The worst part was he felt possessive of her in a primitive way—which was royally disturbing for a modern, pro-feminist guy like he thought he was. The feeling had built to the point that he caught himself thinking he owned her body, proudly assessing and cataloging her attributes in his mind. From the mole on the top of her right foot to her slender fingers to the baby-fine hair at her neck, with each new detail he discovered, he simply thought, that’s mine.
Her fleeting moments of vulnerability especially belonged to him. He’d seen her scared and sleepy, nervous and in pain, both furious and in the throes of uncontrollable giggles. These glimpses of her soul filled him with the kind of puffed-up machismo that declared no other man knows her this way, only me. And wasn’t that a disquieting thought?
Holding her while they slept had devolved into yet another primordial demonstration of his ownership—as if, as a holdover of some ancient instinct passed down through thousands of years of male genes, he was protecting what was his. She was turning him into a caveman.
And she couldn’t be more indifferent to him. She was impervious to flattery, chivalry, humor and all other types of flirting. He had to find a way to break the ice wall because his tolerance for her disinterest had reached its threshold. With the way they were risking their lives, he’d be damned if he spent many more nights trapped in another kind of torture. She was his and it was time she figured it out.
He just needed a better strategy.
Camille’s bottom rustled against his thigh, the feel of which was both torturous and, though he fought hard to deny it, as necessary as breathing. Letting out a frustrated snort, he pulled her more snugly against him and stroked the fabric of her pajamas absentmindedly.
Maybe he’d been too subtle. Whenever she was nervous or scared, he backed off to a safe distance. In retrospect, that was probably the worst thing he could have done. He’d given her too much space to deny what she felt, too much leeway to ignore their mutual attraction. It was time to drop the metaphorical hammer on her head.
He plodded from the room and climbed to the bridge, inhaling the crisp ocean air. Four days had passed since the Gigante Market shoot-out. Despite his dread at the notion, he could no longer justify bobbing in the lee of an uninhabited island for the sake of Camille’s recovery. She no longer walked with a limp and the bruise on her cheek had subsided to a faint discoloration. It was time to return to shore and to the mission that threatened their lives at every turn.
After raising the anchor, he brought the boat to life and started the tedious drive through the bay to scope out a new marina slip to rent, paid for in cash under an alias. All the while, his mind remained fixed on the woman sleeping a few feet beneath him, plotting the details of her seduction.
* * *
La Paz had a large selection of private marinas for Aaron and Camille to choose from. They settled on one far enough from the commercial port to offer them a buffer should the cartel run periodic security sweeps around the vicinity of the port, but near enough to the main road that they could dock and set off on dirt bike if they caught a new lead.
Once docked, they zipped into town on their bike to pick up a can of white paint from a small hardware store. The flamboyant yacht name had given them a good laugh, but hot pink lettering and covert ops didn’t jibe together. If Aaron and Camille wanted to stay alive and conduct a rescue, they needed to be as invisible as they could.
That accomplished, Camille sat on the bridge with Aaron as he braved the open water of the bay to reposition them as near to the commercial port as possible without arousing the suspicion of the police boats cruising the harbor or the machine gun-toting guards lining the dock terminal.
Maybe such tight security was standard, but Camille doubted it. “Guess the local law enforcement noticed our boat chase. We’ll have to be even more careful not to get spotted. Going to Mexican jail would cramp my style.”
“That makes two of us. I’ll keep our boat inconspicuous. You get in the cabin and start looking for familiar faces or anything suspicious on the dock. The sooner we figure out if the cartel is operating out of the port, the sooner we can get the hell out of the line of fire.”
Pichilingue, the so-named location of the commercial port and ferry landing, was really a short strip of land that jutted, hooklike, into the bay, creating a small, vegetation-free cove polluted with litter and oily water, overburdened with tall cranes and concrete piers. Presently commanding the focus of the dock workers and cranes was a huge ferry with peeling white paint and faded red lettering on the side reading Puerto Azul. The back end of the ferry had been lowered to form a ramp for the waiting semitrucks, car freighters and civilian vehicles to drive on board.
Camille sat in the cabin with the gray binder on her lap and a pair of binoculars in hand, but even after two hours of looking, the stakeout hadn’t yielded any results. Aaron had tucked the boat into the shadow of an anchored sportfishing boat, which seemed to be keeping their profile low enough to escape notice.
Rapidly running out of patience, she repositioned to the rear of the cabin and shifted her focus away from the port, to the buildings beyond the dock fence line.
Bingo.
Within the jumble of warehouse buildings, at an angle that hadn’t been visible before, two men in dark gray blazers and black jeans paced between a shiny black sedan and a heavily graffitied building lined with roll-up metal doors. Clearly, they were either waiting for something to happen or trying to make sure nothing did. Though neither displayed an obvious weapon, their stiff postures and shifty gazes spoke loud and clear of their capacity for menace.
She flipped through the folder from the ICE task force, comparing the men at the warehouse to the photos of the known cartel members.
She struck gold.
“Hello there, Carlos ‘Two Down’ Reyes,” she muttered. Why he went by Two Down was an answer she hoped to never learn.
Tossing the binder aside, she pushed open the cabin door and opened her mouth to holler at Aaron about her discovery. But before she could speak, the yacht rumbled to life and started to move. Camille braced a hand on the bridge ladder as the boat picked up speed and flipped a U-turn.
“Hey, Aaron, what’s happening?”
“Think we’ve been made by the harbor police.”
Camille whirled around. Sure enough, a police vessel trailed them along the row of anchored ships. The captain lifted a radio to his mouth.
A loud curse reverberated from the bridge. The yacht engine roared and tipped as Aaron darted behind a barge. “We’ve got trouble in front of us, too.”
Camille couldn’t see any danger from the rear of the boat and hustled to the stateroom to look out the forward windows above the bed. Facing them head-on was a speedboat, as slick and tricked-out as the one they’d eluded three days earlier. Men with automatic rifles perched near the bow.
With her fist, Camille thumped the panel covering the secret cubby behind the headboard Aaron had punched out in case the police ever caught up to them and drew out an M16. She locked a magazine in place, loaded the chamber and shoved it into a pillowcase. No sense waving a high-powered automatic rifle at the police trailing them. Covered rifle in hand, she ran full-speed to the back of the boat and up to the bridge. Aaron wrenched the yacht into another sharp U-turn, tipping it perilously to one side as he tried to put some space between them and the other boat.
But no sooner had they made a one-eighty turn than the police vessel appeared in front of them.
Behind them, a quick succession of shots fired out. The men aboard the police vessel drew their firearms and aimed in their direction.
“Damn it,” Aaron barked. “We’re caught in the cross fire.”
Camille looked from the men with guns behind them to the police with guns before them. “What do you say we introduce our friends here to each other and get the hell out of the way?”
“You got it.” He pushed the throttle to max velocity. Camille glanced behind them to see the speedboat
hot on their tail. A hundred feet from the police vessel, Aaron wrenched the steering wheel in a sharp turn and threaded the yacht between two fishing boats.
Gunfire and shouting exploded behind them. Aaron dropped the yacht to an inconspicuous speed, aimed it in the direction of their new marina slip and let out a long, slow exhale.
Burdened by the crazy urge to throw her arms around him, she plunged her hands in her pockets and nudged Aaron’s leg with her foot. “Nice work, Captain.”
“Yeah, well, I wish I didn’t have a reason to show off my boating skills.” He offered her a weary half smile and raked his fingers through his hair. Funny, Camille wanted to do the same. Her gaze dropped to his mouth. The kiss they shared on the ridge above the desert compound seemed a lifetime ago.
Maybe he noticed her looking because he glanced her way and set his hand on her thigh. Her breath catching, she slipped from beneath his grasp before his warmth had the chance to penetrate her jeans. Her bum leg ached again after so much running around, so she leaned against the rail. “I identified a cartel member, back at the warehouses near the port.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I was coming to tell you when the police showed up.”
“We need to check that out right away. Let’s dock the boat and double back on the bike.”
They sped along the waterfront by bike. After chaining it to a fence several blocks from the warehouse, they crept the rest of the way by foot, winding through the maze of buildings in the glow of the fading sun.
Camille’s leg was killing her. Normally, she could walk for ten minutes before pain set in. To her mortification, her stride began to hitch with a limp. Aaron shot her a concerned look, but pressed on without a word until the black sedan became visible the next building over. He led the way into a truck bed, then atop the cab, hoisting himself another four feet onto the flat roof of the building. Camille glared at the hand he offered.
“Stubborn woman. Give me your hand.”
“Get out of my way. If you can’t treat me like an equal, this isn’t going to work.”
“Fine, Camille. You win this round. Why accept help when you can struggle to do something yourself.” He kept up a string of grumbling as he moved away from the edge on his hands and knees.
Camille pulled herself up without a problem, like she knew she could. They crawled the length of the building until they had a perfect line of sight to the sedan, the men and the roll-up door behind them.
“The roll-up door’s opening,” Aaron whispered.
A run-down, boxy white delivery truck lumbered out.
Camille huffed in frustration. “Crap. We can’t get back to the bike in time to follow it.” She stared at its rear bumper, memorizing the license plate number.
“Look where it’s headed,” Aaron said.
Sure enough, the truck drove through the entrance gate of the ferry terminal, waved in by the passive guard. It coasted past the line of waiting vehicles and up the ramp into the bowels of the ferry.
The two guards still stood outside the now-empty garage. Two Down looked restless, glancing at his watch every minute or so as the ferry engine came to life. The ramp closed. Another few minutes passed, then the ferry engines grew louder as it backed slowly away from the port.
Aaron tipped his head in the ship’s direction. “Where do you suppose it’s headed?”
“Wait—I remember reading this.” She squinted up toward the sky, sifting through her memory of the La Paz map she’d studied while laid up with her bum knee. “Across the Sea of Cortez, to Mazatlán.”
Before the ferry had cleared the mouth of the bay, a man strolled out from the shadows of the open garage.
“Good God,” Camille muttered. “Rodrigo Perez.” Her breath froze in her lungs and her eyes refused to blink. She inched toward the roof’s edge, praying for a sign of Rosalia—a little girl’s tinkling laugh, a flash of pink fabric, a toy, anything. Aaron clamped a hand on her arm, in either support or warning, she couldn’t tell.
Perez was a short man with a broad, muscled build. He impatiently flicked a cigarette between the fingers of his black leather glove as Two Down opened the sedan’s door for him.
Aaron tipped his head toward Camille so his lips brushed her earlobe as he whispered, “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess this is the distribution part of the cartel’s weapons-smuggling operation.”
Tiny bumps raised on the skin of Camille’s arms and the back of her neck at the contact. She shifted, putting some necessary space between them, then did a quick scan for security cameras, finding none. “This is a conspicuous location for illegal activity. If you’re right and this is the distribution point for weapons or drugs, then they’re relying on some pretty flimsy security.”
Two Down closed the warehouse unit and locked it with a chain and padlock.
“We could have that padlock off without breaking a sweat using a bolt cutter,” she added.
“Maybe there’s an alarm system.”
“Or nothing of value inside. Makes me wonder where Perez relocated all those crates of weapons to after abandoning the desert compound. I don’t think this is the spot.”
“Maybe this is only a pick-up point, not long-term storage,” Aaron said.
Camille kept her eyes on Perez. “I bet you anything their new storage facility is wherever that black sedan’s headed. And I bet Rosalia’s there, too.”
Two Down climbed behind the wheel of the car and put it in gear. Camille scrambled away from the edge and crawled back the way they’d come as fast as her arms and legs would go. “Let’s move. We can’t lose this lead. Not when we’re so close.”
The sedan rolled toward the warehouse’s east exit. Aaron and Camille hustled along the building, peeking over the edge for the truck they’d made use of before, but the road was empty. Nothing except blacktop at the end of a twelve-foot drop.
Aaron snagged Camille’s elbow and whirled her to face him. “This is how it’s going to be and you’re not going to argue with me. I’m going to drop first and catch you. Got it?”
“You don’t need—”
“Zip it. I get to win this one.”
Before she could protest further, he backed over the edge on his stomach and dropped. Camille repeated the shimmy over the side into a dangle.
“Okay,” Aaron said, “one...two...three.”
She let go, hating the feel of the free fall. Then her arms were around Aaron’s neck and his hands were on her butt. He flashed a white-toothed smile and gave her a squeeze.
“Remember your no-groping promise.” She cringed at the hint of hysteria in her tone.
Aaron scoffed and set her on her feet. “That wasn’t a grope. That was a catch.” He took off in a flat run to the bike, calling over his shoulder, “Besides, that promise expired.”
Camille trotted after him, teeth clenched against the pain. “Promises don’t expire.”
He doubled back for her on the bike. She reached for the helmet, but he pulled it away.
“Camille, that promise expired.”
She lunged for the helmet and jerked it away from him. They’d have to argue about it later because they finally had a lead to run down. She vaulted onto the back of the bike and it took off with a spine-rattling whine.
And just like that, the hunt was on.
Chapter 11
As far as drinking establishments went, the bar Camille and Aaron had stared at for three hours was as hospitable as a crematorium. There were windows, or rather, pieces of glass framed in the graffitied wall that weren’t clean enough to see through. A small sign named the place Casa del Perro Negro—House of the Black Dog—words even Camille could translate. Next to the sign was a crudely painted silhouette of what Camille assumed was a black dog, but looked more like a goat, its stubby tail up and its mouth open.
The black sedan had entered a garage on the side of the two-story building that housed the bar and otherwise appeared vacant. The oddity of the building, with its uniforml
y closed curtains, dusty front stoop and lack of activity, sent up a red flag in Camille’s mind. Something about this place was wrong.
Before settling at the taquería, they’d circled the block on the bike. A dead-end alley cut through one side of the building, guarded by a single, large Latino man neither Camille nor Aaron recognized. They continued around to the taquería, purchased warm bottles of cola and settled at a window table. Their main focus was on two equally huge men, probably bouncers, who perched on stools on either side of the bar’s entrance.
As darkness settled over the city and the bouncers crossed their arms over their chests and hunkered down like birds preparing to sleep, Camille and Aaron grew restless. In their three-hour surveillance, not a single person had come or gone from the place.
“Perez and his crew have been inside for hours,” Aaron said quietly. “That’s a long time to sit in a bar.”
“Makes me wonder if it’s really a bar.”
Aaron rubbed his chin. “Next time Perez and his men leave, I’d like to check it out.”
“Me, too. I hate this. Rosalia could be in there, only a couple hundred feet away from us. I’ve got an idea, but we’ll need to go shopping first. We can come back tomorrow, fully armed.”
“Sounds like a date.”
As they walked to the bike they’d chained in an alley several blocks away, Aaron draped his arm loosely around Camille’s shoulders and kissed her temple. He was probably attempting to blend in with other couples they’d seen out for strolls, enjoying the crisp, clear evening. Even still, he ought not to confuse her heart that way, with casual tenderness that meant nothing to him.
When he kissed her a second time, she ground to a halt, twisting free of his arm. “Is this about what you said earlier? That your promises to me expired?”
“They have.”
Camille’s stomach tightened uncomfortably. It took her a good thirty seconds to wind her anger up. When it did, she grabbed his jacket by the collar and dragged him into the shadows of the nearest alley. Wagging a finger like a knife in front of his face, she let it rip.
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