He studied it a moment and saw the door move.
Torres was in there.
But was he alone? Simon crept over to the board and put his ear to it.
Silence.
Slowly he pulled his weapon from behind his back. He waited another moment, then he pushed the door open, and stepped inside the space.
There was nothing here, either. As far as he could tell in the darkness.
It was a medium-sized space, walled in on all sides by brick and plaster with no exit except for the way he’d just come in. It was cluttered with junk. Industrial sized buckets of paint, wood debris, crates tossed into piles here and there, everything casting eerie shadows on the walls and dirt floor.
No sign of the men from last night. No sign of Torres. But lots of hiding places.
Simon stood still a moment and listened.
A stray piece of paper floated under a board in the corner, catching his attention.
Suddenly someone grabbed his arm.
He spun around, twisted, and ducked as a fist came flying toward his face. It missed by a hair. He started to raise his gun, but his attacker latched onto his wrist. Simon’s other hand was free now. He seized the man by the collar, and with all his might he pushed back and shoved him against the nearest wall.
Breathing hard, Simon raised his gun to the man’s temple and gazed into the face of Tomas Torres.
His photo had been accurate. Thick mustache drooping down the sides of his mouth, a weatherworn face, thick brows. A face that had resentment and bitterness written all over it.
“What were you doing at the park gate?” Simon barked. “Who were you going to meet?”
Now fear colored Torres’s expression. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Why are you following me? Are you with the Castigadores?”
Castigadores. Punishers. “Is that who you’re working with?”
“Who are you?” Torres said again, this time with a low growl.
Simon could think of only one answer. “FBI.”
Torres grunted in disgust. “You are not FBI. I know the agents in the embassy. I have never seen you.”
“I’ve just been sent in,” Simon lied.
Torres’s brows rose. “One of the Custodians?”
That question took Simon off guard. How did Torres know the code name? But the Custodians were no longer in existence.
Now the man grew angry. “We have asked for your help again and again and been denied. I have been working on this case myself for months. And now you are messing up my sting.”
“Sting?”
Torres narrowed his eyes at him. “You are not one of them, or you would have shot me by now. So if you lower your gun, I will tell you.”
Was Torres telling the truth? Was he conducting an undercover operation? It seemed too good to be true, but Simon decided to take a chance on it.
He stepped back and lowered his gun as he let go of the man. But he kept his weapon in his hand. “Who were you meeting with last night?”
Torres smirked. “I thought someone was watching us in the shadows. I could feel it.”
“You were making a deal to buy a boy from them.”
He nodded. “We have known about them for some time. They have been taking young boys from the poorer barrios and selling them into the sex trade. I was trying to get evidence.”
“You don’t have backup?”
Torres eyed him with suspicion.
“You’re a cop, aren’t you?”
Torres’s brow rose. “You have done your homework, Agent—”
He was trying to get information on him as well. “Rodriguez,” Simon told him.
“Agent Rodriguez. I don’t have much support in my department. I’m doing this on my own. Now, if you don’t mind, I must make another phone call.”
“To your contact? The one who stood you up tonight?”
“Yes. To my contact.”
“They might be onto you.”
“They might. But I have to keep trying.”
“Why?”
The man’s voice took on a desperate tone. “You do not understand. My son is missing. They have him. I’m certain of it. They will hold him over my head.”
Suddenly Simon felt a swell of sympathy for this man. He believed him. He identified with him. He was going after a vicious criminal ring on his own because he couldn’t abide what they were doing. He was risking his career as well as his life. He hadn’t expected to have to risk his son, too.
“Your son is with us,” Simon said.
“Us?”
“I have another agent working with me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe you.”
All right. He’d prove it to him. “His name is Alejandro. He’s eight. Very bright. He heard you talking on the phone last night and followed you to your meeting. We found him outside the construction site, and he asked us for help.”
The man’s face filled with a mixture of shock, terror, and outrage. “I still do not believe you. And I don’t believe you are with the FBI.”
“Then you’ll have to let me show you.” Simon put the gun into his coat pocket and kept it pointed at Torres. He turned the man around and frisked him. “You don’t have a gun.”
“I thought it better not to carry one. The people I’m working with are very touchy.”
It was a reasonable explanation, and it meant Torres was either very foolish or very brave. Simon was leaning toward the latter.
He gave Torres a push with his gun. “It’s this way.”
Torres didn’t like it, but he knew he had no choice. He moved to the makeshift door, opened it, and the two men went down the sidewalk side by side.
With his gun nestled safely between them, Simon ushered Torres back to the car.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Janelle stood in the shadows of the trees in front of the park’s green gate, feeling the cool night air seep into her bones.
Where in the world was Simon?
She peered through the air to the intersection half a block away. Pedestrians happily scampered over the sidewalks while buses and cars rumbled through the streets.
Simon wasn’t anywhere. Neither was Torres.
Tears began to sting her eyes as a feeling of futility filled her. All she knew was she had to find Simon.
Even if he was dead.
Pulling her coat around her, she hurried to the corner. Once again she scanned faces there, but the result was the same.
No Simon. No Torres.
A loud horn blared in her ears. A huge bus pushed through the intersection, running the red light and nearly hitting a few pedestrians in the crosswalk. They made it to the sidewalk only by breaking into a run.
Drivers were crazy here. Best to stay on this side of the road.
She turned and hurried down the walkway along the fence bordering this side of the park, still scanning pedestrians and peeking into parked cars, all of which were unoccupied.
She reached the end of the block and stood on the corner once again, hesitating. Apartment buildings lined the road to her right, shops and restaurants across the way with more pedestrians on the walkways.
She didn’t see Simon anywhere. Or the so-called inspector.
She couldn’t cover the whole area on foot, and she didn’t want to leave Alejandro alone much longer.
She’d go back to the car and drive around until she found Simon. She had to find him. She just had to. And if he’d gotten himself in trouble, she would get him out of it.
Turning, she hurried back to the street where the rented Beetle was parked.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They were almost to the car now. And with each step since they’d left the construction site, Simon was more sure Torres had told him the truth.
The man’s hunched shoulders and troubled face echoed his own feelings of despair. He of all people knew what it was like not to have the support of those you worked for.
Still, he kept his weapon trained on the man
just in case he’d made a mistake.
“Stop right here,” he commanded when they reached the rear bumper.
He would need Janey’s help to get the man into the car and to handle the boy.
He moved around the man and kept the gun in his pocket trained on him while he stepped over to the driver’s side to tap on the window. But as he looked inside the car, his heart nearly stopped.
Janey wasn’t there.
He couldn’t see any obvious breach. Surely she’d kept the doors locked. Alejandro was lying across the backseat asleep.
Where was she?
He turned to glare at Torres. Then behind him he saw a figure in the distance coming toward them. All at once his heart filled with a delicious sense of relief, followed by a sharp stab of anger. She had left the car. Why?
They’d have to sort that out later.
Janelle stopped in her tracks as she rounded the corner and saw the two figures standing alongside the Beetle.
Was that Simon? Was Torres with him? What was he doing?
Her heart pounding, she rushed toward them, reaching for her weapon as she went. When she got close to Torres she shoved the barrel under his ribs. “If you have a weapon, mister, you had better drop it right now.” Without waiting for a response, she started to pat him down.
“I do not have a weapon, Señora.” He turned his attention to Simon. “So this is your partner?”
“This is Agent Rodriguez, my wife.” Simon gave her an inexplicable glare. “I’ve already done that,” he told her.
She stopped patting the man’s pocket and looked up at Simon. He was angry, but that didn’t concern her just now. Wife, he’d said. Wife? Yes, that was her cover, but hearing him say it out loud made her feel—strange.
Torres dared to let out a chuckle. “They now allow married FBI agents to work together?”
“I told you,” Simon grunted. “We’re NOC.”
Janelle couldn’t believe this conversation. “What’s going on, Sim—Mateo?”
“I found him a couple blocks from here. I brought him here to the car to prove we had his son.”
“Which you have not yet done, Agent Rodriguez.” Torres said the name with such skepticism Janelle knew he thought it was a cover.
“He’s sleeping in the backseat.” Simon raised his hand to the rear window.
Before he could knock, Alejandro’s angelic face appeared.
His big brown eyes went wide. “Papa?” he said through the glass.
Forgetting about the two guns trained on him, Torres turned and put his hands on the window. “Alejandro. My boy. My precious boy. They did not take you.”
“Open up, son,” Simon barked at him.
But Alejandro shook his head and crouched down on the floorboard, refusing to unlock the doors.
“He thinks you’re going to sell him to the men you met yesterday.”
“How could he think such a thing?”
“He assumed you were working with them.” Simon let out a frustrated huff, and glanced around to make sure no one was watching them.
Luckily the street along this side of the park was quiet, and there were no pedestrians.
Simon let go of his gun and took a second set of keys from his pocket.
Where did he get those from? Janelle wondered.
He pressed the fob and the locks opened.
Alejandro pressed his fob, and the doors locked again.
Irritated, Simon reached for the handle, pressed his fob, and pulled the door open before the boy could lock it again.
But before Torres could get inside, the curbside door flung open, and Alejandro shot out and sprinted up the sidewalk.
Leaving Simon to handle Torres, Janelle put her gun back in her belt and took off after the boy as fast as she could. She caught up to him just before he reached the corner.
Blazing past him, she stopped, spun around, and held out both arms to hem him in against the green fence. “Where do you think you’re going?”
He looked up at her with genuine fear in his eyes. “You have betrayed me.”
“No, we haven’t. Don’t you think you should hear what your father has to say?”
His expression grew more fearful.
She leaned close to him and lowered her voice. “Mr. Rodriguez and I have weapons. We won’t let him hurt you.” She opened her jacket to show him the gun she’d just put there.
Now he looked as if his eyes would pop out of his head.
“We’ll keep you safe. I promise. Are you ready to go back now?”
Slowly, he nodded.
She took his hand, led him back to the car, and helped him into the backseat where Torres was already sitting. Then she looked over the car’s roof at Simon, and for a brief moment their gazes locked.
His expression stunned her. At first he seemed full of awe for what she’d just done. Then he turned all business.
“Get in,” he told her with the air of a general.
Okay.
As soon as she climbed inside her attention went to Alejandro, who was inching away from his father.
“Do not touch me. You are a bad man, Papa.”
Torres pleaded with his son. “I am not a bad man, Alejandro. I am trying to catch some bad men.”
“You are?”
“Yes. Please believe me.”
“Why did you go to meet the bad men?”
“To get information to arrest them.”
Janelle spun around to face the man. “You’re undercover?” It was what they had expected, what they’d secretly hoped for. But was it too good to believe?
“I am. May I show you both my ID?”
Simon nodded and Torres pulled a card out of his wallet and displayed it for them. It was the same photo they’d seen on their search. With the same name. “Inspector Tomas Torres.”
She handed it back to him. “You work for the police?”
“I do, but unfortunately I do not have much support for this project.”
“What do you mean?”
Torres looked her in the eye, then studied Simon. “This will be a long discussion. Why don’t we go to my flat and talk further. Besides, it is past Alejandro’s bedtime.”
Janelle turned to Simon, but before he said a word, she could tell he was convinced they should take Torres up on his offer.
More curious than convinced, she nodded her agreement, and he switched on the car’s ignition.
Pulling out of the parking spot, he whispered to her. “Why did you leave the car?”
What? “You were gone too long. I was coming to get you out of trouble.”
He surprised her with a scowl. “We’ll talk about that later.”
She bristled, but couldn’t speak her mind now.
And so she simply stared out the window as they rumbled down the brick road and back to the address Alejandro had first led them to tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Torres’s flat was a cozy space on the second floor of the white stucco two-story with the French style balcony that they had parked outside of earlier that night.
In the little area near the front door, the Inspector took off his flat-top cap and coat, hung them on a hook, then did the same for each of them.
Janelle stepped into a small living room with an overstuffed wine-colored paisley couch, a pretty throw rug, and old-fashioned looking tapestries of flowers on the walls. The smell of baked bread and something spicy reached her nose just as a woman came in from the kitchen.
She had on a tasteful tan outfit with a fringed scarf, little jewelry, and ankle high fashion boots. Her thick hair fell around her shoulders in long, nearly black waves. Janelle could see the family resemblance.
“Tia Elena!” Alejandro cried as he ran to her and put his arms around her.
She gently stroked his hair. “Alejandro, where have you been? We have been so worried about you.” She looked at Simon and Janelle with dark wary eyes.
“This is Señor and Señora Rodriguez. They found our wa
yward boy and took care of him last night,” Torres told the woman. “This is my sister, Elena. She helps me with Alejandro.”
Sister? Not a housekeeper. Alejandro hadn’t been one hundred percent truthful about his home life.
“Thank you so much for bringing him back to us.” She turned to the boy and shook a finger at him. “You must never run away like that again.”
“No, I won’t. I understand now.”
Torres put a hand on his son’s head. “Go with Elena to the kitchen and have something to eat. I need to speak with our guests.”
Again, Elena gave them a suspicious look, but she took Alejandro by the hand and led him away.
Torres pointed to a door on the other side of the couch. “My office. We can talk privately there.”
He crossed the room and opened the door for them.
With Simon just behind her, Janelle stepped into a tight little space crowded with bookshelves and a heavy wooden desk covered with rich carvings and looking like it had been imported from Europe. There was a large wooden globe on a stand in one corner and two high backed chairs that faced the desk.
The room had a smoky odor to it, not unlike the one outside the park where Torres had been. As she moved over to one of the chairs and sat down, she noticed an amber ashtray and a pack of cigarettes on the desk with a label she couldn’t read.
While Simon settled in beside her, Torres closed the door. “My sister doesn’t know much about the case I’m working. I prefer to keep it that way.”
“If Alejandro doesn’t fill her in,” Janelle said.
Taking a seat behind the desk, Torres shook his head. “Sometimes that boy is too bright for his own good. I am grateful to both of you for taking care of him.”
Simon simply nodded.
Impatiently, Janelle shifted her weight. “You were going to tell us about your project and why you don’t have much support for it.”
“Yes.” He reached for the pack of cigarettes on the desk, thought better of it, and put them down again. “My department has been aware of a child trafficking ring in the area for some time. We’ve been investigating them for over a year now.”
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