Charles pulled his keys out of his jacket pocket. “Still runs.”
Of course it did. The car was hopelessly out of style—had never been in style, really—and didn’t even have power windows, but it was spotless inside and out and maintained as meticulously as if it were a classic Rolls-Royce.
There was no remote unlock, so Ángel had to wait by the passenger side for Charles to unlock the driver’s side manually and reach in to pop the rest of the locks. The back of Ángel’s neck prickled, unease creeping through him. Dark, near-empty parking garages were not traditionally the safest places for a person being pursued by an angry cartel.
A skittering noise sounded on the cement behind Ángel. He whipped around, heart pounding, hand flying to the butt of the new Glock settled in his shoulder holster, before he realized it had just been a foam coffee cup blown along the ground by a gust of wind.
Charles slammed the driver’s side door shut and hurried around the car, his eyes alert and his hand resting on his own gun. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Ángel dropped his shaking hand. “It’s nothing. I overreacted.”
He leaned back against the car and closed his eyes, breathing out. Charles’s footsteps moved closer to him.
“Paul is gonna die,” Ángel said, the bleak truth overwhelming him. “Do you know what they would have had to do for him to give up access to that lockbox? They’re torturing him, and eventually they’ll kill him, and it’ll be my fault.”
“There is no universe in which what’s happening to him is your fault.” Charles took hold of Ángel’s elbow and tugged him off the car, forcing him to open his eyes or lose his balance. “He accepted the risks of being your handler, the same way you accepted the risks of going undercover. This is on whoever took him, not you.”
“He was one of the only people I could talk to for two years,” said Ángel. “He listened to me, and he didn’t judge me, and now . . .”
Ángel shuddered. Charles smoothed his hand from Ángel’s elbow to his shoulder, then wrapped his arm around him and pulled him close. Ángel pressed his face into Charles’s shoulder and gripped his jacket with both hands.
Charles was only an inch or so taller than Ángel, but he was much broader, thick through the shoulders and chest; leaning against him was like leaning on a brick wall, albeit one that smelled amazing. He stroked his free hand down Ángel’s back.
“We probably shouldn’t stand out in the open like this,” Charles said quietly.
Ángel pulled away, clearing his throat. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
His motel room was just as he’d left it, with no evidence of entry—not even by housekeeping, thanks to the Do Not Disturb sign he’d hung. Ángel packed his things in a few minutes, tossing them into the plastic Target bags and the tote bag Charles had left, and they continued on to the new motel where Campos had arranged a room for him under yet another alias.
“You gonna be okay here?” Charles asked, hovering in the doorway.
“Yeah.” Ángel trailed his fingertips over the round wooden table by the door, hesitating before he said, “You, um . . . you don’t have to leave.”
“Yes, I do,” said Charles.
When Ángel stepped toward him, Charles moved away, backing right up out of the room and into the exterior hallway.
“This isn’t healthy, Ángel,” he said. “This thing between us—it’s never been a good idea, and it’s an even worse one now.”
“That never stopped you before.”
Charles snorted. “That was . . . well, before.”
Before things between them had imploded so spectacularly, he meant. Ángel pressed his lips together, propping one hip against the doorjamb.
More gently, Charles said, “You only want me to stay because you’re upset. We’d both regret it right afterward. Let’s just not, all right? We have to work in the same office again, even if it’s only temporary.”
It was a rational, mature response, the one anyone else would expect of Charles. But Ángel knew better. He saw the tension in Charles’s shoulders, the quick darting glances that skated over Ángel’s hips and thighs, the slight twitch of his hands at his sides. If Ángel pursued this, Charles would give in. It wouldn’t even be that difficult.
Ángel nodded and pushed himself upright. “Good night, Charles. Thanks for the escort.”
A brief hint of surprise flashed across Charles’s face, and then he nodded in return. “No problem,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”
Charles turned and walked away. Ángel closed the door, locked it, and banged his forehead once against the peeling wood.
Entering the office the next morning to see Ángel sitting at their cluster with tired eyes, clutching a coffee, gave Charles such a powerful sense of déjà vu that he stopped walking midstride. Sakura, who had ridden the elevator with him from the parking garage, bounced off his back and just managed to save her own coffee from a fatal fall.
“Charles,” she said, irritated. “I swear, you’re a zombie in the morning.”
Charles didn’t even apologize, too preoccupied by the fact that another desk had been added to their cluster and Ángel was sitting at it, talking to Eva and Jade like he had every right to be there. Shoulders tensing, Charles sat at his own desk.
“What’s going on?” he asked Eva, his voice even.
“Ángel is going to be joining us temporarily in an analyst capacity,” she said. She rose to her feet and smiled at Charles. “Could you help me out with the coffeemaker, please? It’s stuck again.”
Charles followed Eva into the break room, pretending he didn’t feel Ángel’s eyes on his back. “What the hell?” he whispered to her once they were alone.
“Don’t even start,” she said, hands on her hips. “This is your fault. You were so eager to help Ángel out yesterday that Ed assumed you were good friends in Tucson, and he thought Ángel would feel safest and most comfortable working with our team while he’s attached to this office. I couldn’t correct him without telling him why.”
“Shit,” said Charles.
“If you disclosed the nature of your relationship now—”
“No.”
Eva shrugged. “Then suck it up. Try to engage him as little as possible. He’ll be stuck at that desk all day anyway.”
She got herself a coffee—though Charles could have told her that her excuse hadn’t fooled Ángel for a minute—and they returned to the cluster. When Shane finally showed up, late as usual, they spent a few minutes settling in before Eva tapped on her desk to get everyone’s attention.
“Like I said earlier, Ángel will be working with our team for the time being,” she said. “He’ll be keeping the code name Phoenix from his extraction.”
Shane leaned over the desks to offer Ángel a fist bump, which Ángel returned with some bemusement.
“The FBI is intensifying their search for Paul Warner and his possible abductors,” Eva said, ignoring Shane’s antics with an ease born of long practice. “We do not have jurisdiction in that case, and we’ve been ordered not to obstruct the investigation in any way. That includes rogue solo sleuthing.”
She gave Ángel an arch glance as she spoke. He smiled sweetly.
“Ángel is on desk duty only, absolutely no fieldwork until the current situation is resolved. Jade, I’m giving you latitude to assign him whatever tasks you need done—”
Jade’s eyes lit up as she opened her mouth. Sakura kicked her hard under the table.
“Ow, fuck,” Jade said, scowling at her. “What I was going to say is that I could use your help translating some of the Spanish conversations we’ve got, Ángel. Charles and I are both certified translators, but we can never keep up with the backlog.”
“I’d be happy to,” said Ángel.
“Make sure you look through the case reports too, get a sense of the background,” Eva said. “Now, as for our next steps—I’d like to get a lock on when and where this new shipment is coming into town. This is a departure from
the Jackals’ usual pattern, and that means there’s something significant about this particular shipment, whether it’s the client or the weapons or both. Ideally, we’ll surveil the delivery and track the merchandise to the meet. Depending on intel, we may decide either to raid the meet or extend our surveillance.”
“I’m meeting Amber today,” Charles said, referring to one of his best confidential informants. “She may have some good info.”
Half an hour of discussion and strategizing later, the team headed off on their individual assignments, and Charles and Ángel hadn’t had a single personal interaction. So far, so good.
The bar Amber favored was a total dive, and not in a charming, rustic way. At 11 a.m. on a Tuesday, only the most hard-core drinkers were present, most of them older white men. A couple of them looked up at Charles’s entrance, eyeing him up and down with hostile sneers before returning their attention to their drinks.
Charles reined in his contempt. Dress a large black man in a hoodie and jeans, and suddenly he was pure thug. Racist idiots.
He walked to the end of the bar, where Amber huddled against the wall, and sat on the derelict stool beside her.
“Hey,” Amber said, flashing him a tight-lipped smile designed to hide her rotting teeth. Her skin was pasty white in the dim light filtering through the filthy windows, her stringy red hair pulled into a low ponytail. One foot bounced anxiously against the rung of her stool.
“Hey,” said Charles. He kept his hands well away from the sticky bar. “How’ve you been?”
Amber shrugged and gestured to the bartender. “Mich Ultra,” she said when he came over.
Charles ordered one as well—to do otherwise would invite unwanted attention. While they waited for their beers, Amber absently scratched at the open sores on her arm; her fingernails were flecked with blood.
Wincing, Charles took hold of her wrist and tugged her hand away. “You’re bleeding,” he said.
“Oh shit.” Amber wiped her hand on her jeans. “Sorry.”
As the bartender set two beers in front of them, Charles said, “At least let me get you something to eat with this.”
Amber agreed, and Charles ordered her a basket of wings. She picked up her glass and drained half the beer in one long swallow.
“How’s Johnny?” Charles asked. Amber was always reticent at first, but inquiring after her scumbag boyfriend was a foolproof way to fire her up.
Right on cue, Amber launched into an exhaustive account of Johnny’s many faults, rambling on and on throughout the entire time it took the kitchen to send out the wings and her to work through two beers. Charles listened patiently and made commiserating noises when necessary.
“And he thinks I’m so fucking stupid, you know?” Amber said at length. She gestured with a half-eaten chicken wing, nearly clipping Charles’s nose. “Like I don’t hear him talking to his gangbanger friends, or I can’t understand them. And if he thinks I don’t know about that slut at the Big City Liquor—”
“What have he and his friends been talking about?” Charles said, steering her back on track.
“Ugh, guns.” Amber gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “It’s always fucking guns with those shitheads. ’S how they get their drugs, you know? I’ve told Johnny a thousand times he’s getting in too deep with those Mexicans, but do you think he listens to me? No way. Just laughs right in my face!”
“What—”
“You know he’s learning Spanish?” Ripping a hunk of chicken off the bone, Amber continued speaking with a full mouth. “Fucking Spanish! Says he doesn’t like not knowing what they’re saying around him. I told him, ‘Johnny, those fuckers are gonna come to America, they gotta speak American.’ You know?”
Jesus Christ. Charles put his hand on top of Amber’s, met her eyes, and waited for her to focus on him before saying, “Have Johnny and his friends been talking about anything unusual lately? Something different from the normal way things are run—maybe something that’s got them excited, or nervous?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Amber. “Truck coming in from up north. Monterey, I think? Got them all worked up, just about shitting their pants. I don’t know why.”
A truck? Charles frowned. The Jackals rarely shipped their illicit merchandise in bulk, preferring the less risky approach of transporting it in bits and pieces, hidden in compartments inside personal cars. “Do you know where or when the truck will be here?”
Amber sucked buffalo sauce off her fingers. “Day after tomorrow, ’bout four o’clock, at one of those crappy warehouses in Chula Vista. I remember because Johnny and Buzz were arguing about it. Johnny thought the truck should come in the middle of the night, you know, and Buzz was saying it’s safer to bring it in when the roads are busy and everyone’s working.” She snorted contemptuously. “Johnny’s such a fucking idiot.”
Charles questioned her more, but that was the extent of Amber’s knowledge; she had no idea who the client was or what made this shipment unique. Still, learning the date and location of the delivery was a huge break and far more than Charles had allowed himself to hope for.
When he pulled out his wallet to pay the tab, Charles surreptitiously slid a couple of extra bills toward Amber. She snatched up the money and stuffed it in the pocket of her cutoff shorts.
Every time Charles paid Amber for her information, he struggled with an internal voice, that sounded a lot like his grandmother’s, telling him how wrong this was. He could pretend all he wanted that Amber would spend that money on rent or food, but he knew the moment she walked out of this bar, all of it was going right to her meth dealer.
“Thanks, Amber,” he said, hopping off his stool. He nudged his untouched beer in her direction, then added, “You know that if you ever want out—”
“Yeah, I know.” Amber knuckled his arm, her smile genuine. “Got my knight in shining armor waiting for me, huh?”
Charles squeezed her shoulder and left the bar. It would be a cold day in hell before Amber left Johnny, but that never stopped him from offering.
He spent the rest of the afternoon making the rounds, checking in with his other sources. None of them were as well connected as Amber, but the scattered crumbs of information he picked up verified her story. Energized by the new lead, Charles returned to the office in a much-improved mood.
“I’ve got actionable intelligence,” he said as soon as he reached Eva at their cluster. Jade and Ángel looked up from their computers with interest.
“Thank God,” Eva said, “because we’ve got exactly nothing.”
Charles filled them in, and when Shane and Sakura joined them, they sketched out a plan for surveilling the delivery. Unfortunately, there were plenty of crappy warehouses in Chula Vista, so they’d need to narrow the field somewhat before they could take real action.
“I’m on it,” said Jade. “I’ll look into the financials of the buildings in the area, search for any ties to the Jackals or the cartels they work with. Ángel, you have any experience with forensic accounting?”
Ángel smiled at her, tilting his head so his hair fell over one eye. “I’m a quick study.”
Oh, please. Charles turned away, annoyed, and caught sight of Ed Campos walking toward them.
Generally speaking, Ed was an easygoing guy, cheerful and mild mannered, with a friendly smile for everyone. Right now, though, his face was grim and his jaw clenched tight. Charles straightened up in his chair.
The rest of the team fell silent with equal apprehension when Ed stopped at their cluster—including Ángel, who excelled at picking up social cues. Ed opened his mouth, closed it, then sighed. “The FBI found Paul Warner’s car.”
Ángel snapped to attention, not a hint of flirtatiousness left in his demeanor.
“It was in the long-term parking lot of the El Paso airport, keys tucked in the visor, no blood anywhere in the car or trunk, no signs of a struggle whatsoever.”
“Then they didn’t take him from his car,” said Ángel. “They took him somewhere else a
nd drove his car to the airport to draw out the search.”
“That’s quite possible, but that’s not all they found.” Blowing out a hard breath, Ed met Ángel’s eyes and said, “The night Paul Warner disappeared, Raúl Esparza’s passport was used to cross the Zaragoza Bridge from Mexico into El Paso.”
“So somebody used Raúl’s passport to get into the US,” Ángel said, hyperaware of six pairs of eyes riveted to him. “It happens.”
Sakura made a face. “Who would be stupid enough to use Esparza’s passport? They’d have to know Customs and Border Protection tracks his movements like a helicopter mom.”
“Used to track him. They don’t anymore, or we would have known about this as soon as it happened.” Ángel turned to Campos. “They canceled the alerts when he died, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
Waving a hand, Ángel said, “Then someone else bet on that and took his passport—or sold it.”
Where everyone at the cluster had been staring at him only moments before, now they were all just as carefully not looking at him. Silence reigned until Charles—of course Charles—took the lead.
“Ángel,” he said. “How certain are you that Esparza is dead?”
“How . . .” Ángel blinked. “I was with him when he died. I had to take three showers to get his brain out of my hair!”
“Your hair?” Eva said, her gaze sharpening. “Were you not facing him when he was shot?”
Ángel’s mouth worked open and shut before he said, with mounting frustration, “We were getting into a car. He was behind me.” He groaned at the skepticism on their faces. “There is no way Raúl could have faked being shot at that distance. His blood was everywhere, it was all over me—”
“Would you know the difference between human’s blood and, say, pig’s blood?” Sakura asked.
Rendered speechless, Ángel could only gape at her.
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