Betrayal on the Border

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

“Lovely idea.” She lifted the glass to her lips.

  In short order, the men had steaming plates prepared. Chris crutched over to the stool beside her. He gave her shoulder a squeeze as he sat down, and she offered a smile that was tentative at best. Too much lay undecided between them. David delivered a heartfelt blessing over the food, and then they all tucked in with varying degrees of gusto.

  Her enthusiasm for food was unfortunately poor, but she made herself swallow, bite by bite, what normally she would have gobbled. Her appetite had fallen prey to nerves about what the post-breakfast discussion might hold. At last, they shoved their plates away and leaned back in their chairs. Sipping at the last of her juice, she looked from one man to the other. David’s expression was suspiciously bland. Chris’s face betrayed tension in the deepened crows’-feet at the edges of his eyes.

  “What are you waiting for, Mason?” She set her empty glass on the table. “The next solar eclipse? I’d like to hear your decision.”

  David chuckled. “Direct, isn’t she?”

  “No bushes get beaten on her watch,” Chris answered.

  “Har-de-har.” Maddie fought a chuckle. Levity was not the order of the hour. “I’m all ears.”

  “Ladies first.”

  “You would pull that one on me.” She wrinkled her nose. “Very well.” Her gaze found David’s. “How soon can you get us out of here?”

  Their host’s sharp stare traveled to Chris. “Now you.”

  “Yeah, what she said.” His chin firmed, and he jerked a nod.

  David slapped a palm to the table. “Looks like I have some phone calls to make from my office. Enjoy transferring these dishes to the dishwasher.” He got up.

  “No problem.” Maddie rose.

  Chris reached for his crutches, but she snatched them and moved them out of reach.

  “No fair!” He subsided onto his stool.

  “Totally fair. You cooked. I’ll clean up. Besides, I’m not going to have you fall over while you try to carry dishes and handle crutches at the same time.”

  David exited the room, snickering.

  Maddie busied herself with filling the dishwasher. Silence fell. The quiet should have felt peaceful. After all, they’d made their decisions, and the choices had matched. Instead, Maddie’s stomach tensed by micrometers with every passing moment. She kept her gaze to herself. No need to display her unease, particularly when she couldn’t explain it, even to herself.

  A small scritch-scratch sound drew a sidelong look toward Chris. He was staring at his walking boot, propped up on a chair, and pulling the Velcro loose then refastening it, over and over. He looked as unhappy as she felt.

  “I’m relieved you’re not going to run the risk of landing in prison,” he said. “I couldn’t stand that.”

  Maddie slapped the dishwasher door closed. “I don’t care about myself. If I thought you’d let me stay behind to finish this and let the chips fall where they may, I’d wave to your jet fumes in a heartbeat. But I figure you’re too stubborn for that.”

  “Me!” Chris snorted. “You give new depth of meaning to the word. I knew you’d never leave the country without me, and somebody has got to look out for you.”

  Maddie’s face heated. “What do you mean by that remark, Mason? You’ve appointed yourself as my protector? You forget which one of us is the bodyguard.”

  Chris’s cheeks burst red. “You need someone to protect you from yourself, Ms. Ranger, and I’d make any sacrifice to see to your safety.”

  “Sacrifice! That’s what you think about going away with me?”

  Choking on words, Maddie whirled and leaned on the counter with both hands. More of those dratted tears threatened. She was taking what Chris said the wrong way, but this whole direction felt like a wrong turn.

  A warm hand fell on her shoulder. Maddie turned and let herself become wrapped Chris’s offered embrace.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice came out muffled against his shoulder. “I thought I could do this. I want to...for you.” The waterworks kicked in over her best efforts to stop them, and sobs shook her shoulders. “I feel like...a failure. Can’t even do...the sensible thing...for you.”

  “You beautiful, wonderful, crazy woman.” Chris’s voice oozed tenderness. “Guess that makes us a pair of crazies, because I can’t run, either.”

  Maddie sniffed long and hard then looked up into his eyes. “We’d hate each other eventually.”

  “I don’t know if I could ever hate you, but I think we’re agreed that we have to go for it, come flash flood or hot place?”

  “Yep.” She straightened her spine, swiped the tears from her face, and backed away. “The ranger creed is too much a part of me. Our vows say straight out that surrender is not a ranger word.” She drew herself to attention. “‘Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the ranger objective and complete the mission though I be the lone survivor.’”

  Chris’s fingertips traced a burning path around her cheekbone to the tip of her chin. “You’re not alone. We’re going to stick together through this. And if it turns out well, then maybe...” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he seemed about to say something, but he cleared his throat and dropped his gaze.

  Maybe what? Was she ready for him to make some kind of love commitment? Probably not. Still, she swallowed disappointment at his nondeclaration. At least she had someone steady and strong beside her for this last leg of the mission, just like he’d been a rock throughout.

  “I’ve felt alone so often over the past year, but no more. In you, I see that the civilian soul can burn with the credo of no give-up and no compromise.”

  “So I’m an honorary ranger?”

  “Better than that. You’re a man of honor, no matter what vocation or situation you’re in.”

  “Thanks. It means a lot to me that you would say that.” His voice cracked at the end of the sentence.

  Maddie let out a watery laugh. “Don’t you go all teary on me. We’ll flood David out of his house.”

  Gazing into each other’s faces, they shared a long chuckle.

  “We’d better tell David to call off his evacuation plans on our behalf,” Chris said.

  “Right. The poor guy seemed so excited he could do such a big thing for us.”

  Maddie helped Chris collect his crutches, and they headed up the hallway toward the study. Her feet could have been treading on a pillow as light as her spirits had become. Totally irrational with the weight of storm clouds hanging over their heads, but she was starting to learn not to question the moment.

  They found David with his feet up on his desk, pecking away at his smart phone.

  “Hey, buddy,” Chris said when he looked up. “We will never be able to repay you for all you’ve done, but it looks like you’ll have to put those great escape plans aside. Maddie and I have decided to charge the dragon, swords swinging.”

  David stared at them, thumbs poised over his phone screen.

  Maddie chuckled. “What this word-meister is trying to say is that we’re going to finish the mission.”

  Chris sent her a raised-brow look. “What the warrior princess is trying to say—”

  “I know what you’re both saying.” David grinned and plopped his feet to the floor. “I was just playing a little Angry Birds.”

  “A video game?”

  “Nothing else to do.” He shrugged. “I figured if I gave you two a little alone time, you’d figure out what you really wanted to do.”

  Maddie scowled. “You weren’t serious about setting us up outside the U.S.?”

  “A hundred and ten percent. You could already be on my private jet, but I couldn’t wrap my head around either one of you tucking tail.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now, how can I aide the cause of justice?”

  She
looked at Chris. “Here’s the go-to guy for a fresh plan.”

  Chris tapped the end of his chin. “I’ve been toying with a couple of thoughts. It really depends on who we choose to trust with the evidence.”

  “And your best investigative-reporter hunch is?”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “You’ve proposed a lot of ideas I haven’t liked, but they’ve all worked out better than I thought they would. Spill, Mason.”

  He told her, and he was right. She didn’t like it.

  * * *

  The brick high-rise speared the night sky over San Antonio. Only scattered windows glowed with light. Gazing up at the tower from the back of David’s limousine, Chris bit the inside of his lip. His inference about FBI Special Agent Blunt’s whereabouts had better be accurate. News reports hadn’t come right out and said so, but the wording hinted that since he and Maddie had dropped off the radar, the lead agent in the investigation had returned to his home base at the San Antonio Field Office. But by eleven on any ordinary night, he should be relaxing at home.

  Maybe. If a lot of factors were just right—such as no other emergencies driving him to burn the midnight oil at the office.

  Chris gnawed his lip harder. Maddie trusted him now, and he couldn’t afford to blow that precious commodity. If only at this moment, his idea didn’t seem so harebrained. Good thing his expression wasn’t clear to the other passengers in the dimness. The sight wouldn’t inspire confidence. What if he was wrong? What if this guy’s shoes-too-tight personality didn’t indicate a straight-and-narrow character?

  “Are you sure you want to do this, David?” he asked the shadowed figure in the driver’s seat. “Involving yourself directly could get you in major trouble.”

  David lifted a dismissive hand. “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I intend to enjoy this.”

  Chris blew air through his teeth in a low whistle. “All right then. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Next to him, Maddie chuckled. “Correction. We’ve been on the road for hours and hours. Now it’s time to get on our feet and go after the objective.”

  “That’s my cue,” David said and opened his car door.

  Not waiting for the chauffeur act, Maddie climbed out and turned to help Chris with his crutches. David met them on the sidewalk and then led the way to the building’s intercom board. He stood where the security camera could get a good look at him. Maddie and Chris stayed out of sight to the side.

  “Apartment 819,” Chris said.

  “Check.” David pressed the buzzer button.

  Shortly—too fast for the man to have been asleep—a gruff voice demanded to know who was outside.

  “David Greene.”

  The silence lasted long enough to betray the agent’s surprise. “David Greene, as in the Alicia Gonzales murder case David Greene?”

  “In the flesh.”

  “What brings you to my door?”

  “I have to confess.”

  Again the telling pause. “Listen, Greene, if this is some kind of rich-boy joke, or you’re too wasted for common sense just climb back onto your flying carpet and sail out of here. I’ve got no time to waste on a lost cause.”

  “No joke, and I’m more sober than the judge who presided at my Grand Jury hearing.”

  “What are you doing at my door? The case belongs to the local PD.”

  “Let’s just say I want a pair of fresh ears to hear what I have to say.”

  The intercom stayed silent for several heartbeats. Chris’s mouth went dry.

  “All right, you’ve got my attention,” Blunt said. “Why don’t I meet you at the office in an hour? We’ll roll out the red carpet.”

  “We talk right here, right now, with you alone, or not ever.”

  Another pause dragged on until sweat popped out on Chris’s forehead. So much had to go right for this plan to work.

  “Come in,” Blunt said, and the front door buzzed.

  David pulled the door open wide and went through. Then he waited a few seconds, long enough for Blunt to have lost interest in watching his security screen. Then he turned to let Maddie and Chris in. They proceeded through an empty lobby directly to the elevator.

  “Anyone need a refresher on the procedure?” Maddie asked on the way to the eighth floor.

  “I’m good,” David said.

  “Me, too,” Chris confirmed.

  “Good men.” Maddie’s grin contained a bit of the shark.

  Chris suppressed a shiver. Watch out, Mr. Shoes-Too-Tight Agent.

  The elevator door dinged open, and David got out first, followed by Maddie—a swift and silent shadow. Chris tagged along slowly enough that the distinctive sound of his crutches would not carry to the agent through his door. Ahead, David reached the apartment, but stopped and waited while Maddie took up a position against the wall nearest the door knob. She gave him a nod, and David knocked.

  On the other side of the door, a chain rattled. Chris was close enough to hear the sound, but lagging too far behind to see the action firsthand. The door swung open and Maddie lunged inside. A loud grunt, a thud and a curse in a masculine tone carried to him.

  Chris put some hustle in his crutching and reached the doorway half out of breath. David admitted him, and Chris swung over the threshold to find a lanky man facedown on the entry hall carpet with Maddie’s knee in the small of his back and his right hand twisted up between his shoulder blades. A gun lay farther up the hallway where it must have been knocked away. Clearly, the very special Agent Blunt was not a trusting man—even when he thought he had a willing confessor on his doorstep.

  “Agent Blunt,” David said, “I’m here to confess that Christopher Mason is my friend. As far as whether or not I ever did anything worthy of the charge of murder, I don’t know for sure, but I do know that Chris didn’t kill anyone, and he’s certainly not in cahoots with a drug cartel. However, he does have knowledge that should be of interest to you. I think you should listen to what he has to say.”

  “Absolutely,” the man on the floor gasped out. “Get this she-tiger off me, and we’ll talk. We’re eager to know what you’ve got.”

  “We?” Chris crutched closer, but Maddie sent him a glare that halted his approach. He trusted her control of the situation and backed off.

  “Yes.” Agent Blunt lifted his head and rippled his body, as if to work free of the hold on him. Maddie shifted more weight onto her knee, and he subsided with a groan.

  “Go ahead and talk,” Maddie said. “Just don’t try to move.”

  Blunt gusted out a breath. “I’m part of a select internal task force composed of members known only to each other and the director. We know there’s someone dirty in-house. We’re also reasonably certain that you didn’t kill DEA Agent Edgar Jackson.”

  “Then why the manhunt for us?” Chris demanded.

  “It would have tipped our hand to whoever is dirty, not just in our agency but others, if we questioned their story about having an eyewitness identify you two at the scene of the crime.”

  Chris locked gazes with Maddie. He couldn’t answer the question on her face. Was Blunt toying with them, trying to trip them up, or was he serious?

  “But we were at the scene of the crime,” he told the agent. A fresh stillness gripped the man’s body. “We were too late to speak to a living Edgar Jackson, but we’d just missed the killer—someone who knew our next stop was likely to be Jackson’s house.”

  “Do you know who that someone is?”

  “Pretty sure. We’ve got a fascinating voice recording and a riveting video from a little operation we ran at a hotel in downtown Laredo. We also had a pretty entertaining run-in with some surprising folks the day before the hotel caper, but a bullet ripped my recorder out of my hand. Maddie and I heard enough of
the conversation to give you what we believe to be the date, time and place of the next shipment across the border. How interested are you in all this?”

  “Very.” Blunt nodded. “The director will authorize protective custody and immunity from prosecution for yourselves and anyone who helped you, as long as your information is accurate and leads to the apprehension of the conspirators operating within the United States.”

  “Our information is accurate, but whether or not it leads to the apprehension of the guilty parties is up to your people.”

  “That’s the deal. Are you interested?”

  Chris looked at David, who jerked his chin in the affirmative.

  Chris frowned. His friend might be too quick to trust. Law enforcement was rabid to pin anything on David Greene. “Does that offer of immunity extend to David here?”

  A pregnant pause followed. Finally, Blunt huffed. “Only as far as aiding and abetting you two. Any other charge is still fair game.”

  “Agreed,” David said.

  Chris nodded to Maddie. She hopped up and backed away from the agent, but appropriated the man’s gun in the process. Watchful woman.

  Agent Blunt got up slowly, rubbing his arm and shoulder. “Ms. Jerrard, you could give lessons in hand-to-hand to our FBI trainers.” He turned and led the way into a living room furnished in crisp sterility.

  The guy actually did walk like his shoes were too tight—only he wasn’t wearing anything but socks on his feet. Chris shared a small smile with Maddie. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Crazy wonderful how their minds were in sync.

  The agent faced them, arms crossed, gaze stern. “It might increase your trust factor to know that I’m the person who made sure the heat lifted sufficiently for you to pop your heads aboveground. It didn’t take much more than a mention within a reporter’s earshot that you two might already have skipped the country, and the idea made the news.”

  “I knew that wasn’t natural,” Maddie said. “But it never occurred to me that the report was part of a plan to help us.”

  “It has always been the plan to catch whoever masterminded the Rio Grande Massacre. Helping you is secondary.”