Flash Fire

by Dana Marton

  She was finished with waiting.

  Okay. Xibalba. What did she know about their headquarters?

  The place was in Mercita. Good. If she escaped, at least she’d be in the middle of a town, wouldn’t be swallowed up by the jungle, going from one hostile environment to another.

  She put her hands on the ground behind her back, lifted her butt, pulled her hands forward, and looped them around her legs until her bound wrists rested on her lap. Better. Now at least she could see what she was dealing with.

  The knot wasn’t anything fancy. She brought it to her mouth and bit into it, trying to pull the individual strands apart. She spit out some fiber that came loose in her mouth, then went back to work, thinking of Brunhilda as she strained.

  The men had left Brunhilda bleeding on her kitchen floor, unconscious from being pistol-whipped. Hopefully, the girls had come down and taken her to the hospital by now. At least Brunhilda had definitely been alive the last time Clara had seen her.

  She spit out more fiber, then looked at the rope with chagrin. She was making no progress. And if she was right, and she was at the Xibalba compound, then there’d be a major attack here tonight—orchestrated by Walker. She needed to get out before that happened.

  She scanned the room again. She couldn’t find a use for the corn. The empty shelves were held up by brackets, however, the brackets nailed to the wall. One of those nails might come in handy to open the lock. But first she had to get her hands free.

  Other than the corn and shelves, she had nothing but the floor and the walls. She scanned every nook, her gaze catching on one of the floor bricks in front of her that had an uneven edge and stuck out from the others.

  Here we go.

  She scooted forward and ran the pad of her thumb over that edge. Hard enough. The bricks had been fired. She angled her wrists and rubbed the rope over that edge. Then, when the first strand of rope broke, she grinned in triumph.

  Of course, the next second her hand slipped, and she managed to cut her skin. She wiped the welling blood on her shirt, then went back to working on the rope. She alternated between sawing strands and pulling them apart with her teeth. Her muscles were burning by the time she freed herself about twenty minutes later.

  Step One: Complete.

  Step Two: Get out.

  She went straight to the door. Locked. So she took apart one of the shelves, lifted the wood off, then yanked on the left bracket as hard as she could, worked it back and forth until she eased that nail out of the brick wall.

  But with that, all progress stopped. She couldn’t open the lock with the nail, no matter what she did. She sweated, swore, kicked the damn door. Nothing.

  Before they’d broken into the Tamchén camp the night before, Walker had taught her how to pick a lock. But the piece of aluminum wire she’d used then was a lot more bendy than the nail she had now. Having the right tool mattered.

  Walker could find a way, she’d bet. And if Walker could, so could she. She was no damn cupcake detective.

  Breathing hard, she smiled, despite her frustration, as she remembered Walker calling her the Indomitable Investigator. Damn right.

  She stepped back. Reevaluate. She scanned the room again, picked up the metal bracket she’d dropped onto the floor earlier. Then she attacked the lock with that, simply beating off the doorknob. Once she managed that, she was able to finagle the tongue of the door into the open position with a finger.

  She didn’t bother being careful when opening the door. She’d made enough noise so if anyone was out there, they would have come running by now.

  She scanned the area outside the door. She was at the back of a building, at the back of the compound, a twelve-foot stone wall maybe twenty yards from her.

  The rumble of truck motors filled the air. That explained why nobody had heard her. The noise had come in handy, but now it worked against her. She wouldn’t hear if anyone approached.

  Where was Walker? How long would it take to find him?

  Probably too long. Bad idea. No way could she search the compound without someone seeing her. Her best course of action was to leave as fast as possible.

  Step Three: Go, go, go. And don’t stop running.

  She pulled the door closed behind her. But as she contemplated making a dash for the fence, the shadow of a guard came around the corner. Clara darted into the gap between the building she’d just escaped and another larger one next to it.

  She was looking at the main mansion, she realized once she was in the shadows, pressed against the wall.

  The guard said something. She held her breath. A different voice answered. There were at least two of them. She was outgunned and outnumbered.

  If they continued on their path, they would see her in the gap. And she couldn’t go in the other direction, or she’d end up in an open courtyard, from what she could tell. She would be seen there for certain.

  On one side of her was a blank wall. On the other stood the mansion with dark windows, each with bars over them. But only on the lower level. The upper floor had no bars. Up there, a narrow balcony ran the whole width of the house, with potted palm trees that could hide her.

  Without wasting time, she scaled the nearest window, using the bars as the steps of a ladder, and pulled herself up onto the balcony, crouching between two large pots while the guards talked about a shipment that had come in earlier. They were planning out how to spend their paychecks. Women and tequila played a large role in the conversation.

  From her higher position, Clara had a better view of the wall that surrounded the compound. Few lights were on, but they provided enough illumination for her to see glittering glass where broken bottles had been embedded in the mortar at the top of the wall. Above that, coils of razor wire stretched.

  She winced. A couple of her fingers were still bleeding from prying off the rope. But she’d do what she had to.

  She stuck out her head and tried to look around the buildings. Could she somehow cause a distraction and get through the gate? But she couldn’t see the gate from here, had no way to tell what the best way would be to approach it.

  She turned to crawl to the other side of the balcony to check if she could see something useful from there. Then she gasped when what she saw was beyond anything she’d expected.

  A night-light had been left on in the room behind the next set of French doors she passed. Rosita lay on the bed.

  The girl’s face was toward Clara, toward the light, so her features were clearly visible.

  Clara stared, dumbfounded.

  Was this why the cousin hadn’t been worried? Had Melena known that the girl’s own brother had taken her? Why would he do that?

  Clara’s thoughts stuttered, a fresh wave of adrenaline hitting her. She’d found Rosita. But Walker had been right. She wasn’t playing some DEFCON video game. She was in over her head. How on earth was she going to get the girl out of here? One wrong move tonight and they could both be killed.

  The realization was underscored by an explosion somewhere in the courtyard.

  The balcony shook under her. On the other side of the mansion, flames lit up the night.

  She pressed closer to the potted palms. Thank God, she was in the back of the building where nobody could see her. But then a light came on below the balcony.

  “Turn off the light, you idiot!” a man shouted in Spanish, and the next second, the back of the house was shrouded in darkness again.

  Inside the room, Rosita had come awake, looking around. She probably couldn’t figure out if the explosion had really happened or if the sound had been in her dream.

  Then she blinked the confusion from her eyes and hurried to the door on the other side of the room. She banged on the wood, shouting to be let out, but nobody answered.

  Why was her brother keeping her captive?

  Clara moved to the balcony door in a crouch and tried the handle. Locked.

  She knocked on the glass, quietly at first, then louder, so the girl would hear her.
And, at last, Rosita turned. She stared at Clara, a look of incomprehension on her face while Clara madly gestured for her to open the balcony door.

  The girl stayed where she was, in her pink shorts and tank-top pajamas, looking startled.

  Maybe she didn’t have the key. Made sense. If her brother had ordered her locked up for some reason, they wouldn’t want her to escape through the balcony.

  Clara backed up and kicked the balcony door open with one well-aimed kick. Then she was in. “I’m here to help.”

  Her heart raced. She needed to get the girl and herself out of the compound before the real fighting began outside.

  She barreled toward Rosita, who still stood frozen to the spot. Clara figured her disheveled look and the blood on her shirt probably didn’t inspire too much confidence, so she said, “I’m here to take you home to your aunt. I’m Clara Roberts, DOD Investigator. I’m going to take you back to the US.”

  She grabbed the stunned girl by the wrist and dragged her to the balcony, but armed men were lining up below to reinforce the perimeter. Dammit.

  Clara scrambled for a solution. She’d heard trucks earlier in the courtyard. If she could take one of those, she could bust through the gate.

  She rushed back into the room, scanned it again, then grabbed a can of hair spray from the dresser. Not exactly pepper spray, but better than nothing.

  “Put on your flip-flops.” Then she was pulling the girl after her.

  She kicked at the door, grateful for the combat boots Walker had given her. She prepared to duck and roll, but the door banged open to an empty hallway.

  A few steps forward showed her the layout of the upper floor, the stairs, the foyer below, the open front door, and beyond it, the chaos in the courtyard.

  Clara grabbed the girl’s wrist again and dragged Rosita down the stairs. “Keep behind me.”

  They made it to the landing, the front door less than ten feet ahead. Almost there.

  Then a man rushed toward them from a room to her left, and Clara let Rosita go so she could use both hands in the fight.

  She punched with her right and sprayed with her left. And missed, dammit. Then the hair spray flew from her hand as the guy smacked her wrist.

  That really freaking hurt.

  She fought on anyway.

  She used every bit of her training and then some, gave as good as she got. She ducked as fists flew toward her. She kicked, elbowed, punched. But when a second, then a third thug came running, fear cut through her.

  One man grabbed her left arm, another her shirt. As she twisted, the shirt ripped, and she let it, pulling to get away. She couldn’t. Before she could get in even one more punch, something hard and heavy connected with the back of her head, and her world went black.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Walker kept glancing toward the mansion as he helped the others fight the fire. Blowing up the pickup in the middle of the courtyard hadn’t been difficult. A strip off the bottom of his shirt, stuck half-in, half-out of the gas tank, then a lighter. Boom. The perfect distraction so he could go inside and grab Santiago.

  “I saw earlier that it was leaking oil,” he shouted to the men next to him. “I bet somebody flicked a freaking cigarette.”

  He wanted the men busy, but not hypervigilant for attack. Technically, oil was difficult to ignite, a cigarette shouldn’t have done it, but he banked on these guys not knowing that.

  Santiago rushed from the mansion and called out. Walker couldn’t hear the words over the men shouting all around him and the fire cracking and popping.

  He dropped his empty bucket and ran to Santiago, along with two others whom Santiago had probably called by name. But by the time Walker reached the front steps, the two men had gone inside. Santiago was pulling the door closed.

  Walker called out. “You need help in there?”

  “Just deal with the fire,” came the response, and then the door clicked shut.

  Shit.

  He hurried back toward the burning pickup, grabbed the empty bucket, but didn’t run for water. Instead, he ducked between two buildings, abandoned the bucket, then rushed toward the back of the mansion.

  He climbed the window bars up to the second-floor balcony, where he figured he could easily kick one of the French doors open. Except one had already been busted.

  His focus sharpened.

  He checked inside—nobody in there. He pushed in. The bed looked slept in. By a woman. A purple dress lay on a chair, makeup on top of the dresser. He strode to the door that connected the room to the rest of the house. This door too, had been broken. His instincts prickled.

  He didn’t like mysteries or surprises on an op. He’d planned for contingencies, but this was something that simply didn’t fit into known parameters. Who had been kept in the room? Why had she been locked up? Where was she now?

  He stepped out into the hallway, gun in hand. He could hear people downstairs, Santiago’s voice one among half a dozen. But something else captured Walker’s attention.

  A small pile of familiar fabric lay on the landing—a blue-striped linen shirt.

  He knew that shirt. He’d found it in the attic box that morning. He’d given that shirt to Clara, and she’d smiled at him and thanked him. The blue was grayish, the perfect shade to bring out her eyes.

  Clara’s shirt. Torn and bloody.

  Walker’s blood ran cold.

  He forced himself to breathe. Waves of hot rage alternated inside him with waves of icy panic. Not Clara, dammit. He’d been prepared to give everything for his revenge, but not Clara.

  He pushed away images of her bloody and broken. He’d seen too many times what cartel men were capable of. The farmhouse with the severed heads flashed into his mind. He gritted his teeth. Not Clara.

  In the light of the foyer’s wrought iron chandelier, the blood still glistened. Fresh.

  Clara had been here, maybe just minutes ago.

  All of Walker’s senses sharpened. Where was she now?

  Downstairs, Santiago was talking to Carlos. “I don’t like it. How the hell did that pickup just blow like that? You need to go to the safe house. I’m driving you. Right now. No sense in taking risks.”

  Carlos didn’t argue. Even as Walker moved quietly to the top of the stairs, the two men were already through the door, their entourage behind them.

  Walker had no idea where the safe house was.

  So he had a choice: follow them and avenge Ben’s death at long last, or stay and look for Clara—who, judging by her shirt, might already be dead.

  * * *

  Clara woke naked, tied to a table, in what looked like a basement turned into a morgue. Three dead bodies lay on other tables, all men of various ages. White. American-looking. They all had the standard autopsy Y-cuts, all stitched up, as if the coroner had already processed them.

  The room stank of death.

  Cold fear rushed up her spine as she struggled against the ropes that bound her ankles and wrists. A moment of blind panic took hold of her, and she writhed and fought, hard enough to lose skin in the process. In the overwhelming adrenaline rush, she barely felt the burn and pain.

  What happened? Her panic-flooded brain struggled for answers, even as the ropes bit into her harder.

  Calm down. Fear makes every situation worse. Her training slowly resurfaced. Breathe. Assess.

  Okay. Okay.

  If she gave into panic, she had no business being an investigator.

  She forced herself to go still, to draw a long breath instead of the rapid panting that was making her lightheaded. Breathe.

  That helped. At least, she was beginning to remember. She recalled finding Rosita, trying to escape the mansion, the guards. Then pain. She’d been hit on the head from behind. Probably why her head was pounding now.

  She cranked her neck, trying to block the bodies from her mind and notice the rest of her surroundings. She squinted against the harsh light the neon tube threw from the middle of the low ceiling. Cement floor, cement
-block walls, no window, a single metal door. Her clothes and boots lay in a pile by the door.

  Where was Rosita?

  Before Clara could start worrying about the girl, the teenager appeared at the door, slamming it shut behind her.

  At the mansion, she’d been stunned and confused. Now she was staring daggers. And carrying one. Or rather, a twelve-inch kitchen knife.

  Not an encouraging sign.

  “You should have stayed the fuck home,” she said, still in her pink pajamas, looking jarringly out of place in a morgue with that knife. She could have come straight out of a horror movie.

  Clara stared at her—not exactly the lost and desperate seventeen-year-old she’d expected. She didn’t bother telling the girl again that she was here to rescue her. Rosita didn’t look in need of rescue. Just the opposite.

  The dark, unhinged light in her eyes was definitely on the scary side. Rosita might be just a kid, but she was a kid with a sharp knife, and Clara was as vulnerable as she’d ever been. Hello. Naked. Tied.

  “How did the old witch know I was here?” the girl demanded.

  By old witch, she probably meant her aunt in the US. Rosita seemed to have no desire to reunite.

  Clara fought to keep her voice calm. “I’ll explain everything. Could you please cut the ropes? You don’t have to come back with me if you don’t want to. Your aunt was just worried about you. She thought you might be in trouble.”

  The look in Rosita’s eyes only turned fiercer. “I hope the dumb hag chokes to death. She wanted me to freaking help her scrub other people’s toilets. My brother’s like major rich, and she didn’t want me to be with him. She wanted me to go to school.” The girl sneered. “Screw that.”

  “Just let me go, and I’ll leave. If you don’t want me to tell her where you are, I won’t.”

  But the girl sneered again. “Jesus, you’re stupider than her. You should never have come looking for me. Once we heard that you were asking questions all over the place, we started looking for you. You think my brother would ever let you leave?”

  “I’m not here for him or anything that has to do with him,” Clara said reasonably even as her heart pounded madly. “I’m not with the DEA.”