Hunted (26 page)

He dragged a hand through his hair, turned away as he sucked in a deep, steadying breath. It didn’t help. The fucker now had two hostages. Clay wanted to be the one to hunt him down.

“We’re putting out a description of the vehicle now and checking CCTV footage.” Her phone dinged with an incoming message. She glanced at it, nodded. “They’ve got a couple frames with a car matching that description and have a partial plate to go on.” She looked back up at them. “I’ll keep Commander DeLuca updated with anything new, but I gotta get back into the office.” She kissed Tuck before climbing into a waiting SUV.

As the vehicle drove off, Tuck looked around at his team. “I’m calling the sniper teams in to meet us. In the meantime let’s get our gear together, do a weapons check and be ready to roll.”

Yes.

Might not be the action Clay wanted, but if the call came and they were deployed, they’d be ready.

****

Zoe clamped her teeth together to keep her jaw from trembling as the back of the vehicle bumped over the ruts in the rough road. They’d left the relative smoothness of the highway long minutes ago and each bump sent her bouncing around the trunk. She’d already smashed her head against the top and sides twice, no matter how hard she braced her feet and bound hands on the interior. Her wrists were raw from when she’d wrestled the rope from the door handle.

The full-blown panic she’d experienced when that bullet had torn into a tree not five feet in front of her had now eased, but the fear was as strong as ever. She was expendable now. Logically she couldn’t figure out why Ruiz hadn’t killed her and left her body in the woods. Either he’d been in too much of a rush or hadn’t wanted to leave more evidence at the scene, but she had no illusions that he would let her live long now.

The back tires thudded into a pothole, sending her into the roof of the trunk. She grunted, braced her forearms above her and lashed out at the right taillight with her heels.

She’d lost count of how many tries this made, hoping to dislodge it enough that someone might notice it, or maybe she could stick her fingers through it and signal for help. Her bound hands made it impossible to move her wrists and fingers enough to search for the trunk release that was supposed to be in here somewhere, let alone to find the wires and disable the brake lights.

Zoe kicked at the taillight again, ignoring the pain in her bare feet. It didn’t budge.

Dammit!
Scrambling around to get aligned properly, she kicked at the other one. Three times. Four.

Something cracked. A surge of hope filled her. She lashed out again, felt it give this time.

The car began to slow.

Zoe braced herself as Carlos took another turn, then another a few seconds later, and stopped. The engine shut off. Her heart thudded in her ears in the sudden silence.

A door opened and slammed shut. Footsteps approached the trunk.

She tensed, gathered her strength. Once that lid lifted, if he planned to shoot her she’d only have one chance to use the element of surprise and kick the gun out of his hands and try to escape. She drew her knees up, feet together, using her upper arms to brace her against the trunk.

The trunk popped open, revealing a strip of daylight, then the lid lifted.

With a snarl locked in her throat she kicked out at the hand reaching for her, landed a glancing blow. He cursed and reached in to grab her, tying something around her ankles as she fought and bucked. Cruel fingers bit deep into her upper arms as he flipped her onto her stomach and dragged her out backward.

Zoe threw her head back and tried to sink her teeth into his neck but he hit her across the face so hard it dazed her, and dumped her onto the ground with a bone-jarring thud. Wincing, she tried to roll over but he merely grabbed her by the hair and began dragging her toward the same cabin they’d been in last night. Her feet scrambled to keep up with him, the grip on her hair pulling strands out.

“Carlos, don’t!” Leticia screamed from the car.

He shoved her through the door and into the hallway. He stilled, seemed to look around. “Gill?”

The computer tech guy that had been here when they’d left. He was obviously gone and Carlos wasn’t happy about it. Swearing viciously, he all but threw her into a closet and slammed the door shut. The sound of a lock clicking into place came just as she got to her knees. Then his receding footsteps.

Heart pounding, she rammed her shoulder against the lock. Again. Again, until she was biting back cries of pain from the impact. The lock held fast. She lay on her back and tried kicking at it. Nothing.

The front door creaked open and she heard more footsteps coming down the short hallway. Carlos was talking to Leticia softly, his voice ten times as creepy because of the soothing tone he was using. Zoe scooted to her knees and bent until she could peer through the tiny opening in the lock.

Carlos had Leticia in the kitchen. All the blinds were drawn on the windows but he had turned the overhead light on. Her hands were bound behind her, her head bowed. Carlos cupped her face in his hands and tipped her head back, thumbs moving gently across her cheeks in a tender gesture that turned Zoe’s stomach.

“It’s okay now, baby, I’ve got you,” he murmured. He bent his head and began trailing kisses over Leticia’s bruised face, lingering on the marks he’d put on her. She remained rigid and unmoving, her eyes closed in dread. Zoe swallowed, wishing she could shoot the motherfucker in the back right now.

Carlos raised his head and smiled down at Leticia, stroked one hand over her hair. “I’m going to leave your hands tied while we talk. Do you need anything first? I’ll feed you.”

Leticia didn’t answer.

He cupped her jaw. “Baby? You hungry? Thirsty?”

Her face crumpled and her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay,” Carlos told her, drawing her close and kissing the top of her head. “Come on, don’t cry.” He picked her up and carried her to an old armchair set in the corner of the room, sat with her in his lap and cradled her there while she cried. For her son, for her loss of freedom. And for what was coming.

Zoe’s heart ached and her eyes stung. He was sick. So sick he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—accept that for Leticia it was
over
.

“Shh, baby.” He stroked her shuddering back while she cried, murmuring things Zoe couldn’t hear and didn’t want to. Then, “We’ll get through this. It’ll be fine, you’ll see. I’ve got it all worked out for us. By this time tomorrow we’ll be in Mexico and we can start over there.”

Zoe stopped breathing.
What
? He was seriously going to smuggle her out of the country against her will?

Leticia’s head snapped up. “M-Mexico?” she asked in disbelief.

Carlos nodded. “Some of my friends are gonna set us up there. We’ll have our own house and everything, right on the ocean. You’ll love it.”

Zoe watched as Leticia drew back, her spine stiffening with outrage. “I’m not leaving my
son
! I’m not going anywhere with you!”

Zoe flinched, expecting Carlos to explode at any moment. His face tensed but he managed to stay calm as he answered. “Yes, you are. Tonight.”

At that, Leticia vaulted off his lap like she’d been hit with a cattle prod. She shook her head frantically, staring at him. “I won’t do it. You can’t make me.”

Zoe instinctively drew back at the rage that suffused Carlos’s face. “Can’t I?”

Oh shit, oh shit…
Zoe scrambled back as far as she could against the closet wall, not wanting to see what happened next. She closed her eyes, desperately tried to think of something that might get her out of here, but when the chair creaked and harsh footfalls sounded in the kitchen, coming toward her, her eyes sprang open.

Terror forked through her when he suddenly unlocked the door and wrenched it open. Before she could do more than cower he’d seized her by the hair again and dragged her out of the closet on her knees. She struggled against his grip but froze when she felt the cold bite of a gun muzzle against her temple.

Zoe’s gaze flashed to Leticia. The woman stood unmoving, her tear-bright eyes wide and locked on Zoe in horror.

“Go into the bedroom,” Carlos ordered her in a low voice that made the hair on Zoe’s arms stand up.

Leticia focused on him, her throat moving as she swallowed. “Don’t. Please don’t hurt her. It was my decision to leave, not hers—”

“Don’t fucking remind me of what she did and didn’t do in this mess,” he snapped.

She shook her head, her expression pleading. “If you kill her there’s no going back. We’ll never be able to get our lives back.”

The pressure of the muzzle stayed firm against Zoe’s temple. “We can in Mexico.”

“
No
. Please, Carlos. For me. You’re not a murderer.”

Zoe felt him go eerily still behind her. She held her breath. “You don’t think I’ve killed before, baby?” he said in a silky voice.

The words hung in the air, the unspoken threat that he had no problem killing again all too clear. Zoe was too scared to move, afraid to breathe. He’d killed her neighbor yesterday. Shot him down in cold blood without any hesitation. There was no question he’d done it before and could do it again. She closed her eyes and prayed.
Please, God. Please, not like this.

“Please don’t.” Leticia’s voice cracked on the last word.

Her distress seemed to bother him. Carlos heaved a sigh. The pressure of the muzzle eased slightly, then vanished. Zoe sagged in relief, would have hit the floor if he hadn’t been holding a fistful of her hair. “I’m not making any promises about her yet. Whether she lives or not depends on your behavior. Now go into the bedroom and wait for me so we can finish talking.”

There was no mistaking what he meant by that, and it had very little to do with
talking
.

Oh god, she was going to throw up. Zoe shook hard, the bile rising in her throat. She couldn’t imagine having to endure what Leticia was going to.

Casting her a long, resigned look full of acceptance and apology, Leticia turned and walked toward the bedroom.

Immediately Carlos wrenched on Zoe’s hair, sending tears of pain to her eyes. He dragged her back to the closet. “Don’t make any noise,” he growled, shoving her inside and locking the door once again.

Huddled in a ball on the floor, Zoe thought of Clay to block what was happening to Leticia right now in the bedroom. Completely the opposite of the unforgettable experience she’d shared with Clay only yesterday. She’d give anything to see him again, feel his powerful arms around her so she’d know she was truly safe.

Shaking all over, chilled to the depths of her soul, Zoe wondered whether this nightmare would end with them being rescued, or Carlos putting a bullet in her head.

Clay set the rifle he’d been cleaning aside and jumped to his feet when Celida barged into the FBI field office room at just after five that afternoon. He’d already cleaned it and checked it before but he’d needed something to keep him busy and occupy his mind or he would go insane waiting for word on Zoe.

“Think we’ve got him,” she said, her expression filled with excitement as she set a laptop down on a small table.

DeLuca and Agent Travers entered the room a moment later and everyone gathered around while Celida pulled up a GPS map and put it on the big screen on the wall.

“Got a few tips from some insiders, people Ruiz has used as contacts over the past few months. An anonymous tip said he was at this remote cabin last night and that he had Zoe there. Agents have already been dispatched to confirm whether Ruiz is there now, and of course they’ll be covert. They understand how sensitive this matter is and that he can’t know we’re watching.”

Clay leaned in closer to get a better look, heart thudding.
Zoe.
The cabin was in a remote area situated on a finger of land extending out into the bayou. Tall trees blocked a good view of the structure but there was enough detail in the image for him and the rest of the team to start coming up with a tactical plan in case they got the call.

Another agent poked his head into the room and looked at Travers and Celida. “Got something.” Both agents stepped outside to hear what it was, and Clay got busy examining approach possibilities with the others, part of him desperately wanting to know what was being said out in the hall.

The door opened a minute later and DeLuca marched back in, his expression all business. “Listen up.” They all straightened around the table, focusing on him. “Just received intel that some of the people Ruiz is cozy with down in Mexico are planning to run him and Leticia across the Gulf by boat at around oh-two-hundred tomorrow. This group’s a real bunch of winners. A drug lord’s soldiers are planning to ferry a few of their Islamic jihadist heroin suppliers to shore here. The guy found dead at the hotel the other day? Member of the same group. They’re going to come ashore here when the others pick up Ruiz.” He nodded at the big screen. “Right now that’s our target location, and if we get confirmation that Ruiz is there, we’ll be deployed to bring him in. So let’s get at it. I’ll call the sniper teams and brief them while you guys go over this.”

Hell yes
. A surge of adrenaline hit him. He couldn’t verify whether Zoe was still alive or even at the cabin, but he could at least do this, plan for the moment when they’d go after Ruiz. And Christ knew, he needed something to focus him now and ease the horrible sense of helplessness he’d been battling for the past day. He refused to let himself think the worst, because even he, as mentally tough as he was, couldn’t keep compartmentalizing this forever.

“There’s a dock right here,” Clay said, pointing on screen for the others. There was something near the base of it on the edge of the bank. Looked to be covered by a tarp of some kind. A boat maybe? Another vehicle? “Think they’d pick him up there?” It was risky, coming to shore, but DeLuca had just mentioned they were planning to drop off some unwelcome passengers, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch.