“Nothing fancy, but it’s home. How did you manage to get away from Pablo anyway? I told him on the phone to meet up with me on the next corner from where I picked you up, but there you were on the street without him—”
“You and Pablo—”
“We go way back, me, Pablo, Jake. Real band of brothers.”
“Oh, God, it’s you, isn’t it? You’re Mike Reed.” Clare felt ice cold from the realization that had hit her like a truck as he stopped to study her, expressionless.
“You’re smarter than I thought, but not smart enough not to accept rides from strangers.”
“Go to hell.”
Clare got some satisfaction that he looked surprised until his lips curled into a strange smile. She wished she hadn’t said a thing when he squeezed her so tightly around the waist that she thought he’d break her lower ribs.
“We’re going to have fun together, I can tell. Beaten up, bruised, a knee ready to give out and you still have some fight left. Reminds me of someone—ever heard of Isabella Wyatt? She was a lot of fun, too.”
“Isabella Wyatt…Jake’s—”
“Wife. Never told me how she figured out I worked with Eduardo Ruiz. Did my best to force it out of her, though. God, she screamed before she died. Fucking bitch took her secrets to the grave.”
He pushed Clare against the door and held her there while he dug in his pocket and then shoved a key into the lock. Shadows hid his face and she held her tongue, too afraid now to say another word for fear of what else he might tell her.
His revelations could only mean one thing. He intended to kill her, just like he must have murdered Isabella—but why? Why?
He threw open the door and shoved her across the threshold into a foyer. Clare fell onto her hands and knees on the hard marble floor. Panicking, she glanced over her shoulder to try and get her bearings and saw the sedan parked inside what appeared to be a walled compound.
A guardhouse with a cupola roof stood to one side of the imposing front gate, a heavyset uniformed man leaning out a narrow window to accept a cigarette from the driver. Then the door was slammed shut and the hallway was thrown into pitch darkness. Clare’s labored breathing sounded deafening to her.
Terrified, she knew Mike loomed over her. His breathing sounded slow and even, and not ragged at all like hers.
She smelled him, too, his cologne a sharp citrus scent that did little to mask the acrid odor of his sweat. She’d been so intent on catching a glimpse of the outside surroundings that she had no idea if a doorway to some bigger room laid to her left or to her right. She wanted desperately to try and escape but she feared any movement in either direction would find her slamming headfirst into a wall.
“Crawl. The stairs are in front of you.”
His disembodied voice chilled her to the bone. She decided to plead with him, anything to stall whatever plans he had in store for her. “I…I don’t know why you’re doing this to me. You don’t know me. I haven’t done anything to you—”
“Doesn’t matter. Twenty million dollars explains away a lot of things, wouldn’t you say? That’s what Ruiz is paying me to make you dead—his very own words. Tonight. But we’ve got a few hours left until daylight and I know exactly how I want to spend them. Another little job perk. Now crawl.”
He was insane, he had to be. So panicked now she could hardly breathe, Clare groped for the stairway. His hand dipped between her legs to fondle her and she screamed. Terror gripped her and she scrambled backward, ramming into him.
“Fuck!”
He hurled her out of the way and punched the wall for a light. Clare blinked in the sudden brightness at the umbrella stand beside her head. She moved so quickly he had no clue she’d grabbed an umbrella until she drove it into his genitals. Wild elation swept her when he doubled over and screamed out obscenities.
Clare jumped to her feet and slammed her hand against the wall to douse the light before he’d straightened up to catch her. She swung wildly in the dark with the stout wooden end of the umbrella and hit him again, and then she lurched for the front door, crying out at the pain shooting through her knee.
Where was the door handle? She couldn’t find it. She couldn’t—
“Make another move and you die here, now.”
Clare froze. The muzzle of a pistol dug into her temple. He stood so close that his breath was hot against her neck.
Tears stung her eyes when he jammed his fingers through her hair and jerked her backward away from the door. She slipped and went down on her knees but he didn’t give her a moment to rise. Instead he dragged her alongside him, yanking her by the hair and muttering under his breath.
“Fucking bitch, I told you to crawl. Let’s see how fast you make it to the top.”
Clare gasped as he hauled her cruelly up the stairs with him two at a time, his grasp on her hair so tight she screamed at the pain, certain he’d yank her scalp from her skull. She’d known such agony once before when Billy had dragged her by the hair from their backyard into the house, Tyler crying his eyes out and running alongside her.
She was going to die. She would never see Tyler again. She would never hold her son or tell him she loved him—
“No, damn you, no!” Clare reached up and grabbed Mike Reed’s hand, scratching him viciously and hurling her body up against him.
She’d fought Billy by leaving him that day and she fought this man now, some primal strength driving her to dig her fingernails deep into his flesh. He screamed and she ducked, sensing his fist flying at her in the dark at the same moment he tried to drive his knee into her ribs. Somehow she caught his pants leg and pulled. His cry was almost inhuman as he fell backward and tumbled down the stairs, the handgun bouncing after him to land with a dull thud on the floor.
Clare clutched the balustrade and fought for breath, listening, waiting—but the hall was still.
She waited a moment longer. Was he lying there as a trick, his finger on the trigger? Only a low moan made her finally scramble down the stairs, the pain in her knee nothing to her desperation to get out the front door.
Where was the gun? She sank to her haunches and groped around on the floor, and cried out when her hand closed around the metal barrel.
Another moan spurred her to her feet. Relief swept her when she found the handle and pulled open the door to peer outside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Clare couldn’t see the security officer in the guardhouse but the driver of the sedan leaned against the hood with his back to her, smoking a cigarette. She hoped she would reach him before he turned around.
Biting her lip against the throbbing in her knee, she slipped out the door and limped as quickly and quietly as she could toward the driver.
The sound of a chair scraping against a tile floor came from the guardhouse and Clare ducked as the driver spun around to look. He called out a name, Jorge, but no answer came and Clare waited no longer. She was behind him before he’d taken a step toward the guardhouse, and she jammed the pistol into the small of his back.
“Get into the car.”
The driver couldn’t have looked more stunned as he hazarded a glance over his shoulder though he moved quickly to oblige her. Clare was glad he was a smaller man or he might have tried to wrest the weapon from her, but she was determined no one would get that gun from her.
His hand shook when he opened the front car door, Clare pointing the gun now directly at his head. Her hand shook, too, as she climbed into the back seat after he was settled behind the steering wheel. She eased the door shut and the driver followed her lead.
He didn’t wait for another command but punched a button on the console above his head and the heavy metal gate began to roll to the left. Clare glanced behind her to see that she’d left the front door to the villa ajar, but she didn’t care as long as that monster hadn’t followed her outside.
She hoped he was dead. She prayed he was dead. She wished then that she’d put a bullet between his eyes but it was too late for such
hindsight. All she wanted now was to be free of the compound. Her gut instincts told her loud and clear to jam the pistol behind the driver’s right ear.
“Go, damn you! Drive as fast as you can.”
He started up the engine and slammed his foot on the accelerator at the same moment Clare saw a movement through the window of the guardhouse.
“Go, go, go!” She’d screamed but she didn’t care, her foot pressing into the carpeted floor as if she were the one driving the car. The sedan sped down the winding driveway through the open gate and out into the street, almost hitting a white van parked at a weird angle right outside the compound.
The van. Pablo.
Clare ducked her head but kept the handgun pressed behind the driver’s ear. She didn’t want to look behind her, fearing what she might see, but finally she forced herself to glance over her shoulder.
Someone had switched on the van’s headlights and the vehicle roared after them down the street.
“Faster, drive faster, or I swear I’ll kill you!”
The man took her at her word, terrified. Clare couldn’t believe she’d said such a thing though she’d meant it. She couldn’t believe she’d fought so viciously at the villa either, but like Jake had said, it was amazing what fear and desperation could spur someone to do. She took another look over her shoulder and saw with mounting dread that the distance had narrowed between them and the white van.
Pablo must have seen her escaping. Fresh apprehension tightened her throat.
If he caught her, he’d drag her back to that monster or simply kill her outright. She had a pistol but he had an AK-47. Perhaps it was his plan to get as close as possible to the sedan and then strafe the vehicle from bumper to bumper with automatic gunfire—no matter that the driver would be hit as well.
Clare decided she’d be better off abandoning the vehicle and trying her luck on foot. She needed to find a place to hide until it was safe to venture out and then she’d figure out what to do next. The streets were growing more crowded with late night revelers and though the area looked more seedy than any she’d seen so far, she realized with another quick glance behind her that the van would soon catch up to them.
“Stop over there!” She pointed with the gun to a movie theater where a few dozen people waited in line. The driver quickly obliged her and pulled over.
She couldn’t get out of the car fast enough and she didn’t look behind her again, terrified of what she might see. She thrust the pistol into her pocket and plunged through the crowd and around the corner. Her knee on fire, she wished impossibly that the ground would just open up and swallow her.
Salsa bars with neon signs in bright fluorescent colors of lime green, yellow and hot pink lined the street so thick with people, Clare had to elbow her way through. Most of them reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Several people cursed her in Spanish.
She ignored them and moved on. Every bone and muscle in her body ached. She felt bruised from head to toe.
Exhaustion threatened to slow her down but she forced herself to keep walking. She was reluctant to enter any bar as a hiding place for fear of some drunk accosting her. She couldn’t believe it when she rounded another corner and spied a rundown-looking church on the opposite side of the street.
Intense relief flooded her. She jaywalked through the traffic to see that there was no white van in sight in either direction. Maybe Pablo had given up and turned back. Maybe he’d followed the sedan and lost her trail.
She started to tremble as she drew closer to the church, her eyesight growing blurry. She had sworn that she wouldn’t cry anymore but when she entered the empty sanctuary through a creaky wooden door, she almost collapsed onto the floor in tears.
Doubled over, Clare ducked into a nearby corner as violent sobs shook her. She wedged herself as best she could between the wall and a dusty side altar lined with flickering votive candles. She had no more energy to stand. She sank into a heap and buried her face in her hands.
She’d never felt so alone. Despair wracked her. She wept harder, beyond caring if anyone heard her or not.
Where was Tyler now? Had Jake been murdered just as that horrible madman had said would happen? Through her tears she nearly started to laugh, incredulous. Twenty million dollars. Was it worth so much to Eduardo Ruiz to have her slaughtered? Twenty million!
Another thought jarred her. She couldn’t go to the American consulate now. If Mike Reed had survived the fall, he might be there waiting for her as soon as she arrived—
Clare froze at the creaking sound from the church door.
Someone had entered the sanctuary.
She rubbed her eyes but she’d cried so hard everything looked blurry. Footfalls approached, slowed, then moved forward again. Her hand shook so hard she could barely pull the pistol out of her pocket. A flash of movement made her breath stop. She raised the handgun and did her best to take aim. Her blood roared in her ears, her finger sliding over the trigger…
“Dammit, woman, put down the gun before you shoot someone.”
“Jake?” Clare dropped the weapon and lunged to her feet. Her arms flew around his neck as he pulled her tightly against him.
She didn’t know what to say, she was so overwhelmed he’d found her. He didn’t sound like a man who’d been wounded. He felt solid and whole and strong, so strong that he crushed her in his embrace.
“You move pretty fast for someone with a limp,” he said into her hair, his breath feeling so warm and welcome against her neck. “I thought I’d lost you out there until I realized you probably ducked into the church.“
“How did you find me? I can’t believe you’re here. The ambush and those men in the truck–”
“Dead, at least the ones who didn’t run off. We lost two men—and Pablo. I caught up with the van when he got out to look for you. He shot at me and I returned fire. Look, let’s get out of here. We’ll talk more later.”
He didn’t wait for a response but swept her into his arms and carried her to the door. “It’s easier this way, okay? Hold on.”
Clare wound her arms around his neck as he shoved open the door with his shoulder and moved with her out into the street. The white van was pulled up onto the curb but he moved past it.
“Got me this far but it’s too recognizable,” Jake said as he carried her away from the church down a poorly lit side street. “If what’s going on is what I think is happening, there’s no telling how many people are looking for us.” He tried the doors on several parked cars before he found one left unlocked. “Okay, this one looks good.”
Jake set her down and Clare watched silently as he ducked inside a blue two-door sedan and worked at some wires beneath the steering column. The engine roared to life and he climbed into the driver’s seat and gestured for her to get into the car. She obliged him and he hit the gas and steered the vehicle out into the street.
“I’ve been a step behind you all night. Thought I’d lost you at Reed’s house, too, when you took off in that limo.”
“So that was you…in the guardhouse?“
“The guard saw you coming out the front door but I got to him before he left his chair.” Jake met her eyes for an instant and then focused back on the road. “Big guy. Had a tough time putting him down. You were already headed out the gate in the limo when I made it back outside. I heard you screaming at the driver.”
“I saw something at the guardhouse window. I had no idea-“
“Did Mike hurt you?”
Jake’s low spoken question gave her chills. He knew. He hadn’t taken his gaze from the road but his hands were clenched into fists around the steering wheel.
“No…I mean, I’ve got some bumps and bruises but I wasn’t thinking of that. I just wanted to see my son again.” Emotion tightened Clare’s throat and she turned to the window. “He fell down the stairs but I don’t think it killed him.“
“It didn’t. I heard him groaning and he called out for the guard. I should have killed the bastard then and th
ere but you were already halfway down the road. I couldn’t risk having to search the city for you, not after Ruiz sicced his dogs on us— including one I’d never considered.”
A heavy silence fell. Clare glanced out the window, the streets looking dark and sinister to her, more terrifying.
She wanted to say something to him, to thank him for coming after her, but she was too overcome by the reality of the monster they’d left behind. A monster who would still be looking for her, and who’d murdered Jake’s wife.
“Pablo talked before he died, poor bastard. Mike used him from the moment we got assigned to work on the same team.”
Clare glanced at Jake but he wasn’t looking at her, and she wasn’t sure if he’d spoken to her or more to himself.
“I didn’t have a clue,” Jake continued almost under his breath. “Mike knew our every move from Day One—Special Ops missions along the border, classified meetings, you name it. Anything we did, he knew to do the opposite to stay under our radar. Christ! Drug trafficking, dealing small arms—he and Ruiz have worked together for years. Pablo played Mike’s eyes and ears to keep his family alive and look what happened to him.”
“Did Pablo say anything to you about Isabella?” Clare had spoken to Jake barely above a whisper but she felt as if she’d shouted at him. Suddenly, she trembled. A muscle worked along his jaw but he still hadn’t looked at her. “Jake? Did he tell you who—”
“You ever heard a deathbed confession?”
Jake’s voice had never sounded so harsh. Clare shook her head, but then she remembered Doug McKain gasping out his last words as he’d bled to death in front of her. No confession, just directions that had led her to Jake. “Your friend Doug spoke to me before he died.”
“And you didn’t doubt he spoke the truth, did you?”
”No. He wanted to help me.”
“I think Pablo wanted to help me, too. At least I know now who really killed my wife and it wasn’t Eduardo Ruiz.”
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