Whitewater (Rachel Hatch Book 6)

by L T Ryan

  Hector Fuentes nodded his approval. His face brightened. "My son is becoming a man. A thinking man, but a man, nonetheless. Juan Carlos, I would like you to listen to Rafael's thoughts on this matter. It's time he started to learn the family business and the leadership needed to handle situations like these as they arise. For now, we'll consider this an apprenticeship of sorts."

  "As you wish," Moreno offered. No growl or hint of disrespect was present in the man's voice.

  Hector wrapped an arm around his son's shoulder. "Let this be your first real test of manhood."

  Rafael swallowed hard. He felt both men’s eyes upon him. Juan Carlos, although shorter by about two inches, seemed taller. His intimidating demeanor added a few inches. Rafael felt like he was a little kid again in the barber shop watching the blood covered man stare down at the dead barber with a knife jammed inside, under his chin until it cracked the top of his skull.

  "If you send a team out and dispose of her," Rafael was careful with his words, "we run the risk of bringing more heat down on us. We don't know who she is. She could be with the DEA or FBI. Who knows? Maybe she's with the CIA."

  "Or maybe the family of that Rothman girl hired a private investigator? Who cares?" The disgust was inserted back into the tone of Moreno's words.

  "Doesn't matter who. That's my point. If anybody knows she's here, we need to know. Because, if she goes missing, then more people come looking. Especially if she's got ties to a federal agency."

  Moreno stepped one foot closer, his nostrils flared. "When I make people disappear, nobody knows where to look."

  Rafael wasn't sure if the comment was made as a general testament to the man's skills, or a subverted threat directed at Rafael himself. Either way, he didn't like it, nor did he agree with it.

  "That's not the point. I'm sure you can make her disappear so that nobody would ever find her, but if somebody knows that she was looking into us and they happen to have other resources like a federal agency, and she disappears off the face of the earth, then we can expect more visitors."

  "Then, if you know better, tell me what you think we should do, Rafael," Moreno spat his name as if its taste in his mouth had soured.

  "Eddie Munoz is already out there. He's got the authority to make any interaction with the Nighthawk woman to look like part of an investigation. She did just burn down a nightclub. I think it's a good idea if Munoz picks her up."

  "And if she's with a federal agency?"

  "We dust her off, say it was an accident."

  "And let her live?" That part seemed a sticking point for the man who had chosen murder and mayhem as his life's calling.

  "Maybe we hold her long enough, official-like, until we can get the Rothman girl sold off."

  Moreno was quiet for a moment. It was Hector that spoke next. "Well, Juan Carlos, it sounds like you have your marching orders. Let me know when Munoz has our unwanted nuisance in hand. I'd like to have a conversation with this Ms. Nighthawk before we send her on her way."

  Rafael gave a slight bow of his head and then departed the room, leaving his father to finish his brandy, while he went to find the woman responsible for burning down the nightclub.

  Twenty

  Angela Rothman sat in a cell no bigger than the one from the previous day. But this one smelled different. Instead of the caustic paint thinner she sniffed for the better part of twelve hours yesterday, she enjoyed the fresh clean scent of citrus, though yesterday's cell was a whole lot quieter. Since arriving at her latest destination, there had been nothing but an incessant banging and clanging of bottles and a mechanical hiss and whir from outside the door. Having never seen the other side, she had no idea what was making the noise.

  The zesty scent filtered through a small crack underneath the door and the light that accompanied it was the only light she had since arriving. Between the clatter from the other side of the door and the constant dripping from a broken pipe in the ceiling, Rothman settled into the sound providing her the only source of entertainment while she waited. Not that she wanted entertainment. She wanted saving. She wanted that tall woman, the bad ass who had almost saved her in Arizona, Angela wanted her to come here now, to kick through those doors and rescue her.

  She regretted having dismissed Hatch's attempt. Angela wished she could go back in time. When she thought about the fire and her chance of escape, she could not understand why she resisted Hatch’s help. She was out of her mind back then.

  Thinking back on it, it was more of an outer body experience where she watched her actions, not fully in control of herself when it was happening. She regretted it, nonetheless. That wall of fire separated Angela from the only person within a thousand miles who seemed remotely capable of saving her. Angela knew well enough that it was unlikely the Nighthawk woman or anyone else would ever find her again. She passed the insufferable ticking of time by listening and watching.

  Angela took in her surroundings like a sponge took in water. Not that any of it had proved useful so far. But if she survived, she'd get to finally tell her father that the four years of Spanish he made her take finally paid off. She kept quiet that she was able to understand the men who had been escorting her through this hellish nightmare. They spoke more freely than they would have, had they known she could understand them.

  Sometimes she wished she didn't understand the things that they said. Most of the time, it was never good. Hope was fleeting, and she held on to her last thread of it with a death grip, hoping that something she heard would serve to benefit her.

  She'd been treated like an animal since crossing the border. They fed her, or better yet gave her what could be construed as food. The slop was better than starving, but the last thing that had been on a metal tray slid under the door looked like it had come from a pig's trough. Angela had eaten it, every last bit, and took the time to lick the tray clean. Gross? Yes. But she needed to keep herself strong.

  They were feeding her to keep her healthy enough to look presentable for sale value. She ate to be strong enough to fight back or escape when the time presented itself. Even in her starved state, the food turned in her stomach and the aftertaste in her belches almost brought it back up.

  After every meal, she felt woozy and slept for an unknown amount of time. She was also aware that they drugged the food, so each time she ate, she worried that her chance of escape would have alluded her, but skipping the meal was a luxury she couldn't afford.

  She always awoke after the meals with a knot in her stomach, just as she did a few minutes ago. She pushed the tray back under the door, which were Pencil's instructions. When you finish, the tray must be returned under the door. The door cannot be opened if the tray does not come back out. You will not receive water if the tray is not out of the door. Pencil's words were served with a side of onion soup, which is what the man's permanent body odor reeked of.

  Angela, of course had to test the rule. She kept the tray, hoping to bash it over their heads if she could ever figure out how to undo the ropes from her wrist. The same ropes that forced her to eat off the tray like an animal. In the battle of No Tray No Water, the kidnappers won.

  As of yet, nobody had bothered to clean the filth from her skin or offer her a change of clothes. She found a corner in every cell as her makeshift bathroom. If she ever survived, she would never tell anybody about the things she had to do, the smells she had to endure. Angela focused her mind on the scent of citrus, on the smell of freshly peeled oranges wafting underneath the door. She scooted closer, trying to blanket herself in the freshness of it.

  Angela nicknamed the two Mexicans guarding her Pencil and Bigfoot. Pencil was a man of epically thin proportions. He was tall but made to look even more so by his lanky build. Every time he smiled, he revealed the discolored gold tooth in the front of his mouth. Upon first seeing it, Angela wondered if the gold was even real. She hated the way his buggy eyes poked out from the bony features of his face. She hated more the way he looked at her with those eyes.

  Pe
ncil's stare unsettled Angela. She felt as though she could read the thoughts running through the wiry man's mind, and she didn't like what she found.

  His shorter and stouter partner she had named Bigfoot. Not so much for his size and bulk, but more for the thick wooly hair that poked out from his collar and extended down the length of his arm. The effect made him look more beast than man. While his thinner counterpart had a gold tooth, Bigfoot was missing most of his teeth and had a smile that would make a pro hockey player jealous. The scars decorating Bigfoot's face and hands spoke to the violence he'd both delivered and endured.

  He was a nasty man. The words he spoke about the things he wanted to do to Angela made her sick with worry. It had been Bigfoot who'd delivered her the water after she tested Pencil's rule. He removed the bottle cap and spit in it before recapping it and giving it to her. He then made her drink it in front of him while he looked on and laughed himself red. Before all of this was over, she hoped to see him dead.

  Her heart leapt at the sound of approaching feet. She'd come to recognize their tandem gait. Other people traversed the hallway, but nobody except for the two guards ever stopped or even slowed their pace while passing the door. The other people that moved by seemed to do so with purpose. Pencil and Bigfoot sauntered slowly as if time didn't matter.

  What made Rothman's heart skip a beat wasn't the fact that they were coming, it was the hurry in their approach that had her concerned. They were stepping with a purpose. And with men like this, their purposes were never well intended.

  Their shadows danced underneath the gap in the door. Rothman turned her ear and quieted her breathing. Her shoulders ached and her wrists were nearly worn to the bone. The cord securing them was a lot less painful than the cuffs they had used on her before, but the tenderness was unbearable. Long confinement in awkward positions didn't agree with her joints and muscles.

  Angela heard the tension in the man's voice. Pencil's matched his look. He spoke in a choked squeak. Bigfoot, on the other hand, sounded like the low rumble of a diesel truck, but it was Pencil who spoke first. His panic-babbled Spanish was difficult at first for Angela to pick up, but she honed in on keywords and phrases and was able to make out most of what he said.

  "I don't know how she did it," Pencil's voice was frantic. He was unhinged. He always had a nervous edge to him, but something was different, Angela could tell.

  "One woman burned down the club and took five of our girls?" Bigfoot's voice rumbled. "I know one thing, if I was there, she'd be in a room with the red head there."

  Pencil squeaked a laugh. "Maybe so. Doesn't matter. Not our job."

  "I know, I know," Bigfoot said. "The orders just came in. Somebody paid a good price, and we've got to get our package in there cleaned up and ready to go."

  Keys rattled against the lock. The shadows of her two captors crept inside as the door opened. Angela Rothman looked up into the light silhouetting their faces, and for the first time since crossing over into Mexico, she had her first glimmer of hope.

  Twenty-One

  Miguel Ayala pulled up in an older model Nissan Sentra missing three of its four hubcaps. When Hatch placed the call to Ayala, the newspaper man answered immediately and had then given her directions of where to go.

  Ayala had told Hatch to go to the San Antonio Nogales Road until it dead ended in a T intersection with Highway 2. He then instructed her to take a right and travel southwest on the two-lane highway for several miles until she came across the Mission of Guadalupe, a Christian mission devoted to caring for the people of the Rancho San Rafael region.

  Hatch waited in the parking lot with Letty for over an hour before Ayala arrived. Hatch figured the van she'd stolen had some type of GPS transponder or way of tracking it. Even though she didn't locate one when she pulled to the side of the road after fleeing the nightclub, it didn't mean it didn't have one. Better safe than sorry. Plus, even without a transponder pinging their location, it wouldn't be long until the many eyes of the cartel spotted their blacked-out van.

  Hatch was relieved to now be sitting safely inside of the Nissan while Letty slept curled in the backseat. Ayala must have been thinking along the same lines as Hatch because he’d picked a location in the opposite direction, where they headed now. They’d passed the T intersection on the left a few miles ago and proceeded in a north by northwesterly direction on Highway 2. They were a little over an hour into a four-hour drive before they reached Janos, a small town only a few hours east of Juarez. Ayala had a contact there who could help Letty get back to her family.

  Hatch also figured it was a good place to regroup away from Nogales so she could figure out her next move and hopefully get word on Angela’s location. They’d driven silently since leaving the mission's lot. Miguel realized both Letty and Hatch needed some time to recover both mentally and physically from the ordeal at the nightclub.

  With three hours left in the drive, Ayala broke the silence. He leaned closer and in a low whisper said, "I drove by the nightclub on my way to meet you. When you said you were going to burn it down, I didn't know you meant literally."

  "Truth be known, neither did I," Hatch gave a soft chuckle.

  "Sorry about that information I gave you." Ayala's solemn tone was reflected in the man's face.

  "The information you provided is the reason that young girl is sleeping soundly in back rather than tied to a bed. And you were right about the info." Hatch thumbed toward the girl in the back of the Nissan wearing Hatch's old clothes given to the kind-hearted Azul and now handed down to the girl. "She does have red hair—well reddish. And she's just as deserving of being saved as Angela. I just wish I could have gotten all of those girls to come with me, but…" Hatch let the rest go unsaid.

  "Sometimes we can't save them all." Ayala guided the Nissan through a rough patch of road.

  Ayala brought the shaking vehicle under control. A gold watch with an emerald green face jingled loosely at Ayala's left wrist. He caught Hatch eyeing it and turned it to her, bringing it closer to her face so she could better see it. "It was my father's," he said, happy to shift subjects, as was Hatch. "He was a good man, an honest man. He chose the path of peace and I, one of war. After I hung up my guns, I saw the value in his path and started wearing it as a reminder. Sadly, my father never got to see me change course. I wear it to honor him. It's like having him with me. Silly, I guess."

  "Not at all." Hatch thought about her own father and how she honored him by living the code that he had taught her, help good people and punish those who hurt them. Easy to remember, harder to follow. Hatch's life's journey had proven that at least that much was true.

  "I'm sure your father would be proud," Hatch said, bringing a smile to Ayala's face, "And I, for one, think the girl in the back would agree."

  Ayala flicked his eyes to the rearview mirror at the girl on his backseat. "Ernesto and his wife will get her safely home. What you did back there was very brave."

  "I couldn't have done it without you,” Hatch replied.

  “I'm hoping that Ernesto may have more information about the girl you're looking for. Just as the cartel has eyes and ears everywhere, so does Ernesto. And maybe one of them can point us in the right direction."

  "Us? Look Miguel, I don't want to get you involved beyond what I already have."

  "The minute I picked up that phone and got into this car to come get you, I knew what I was letting myself in for. The us part is not up for discussion."

  "Alright." An extra set of eyes would've been beneficial at the nightclub.

  Ayala picked up speed and they motored off into the dark unlit expanse of highway. "I just hope we're not too late."

  Twenty-Two

  Hatch finished the last morsel of the sweet cake Ayala brought for her and the sleeping Letty. It was made by his wife using a secret recipe, and one Hatch agreed was worth protecting. She washed the moist cakey cornbread down with a bottle of Propel Fitness Water. The blueberry gave the food in her mouth a funny aftertaste.<
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  For a moment Hatch thought Ayala might've been moonlighting as a PR spokesperson for the water distributer. He prattled on about the bottle he'd given her, explaining that this particular bottle of the electrolyte-infused drink was low calorie and not zero calorie like their others. Ayala told her Propel made a zero-calorie drink, but that he drinks the Propel Vitamin Boost, which has ten extra calories from the organic cane sugar and Stevia it’s sweetened with.

  He had tapped his gut when he said it, laughing about not being the man he used to be. He later divulged his love of the water came from an insatiable sweet tooth. He used to drink lemonade by the pitcher full. His wife turned him onto the fitness water when she got tired of letting out his pants.

  Hatch had seen it with some of her friends after leaving the service. They'd put on a few pounds, often proving true the age-old adage, a good soldier makes a fat civilian. She'd known more than a few hardened combat vets to add a little weight around the middle after separation. And then watched as they fought like hell to get back what was lost, often never quite getting to where they once were. Hatch had a different philosophy upon exiting the military. If you always maintain your readiness, you never have to get it back.

  The last of the fluid hit her belly. Her stomach gurgled, expressing its discontent loud enough for the man who'd just generously provided a meal made at his wife's hand to hear she was still hungry. A low in a battle was always a time to refuel. And she needed more for the battle to come. She'd learned her threshold, after pushing herself under the most challenging of conditions. Through pain, Hatch found her limitations greatly reduced when she had fuel in the tank. Beyond the physical benefits, it helped with mental acuity, something Hatch valued above all else. She eyed the indicator light just illuminating the yellow E next to a gas can icon. Ayala shot her a knowing smile and rubbed the cracked seam of his sun-damaged dashboard.