Would she believe the truths he told her? Would she believe he never meant to hurt her? Would he ever get the chance to explain?
Reality was explanation enough.
The only answer he really wanted was, would he ever see her again?
Cara’s picture in his mind flipped to her wide, frightened gaze staring back at him through her uncle’s truck window a split second before the world exploded.
The blare of fire trucks and police hurt his head even more. The second they poured out of their vehicles and attacked the fire and closed in on him and Agent Bennett, all King wanted to do was run to his truck and go after Cara. He couldn’t hear, could barely think, and wondered if he could even get up.
He rolled over and sat up with his legs out in front of him. “Fuck.” Everything hurt. He felt like the loser in a prizefight. His whole body took a pounding with that explosion.
A police officer squatted in front of them. “You guys okay?”
Agent Bennett didn’t seem inclined to move all that much either, except to take the wad of gauze a paramedic handed him for the cut oozing blood on his forehead. “We’re rattled but good. We had an agent inside, second floor, and a woman in custody.” Agent Bennett stared up at what little remained of the building and shook his head in dismay.
King mourned the loss of Agent Alvarado and Tandy. She didn’t deserve to go out that way. Neither of them did. He needed to find Cara and her uncle before anyone else got hurt.
The paramedic pressed a gauze pad to his arm and wrapped it tight with a bandage to apply pressure to a wound he didn’t even know he had until the shock of pain down his arm and up into his shoulder registered louder than all his other aches and throbbing pain.
The officer took down Agent Alvarado’s and Tandy’s information from Agent Bennett. King took a minute to let his head settle and eyes adjust. Not easy with the paramedic flashing a light in his eyes and checking out the back of his head without much participation from King.
The paramedic touched his shoulder to be sure he had King’s attention. “Looks like you’ve got a concussion.”
“No shit.”
The paramedic chuckled. King didn’t see any reason to laugh.
“Ambulance just arrived. We’ll transport you to the hospital and get you checked out for any other internal injuries. A doctor will stitch your arm and clean these other cuts and scrapes.”
King started feeling all kinds of distinct pains on his hands from trying to break his fall and on his back where flying debris hit him. Some of it still felt embedded in his skin. The road rash on his hands stung and bled down his fingers and over his wrists.
“They’ll do a scan to see how bad the concussion is. You’ll probably stay a couple days,” the paramedic rambled on.
King shook his head, planted his sore hands on the ground, and pushed himself up. His legs wobbled under him until he stood tall and balance returned. Mostly. He swayed.
The paramedic held him steady by the arm. “You need to stay seated until they get you loaded on a gurney and take you to the hospital. It’ll only be a minute.”
King shook off the fireman paramedic and waved off the ambulance guys. “I’ve got work to do.”
“You’ve got a head injury,” Agent Bennett reminded him before the paramedic could point out the same thing.
“She’s in danger. I need to get to her.” He didn’t have to say who.
Agent Bennett heard the desperation in his voice and sighed.
“We’ve got an APB out on Otis Potter and his truck,” the officer interjected. “We’ll find him.”
Not good enough. King needed to find her and make sure her uncle didn’t do something stupid. He glanced at the blaze the fire department fought to extinguish. Well, something stupider. The man wasn’t right in the head. King didn’t like the threats that on the surface seemed leveled at him. But if King attributed Otis’s threats to Cara, it meant a finality that sent a cold shiver up King’s spine.
Agent Bennett stood beside him, not so steady on his feet either. “Thanks for the help, guys. We’ll leave the scene to you,” he said to the officer, and handed over his business card. “Keep me posted. I want to know when you recover Agent Alvarado’s and Tandy’s bodies. The DEA will notify the agent’s family. I’ll have another agent here soon to oversee everything.”
The officer took the card and nodded.
“Come on, King, let’s get moving.”
They walked across the street to the gas station and the back corner where King stashed his truck in the same place as his surveillance spot last night.
They both slowly climbed into the truck. King dug the keys out of his pocket, making the scrapes on his hand bleed even more.
Agent Bennett pulled out his dinging, cracked phone from his jacket’s inside pocket. He swiped the screen and read the incoming text messages. “Iceman’s men picked up the loaded trailer. We’ve got a team on them.”
King started the truck, but didn’t pull out of the lot. He dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and rubbed his blurry eyes, hoping to ease the ache pounding behind them. He needed time to clear his head, but the urgency gnawing at his gut to go after Cara pushed him to move before his brain and body really had all cylinders firing.
He stared out the windshield at the destruction across the street.
“Why the fuck did he blow the place? He has to know how much she loves it. Where the hell is he taking her? She won’t be on board for any plan that involves killing her best friend, even if Tandy betrayed her.” He didn’t think she’d want him dead for betraying her either. At least he hoped not.
“My best guess, based on the fact he destroyed that farm she and Castillo planned to live on, is he’s getting rid of everyone he thinks hurt her. It’s also looking like it’s not the first place he’s blown up. Several rival cartel bombings have been attributed to Iceman’s crew.”
“Fuck. Iceman and her uncle are working together.”
“After he did this tonight, looks that way.”
King pulled out onto the main road and headed in the same direction Cara and her uncle took. “Do we have eyes on Iceman?”
“Haven’t in weeks. Not since your talk with him at Cara’s place.”
“Fuck. He knows who I am.”
“How do you know?”
“Why else would he keep out of sight for so long?”
“How would he find that out?”
King raked his bloody fingers through his hair and winced when he barely brushed the goose-egg-shaped lump on the back of his head. “I told him.”
“You what?” Agent Bennett’s eyes flared with anger.
“I told him I knew Manny Castillo was dead. He must have guessed a guy with one conviction and barely any ties to the drug world probably didn’t know that information offhand.”
“You knew a little too much.”
“I think so. He may not know I’m DEA, but he probably guessed I’m a cop.”
“Does Cara’s uncle know?”
“He found out tonight when Cara caught me here with DEA emblazoned across my chest.”
“How did she recognize you behind the mask?”
After what they’d shared in bed, he’d recognize her even if she was covered head to toe. The connection they shared had a life of its own. The second he looked at her tonight, she’d felt it reach out and touch her, the way he felt the same thing from her.
Now, that connection was broken and curled up in his heart hurting and bleeding. The pain felt worse than all his injuries combined. He didn’t know if he could ever mend it, or if she’d ever give him the chance. Without her in his life, he’d feel exactly this way—aching, lost, and missing a piece of himself—the rest of his life.
Agent Bennett swore next to him. “The truck ended up at an auto body shop. It’s a thirty-thousand-square-foot building.”
“Gonna be hard to surround something so big with only five guys on the team that followed the truck.”
&n
bsp; “They’ve called in backup already.”
“Surrounding buildings?”
“Mostly empty or small businesses closed for the night. Nothing with a line of sight into the second-story windows.”
“Iceman chose wisely. Snipers can’t take a shot at him if he gets caught in there.”
“If he gets out the back, there’s a huge junkyard to help him evade and escape through.”
“Any sign of Cara and her uncle?”
“I just sent a text telling the team to be on the lookout for them.”
Agent Bennett set the phone in the dash holder with directions to the auto shop loaded up and pointing him directly to where he needed to go. Where he knew he’d find Cara. If he got to her in time, he just might save her—and himself, because if he lost her, there’d be nothing worth a damn of him left.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The shock slowly wore off with every mile they drove. Cara’s uncle didn’t say a word, just stared straight ahead with a look of determination. She didn’t see a single sign of remorse for the lives he’d taken. Not even an “I’m sorry” for destroying her business. Not a single word of comfort to make her feel better after she’d lost so much tonight: Flash, her business, Tandy, every ounce of trust and love she’d had for them, and any hope of ever trusting anyone again.
She didn’t trust her uncle anymore. And didn’t believe she’d seen the worst of him yet.
“Why are we pulling in here?”
The Anderson Automotive sign loomed large over the bright parking lot. Security lights spotlighted the cars waiting to be fixed. Some didn’t have obvious problems; others had dented fenders, missing bumpers, and broken windows. Judging by the number of cars, the shop did a good business.
Her uncle passed the one and only open parking space and drove to the closed entrance on the side of the building. He killed the headlights but kept the engine running. Someone peeked through the flap in the green plastic covering the chain-link sliding gate. The fence slid open. Two men stood on either side of the truck, machine guns hanging from straps over their shoulders. The men didn’t point the guns at them, but they held them at the ready, fingers on the triggers. Scorpion tattoos identified them as soldiers in the Guzman cartel.
Her stomach dropped and a spurt of fear rushed into her heart and made it pound against her ribs.
“This is my father’s place.” And those men knew her uncle well enough to open up and let him drive right into the heart of their lair.
“It’s time he answered for all he’s done.”
“What about what you’ve done?” The sadness and anger over losing Flash burned inside of her, tamping down the betrayal she felt and the regret she’d never get a chance to confront Flash about what he did, what they shared, and find out what it all meant. Or could have been.
Uncle Otis pulled the truck into the garage bay. The two guards from outside came in behind them and closed the roll-up door behind the truck’s tailgate. They parked beside a big rig and stacks of crates piled ten feet high.
Ahead of them were four areas with cars, toolboxes, car lifts, and machines. It looked like any other kind of garage setup. She didn’t know if it was real or just for show in case the cops served a warrant.
Of course, if they did, her father would know about it ahead of time and get the crates of drugs out of here. As covers went, it wasn’t a bad setup when you could pull cars through one side, load them up, and drive them out the other side of the building, pretending you’d done nothing more than an oil change or bodywork.
As for the big rig, she guessed her father had received a large shipment tonight and would begin distributing it soon.
All those drugs out on the street.
How many people would die?
How many families destroyed?
She’d never touched a drug in her life, yet they’d destroyed her life and her family.
She had no one left, not even her uncle.
“Come on.” Her uncle opened the door, grabbed her by the arm, and slid out of the truck, dragging her across the seat and out with him on the driver’s side.
“Hey. Let me go.”
The two guards who closed up behind them joined three other guys by a stack of boxes. Mason jars filled an open box on the floor. One of the guys took a drink from a jar filled with clear liquid, then passed it off to his armed buddy.
Her uncle’s moonshine. Boxes and boxes of it. He wasn’t only selling it to neighbors, but using her father’s connections to sell it on a much larger scale. He’d been working with her father all this time.
“You need to open your eyes and finally see what is really going on and understand that it can’t ever happen again.”
Iceman walked out of the office on their right. “Why did you bring her here?” He didn’t seem all that surprised that her uncle knew where to find him.
“You’re selling moonshine and distributing it using Iceman’s dealers?”
Her uncle stopped in his tracks, but didn’t let her go. “It’s business.” Irritation infused his words and the deep frown creasing the sides of his mouth.
“It’s illegal.”
“Another useless regulation pushed on free people by the government,” her uncle shot back.
“Why the hell did you bring her here?” Iceman demanded again, looking around at the men and drugs and back at her.
“He blew up my coffee shop and killed . . .” Her voice faded as the grief washed through her and clogged her throat.
Iceman came to her and took her by the shoulders. “Are you okay?” He brushed his hand over her hair and softly touched her wet cheek. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this concerned and gentle with her.
“She’s fine, but that fucking DEA agent is dead. So is that lying, conniving Tandy.”
Iceman shoved her behind him and squared off with her uncle. “What have you done?”
“What needed to be done.” Her uncle pulled out a gun and some other electronic device from his pocket and held them up toward her father. “I will protect Cara. I will make sure no one ever hurts her again. It’s time to end this.”
Iceman never took his eyes off her uncle, but yelled, “He’s rigged the place to blow. Get out,” to the men drinking by the bay door and the others waiting in the office next to them. The glass jar they’d been drinking out of hit the cement floor with a crack and shattered. Cara stood immobilized by fear and disbelief as the men ran for the exit and fled out the back.
Judging by the sirens out front, they didn’t go far.
Her father took one menacing step toward her uncle, his hands fisted at his sides. “You led them here.”
Her uncle shook his head. “The way you live your life led us here.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
King pushed the truck as fast as he could take it down one street, around a corner that sent Agent Bennett leaning into the door, and down into an industrial district.
“Slow down. It’s dark and the way you’re squinting tells me your vision isn’t all that clear yet.”
“I’m fine.”
Agent Bennett’s phone dinged. Each new text message resulted in more bad news. The last one told them Agent Alvarado’s and Tandy’s bodies had been recovered. King dreaded what this one said.
“Backup just arrived at the auto shop.”
“Good. They can take down whoever is inside and recover the drugs.”
“Not good. Cara and her uncle drove inside the building. Several minutes later, eight armed men fled out the back.”
King pushed the pedal to the floor and took the next turn with the tires squealing. “Contact the team. Tell them I want a rifle ready. He’s not walking out of there alive if he hurts Cara.”
“It gets worse. The team surrounded the building, but are sticking back.”
“Why?”
“The guys they caught running out the back said Iceman told them to run because the place is rigged to blow.”
King spoke hi
s worst fear. “He’s going to take them all out.”
Agent Bennett read the next update on his phone. “There’s no way in without them knowing we’re coming and potentially getting agents killed. None of the surrounding buildings provides a line of sight.”
“I’m getting in there.”
“King, it’s suicide. He’s out of his mind. He’s going to blow the place sky-high.”
“Not with her inside of it. I will get him to let her go. Deep down, he doesn’t really want to hurt her. He wants to protect her. Right now, he thinks the only way he can is to kill her.”
“Do you hear yourself? That’s crazy talk. That’s exactly what he is. He’ll blow the place the second he sees you.”
King stared at the sheer number of vehicles clogging up the street outside Anderson Automotive.
“Then we need to distract him so he doesn’t know I’m coming.” King pulled the truck in next to the DEA’s armored vehicle. A tactical team stood beside it, going over plans to infiltrate the building or figure out a way to get a sniper into a position with line of sight to take out Cara’s uncle and Iceman if necessary.
He knew the men, had worked with them on several occasions, and trusted them to give him an assessment of the situation.
King jumped out of the truck the second he killed the engine. Adrenaline masked the many aches and pains in his body from the explosion. He may not be a hundred percent, but right now his focus was on getting to Cara and making sure she made it out of that building alive.
“King. You look like shit,” Cruz, the team leader, said the minute he joined the group.
“I feel like it. What’s the plan?”
“With the potential for another bomb like the one you just survived, we can’t get close to the building. We’re about to make contact via phone, but from what I’ve been told, this guy isn’t in the talking mood.”
King had to consider all the angles and the lives of the men around him. He couldn’t risk them when he knew Cara’s uncle wanted him dead and had already tried to kill him once. He didn’t really want to give the guy another shot at him, but he couldn’t leave Cara in there scared and alone and surrounded by people who’d betrayed her, her whole life.
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