Ángel stopped pacing and gave him an odd look. “That’s it? After all of the fights we had about this in Tucson, I thought you’d be having a panic attack right now.”
“We had those fights because you wouldn’t stop pressuring me,” Charles said. “When somebody tells you they don’t want to come out, that’s the end of the conversation. You don’t argue with them about it. Sometimes it felt like you were trying to shame me into coming out, and yeah, that made me angry.”
Ángel grimaced. “That isn’t how I meant it.”
His hackles rising at the memories, Charles arched an eyebrow. “Really? Because I kept telling you I wasn’t ready, and you mocked me for it. You can’t rush a person into that decision, Ángel. It wasn’t the right time for me.”
“It wasn’t the right time?” Ángel asked, his eyes narrowing. “Or it wasn’t the right person?”
Uh-oh. Charles clenched his jaw, unwilling to lie to Ángel’s face about this but knowing the truth would hurt him.
“God.” Ángel raked his hands through his hair. “That’s why you’re not freaking out as much as I thought you would. It isn’t that you didn’t want to come out, period. It’s that you didn’t think it was worth coming out for me. But now that somebody’s forced your hand, well, you’ll just deal with the consequences.”
Those weren’t the words Charles would have chosen, but he couldn’t refute the line of reasoning. He hadn’t seen the point in going through all the bullshit of coming out at work for a relationship that had no future.
“We were always going to be temporary,” Charles said wearily. “We’re too different, we want different things—”
Crossing his arms, Ángel said, “You don’t know shit about what I want.”
“No?” Charles said, knowing he was treading into dangerous waters. “Let’s say I had come out, we’d disclosed our relationship to HR, and everyone knew we were seeing each other. If I’d asked you to move in a few months later, started talking about getting married someday, maybe having kids—you expect me to believe you wouldn’t have run as fast as you could in the opposite direction?”
Ángel’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t deny it.
“How many times had I heard you joke about marriage being a prison, or kids ruining people’s lives?”
“For God’s sake, Charles—”
“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” said Charles. He needed to get all of this out before Ángel interrupted him. “I want those things, though. You just wanted me to come out so that we didn’t have to sneak around; you never thought of me as a long-term partner. Nothing in your life has ever been long-term.”
Ángel blinked and took a step back, as if Charles had pushed him.
Charles lifted his hands. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t come out and go through all that bullshit just to have you leave me a few months down the line when you got bored, or scared of the commitment.”
“You don’t know that’s what would have happened,” Ángel said.
His eyebrows climbing up his forehead, Charles said, “Are you kidding me? That’s exactly what did happen.”
Everything they’d been dancing around for a week, everything they’d refused to confront directly, was suddenly standing right there in the room with them. Ángel glared at him as the tension in the air ratcheted up. “We’re really going to do this right now?” he said.
“I just want to know why,” Charles said, unable to hold himself back anymore.
“I told you from the beginning that I wouldn’t stop fucking other guys as long as you wanted to keep us a secret,” said Ángel. “You said that was fair—”
“I didn’t mean why you fucked someone else,” Charles said in exasperation. He’d known he had no right to expect monogamy from Ángel, given the circumstances. “Why a friend of mine, why on my birthday, why when you knew I was about to show up any minute? I know you didn’t forget. You’d wrapped my present and it was sitting out on the counter. Did you just . . . not give a shit?”
Ángel’s stiff shoulders crept up toward his ears, but he was strangely quiet.
Well, if Ángel wasn’t going to say anything, there was more Charles wanted to get off his chest. “You never apologized,” Charles said. “You pulled that selfish stunt, and then you ran away like a coward and threw yourself into bed with a goddamn Mexican cartel!”
“You’re wrong.” Ángel’s voice was quiet, but in the dangerous way that meant things had already gone too far. His body trembled minutely, his hands fisted at his sides.
“About what?”
“I didn’t go undercover because we had that fight.” Ángel looked Charles in the eye. “We had that fight because I was about to go undercover.”
“I . . .” Charles swallowed. “I don’t understand.”
He did, though. The pieces clicked together in the back of his mind, no matter how furiously he tried to deny them.
Ángel didn’t look away, didn’t lower his eyes or do anything to soften the blow. “The Esparza operation was my idea from the beginning. I’d heard chatter about Raúl’s interests, and I knew I had a shot. I knew I could get in there where we’d always failed before. I designed the operation myself; I proposed it to Dallas. I had known I was leaving for weeks before that night.”
Charles leaned sideways, bracing one hand on the conference table to keep himself upright. He shook his head, begging Ángel not to say what was sure to be coming next.
“I set things up so you would find me with Jared that night,” Ángel said, relentless. “That wrapped present was just an empty box.”
Charles hunched forward, his entire body curling around the sick pain lancing his guts. “You put me through that on purpose?” he whispered. “Why?”
“I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone where I was really going,” Ángel said. The tone of his voice had shifted, now ragged with pain. “I couldn’t get an exemption for you, because our relationship was a secret. If I’d made up some bullshit story about transferring to another field office, you would have asked me to stay—and I would have stayed, Charles, because that’s how pathetic I am. I would have stayed and kept panting after you, grateful for every scrap of attention you threw my way, knowing you’d never come out. I would have given up what could have been our only shot at the Esparzas, and I would have been left with nothing to show for it.”
“Are you a fucking sociopath?” Charles stood up straight, though he didn’t trust himself to let go of the table. “You can’t just fuck with people’s heads because you’re too weak to say no to them!”
Ángel shrugged helplessly. “I thought about just taking off, letting you hear about my ‘transfer’ from the others in the office. But I was afraid you’d look for me, try to track me down, and I couldn’t take the risk that the agency wouldn’t be able to head you off before you’d compromised my cover.”
Charles could only stare at him.
“Do you think I didn’t get what I deserved for doing it? The things you said to me that night . . .” Ángel pressed his lips together and turned his face aside. “A filthy fucking slut, that’s what you called me. So desperate for attention and approval that I’d bend over for anyone, crawl on the ground and beg for it like a dog if that’s what it took to get someone to like me—”
“Stop,” Charles said, nauseated. “Stop.”
God, he’d spent two years trying to forget that words like that had come out of his mouth; it was one of the most shameful moments of his life. But the enormity of Ángel’s manipulation was too fresh for Charles to apologize.
“You could have found a better way,” he said.
“Maybe,” said Ángel. “I just knew that I had to cut all ties in a way that would keep us both safe. And . . .” With a groan, Ángel threw his hands in the air. “And I was so fucking in love with you, Charles, and you wouldn’t even admit we were in a relationship. I wanted to hurt you for that.”
Charles sat down abruptly. What?
They looked at ea
ch other in silence. Charles had to say something, had to acknowledge what had been laid out between them. He needed to say— He should—
Too late. Ángel’s face shut down, every trace of emotion wiped clean. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” he said, and slipped out of the room.
Charles wanted to follow him, but he physically couldn’t move. He sat frozen at the conference table, his entire world knocked on its axis, Ángel’s words echoing over and over again in his head.
Nobody tried to stop Ángel from leaving the building—though to be fair, it wasn’t like he announced it. He just walked out the front door and called a cab, uncaring of the potential danger. If the stalker wanted to take him, he could give it his best fucking shot.
Ángel made it back to Charles’s apartment without incident, got his bike, and took it out on the road. He drove for hours—winding through highways, cruising along the coast, doing his best to lose himself in the unfamiliar environs.
Of course, these days it was pretty hard to get lost in any area with decent 4G. Once he’d taken the edge off his roiling emotions, Ángel used his cell to find his way back to Jesenia’s motel, ignoring his multiple missed calls from Charles, Campos, and Eva. He parked his bike in the lot and knocked on Jesenia’s door, hoping she’d be in even though he hadn’t called first.
“You look like hell,” Jesenia said when she opened the door.
“I don’t know what to do,” Ángel choked out without preamble, though he hadn’t intended to fall apart right there on the threshold. “I feel like—like I always make the wrong choices. I don’t know what I should do next.”
“Come in, sit down.” Jesenia moved out of the doorway and guided Ángel to the small table in the corner of the room. “Do you want some coffee?”
Collapsing into the chair, Ángel peeled off his gloves and jacket. “Yes, please.”
“What happened this time?” Jesenia asked as she headed for the coffeemaker.
Ángel told her about the sniper and the photograph, then about his confrontation with Charles. Hearing himself describe their argument had him cringing all over again. God, he’d told Charles he loved him and admitted to betraying and manipulating him in practically the same breath.
“And now what?” Ángel said after he’d taken a few deep gulps of coffee. It wasn’t bad, though the bar for motel-room coffee was pretty low to begin with. “I don’t know if I can ever look Charles in the face again. And no matter what I do—if I stay, if I go—people could get hurt. How am I supposed to live with that? Whatever decision I make, I’ll always be second-guessing it.”
“Nothing that’s happening is your fault,” said Jesenia, who had come to sit with him at the table. “Charles knew it was dangerous to get involved with you again, and he chose to anyway. That’s on him.”
“No, that’s . . .” Ángel put down his mug and cradled his head in his hands. He’d been out on the road under the sun for too long; he was exhausted and dehydrated, his body heavy. “That’s not fair. Were we supposed to let the stalker intimidate us? Let him dictate how we lived our lives?”
“You didn’t have to provoke him,” Jesenia said.
Ángel frowned. “Provoke . . .” He grunted as his elbow slipped out from under him, and he caught himself just before his forehead hit the table. Though he tried to push himself up again, his muscles were too watery, and his balance was all off, his vision swimming with sudden disorientation. “Jesenia, something’s wrong, I feel sick—”
“I know, cariño, lo siento.” Jesenia stroked a hand through his hair, her fingers lingering on the nape of Ángel’s neck. “It’s just the sedatives taking effect.”
By the time anyone realized Ángel had left the building, it was too late to bring him back. Charles called him several times, as did Ed and Eva, but all their calls went unanswered.
Charles worked through the day on autopilot, his thoughts a scattered mess. He didn’t even know what he’d say if Ángel did answer the phone. All Charles knew was that he couldn’t let Ángel put himself in danger by taking off on his own.
Midafternoon, Charles called Ángel once more. The phone rang a few times before going to voice mail, as had all his previous calls, and Charles hung up without leaving a message. As he set the phone on his desk, however, he received a text from Ángel.
Stop calling me. I’m not coming back.
Charles scowled at his phone. What could he do to stop Ángel, really? Chase him down and drag him back by his hair? Ángel was a grown-ass man, and if he’d rather run away from Charles than face him again the way he had in Tucson—
Except Ángel hadn’t run away in Tucson, as Charles had always assumed. His departure had been planned and deliberate.
Charles sat back in his chair, dazed, as he considered the possibility that Ángel had planned this as well. Had he revealed what he’d done in Tucson in an attempt to make Charles so angry that he wouldn’t try to stop him from leaving? How the hell was Charles supposed to know which of Ángel’s actions were honest and which were manipulation?
Groaning, he rubbed his aching temples and forced his attention back to his paperwork.
He stayed late, wanting to avoid his curious coworkers and their inevitable barrage of questions. As afternoon faded into evening, Charles and Jade were the last ones left at their cluster. The rest of the office had emptied out except for a few agents here and there.
After he’d shut down his computer and sorted out his desk, Charles couldn’t resist calling Ángel one more time. This time, the call went directly to voice mail without ringing, which meant Ángel had either declined the call right away or turned his phone off altogether.
Charles hesitated, then said, “Hey, Jade.”
“Yeah?” she said, looking up in surprise. His entire team had been tiptoeing around him all day, even Eva, and Charles couldn’t blame them.
“Can you track Ángel’s phone for me and tell me where he is now?” Charles asked.
“I was tracking him earlier for Ed,” said Jade. “He was just roaming around San Diego; he wasn’t making any moves to leave the city.”
“Just one more time. Please.”
“What are you gonna do with this information, anyway?” Jade said while her fingers tapped across her keyboard. “You’ve still got a crazy person out there gunning for you, and you’re not supposed to leave the office without an agency escort.”
“It’s just for my peace of mind,” Charles said.
“Huh,” Jade said, her forehead wrinkling. “There’s no signal. Ángel must have taken the battery out of his phone.”
His suspicions confirmed, Charles said, “Where was he last?”
“Um . . . the last time I pinged him, he was at a Super 8 in Hillcrest.”
“That’s Jesenia’s motel,” Charles said, relieved. At least Ángel wasn’t alone. “I’ll call her instead. Can you give me the number to the motel?”
“You don’t have her cell?”
“Ángel left it on my refrigerator at home, but I can’t go back there.”
Jade read the number off to him, then said, “I only met Ángel a week ago, and even I know he’s going to hate you doing this.”
“Then he should have answered his own phone like a goddamn adult,” said Charles.
“Super 8, this is Ben speaking,” said a cheerful voice that picked up after a couple of rings. “How may I help you?”
“Could you connect me to Jesenia Santos’s room, please?” Charles ignored Jade, who was shaking her head at him across their desks.
“One moment, please.” Over the soft clacking of keys in the background, Ben said, “I’m sorry, sir, Ms. Santos already checked out.”
“What?” Charles said, bolting upright. “When?”
“About half an hour ago.”
“All right. Thanks.” Charles ended the call and lowered his phone, looking up at Jade in bewilderment. “Jesenia checked out.”
“And?” Heaving an exasperated sigh, Jade said, “Come on, Charl
es, you know what’s going on here. Jesenia offered to let Ángel use her family’s cabin. Obviously he took her up on that, and they already left.”
“Sure,” Charles said. “Or the stalker followed Ángel to Jesenia’s motel and now they’re both in danger.”
Jade bit her lower lip. “Shit,” she said after a long pause.
“Can you get—”
She slid a piece of paper across their desks. “I hunted down her cell number while you were on the phone.”
“You’re amazing,” said Charles.
Jesenia’s phone went straight to voice mail, just like Ángel’s. Charles hung up and shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Okay, that’s not good,” Jade said. “I can understand Ángel turning his phone off, but there’s no reason for Jesenia to turn hers off too.”
Charles stood up, grabbing his jacket. “I’m going down there. No way could the stalker have taken out two trained agents without leaving some kind of sign.”
“You can’t go alone, Charles, you’re not— Charles, wait!”
He was already gone, eschewing the elevator for the stairwell. Ed hadn’t issued him a new vehicle after the first agency car was destroyed that morning, and Charles couldn’t sign one out without alerting the agency to what he was doing, which would cause a lengthy delay he couldn’t afford. Instead, Charles called a cab as he dashed down the four flights of stairs.
Traffic slowed him down even more, and it was over twenty minutes before the cab finally pulled into the Super 8 parking lot.
“Can you stick around for a bit?” Charles asked as he handed the cabbie a few bills. “I may need to leave in a hurry.”
“Sure, but I’ll have to keep the meter running.”
“That’s fine. Thanks.” Charles got out of the cab and headed for the office, scanning the parking lot as he went. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, though he did note a couple of security cameras that could come in handy.
The motel was a plain two-story concrete block shaped in an L, and the small lobby, while utilitarian, was clean and well organized. Charles smiled as he approached the young man at the front desk.
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