Bad Boy Criminal: The Novel (20 page)

I
n the morning
—well, early afternoon, technically—Izzy and I dyed our hair black and blonde, respectively. I went black. “Because it compliments my troubled soul,” I explained.

“Then why do I have to be blonde?” Izz demanded incredulously.

“Because you’re my glamorous, high-society sugar mama,” I went on indulgently. “I’ve got our whole backstory figured out. Don’t worry about anything.”

Isabelle raised one doubtful eyebrow, but acquiesced.

An hour later, we were prepping to check out in the clothes Nacho had been sent to purchase for us. Isabelle grabbed her paper bag of clothes and disappeared into the bathroom to change. I glared at myself in the mirror, trying to figure out who this evil twin was and how to kill him. I looked nothing like Ashton Carter anymore. Ashton Carter was part-country boy, part-bad boy, day in and day out. He wore jeans. With rips. He smelled of cigarette smoke and gasoline.

“Where the hell did you get this stuff?” I wondered aloud as I buttoned the white collared shirt down. With it were pressed dress slacks of rich blue and some loafers, tan, tasseled, shiny with oil. I looked like a fucking…normie. Like someone with a real job. “Off a corpse?”

Nacho grinned. “Men’s Wearhouse.”

The door to the bathroom swung open, and Isabelle came picking her way out like a newborn foal. She was wearing stiletto heels, a pencil skirt in taupe snakeskin, and a white silk blouse with a plunging neckline. Her hair fell in thick golden waves around her shoulders, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup, thank God. There was something unbelievably appealing about her dusky hazel eyes and her bare lips juxtaposed with the sophisticated business apparel. There was no product in her hair, either. I wished we were alone; I could go one more time before check-out.

“Remind me again of who the hell I am,” she muttered, raking her fingers through her hair.

I pursed my lips. “Woman of my dreams,” I answered, sauntering closer to her for a quick kiss. Somehow, it evolved into a much longer and deeper one than we had intended—kind of like last night.

When I looked up to drag in a breath, Nacho was pointedly looking away, though Drake was smiling at us.

“You are…” he answered, rifling through the documents they had taken on their shopping trip, “Adriana Rey, from Houston, Texas. Lovelorn socialite turned high-power business woman…who still has a penchant for illicit affairs which take you, frequently, over the border, to escape the ever-watchful and vengeful eye of your oil tycoon hus—”

“So, the mind tends to wander on the road, does it?” Isabelle interrupted, cocking one eyebrow with a grin. Her tongue snuck to one corner of her mouth and traced it thoughtfully. “I like her,” she stated, perfunctory and suddenly Southern. “She sounds desperate and wild. The kind of gal who could git into a lil’ more than just mud-truckin’ on a Friday night.”

“Um, okay,” I said, hoping not to embarrass her, “maybe we shouldn’t talk too much while border patrol checks us out?”

Isabelle glared up at me. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing!” I insisted. “It’s just that—first of all—people with nothing to hide don’t generally share their life story with, you know, border patrol. And, second of all, your Texas sounds a little more like Virginia.”

“Fine.” Isabelle rolled her eyes and flounced past the boys, still awkward in those sharp high heels. “I’m going down to the front desk to check out. God knows that little old lady at the front almost had a heart attack the first time she saw all of you.”

“Doubt she’d recognize me now,” I said, huffing hotly against my fingernails and dusting them over my shirt. I think they called it “business casual.”

“Let’s hope not,” Izzy replied, hesitating to hold out an open palm to Drake. “Let me get your keys. I’ll go check us out.” She passed him to collect Juan’s set next, and disappeared out the door. I listened as her high heels faded unsteadily into the distance.

I exhaled and my eyes shifted to Hell's Ransom brothers in the room, four in total, staring back at me with a look almost like pity. “She’s a good girl,” I said. I felt as if I was defending myself to them.

“Yeah.” Juan grinned. “She is.”

“Too good, probably,” I admitted, taking a seat on the bed we’d consecrated only the night before. I braced my palms on my knees. “Too good for all this shit we do.”

Drake and Juan grinned at each other knowingly. “Eh,” Juan said.

“Yeah,” Drake agreed. Something soundless seemed to have passed between them.

“What?” I asked. “Did I miss something?”

“Yeah, bro,” Drake answered easily, watching me with bright and friendly eyes. “You been distracted, looks like, and you missed a lot. She told us about what she did at El Toro Rojo. Putting that agent out in the bathroom with some shredded blanket?”

“Ah, you didn’t even see her in Moab,” Juan added jovially. “She had that prick holding a gun to her, and still went out for drinks with us afterward. I mean, look at her. Smuggling your ass across the border and she hardly knows you, am I right?”

“Uh, not to mention that, by the time we got the call to come help her out,” Drake said, “she wasn’t still
in
that warehouse with that Valiant piece of shit anymore. She took him on hand-to-hand and got her own damn gun back, then took off to a safe-house by herself. We didn’t rescue shit,
hombre.
She rescued herself. Now that—that’s another class of woman. Makes me almost wish she could strike, ya know? New Mexico could use some qualified motherfuckers.”

“Hey,” Nacho pouted.

“Hey, you strikin’, ain’t ya?” Drake asked him, glaring. “I’m not talking about your ass, Nacho. I’m talking about Ash’s old lady.” His eyes turned back to mine with renewed sincerity. “If she’s too good, she’s too good at all the right things.”

Juan nodded and grinned appreciatively. I was about to speak when the door to our room swung open and Isabelle, none the wiser, entered with a crisp, clean smile. To look at her, you’d have no idea that she didn’t sleep a wink all damn night.

“I think we’re ready to go?” she asked, glancing between the lot of us expectantly. “Everyone remember my plan? You boys stay behind in case we need ya?”

Juan and Drake bowed their heads respectfully. “Yes ma’am,” Juan said. He glanced at me meaningfully. “Smart girl,” he added.

“All right,” she said, clearly not having heard or perhaps simply not having understood the comment. She pursed her lips and her wide hazel eyes swung to me. “You ready?”

My stomach fluttered. Everything—from the moment I started running down the interstate in Colorado until now—had been leading to this moment of truth: crossing the border. Getting to Juarez. Getting to Jade. Getting the proof she promised. Getting acquitted.

“Yeah,” I answered, dazed, high on adrenaline. “Let’s rock ‘n roll.”

M
y confidence began
to waver as we approached El Paso’s border checkpoint. This was it. Ride or die. I held Ash tight around the waist and tried to look like I imagined Adriana Rey would look.

Thankfully, it was just a series of booths set up on the highway, as if they were just going to take some toll. I found this to be oddly comforting, and less intimidating. They couldn’t get too particular with us, could they? It wasn’t like we’d be sitting in an office all day.

But, as our bike approached the checkpoint window, I began to doubt that it would make a difference. We could only hope that Jade’s fake identities were set up pretty deeply into the system. She must’ve known about getting over the border, right? She’d crossed it herself once.

A woman approached the booth window and scrutinized the two of us. “Helmets off,” she commanded brusquely. We scrambled to do as we were told. I shook out my stiff hair, rigid from the recent dye job. It still looked irritating and foreign to me, as if I was wearing a wig I just could not take off anymore. I couldn’t wait to dye it back. “IDs,” she added.

We passed her our passports and she examined them.

“Hm,” she murmured. “Carmichael.” She glared thoughtfully at Ash. I held my breath. Could she tell that I was holding my breath? “This is your first time outside of the States?”

Ash cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am.” I wished we could see the information which scrolled on her screen.

“I see this vehicle is a recent purchase. A cash purchase.” Her tone was tight with suspicion.

“Yes,” Ash repeated. He didn’t offer more information. Smart man. Buying a car with cash wasn’t illegal, in and of itself…

“And why, exactly, are you two on your way into Mexico today?” she wondered, shrewd eyes flipping between the two of us.

“A trip,” I answered one beat too quickly.

“Business,” Ash said.

The woman—her name tag read Anders—glanced between us.

“A business trip,” I said.

“Right.” She grimaced and went back to examining her screen. “Why did you purchase this vehicle in cash, Mr. Carmichael?” she asked.

“No interest on full cash payments,” Ash replied smoothly. He must’ve had that answer already in his holster. “I don’t know if you can see it on there, but I have an impeccable credit score.”

I smirked, but when Anders glanced back at us, I wiped it from my lips. She was a humorless sort. “Mrs. Rey,” she addressed me. Huh. Mrs. So I was supposed to be married, but not to Carmichael. That felt organic enough. “You’ve crossed the border multiple times before, often over the weekend, with very little luggage. In fact…may I look through your—” She frowned. “You’re not carrying any bags with you this time, either?” Anders shrilled, giving me a strong stink-eye. “You’ll forgive me if I say that it is highly unusual for a business trip to occur without as much as a change of clothing.”

“I—” Sweat blossomed on my upper lip. Could she see it? “I enjoy Mexico.”
Idiot! What a stupid answer!
“But I can only enjoy the company of my…friends…” I made a show of squeezing Ash’s chest from behind, lovingly and intimately. “…for a short while before I must return to real life. I’ve found that, for some business, a girl should pack light.” I winked at Anders, and she stared stonily at me in response.

Well, she clearly hated me, and I’d probably talked too much, but she’d asked me a question and I had to just go with it, based on what little I knew about my false identity! I wasn’t Adriana Rey! Jesus, I was Isabelle Turner, and I was dying to get out of this cloying skirt and away from this checkpoint!

“Uh-huh,” Anders muttered. Her stare wouldn’t peel off of me. That was when Ash stepped in.

“Adriana. This isn’t the first time you’ve done this?” he hissed, shooting a narrow glare over his shoulder at me.

“I—I—” I stammered.

“I thought we were being spontaneous,” he added. “I wouldn’t have bought this stupid motorcycle if it wasn’t for you, and all your big talk about trying something new. But this isn’t new, is it? Not for you.”

“I can explain,” I swore. I knew enough from daytime television to know that this was always the next line, after the adulterous businesswoman was caught in her lies. “It’s not what you think.”
And the Academy Award for shittiest, most predictable telenovela script goes to…

“Really not necessary, Mrs. Rey,” Anders grumbled, typing something onto her little screen without looking at us. My heart leapt. Were we through? Had we annoyed her to the point that she was no longer interested in questioning us?

“And every time someone calls you that,” Ash went on dramatically, “is like my heart is being ripped out of my—”

“All right,” she muttered, clicking a few icons and giving each of our passports a swift stamp. “Thanks for visiting Mexico, you two, and uh…good luck in your travels.” She raised her eyebrows slightly, an indication that she was being purely ironic, and then the bulb above our lane flared green, and we tore off down the sun-parched highway, into Chihuahua, Mexico.

We started passing signs for Juarez immediately. Eleven miles.

C
learing
that damn border patrol felt like shrugging off a lead jacket while trying to keep my head above water. Suddenly, I could breathe again. I felt like myself. The future opened up. Possibilities opened up. The sun broke through the clouds and I was able to imagine myself in more scenarios than just the next three days.

And Juarez was just eleven miles away.

My fingers tightened on the handlebars. I could taste the freedom; its light, summery flavor reminded me, somehow, of Isabelle Turner.

Part of me wanted to just keep going, rip deeper into South America, and never look back. Maybe we could be Louis Carmichael and Adriana Rey forever. The cost of living was low. We could just find other jobs, and start new lives. Lots of criminals had done that before.

But I wasn’t a criminal.

Well, I was. But I wasn’t a murderer.

And I supposed, deep down, my pride wouldn’t let me burrow into Mexico and disappear, even if I could convince Izzy to leave it all behind with me. My brothers would come to our southern sister just to kill me themselves, and besides, it felt an awful lot like giving up. No. Jade Rodriguez may have been trapped in Juarez, but it was her skills and tenacity which had saved me from that same fate. I had a way out. She’d said so herself. She had proof.

“I’ve never actually been to Mexico before!” Isabelle shouted in my ear. Her tone, both light and loud, told me what she hadn’t: she, too, had been as terrified as I had been. Not just of the border crossing, but terrified of everything. The possibilities before had seemed uniformly grim. The possibility of prison. The possibility of our relationship—whatever this rare flower had been, opening on us so suddenly, when neither of us expected to find anything—coming to a gloomy and helpless end, sealed away from each other in separate cells. The possibility of death, even.

“I’ve been to Mexico a few times,” I yelled back to her. We were getting closer to Juarez. Only six miles now. “But I’ve never been to Jade’s apartment. Never been to Juarez.”

I didn’t bother to tell her that this was because Juarez had been the murder capital of the world for as long as I could remember. There was no reason to worry my sweet girl, and we’d be in and out before nightfall. Hell, if she really wanted, we could be back at the border in half an hour. I did not care. After everything she’d done for me—stitching up my shoulder, and taking her dad’s truck, and stealing that car on the side of the road, and staring down Alex Cantrell’s gun, and tying up a federal agent in a filthy men’s room, and being kidnapped, and fantastic sex, and now, changing her identity, all for me—I would do whatever she wanted. Whatever she wanted…right after we did one last thing for me. The last thing I would ever ask her to do would be over today.

My pulse quickened as I realized that I hadn’t actually talked to Jade since earlier last night, before I’d even turned myself in to Harrison. She didn’t know—unless one of the Hell's Ransom boys had told her—that I was loose again, or that Connor the psychopath had attempted to drown me in a vat of old abattoir water. She didn’t know that the false identification she’d set up for us had worked, and she didn’t know that we were on our way to her apartment right now.

Party foul, I guess.

I could only hope she was ready for us to show up without any warning, but something told me she was used to such things. She was, after all, one of my oldest friends.

T
he sun was so
high and the roadside foliage so warm and inviting, it didn’t seem as if Juarez could possibly be as bad as everyone said it was. Still, as we approached the city, I couldn’t help but notice how it looked almost like a dingy pock on the horizon. There we were, enshrouded by rolling dunes and exotic wildlife, everything cast in sandy shades of peach, and yet—in the distance, like the mirror opposite of the emerald city—there was Juarez, grimy, gray, and industrial. I hollered back to Isabelle, “Hold on tight to me, okay? Don’t let go!”

She didn’t say anything…but I felt her arms grip me tighter. I winced, as my midsection was still tender from the pummeling it had received from Harrison, but it was worth it to feel that she was secure with me.

The city reminded me of some urban version of the ubiqiutous “gates” of the Underworld, through which departed souls and brave heroes, on quests of valor, would need to pass. Except the living and the dead weren’t passing into Hades, or Hel, or Irkalla, or what have you. The living (and possibly soon-to-be dead, from what I had heard about this city) were just trying to get into, or out of, Mexico.

On either side of us, up cropped industrial buildings, so heavily tagged in graffiti that no individual icon or message could be deciphered. The GPS dispassionately directed us onward, having no notion of the squalor which surrounded her clinical directions. The robotic voice did not realize just how scary being commanded to turn “left” could be, when turning left would cause you to descend into a poorly lit parking garage where literally anything could be happening.

“Uh, this place is…terrifying,” Isabelle informed me, as if I didn’t know.

“You think I haven’t noticed that?” I replied, unnecessarily sharp. I felt like a single parent with a beloved toddler merely holding on to my hand in a crowded emporium. Edgy. Defensive. “I instantly regret bringing a white woman to Juarez with me, believe me.”

“
What?
” Isabelle shrilled. “Do you think I’m going to get sold into slavery or something?”

“Shh,” I hissed. “No. Of course not. Just…relax. It’s not like we’re tourists who’ve gotten lost. We know exactly where we’re going.” I parked the motorcycle as close to the building elevator as I could get, and we climbed off. I basically said my goodbyes to the new bike right then and there, fully anticipating that she would have vanished into thin air by the time we returned. “Come with me,” I said, taking Isabelle’s hand. “It’ll just be a minute, okay? Just one more minute of your life, and then, you’re free to do whatever you want.”

I took a step forward, toward the elevator—God only knew the horrors which awaited us on that staircase—but Izz tugged me back and peered seriously into my eyes. How was it possible that she could look completely different, and yet, as I peered into her eyes, nothing had changed? The same soft, thoughtful hazel blinked up at me, fringed by unpainted lashes. The hair was still wild, loose, and uneven, though it had been transformed into some bloodless platinum blonde.

“Just so we’re clear?” she said, placing one smooth palm against the side of my face. “The only thing I want to do with my life right now is you.”

I grinned, blushed, and averted my eyes. The Carter men generally don’t like to put all their weight down on both feet when they’re stepping into dream worlds. It just seems unsafe. I didn’t want to believe in Isabelle Turner, even after everything we’d been through. If I believed that this could all be over…that the evidence would acquit me, that I could be a free man, and that I could even have the love of the woman before me…then I believed in too much. I had too much to lose, and after starting out with nothing, that felt awfully uncomfortable.

The elevator creaked open for us, and we held hands as it shuddered up four flights and spat us into a narrow corridor. I hoped Jade wasn’t living in a total shit hole. I wouldn’t be able to take the guilt.

When we reached her door—420—I froze, and my mouth went dry. Jade Rodriguez was the type of hacker who got off on outfitting every door in her house with eight different types of locks, each of varying complexity. Hell, if you visited the Jade I knew, you might have had a hard time letting yourself back out of the bathroom.

But her apartment door was hanging open.

Busted open.

One of the hinges gapped, crooked, in the frame of the door.

“Oh my god,” Isabelle whispered off at my side, taking her hand out of mine to touch her open mouth.

I grabbed the hand back, my sense of alert on a screaming red, and darted to the open door, holding Isabelle close, but also behind me. I glared into the wide crack. Okay. Okay. It might have been a break-in. If so, it must have occurred at some point over the past twelve hours, or else she would’ve mentioned it.

“Should we go inside?” Isabelle hissed.

I shook my head. “Not yet,” I hissed back.

Staying behind the door as a partial shield, I listened closely to the sounds of the apartment. After a minute of total silence, I shoved through the door, pulling Izz along behind me, and surveyed the total wreck Jade’s place had become. Sofa ripped open, guts spilling out. Broken electronics, their nuts and bolts spraying the floor. Chairs on their sides, legs twisted and buckled. I swallowed. Whoever had been here had not only been looking for something; they’d been mad, too. Furious.

“Jade?” I called into the apartment, striding from one ruined room to the next, terrified of what I might find around each corner. “JADE? JADE??”

When we had scoured the entire eight hundred square feet, I turned back to Isabelle, still holding on to my hand, and bit my lower lip. I had a feeling that the tortured expression in Izzy’s eyes matched my own.

Jade Rodriguez, one of my best and oldest friends—and the only person who could free me from max security prison in the States—was…gone.