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It took every drop of willpower she had to lower her heels back onto the floor, but she did so, breaking their connection. Stepping back, she touched a knuckle to her still-tingling lips. Then she slung the strap of her bag back over her head and, in an attempt to minimize anything that might set off recognition from Joaquin, positioned its bulk on the opposite side from where she usually wore it and slid on a pair of shades.
The doors whooshed open and she met Finn’s eyes. “Thanks again, Finn Kavanagh,” she said in a voice that sounded rusty. “You did your mama, three sisters, two grandmothers and boatload of aunts and girl cousins proud.”
Stepping out onto the platform, she slid on her iPod earphones. Then, pretending to move in time to music she hadn’t turned on, she carved a path for herself through the thankfully crowded station.
* * *
FINN STEPPED INTO the car’s open doorway to watch Mags salsa her way through the throng waiting to board. He ignored the people clumped up in front of the gondola even as they surged forward the second Mags cleared it. He was bumped and jostled but refused to budge. Instead, he did his best to keep Mags’s brightly patterned head-cover thing in view as his gondola inched along in one direction while she moved in and out of view in the opposite.
He was happy as a monkey with a peanut machine to have his vacation back, but he had to admit that while the past he-didn’t-know-how-many minutes had been far from relaxing, which, face it, was his chief goal for the next two weeks, they had sure as hell gotten his blood pumping. And as he’d watched her sit on the floor and transform herself with the help of only a few items, he’d found himself downright mesmerized.
And then there was the three-hundred-pound gorilla in the car. Her kiss.
Man. He hadn’t been expecting that and it had knocked his socks off.
Licking his bottom lip as if a ghost taste might have survived, he felt the cabin door trying to close against his side and stepped out onto the platform. He could always catch another car. But before he went whistling on his merry way, he intended to make sure Mags made a clean getaway.
His gondola glided away, then out through the turnabout and he crossed to one of the center pillars to get out of the flow of still fairly heavy foot traffic. With coloring closer to the El Tigrians, he didn’t stand out in the crowd the way Mags had before she’d worked her magic with the scarf and her face paints. Yet even so, he was an obvious gringo. So he found a spot in the shadow of a column that at least partially concealed him as he kept an eye on the two remaining cars that had entered the terminal behind his. Best-case scenario, Joaquin had caught the car still approaching. If that were the case Mags would be in the wind before the guy cleared his gondola.
But, of course, that would’ve been too easy, and even as Finn watched, Joaquin pushed past an elderly couple who were exiting the furthermost gondola, then stopped dead to survey the crowd. The cabin’s remaining few occupants split to flow around him like a stream circling a boulder.
The cartel enforcer, or whatever the hell he was, stood silently as seconds stretched into eternity. His gaze intent, he appeared to be sectioning the area into quadrants and scrutinizing each closely. After several moments that felt like hours to Finn, Joaquin turned back as if he planned to catch the next group of gondolas already entering the station.
Finn breathed a silent sigh of relief.
Prematurely, as it turned out, because Joaquin suddenly spun around, then leaped up onto a bench against the inside wall and stood on his toes, obviously craning to see something. Seconds later, he leaped down from the bench and sprinted for the down escalator.
“Son of a bitch!” Clipping together his backpack’s belt to keep it from bouncing, Finn took off after him. Chasing an armed-to-the-teeth maniac was not how he’d intended to spend his vacation.
Yet how would he live with himself if he walked away and Baby Psycho hurt Mags?
Or worse. Because hurt was probably putting a pretty face on things. God knew Joaquin hadn’t seemed the least bit averse to shooting her or stabbing him.
Mags had done a good job of disguising herself, so how the hell had the kid recognized her? He understood Joaquin exiting the car at the station. Subjecting each station to at least a cursory check was just good business sense, and the way the cars crept through the station with a new gondola always less than a minute behind, it wasn’t as if the guy would have missed his ride if he failed to spot her. But that was the logic of a mature mind and the boy had struck Finn as a whole lot more reactionary than a logical thinker.
So maybe someone coached him. But how had he recognized Mags?
The streets around the station were busy when he burst through the exit a few minutes later and he moved to the side of the door to get his bearings.
At first all he could see was the kaleidoscope of people moving up and down a long narrow avenue made of multicolored pavers. But taking a page from Joaquin’s playbook, he climbed onto a bulkhead that separated a restaurant’s outdoor tables from the sidewalk traffic and sectioned the area into quadrants. He started with the one dead ahead of him.
And spotted Mags by the color of her headgear a couple of blocks ahead of him. When he shortened his focus to the area between them, he located Joaquin as well. And the other man was a helluva lot closer to her than Finn was.
Determined to eliminate that distance, he set off at a dead run.
He was closing in on Joaquin when Mags stopped at an ancient car that looked as though it was held together by spit and rubber bands. He also saw Joaquin stop. The young man pulled that damn gun from the back of his pants and took a serious-looking shooting stance.
But then Joaquin seemed to hesitate. His heart crowding his throat, Finn put on an additional burst of speed just as the other man called, “Magdalene?”
With a whole lot less certainty in his voice than Finn had heard before.
So he wasn’t sure it was her. If Mags played her cards right, she’d ignore Joaquin, get in her car and take off as if his insistent shout had nothing to do with her. It wasn’t like the kid could follow her on foot.
She clearly wasn’t a card player, however, for she whipped around just as Finn came up behind Joaquin.
And as if sensing an impending threat, the cartel soldier started to turn, but Finn, who had several inches on him, drove his elbow into the vein he saw throbbing on the side of Joaquin’s neck, then snapped the back of his fist into the side of the thug’s face.
“Ow! Jesus!” He cupped his hand to his chest, feeling like he’d fractured his knuckles on the kid’s hard head. But at least Joaquin dropped like a stone. Once again his gun clattered away, but this time with a better outcome since Finn was able to snatch it up and shove it into the front of his own waistband. He didn’t have time to check that the safety was on. But he did cross himself and say a quick prayer that he didn’t shoot his dick off.
Because there was an outcome that didn’t bear thinking about.
Although, looking on the damn bright side, it at least would put an end to all this bullshit agonizing over should he or shouldn’t he be thinking about settling down.
He heard the whine of an overworked car engine reversing faster than sounded wise and looked up from using one hand to relieve Joaquin of his knife and feeling for a pulse with the other to see Mags’s junker. At the same time, he felt a thump beneath his fingertips—and had mixed feelings. He’d give a bundle not to have to spend the entire time he was down here looking over his shoulder. But neither did he want anyone’s blood on his hands.
Shelving the dilemma when the car screeched to a stop alongside him so abruptly its chassis rocked on its axles, he pushed back from where he was crouched over Joaquin’s unconscious body.
Mags leaned toward the passenger window. “Get in!”
He climbed to his feet and got in. She burned rubber the ancient tires couldn’t afford to lose getting out of there and Finn retrieved the gun from its precarious hiding place and leaned forward to slide it under his seat.
Without taking her gaze from the road, she reached across the seat and gripped his wrist. “Thank you,” she said fervently, her palm warm against his skin. “Again.” She gave him a quick glance before turning her attention back to the road. “I made that necessary twice in one day. It was dumb of me to answer when he called my name.”
“That’s how we learn.” He watched as her long, narrow fingers slipped away. Then he raised his eyes to study her face. “So. Magdalene, huh?”
She scowled. “Nobody calls me that but my parents.”
He didn’t understand why, since he thought it was a prettier name than Mags, if not as hipster cool. But he merely shrugged. “Where you heading?”
“As far away from here as I can. Then I need to get to a phone. I know my mother mentioned the Munoz grow farm in one of her letters but I kind of skimmed the part that said where it was. If it actually did say.” She took her gaze off the road long enough to give him a quick grimace. “It didn’t seem important at the time so I don’t really remember.”
She flapped a hand at him. “In any case, I’ll call my neighbor to see if she’ll go over to my place and try to find the reference in one of my letters. It wasn’t that many mailings ago.”
“Are you kidding me?” Not being hampered by anything so modern as a seat belt, he turned in his seat to stare at her. “Your big idea is to head right into the heart of a cartel?”
“I plan to get my folks away from one, yes.”
“Are you undercover DEA?”
She snorted. “Do I look like a drug enforcement agent?”
“Ah, the always popular answer-a-question-with-a-question ploy—I’ll take that as a no. You trained in special ops, then?”
She sighed. “I’m guessing you know I’m not that, either.”
“Then I suggest you get back on your meds, darlin’, because you clearly have suicidal tendencies if you’re self-aware enough to know you lack said training, yet intend to tackle an organized syndicate, anyhow.”
“I do not have suicidal tendencies! I didn’t say I was going in there with guns blazing—supposing I even had a gun. But if I can pinpoint the farm, then I can take that information to the nearest US embassy. They should know which agency to contact to get my folks out.”
“Let the cops pinpoint the farm!”
“You think they haven’t tried, Finn?” For the first time he heard frustration in her voice and realized that up until now she’d actually been damn calm about all the violence aimed her way. “The government’s been aerial spraying the crap out of every grow spot they hear about, so if Munoz’s operation is still intact, the way Joaquin made it sound, it’s because the cops don’t have a clue where it’s located.” Making a face, she turned off the main street. “With the possible exception of his cousin, that is. But for all we know, they could have a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy. And even if they don’t...well, clearly he isn’t talking.”
She turned two more corners before glancing over at him again. “In any case, it’s not your problem. Where do you want me to drop you off?”
His teeth clenched so tight he felt muscles jump in his temples and jaw. “Not my problem?” he said in a low, quiet voice that would have had his siblings backing away. “You don’t think it’s a bit of a problem that if I wanna stick around Santa Rosa I’d better be prepared to keep a constant eye peeled for a homicidal maniac who probably hasn’t even seen his twenty-first birthday? Because, sister, that boy’s gonna be gunning for my ass.”
She shot him a stricken glance but he wasn’t feeling particularly charitable at the moment. “Much as I sympathize with your plight, lady, you’re not the only one who got sucked into this mess.” He twisted around to look behind them, then blew out a breath and settled forward again when he saw the road was empty.
Then he looked over at Mags. Her face was set in determined concentration and her hands held the wheel so tightly her knuckles were white beneath her skin. She hadn’t asked for this any more than he had, and he knew he oughta cut her some slack.
But his temper, always slow to rise, was equally poky to cool back down once it had. So, even as he regretted the flatness in his voice, he said, “Whataya say we just drive the hell away from here until we put some distance between us and this cartel that thinks it’s copacetic to try to kill us? Once we get that part down pat I’ll be happy to explore the issue of where to drop me.”
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_0ab9892d-ade5-502c-86b8-da9382790108)
JOAQUIN DRUMMED IMPATIENT fingertips against his thigh as he waited to be admitted to Victor Munoz’s inner sanctum. He’d been cooling his heels for twenty minutes and was tired of waiting. Yet the moment the door opened, he braced himself, suddenly wishing he had more time to prepare. Because while his boss was mostly a reasonable man, during those times when he wasn’t, he was really not. As in, psycho not.
And there was no predicting which reaction you’d get.
But the one thing Joaquin could be certain he’d always get was El Tigre’s most powerful drug lord. Standing now in the doorway of his plush office, dressed in pristine white linen, Munoz looked at him with a hooded gaze. “It is done?” he demanded in the English he insisted upon whenever he met Joaquin in his office. “You have brought her to me?”
Easing out his breath, Joaquin collected himself, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, Boss. They got away.”
For a second Munoz’s expression was noncommittal. Then his eyes turned to obsidian ice. “Define they.”
“Deluca’s daughter and some gringo who interfered both times that I had her. I don’t know if they knew each other beforehand or if he’s merely a do-gooder who just can’t stop himself from sticking his nose in my business. They weren’t actually together either time, but were definitely in the same areas.”
He couldn’t bring himself to admit that one or the other of the North Americans had relieved him of his gun and his knife. Not that it was hard to get his hands on any weapon he desired—he could replace what was stolen from him with the snap of his fingers. Retaining his boss’s good opinion, on the other hand—
Well, that might not be as easily achieved.
Munoz swore creatively, but as quickly as his anger surfaced it disappeared behind a calm facade again. This was because Munoz was a businessman. And temper, as his boss was fond of saying so frequently, had “no place in business.”
Cold comfort, Joaquin thought, to the man he’d seen Munoz gun down while still in the grip of this temper that had no place.
But that had no bearing on the here and now. He shoved the memory into a shadowy corner of his mind as the older man stood aside and indicated he should step into his office.
“The fault is not entirely yours,” Munoz said in a rare near-apologetic tone as he rounded his desk to take his seat. He waved Joaquin into one of the two guest chairs. “As it turns out, the blame in this instance can be laid at my madre’s feet.”
Joaquin shivered and surreptitiously crossed himself. He had no idea how old the venerable Augustina Munoz was. If he were to judge by her thick, sturdy shoes, eye-liftingly tight bun and perpetual black, head-to-toe clothing, he’d say she must be closing in on the hundred-year mark. Yet considering how surprised he’d be if Victor had reached his fiftieth birthday, that probably wasn’t so. Unless, of course, she had her son late in life.
But he was once again veering from the track. He’d only wondered about her age because Senora Munoz wasn’t even five feet tall and she was a scrawny little thing. He doubted she’d tip the scales at a hundred pounds if she was soaking wet and had a concrete block tied to one ankle.
But the woman was crazy scary. He licked lips gone dry at the mere thought of what she could do and whispered the unthinkable aloud. “She threatened you with the maldeojo, didn’t she?”
Anyone who had half a brain knew not to displease Mama Munoz. She’d lock you in the crosshairs of her evil eye in a heartbeat and your cojones would shrivel up and fall off.
And that was only if she was feeling charitable.
All the same...
“But, no,” he said, shaking his head as he answered his own question. “A mother would never do that to her own son.”
“Mine would,” Munoz disagreed. “And she did. She has strong opinions, my mamita.” To Joaquin’s surprise, the older man sounded proud of the fact. But the pleasure in his eyes faded as he focused on Joaquin.
“You know as well as I do,” Victor said, “that the Deluca woman has been a thorn in my side for some time now with her constant interference in my business. I speak, of course, of the missionary, not the daughter you failed to bring me.” Annoyance snapped in Victor’s eyes and his voice grew clipped with the unnecessary clarification, causing Joaquin’s blood to cool considerably.
But then the older man seemed to forget his pique as he selected a cigarillo from the ornate humidor on his desk. He didn’t bother offering Joaquin one, but Joaquin was perfectly happy to be ignored when he saw how, in the wake of lighting the small cigar with a gold lighter, Munoz seemed to wave his spurt of displeasure away along with the perfect blue smoke ring he blew out. Then the drug lord turned his attention back to the subject under discussion.
“I was through having my new recruits tell me they couldn’t run drugs because Senora Deluca said it was wrong. But when I said to my lieutenant in the privacy of this office that the mouthy Deluca needs to be silenced once and for all, my mama, who is studying her Bible two floors away, she sends for me and says no killing of the missionary. The woman has the ears of a ghost bat and she insists that even though the Deluca is a Baptist and not one of the True Faith, she is a woman who does good works and makes our people’s lives better.” He fixed his gaze on Joaquin. “So I expect you to find Deluca’s daughter and bring her to me. She’s my leverage to make the missionary toe the line.”
“I’m not sure where she is,” Joaquin admitted. “The man, he knocked me out so I didn’t see which way she leaves. All I know for certain is she is driving a—how do you say it?—a ruin of a rental car.”
“A wreck?”
“Sí. This.”
Munoz pinned him in his sights. “Then track this rental car down—it’s a place to start.” Shrugging, he swung his heels atop his desk and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “At least we have in our favor the fact that she thinks her parents are in the States and doesn’t realize they’re being held at the farm.”
Joaquin opened his mouth to correct Munoz’s mistaken assumption, but then snapped it shut without revealing what he’d done. He didn’t plan to end up like the last hombre who had displeased the boss, staring with fixed, sightless eyes at this very ceiling while his blood pooled on the tiles beneath his body.
So he forced a smile. “Sí,” he agreed as strongly as he could. “At least she doesn’t know that.”
* * *
MAGS STARED AT the water dripping from the rental car’s radiator hose onto the potholed macadam and felt her frustration grow. When it came to most things mechanical, she was hopelessly unqualified. Still, needing to do something, she gave the nearest tire a hard kick.
And oh, crap. That hurt.
Determined not to let her travel companion see the result of her childish fit of temper she turned her head away so that even if he looked, which he didn’t show any actual sign of doing, he wouldn’t see the tears that rose in her eyes.
She blinked rapidly to help speed their retreat. But the tears kept mounting because she couldn’t ignore the fact that she and Finn Kavanagh were in the middle of nowhere. Admittedly, that wasn’t unusual in this country where most of the population centered around a handful of cities, but they were still who knew how many miles from even the smallest township. With a dead car.
“Worthless piece of crap,” she muttered.
“That’s not necessarily true.” Finn, squatting on the road in front of the car’s raised hood, quit pawing through his backpack to look up at her.
Strictly to disagree, of course. They’d only known each other a few hours and already she understood that they looked at darn few things through the same spectrum. Turning away, she hastily wiped away her stupid, stubborn tears.
“This car’s actually in better shape than she looks,” he said with an irritating good cheer that made her want to kick another tire. She turned back to see him once again digging through his bag. A second later, he made a satisfied noise deep in his throat and pulled out a roll of red tape. “This oughta fix her,” he said and surged easily to his feet.
“What? Really?” Her tears evaporating along with her foul mood, she stepped forward to see. Not that she had the first idea what was so magical about the tape that it could restore function to their rental—and probably wouldn’t even if it came with detailed instructions.
“Yep. Here, hold this.” He handed her the roll. “Put your fingers through the spool like so.” He touched his index fingertips together to demonstrate.
She did as directed and, standing this close, gained an unwelcome awareness of the clean scent of his skin. To keep herself from staring at the damp cotton that banded his biceps and stretched across his strong chest, she looked down at the roll slowly rotating around her finger bridge as he unspooled a length. It had some kind of plasticky substance that kept the layers from touching. “What is this stuff?”
“Silicone tape,” he said as he separated a good foot of it from the roll. “Best invention ever. It tolerates high temperatures and sticks to itself. That adhering part’s no small deal, because it eliminates the need for clamps.” He looked around and, with a jut of his jaw, indicated the knife he’d liberated from Joaquin. “Hand me that, will ya?”
