by Dee Tenorio
“Well, if it all goes to plan, Cody out there is going to make a deal with Santos using the money I brought with me for the deal. Last year, Santos’s operation was pinned down in Southern Mexico. He beat the agents out, though, taking pretty much everything he could scrape with him. We figure he’s been floating around the Pacific on a ship, transferring cargo containers for months. But that couldn’t last and with his accounts frozen, he needed to move the smack.
“Lucky for us, his usual distribution lines were closed—Latin Kings won’t touch him because he’s too hot. We found out his in was a group of bikers in Central California. He’d been using them to move small shipments and supply his distributors from LA to Sacramento. Since I was already under with a crew for a smuggling ring, I was chosen to infiltrate.”
“Through Cody,” Kyle surmised, finishing the knot.
Daniel nodded, rubbing his wrists and uncoiling the rope. “Remember that ’53 Indian I was telling you about? The owner was Cody’s dad. Cody was practically a brother to me.”
“Not anymore, though.”
Daniel looked away, sighing deeply. “You can’t protect people determined to do themselves in. I’d have given this whole deal to anyone else if he’d have come out of it, but he won’t. He’s in over his head with Santos. He thinks this is going to take him to the big time. Truth is, Santos just needs a glorified bag man.”
“So you were going to come here, buy it, then arrest everyone?”
“Um-hmm.” Was it really that simple to him?
“But then Dory had her coronary…”
Daniel’s dark eyes opened and for the first time he didn’t look untouched. “I couldn’t let her be alone for that.”
“You risked the biggest bust of your career for your mom?” It was a nice idea, but he didn’t know many guys in his field who would do something like that. Most of them would probably just ask which rest home to send the check to. He wondered if he could give up all his plans for anyone else.
Jessica sprang to mind.
“I’d throw my whole damn career away for her,” Daniel said with no remorse or second thoughts. “She’s my family. She’s everything.”
Kyle looked at his tied hands, thinking of his dream along with Daniel’s words. How was that for an epiphany? He’d met Jessica Saunders looking for family. Looking for everything. Not only had she tied his hands because she wasn’t ready for “everything”, but he hadn’t even offered to wait for her to be.
His eyes stung, thinking about the things he’d said to her. Those weren’t the last words he wanted to have said, hurling his hurt and accusation over his shoulder just because she bruised his feelings. Because she was scared.
“Thinking about Jessica?” Daniel pulled up his boots to start on his own ties.
“How’d you know?”
“I’d be thinking about her, if she was mine.”
“She’s not mine.” Painful to admit, but since he’d be dead in another twenty minutes or so, it wasn’t the time to be proud.
“Screwed it up, huh?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Dan. Got a real graceful way with words, there.”
Daniel chuckled. “Sorry, man, but it’d be hard for you to get that one right anyway.”
Kyle frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t get all offended or nothing. It’s just she’s got that scared rabbit look. One second she’s all googly-eyed at you, the next it’s like you’ve got the plague.”
He couldn’t quite argue with that, not even to defend her honor. “Yeah, well…she has reasons.” They hadn’t seemed like good reasons, when she was trying to explain, but that was between them.
“You know why I got into undercover work? Cause it was way easier than dealing with women.” Daniel laughed again, his voice whisper-low while he unwrapped the lines on his boots. “Then I got to thinking that it was a lot the same. I mean, when you’re undercover, you’re after something. Something your mark isn’t real likely to let just anyone get, right? Right,” he answered, not even looking up to see if Kyle was following him.
Wouldn’t have been worth it, Kyle wasn’t sure he was.
“So, you gotta earn their trust. You can’t just show up and think they’re gonna give it up just like that.”
Kyle decided to keep his comments on that to himself, but Daniel snorted, taking Kyle’s hands and pulling at the bonds. “I don’t think she had any qualms about sleeping with you, man.”
“Yeah, you weren’t there. Believe me, she had qualms.”
“I’d bet money she was more worried about that puppy look you get on your face when you see her.”
“Puppy?” Bad enough everyone was calling him little, now he was a puppy?
“Yeah, like you’re in the pound and she’s your last chance at adoption. You’re not real subtle, man.” Daniel tossed the rope to the corner of the van. “You gotta earn some trust first. Marks always have tests to see if you can do something for them first without trying to screw them. So, you prove your worth.”
Well, he could chalk that up to failure. Just about anything between him and Jessica that didn’t involve phone calls and orgasms had gone down in flames.
“Marks got needs too. The more you prove, the more they trust. The more they let you in.”
“Like Cody?” Kyle asked and Daniel’s expression hardened.
“Yeah, like Cody.” The knots began slipping. “He let me in. And eventually, he let me in on this deal. Let me talk him into getting Santos here personally.
“The plan was to wait on the bust ’til today because Cody trusted me so much we had the opportunity to get it all; shut down the entire pipeline in one bust. Maybe it was greedy, but it was worth the risk at the time. Now, instead, each van gets a thousand kilos, Santos gets fifty million and everyone in the country gets treated to a dose of mierde puro at rock bottom prices. Happy freakin’ fourth of July.”
The ropes came off and Kyle rubbed his chafed wrists. Daniel checked his watch and swore. “We don’t have a lot of time left.”
Kyle stopped rubbing and looked up. Daniel was looking out the open door. “You thinking we’ll make a break for it?”
“No, I think this is when they come and get us.”
That clenching in his gut started up again, harder. Kyle watched along with Daniel until Cody came back to the open door with a gun out. Daniel’s gun. “Santos is waiting.”
Daniel turned to Kyle. “You ready?”
“No.”
Daniel grinned and chucked Kyle’s feet with the back of his hand. “Come on, I have a little something in mind I call the ‘Bond Plan’.”
“You mean there’s a chance we’ll get out of this alive?”
“Not really, but what do you have to lose?” He started out of the van.
With nowhere else left to go, Kyle took a breath and followed. It wasn’t what he expected. They were in what looked like a desert valley. Open flat land and mountains all around. Dozens of vans were all lined up, of various colors and makes, each one with their doors open. To one side were five large semis, each one fully loaded with new cars. Kyle realized men were unloading the cars, while a few others were disassembling them. It didn’t make much sense until he saw a man lift a little silver brick from inside the tire he’d just slashed.
“Mr. Pierson,” a thickly accented voice said smoothly, dragging Kyle back to the scene of his imminent demise. Standing at a table in a clean dark suit was a man he didn’t really imagine a drug lord to look like. Lean, brown skinned, wearing glasses and looking a bit more like an accountant than an evil murderer capable of ripping his guts out. He wouldn’t have any trouble hiding in plain sight with fifty million dollars.
“Santos,” Daniel replied, standing next to Kyle and not looking the slightest bit concerned about his death.
“I trust your mother is on the mend.”
Daniel nodded curtly.
“Excellent. It’s always best to have healthy subjects. Killing the ill
takes all the sport out of it.”
Kyle’s misgivings faded and his phobia suddenly seemed insignificant. Dying here wouldn’t stop with them. They’d kill Dory. And who knew who’d be with her when it happened. Probably Jessica. He took a step forward, but Daniel put a hand to his chest and shook his head.
Santos looked him over then seemed to dismiss him as insignificant. “I actually think this is a perfect end to my transaction. Killing an undercover federal officer. Fitting way to disappear into the night, don’t you think?”
“I kinda doubt that disappearing-into-the-night stuff, Santos,” Daniel said calmly. “I don’t think you’ll get ten feet, but then again, you look fast. You might make twelve.”
The man’s eyes flickered before he decided to be amused. Kyle, on the other hand, just wanted to know what the hell was going on.
“And who do you think is going to stop me? Your little friend here?”
Daniel grinned, looking as scary as Kyle first thought he was. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of the DEA and an assload of local cops. But Kyle here might take a shot at it.”
Santos looked around. Nothing happened. His show of teeth couldn’t quite be called a smile. “Doesn’t look like any of them are here to help you this time, cabrón, but you almost looked serious.”
“I’m serious enough. Ever hear of cellular triangulation?”
Santos gaze turned sharp. “There’s no cellular service here. Nothing works in Death Valley. Even if it did, you don’t have anything to transmit a signal—”
Daniel extended his arm and flicked off his thick watch band. He tossed the strip of leather at Santos who caught it. “It’s a tracer. They’ve been monitoring me all the way up here. Even if you shoot me, Santos, you’re sure as shit not getting out of this canyon.”
Santos looked at the watch, disbelief obvious. Kyle was about to consider the “Bond Plan” a dismal failure when from the south came the strange sound of chopping.
Santos picked up his head, threw the watch down and stomped on it while swearing out commands in Spanish. The sound grew closer and people started running. Vans turned and peeled out, doors flying and men clinging on like escaping pinwheels. The cars were abandoned and ultimately, from what Kyle could tell, so was Santos. In the chaos of the helicopter coming over the rise and spotlighting them, sending wind and dust whipping all around them, only the three of them were standing still.
Santos reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a gun and pointed it at Daniel. A booming voice demanded something from a speaker above them, but it didn’t make any sense to Kyle. Between the rushing blood in his ears and the chopping blades of the helicopter, one thought repeated.
Daniel’s gonna die.
Daniel’s gonna die.
Daniel’s gonna die.
He couldn’t let it happen.
He sprinted forward. He thought he heard Daniel yell his name, but Santos turned his head. Turned the gun.
A flash, a boom, rocked his senses, but Kyle didn’t stop. He threw his arms around Santos, coming down on the man like a cape, and knocked them both to the ground. His bones jarred at the impact. Pain spread through his chest, icy and sizzling at once. His fist connected with Santo’s jaw once before the man rolled them in the dust to deliver a punch of his own to the same damn side Lucas had already bruised.
For a second, Kyle saw only the blinding white of pain, but he managed to grip the handle of the gun, determined to yank it away. Another vicious punch to his jaw and he lost purchase. Adrenaline sapped out of him, warm at his back. His arms were too heavy, too weak, too— He could only stare up at the silhouette of Santos sitting on his chest as the gun lowered to aim at his forehead.
So this is how it ends… Strange, since he’d been pretty sure all his life that he was a coward, but he was curiously unafraid. In the back of his mind, he remembered Jessica, smiling at him on her office floor, her face soft, her hair flowing through his fingers. She’s gonna be so mad…
The gun fired, the loudest sound he’d ever heard in his life.
Santos jerked, light hitting his surprised face…and the spreading red stain at his middle. He looked down at Kyle, extending the gun again, already squeezing…
A second shot to his forehead and Santos flopped backward, unquestionably dead.
“Kyle!” Definitely Daniel’s voice, thank God, then Daniel’s body, hopping over him and crashing down at his side. “You crazy sonofabitch, what the fuck were you thinking?”
Kyle meant to answer him, but Daniel put both hands down on his chest and pushed down. Pain turned the light around them nearly black.
“Oh no you don’t, you stay awake, Kyle.” Daniel lifted his head and yelled, “Medic!”
The black edges didn’t leave his vision.
“Damn, you’re bleeding a lot.”
Kyle turned his head, fuzzily realizing that there were more people in the circle of light now. People running towards them, sending the dust swirling.
“Kyle, look at me!”
He tried, he really did, but the blackness spread.
And then there was nothing.
Chapter Sixteen
Walking into her office Sunday morning, Jessica tried to take the gloom and heartache off along with her coat. It didn’t work.
The night before, she’d painstakingly cleaned her office to obliterate any trace of what had happened, not that there was a lot to do physically except throw out the Chinese food bag and put her chair to rights. Which was about as effective as waving her hands to block out the moon. She could still see where her body had pressed into the soft carpet. See where their clothes—the few they’d bothered to take off—had lain. Still see where Kyle Lonnigan had changed her life…just before she’d run him out so he wouldn’t see what he’d done to her.
Except that he knew exactly what he’d done.
She wanted to hate him. To be angry at him for the things he’d said, for the way he’d walked out, but how could she? She’d made him angry on purpose. Belittled what was between them. If it hadn’t been the right thing to do, she’d hate herself.
But it was the right thing to do.
She was sure of that.
Mostly.
She wasn’t what Kyle was looking for, that much couldn’t be ignored. He wanted a family, for God’s sake. She wouldn’t have a clue what to do with one of those. Sure, she’d wanted one growing up, had gone a little crazy taking care of others to pretend she had one, but ultimately, she’d rather boil herself in lighter fluid.
Say she married him. Say they had their two-point-five kids and their furry little dog that never peed on the carpet or humped anyone’s leg. Would she really be happy?
Probably not, and that was the honest truth instead of gut-wrenching fear. She’d be waiting for it all to fall apart. Just like it always did. The other shoe always fell and if it didn’t fall by itself, she’d find a way to push it off its pedestal so the agonizing wait would end. That was the way of real life.
And speaking of real life, the idea of marrying Kyle and having that perfect white-picket-fence life was so ridiculous. She’d known the man for less than a month. You didn’t start talking marriage before you were even sure you were dating. They were both being maudlin, making the end of a brief affair sound like the end of life itself.
Well, it wasn’t. It just didn’t happen that way, she reassured herself, so the guilt wouldn’t slice so deep. People did not fall in love at the drop of a hat, like he said. How overworked were the divorce lawyers in this very firm because people were dumb enough to think they could? She’d simply cut this relationship off before it got anywhere. Before anyone got permanently damaged or promises got broken. He’d see that. He’d accept that, eventually.
Why couldn’t she?
She sat in her chair, placed her flattened palms over the surface of her desk and willed them to stop shaking.
“People do not fall in love in a few weeks,” she said out loud, closing her eyes and ho
ping the sound of the sentence would make her believe it. She repeated it four times, like a lucky charm.
It didn’t quell the denial in her heart.
“Just lust,” she tried. Lust that had been thoroughly satisfied. But repeating that didn’t help either, because she still wanted Kyle. Still craved him—the feel of him all around her, inside her, his voice and his laughter. God, just the smell of him would be enough to soothe her, but she’d used too many cleaning products and the faint traces of his cologne were gone for good.
She scoffed at herself and the pain in her heart, digging back into her papers to find an order to them. You didn’t look at a man and know he was going to change your life in an instant. And if by some chance you did, you didn’t let him. Her life was just fine without him. Happy. Content.
Lonely.
She shook off the stinging of her eyes and any further inclinations in the direction of Kyle Lonnigan. He didn’t bear thinking about because she couldn’t change anything. She had work to do. Work would carry her through. It always had before.
For several hours it did. Until she was too tired to read and the sun had made its way over the top of her building, leaving her in shadows. She sighed, admitting defeat that she’d have to turn on the light, and shifted her chair to reach for the lamp she’d stupidly set too far from her working position. The shift moved her foot and she gasped when she stepped on something hard. Grumbling, she pushed her chair back and found the small gold cufflink under her shoe.
Just like that, depression swamped her. She closed her eyes, bent to pick it up, running her fingertips over it even as she enclosed it in her fist. Plain, smooth gold. Simple, clean and masculine. So very Kyle.
Damn it.
“I do not know this man,” she said out loud again, not caring how crazy she must sound. Banishing the concept that she knew anything about him took priority.
But she did know him and her senses reminded her. She knew his scent, his taste. She knew his smile, the way it lopsided and made her stomach roll over in excitement. She knew the way he moved his body or his hands when he talked. The way his eyes danced when he said one thing and meant something special just for her. She knew the way his hand felt, when he held hers just to offer support. She knew the way his eyes looked when they were filled with love.