“How did you know?” Angel asked.
“Phillip Maxwell called his son to join us for dinner, and he told his father that Maria was in the hospital. I came immediately, and when I arrived, Danny was with someone who appeared quite ill.”
“He was with a friend of ours.” Angel glanced at the bed, where Maria had dozed off.
Edward cleared his throat. “Do you think it’s possible that we can put the past behind us? For Maria’s sake?”
His question ignited the fire smoldering in Angel’s gut. It was all he could do to keep from reaching across the bed and throwing the man out. He counted to five, focusing on his breath with each number. “You killed my mother and father and then have the nerve to ask that?” Angel kept his voice low.
His uncle straightened in the chair and leaned forward. “I told you fifteen years ago I did not kill your parents. Your father was my brother. He was blood. Family.”
“I didn’t believe you then, and I don’t believe you now.”
“Why?”
Angel curled his lip. “My father left a letter accusing you of trying to take over the company. He told me if anything happened to him, to look no further than you.”
“He was wrong. Because I criticized the way your father ran the business left us by our father, he thought I was trying to take over. All I wanted to do was make it profitable like it had been when our father ran it.”
“You’re lying,” Angel said through his teeth. “My father was a good manager.”
Edward heaved a sigh. “No, Angel, he was not. A good man, yes, but he let his employees slack off, he didn’t pursue accounts aggressively, and he let the suppliers rip him off. I will be glad to show you the books from then and now, if you like.”
Angel hated to admit that some of what his uncle said was true, but if Edward wasn’t responsible for their deaths, who was? “Who do you think killed my parents?”
His uncle dropped his gaze to his tented fingers. “Your father refused to pay insurance money to a small cartel for their protection. I believe this drug cartel used their deaths to intimidate other factory owners in the area. To show what could happen if they refused to pay the insurance.”
“Do you pay insurance?”
Edward looked up and stared into Angel’s eyes. “Yes.”
“To the same cartel?”
He nodded.
“Who is this cartel?”
“The Calatrava.”
The same cartel that was after his daughter.
Joel took a deep breath and tapped on the door before pushing it open. He’d come up the back stairs and had been surprised to see Edward get on the elevator. Joel figured Edward would stay away from his nephew.
Angel turned from the window and held his finger to his lips. Joel glanced at the bed where Maria lay sleeping. “How is she?”
“Much better than earlier. Thank you for being concerned enough to return, but you really shouldn’t have. Your father needs you.”
His father had never needed him or wanted him around. Maria’s illness had been a good excuse for leaving, although he did feel bad about leaving his mother alone at the hospital. The way he’d been pacing the waiting area, he thought she was glad for him to leave. Now if he could only get the necklace . . .
Maria opened her eyes and gave him a weak smile. “Uncle Joel, you came.”
“Couldn’t keep me away.” Bailey had been right on the phone. This was one sick little girl. He gaze traveled to her throat. “Where’s your necklace, sweetheart?”
Maria felt her neck, and her eyes grew large. “It’s gone.” Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t mean to lose it, Uncle Joel. I promise.”
Joel swallowed the curse that almost ripped out of his mouth. He flexed his fingers. She couldn’t have lost it. If she had, he was dead. He pressed his fingers against his temple, trying to work blood back into his face. “Think where you had it last.”
Pain gripped him as Angel’s hand clamped down on his shoulder. “Do not raise your voice. She is a child, a very sick child, and if this necklace is so expensive, you should not have given it to her.”
If Angel only knew. “I’m sorry.” He pressed his lips together and forced his body to relax. “I have another, less costly one I’ll give her once I put Claire’s photo in it. But if you find the other one, would you call me?”
Angel narrowed his eyes. “What’s so special about this necklace?”
“It . . . it belonged to Claire,” Joel said. He should have come up with that a long time ago. “I bought it for her when she first came to Mexico, and it cost quite a bit of money even then.”
“I do not remember seeing it when we were married.”
He searched for an answer. “She’d broken it, and I had it repaired. I don’t think I ever returned it to her.”
“You mean that was Mommy’s necklace once?” Maria turned to Angel. “Daddy, we have to find it.”
“It’s not lost, baby. Bailey has it.” He turned to Joel. “I’m pretty sure that’s where it is, so you can quit your worrying.”
Relief almost made his knees buckle.
“Can you go get it?” Maria said.
“I’ll get it for you,” Joel said. He couldn’t believe he was this close to retrieving those numbers. “I need to talk with Bailey, anyway.”
“Then hang around. She’s downstairs with Solana and should be coming up to a room on this floor soon.”
“Solana is sick as well?”
“Yes, she ate the hot dogs like Maria did.”
Joel couldn’t help but notice how Angel’s voice changed when he spoke of Solana. Or how Maria seemed to like her as well. The future was plain. Once Angel had his parental rights restored, he would marry Solana, and they would live happily ever after with Maria. He flexed his fingers. His brother-in-law’s life was coming together while Joel’s was falling apart. Maybe he’d take Maria with him if he had to disappear. That would put a dent in Angel’s happiness. But first he had to get that necklace. “I’ll go and check the ER, see if they’re still there.”
Outside the room, his head cleared. What was wrong with him? There was no way he could take Maria if he left, at least not to the final destination—wherever that might be. But why not temporarily? He could hide her somewhere to divert Edward’s attention. He knew his boss’s single-minded focus. If Maria was missing, every brain cell he had would be focused on finding his great-niece.
Joel’s step became lighter. He’d found the piece to his plan that had been missing. Now to get into that account.
Danny watched as Kate pressed a cold washcloth to Solana’s face as she lay in the ER bed. The monitor indicated her fever was over 103. He’d never seen anyone so sick in his life. He looked up at the IV dripping into her arm, then at Kate. “Why isn’t her fever coming down?”
“I don’t know.” She wrung out a washcloth and handed it to him. “They may have to give her an ice bath.”
He didn’t know what that was, but it didn’t sound good. He turned as a nurse entered the room with a blanket.
“This should bring her temperature down.” She spread the blanket over Solana and plugged it in. “It’s a cooling blanket.” She nodded at the overhead monitor. “We’re monitoring her vitals at the desk, but press the call button if you need anything.”
Danny lifted his eyebrows as Joel came into the room and looked around.
“Where’s Bailey?” he asked.
“Gone to the house to get a few things. She’s staying overnight with Solana,” Kate said.
“Why aren’t you in Corning?” Danny said.
“I was worried about Maria, and Angel told me Solana was sick as well and that Bailey was down here with her.” He shifted back and forth on his feet and glanced around the small room. “Maybe I can catch Bailey at the house. Call me if you need me. I’ll be there for a while, then I’ll head back to Corning.”
“Sure,” Danny said. “How’s your dad?”
“About the same.” He edge
d toward the door. “Surgery is at nine in the morning.”
“I’ll keep him in my prayers,” Kate said.
Prayers. As the door closed behind Joel, Danny glanced at the monitor again. Solana’s fever hadn’t changed, and he was certain Kate had been praying for her. It was like his mother all over again, except he thought God would hear and answer Kate’s prayers. If God didn’t hear hers, just whose did God hear?
He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I’m going after something with caffeine in it. Can I bring you something?”
“No, I’m good.” Kate wiped Solana’s face again.
He wandered down to the nurses’ station and poured a cup of coffee. If there was anything to this prayer business, when he returned, Solana’s fever would be down. When he returned to the room, he glanced at the monitor. No change. He set the coffee cup on the window ledge. “You really think prayer will do any good?”
“What?”
“Your prayers. You told Joel you’d keep his dad in your prayers, and I know you’ve been praying for Solana. I don’t see that they’ve done any good.”
The sadness in Kate’s eyes reminded him of his mother.
“God hears our prayers, but that doesn’t mean he always gives us the answer we want.”
“Then why pray?”
“I don’t know about anyone else, but I pray because it brings God close. It gives me comfort, and I know he’ll answer my prayers in a way that’s best.”
He didn’t see how his mother’s death was best for anyone. Unless heaven is real. Sometimes he really wanted to believe that, especially since he’d been doing what Kate asked and was reading the Gospels.
Behind him, Bailey cleared her throat, then came into the small room and set an overnight bag on the floor. “How is she?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “No change.”
“These blankets are so heavy,” Solana whispered in Spanish.
Kate bent over the bed as she struggled to throw the blanket off. “Leave it there. It’s supposed to bring your fever down.”
He checked the monitor: 102.5. Her fever was coming down. Because of prayer?
“How do you feel?” Bailey asked.
Solana opened her eyes. “Terrible. How’s Maria?”
“Last I heard, she wasn’t throwing up any longer and her fever was down.”
Solana nodded, then drifted off to sleep.
An hour later, Kate had returned to the bed-and-breakfast, and Danny accompanied Bailey as Solana was moved from the ER to a room on the same floor as Maria. Once Solana was transferred to the bed and the nurse had taken her information, Bailey turned to him.
“There’s no need for you to stay,” she said. “There isn’t any place for you to sleep.”
“You mean you won’t give me the daybed?” It didn’t look that comfortable.
“We’ll be fine. No one’s going to bother us in a hospital, not with all the security guards around.”
“We’ll see,” he said. True, he had seen several guards stationed in and around the building. He sat on the daybed. “You might as well sit down. The doctor said she’d probably sleep all night.”
She sat beside him, slightly bouncing on the bed. “This won’t be so bad.”
He shifted his weight and raised his eyebrows. “If you say so.”
She was quiet a minute, then sighed. “I heard you and Mom talking about prayer.”
“You were eavesdropping?”
“Uh-huh.” She glanced toward Solana. “I’m glad we didn’t eat the hot dogs.”
“Don’t even go there,” he said with a laugh. “Are you hungry? I can get us something to eat.”
“Maybe a little later.” She took his hand, and her eyes bored into his. “Keep searching, okay?”
“I will,” he promised her. “But I want you to promise me something too.”
“What’s that?”
“That you won’t go back to Mexico.”
“Don’t go there, Danny.”
“I don’t think you should.” He sensed her bristling, but he plunged ahead anyway. “Why can’t you do mission work in Logan Point?”
“Because that’s not where God called me to work.”
“How do you know? Have you asked him? Or are you just trying to find the most dangerous place to work, thinking it will earn you brownie points with him?”
Her jaw shot out. “I . . .”
He wanted to kick himself. Why couldn’t he just be patient? This was not the time to push this, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. “Just think about what I said. Okay?”
21
For the hundredth time, Joel berated himself for using the necklace to hide the numbers. He should have hidden them somewhere else or memorized them. But that was why he’d engraved the numbers on the necklace—he couldn’t memorize anything.
And now Bailey wasn’t at the house and neither was the locket. He’d searched high and low for it and was returning to the hospital in hopes of finding Bailey by herself. He held up his hand to block his side mirror when lights from behind blinded him. When the vehicle pulled out to come around him, Joel slowed to let it pass.
Abruptly it swerved in front of him and stopped. He slammed on the brakes, stopping inches from the bumper. What was going on? A wreck maybe? Or a deer? The area was full of the four-legged creatures.
The driver of the car jumped out and ran his way, brandishing a gun.
Joel threw the car in reverse, and an alarm screamed. He jerked his gaze to his rearview mirror. A car blocked his escape.
“Get out!”
Ski masks. They were hijacking his car. Or they were going to kill him.
He pulled the keys out of the ignition and opened the door. “You can have it,” he said, holding the keys out.
“I don’t want your car. Get out.”
Joel’s blood froze at the Mexican accent. He swallowed the nausea that raced up his throat. It was over. He stumbled out of the car, and the man jerked his arm behind him, forcing Joel to face the car. “What . . . what do you want? Who are you?”
“Your worst nightmare.”
That voice. It was the man he’d lost the hundred grand to—Enrico. Joel’s legs threatened to buckle.
“Do you have the money?”
“N-no, but I will soon.”
“Good. But now I want more. The Montoya girl and Bailey Adams.”
“I . . . I can’t. They’re at the hospital. Someone is always with them.”
“Figure out a way. You see how easy it was to get to you. You have twenty-four hours.”
He licked his lips. “If I agree, what do I do with them?”
“Eagle’s Nest. Room 106.”
Suddenly pain ripped his head, and stars exploded in his brain.
When he came to, he was on the ground and the men were gone. He climbed back into his car and rested his head on the steering wheel until the dizziness passed. He felt the back of his head and cried out. There was a bump the size of a goose egg where they’d hit him.
How did they know where he was? They’d been following him. What made him think the calls had been coming from Mexico? If he didn’t do as they said, they would kill him. He was as certain of that as he was that Edward or Angel would kill him if he helped kidnap Maria and Bailey.
He only had one option. Get into Edward’s account and take enough money to disappear forever.
He massaged his temples. Why did they want Maria and Bailey? Ransom. What he owed these men was peanuts compared to what they would ask for Maria. But why Bailey? She had no money.
It didn’t matter. If he didn’t get the necklace, it would be their lives for his.
His cell phone rang, and he checked the caller ID and groaned. His mother. “Hello?”
“Where are you? Your father is asking for you.”
“I’m in Logan Point. Maria is still in the hospital and . . .” What would be bad enough for her to not expect him? “She has a virus, and I think I’m catching it,” he
lied. “But if you want me to come back to Corning tonight, I will.”
“No! Your father can’t afford anything like that right now. You stay there until you’re sure you don’t have the bug.”
“I will. And I hope Dad does okay tomorrow with the surgery.”
“I’ll tell him you wished you could be here.”
You do that. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll call you in the morning.”
He tapped on his navigation app and typed in Eagle’s Nest, Logan Point, Mississippi. Once he had the directions, he placed his phone in the cup holder and started the car. Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into the almost deserted parking lot of an aging motel located on Logan Lake. Bars covered the windows, and the parking lot was deserted except for a road grader and a dump truck. Must be the place that the road crew repaving the bypass was lodging.
If he were picking out a place to stash someone, this would be the place.
Angel stood at the side of the bed, watching the rise and fall of his daughter’s chest as she lay sleeping. He’d missed too much of her life, the good and the bad. She’d been a month shy of her second birthday when he was shot, so he’d missed a lot. He smiled, remembering her first steps and how she’d said Dada before Mama. Claire had been so jealous and proud at the same time.
It especially rankled that Joel had been the one to replace Angel in Maria’s life. And that Edward had become involved in his family. Certainly wouldn’t have happened if he’d been there to stop it. He hoped his uncle didn’t come back to the hospital tonight; he was unsure if he could stomach Edward another minute.
Edward was a fool if he thought Angel believed his story, although he’d have to admit Edward had been quite convincing earlier. Someone who didn’t know what he was capable of would probably believe him. Angel wasn’t ready to dismiss what he’d believed for fifteen years and what his father had believed before that.
But what if we were both wrong?
Angel turned as someone knocked at the door and pushed it open. Ben Logan. And he looked serious. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?”
Silence in the Dark Page 22
