Hidden Prey (Lawmen) (30 page)

“I’ll get some paramedics here to help you,” Landon said.

Aguilar shook her head. “Not until those seriously wounded are taken care of. All I have is a fucking broken leg. I’m not losing blood, and I don’t have any other injuries. Now that’s an order. Got it?”

Landed nodded. He held his Glock in a two-handed grip as he headed down the corridor in the direction of the blast. He stepped over debris and peered around corners before continuing. Two agents, helping injured personnel, passed him in the hallway. The men were drenched, as if they’d been outside, and they left dirty wet footprints in the hallway. No doubt the blast had taken out part of the building, leaving it open to the elements.

Next came Dylan, also soaked, who supported another agent named Conway, who looked pretty banged up and dazed. “There are more injured.” Dylan’s wet skin was split along his cheekbone, blood mingling with water as the cut bled down the side of his face. He had small cuts all over his face and arms—it looked as though he’d been hit with shattered glass. His expression was grim. “I think we may have lost a couple of agents and administrative staff.”

Landon cursed and gripped his weapon tighter. “Where was the blast located?”

“Near the holding cells.” Dylan glanced up and down the corridor, as did Landon, both men continually on guard. “Graves and Perez were in there. I don’t know if they’re dead or if they managed to escape.”

“Shit.” Landon clenched his teeth.

Dylan looked past Landon. “Where’s the witness?”

“In my office.” Landon cocked his head in the direction he’d just come from. “With Aguilar, who’s injured. She thinks her leg is broken.”

“Damn. At least they’re both alive.” Dylan shifted to get a better hold on Conway. “I’m going to get Conway out of here and then I’ll check on Tori and Aguilar.”

“Thanks.” Landon gave Dylan a nod before he continued down the hall.

The farther Landon went, the worse the destruction. He passed other agents and administrative personnel, who were assisting individuals who had sustained significant injuries.

As he approached the corridor to the holding cells, he saw the door was ajar and water seeped through the opening. Dirty puddles were on the floor, leading away from the door.

A gust of wind slammed the door open and rain pelted onto the floor at the opening. He moved to the doorway and had to squint to see through the downpour.

Where once there was a roof and walls, a gaping hole filled with rubble had replaced it. The light was muted by the storm. The parking lot was a good distance away, and Landon couldn’t see if anything else had been damaged.

Thank God no fire had accompanied the explosion.

Still gripping his Glock, Landon climbed over support beams, concrete, twisted pieces of metal, and glass. Sirens blared, louder now that he was outside. He glanced in the direction of the highway and saw emergency vehicles turning onto the road leading to the DHS office. Red and blue lights flashed, reflecting off of wet surfaces.

As Landon looked around him, he saw a male figure half buried in the rubble, face turned away. Landon climbed over debris, toward the figure. His stomach clenched when he saw that all that remained of the man’s body was his upper torso. His face was unrecognizable.

Fury burned Landon’s skin as he continued on. No doubt others had suffered similar fates, but prayed he was wrong. He hurried the best he could toward the still intact corridor where the holding cells were. The door, which was a twisted mess, hung on one hinge and swung in the wind. No doubt the door could go flying at any minute.

He climbed over debris to get to the door. He checked the door hinge and saw it was about to go. He hit the door with his good shoulder and the door broke away from the hinge and landed harmlessly on rubble. Still, the impact jarred his other shoulder and he gritted his teeth.

Rain had been pouring in through the open doorway and into the hallway, and water covered the floor.

He saw the holding cells were open and strode toward them. He narrowed his gaze when he saw the cells.
Fuck.

Graves and Perez were dead. The cartel had been here to take care of loose ends.

Moans came from further down the hallway and Landon headed in that direction, still holding his weapon and making sure that none of the cartel’s men were nearby.

Tori was never far from Landon’s thoughts as he helped the injured out of the building, through the storm, and into the hands of emergency personnel who had arrived. It wasn’t easy helping one-armed, but he had to do it.

He knew that Tori was in capable hands. Aguilar was one of the best shots, having set records when she trained at FLETC, so she could definitely hold her own.

Dylan met up with Landon a good twenty minutes after Landon had passed him and Conway in the hallway. Dylan had stopped by Landon’s office before he returned to the blast zone to assist. He’d told Landon that when he checked, Aguilar was in pain but the broken leg was her only serious injury. She’d insisted that she could continue to watch over Tori and had reiterated that she didn’t need medical attention. Those who were seriously injured needed it first.

Now that Landon had done all he could at the moment, he intended to return to his office, where Tori and Aguilar waited. The wind and rain had never stopped buffeting the men and women working the scene.

His head seemed to ache even more from the blast and the debris that had landed on him in his office. His shoulder burned and hurt like a sonofabitch, and it had started bleeding again, enough that the blood seeped through his T-shirt and spotted his overshirt.

A paramedic noticed Landon holding his shoulder as he trudged toward the door that would open up into the hallway.

“Hold on.” The female paramedic tried to stop Landon. “Let me check your shoulder.”

Landon gritted his teeth and shook his head. “I’ll be fine, but the Resident Agent in Charge is inside. If everyone in serious condition is taken care of, per her instructions, she needs medical attention.”

The paramedic signaled her partner, and in moments they were hurrying toward Landon’s office. Water ran in rivulets down his face and arms, and onto the floor as he walked to the open doorway that led to the corridor. His steps quickened as he headed to his office. He needed to see Tori, needed to see that she was safe.

He entered his office first and his heart nearly stopped.

Aguilar was lying on the floor, blood now soaking her shirt. Her chest rose and fell with rapid, harsh breaths. Her hand was pressing a piece of bloody cloth over her abdomen.

The cloth was the same color of blue as Tori’s shirt.

Heart pounding hard enough to feel like it was hitting his ribcage, Landon turned to the paramedics. “Take care of Special Agent Aguilar.” His voice was tight. “I need to check on someone else.”

The paramedics were on Aguilar before he finished speaking and Landon hurried to the desk where Tori should be hidden.

Before he had a chance to look, he saw his Sig resting on the floor. Chest squeezing with fear for Tori, Landon looked under the desk.

His heart nearly stopped.

Tori was gone.

Tori lay curled up on the floor of a van, her hands and feet bound with duct tape and a piece of the tape over her mouth. She was cold and wet, her body prickling with icy fear as men around her laughed and spoke in Spanish. Thanks to her mother she was fluent in the language, and their words caused terror to clench her belly and grip her heart.

They intended to take her to Diego Jimenez’s compound in Mexico. The head of the cartel had decided to make her pay in ways other than death.

God, no doubt death would be better than anything they might do to her.

Someone kicked her in the back and laughed, and she gave an involuntary muffled cry as pain lanced her body, especially her chest. Her eyes watered and a tear rolled down the side of her face.

She should have stayed hidden, like Landon had ordered her to.

But she’d
had
to go to try to help the agent.

When Special Agent Aguilar had been shot, Tori had waited until she was sure the man who had shot the agent was gone. She’d crawled out of the kneehole, scrambled over debris, and had gone to the agent to try and stop the bleeding. She hadn’t seen any cloth around, and the only thing she could think of to do was tear off part of her shirt again, like she’d done for Landon. She’d pressed the cloth to the agent’s wound, her hands almost immediately covered in blood.

She’d been just about to take off her whole shirt to use when a man came by the office and peered in. Tori had raised her head to ask for help when terror had blocked a scream in her throat. The man had his gun pointed at her. She didn’t know who he was, but he’d clearly recognized her.

She hadn’t been able to run. She’d been trapped in the office. In that instant she had prayed for Landon to return, but he hadn’t. There had been no way to save herself.

The man had yanked her by her hair, dragging her to the doorway, and forced her to her feet. He’d taken her by gunpoint from the room, the gun digging into the small of her back. They’d gone out into the storm and the chaos, and no one had noticed.

No one.

Her head still ached from being dragged by her hair. The barrel of the gun had been pressed against her back so hard she was certain the man had bruised her skin. She also had bruises on her face and body from the men kicking her and backhanding her. It hurt to breathe and she was pretty sure one of them had broken her rib.

But far worse than the pain in her head and chest, and the bruises all over her body, was the fact that she’d been kidnapped and these men were taking her across the line, into Mexico.

If they got her out of the U.S., there would be no hope for her. The U.S. government would do nothing—she’d just be one more person who’d been abducted into Mexico like so many others.

Tears squeezed from her eyes. What if they sold her to human traffickers? Would she become a sex slave? It was a very real and frightening possibility that tightened her chest and made her feel ill, like she might throw up behind the duct tape. She’d drown in her own vomit.

More tears rolled from her eyes. What could she do, bound and gagged and surrounded by determined men?

All she could do was pray.

She looked at the duct tape binding her wrists in front of her. The rain hadn’t washed away all of Special Agent Aguilar’s blood from her hands and it was still around her fingernails as well as having stained what was left of her shirt. She prayed, too, that the agent would survive. She had a lot to pray for, including Landon’s safety.

Landon.
Her heart squeezed. If her kidnappers got her across the line, she’d never see him again. She hadn’t known him for long, but she knew one thing. She’d fallen in love with him. She had truly fallen in love with a man for the first and only time in her life. Now that she knew what real love felt like, she knew that what she’d felt for Gregory had been infatuation while he’d treated her well. Before things had changed.

Landon had killed her brother, but as hard as that was, she knew it had been in the line of duty. It was screwed up, but she loved Landon with everything she had.

Her heart swelled with the emotion, but ached at the fact that how she felt wouldn’t matter if she ended up in the cartel’s compound.

Yet somehow it did matter, even though she may have seen Landon for the last time. The saying was true…she would rather have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

Even though six men surrounded her, all of whom were likely hardened criminals and murderers, she still held out hope of escape before they crossed the line into Mexico.

Somehow, some way, she would make it.

The morning had dawned crisp and bright. Diego smiled, truly pleased for the first time since the woman had witnessed Alejandro murdering the federal agent. Yes, he’d thought she was dead in the explosion, and had been furious yesterday morning to find out she’d somehow escaped.

But now that his men had her, and had crossed the line into Mexico last night, he was more than pleased. Any time now, when they arrived, he would see the woman for himself and he would determine what her destiny would be.