by Lisa Harris
She drew in a deep breath, trying to get rid of the doubts. She knew Michael was right. But letting go of the fear wasn’t easy.
Michael put a spoonful of sugar into his coffee, then set his mug on the counter. “You know, I could use a few minutes to stretch my legs.”
“Did you and Avery come to an agreement?”
Michael nodded. “Before things progress further, we decided we have to let the captain know what’s going on.”
“Can you trust him?”
“I have no reason not to at this point. In the meantime, let’s go for a walk.”
She nodded, then grabbed the coat Emily had loaned her before heading out the door with him.
In the hallway, Olivia pressed the Down button, then watched the elevator’s numbers count as it made its way slowly to their floor.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I know what it’s like to worry about family.”
“How does it feel to be back with yours again?” she asked.
“Surreal. I’ve thought about being together again so many times over the past few months. And then more recently, I wondered if I ever would see them again.”
“It’s clear how much they love you.”
“Which I’m very thankful for.” Michael chuckled as the elevator finally dinged and its doors slid open. “Even though my sisters are always trying to mother me, and Mama tends to be more of a mother hen now that we’re grown and have been out of the house for a decade. Nothing happens without her either knowing about it, or finding out soon afterward. But she does make up for her inquisitive nature with invites to a home-cooked meal a couple nights a week. You can’t get much better than her chicken fried steak and banana pudding, unless it’s her Christmas dinner. I’ll have to bring you to one of our family dinners.”
She caught his gaze in the mirror as they stepped into the empty elevator, wondering if he’d still want to invite her to a family dinner when all of this was over. Because she’d say yes. She loved the sense of family he brought with him. The stability that came with his family, despite the hazards of the career he’d chosen to follow.
“I don’t think I’d mind putting up with a bit of overbearing mothering if it included meals like that.” She laughed as the elevator approached the lobby. “Ivan’s had to put up with my cooking for the past ten or so years unless we go to a church potluck or the occasional invite to someone’s house. He usually gets something from a box or from the freezer, though I am known for my death-by-chocolate brownies.”
“Oh, now that’s definitely not a bad rep to have.”
“Ivan’s actually a better cook than I am. I watch cooking shows, then pull out the handy frozen lasagna.”
He laughed as they stepped out of the elevator into the lobby and headed toward the grassy area in the back. Olivia drew in a deep breath, still trying to settle her nerves. Worrying had been a foolish waste of energy. Of course Ivan was fine. She knew him. He tended to get distracted and lose track of time. How many times had she found him sitting in front of his computer at two in the morning, wrestling with some problem he’d been trying to solve? Today was no different.
But even those reassurances did little to ease her worry. Everyone she saw was a possible enemy working for her father. The man in a dark suit talking on his cell phone, clearly angry about something. The couple sitting beside a stack of luggage. Even the manager behind the counter looked suspicious.
Michael opened the door and Olivia walked past a stack of chairs. There was a thin layer of snow on the ground, though the sky had cleared up, with promises of warmer weather by midafternoon.
She glanced across the lawn, looking for her brother.
“He’s not here, Michael.”
Michael took her hand. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’re just around the corner.”
“Gizmo?” She called the dog, trying to mask the desperation in her voice. “Come here, boy!”
The familiar surge of panic raced through her. She was eighteen again. She’d taken Ivan to the carnival, knowing he was determined to ride the roller coaster even though he was barely tall enough. They’d let him through, though she’d been convinced he’d been standing on his tiptoes.
She’d waited for him at the exit, minutes clicking by in slow motion. And then the ride had ended, and he never got off.
She found him fifteen minutes later. He’d chickened out and slipped out of the line but had been too embarrassed to tell her. The threat might have been minimal, but she’d never forgotten those moments of panic. Just like she’d never forgotten her mama’s dying wish that she make sure Ivan stayed safe.
Olivia stood in the middle of the green space, cold and scared. There was no sign of her brother.
“Michael …” She turned around to face him, her heart pounding. “They’re gone.”
The fenced-in area was quiet except for a young woman, bundled up in a hat and scarf, with a miniature poodle.
Olivia walked up to her, forcing a smile. “Did you see a young man, nineteen years old, and a dog? They would have been here a few minutes ago.”
“Sorry … no. I just got here.”
Olivia turned back to Michael. “We should check the parking lot.”
Five minutes later, they stood on the edge of the parking lot, with no sign of Ivan or the dog.
Something caught her eye near the fence. A man lay motionless on the asphalt. “Michael …”
“It’s the guard we sent with Ivan,” Michael said, rushing toward the body.
Panic slowly seeped through her as Michael knelt down beside him and checked for a pulse.
“He’s dead. Shot in the head.”
“They took Ivan, Michael.”
“I’ll send someone out here, but I want you back inside immediately.” He pulled out his phone as he hurried her in the direction of the hotel. “We can search the security cameras, as well as traffic cameras in the area. Wherever Ivan is, we’re going to find him.”
Olivia struggled to keep up with Michael as he shouted out instructions to his sister. He stopped outside the back entrance of the hotel, pulled out his keycard, and whisked her inside the building.
Something that had been nagging at her clicked as they stepped into the elevator. “What if someone took Ivan for leverage against my father? What if, in this war involving Salazar, La Sombra, and my father, we somehow both become prime targets?”
Michael’s brow furrowed as the doors shut. “It’s possible.”
Olivia’s throat constricted as she tried to speak. “Whoever it is, they won’t think twice about killing him.”
He gathered her into his arms. “Don’t go there.”
She rested her head against his shoulder, feeling the weight of the world against her as the elevator started moving.
“Avery’s putting out an APB,” he said, “and my father is on his way to hotel security to start checking all the videos. We’ll find him.”
She pulled back, her eyes wide with question. “Michael, what do you do when something horrible happens, when fear takes hold so deep you can hardly breathe?”
He pulled her against his chest, feeling the warmth of her closeness as the tears she’d bottled up over the past few days began to flow. “All I know to do is to dig deeper until you remember that God knows exactly what’s happening at this very moment. He cares, and no matter what happens, He will never leave you or Ivan.”
“You make it sound easy. Like if I wish hard enough, there’ll be a silver lining when this is all over.”
Her statement made him pause. It was easy to spout out words of advice. What was difficult was actually putting them into practice. Memories of sitting in that cottage, waiting for Tomas to pull the trigger, waiting to die, flashed in front of him. He’d made peace with God, but even that didn’t take away the terror of facing death. They’d bound him and beat him, forcing him to dig deeper than he ever had.
He’d repeated every verse he could remember. Even though I walk through t
he valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil …
I will fear no evil …
Surrounded by that evil’s very presence had forced him to look at not just why there was evil, but to look to the One who would triumph over that evil.
“Michael?”
Her eyes pleaded with him to give her the answer. “It isn’t easy. But I know He’s there. Every moment. He’s given me strength to face some of the darkest situations. And things haven’t always turned out the way I’ve wanted them to. My brother-in-law was killed almost four years ago. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
“So no, I can’t promise you that everything is going to be okay, but I can promise you that we won’t stop until we find Ivan. Until we put those who are responsible for this behind bars. But I’ve learned something else. Sometimes, you never get the answers to all the questions you ask. But sometimes, maybe that’s okay.”
“What do you mean?”
“Over the past few days and weeks, I’ve found everything that I ever believed in questioned and at times stripped away. I’ve been forced to look at God in a different light. Sometimes there simply aren’t answers. At least not the answers we’re looking for. Walking through the fire forces us to face God. To strip our souls of all of the charades we play, until we see only Him. And in the end, we know Him better.”
Because God was good. God was truth. Even when he couldn’t see the truth or get the answers he wanted.
Michael wanted to tell her how sorry he was for everything, wanted to find a way to fix everything … and tell her how he was falling in love with her.
He tried to shove the last thought back where it had come from, as the elevator doors slid open, but there was no going back. No matter how hard he tried to fight it, no matter what happened at the end of the day, his feelings for the woman walking beside him had blossomed into something he hadn’t even known he wanted. They’d already moved passed the typical superficial chitchat most relationships started with. Playing the dating game wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a woman who could love him for who he was. Who encouraged him emotionally and spiritually, and yes, who made his heart race like he was that high school geek on a date with the prom queen.
He laced his fingers between hers as he checked the hallway, then hurried toward the room. There were so many things he wanted to tell her when this was over. So many questions he wanted to ask her. He wanted to spend the next six months and beyond getting to know her dreams and aspirations. For now, though, he needed to deal with the whole tenuous situation. There would be time to focus on their relationship later.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“We find Ivan. Find out who’s behind this. Find that list of dirty cops.”
She squeezed his hand. “I don’t know how you do this, trying to save the world every day.”
“I learned a long time ago that I’ll never save the world. There will always be one more person who needs me. But I can help one person at a time, and today that person is Ivan.”
“Good, because I’m so scared right now, I need to know I’m not in this alone.”
He hesitated in front of the hotel door and held her against him until he could feel her breath on his face. “We both know that this might not end up all nice and packaged in a neat bow, but you’re not in this alone. My family has a way of sticking together—and sometimes driving you crazy in the meantime—but it also means that we’re in this together until it’s over. That I can promise.”
He hated that he couldn’t guarantee a happy ending. That he couldn’t simply make everything okay for her. They needed to find Ivan. Needed to find that list. And needed to ensure that more innocent lives weren’t taken because they were protecting him.
25
Ivan watched the van door slam shut and felt the vehicle swallow him and Gizmo. He felt for the dog’s leash and gripped it tight between his fingers, then struggled to sit up. They’d tied his hands behind him and gagged him, but at least they hadn’t blindfolded him. Losing his sight terrified him.
He leaned down and nuzzled his head against Gizmo, wishing he could believe everything was going to be okay. But while he might not know names, he knew who he was dealing with. Every time he closed his eyes, he could still see Kendall lying on the ground. See the blood trickle down the dead man’s skull. They’d murdered him in cold blood. Just like they’d murdered Felipe.
Now they had him, and he didn’t even know why, unless it was because they preferred their murder witnesses at the bottom of the ocean.
He lifted his head, forcing himself to stay composed. He’d given his captors nicknames based on their physical features, like he did with most people. The Scarecrow was thin and pale, and clearly not the brains of the operation. The Tin Man was cold … and heartless.
He checked the time on the dashboard as they made another right turn. Three minutes later they were on the highway heading north.
They were talking, laughing about something. He scooted to the right until he could see the Tin Man’s face in the rearview mirror, hoping he could catch something they were saying.
But the bottom line was, if they’d kidnapped him because he was Valez’s son, and thought that would give them an advantage, they didn’t know his father very well. His father might not blink at paying the bills, and he might have even loved their mother, but there’d never been much of a connection beyond the shallow relationship he had with his son. A reality Ivan had accepted years ago.
While his friends’ fathers showed up for Little League games, Olivia had been the one standing along the bleachers cheering him on. There had never been father-son outings or trips to the beach. Antonio Valez had always been too busy to see that all Ivan had ever wanted was a father.
Now he understood why.
And maybe he’d been lucky, not knowing what his father had really been doing. But somehow, despite the distance between them, he still felt as if the sins of the father had piled on him as well.
The van pulled off onto a gravel road. Five minutes later, the Tin Man parked under a tree and shut off the engine. The van door slid open and the Scarecrow flashed him a cold smile before pulling his weapon from his holster and motioning for Ivan to get out. Ivan obeyed and started praying, because the only thing that could save him now was a miracle.
26
Michael sat on the couch in the center of the hotel room, his fingers drumming on the armrest as they waited for the captain to stop pacing. The man had been furious when Avery had made the initial phone call asking him to meet with them. Livid when he’d arrived and discovered that Michael had been found and Avery’s entire team had been working behind his back the past six hours. Irate when he was introduced to Antonio Valez’s daughter.
Now the captain stood in front of them, arms crossed, and a deep frown marking his ebony features, making Michael feel as if the consequences for every choice he’d ever made were about to all come due at the same time. More than likely, he was about to be tried and convicted in one breath, because Captain Peterson had the demeanor of a firing squad. Michael had no desire to be on the receiving end.
But it was already a bit too late for that.
Captain Peterson glared at Avery. “I’ll be honest, I’m not even sure where to begin. I trusted you with this investigation, Detective North, even though it was against my better judgment for you to take on this case. But because you know more about it than anyone else on the force, it seemed the right thing to do. And now what do I find out? I find out that your brother has been here for hours, while I thought I made it extremely clear that if you heard from him, I would be the first to know.”
“You did, sir.”
“And yet somehow”—the captain continued his pacing—“I’m the last one in this room to know what’s going on.
“And you, Detective Hunt …”
The captain shifted his attention toward Michael, who winced, feeling as if he were five again, in trouble with the school principal.
Michael nodded. “Yes sir.”
“They are currently being held for questioning, but even that doesn’t begin to explain the past eight months, your faked death, or Agent Kendall’s death.”
Michael struggled with his answer. “I was following orders, sir.”
“And your plan … did it work?” the captain asked.
“No sir, it did not. Not completely.”
Avery looked up at the captain, her gaze steady. “Sir, there were a number of unexpected details that have come into play in this situation since we spoke last.”
“Details that I should have been made aware of.”
“We needed time to guarantee that Michael would be safe once he came forward.”
“And you didn’t think you were able to trust me with that decision?” The captain continued speaking, not giving Avery a chance to respond. “You’ve led this team with integrity in the past, which is why I trusted you, but after today …”
“Yes sir.”
“And as much as I might sympathize with your position, I’m not sure at this point how this is going to end for you.”
“I’m willing to take full responsibility for my actions and those of my team, but we believe, sir, that Russell Coates was murdered by someone on the inside. We believe there are a number of officers being paid off by the cartel for information, and that this information puts my brother’s life at risk.”
“You will all be dealt with later for not keeping me in the loop—”
“There’s also the matter of a possible bomb, sir,” Michael said.
“A bomb?” The captain’s frown deepened.
“We believe that someone—possibly a man by the name of Julio Salazar—has his eyes on Valez’s territory and is planning to take it over with a bomb attack.”
