The waiter brought their dinner plates, and Ramón sighed and then shot Torres a wide smile. “Nice and bloody. Just the way I like it.”
Joe Grant would probably give him hell, but if he was right, he’d just hooked Sérgio Torres. Only time would tell for certain, and Ramón thought that time would be sooner, rather than later.
Chapter 11
Consuela drifted toward consciousness. A gentle floating sensation filled her while softness and warmth surrounded her. Mostly, she felt safe. She’d had the most horrible nightmare. The details eluded her, but the emotions—fear, betrayal, shame—they remained, like three feral beasts laying in wait on the horizon of her mind, waiting to devour her. She couldn’t see them clearly, but they growled and they prowled, as if held back by some unknown force. The fear beast began to grow larger. Consuela whimpered and, in her sleep, tried to escape. ¡Chupacabra! Why did that old myth come to mind? Monsters were not real. And yet…
“Shh now, darlin’. You’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you here.”
The masculine voice, deep and oddly comforting, sounded familiar. Yet, she knew it wasn’t one she’d heard before.
Or had she? A memory stirred, a dream returned, of being lifted and held in strong arms, of a deep voice murmuring softly as she was carried into warmth, leaving the cold and the wet behind.
“Can you open your eyes for me? Do you understand English?”
Consuela blinked, opening her eyes, trying to find balance, seeking to make sense of where she was, of what her eyes were seeing. Confusion swamped her. Were those puppies on the wall? And then in flash, memory returned. The hope of a new beginning, followed by the long ride and slow realization that all was not as it was supposed to be. The arrival at that small house and then…
She turned frightened eyes toward the man who sat in a chair beside the bed she was in. Despite all she recalled, for some reason, she felt no fear of this man. “Sí…yes, I understand English. My mother taught us.” Tears overflowed her eyes, and she couldn’t stop them.
“Aw, darlin’.” The man left his chair and sat, carefully it seemed, on the edge of the bed she was in. He reached for the box of tissues that had been on the bedside table and extended it to her. Saying nothing, she took one and mopped her tears.
“Are you in a lot of pain?”
“N…no. Not much.” She was aware of the bandage high on her left arm. Recalling the sudden burning sensation, remembering the sound of gunfire, she understood the men she’d fled had shot her. Now she felt only a dull ache under the gauze, but she wouldn’t call it pain.
Consuela remembered then what else had happened to her, where else on her body she’d been very sore, where she’d been bleeding, but even that was nothing more than a mild discomfort now.
“Here, drink some water.” He bought a glass with a straw close, placing the straw on her lips. He held the glass until she’d sipped her fill. Even that small motion on her part brought exhaustion.
“My name is Patrick MacGyver, but most everyone calls me Doc or Mac. I’m a rancher and a doctor. I found you three nights ago, at the edge of my land. You’d dragged yourself out of the river, but your feet were still in the water.”
It was funny the way Consuela’s thoughts seemed to be coming slowly, as if her inner self knew she could handle only so many revelations at a time.
The blankets were folded neatly above her breasts, but she wasn’t naked. Neither did she still wear her dress—her favorite dress that she’d made by hand and worn with such pride as she’d set out on what was supposed to have been the beginning of the rest of her life. The nightgown covering her body was white with pink, blue, and yellow stitching on the top. The material felt soft and warm against her skin.
Did she believe him, that he was a doctor? The dressing on her arm looked professional. But knowing he’d seen her naked, that he’d obviously bathed her and then dressed her, made her feel uncomfortable.
“Will you tell me your name, darlin’?”
His voice soothed her, and he had a kind face. Maybe she was being stupid, but her instincts whispered that here was a good man, a man she could trust.
“Consuela. Consuela Lopez.”
Mac reached over and took a hold of her hand. “How old are you, Consuela?”
“I’m nineteen.”
He used his thumb to caress the back of her hand, and she wondered if he was waiting for her to relax more, or if he was searching for the right words. Finally, he sighed. “Consuela, I’m sorry you were hurt. I’m very sorry you were raped.”
She felt her face turn hot, and the sight of him shimmered through her tears.
“I took care of you as best as I could. You’d been shot, too.” He nodded to the bandage on her arm. “Will you tell me who did this? Will you tell me what happened to you?”
She wanted to refuse. She wanted to close her eyes and bury her head under the blankets and go to sleep…and never wake up again. She had no idea what would happen to her now. She was alone in this country where dreams could come true, but she didn’t belong here. She was here illegally, and she’d heard horror stories of what could happen to her because of that. There was the shame of what that one pig had done to her. It did not matter that she’d fought, that she’d been forced. Shame became a heavy weight that lodged in her belly.
And then she remembered Pilar. She remembered the little ones locked away in that small bedroom in that defiled house. But more important, she remembered her promise to herself.
What Luis Ortiz had done—what her own brother Miguel had done—was more than just wrong. They’d both committed crimes. And those precious little girls…
She was an adult, a woman of nearly twenty. She would deal, somehow, with what she had suffered. But she would not be able to live with herself—would not even be able to look herself in the eye in the mirror—if she did not fulfill that promise she’d made as she’d escaped.
The only way to stop those animals, the only way to save those little girls, and maybe even her own two sisters, was to tell someone what had happened and pray that something would then be done.
God had brought her to this man, or He’d brought him to her. Either way, Consuela believed with all her heart that she’d been given a mission. A holy mission to put others first and to seek justice. That mission began here and now and meant she had to tell this Mac everything.
“Sí…yes, I will tell you what happened to me. I will tell you all of it. And maybe then, you can find a way to stop them.”
* * * *
“Remind me never to play poker with you, Estévez.”
Ramón lifted his eyes from the file before him and turned his gaze to his boss. He’d known, going in, that Brenda had been wired with technology and that his boss had been able to hear and see everything during his “dinner” with Torres. Ramón wasn’t sure if, by his comment, Joe Grant thought his demeanor had been too bold—or too reckless. At the end of the night, Torres had shown himself to be a man whose ego had been more than a little stung. He certainly hadn’t been happy to learn that the fetish bar he owned, Leathers, had been raided and Lance Kramer hauled off in handcuffs. The raid had been conducted by a unit from the DPS, in conjunction with the HPD anti-vice squad. Clint had come up with the idea. Certain information would be available for any non-involved officers with the HPD who knew who to ask. If that information made its way to Torres, then that would mean they had one cop on the take in the HPD to worry about—most likely the cop Ramón had spotted by the bar at the Lyon’s Den. His cop sense had gone off as he’d watched the way Chance Carter seemed to focus so raptly on him, Clint, and Marcia—mostly, though, on Marcia.
Ramón supposed he should have just asked Joe to go through channels to get information on Carter, which was what he’d originally planned to do. He still might do that yet. But it was far more interesting to lay a benign trap and see if the mechanism caught anything. At least his way, there wasn’t any danger of Carter being alerted that he was being watc
hed by another police agency.
“The most important result of the evening is that Torres agreed to have you accompany him to an upcoming meeting with one of his suppliers next week,” Joe said.
“I believe he wouldn’t have if Clint hadn’t come up with the idea of a sweep of that bar,” Ramón said. “As it was, he couldn’t very well insist I had no reason to be concerned about the security of his organization. My agreeing to be blindfolded as we go wherever it is we’re going to go let him believe he was still in control.” What he didn’t tell Joe, or anyone else for that matter, was that it really burned his ass to give the man even that much. He’d angered Torres, and he’d questioned the man’s competence and had done everything in his considerable power to let Torres know he didn’t much respect him.
From everything Ramón had gleaned so far, Sérgio Torres had proven himself to be a mean little pecker since he’d begun to operate his sleazy little schemes this side of the border. If Torres stayed true to form, he would strike back before that meeting. Ramón understood that, from here on out, he’d need to be extra vigilant in his dealings with their main suspect. He’d also have to be extra diligent with Marcia’s safety.
Torres had already threatened to “take his slave back,” and even thought Ramón figured the man had just said that to sound tough, Ramón knew one thing for certain. Where his woman was concerned, he didn’t trust Sérgio Torres at all.
“We don’t know which supplier, of which contraband substance that he’s suspected of trafficking into the country, that he’s going to meet.” Joe looked up from his copy of the file and met Ramón’s gaze. “One way of looking at things is to decide that’s all for the good because, regardless of who shows up to that meeting next week, we’ll have at least one more suspect to use as a resource in our efforts to nail Torres.” He sat back and seemed to relax into his chair. “On the other hand, there’s that little matter of perhaps losing you during that particular journey. Torres is pissed at you, my friend, and I, for one, don’t trust him one little bit.”
Ramón wasn’t fooled. The SAC had something on his mind.
“The problem remains that we can’t risk putting a wire on you. We still haven’t completely nailed down his technology, not to mention we have no idea what his suppliers may have at that meeting because I’ll bet my pension they don’t trust Torres all that much, either. Therefore, I have something I’d like you to consider.” Joe reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag with what appeared to be a tiny plastic disc inside. The object wasn’t very big, maybe the third of the size of the fingernail on his baby finger.
“This will allow us to track you. It’s next generation to what the CIA and NSA are using in their covert ops. It’s to be inserted just under the skin and will allow us to know where you are at all times. Best of all, there aren’t any scanners on the market—on any market—that will pick this up.”
Ramón looked down at the item then met his boss’s gaze. “You’re worried. I’m touched. But I didn’t have the feeling that Torres is really all that dangerous. He’s a bully. And when a bully is threatened, more often than not, he runs.”
“And maybe he’ll do just that. But since you managed to yank his tail hard, and since we have no idea who the hell else he’s playing with, I want to take as many precautions as possible. This little baby, they tell me, has a very long range. As I said, it’s cutting edge and not normally available to someone like me for someone like you.”
Ramón felt his right eyebrow go up. “Wow. How do we rate the special attention?”
Joe chuckled. “Kate Benedict. You may have recalled meeting her at that party in Lusty, Texas. She has some…interesting connections.”
Of course, Ramón recalled meeting the diminutive nonagenarian who was the head of the combined families in Lusty. He’d thought she was quite sweet and certainly well loved by all the people at that party. But still. “That little old lady got you access to a state-of-the-art spy gadget?”
The look on Joe’s face told him that his boss thought he’d definitely erred. Then his expression changed to something akin to awe.
“Trust me, Ramón, Kate Benedict is nobody’s little old lady. The fact that she arranged for this particular toy speaks volumes. You must have made quite an impression on her. This”—he tapped the plastic bag—“is her way of letting you know she considers you family.”
That was unexpected. He’d shared conversation with the woman, but he didn’t think he’d said anything that had been particularly noteworthy. “Maybe she’s just grateful that we rescued her grandson, Rich Kendall.”
Joe chuckled. “Well, certainly, that didn’t hurt. She would have had any and all information on you before you hit your bed that night. Trust me, you can rest a little easier at night since she likely considers you a grandson, now, too. She has a habit of collecting honorary grandchildren. There’s nothing that woman won’t do for family.”
Ramón barely remembered either of his own abuelas, and he wasn’t altogether certain how to treat a grandmother, real or honorary.
“I recognize that look,” Joe said. “I didn’t know what to do with it, either. Don’t worry about it. It’ll take care of itself.”
The door to the conference room opened, and Clint came in, followed by Brenda, Craig, Tim, and Randy.
“We followed Torres to his building.” Craig sat in the nearest chair.
Randy took the spot beside him and opened his laptop. “I believe he’s running some electronic security measures within his penthouse. We thought we had ears from the street, but after the door closed, and he engaged his security system, we got nothing.”
“A little stealth may be called for, then,” Joe said. “Get together some equipment. I’ll see what I can do about getting a warrant so we can plant a bug or two in there when he’s out. Do we have someone sitting on him?”
“The locals are handling that,” Tim said. “I thought the best use of the uniform brigade would be stake-out duty. That way they think they’re involved.”
The look on Joe’s face told Ramón he wasn’t alone in thinking Tim Plant had a shitty attitude. He hadn’t met that many in the bureau who were true snobs—agents who believed the locals were all amateurs and only the feds could do the job right. Plant was definitely the worst of that latter lot.
“What arrangement did Torres offer you?”
“He’ll pick me up outside of Par Excellence at 9:00 p.m. on the night of and take me—blindfolded—to the meeting with his suppliers. I told him that, once I was satisfied with his supply chain, I did indeed have several buyers who would pay top dollar for what he had to offer.”
Joe seemed to think about that for a moment. He nodded then looked at the rest of the federal team. “All right, folks. Get some rest. We’ll see what we have in the morning. We should know if Torres has received any guests then, and I can let you know about the request for electronic surveillance by morning, as well.”
“You have his phones tapped?” Plant looked surprised by this development.
“Me? No.” Joe shrugged. “It would be a waste of time to tap phone lines. Damn near everyone uses cell phones these days.” Then he looked from Tim to Brenda and Craig. “You three head on out.”
Though Ramón didn’t know Clint well, he sensed the man wanted to wait until the others left before he spoke. Once Brenda closed the door behind her, Clint looked at Joe Grant. “I want to take a few hours and look into something. I received an interesting phone call from a friend of mine, who lives southwest of here. He owns a ranch an hour or so from the border with Mexico. Pretty little piece of property with a small river running through it. And a few days ago, he pulled a wounded young woman from that river. He said that she had been injured escaping a trafficking ring.”
“And you think someone from this ‘ring’ could be the ‘contact’ Torres plans to meet?”
“We’ve had ears to the ground and haven’t heard any other chatter, nothing about a new shipment of drugs or ar
ms.” Clint sighed. “Mac believes this young woman might be able to give us some good information. She was hurt and is currently resting at his home. She told him everything, and now he wants her to talk to me.”
“Ramón?” Joe didn’t have to say more than his name.
“I trust Clint’s instincts. This could be the break we’ve been waiting for. If the young woman was smuggled across the border and somehow escaped? She could prove invaluable in helping us nail Torres or, if not him, whoever it was who kidnapped her.”
“All right, go. You have forty-eight hours.”
“Thanks, Joe.” Clint nodded to the man then smiled at Ramón. “I took the liberty of grabbing a few things for you and taking Marcia to Christopher’s. He knows we’re mid-op and won’t let her out of his sight.”
“Good. Since you know where we’re going, you can drive.”
Clint laughed then slapped Ramón on the back. “Thank you, amigo. I’d planned to do just that anyway.”
Chapter 12
The woman looked impossibly small sitting at the kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. Part of that impression came, Clint knew, from the fact the tee shirt she wore nearly overwhelmed her. His friend, Mac, was a big guy, and Clint had to figure the shirt was his.
“Thank you, Miss Lopez, for agreeing to speak with us.” Clint kept his voice as gentle as he knew how.
She nodded and licked her lips. “You are welcome. It is the right thing for me to do. They told us, in the truck as they were bringing us here, that the American federales would sic their dogs on us or shoot us. Many of the women were afraid they spoke the truth. But Mac trusts you, and I trust him.”
“We should let you know, straight off, that if the information you share with us leads us to an arrest, we are authorized to offer you landed immigrant status.” Joe had called them just before they reached the MacGyver ranch with that bit of enticement.
Avenging Angel [Tales from the Lyon's Den 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 11
