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“Sorry.” She took a deep breath. What on earth was wrong with her? When had she sunk to petty needling? Rafe Montoya’s private life was none of her business. And it was certainly not her place to judge. She was an intelligent woman, she ought to be able to find a better way of dealing with her unwanted attraction toward him.
She refocused on the task at hand. “I’m concerned about how they are treating her.” If they planned to kill her all along, they wouldn’t worry about minor damage along the way, would they?
He nodded, sober now. He knew the criminal mind as well as she did, maybe better—from both sides of the law.
From what she’d heard when they’d worked for the DEA, he had left a rather dark past behind him when he’d moved to Miami from Ladera, although she didn’t know the details. They hadn’t known each other back then, worked different territories, but Rafe’s busts were legendary. Then they both left the agency, he a year sooner than she had, and by chance both ended up recruited by Miami Confidential, an undercover division of the Department of Public Safety.
“How long before the vote on Juan’s bills?” he asked.
“Seven days, I think.” A comfortable margin. They would have Sonya out of the country long before then and safely back in Miami.
“Do you think the kidnappers will try for the money again?”
She thought for a moment. “Fuentes had shown up for it twice.” And was fatally wounded by Rafe during the second handover attempt. “I’m not sure if the real mastermind who’s behind all this cares that much about the money, though. If it’s Juan he or she wants, then the fact that the kidnapping took place in the U.S. and that there was a ransom note to Botero—it might be all just to throw the police off the scent.”
“There might not be any of the kidnappers left in Miami, except for the ones who are in custody.” Two men who’d been with Fuentes had been apprehended the day he was shot. They hadn’t turned out to be all that useful. Isabelle had questioned them and was fairly convinced they weren’t lying when they’d claimed that they knew little of Fuentes’s plan other than day-to-day instructions and had no idea whether there was a boss above Fuentes or who had Sonya in Ladera and how big the home team was here.
Her gaze strayed to the half-eaten power bar in her hand that she’d forgotten as they talked. She had packed dozens of them in preparation for the trip. She finished this one now and washed it down with a few gulps of bottled water, then lay on her back and looked up. The stars were coming out. “We better get some rest.”
Rafe’s backpack rustled. He was probably going for his own supper.
She stared at the night sky but could not make the feeling of endlessness and peace settle into her tense body. Was Sonya looking up at the same stars? Probably not. She’d be hidden out of sight. But her kidnappers… How many were they? She figured on a handful of men. More than that would draw attention. There might even be just one at a time. They could be guarding her in shifts.
Would they hurt her?
Her jaw tightened at the question that kept her up at night. Because she knew they might. There were a lot of things they could do to her while still keeping her in a condition good enough that, when her father demanded to hear her voice, she could say a few words over the phone.
The strong smell of spices made her glance over at Rafe. He was chewing on some smoked meat he had bought at a local market before they’d begun their hike two days ago.
“God, I missed this.” He just about moaned with pleasure.
His joy seemed so complete, she couldn’t help but smile. “How long has it been since you visited?”
“Too long and not long enough.” He gave her a rueful grin.
“Is there— Would you be in trouble if we ran into…” She half voiced the question that had popped into her mind from time to time since they’d landed, then stopped. She didn’t want to offend him.
“Is there a warrant out for my arrest?” He drew up a black eyebrow, humor playing at the corner of his mouth. “No. Even in my most stupid younger years, I was always smart enough not to get caught.” He took another bite, chewed and swallowed.
“And your old…um…associates?”
His face turned serious. “We are nowhere near them.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then shook off whatever memories her questions had brought forth. “I’m not saying I won’t be happy to be back in Miami, though.”
Back to the parties, back to his women, no doubt. Oh, what did she care? “What do you tell your girlfriends when you have to leave at a moment’s notice like this?” She put forward another question she’d been successfully swallowing until now.
“Family emergency,” he said. “No girlfriend at the moment, if that’s what you’re getting at. I am conveniently available.”
Her polite upbringing didn’t allow her to snort or produce any other rude sound, despite the four brothers she’d grown up with—her grandmother had been a Southern belle.
As far as she could tell, Rafe was always “conveniently available” even when he did have a girlfriend, although that was a strong term for one of his temporary liaisons. Girlfriend implied commitment and some kind of semipermanence.
“Gone through the whole city already? I suppose you’re going to have to move.” She meant to sound humorous and winced at how bitchy her words came out.
“Very funny.”
“Not really.” It was sad that despite the type of man he was, she was still more attracted to him than to anyone she’d ever dated. But if they got involved and then split up, working in the same office would be murder. So she wasn’t going to go there.
“I’m hoping you’ll change your mind about me,” he said after a while.
At thirty-four, she really was old enough to know better. “Hope is good,” she said sweetly. “It’s a positive emotion.”
RAFE PACKED AWAY his food and lay on his back.
He would have liked to think if he really went after her, he could get her. Women had always come easy, one of the few areas of his life he never had to worry about. Isabelle, though… She was different. She was too smart by half, one of the things that attracted him to her. Probably too smart to get involved with the likes of him.
He enjoyed flirting with her at the office—gave him something to look forward to in the mornings. But he never hit on her seriously, despite that she was one of the most gorgeous women he had had the extreme good luck to meet. For one, she was a coworker. Two, he figured she deserved someone better.
In a different world, if he were a different man… No sense in going there, no matter how many times she’d got him hot under the collar.
“We’ll resume climbing at first light,” he said.
“I’ll be ready.” She pulled a straight face, pretending hard that she wasn’t petrified.
He found it fascinating to watch how she went ahead in the face of any fearsome task brought on by their mission so far. First there would be uncertainty and doubt in her eyes, then she would set those sexy lips into a firm line and seem to draw from somewhere deep within the courage necessary, pulling herself straight and unfailingly rising to the occasion.
Her sheer determination was a like a force field around her. With her normally soft, fawn-colored eyes turned hard as they were now, if she stood at the rim of their ledge, spread her arms and said that by God she was flying to the top, he would believe her.
She would conquer the rest of the cliff in the morning, he would bet his new boat on it. When the time came to climb, she would call forth the necessary strength. But for now, with a long uncomfortable night ahead of them, she looked like she could use some encouragement, a reminder of how close they were to their goal.
“If all goes well we should be at the army base by noon. We’ll do some recon, pinpoint Sonya’s exact location and move in as soon as it’s dark again,” he said, and gained heart from the thought as well.
In twenty-four hours, Sonya Botero would be safe.
She’d been nice the few times they’d met socially, long before she’d become a client at Weddings Your Way. They’d flirted once, briefly, at a party, brought together by their common Laderan heritage. Then she’d fallen for Juan DeLeon, one of Ladera’s more prominent politicians. The Laderan community in Miami was all abuzz with the news.
He felt responsible for her. Not only because he’d known her before, but because, as head of security for Weddings Your Way, securing her wedding would have been his responsibility. She was kidnapped right in front of his building, under his nose. It galled him.
He hated any man who would harm a defenseless woman, use her as a pawn. He made it his personal mission to bring Sonya back and keep his partner safe in the process. Not to mention keep his hands off Isabelle. Close proximity and overpowering temptation notwithstanding.
SONYA BOTERO SHIFTED as much as her ropes let her, allowing circulation to return to her left leg, which felt as if a thousand ants were crawling all over it. She held her gaze on the leg to keep herself assured the real army of ants, the ones that had marched right through her prison hut a few days ago, had gone. She saw them now only in her repeating nightmares and would continue to see them there for a long time to come. If she lived.
Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give up.
At least her feet had healed. She clamped on to the one positive thing she could think of. The jute sandals she’d been given at the beginning had rubbed her skin raw, and she’d been worried about developing some infection. But now that she hadn’t been allowed outside for days, her wounds had had a chance to scab over and start to mend.
She thought of Juan and focused on that. Juan would come for her, Juan and her father—both men formidable in their own right.
Just a little longer. Almost over.
Trouble was, she’d been telling herself the same thing for about five weeks now, believing it a little less each day.
She couldn’t give up. If she lost faith…
But faith was hard to keep when she was hurt and hungry, when her life was threatened daily. At the beginning she’d got regular meals and trips to a nearby waterfall in the evenings to clean up. Although at the time she’d thought of her captivity as unbearable, now she wished for those times back. She hadn’t eaten in two days, hadn’t bathed in four.
Were they growing bored with their task of guarding her? Or had something gone wrong with Miami? She’d overheard enough to know that she was being held for ransom. Where was it?
It’d be here. Soon. Juan and her father would see to it. She had to keep believing that.
Both men had lost so much already: her father losing her twin sister to leukemia at the age of six, Juan losing his unborn son to drugs and his ex-wife to insanity. She hated the thought that now they had to worry about her.
From where she was, she could see the small fire and the men who gathered around it, drinking, one of them shoving a needle into his arm deep in the shadows. She still thought of escape now and then but no longer had the strength to attempt it.
The money is coming.
The money is coming.
The money is coming.
She repeated that over and over in her head. She knew better than to even whisper when she wasn’t asked.
Chapter Two
Rafe rubbed his elbow, sore from wielding the machete all morning. “You’re too close,” he said, then paused. Had to be the first time he’d ever said that to a beautiful woman. Man, times were changing.
Isabelle dropped back.
Better. They had to keep a healthy distance between them so that if they were discovered they wouldn’t both be taken out by the same spray of bullets. Drug routes crisscrossed the mountains; marijuana plantations were fairly common; poppy fields bloomed in out-of-the-way clearings. And with those came the men who guarded them, the drug lords’ private armies.
Laderan army base notwithstanding, the locals knew who owned these parts and respected the real power, the men on whom their lives depended.
“What’s that noise?”
Rafe stopped to listen. “Trucks. We must be getting close to the main road.”
Most roads in the area were little more than footpaths that connected the mountain villages. The only paved highway for hundreds of miles led to the army base that guarded the north corner of the country. They’d been hearing planes overhead more frequently for the past few hours but couldn’t see any from the thick canopy above.
He moved forward, toward the sound of the trucks, his feet sinking with every step into the layers of leaf mold underfoot. Walking on a solid surface would have been nice, but even when they found the road they would have to keep in the cover of the trees. At least he’d be able to stop navigating by his GPS unit and simply go by sight at that point.
The sound of motors faded, but he kept going forward. In another five minutes, he could see more light filter through the trees ahead. “There.”
He signaled to Isabelle to keep down as they crept to the edge of the woods. Damn. He scanned the other side of the road, nothing but stumps and low brush for as far as he could see.
“Not good,” he said when she came up next to him. “Loggers.”
“Do we have to cross?”
“We don’t have to, but I wouldn’t have minded having options. I don’t like it. If they’re logging this far up the mountain now…”
“They might have cleared woods closer to the base, too,” she finished the sentence for him.
“Right. I’d prefer not having to come out into the open.” He glanced at her. She looked okay although she’d been more quiet than usual that morning—probably the side effect of the high elevation. The thin air was bothering him, too, and he’d grown up with it. “Want to stop and rest for a while?”
“Not yet. I can walk a little longer.” She gave him a small smile. “I hate to stop knowing Sonya is out there, suffering who knows what.” She was backing away already, a few yards into the woods where they could walk without having to worry about being seen from the road.
“If anything happens to us, Sonya is not going to be saved at all. It’s okay to take a break,” he reminded her. They had precious little time left, not enough for Rachel Brennan, head of Miami Confidential, or anyone else to come up with a backup plan. They had to succeed and for that they had to stay in good shape and not let themselves get too run-down.
She drew in a good lungful of air and straightened her back, visibly gathering strength. “We’ll be fine.” Her fawn-colored eyes glinted with determination.
“Okay,” he said, just as eager to get going. “We’ll eat as we go.”
He moved forward, watchful and alert to any dangers ahead. They’d been lucky so far with the wildlife, but surprises abounded in the jungle. Speaking of which, the forest seemed awfully quiet all of a sudden.
He stopped again.
“What’s going on?” she asked from behind him.
“Listen.” He strained his ears. Was a group of smugglers moving through the woods nearby? Maybe a predator?
He pulled his gun, Isabelle following his example.
And then he felt it, a small trembling that could easily have come from a caravan of military vehicles passing on the road, except for the lack of motor noise.
“Watch out for falling trees!” he shouted as the ground shook harder now.
She was looking at him wide-eyed, her knees bent as she tried to balance. Insects rained from the trees and she shrieked. He was over there in two leaps, covering her with his body as she crouched down.
“It’s okay. Hang on. Just an earthquake.” He had to continue shouting now to be heard over the groaning trees, large branches splitting and smashing to the ground around them.
Then it all stopped just as fast as it had begun.
“Just an earthquake?” she asked weakly, once the ground stopped moving.
“Happens all the time.” He straightened and did his best to clean the bugs off her while she still crouched there with her shoulders hunched, apparently trying to prevent anything from crawling under her collar.
“Define all the time,” she said as she stood, then shivered with revulsion as she took in the ground and all the creepy crawly natives that were busy burrowing under fallen leaves or taking flight.
“A couple of hundred quakes a year. Some are so small you don’t even feel them, some pretty big.”
“And you haven’t told me about this, because?”
“I forgot about them.” He shook his head. “Isn’t that weird?” There had been two big ones during his childhood. Hard to believe they’d skipped his mind. He’d been living in Miami a long time. “It’s been a while.”
And he’d had too many other things on his mind to remember everything he should have. He was worried about Sonya, the wildlife in the jungle, Isabelle’s distracting presence and the fact that fifteen years ago, before he had left for the U.S., he had been a misguided young man, very much part of the local drug trafficking scene. If he weren’t careful, he could easily run into one of several people who’d just as soon separate him from his skin than see him in it.
“We go this way.” He picked up his machete and struck the bundle of vines blocking their way. “Keep behind me. Once we reach the base, we have to get a detailed picture of the place, find out where Sonya is, make a plan.”
He got down to business, separating a knot of woody vines that blocked their way.
