Chavez suddenly entered the bathroom. “Ready?”
Fee nodded, unable to utter a word and held her breath as he looked around the room with the piercing glance of a predatory animal. He looked at the bottle she had in her hand and then at the medicine cabinet.
Please … please … please don’t look inside the cabinet.
Finally, Chavez grunted and held out his hand. “Come.” The unyielding look on his face dared her to refuse him.
Since Fee was sure she wouldn’t like any retribution he’d take, she took his hand. As he dragged her out of the house, she prayed Trey was as thorough of a hunter as she thought he was.
CHAPTER 4
6 p.m., Fee’s house
The cul-de-sac Fee’s adobe was located on was filled to the max with emergency vehicles and a small crowd of gawkers. A sense of dread and urgency propelled Trey out of his rental and past the twenty or so people standing behind the yellow police tape. They might be stopped by a thin strip of plastic, but he wouldn’t be.
He ducked under the tape and headed for Fee’s house at a ground-eating pace.
“Sir, you need to move back behind the tape. This is a crime scene.” A man wearing the tan shirt of a Luna County Deputy moved to stand in front of Trey.
Trey cast the much shorter and younger man a stone-cold glance. “That’s my woman’s house. You’ll have to shoot me to stop me, and, son, you don’t wanna do that.”
“Sir…” The deputy had his hand over his weapon. “You can’t…”
Trey growled and circumvented the cop who trotted after him, sputtering. The kid wouldn’t shoot him in the back, but it might be a good idea to de-escalate the situation. “Gray Wolf! It’s Trey Maddox and I’m coming in. Call off your boy.”
Levi Gray Wolf exited the house. The man he’d come to know and trust with the safety of his little doc during the time Fee had lived in Luna County looked tired, grim, mad as hell, and almost panicked.
Trey’s dread level soared to DEFCON 1.
“Where’s Fee? Is she okay?” Trey moved to pass Levi, but the man snagged Trey’s arm and held him in an iron grip, keeping him on the porch. A porch where a trail of blood led into the house.
“Trey—”
“I’ll put you down, man. Move out of the way.” Trey broke the hold Levi had on him and entered the tiny house which had suited the petite Fee perfectly.
Crime scene techs were dusting everything. The trail of blood led to the only bedroom. Pain, fear, and grief stole his breath and threatened to drive him to his knees.
Trey stopped, throttled back the howl of rage that fought to escape his throat, and took several, deep, gulping breaths. “Fee? Is she hurt? Is she on the way to the hospital?”
She couldn’t be dead. He refused to consider that possibility.
“Fee’s not here. We don’t think the blood is hers.” Levi was at his side. “We’re fairly certain she … and Pia … were taken away after whatever went down in here.”
Pia’s involvement explained the expression of panic on the normally contained Levi’s face.
“Who took them? And what do you think happened in there that involved all that blood?” The blood trail was from more than a flesh wound. Someone had bled severely—life-and-death levels of severe.
“We think it was cartel.” Levi’s voice held a deep snarl of rage. “There were rumors El Hacha was ambushed on this side of the border—”
Jaime “El Hacha” Aznar. Just the name chilled Trey to his marrow. And The Ax’s men could have taken Fee and Pia?
“Rumors? Don’t you fucking know?” Trey barreled past a tech and entered the bedroom. The room looked like a charnel house. There was blood all over the bed and the surrounding area. “And why in the fuck are you standing around here, Levi? You should be out searching for Fee and Pia.”
“I have no idea where to start looking.” Levi stormed in after him. “It’s a big fucking empty desert out there.”
Trey stopped and forced himself to calm the fuck down. None of this was Levi’s fault. The sheriff had a job to do, and he was doing it. Plus, even if Levi were one hundred percent sure it was El Hacha’s doing, he couldn’t cut corners and go chasing across an international border after cartel fuckers.
However, Trey could and would. But before he called in Price and some SSI backup, he needed to know exactly what had gone down and the time line. “Start from the beginning. What the fuck is going on with the cartel and El Hacha?”
Levi ran agitated fingers over his head and blew out a breath. “Got an anonymous phone call a little after ten this morning.”
Trey snorted with disgust.
Levi grimaced. “Yeah, I hate fucking anonymous calls, but I have to follow up shit. This call directed us to an area north of Columbus where a rumored ambush on El Hacha was supposed to have occurred. There was blood. Lots of blood. There were tracks and tread marks from dozens of vehicles. There were hundreds of shell casings. But no bodies. This crime scene team,” he gestured to the white, jump-suited techs collecting evidence in Fee’s bedroom, “and me and several deputies spent hours at that scene collecting evidence.”
Levi paced Fee’s small bedroom and reminded Trey of a cougar he’d seen at a zoo, prowling the confines of his caged-in environment. The man like the cat would much rather have been on the hunt than where he was. “Hours later when I finally got back to my office, there were several messages from Pia’s mother. When I called her, she was frantic. Pia and Fee had left Mamacitas around 9:25 this morning and had come here.”
“Why was Pia coming home with Fee?” Trey asked. “They’d both worked all night. Wouldn’t Pia go home and go to bed?”
Levi eyed Trey. “I wondered that also. Seems Pia’d ridden into the clinic last night with Fee so she could come home with Fee and help her pick an outfit for your date this evening. Señora Lopez was worried when Pia hadn’t come back to the restaurant as she’d promised. The Señora couldn’t reach either of them by phone.”
“Why didn’t Pia’s mom come and check on the girls?” Trey cast Levi a glance.
“The Señora was injured earlier today.” Levi growled under his breath. “Her son Ernesto had gone to the restaurant, argued with his mother, and threw her to the floor. Ernesto, like his father before him, runs drugs and guns across the border for the cartel. The Señora told me he’d asked her to close her restaurant so his cartel buddies could use it today for a meeting.”
Trey’s head jerked around, drawing his gaze away from all the bloody detritus that indicated that Fee had probably treated El Hacha’s wounds. “Fuck me. That can’t be coincidental.”
“I agree. Seems the meeting was moved elsewhere. Lucky for the Señora.” Levi added, “Pia and Fee came in just after the confrontation had happened with Ernesto. Fee took the Señora to the emergency clinic and then convinced her to call me. I came to Columbus and took her statement.”
Levi ran his fingers through his hair, dislodging the tie that kept the Native American’s long black hair away from his face. “I already had put a BOLO out on Ernesto for attacking his mother when I received the anonymous call about the ambush on El Hacha.”
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Trey scanned the area. “That fucking cowardly bastard Ernesto led them to Fee’s place. The phone call got you away from Columbus and eliminated the chance of you stumbling over them at Fee’s. Have you found any clues as to where they took our women?”
Even though Fee might’ve just recognized she wanted to date him, she was his. Pia might not have accepted that she belonged to the sheriff, but Levi had claimed her. The normally tight-lipped sheriff had confided his intentions, and posted a no trespassing sign, one evening over tequila shots with Trey and Price. It was that same evening Trey and Price had entrusted Fee’s care to Levi since they couldn’t be here to watch over her.
“Nothing yet.” Levi ran his fingers over his head once again. “The Sinaloa cartel has lots of places on both sides of the border in which to hide.”
&n
bsp; Trey moved out of the way as a crime scene tech removed the bloody bedding. “You know they’ll cross the border as soon as they can.” He moved into the bathroom where the blood seemed to be relegated to the sink area and a bloody scrub top and a dress left on the floor. “If El Hacha was the patient and was bleeding out, Fee would have to stabilize him for travel.”
“Yeah,” Levi said. “The medical packaging we found were wound sealants, gauze dressings, and IV set ups. The items looked to have come from a well-supplied field medical kit like we used in Spec Ops.”
Trey looked at Levi. “El Hacha could still need blood and a hospital, so they’d move him out quickly. That means a chopper or small plane. I’m betting a helicopter since it could fly low, stay under the radar. It would have to be marked so as not to raise border patrol suspicions if it were seen.”
“A Mexican Army helicopter, maybe?” Levi suggested. “The cartel has contacts in both the upper levels of the Mexican government and Army. They could send out false intel about joint maneuvers or some fucking crap.”
“I can get a handle on that.” Trey pulled his satphone from its leather holster on his belt and hit a stored number. “Keely? It’s Trey. Got a situation.”
“Hey, Trey. What’s wrong? Fee stand you up?” Keely’s voice was warm, loving, and slightly amused.
“She’s been kidnapped.”
“What? Who?” Keely’s tone shifted to cool and all-business in a split second.
“We think Sinaloa cartel.” Her gasp told him she understood how dangerous the situation was.
“What do you need?”
“I need backup and a Black Hawk, but first I need you to find”—translated as hack into—“any satellites which would’ve been over Columbus, New Mexico and the surrounding area over the last twelve hours or so. Need you to look for a helicopter, possibly with Mexican Army markings, crossing the international border during that time—both ways. I’ll need images, and I’ll need to know what direction the transport headed when it crossed back over into Mexico and the exact time it crossed the border.”
“On it.” The sound of typing in the background reassured Trey. When Keely was “on it,” results were guaranteed. “Who do you want besides Price to back you up? And where will you want them?”
“Whoever is available. As for where, not sure yet. But we’ll be crossing illegally into Mexico, so you and Ren need to be prepared to chill out the right parties on our side of the border. Because of the Sinaloa cartel’s long reach, I’d like to keep this off the Mexican government’s radar until after we bring Fee and her friend Pia home.”
Levi’s grunt of approval was loud.
“Gotcha. I’ll get back to you as soon as I have anything. Expect a call from Price and my hubby. By the way, Tweeter and DJ got home yesterday. They’re up for an assignment and that gives you tech support and two extra pilots.”
“Be glad to have them. Thanks, Keely.”
“No thanks needed. You just get Fee and her friend back. Then bring Fee home to Sanctuary where she belongs. Enough with her living in frick-fracking New Mexico and being all independent and closed-off. The woman needs family and friends around her.”
“I’ll do my best. Out.” Trey swiped off his phone and shoved it in its holster.
Trey rubbed a hand over his face and concentrated on controlling the side effects of all the adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream. Keely and the resources of SSI were on the job now. It was only a matter of time before he had a general trail to follow, but even with a solid lead, Mexico was a big damn country.
His gut burned as he watched the crime scene techs collect blood samples from the bedroom wood floor. What the fuck were those butchers doing to his woman? Fucking hell, his little doc had to be scared. But he had faith she’d hold it together, just as she had when she’d helped deliver Keely’s baby in a cave after running from mercs during a blizzard. His woman was stronger than she thought. Plus, she’d have to know he and Price would come after her.
A thought struck him. His Fee was not only gutsy, she was also incredibly smart.
“Levi … Fee would’ve left me a clue or a message about where she was being taken.”
“She might not have known where they were taking her and Pia.” Levi looked around the decent-sized bathroom for such a small house. “She changed out of her bloody clothes. Hell, they probably had someone standing guard while she did. I would’ve.”
Every muscle in Trey’s body tightened in protest at the thought of some cartel fucker in the room with Fee, watching her dress. “But in case she was alone…”
Yeah, that thought lessened his need to punch something.
“…and did know where she was being taken, she would’ve left a message. So let’s look for it. She stood right where I’m standing and washed blood off her hands.”
Trey opened cabinet doors under the sink and found it organized to an inch and no obvious clues. He then looked at the vanity top. It wasn’t cluttered like his sister’s vanity often had been. All that was out were a comb, hand soap, moisturizer … eyeliner. There was no other makeup out.
“Levi, when a woman’s getting ready to go out, she’d have a lot more makeup shit out, right?”
“How the fuck would I know?” Levi blew out a disgusted breath as he pulled open the glass shower door. “Nothing here, dammit. Didn’t have sisters. My mom doesn’t wear makeup. And the only woman I want to live with in order to find out about that kind of girly shit is keeping me at arm’s length.”
“If my sister was any example, she’d have shit all over the damn place. But Fee is also extremely neat … yet there’s this eyeliner pencil.” Trey pulled open the single vanity drawer and smiled at being proven correct. His very A-type little doc had all her makeup organized by type in the drawer with only one empty space. “So, why is one eyeliner pencil lying on this very uncluttered counter top?”
Light dawned in Levi’s eyes. “She used it to write a message.”
“Yeah.” Trey looked at the mirror and then felt around the edges to find hinges. “Fuck me, it’s a medicine cabinet.” He opened the cabinet door and read the words written on the back. “El Hacha and Madera … that’s in the Sierra Madre Occidentals.”
Trey considered what he knew about the Sinaloa cartel and froze. “Fuck. He’s taking her to the cartel’s main drug distribution center. From the intel I’ve read, the place is a fucking fortress. Plus, the cartel is the biggest landowner and provides most of the good-paying jobs in the area. Money buys loyalty. We’ll play hell finding local help.”
“Fuck help. You have the resource you just spoke with on the phone,” Levi said. “I know all about SSI. I also know your skill set, because I have a similar one—and I know you fucking know that since you’d never have trusted me to watch over your woman all these months if you hadn’t read my file. So, we go the fuck in, surveil, eliminate any fucker who gets in our way, get our women, and get them the fuck out.”
“That’s the plan.” Trey turned to face Levi. “You going in as the sitting sheriff of Luna County?”
“No,” Levi answered. “I’ll be taking a leave of absence, because, brother, I don’t care what we have to do to get Pia and Fee back.”
“Good.” Trey moved past Levi. “Then we’re done here. Time to make plans and get ready to go dark.”
CHAPTER 5
March 23rd, 9 p.m.
En route to Madera, Mexico
Through the small windows of the helicopter’s cabin, the night sky was pitch black but for the stars scattered over the darkness like diamond dust over black velvet. The headphones Fee wore suppressed most of the cabin noise and allowed communication among the passengers. But they couldn’t block out the animal-like howl of pain from Aznar strapped on the gurney positioned next to her jump seat. On her other side sat Chavez who’d monitored her every movement like a hawk. She’d already had several run-ins with him when she’d left her seat without seeking his permission to care for his boss. Her face t
hrobbed from being slapped. Absently, she rubbed at the bruises on her wrist where he’d grabbed her.
Across from her, Pia was sandwiched between her brother and Garcia. Her friend’s face was white with shock. Her gaze, blank. Pia hadn’t even looked at her when Fee had bandaged Ernesto’s gunshot wound.
A vicious bump of turbulence had Aznar once again crying out with pain. When the helicopter steadied, his cries died down to low, animal-like moans.
Fee checked her watch. She could give him another dose of pain meds. It was also time to take vitals. A half hour ago his temperature had officially gone from a low-grade temperature to 102 degrees. Low-grade was okay; it was his body working to fight infection. Anything above that meant she was working on a tightrope without a net. So, she’d give him another dose of Keflex and cross her fingers it would help enough to keep him alive to get him to the surgeon Chavez said was waiting on their arrival.
Hell, at this point, she’d take a first-year surgery resident as long as he came with a lab, an X-ray machine, and a surgical suite. She didn’t like losing patients.
She unstrapped herself. Chavez stirred instantly. “La zorra…”—which literally translated as fox, but his tone indicated he used it as slang for bitch. It definitely wasn’t an endearment.
Chavez’s growled admonishment pissed her the hell off. She turned in her seat and glared at the man who’d made it clear with every word, touch, and look since they’d started this nightmarish trip that she only had two uses: keeping Aznar alive and as Chavez’s next sex toy.
“Listen, I can’t ask permission each time I determine my patient, your boss, needs help. So let me do my fucking job.”
The backhand to her face was quick and vicious, knocking her sideways. She broke her fall by grabbing onto the edge of the gurney. Chavez pulled her up with a casual strength that scared the hell out of her and turned her around to face him. He gripped her shoulders so hard she swore the bones crunched.
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