No Way Out

by Allison Brennan

  The storm over Labor Day weekend in San Antonio had caused damage all throughout central and southern Texas, and he wondered if all these places were now abandoned, at least temporarily. He saw a couple of lights in the distance, but he didn’t trust that he’d be able to reach them without being seen. The truck was driving slowly through the fallow field with its high beams on.

  Sean realized he could hide indefinitely from this crew of inexperienced thugs, but he couldn’t hide from Juarez’s people if these guys called them in.

  He needed a distraction, and then he needed to get to the other truck.

  Sean tried the windows in the back of the trailer. They were all either locked or stuck. He climbed onto the back of the wooden box to reach a higher window and looked inside. He couldn’t see anything in the dark, though this appeared to lead to the kitchen. He couldn’t tell if anyone was inside, but it didn’t feel lived in. He hadn’t seen or heard anyone in the hours that he’d been held captive.

  He pushed and pulled at the window. It budged, but didn’t fully open. It was such a dark, quiet night he feared if he broke the window, the guy waiting across the way would hear him.

  He jumped down and peered around the corner, through the carport. He couldn’t tell if someone had stayed with the second truck, but he had to assume someone was there. He couldn’t see or hear the other vehicle.

  A door from the carport led into the house. It was locked. He used his elbow to break the glass above the knob. A sharp pain told him he wasn’t as good at breaking and entering as he used to be. He unlocked the door and entered.

  The trailer was mostly empty. A few pieces of furniture, but nothing recently used. A thick layer of dirt and grime covered everything, and the same moldy stench as in the trailer across the way filled the place.

  He searched. No weapons, no phone. Some old cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink. He searched the drawers. Most had been emptied—no plates, utensils, or glasses. But in a junk drawer he found mostly junk—and a couple of matchbooks.

  Bingo.

  He needed a distraction to get the kid away from the truck.

  He took a nearly empty jug of bleach and a nearly empty bottle of generic window cleaner. Bleach wasn’t generally flammable, but many glass cleaners had alcohol or ammonia in them, and mixing those with bleach created a noxious gas, which—depending on the concentration—could be flammable.

  He just needed a distraction, he didn’t need to burn down a house.

  He tore through the bathroom and found a filthy facecloth in the back of drawer. It was stiff from whatever had dried on it. He was glad he could barely see because he heard rats and other creatures scurrying as he moved through the place, and he didn’t want to see a giant rodent close up.

  He took a cushion off the couch and brought everything outside, to the back of the trailer. He put them in the carport, so they would be visible faster, but that also risked him being seen, so he had to be quick.

  The inside of the cushion was foam, which helped. He mixed the chemicals in the bleach jug while holding his breath, then poured the remainder of the glass cleaner on the rag. He tucked the jug into the cushion and pushed the rag in, then lit it.

  It took him several matches to get the rag to smoke, and he wasn’t certain it was going to stick.

  He lit another match, and stuck it into the matchbook. As it burned, it should ignite the other matches, and he hoped it would start a big enough fire to distract the kid.

  Sean ran to the opposite side of the trailer so he could see both the house across the street and the smoldering cushion behind the carport.

  At first, all he got was smoke. Right when he thought the entire thing was going to fizzle out, there was a loud pop and a flame shot up.

  Sean looked over at the Chevy truck. The kid was looking at the fire, but not moving. Well, shit!

  Sean didn’t have another idea. He would be calling his friends. Sean could take out one kid, but not four.

  While the fire distracted him, Sean ran in the dark toward the Chevy. In the distance, across the field where Sean had first fled, he saw the headlamps of the second truck bouncing on the rough dirt.

  The kid walked away from the house and was halfway between the Chevy and the small fire. Sean was almost to the truck when the kid spotted him. “Hey!”

  Sean didn’t respond. The kid didn’t shoot or even say he had a gun.

  “Hey!” he called out again, running toward Sean. “Stop!”

  Sean jumped into the driver’s seat. No keys in the ignition. Dammit!

  The kid stood in front of the truck. He was so young, sixteen or seventeen. This whole situation was fucked.

  Sean got out of the truck, cautious. He didn’t think the kid had a gun, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “Give me the keys. Please.”

  “They’ll—I didn’t know what was going on. I swear. I was just asked to drive. This has gotten way over my head.”

  “Come with me. I’ll get you help.”

  “I can’t. They have my best friend, he vouched for me, if they think I helped you, they’ll . . . I think they’ll kill him.”

  The kid sounded scared—genuinely scared. Sean knew how kids got in these situations—he’d done some stupid shit when he was a teenager. Not kidnapping or any serious crimes, but he could have. If the wrong people had talked to him when he was young and angry, he could have led a much different life.

  “Kid, I want to help you and your friend, but they’re going to be back, and we don’t have time to argue.”

  “I’ll give you the keys, but you have to hit me. Hard. Make it bleed or something. I—I can’t just leave Juan here. I swear to God I didn’t know what was going on. They told me they needed my truck to move someone. I thought, like, furniture or something. Or—you know—people. Gave me a hundred bucks, said I’d get another hundred when it was done. I would never do anything like this . . . but then it just happened.”

  Sean sympathized with him, and the fear he faced when he realized that he was party to a kidnapping.

  “You can still come with me.”

  “I can’t. Juan’s my best friend. He didn’t know what was going on, either. I think his brother did, though. Please, hit me, I’ll give you the keys. My brother’s going to kill me anyway. He’s a cop. This is so messed up.”

  “Do you know where they’re keeping my brother? The other guy with me?”

  “No—I’d tell you, but Juan and I were sent here with the other two guys. I heard it was an abandoned warehouse or something. Maybe a barn.”

  Sean didn’t want to hit the kid, but he saw the lights of the other truck coming across the field, gaining speed.

  He hit him hard in the jaw, felt something crack, and immediately felt like shit. The kid went down. “What’s your name?” Sean asked.

  “Peter,” he whispered, and spit out blood.

  “Stay down. And call your brother, tell him the truth.” Sean searched his pockets and found the keys, then ran back to the truck.

  He sped away with his lights off, hoping to buy time, and worried about that kid he’d hit.

  But he could only help Peter—and Kane—if he was free.

  He bounced in and out of a deep rut and realized he had no idea if he was still on the unpaved road, so he was forced to turn on his lights. A dark house loomed in front of him, and he spun just in time to avoid crashing into it.

  Shit, he would have gotten himself killed. He put on his seat belt and turned back on the gravel and dirt road. It, too, was in poor condition. He couldn’t see any lights in the distance, but it was late, he was out in the middle of thousands of acres of farmland.

  Sean glanced in the rearview mirror. The truck pursuing him was still a good hundred yards back, and Sean was by far a better driver, so he picked up speed. Once he hit the main road, he’d really fly.

  His headlights reflected off a sign in the distance, indicating that he was reaching a T in the road. Excellent! These roads were all cut pe
rpendicular, so he would have to slow down to make the turn or risk going into the ditch and flipping.

  As he neared the road, he saw two cars approaching from the north, moving fast. And his gut told him these weren’t civilians.

  They called in your escape. Well, damn.

  Sean had to risk the speed. He turned onto the road going far too fast, spun out in the opposite ditch, but had enough momentum and wherewithal to turn the wheel sharply to the right and pull back onto the road.

  Then he floored it at the same time as he was rear-ended.

  If he hadn’t put his seat belt on, he would have hit the windshield. As it was, his head banged against the steering wheel and he saw stars.

  He tried to speed up, but the collision had screwed with his drivetrain, and then he was hit again.

  Gunfire rang out and suddenly he was spinning. It was all he could do to keep the truck upright as it drove into the ditch. He hit his head again and tried to open the door to run, but his hand would not cooperate.

  Then the world went black.

  Chapter Ten

  Lucy was still driving back to the ranch when her phone rang.

  “Agent Kincaid, I’m Officer Joseph Quezada from McAllen. You spoke to my mother. Scared her to death.”

  “It’s about your brother, Peter,” Lucy said.

  “My mother is upset and not making sense. Is Peter hurt? In trouble?”

  “The blue Chevy registered to your mother was used in the commission of a crime, and your mother implied that Peter had taken it out. He wasn’t at home, so I can only assume that he’s involved with the crime.”

  “My brother has never been in trouble. I’ve made sure of that.”

  “Can you say the same thing about his best friend, Juan Laredo? Juan and his brother borrowed a truck without permission from a neighbor. That truck was also used in the commission of a crime. So help me help you.”

  “Peter would never do anything wrong.” He paused. “Michael Laredo has some criminal ties. I thought Juan was keeping it clean. If I thought he was going down the same path, I would have told Peter to cut ties.”

  “How long have they been friends, Officer?”

  “Since they were little,” he said quietly. “Look, I’m on my way to my mother’s house. Is this about the attack out at a ranch in the east county? I heard about it on the radio.”

  “Yes. Two men were kidnapped at gunpoint. We’re not positive of the motivation, but we know that the organizer of the attacks runs a criminal organization in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and he believes that the men have information he wants.” Not exactly true, but close enough, and Lucy wasn’t giving everything away until she could assess Joseph Quezada face-to-face.

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I’ll call when I arrive, and I’ll try to find out what’s going on with Peter. But please, he’s a kid.”

  She wanted to read this cop the riot act, but instead she swallowed her fear and anger and said, “I understand. But this is a serious situation, and my job is to bring those two men home alive.”

  By the time she drove back to the ranch, it was well after eleven. She was tired and crabby and very worried. She had a terrific lead—the trucks—but so far, they hadn’t found them or the kids who had taken them.

  She sat in the car in front of Kane’s house and put her head on the steering wheel, feeling overwhelmed. Sean and Kane were missing, taken by a brutal criminal who told no lies: He would kill Kane. He hadn’t mentioned Sean, he hadn’t even hinted as to his fate. Lucy wanted to believe that she’d know in her heart if he was dead, but she just felt numb, and she didn’t put much stock in supernatural feelings. She considered herself spiritual, she believed in God and in justice and that evil would be punished, but she didn’t know, in her heart, whether Sean was dead or alive.

  Then the anger seeped in, the deep anger that she’d been keeping at bay all afternoon. That she and Siobhan had been followed for the purpose, she believed, of instilling fear into them. There was nothing those men did that suggested they planned to grab Siobhan . . . why? Why not grab her? Siobhan was the one with the answers. She was the one who put all of them at risk.

  Yes, she was angry with Siobhan. She loved her like a sister, but what had she been thinking? Hestia wasn’t in witness protection, she had been taken from her home country, brought illegally into the United States, and given a new identity because her father was a criminal. And while Lucy didn’t fault Kane or Siobhan for their decision—there were some people so evil that you did what you could to protect the innocent—Siobhan should have done what Kane did: put Hestia out of her mind and never see her again.

  Lucy had compassion for those like Hestia—or the boys that she, Kane, and Sean had rescued nearly two years ago, who had been imprisoned and forced to work for the cartels. She wanted to help those she could, especially the children who, through no fault of their own, had found themselves in the middle of violence. But sometimes, you had to remember that you don’t save them for you, you save them for them. For their future. Sometimes, you don’t get to know what happens to them. They go into the system and you have to trust that they will survive, that they have the hope of something better than they had before.

  So yes, Lucy was angry at Siobhan for violating the unspoken rule. And Lucy was angry at herself for being mad at her future sister-in-law. And she was angry with Felipe Juarez, who used teenage boys to commit crimes. He was no better than the cartel leaders who used children to transport drugs and weapons in and out of the country.

  She pounded her fist on the dashboard and pain shot through her arm, jolting her back to the present.

  It was nearly midnight. Sean and Kane had been missing for more than six hours. They had seven hours to find them, or they would die.

  Lucy believed that—if they weren’t already dead.

  Her phone trilled and she jumped. She grabbed it without looking at the number. “Kincaid.”

  “Lucy, it’s Dean Hooper. I’m here with my wife, Sonia.”

  “Dean.” She shook her head to clear it. “I’m in the car. Sorry. Distracted. You talked to JT.”

  “Yes, and Sonia reached out to Hazel—Hestia, but we don’t call her that anymore. None of us are going to allow her to risk her life and her freedom to go to Texas and meet with her father, but we’ve figured out a way to get her on the phone and he won’t know that she’s not in Texas. She’s an amazing girl, Lucy, you would like her very much. She is willing to give herself up for Kane and Sean, but you and I both know that Juarez would still kill them.”

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  “I’m having Hazel brought into FBI headquarters, where we have the technology to pull this off and can control the situation, but I’m hoping you’ll find them before we have to do this.”

  “So do I.” But at least this would buy them a little time, and she was grateful.

  “I didn’t know that Siobhan went to Hazel’s graduation,” Sonia said. “I’ve kept tabs on her and her new family, and Hazel said that she’s the one who reached out to Siobhan. She emailed her and told her about her graduation and asked if she could come, because none of this would be possible without her. Hazel feels like this is her fault, and it’s going to take both Dean and me all of our skills to convince her not to go to Texas. That’s why I don’t want her on the phone. She has a huge heart, and if she believes she can save Kane—who she thinks is in danger because of her—she’ll promise anything.”

  “We don’t want her to do that,” Lucy said. “But thank you for getting her on the phone. I hope we find them first, but this is a good backup plan.”

  “I know you’re worried, Lucy,” Dean said, “but there’s no one more resourceful than Sean and Kane.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  When she ended the call, she surprisingly felt better. Not because she was less worried, but because Hazel’s selfless act to help, even at risk to her physical and emotional safety, reminded Lucy that there were still good peo
ple out there, everyday heroes like Hazel who put others before themselves.

  Lucy would do everything in her power to avoid Hazel having to talk to her father. The man had tried to force her into marriage, he was no better than a human trafficker, and he didn’t want her back because he loved her or wanted her forgiveness; he wanted her back to punish her or use her for his own personal gain.

  Lucy didn’t want Hazel to have to face such an impossible choice: of death or servitude. Which meant she had seven hours to find Kane and Sean.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kane thought Sean was dead.

  Two of Juarez’s men dragged Sean over to the middle of the barn and dropped his limp body next to Kane. Dark, cold rage filled him. He stared at his brother’s unmoving body, saw the blood on his head, and in that moment believed he’d been shot.

  Then Sean moaned.

  Relief flooded through him, then anger. He didn’t say anything, only glared at the men watching them.

  One of the men said in broken English, “Bastard tried to escape and sealed his own fate. He’ll die with you.”

  Kane didn’t respond. He needed Sean to wake up. He’d been mentally working on a plan, but it was contingent on Juarez wanting to hurt him. He needed Juarez to get close to him. He always had a knife on his belt. Kane couldn’t free himself, but if he could get Juarez close enough, he could grab the knife and slice through the ropes. It was risky, because it depended on being fast after being beaten; depended on a clean slice with a knife whose sharpness he didn’t know. It depended on the element of surprise, and getting the knife to Juarez’s neck before someone shot him or tackled him.

  Too many what-ifs.

  But with Sean here . . . maybe. Maybe they had a chance.