“Hi,” he said. “You wouldn’t happen to be Ben, would you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ben, straightening up. “Can I help you?”
“My name is Charles Hunter. I called earlier looking for Jesenia Santos.” Charles dug his badge out of his jacket pocket, banking on the hope that Ben was the type to cooperate with friendly law enforcement without demanding a warrant. “I’m actually with the ATF—is there any way I could get a look at the room she was staying in?”
Ben’s eyes went wide. “Is something wrong?”
“I hope not, but I do have some concerns that Ms. Santos might be in danger.”
That was enough to get Ben moving. He coded a key card and got someone to cover the desk, then led Charles outside and to the first-floor room at the farthest corner of the motel. One quick swipe, and Charles stepped inside, flipping the lights on.
Nothing seemed out of place at first glance, though the bed was still unmade, the covers rumpled. “Housekeeping hasn’t been in yet?” Charles asked.
“No, not yet—Ms. Santos left way after even our late checkout time. She had to pay a fee, actually.”
Charles walked slowly around the room, hunting for any small detail that might tell him what had happened here. “She checked out in person?”
Still hovering by the doorway, Ben said, “Yes, sir.”
“Did she seem nervous at all? Frightened?” The stalker had forced Paul Warner to make those phone calls to Buzz; if he’d taken Ángel hostage, he could have forced Jesenia to check out without making a fuss.
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “I didn’t check her out myself, but I think someone would have said something if she’d been acting weird. I do know that she didn’t complain about the late fee, though, which is pretty unusual.”
Charles checked the bathroom, where a couple of damp towels hung on the rack, and returned to the bedroom. Everything looked normal. There was no blood, nothing damaged or broken, no personal effects left behind. “How full is the motel?” he asked.
“We’re at about eighty-five percent capacity.”
“And nobody saw or heard anything suspicious around this room? Loud noises, shouting?”
Ben shook his head.
Charles frowned, making one more slow, frustrated turn in the middle of the room. Even if the stalker had caught Jesenia and Ángel by surprise, how could he possibly have incapacitated them both without any noise or mess? For that matter, why have Jesenia check out of the room at all—why not leave her behind, or simply kill her?
Loath though he was to admit it, Charles was coming around to Jade’s conclusion. Ángel must have asked Jesenia to take him to her family’s cabin.
As he followed Ben back out to the parking lot, Charles said, “Could I see the footage from those security cameras?”
“Sure,” Ben said, “but I don’t know how helpful it’ll be. They’re not working.”
“What do you mean?” Charles said, his skin prickling.
“They went on the fritz a few hours ago. Just static.”
Charles raised his eyebrows. “And they haven’t been fixed?”
“We’re waiting for a technician to come out.” Ben glanced around the lot like his boss was lurking behind one of the parked cars, then lowered his voice. “Between you and me, the cameras are just there to lower our insurance premiums. Management doesn’t care about them.”
Ángel’s and Jesenia’s phones both turned off and the security cameras out of commission? This couldn’t be a coincidence. Charles swung firmly back into the something’s wrong camp—he just wasn’t sure what it was.
“Thanks for your help,” he said, shaking Ben’s hand. “I’m going to look around a bit more, if that’s all right.”
“Of course, sir. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.” Ben headed back to the office, bubbling over with poorly concealed excitement, no doubt looking forward to sharing this story with his coworkers.
Charles stood on the sidewalk for a moment, staring thoughtfully at the motel-room door. Then he turned around and swept his eyes over the parking lot. He knew in his gut that something had gone wrong here—too many things didn’t add up. Without hard evidence, though, he was dead in the water. Nobody at the ATF was going to be swayed by his hunches alone.
He didn’t know what kind of car Jesenia had rented, so he wouldn’t be able to ascertain if it was still here. But there had to be something, some trail left behind. Blood spatter, broken glass—he’d even take tire treads at this point.
As Charles walked along the sidewalk in front of the motel, inspecting the ground and the passing rooms, he called Jade on her cell.
“Do you realize what kind of position you put me in?” Jade said when she answered, not bothering with a greeting. “I had to tell Ed and Eva where you went! The only reason they haven’t come after you is because they don’t want to panic the civilians.”
“I’ll be fine,” Charles said absently.
“A sniper shot at you in your own apartment complex this morning.”
“I don’t think he’s interested in me anymore,” said Charles. “Look, Jade, something’s not right here, but I won’t be able to convince anyone to mount a search for Ángel unless I can prove he didn’t leave this motel willingly. I need to get in touch with Jesenia’s family—her parents, or whoever is her next of kin. Even if they don’t have another way of contacting her, at least I can speak to whoever owns the cabin in Canada and find out if Ángel and Jesenia are really headed out that way.”
Jade groaned long and loud, then said, “All right, I’ll get the info and text it to you. But after that, you’d better get your fine ass back to the office, Charles.”
“I promise,” he said. “Thank you.”
While Charles waited for Jade’s text, he stood at the corner of the building and called the local police precinct, double-checking for any reports of disturbances in or around the motel. Ben was right—the area had been calm all day. He hung up with a creeping sense of foreboding.
A text popped up on his screen with the name and phone number of Jesenia’s mother, and Charles made a note to buy Jade something outrageously expensive when this was all over. Stepping off the sidewalk, he rounded the side of the motel as he listened to the phone ring.
“Hello?” said a pleasant woman’s voice with a light Mexican accent.
“Hello, may I speak with Ramona Santos, please?”
“This is she.”
“Hi, Mrs. Santos, my name is Charles Hunter.” Charles walked along the back of the motel—there was more parking out here, plus a few dumpsters up against the wall. “I’m a friend of Jesenia’s out in San Diego.”
“Is everything all right?” Mrs. Santos said with a note of anxiety.
“Everything’s fine. I’m just having some trouble getting in touch with her—I think she may have forgotten to charge her phone.”
The sun was setting, bathing the lot in a rich orange glow, and the exterior lamps had switched on as well, adding their hazy yellow light. As Charles passed one of the dumpsters, a bright metallic glint caught his attention. He frowned and backed up a few steps. The flash of light had come from the space between the dumpster and the wall, mostly blocked by a mass of boxes. Why stack boxes beside a dumpster instead of throwing them inside?
“Anyway, Jesenia mentioned she was thinking about visiting a family cabin in Canada,” Charles said, heading over. “I was wondering if she might have already left.”
“Canada?” said Mrs. Santos. “Are you sure? I don’t think anyone in our family has ever even been to Canada. We definitely don’t own any property there.”
“Really?” Charles said. “Maybe I misheard—”
He pushed aside the top box and sucked in a breath as he revealed the gleaming chrome and bright-red paint of Ángel’s motorcycle.
Heart pounding in his throat, Charles hurriedly shoved and kicked the rest of the boxes out of the way, then stared at the gap behind the dumpster. This was Ángel�
��s bike, no question. Ángel loved this fucking thing—if he was going to take off of his own volition, he wouldn’t leave it behind, and he certainly wouldn’t stash it behind a dumpster to hide it.
Unaware of Charles’s distraction, Mrs. Santos was still chatting away on the other end of the line. “—and she’s just been having the time of her life out there this past week,” she said, finishing a sentence Charles hadn’t heard the beginning of.
Charles’s attention snapped back to the phone. “I’m sorry, did you say the past week?” Jesenia had flown into San Diego the day before yesterday.
“Yes, of course. She’s been out there visiting her boyfriend—you must know him—”
Suddenly short of breath, Charles staggered away from the motorcycle. Jesenia had been trying to convince Ángel to leave San Diego from day one. She’d had a front-row seat to Ángel’s experiences in the cartel and his relationship with Raúl Esparza; she’d known Paul Warner’s identity and would have been able to lure him into a trap. She had the skills and training to track a target, break into motel rooms, infiltrate a hospital, wield a sniper rifle, fuck up security cameras. Her straight, narrow body could easily be interpreted as male in the right clothing.
She would have been able to abduct Ángel from this motel without causing a disturbance, because Ángel trusted her.
Charles turned and ran, ending his call to Mrs. Santos and hitting the speed dial for Eva as he raced toward the front parking lot.
“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in—” Eva started.
“It’s Jesenia,” Charles said, throwing himself into the back of the waiting cab. “Jesenia is the stalker.”
Ángel’s struggle toward consciousness was like clawing his way out of quicksand. He woke long before he could move or open his eyes, his body a heavy, useless weight. All he was aware of was a quiet murmur of staticky voices and a sense of gentle movement.
Eventually, Ángel pried his eyes open, blinking groggily at his surroundings. There was a marked delay between his sensory input and his brain’s reactions, the connection between the two sluggish. He’d felt this same way when he woke up after his appendectomy in college.
He was in a car; he could tell that much. The sky was darkening outside, and the headlights of the oncoming cars blurred together in a nightmarish haze as they rushed past. Ángel groaned, rolling his head away from the window and toward the driver’s seat, noting the active police scanner mounted on the dashboard.
Jesenia was driving. Ángel wet his cracked lips and said, “What . . .” That was all he could get out, though, his tongue too thick for his mouth.
She glanced sideways, giving him a sympathetic smile. “I’m so sorry, you’re going to feel like shit for a while. I had to keep you sedated for longer than I would have wanted while I got some things straightened out.”
“You . . .” He shook his head, confused. Why were they in a car? Where were they going? The last thing he remembered . . . he’d been upset, he’d gone to Jesenia’s motel, he’d felt sick after he drank that cup of coffee . . .
He looked down at his body, which was draped with a fluffy blanket that covered him from shoulders to feet. The thick material was stifling in the warm car, and he tried to push it off, only to be stymied when he found he couldn’t separate his hands. Whining low in his throat, he squirmed in his seat, wriggling around until the blanket fell into his lap.
His wrists were bound with zip ties. He stared at them stupidly for a moment, then tested his legs. His ankles were tied together as well.
“Oh God,” Ángel said as his drugged brain finally caught up. “Oh my God.”
“Stay calm,” said Jesenia.
“It was you,” he mumbled, his speech still slurred. “It’s been you the whole time?”
“Just let me explain—”
Ángel doubled over, his head spinning and his body wracked with nausea. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t— How could this be happening?
He tugged on the zip ties binding his wrists. When he found not a single inch of give, he was swept with an abrupt, overpowering surge of fury. He thrashed, yanking on the bonds, slamming his feet against the footboard over and over.
“Let me go,” he spat, working himself into a frenzy. “Let me go, let me go, let me go—”
“Calm down, Ángel,” Jesenia said sharply. Keeping one hand on the wheel, she withdrew a loaded syringe from her jacket pocket. “I don’t want to drug you again, but I will if I have to.”
He slumped in his seat, his chest heaving, and eyed the syringe with trepidation. The truth was, his fit had used up every bit of energy he had; he felt even worse now than he had before.
“Why?” he said, his voice choked with despair.
“It wasn’t supposed to go this far.” Jesenia put the syringe back in her pocket, though her posture remained wary, prepared for any sudden movement on Ángel’s part. “I thought taking out Esparza would be enough.”
Ángel’s mouth fell open. “You killed Raúl? You were the sniper?”
Jesenia gave him a pleading look. “I had to save you, Ángel. Things kept getting worse for you there, and you refused to leave.” She took a deep breath and returned her attention to the road. “I knew it would be a few days before you could be extracted, so I took care of some of the other men who had abused you, too—Roberto, Javier, Enrique . . . I put them down like the dogs they were so they could never hurt anyone again.”
“Jesus,” Ángel whispered.
“I should have been the one you turned to after you got out,” Jesenia said, her hands tightening on the steering wheel. “With Paul missing, I was your only real friend left. I couldn’t have known that he would be on the extraction team.”
She was talking about Charles. A spike of terror left Ángel breathless—it had been hours since Jesenia knocked him out, hours in which she could have done anything, including removing Charles from the picture permanently.
No. Jesenia wouldn’t have risked it. If her primary objective had been to abduct Ángel quietly, she wouldn’t have endangered that by murdering a federal agent while she had Ángel unconscious in her motel room.
“Is that why you killed Paul?” Ángel asked. A blank, dead weight settled in his stomach. “You tortured him, Jesenia, tortured and murdered him and left his children without a father. Did you do that just so I wouldn’t have anyone to depend on but you?”
“No, of course not,” said Jesenia. “He deserved to die that way—he was the worst of all of them. Paul knew what was happening to you in that place, but he never pulled you out. He just let you keep going back, let them hurt you. He sacrificed you for the mission.”
“I chose to make those sacrifices myself.” Ángel inched sideways, shifting as far away from Jesenia as his weak muscles and bound limbs allowed. A splitting headache throbbed behind his eyes.
“I know that. And Paul had a responsibility to stop you. You said it yourself earlier, Ángel—you make bad decisions.”
Jesenia reached over and readjusted his blanket, tugging it back up over Ángel’s wrists. He flinched when her hand brushed his arm, but she didn’t comment on this reaction.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “Your parents hurt you when you were younger, so you think that’s normal. You think you deserve to be abused, and you let men take advantage of you.”
“That is not true,” Ángel said, dumbfounded. Though he knew it was pointless to reason with her—obsession knew no rationality, no logic—he couldn’t help defending himself against the way she’d twisted his past and his personality to suit her own ends.
Jesenia ignored his protests, her eyes bright as she spun out the narrative she’d created. “You just need somebody to take care of you, somebody to make sure you make the right choices. I won’t let anyone hurt you again, Ángel, I swear.”
His breathing came fast and shallow, his fear increasing with every passing moment. “You’re hurting me now,” he said, striving to remain calm.
&n
bsp; Glancing at his lap, Jesenia said, “Are the zip ties too—”
“That’s not what I mean!” Ángel glared at her, but even his rage wasn’t enough to stop the shaking that had set in. “You’ve been torturing me, Jesenia. Do you not understand that? You’ve kept me in a constant state of terror for over a week. You murdered someone I cared about and tried to kill another, and you made me feel responsible for it!”
“I wouldn’t have had to do most of those things if you’d just left,” Jesenia snapped. “For fuck’s sake, who sticks around in a strange city when they know they’re being stalked? Just the possibility that Esparza was alive should have sent you running for the hills.”
“I never believed that,” said Ángel.
“I know,” she said, frustrated. “And after all the trouble I went to—using his passport, recruiting that actor to send Ian after you, getting those false papers made.” She shook her head. “I tried to be gentle at first; I tried to scare you just a little, just enough to make you accept my help. Then I could have taken you quietly, and all this would have been avoided. But you dug your heels in and I had to apply more and more pressure.”
“You are fucking insane,” Ángel said, more an expression of utter astonishment than an accusation.
“It was because of him. Charles.” She said his name like it was something ugly and poisonous. “He messed with your head and strung you along and disappointed you again and again in Tucson, but you were still willing to risk your life to stay with him. That’s exactly your problem.”
Unable to bear looking at her a moment longer, Ángel turned his face aside, gazing through the window instead. He rested his forehead against the cool glass and forced himself to get a grip.
As horrifying as this situation was, he was certain he wasn’t in immediate life-threatening danger. Jesenia had expressed a desire to protect him, and while her obsession would escalate over time—likely to the point of lethality—that could take months or even years. That might change in an instant, though, if she perceived his rejection to be absolute. Cooperating with her for now, at least nominally, could buy him some time until his body and mind recovered from the lingering sedation.
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