Chapter Twelve #2
As she sat on the bed near the nightstand, he picked up the chair and brought it over near the bed. His cool composure and calm demeanor that returned were disquieting.
Alvaro set the chair across from her and dropped into the seat, sitting so close their knees touched. Resting his forearms on his thighs, he stared at her. “My compassion for you is inconvenient.”
“Said the spider to the fly caught in his web.”
“You’re not giving either of us enough credit.
I’m far more severe and brutal than any spider, and you were never a harmless fly, were you.
” Alvaro reached for her face, and she recoiled.
Rising from the chair with lightning speed, he grabbed her braid, wrapped it in his fist and tugged her head back until she was staring at the ceiling.
With his thumb, he wiped the corner of her mouth.
Looked at the blood on his finger and licked it off.
Then he let her go and sat back down. “But you were the one weaving the web. Like any good spy. So good I never suspected. Too good.”
Her nerves tightened. She clutched the edge of the bed. “How did you find me at the camp?”
“There’s honor that must be respected. A code that shouldn’t be broken. And if someone makes the mistake of betraying that, there’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.” Alvaro covered her hand with his, and she tensed.
“Why do you cringe when I touch you?” he asked. “I’ve never hit you. Never laid a finger on you in anger. Not until today.”
“Just because you never hit me, you think you’ve never hurt me? You murdered my father because I chose the cartel over you. Then you made me watch the video of you doing it.”
“Actually, you chose Kirk Kehoe and to serve the FBI over the cartel. And over me. But you think I killed your father to hurt you?” he asked, his dark brows shooting together. “The man who beat you as a child. Who once put you in the hospital as a teenager.”
“I don’t understand. If it wasn’t payback for me leaving you, then why did you do it?”
“I was impressed with you for choosing the cartel instead of our relationship. It was a gutsy move. I wanted to show you how deep my feelings ran for you. I killed your father as a gesture of my affection,” he said, and her gut clenched.
Rather than sending flowers or buying her jewelry, he committed murder.
Sick and twisted.
“I never wanted that. My father made mistakes when I was younger. But he needed help back then. He was grieving and had mental health issues. After he went to therapy, started taking medication and got sober, he became his old self again.”
Alvaro shrugged. “Well, now I know why you didn’t show the gratitude I had expected.”
Christina let out a sigh of disgust. “You’ve never felt affection for me. Or compassion. Only possession of me. That’s why you hurt Hector. For touching what you think belongs to you. And that’s why you gave my bodyguard orders that I wasn’t to be with another man.”
“Affection. Compassion. Possession. They’re not mutually exclusive.
” Leaning closer, he wet his lips and rubbed his chiseled jaw.
“There’s something I haven’t been able to figure out.
When we were together, I watched you for two years.
Shadowing you, monitoring your every move and all your communications.
How did you meet your handler without me knowing? ”
“Kirk wanted to meet in diners and coffee shops. Or at his office. I refused. I used dead drops.”
He waved a finger in front of her face. “You mostly used dead drops, but not all the time. I know you met in person, too.”
Alvaro knew a lot. Who was his source?
“I told Kirk to arrange meetings around fake appointments. At the dentist’s or doctor’s offices.” In lieu of a checkup, root canal or sick visit, she met Kirk in secret.
Alvaro nodded. “You always were smart.”
“Since we’re sharing, how did you find me at the camp?” she repeated.
He rubbed her smart ring with his finger.
“After the leak about the cartel using the Cutthroat Creek Mining Company for money laundering, I cloned the phones of the lieutenants. And yours. To see who the snitch was. Everyone looked clean. The app for your ring came up on the cloned phone and I found I enjoyed monitoring your vital statistics as well as your GPS location. That’s how I was able to track you to the camp. ”
“Why didn’t you just kill me?” she asked, aware she was on borrowed time and the clock was ticking.
“I don’t like the ingratitude in your tone,” he snapped. “You draw breath because I will it.”
She lowered her gaze. Her gut told her to talk less and listen more. She was still alive for a reason.
His will had nothing to do with it.
“It’s come to my attention that over the years, you’ve recorded things. Taken videos at parties and of meetings.”
To capture an image of Rio Estrada in case he ever showed up.
But the feed was never live for Kirk to see in real time.
She passed along a few for reference, but most of the footage he’d never seen.
Two weeks ago, he’d insisted on a meeting.
Told her he wanted all the surveillance recordings.
That he had gotten special permission to use a new classified facial recognition program called Odin’s Eye that a gray-hat hacker designed.
He thought it was possible Rio Estrada was in fact in the footage and that no one ever told her he was present or singled him out, since his identity was supposed to be kept a secret.
Kirk believed they might be able to pinpoint Rio using the program.
“How do you know that?”
“Where’s the footage?” he asked, ignoring her question.
She hesitated.
“This is how you earn a quick death,” Alvaro said. “By telling me.”
Christina had assumed he would interrogate her about what information she had shared, but he was more interested in the video footage. That’s why she was alive.
“Kirk Kehoe didn’t have it,” he said. “Not all of it, anyway. But you do.”
She weighed her options, but it was difficult to strategize with him sitting so close, assessing everything about her. “It’s on a hard drive.”
“Where?”
“Hidden at my place,” she said, and he narrowed his eyes in annoyance. She didn’t want to test his patience. “In the floor in my closet. There’s a safe. The code is 1107.”
He considered her words. “November seventh. The day we met.”
The day her life changed forever. But if he wanted to read some sentimentality into it that pertained to him, she wasn’t going to stop him.
Christina simply nodded.
“Speaking of that night.” He glanced at the bottle of Chateau Pétrus on the other side of the room. “Was it a setup from the very beginning?” He looked back at her. “Or did Kehoe approach you after I started seeing you?”