Chapter Six
The uneven landscape jarred her and the SUV to one side. The movement aggravated the ache along her spine. Maggie grabbed for the side door handle, but no amount of force was going to keep her from being thrown around like Gotham’s favorite chew toy. Stars punctured the black velvet sky through the windshield. If they weren’t headed to the same location where she’d been abducted, she might’ve even thought it was beautiful out here. Peaceful. The perfect place to escape the noise and violence and pressure of the world. And in her head.
Her throat constricted as she stared out into the endless black. There were no towns out here. No sign of Socorro’s headquarters. Nowhere they could run if this went sideways. Before the cartel had dragged her kicking and screaming into an SUV just like this one, that wouldn’t have bothered her. She’d relished being on location, lived for the excitement of breaking a new story that might catapult her further away from her old life. Even prided herself on the danger of that kind of solitude. But now... Now she was grateful she didn’t have to come out here alone. That she didn’t have to do this alone. It was an odd shift compared to the past two years.
Maggie studied Jones in her peripheral vision. It was hard not to. He took up so much space, armored in Kevlar and banded muscle. The prickling sensation in her foot had spread, burning up her left calf. She’d been instructed to inform Dr. Piel of any changes, no matter how insignificant, but the promise of proving to Jones and every American Military News reader she wasn’t crazy had hooked in deep. Besides, directing her thoughts on memorizing everything she could about the man next to her seemed to take the sting out. For now. “Thank you. For doing this. For believing me. Doesn’t seem like your team agrees.”
Jones stared out the windshield. No change in expression. Nothing she could read to give her an idea of what was going on behind that mask of his. He was evasive on a cellular level. Preferred to keep to himself, to work alone, but when it came right down it, he was the one who was here. Willing to fight beside her for the truth. “What makes you think that?”
“The fact that you’re the only one from Socorro here with me.” She tried not to cross her arms over her chest. Not only because it hurt like hell but to show that the realization didn’t affect her. That she didn’t actually need anyone but herself. That she was enough.
“Hey. Gotham’s part of the team, too, you know,” he said.
“Right.” How could she forget the husky asleep in the back seat? “I take it the meeting with Ivy Bardot didn’t go as you’d hoped.”
“Satellite imagery doesn’t show any activity in this region going back three weeks.” Jones cut his gaze to hers, but the dim light coming from the SUV’s dashboard wasn’t strong enough to highlight the gray of his eyes. “I have clearance to follow up—”
“But if we don’t find anything, you have to cut me loose.” The implication of that statement hit harder than she expected. She couldn’t go back to Albuquerque. Not as long as Toledano wanted those photos. And local police had already proved time and time again they didn’t have the manpower to handle the cartel. Sangre por Sangre had infiltrated and corrupted departments over the years. There was no telling how far the infection had spread. And without evidence or jurisdiction, Albuquerque PD had no reason to investigate what’d happened or to protect her. Maggie pressed her back into the seat to gain some kind of control, but she couldn’t seem to even level her own breathing. “That’s...not possible. You tracked the last location of my phone. I was out there. I saw what Sosimo Toledano and his men did to those soldiers. I didn’t make this up.”
“I know.” Two words and a whole hell of a lot of confidence. “Ivy is using her contacts to try to get a read on any operations the military might’ve been running out here, but so far, she’s been stonewalled. Which makes me think there’s more to it than we thought. Is there anyone you could stay with until the heat dies down? A friend, family member? A neighbor even?”
“No.” She shook her head as though that would do any good to fight the ice seeping into her veins. The pride she’d held on to—that barrier she’d created between herself and everyone she’d loved—didn’t seem as strong anymore. Not since the abduction. “I don’t have anyone.”
“Everyone has someone,” Jones said. “What about your editor, maybe one of the other journalists?”
The suggestion almost made her laugh if it wasn’t so sad. “I’m not sure if you understand how cutthroat my line of work is. We’re all waiting for someone’s life to fall apart so we can swoop in and claim what we think we’re owed. To get ahead. We live for the scandals and discrimination lawsuits and sexual harassment charges. And my editor is at the top, fending off anyone gunning for his job. It’s the only way to survive in this line of work. I wouldn’t trust any of them with details of my life. Not unless I want to give them the upper hand.”
“That doesn’t sound like any way to live.” Jones leaned back in his seat. Not relaxed or disengaged from the conversation. No. Something along the lines of pity.
She didn’t need his pity. “You were in the military, and now you’re an operator for a security company hired to deal with a drug cartel that kills dozens of people every day. You’re constantly on the alert for a threat. I see the way you check the mirrors and how you’ve been sure to stay off the main roads. You’re trying to protect yourself and Gotham. Isn’t what I do the same thing?”
“Sure. When you look at it that way, but I still have my team. People who will have my back in an instant if I need them.” His voice remained steady despite the earthquake shuddering through the vehicle as they crossed the desert. “What about your family? Do any of them even know you’ve been missing?”
“I’m not sure.” She hadn’t thought about her family in a while. Didn’t even consider whether or not they’d be worried about her if the story of her disappearance broke, but nothing had been reported yet. No one knew she’d nearly died at the hands of the very cartel she’d been investigating. “After my divorce, my parents, my brother and sister, my friends—everyone cut ties with me. I’m pretty sure they’ve been brainwashed into thinking I’m dangerous.”
“You were married.” Jones’s voice didn’t sound so steady anymore.
“For nine years.” Though it seemed like a whole other life now. “I don’t really know what happened. The divorce has been finalized for two years, and I’m still trying to make sense of it.”
“I take it he’s the one who filed,” he said. “You had no idea he wanted out?”
“No. We hadn’t been having any problems that I was aware of. We were just...going about our lives. Meeting in the middle a couple times a week for dinner. Weekends were always busy with projects around the house, but we managed to spend a couple hours together watching TV at night or streaming a movie.” It was those rare moments she’d missed the most. Having someone to talk to, to just be there to listen to her. “I guess a lot of times it felt like we were living our separate lives. Him with his work and me with mine. Then one day, I was getting ready to go into the office, and my husband—ex-husband—told me I needed to make a stop on the way over. At his attorney’s office. He’d filed for divorce. Wanted me to pick up the papers and sign them. No questions asked.”
Jones didn’t have anything to say to that.
“I was blindsided. I didn’t know what to do. I drove to my parents’ house. I was a mess, but I didn’t even have the guts to tell them what’d happened. I missed work. I was a no-call, no-show, and I didn’t realize it until I checked my voice mails later that they fired me for it.” Maggie set her head in her palm, her elbow leveraged against the window. Her body temperature spiked with a rush of anger, but she wouldn’t let it take control. She was better than that now. “When I got home, my ex and I got in this huge fight because I didn’t pick up the divorce papers. He tried to leave, and I went to stop him by jumping on his back.”
The steering wheel protested under Jones’s grip. “Did he hurt you?”
“Not in the way you think. About five days later, he called the police, claiming he believed his life was in danger. He had me arrested. I went to jail.” She traced a long laceration across the back of her hand. Some injuries were so clear. Others kept festering without her notice. “After that, I got to see what kind of man he really was. He drained our bank accounts, called everyone in my contacts list and told them what’d happened, that I needed help, that he didn’t feel safe with me. He turned them against me. Convinced them I would hurt them, too.”
The vehicle slowed to a stop, and Jones shoved the SUV into Park. Headlights cut through a group of scrub brush and cacti ahead, but Maggie suddenly didn’t have the inclination to leave this protective bubble they’d created over the past few minutes. “Want me to hunt him down and break something important?”
She couldn’t stop the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. That was exactly what she wanted. “As much as I want to see that, I think the only way to destroy a man like that is to show him I’m better off without him. Though I have to say, getting kidnapped and interrogated wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“Then let’s get you that story. Show the bastard what he gave up.” Jones shouldered free from the vehicle and rounded the hood. Waiting for her. And in that instant, she had the distinct impression he’d never give up something so valuable as a partner. That he would do whatever it took to keep his relationships going.
Maggie tried to take a deep breath, but the idea of being that partner—of being the one he focused all that intensity on—slid through her without permission. She forced herself out of the SUV. The area looked familiar despite the bland landscape, and a chill threatened to hold her back.
“This is the last location your phone pinged,” he said.
She moved as though a gravitational pull was tugging her closer. Then froze. Here. Lowering to her knees, she fanned one hand over the dry earth as Jones handed her a flashlight. Claw marks in the dirt. She could still feel the tension in her hands as she tried to fight back. She drove the beam down into a medium-sized crack, desperate to bury the memories. This was it. This was where she’d hidden the SD card. Maggie wedged her fingers into the small cavern. Only...she came up empty. Panic infused the muscles down her spine as she searched again. “There’s nothing here.”
C HUNKS OF CRACKED earth dissolved under his weight as Jones knelt beside her with another flashlight. “Let me take a look.”
“I don’t understand. It was here. I’m sure of it.” Maggie didn’t wait for his assessment and shoved herself to her feet. Spinning in circles, she lunged for another divide in the dirt and dropped to her knees. Dust rained down behind her as she practically clawed the ground to find the SD card. “It was here.”
The desperation in her voice cut through him, and in that moment, Jones wanted nothing more than to produce the small device she’d claimed she’d hidden from Sangre por Sangre that night. He cast his flashlight across the ground, picking up two lines of drag marks. His gut clenched as his mind automatically imagined Maggie as the source. Footprints too. Not left behind by boots as he expected. More like dress shoes. But something else caught in the beam, reflecting back at him. Something that didn’t belong out here.
“I didn’t make it up.” Maggie’s voice turned distant. Uneven. “I didn’t make it up.”
Every cell in his body focused on the glassy surface caught at the base of a weed a few feet away. Jones knelt and reached through the spiny, dead branches to retrieve whatever it was. The broken edge bit into his thumb as he dragged it free. A circular piece of glass. Not just any glass. Like the lens from a camera. Maggie’s camera.
He pushed to his feet, offering her the shard. “No. You didn’t.”
Maggie stared at the clear lens before stretching a shaking hand to take it. As though simply touching it would ignite a frenzy of memories she didn’t want to relive, and hell, Jones didn’t blame her. “My camera broke on the rock when I fell, but the SD card isn’t here. Toledano or one of his men must’ve already found it.”
“If that’s true, I’d be seeing a lot more activity around here.” Jones scanned the ground for something—anything—that would tip off the cartel’s presence. But whoever’d recovered that card had clearly gone to lengths to clean up after themselves. He wasn’t seeing any treads left by vehicles or a flurry of movement on the ground. His beam caught the footprints he’d clocked a minute ago. It’d always been easy to spot the cartel’s movements around any given scene. Poorly trained soldiers moved in packs, and Sangre por Sangre didn’t bother with trying to cover up their crimes. They displayed them as a warning to anyone brave enough to take a stand. So who the hell would come out into the middle of the desert in dress shoes?
Jones headed back to the SUV and pulled a shovel from the cargo area, leaving the hatch open for Gotham. He couldn’t go back to Socorro empty-handed. Not with Maggie’s life still in danger. “You said you watched Sosimo Toledano and his men bury the bodies of the American soldiers. If that’s true, Gotham will find them.”
The husky shot ahead into the dark.
Jones fell into line behind her as she cut through a grouping of dried, spindly bushes. Even in the limited light from the SUV’s headlights and their flashlights, he noted the tightness along her neck and shoulders. All she’d wanted was a new life, one that she’d built on her own. Away from the man who’d taken her trust and ground it into dust with a trumped-up call for her arrest. A burn Jones had only experienced after the news his brother had been captured and the knowledge he’d lost the support of his government raged through him. There had to be something more out here. Something that would convince Ivy and the rest of the team Maggie was worth more than a cover-up they couldn’t prove. Because she deserved it. Because she needed it. And Jones wanted to be a part of that. He wanted to make sure she got everything that would help her move on. To be her support when nobody else wanted to come near her.
She slowed to a stop just before what looked like a ridgeline that angled down into a bowl of dirt and weeds. Swiping her hair behind her ear, she stared down into a collection of dried, dead bushes. “This is where I hid.”
He maneuvered to get a better look at the scuff marks in the loose dirt. Without rain, there were impressions. Perhaps where she’d planted her elbows for stability. A few branches of bush had broken clean off. Jones gauged the distance between here and the location where he’d recovered the broken lens. Nearly fifty yards. She’d never had a chance once the cartel had spotted her. “And the bodies?”
“There.” She pointed down into the bottom of the undersized dust bowl.
A tinkling of Gotham’s collar reached his ears. Jones took that first step, his ankle engaging to keep him from tumbling straight to the bottom. If they were going to find answers as to what happened the night of her abduction, he’d have to dig. But the thought of forcing Maggie to confront the faces of the men and women massacred right in front of her pulled him up short. “You don’t have to do this. You can go back to the SUV.”
Her gaze locked on a point past his arm. She notched her chin higher and washed the emotion from her face, every ounce the driven, competitive war correspondent he imagined she’d had to become. Only that wasn’t all she was. He’d witnessed moments where that mask had cracked and let the woman beneath bleed through. Where she didn’t put her feelings in a box and pretended they hadn’t existed at all. Where she’d let him see the warmth that might’ve thrived before her world had come apart. Mere slices of time but ones that had stayed with him since he recovered her. “I’m a journalist. This is part of the job.”
Right. Jones offered her his free hand to help her down the incline. They moved as one toward the bottom, and the pressure behind his sternum intensified with every step. His gut knotted in warning as he scanned the rim of the bowl. It was impossible to see any kind of oncoming threat from down here, but his instincts said the proof they needed wouldn’t wait for them to come back in daylight. Unrooted weeds—dug up and discarded every few feet—caught on his bootlaces. Someone had been out here. The floor of the bowl was churned with loose dirt. Jones kept to the perimeter and swept the flashlight over the dried-up soil. A pair of bright eyes shined back in the beam. Gotham barked loudly enough to alert anyone within a mile radius. Jones handed off his flashlight. “He’s got something.”
Stabbing the tip of the shovel dead center, he was surprised by how easily the metal cut through the earth. Jones tossed shovelfuls of dirt over his shoulder as Maggie took up position in his peripheral vision. This was it. All they needed was a single body to start a government-wide investigation. Maggie would get her story, and Jones could get rid of the sick feeling in his stomach every time he thought of Kincaide. He could fix this.
Only the deeper he dug, the more that hollow feeling spread. The wood of the shovel was slick with sweat from his hands. His knuckles threatened to break through the thin skin as his grip tightened. Harder and harder with every discarded weight of dirt.
Visibly agitated, Maggie fisted her hands at her side. “Anything?”
“Not yet.” His lungs worked overtime to keep in rhythm with his attempts. Jones sidestepped the four-foot hole he’d dug and launched the tip of the shovel back into the ground in another location. Two times. Then a third. Lactic acid burned in his arms and down his sides as he struggled to catch his breath. “I’m not finding any bodies, Maggie.”
“No... They have to be here.” Her voice cracked on the last word as she tore the shovel from his grip. Maggie pressed her heel into the lip of the metal and kicked down, but her left leg wasn’t strong enough to support her. She lost her balance and tipped sideways.
Jones launched to catch her before she fell, securing her against his chest. “They’re not here.”
“Yes, they are. Gotham said they are. We just have to dig deeper.” She fought against his hold as he tried to pry the shovel from her grip, and he let her go. Stepping back, Maggie clung onto the shovel as though her life depended on it. And right then, it did. “They have to be here. Because if they aren’t, then I have nothing. I’ll be nothing, and I can’t go back to being nothing, Jones.”
She swiped at the tears escaping down her cheeks and speared the shovel back into the ground. Once. Twice. Each time, he read pain in her arms, in her legs, in her back. But she didn’t stop. Not even when she’d dug her own spread of holes and came up empty. In her mind, she had to do this. To prove she could. To earn that feeling of control over her own life.
Blisters stung in an arc on his palms, but they wouldn’t stop him from giving Maggie everything he couldn’t give Kincaide. Jones closed the distance between them and set his hand on the end of the shovel. She tried to wrench away, but this time, he wouldn’t let her. “I’ll dig through the night if you need me to, Maggie.”
The hardness in her expression collapsed the longer they stood there. Time didn’t mean a damn thing right then, but this did. This connection they shared. This partnership.
“Thank you.” She released her hold on the shovel and stepped back. Surrendering her personal mission to him. And he would take it. For as long as she needed. No matter how heavy it was. Because he could. Because she needed something to believe in again.
Jones ignored the flare of discomfort in his arms and hands as he worked in a grid pattern through every inch of dirt within the bowl. Minutes distorted into an hour. Into two. There was nothing out here. Gotham wouldn’t have signaled unless he’d recovered a human scent, but whoever’d retrieved the SD card must’ve taken the bodies. And with them, everything Maggie needed to get her life back.
“Stop, Jones.” Maggie stared at the mess they’d made from the edge of the dig site. Her strength had failed her sometime during the past few minutes, leaving her paler than before. “You were right. There’s nothing out here. No matter how much I want there to be.”
His heart threatened to beat straight out of his chest as he let the shovel fall to the earth. Truth was, he didn’t know how to do this. Be a partner. Wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say or do in moments of despair, but he’d try. For her. “Maggie, I—”
A red light registered from the rim of the bowl.
Jones launched himself between Maggie and the potential threat.
Just as a gunshot exploded through the night.