Chapter Four
The pain shot down the back of her thigh. Not as bad as the last time she’d pried herself out of bed. The need to get on her feet, to keep moving, tightened in her chest to the point she couldn’t breathe beneath the soft, light sheets. Her stomach battled against the familiar taste of full-course breakfasts, lunches and dinners—with desserts—over the past three days.
She couldn’t take it anymore.
Being taken care of. She couldn’t sit here and wait for El Capitan and his men to finish what they’d started. Sosimo Toledano. That was his name, but knowing it didn’t make any of this better. She’d given Socorro—given Jones—enough time and enough information to take what’d happened and construct their own narrative for action. She’d done her job. Now it was time to get back to her life. While she still could.
Maggie pressed her feet into the cold, black tile. This whole place looked as though it’d been taken directly out of a science fiction movie. Big windows stared out over the desert landscape—tinted, most likely bulletproof—and when it got dark, there was nothing but stars and distant lights on the other side of the glass.
Alpine Valley. That was the little town she’d tried to run to the other night. Small, out of the way, isolated. It looked like any other town right now, but the people there had found themselves at the mercy of Sangre por Sangre and a bombing that led to a massive landslide that buried two hundred homes in the past two months. It’d been all over the news at the time. There was something to be said of that kind of strength. Of a community as underprotected and vulnerable as that one coming together against a threat.
She could hide there if she kept her head down. Not forever. Just long enough to secure a phone, maybe a car. The cartel would catch on if she stayed in one place too long, but it was a start. She was fairly certain she could locate the site of the ambush to collect the SD card she’d hidden. El Capitan had taken her wallet, phone, even her allergy meds. She’d lived with less. She could do it again.
Maggie stripped free of the gown that gave Dr. Piel access to her spine. The bleeding in her back had stopped two days ago, but there was still a bit of swelling around the puncture wound and an intense headache she couldn’t get rid of. She’d told Jones the truth. She couldn’t remember being injected with drugs or hallucinogens, but whatever Toledano had set out to do had failed. She wasn’t going to give him a second chance.
Cold air constricted her skin as she grabbed for the packaged scrubs, a top and bottom set on the side table. She threaded her feet into the bottoms, forced to move slower than she wanted to go as the muscles around her spine stretched and released. The top went on easier. The socks took longer than both put together, but within minutes, she was dressed. No sign of a pair of shoes. Guess those weren’t considered necessary for recovery. Or the people here were trying to keep her from leaving.
Her left foot dragged slightly behind the right as she headed for the door. The heavy metal took more energy than she expected to wedge open. There were no phones ringing off the hook, no PA announcements overhead. No nurses and doctors rushing with crash carts or responding to patients. Everything was quiet. Empty. Only the slight pound of her pulse behind her ears told her she hadn’t suffered permanent hearing damage from the high-frequency noise her abductors had forced her to listen to for hours at a time.
She dared a step into the monochromatic hallways. Black everywhere. The ceilings, the floors, the walls, the artwork. There was nowhere to hide in a place like this. Pressure grew in her chest, and she looked up to see a single camera staring back at her from the space where the wall met the ceiling. No light to indicate whether it was recording or not, but this was a security company. Why else have it installed?
Maggie ducked under the device and pulled out the single wire connecting it to the metal frame below the lens. “You’re going to have to work harder than that to keep me here.”
This place was a maze. Every turn led to another corridor, another conference room, another door secured with a keypad. Disconnecting every camera as she went along, she had the distinct impression that somewhere in here the members of Socorro were just waiting to see how far she’d make it before she gave up and went back to her room. But she’d never quit anything in her life. She wasn’t about to start now.
She had to get out of here. She had to get the SD card she’d buried and contact Bodhi. It was the only way to stop the cartel from coming after her for the rest of her life. Maggie turned into a dead end. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
A yip registered from behind.
She spun around, confronting the husky she’d met while trying to escape the cartel in a bulletproof SUV. The night she’d been brought here. He settled his furry butt on the floor, staring up at her with a whole wide world of innocence in his face.
“I remember you. Gotham, right?” Maggie dared a step toward him, hand extended to pet him, then froze. Did Socorro let their K9s roam the halls of their own free will? Or did this mean Jones was close by? She didn’t have time to find out.
“Do you know how to get out of here?” Did she really expect a dog to understand her? Military K9s were intelligent, disciplined even. But that didn’t make them capable of the English language. “Um, out?”
Gotham cocked his head to one side a split second before he padded dead ahead, nails clicking against the floors. She’d take that as a good sign. Maggie struggled to keep up with him. Even as steady as he was, he was much faster than her injuries allowed her. Another streak of pain shot down her left leg, bringing her to a stop as Gotham took a turn ahead. “Wait!”
She grabbed onto the back of her leg, willing it to move, but the pain was too much. Like a nerve had been pinched all along her left side. She’d never catch up to him like this. Which meant she wasn’t going to be able to get out of here. Maggie sucked in a deep breath to counter the crushing effect weighing her down as she steadied one hand against the nearest wall. “Baby steps.”
That was what her therapist had said. She wasn’t supposed to look at the whole puzzle and try to solve it in one go. It hadn’t worked in the middle of her divorce, and it wouldn’t work now. She had to break it down into pieces. One step forward. Then another. That was all she could focus on. Not the pain. Not the hopelessness. Not anything but the next foot in front of her. Maggie took that first step. Then the second. Her leg threatened to collapse out from under her, but she held strong.
That success was enough to bolster her confidence. Maggie made it to the corner where she’d lost Gotham.
And faced off with the man whose voice she couldn’t get out of her head.
“Figured if you wanted to leave this bad, I might as well show you the way.” Jones scratched Gotham’s ears, and the dog closed his eyes. Traitor.
“You were watching me on the cameras.” She didn’t have the strength for embarrassment or denial. Every second she wasted here was another second Sangre por Sangre got away with what they’d done. Evidence would be contaminated. The bodies would start decomposing, and while she fully believed in the science and technology used to solve murders, the first forty-eight hours of any investigation were crucial. And those were already gone. “I’m not going to apologize. I don’t like feeling trapped. Did you at least get the show you expected?”
“All I saw was a woman bent on proving she’s the one calling the shots. Well, before you started pulling the power on the cameras. Didn’t see much after that, so I sent Gotham to find you. Scarlett isn’t too happy, but I can’t actually think of a time when she was.”
Jones offered her his free hand. Like she had a choice in what she did next, but it was a ruse, wasn’t it? Because there was no way he was going to let her walk out of here in her condition, let alone try to take on the cartel single-handedly. “Shall we?”
Maggie visually followed the cracked lines in his palm. Worn, rough, aged. Hands that’d seen a lifetime of violence and anger. And yet so contrary to the easiness in his gaze. It was almost enough to release the tension in her gut. Almost. “Fine, but I get to pet the dog.”
Jones’s deep laugh rumbled through the corridor as he stepped aside to give her room between him and Gotham. Dipping down to scratch the husky added to the strain on her back and leg, but within an instant, Jones was there. Holding her up. Letting her use him as a crutch without her uttering a word. As though he’d known exactly what she was feeling. How much she hurt. Not just physically. But emotionally. Mentally. He braced his arm at her back but let her lead at her own pace.
“How did Gotham know where to find me?” she asked.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but he’s a human remains recovery K9.” She could just see how hard it was for him to say that with a straight face.
“Do I really smell that bad?” Maggie tried not to stick her nose in her armpit to gauge how long she’d been without a shower. Any shift could disrupt the delicate balance they’d created these last couple of yards.
“You smell fine.” Jones angled her to the left and down another corridor. How he knew where he was going in this maze, she could only guess. “He knows your scent now. Given the opportunity, he could track you down within a mile of your location.”
“That’s impressive.” Maggie fisted her hands in Gotham’s fur as she slowed. Despite the need to keep moving, to escape, she’d always been at the mercy of her curiosity. “But that doesn’t explain why you sent him after me in the first place. Why you brought me here for medical attention. Why you even pulled me out of that interrogation room. I’m just some random stranger you happened to come across. Why bother?”
“That’s easy.” Jones kept his arm in place—in case she needed it—but there was some part of her just then that thought maybe he needed the connection, too. “Because I didn’t want what happened to my brother to happen to you.”
“W HAT DO YOU MEAN ?” Maggie held her own as though out to prove she didn’t need him. As though she didn’t need anyone. It was a self-defense technique. Not one born out of training, but out of necessity. Though a part of him wondered why she was so desperate to convince everyone she could get through this life alone. “What does any of this have to do with your brother?”
Jones hadn’t meant to expose that part of his life. Not to her. Not to anyone. Least of all someone he’d just met within the past seventy-two hours. And a journalist, for crying out loud. A burning sensation set up residence behind his sternum. It still hurt. Thinking about what his brother had gone through, how his strength—especially of a man of Kincaide’s size and abilities—had dwindled in the end. It’d changed him. Inside and out. And there hadn’t been anything Jones could do but watch as the only person who gave a damn about him struggled to survive. Then lost.
“It doesn’t matter. My point is I can help you, Maggie. I’m good at what I do. I can protect you from the cartel. I can help you find out what happened the night you were taken and to recover those photos.”
Not Socorro. Him. Because while he fully trusted Scarlett and the others to have his back in the field, this was something he had to do. For Kincaide. For the hole left behind in his chest after his brother’s death. To give Maggie a reason to keep going. He needed this.
“I’ve studied Sangre por Sangre for close to a year. I’ve seen what they can do and how little they care for the people they do it to, Jones.” The laceration in her lip split as she flinched at some pain he couldn’t see. Her right leg was starting to shake under her weight, an indicator she was having problems with her left. “I don’t even know you, and I know that I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on my worst enemy.” Maggie let Gotham slide back to Jones’s side. “Thank you for pulling me out of that dark place. And for saving my life. I wouldn’t be here without you or your team, and I owe you for that, but I can’t let anyone else get trapped in this hell with me.”
She used the wall for leverage as she turned her back on him and shuffled along the corridor.
Gotham’s whine echoed off the walls.
That all-too-familiar sense of loss cut through him at the thought of her walking out those doors unprotected, injured. Jones barely acknowledged the consequences of his next question, willing to do whatever was required to keep Maggie from taking on an entire drug cartel alone. “Even a source?”
Three words. That was all it took to hook into her personal drive. He was good at that, seeing a person’s—most especially a combatant’s—deepest compulsion and dragging it out. It was those limited moments in the field that’d given him an advantage over so many others.
Stringy blond hair acted as an effective barrier to her expression as she pulled up short. “Is that an offer?”
“You told me how important your job is as a war correspondent, that you need it.” Jones would pay hell for this. Socorro Security operatives signed NDAs once onboarded to the team. Any and all press went through one woman and one woman only: Ivy Bardot, Socorro’s founder. He could lose his job for this. Worse, he could lose his team, but he hadn’t known what else to do to keep Maggie from leaving.
“Think about it. You’ll be the only journalist who has access to this team and our plans against Sangre por Sangre , after the fact, of course. That kind of information hasn’t been available to any other news outlet before now. You’ll be American Military News ’s star reporter. All those other writers won’t have anything on you.”
Maggie angled toward him, and hell if it didn’t look as though it took everything in her power not to collapse right there in the middle of the floor. The bruising around her face and down her neck shifted colors around the perimeter. More blue-green than black and purple. Her body was doing everything in its power to heal, but the second she left this building, she was putting herself at risk. “Why would you do that?”
“I told you. I can help.” He realized the offer must’ve seemed ridiculous with him standing there with a husky at his side, but Jones had never been so sure of anything in his life than he was about this deal. “If you let me.”
Maggie dropped her arm away from the wall. “Becoming a source isn’t just about handing over information. It’s about mutual trust. I need to know I can rely on you, that the information I’m getting isn’t being filtered or rewritten in any way. That what I’m getting is raw and real. That’s the only way this can work between us.”
“You have my word.” No matter what it took to keep it. “But I want the same deal. If we do this, we do this together. All I ask is that you trust me in return. No lies. No filtering. If you’re in pain, I want to know you’re going to take care of yourself. If you’re going after those photos you hid before your abduction, I’m right by your side. Agreed?”
She attempted to cross her arms over her chest, but the effort looked harder than it should’ve been. “Does that mean you’re going to tell me about what happened to your brother?”
Jones’s mouth dried up, leaving nothing but a bad taste on the back of his tongue. Reliving that pain, remembering the way Kincaide had been before he’d died surged hot as acid in his gut.
“You said if this was going to work, we had to be honest with each other,” she said. “If that’s not something you’re willing to do, it’s better I know now. Before either of us gets in too deep.”
“His name was Kincaide. He was my foster brother.” Though Jones wasn’t entirely sure if that’d actually been his brother’s birth name or one he’d picked up along the way. “We were both in the system for a few years before we ended up in the same house. I was nine. Him, twelve. We hated each other at first. Looking back, I think we were both just trying to come to terms with how we ended up there and took it out on each other any chance we got.”
Maggie seemed to soften, losing some of the bite she used against getting close to anyone she didn’t have to. Either because of what she’d gone through or a characteristic she’d spent years building up, he didn’t know.
“I’m sorry. I’ve known kids in the foster system. I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been.”
“I didn’t know anything different by the time I met Kincaide. My parents ditched me at a fire station when I was two. I don’t remember them. I spent a good chunk of my life wasting time trying to figure out why they decided they couldn’t take care of me, but I’ve since come to realize sometimes family isn’t where you come from. It’s who you trust.”
Jones felt the assault coming. The grief he buried by throwing himself into the field day after day.
“The first few weeks, Kincaide and I did nothing but throw punches at each other. We were insecure, didn’t know where we would end up next. Didn’t know if the social workers would have us pack our garbage bags in a day, a week, a month. We were two angry kids who were caught in survival mode every hour of every day, and after a while, the only thing we could count on were those fights we picked with each other.”
Maggie pressed her back into the wall, lowering herself onto the cold tile floor, and Jones wanted nothing but to scoop her up and put her back in that hospital bed. Only, he knew she wouldn’t go. That she wouldn’t admit defeat. “But you came to care about each other?”
He could see the moment his and Kincaide’s relationship changed as though it’d happened mere minutes ago. “We were headed home after school. Our foster mom insisted we walk together, especially since I was younger, but I thought I was better than that. I’d always try to beat him home, then rub it in his face. I remember I’d gotten a new watch for my birthday. You know, the kind with the calculator built in. I was bragging to anyone who would listen all day about it because it was the best gift I’d ever received.”
He still had that watch, tucked safely back in his room. “Well, these kids—I don’t even remember their faces—jumped me a block from the house. They’d been waiting for me to pass by this dumpster to take it. I’d learned how to hold my own over the years, but it was three against one. I ended up curled in a ball while they beat the crap out of me.”
Maggie’s gaze glistened a split second before she swiped at her face with busted knuckles. “You must’ve been scared.”
“I was. It was the first time in my life I remember thinking, I’m going to die. All for a stupid watch.” Jones could almost feel every kick to his ribs, every fist that landed against his face. But there was something else. “Until my big brother came.”
“Kincaide?” she asked.
“He wiped the floor with them. Got my watch back, though it’d been destroyed in the scuffle.” Jones scratched at Gotham’s neck with one thumb. “But I didn’t care. Because I got something worth a lot more that day. I got a brother. Kincaide was pulled from that house because of that fight, but we didn’t care. One of the kids’ parents pressed charges, but it didn’t matter where we were shipped off to. Nothing was going to stop us from having each other’s backs. We wrote letters and called each other on our birthdays. Even after he went into the military, he made sure I knew I could count on him. I followed him, of course. Straight to the army as soon as I turned eighteen. Every few months I’d get word of where he was, but a couple years ago, the messages stopped. And I knew something had happened.”
Maggie’s expression fell. “In my room, you said you knew what I was going through. Is that because...”
“It took some digging. Me calling in every favor I could over the course of two months, but I finally found my brother’s last location.” Jones tried ignoring the sick feeling in his gut, but there wasn’t enough Pepto-Bismol in the world to touch that nausea. “Turned out Kincaide had been taken captive by a group of insurgents after an operation gone wrong. And the military couldn’t do anything about it without starting a war.” He notched his chin parallel to the floor. “So I did.”