“They probably are, but we’re going to put a stop to it tonight.”
“How?” She whipped her head around so fast, strands of her blond hair got stuck to her lipstick.
“We’re gonna get to that rest stop first and see if my hunch is correct. Then we’ll deal with it.”
Hitching up her shoulders, she crossed her arms and stayed that way for the next half hour. When the headlights of the car picked out the sign at the side of the road announcing a rest stop, Jennifer tapped the window. “Here we go.”
Miguel signaled and exited the road, pulling into a parking space at the rest area. With the car at a standstill, Mikey dug his fists into his eyes and made mewling noises.
“I knew he’d wake up once the car stopped.” Jennifer rubbed Mikey’s chubby leg.
“That’s all right. Let him stretch his legs and maybe he’ll be ready to sleep the rest of the way to Palm Springs.”
“If we go to Palm Springs.”
“We’ll be there.” Miguel shoved open his door. “I’m going in the bathroom to check things out. Why don’t you take Mikey to the ladies’ room so you’re close by?”
Jennifer gave him a stiff nod.
He waited while she got Mikey out of the car and hooked the diaper bag over her shoulder. As they approached the bathrooms, Jennifer tugged on his sleeve. “Even better. We’ll go into the family restroom.”
Miguel glanced at the sign on the door of mommy, daddy and kid stick figures. “Perfect. Never paid much attention to these bathrooms before.”
“I’m not sure the proponents of family bathrooms ever imagined a family like us.”
“Takes all kinds.” Miguel shoved open the door for Jennifer and Mikey and then locked it behind them.
He pulled his tracking device from his pocket. “This should pick up some waves.”
“From your body?”
“That’s what I’m hoping.” He unzipped his fly and yanked down his jeans over his right hip. “You’re going to have to do it, Jen. I can’t see. It’ll make the needle waver.”
He ran his fingers over his flesh, still rough from its former treatment, prodding the sore spot that he’d had ever since he left Maryland. “Try right here, but wave the tracker over your hand first as a control.”
“Can you hold Mikey? I don’t want to put him on this bathroom floor, even though it looks pretty clean.”
“Sure.” He turned and scooped his son into his arms. “You ready for some activity, big boy?”
“Ball pool?”
“No ball pool here,” Miguel murmured under his breath. “Thank God.”
Jennifer was breathing heavily behind him and he felt her warm breath on the top of his bare buttocks.
“Well?”
“Not only is the needle on the detector bouncing—” she pressed her cool fingers against his skin “—I can actually see an outline of something beneath your flesh, Miguel.”
“That’s it then. They’ve been tracking me.”
“That’s so wrong. It’s creepy. Very 1984-ish.”
“I feel better that we found the answer—and now we can deal with it.”
“How? How are we going to deal with this? How are you going to waltz into some doctor’s office and ask him—or her—to remove a GPS from your ass?”
“That far down, huh?”
“I never thought I’d be the one telling you this, Miguel, but be serious. What are we going to do?”
“Not we—you.”
“Me?” She stepped around to face him, as he pretended to grab Mikey’s nose between his fingers.
With his other hand, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade. “With this.”
“No.” She stumbled back. “I can’t do that. We have nothing here.”
“We have this.” He waved the knife at her. “And some soap, water and paper towels. We even have some clean cloths in the diaper bag.”
“Miguel, I’m a teacher, not a surgeon.”
“You don’t need to be a surgeon to dig a little metal device out of someone’s backside—especially mine.”
“What does that mean?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I’m impervious to pain. Wash the area with soap and water, or use one of those diaper wipes, pat it dry and dig in.”
“I can’t.”
He turned with Mikey in his arms and gripped one of her shoulders. “I’ve never heard you say that before, Jen, and now isn’t the time to start. If you can’t get this out of me, I’ll send you and Mikey to my brother’s by yourselves and I’ll find some other way to get rid of this GPS—even if I have to do it myself.”
Her Adam’s apple bobbed in her slender throat. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
“That’s my fearless girl. I’ll hang onto Mikey.”
A knock on the bathroom door made them both freeze, but neither of them answered.
Jennifer zipped open the diaper bag and plucked several wipes from the plastic container.
Miguel flinched as the cold, wet wipe touched his skin. “Poor Mikey. That’s cold. You should warm those things up before you wipe his bottom.”
She crumpled the wipes and tossed them into the trash can. She probed the area with her fingertips and let out a heavy breath.
He blinked once as the knife gouged his flesh. Then he gritted his teeth and made funny faces at Mikey, who finally stopped squirming in his arms.
“Are you getting it?”
“I’m afraid of hurting you.”
“Piece of cake. Get the edge of the knife beneath the device and lift it.”
“I almost...”
She released a little sob as a sharp pain shivered down his leg from his buttocks.
“I have it. I just need to maneuver it out. You’re bleeding, Miguel.”
“I’d expect that. Won’t be the first blood I’ve shed. Won’t be the last. Keep going.”
Another minute and Jennifer cried out, “I have it.”
“Keep it on the edge of the knife, clean me up and start applying some pressure.”
She held the bloody knife over his right shoulder. “Do you want to take it?”
Shifting Mikey on his left hip, he took the handle of the knife, a small, gray oblong object on the tip. “Little bastard.”
“I’ve cleaned it as much as I can with the wipes.” She pressed a soft cloth to the wound. “Can you get your jeans over this and then hold it in place until we get to the car? I’ll drive.”
“I feel a hundred pounds lighter. Take Mikey.” After Jen took Mikey from his arms, Miguel placed the knife on the edge of the sink. He wrapped up the bloody wipes in some paper towels and dropped them into the trash. Spying some drops of blood on the floor, Miguel wiped those up. Then he washed his hands and rinsed off the device that had been implanted in his body in Maryland on God-knows-whose orders.
After cleaning the knife, he pocketed it. “We’re good to go. Mikey okay?”
“He’s fine. You entertained him so much, he didn’t notice a thing. Are you okay?”
“I’m good.” The wound throbbed but he’d felt worse—much worse.
He unlocked the door and a woman carrying a toddler about Mikey’s age sprang up from the bench. “You wouldn’t happen to have a diaper I can borrow, would you? We’ll stop in Phoenix to buy more, but I’m fresh out and my daughter is in desperate need.”
“Of course.” Jennifer reached into the diaper bag and pulled out a fresh diaper. “Here you go and sorry we took so long in there.”
“Oh, I know how it is. Thank you so much.”
“Where are you headed?” Miguel took the diaper bag from Jennifer.
“We’re going to swing through Phoenix, and then we’re going to San Diego for my cousin’s wedding.”
&n
bsp; Miguel pulled a diaper from the bag and tucked it into the diaper bag hanging over the woman’s shoulder. “Take an extra—just in case.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it and so does Chloe.” She bounced her daughter in her arms before turning toward the family bathroom.
Miguel got to the car and peeled his jeans from his hip. The blood hadn’t seeped through the cloth yet. He applied more pressure as he watched Jennifer chase Mikey around in a circle.
She lured him back into the car by buying him an ice-cream bar from the vending machine. Once Mikey was in his car seat, Jennifer gave him a few more licks of the vanilla ice cream beneath the chocolate shell.
“Daddy’s turn.” She handed the ice-cream bar to Miguel. “You can finish that off. You’ve been such a good patient.”
She started the car and pulled out of the rest stop, heading toward Phoenix as the darkness washed over the desert landscape. “Did you throw that GPS in the trash at the rest stop?”
“What would be the fun in that?”
She raised her eyebrows without turning her head. “Fun?”
“That GPS is headed to a wedding in San Diego.”
Chapter Nine
The throbbing in his hip kept Miguel awake as Jennifer drove through the night.
After the excitement in the ball pool and a dash around the rest stop, Mikey slept the sleep of the innocent, tucked away in his car seat. Miguel twisted around and drank in his son’s sweet face for the hundredth time. He’d never get tired of looking at him, marveling at his perfect nails on the tips of his perfect fingers and the way his ear curved into a soft semicircle.
“He’s pretty amazing, isn’t he?” Jennifer tipped her head toward the backseat.
“You’re pretty amazing.” He pinched her knee. “He’s a happy, healthy boy and you did that all by yourself.”
“I did have some help. You should’ve heard some of those early conversations with my mom.” She rolled her eyes. “You never would’ve guessed that I’d read about a hundred books on taking care of a baby.”
“They worked. Mikey’s doing great, looks great.”
“You haven’t seen a total toddler meltdown yet. You might change your mind after that spectacle.”
“I doubt it.” He yawned. “We crossed into California. Not much longer.”
“Are you going to call your brother and let him know we’re on the way? It’s going to be past midnight when we get there.”
“I’m not going to give him any advance notice. I think it’s safer this way. It’ll also give me a look at how robust his security is.”
“As long as he doesn’t shoot us on sight.” Jennifer sent him a sidelong glance. “How are you feeling?”
“The wound is sore, but nothing that won’t heal.”
“You still need to see a doctor.”
“That’ll be a hard one to explain.” He reached back and pressed the cloth against the area and then held up his fingers. “No blood. It hasn’t seeped through at all.”
“Maybe not, but the wound was pretty deep. I oughta know. I’m the one who gouged you.”
“And I’m grateful for it.”
She bit her bottom lip. “You don’t think that couple with the little girl will be in trouble, do you?”
“No. They’ll be tracked to San Diego. The people after us will be watching wherever it is they land, and they won’t see us there. They’ll probably figure out what we did.”
“What’s going on, Miguel? People, doctors at the debriefing center in Maryland, implanted a GPS tracking device in your body and now they’re trying to kill you?” She glanced in her rearview mirror. “Kill Mikey?”
“The doctors may not have known why they were doing what they were doing. They could’ve been told...something.”
“Something what?” Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the steering wheel.
“They could’ve been told I was dangerous. That I was unhinged by my captivity and the navy had to keep an eye on me.”
“That might explain why they went along with the tracking device, but what about the people at the center?”
“Most of them probably don’t know what’s going on. This whole—” he waved one hand in the air “—operation could be the work of one or two people, one or two bad apples on the task force.”
“Bad apples?” She swore, which he noticed she never did around Mikey. “I think they go beyond bad apples. Bad apples skim a little money off the top. They don’t murder people and their families...children.”
“Rotten apples, then.”
“Do these rotten apples know about your brother? They must. I know you had to go through a security background. Someone in your past like Roberto is bound to raise red flags.”
“They probably do, although Roberto is now officially Rob Eastwood. He might be hard to connect to me. It’s also in my file that I had very little contact with my brother. But these rogue agents, these moles, are not going to get very far with Roberto.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Another hour of driving brought them to Palm Springs, and Miguel gave her directions toward the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains and Roberto’s compound. The car turned on an unmarked and unlit desert road, and Jennifer flicked on the brights.
“Are you sure it’s out here?” She hunched over the steering wheel and peered at the patch of road illuminated by the headlights.
“Positive. Even though I’ve never been here, I memorized the location and Roberto’s directions.”
The car hit a bump, and all at once, a bright white light flooded the entire area. A high sandy-colored wall rose before them, and Jen slammed on the brakes.
“Whoa! Where did that come from?”
Miguel scooted forward in his seat and tipped back his head, taking in two armed guards on the wall. “Where did they come from?”
“Oh, my God. I told you they’d shoot us on sight.”
“Stay in the car.” Miguel slid outside and the cool mountain air lifted the ends of his hair. He held his hands over his head, and the speaker to his left crackled to life.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
“I’m Miguel Estrada. Roberto is my brother.”
The disembodied voice continued, “Take two steps to your right.”
Miguel complied, his hands still raised. He tilted his head back, staring straight into the camera that had tracked his movement.
Several seconds passed and the speaker crackled again. “Who’s in the car with you?”
“My fiancée and our son.”
“Have them get out of the car.”
Miguel turned back toward the car and gestured to Jennifer.
She stumbled from the car. “Th-they still have guns on us.”
“Get Mikey out of the car and join me beneath the camera.”
“Is this any kind of family welcome?”
“It’s why we’re here.”
She ducked into the car and emerged with Mikey in her arms, blinking in the bright lights.
Miguel pulled her next to him, and they faced the camera together. Another few seconds passed and the voice directed them to the right of the compound.
More lights turned on and a heavy gate rolled open. Jennifer started forward, but Miguel grabbed her arm. “Wait.”
The instructions continued, “The woman and child first.”
“Go on.” Miguel nudged Jennifer and she shuffled forward.
His gut lurched when he saw a man come out of the shadows to wave a wand over Jen and Mikey. At least they hadn’t asked her to hand over Mikey. That would’ve been a problem.
They were ushered beyond his view, and a shot of adrenaline coursed through Miguel’s system.
“Now you, with your ha
nds out to your sides.”
As he walked through the gate, Miguel called out, “I have a gun and a knife in the car, but nothing on me.”
The same guy who had waved the wand over Jennifer stepped forward and subjected Miguel to the same treatment. Then he got an additional pat-down.
He winced as the heavy hand hit his hip.
The man growled. “What’s that?”
“A fresh wound.”
“Lemme see.”
This felt like a strip search but Miguel kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to give this goon any ideas.
Miguel unzipped his fly and tugged down his jeans on his right side, over the white cloth Jen had first applied in the bathroom outside of Phoenix.
The security guard called over someone else. “C’mon over here and take a look at this. He claims it’s a fresh wound.”
Another man came forward, tucking a weapon in the back of his waistband. He crouched forward and peeled off the makeshift bandage.
Miguel grunted as the cloth separated from the dried blood and gouged flesh.
“What the hell happened here? That’s not a bullet wound.”
“It’s a knife wound.”
Jennifer came charging back toward the main gate, one of the security personnel in helpless pursuit. She descended on them like an avenging angel, the compound’s search lights highlighting her blond hair and creating a glow around her head.
“You idiots! You made it bleed again after we’d stanched it.”
“Idiots is an apt description. That’s my little brother. He’s a goddamn war hero. Leave him the hell alone.”
“Roberto?” Miguel hiked up his jeans and pushed past the security guards, grabbing Jennifer’s hand.
His brother enveloped him, Jen and Mikey in a bear hug. “Sorry about the security, Miguel. When I saw you on camera, I told them to let you through—no questions asked.”
“Not a problem.”
Jennifer squirmed away from the group hug. “Actually, there is a problem. Miguel has an injury on his hip and your overzealous security team ripped off his bandage and now it’s bleeding.”
Miguel curled an arm around Jennifer’s waist. “Roberto, this is Jennifer, my fiancée, and this big guy is my son.”
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