a girl this time.”
“A young woman, yes. Ended up on someone’s bad side.” He shoved the money across the counter. “Keep the change, Rosita.”
“Is there a good side when it comes to drugs?” Rosita swept up the bills. “Thanks, Mr. Clay.”
He waved and reached for the door, stepping aside for a couple of customers coming in for dinner. He tossed his bag of food on the passenger seat and took off for home.
His house lay outside the collection of the newer developments that had sprung up in response to the pecan-processing plant. He preferred a little space between him and the next guy.
As he turned down the road that led to his house, he loosened his grip on the steering wheel and flexed his fingers. He swung into the entrance to his long driveway and slammed on the brakes to stop behind an old, white compact sporting New Mexico plates.
His muscles tense, he reached for his weapon wedged in the console and waited in his idling truck. The individual Border Patrol sectors were small enough that the bad guys could discover the identities of the agents if they had a mind to. He held his breath as the driver’s side door of the car swung open, and a...bride stepped out.
Clay whipped the sunglasses from his face and hunched over the steering wheel. Damn, that was no bride. That was bridezilla—April Hart in the flesh.
Leaving his weapon in the truck, he shoved open his door and placed one booted foot on the dirt and gravel of his driveway. He unfolded to his full height, straightening his spine and pinning April in a stare.
She tossed a mangled mane of blond hair over one shoulder and offered up a smile and a half-raised hand. “Clay, it’s good to see you.”
Did she expect him to rush to her and sweep her into his arms? He folded those arms across his chest in case they got some crazy notion to do just that on their own. He dipped his chin to his chest. “April.”
She dropped her hand and tugged on the top part of the dress that clung to her slender waist and rose to encase the swell of her breasts. “I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here...in this dress.”
“You took a detour on the way to our wedding two years ago and you just found your way back?” His lips twisted into a smile while a knife twisted into his heart.
“N-no.” She clasped her hands in front of her, interlacing her fingers. “It’s a long story. Can we talk inside?”
“Do you ever have any other kind of story?” Before she could answer his rhetorical question, he dipped back into his truck and swept his bag of food from the passenger seat and holstered his weapon.
He slammed the door of the truck and stalked up his driveway, brushing past April in her wedding finery.
The gravel crunched behind him as she followed his footsteps. “Someone left you a present. It was here when I drove up.”
A round, pink-striped box sat on the corner of his porch. Clay tilted his head to the side, his pulse ratcheting up a notch. Nobody left him presents—especially the kind in pink boxes.
“You have your hands full. I’ll grab it for you.” April barreled past him, the crinkly material of her gown skimming against his hand.
A spike of adrenaline caused him to make a grab for her dress, but she slipped through his fingers. The story of his life.
“April, wait.”
“That’s okay. I got this.” She reached the porch and grabbed the ribbon on the top of the box. “This is heavy.”
She lifted the box a few feet in the air. Then the lid came off and the bottom of the box hit the porch with a thud.
April’s scream reverberated in his ears as the severed head bounced once, splattering her white dress with blood, and rolled off the porch.
Copyright © 2020 by Carol Ericson
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ISBN: 9781488067402
Midnight Abduction
Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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