Chapter Twelve
They still didn’t have any proof.
Jones and Scarlett had searched the entire compound. There hadn’t been any sign of her camera. Their theory was just that. A story that fit, but no one was going to buy it unless they pinpointed the source of the kill order at the top.
And she was beginning to think there was only one way to identify them.
Maggie scrolled through the photos loaded to Jones’s laptop they’d taken at the scene before calling in Alpine Valley’s police department, once again caught off guard by the swollen face of her torturer. She didn’t feel anything. Wasn’t she supposed to be relieved? Knowing the man who’d interrogated her—hurt her—wouldn’t appear over her shoulder had to come with some kind of pressure release, right? She deserved that much after everything that’d happened. Yet all she felt was emptiness. This feeling that no matter what she did, she couldn’t make a damn bit of difference.
It’d been the same after her divorce. Trying to convince her family they’d been gaslighted and manipulated while on the receiving end of accusations of being at fault had led nowhere. And this... This was just like that.
She’d lost her job, her credibility, her support system. She’d suffered trauma and been left with a numbness climbing up into her lower back she didn’t know how to stop. No one was going to believe her. Not without the photos she’d taken or eyewitness accounts of the five dead cartel members rotting away in that basement. Any evidence police recovered from now on would support the story ready to be fed to the public. Only she knew the truth.
And she was going to make sure it got out.
Maggie switched back to the document she’d created cataloging the events of the past week. From the moment she’d identified a low-level Sangre por Sangre member on a street corner in Albuquerque a year ago to finding Sosimo Toledano and his men dead inside their own compound. So much had happened in between, things she wanted to make sure she didn’t forget. Because it was all she would have left once this was over. Cartels like this didn’t die when one head was severed from the body. Two replaced the loss until something came along and went for the heart.
Jones slid a steaming mug of coffee across the built-in desk, and the fumes instantly urged her brain into all-nighter mode. “You’ve been writing for the past four hours without taking a break. Figured you’d need a pick-me-up.”
“There are still a few details to work out. Motive, for one. Identifying who marched those soldiers to their deaths, too. I just don’t want to mess it up.” She cradled the mug between both hands and inhaled the sharp scent of robust beans, cream and sugar. “I can’t tell you how much I needed this. Thank you.”
She liked this. Him bringing her coffee. Her taking breaks to chat with someone who wasn’t trying to steal her job. She even enjoyed the fur ball groaning in his sleep from the dog bed in the corner. It was almost as though they’d slipped into a relationship without ever having really talked about it. Like they fit in a way she hadn’t fit with anyone since her divorce. “How much trouble are you in?”
His meeting with Ivy Bardot clung to the tenseness in his shoulders. Jones lowered himself down onto the edge of the bed, his knee brushing against hers. Only he didn’t move to avoid her, which she appreciated. Warmth, stability, strength—he was all of that and more. Right when she’d needed it. “I’ve been ordered to back down from this investigation.”
“What does that mean?” The muscles along her spine tightened one by one as she leaned forward to meet him. The answer was already in his expression. He’d warned her about this. About getting in too deep and putting Socorro and what they did here at risk. It was a chance he hadn’t been willing to take. With good reason. Understanding settled into her grip around the mug, and Maggie forced herself to set it down on the desk. “You’ve been ordered to take me back to Albuquerque.”
Voicing the words sucker punched her harder than she expected. This past week—the meals together, the kiss they’d shared, the way he’d made her laugh—they’d meant something. They’d given her hope she didn’t have to suffer through the rest of this life unwanted and blamed. That she could mean something to someone again. And now he was going to leave her to fight this battle alone? “I don’t understand. You and Scarlett saw the bodies in the compound. We have photos of the scene. You saved me from the unit that was about to kill me. You told the police where to find the victims and the SD card that were burned. It’s not like we don’t have anything to show. This is all evidence.”
“You’re right, Maggie, and I wish there was something I could do to change management’s mind.” His voice leveled as though he was talking to a complete stranger. Not a woman he’d partnered with, kissed, made dinner for and given his bedroom to so she could recover from a brutal attack. “But Scarlett reached out to her contact in the army. The second she asked about the classified operation to apprehend Sosimo Toledano, the army arrested her and threatened Socorro’s contract with the Pentagon.”
She couldn’t sit still anymore, shoving herself to her feet. Her head was spinning. All the dominos they’d stood on end were starting to fall out of their control. “No. They can’t do that. Private military contractors are separate from active military. They have no jurisdiction when it comes to—”
“Unfortunately, they can. Scarlett is not even a year out of discharge, which puts her well within military reach, and Socorro works for the federal government, Maggie. We follow a set of rules and we don’t deviate from them, and interfering with a military operation—warranted or not—is a felony no one comes back from. We’re working to get Scarlett out of custody while Ivy runs interference. With any luck, we’ll still have jobs at the end of this.” He cradled his mug between both hands, leveraging his elbows against his knees. “I knew what I was doing when I made the choice to see this through, but it was my career I was willing to put on the line. Not that of my team. I’m supposed to take you back to your place in Albuquerque. Within the hour.”
Her blood iced in her veins. He intended to follow through. She could hear it in his voice, the way he refused to meet her gaze. Maggie shifted her weight onto her good leg, trying to take some of the pressure off, but there was nowhere else for it to go. “And do you think taking me back to a place where that unit can find me is the best option?”
“You’re not staying.” Jones got to his feet, his coffee forgotten. “I can get you a new identity with a passport, a sizeable chunk of cash and a new phone. It won’t be much, but it will get you out of the country. What you do after that is up to you, but I recommend finding a new career. You’ll have to avoid anything that can hint at the life you had here.”
“You want me to drop all of this and run?” She motioned to the laptop. “After everything we’ve uncovered, you’re okay walking away and letting whoever did this get away with the deaths of those soldiers?”
“I don’t have a choice,” he said. “Not if I want to keep the life I’ve built here.”
“Yes, you do. You’re just afraid to make it. I understand disobeying orders is what lost you your military career in the first place, but if you hadn’t gone after your brother, he would’ve died in that cave, Jones. You never would’ve gotten the time with him that you did.” Couldn’t he see that? Couldn’t he see there were some things worth breaking the rules for? “You asked me to trust you, and I have. You made the decision once before. Why can’t you do it this time? For me?”
He didn’t even flinch under her accusation. Didn’t answer. And in that moment, Maggie realized what a colossal mistake she’d made. That she’d fallen for a man she’d thought had seen something worthwhile in her. But the truth was, he only valued the people who had something to give him in return. Who had a use. All she’d offered him was a hail of bullets, five dead bodies and a theory they couldn’t prove. She wasn’t family or someone he relied on to have his back in the field. She wasn’t anything.
Maggie swallowed to counter the tears burning in her eyes. He’d systematically destroyed the armor she’d built to save her from breaking for Toledano, and a rush of heat flared over her neck and face. Damn it. She needed to get out of here. She turned back to the laptop and emailed a copy of the article to everyone in her contacts list. She didn’t have anything else. “Don’t bother with the cash or the phone or the new identity. I’ve built a new life before on my own. I can do it again.”
“Maggie, don’t do this.” Jones dared a step toward her but stopped as she turned on him. “The moment you step foot back in Albuquerque, they’ll know. They’ve been watching your apartment, monitoring your financials and phone. Most likely watching your friends and family in case you reach out, too. They will kill you, and everything you’ve survived will have been for nothing. Please. Let me help you.”
Doubt crept in through the heartbreak. All she had to do was slow down and think this through, but her heart didn’t want to see logic. It only felt betrayal. And now that betrayal had a new face. “Aren’t you worried you’ll lose your job?”
Maggie wrenched the door open without looking back. She’d taken careful mental notes on navigating the maze of black corridors over the past few days and found the elevator. Stabbing the descend button as many times as she could without breaking her thumb, she dropped out onto the main floor and walked straight out the front door.
Her heart constricted tight in her chest with every foot she added between her and Socorro’s headquarters. But she wasn’t going back.
A line of dirt kicked up ahead as a dark SUV raced along the desert floor. It pulled to a stop a few feet away, and the driver’s side window lowered to reveal Scarlett Beam, free from military custody. “I take it you’re not lost. Need a ride?”
Maggie fought the urge to look back as she rounded the hood of the SUV and climbed into the passenger side seat.
“Where to?” Scarlett asked.
She stared out at the bare landscape capable of eroding even the strongest of mountains. She had to be stronger for what came next. “I’m going home.”
H E ’ D SCREWED THIS up without even trying.
Jones watched from his bedroom window as the SUV flipped around and sped off toward civilization with Maggie inside. She was stubborn enough to walk the entire way back to Albuquerque, but he was grateful she didn’t have to. His phone pinged with an incoming message. One tap revealed Chief Baker Halsey’s attachment. A police report from a nearby department. He read through the document. “Damn it all to hell.”
Maggie didn’t have a chance out there on her own. The military unit ordered to clean up after the Sangre por Sangre massacre would catch up to her. They’d ensure she never said a word about any of this, and the truth would die with her.
His hands were tied. He’d had a choice. Pursue this investigation to the end of the line with Maggie and risk everything he and the rest of the operatives here at Socorro had built. Or finish the job the Pentagon had contracted them to do: dismantle Sangre por Sangre and protect the people of this region. Ivy Bardot had made the stakes clear to him at the beginning.
“Nah. This isn’t finished.” Jones whistled low to wake Gotham. The husky shot to his feet and followed close on Jones’s heels as they navigated through the building and up to the fourth floor. He didn’t bother knocking this time, shoving the door to Ivy Bardot’s office open. “We need to talk.”
Socorro’s founder cut her sharp gaze to him. Though there wasn’t a single ounce of annoyance as she excused herself from her current phone call and hung up. “I wasn’t aware we had another meeting scheduled.”
“We don’t.” His heart refused to drop out of his throat. He’d disobeyed orders before, and it’d cost him his career. Loyalty was what kept him and the rest of his team alive. They had to trust each other in every regard, each a vital cog in the machine that ensured cartels like Sangre por Sangre were kept in check. Because the second they lost sight of Socorro’s goal, every one of them would fail. But Maggie had been right. If he hadn’t disobeyed his orders while at the tail end of his service, he would’ve lost those precious months he’d gained with his brother. Kincaide would’ve died at the hands of his captors, buried in an unmarked grave in the middle of the desert. Never to be found. He couldn’t stomach the thought of something like that happening to Maggie. “I’m here to tell you that you made the wrong choice about Maggie Caddel.”
Hesitation slowed Ivy from restacking a set of documents on her oversize desk. Amusement scratched at the surface of her expression but nothing more. Socorro’s founder was out of touch. Safe up here in her ivory tower, where she didn’t have to get her hands dirty anymore and operatives did her bidding. Where she didn’t have to see the violence and hurt they exacted on her behalf every day. He’d told himself over and over that wasn’t the case, but when it came to Maggie, he wasn’t so sure anymore. Ivy leaned back in her seat, interlacing her fingers in front of her. “Okay. Enlighten me.”
This was his chance. To do what he should’ve done a long time ago. Save the person he loved. Jones took a step forward and offered her his phone. “Alpine Valley PD ran the ballistics on the bullets found in our friend Sosimo Toledano and his men from that basement. Apart from my bullet, one set came from an XM7 rifle, another from an XM250 automatic rifle and the third from a pistol. All part of the military’s move forward with the Next Generation Squad Program proposed by Sig Sauer.”
“Military hardware. We don’t see a lot of that. At least not new weaponry.” Ivy reviewed the report. “You believe this was done by the same team you claim destroyed proof of the operation to capture Toledano the night of Ms. Caddel’s abduction and burned the bodies of the soldiers caught in that ambush?”
“I have a hard time believing they’re not part of this. Or that they’re working rogue, but the order would’ve had to come down from on high. Someone who has a close relationship with the army, possibly even served and has a couple friends to call in a favor from.” Jones was starting to feel that same frenzy, the one Maggie lost herself in when on the cusp of another piece of the puzzle falling into place. It started in his fingers until he grasped the back of one chair positioned in front of Ivy’s desk. “Who in the state senate had been calling for us to stand down since we got here?”
A tightness Jones had never witnessed in Ivy flexed the muscles at her jaw as she handed back his phone. “Senator Hawkes. Former army captain. Served his twenty before stepping into the political arena. The man considers Sangre por Sangre and organizations like it one of the biggest threats to the state with the amount of drugs they pump into our cities and schools.”
“Why the hell would he have anything against Socorro?” he asked.
“Regulations.” Ivy sat forward, her elbows on the edge of the desk. “He’s managed to get himself on the contract review committee for the Pentagon. He’s tried to have our contract terminated every year, insists that despite our military origins, the regulations and laws that apply to the army, navy, marines and air force don’t apply to private military contractors as it’s spelled out in the agreement. That we’re in the business of making money, not protecting this country, and that’s why we’ve let Sangre por Sangre spread like a virus through the state.”
“He blames us for the cartel’s growth,” he said.
“Accused Socorro and me of working for our own interests last time I was called in front of the committee. Got quite the support, too. Only not enough to terminate our contract. He’s still working on it though. One of these days he just might get what he needs.” She dropped her hands open as though that was nothing more than a bridge to cross in the future. “And he’s right, in a way. As long as there is a threat from the cartels, we have jobs.”
“Whereas the army wouldn’t be under the same expectation.” He tried to loosen his grip on the back of the chair, but the adrenaline had already taken hold. “That’s our motive. What better way to undercut Socorro than to have the army step in and save the day after the cartel is connected to the deaths of ten American soldiers. Show we’re not doing enough. That we’re not needed, and the army would be much better suited for this job. When is the Pentagon review committee meeting next?”
“In a week.” Ivy seemed to consider his words for a series of breaths. “It’s clever. I’ll give you that, but you have nothing more than an eyewitness who’s been through an abduction she didn’t report to police, and a ballistics report that Sosimo Toledano and his men were shot with military-grade bullets that could’ve come from anywhere with enough effort. Even if you had the photos Ms. Caddel claimed she took that night, you don’t have the evidence to accuse a state senator of misuse of power, let alone corruption.”
“What if I could get it?” Jones had already made his decision. No matter what Ivy said, he wasn’t going to sit here and wait for Chief Halsey to forward him the news of Maggie’s body showing up in the middle of the desert. “Maggie’s on her way back to Albuquerque. The unit sent to cover up all these loose ends is going to come for her. They can’t afford to leave her alive. I want to be there when they make their move.”
“You want to apprehend and flip one of their soldiers to prove a connection to the senator,” Ivy said. “What makes you think they’ll talk? Based on what I’ve seen of their handiwork, these aren’t the type of men to negotiate. Their entire lives revolve around orders, and you’re not exactly on their Christmas card list.”
“I don’t know,” Jones said. “All I know is I can’t leave Maggie to face this alone. She deserves better than that. She deserves to have someone finally keep their word.”
“You like her.” Socorro’s founder stood, rounding her desk. Ivy cracked her pinkie finger knuckle with one thumb. A tell he hadn’t noticed until now. She knew she couldn’t stop him, and the lack of control was getting to her. Crossing her arms over her frame, she leaned back against the solid wood. “I can tell you to keep your emotions out of this, but I doubt you’re going to listen. Even after what I’ve seen, some part of me still thinks our emotions are what make us the team we are. I’m not willing to put that to the test, but take it from me, Jones. The only way any of us get out of this is if we trust ourselves. Can you tell me, without hesitation, that you truly believe this is the right course of action?”
Jones evened out his weight between both legs. Surer of himself than ever before. “It’s the only course of action, ma’am.”
“All right, then. Take your K9 and a partner. Preferably Scarlett as she’s been through all this with you up until now,” she said. “And, please, for the love of all that is holy, keep this out of the news. We don’t need to give Senator Hawkes more ammunition to shoot us with if you fail.”
“Understood.” Jones was on the move. Excitement for the upcoming fight burned in his veins, drove him harder. He unpocketed his phone and hit Scarlett Beam’s contact information as he rounded into his room. The line rang once. Twice. Three times. Nervous energy skittered down his spine as he checked the screen for a good connection. Full bars and Wi-Fi. Pressing the pad of his thumb to the safe’s keypad, he listened for the familiar click from the other end of the line.
Only it never came.
The line disconnected, and he tried again.
Gotham groaned as he hiked himself up the floor-to-ceiling window with his front paws. As though he wanted to go after Maggie himself. Jones knew the feeling. It’d been Scarlett’s SUV he’d watched Maggie climb into. He was sure of it. The security consultant wouldn’t give him the silent treatment in the middle of an assignment like this, even if he was at fault for her arrest.
The call connected.
“Jones...” Scarlett’s voice scratched through from the other end of the line, out of breath, wheezy. “It happened so fast. I couldn’t stop them. She’s gone. Maggie is gone.”