But then her car had passed him on that road not far from her boyfriend’s house, and he’d taken his chance.
And he’d gotten away, was now well far away from Lusty.
Juan stepped off the small wooden porch and made his way around the old line shack. The building had been here for as long as he could remember. At one time, he imagined it had been inhabited by cowboys moving cattle, either for a local rancher, or as part of a larger drive toward Waco and the Chisholm Trail. Perhaps the occasional rustler or other outlaw had used the tiny structure to evade capture, to lay low and plan.
Juan would never apologize for the life he had led. In the Barrio, where jobs were scarce, and hunger high, a man did what he could to bring food to the table. As the oldest of ten children, he’d found ways at an early age to make money. Never a lot, but always enough to help. He’d fallen in with Ramos several years before, and for the most part, the work required nothing he was uncomfortable with.
Until he’d taken the Benedict woman, he’d done nothing to court the noose. He’d known the risk he took. The only question on his mind was a simple one. Did he return her to her family, bargaining with them directly, or did he deliver the woman to Ramos?
Miguel Ramos could be cold-blooded and deadly, as Pecos had seen firsthand. He had little doubt that in Ramos’s hands, the woman would either be raped or killed. Probably both, and the evidence sent to her lover to torture him. Otherwise, why bother to take her?
He stopped outside the back window. He could just see inside, to the old bedstead with its bare mattress and its tied and sleeping occupant.
He doubted the puny woman would be able to free herself. He’d handcuffed her, but not cruelly, and secured her to the bed. She seemed about as weak and soft as he’d expect a rich man’s daughter to be.
He’d left a light burning on the one other piece of furniture in the room—an old dresser—so that there would be no surprises for either of them. This way he could peer into the room and assure himself she was still there—and when she awoke, she would be unlikely to panic.
Her awakening in the dark would only cause her to panic and hurt herself.
She has done nothing to deserve being handed over to Ramos
. The moment Juan let that thought into his mind, once he acknowledged the truth of it, he knew he’d made a decision and it was the right one.
He would wait for a day—long enough for the woman’s family to know that she was indeed missing. Then he would contact them, and advise them how they could recover her.
He wouldn’t ask for too much, even though the Benedicts of Lusty, Texas, were reputed to be billionaires.
Two million dollars. I can make a new life with two million dollars.
It was a significant enough sum of money so that her family would take him seriously, yet not so much that they would have difficulty getting their hands on it.
Juan patted the outside of his pocket that held his cell phone, a new one he’d purchased just a couple of days before. Prepaid, untraceable, it would serve him well.
Yes, that’s what he’d do. He’d wait until tomorrow evening, and then he’d send them a message.
* * * *
Drew kept the expression on his face purposefully blank. Standing back as Dev led a briefing before a mission had never been hard for him. His faith in his best friend—his brother—was absolute.
Especially now, at this moment, for this, the most important mission they’d ever undertaken.
“There’s been no movement for the last three hours. Either Julia’s phone has been found and tossed, or our kidnapper has stopped moving.”
Neither of them would voice the third alternative, the one possibility that secretly and between them they couldn’t make go away, the one that chilled them both to the bone.
The third possibility was that Julia’s body had been dumped. Drew thought if that happened, if they somehow lost her, he’d die himself.
He looked up, met Dev’s gaze, and knew he felt the exact same way.
“
I
believe they’ve stopped moving, and have hunkered down for the night. No reason not to. As far as he or they know, they’ve gotten away clean. There have been no alerts issued, and the fact that Julia’s missing hasn’t been reported by any of the major news outlets.”
The others present in the hangar that housed Kendall Aviation kept silent. Morgan and Henry Kendall both looked like what they were—men who’d been in this kind of life-or-death situation before. That wasn’t to say they weren’t worried. Even though he’d not known them long, Drew could read the concern, and yes, the anger in their eyes.
Tracy and Tamara sat side by side, their faces pale, their eyes red rimmed. Adam Kendall, Lusty’s sheriff, had insisted that Dev and Drew take the lead today, that they put together the rescue mission. Adam’s brother, Jordan, along with Peter Alvarez and Julia’s triplet brothers rounded out the group gathered in front of the map board.
Mitchell Grafton had provided up-to-date intel so that they’d been able to track the movements of Julia’s cell phone. Just a half hour before, they’d managed to patch the satellite feed into the computer here. Now their intel was as instant as it was reliable. The sun was setting, the kidnappers had gone to ground, and it appeared that the time for action was finally at hand.
Thank God. I just want to get her and get home
.
“Henry’s going to fly Drew and me in the helicopter and drop us down about two miles from where the signal is originating.” He pointed to a place on the map, a spot that was just a few miles from the city of Rocksprings, Texas.
“He didn’t travel far,” Morgan said. Leaning back against the desk they’d carried from the office into the open area of the hangar he considered the map. “Good elevation there. Rocksprings is on a plateau, I believe.”
“Yeah,” Dev said. “We’ve had a look at some satellite imagery of the area. We have a pretty good idea what to expect.” He used his finger to circle the target area. “Rural, elevation around 2,000 feet, vegetation a mix of scrub and trees. And rocks, plenty of rocks. The city itself is on the plateau, as you said. They’re not in the city. We think they’ve got her in some kind of a simple structure about midway up that formation, but off the beaten path.”
“Nothing showed up on the satellite images,” Drew said, “but there were a lot of shadows, and a lot of vegetation there.” Drew had never had so much trouble focusing on the minutiae of a mission before. He inhaled sharply. He had to put aside the fact that this rescue mission was to find and save the woman he loved. Using every bit of will at his command he did just that, and focused his gaze back on the map. “Our best chance is to go in fast, on foot, and after dark. We have no idea who has her, how well armed he or they are, or how Julia is being held. We don’t know—” He had to take one moment to push back his fear, to swallow the lump that wanted to choke his throat and tear his eyes. “We don’t know what condition she’s in.” Too easily he could recall the sight of all that blood—Julia’s blood—that had drenched the dash in her car and bits of broken plastic from the dispersed air bag. “There’s been no ransom demand yet, and that lends credence to Peter’s theory. One thing to consider is that if Miguel Ramos
is
behind this, he likely ordered that she not be hurt until he’s there. He’d want to make certain he has Peter’s attention, first.”
“We’ve asked for a title and records search to see if that property is connected to Ramos in any way,” Peter said. “On the surface, the answer would seem to be no. My friends in Washington are still digging. I’ve also been advised that as of an hour ago, that bastard was still holed up at his base in Culiacán.”
“Do we know how much longer Julia’s cell phone will keep transmitting?” Richard Benedict looked considerably more haggard than he had the last time Drew had seen him at
Lusty Appetites
. His brothers looked even more so.
It occurred to Drew that Richard, too, was aware of that third alternative and was just as determined not to give it any credence.
“She had it plugged in overnight, last night,” Drew said. “It was fully charged when she turned it on around ten this morning. Should go another twenty-four hours, easily.”
“Good.” He looked like he wanted to say more. Since he
was
the ranking member of the Benedict family present, no one thought to deny him the right.
Richard looked at Drew, and then Dev. Then he scanned the rest of the people—family, or soon-to-be family, all.
“Everyone’s been put on alert. That means, effectively, we have all the phone lines into all of our businesses and all of our houses being monitored. Any call that comes in from the kidnappers will be routed here. I don’t have to remind y’all that it’s been the family’s policy—hell the Town Trust’s policy, come to that—to
never
negotiate with kidnappers.”
Drew’s temper soared, and he took one step toward Richard, ready to lay him flat with one punch. He stopped when that man held up his hand.
“But this is
my
sister who’s been taken, and I don’t give a fuck what the policy is, or how much I have to pay to get her back. She’s worth everything I have.”
“We’ll get her back.” Drew let his anger toward Benedict go. He said the words with utter confidence, and not only because he believed them.
The plain truth was that no other outcome was acceptable.
His gaze met Dev’s, and he saw the same total resolve in his eyes.
“Damn right we will.” Dev stood silently as Drew had seen him do so many times, until everyone turned their attention to him.
“Okay, we know our objective, and where we’re going. Let’s get our equipment together and bring Julia home.”
“I think I have most of what you’re going to need,” Adam Kendall said. Then he smiled, a feral kind of smile that Drew had no difficulty interpreting.
“No offence, Sheriff,” Dev said, “but some of what we need isn’t exactly standard issue.”
“None taken, Lieutenant Commander,” Adam replied. “I may not be a SEAL, but I’m not without my resources. I made a few calls earlier. Come and see what I’ve gathered together for you.”
Drew met Dev’s gaze. It was good to know they weren’t the only ones who’d do whatever it took to get Julia back. They were used to being dropped and then left to their own wits to succeed.
Having an entire town at their backs would likely make all the difference in the world.
Chapter 13
At the sound of the approaching footsteps, Miguel Ramos turned from contemplating the view of the ocean over the cliffs. The man who’d arrived owed his loyalty to no one. He worked simply for money, one contract at a time. He’d introduced himself as Mr. Talbot, and Ramos recognized his ilk. Mr. Talbot was a stone-cold killer—but he was also a businessman.
Ramos was beginning to think the entire concept of loyalty had become passé. The only thing he could truthfully count on was the greed of those he’d hired. He understood that some of his people thought he was on the downward slope, and that his power waned. He dared not bring any of them close, for he knew several of them would slit his throat if given half the chance.
This man he’d hired cared nothing for his organization. He only cared for the money. Ramos felt confidence in him, for if he wanted to continue to get paid, he would continue to do his bidding.
“Do you have something to report?”
“Yes, sir. Pecos’s car has stopped moving. He’s still in Texas but several hundred miles southwest from Lusty, where he’d been almost constantly for the last few days. I have his current location pinpointed on a map.”
Miguel Ramos nodded. When Juan had been here, receiving his bonus and his new orders, Ramos had ordered a GPS tracking device placed on his car.
He’d failed to keep a proper control of the situation when he’d hired young Manny Ramirez to kill Peter Alvarez.
That was a mistake he would not make again.
“Are there any reports of a missing young woman from Lusty?”
“My partner has been monitoring the official police frequencies—both local and State—and there’s been nothing so far.”
Ramos tilted his head, because the man’s tone told him there was more. “But?”
“But there have been a lot of people, including the sheriff, holed up at the airfield outside of town since late afternoon today, including a couple of men who look like pros. My partner pegs them either as Rangers or Navy SEALs.”
Ramos thought about that for a moment. “It makes sense to me that if the good people of Lusty, Texas, found one of their women missing, they would want to handle the situation without arousing media attention. They would take care of it themselves.”