by M. S. Parker
I didn’t like the way he worded that. “Back to Sylvia’s, you mean.”
He took a step closer to me but didn’t try to touch me again. “I think you should see what I was able to do for you first. Then you can decide if you want the others coming with us.”
He kept saying us, but I didn’t know if that was because he was thinking of him and me as a couple, or because he thought he was coming to the States with me. Or both. No matter how grateful I was for what he’d done for me, him leaving Costa Rica with me wasn’t in the cards.
“I appreciate you getting everything set up. It’s probably a good idea for you to run everything by Bri and Clay. There are some things they need to watch out for.” I wasn’t about to tell Luis that Clay was an FBI agent who might not have disclosed that little fact when he came into the country. I remembered a bit of my discussion with Clay before my accident, but not all of the details.
“I can order us dinner,” Sylvia said, pulling out her phone. “What are you in the mood for?”
“We should wait to ask the others,” Luis said. “We will not want to order something they will not like.”
He had a point. My gut still said something wasn’t quite right, but I didn’t want to believe that Luis would do anything to hurt me. He might have been keeping secrets, but I suspected they had more to do with how to win my affection than any malicious intent.
“My car is around the corner.” Luis pointed.
The three of us couldn’t all fit on the sidewalk, and it didn’t take more than two steps for it to become obvious that Luis wanted to walk next to me. When I didn’t move over to squeeze Sylvia out, he moved into the street, keeping up a conversation that cut Sylvia out as neatly as if he’d pushed her behind us.
“I believe I can get train tickets for us,” Luis said. “I have just completed Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Have you read it?”
“No,” I said quickly, then came back to the more important statement. “What train tickets?”
Luis winked at me. “Do not worry. There will not be a murder mystery. Have you read any of Christie’s other books? I am also a fan of And Then There Were None.”
“I saw the movie. Where are we supposed to take a train?”
“Have you seen The Girl on the Train? I have heard it was a good interpretation of the book.”
He wasn’t going to answer my questions, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be annoyed or scared by it. At the moment, it was more of the former than the latter. It seemed like ever since Luis and I had left his apartment, the sweet, shy young man who’d nursed me for two weeks had been replaced by this slick, obnoxious guy.
“I am a fan of Emily Blunt,” he continued. “I believed her performance in A Quiet Place was worthy of an Oscar.”
As he kept talking, he explained how much of his English he had learned from books and movies. I had surmised as much, but this was the first time I’d heard him speak at length on the subject. By the time we reached his car, the glint in his eyes made me wonder if, in his head, this was another story.
I was tempted to sit in the back, but it seemed like a small concession. Besides, a happy Luis was a nicer Luis. In theory anyway. I also figured it was a good way to get a read on what Luis really wanted. What his end goal really was.
“That’s my street,” Sylvia said, pointing as Luis drove right past.
“We are going to see what I have spent the last few hours preparing.” Luis gave Sylvia a tight smile.
I wished I could say that Luis was acting crazy, but I saw calm, controlled sanity in his eyes. I’d met crazy people before. He wasn’t one of them. The disappointment in yet another person distracted me enough that we were pulling up in front of a familiar house before I realized where we were going.
“Luis? What the hell?”
He actually looked remorseful, but the next words out of his mouth contradicted that. “I am sorry, Tess. I made a deal to keep us safe. A trade.”
I could barely force the words out. “What sort of trade?”
“They let the people spread the word that they wanted your sister. I promised them her, and they canceled the order to kill you and me.”
Bri.
This asshole promised my sister to a drug cartel.
A black van pulled up next to Luis’s car, and his agitation went through the roof. His face flushed as the van’s passenger door opened and a man roughly the size of two defensive linemen got out.
“Since she is not with you, I will need to convince them that she will trade herself for another.”
“She’s not going to trade herself for me,” I said, the words coming out from between gritted teeth. “She’s going to kick your ass and their asses. Her and Clay.”
Luis brushed the back of his hand down my cheek, and he frowned when I flinched away. “I would never give you to them. When I saw Brianne with Sylvia, I knew I had someone to trade, even if I could not deliver Brianne directly.”
“I’m not letting you take–”
Pain exploded across the side of my face, and the world spun. I slumped against the door, vaguely aware of a struggle only a couple feet away. Someone was calling my name, but I couldn’t focus on anything except how much my face hurt.
Twenty-Five
Clay
We didn’t need to go very far to realize where Luis had most likely taken Tess and Sylvia. When the clerk told us that the car had gone past Sylvia’s street, I’d hoped that it’d meant Luis was taking the women back to his own apartment. While that wouldn’t have been the best thing, it wouldn’t have been the worst either.
This was the worst.
“You do realize what’s in this direction, don’t you?” Brianne broke the silence without looking at me.
“I do,” I said grimly.
We slowed down as we got in sight of the cartel house. No one was outside, but we approached cautiously nonetheless. We both wanted to get to Tess and Sylvia before something happened to them, but if we got caught, we wouldn’t be any help to anyone.
The first difference I noticed from the previous time I’d been here was the absence of barking dogs. The second was that the secure gate was ajar. Alarm bells went off, and my stomach sank. Something here wasn’t right.
“Stay here,” Brianna said quietly. “I’m going to take a look around.”
“Like hell you will,” I said. “Tess will never forgive me if I let you do that alone.”
“I think she cares more about what happens to you than me,” Bri said, casting a sideways glance in my direction.
I ignored her as I pushed the gate open, waiting for someone to come out and see what was going on. Nothing happened. Brianne followed me up the short sidewalk, and I didn’t need to look back at her to know she had my back. We might’ve been trained by different people, but the essentials were close enough that it’d been easy for us to fall into a simple rhythm as we’d worked together these past two weeks.
My knock on the door sounded impossibly loud, the echo telling me what I’d already suspected was true. There wasn’t anyone in the house. The cartel had left. Sure, there might be some furniture, maybe spoiled food, but the people who’d been here when Tess and I had snuck in to rescue Brianne and the rest of her group were gone.
“Are you sure that was a good idea?” Brianne whispered. “A direct approach isn’t always the best.”
I shot her a look. “There’s no one here.” I pushed on the door, and it creaked as it opened. No one came running. No one threatened, and there were no gunshots. None of the usual things that should have come with approaching a drug cartel’s house happened.
“When did they move?” Brianne asked. “I checked this place out three days before we found Tess and she was there.”
I decided that addressing why Brianne had come here without me wasn’t the most pressing issue at the moment. “I think the better question would be why now? If they were worried about you leading the authorities back here, why wouldn’t the
y have left as soon as we got you guys out?”
“What’s happened in the past three days that might’ve made them want to move?” Brianne asked as she peered inside. “I’d rather not risk overdosing or getting stabbed by a dirty needle while taking a look in there.”
“Tuesday evening was when we found Tess,” I said, running all the possibilities through my mind. “And when the cartel shot at us.”
“We found Luis the same day too,” Brianne said. “Let’s not forget that. If we would’ve just left the little bastard where we’d found them, we could’ve avoided this whole mess.”
The idea hit me then. “Do you think he could’ve contacted the cartel when he figured out that they had you? He could’ve pieced together who we are. Who we work for.”
“You think he told them to move because I’m a US soldier and you work for the FBI?”
She sounded doubtful, but I caught the glimmer of something different in her eyes, something…dark. I had my suspicions about why she was ashamed, about why some things didn’t quite add up, but that’d keep until we had Tess and Sylvia back.
“I think whatever Luis said, it led to this point,” I said. “Unless you think he might’ve been taking them somewhere other than here. I mean, it’s not impossible.”
Brianne didn’t say anything as she walked back to the sidewalk. She turned from one side to the other, then went still. The color drained from her face, and she darted forward, crouching to pick something up from the driveway.
“Bri?”
“This is Sylvia’s,” she said as she held up a silver bracelet. “I gave it to her on our last date. I didn’t know she still had it.”
“He brought them here for the hand-off,” I said, going to her side.
“And Sylvia dropped this when she and Tess were being moved into the cartel’s vehicle.”
“Excuse me.” A pig-tailed girl tugged on my sleeve. “Are you going to bring the doggies back?”
I glanced at Brianne, then bent over to put myself closer to the child’s height. “Did you see what happened to the doggies?”
The little girl nodded. “The men in the vans took them away.”
Vans. That was something at least. But, maybe she knew more. “Did the men in the vans take anyone else? Two women maybe?”
“Just one van,” she said, her big brown eyes bright. “And just one woman.”
“One woman? Not two?” Brianne asked.
The little girl shook her head. “One. She didn’t want to go with them even though they had the doggies. Will you bring the doggies back?”
I gave her a soft smile. “I’ll see what we can do.”
The little girl took off, skipping happily back to what I assumed was her house.
“Luis didn’t turn over Tess,” Brianne said. “That has to be what happened.”
“Not surprising.” I was annoyed that I hadn’t thought of it first. “He’s infatuated with her. This makes a lot more sense now. He gave them Sylvia, and they let him have Tess.”
“They went in separate directions,” Brianne said. “Which means we can either split up and each go after one…”
“Or we can choose one and leave the other.”
Twenty-Six
Tess
The bastard hit me. He’d actually hit me.
I’d only been out of it for a few minutes, but it had been long enough for us to be on the road and Sylvia to be gone. Luis had assured me that she was okay. The cartel didn’t want her. That hadn’t really made me feel any better because I’d known who the cartel was after. My sister. And maybe even Clay.
Luis hadn’t really said much of anything after he’d given me that bit of information, but that wasn’t surprising considering he seemed to think he needed to concentrate on driving fast enough that I wouldn’t throw myself out of the car. I wasn’t an idiot though. I didn’t know the city or its people well enough to consider escape that way. No, I knew the wiser path would be to use this time to plan so I’d be ready when the opportunity arose.
We didn’t go back to his apartment, or to the motel where we’d stayed previously, which I would’ve been glad about if I hadn’t known those two places would be the first places Brianne and Clay would look for me. I didn’t recognize the neighborhood we were in now, but I wasn’t planning on running away when we finally stopped. No, I was going to take advantage of the fact that Luis was far from the most intimidating person in the world and rely on the odds that at least one decent person would be staying at whatever hotel we went to. If not a guest, then an employee.
Either way, I was certain that someone would help me as soon as they were aware that I was being held against my will. I just needed to decide what the most effective method would be. I could scream, naturally, and alert people that way, or I could wait until I was close to someone I thought appeared trustworthy. I doubted Luis would actually let me get close enough to talk to a stranger, but once we were settled in a room, I’d be able to leave a note, maybe even call down to the front desk while he was in the shower.
I was assuming a lot, I knew, but despite the throbbing reminder of recent violence, I didn’t think Luis intended me any harm. He’d hit me because he’d panicked, not because he wanted to hurt me. I could be wrong about him, I supposed, but I didn’t think I could be that off base. Then again, I wouldn’t have thought he could hand over Sylvia to a bunch of murderers either.
“We are going to stay here,” he said as he pulled into a driveway.
A gravel driveway. Not a parking lot. It was a house.
“Who lives here?” I tried to keep my voice light, as if I was interested for completely normal reasons.
“No one,” he said with a smile. “An old woman came into the hospital two months ago and told me about the house where she and her husband had lived for thirty years. She asked me to stop by and water her plants. The last day I was at work, she went into a coma. She has not woken up yet, so we will not be disturbing anyone.”
“Great.” I forced a smile. No one at the house meant no one for me to ask for help. I supposed, on a positive note, it also meant there wasn’t anyone to help Luis keep me prisoner. He’d have to sleep sometime.
I made a show of stretching my neck and hoped he didn’t realize that I was checking either side of the house to find the closest neighbors. My heart sank when I saw that the house was on a corner, and its only neighboring house was a burned-out shell. I doubted if anyone would hear me scream, and it made the possibility of reaching another person much lower than I would have liked.
There was a house catty-cornered across the street that looked promising, but the more I thought about it, the more I had to consider that getting another person involved might push Luis over the edge. I kept telling myself that he wasn’t crazy, but as much as it irked me to say it, I didn’t know Luis as well as I kept insisting I did. I knew nothing of his past, nothing of his family save the small bit he’d told me. Hell, I didn’t even know how much of what he’d told me was true. It was entirely possible that he’d rescued me with a fantasy in mind, one where I’d fall head-over-heels for him, and we’d live happily-ever-after.
That, I suddenly realized, was my best chance. Instead of tolerating him, I needed to play to his fantasy. If he didn’t believe it, I could end up in more trouble than I already was. But, if I could convince him that I could be trusted, I might be able to get information about Sylvia from him and then escape, both without many of the risks other plans contained.
I had to be careful, though. If I came on too strong, he’d never believe it. He had a good grasp of my personality from our time together, especially since I hadn’t had the strength to keep anything from him. I wasn’t trained military like Brianne or FBI like Clay, but my senior year of college, I’d been assigned interrogation methods as a research topic. While doing my interviews, one military interrogator mentioned something that had stuck with me, even if it hadn’t been on point for my topic.
The people who best withstood interr
ogation weren’t necessarily the ones who were the smartest or – in unsavory circumstances – the ones with the highest pain thresholds. Trying to remember lies when under any form of duress was a lot harder than remembering the truth, which meant that the best way to avoid slipping up was to put as much truth into the story as possible. Use deceit only when absolutely necessary.
“Stay there,” he warned. “If you try to run, I might have to hit you again, and I don’t want to do that.”
“I don’t want that either,” I said honestly. “I’ll stay here.”
He walked around the front of the car, his eyes on me the entire way. When he opened my door, a look of relief was on his face. He held out his hand, and I knew it was another test. I let him help me from the car and didn’t pull away when he failed to release my hand.
As a reporter, I’d held the hands of various informants and witnesses, sometimes to offer comfort, sometimes empathy. Most of them, however, were ones who’d truly been through an ordeal. Only once had I played a sympathetic ear to someone I truly detested, and I’d nearly scrubbed my hand raw when the interview was over.
The woman had been married to a man who’d kidnapped a pair of sisters and made them his ‘wives’ despite the fact that they were only nine and eleven years old. This woman had not only lived in the same house where the girls had been kept for six years, she’d participated in some of the assaults. When the couple had gotten caught, the woman had claimed to be a victim as well. To get her to talk, I pretended that I wasn’t feeling revulsion being in the same room as her. I’d hoped that she’d reveal something that would allow me to change my opinion of her. Instead, I’d found a woman as self-absorbed and sadistic as the man she’d married.
Luis wasn’t even close to that bad, making it much easier to keep holding his hand as he led me into the house.
A thin layer of dust coated everything, making me sneeze, but nothing seemed to be dirty. The place had a slightly musty, unused smell, but none of the waste and filth stench that had permeated the motel we’d been in before. If circumstances had been different and I’d been here of my own free will, I might’ve actually liked being here.
