“Thanks.” She didn’t want to talk too much. He was an intel expert, and probably knew she was bluffing hard.
“See you in one minute,” he said.
Nessa didn’t answer, afraid she’d lose it if she tried. No you won’t.
The door to the room opened. The second it closed, Nessa pulled the bathroom door open and saw … nobody. He had bought it! She had sold it! There wasn’t much time.
Nessa locked the bathroom door then pulled it shut. Then she took two seconds to jot a note on the notepad, grabbed her phone, and slipped out the back door to the patio leading to the beach, all before Baron came back in.
The first part of her plan had actually worked.
Who was she kidding, that was her entire plan. All she knew now was that she had to prove Baron wrong and prove herself capable all in one.
Not knowing the next step in her plan, she took off at a jog.
10
When Baron went out into the hallway, the housekeeping cart was a few doors down. Something was up with Nessa. Hopefully it really was simply being put out by the towel situation, but when he’d first heard her call his name, no, yell his name, he had briefly feared for his life. At the door however, she hadn’t been really mad at him, just very concerned about the towels and insisted he solve the problem in an exact manner.
Baron paused at the cart to consider all angles.
Something wasn’t right. This was a wild goose chase.
Short of the housekeeping cart, Baron turned around and hurried back to the room.
“Nessa,” he called as he slid the key card in and opened the door. “I couldn’t find any towels.”
She didn’t answer.
Baron knocked on the bathroom door. “Nessa?”
Something was definitely wrong. He tried the handle and found it locked.
“Nessa if you don’t answer I have to break in, so stand back.”
Silence.
Baron turned his shoulder toward the door and hit it, keeping the handle in his free hand. His foot would be more efficient, but if Nessa was in front of the door for whatever reason, he didn’t want to send it flying against her.
The door didn’t budge under his shoulder so he took a step back and kicked it next to the handle. Wood splintered near the handle and catch and the door flew inward, slamming against the bathtub.
The bag of purchases from the surf shop was lying in the center of the floor. There was no sign of Nessa anywhere. So how was the door locked? Delay tactic. That was the only explanation. Four fresh towels were folded and stacked on the shelf, so that instinct had been correct. Which meant something was seriously amiss.
Baron’s hand reached to the back of his shorts for his gun before he realized it was stowed in his Escalade on the other side of the border. He inspected the bathroom to see if there were any hidden exits that she’d been taken out of.
Where had their cover failed so thoroughly for someone to go to the efforts of abducting her? On the beach they’d been speaking openly, but he was watching the whole time for signs of audio surveillance and they’d been moving, which would make spying on them nearly impossible. Unless the surf shop had planted a bug and had listened to the whole thing!
Whatever had happened, Nessa hadn’t left through the bathroom.
Stepping back into the room cautiously, he scanned the room. There was no sign of struggle. He’d only been out of the room for ten seconds, maybe fifteen. He felt like he was in the middle of an unsolvable logic problem.
No, it felt like Nessa was too good to be true. He’d been dreaming or hallucinating her and she’d gone up in smoke.
He had to find her, no matter how impossible it was to gather a genie out of the air and bring her back to real life.
“Stop that,” he told himself. “There’s a real answer here, and you’re going to find it.”
Baron scanned the room again and noticed a black button on the pad of paper sitting on the desk. The paper had a few words scrawled on it.
I can’t believe you would do this. I’ll prove myself to you … Nessa
Baron didn’t have the slightest idea what he’d done. It had to have something to do with the small device sitting on the note. He bent to examine it without touching it. It was a short cylinder, the size of four stacked nickels with a small convex dome on the top. Whatever it was, he’d never seen it before in his life.
Maybe it was a bug or a tracker, possibly from the surf shop. Or the whole room could be bugged, which would have to have happened before they even arrived. This had been placed in the bathroom, and if the bathroom was bugged the rest of the room was for sure. Unless it was a camera, then unfortunately the bathroom would be an expected, though disgusting, choice of placement.
Using the pen, Baron upended the device. In the center on the bottom was a hole, but it didn’t appear to be a lens.
Nessa had certainly handled this with her fingers, so there was no point in trying to keep it clean or prevent any harm to himself. Baron picked it up and inspected the hole. It looked like a dock for a pin.
“It’s a security tag,” he said with utter certainty. “To prevent shoplifting.”
Oh no, no, no. To Nessa it had to have looked like a tracker. She’d found it in the new clothes and assumed Baron had planted it at some point today, right after promising to treat her like an adult and a partner.
This was bad. She’d been angry enough to distract him long enough to … escape. The mere thought of that word churned his stomach which was already in upheaval. According to the note, she was going to prove that she was capable enough to work without him. That meant she was capable of attempting anything, as long as it was dangerous.
The safety harness was off, but Nessa was determined to fly through the air anyway, whether it was Baron on the other side of the trapeze or not.
Everything had been going so perfect. They should be sitting on the beach or on the water trying to surf. This mission had gone from meeting every objective to potentially catastrophic in the course of two minutes.
Baron had dealt with failed missions before and he could deal with this one.
The back door. He went to the sliding door and found it closed but unlocked. Their small patio led straight to the sand, and of course, Nessa was nowhere in sight. He pictured the Mexican style white shirt they’d bought at the border. When she’d put it on she’d suddenly seemed so carefree, beautiful, and willing to listen to him tell her so.
“Focus, man.”
He dialed her number as he scanned the beach. Straight to voicemail.
There was no sign of anyone in a white shirt like hers anywhere on the beach. He thought of her long, blonde hair and continued to scan. She would be moving away from him, either in a hurry or trying to not act suspicious.
No one on the beach met that description.
Baron looked down at the ground. Tracks of all shapes and sizes led off in every direction. Maybe Creed Parker could track her if he knew what flip flops she’d been wearing, but Creed’s tracking skills didn’t do Baron any good in the here and now.
That didn’t mean his buddies couldn’t help in other ways. He did a quick inventory of their specialties that might come in useful.
In addition to tracking, Creed could fight better than any of his SEAL group. If this mission came to hand to hand combat, they were in way too deep. Blaine was a sniper and negotiation specialist, but they needed to end this way before reaching that point. He needed to start with less extreme ideas.
No one Baron had ever met knew more about the quirks and customs of different parts of the world as Maddox. He was a walking, talking world travel guide. Working for Sutton, so close to Tijuana, maybe Maddox knew something about this place.
While Logan was an explosive expert, he also had top notch hacking skills. It seemed like a stretch for him to hack into every security camera in the city and look for her, but Baron would give him a try, see what he came up with. His gut said technology wasn’t the answer.
He needed to get into her head and use psychology. Psychology and probability, since there was no way to guarantee where he would find her.
That meant Jace. He might make a difference on this one with his probability method. Jace and Maddox together, along with what Baron knew about her. Working together, they might just have better odds than going door to door.
“Oh, Nessa, you brave, careless woman, you. What have you done?”
No matter what it was, Baron would find her. Never had a mission been this important.
11
Nessa looked up and down the Avenida Revolución—bright colors, crowds, shops, and that really tall arch bridge thing. She stopped in shops to kill time and to try to work out a plan, but failed to come up with anything.
Once again, Nessa wondered how in the world she’d found herself right here in this spot in the world. Running away from Baron might not have been the smartest choice she could have made. While she felt like she was in the clear, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was someone trailing her ever since she’d run away from the hotel. The tourist areas had drawn her in as she hurried to get somewhere Baron wouldn’t follow her to. Or if he did follow her, somewhere he couldn’t find her easily.
And that was how she’d found herself alone on the streets of a city where she didn’t speak the language. And with no wallet—no cash, no credit card, no ID.
No passport.
Her plan to prove she was capable wasn’t very smart if she was going to start out by making stupid decisions that would only make it harder to prove herself.
The United States border was about a mile away. Maybe less. Then again, maybe more. It was the kind of thing she could look up on her Maps app … if her phone weren’t dead.
“Way to go, Nessa. Real smooth.”
In half an hour it would be full dark. That had to mean the city would be more dangerous. Then again, the tourist areas had to be fine. Except, she was a woman alone and knew nothing about the area.
She looked over her shoulder for the millionth time. A tall man, about her age, was looking her direction. He gave her a smile and Nessa looked away then walked away from him. He didn’t look scary; he was clean cut, well dressed in casual clothes and under different circumstances would be handsome. Still, the unease inside Nessa was growing.
His face hadn’t looked familiar, but with all the people on the street going in and out of shops, Nessa couldn’t be sure he hadn’t been following her. And she also couldn’t be sure his smile was friendly instead of creepy or threatening. It was too soon to look back at him again.
“Just go home, girl,” she told herself. They would let her across the border with her English and her American appearance if she gave them her address. Without her passport or any ID. Right? She was sure women came across for a few hours all the time, then just went home.
Okay, maybe not sure, but she figured it was likely.
So that’s what she should do—just start walking toward the border and figure it out when she got there.
That would really prove to Baron that she was a big girl.
No it wouldn’t. It would prove that she could walk a couple miles and rely on border officials to let her keep walking a few more feet.
She needed something more. Something he would never expect. Something risky and not like her at all. Something that would prove she didn’t need someone looking over her shoulder every minute, even on a mission in a foreign country.
The eyes that she felt on her back materialized in her mind into real bad guys who grabbed her—
No! It was part of the risk and tonight she had her big girl pants on.
She glanced behind her. The smiley guy noticed and kept smiling. It felt like he was a little closer than last time she’d checked. Or maybe he wasn’t. Her nerves were making her paranoid.
Nessa started walking away faster. If he tried anything, she could shout and people would come to her rescue.
That still didn’t solve the problem of how to prove herself to Baron and show him that she didn’t have to sit behind a safe computer monitor for the rest of her life.
Tonight her life and her future would change … hopefully for the better.
Nessa didn’t know if that future held his Lordship, the Duke of Spying. She really, really hoped it did. His betrayal had hurt, enough to send her out into this. In the long run, his mistrust was probably too much to overcome. Within hours, no within minutes of promising to treat her like an adult he’d gone back on his word.
She’d never met anyone like Baron. Yeah, she was new to this whole real life thing, and had next to no experience dating, but what she and Baron had shared affected her more deeply in just a few days than any man she’d ever met.
Before she could find out if they could ever get past his betrayal, she needed to figure out this moment—how to crack herself open and pour out what was inside, no matter how hard it was.
So she thought of the most impossible, improbable—
That was it. She knew what she needed to do, and Avenida Revolución was the perfect place to do it.
12
Baron hadn’t been this worried since the night of his escape from ISIS. He also hadn’t relied on his SEAL brothers this much since then. He had retraced the steps he’d taken with Nessa, returning to the site of the surf shop, just to make sure she wasn’t going to try to confront someone there. Thankfully there had been no sign of her there, although Baron had passed by quickly without paying it too much obvious attention.
After that he’d scanned the beach in the area, paying particular attention to the surfers, since that would be one way Nessa could prove herself. How she could pull it off with no money for board rental or lessons, was beyond Baron. Rely on her beauty and smarts, he guessed.
As he walked along the beach, he called Jace and Maddox on conference call and filled them in on the situation. They talked for a solid hour until Baron ran out of beach. All they had to do was find one specific tourist somewhere within a couple of miles of the busiest border crossing in the world.
Thanks, Maddox, for that scary little piece of intel.
Maddox said he would talk to Logan about any hacking strategies that might help them locate her. He also gave Baron some ideas on where to start looking based on his knowledge of tourist attractions. Jace said he would run some models and get back ASAP.
When they were about to hang up, Jace asked, “You tried calling her, right? Not just texting, Where u at?”
“Of course I called her,” said Baron.
“Hey,” objected Jace. “You never know with you Millennials.” For a Millennial, Jace managed to infuse it with plenty of sarcasm.
“No answer,” said Baron, not taking the bait. “She’s mad, bro.”
Jace grunted. “Try again. And if she answers, let us know right away that we can stop wasting time. In the meantime I’ll get to work.”
“Thanks, Jace.” Baron hung up and dialed Nessa. Answer, answer, answer.
It only rang once then went to voicemail. Most likely she had seen the caller ID and ignored it. Baron sent a text, begging her to call so he could explain. His phone stayed silent.
Baron called an Uber to start visiting the places Maddox had recommended. First they drove to one end of Avenida Revolución and Baron told the driver to just drive slowly all the way to the end of the tourist areas at the far end of the street. He scoured the streets and shops for his blonde-haired target. Over and over he got his hopes up but ended up being disappointed every time.
The driver told him they’d arrived and Baron instructed him to drive back the other way.
His phone dinged. It was Logan. I tried to ping her phone
That scared Baron to death. It meant the phone had a dead battery, was turned off, or had been taken from her and crushed under the boot of some drug dealer, kidnapper, or human trafficker. Baron tried not to think the worst, but he’d seen too much bad in the world.
He replied, What about the Escalade?
Still parked at the border—US side.
That was no better. He was still hoping that Nessa would go straight across the border, get in her Escalade, and drive back to Sutton’s. Hoping, but not expecting that. He knew she was going to try to prove herself big today.
Baron texted Logan, Let me know if it changes.
As they drove back along Avenida Revolución, it felt like the foot traffic had doubled. He could drive right by her and totally miss her.
Nessa was no dummy. If she was really trying to hide, she would be wearing different clothes, maybe a hat. It all depended on how badly she wanted to stay hidden. How deep she wanted to go undercover. There were some pretty deep places she could go to try to prove herself in Tijuana, places that would be hard for anyone to get out of on their own.
Baron couldn’t let that happen. He’d go up and down every street and check every shop if that’s what it took. He’d call in every SEAL favor he could and get the full force of his buddies and whatever Sutton was willing to spare as well.
It went beyond just looking for a damsel in distress. It was Nessa, the woman of his dreams. The woman he’d fallen in love with, as unlikely and quickly as it seemed. And to make it worse, it was because of him that she was loose in this wild city looking for a way to prove herself. True, the security tag had nothing to do with him, that was just some remnant of their shopping spree earlier today. But if he hadn’t put the tracker on her car and made her feel like he didn’t trust her as a partner, she wouldn’t have lost it and bailed when she found the security tag.
And if he hadn’t gone after the stupid towel she never would have escaped him and they could have talked about the tag. He’d let his guard down, fallen for her towel story, and now Nessa might be paying for it.
They arrived back at the end of Avenida Revolución as empty handed as they had started. His gut had been sick ever since finding the bathroom empty, and the malaise had spread to his heart. If anything happened to Nessa, Baron didn’t think he’d ever heal from it.
The Honest Warrior: Navy SEALs Romances 2.0 Page 9