by Paula Graves
They’d clicked, in the way opposites sometimes do, and though the smart, practical girl from Kentucky had at first been wary about being alone with a stranger on an island, they’d connected soon enough. It had been the best week of his life, a fact which had confounded him, since neither of them had done a damned thing high-minded or selfless.
Confounded him and made him feel guilty. Especially after talking to his parents one night and realizing, with dismay, that some of the things he’d found most charming about Ava had left his parents appalled and speechless.
It had been his father who’d told him about Luis Grijalva. Luis was doing amazing things in the Caribbean and South America, politically. Organizing workers, fighting for social justice, all the things that mattered to the Solano family.
The things that had mattered to Sinclair.
What was one last day with a college girl compared to meeting the great man himself and learning from his experiences?
He reached the tent, his heart still pounding, and zipped himself inside, wrapping his arms around himself to hold back the shivers. The day was mild, not cool, despite the coming storm, but he felt chilled from the inside out. He dug into the pockets of his trousers and pulled out his latest burner phone. There was a little juice left, but not much. If he didn’t run in to town in the next few days, he’d be completely cut off from even the hope of communication.
He stared at the dimmed display, wondering if it was time to make contact with Quinn again. Just a call. A couple of carefully memorized code words. He hadn’t tried it yet, but things had changed. Alicia was missing.
He hadn’t checked in with Alexander Quinn in almost eight months. He couldn’t trust that Adam Brand, the FBI agent who’d recognized him, would keep quiet. There were limits to even Quinn’s influence, and enemies more powerful and ruthless than the government who’d once listed him as one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives.
But Sinclair hadn’t left the mountains, either. He supposed, in a way, they were as close to a place to call home as he’d found in years of running from his past. He’d always lived in hilly places, from the rolling streets of San Francisco to the volcanic peaks of Sanselmo, the home of his heart. Even on the tiny Caribbean island of Mariposa, where he’d spent a couple of years before the call from Quinn, he’d gravitated to the mountain that filled the center of the island.
The Smoky Mountains were an alpine rainforest rather than a tropical one. But they’d felt like a place of refuge ever since he’d arrived.
Until now.
* * *
THOUGH SHE’D GROWN UP in the mountains, it had been a while since Ava had spent much time in the middle of unfettered nature. She’d been living in cities for several years now, where hiking meant leaving the Ford Focus at home instead of driving it downhill to the grocery store when she had a few things to pick up.
But she’d stayed fit, thanks to the demands of her job, and she found some of her old childhood skills coming back to her as she picked her way through the thickening forest.
The land sloped gently upward, making her calves burn as she hiked, but she shrugged the twinges away, concentrating instead on trying to follow the trail through the gloom. Rain had started to fall by the time she reached a fork in the forest trail, turning her hair to damp, frizzled curls beneath the hood of her jacket.
She should have been shocked that Landry hadn’t asked more questions about why she was heading into the woods, but based on her hours in his unadulterated presence, she wasn’t surprised at all. He was phoning it in these days, for whatever reason. She doubted he’d last at the agency much longer with that attitude. But she didn’t have the time or the inclination to dig deeper into what drove him to such epic levels of ennui.
She had an abduction to solve, and based on what she’d learned from her supervisory agent just a few minutes earlier, chasing a ghost into the woods just might be the best use of her time.
“Don’t know if it means anything,” SAC Chang had told her when he’d called, “but her name pinged in our records because of her familial connection to a terrorist.”
At that point, she’d known who the terrorist would be. Hadn’t she?
She certainly hadn’t been surprised to hear him add, “Her maiden name is Solano.”
Sinclair Solano’s sister had gone missing the same day Ava had looked up into the crowd at the crime scene and seen the ghost of her brother. And since she didn’t believe in ghosts, there was only one explanation.
Sinclair Solano was alive after all.
“Come on, Sin,” she muttered, blinking away a film of rain blurring her vision even as it darkened the day. “Where the hell did you go?”
The man she’d met years earlier, before his descent into murder and mayhem, had been a real charmer. Handsome, beautifully tanned, in love with beauty and music and passionate about the world of people around him, he’d been as exotic to her as a Mariposan native, even though he was an American, born and raised in San Francisco. His parents were college professors, he’d told her. His sister was a brainiac who’d skipped grades and was already on the verge of graduating from college at the age of twenty.
He’d liked her accent, argued passionately with some of her politics without making her feel evil or stupid and when he’d kissed her, she would have sworn she heard music.
How he’d gone from that man to the scourge of Sanselmo was a mystery that had nagged her for a long time, until word of his death had reached the news shortly after the terrorist bomb blast he’d set, one intended to take out the new president and his family, went terribly wrong for him and some of his comrades instead.
She was glad, she’d told herself. Poetic justice and all that.
But there was a part of her that had always felt cheated. That curious part of her, the one that had driven her into her current job, that wanted to know why.
Why had he blown her off that last day in Mariposa, knowing her flight would leave the next morning? Why had he grown so cold and distant after talking to his father on the phone?
Why had he left Mariposa for Sanselmo, armed himself on the side of brutal, ruthless rebels and channeled his passion for justice into a murderous assault on a nascent democratic republic?
After word of his death, she’d resigned herself to never knowing the answers to those nagging questions.
Now maybe she’d get a chance to ask them after all.
The rain fell harder around her, seeping under the collar of her jacket. Her trousers were soaked through and beginning to chafe. Worst of all, she had no damned idea where she was anymore. And if the ghost she was chasing had left any sort of trail from here forward, she saw no sign of it.
Trudging to a stop, she just stood still a moment, listening to the woods, taking in the ambient sounds—the susurration of rainfall, the distant hum of engines from the highway north of her position, the slightly ragged whoosh of her own breathing.
Another sound seeped into her consciousness. Footsteps. Careful. Furtive.
Turning a slow circle, she let her gaze go unfocused. Let the wall of green become a blur against which movement might become more evident. She slowed her breathing deliberately, remembering lessons from the shooting classes she’d taken in pursuit of her career, determined to be the best at any task she took on. Her own weapon, a Glock G30S, sat heavily in the small of her back. She reached behind her slowly and eased it from the holster.
She wasn’t dressed for stealth on purpose, but her brown jacket, olive-green blouse and dark trousers didn’t make her an easy target. She had ordinary brown hair, not a bright shock of red curls that might draw attention her way. Plain olive-toned skin, unlikely to stand out in the gloom. She was in many ways a nondescript woman, which had served her well on the job.
But right now, she felt utterly exposed as the crackle of underbrush filtered through the patter of rainfall.
Someone was watching her. She felt it.
Edging back in the direction she came, she tried n
ot to panic. Coming out here alone had been reckless, especially when she probably could have convinced Landry to come along with her if she’d made the effort.
She hadn’t wanted to tell him what she’d seen. That was the truth of the matter. She hadn’t wanted to see his skepticism or, worse, his ridicule. Didn’t want to hear that she was imagining things.
She knew what she’d seen. She’d looked at Sinclair’s photograph for years, even after his death, wondering how the sweet-natured, passionate man she’d met in the Caribbean could have become a terrorist.
The wind picked up, swirling leaves from the trees to slap her rain-stung cheeks. Blinking away a film of moisture, she quickened her steps.
A dark mass rose out of the gloom to her right, slamming into her with a jarring blow before she could react. She staggered against the impact, trying to keep her feet, but shoes slipped on the rain-slick leaves carpeting the forest floor and she hit the ground. Her pistol went flying in the underbrush, out of reach. Breath whooshed from her lungs, and her vision darkened to a narrow tunnel of blurry light.
Rough hands grabbed at her as she gasped for air. Twisting, she tried to see her captor, certain she would see Sinclair Solano’s face staring back at her. But the dark-eyed man who held her in his painful grasp was someone she’d never seen before.
He shoved his pistol into the soft flesh beneath her chin, the front sight digging painfully into her skin. “¡Silencio!”
Her pulse rattling in her throat, she had no choice but to comply.
Chapter Two
It had happened in the span of a couple of seconds. One second, Ava Trent been turning back toward the path that had brought her within sight. The next, a man in the familiar jungle camouflage pattern of an El Cambio rebel had risen from behind a thick mountain laurel bush and slammed into her like a linebacker. They’d both gone down, but Ava had taken the brunt of the impact, struggling to breathe as the man grabbed her up and jammed a pistol under her chin.
Sin’s heart hammered in terror as he scanned the area for an accomplice. There. Emerging from the trees, a second man glided into view, grabbing Ava by the arm.
Two against one, with Ava as the wild card. She’d been carrying a weapon, and back at the crime scene she’d been moving about like a woman with a purpose. Law enforcement, maybe? She’d been circumspect about what she’d be doing when she returned home from vacation, but some things she’d said had hinted at a police job.
Had she recognized him across the parking lot and come out here to find him?
He was armed because Quinn had told him he’d be stupid to walk around unprotected. But despite his reputation, he wasn’t a man comfortable with violence. He never had been.
But he could be, under the right circumstances. He’d learned that much about himself in Sanselmo.
Pulling the pistol from the hidden holster inside his jacket, he wished he had a rifle instead. Better accuracy from a distance. But the Taurus 1911 would do.
Across the woods, the man holding the pistol to Ava’s chin drew his hand back, bringing the pistol muzzle away from her face. But as he did so, the second man grabbed her from behind in a bear hug, eliciting a grunt of surprise from her as she started to struggle against his hold.
The man with the gun pressed it to her forehead, and Sin aimed the Taurus in his direction, his finger sliding onto the trigger.
Ava slumped suddenly, her arms sliding up and her body dropping, catching the man holding her by surprise. She slipped from his grasp, down to the forest floor.
Sinclair would never get a better chance.
Aiming down the barrel of the Taurus, he fired. Simultaneously, another shot rang out, the crack echoing in the trees, almost drowning out the report of his own weapon. The man reaching for Ava fell backward into the underbrush. The man in front of her pitched forward, firing off a shot of his own as he fell.
Ava’s body jerked, even as she rolled away from the falling man, scrambled to her feet and started running. She made it about ten yards before she started to stagger, her legs wobbling beneath her as if they’d gone boneless. She fell forward into the thickening underbrush, disappearing from his view.
Keeping an eye on the two fallen men, Sinclair dashed after her, his heart racing faster than his churning legs. She lay crumpled, facedown, but he could see by the rise and fall of her body that she was still breathing. He stopped next to the two fallen men. The one who’d grabbed Ava first lay facedown, unmoving. The back of his camouflage jacket had a bloody hole in it, somewhere in the vicinity of his left shoulder blade. He didn’t appear to be breathing. Nudging with his foot, Sin rolled the man over and took a long look at his face.
Emilio Fuentes, he thought, staring into the glassy brown eyes of a man he’d once called friend. His heart contracted.
He picked up the pistol Fuentes had dropped and shoved it into his pocket. He checked the second man, the one at whom he’d aimed his own pistol. Carlito Escalante. A bloody hole in the side of the man’s neck was the only obvious injury. Sin checked for a pulse and found none.
A queasy sensation filled his gut, and he swallowed the urge to be sick.
He searched Carlito’s body, found a hunting knife besides the pistol the man had dropped, and added both to his pocket, trying not to let his rapid respirations escalate to hyperventilation. He needed his wits about him. His life had just gotten a thousand times more dangerous.
By the time he found the pistol Ava had dropped when she was attacked and turned back to her, she was on her hands and knees, trying to crawl away. He hurried to her side, crouching beside her.
She whirled at his touch, swinging her arm up in a shaky arc before he could react. Suddenly, he was staring down the muzzle of a Glock aimed right between his eyes. Now he knew where the second shot had come from.
She’d had another weapon.
“Ava,” he said.
“You’re supposed to be dead.” Her voice had a raw, uneven tone, the shaking in her hand growing to an alarming wobble.
He reached out and moved her hand away from his face. She struggled but didn’t pull the trigger before he took the gun away and wrapped his arm around her as she started to fall backward. “Whoa, there.” Dropping the Glock to one side, he gave her a quick appraisal, looking for her injury.
There. Under the hem of her jacket. Blood spread across the right side of her charcoal trousers and seeped upward onto her olive-green blouse. As she tried to slap his hands away, he tugged the blouse up and away, revealing a ripped furrow in the waistband of her pants. Beneath it, the bullet’s path had carved a bloody gouge in the soft flesh just above her hip bone.
“Ow,” she groaned as he plucked a piece of scorched fabric from the wound.
He needed to get her back to the motel. And he needed not to get caught. Irreconcilable goals.
“You didn’t blow yourself up,” she muttered. He looked up from the bullet wound to find her hazel eyes focused on his face.
“Says who?” he asked, reaching in his back pocket for his multibladed knife. There was a set of tweezers tucked into the handle, if he wasn’t mistaken. Given the messy condition of her wound, he was probably going to need them.
“You’re wanted by the FBI.”
“I’m not on the list anymore,” he disagreed, sliding the tweezers out. “Dead, you see.”
Her mouth twisted with frustration. “You’re not dead. And you’re under arrest.”
He couldn’t hold back a grin at her serious expression. “Can I finish cleaning this wound before you take me in?”
“This isn’t funny.” Moving more quickly than he thought she could, she grabbed the Glock he’d taken from her and swung it back in front of her. This time, her hands didn’t shake nearly as hard.
Fear battled with grudging admiration. She was tougher than she looked. “What are you going to do, shoot me?”
“If I have to.”
“Getting back to the motel on your own isn’t going to be pleasant,” he warne
d, sitting back on his heels.
“I’ll deal.” Keeping her pistol aimed at his chest, she pushed to her feet, struggling not to sway. “Sinclair Solano, you’re under arrest for the murder of three American oil company employees. For starters.”
“I didn’t kill those men.”
“We’ll let the courts sort that out.” She twitched the Glock’s muzzle at him. “Move.”
He wasn’t going to let her take him in. He’d had his chance to face justice years ago and had traded it for a chance to make things right. But Alexander Quinn had warned him there were no easy outs. Once he went back to El Cambio and pretended nothing had changed, he might never be able to clear his name.
He’d taken the chance. Now, it seemed he might have to pay.
“Do you know who those men were?” He nodded toward the two bodies lying several yards away.
Her gaze slanted toward them briefly before locking with Sin’s again. “No. Do you?”
“The one who grabbed you was Emilio Fuentes. Major player in El Cambio’s military wing. He was Alberto Cabrera’s top commander.” He watched her expression for any signs of recognition. Her eyes narrowed; she knew something about El Cambio, he thought. “The other was Carlito Escalante.”
“The Spider,” she murmured, recognition dawning.
She wasn’t just playing at whatever job she was working, clearly, if she knew Escalante’s nom de guerre. He tried not to stare into the muzzle of her Glock. “Why do you suppose two of El Cambio’s top enforcers were wandering around the Smoky Mountains?”
“They’re looking for you.”
He gave a brief nod. “They’re looking for me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not one of them. Because I betrayed them a long time ago, and somehow, they figured out I’m not dead.”
Her eyes narrowed in her pain-creased face. “Betrayed them how?”
“Long story, carida. Remind me to tell you about it sometime.”
