I’d enjoy the sex part, but I wasn’t sure it would be safe for both of us to go back to the bar. My drug ruse had worked yesterday, and maybe it’d work today too, but I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to risk.
It’d be safer if I went alone. For everyone.
Eighteen
Tess
I was trapped.
The thought pushed panic through me until I emerged from what I’d thought to be a nightmare to find it to be true. My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see. My arms and legs were pinned in place, with barely enough space to wiggle a finger. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but waking up in the dark, unable to move, would’ve made most people freak out.
I was already gasping, as if I couldn’t get enough air, but as my brain began to process my surroundings, I realized that the air, while warm, wasn’t disappearing. It smelled like laundry detergent.
And Clay.
Everything from last night came back to me in a rush that had me gasping for a whole new reason.
I’d had sex.
With Clay.
I wasn’t aware of a curse strong enough to convey what I felt at that moment.
I didn’t regret being with him, but I’d have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t nervous about what came next.
All those thoughts processed through my brain in less than two minutes, which meant that it hadn’t taken long for me to realize that I wasn’t trapped. I’d merely wrapped myself in sheets and blankets, which was something I did at home from time to time. It usually happened when something interrupted my sleep patterns. Losing my virginity to the guy I’d had a crush on since middle school counted as an interruption.
I twisted to get my bearings, and once I knew which way I could roll without falling off the bed, I did exactly that. As I’d hoped, the blankets unraveled as I went, giving me the space I needed to get completely free. It wasn’t until I was lying on my back, looking up at the ceiling, that I realized the main reason it had worked was that I was alone in the bed.
The room was small, and all I needed to do to see that the bathroom door was open was turn to the side. I didn’t hear anyone moving around in there, which meant that Clay hadn’t simply forgotten to close the door. That didn’t necessarily mean anything though. With Clay’s room right across the hall, it made complete sense that he’d go over there to shower and dress. After all, it wasn’t like he’d brought a change of clothes in here with him last night.
The memory of seeing him naked for the first time rose up in my mind, and I let myself drown not only in the sight of him, but the recollection of what it had felt like to run my hands over his muscled body, the scent of him and sex, the sound of him saying my name, the taste of his kiss.
I sighed and went back to staring at the ceiling.
One night and everything had changed. This time yesterday, I’d been furious with Clay for the way he still made me feel and even angrier at myself for not being able to stop those feelings. I’d believed that Brianne had betrayed me and that Clay had used me.
Now, I knew the truth. Brianne’s betrayal had come from good intentions, and Clay hadn’t done anything wrong at all. She and I were still going to have it out when Clay and I found her, but knowing she’d lied to protect me was completely different from sleeping with the guy I liked simply because she’d wanted to.
I got up and headed to the bathroom to clean up. A glance at my phone showed that it was still early, but still later than we’d gotten up yesterday. I appreciated him letting me sleep, but it was time to get back to searching for my sister. We were probably heading back to the bar, but today I was going to bring up the possibility of coming up with another way to find our mysterious suspect. Sitting around drinking and trying to look inconspicuous had been hard enough yesterday. If we went back today and did the same thing, people would start wondering what we were doing.
I was clean and dressed, ready to open the door and go across the hall to Clay’s room, when I saw the piece of folded paper right in front of my door. My name was on it, but it wasn’t Brianne’s tidy handwriting, which meant it had to be from Clay.
Tess, you looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to wake you, just so you could spend another day in a smoky bar. Enjoy yourself, and I’ll see you later today. Clay
I read it twice, as if the abrupt message would change into something that revealed last night had meant something to him. That would’ve made the rest of it easier to bear. I could’ve convinced myself that he really meant what he’d written. That he’d left me behind because he’d wanted me to be able to keep sleeping rather than spending the day at a bar, but no matter how much I wanted to believe that last night hadn’t just been about the culmination of two unfulfilled childhood crushes and the manifestation of several stressful days, Clay’s note held no hint that he thought otherwise.
I crumpled it and tossed it toward the wastebasket. That was it then. We’d finished what we’d started as teenagers, and now the only unfinished business between us was Brianne. Once we found her, we’d go our separate ways, and I wouldn’t think of Clay Kurth ever again.
That was my future, and I was going to do whatever it took to make it come to be as soon as possible. Which meant the quicker I found Brianne, the better it would be for all of us.
Clay had gone back to the bar, and since that was where the man with the birthmark would be, I had to go there too. I couldn’t only focus on finding him though. I needed to avoid Clay while I did it. If he saw me, he’d be pissed, I didn’t doubt it, and it would just make things harder.
I’d have to come up with another way to find the man, but I had no doubt that I could do it. I’d make my own way, and if Clay happened to find Brianne around the same time I did, he’d be forced to work with me.
I wasn’t sure I could stomach that.
I wanted to be done with this. All of it. All of him.
Nineteen
Clay
I’d been at the bar for a couple hours, and I’d seen only the same people I’d seen yesterday. Since I was alone, one of the women had ventured over to make me an offer. Or, rather, to ask me to make an offer. She hadn’t been happy that I’d refused, and now she sat on the other side of the bar, glaring at me. The burly man next to her didn’t look pleased either, and I wondered if he was her pimp.
Even if I hadn’t been in Tess’s bed less than twelve hours ago, I wouldn’t have taken the prostitute up on her offer. Aside from the fact that it’d be stupid of someone in my occupation to hire a hooker, I’d never had a problem finding women willing to hook up, with no strings attached.
Now, however, I didn’t even appreciate the working girl’s looks. She was pretty enough, but all I could see in my mind’s eye was Tess, lying on her stomach in her bed where I’d left her.
I was sure she was awake by now and had gotten my note. I hadn’t known what to say to her, so I’d kept it simple. I hoped that a day apart would help me figure out what I wanted so when the inevitable question came up, I’d have an answer.
The problem was, I hadn’t gotten any closer to understanding than I’d been when I’d first sat down here.
I signaled the bartender for another beer even though mine was still half-full. I’d purposefully ordered beer that came in a dark bottle, so I’d be able to nurse at it for a while, then throw most of it away without anyone suspecting I hadn’t drunk as much as it appeared. I also made sure to eat enough that the alcohol hadn’t even really given me a buzz. I wasn’t technically on the job, but I still needed to keep my wits about me.
“You wait for wife?” The man asked in broken English as he set down my beer.
I shook my head without bothering to explain that Tess wasn’t my wife. Something low inside me twisted at the thought of her with my ring on her finger, but I didn’t know if it was pleasure or nerves. It was strange how similar the two of them felt sometimes.
“You want more drugs?”
Right. My ruse from yesterday. Partying American tourists was a good co
ver in a lot of countries.
“Maybe later,” I said. “The stuff from yesterday wasn’t bad.”
I’d spent a year with a joint task force between the FBI and the DEA. I knew what quality heroin looked like, and what had been in the small bag I’d purchased yesterday had been impressive for a place like this. I’d assumed people here were small-time dealers, but there was no way that stuff had been small time.
The bartender glanced toward a bearded man in the far corner, then leaned closer to me, pitching his voice low. “Colombians.”
I raised an eyebrow and switched from English to Spanish, keeping my own voice quiet so others wouldn’t hear. “Colombianos?”
The bartender nodded. “They moved into the neighborhood a year and a half ago and took over the drug trade. The man over there had been in charge. They killed his family but let him live.”
Shit.
I wished I would’ve known that before I’d bought the drugs. Purchasing from a local dealer to protect a cover was one thing. Getting involved with Colombian drug runners was nothing I would have done had I known.
“They do bad things,” he continued. “Even to good people. Your people sent a group to the city two months ago. Everyone told them to stay away, but they insisted on going in.”
“My people?” I frowned. Then it clicked. “Americans?”
He nodded. “Sí, estadounidenses. La Cruz Roja.”
It took a moment for the translation to process.
La Cruz Roja. The Red Care.
Fuck me.
I worked to keep the adrenaline from showing on my face. I needed to keep up the American tourist act, and if I sounded too interested in a Red Care group, I’d alert all the wrong people. Fluent Spanish probably wasn’t a good idea, but I’d already started, so switching back to English now would be weird.
“Do-gooder Red Care,” I said with an eye roll. “I hope when they came back, they felt stupid.”
The bartender shrugged. “They didn’t come back.”
My stomach dropped, and it was all I could do to take a sip of my beer like I didn’t feel the sudden urge to throw up. “What happened?”
“No one knows. We aren’t stupid enough to ask.”
Shit.
Shit!
I supposed it was possible that the Red Care group he was talking about wasn’t Brianne’s group, but the odds weren’t in my favor. It was also possible that the Red Care group had wised up and left the cartel alone. It wasn’t like the neighborhood only had one street in and out…shit, unless it did.
I needed to come up with a plan of how to proceed from here. I needed confirmation that this was the group I was looking for, as well as confirmation that Brianne had still been with them when they’d gone into the cartel’s neighborhood. I refused to leave anyone to the Colombians’ mercy, but Brianne was my top priority, even more than Taylor MacIntosh, despite his government connections.
The last thing I wanted was to get Tess involved in this, but I needed stuff from my room, and I wasn’t sure if I could get in and out without her seeing me. Besides, Brianne was her sister. Tess deserved to know what I’d discovered.
And she deserved to hear it from me that I was going after the group alone.
I sighed and pulled out my wallet. It was time to pay my bill and face the music.
The entire way back to the hotel, I tried to think of the best way to approach the situation. Once, I would’ve known exactly what to say and do. There’d been a point, right before she’d left, where I’d sometimes felt like I’d known her better than I’d known myself.
Now, I realized what a joke that was because it hadn’t been until I kissed her that I even believed she cared about me the same way I did about her. But I’d been wrong about that too. If she’d really known me the way I thought she did, she never would’ve believed I’d do anything to hurt her.
A little voice in the back of my mind told me I was being unreasonable, that Tess had only been fifteen and her emotions had been in shambles that night. She’d seen her mother hit, gotten her first kiss, then was told by her sister they had to leave DC immediately.
What I kept coming back to, was the fact that after things had settled down, Tess should have figured it out. Once she took what she knew about me, about Brianne, and looked at it with a calm, clear head, she should have known the truth.
By the time I reached the hotel, I’d steeled myself for the conversation Tess and I were about to have. The one where I told her in no uncertain terms that my FBI training trumped her journalist skills when it came to a Colombian drug cartel. She would be staying in the hotel, or at least in the area, until I came back with more information. I’d keep her informed, but she would in no way be accompanying me anywhere near that situation.
I went to her room first, thinking I could accomplish two things at once by having her come into my room while I gathered a few things and explained what was going on. I knocked and waited, but she didn’t come to the door. I knocked again, louder this time. Maybe she’d gone swimming or shopping or was in the shower. When she didn’t answer the second time, I called her name, assuming, if nothing else, she’d be pissed enough at me to open the door.
After another minute, I was convinced she wasn’t in her room. It was mid-afternoon, so that wasn’t surprising. The weather was gorgeous, and this neighborhood wasn’t bad. There were plenty of places she could have gone and been completely safe. Or, at least as safe as she would have been back home. She might not even be away from the hotel. If I went down to the courtyard, I’d probably see her next to the pool, tanning or doing laps in the cool water. Hell, she could have been down there flirting with the pool boy for all I knew.
I ignored the stab of jealousy that thought elicited and reminded myself that Tess was an adult who had no obligation to tell me where she was or what she was doing. She was free to swim and flirt and even have sex if she wanted.
I clenched my fist hard enough to make my knuckles pop.
No, I wasn’t going to waste my time looking for her. She was thirty-one years old, for fuck’s sake, and she lived on her own in New York City. She’d survived the last sixteen years without me looking out for her. She’d survive vacation in San Jose. Maybe she’d write that travel piece she’d tried to use as her cover.
I needed to stop thinking about her.
I had a lead I needed to follow up on as soon as possible, and my focus had to be on that.
It took more self-control than I liked to pull my thoughts away from Tess and onto the list of things I’d need for recon. I was beginning to wish I’d never agreed to do this fucking job. If people’s lives weren’t on the line – and my gut told me, they were – I would’ve called Ray and told him to get the embassy involved.
Since that wasn’t an option – or at least not one where I wouldn’t feel like a total bastard – I had work to do.
Twenty
Tess
Watching, The Black Cat from the outside had been a great idea, and not just because it’d been mine. I’d originally taken up a post at a questionable-looking café across from the bar simply because I hadn’t wanted to risk running into Clay there.
The weather was nice enough that I was able to take a table outside, which gave me a better view of the bar’s entrance, even if the smell was worse. I drank my awful coffee as slowly as possible, in part because I really didn’t want to have to choke down another one, but also because if I went back inside, I might miss something important.
As the sun passed overhead, I found my attention wanting to wander. I’d never had to do a stakeout before this trip, and without Clay here to talk to, I was getting bored. I didn’t consider myself an impatient person, but I’d never liked not doing anything, and no matter how important I knew it was to keep an eye out for the man with the birthmark, it still didn’t make me feel productive.
I took out the small notebook I carried with me pretty much everywhere and started to make notes. There really wasn’t a method to it,
nothing I was specifically trying to remember, but I did this often when I was stuck waiting somewhere.
I observed the things around me, recorded them. Sometimes my notes even sparked a thought or a question, led me to something I wanted to investigate further. I doubted anything like that would come from these notes, but they’d keep me from going crazy.
I’d jotted down a few generalities about my environment when a familiar figure came out the front door.
Clay.
I shifted in my seat, forcing myself to keep the motion natural. It’d ruin the entire point of me sitting out here if he saw me now. I waited a couple minutes, more than long enough for Clay to get away from the bar, then turned myself back toward it. My gut wanted me to go after him, see where he was going, what he was doing, but I wasn’t here for him. I was here for my sister.
Twenty minutes later, I was glad that I’d stayed. A tall, thin man with a raspberry-colored mark from his temple down to the middle of his left cheek strolled down the sidewalk and into the bar.
I was half-way to my feet before I realized that if I followed him into the bar, I wouldn’t be able to follow him out again, not without rousing suspicion. What he did in there wasn’t important. I supposed there was always a possibility that I’d overhear something that might lead me to Brianne, but I suspected that wasn’t what our anonymous friend had meant when he – or she – had sent us to find that man. We’d been told to follow the man with the birthmark, and that was what I intended to do.
It took him half an hour to come back out, but I was there, waiting. I’d never followed anyone before, but it was surprisingly easy to play the entitled tourist, walking wherever I wanted, ignoring people who tried to talk to me, pretending I didn’t speak the language.
Finding Brianne: New Pleasures Book 4 Page 9