“I just want you to know-“
“Ssh.” She touched her fingers to her lips. “We have plenty of time for all that when this is over, when the Wrights and Mari are back safe and sound. Meanwhile we know we have each other.”
He kissed her forehead, then tangled his fingers in her hair to angle her head and opened his mouth over hers. When she felt his tongue touch hers, the fire buried deep inside her began to ignite again and blatant need shot through her body.
“So soon?” she gasped, when she tore her mouth away.
“The first time was for me. This one’s for you, kitten. And for always.”
* * * * *
Mari was doing her best to keep it together but her head throbbed incessantly, a constant dull pounding that kept her on the edge of nausea. Sydney had made her drink the water when a tray was delivered again and she choked down one tortilla. If she ever got out of this, she swore she’d never eat one of the damn things ever again.
The tiny patch she could see through what passed for a window high up showed her the sun had set and the sky was darkening. That left little light inside the hut. She still had her watch, which fortunately had an LED readout. Pushing the button to light it up, she realized it was almost eight thirty. They’d been here all afternoon and into the evening.
She tried to figure out who would do this but she didn’t have a clue. Someone they knew was involved, she was convinced of that. The people who took them had to know when and where they’d be eating lunch. But who could be so evil? So vicious? And who were they working with who facilitated it?
She glanced around the room, looking to see where everyone was. Sydney was sitting on the floor next to her, eyes closed, having finally dozed off. She watched Eli sitting in the opposite corner, his arm around Lissa, speaking quietly to her, obviously trying to reassure her that things would be all right.
What a laugh that was. She wished she’d left something behind that Kat could use as a clue, a point of focus to discover their location. But everything had happened so quickly. One minute they were laughing, waiting for their car to return to the airport. The next they were drugged and in a van, speeding away from the scene.
Oh, Kat, please find us. I hope Vivi Alderson was able to help you strengthen your gift and some clue lets you “see” us.
She heard the clacking of the wood outside that obviously kept the door in place, then the door itself slammed open and Pedro and Enrique sauntered in, accompanied again by the cameraman.
“Time to make video stars of you again,” he told them, shifting the cigar in his mouth to speak around it. “Everybody up.” When they all moved slowly to their feet, he pointed his gun toward the ceiling and fired it, making everyone jump. “I mean right now. We are on a schedule here.”
“Listen.” Eli moved his daughter behind him as he stepped forward. “I want to know what this is all about, who’s in charge here and when you plan to let us go.”
Without warning Pedro flipped his gun to hold it by the butt and smashed it into Eli’s nose. He tried to stifle the cry of pain as blood streamed down his face.
“Daddy!” Lissa cried.
Mari immediately went to her and put her arms around her, forcing her own pain into background and stoking the young girl’s hair.
“Eli! My god!” Sydney grabbed some of the paper napkins left from their last round of food and water and pressed them against his nose. “Here. Hold this.” She turned to Pedro, a fierce expression on her face. “Do your orders say you’re to brutalize us?” she demanded of Pedro, who stood watching them with evil satisfaction glistening in his eyes.
“Señora. My orders are to make sure the people we are contacting take us seriously. If they think you are being treated like celebrities, where will the urgency of the situation be? Now get back before you have a matching cut on your other cheek.”
“People?” Mari saw Eli had picked up on the plural. His words were muffled as he kept the absorbent paper pressed to his nose but he hadn’t lost his air of quiet command. “So there’s more than one person involved?”
“The number is irrelevant,” Enrique told them, the first time he’d spoken. “We have our orders and you would do well to follow them. Now take your places.”
Roughly he pulled each of them into the places they’d stood previously and nodded to the cameraman. This time he had a portable light with him, which he set up on a tripod. The glare nearly blinded them.
This time the taping took only seconds. Pedro and Enrique stood by the open door as the cameraman finished up. The light went out, the door slammed shut and they were plunged into near darkness.
Sydney raced into the dirty bathroom, wet some of the toilet paper in there and carried it to Eli. “Come sit down and put your head back,” she told him.
Mari led Lissa over to where her parents lowered themselves to the floor and the two of them crouched down.
“It’s interesting that he said ‘people’,” Eli said, looking at Mari.
“I was thinking the same thing.” She wished her head would stop hurting so she could think better. “That makes me think more than one person arranged this. But Eli, who would do that? Who knew where we’d be who would want to do this to us?”
“Disgruntled employees?” Sydney asked.
“No. I can’t think of any of them who would have the resources or contacts to set this up.”
“People you’ve done business with?” Sydney suggested.
Eli shrugged. “Yes, no, maybe.” He looked at Mari. “Anyone come to mind?”
“No one who would be angry enough to do something like this. The other thing is, whoever it is didn’t do this himself. He’s made arrangements with someone to grab us.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “The plane they flew us here on had a logo on the side that said Mazatlan Textiles, so you know we’re in Mexico.”
Sydney gave an unladylike snort. “You could tell that by our so-called hosts. But who do we know who would have this kind of connection with someone so powerful in Mexico?”
“I just don’t know.”
He looked at Mari, his eyes sending her a message. She turned away so no one would catch the message between them but she knew what he was thinking. They’d read about it often enough in the newspapers.
Drug cartels!
The kidnappings by drug kingpins of wealthy, high profile people had been all over the news for the past few months. That added another dimension to the situation. Now they needed to figure out not just who engineered this but who would have contacts with a drug cartel.
A cold knot settled in her stomach like an icy fist. If what she suspected was true, the situation had just gone from bad to much, much worse.
Chapter Ten
Kat was sure that she glowed. That everything she and Mike had done was imprinted on her somehow for everyone to see. She was beyond self-conscious when the Hallorans joined them in their suite but Faith, as usual, made her feel at ease. Even when Mike couldn’t keep himself from touching her, whether it was draping his arm around her or rubbing his finger along her arm or her hand, the other couple acted as if it was business as usual.
When room service arrived and they sat down at the table to eat, Mark gave them a rundown on what they’d been doing.
“We went back to the airport,” Mark said, cutting into his steak. “I wanted to go over their plane very carefully and see if there was anything there you could use, Kat. I did a little reading on remote viewing on my laptop and learned that it’s a type of clairvoyance. That often it’s symbols or images, not just specific coordinates, that can bring images to your mind. That you’re actually ‘seeing’ with your brain rather than your eyes.”
“That’s right.” She took a small sip of her wine. “That’s why I’d hoped the pictures of Mari and the Wrights would be enough to give us their location.”
“You did give us something,” Mike reminded her. “More than we had before.”
“So did you find anything?” Kat asked.
“No, unfortunately. We called the pilots at the motel where they’re staying and they didn’t add much, either. But Faith and I went through all the stuff that Andy sent to us plus the research from Faith’s assistant.”
“And?” Mike prodded.
“Here’s the thing.” He carefully chewed and swallowed a bite of his food. “To begin with, every one of the men—Pelley, Prescott and Post—is in trouble, in differing degrees.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Post blew through his trust fund his parents left him and he’s overextended on his chain of spas. He’s been trying to borrow more money and he’s pissed off that his sister and brother-in-law wouldn’t bail him out. Apparently they’ve done it twice before and this time they flat out told him no.”
“So he’s a good candidate.”
“Yes. But so are the others. Pelley makes a damn good living as vice president of Wright International, especially with all his bonuses but he also has been trying to borrow money. Andy couldn’t find out what for but he’s still digging.”
“What about Rand Prescott?” Kat asked. “The man who was lending them his house.”
“Again, something funny there. Andy found signs he’s being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission but he’s still hunting for more details, especially if it ties to any of the deals he did with Wright.”
“Faith? What did you get?”
Faith patted her lips with her napkin and pulled a tiny notebook from the pocket of her jeans. “I wrote some of this down so I wouldn’t forget it. Mark picked up a new portable printer on our way back here but we haven’t hooked it up yet.”
“So there was something in the notes Tia sent you?” Mike prodded.
Faith flipped the notebook open. “She’d found tons of stuff on the cartels and their kidnappings. More than I expected. And we were right on target.”
“Just so we’re all prepared for what’s going on here,” Mark interrupted, “since the demise of the Cali and Medellin cartels in Columbia in the nineties, the Mexican cartels have become super powerful. They’re responsible for nearly all the marijuana and methamphetamine coming into this country, as well as heroin. Although there are others who distribute heroin more widely on a global basis. But they dominate the entire illicit drug trade in the United States.”
Faith took up the narrative again. “It’s apparently become a regular fundraising activity for the cartels to supplement their income. I had asked her to make a list of the names of those who appeared most frequently in the media. There are six.” She flipped to another page. “Mano Escobar, Hector Villareal, Jesus Morales, Ricardo Banderas, Victor Hererra and Esai Borreo.”
“And,” Mark went on, “a couple of them, instead of using what they call sicarios—gangs of enforcers—actually have pulled together their own private army.”
“The man I saw in my remote view was wearing khakis,” Kat said, “like some kind of uniform.”
“That’s good,” Mike told her. “It can help us narrow things down.”
“I shot all the names to Andy,” Mark added. “I told him he can go home for a week when this is over but until then he should consider himself chained to the Dragon.”
“I think he actually lives there, anyway,” Mike said with wry humor.
“Can he find out everything about these men?” Kat tried to tamp down her anxiety. Even the most casual news junkie knew that victims of cartel kidnappings had a low rescue factor.
“I told him I want everything including how many times a day they go to the bathroom. What we need to find out is where in hell one of them could have crossed paths with any of the three men receiving the emails.”
“What did he find out about them, anyway?” Mike took a swallow of his wine. “Anything more than basic financial information and stuff you can find in news clips?”
“Not yet,” Mark told him. “He said he’s still working on it but I told him he needs to get his ass in gear.”
“The thing is,” Faith commented, “pinning down a connection could be the most difficult thing. Wright International has businesses everywhere. So does Rand Prescott. And maybe Ryan Post has been looking to expand his spas operation into Mexico. Or already has. Mark, will you ask Andy to check on that? Maybe he’s operating under a different name.”
Mark put down his fork took out his cell and speed dialed a number. In a few quick sentences he added to the instructions he’d given earlier.
“He’s working as fast as he can. Let’s finish dinner, Katherine, afterward, do you think you could try another remote viewing session?”
Kat wanted to tell him that after making love with Mike she felt capable of doing anything but she just said, “Absolutely.”
Mark snapped his fingers. “Almost forgot. Detective Wagner called about our friend Brent Fontaine. The guy manages a hedge fund and is loaded to the gills. But he has a reputation as a narcissistic asshole. Wagner called a friend of his on the Tampa PD who said they’ve had other women complain about Fontaine before.”
“I’m not surprised.” Kat pushed her plate away. “I didn’t think I was the only one he behaved that way with. You have no idea what a relief it is to know he won’t be calling me anymore.”
Mark nodded. “You can count on that. Wagner made it very plain that both San Diego and Tampa would be keeping track of his activities. And if he tried calling you again, you would report it to both police departments and they’d take appropriate action.”
“Faith, I should let your aunt know that the major stress factor has been removed from my life and that I already feel my powers strengthening.”
“I plan to call her later. I’ll bring her up to speed.”
Kat fidgeted while they dawdled over coffee, finally pushing her chair back and saying, “I want to do this right now. We can’t afford to waste another minute and maybe this time I’ll get something more specific.”
They piled everything onto the trolley the waiter had used to bring their food. Kat seated herself again, placed the pictures of Mari and the Wrights on the table, along with a sheet of paper and a pen. And this time she asked for one other thing.
“Mike, could you find a map of Mexico on the laptop and bring it up on the screen so it’s facing me?”
“Sure. No problem.”
In seconds he had the map up and the laptop situated the way she wanted it. Mark closed the drapes again and Faith turned off all the lights in the room but the small table lamp.
I have to do this for Mari. We have to be able to save her from these evil, bloodthirsty people.
Kat closed her eyes took a long calming breath and let her mind reach out. Projecting it. Seeking out the location of the people in the pictures.
This time the scene that came to her was dark. Night time. A flicker of a black sky with a sliver of moon. The edge of the adobe hut. A brief but fuzzy glimpse of the dog and the man with the heavy rifle. Then it all disappeared.
She blinked and tried again.
This time the picture wasn’t quite as fuzzy and she saw a little more of the building. A door, with a long block of wood notched into a hook holding the door closed. The man with the gun and the foot of another man next to him. The moon. The vague shape of hills in the background. And a black van. She strained to see the license plate but again it was too blurred.
And then, as always, it popped into place with incredible clarity. Including a part of the license plate on the vehicle. Before it disappeared she wrote down what she’d seen. In a moment, as quickly as it had come, the scene disappeared but she was overjoyed that she’d gotten a little something more out of it.
“I saw something,” she told Mike in an excited voice. “Turn the rest of the lights on. Please.”
“What is it?” Mike sat down in the chair next to her and pulled it close.
“There’s a van parked near the hut. Black. Pretty dirty. But I got the beginning of the license plate.” She handed Mike the paper. “Here. Can Andy do so
mething with this?”
Mike immediately got Andy on the phone, read to him what they had and asked if he could call something up while he waited.
Kat fidgeted, anxious to possibly have something more than a vague location. Mike took her hand and laced his fingers through hers, squeezing them gently. Sending her a silent message. After what seemed an interminable length of time, Mike said, “Yeah. Still here. Shoot.”
His eyes held hers as he listened to what Andy was saying.
“Okay. Got it. Very good. Thanks. Keep on that other stuff.” He snapped the phone shut. “The license plate indicates the vehicle is registered in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.”
“I can’t imagine they’d use a car that could pinpoint them so easily,” Faith said.
“The reason they don’t care,” Mike told her, “is because the Sinaloa cartel is in bed with the Mexican government. One of the most corrupt governments in the world. Rumor has it that some of Mexico’s investigative agency as well as the federal police force actually work for Victor Herrera, the head of the Sinaloa cartel. He has a soulless evil enforcer named Bernando Esquivez who actually runs things for him and is probably the head honcho on this particular adventure. No one goes against them because of that.”
Kat felt ill. “So, just like you said before, even if they wanted to, our government wouldn’t get involved. The Mexican government would protect the cartel.”
“That’s right,” Mark nodded. “The DEA has already lost too many agents from different organizations trying to crack the cartels or retrieve hostages. And the government is so corrupt they’re no help at all.”
“So that leaves just us.”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Mike cupped her chin and turned her face toward his. “We’re a lot better than they are, remember? And we don’t have to worry about politics.”
“Is there a way to find out where Herrera’s headquarters is located?” she asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of her voice.
“Yes,” Mark answered. “Now that we’ve narrowed the area to a specific part of Mexico and identified who the cartel leader there is.”
Freeze Frame Page 15