Her brow furrowed, anguish turning sea-green eyes dark and lonely. “I’m aware of your feelings, Special Agent O’Connor. Not that it’s any of your business, but Maggie asked for this assignment. Still, I hold myself responsible. It’s my duty to make sure my agents are safe in the field.” She pushed her chair back and stood, a slim, proud figure in her pinstriped suit. “If you wish to write up a report, I’ll understand. Now, please, I’d like to be alone.”
Adam hesitated, aware he’d hurt her feelings, but dammit, she should have done something to stop Mags before it was too late.
He stopped at the door and met her gaze over his shoulder. “I have a friend with a ranch near the scene. I’ll crash at his place during the investigation.”
She nodded. “The Stein ranch, I assume. If I need anything I’ll contact you there.”
He opened the door.
“Good luck, Adam.”
Yeah, he’d need it.
The dust and heat beat down on Maggie and the other women in the Humvee. She glanced back the way they’d come. Dangerous as it was, they needed to find a better used road in order to hide their tracks. The goat trail they were on would lead anyone chasing straight to them.
The sun directly overhead made it hard to know which way they traveled. Every bump and rut exacerbated the wound on her side until it felt as though she was getting jabbed by a red-hot poker. She hoped it wasn’t festering, but there wasn’t much she could do about it out here.
Olga glanced at her from the driver’s seat. “You should drive, you’d be much better than me. I don’t even have a license.”
That’s right, Olga was such a commanding presence, Maggie had forgotten she’d been a child prostitute before her capture by the traffickers.
“No, you’re doing fine. I need to keep watch.” She tapped the rifle, aware of her friend’s aversion to firearms.
“What’s going to happen to us?” a woman-child asked from the back. Two women huddled on the narrow seat, the body of the young girl who’d given her life for them wrapped in a blanket on the floor at their feet.
Maggie wished she had a positive reply. Truth was, unless they found help soon, they were in as much or more danger than before. This area was overrun with warring factions from two of the most powerful cartels in Mexico. If they were found, they would die.
She forced a smile for the girl. “We’re heading for the border and then we’re going home to our families and a nice hot bath. Okay?”
The girl looked out the front window at the undulating sea of sand and something heartbreakingly sad passed over her face.
“Sure,” she said.
8
Frank stood in the San Antonio airport overcome by a sense of déjà vu. The only difference was, this time he expected the familiar figure of his friend stepping off the plane. It had thrown him for a loop the last time Adam appeared like a ghost out of the past.
Ten years ago, their SEAL team had been told Adam died during transition to the military hospital in Germany. Jared had taken it the hardest, blaming himself for not being in the right position to guard his buddy’s six. It wasn’t anyone’s fault—they’d been ambushed, plain and simple.
Except nothing was ever simple.
As usual, Adam drew attention with his movie star looks, blond hair drifting over a tanned brow and glinting like burnished gold in the morning light. His smile flashed at whatever the young woman racing to keep up to him said, but he barely faltered, his gaze instead scanning the tinted plate-glass windows.
Frank raised his hand, then felt foolish and let it drop. Too much time and hard feelings had passed. They put up a front, but the truth was their team had fractured, and it wasn’t because they’d given up active duty. Adam’s betrayal had caused a rift complicated by Frank’s burgeoning fascination with Maggie Holt. Talk about a clusterfuck.
He waited for Adam to grab his go-bag from the luggage carousel, then strode across to meet him.
“It’s been a while,” he said, hand out for a shake.
Adam’s brown eyes warmed. He took the proffered hand and tugged Frank in for a man hug. “Good to see you, Chief.”
Frank’s throat squeezed shut. They were brothers, he, Jared, Nick, and Adam. They’d been through hell together, first in BUD/S, and then on the battlefield. When it came down to it, the rest didn’t matter.
“Glad you caught me before I booked my flight. We could have ended up meeting in airspace,” he said, leading the way through the crowded airport. He noticed Adam’s fascination with the string and steel rainbow-colored art installation hanging from the ceiling. “At the right angle, it looks like an airplane. Plexus C18, I think it’s called, by Gabriel Dawes. Took ninety miles of thread, can you believe it?”
Adam shook his head. “Way more patience than I’ve got.” He grinned. “So how far is this ranch of yours?”
That’s right, Adam had never been to Bella Vista.
“’Bout an hour and a half. I can’t believe you’ve never visited. I can’t get rid of Jared.” They shared a smile.
“Probably true before he met Annie again. I imagine they’re busy making up for lost time now.” Adam squinted as they stepped out into the bright Texas sunlight.
Yeah, and Frank was happy for them. It had been close to a very different ending last fall when a mafia hitman tracked Jared to his hometown and terrorized his family.
“Gotta admit, I’m kind of envious,” Adam confessed, matching Frank’s long stride across the parking lot. “He got the girl and a ready-made family. That kid is his spitting image.”
Frank wasn’t sure how he’d feel if he were in Jared’s position. It must be hard knowing you missed your kid’s birth and all the formative years. Still, at least they had time to bond now. He wished them all the best.
“This is us,” he said, pointing to his Dodge Ram. The old girl didn’t have an easy life; revealed by the dents and scrapes garnered from bouncing over the acres of rough ranch roads. She wore a bristly gold coat of straw, and dust covered the lower body. He should have stopped and washed it before coming to the airport. Oh well, Adam knew this wasn’t a vacation ranch.
“Throw your bag in the back and we’ll hit the road. You hungry?” he asked, clicking the door locks with his remote.
Adam complied, shaking his head. “Nah, I had something on the flight over.” He climbed into the cab and checked his cell phone. “Mind if we stop at the hospital where the victims were taken, first? I’d like to interview as many as I can while it’s still fresh in their minds.”
Frank started the diesel and waited for it to idle down. He wasn’t anxious to sit in a waiting room for hours while Adam did his job, but if it brought them closer to Maggie he’d walk through fire. “Sure. Do you really think they’re going to tell us where Mag… your partner is?” His fingers flexed on the steering wheel as he joined the endless stream of traffic on the 281.
Adam muttered something under his breath then tapped the screen on his cell phone before shoving it into his suit pocket. “I don’t know, but there’s a strong chance one of them would have heard if Americans are being held against their will. These people—the migrants—might not know it, but they’re the lucky ones. Sure, they’re scared and weak and dehydrated, but they’re alive.” He frowned and looked out the side window. “For every one we save, there are ten more just like them, mules of the cartels, running drugs and weapons across the border while their women are forced onto the streets.” He looked at Frank. “Maggie won’t quit and neither can we.”
Frank had no intention of giving up. His own brother, Cameron, was thought to be a mule, as the government liked to call the men, women and children pressed into smuggling on the streets of Mexico. Some did it willingly, as a way to earn money for their families, while others were drawn to the excitement of belonging, however slightly, to a gang as powerful as the Sinaloa Cartel. While searching for Cam, he’d learned of many American runaways who were swallowed by the culture, never to be heard from ag
ain. There was little chance of ever finding out what happened to him, but that didn’t prevent the hope that flared every time he saw a kid with the right height and hair color. Cam would be a man now; it had been fifteen years since his disappearance.
He turned into the hospital parking lot and searched for a spot large enough for his truck. He ended up near the end of the lot, next to a Porsche whose owner probably thought it was safer from dings back here.
Adam looked at him. “You could take off. I can grab a cab to a hotel later, save you hanging around.”
Now that he’d been offered the reprieve, Frank didn’t want to leave. “Nah, I got nothin’ better to do.” Other than branding a few hundred head of cattle, that was true. “Maybe I can help,” he offered.
Adam nodded. “Sure, you intimidate the reluctant ones, get them talking.” He grinned. “We can play good cop, bad cop.”
Guess he didn’t have to ask which one he was supposed to be.
They entered the hospital and were greeted by a whoosh of cool air and sterile surroundings. There were rows of uncomfortable looking plastic chairs lined up in front of a business-like desk with a matronly clerk eyeing their approach.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a pleasant southern drawl.
Adam stepped forward and showed her his badge. “Special Agent O’Connor. I’d like to speak with the passengers brought in from the tractor-trailer unit last night.”
She looked at the badge, then Frank and Adam, her eyes gleaming with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity. “Of course. Take that elevator over there—” she pointed to a bank of elevators nearby, “—and go to the seventh floor. You’ll see the officers guarding the ward when you arrive. I’ll call and let them know you’re on the way.” She picked up the phone and dialed, turning back to her computer.
Dismissed, the men walked to the elevator just as the doors opened, spewing out a mouthful of passengers. They waited their turn, then entered the now quiet compartment and rode it to the seventh floor in silence.
Frank hated hospitals; the cries of the ill and dying seemed permanently embedded in the walls. The antiseptic smell reminded him of a cross between beeswax and the vapor-rub his mom used to spread all over his chest as a kid.
He breathed through his mouth as he followed Adam down the silent hall to where two officers stood in front of a closed door.
“Agent O’Connor,” Adam stated, once again flashing his badge. “Is there an ante-room where we can question these individuals?”
“Sure,” the short, stocky cop said, “but it won’t do you no good. They ain’t talking.”
Adam slid a glance Frank’s way, then nodded. “Thanks. We’ll try anyway, if you don’t mind. It won’t take long.”
“Suit yourself,” the spokesperson for the duo said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.” He nodded to his partner. “Show ’em to the lunchroom and I’ll bring the first alien down.”
Frank frowned. The officer was only speaking the thoughts many of his countrymen shared, but in a place like this—knowing what the migrants had gone through to get here—it pissed him off.
“Must be nice to have a good paying job, a house in the ’burbs, and weekends at the beach with your loved ones,” he muttered, following the sergeant’s confident swagger.
Adam gave him a commiserating look. “I hear ya, bro, but the truth is the white population tends to suffer from a superiority complex. We like to pretend all men are created equal, but that’s only until a minority steps into a position we consider ours, then we apply the metaphorical door in the face, and halt their rise to stardom.” He nodded his thanks to the cop and made a beeline for the single cup coffee brewer on the counter next to a sparkling clean stainless-steel sink. “You wouldn’t believe how much racism Maggie has encountered within this profession.”
That pissed him off even more. It was obvious with her midnight dark hair, high cheekbones and dusky skin that she came from a mixed heritage, but that had nothing to do with her ability to do her job, probably better than half the agents in the DEA. If it were him, he’d make it his full-time job to bust the heads of anyone who said anything derogatory within her hearing.
But it wasn’t up to him, it was Adam’s duty.
“She should do something else, something… safer,” he said, scowling as he realized how chauvinistic he sounded. “It’s not that I think she can’t do the job,” he added, turning a chair and throwing a leg over so he could sit with his arms folded across the backrest. “It’s just that agents sometimes face life-threatening situations and being female puts her at a distinct disadvantage.”
Adam grinned, a steaming cup of aromatic coffee in hand. “Don’t let her hear you say that. She’ll use your balls for bookends.”
Frank opened his mouth to give a pithy reply just as a perfunctory knock on the door revealed a frightened teenage girl, her hands tied behind her back.
Adam swore under his breath. He gave the girl a reassuring smile, then glared at the pudgy guard. “Take the handcuffs off, she’s not going anywhere.”
The guard shrugged, but did as he was told, prodding her with a hand to the back. “Git on in there. These… agents want a word with ya.”
She gave him a fearful glance over her shoulder, then shuffled forward rubbing the red marks the cuffs had made on her wrists.
Frank stood and offered his chair, frowning when she startled at the abrupt movement. “Sit before you fall,” he said, his voice gruff. “You look like a stiff wind would blow you right on over.”
She did as she’d been told, perching on the edge of the wooden seat, watching them like a doe ready to bolt at the merest hint of danger. She would have been pretty if not for the sunken eyes and cracked lips. Malnutrition and a lack of water had turned her inky hair dry and brittle and her complexion pasty under the dusky skin.
Frank was surprised by the surge of protectiveness he felt for this girl so far from her friends and family.
“Señorita,” Adam began, holding out the coffee he had yet to taste. “Drink?”
She shook her head no, but eyed the steaming brew wistfully.
He set it on the table near enough for her to reach. “Go ahead, I can make more,” he said, giving her a warm, teasing smile that always put women at ease around him. “I wondered if we—my friend, Frank, and I—could ask you a few questions about your journey.”
She gave him a hesitant nod.
“Bueno.” He smiled and pulled up a chair, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Frank. “Can you tell us your name?”
She looked down at the pattern she’d been making with her fingers on the table, then met his gaze and spoke in halting English. “I am María,” she said. “What is going to happen to me?”
Frank quelled the urge to give her assurance, knowing the only way they would probably get the information they needed was if she was scared. But he didn’t have to like it. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall, ready to step in if needed—by either party.
Adam pushed the coffee closer. “Well, I guess that depends on you,” he said. “If you help us, I’ll do my best to see that you get a good lawyer to walk you through the court process and then get your immigration papers, if that’s what you want?”
She nodded and accepted the coffee, taking a careful little sip as though it might disappear at any moment. “My family’s wish is for me to find a good job here in America,” she said. “There is no hope for me in my country. The militia—” she shrugged, “—they only want one thing.”
Frank’s fists clenched. She wasn’t going back there, not on his watch.
Adam pulled a photograph from his pocket and Frank’s gut did a whoop-dee-woo.
“Have you seen this woman, or heard of any Americans held against their will? Maybe by the cartel?” Adam asked, his gaze intent on her face.
She considered the picture carefully, then looked him in the eye and said the words they’d been praying to hear. “Sí, I know this woman.”
9
Adam finished typing his report to Rhinehold and pressed send on his phone before glancing at the brooding visage of his friend. Frank hadn’t liked leaving the girl, María, at the hospital. Hell, he hadn’t either, but it wasn’t his jurisdiction. She was a witness to the human trafficking charges laid against the driver of the tractor-trailer unit, though the man swore he had no idea anyone was in the back of the rig.
Even though they’d pounded on the walls and cried for help.
The bastard.
Amanda was arranging for him to visit the driver, who was being held until a hearing could be set. He’d already lawyered up, and not with just any legal counsel—Bradley Burrows, one of the top defense attorneys in the state. Someone was greasing pockets and Adam itched to follow the trail.
“How’s your mom doing?” he asked. The chief rarely shared anything personal, but the team knew he’d worried about her after the sudden accidental death of his father.
Frank shrugged. “She’s doing,” he answered. Then, as though realizing the shortness of his answer, he tacked on, “She’s dating again. My foreman.” He ground the words out through his teeth like they had a sour taste.
Adam grinned. “Look at the bright side, you’re guaranteed a long-term employee.”
Frank growled, then snickered. “Very funny, wise guy. Just wait until someone you care for decides to test her wings. It’s damn well terrifying. What if he hurts her?” He glanced over and mistook Adam’s repugnant expression. “I don’t mean physically, Christ. Spencer wouldn’t hurt a flea. But, what if it doesn’t work out between them? I don’t know if she can handle another loss.”
Adam could relate. He didn’t know what he’d do if Maggie turned him down again. He’d deserved it the first time for being an idiot. But, he’d also realized she was the woman of his dreams and he’d spent the past five years trying to make it up to her.
“Give it a chance,” he advised. “Your mom deserves some happiness. Look who she has for a son.”
Maggie's Revenge Page 4
