Dead Man's Curve

by Paula Graves

  He’d know what to do next.

  * * *

  ALEXANDER QUINN WASN’T a man who liked to sit around and wait for things to happen, even though, technically, his job with the CIA had been all about waiting for things to happen, things he’d set into motion himself. He’d done what he could to put the Cooper family into motion the night before, but so far, they were still holed up in the motel across the road, waiting for God only knew what.

  More Coopers to arrive? Not a bad idea, given what Quinn suspected was going on out in those woods.

  He was pretty sure Sinclair Solano was still somewhere in this general area. That fact, combined with the abduction of his sister, could be no coincidence. Someone was clearly trying to use Alicia Cooper to draw her brother into the open.

  But who? Who knew Solano was still alive?

  Kidnapping a security agent and her tough, physically fit husband from their motel room had been a brazen act. It hadn’t been accomplished easily. It had taken planning, and certainly required more than a single perpetrator. Quinn had put out some feelers to his former colleagues at the company, but he’d heard nothing of any interest so far.

  He wasn’t surprised, exactly, by the lack of response. His recent decision to leave the CIA for private work had caught everyone by surprise. He supposed everyone in the agency had expected him to die somewhere in the bowels of Langley and be entombed there without ceremony, just another gold star on the anonymous wall of honor.

  Himself included.

  His cell phone hummed lightly against his hip. He reached into his pocket, studied the unlisted number and considered not answering.

  But curiosity overcame caution. “Yeah?”

  “Did you know the Mountain View Motor Lodge rooms have back exits?” The voice on the other end of the phone belonged to Jake Cooper.

  The hair on the back of Quinn’s neck prickled. “Where are you?”

  “In the woods about a quarter mile from where you’re standing.”

  “How’d you get this phone number?”

  “We have friends in your agency.”

  Probably Sutton Calhoun, Quinn thought. Calhoun had worked for Cooper Security before taking the job with Quinn. Could have been Adam Brand, too, he supposed—Brand had been close with Isabel Cooper and her husband, Ben Scanlon.

  Conflicting loyalties could be very messy indeed.

  “Who’s with you?” he asked Jake.

  “Luke, Hannah, Riley, Jesse and Rick. Everybody else has set up a clearinghouse for information at the motel. We have agents following a lot of potential leads.”

  “What are the six of you planning to do?”

  “Local law enforcement officers had reports of gunshots heard in the woods just east of here yesterday afternoon. It’s not hunting season.”

  Quinn bit back a curse. He hadn’t even thought to check in with the local LEOs. One of the downsides of playing the lone wolf, he supposed.

  “Why are you calling me?” he asked.

  There was a brief pause on the other end of the call. Then Jake said quietly, “We need some information. Did you know that one of the FBI agents who came to town yesterday to help the locals investigate has gone missing?”

  A ripple of surprise raced down Quinn’s back. “For how long?”

  “She disappeared soon after she and her associate arrived. Isabel worked a case with the partner, Cade Landry, a couple of years ago. She ran into him this morning. Apparently the missing agent never came to pick up the room key he got for her, wasn’t in her room when he tried to check in with her this morning, and there’s no sign she stayed there at all last night.”

  Disturbing, Quinn thought. “What do we know about the missing agent?”

  “Ava Trent. Female. Twenty-eight. Brown hair, hazel eyes. Works out of the Johnson City resident agency. About six years with the Bureau.”

  “Any sign of foul play?”

  “No. Landry said she wandered toward the woods yesterday afternoon after telling him to get them a couple of rooms. Last he saw of her.”

  Wandered toward the woods, Quinn thought, his eyes narrowing as he turned and looked at the deepening woods behind him.

  “We’re going to see if we can find any sign of her.” Jake’s voice broke into Quinn’s queasy thoughts. “Want to come along?”

  Another downside of getting in the habit of going it alone, Quinn thought. It had never occurred to him to join forces with the Coopers.

  It should have.

  “What’s your exact location?” he asked.

  Jake rattled off longitude and latitude numbers. “I assume you have a GPS locator at your disposal?”

  “Of course.”

  “We’ll wait fifteen minutes for you to find us. Be here or we leave without you.”

  Quinn had already started heading in the general direction of the coordinates Jake had given him. “And then what?”

  “And then, we go find my brother and Alicia.”

  “You don’t know what you’re up against.”

  “Do you? Does this have something to do with Alicia’s brother’s activities in South America?”

  Quinn couldn’t answer. But apparently his silence was enough.

  “If he’s still alive, there are people who would want their hands on him,” Jake murmured, his voice barely audible over the phone. “And they’d have no problem using Alicia as a pawn, would they?”

  “If he were still alive, and they thought they could use her to smoke him out of hiding, no. No, they’d have no problem with that at all.”

  Jake Cooper muttered a profanity. “Twelve minutes now. Get a move on.” He hung up the phone.

  Quinn shoved his phone in his pocket and quickened his pace. It might go against his long-ingrained habits to be a team player, but maybe it was time to form some new habits.

  Right now, he had a feeling he could use all the help he could get.

  Chapter Eight

  Ava opened her eyes to a gloomy half twilight. It took a second to gather her wits enough to realize she was napping against a warm, solid body underneath the ruffled camouflage of a Ghillie net.

  She sat upright and rubbed her gritty eyes. “How long did I sleep?” she whispered.

  “About two hours.” Sinclair’s quiet voice rumbled through her from the point where their bodies touched, flooding her with instant heat.

  She looked at Sinclair, dismayed by how long she’d delayed their escape. “That’s too long.”

  “You needed it.” He brushed a tousled hank of hair away from her eyes. His fingertips lingered against the curve of her cheek, setting her skin on fire. “You look better for it.”

  She tried to drag her gaze away from his, but the light caress of his fingertips on her face seemed to trap her in place. “Sinclair—”

  “I never thought I’d see you again. But I thought of you so many times over the years.” He spoke as if reluctant, as if begrudging each word that slipped between his lips. But his dark eyes blazed with a pulsating hunger that set off an answering throb low in her belly. “I didn’t want to. I wanted to put everything in my former life behind me. I knew what I was committing to, and I knew I couldn’t go back once I made the choice.”

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why did you choose El Cambio? Sanselmo was already beginning to reform the government. If you’d just given them a little more time—”

  His thumb brushed over her lower lip. “I was young and impatient. And I had a head full of foolish ideas about the way the world should be.”

  “Everybody does.” She tried to ignore the way his gaze dropped to her lips, but she was powerless against the surge of longing that rose in her chest to strangle her. “You think I didn’t have things I wanted to change?”

  “You were smart enough to take things slowly.” A mournful note darkened his voice. “I had my mother’s ideas in my head and my father’s passion in my breast. And Luis Grijalva’s revolutionary words in my ears. I thought there was no other choice to be made. I
wanted to make a difference, and joining the revolution was the only way I could do it.”

  She could see in his pain-filled gaze how much he regretted his choices. “How many people did you kill for your passion?” she asked, because she needed to remind herself of the monster he’d become, not the foolish boy he’d once been.

  “I killed nine people in that last bomb blast,” he answered. “I didn’t mean to, but they rushed the warehouse early. I tried to time it so that my hands would remain clean, but—” He dropped his hand away from her face.

  “You mean the only people you killed that whole time you were with El Cambio were your fellow terrorists?”

  “I was never a bomber,” he said flatly, his fists clenching at his sides.

  “But the indictments against you—”

  “The government got me mixed up with another rebel,” he said quietly, his gaze dropping to the ground between them. “My CIA handlers let the mistake remain. It gave me more cachet with El Cambio, being one of the FBI’s most wanted.”

  Could he be telling the truth? Or were these more convenient lies meant to manipulate her feelings?

  “How can I believe you?” she asked softly, her heart pounding with a different sort of fear.

  “I don’t suppose you can.” He moved, putting distance between them. Despite the warmth of the afternoon, she felt cooler air pour into the widening gap between their bodies.

  Sinclair crept to the edge of the Ghillie net and looked out toward the woods. “Rain’s about to start again.”

  “Lovely.”

  He eased the edge of the netting up, turning to look at her. “The temperature’s cooled down considerably, at least. We’ll probably make better time now.”

  Given the way every muscle in her body screeched in protest at her slightest movement, Ava had her doubts about what sort of time they’d be able to make. But she slipped under the net at Sinclair’s gesture and waited for him to fold up the camouflage and store it in his backpack again. She took advantage of the brief pause to look around the woods, trying to regain her bearings. The rain clouds overhead obscured the sun, but there was enough variation in the light to figure out which way the sun was headed.

  “Ready?” Sinclair asked, his back to her as he strapped on the pack.

  She started to nod when she felt something hard and cool press against the side of her neck. She froze in place, her voice stuck in her throat.

  As Sinclair started to turn toward her, a gravelly voice spoke in her ear. “Do not move an inch. Not an inch.” The speaker was male, and his drawl was pure American South, without a hint of a Spanish accent.

  Sinclair went still, his eyes slanting toward Ava. They widened slightly as they took in whoever stood behind her. “I really thought you were dead,” he said, a quizzical tone to his voice.

  There was a hint of shock in the Southern drawl when the man behind her spoke again. “Back at ya, son.”

  Suddenly, Ava understood the cryptic interchange. “If that’s a gun you have pressed to my neck,” she said quietly, “please put it down. My name is Ava Trent and I’m an FBI agent looking for you and your wife. You’re Gabe Cooper, right?”

  There was a brief pause as the man considered her words. After a beat, the gun barrel pressed to her neck fell away. “You’re FBI?”

  She turned slowly to look at him, biting back a quick gasp of surprise. Gabe Cooper looked, quite simply, as if he’d had the hell beaten out of him. Bruises and abrasions seemed to cover every exposed area of his skin. His nose was swollen and probably broken, bruises already forming under his bloodshot blue eyes. Both lips were split and a little bloody, and bloodstains also marred the torn T-shirt he wore over a grimy pair of jeans. His dark hair was damp with sweat and probably more blood, given the large scrape that extended up his forehead into his hairline.

  “Out of the Johnson City R.A.,” she answered, looking him over for any hidden injuries. Not that the ones she could see weren’t enough to qualify him for a trip to the nearest E.R. “How did you get away?”

  “A little luck, a little mulish determination.” Gabe’s split lips twisted in a wretched-looking attempt at a smile. “I had to kill a man, so I’m a little on edge.” He looked past her to Sinclair, who was still standing, stiff-backed, in the same position in which he’d stopped at Gabe’s command. “You’re Sinclair Solano, aren’t you?”

  Sinclair’s dark eyes slanted toward Gabe. Slowly, he turned to face his brother-in-law. “I am.”

  Gabe shook his head, grimacing a little at the movement. “She kept telling them you were dead. That they’d taken us for nothing.”

  Sinclair’s eyes closed briefly before he looked away from Gabe and locked gazes with Ava. She felt a ripple of pity for the look of sheer misery on his lean, handsome face.

  “This never should have happened,” he said bleakly.

  “No, it shouldn’t have.” Gabe looked away from Sinclair, his expression darkening. “Now we have to fix that.”

  “I’ll make a trade,” Sinclair said. “Me for her. It’s what they want.”

  “They’ll just kill both of you,” Ava warned, her gut tightening. “Don’t do something drastic and foolish.”

  “Do you know where they’ve taken her?” Gabe’s voice sounded more slurred than before, drawing Ava’s gaze quickly to his face. He’d gone pale beneath his tan, and one hand snapped out to grab the slender trunk of a birch sapling.

  Ava and Sinclair moved in tandem to catch him before he sagged to the ground. Gabe tried to push them away, but his movements lacked any strength. While Ava eased Gabe to a sitting position, Sinclair unpacked the Ghillie net and the tent, piecing them together with speed and expert precision. He helped her pull Gabe through the tent flap just as the sky overhead opened up, spilling a hard, cold rain that rattled relentlessly against the top of the tent.

  “I’m okay,” Gabe protested, but Ava didn’t believe it for a moment. A quick check beneath his T-shirt revealed large bruises on his stomach and rib cage. She suspected he had matching marks on his back, as well. He might be bleeding internally for all they knew.

  “We need to get him emergency treatment,” she murmured to Sinclair.

  He closed his fingers around Gabe’s wrist, checking the man’s pulse. A moment later, he checked Gabe’s eyes, frowning. “I don’t think he’s going to bleed to death in the next little bit.”

  “Didn’t you see the bruises?”

  “Yes, but he’s not showing signs of blood loss or shock.”

  “And you’re a doctor now?”

  Sinclair’s gaze snapped up to meet hers. “Believe me, I want nothing more than to deliver him to my sister alive and healthy. But if he’s killed one of Cabrera’s men like he said, you know there’ll be El Cambio soldiers out there scouring the woods for him as well as us.”

  “You know I’m still conscious, don’t you?” Gabe asked faintly.

  “Go to sleep,” Ava said shortly.

  Gabe arched an eyebrow in her direction.

  “Sorry,” she added. “But you really do need to rest. I’m not as convinced as the two of you are that you’re not bleeding internally. So do me a favor and take advantage of having someone to watch your back. You need to rest.”

  Gabe Cooper’s eyes darkened as he looked at her, but after a few seconds, he closed his eyes and rolled onto his side with a groan, turning his back to them.

  Sinclair nodded for Ava to follow him out of the tent. She crawled out behind him, hunkering down beside him near the edge of the Ghillie net. “When the man who took him out to the woods to kill him doesn’t come back, Cabrera is going to send out a search party.”

  “What makes you think they haven’t already? We killed a couple of their scouts, too.”

  “Yes, but they don’t know who we are. They can’t know for sure that I’m out here taking out their men. For all they know, we could be local law enforcement, and they’d be careful not to tangle with us if they can avoid it.”

  “B
ut Gabe Cooper is truly dangerous to them if he makes it back to civilization,” she said, understanding his point. “Or if he comes after them directly.”

  “Everybody in Sanselmo’s underworld has heard about the Coopers,” Sinclair said quietly. “What they did to Eladio Cordero and his band of drug thugs—”

  “Los Tiburones,” she murmured. Like anyone involved in law enforcement on the East Coast, she’d heard the story about the Cooper family’s skirmishes with one of Sanselmo’s most vicious and notorious drug lords. Eladio Cordero had sent his thugs, Los Tiburones, after Coopers not once but twice over the course of a couple of years. The Coopers had killed or captured all comers, including Cordero himself, accomplishing what Sanselmo’s own national army and police force hadn’t been able to do.

  “Cabrera knows how dangerous the Coopers are,” Sinclair said flatly.

  “Then why did he take Gabe and your sister in the first place?” she asked. “Why did he risk it?”

  “Because El Cambio is on a devastating downswing in Sanselmo,” he answered, meeting her curious gaze. “Their popularity has dropped like a stone since the current president’s new reforms have started yielding positive changes. All the dire predictions and threats from the rebels have been exposed as desperation from a dying opposition.”

  “And their tactics have grown more brutal than ever.”

  Sinclair nodded. “They need a victory.”

  “How does kidnapping your sister and her husband give them a victory?”

  “It doesn’t. But using them to smoke me out and take me down?”

  “Right.” She met his dark gaze, her stomach knotting. “El Cambio made you into a scapegoat for half their crimes, didn’t they?”

  He nodded. “They went through a period after my ‘death’ where they tried to become a political entity rather than a rebel group.”

  “It didn’t take.”

  “They weren’t patient enough to build a platform. Cabrera wanted power and he wanted it fast.”

  “So he fell back on violence.”

  “It’s what he knows.” Sinclair looked up at the sky through the Ghillie net, releasing a soft sigh. The light drizzle had started to pick up force, becoming a steady shower. Water seeped through the Ghillie net, sprinkling them both with warm rain. “Back in the tent. You don’t need to get drenched again.”