by Kelly Irvin
“There must’ve been a reason.” Gabriella stared at the phone. The directions were complicated. Thank God for GPS. “Eli has more than ten years of experience as a police officer. He’s not an idiot.”
“But he does think he’s Superman.”
Sometimes. “Chris should be able to give me Jensen—”
The oven timer dinged. Gabriella jumped. So did Natalie.
Gabriella grabbed hot pads and opened the oven door. Her jumbled thoughts righted themselves as she tugged the pan from the oven and set it on trivets. The cakes were perfect golden oblongs waiting to be sliced and smothered in strawberries and whip cream. Simple pleasures. One she loved sharing with family, with loved ones.
God, help me. Help me make the right decisions. Walk me through this. Protect Eli, Jake, and Deacon. Turn away the evildoers. We need You.
The patio door slid open. Squealing and laughing, Ava and Cullen tumbled through the door, followed by Piper. The sun had turned their skin golden brown, their cheeks pink. Ava’s hair was a mass of damp curls. She danced across the tile and threw herself on Natalie’s lap. “We’re starving!” Her tone suggested they hadn’t eaten in days. “Piper’s making enchiladas for supper. I love enchiladas. Don’t you love enchiladas, Mama? We’re gonna feed the Fidencios and teach them to sing Gabriella and Eli sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!”
The two kids chortled and danced around the room.
“What smells so good? Is it cake? I love cake.” His towel around his shoulders like a cape, Cullen darted around the room, thrusting with one hand like a Jedi with his saber. “Can we have cake and ice cream too?”
Piper paused inside the door. Her gaze went from Natalie to Gabriella. “Have you heard from Eli or Deacon?”
Gabriella shook her head. “I have to go out in a bit.”
“We have to go out.” Natalie hugged Ava. “Baby, you two run along and change first. You’re dripping on the tile. Be careful you don’t fall.”
“Can we play on the tablet?”
“After supper. Go.”
Still chattering, the two traipsed from the room.
“Will you watch them for me?” Natalie made her appeal to Piper without looking at Gabriella. “It’s imperative that I go.”
“They’ve already lost their father. Don’t do this to them.” Gabriella swallowed hot tears. She’d been holding them back for years, it seemed. Get a grip. Get a grip. “I can’t take that risk.”
“I know you think you’re responsible for us.” Natalie moved closer. “You’re not.”
Piper made a move toward the kitchen. “Maybe I should—”
“It’s okay, stay, Piper.” Natalie held up her hand. Her fierce gaze returned to Gabriella. “Paolo was a grown man. I begged him for his keys. He kept saying he was fine. He was like that. Stubborn. Macho. He made the choice. He swerved to miss a stray dog in the street. He would’ve done that regardless of whether he’d been drinking. He chose to drink and to drive. And I let him. I could blame myself, but I don’t. We were all grown-ups. I may have lost Jake already. I’m not sitting by while you go. I won’t. Let’s do this together. The clock is ticking.”
Natalie’s impassioned speech encompassed the most words she’d ever spoken about Paolo’s death. So many lives changed. Gabriella wasn’t in charge. She never had been. “I’m calling Chris.”
Three minutes to get the numbers she needed from a reporter who insisted he wanted first rights to the story.
She let Jensen’s number ring until it went to voicemail and left a message. “Call me back as soon as you get this message. Please. I have to be at the location in fifty minutes.”
Rincon picked up on the second ring. She explained as succinctly as possible. A long pause.
“Detective? We don’t have a lot of—”
“It’ll take about twenty minutes to get to that location. It’s in the county. I’ll notify WCSO and the other agencies.”
“I’m supposed to come alone.”
“We’ll remain out of sight.”
“Their plan may be to shoot me on sight.”
“Not until they get the video.”
“It’s not a video. It’s audio of three men talking about a gun shipment. You can’t even tell where it is.”
“You found it.”
“I don’t have time to explain.”
“They’re banking on you valuing three lives too much to turn it over to the police. Tell them it’s in a safe place. Text them and tell them you want to see all three men alive and standing before you hand over anything.”
“Got it.”
“I’m scoping out the location . . . Let’s meet five miles up the road. I’ll text you the location. Rendezvous in twenty minutes.”
“We’re on our way.”
“We?”
“My sister is driving.”
“We don’t need to involve another civilian.”
Gabriella hung up.
Chapter 38
The lighter flickered and went out. The oppressive dark returned. The image was engraved on the insides of Eli’s eyelids. He shook it and tried again. A steady flame reignited. He breathed in the smell of dirt and human waste. “Jake?”
No answer. Eli squatted and touched the man’s bare arm. His skin felt clammy and his breathing was uneven.
“Did he pass out?” Deacon knelt next to Eli. “It looks like they used him for a punching bag.”
“Jake? Come on, Jake.” Eli shook his arm. “Stay with me, buddy.”
Jake’s long, muscle-bound body twitched. His eyes opened.
“Seriously? I have a dream and you’re in it? It couldn’t be Sunny? Or even Gabby and Nat?”
“Sorry, you’re stuck with me, and I’m no dream.” Now wasn’t a good time to mention Sunny’s role in their sudden appearance. Especially since Eli didn’t know if she’d been used to get to him and was now dead. Or maybe, she’d been in on it.
He held the puny light closer. Jake’s thick auburn hair was matted with dirt, blood, and sweat. Both eyes were black. Bruises decorated his cheeks. Blood had dried under his nose. His lips were cracked. “You look a little rough.”
“All in a day’s work.” Jake coughed. His arms tightened around his waist. “Who’s your friend?”
Eli made the introductions.
“You brought a reporter? Now I know I’m dreaming.”
“It wasn’t my idea.”
“Are y’all here to save the day?”
“Sorry.”
“You’re prisoners too?”
“Yep.”
“How long’ve you been down here?”
“Down?”
“It’s a room adjacent to a tunnel.”
A tunnel. It made perfect sense. Drug cartels had been building tunnels to transport their wares into the United States for decades, mostly in California and Arizona. Tunnels were a way around—or rather under—the border wall erected in some areas as well as increased Border Patrol agents, and the addition of the National Guard. “You’ve been missing for three days. What happened? Who did this to you?”
“Three days? Is that all? I figured it’d been at least a month. How much fuel do you have in that lighter?” Jake leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “You should save it.”
Eli slid around so his back was to the wall as well. Deacon positioned himself on the other side and gave a thumbs-up. Eli let up on the lever. Darkness returned.
“What happened? How’d they get you?”
Putting off the inevitable only made sense. Maybe Jake’s story would help fill in the blanks about Sunny’s role in this mess. “You first.”
“I didn’t see a thing. I was supposed to meet Colby. He said he had information for me, but he couldn’t talk to me on the phone. They’d kill him if they knew he was talking to me.”
Sounded so familiar.
“When I got to the meeting place on the river, I didn’t see him, so I started to text him. Next thing I’m flat on my stomach, stiff
as a board. I feel like someone is using a pitchfork to remove my insides.”
Again, so familiar. “Tasered.”
“Guys in camo were on top of me. I didn’t recognize any of them. They already had Colby. They wanted one of us to cough up an audio recording on a phone.”
“He didn’t have it.”
“I figure Beto must have had it. He didn’t show, or if he did, he saw what was happening and bailed before they could see him. They put a gun to Colby’s head. He held out for as long as he could.” All emotion drained from Jake’s voice, but his breathing sounded louder. “Then they put the gun to my head. He gave Beto up. As soon as he did, they blew Colby away.”
“How did they get on to them?”
“I told my boss and my partner. The core group on the task force had been getting updates. That included Laredo PD, ICE, FBI, and Homeland.”
Jensen, Teeter, Rincon. Did that mean one of them was in on it? Or one of the other players. Not Teeter. His death proved that. Eli’s head pounded. His nose ached. The darkness pressed in on him. Like being underwater. Now wasn’t the time to tell Jake about his partner’s death. “What happened next?”
“They threw a hood over my head and threw me in the back of van of some kind.” A spasm of coughing left his voice rough and breathless. “Next thing I knew I was inside a warehouse. They had a little welcoming committee for me.”
“What’s on the recording?”
“Hard evidence of who the facilitator is. At first, as newbie straw buyers, they never saw the top echelon, only the middlemen. But Beto was connected.”
“Through his uncle?”
“Yeah. But his uncle isn’t the facilitator. Just another middle man. Last week, Beto was assigned to make a delivery. He took Colby with him. One of them recorded the conversation.”
“Audio, not video?”
“That’s what he said.”
Had the story grown into a video, or did the thugs have their wires crossed? Did it matter?
“They thought you could tell them where the recording was, so they tried to beat it out of you?”
“Yep. Problem was, I didn’t know where Beto was. I didn’t even know which one of them had done the recording until Colby said Beto was the one with the phone. They were forced into cooperating in order to stay out of jail, but they were more afraid of the bad guys than they were of the ATF.”
“Alberto Garza is dead.”
“How?”
Eli filled in the details. “How did Beto know about Gabby? Did you send him to her?”
“Of course not. It’s stupid. I felt for the guy. He was scared spitless. He needed money for college. He didn’t want to ask his parents, so he got mixed up in gun smuggling and didn’t know how to get out—”
“What does this have to do with—”
“I’m getting there. He needed a place to crash for one night. He didn’t want his parents to know, to be endangered. I let him stay with me. One night.”
“Rookie move. You got emotionally involved.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never done it.”
If he only knew. Eli’s hand went to his jeans pocket. They’d taken his wallet. It contained the only photo he had of Samuel.
His son.
His secret.
He was a father. Would he get the chance to be a dad? Would he even be good at it? Would he be half the dad his own father had been—continued to be?
Eli would do everything he could to get out of this alive. For the chance to find out and for Samuel. His son had the right to know his father. He focused on Jake. “I still don’t understand.”
“You remember that article that was in the business section of the Express-News when Gabby opened the restaurant? They made a big deal about her being a former ADA turned chef. An attorney who was catering to the law enforcement crowd. Me and Natalie and Gabby and the kids were in the photo cutting the ribbon. I framed it. It was on the wall in my living room. Beto asked me about it. He said Gabby was pretty.”
Fury burned through Eli. He tamped it down. Now wasn’t the time for recriminations. “The article told him exactly where to find her. At least he was trying to be stealthy about it. He parked at Main Plaza, but they were following him and shot him there. I figure they thought he was dead and took off. He dragged himself two blocks to the restaurant to try to get help.”
Jake cleared his throat. “If they touch a hair on her head—”
“I’m way ahead of you.” Eli snorted at the ridiculousness of his own words. “At least I was.”
“Me too.” Deacon’s chuckle was more of a growl.
Silence hovered for a beat. They were in here and Gabriella was out there. And Natalie and the kids. Please, God, keep them safe. I need You to do what I can’t do. I can admit I’m not in control anymore. You are.
God must be so amused to see his baby steps toward a closer relationship. And Gabby would be so happy. If Eli had a chance to tell her. And God, if You could, get us out of here alive.
“So Beto’s dead. Gabby doesn’t have the recording.” Jake’s frustration soaked the words. “Where is it?”
“There was some security camera footage from a pawn shop next to the sporting goods store that showed Garza going into the plaza across the street. Gabs was checking it out. Maybe he hid his phone there.”
“You let her go by herself?”
“I didn’t let her do anything. You know your sister.”
“Sorry.”
“If our buddies upstairs think the video is still out there, it may be what’s keeping you alive. An ATF agent could be used as leverage.”
“I hated using college kids like undercover agents.” Jake shifted. A half moan floated on the air. “They didn’t have the training or the guts. They were scared out of their minds.”
“They called the shots when they decided to buy guns and sell them to pay for their college education.”
“I know, but they were stupid kids trying to make their life better.” Raspy breathing filled the space for a few seconds. “Around here, the options are limited. Join the military—always an honorable choice—is the one most kids take. If they survive they can get a college education or a job skill out of it. Or they bail out of high school and turn to the dark side, like drugs or gangs.”
“You didn’t create the situation.”
“No, but I took advantage of it.”
“Guys, this is very interesting.” A thump, thump suggested Deacon was having trouble sitting still, even in total darkness. “If I had my laptop, I’d be in seventh heaven, but right now, what we really need is to get out of here.”
“Agreed.” Jake’s voice flagged again. He breathed. “How did you end up down here with me? I assume you were coming to get me.”
“Not exactly.” Eli gritted his teeth. Might as well get it over with. “Sunny called me. She said she had some information she thought might help find you. We were supposed to meet her . . .”
“So you know about Sunny.” Scraping sounds made it clear Jake was attempting to rise. “Did something happen to her?”
“Easy, easy.” Eli fumbled in the dark. His hand connected with Jake’s arm. “No point in getting riled up. We don’t know where she is.” He summarized the activities of the past three days as quickly as possible.
“I see.”
Not really. None of them did.
“I’ve had plenty of time to assess our current digs—no pun intended. By the way, the facilities are on the other side of the room to our right in the corner.” Jake seemed determined to move on without further comment about his relationship with Sunny. “Last time they took me up for a punching bag session, I eyeballed the situation. The door is padlocked from the outside. Even if we get out. We’re in a tunnel and we have to make our way to the platform lift a few dozen yards to the right and get ourselves back up into the warehouse without being seen.”
“This thing has a lift?”
“A lift run on a generator. The tunnel floor is prob
ably seventy, eighty feet down from the warehouse floor. The entrance is made of cinderblocks. The floor at the beginning is lined with wood. They’ve got ventilation. Lighting. There are rails to the left with carts on them. I assume they use those to transport the weapons.”
“Where does it go?” Deacon the reporter surfaced again. “Any idea how long it is?”
“Some place in Nuevo Laredo. It could be a warehouse district, or it could be a residence that sits close to the border.” Jake’s shoulder touched Eli’s. He was listing to one side. “How long? No idea. It was before my time, but ICE found one used for drug smuggling in San Diego that was more than two thousand feet long.”
Deacon whistled. “That’s like seven football fields.”
“Yeah and it went from warehouses in the industrial district to somebody’s kitchen in Tijuana.”
“Which was convenient if they worked up a hunger moving their drugs.” Eli remembered the case. U.S. agencies had filled tunnels with concrete to keep drug smugglers from using them again. However, Mexico couldn’t afford the concrete, so they filled theirs with trash. The drug cartels had reopened some of them. “They didn’t drag us very far, so we’re close to the lift. How bad are you hurt?”
“Some busted ribs, a couple of broken fingers. My nose. Bruised kidneys, maybe.”
A reporter and a wounded ATF agent. No weapons.
“What’s the plan?” Deacon’s eagerness made him sound very young. “I know you, Eli. You’ve got a plan.”
“This isn’t the movies.” Eli hoisted himself to his feet and stretched cramped legs. “Do they feed you? Give you water?”
“Every now and then they throw in a plastic bag containing a peanut butter sandwich and a bottle of water.”
A fitness and sports nut, Jake had always been on the lean side. Now he looked emaciated, and for good reason. “Have they done it recently?”
“I don’t know if it was today or yesterday. It seems like it was fairly recent. If—when—I get out of here, I’m never eating peanut butter again.”
“If they don’t drag us out of here and shoot us before then, that’s our shot.”
“Lovely choice of words.” Deacon groaned. “That’s it?”
“We wait. Unless you have a better idea.”
