No response.
He grasped the doorknob and quietly opened the door. And there she was—lying on her side, sound asleep on her bed. He took a few silent steps, moving closer, wanting to see for himself that she was breathing. And she was. Her lips were parted, her breathing deep and even, her dark hair fanned out behind her. He exhaled, relieved, then noticed the tearstains on her cheeks.
Aw, hell.
The angry storm that had roiled around inside him all evening ebbed, and he found himself wanting to lie down beside her and hold her until she woke up. But he couldn’t do that, not if he wanted to be able to live with himself afterward. Instead, he stood there, watching her sleep, an ache in his chest that wouldn’t go away.
ZACH HAD JUST finished his morning briefing with Rowan and was making himself an omelet when he heard Natalie coming down the stairs.
She shuffled into the kitchen, looking tousled and confused, the flannel of her purple plaid pajamas wrinkled. She stared at the clock, then looked at him. “Did I just sleep sixteen hours—or just four?”
“It’s tomorrow.” Surly from lack of sleep—and lack of progress in finding Quintana—he said nothing more.
He’d had another nightmare last night, worse than before. It had started out in Afghanistan like it always did, but then he’d found himself in Mexico, forced to watch while Quintana mauled and tortured Natalie, her screams turning his blood to ice. He’d woken, chilled to the bone and craving a bottle of Jack, but the loft was dry as a nunnery. So he’d made his way to the gym, gone for a punishing uphill run on the treadmill until he’d gotten the dry heaves. Then he’d showered and tried to sleep, but couldn’t.
He found it strange that he was having nightmares while on assignment. Usually, work kept the dreams at bay. Maybe those six days of torture had done a number on his already fucked-up mind. Or maybe being near Natalie was throwing him off balance. Either way, he needed to get a grip.
Natalie made her way past him to the fridge, opened it, looked through the offerings inside. “It looks like someone already made groceries.”
Okay, McBride, you have to admit that was damned adorable.
Hell, yeah, it was. You could take the woman out of New Orleans, but you couldn’t take New Orleans out of the woman.
Some of his dark mood lifted. “You want an omelet?”
She shut the fridge door and peered into the skillet, where sliced ham, green pepper, onion, and mushrooms simmered in a bed of scrambled egg. “That looks yummy. I don’t want to take it if it’s yours.”
“I’ll make another one.” He flipped the omelet in half, then turned it over. “Coffee’s already brewed.”
She poured herself a cup, then added milk and sugar. By the time she’d put the milk away, her omelet was done. He slid it onto a plate, carried it to the little breakfast nook together with a fork, then went back to chopping ham and veggies for his own.
“Toast?” He grabbed a loaf of whole wheat.
“Yes, please. And thanks.”
He popped two slices in the toaster, then grabbed three more eggs from the refrigerator and cracked them into a bowl, tossing the shells into the sink.
“You said you looked through my files.” She hadn’t sat down to eat yet, but stood across the kitchen from him, coffee mug in hand.
“I glanced through them. I didn’t have time to study them.”
“I could go through them with you if you like. They might make better sense that way. I can’t fathom how they could be tied to the Zetas in any way, but if you think it’s important . . .”
It wasn’t an apology, but then he probably didn’t deserve an apology. Still, he appreciated the fact that she wanted to work with him on this.
“It might be important. Hard to say.”
“Can we make a deal then? I’ll show you my files if you let me look at what you have on Cárdenas.”
He started to object, but she talked over him.
“I’m not asking so that I can report on it. In fact, we can say this is strictly deep background, off the record. I just think it might be helpful to your investigation if both of us were familiar with both sides of this.”
He thought about it for a moment, weighing the risks against the possible benefits. He glanced over, met her gaze. “It’s a deal.”
“I JUST DON’T see what sexual assaults at a Denver boarding school could have to do with a Mexican drug cartel.” Natalie finished arranging her documents in neat piles on the coffee table, almost painfully aware of the man who sat beside her.
It didn’t help that Zach had left his shirt unbuttoned, exposing that amazing body of his. Even the fact that he hadn’t showered seemed to make it worse, the natural scent of his skin arousing her, his tousled hair and the stubble on his jaw giving him a manly, earthy look. But there were also dark circles beneath his eyes and lines of fatigue on his face. Had he had another nightmare?
She regretted what she’d said to him last night—or at least she regretted the way she’d said it. He was a hero many times over, a man who’d sacrificed so much for the sake of his country. He didn’t deserve to be called “chicken.”
And yet the heart of what she’d said felt true to her. He had an easier time facing down men with guns than his own memories, and those memories he couldn’t face were holding him back, depriving him of companionship, laughter, love.
Just like your grief over Beau held you back.
No. For him it was worse. She hadn’t believed herself capable of love. He didn’t seem to believe he deserved it.
Fighting to stay focused, she gave Zach an overview of her investigation, then left him to read through the stories she’d written so far, along with police reports and other documents, while she took a shower and shaved her legs. She dried her hair, put on a bit of makeup, then dressed in clothes he’d bought for her—linen pants and a violet V-neck tank top. She couldn’t wear them without thinking of their time together in the desert. Would he have the same reaction?
Are you trying to catch his attention, Benoit?
Maybe. Was there anything wrong with that?
She came back downstairs to find him sipping his coffee, his gaze fixed on the soccer coach’s mug shot. “Find anything?”
He shook his head, looked up, his gaze sliding over her, his eyes going dark. “Nothing yet.”
“What are we searching for anyway?” She went into the kitchen, poured herself another cup of coffee.
His voice—and his gaze—followed her. “Most of the time when cartels kill it comes down to protecting their business. In other words, money.”
“So money really
is
the root of all evil.” She poured cream into her coffee, added a teaspoon of sugar, and stirred, then walked back into the living room. “I sent everyone’s tax documents to a forensic accountant. If there’s anything strange going on with their tax returns, she’ll spot it. I expect to hear from her soon.”
“Good idea.” There was a note of appreciation in his voice. “If anything pops, I’ll have Rowan search their financials.”
She sat across from him, a nervous trill in her belly. “So where do we start?”
“Let’s take a step back here and look at the big picture. Either your abduction is related to this investigation, or it’s not. If it
is
related, then someone had something to hide that your investigation threatened to reveal, something that was connected in some way to the Zetas. If it’s
not
related then what we’re dealing with here is Cárdenas trying to kill you in an effort to avenge his ego.”
“Because I escaped?”
“Because you escaped.”
Natalie thought about this, tried to wrap her mind around it. “I just can’t see how anyone at Whitcomb could have ties to the Zetas. It’s a very exclusive school—lots of girls from wealthy families whose ancestors probably came over on the
Mayflower
. Isn’t the simplest scenario more likely? Cárdenas looked on the SPJ website to see which Mexican journalists were on the tour, saw my photo, and decided to kidnap me for his sick little ritual. Now he’s angry because I got away.”
Zach frowned. “Yeah. Maybe this is a waste of time, but I still can’t believe that Cárdenas would reach all the way up to Denver to try to kill you unless he had a bigger motivation than that. He’s a narcissist, to be sure, and we know your escape had him tearing apart his own country to find you. But he’s also a businessman. Trying to kill an innocent American woman deep in her homeland—that’s a bad move for
so
many reasons.”
“What do we look for then?”
“Let’s determine who stood to lose the most from your investigation and focus on them.”
She shrugged. “Well, that’s easy. The district attorney. The sheriff. If either one of them were caught dropping the case for bribes, their careers would be over. There’s the alleged rapist himself. He would’ve spent the rest of his life in prison if he’d been convicted. The school. It’s bad PR when students get raped by a coach. Whitcomb Academy would probably have lost a lot of revenue if the coach had been convicted.”
He looked into her eyes, his lips curving in a lopsided grin. “Ever think of being a cop?”
“Good heavens, no! I’m a journalist, and that’s scary enough.”
“Yeah, no shit. Okay, let’s go through them one by one.” His smile gone, he picked up the alleged rapist’s mug shot. “They never look like rapists, do they?”
“THIS IS LOCO. You know that, don’t you? You’re going to get yourself killed, amigo, and me along with you.”
Joaquin watched street names as his cousin, a member of the Latin Kings gang, drove him deep into the barrio, the Glock 9mm he’d bought two days ago heavy in his pocket. “No one is going to get killed.”
“This man you are after—he’s connected to a cartel.”
“I know. Los Zetas.”
Jesús glanced over at him, a look of disbelief on his face. “Then you must be loco. These
chingaderos
—they kill for fun.”
“He hurt and tried to kill a friend of mine—a woman.”
Comprehension dawned on Jesús’s face. “This is about that reporter who got kidnapped in Juárez.”
“I’m not going to let him hurt her again.”
“This is bullshit. We’re going home.” Jesús flipped a U-turn in the middle of traffic, drawing angry honks and curses.
“Stop!” Joaquin jerked the wheel hard to the right, forcing his cousin to the curb.
Jesús slammed on the breaks. “Are you trying to kill someone?”
As a matter of fact, it
had
crossed Joaquin’s mind. “Just show me where he is, and then leave. You don’t even have to get out of the car.”
Jesús looked genuinely afraid, sweat beading on his forehead, sliding past the little five-point crown tattooed on his temple. “If you get killed, your mother and mine will blame me. So you’d better stay alive, eh?”
“I promise.”
Jesús turned the car around again, drove a couple of blocks north, then pulled over to the curb. “You see the flophouse behind us? Word is he’s living upstairs with a hooker. Third window from the right.”
Joaquin studied it with the help of the passenger-side mirror. “Drop me off down the street. Then go home.”
Ten minutes later, Joaquin lay on a rooftop across the street, watching, his camera and the Glock ready. One hour went by. Two. Three. It was hot on the rooftop, the late afternoon sun beating down on shingles that reeked of tar.
And then he saw him—a man who looked just like the man in the police sketch, a jagged scar stretching along his jawline on the right.
Joaquin focused the shot, clicked, and clicked again as the man disappeared into the flophouse, then reappeared at the window.
Joaquin clicked away, focusing in tightly with a telephoto lens on the bastard’s face, catching the address of the flophouse.
It took a moment before he saw that the man was looking in his direction.
He moved the camera away from his face, looked up, and realized that the sun was glinting off his camera lens. “Shit.”
That’s why you’re not a secret agent, Ramirez.
Pulse picking up, Joaquin reached in his pocket, grabbed his cell phone, dialed. “Hey, Darcangelo. I think I found our man—that Zeta with the scarred face. Yeah. The only problem is, I think he found me, too.”
By the time Joaquin looked back at the window, the Zeta had disappeared.
CHAPTER 27
“HE’S COMPLETELY MIA—no forwarding address, no landline, no calls made on his cell phone since the day he moved out. Same thing with his credit cards—no recent charges. He’s got two accounts with a total of fifteen grand cooling in the bank, and he hasn’t touched a dime. His parents and brother say they’ve had no contact.”
Natalie sat in the shade of the awning on the rooftop patio, sipping southern sweet tea, barely aware of Zach’s phone conversation with Rowan, her gaze riveted to the dossier he had put together for her on Cárdenas. There were hundreds of pages, most stamped “CLASSIFIED” in big, red letters, some with photographs, all describing the actions of a man who could only be described as evil.
Cárdenas had been arrested on suspicion of rape at the age of sixteen, rape and murder at seventeen, and numerous counts of drug trafficking at eighteen. Arrest mug shots showed a skinny, angry boy with hate in his eyes and a smirk on his face. By the time he was twenty, he’d been arrested almost a dozen times, and the smirk had become a fixed sneer. He had reason to scorn the police. They’d arrested him again and again, but the charges had never stuck. According to background notes, his father had paid handsomely to keep him out of prison, buying off judges, cops, witnesses.
It was his father’s money that had opened doors for him when he’d joined the
federales
at the age of twenty-one. The arrests had stopped, and he’d risen through the ranks, eventually joining a newly formed elite team created to combat drug trafficking throughout Mexico. By the time he was in his mid-thirties, the Pentagon and the State Department had invited him and other members of his unit—known as Los Zetas—to come to a special training facility in Virginia called the Americas Institute for Tactical Training (AMINTAC), a U.S.-funded school for Latin American law enforcement and military officers, designed to teach them advanced tactical skills.