A Different Dawn (Nina Guerrera)

by Isabella Maldonado

  Buxton looked guarded. “I cannot comment until I know what you’re talking about.”

  Nina paid close attention to how Buxton dealt with the situation. He wasn’t blowing the reporter off. He evidently wanted the information and therefore seemed willing to put up with Snead’s tactics.

  The reporter spoke into his microphone. “As you know, we’ve been covering recent developments in the Llorona case closely, including breaking the story about the switched babies at the hospital. This morning my source told me the current identity of the switched baby who survived.”

  Nina glanced at each of her teammates in turn, finding her own shock reflected in their blank expressions.

  Buxton’s brows shot up. He refrained, however, from admitting that this was information the FBI did not know. “How can you be sure your source is correct?”

  “First, he has been reliable in the past,” Snead said. “Second, he forwarded documents to us substantiating his claim.”

  “What kind of documents?” Buxton said, echoing her first thought.

  She realized that Buxton was looking for an opportunity to explain away whatever documentation Snead had received. Documentation the FBI had somehow overlooked. Anything to avoid embarrassing the Bureau.

  “Birth records, for one,” Snead said. “They are available online. My source provided the birth record for Maria and Victor Vega’s baby girl. He also sent a copy of the birth record for Carmen Cardona’s baby girl. In addition, he gave me Ms. Cardona’s current address in Washington, DC, with the information that she took her baby to the DC-metro area shortly after she gave birth.”

  Snead allowed a dramatic pause in his recitation. Nina felt a prickle of sweat at her hairline. A freight train was barreling straight at her and she was tied to the tracks, unable to get out of the way. She could do nothing but listen in silence.

  “My source claimed Ms. Cardona left her baby daughter in a dumpster in northern Virginia,” Snead said. “And finally, he shared local newsclips about an infant Latina baby girl who was rescued from a dumpster in Reston twenty-eight years ago.”

  Nina couldn’t help but appreciate that law enforcement used the same methods to corroborate information they received from confidential informants. This reporter had a great deal of experience and was not about to stake his reputation on a baseless rumor.

  As Buxton’s jaw tensed, she knew he was coming to the same inexorable conclusion she’d arrived at on Saturday night.

  “It’s common knowledge that Agent Guerrera was rescued from a dumpster in Reston twenty-eight years ago,” Snead continued. “We all know her story from the media coverage she received recently. How many infant baby girls of Hispanic descent were in that exact predicament during that precise time frame? We did the research. The answer is one.” He gestured to her. “Nina Guerrera. The FBI’s famous Warrior Girl.”

  Buxton took a step back when Snead tilted the microphone at him. “I cannot confirm any part of your story,” Buxton said. “I do not know who your source is, but we will need time to—”

  Snead checked his watch. “I’m putting the package together now, and we’re going live in fifty-five minutes.” He edged closer. “If you have anything to say, this is your chance to get in front of it.”

  “I have no comment at this time,” Buxton said.

  Snead pushed the mic in her direction. “How about you, Agent Guerrera?”

  Since calling him an obscenity wasn’t an option, she gave the only response she could. “No comment.”

  Snead pulled back his mic and reached inside his jacket pocket. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

  Buxton accepted the proffered business card. “Would you consider holding off on airing this until we have time to look into it?”

  “It’s an exclusive right now,” Snead said. “It won’t be for long. I’m going live at six.”

  After parting company with Snead, the team entered the hotel and rode the elevator up to their floor in a tense silence. Nina and the others followed Buxton’s ramrod-straight back as he marched to his room. Apparently, he’d decided to hold an ad hoc meeting there.

  Buxton checked to make sure the door was closed before rounding on Nina. “Is there any truth to this?”

  Another decision point. Her eyes reflexively darted to Wade, Kent, and Breck. She would not lie to her supervisor, but she could sure as hell phrase things to protect her team. She recalled their earlier conversation. Plausible deniability. She realized she could provide cover for Buxton as well.

  She chose her words carefully, keeping her toes a hair’s width behind the line. “What he said seems accurate, sir. When we interviewed Carmen Cardona, she spoke Spanish. I thought she mentioned kissing her baby, but she might have used the word for trash instead. She was sobbing, and it was difficult to understand her. If she meant she threw her baby in a dumpster, that would have occurred in Virginia while she was meeting a . . . customer.”

  Everything Nina said was true. She merely left out the timeline for her realization.

  Buxton frowned. “How could anyone possibly have known that?”

  This time, she didn’t need to hedge. “I have no idea, sir.”

  His dark eyes bored into her, taking her measure. “Agent Guerrera, you will report to the Phoenix crime lab first thing tomorrow morning,” he said after a long moment. “You will take a DNA test, and we will find out whether any of this is true.”

  She did not argue.

  “While we wait for the results,” Buxton continued, “you will not conduct any more interviews or write any affidavits for this case.”

  She studied her shoes. “Yes, sir.”

  “Agent Guerrera,” he said, waiting for her to meet his gaze. “If your DNA is a match, you’ll be on the next flight back to Washington.”

  Chapter 46

  Nina’s feet fell into a rhythm as she jogged north along Seventh Street in downtown Phoenix. Instead of going to her room to pack for her inevitable departure the next day, she had grabbed the running outfit she’d brought back and headed out, hoping a long run through the heart of the city would settle her frayed nerves.

  The farther she got from the hotel, the more her thoughts strayed to her two new families. How would they react when they saw the news on television? She had wanted to visit them in person, to warn them about the story before it aired, but Buxton had put the kibosh on that. She winced inwardly, picturing Teresa Soto’s kind face and Ana Vega’s haunted eyes. Would she admit how she had lied to them? She could always pretend she didn’t know about her background when she had last spoken to them.

  All at once, she realized she was done with shading the truth. With plausible deniability. With lying.

  Even if Breck had never secretly checked her DNA, Nina had known the truth in her heart without the need for lab results to confirm it. She had made a conscious decision to trust her new team, and they had made it clear they wanted her to continue investigating with them. She could have gone to Buxton and confessed her suspicions, and he would have taken her off the case immediately—as he had just done. But she hadn’t told her boss. The team had figured out a way to keep her biological connection separate from the investigation until it no longer mattered.

  It had worked . . . until the moment it blew up in her face.

  She wouldn’t blame either family if they never wanted to see her again. She had put her determination to catch the unsub before any other consideration. In the process, she’d probably ruined her only chance at having a real family of her own.

  Frustrated, she rounded a corner heading west on Van Buren Street and began the last leg of the run. She hoped to have made peace with herself by the time she arrived back at the hotel, but her self-recrimination still occupied her thoughts.

  A high-pitched buzzing sound pulled her attention upward. She tilted her head back to see a small drone hovering above her. She had no idea what kind of regulations the city of Phoenix placed on such devices and wondered if it was permitted to
fly around in such a heavily congested area. She followed its progress as it zipped away, disappearing into an alley between two buildings across the street.

  A deep male voice called out from behind, startling her. “You’re dogging it, Guerrera.”

  She almost stumbled. Silently chastising herself for becoming distracted by the drone, she directed a frown over her shoulder at Kent, who caught up to her with an easy, loping gait.

  “What part of ‘I want to be alone’ don’t you understand?” she said to him.

  He gave her a sardonic smile. “Apparently, all of it.”

  Annoyed he had capitalized on her momentary lack of situational awareness, she sped up. He merely lengthened his stride, effortlessly matching her quickened pace. Outrunning him wasn’t an option. “Why are you here?”

  “Because of my training.”

  She played along with his game. “What training is that?”

  “Being a SEAL is more than just bragging rights and cool tattoos.”

  She held immense respect for his elite military background but had no idea where he was going with this, so she waited for him to elaborate.

  “Our group has been together for a few months,” Kent said. “But that hostage scenario in Hogan’s Alley yesterday shows me you still don’t get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “Why Breck ran your DNA, why Wade figured out a way for you to stay on the case, why we all agreed to the plan . . . and why I’m out here with you now.”

  She flicked a glance at him, genuinely curious. “And?”

  He huffed out a sigh. “Do you remember the distress code I told you about?”

  How could she forget a story like that? “Flashpoint.”

  He nodded. “We are part of a team. We have each other’s backs. We trust each other with our lives . . . or—more importantly—our careers.”

  “Your priorities are a bit backward,” she told him. “But I get what you’re saying. Besides, I’m not sure what teamwork has to do with me, since I’m heading back to DC tomorrow. Alone.”

  “The killers we pursue don’t have any rules or regulations to follow. We do. Sometimes we have to balance those restrictions with our own humanity, or we risk becoming what we hunt. We’re not robots, we’re people. We feel, we care, we love.”

  She considered his words before responding. “You’re saying you all found a work-around to let me stay on the case because you understood what it meant to me?”

  “I’ve studied people, learned how to read them.” Kent held his pace steady as he navigated around a streetlight. “When I was in spec ops, my life and the operation often depended on it.”

  “And what are you reading now?”

  “Pain.” He softened his tone. “I’m sorry for your loss, Nina.”

  “That’s what we say when we speak to surviving relatives of the victims when we’re conducting interviews.” She glanced up at him. “I-I don’t . . . that is, I never knew them.”

  “That’s just it, Nina.” His cobalt eyes filled with compassion. “It’s not only the loss of the parents you never met but of the life you never knew. A life that should have included love, kindness, and the warmth of family. Instead, you were abused, neglected, and shuffled from one foster home to another.”

  She looked away, focusing on the street ahead of them. As his words seeped in, the enormity of what she had missed washed over her. He was right. She was another victim in this scenario. She searched for a clever remark to hide the heartache his observations had caused, but no words came to her. He had summed up her childhood in a couple of sentences, distilling all the grief, loneliness, and longing in a way that succinctly explained her situation—yet left out so much.

  He reached out to her, lightly brushing her bare shoulder with his finger as they ran side by side. Instinctively, she veered away, uncomfortable with expressions of warmth and compassion. He had also come far too close to touching one of the many scars that marred her back.

  “I have scars, too, Nina.” He dropped his hand back into position, his arms moving in cadence with his footfalls. “And I happen to think yours are beautiful. They are an outward symbol of your inner strength.”

  Those simple words almost undid her. If only he were telling the truth. Instead, she sensed the emotion underlying his kindness. The motivation behind it.

  Pity.

  She would neither accept nor tolerate anyone feeling sorry for her, nor would she listen to lies. She was not beautiful. Her scars were hideous reminders of a past she could not escape no matter how far or how fast she ran.

  She steeled herself. “I don’t want your pity, Kent.” She deliberately used his last name, distancing herself.

  “You think I pity you?” He looked incredulous.

  How could she describe feelings she barely understood? How could she explain the carefully constructed walls she had built up around herself? She had always felt unwanted. Thrown away by her family to be raised as one of the thousands of nameless children in an uncaring system. She had been bullied by bigger kids, abused by adults, and attacked by a predator as a teenager. As of two days ago, she learned she had a family and parents who had loved her before they were killed. Now Kent was expressing feelings she couldn’t fully comprehend. It was too much. Too fast. Too overwhelming.

  “Trust me,” Kent said. “You’re reading the situation all wrong.”

  He reached out and clasped Nina’s elbow, pulling her to a stop. His eyes met hers. “Nina, I—”

  His words were cut off by the crack of a high-powered rifle.

  Chapter 47

  Instinct took over. She slammed into Kent, knocking him sideways as a second shot thudded into the side of the building directly behind the place where they had just been standing. An instant later, she felt his heavy frame on top of her as he drove her to the ground, using momentum to roll them toward a cement planter the size of a garbage can nearby.

  Still pinned under Kent’s bulk, she craned her neck to peer around the planter’s smooth cylindrical side, pulling back when another round tore off a chunk of cement, sending rubble cascading down on her face.

  “Neither one of us has a gun or a vest,” she said. “And my tactical pen won’t do a hell of a lot in a gunfight. We’re sitting ducks.”

  Cars screeched to a halt on the street beside them. Pedestrians scattered in every direction, screaming as they rushed into nearby stores, desperate to get out of the line of fire.

  “That’s a large-caliber rifle,” Kent said. “He’ll keep shooting until he demolishes this cement barrier. If we don’t move, we’re dead.”

  Kent had more experience with urban warfare than anyone she knew. She squinted through the powder that had dusted her face, scanning the area for better cover. “If we can make it to that building across the alley, we’ll be out of the kill zone.”

  Kent followed her gaze. “Roger that. He’s shooting from somewhere on the opposite side of the street. I’ll go first and draw his fire. You stay on the other side of me. We’ll go on the count of three.”

  He intended to use his body as a human shield to protect her while she ran for cover.

  Fuck that.

  He hefted himself off her, rising slightly to a crouched position behind what was left of the pillar, and began the count. “One.”

  She tucked into a runner’s stance beside him.

  “Two.”

  She made up her mind. If anyone would draw the sniper’s fire, it would be her. She was smaller and harder to hit. “Three,” she said before he could finish, and sprang forward.

  She sprinted toward the corner of the building surrounded by a hail of gunfire coming from the shooter and a barrage of obscenities coming from Kent as his big feet pounded the ground behind her.

  They made it to the building together and pressed their backs against the wall.

  Kent looked furious. “What the hell, Guerrera?”

  She panted, adrenaline coursing through her. “You’re the size of a wildebeest. I
was the better choice for a distraction.”

  “And did you notice he was aiming at you the whole time? You’re the primary target.”

  So not a crazed gunman or one of the random mass shooters that had begun to plague so many cities and towns. She may not have her service weapon, but she would damn well do whatever it took to put a stop to this asshole before he killed an innocent bystander.

  Another round dinged a nearby metal streetlight pole. Sunset had given way to dusk, and this time she spotted the muzzle flash. Despite the echoes of the rifle’s report off the surrounding buildings, she had pinpointed the shooter’s location.

  She jerked her chin toward the spot. “He’s in the alley to the right of that building.”

  “The police are on the way,” Kent said as sirens cut the air. “The sniper is leaving.”

  A silhouette backlit by the fading light jumped to his feet from a kneeling position. The figure abruptly pivoted, and she caught a brief glimpse of his retreating back before he disappeared into the depths of the alley behind him.

  She glanced up at Kent. “We have to see where he’s going. If he has a car, we can provide a description and direction of travel.”

  He clutched her arm, his big hand circling her biceps. “And if he doesn’t, he’ll finish what he started before we have a chance.”

  Her eyes darted to his hand on her arm, then back up to his face. She raised a reproachful brow.

  He released his grip. “Fine, but we do this together.”

  She wasted no time. “He’s already made it to the far end of the alley. Let’s head across the street before he gets into a vehicle.”

  He trotted beside her as she ran through the traffic, which had come to a total standstill in the wide boulevard. No wonder police were having trouble responding.

  They raced to the building adjacent to the one where she had spotted the muzzle flash. The next building over was also tall, throwing the alley where the sniper had hunkered moments ago into complete darkness. She heard Kent curse and had no trouble guessing what he was thinking.