Chapter 12
TWELVE
Ryan dropped his duffle on the sagging motel mattress, the springs groaning in protest, then locked the door behind him. He twisted the deadbolt, then wedged a chair under the handle.
The place was called El Rincón del Sol, though there wasn’t much sun left in it. Just a rusted sign, a flickering vacancy light and a half-empty parking lot choked with dust.
He checked the window. Threadbare curtains, grime-smeared windows. No sign of surveillance. Not that it mattered, if the cartel wanted to find him, they’d already be watching.
He sat in the cracked vinyl chair and stared at the wall. His brain spun, empty. There was no plan. No trail. Lucía Duarte could be anywhere between Tijuana and Tapachula. She was a ghost, and he wasn’t the kind of man who found ghosts. Not anymore.
He raked his hands through his grimy hair and let out a slow breath. “What the hell am I doing?”
His voice sounded hollow in the tiny room.
The version of him that could’ve handled this—the deputy marshal, the hunter, the strategist—was dead and buried back in the States, alongside the life he’d torched.
Now, he was just a washed-up ex-pat hiding out in a shithole town, pretending he still had something to offer the world.
His eyes landed on the duffle. There was only one option still open to him, one thread he could pull to see if it led anywhere. But it was such a long shot, he was terrified of digging it out and discovering it was nothing more than another dead end.
Don’t be so pathetic. He unzipped the bag and took out his wallet. Inside, tucked in behind the only photo Kylie he hadn’t destroyed, was a folded napkin. He’d kept it buried there for years. It was one of those strange relics you don’t expect to carry, but can’t bring yourself to throw away.
If you ever need digital eyes, I owe you one. —Lázaro.
Below was a scribbled number. Back when he was still with the USMS, working an ugly weapons-trafficking case in Sonora, Lázaro was an informant.
A freelancer, who’d dipped a little too deep into the dark web and found himself with a cartel target on his back.
Ryan had pulled him out of a raid gone sideways.
Smuggled him through the desert in the trunk of a Toyota and dropped him off in the hills above Hermosillo with enough pesos to disappear.
He hadn’t seen Lázaro since. No idea where he’d gone. If he was even still alive. But the guy had skills. Black hat stuff. If anyone could scare up a lead online, it was him.
Ryan stared at the number for a long time before he hit dial. He was using his burner phone, not the one the kidnappers had deposited in his room. Still, reaching out to anyone on any device felt like a huge risk.
But it was a risk he had to take. So he pressed the phone to his ear and waited.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Click.
Silence.
Then a voice, low and threaded with distrust.
“?Quién es?”
Ryan swallowed. “It’s Ryan Inglis.”
A pause, long enough for regret to creep in. Ryan was on the verge of ending the call and tossing the phone, when the voice spoke again.
“You should have let that number die.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Everyone has choices. You just ran out of good ones.”
Ryan sat forward on the chair, elbow resting on his knee. “I need to find someone.”
“And you’re calling me? Fuck, cabrón. You know how many people are looking for you right now?”
“Yeah.” He ran his free hand over his face. “That’s why I picked up the phone.”
A sigh crackled through the phone. “Give me the name.”
“Lucía Duarte.”
Another pause. Then the faint clatter of a keyboard. “Context?”
Ryan exhaled slowly. “Someone’s looking for her. People with resources. The kind that don’t post missing person flyers.”
“Cartel?”
“I don’t know.” Another beat. “But it feels like it. Organized. Quiet. And they’re willing to burn a lot to get to her. They used a kid to get to me.”
A muttered curse on the other end.
“She’s not a civilian,” Ryan added. “At least, not anymore. If she ever was.”
“So you think she stole something.”
“I think she knows something,” Ryan said. “Or maybe she has something. But I’m blind out here, and I’ve got five days to find her. Four now, actually.”
Another curse. “Why you?”
Ryan shook his head, even though Lázaro couldn’t see him. “No idea.”
It wasn’t strictly true. He’d given a lot of thought to why he’d been targeted for this job over the last twenty-four hours, and the realization he’d come to sat in his gut like a ball of lead.
It was because he’d done it before. He’d tracked down a woman who’d been hiding from the cartel and delivered her up to them like a DoorDash driver.
Perhaps, through dark web back channels and shady meetings between sicarios, word had gotten out.
Perhaps they were passing his details around like a goddamn business card.
What a sickening thought. Hero to zero didn’t begin to cover it.
He said, “All I know is, they want her. Badly.”
“So do I. Now.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t call you to give you a head start.”
“Relax. I’m clean these days.” A hollow chuckle. “Mostly.”
More typing. Then a long pause. “There’s nothing on Lucía Duarte. Anywhere. You’re right, she’s a ghost.”
Ryan exhaled and raked a hand through his hair. “Fuck.”
“But,” Lázaro went on, “there’s been a name come up a few times on private boards. Some traffic a day ago—encrypted nodes, Latin America subnet. Someone asking about Alpha_C3. Ring a bell?”
Ryan stood, pacing the cramped room. “What is it?”
“Ledger fragment. Financial. Think Panama Papers meets snuff film money.”
“Okay. Is it her?”
“No one’s using the name Lucía Duarte. She’s way smarter than that. But the Alpha_C3 drop? Same encryption signature I saw on a leak a few years back. Sinaloa-linked shell companies.” Lázaro’s tone shifted, quieter. “Whoever did it then, and whoever did this now, they hide in the exact same way.”
Ryan frowned. This hacker shit was not his lane. But he understood patterns of concealment. They were as distinct as fingerprints. And once you learned someone’s pattern, you could find them again. “Can you trace the Alpha upload?”
There was a long pause, and Ryan wondered if he’d pushed his luck too far.
Finally, Lázaro said, “Not over the phone. Not for this. You want this kind of help, you come to me in person.”
“Where?”
“South of Mulegé. Boat launch at Punta Prieta. Midnight tomorrow. Come alone. Come quiet. You bring any heat, I vanish.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Don’t be late, Marshal.” The line went dead.
Ryan lowered the phone and stared at the blank screen.
Marshal. No one had called him that in years.
The sun had just started to drop when Ryan pulled the battered Toyota pickup onto the shoulder. A rusted sign half-swallowed by desert brush read “San Ignacio: 52km.” He leaned back in the seat and let the engine idle, his spine aching from hours behind the wheel.
The truck was borrowed—stolen, technically—from a guy he used to bounce out of Club Persephone on weekends. Julio had owed him a favor, and Ryan hadn’t asked too many questions about the keys. It ran, mostly. That was all that mattered.
He cracked the door open and stepped out, stretching until his shoulders popped. For a moment, the silence felt oppressive. Ryan looked up at the sky—wide, and blisteringly blue. All around him, the Baja desert pulsed with heat. Nothing but scrub, dust and endless road ahead.
He climbed back in the truck and kept driving.