Never Surrender (Task Force Eagle)

by Susan Vaughan

  He smiled. “It’s not too late to go out. I think I’ve worked up an appetite.”

  She kissed him, her limbs heavy, her heart filled. She was satisfied to the core of her being, but his touch rekindled desire.

  At an insistent chirping, Rick ended their embrace. “Damn.” He set her gently away from him, then reached to the floor for his pants.

  “Cruz,” he snapped into his phone.

  Barely aware of his conversation, she struggled to recover her senses. She lay boneless on the bed.

  What a weak-willed ninny I am. On her competing lists, she had at least ten reasons for not falling in love with him, for not even kissing him. On the other side, only one. She couldn’t even put into words why she found it hard to deny him, to deny her feelings?

  “That was Jake Wescott.” Rick tucked away the phone. The frown etched into his brow transformed his face into his cop expression. “Cops found a man who’d been beaten. He’s at Maine Medical Center. Has a driver’s license belonging to Finnegan Farnham.”

  Her heart plummeted into her stomach. “Finny?”

  Chapter 13

  Rick demanded speed from all 345 horses in his ‘Vette’s 5.7 liter V-8, but the trip from Portsmouth to Portland seemed like four hours instead of less than one. Por Dios, spring arrived slowly here. The beginning of April and the trees still had no buds. Dirty clumps of snow on the roadsides added to the dreary pall of the gray skies.

  A glance at Juliana, huddled in the passenger seat, didn’t reassure him. Something other than what she’d told him was bothering her. She’d said no more than two words about why Jordan’s buddy had popped up in Portland when he was supposed to be aboard a trawler somewhere between Cape Cod and the Canadian border. Did she know the reason? Or only suspect, as he did?

  He found a parking space in the visitor lot, across the street from MMC, a sprawling brick complex in Portland’s West End.

  As they pushed through the glass doors, Rick’s past slammed into him. The squeak of rubber soles down the black and white tiled corridors. Odors of institutional bland food, lemon cleanser, and sickness. Hushed voices comforted relatives or discussed clinical findings. Chatty voices planned a day off.

  All of that brought back memories. “I’ve avoided hospitals since my papá paraded me through South Shore Hospital to show off his son the future doctor.”

  She gave him a wry smile. “He pushed. And you rebelled.”

  “I was just a stand-in for Rudy. He would have been the doctor. If he’d lived.” Back then his father’s rigidity had made him angry. Today the familiar odors and sounds triggered no pain, only mild resentment.

  She squeezed his hand. “You had to do what was right for you. He must have feared he’d lose another son to violence.”

  Rick’s heart stopped. Juliana perceived a possibility that had never occurred to him. Fear could’ve been the reason for his father’s censure, for his seeming lack of caring. “That was years ago. Returning to Miami, and his disapproval, no longer has the power over me it once did.”

  “Where’s the room?”

  Her agitated voice and peach scent dispersed the memories, and he picked up their pace. An elevator and a maze of corridors led them to the room labeled F. Farnham. Medical personnel in pastel tunics whisked past them with medicine carts and IV stands. A uniformed cop slouched in a chair beside the door.

  Before Rick could address him, a Portland-based DEA agent walked toward them from a lounge at the end of the hall. Someone’s fist had once rearranged the burly agent’s nose into a bulbous mass. “Yo, Cruz, I had word you’d be coming. Glad you got everything straightened out in your office.” He thrust out a hand.

  Rick gripped his hand. “Thanks, Harriman. How’s it going?”

  “The man in there, how badly is he hurt?” Juliana unzipped her parka, then shifted her backpack to one shoulder. Her haunted gaze made Rick want to pull her close.

  Agent Harriman gave a low whistle. “When his beak heals, it’s gonna look worse than mine. No serious internal damage though. Whoever did this worked him over pretty good, but they wanted him conscious. Doc says if Farnham’s broken ribs don’t affect his lungs, he’ll be all right. Besides that, concussion, couple broken fingers, cigarette burns on his chest.”

  Juliana gave a horrified gasp.

  Rick yielded to instinct and looped an arm around her shoulders. She pressed closer, elevating his mood a notch. She might not trust him, but her body did.

  “Kid’s got guts,” the agent continued. “Hid in his rooms for two, three days trying to deal with his injuries alone. When the landlady came to collect the rent, she called an ambulance and the cops.”

  “Wonder if he spilled what they wanted to hear.” Rick turned toward the patient’s door. “He conscious?”

  “They’re keeping him doped up. For the pain. Don’t know what you can get out of him. But see for yourselves.” Harriman shifted his feet and rolled his shoulders.

  Rick pushed the door inward for Juliana to precede him.

  MMC had made an effort to create a soothing environment. But this patient couldn’t appreciate the watercolors of coastal scenes adorning the yellow walls. Swathed in bandages, he lay flat on his back, his multihued, puffy eyelids closed. An IV stand dripped meds into a vein in his left arm, which lay limply on the green blanket covering him. That hand was encased in bandages.

  “Oh, the poor kid.” Juliana pressed fingers to her mouth. Tears flowed.

  Finny. This kid was stocky, not gangly like Jordan Paris. Finny being here confirmed Rick’s hunch of Jordan’s location. Apprehension and a sinking foreboding mingled in his gut.

  “Wh-who’s that?” a voice croaked from the bed. Farnham’s eyes opened, slits in a devastated landscape.

  Stepping closer, Rick explained their presence. The tang of burn medication and alcohol swabs feathered the air. “If you’re Finnegan Farnham, I have to ask you some questions.”

  “I’m Finny . . . Shoulda stayed up north.” His gaze shifted to Juliana. “You’re Jules.” He reached toward her with his good right hand.

  “Jordan calls me that sometimes.” Juliana clasped his hand. “What happened to you?”

  “Them Mexicans . . . waited for me at my place.” He drew a rattling breath, started again. “Jordan warned me . . . My dumb-ass mistake. I’m sorry. Didn’t want to. I told . . .” His voice was fading.

  “What did you tell them? Where’s Jordan?” Rick wished he could shake it out of him. He knew the answer, but he needed to hear it.

  Finny’s head lolled against the pillow. His eyes closed. He was slipping into Demerol-induced sleep.

  The crucial bit of information, and they were losing him, dammit. “Farnham, hang on, man. Tell us where Jordan is,” he urged. “He’s in danger. Help us find him.”

  Juliana squeezed Finny’s hand in a silent plea. But he was asleep. She released his hand and stepped away. “I can tell you where Jordan is.” Her whisper was barely audible.

  “What did you say?” He was afraid to hear the answer.

  She turned away from him, her muscles bowstring tight, shoulders rigid. “They traded places. He’s on the Sea Worthy.”

  He’d begun to suspect exactly that, but her words rocked him like a ship’s wake. Fuckin’-A. Jordan had been on board the dragger all this time, safe from the gang and invisible to authorities. No wonder the fish buyer didn’t recognize Finny’s photograph. He’d never been there.

  Rick would laugh if the implications weren’t so dire. Once Olívas found Finny, he had no need to shadow Juliana. All he had to do was wait for the dragger to arrive in Portland. Same thing the DEA was waiting for.

  “Let’s go.” Gripping her arm, he ushered her from the room just as a scrubs-clad nurse entered. His mouth taut, he marched Juliana into the lounge.

  “You knew.”

  “I—”

  “You knew it was Jordan on the fishing boat. That’s why you were so certain he couldn’t be the one in the hospital bed.
You knew where he was.” He stabbed a finger at her in accusation.

  “You don’t understand.” Wringing the strap of her backpack, she stood in the center of the sparsely furnished lounge. She looked distraught and defenseless—and guilty.

  “No, I think I finally do understand. I suspected. Did you know where Farnham was and when he’d return? If we’d known that, we could have headed him off. You could have saved that poor kid in there.”

  “You’re wrong.” Her chin rose in defiance. “I found out about their switch only today. Too late for Finny.”

  “Today.” The tension vising his head eased a notch. How?”

  “The Rockland fish buyer, the one we talked to, called the office. A problem with his invoice. Something prompted me to ask him again about Finny. He insisted there was no Finny on the boat. When I asked him to describe the crew, he said he hardly remembered them except for one with two different colored eyes.”

  “What does that mean?” He paced a circle around her. What the hell else don’t I know?

  “Jordan has one brown eye and one green. He sometimes wears a colored contact because people look at him weird. Even his driver’s license has green for eye color. The man the buyer described had to be him.”

  “Why didn’t I know about this eye color thing before?”

  “It never came up. I didn’t think it was important.”

  “You mean you didn’t want me to know. Still hoping to get to him first?”

  “I don’t know. Everything was so complicated, so scary. I thought I had time to—”

  “Make a few lists? Add a balance sheet?” He stopped pacing and glared at her. Se didn’t trust him, but after their intimacy, this betrayal cut deep.

  Juliana turned her back and hugged herself. “I’m sorry. It’s not you. When you said Finny’d been beaten, I wasn’t certain who I’d see in that hospital bed. I’d have told you—soon.”

  “Soon.” He scraped fingers through his hair. “Not good enough.” A lump of pain congealed in his gut. He’d been right in the first place. He never should have allowed his hormones to confuse his judgment about a woman with family ties to the drug trade.

  “I know, but it’s all I have.” She faced him again. “What will you do now? Send the Coast Guard out to arrest him?”

  He barked a bitter laugh. “Why should I tell you anything? You don’t trust me. And obviously I can’t trust you.”

  *****

  Juliana turned the spare key she’d kept and slipped inside Vinson Enterprises. As she’d expected for a Saturday, the offices remained dark and empty. He must be somewhere setting up an alibi, in case Olívas implicated him when the DEA pounced. Maybe he didn’t suspect the DEA was on to him.

  The wall clock’s hands were straight up. Noon. Sea Worthy was due in. Rick and other DEA agents could be surrounding El Águila’s gang. And putting the cuffs on Jordan. Her pulse jittered, but she breathed deeply for calm. I can do nothing about that.

  Rick.

  At the thought, his image floated before her. The way she wanted to remember him, no bitter look of disappointment on his face. He wasn’t the worthless charmer she’d imagined. He was honorable and dedicated and she’d lost any chance with him. He’d begun to trust her and she’d ruined it. Ruined everything.

  A pain sharp as a needle pierced her heart. She pressed a clammy palm to her mouth and banished thoughts of him. She’d messed things up and this was her only chance to make repairs, however slight, however late.

  Leaving the lights off, she tiptoed through the office to her desk. She booted up the computer. Vinson might have the safe combination stored somewhere in the files. Then she could get in—as long as he hadn’t changed the password.

  A few minutes later, she found a file listing only a series of numbers. Maybe.

  Her nerves were jumping like spring peepers at dusk. Safe cracking. Not the best strategy for a future accountant, but here goes. She left the computer running in case she had to search again. Knees wobbling, she crept to the boss’s office door.

  She tried not to think of worst-case scenarios but her brain wouldn’t stop conjuring them. Vinson could show up. The Sea Worthy’s captain could pop in with his receipts. The key she’d snitched from the key cabinet might not work. Maybe it wasn’t for this office at all. Her heart drummed so hard she clutched her chest.

  Get going. Get it over with.

  She fumbled the key, but finally the lock clicked. The office door opened. She shut her eyes briefly.

  With the blinds closed, a twilight-like gloom blanketed Vinson’s office. The big wooden desk with its phalanx of greenery, the conference table, chairs, and cabinets looked normal. The musty smell of potting soil and the oiliness of stale coffee permeated the space.

  She hurried across the carpeted floor to the cabinet behind the desk.

  On her knees, she opened the door concealing the safe. Too dark to see the dial. Dammit, she should have brought a flashlight. She’d never replaced the one Rick broke when he jumped her at her brother’s apartment.

  She slid the desk lamp over to the near corner. A punch of the button in its base, and a spotlight glared on her guilty face. And on the safe. Surely not enough light to be seen outside.

  Before touching the dial, she listened to the office. The computer’s hum, the furnace’s low rumble, a cricket’s chirp. Nothing else. Her fingers closed on the cold steel.

  Firming her resolve, she spun the dial and twisted to the first number. The second. The third. Her ears and fingers weren’t sensitive enough to know if the combination worked. Hand trembling, she reached for the handle and pulled down.

  The handle clicked. The steel safe door swung toward her.

  A shadowy movement behind her brought her head around.

  The world crashed down on the side of her head.

  White-hot pain exploded. Colors bloomed behind her eyelids, then stygian black.

  Chapter 14

  Rick shivered in the raw morning as he watched the Sea Worthy chug toward the fish pier. He zipped his raid jacket up to the neck. Weather forecasters predicted clearing skies for Saturday, but in true Maine style, the April weather remained overcast in a slate gray that matched the Casco Bay waters.

  Constant activity around the several piers made it easy for the DEA to plant agents dressed as fishermen and dock workers in strategic spots. Neither Jordan nor Olívas’s men would escape capture this time.

  As soon as the Sea Worthy’s crew tied up, agents swarmed aboard. Jake Wescott escorted the captain from the dragger. “No sign of Jordan Paris. Or his gear.”

  “Not on board?” Rick roared at the captain.

  “Got off last port.” A weathered man of indeterminate age, he took a long drag on a cigarette.

  It was all Rick could do not to beg a butt from him. Instead, he surreptitiously inhaled the smoke in hopes of easing his hyper nerves.

  “You were harboring a suspected criminal. Unless you want your boat searched from stem to stern and turned inside out, you’d better tell me where Paris went.” Rick paused for effect. “We might have to search anyway if we find any hint you’re hauling anything but fish.”

  The captain’s seamed face crumpled. He tossed down his smoke and stomped on it. “I don’t know what you think this guy did, this Paris or Finny or whatever his name is. My boat’s clean. I got nothin’ to hide. We docked in Portsmouth yesterday to take on fuel. A message was waitin’ for him. Said he had to leave, some emergency at home. That’s all I know.”

  Questioning wrung no more from the captain or crew. No one saw Jordan Paris leave the docks or knew who might’ve picked him up—Juliana or the Mexicans. She wouldn’t, not after . . . Too painful to contemplate.

  “More bad news.” Agent Harriman’s dour countenance greeted him.

  “Don’t tell me.” The knot in Rick’s gut warned him about Jordan’s fate. “No Olívas.”

  “Right in one.” The Portland agent waved a beefy arm toward the Exchange’s fenced parking
area and the street beyond. “We’ll hang out awhile longer in case they’re late.”

  Rick doubted the necessity. Somehow the Mexicans had finessed Jordan right into their trap. The only silver lining was the connection to Wes Vinson. How else could they have known where to find the Sea Worthy? A narrow silver lining glimmered in his mind. If the Mexicans had Jordan, it meant Julian wasn’t complicit.

  But how could he face her with the news? He dug his knuckles into his temples to fight off the headache that threatened. His phone buzzed inside his jacket. The Boston office.

  “I have a strange message for you,” the receptionist said. “From a Venice Aaron.”

  His heart skipped a beat. “Shoot.”

  “She says Juliana Paris could be in danger. The caller said Ms. Paris rushed out this morning saying something about wanting to help, to make up for not telling you about Jordan. Something about evidence. The Aaron woman says her friend doesn’t answer her phone. Calls go to voice mail. Does this make sense to you?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” He thanked her and disconnected. Acid burned in his veins. He hissed in a breath.

  Juliana might have found more evidence than she could handle.

  *****

  Awareness chewed into Juliana’s brain with burning bites. Her eyelids fluttered open to a swarm of black spots. When she tried to sit up, her arms wouldn’t work. Her stomach lurched, and her heart thumped wildly.

  “Take it easy, Jules. You all right?”

  Oh, God, Jordan. Yes!

  Unable to speak, she flopped back down like a landed cod. Deep breaths fought back nauseating dizziness. Throbbing pain radiated from her neck and shoulder and bounced around in her head like a spiked ball.

  A louvered vent admitted scant light. She lay on a cement floor in a windowless metal room the size of a walk-in closet. A shed maybe. Metal and cement refrigerated this space to nearly freezing. In a corner was a stack of boxes and her backpack.

  Her hands were bound behind her, the reason for the numbness. And her feet were tied. Not a landed cod. More of a trussed turkey. She was cold and sore. And aware that the two of them had landed in deep shit.