Caught in the Act (34 page)

Letting out a nervous breath, she passed the last U.S. exit, lifting her ponytail off the nape of her neck. Maybe all of those trips across the border had given her nerves of steel. She’d just argued with a drug lord and won.

Moreno had wanted to drop off Maria at the tile manufacturer, but Kari had insisted on a public place.

Bob’s Big Boy was a casual restaurant in downtown Tijuana that catered to people from all walks of life. Petty criminals mixed with police officers and ordinary citizens. Families with small children sat alongside cartel members. Everyone enjoyed the American-style shakes, fries, and burgers.

Kari parked her rental car in the huge dirt lot and walked inside. At dinnertime on Friday night, the booths were packed. She grabbed a small table with a good view of the parking lot and sipped a Cherry Coke, watching patrons come and go.

The longer she sat there, the more conflicted she felt about her conversation with Adam. She hadn’t meant what she’d said. He’d tried to open up to her and she’d shut him down. Maybe he deserved it.

She just … wasn’t ready to forgive him. She’d buried her baby sister this afternoon. Her heart was closed.

Although she couldn’t imagine getting back together with Adam, she didn’t really blame him for sparing Moreno. She wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger, and she hated the drug lord with a passion.

Her words to Adam were like poison barbs, designed
to inflict the most damage. She needed to push him away, to protect herself.

While she was waiting for Maria, a dusty black SUV pulled into the parking lot. She straightened, recognizing it as Chuy Pena’s. The back door opened and a rolled-up carpet tumbled out. It was thicker in the middle, with a large dark stain on one side.

“Oh my God,” she said, leaping to her feet.

Maria was in that carpet. Bleeding to death, most likely. While she watched, her hand clapped over her mouth, the SUV drove away.

Cursing Moreno and his entire crew, she left her soda on the table and rushed outside. Time staggered and she felt like she was in a nightmare sequence, running through wet concrete, slow as molasses. The carpet shuddered in the distance, as if the person inside was having a seizure. Or maybe it wasn’t moving at all. The rhythmic motions of her feet on the gravel made it seem like the world was shaking.

She reached the bundle and dropped to her knees, gasping for breath. The carpet was tied with duct tape. Clawing desperately, she screamed Maria’s name. The body inside the carpet was still warm, the bloodstain sticky.

So much blood. God.

She managed to rip through one layer of tape, yanking open the top of the roll. A slack face stared at her, his eyes opaque.

It was a young man. Not Maria.

Kari jerked her hands away from the carpet, wiping them on the front of her shirt. She was in shock, her thoughts jumbled and her movements uncoordinated.
Letting out a strangled sound of distress, she rose to her feet, stumbling away.

The black SUV roared back into the parking lot. Before she could regain her equilibrium, it sped by her, almost clipping her elbow. The driver stopped on a dime, sending a choking cloud of dust into the air. A man climbed out of the back.

Kari turned to run, too stunned to scream. Before she could take two steps, the man from the SUV grabbed her by the hair and jerked her backward. Locking his arm across her midsection, he dragged her into the vehicle.

Ian’s vision darkened with rage as he watched the cartel member shove Kari Strauss into the back of the SUV.

He couldn’t prevent the kidnapping or do a damned thing to help her. Even shooting out the tires would be a bad move, because there was no way he could win a gunfight against three heavily armed men.

Cursing under his breath, he slowed his truck to a stop next to the bundle of carpet, retrieving Kari’s purse from the gravel-strewn ground. Leaving the dead man unattended, he stepped on the gas, taking off after the SUV.

Adam was going to lose it when he heard about this late-breaking development.

“Fuck,” Ian muttered, tightening his hands on the steering wheel. Luckily, Chuy wasn’t weaving through traffic like a maniac or taking unnecessary risks. Ian followed at a safe distance, his senses reeling.

He’d been parked across the street, doing surveillance, when the SUV pulled into the gravel lot. His
world had come to a grinding halt when the carpet tumbled from the back of the vehicle. Like Kari, he’d assumed Maria was the lifeless form inside.

Rather than staying to make sure, he’d pursued the SUV, unwilling to let her murderers get away. He’d intended to kill every one of those motherfuckers. Then he realized Chuy was circling the block, not speeding away, and a chill traveled down his spine.

Ian returned to the parking lot as fast as he could, but he was too late to save Kari. When he saw that the body in the carpet wasn’t Maria, he was overwhelmed with relief. He thought of Sonia Barreras, the last woman to die on his watch.

No way was he going to let that happen again.

His cell phone rang a moment later, startling him from his thoughts. “I have bad news,” he said to Adam.

“What?”

He summarized the situation, emphasizing that the SUV was within sight and that Kari was still alive.

Adam swore in two languages, sounding like he was having a nervous breakdown. “I’m on my way to the border right now.”

Ian was glad Adam had left his post, because he needed backup. He was outnumbered and the cartel members had the upper hand. They might take Kari to a secluded location where they could kill her without any witnesses. Although Ian would do his damnedest to help her, he was only one man.

The odds favored Pena.

To his credit, Adam didn’t ask Ian to abandon pursuit. Ian would rather die than quit, and he was glad his best friend knew that.

If he was racing to his end, so be it.

“Are you going to notify CBP?” Ian asked.

“Not until I get across the border. They might try to stop me.”

The Mexican authorities would probably do the same. U.S. police had no jurisdiction here, and many of the local cops were on Moreno’s payroll. Ian and Adam were on their own, outgunned and outmanned.

“Just stay on them,” Adam said. “But not too close.”

“Yeah.”

“And—and be careful.”

Ian’s throat tightened. “I will.”

They ended the call on that sentimental note. He continued after the SUV, wishing he’d brought an arsenal of weapons. His Glock had fifteen rounds in the chamber and he wasn’t carrying an extra clip.

When he glanced in the rearview mirror, he noticed a late-model silver Mercedes. It was keeping up with him, changing lanes when he did. Ian’s pulse skyrocketed. If the driver was working with Chuy, Ian could kiss his ass goodbye.

Kari’s purse jingled in the passenger seat. He reached inside, finding a red cell phone with glittery crap all over it.

Carlos
, the caller ID read.

Ian answered. “Hello?”

“Who is this?”

The man on the other end was either Carlos Moreno or a hell of an impersonator. Educated in Mexico City, he spoke English with a distinctive accent.

“This is Ian Foster,” he supplied.

“Agent Foster?”

He ignored the question. “Where’s Maria?”

“She’s supposed to be with Kari. I’d arranged for her to be dropped off.”

“Your arrangement fell through,” he said flatly, not believing him. “The only thing your men dropped off was a dead body.”

Moreno didn’t respond. He’d already known that.

“Your associate just kidnapped an American woman from a public parking lot,” Ian said. “The heat is going to come down on you like a fucking firestorm. No one will want to do business with you.”

“I didn’t give him that order.”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s your responsibility.”

“And he’ll pay for his mistake,” he said, hanging up.

Ian tossed the phone onto the seat, hoping that was true.

24

Kari gave the men in the back of the SUV a run for their money.

She kicked one in the face and another in the groin. For a split second she was free, scrambling across the seat. Before she could open a door and throw herself out, Chuy’s man yanked her by the hair and shoved her down on the floorboards.

“Tie her up,” he told his partner, holding her still.

She struggled for a few more moments but her efforts were in vain. They wrenched her arms behind her back and secured her wrists with coarse rope. Then her ankles were bound the same way. Panting from exertion, she twisted her wrists, succeeding only in scraping them raw with the abrasive rope fibers.

When she settled, the men in the back of the SUV returned to their seats while she stayed facedown on the floorboards. The stocky one kept his boot on her bottom. They both examined her body with greedy eyes.

“This one’s even prettier than the other one.”

Kari looked away, feeling nauseous.

Chuy spoke from the driver’s seat. “Tell me what you did for Moreno.”

“Fuck you,” she said, her teeth clenched.

He laughed without humor. “We’d love to. Beto just got out of prison, so he can go first.”

The man with his foot on her butt grunted in anticipation.

“Then again, Ronnie’s married,” Chuy mused. “He might be even more desperate.”

Ronnie’s nose was bleeding and he had a shoeprint across his cheek. His dark, vacant gaze promised no mercy.

“Did you make a deal with Moreno?” Chuy asked.

Kari hadn’t really been following him until now. Panic had gripped her brain, scrambling her thoughts. “What do you mean? I’d spit on him if I saw him.”

“You didn’t give him any information?”

Apparently Moreno hadn’t relayed the news about Armando yet. She didn’t know what to think of that. “I spoke to him about Maria. He said I could pick her up at Big Boy. That’s all we talked about.”

“He didn’t ask you for a favor in return?”

“No.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Kari wasn’t sure there was any benefit to lying, but intuition told her not to cooperate. Chuy had plans for her, and nothing she did or said would change them. He didn’t intend to question her and let her go. “Moreno ordered you to deliver Maria?”

Chuy didn’t answer.

“He’s going to kill you.”

“He’s not in charge right now,
muñeca
. I am.”

“No one will accept you as a leader,” she said, short of breath. “You have a bad habit of shooting innocent women.”

“Gag her,” Chuy said.

Beto punched her in the stomach, making her gasp for air. Ronnie used that opportunity to shove a dirty rag in her mouth. Tears leaked from her eyes as he tied a knot at the nape of her neck. The gag was taut, unforgiving. Her vision swam with dark spots. She inhaled through her nostrils and tried not to throw up.

“You ever had a blonde before?” Beto asked.

Ronnie moistened his lips. “No.”

Kari closed her eyes, blocking out their disturbing visages. She couldn’t bear to imagine them brutalizing her.

After what seemed like hours, the vehicle shuddered to a halt. Beto jerked her off the floorboards and her stomach rebelled. He untied her gag just before the contents came up, sickly sweet and acidic.

When she was finished, Chuy scolded Beto for letting her puke in the back of his truck, and they carried her into a small house. It appeared to be a rural area but Kari was too disoriented to get a good look at her surroundings. She ended up on a scuffed linoleum floor, her head spinning.

“I changed my mind,” Chuy said, looming over her. “I think I’ll go first.”

A muffled scream rang out, rising from the bowels of the house. “Maria!” she cried, searching for her friend.

Chuy turned his head toward a closed door. “Shut up,” he yelled. “You’re next!”

“No,” Kari protested, shuddering with revulsion. “Please.”

He closed his hand around her neck. “Talk.”

“I don’t know anything!”

“Talk,” he said, applying steady pressure.

A few seconds of choking was enough to make her change her mind about cooperating. When she nodded, he relaxed his grip, and she sucked in a lungful of air, desperate to get oxygen to her brain.

“What did you do for Moreno?” Chuy asked again.

“I went to the hospital to visit Armando,” she croaked. “Moreno wanted me to make sure it was him.”

Chuy’s thumb brushed over the hollow of her throat in a menacing caress. “Was it?”

“No,” she said.

He released her and rose to his feet, pacing the kitchen. The tattoo on his cheek stood out in harsh relief. He appeared pale and unbalanced, close to lunacy. “I knew that motherfucker was setting me up!”

Kari stared at the door Maria was behind. Slender fingers wiggled through a crack at the bottom, signaling that she was unbound, maybe even unharmed. Kari felt a surge of hope, even though she couldn’t imagine how they would escape.

Beto and Ronnie stood near the doorway, listening to Chuy rant like a madman. His ring tone sounded, disturbing the chaos.

“Fuck,” he said, checking the screen.

The other men looked anxious as Chuy answered the call. After a terse exchange, he agreed to something and hung up. “The boss is coming right now. Put this bitch in the basement with her friend.”