Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he had a mission to complete and until that was done he couldn’t afford to settle.
Chapter Eleven
The tree was secured on the top of the Suburban and the boys, including Riff, were sound asleep. Xavier, though, was wide-awake, watching Selena as she drove. It had been such a perfect day and he had seen a smile on her face he hadn’t seen.
Selena pulled up to the house but didn’t put the SUV in Park. “Xavier, there’s a man on our porch.”
Strangers had a way of putting him on alert. He swallowed past the sudden dryness in his throat. Today had been so perfect...until now.
“It’s going to be okay.” He had an uneasy feeling that he should know the man. “So, you don’t know him?”
She shook her head, then woke her dad.
Blinking his eyes, her father leaned forward.
“Do you recognize that man?” Selena looked back at Xavier. “Sometimes his old road buddies show up needing a place to crash.”
“Sorry, baby. Never seen him before. He sees us staring at him, though. What should we do?”
Xavier reached for the door handle. “I’ll speak with him. Y’all take the boys to the ranch or somewhere safe. I’ll call when all is clear.”
“I’m not leaving you here alone.” Even though her voice was low, he could hear the outrage.
“How will you help? And I doubt he’s here to cause problems. He’s sitting out in the open. All of the neighbors could identify him.”
“Okay. That makes sense. But what if you need help? You know, with your sight or your voice or balance or something.” She put the car in Park but didn’t shut off the engine. “Dad, take the boys to visit Belle and the girls at the ranch. I’ll call to let you know when to come home.” Without another word, not even giving him a chance to argue, she was out of the car. Her father slipped into the driver’s seat.
“Doesn’t appear she’s waiting for you,” Riff said to Xavier as he grinned at him.
Xavier glared at him. “You think it’s funny that you raised a stubborn daughter?”
“Hey, it got her through some really rough times. Go get her.”
Ouch. He was the reason she needed to be so tough. No wonder she didn’t trust him to stay.
A few strides and he caught up with her. He tried to put himself between her and the stranger. “Selena. Please stay behind me.” He adjusted his hat and made sure he looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
The man stood when they hit the steps. He had dark wavy hair and a big smile that showed off white teeth against his tan skin. He looked friendly and about the most nonthreatening male Xavier had seen since coming back to Port Del Mar. He wasn’t buying it.
The man approached Xavier with his hand out, the other reaching to clasp his shoulder. “Xavier. It’s true! You’re alive. Man, when the rumors started we didn’t know what to believe. This is amazing.” The man came in for a hug. Xavier stiffened.
“Excuse me. Who are you?” Now Selena was attempting to put herself between him and the stranger.
“Selena.” Xavier tried to warn her to back off, but he wasn’t sure how without making a scene.
The man laughed. “Sorry, ma’am. I’m Captain Roberto Diaz. But everyone calls me Beto. You must be Mrs. De La Rosa. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The man seemed open and sincere, but Xavier knew that was how the best traps worked.
A sweat broke out down his spine. Could he trust this man? Was it safe to let him know he had memory gaps? When it came to work, he had no memories. Just because this stranger threw a captain in front of his name didn’t mean anything.
“How did you find me?” he asked. He needed a way to get info without giving any up.
Beto stepped back a little and narrowed his eyes. “When we got word you had survived, we were stunned. Heard there was a mistaken ID and head trauma. You still haven’t recovered your memories? Since you were home, I figured healing was in progress.”
Selena scanned the neighborhood. “Should we go in and sit down?” she asked Xavier.
Good question. He wasn’t sure he wanted this man in his home. He shot a startled glance at Selena. That was the first time he had thought of this house as his home. When had it become his?
He gritted his back teeth. Now wasn’t the time to analyze the words his brain was throwing around. “Why don’t we talk here.” He indicated the rockers on the front porch.
“I could bring tea or coffee.” She was looking at him as she spoke. “I also need to check to see if Buelita is back from her friend’s.”
“Good idea. I could use tea. Thank you.” He glanced at their guest. “Tea? Coffee?”
More subdued now, but still pleasant, their visitor nodded. “Coffee sounds good, thank you.”
Once she was gone, Xavier sat on the edge of the porch swing and waved him to the rocking chair.
Beto sat, then leaned forward. “You don’t know who I am, do you? How bad are the memory gaps?”
Xavier crossed his legs, then uncrossed them. He forced his rigid posture to relax into the corner of the swing. If he wanted to get anything useful from this guy, he needed to think clearly. That was part of the problem. Did he really want information he might have to act on?
He had no way of knowing if he trusted this man. He had been on dangerous jobs; what if the captain wasn’t here to help? He leaned back and laced his fingers over his lap. Eyes narrowed, he studied Diaz.
The captain rested his elbows on his knees. “Okay, so I get it. You’re having trust issues at the moment. Totally understandable. I’m going to pull my ID out.” He lifted his hands palms out. “And some other information you might find helpful.”
Pulling them from the inside of his jacket, he laid a photo ID and other papers on the table next to his chair. “You’re part of an organization that focuses on undercover work to rescue and protect children from life-threatening situations. We’ve busted some pretty big human trafficking operations.”
Xavier looked through the information.
“We do other off-the-record jobs, too. In Colombia you were on a more personal mission. A friend of a friend needed help pulling a child out of a high-risk environment. You were scheduled to meet up with Trent the next day, but we heard about the ambush. We were told you and the boy were dead. Trent stayed and did some follow-up, but we had no indications that the report was false, so we left the country. We weren’t supposed to be there. Man, I don’t know what to say other than sorry. If we’d had any indication you were the man they were calling Pedro Sandoval, we would have gone in. We would never have left you.”
He looked at Beto. “How long have we been doing this?”
“Trent and I started the group ten years ago. You’ve been with us for about the last six years.” Beto’s dark eyes scanned Xavier’s face. “How extensive is the memory loss?”
Xavier looked down at the documents. Everything seemed legit. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake in trusting this stranger. “I remember some of the early years in the army.” He tilted his head back and let the memories he had flutter around until they settled in some sort of order. “Kuwait. I met you there. Then I remember being in Singapore, but that wouldn’t have been with the army.”
“That was your first trip with us, Cazador Company.”
“Hunter?”
“Yeah. We’re a high-end security company, but we also run a nonprofit that hunts human traffickers. You worked on that end.”
Tray in hand, Selena came back to the porch. She set it on the table between the rockers and handed out the cups. Xavier held the warm mug in both hands and studied the steam swirling and fading, like the memories he wanted most.
Something was slamming against his brain, something important.
She sat on the opposite end of the swing about a foot fro
m him. Too far.
“Do you want me to go?”
“No. No more secrets.”
He reached for Selena’s hand and, closing his eyes, he bowed his head. Taking slow breaths, he prayed. He didn’t try to force his mind to remember what he wanted. Using the techniques the therapist walked him through, he didn’t grab for information or control it. He just turned it over to God.
Selena scooted closer. He could feel her against his side. He regulated his breathing, even as the images took form in his mind. Images of children. Children in dark places. He had to help get them out of the dark.
He raised his head. “I left the army to help you and your team. Everyone in your organization is special ops, but they’re all retired from different branches. They’re from different backgrounds, but we all have the same goal. Stop human trafficking.” He opened his eyes. “You were my first contact.”
Beto nodded, his face relaxed. He pulled a tablet out of his jacket and handed it to Xavier. “This has some basic information about past jobs, kids you saved. Nothing current. But it will give you an idea of some of the stuff we’ve done. What you’ve done. Maybe it will help trigger memories.”
A slight tremor shook Xavier’s hand. A simple swipe and details of his work would be at his fingertips. He hesitated. Would this be the answer he had been looking for?
Would it take him away from his family?
Beto went on as if he wasn’t changing everything about Xavier’s life. “Do you think you’re still interested in working with us once you heal? We’ll have to have a medical release and probably a psych eval.”
He reached across the small table and grasped Xavier’s arm. “You’ve done a lot of good work. You’re one of our best trackers. The way you can hack into any program has gotten us more information than we ever had before.” He sat back and looked between Xavier and Selena. “What’s said here stays here, right?”
“What do you know about the Colombia job?” His heart rate was hitting double time. This could be the information he’d been trying to figure out. Enough to get him started, anyway.
“I’ve got some names I can give you. Trent. Trent Morrison. He was your pickup man. But it wasn’t a normal type of job. You were there to get a specific kid out. He was killed in the attack, correct?”
Xavier shook his head. “I have absolutely no memories of anything leading up to the attack or after. While I was in the camp, I was told my name was Pedro Sandoval. I had no memories, so I believed them. Was I working for him?”
“He was your contact.” Beto leaned back. “He was super secretive. Didn’t want us to contact anyone in his family. It was a nasty situation and he wanted to get the kid to the States. There was a family member here he trusted, but I don’t know who. You had most of the information.” He tapped his forehead. “It was all in your head.”
Xavier had discovered the first week out that he had the skills to get in and out of any computer, but he had no clue how to navigate his own brain.
But something was wrong. What if the kid was still alive?
With a swipe of his thumb on the security pad, he unlocked the tablet. Chills ran down his spine. He was one click away from knowing more about himself.
Maybe this would help him understand why he left Selena. What was so important that he was running from his own life?
A handful of icons popped up on the screen. Selena had come closer; she had her head resting against his shoulder, looking at the screen with him.
She squeezed his hand. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to see this?” She glanced up at him, then to Beto.
The man shrugged. “It’s up to X. He’s the one that wanted to keep it from you. We each decide how our families are involved. Some want the missions to be completely separate from their family. Others need their family to be part of the operations.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “It’s a hard job. Different people deal with it in different ways.”
She turned to Xavier. “Do you know why you thought I needed to be kept in the dark?”
The confusion in her voice muddled his thoughts. Pulling her close, he pressed his lips to the top of her head. The scent of Summer Sunshine filled him. “No clue. I want to share everything with you, starting now. Between the two of us, maybe we can figure out who I am and what I was supposed to be doing.”
She nodded and squeezed his hand.
He touched the icon that said South Asia. The file opened to several other files. Each was coded with a date and location that he understood. Excitement had his heart pounding.
He knew the code. He opened the file that would have been his first mission. Just the fact that he knew that gave him so much hope.
“Oh.” Selena gasped. “Those are just little girls.”
He flipped the device over, hiding their faces from his wife. His gaze darted to Beto.
He nodded. “It’s safe. Those files are all the kids we saved. It’ll have their recovery location and follow-ups.” He shook his head. “There’s still a lot of work to be done. But we’re making a difference.” Pointing to Xavier, he grinned. “He used to say one starfish at a time.”
Selena took the device and turned it over. Her fingers glided over the screen, touching the face of each girl as she read her bio, before moving on to the next. There were a couple of older women, some teenagers and a few boys. “Each one of these faces has hope now that they didn’t have before they met you.”
She looked up at him, her amber eyes shining. “To think I was so mad at you each time you left.” She looked back down at the faces again. “Do you remember them?” Her voice was low, barely audible.
“Seeing their faces brings some of it back. They were as scared of us as they were of their captors. It took a while to calm them down and to figure out that we were there to help them. But even then, some of them had no hope. Without the help of other agencies, they would’ve just ended up back there. Some of them were sold by their own families. There wasn’t a safe place for them to go. Not without intervention.”
She pressed her hand against her heart. “I wanted to keep our small town safe. That’s why I do everything I do. So that my boys have a safe place to grow up and play and explore. But you...you were out there making the world a safer place for every child.” She looked down at their joined hands. “Thank you for sharing this and for all that you’ve done.”
His jaw locked. It was too much. He needed a break. Standing, he held his hand out to Beto. “Thank you for coming here and giving me all of this. Is there a way I can get in touch with Trent?”
“Sure.” Beto stood and shook Xavier’s hand. “I’ll leave you all the info. Trent is undercover right now, but as soon as he’s out I’ll have him get in touch with you.”
They watched him leave, then went into the house.
“It’s time to call your dad,” Xavier told her. “We need to get the boys back and get that tree set up.”
“Are you sure? We can wait. Today’s been... A lot has happened today. You need rest.”
His instinct was to get mad and defensive. He was a grown man. He could handle a busy day and— He took a deep breath. There were a lot of new memories to sort through.
He took her hand. “What we need is to bring the boys home and finish what we started today. The tree goes up. We decorate it. What I need more than anything else right now is a little bit of Christmas joy with my family.”
Two steps and she was in front of him. Her hands cupped his face. “New Christmas triggers coming up.”
“Someone told me that was not how that word is used.”
“That someone must be very smart. But don’t bury all this new information away. You need to process it.” She squeezed his arm.
The yearning to pull her close and clear his mind of everything but her was so strong. His mind and heart clashed in a battle for hi
s life and he didn’t know which way to go. Peace, he just wanted a bit of peace. But there was a job to finish in Colombia. He couldn’t let that go.
She stepped away from him. “I also need to process this part of your life I never knew about.”
He nodded. “Call for the boys.” The front door opened. He twisted her behind him.
“Hola! Anyone here?”
She smiled. “Buelita, I’m in here.” She looked over at Xavier. “I’ll have her help me decorate. Take some time to yourself.” She disappeared through the kitchen door.
He stood there, alone. Images of people and places swirled in his mind. Needing to balance himself, he braced against the back of a chair. It was too much for now.
His family needed him without all the baggage. He could decide what he’d do with the new information later. Tonight, he’d celebrate Christmas with his family.
Chapter Twelve
Xavier tossed and turned, then punched his pillow for the hundredth time. There was no way he was getting any sleep tonight. Another week had gone by and no word from Trent. The sleep he’d been enjoying was gone.
Too many questions picked at his brain. He sat up and braced his arms on his thighs. The more he remembered the past, the more confused his life became.
He had to have left something here in the house. Selena had brought a few boxes to him, but none of them contained papers or notes. There had to be more written down somewhere that could fill in holes while he waited for Trent to resurface.
Standing up, he added a shirt to his pajama bottoms and slipped on his boots. The attic was a smorgasbord of forgotten junk. Flashlight in hand, he went up the stairs and pulled down the trapdoor ladder.
Moving with care not to wake the house, it took about an hour until, in the front part of the attic over Selena’s room. He found it. A couple of boxes full of folders, notebooks and seemingly pointless odds and ends.
A knife that Damian had made for him. A collar that Luna had outgrown. Some random rocks. If he’d saved them, there had to be some sentimental connection.
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