by DJ Erfert
“I’ll go along,” Lucy told him.
“Is that a good idea?” Johnny asked, grasping her hand.
“I promised Mariposa I’d help find her family,” she whispered placing her other hand on his chest. “Please don’t be upset.”
“What about Bridget?” Kate asked. “She’s still expecting you to help her with her other cases.”
“I know, but this is linked to one of her cases.” Lucy shrugged. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find our escapee bandit at the same time.”
“Lucy,” Jim said, “let me know if you want anything. I need to get back to work.”
“Thank you, I will.”
Junie lifted the phone near her lips. “Goodbye, sweetheart. I’ll call you tonight.”
“Okay, ’til then, be careful. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Junie whispered before she touched the end button.
“What do we do first?” Lucy asked, looking between Mark and Cooper.
“I’m having a file quietly opened on Brennan while we find your friends’ family, Lulu,” Cooper said, reaching for his daughter’s shoulder. He slid his arm around her back and pulled her into his chest. “I know how important your friends are to you.” He kissed the top of her head.
“Dad—” Lucy lifted her head and captured his stare. “I have a—a hunch we need to find them fast. I don’t think they have much time to live.”
~*~
Junie insisted on coming along instead of heading home, even though CIA weren’t technically allowed to participate in the search. Their purview was outside the US, and since the operation was on American soil, all they could do was observe. Well, Junie and Kate had to, anyway. Mark knew Lucy’s secret, and he was counting on her for inside information to keep his men safe. Lucy counted on her dad to keep her from being killed. His company already had an operation going in the desert seventy miles east from their location, with two helicopters searching for a possible dead body. He had ordered those men to divert to the outskirts of Tacna and wait.
From Lucy’s window in the helicopter, the barren land below looked like rippled, sandy fabric. A little farther away, the black asphalt freeway ran parallel to their flight. It took longer for Mark to get his men and women coordinated into the dark green battledress uniforms and protective gear than it would take to get to the destination.
Lucy touched a small device in her ear and inwardly smiled. Her dad made sure “his people” had communication with each other. She didn’t explain why she wanted Johnny to have one, too. His ability to share her windows hadn’t come up in their conversations yet. How, exactly, was she going to tell him something as unexplainable as finding probably the single person on earth who understood what she had gone through because he experienced it first hand through a simple touch?
Lucy turned her gaze to Johnny’s chocolate brown eyes. Could his ability to see into her windows have impacted her falling in love with him? It was the impetus of his seeking her out after that fateful morning at city hall months ago, although she was sure he had noticed her before then—as he climbed those stairs. His beautiful eyes were on her and only her. He had smiled—he’d tried his best to save her from falling over the banister.
Johnny squeezed Lucy’s hand. He hadn’t let her go since they took their seats. She knew him well enough to know he wanted to be prepared in case she had a window. She couldn’t blame him. They were going into a dangerous situation—a situation made complicated by a man who blackmailed desperate people into carrying dirty bombs across the border—if they knew about the bombs. They did know about the drugs; she was sure of that.
Mark had given her dad a department radio to keep in communication with them. He didn’t realize Steele Reinforcement’s equipment was already compatible.
“We’re about five minutes out.” Mark’s static voice came from over the radio. “Is your team in place, Cooper?”
Lucy watched her dad look at his phone before lifting the small radio to his lips and answering.
“Yes. They’re stationed one half mile southeast of the target house.”
It dawned on Lucy at that moment what all those phone calls to his men had been about when she was young. He’d been commanding his missions from home, and not checking in on a house build, or a lumber shipment, or anything else connected with construction. How alike she was with her dad that she would go into the same type of career. And they both were very good at keeping secrets. Too good, maybe.
The aircraft banked, turned, and then descended.
The two black Steele Reinforcement helicopters sat with their propellers motionless, and their men stood outside while the two white US Customs and Border Protection choppers were touching down a fair distance away from them.
Lucy didn’t see any signs of ICE, but they could want it that way. Being in position early could only help their mission, and Lucy rationalized that she was close enough that if something deadly would happen, she would’ve had that window Mark worried about.
It wasn’t just the border agent. Lucy was more than worried, too. Six bodies left for dead in the deserts of southern Arizona proved they weren’t meeting for a play date.
“Lulu …”
Lucy looked up at her dad.
“We need you to identify a body.”
Lucy’s heart jumped against her ribs. Mariposa’s face flashed in her mind’s eye. But she and Raul were with Mark. He kept them safe—she was sure of it. She pressed the earpiece and asked, “Whose?” Her voice came out louder than she had intended.
“Sullivan’s team found a man’s dead body ten miles south of Gila Bend. It’s pretty chewed up, but since he might be the man who escaped from FBI custody, you should take a look.”
Lucy shook her head. “Mark can identify him. He saw him, too.
“But if there’s any chance he might be the man from the cantina …”
She nodded. “Yeah, I need to look.”
Johnny squeezed her hand. All the people from her crossing had been accounted for, but what if another group crossed before hers? Were there more dead men lying in the sand whose packs had made it through? A sudden shiver worked its way between Lucy’s shoulder blades just as the chopper’s skids touched down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Steele Reinforcement carried body bags in their vehicles. Of course they did. They’d cleaned up the Bahaman compound after Lucy’s gunfight that ended with the rocket explosion and her being wounded with shrapnel. If her dad would’ve been with her as her backup instead of cleanup, then she had no doubt that day would’ve ended differently. Still, she didn’t regret her actions.
“Agent James,” Sullivan said with a nod of his head.
Lucy moved closer to the chopper’s opened storage compartment and stared at the thick, black plastic bag as he grasped the heavy-duty zipper and slid it down just far enough to reveal the head and left shoulder. But she needed more than just his shoulder. Lucy took the zipper and continued pulling it down past the man’s hand. His fingers were gone, either from animals gnawing, or deliberately cut off by the human animal who killed him, but from the remnants of what she could see of his knuckles, he had that right tattoos.
Johnny leaned close to her ear and whispered, “His teeth should be intact. Remember the gold tooth?”
During her window, she’d seen the disgusting guy smile while he attacked Mariposa, and Johnny saw it too after Lucy had let the memory fill her mind. She pushed what was left of his lips apart. A dirty gold tooth still clung inside his mouth. She was confident enough to know the man at the cantina never meant for him to talk to US authorities.
“This is the man who took Mariposa hostage.”
“Are you sure?” Cooper asked.
“I agree,” Mark said from behind Lucy. “That looks like the man your daughter knocked out in the interrogation room two days ago.”
Cooper’s eyes widened.
Lucy nodded. “Bridget was starting to take off his handcuffs, and I saw …” She glanc
ed around at her dad’s men listening in, squeezed Johnny’s hand tighter, and thought about that moment. “Murder in his eyes.”
He sucked in his breath loud enough for her to hear. “Huh, I understand,” Cooper said.
Lucy looked at Agent Roberts standing next to Mark. “What happened to the third man—the one whose knee I blew out in the desert?”
His brows pinched together. “In the Yuma hospital. From what I heard, he can’t walk.”
Cooper said, “You better make sure he’s still there.”
“I can do that,” Mark said, taking out his phone.
“We also found a single empty cartridge,” Sullivan said, pulling out a plastic baggie from his pants pocket. “It’s a .308 Winchester sniper round. I called Morrison. They found the same shells on the rooftop this morning. I doubt it’s a coincidence.”
“Did they find any usable prints at the scene?” Cooper asked, staring at the empty casing.
“Yes, sir. They were able to bring up two different prints—one on the roof’s inside doorknob, and a good partial on a spent casing. They are trying to match them up through IAFIS. Hopefully the shooter is on file,” Sullivan said.
Cooper nodded. “Look for a print on this. If you find one, send it to Morrison and have them compared to the rooftop shooter’s prints. If he isn’t on file, at least we’d know if it was the same man—or not.”
“Yes, sir!”
Lucy shuddered. They were getting rid of their killers. “How are we getting to the drop house?” she asked, turning away from the decomposing cadaver. “If we’re walking, we need to get going now.”
“Our rides are coming,” Mark said, nodding his head.
Lucy turned in the direction he was looking while his phone was pressed against his ear. Two dark 18-passenger vans were pulling around the outbuilding near where they had landed. Homeland Security seemed to have their act together.
“Dave—ICE Agent David Johnson and his team are stationed around the suspected address—” Mark held up his hand. “Yes, this is Federal Agent Marcus Whittier with US Customs and Border Protection, I’m checking in on a prisoner, Emil Suarez—” Mark dropped his hand as though gravity increased ten-fold. His brows pinched together above his sunglasses while his lips disappeared into a flat line. “How’d it happen? No, never mind. I want to speak to his attending physician immediately.”
Mark’s face had gone from a calm tan to irate red in a few seconds. Lucy didn’t need to hear the particulars of the conversation to know something happened to Senior Suarez—not that Lucy would feel bad about it.
“Roberts—” Lucy captured the FBI agent’s attention.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, pushing his shoulders back a little.
“Did Agent Monroe interview Suarez?”
He shook his head. “No, ma’am. He was in surgery when we were in Yuma. We never had the …”—Roberts turned his gaze to Mark—“the chance.”
From the sound of Mark’s side of the conversation, Bridget might’ve just lost out on her last chance, if that man knew anything to begin with. Mark walked away from the dead body lying in front of them, pulling his cap off his head. With a swipe of his arm, his shirtsleeve sopped sweat off his face, while Lucy felt a chill creep down her spine.
“Dad—we need to get going.”
“I think you’re right, Lulu.” Cooper nodded. “Sullivan—”
“Yes, sir!” Sullivan stood up straighter, looking into her dad’s eyes.
“Have three men stand guard here and keep the dogs and our rides safe. Load everyone else up into the van.”
Getting from the desert to the sparsely populated small town went quickly. It was mostly farmland—a real water tower town lost in sand that had more law enforcement in it at the moment than permanent residents. The vans were deserted at the edge of the modest grouping of houses, and they quickly made up the distance on foot to the black command vehicle. Now Lucy knew where the ICE agents hung out—in an air-conditioned RV parked behind a line of thick, magenta-flowered bougainvillea bushes.
A dark-skinned man climbed down from the door, staring at the crowd of agents and two Mexican civilians converging on his operation. Lucy sized him up quickly—not as tall as her dad but probably outweighing him in muscle alone. He either inherited baldness genetically or by design with a shaver twice a day. His white teeth were as straight and absolutely perfect as Dusty’s, but looked even brighter against his dark skin when he smiled.
Mark stuck out his hand. “Dave, glad to see you again.” He shook hands before turning to her dad, and with a huge smile said, “ICE Agent David Johnson, this is Cooper Steele.” Johnson’s black, bushy brows rose up high on his forehead and his unguarded smile stretched even wider as he reached for his hand and shook it.
“Mr. Steele, it’s an honor to finally meet you, sir!” Johnson said enthusiastically, his voice base deep.
Lucy scrunched her brows. The agent looked star-struck. That wasn’t the time for something as juvenile as that.
Mark slid his hand behind Lucy’s shoulder. “And this is Special Agent Lucille James, CIA.”
Johnson’s huge smile softened while his gaze intently studied her—a little too closely in her opinion. “Secret Agent Lucy James!”
Oh, no! Lucy’s temper rose. He’d heard rumors about her just like Mark had. Now she had to wonder if the leak in Steele Reinforcement was Pat Brennan. She’d run that theory by her dad when she had a chance.
“Agent Johnson,” Lucy said quickly, shaking his big, rough hand.
Mark introduced Kate, Junie, and Johnny before being invited inside the truck—just Lucy and her dad and Mark were invited inside, but Lucy wouldn’t let go of Johnny’s hand. They had to let him in too or leave her out. He dropped his medical bag on the ground before climbing the steps into the tight RV that passed as the command center.
They stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a dozen other men, with Johnny’s chest pressed against Lucy’s back. He had his arms wrapped around her waist—his fingers wove through hers.
Pinned up on one wall was a colored satellite map of the area showing the few older site-built houses, a dozen or more double-wide mobile homes clustered together, some out-buildings, even a metal, curved-roof Quonset hut with farming machinery parked nearby.
Agent Johnson pointed at the map. “This is our target house. We’ve had information from neighbors about a lot of unusual car traffic over the past couple of weeks. After Agent Whittier called, we set up surveillance here,”—he touched the map with his forefinger—“here, here, and here. So far today we haven’t seen any movement—not at the house, and nothing suspicious within a mile.”
“Is the house empty?” Cooper asked.
Johnson shook his head. “We can’t tell. All the windows have heavy curtains on them.”
“Have you tried knocking on the door?” Lucy asked.
The RV was quiet for a moment before the twelve men started talking to each other. Lucy smiled when Johnny tightened his arms around her. Easy common sense strategy wasn’t something the feds were known for.
Johnson loudly cleared his throat, and the room fell quiet. “Here’s our plan. I’ll send one man up to the front door and knock. If no one answers, then he’ll try to open the door—”
Lucy gasped out loud as a familiar phantom wind blasted across her face, jerking away her breath, leaving goose flesh skittering down her arms in its ghostly wake. Someone was about to be killed.
It’s happening!
She waited for the window to appear, for her surroundings to change to the dark, ominous grays, blacks, and slippery silvers she’d grown used to over the years. Instead, everything intensified in color, yet Johnson’s voice disappeared completely. She looked around the command center. Everyone was in the same unnatural vivid colors—including Johnny and her dad. Lucy knew instantly she was trapped inside her own window.
Her perspective changed. She stood at the front of the house beside Mark as he twisted the doorknob.
/> Her perspective changed again.
Lucy was inside the crowded living room staring at the door—and at the bundle of dynamite sticks taped together hanging from the knob just as he pushed it open. The movement created an explosion so big it blew Mark apart—blew the house apart—and encompassed the women and children packed together on the tile floor in white-hot flames.
Things changed.
Time rewound.
It was like it had never happened.
Johnny leaned heavily against her for a moment, shaking. It took Lucy a couple of deep breaths to regain her senses, too.
“Mark, you can’t open that door,” she whispered.
Johnson stared at her with wide eyes. “How did you know I was going to send him?”
Lucy stared at Mark with her heart beating hard and fast.
Mark cleared his throat, or coughed, or maybe he was trying his best not to throw up. “She had a hunch you would. After all, this was my idea.”
Cooper made his way closer to Johnson and lowered his voice when he said, “Agent, we need to speak with you in private. Don’t make any moves on the house until we talk. It will cost lives if you do.”
Johnson blinked several times while he stared—first at her dad, then at Lucy. She held her breath. Time wasn’t in their favor. There were people inside that house—people who could at any moment open that door and blow themselves sky high. “Okay, Mr. Steele.” He looked at his men. “Wait outside and stay close.”
Lucy waited while the RV emptied with the exception of Johnson, Mark, Johnny, and her dad. Lucy wasn’t wild about anybody else knowing about their secret, but she couldn’t figure out a way to explain what happened without sounding insane.
“What happened?” Johnson asked with his low voice very soft.
Cooper said, “We have intel that the house is rigged to blow.”
