by Odell, Terry
So could leaving her here.
Elle managed to get Trish into a half-sitting position. Trish’s eyes popped open.
“C’mon Trish, you can do it.”
“Can’t. Going to pass out.” And Trish went limp.
In the ensuing silence, Elle became aware of footfalls approaching.
The pounding in Jinx’s head felt like he’d been hit by a phaser. On heavy stun. He groaned, which only made his head throb all the more. Why couldn’t he remember what happened? Too many brain cells required to process that information. He closed his eyes again and the pain went away.
The next thing he knew, someone was shaking him and calling his name.
“Go ’way,” Jinx mumbled and sought refuge in the sleep state he’d welcomed before.
The shaking got harder, the name-calling louder. “Jinx! On your feet. That’s an order.”
Who the hell would be giving him orders? His brain refused to make sense of what was going on. “Are the Klingons attacking?” he muttered.
He’d had this dream before. He always emerged victorious. He curled into a tighter ball and imagined being on the battlefield, swinging the curved blade of his bat’leth, severing the enemy’s heads from their necks, one swipe at a time.
Someone grabbed his hand. That was a new wrinkle.
“Jinx, damn it, wake the hell up.”
And then he was being lifted. Blood rushed to his head. He squirmed, trying to escape.
“Would you hold still, damn it?” the voice said.
Jinx fought his way to a higher level of consciousness. He was being transported all right, but in a fireman’s carry. “Dalt? ’Sat you?”
“Ah, you’re awake. Can you walk? Because I really don’t want to have to carry you.”
“Yes.” He hoped so, because he didn’t want to have to live down being slung over Dalton’s shoulder.
Dalton lowered him to the ground. When Jinx’s knees threatened to buckle, he accepted Dalton’s steadying hand. Better than falling flat on his face and not being able to get up.
He bent over, hands on his knees, trying to catch extra air and figure out where the hell he was. Last he remembered, he was waiting outside a hotel room for Elle.
“Elle. Shit. Where is she? I have to get back. She was looking for her sister. Did she find her? Where are they?”
“You ask too many questions.” Dalton hooked an arm under Jinx’s shoulder. “Let’s try walking and talking.”
Jinx sucked in a few more breaths. The pounding in his head had dropped to a severe headache, but that was an improvement over incapacitating. He pulled from Dalton’s grasp and focused on the Texan’s back as they walked. Slowly, Jinx expanded his gaze. Not the jungle this time. Buildings on either side. The smell of garbage and piss. An alley. He turned his head, regretting it as arrows of pain shot through his head again. He stuck to what was closer.
Three more people. Two seemed to be twins. Jinx blinked and they merged into one man. And another. Smaller, thinner. Jinx blinked again to be sure. Yep. Dalton, and two Mexicans ahead of him.
The pieces began falling into place.
“When will we get to Elle?” Jinx asked, trying to get more puzzle pieces to slot together in his brain. He remembered waking up in an airplane. No, that was before. He pressed his fingertips to his temples, trying to rub the memories into place.
“Soon enough,” Dalton said.
Something wasn’t making sense.
Jinx stepped up his pace enough to pull alongside Dalton. Only then did he realize the Mexicans’ hands were flex-cuffed behind their backs.
“What the hell, Dalt?” Jinx said. “Did you abandon the mission—the saving Elle’s sister part, which I know got the green light from the boss—so you could continue your personal vendetta?”
Dalton spun and glared at him. His eyes were glints of steel. “If you don’t know what you’re talking about, how about you keep your mouth shut.”
Jinx felt the words as if Dalton had punched him in the gut. Had things gone south? Again?
Chapter 35
Elle released Trish and gripped the Glock, crouching behind the bathroom door. Fatigue battled with the adrenaline rush and the stress of getting Trish to a hospital. Acid roiled in her belly. Her heart thumped against her ribs. Her eyes felt as though their sockets were filled with burning grit. The footfalls slowed. Her heart rate didn’t.
She heard a soft voice speaking Spanish. Then a pause. She lifted the Glock to a firing position, aimed it where she estimated the intruder would enter her line of fire. When she saw the gun wobbling, she took a deep breath to steady it.
You’re at the firing range. Easy. It's another target.
As if she could believe it. A human being was not a paper target.
But you’ve trained for this eventuality your entire career. These people hurt your sister.
The door burst open. From her vantage point, she had to rely on hearing more than seeing. Footsteps. More than one set? Breathing. Wheezy, sniffly. The old man at the desk? Back from wherever he’d been, coming to check? Guillermo? Coming to help? Or, Elle hoped against hope, Jinx and Dalton?
“Come on out, Miss Grisham,” a male voice called. “No point in hiding. You can’t go anywhere.”
Grisham? Had to be someone who’d met her earlier, when she and Jinx were masquerading as an engaged couple. There was no Spanish accent in this voice. She thought hard, trying to place it. And then he sneezed. Blew his nose.
Bill? What could he be doing here? He’d helped them before. Could he be part of a rescue operation?
She itched to peek around the door, to see if she was right, but she didn’t want to show herself. Yet.
Forcing herself to wait, she tried to focus on whoever was in the other room, but a part of her brain was alert to any sounds from Trish.
“Don’t be stupid,” the man said. “Come out.”
“No, you come where I can see you,” Elle said using her best cop voice. “Hands where I can see them.”
Another sneeze and a sniffle. Shuffling feet. “I don’t want any trouble.” Bill appeared, hands above his head. No weapon.
“Neither do I. Have whoever else is with you show themselves.”
“I’m alone,” Bill said. Even if she hadn’t heard the unmistakable sounds of a second presence, Bill’s guilty glance over his shoulder telegraphed his lie.
“Don’t try to fool me,” Elle said.
“All right, all right. It’s the old man from the front office. He let me in.”
Of course, he’d have an extra key. But even as her cop instincts told her nobody could be trusted, it was the memory of the waiter at the Cabo resort that kept her from believing Bill. “I still want to see him. And close the door.”
The door clicked shut. The old man shuffled to Bill’s side, a puzzled expression on his face. Another thing Elle chose to ignore. He had to know damn well what went on in this so-called hotel. Cautiously, she moved enough to take in the living room where Bill and the old man stood side by side. She didn’t see anyone else, but that didn’t mean she was going to let her guard down. She stepped out of the bathroom, her Glock raised.
Bill’s eyes bugged out as he took her in. Clearly, he was remembering her as the woman wearing Aguilar’s choice of clothing, not combat gear. “Whoa, lady. No need to shoot.” He lifted his hands higher in the air.
“Then don’t do anything stupid. I need you to get an ambulance, or whatever emergency medical help this town has. Tell them to bring Heparin and Lovinox. And fast.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Bill asked.
“Don’t play me,” Elle said, taking in the phone at his hip. “Cell phones work here. Call 911, or whatever they use.”
“I’ll never remember all that.” Bill unclipped the cell phone from his belt and extended it. “You call.”
She shook her head. She was not relinquishing control of her weapon. “No, you call. Tell them it’s a serious clotting disorder. Tell th
em to run code three.”
“What?”
“Lights and sirens. Fast. Andale. Rapido. Vamonos. However you say it.”
Her heart pounded as she watched Bill stare at her, then his phone, then the old man. But his fingers pressed the screen, and she could only hope he was doing what she asked. He frowned, set the phone aside, and shook his head.
“What’s in it for me?” he asked. “The cartel has a whole lot more to offer than you do. I help you escape, odds are I’m toast.”
Elle’s mind raced. Hostage negotiation. Bargaining chips. “Take me.” The words came without thought.
“What?” Bill said.
“You make sure my sister gets the medical attention she needs. She lives, and I’ll take her place with your cartel boys.”
Bill snorted. “As if that wasn’t going to happen anyway.”
“You’re forgetting I’m the one with the gun,” Elle said.
“Which can’t possibly have enough bullets to take out everyone Aguilar would send. He holds grudges. Give me the gun, and we’ll talk.”
Although it went against every iota of her cop training, Elle handed it over. Trusted that when Bill said Aguilar held grudges, it would include going after someone who’d killed the women he’d been sent to retrieve. And prayed Dalton and Jinx would burst through the door.
Bill turned to the old man and said something in Spanish. Oh, so he hadn’t been up front about things earlier. But neither had she, so she let it slide. She hadn’t been saying things in Spanish to keep him from understanding.
The old man squinted at her, eyeing her up and down, as if she were a piece of meat. Which, to him, she probably was. Although she sure as hell hoped he wasn’t going to demand a sample.
He grunted, then nodded.
Elle pushed aside all thoughts of herself. “Call. And not some small-town quack doctor. She needs to get to a hospital.”
Bill made the call, said something in halting Spanish, then spoke English, telling whoever he was talking to what she’d told him to say about the clotting disorder. She heard him give the address of the hotel.
“Wait,” Elle said. She held her hand out for the phone. For all she knew, Bill was talking to dead air. He gave her the phone.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“Emergency Dispatch,” a female voice said. Heavily accented English, but English.
Elle repeated what she’d heard Bill say, adding a few choice words of her own about the urgency of the situation and specifying the drugs she knew Trish needed. “We’re in room three-oh-one. Have them come upstairs with a stretcher.”
“Yes, yes. I understand,” the dispatcher said. Her calm manner reassured Elle. “They are already on their way. Five minutes.”
Elle allowed herself a moment of optimism. She handed Bill his phone. “Help me get Trish out of the tub.”
His eyebrows lifted. He half-smiled. More of a leer. She’d seen that expression on johns. Did he think he was going to get to see Trish naked?
“You sure we shouldn’t wait for the medics?” he asked. “We could be hurting her more than we’re helping her.”
She heard sirens approach. Another two minutes wouldn’t make much difference. “Fine. We wait.”
Bill took a seat next to the old man.
Elle stared at Bill. “What happened to… Steve?”
Bill shrugged. “No clue. You’re my assignment. Someone else dealt with him.”
Dealt with him. Elle fought off the questions, the dread that Jinx had been captured again. Right now it was about Trish. “But you helped us get away. Whose side are you on?”
He shrugged again. “Mine. Blackthorne tried offering me immunity, but after I let you get away from Aguilar, he said he’d make sure I went to prison—a Mexican prison—if I didn’t do what he asked. And he’d make it worth my while if I did. You know how much money these cartels have? Billions. Nobody crosses them. Not even the cops.”
“You don’t care about the exploitation of innocent women?” she asked. “Or being part of drug trafficking?”
He shook his head, his expression one of greedy innocence. “I care about me.”
The sirens stopped. Car doors slammed. Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Clutching the Glock, Elle went to the door.
Jinx refused to let Dalton’s attitude sway him. “How did I get from the hotel room to here? Where is here, for that matter?”
“An alley about a block from the hotel.” Dalton shoved the two Mexicans into a shadowed gap between two Dumpsters, blocking the space with his body. He inhaled, grimaced, exhaled a sigh. “I found the big guy carrying you toward one of the Wranglers. I assumed he was taking you to his leader, but I didn’t bother asking.”
Jinx translated that to mean Dalton had taken on the man, come out ahead, and saved Jinx’s sorry ass. Which, considering Dalton’s already injured state, might explain his attitude.
“When the other one came out, I invited him to the party,” Dalton added.
“Thanks,” Jinx said, more concerned with Elle than a couple of cartel thugs. “But what about Elle? She’s at the hotel.”
“I called for an ambulance.”
“So Trish was there, too?”
“I don’t know, but in cartel territory, I figured there were fewer medics than cops in Aguilar’s pocket. And if the sister was there, the ambulance would save time. They should be safe.” The edge was gone from his tone.
“We’re not going to abandon them, are we?” Jinx asked. “Elle and her sister, I mean.” He didn’t give a damn about the Mexicans.
Dalton blew out another long sigh. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, we’re not.”
The way he said it led Jinx to believe Dalton had considered it. Jinx refused to believe he’d abandon anyone. He waited, hoping Dalton would fill the silence.
Trouble with people who understood interrogation techniques was they didn’t work on them. Jinx ended up filling the void. “Even if you used these two to get to Rafael, someone else would take his place. It’s like that monster—can’t remember its name, but you cut off one head and two more grow back.”
“Hydra,” Dalton muttered. “But he’d want this one, I think.” He pointed to the kid.
With his head cleared, Jinx took a closer look into the shadows. He’d only seen the two from behind. Recognition hit. Guillermo. From the hotel. Whose uncle was Ramon. Who was related to Rafael.
“You were going to hold the kid for ransom?” Jinx asked. That did not sound like Dalton even in his most cowboy mode.
Dalton winced and rubbed his side. “The thought occurred to me. But no, I’m not holding them for ransom. Just getting them out of the way so we can get the hell out of here and rendezvous with Fozzie and go home. Their people will find them. This whole op has gone to hell in a handbasket.”
They were almost at the hotel parking lot now. Jinx “Speaking of handbaskets, what happened at the convoy, and how did you get here?” Jinx asked. “We found your pack.”
Dalton moved ahead, avoiding eye contact. “When we ambushed the convoy, the guards ran. I figured it was better to have them under control so I gave chase. I caught one of them. We had a little discussion, did a little negotiating, and I got the name of this hotel, which Ramon owns.”
Jinx could only imagine what Dalton meant by discussion and negotiating.
“I procured a vehicle and proceeded to the hotel,” Dalton went on. “However, it seemed more expedient to abandon my pack rather than backtrack to find it, since it had become a negotiation point and was no longer in my possession.”
“So you came here to find Ramon.”
Dalton shrugged. “It was more of a discovery op. I didn’t expect to discover you.”
Dalton’s eyes went blank, and Jinx realized he was listening to the radio. Jinx patted his pocket. No radio.
Dalton nodded as he listened. When he spoke, all he said was, “Roger.” Then he spun and trotted away. “Move it. Someone will come for these two. No
t our problem.”
Dalton favored one side, but even so, Jinx had to struggle to keep up. The pace wasn’t fast, but every step jarred new needles of pain in his head. “What?”
“Rendezvous,” was all Dalton said.
Now that Jinx’s powers of observation had returned to a more normal level, he noticed the pain evident in Dalton’s gait and the way he spoke through clenched teeth.
Negotiations and discussions, my ass.
Dalton crossed the hotel lot and stopped at a Wrangler parked at the far end—the vehicle he’d procured, most likely. Jinx hesitated at the passenger door. “Not yet. What if Elle's still in the hotel?”
“She’s not.” Dalton gestured to his radio. “She’s with her sister. Ambulance took them to the nearest clinic.”
“Is her sister all right?”
Dalton leveled his gaze. “She was alive when they got there.”
Which didn’t answer Jinx’s question. “Drop me at the clinic, then. You go do what you have to do with Fozzie. I’ll figure out how to get home.”
Dalton pinched his nose again.
“Come on, man. What if it was Miri?” Jinx said.
Dalton closed his eyes. Sighed. He keyed his radio. “Add fifteen to the rendezvous time. We’ve got a stop to make.”
Chapter 36
Elle paced the waiting room of the clinic like a caged wolf. The medics had seemed competent. They understood Trish’s condition and had brought the right medications. They’d administered oxygen and put her on an IV. But when the ambulance arrived at the clinic, the doctors refused to let Elle stay with Trish.
Instead, she was stuck in this space filled with crying babies, coughing old men, and enough assorted sick and injured people that she wondered how many healthy people were left in this town. And then there was Bill, who didn’t seem any happier to be here.
“Would you stop?” he said. “You’re making me dizzy.”