Ben turned to Pedro in the seat beside him. The young man gripped the seat cushion with white-knuckled fingers. His eyes were closed, but his lips were moving. Ben caught a whispered, “Dios.” Damn, the kid was praying. For what, he wasn’t sure. To survive the flight. To locate the coyote’s halfway house. To find Maria. All would be good, but Ben was only confident of the first one.
He tapped Pedro’s shoulder.
The boy’s eyes opened wide. “¿Qué?”
Ben pointed to the landscape below. “Los coches viejos.” He didn’t have a clue how to say junkyard in the front yard so he went with what he thought meant the old cars. Hopefully, in his terror-stricken state, Pedro still remembered what he’d told Marissa about the house with all the plastic outdoor decorations, because Ben sure as hell didn’t know the Spanish words for windmills, flamingos, and gnomes.
Tensing even more, Pedro leaned toward the window and looked down. After a moment, his cheeks inflated, and he slapped his hand over his mouth.
Airsick too. Shit. Ben pushed the kid’s head between his knees. “Never mind. I’ll look.”
With high-powered binoculars, he surveyed the ground. The pilot circled back and made another pass. Still nothing matched what Pedro had described to Marissa. Ben touched the copilot’s shoulder and motioned to head farther east.
They repeated the process three times before Ben spotted a sparsely populated area with only a handful of houses just a little to the north. He spoke to the pilot through the headset and identified the spot. The chopper banked sharply, and Pedro let out a misery-laden groan.
When the helicopter came back around, Ben confirmed one of the houses had several junked cars on the property. A zing of excitement shot through him. The exercise to trigger Pedro’s memories had been more about giving the immigrant some hope rather than about a serious expectation of finding the place.
But damn. This just might work.
He poked Pedro again, and the kid sat up, his face ashen.
“Los coches viejos,” Ben repeated and pointed down.
Pedro gulped and looked out the window. He nodded like a bobblehead doll. “Sí, sí.” Then he scanned the area and gestured excitedly. “Flamencos, flamencos.”
Even Ben could translate that. He followed the direction with the binoculars, and there stood a whole “flock” of plastic flamingos surrounded by other plastic paraphernalia. “Hot damn, we’re gonna find it.”
Since Pedro had told Marissa he’d seen only four houses, Ben swept the vicinity, looking for at least two more. The chopper had to swing around for another pass before he saw them. One didn’t match Pedro’s description at all, but the last one was spot-on.
“Is that it?” Ben asked, handing him the binoculars.
Pedro studied the house below them. After a minute, he grinned and nodded.
“You did it,” Ben said, patting him on the back.
“We… land. Get Maria,” he said hopefully.
Well, shit. Pedro wanted instant results. “Not yet. Surveillance first.”
“Maria there?”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. From what you told us, this is only Loco’s regular stop along the way, not a final destination. I’ll set up a stakeout.”
“Loco come Thursday morning. For sure.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to take a chance on missing him. We’ll watch the place around the clock, but plan our raid for Thursday. Now, let’s see if we can find where the vans picked you up.”
* * *
Amber could still feel Ben’s lips on hers hours after he’d left. God, she was in trouble. Ignoring her rules against getting emotionally involved would come back to bite her in the butt. True, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. The guy did something to her, for her, and she couldn’t resist. Even before the awesome sex, she’d recognized something different. The first time their gazes had connected at the Friday night party, she’d felt it. She should’ve known better. When she moved this time, it was going to hurt. Bad.
After cleaning the apartment, she decided to hit the grocery store to buy the ingredients for stroganoff, her specialty. She wanted to be prepared to fix Ben a nice dinner if he showed up at her door. Not that she was counting on seeing him. More like hoping or wishing.
Praying Gary wasn’t at the pool with several of the other residents, she hurried across the courtyard. As she passed the bank of mailboxes, she froze. A single red rose lay on the sidewalk next to the wall.
She spun around, eyes searching in all directions. Her hand automatically reached into her purse and gripped the gun. Her heart rate skyrocketed.
She darted back to the corner and peeked around at the pool area. Focusing on one person at a time, she confirmed none of them was Jeremy. Her gaze traveled along the first floor of each building and then across the upper floor. A few people were coming and going, but no one lingered, watching from the shadows.
The panic began to ease. She jogged past the mailboxes and into the garage. Taking slow deep breaths, she headed straight for her car.
A whimper escaped when she spotted the rose on the hood. But then she noticed a rose on the next car and the next. She scanned down the row until she spotted a man with the flowers.
He wasn’t Jeremy. Thank God.
But what was the guy doing? Suspicion sprouted.
She raced after him. “Excuse me.”
He turned. “Yeah?”
“The r-roses. What… what’s the occasion?” She hoped he didn’t notice the tremor in her voice.
He laughed. “Funny story. A man came in and ordered two dozen red roses from the florist where I do deliveries. He called later and canceled because his girlfriend broke up with him. The flowers were already out with me for delivery so we couldn’t give him a refund. Sucks, right? Anyway, he said to just hand them out randomly at the delivery address, which is this apartment complex.” He shrugged. “Crazy, huh? Want one?”
“No, thanks. You already put one on my car.” She paused. The hair on her nape rose. “Uh, what’s the girlfriend’s name?”
“Jane Reynolds.” He frowned. “Weird thing. When I went to the rental office to tell them what I was doing so they wouldn’t get upset, the agent told me there was no Jane Reynolds living here. And the apartment number the dude gave was bogus also.”
Amber shuddered. “Poor guy. What’s his name?”
“Casanova.” He rolled his eyes. “And since he paid cash, there’s no real name from a credit card. Weird, huh?”
* * *
“Yeah, Boss, we found the place. Can you believe it?” Ben said on the phone Sunday afternoon.
“How the hell…? I thought none of the Mexicans remembered a thing about the house.”
He hesitated. “I had a… an FBI friend of mine talk to Pedro. She speaks fluent Spanish, and I thought it might put Pedro at ease so his memory would kick in.”
“Sounds like it worked. Tell your friend thanks for me.”
“Will do.”
“Now, what’s your plan to catch Loco?”
Ben leaned back in the chair and focused. “Pedro believes Loco does a run every other week, which means this week is on the schedule. He brings the customers across the border around midnight on a Wednesday. They get picked up on the US side and transported by trucks until they meet up with two vans on the side of the road by early Thursday morning. The men are driven to the halfway house, and the women are taken somewhere else. Five were immediately escorted outside; three were put in a bedroom and told to sleep. They never heard the others come back inside. When they woke up, the five were gone. The ones who were brought back Thursday night said they stayed in an apartment. No idea of the location.”
“Who made the selection and handled the transport?”
“Loco rode in the van with the women. Since he’s Hermosillo’s handpicked coyote and he runs the gang, I’d bet on him.”
“Agreed. How do we trap him?”
Ben stood up and paced. “The goal is to have him lead us
to the kidnapped women first. The tricky part will be spotting the transfer from the semi to the vans since it happens on the shoulder of the freeway, not at an identifiable building or location. Pedro and I didn’t have any luck finding where it was that Thursday morning. Nothing really looked familiar to him. Understandable, since he was focused on Loco taking Maria away, not on the scenery. Of course, the transfer may not always be at the same place anyway. I need at least two choppers combing the area this Thursday if we want a chance of finding them. After the women are separated, we follow their van to the apartment. Then we wait until Loco takes the selected women to their next destination, which is completely unknown at this point. Once he reaches that location with the latest batch of victims, we spring the trap. Simultaneously, teams will move on the halfway house and the apartment to collar the rest of the gang and illegals.”
Rex remained silent. Ben envisioned him stroking his chin, deep in thought.
“What if Loco doesn’t kidnap any of these women? We don’t know if it happens every time.”
Then we’re screwed. But Ben didn’t say that. Instead, he braced himself for Rex’s next reaction. “If he doesn’t, all teams stand down.”
This time there was no pause, just an instant response like a clap of thunder. “What?”
“We back off, wait until the next border crossing.”
“And what if Loco retires from his coyote career? Or he doesn’t kidnap any more women? What then, Special Agent Alfren?”
Okay, no reason to sugarcoat it. “Then I screwed up.”
“Big-time! Not only will we not have recovered the missing women, we won’t have Loco in custody either.”
“Understood. But…”
“But what?”
“I think Hermosillo’s new venture is still in the formation stage. And whatever it is, he’ll need more women.”
“You mean his phantom business. It’s a theory, your theory. We have no concrete intel that H is into something new. You’re willing to base this whole op on speculation?”
Yes, he was, but damn if he’d admit it. His gut told him he was on the right track. As his mentor, Rex had taught him to trust his gut. Ben guessed his boss was testing his resolve to stick with his instincts.
“Where are the kidnapped women going then? They’re not showing up here in the sex trade,” Ben said.
“I’ll give you some possibilities. They could be in North Dakota serving all the new oil field workers. They could’ve been sold individually as sex slaves instead of being put into the whorehouses. Since they were young and presumably healthy, they could’ve been cut up and their organs sold. Shall I continue?”
Disgust roiled in Ben’s stomach, and his pacing quickened. “Hell no.”
“See my point?”
“Of course, I do. I analyzed those possibilities days ago. I know about all the dark avenues where these assholes travel. The first alternative is the one with the highest probability. The other two aren’t on H’s radar.”
“Unless one of them is the ‘new venture.’”
“Our informants would’ve caught wind of something that different. And I can’t see any connection between private sex slaves or human organ sales and the stud service comments Manuel told us about.”
“You put any faith in that cretin?” Rex asked.
“He’s a greedy cretin. If he knew anything valuable, he would cough it up for the dinero.”
“And where does this ‘stud service’ fit in the puzzle? What does that have to do with the kidnapped women?”
Ben paused. “That’s the missing piece.”
* * *
Amber’s hands shook as she finished packing the second box. The linen closet was almost empty, as were several of the kitchen cabinets. She’d also stuffed a suitcase with clothes and shoes but left it in the closet instead of moving it to the living room. Ben would certainly notice luggage sitting next to the end table. And she wasn’t ready yet to tell him she was leaving. Soon.
But did she have to leave today, tomorrow, this week?
Was she willing to take the risk and wait until she had confirmation Jeremy was in town? She’d learned the hard way that hesitation on her part usually proved disastrous.
But she’d never had as strong a reason to stay as she did now. Last night with Ben made her feel good again, and not just in a sexually satisfied sort of way. Her feelings had crossed into forbidden territory.
She taped the box, carried it to the living room to add to the stack, and headed into the kitchen to start dinner.
As if false Jeremy sightings weren’t enough to tie her up in knots, she still faced the frustrating situation with the new clinic hurting SDSA. What was going on at that place? Something was wrong, but she couldn’t even define it, much less prove it. Nope, her work wasn’t done. She needed a plan B.
Chapter 13
“What’s wrong?” Ben asked, setting his fork down.
“Huh?” Amber looked up from her plate.
“This stroganoff is delicious, but all you’ve done is push it around your plate.”
“I’m… not very hungry.”
“Why?”
“No reason.” She lifted a bite on her fork. “So, everything going well with your investigation?”
“Don’t change the subject.” If only he could read her mind. She’d been tense and distracted all evening. Was she angry about his leaving last night after all? “Well?”
She chewed and swallowed. Took a sip of wine. “Well, what?”
He rolled his eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you worried about your job?”
She perked up. “Yeah. My job. That damn clinic is going to put us out of business.”
“Did something happen today?”
“What do you mean?” She gulped.
He spread his hands. “Did you hear from your boss?”
“Uh, no. I’m just worried.”
He speared her with a disbelieving scowl. “Is that why there are two more packed boxes over there?” He jerked his head toward the living room.
Her gaze shot to the evidence.
Seriously? She didn’t expect him to notice? Not likely. Why couldn’t he get through to her? Was she pushing him away because they’d slept together? The sex had been great, so that didn’t make sense. At least not to a man. “I repeat, Amber, what’s wrong?”
Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes glistened.
Shit. I’m gonna make her cry. Good move, Alfren. He exhaled. “Look, babe. If you don’t tell me, I can’t help.”
Abruptly, Amber pushed back from the table and stood up. “You can’t help. No one can. This is my problem, and I’m dealing with it.”
Male pride bristled. “Well, excuse me. Am I even allowed to know what the problem is?”
A myriad of emotions played across her features. Whatever had upset her was far more serious than job insecurity. He suspected it was related to her triple locks, gun, and pepper spray.
The increasing number of packed boxes indicated she was preparing to run. From what? To where? Why? If she wouldn’t talk to him, was he supposed to guess the answers?
His gaze locked with her intoxicating dark chocolate eyes. “I want you to talk to me, even if you won’t let me help.”
“I can’t,” she said almost in a whisper.
Ben slammed his fist on the table.
The dishes rattled. Amber jumped.
His eyes narrowed. “Because I’m FBI?”
She shook her head.
Good to know. At least maybe she wasn’t wanted for a federal crime. “Don’t you trust me?”
She stared at him long and hard. “I do, Ben. I do… trust you.”
Progress, finally. He exhaled and rose. Holding out his hand, he said, “Come. Talk to me.”
She blinked several times before grasping his fingers. She let him lead her to the couch and sit her down beside him. He brushed the wispy tendrils of blond hair away from her face, again savoring the silkiness. His chest tightened with the de
sire to protect this woman from whatever haunted her. But she was too strong and independent to want to be protected.
He pulled her into a tender embrace and just held her for several minutes. God, she felt wonderful in his arms. Like she belonged there.
Neither spoke. She shuddered twice, and he tightened his hold. Eventually, he sensed her muscles relaxing, her tension easing.
He placed a gentle kiss behind her ear and whispered, “Talk to me, babe.”
She released a heavy sigh, as if the weight of her secret had devastated her. Or she was finally surrendering to his persistence. He preferred the latter.
“I used to date a guy named Jeremy Nelson. We were exclusive, but the relationship wasn’t terribly serious. After a while, his behavior started to really annoy me—”
“What kind of behavior?”
“Oh, you know, he’d get physical, rough, during sex… and other times.”
“Abusive?”
She hesitated and swallowed hard. “Not at first.”
Rage began to simmer deep inside, but Ben forced his demeanor to remain calm.
“When Jeremy attacked me after a male coworker simply walked me to my car, I broke up with him. He didn’t take it well. He punctured all four of my tires while I was at work. He painted sexual slurs on the door of my apartment. He called me all the time until I had to turn off my phone. He’d show up at the clinic where I worked and get so aggressive they had to call the police. He stalked me day and night.”
“Jesus.”
“I tried to be careful, but one night he caught me coming home late. He thought I’d been with another guy. Not that he had any right to object, but I’d actually been out with my girlfriends.” She paused and gulped several times. “He beat me up pretty bad. I landed in the hospital.”
“Sonofabitch,” came out as a hiss.
“Believe me, I called him that and worse. I got a restraining order, but he ignored it. Getting arrested only stopped him for as long as he was in jail. I wanted him locked up permanently, but the police, my lawyer, a psychiatrist, and a judge couldn’t make it happen. I moved back into my parents’ house, but then he attacked their property. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I left Topeka.”
Hunted (FBI Heat Book 1) Page 10