“I don’t like this, Trent,” she whispered. “I don’t trust him.” She glanced back at Jorge. “It’s like he thinks I’m at fault or something.”
Circle of trust.
Jackson’s phrase came back to haunt him. Where was Trent in the trust factor? A foreigner, a US marshal in the midst of a violent event in what was only yesterday a quiet market area in the heart of the city. His guard was up. He wasn’t quite sure who he could trust. He only knew what he was sworn to do, protect Tara above all else.
At the police station, the process was efficient if dry. There was a “let’s get it over with” attitude. He found that strange but no different than the initial talk with Jorge. He guessed it was because of Enrique’s intervention.
The police had taken Tara’s statement. But their questions soon dried up when they discovered that she was unable to give a description of the suspect. Unfortunately, she’d only had a glimpse of a gun, the dark hair and an estimated height, and nothing else except how many shots were fired. There were a dozen people in the area who could tell them the same and they’d interviewed them at the scene.
“I’ll meet you at my place,” she said to him after she’d been told that the police had no further questions for her.
“No. Stay here with me.”
“Senor. Let the lady go. We—”
“No, you don’t understand,” he interrupted. And then stopped, realizing that there was only so much he could reveal.
“It’s all right,” Tara insisted.
“There is no need for the lady to wait,” the police officer said.
And it was clear the police officer was getting impatient.
He liked none of this. He wanted to tell the police where they could take their statement. “She should stay with me, considering everything that’s happened,” he said, making one last attempt.
“Senor, the lady is done here. She’ll be fine. A taxi is waiting.”
He took both her hands. “Go straight home.”
“I will,” she said.
Her face was pale but there was a calm thread in her words.
With no choice, he finally gave in. He had to wait for Jorge, who wanted to do a final interview. He was getting different treatment because of his status as a marshal. Unfortunately, as a witness, there wasn’t anything more that he could add.
He watched as she walked out. Her stride, despite everything that had happened, had a sureness about it. She was different than the girl he remembered. The physical change was obvious; her curves had been sweet but now they were the seductive lines of a woman. Even her manner was much more self-assured. He supposed she could say the same about him. How he was different from the boy she remembered.
Jorge entered the room a few minutes later. He glanced at the empty seat where Tara had been and shrugged. “We’ve got more than I anticipated. An eyewitness who managed to take a picture. I just wanted you to get a look at what you might be up against.”
He had a tablet in one hand. He stood at the other side of the desk, looking at it. Then he handed it to Trent. “Here it is. Take a look.”
The picture was a bit blurry. The subject had been in motion. It didn’t tell Trent much that he didn’t already know. It did allow him to identify the weapon. A handgun. A Glock, to be specific. But what was more disturbing was the angle of the gun and the juxtaposition of the people in the picture. He could see that the gun had been aimed where Tara had stood. A shudder ran through him and he was flooded by relief at the fact that she’d come out unscathed. He was also relieved that she wasn’t here to see this and be reminded at how close she’d come to being hurt. Or worse.
“I’d know that SOB anywhere,” Jorge said. He flipped to another screen that showed a string of wanted pictures. “Yago Cruz. He belongs to a cartel that has been nothing but a pain in the butt. Fortunately, I had nothing to do with them until now. They were a low-level cartel until they made their presence known here in Guanajuato State.” He shook his head. “I’d heard rumors a few years ago but to have them here...” He slammed his fist on the desk.
Trent thought that in an odd way the reaction was almost overdramatic, as if instead of being upset Jorge might be just the opposite. It was only an odd hunch and it did nothing to change his circumstances. He let the thought blow by.
Instead, Jackson’s words ran through his mind and he wondered again what they meant or if they meant anything at all in this context.
Circle of trust.
Chapter Ten
Never may be the time or place. I think we outgrew that part of our relationship a long time ago.
Tara would never forget saying those words or forgive herself for the insensitive way in which she’d said them. Worse, she hadn’t meant any of it. Not like that, not like they’d come out. The truth that lay in those words wasn’t in the hurtful parts. Instead, that had been the terrified part of her speaking. She treasured the memories of their earlier relationship. She always had.
But having Trent here, the first sight of him, had brought back feelings she wasn’t comfortable with. It was why she’d used Siobhan as a buffer yesterday, but now everything had changed. Trent had amazed her with his ability to jump in, to protect her and others. Not only that, but he was probably wrapping up the whole incident in a concise presentation to the authorities. Or at least that was what she assumed; he’d been gone just over an hour. He’d been a boy she’d admired and now he was the man who was threatening to claim her heart.
Tara pushed the thoughts from her mind. Rather than returning to her apartment as she’d promised, she was waiting for Trent at a small outdoor café at the top of the hill. It was safe. The crisis was over. And she was only a quarter of a block away from her apartment. She felt comfortable here with the sun beating down and a Spanish classic playing over the speakers. It was like this morning had never happened. This was an oasis in the middle of the chaos. It was a place where she could gather her thoughts.
And, truthfully, she didn’t want to face her landlords. She knew that they would have questions, especially knowing that she’d been in the market. For, as she’d been leaving this morning, Francesca had stopped for a few words before heading inside to make breakfast. Considering what had happened, and knowing that she had been there, it was only natural that there’d be questions. She’d prefer to have Trent at her side to present a united story. Would he tell them the truth? She wasn’t sure if she even knew what was real and what was fiction, what needed to be said and what didn’t.
How did they explain their involvement? Lies might be simple but their telling became complex. And the truth—what, exactly, was that? Something she hardly knew herself. Her location had become a secret until the trial was over. How long that would be, she didn’t know. Since the moment she’d fled that bank, everything had changed. Now it seemed that she was a danger to both herself and others.
She took a sip of the virgin margarita she’d ordered while she waited for Trent, and wished she’d ordered something stronger. She set the glass down and pulled a notepad from her bag. She began sketching with the pencil that was never not with her. It was calming. But art always was, even this project, which was overdue.
She hadn’t wanted to draw the gunman. His face had haunted her since the robbery. But she was here because of what she’d seen. It was time to share what the bank robber had looked like. It was time to sketch what she remembered. It would be needed.
A taxi drove by and stopped at the top of the hill at the base of the steps that led to her rental.
“Trent!” Tara called, waving her arms.
She knew the minute he spotted her, the minute she saw his frown as he approached, that he wasn’t pleased she hadn’t gone home.
“Why didn’t you go back?” Trent asked. “This isn’t safe.”
“It is safe, Trent. This whole area. You made it that way.” She looked up from
the face she’d been drawing. It was the man from the bank robbery in Pueblo. She’d lightly penciled the lines of his cheekbones. She’d added the fire to his dark eyes that had been both troubled and terrifying. The man haunted her and it had been tough bringing that memory to life in her art. Despite that, she’d sketched him from every angle she could remember. And now, with Trent’s eyes watching her, she continued to sketch.
“That’s him? The bank robber?” he asked. He watched her shade in here, add a bit more dimension there.
She nodded. “I’ll draw something better at home, where I have a drawing pencil and sketchbook. But I couldn’t wait. I didn’t think I should wait any longer.”
“Can I?” he asked as he reached for the small pad.
“Sure, go ahead.”
He frowned as he analyzed the various angles of the face she’d sketched. “This is amazing,” he said. “From these sketches, I’d easily recognize him on the street. We don’t need anything more than this unless there’s a detail you missed.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Hopefully it does the job and you catch him.”
He took pictures of her sketches and then texted them to someone.
“What did the police want from you?” she asked. “What did they ask?”
“Everything I could tell them about the connection to the robbery in the States.”
“And you think they’ll be of any help? And how did you know what not to tell them?” It was hard to decide in Mexico which police one could trust and which they couldn’t. She wondered how he’d known what to reveal or if the person he was speaking to was trustworthy. After all, he was here because of a foreign country’s criminal issue.
“I have a contact with the federal police. We wasted close to an hour in a back-and-forth with Enrique’s office in Mexico City. But the police are satisfied we’ve told them everything they need.”
“So, what do we do now?” She met his eyes, which seemed afire with determination.
“I can protect you more easily in the States. But we’ve been through that. I know you didn’t agree but I think now the choice is clear. We need to go back. You know that, don’t you?”
Something in her froze. The last thing she wanted to do was go home. But she knew now that she wasn’t safe in Mexico either, or at least not in San Miguel de Allende. She looked into Trent’s stormy blue eyes and remembered all they’d once had. She wondered what his life had been like in the time since. She assumed by his actions that he was single now. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have children or ex-wives or ex-girlfriends. She almost smiled at the plural, but Trent was a good-looking man.
“I need to get you home, where I can make sure you’re safe,” he said breaking into her thoughts and forcing her back to a disturbing reality. “We can’t waste any time getting you into witness protection.”
A shiver ran through Tara at the thought of going back and of what he was asking of her. She didn’t want to say it and yet right now, it was the elephant in the room. It was the fear that held her back, that kept her from saying yes, that made her want to run. He deserved to know.
“Tara?”
Seconds seemed to tick by as slowly as minutes before she could form the words. “My dad was in witness protection. He believed the authorities could protect him.”
He put his hands over hers as if he knew where this was going. And he well might. Her dad’s plight had been no secret, not to the authorities who had arranged witness protection. She looked in his eyes and saw the truth. He knew but it didn’t matter. This was about her, about her facing her worst nightmare. This had to be said.
“He believed them, believed the cops and their promises of safety.” Her voice shook, the words choked in her throat.
“You’re not your dad.”
“I tell myself that. It hasn’t helped.” She shrugged but the tears were threatening as they always did when she spoke of this, or even thought of it. That was why she never did, at least in recent years. There was nothing easy about this; no matter how hard she tried to put it in the past, it seemed determined to be part of her present.
“It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change the fact that he was killed while walking across a street in a strange town. It doesn’t change the fact that he died with his family miles away or that police protection failed in the worst way possible.”
“I’m sorry, Tara. I wish I could change what happened. I wished at the time, too.”
“You knew back then? How?” That was a surprise, she thought. He’d still been a kid, like her.
“Only by rumors after I...” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Suffice it to say, I heard.”
“You looked me up,” she said with disbelief in her voice.
“It must be tough,” he said as he skated over her accusation. “I couldn’t imagine losing my mom. Her house is the family gathering place.”.
She knew that his dad had died in a traffic accident when he was very young. As a teenager, he’d said regretfully that he couldn’t remember him. And that he couldn’t miss the man he’d never known. For her, it was different.
“Sometimes it’s like I just lost him.”
“And you don’t trust authorities because of it,” he finished. “Because of your father.”
She nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands.
“I was fifteen,” she said, as if stating the details, as if retelling the event would somehow give her the strength to do what she knew needed to be done. She couldn’t hide here any longer but the alternative terrified her. “Just after I left Pueblo.”
“I heard the full details many years later. But I’ve always wanted to reach out. I thought of you—of the pain you went through—often.”
She couldn’t help herself; her hands trembled but her gaze caught and held his. The empathy, the strength she saw there almost prompted her to say yes to his demands. Yet she couldn’t. Like she’d told him, she’d seen firsthand what could happen if she were to stay here. She had to make her excuses and get out. But she couldn’t leave with him either. She wouldn’t endanger him. What had happened in the market only confirmed everything he had said. She wouldn’t endanger anyone else. They were after her and as long as he wasn’t with her, he’d be safe. There was only one way to accomplish that. She needed to leave here without him. Except he would refuse to allow it if he knew. She was the reason he was here.
She would have to trick him. Go with the flow and take him by surprise because there was no way she could get around him and just take off. Trent was too smart for that; he always had been.
He held her hands tighter and his gaze never left hers.
“That was the past, Tara. You have to get it together. We need to leave here. And I need you to not only be on your game but to trust me.”
“I did, I mean I do, but—”
“This won’t be like your father,” he said. “This is us, Tara, we’ll make it. I won’t lose you again.”
“I was safe here,” she said as if that resolved everything. Yet she knew that she had no choice. She was the magnet for trouble. To protect him and others, she had to leave here. In the meantime, he had to believe that she was returning to the States with him.
She couldn’t endanger anyone again. What had happened today had been her fault. Determination coursed through her. While she couldn’t completely agree to what he wanted to do now, she would be there for him later. She’d make the promise now.
“Whatever it takes to get this piece of slime off the streets,” she promised. “Whatever it takes to make sure no one else is hurt, I’ll do.”
“Really?”
She almost smiled at the thought that her words had been so unexpected as to set him back on his butt. At the least, they took him by surprise.
“I’m a threat to everyone I’m near. People almost died today because of me.” She pul
led her hands free and touched his arm. “The police can’t protect me and you’re not in a position to carry a weapon here. This place isn’t safe for either of us.”
“Exactly,” he said and squeezed her hand. “I’ll keep you safe in the States. All right?”
“All right,” she said in a whisper. With those words she knew that both their destinies had changed but not exactly as he expected. Her palms felt sweaty and she was scared but the decision was made. She was striking out alone—without him.
* * *
LUCAS CRUZ SPIT out a string of foul words when he heard the news that Tara Munroe still lived. If nothing else, his brother was at least keeping him posted, but he’d paid his brother for her death. And now Yago was demanding even more. To meet his new demands, Lucas would need to rob more banks. What they’d robbed hadn’t been enough. He had two more heists planned in the hopes that would get him the full amount.
Already, the others were griping. He could shut them down. It was Yago he couldn’t control. It was imperative that the witness die and soon.
He couldn’t believe that she’d escaped again. This was causing him a headache. He wanted desperately to be in San Miguel, but crossing the border would be next to impossible. He had no valid passport and it took time to have a fake one made. Then there was the problem of getting back. Even if he could do all of that, he would still have to actually find her. He was betting that Yago would share none of what he knew with him. That was how things were between them. For now, Lucas was forced to rely on his brother.
He scowled at the thought that all of this was because of a stupid passerby who had somehow outsmarted them all. He wouldn’t have it. Bank robbing was evolving into a good deal and there was no way in hell they were going to see it end.
One woman dead before she could yap her pretty face off, and then it would be over. He lived. She died. And he came out rich. You couldn’t ask for a better deal than that. It was how life worked. Survival of the fittest.
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