Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Lucía and Ryan left the cabin before sunrise, hiking down the narrow trail in silence, neither quite ready to break the fragile agreement they’d made.
The sun had been nothing more than a dull glow behind the trees then, but by the time they reached the bottom of the ridge and hitched a ride with a produce truck heading west, the heat was already building.
The ride was slow, bumpy, and smelled like onions.
The truck hit the outskirts of a town with a leaning sign and a single cellphone tower.
Civilization, Lucía thought.
“Food,” Ryan said, nodding at a roadside café.
He hailed the driver to stop and they got out, lugging their packs in tow, which doubled as a disguise: to a casual observer, they looked like backpackers.
A couple, maybe. Him American, her a local.
As much as Lucía wanted a shower and to wash her hair, she knew better than to draw attention to herself by trying to look clean, rested, or soft.
As much as it grossed her out, dirt and fatigue were a kind of disguise.
The café had peeling turquoise walls and plastic tables, and the only thing worse than the Wi-Fi was the coffee. But Lucía had made do with less.
She sat at the far end of the open-air patio, one foot hooked around the leg of her chair, her back to the wall.
The laptop was open on the table in front of her, antenna angled to steal whatever signal she could.
The screen glowed with her improvised data trap: a digital fishing hook cast into cartel waters.
Her hands moved quickly, shoulders tight.
Across the table from her, Ryan chewed the last bite of his torta al pastor and pushed aside the empty plate. He hadn’t said much during the meal, too busy inhaling it like a man who hadn’t eaten properly in days. She couldn’t blame him. Her own plate was scraped clean.
He watched her without a word now. She could feel him more than see him, elbows resting on the table. He hadn’t touched his coffee. Or blinked much, for that matter.
“You’re staring again,” she said without looking up.
“Just trying to figure out if you’re actually doing something or pretending real hard.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You want to do this part?”
“I’d rather have a root canal.”
“Then hush.”
A flicker of movement on the screen caught her eye in a darknet node she’d been monitoring since the Alpha_C3 drop. The timing was right. The encryption pattern too close to be coincidence.
Her pulse kicked. She tapped into the stream, fingers flying.
“What is it?” Ryan asked, sitting forward.
“Something just moved. A dummy account. Only it’s not dummy anymore. Someone logged in.”
“Who?”
“Too soon to tell. But it’s cartel-connected. Could be someone involved with moving money related to the kid.”
“Can you trace it?”
“Not fully. But I can isolate the access route and see what city the signal passed through before hitting the chain.”
She paused. Zoomed in.
Salina Cruz.
“There we go,” she murmured.
Ryan leaned in. “That’s something, right?” he said.
She nodded slowly. “It’s a lead.”
She glanced up and their eyes connected in a way that almost felt physical. She suddenly felt hyperaware of him. Of the way he smelled like dust and sweat and soap. Of how close his hand was to hers.
There was a time and a place for such observations, and this sure as hell wasn’t one of them.
She cleared her throat. “We’ll need to access public records next. Trace the ownership of that shell company.”
“And you think that’ll lead us to the boy?”
She exhaled. “It might. And if not, it’ll lead us to whoever’s moving money to keep this operation afloat.”
Ryan leaned back, nodding slowly. “I guess you are pretty good at this.”
She sat back in her chair. “My father used to say numbers never lie. People always did.”
One of his eyebrows spiked and his lips curved up in a smirk. “And I thought I had trust issues.”
She tore her eyes away from his mouth. “Then I guess we go to Salina Cruz.”
Lucía saved the logs and disconnected. As she packed up the laptop, she felt his eyes on her again, not hard this time. Not suspicious. Just watching.
She didn’t like how aware she was of it.