by Lois Greiman
No one had ever accused him of being a diplomat, but he didn’t like to think he was a complete lackwit. Though more than a few had suggested as much. “Two always takes longer than one,” he said.
She was staring at him, challenge sharp in her eyes. “I won’t slow you down.”
He offered no expression, but seriously, she looked like a damn fairy princess in her daisy yellow dress, and fairy princesses didn’t seem like they’d be real great at humping a forty-pound pack through snake-infested jungles.
She was still watching him, maybe waiting for him to make a total ass of himself. It probably wouldn’t take long. “You finding anything there?” he asked and nodded toward her tablet.
She glanced back down at her tablet, tapped a few more things on the screen, and inhaled softly. “Here!” Her tone was tight with excitement, her apple blossom cheeks flushed. “There’s an email to Emocionante’s employees advising them to steer clear of the Gueppi vicinity. Isn’t that near the gulch?”
He scanned the map and nodded. “Who’s the memo from?”
She skimmed lower, lips slightly parted. “Alejdro Garza sent it.”
“You heard of him?”
“No.”
“Any way to find out where he lives?”
She tapped away again, paused, and read off an address.
He nodded once then bent. Retrieving the bag of purchases he’d recently made, he tossed it onto the bed and pulled out a twelve-inch hunting knife.
“What are you doing?”
He glanced up at the sound of her voice. Her eyes had gone from Tennessee meadow to Caribbean Sea, but he would be a fool to be influenced by a pair of pastoral eyes.
“I’ll be back before dawn,” he said and strapped the blade to his hip. “Get some sleep.”
Chapter 20
Eddy stumbled to her feet, heart stuttering against her ribs, fingers suddenly cold. “Where are you going?”
Durrand’s eyes were dark and hooded. “Lock the door behind me,” he ordered and adjusted the sheath that hung against the side of his right thigh.
“Wait a minute.” She wasn’t sure why her chest felt tight and her hands unsteady. She was a trained operative, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time. But his face looked blank and terrifying. And the knife… She swallowed. There was no one who appreciated a well-oiled handgun more than she did, but there was something intrinsically evil about a knife. “You’re going to find Alejdro, aren’t you?”
He didn’t answer. But he didn’t have to; his expression said it all.
“You can’t just…” She was breathing hard. “You can’t go around terrorizing private citizens,” she said but the set of his mouth suggested he could do just that. He turned away.
“Durrand!” She grabbed his arm. “You don’t want to get the police involved.”
His eyes were flat as glass. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t call the cops.”
Her stomach roiled at the unspoken implications.
“Listen.” Her hand was still on his arm. “Let’s just think about his for a moment.”
Their gazes met.
“Stay here,” he said and pulled from her grasp, but there was something in his face, some indefinable regret. Or was she just making that up? Was she just pretending so she could believe he wasn’t a monster?
“I’m coming along,” she said.
He twisted toward her with the smooth grace of a predator, that indefinable something long gone from his eyes. “You’ll do what I say.” The words were no more than a growl.
“You’re paying me,” she said and pressed past him, jaw squared and lifted as if her mind were set, but honest to God, she couldn’t look at the knife. Couldn’t see that blatant symbol of cruelty without hurling…again. “I’m just earning my keep.”
“You’ll earn your keep here,” he ordered but she was already at the door.
“You’ll never find his house in the dark. I’ve got the GPS,” she said and rushed outside.
He cursed and followed her, strides long and quick, but she was in the passenger seat before he reached the Jeep.
Yanking open the driver’s door, he glared across the console at her.
“I thought we were in a hurry,” she said.
His jaw bunched in irritation, but he slid inside. In a moment, they were backing out of the cobbled parking area.
Eddy’s stomach bounced as she programmed the guidance system. A thousand factions warred in her stomach.
Late at night, Bogotá’s streetwalkers were hard at work. Transvestites strutted their terrain, wildly flamboyant compared to their born-female counterparts. In these designated ‘tolerance zones’, prostitution was not only legal but booming.
The le Macarena district looked as bland as white rice by comparison, but Eddy’s nerves remained on red alert, making Alejdro Garza’s house seem disturbingly malevolent. Its dark door looked like a gaping maw against its white stucco exterior. Its windows were blank eyes, black and staring.
They drove past it once. The street was as dark as death. A scrawny hound trotted through the stream of their headlights, giving them a furtive glance from shifty eyes before disappearing into the blackness.
Durrand took two more rights, then slid the Jeep to a halt a half a block from his quarry’s silent adobe.
Eddy tightened her fists and wondered if throwing up again would make her appear less field-ready.
Durrand turned toward her. Half his face looked solemn and resolute. The other half was gone, swallowed by the darkness. She wondered dimly if the same could be said for his soul.
“Lock the doors and slide into the driver’s seat when I get out,” he ordered. His voice was low and level. “If someone approaches the vehicle, do not speak to them. If there’s trouble, honk the horn. Otherwise, wait for me. When you see me exit the residence, come pick me up.”
She stared at him.
“Can you do that?”
She nodded.
“I might be in a hurry,” he added.
She nodded again.
“Good,” he said and opened the driver’s door to step outside. His movements were almost entirely silent as he did so. There was something about that predatory stealth that disturbed her more than anything else.
Eddy watched him slip into the shadows.
By some malevolent trick of the light, the stainless steel tang of his knife was the last thing she saw.
Chapter 21
The window farthest from the street was narrow and low to the ground. Gabe flattened his back against the wall. The stucco felt cool and rough on his back. He scanned the neighborhood without moving his head. The night was quiet, as if it was safe. But safety was nothing more than an illusion. Perhaps Alejdro felt secure behind his locked doors, but locks could be picked in a heartbeat, windows jimmied just as quickly. Turning toward the building, he slipped the blade of his knife between the sill and the casing.
“Alejdro!” The name was loud and shrill, echoed by a raucous pounding on the front door. “Alejdro Garza, please, I must speak to you.”
It seemed to take Gabe a lifetime to recognize Edwards’ voice, longer still to grind his teeth and stalk to the corner of the house. But the door opened before he could confront her. An unseen man spoke from the interior of the little hacienda. His words were a jumble of inarticulate Spanish, but the cocking of his shotgun was perfectly clear.
Gabe swore in silence and tightened his grip on the handle of his own modest weapon.
Edwards, just visible past the trailing blossoms of a flowering shrub, lifted her hands and backed away. If she had noticed him, she didn’t let on. “Please.” Her voice was very soft. “Don’t shoot.”
“Abondonar! Dejar o te vas a morir!”
“American,” she said. Her face was midwinter pale in the light that seeped from the open door. Her hands were shaking. If it were an act, she was in the wrong profession. “I’m an American.”
Holy shit! Gabe ground his teeth. Why not advertis
e her nationality, in case Garza hadn’t yet decided if he wanted to kidnap her?
An unseen woman spoke rapid fire Spanish from the bowels of the house.
“I’m sorry,” Edwards said and fell suddenly to her knees. Gabe jerked at the unexpected movement, but in a moment, he realized she had knelt of her own accord. “Please. I need to know.”
“Abandonar!” the man ordered again, but Edwards had dropped her face into her hands and was sobbing softly.
What the fuck was going on?
“Ir!” Alejdro snapped, but the woman spoke again, her English broken.
“Why is it you are come here?”
Edwards lifted her head. Hair as fine as corn-silk spilled around her face like a veil. “You found a…you found a body.” She barely whispered the words, but Alejdro spoke before she could continue.
“Leave!”
She struggled to her feet. “My sister…Trish…she’s been missing for thirteen days.”
“I know nothing of this.” The door creaked closed, but Edwards rushed forward. The sound of wood crashing against the sole of her boot boomed in the darkness.
“Please. Just tell me where she was.”
Gabe gritted his teeth. The man had a shotgun, a 12-gauge by the sound of it. And Gabe had never been a fan of showing up at a gunfight with a knife no matter how nice the blade was, but he had little choice in the matter. Tightening his grip on the handle, he gritted his teeth and stepped forward, but the unseen woman spoke again.
“Let her in,” she ordered.
There was a moment of heated silence. The night pulsed around them.
“Come,” Alejdro said finally, and Edwards stepped inside.
Gabe closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and cursed in silence. He should have tied her to the bed, after all. Should have knocked her unconscious. Should have taken one look at her peaches and cream perfection and run like hell. Or limped, limped like hell. He paced the perimeter, peering in every window, but he could see nothing inside the house’s dim interior. On the other hand, there were no shots fired either. No screams of pain. No shouts of outrage.
And she was a trained professional. She’d fought like a tiger in the Blue Oyster’s latrine. But somehow, that particular memory failed to improve his mood.
A gasp sounded from inside. He jerked toward the door, but barging into the house had a high probability of causing more harm than good. And in a matter of seconds, Edwards was stepping outside, seemingly with all limbs attached and no arterial blood spewing from gaping wounds.
“Thank you.” Her voice was soft, barely audible. “Thank you, señor,” she breathed and stumbled toward the Jeep.
The door closed quietly behind her. Gabe jerked his attention toward it then hurried after her.
She gasped as he curled his hand around her arm.
“Durrand!” Her eyes were as wide as a fawn’s when she raised them toward his. “You scared the life out of me.”
“I scared you?” he rasped.
“Shh,” she admonished and glanced toward the modest house behind them before jerking the Jeep’s door open and sliding behind the steering wheel.
There didn’t seem to be much Gabe could do but hurry around to the passenger side. By the time his ass hit the seat, she was already pulling away from the crumbling curb.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he growled and tried to work up a good head of steam. Certainly, he deserved to be outraged, but she was already taking the corner at a speed that would have traumatized an Andretti, making it difficult to focus on her past sins.
“I was thinking we wanted to know where the body was found without adding another death to the toll.”
He glared at her and tightened his grip on the oh shit handle. “I didn’t say I was going to kill him.”
“You didn’t say you weren’t going to kill him.”
He lowered his brows and considered telling her that he wasn’t a murderer, but his stomach was already creeping toward his esophagus. In the past, his squad had thought it the funniest thing in the world when he’d toss his cookies after every jump. Or during…during his exit from the plane was even more hilarious.
“What’d you find out?” Did his voice sound a little sulky? Shit. Forty-eight hours in her company and he was turning into a toddler.
“She wasn’t one of Miller’s people.”
He shook his head and tried to verbalize a question, but she was already continuing.
“The woman who was killed. She wasn’t one of Miller’s team.”
“That’s what you asked?”
“I thought if she were, we would know where—”
He laughed out loud. “Holy shit, Edwards, I could have told you that without risking your damned life.”
She shifted her gaze from the street long enough to glare at him. It took every ounce of his self-control to resist screaming that she should watch the damned road. “You said you didn’t know who was on his team.”
“I said I didn’t know who. I did know Miller would consider a one-legged goat before he’d hired a woman.”
“Well, maybe you should have shared that information with me.”
“Shared that—” He snorted. “You’re supposed to be the intel here. Hell! Did you think I brought you along for muscle? Or maybe—”
“The body was found five miles west of where the Tortuga branches into the Putumayo.”
He drew a deep breath and tried to marshal his senses. Sometimes, he had a temper. Sometimes, he was just an ass. And sometimes, it was hard as hell to differentiate between the two. “When did she die?”
“I don’t know. The bartender said she’d been found on Tuesday. Alejdro agreed. He also said she had a unicorn tattoo on her neck.”
“A unicorn?” He scowled into the darkness. She took a left turn like a launched missile, careening around the corner while staring at the GPS. He tightened his grip until his fingers ached. “And he could still identify the tat?”
She nodded.
“So she hadn’t been ravaged.”
“Even though she was on the banks of a major river, miles from civilization.”
“Couldn’t have been there long then.”
“Probably not more than a few hours. Certainly not overnight.”
“What time of day did the tourists find her?”
“Early afternoon, 1500 hours or so.”
“Did Alejdro think it was Herrera?”
“He didn’t know,” she said.
“Didn’t know, or wouldn’t say?”
“I don’t have any reason to believe he was lying about his uncertainty.”
“I do,” he said and scowled at her naiveté.
“That’s because you didn’t see Angelique.”
He deepened his scowl.
“His daughter. Three years old.” She exhaled softly, as if trying to de-stress. Good luck with that. “Eyes like an angel.”
He shook his head.
“His wife suggested that he imagine what it would be like if their little girl went missing.”
Gabe scowled as Zoey’s image popped into his head, snaggle-toothed smile watermelon wide as she razzed him about his inability to whistle. The irritating little monkey had failed to show him a modicum of fear from the moment she was born. He blamed Kelsey. But the thought of his niece being in danger did something deadly to his heart.
In retrospect, making Alejdro imagine his daughter missing might have been a worse fate than threatening his life.
It also might have been cleverer. He glanced out at the night as they careened into their hostel’s bumpy parking lot. The Jeep jolted to a halt. His stomach stopped more slowly.
Edwards turned the key and stared across the seat at him. “You okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. You look a little green.”
“Let’s go,” he said. “We’ve got an early day tomorrow.” Opening his door, he took a deep breath, found his equilibrium and stepped onto the gra
vel.
Yanking the key from the ignition, Edwards popped open the driver’s door. “When do you think we’ll reach the gulch?”
“Depends how long it takes to get ahold of Javier?”
“Who?”
“Weapons specialist.”
They were side by side now, striding toward the hostel. “Where’s he located?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Then how are you going to find him?”
“He’s going to meet us.”
“Where?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as he tells me.”
She stuck the room key in the door and looked over her shoulder in surprise. He glanced away, feeling foolish. It wasn’t as if he was thrilled with the system, but Reynolds had warned him that Javier was slippery.
“Paranoid?” she guessed.
He shrugged and studied the area behind him. It was as dark as silt in the lea of the little hostel. “Maybe just Colombian.”
“There are good people everywhere,” she said. Her tone was a little judgmental. She jiggled the key. Nothing happened.
He glanced to the right, imagining a half dozen men approaching in the darkness. The nearest had a blade clamped between teeth as white as coca powder.
She jiggled the key again, but he pressed her aside. “Holy shit, we’ll be dead before morning at this rate,” he said and unlocking the door, crowded her inside.
“Speaking of paranoia…” she said.
He could feel her scowl, but he had already moved to the window. Pushing aside a faded curtain, he studied the night. Nothing moved. He let the fabric fall back across the pane.
“What you call paranoia has saved my life a hundred times.”
She stared at him a second, brows slightly raised. “Just think what a nice case of psychosis could do for you then.”
“I can only dream,” he said.
Chapter 22
Two days had passed since Shep had escaped from Treg and his buddies. Two days of scrambling through the undergrowth like a terrified bunny. Of hiding from every scrape of noise. Of eating only what the jungle supplied.
His head was buzzing. Or was it the flies? Those damned insects that circled like vultures. He swept his hand upward, but the movement was slow and disjointed, doing little more than infuriate his tormentors. They hummed louder. Two landed on his neck, one on his cheek. He let them be. Fatigue rode him hard, gouging him like rusty spurs. Sweat rolled between his shoulder blades.
