The Agent’s Secret Child

by B. J Daniels

  It gave Isabella a chill to think that he might still have some reason to want his former lover dead—if she could believe what she’d read in the envelope. And why wouldn’t she believe it? The evidence had been damning. Dates and receipts and phone transcripts. All compiled by the FBI. Proof that Jake Cantrell had tried to kill his partner.

  But why, she wondered as she stared at the narrow dusty road and the desert that stretched to the horizon. What had Abby done to him to make him hate her so that he’d want her dead? The mother of his unborn child. Or had he known about the baby?

  If only she could remember. Right now, she’d have been happy to remember that she was Isabella Montenegro. Her only one clear memory was her grandmother. Surely the wonderful grandmother she recalled had been real. Or had Julio made her up, the way he might have made up her past as Isabella Montenegro?

  “Where are you taking us?” she asked quietly over the music playing on the radio, not wanting to wake Elena.

  “The first phone booth I come to across the border,” he said without looking at her. “The FBI will take it from there.”

  The FBI. Fear shot through her. Shouldn’t she feel relieved? Why did the mere thought of him turning her and Elena over to the FBI spike her heart rate and make her sick and scared inside?

  “What’s in this for you?” he asked suddenly, reaching over to turn off the radio.

  She could feel his gaze on her, hard, unforgiving. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  His intent stare narrowed into a frown. He looked like Elena when she was upset. “What were you promised for pretending to be Abby Diaz?”

  “I’m not pretending to be anyone.” Except maybe Isabella Montenegro, she thought. She heard herself repeating what Julio had told her about her past, how she was born in a small Mexican town, how her parents died when she was young and her grandmother raised her, how at sixteen she married Julio and finally, how her grandmother and Julio’s mother and sister had perished in the fire that scarred her face and one shoulder.

  “That’s quite the story,” he said, glancing over at her, his expression as unbelieving as his tone. “You certainly speak good English for a woman who’s spent her whole life in Mexico. Are you also going to tell me that your husband didn’t work for Tomaso Calderone? Or that you just happen to resemble an FBI agent named Abby Diaz who Calderone killed six years ago?”

  He blamed Calderone for Abby’s death? “My husband Julio worked for Señor Calderone,” she admitted. How did she explain the way she’d lived the last six years? Trying hard to keep herself and Elena invisible when Julio and his men were around. “I cannot tell you why I resemble this woman, the FBI agent. I had nothing to do with my husband’s dealings and until yesterday, I didn’t even know of Abby Diaz’s existence.”

  He held her gaze for a long moment, then looked back to his driving. “I suppose you also don’t know where the money is that your husband stole from Calderone.”

  “If I knew that, I would have tried to buy my freedom from my husband’s employer.”

  Jake laughed.

  “What is it you find so amusing?” she demanded in a flare of anger. She’d learned to control her emotions around Julio, especially her temper. So why was she letting it show with a man who was possibly even more dangerous?

  “Buying your freedom would have been like trying to buy your soul back from the devil.” He looked over at her. “Tell me something. This woman you described, this Isabella Montenegro, this woman you say you are, how is it she recognized me today in the alley? How do you know me?”

  She didn’t want to tell him about the manila envelope she’d found under Julio’s body.

  “Your picture was in the locket,” said a small voice from the back of the truck in perfect English. Julio had forbidden Isabella to speak English under his roof, having long ago explained away why Isabella had awakened in the hospital six years ago, knowing both English and Spanish.

  But she’d taught her bright daughter both languages in secret, warning the child never to speak English except to her and only when they were alone. She now regretted teaching her.

  They both turned to see Elena sitting just behind them at the open window. Isabella wondered how long her daughter had been awake and how much she’d heard and understood.

  “What locket?” he demanded.

  Elena produced the heart-shaped piece of worn silver from her pocket and held it out as if it were a rare jewel.

  He slammed on the brakes, bringing the pickup to a teeth-rattling stop, and snatched the locket from the child’s hand.

  His strong features seemed to dissolve in either pain or anger. Isabella couldn’t tell which. He bent his head, running his thumb over the engraved letters of the locket, as dust settled around the pickup.

  Then slowly, he opened the tiny silver heart.

  His eyes closed as his fist closed over the locket. “Where did you get this?” he demanded, his voice breaking, as he swung around to face Elena.

  “I gave it to her,” Isabella said quickly, realizing she had no other choice now but to tell him about the envelope. If he looked into her bag, which he was bound to do before long, he’d find the envelope anyway.

  “I found an envelope with the locket in it after my hus—after Julio was killed.” Whether Julio had really been her husband or not, she refused to think of him in those terms. Not anymore.

  He shot her a look. “How did your husband get it?”

  “I don’t know.” She could see he didn’t believe her. She couldn’t really blame him. She knew so little. And yet she had much more than Jake’s former lover’s locket. She had her face. And her baby. No wonder he was so mistrustful.

  “I want to see the envelope,” he said.

  She nodded and asked Elena to hand it to her.

  Still sitting in the middle of the narrow dirt road, he dug through the contents, scanning the material inside, glancing at her periodically and finally letting out a curse when he found the evidence against him. He closed his eyes, the top of the envelope crushed in his large fist.

  Then slowly his grip relaxed and he shoved everything but the locket back into the envelope and handed it to her.

  “If you were Abby Diaz, it appears you would have something to fear from me,” he said quietly, bitterness layered on top of anger.

  She realized she’d been holding her breath. She let it out now and met his gaze. “But neither of us believes I am Abby Diaz.”

  He stared at her, his gaze probing hers. What was he looking for? His lost love? Or a hint of recognition on her part? She could give him neither.

  “Even if you are who you say you are, the evidence in that envelope would make you think you couldn’t trust me,” he said carefully.

  She said nothing. Trusting Jake Cantrell was the last thing she planned to do.

  “For all I know, you aren’t even Isabella Montenegro,” he said after a moment. “Of course you have some indentification, some proof of who you are.”

  She nodded and pulled out the only piece of identification she had with a photo of her on it, taken after the fire. All other photos and identification of her prior to that had been burned in it.

  “This is all you have?”

  It did sound unbelievable, but not for a woman who never left the house except in the company of one of her husband’s associates. “I’ve never had need for much identification.”

  “But you have Abby’s passport, her driver’s license, a copy of her birth certificate,” he pointed out.

  “I found them in the envelope only yesterday.”

  He nodded as he pocketed the locket.

  Elena started to protest but Isabella stopped her with a warning look. “Play with your doll,” she told Elena.

  Jake got the truck moving again as Elena did as she was told and moved farther back. A few moments later, Isabella heard her talking softly to the rag doll.

  The pickup rolled along for a few miles, the silence inside the cab heavy, laden with u
ncertainty.

  She couldn’t help thinking about the FBI. If Julio really had been working for them as the information in the envelope showed, how could the Bureau not have known about her and Elena? Why did she feel that at least someone in the FBI had known she was alive and kept it a secret?

  “I don’t understand why the FBI would be interested in Elena and me,” she said.

  He looked at her as if she were joking. “You’ve been living with one of Tomaso Calderone’s top distributors, a man who knew enough of Calderone’s business to steal millions from him.”

  Millions? Julio? She glanced out her side window at the passing desert, the sun already hot and stifling, even this early in the morning. Why did she find it impossible to believe? Because Julio had always been so fearful of Calderone, a man who would kill his own mother for money. No, Julio was not the kind of man who’d risk stealing that much money, knowing the consequences.

  But if Calderone believed it, it would explain why his men were after her and Elena.

  She jerked her gaze back around to Jake as another realization struck her. And Cantrell’s next words made her feel he had read her thoughts.

  “That’s right, if you were Abby Diaz, the FBI would want to know what you’ve been doing the last six years, why you were living with Julio Montenegro as his wife, why you were pretending to be someone else and if you’d been helping Calderone. They’ll also want to know where Julio hid the money.”

  She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. In other words, they’d think that she’d sold out her country and fellow agents. What were the chances they’d believe she couldn’t remember even her name? About as much as Jake would if she told him about her loss of memory.

  “But I’m not Abby Diaz,” she said.

  He gave her a humorless smile. “Lucky you.”

  She stared out at the dirt road ahead, trying to still her hammering heart. Even as Isabella Montenegro, the FBI wanted her. Planned to use her. To get Calderone? Or the missing drug money? Or both?

  She realized Jake was looking at her.

  “What are you afraid of?” he asked. “That the FBI can prove you’re an imposter? That they’ll arrest you for aiding and abetting a criminal?”

  “What does imposter mean?” Elena asked from the back.

  Isabella tried to hush her daughter, but Elena wasn’t having any of it. “Imposter is—”

  “It means fake, fraud,” Jake said, his gaze on Isabella. “That’s why the FBI has DNA tests, fingerprint comparisons, ways to expose the truth.”

  “Are you sure you can handle the truth?” she snapped, unable to hold back her anger. It was one thing to deny that she might be his former lover, but it was another to deny his child. What kind of man was he that he didn’t acknowledge his own child? “Don’t you already know? Can’t you see what is right before your very own eyes?”

  Elena crawled up into the front seat, into her lap. “My doll!” she cried as she realized she’d forgotten it in the back. Elena and the doll had been inseparable since Isabella had made it for her. “Get my Sweet Ana, Mommy. Please.”

  Jake felt as if he’d been kicked by a mule. “What is the doll’s name?” he asked, telling himself he hadn’t heard correctly.

  “Sweet Ana,” the woman said.

  He could feel her gaze on him, feel the kid watching him too. Sweet Ana. “The kid come up with that?”

  “Mommy named her. Mommy made her for me for Christmas when I was a baby.”

  He glanced at Elena, a little bowled over by her English and her confidence. She was smart. He could see that. Smarter than five, that was for sure. “How old are you now?”

  “Four and three-quarters.”

  He smiled at that and her, and went back to his driving. Damn, she was a cute kid. All little girl.

  “Why don’t you want to be my daddy?”

  “What?” He swung around to look at her.

  Her eyes were big as CDs and that incredible all-too-familiar green, and she was looking at him with an expression that battered his heart with a club.

  He shot Isabella a furious look over the top of the child’s head. This was her doing.

  “I’m not your father,” he said more harshly than he’d intended. He thought the kid would burst into tears. He thought she’d at least leave him alone now.

  “She’s just a child. Don’t hurt her because of how you feel about me,” the woman whispered angrily.

  How he felt about her? He stared at her, seeing Abby. Passion burning in her gaze. Even if it was only anger, it stirred something in him, confusing him, making him doubt everything, especially what he’d thought had happened six years ago.

  “Why do you think you’re not my father?” Elena asked, drawing his gaze again. She didn’t sound upset, just curious, as if he were only trying to fool himself.

  “Look, kid—” He met her gaze, feeling cursed with the same green eyes. She looked up at him, those eyes so filled with trust. With innocence. With longing for the father she wanted to see in him. “Why do you think I am?”

  She smiled as if his question was just plain silly.

  He pulled his gaze away from her, realizing he’d just driven off the road. Not that it mattered. This wasn’t much of a road, anyway. This kid was rattling him more than he wanted to admit.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t know if I’m your father or not.” He shot the woman a hostile glance, angry with her for putting him in this spot, angry with himself.

  She just stared back at him as if he were the biggest fool on earth. He couldn’t argue with that.

  He told himself he didn’t see Abby in those dark eyes. Didn’t hear her in the woman’s voice. Didn’t sense her in the tension that arced between them. What had made him think this would be easy? An open-and-shut case. One look and he would know if she was Abby.

  Elena smiled up at him and hugged the worn, homemade rag doll in her arms. Her Sweet Ana. “You are my daddy,” she said with conviction, those green eyes gazing up at him with open affection. “You’ll see.”

  Damn, he thought as he looked away. This woman already had him doubting himself enough, without seeing those Cantrell green eyes in this little girl. What the hell was wrong with him? He was letting a little kid con him. He was damned glad the gang from Texas Confidential wasn’t here. Wouldn’t they love this. He sped up the truck, anxious to turn these two over to the Feds.

  “We’re almost to the border,” he said. “You’d better get your things together.” He was grateful when they climbed into the back again. He concentrated on his driving, speculating on what might lie ahead at the border, rather than thinking about the woman and little girl in the back of his truck.

  He stopped just outside of Cuidad Acuna and disposed of the Umberto’s Produce signs, the produce, the mattress, his serape, instructing Isabella and Elena to get into the front again. He hid his weapons in the truck, changed the plates back to Texas ones, then climbed in again, unable to shake a bad feeling that he’d been led into a trap—just as he’d suspected.

  The evidence in the envelope had been compiled by the FBI. So that meant that Frank knew about it. Damning evidence that made him question his own innocence. So why was he still walking around? Why wasn’t he behind bars?

  But the bigger question was, why had Frank chosen him for this job?

  It made him nervous. Something wasn’t right.

  His original plan had involved help from the FBI to get across the border with the woman and kid. But that was no longer necessary. Nor his first choice. The woman could use Abby’s identification at the border. Her likeness to the photo was enough to convince any immigration officer. Not that they paid that much attention. An American and her child could easily cross the border. An American and her husband and child could cross even easier.

  And right now, he didn’t want to tip off the FBI. He had a bad feeling he couldn’t trust Frank Jordan.

  “Abby was born in Dallas,” he said to the woman as they neared the border, t
aking the truck route through the industrial part of town. “For the moment, you’re Abby Diaz.” He looked over at her.

  She nodded but said nothing, her gaze on the border town.

  “Elena,” he said, using the child’s name for the first time. “If the border guard says anything to you, speak English.”

  “I understand,” Elena said.

  “Good,” he said. Her smile made him ache. He turned back to his driving, watching his rearview mirror as well as the side streets and the town ahead, telling himself he’d better be ready for trouble. Like he already didn’t have enough in the cab of the pickup.

  He was counting on Ramon and his men going to the closest border crossing, some fifty miles away. Unless he missed his guess, they’d still be there, waiting, expecting the woman and child to take the fastest route to the States. He told himself Ramon wasn’t smart enough nor did he have enough men to cover both border crossings.

  Lost in those thoughts, Jake didn’t see the man step out into the street in front of the pickup until it was almost too late. He hit his brakes. The truck skidded to a stop and died just inches from the man. As the man turned, Jake saw the pistol in his hand and realized belatedly that Ramon Hernandez was a lot smarter than he’d originally thought.

  “Get down,” Jake cried to Isabella as he shoved Elena to the floorboards.

  But it was too late. Before he could get the truck started, Ramon put a round into the pickup’s engine.

  One of Ramon’s armed thugs jerked open the passenger door and grabbed Isabella by the arm. As she struggled to fight him off, Elena screamed for Jake to help her. Jake slammed down the lock on his door as another man came around to his side of the truck.

  “Put your head down,” he yelled at Elena as he groped under the pickup seat for the semiautomatic he’d duct-taped there, wrestled it free and fired, dropping the man beside Isabella with two quick shots that reverberated through the cab like dual explosions.

  The driver’s-side window shattered behind him. Before he could turn, his door was jerked open and he was grabbed from behind in a half nelson, the man’s free hand on Jake’s pistol as he tried to wrestle it away.