Jade ignored his road rage. “It’ll take us forever to untangle all of Jesenia’s aliases. Now that I know their general destination, it’ll be faster for me to work backward. I’m searching records of real estate transactions in Wyoming over the past couple of years, looking for any red flags.”
“You think it’ll be faster to search those records for an entire state?” Charles said, blazing past the idiot in the sedan.
“Uh, yeah,” Jade said. “The population of Wyoming is less than half the population of San Diego alone. When someone moves into the state, it’s basically front-page news.”
Though Charles rolled his eyes at the hyperbole, he did agree with her approach. “Jesenia would want to keep Phoenix somewhere isolated—a good distance from any neighbors, as far off the grid as possible. Definitely rural.”
Shane groaned. “Bro, that doesn’t exactly narrow it down. This is Wyoming we’re talking about; it’s mountains and prairies for days out there.”
“It’s a good start,” said Eva. “We’ll need more than that to make a concrete match, though.”
Charles glanced at the GPS on the dashboard. He was closing in on the gas station where Jesenia and Ángel had been spotted—by taking a direct route via major highways and driving well over the speed limit, he would arrive much faster than Jesenia had. It wouldn’t do him much good, however, if he didn’t know where to go once he got there.
“What exactly are you planning to do, Griffin?” Sakura asked, echoing his thoughts. “There haven’t been any reported sightings of Jesenia or Phoenix since the last one, we have no idea what route they’re taking—”
“I will drive all the way to Wyoming and knock down every door in the goddamn state if I have to!” Charles snapped.
A shocked silence fell on the other end of the line. Charles clenched his fists around the steering wheel and cracked his neck from side to side.
“Oh,” Jade said, a quiet exhalation. “You’re in love with him, I didn’t realize—”
“Just figure out where she’s taking him,” Charles said, and then softened it with a heartfelt, “Please.”
“I will. You wanna stay on the line?”
“Yeah.”
Listening to his team chatter as they worked kept Charles calm and focused on the drive. He blew past one mile marker after another, getting closer and closer to what could prove to be an enormous dead end.
“Here!” Jade shouted, so loudly Charles jumped in his seat and almost swerved off the side of the road. “Here, here, here!”
Charles steadied the car with his heart in his throat. “Jesus Christ, Siren, what is it?”
“Twenty acres purchased in foreclosure, with cash, in Owl Creek, Wyoming, which has a population of—wait for it—five.”
“And?” Eva asked.
“And the property was purchased by a Sara Martin,” said Jade. “Sara’s bundles and bundles of cash came via wire transfers from Lauren Diaz, who got her money in various installments from Christina Ruiz and Donna Parker, both of whom can be traced back to the same banks in Ciudad Juárez where Monica Ochoa, aka Jesenia fucking Santos, participated in low-level money laundering for the Esparza cartel under the auspices of the DEA.”
“Holy shit,” Shane said, impressed.
“I’ll bring this next door,” Eva said. “We’ll make sure the FBI secures that property ASAP.”
Jade made a humming noise. “That’ll help in the long run, but Jesenia won’t get there tonight—probably not even tomorrow. It’s at least a seventeen-hour drive as a straight shot; avoiding highways and tolls, it’s more like twenty-five, and that’s without any breaks or working around the complications of a captive of Phoenix’s size and strength.”
“So which way should I go from the gas station?” asked Charles.
“How the hell should I know?” Jade exclaimed.
“I know you don’t know,” Charles said, steadier now that they had a solid handle on Jesenia’s plan, “but you can map it out, can’t you? We know Jesenia’s point of origin, a place she stopped along the way, and her final destination. Isn’t that enough to suggest her most likely route?”
“It . . .” Jade hesitated. “In theory, yes. Like I said, Jesenia would want to stay away from highways and tolls, and she’d also want to avoid traffic cameras and areas with a significant police presence. But she wouldn’t just be lollygagging around, because the longer she’s in transit, the greater her risk of exposure.”
“Okay, that sounds like a good start.”
“There are a ton of other variables, though,” Jade said, a thread of anxiety running through her beautiful voice. “Things I couldn’t possibly anticipate or account for—”
“Siren,” Charles said, cutting her off. “At some point, Jesenia sat down with a map and plotted out the best way to get from San Diego to Owl Creek, using the same criteria you have now. Are you telling me that Jesenia Santos is smarter than you are?”
Jade blew out a breath. “Fuck no.”
Charles nodded, even though she couldn’t see him. “I trust you. You tell me where I should go, and I won’t second-guess you.”
“Okay,” Jade said, and then with firm resolve, “Okay. Keep the line open, and I’ll see what I can do.”
While he waited for Jade’s directions, Charles kept driving, his mind jumping ahead to the future. Now that they knew where Jesenia was headed, she would never get away with this, even if Charles wasn’t able to catch up.
If Jesenia realized she’d been burned, though—if she felt cornered, trapped—then in the grips of her psychotic obsession, she might decide that a murder-suicide was her only way out.
Charles gunned the accelerator and barreled down the highway into the darkness.
Ángel hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but his fear couldn’t hold up against the combined effects of exhaustion, boredom, and a dark, silent room. He startled awake when the lights came on, so disoriented that he forgot his restraints and tried to bolt upright, nearly toppling off the bed in his sudden rush of anxiety.
Jesenia hurried to his side and caught him, steadying him on the edge of the bed. “It’s okay, it’s just me,” she said, as if that were supposed to be reassuring.
A sharp, hysterical laugh burst out of his throat, muffled by the gag. He blinked a few times and shook his head, regaining his bearings. Then he lifted his chin and made an impatient noise.
“Hang on,” she said. She unwound the bondage tape from his head, freeing his mouth. “There you go. ¿Estás bien?”
“Agua,” Ángel said, his voice hoarse.
She jumped up and grabbed a bottle of water from one of the cases she’d brought. She held it for him while he drank, tenderly wiping away with her thumb the stray droplets that rolled down his chin.
“Are you hungry?” she asked once he’d had enough.
He nodded. He didn’t want to accept anything from her, but he needed strength to have any hope of a successful escape.
Rather than free his hands, Jesenia insisted on hand-feeding him like a child. He submitted without protest; presenting himself as helpless would fuel her delusions, and though that might be dangerous in the long term, it would mollify her for the time being.
She was so pleased by the opportunity to coddle Ángel, in fact, that she did unbind his left hand and allow him to brush his teeth on his own. When it came time to sleep, however, she laid a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants out on the bed and said, “You’ll need to stay out here where I can see you.”
“No,” he said.
“Ángel,” she said, with an air of exaggerated patience, “I can’t have you unbound and out of my sight. The gas station was a big enough risk as it was.”
“I’m not changing in front of you,” Ángel said firmly. He was less concerned about her seeing him undressed, and more about her realizing he had a shiv on him—the lump of glass would be visible through his boxer briefs, if it hadn’t already started to tear through. Plus, the jagged edges scraped his skin ev
ery time he moved the wrong way, and there was no way she’d miss the blood welling along his hip. His jeans offered his only defense against discovery.
She shrugged. “Then you’ll have to sleep in the clothes you have on.”
“That’s fine.”
“Stubborn,” she muttered under her breath, turning away. Ángel watched with growing apprehension as she spread a sleeping bag out on the second bed. It didn’t look like any sleeping bag he’d ever seen, though—it fastened along the bottom and sides with a series of Velcro strips, rather than a zipper.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
“It’s a suicide-prevention sleeping bag.” She opened it up and smoothed it out. “Once you’re inside, you won’t be able to get out by yourself. This way, I can put you in gentler restraints while you’re sleeping so you’ll be more comfortable.”
Gentler restraints proved to be two pairs of more-flexible leather cuffs and soft fabric tethers as might be found in a hospital. Jesenia swapped out the spreader bar first, binding his ankles and tying them together, then removed the bondage belt and did the same to his wrists. She left him enough slack in both ties that he would be able to keep his feet shoulders-width apart and his arms along his sides while lying down.
She guided him to the bed, helping him into the sleeping bag. Ángel’s breathing sped up as she closed it around him. It was a tight fit—not painfully so, but it would have severely limited his range of motion even without the restraints, and in his heightened state of anxiety, it felt like being mummified alive.
He made himself breathe deeply, not wanting to hyperventilate, but he couldn’t resist pushing against the top of the bag once she had fastened the last strip. The Velcro held so tightly that the bag might as well have been welded shut.
At his inadvertent, panicked whine, Jesenia smoothed a hand over his forehead and said, “I know, it’s not fun. You’ll get used to it though.”
Ángel kept a close eye on her as she moved around the room, getting ready for bed herself. He paid particular attention to the distribution of her weapons—she left her knife in the pocket of her jeans, which she folded on top of the chair, and the sedative-loaded syringe was zipped into a small case and placed in the nightstand drawer beside the bed. The stun gun and pistol, however, Jesenia brought right into bed with her.
“Buenas noches, cariño,” she said, switching off the lamp.
Staring up at the ceiling, he said nothing.
This was his best opportunity for escape, while Jesenia was asleep and she had him in his least restrictive restraints so far. Though the sedative still lingered in his system, giving him terrible dry mouth and occasionally blurring his vision, he felt stronger and more focused after eating. These cuffs were padlocked like the ones before, so he wouldn’t be able to remove them, but he should be able to use the glass to cut his way through the fabric tethers and the sleeping bag itself.
Ángel waited for Jesenia’s breathing to deepen and even out before he started. It was easy to get his jeans open inside the bag, and required only a bit of tricky maneuvering to get his hand down the side of his pants and underwear to retrieve the shiv. Though he accidentally sliced a cut into his hip as he pulled the glass out, he ignored the pain and settled the shard on his stomach, wiping the excess blood off on his shirt.
Freeing his wrists would be his first step. Though hindered by his lack of leverage—not to mention the fact that he couldn’t see what he was doing—he pulled the tether taut with his left hand and sawed through it with the other within a couple of minutes.
As the last few threads snapped, he let out a small gasp that was equal parts relief and terror. There was no turning back now. If he didn’t escape tonight, Jesenia would discover the broken tether tomorrow morning, and he’d never get another chance.
He set the glass shard down and shook out his stinging hand. He allowed himself a minute to recover while he looked down at the sleeping bag, searching for weak spots. The seam along the closed side was heavily reinforced, and the industrial-strength Velcro on the other side wasn’t an option, either. Even if he could cut it open, the sound of tearing Velcro would wake Jesenia up right away.
He’d have to go out the top.
Taking a deep breath, Ángel lifted the shiv and dug it into a spot on the panel right above his chest. The material resisted much more than he’d expected, so he gave it a little more muscle—then froze in horror as the bag made a loud ripping noise and gave way only slightly.
Jesenia murmured in her sleep, rolling over. Ángel dropped the glass and felt out the hole he’d made.
It was tiny. He hadn’t anticipated how thick this material would be—at least two layers of heavy-duty fabric, padded for warmth and security. This bag was designed to withstand shredding. He could cut through it eventually, but it would take time, and it wouldn’t be the quiet, subtle endeavor he’d been banking on.
Shit. Mind racing, Ángel closed his eyes. If he was going to wake Jesenia up either way, he might as well go for the Velcro. Though it would be a lot louder, it would also be faster. He would see how far he could get before she realized what was happening. Jesenia didn’t know that his arms were free, or that he had a weapon—
The air conditioning unit against the far wall kicked on, filling the room with droning white noise.
Ángel’s eyes flew open. He set the glass against the small hole in the bag and cautiously chipped away, straining his ears. The sound of tearing fabric was swallowed up in the mechanical rumble.
All of his desperate planning and sneaking around, and his saving grace was a crappy, inefficient motel air conditioner.
He set his jaw and got to work. Because the night was warm and the air conditioner was a piece of shit, it turned off and on frequently, and he had to stop and start around its vagaries. At least the breaks gave him a chance to rest his hands; he switched back and forth, but the jagged edges of the glass gashed up his palms and fingers more with every pass. Blood trickled down his forearms to drip onto his shirt and jeans.
Cutting through the bag took an excruciatingly long time. Once he had enough room to wiggle free, he looked over at the door and considered his route. He could probably get out of the bag without waking Jesenia, but he was sure she’d hear the heavy door open and shut no matter how careful he was, so he’d have to make a run for it once he was outside. He’d be doing it barefoot too, because Jesenia had stashed his shoes under her bed and there was no way he could get to them.
He had originally intended to take the shiv with him, but that was no longer an option; his hands were too damaged. However, he might be able to snatch Jesenia’s pocketknife on his way out.
He rested through one more cycle of the air conditioner, gathering his strength, running through his plan in his mind over and over.
Under the cover of the new wave of white noise, he eeled out of the sleeping bag and onto the bed. He blotted his bloody hands on his jeans and picked up the shiv again, biting his lip to hold back a cry of pain. He reached between his legs to cut the tether binding his ankle cuffs, then immediately dropped the glass and panted through the agony throbbing in his palms.
After the wave ebbed, he eased himself off the side of the mattress, using every ounce of experience he’d gained sneaking out of bed with Raúl. He crouched low to the floor as he made his way toward the table and chair in the middle of the room.
He slipped his thumb and index finger into the pocket of Jesenia’s jeans and tugged the knife free. Unfolding it to expose the blade, he snuck over to the door and straightened up halfway. Jesenia lay asleep, unaware that he stood free only a few feet from her unconscious body.
He could kill her now, slit her throat—she’d never react in time to defend herself.
He held still, paralyzed by the thought. Killing Jesenia was the safest and most logical strategy. She would hear him leave the room, and she’d run him down to her last breath. None of the odds were in Ángel’s favor; he was drugged and injured, and Jes
enia had a gun and a willingness to cause collateral damage that he didn’t share. If he took her out now, he wouldn’t have to worry about any of that.
But killing someone while they slept, even in arguable self-defense . . . that was murder. While it might be the safest choice, it wasn’t a choice he would be able to live with.
He could disable her, though, give himself some sort of advantage. The syringe— No. Even if he could get it out of the drawer and the zippered case without waking her, he didn’t trust that his cut-up hands would have the dexterity to operate it. One fumble, one slipped needle, and this would all be over.
Studying the nightstand between the two beds, Ángel noticed that, while Jesenia had removed the cord from the motel telephone, she’d left the phone itself out on the surface.
His pulse thundering in his ears, Ángel crept to the nightstand and lifted the big, clunky hunk of plastic in his free hand, gritting his teeth against the pain. He stared down at Jesenia’s sleeping face and hesitated a second too long.
She stirred, blinking up at him, and her eyes widened. “What—”
Ángel smashed the telephone into the side of Jesenia’s head, pulling the blow at the last moment to be sure it wouldn’t kill her. Her head whipped to the side with a strangled grunt.
Dropping the phone, he spun on his heel, vaulted right over her bed, and bolted out the door.
He raced across the motel parking lot, bare feet slapping against the asphalt and broken tethers trailing from his wrist and ankle cuffs. His options were limited here—he couldn’t appeal to the motel’s other residents for help, since that would put their lives in danger. He’d scare the hell out of them looking like this, anyway. Ángel’s arms were streaming blood from fingertips to elbows, more soaking the front of his shirt and jeans, and he still held the knife in one hand.
There was a pay phone in front of the motel office, by the vending machines and ice maker. Ángel made a beeline for it, half expecting to be shot in the back any moment.
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