KILLER DATE (SCANDALS) (23 page)

“
Si
…he is my father, but I am not his son.”

“What?” Nick asked as if he hadn’t heard it correctly.

I, too, was wondering if this was some kind of riddle.

“I mean that I do not want to be involved in the family business, but my father insisted.  He told me I would be disinherited if I left.  Uncle Sergio sent us on a mission
, and I planned on running away and disappearing.  We were sent to kidnap Miguel and Alfonso to use as bargaining chips.  We weren’t expecting Angela to be there.”

“Why
were
you there?” Jenny asked her sister.

Now it was Angie’s turn to shift uncomfortably.  “Miguel’s family had hired me to remove some tattoos from their family and friends so they wouldn’t be so easily identified.  They even bought the equipment for me and paid for my classes.
  I did most of my work in my shop, but last Friday we had gone to the warehouse to work on some guys who didn’t dare come into Austin.”

That explained the super-expensive laser machine we had found the receipt for.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” Jenny cried.

Angie snorted.  “Are you kidding?  You wouldn’t even let me go to Corpus
Christi on spring break with my friends.  I’m sure you would have let me hang out with a cartel.”

Jenny opened her mouth to protest,
then sighed.  She couldn’t argue with that statement.

“So you and Miguel somehow managed to escape?” I asked.

Angie shivered as if the memory was too painful to think about.  “Alfonso was standing right next to us when they shot him.  We dropped to the ground and escaped out a back window while they were chasing some of the other guys.  We thought that if we stayed out of sight for a couple days, things would cool down, and we could come back to Austin.  But they tracked us down.  Miguel tried to protect me, but they beat him up, then shot him and left him for dead.”  Angie buried her face in her hands, and I could hear her sobbing.  Jenny scooted closer and put her arms around her sister. 

“Somehow he managed to make it to Jenny’s doorstep, but he was in bad shape,” I told her.

“Miguel, Alfonso, Omar and I grew up together,” Orlando remarked sadly.  “I would never have gone along with any plan to kill them.  When I saw them take Angela, I knew I had to stay with her and use my place in the family to keep her safe.”

Angie lifted her head and gave Orlando a watery smile.  “He saved my life.”

“And you saved mine,” Orlando told her.

Since Ricardo’s
Stingers had probably wiped out the entire compound and its residents, Orlando didn’t know how right he was.  And I wasn’t going to be the one to rat out Ricardo.  Shit…he’ll probably come after me.

An unexpected beam of li
ght bounced off the walls.  I looked around and noticed it was coming from the tunnel on the right.  Was it Dallas coming to rescue us?

Another light beam pierced the darkness and the chatter of Spanish reached our ears.

Orlando jumped to his feet and pulled Angie up.  “They’re coming.  We’ve got to go.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“They?” I asked.

“The cartel.
  My cousins,” he whispered anxiously.  “
Apurate, apurate.
”

“That means hurry, hurry,” Nick translated
.  He stood and pulled Jenny up.  “Give her the night goggles, and she can lead.”

I
was already standing, and I didn’t question his wisdom, but handed her th goggles.  Nick started herding us toward the center tunnel. 

Jenny went first, followed by Angie, Orlando,
and then me.  Nick, as usual, covered the rear, which was only fair since he still had his night vision glasses
and
a gun.

The tunnel was dark and narrow.  We were moving at a brisk pace when suddenly, my head slammed into a rock that was jutting out of the ceiling. 
I buckled to the floor of the cave and landed on my knees.  “Damn it Jenny…shit.  You’ve got to warn me!”

“Oh Reno, I’m sorry.  I forgot you were that much taller than me,” she apologized sincerely.

“I’m a couple inches shorter now,” I grumbled.  “I left part of my skull back there.”

“I’ll give you a head’s up next time,” she promised.

“Ha ha.”  I wobbled to my feet.

“Move it,” Nick hissed.  “They’re catching up.”

We headed forward again, and Jenny was careful to call out warnings of low-hanging rocks.  The tunnel wasn’t straight.  We made several turns until it felt like we were going in circles.  Occasionally, a beam of light would reach us, reminding us we weren’t alone, and we would pick up the pace.

“They’re in our tunnel,” Nick whispered to me.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small capsule.  “Throw this as far down the tunnel as possible,” I told him and handed it to him.

I heard him walk back to the last corner we had passed.  Seconds later, there was a loud acoustical explosion,
followed by a cloud of smoke.

The people in front of me slid to a stop and I crashed into Orlando’s back.
 

“Reno!”  Jenny yelled. 
“What the fudge was that?”

“
Magic,” I explained.

“
Some of Nick’s farmer’s helper?” she asked.

“No way…
they’re called ninja grenades…small impact flash bombs.  I use them to distract audiences, but in a tight place like this cave, it probably temporarily blinded and deafened the guys following us.  But it’ll wear off quickly, so we need to keep moving.”

“
What other shit do you have in your pockets?” Nick asked.

I reached in and pulled out the lock.  “That’s all that’s left.”  I held out my hand.  “Where’s my lighter?”

“Dude…I had to light the fire,” Nick admitted.  “I’ll buy you a new one…if we get out of here alive.  And hey, where are your Night Owl goggles?”

“In the shed you blew up.”

“Sounds like we’re even.” He gave me a little nudge. 

I took the hint.  Damn, I hated losing that lighter, but it was a small p
rice in exchange for our lives.

We continued forward, our progress occasionally slowed when the rocks narrowed, and we had to wiggle between them or climb over them.  Only the fact that there might
still be guys with guns on our tails kept us from turning around and trying the other tunnel.  Every ten to twenty feet Jenny gave me a warning of rocks ahead that kept me from adding to the already pounding headache I’d gotten during my last collision.  I lost all track of time, but at least an hour had passed when Angie spoke up.

“I’ve got to stop for a minute,”
she said and slid down with her back against the wall until she was sitting on the cool rock floor.  “I’m sorry.  I know I’m overweight and holding you back.  I haven’t had a chance, but thank you all for coming for me.”

Jenny sat down next to her.  “I couldn’t sleep until I found you and brought you home.”

Nick, Orlando and I remained standing, too nervous to rest.  We knew cartel members didn’t give up easily.  What we didn’t know was how much time we had before they caught up with us.

“I’m not sure this is the right tunnel,” Nick whispered.

“Neither am I,” I confided quietly.  “What do you think, Orlando?  Have you ever explored these tunnels?”

“Sure, when we were kids, but we never went this deep in them.  My dad would have killed me,” he told us.

“Too bad.  We could use a guide right now.”  Nick scowled as he looked around.

“J
ust to be sure we’re not walking in circles, I think we should mark our path.  Do you have anything to write with?”  I asked.

“
Like breadcrumbs,” Nick said, nodding his head.

I wouldn’t have expected a Hansel & Gretel reference from him, but Nick was a man of many layers.  So far, we’d only seen the
cold prickly one.  But if I had to be running for my life, I was glad he had my back.

Jenny had heard my comment about marking the walls, and she asked, “Will sandstone work?”

“Maybe,” I answered.

I could hear
her and Angie crawling around, picking rocks up and striking them on the cave walls.

“Got it,”
Angie said with excitement.  “Here, Jenny.  These soft yellow rocks make a clear mark.”

“Then you’re in charge of marking our way,” I told her.  “Keep it small enough that anyone behind us won’t notice or it’ll lead them to us.”

She stood and drew an arrow on the wall…pointing in the direction where we had come from.  “How’s that?”

I smiled. 
“Very clever.  That should confuse them.”

We started moving again.  We hadn’t gone far when Jenny, whispered back to us, “
Split ahead.  Which way should we go?”

We stopped at the “
Y
” and clustered for a quick meeting.

“Any i
dea how long we’ve been walking?” Jenny asked.

Nick looked at his watch.  “It’s almost nine o’clock.  So, that makes it around two hours.”

“At a mile an hour, we’ve made it two miles.  We should have reached the Diaz Ranch by now.”

“
As the crow flies,” Nick agreed.  “But we’ve been winding around so much, it’s hard to say.”  He reached into his backpack, pulled out a flashlight and turned it on.

We all stared at him as if he had just created electricity. 

“What the fuck?” I exploded, a little louder than necessary.  “You’ve had that all along and let us stumble and crack our heads?”

“It wasn’t safe for us to use it,” he explained.

“The bad guys have lights.  Why would it hurt if we did?”

In the splash of light I saw Nick’s expression, and it was a little sheepish.  “Actually, I forgot I had it.  That explosion messed me up.  I think I might have a concussion.”

That took away my anger.  He’d been keeping up and pulling his weight, so I hadn’t suspected he had any lingering effects from the blast other than the cracked ribs and temporary deafness.  “So which way looks the best to you?”

Nick shined the flashlight down both tunnels.
  “My gut’s not telling me anything.  What about you Reno?”

I tried to hide my surprise.  Nick was the kind of man that thought he knew everything, probably rightly so.  He’d definitely been in more life-and
-death situations than I had.  What was odd was that he had never asked my opinion or given me credit for having a good idea which meant he was either struggling to make a decision or he was still too addled to think clearly.  It was time I stepped up.

I wet my finger and held it inside the opening of tunnel number one, then repeated the action in tunnel number two. 

“There’s a slight breeze coming from this one,” I said, pointing toward tunnel number two.  “Plus, it seems to be directionally correct.”

“
Magic fingers?” Jenny teased.

I wiggled my fingers and grinned.  “
You have no idea.”

“
TMI, Romeo,” Nick said, then handed Jenny the flashlight.  “Take off your goggles or the light will blind you.”  He pulled his pair up on top of his head as if they were sunglasses.  “Okay, lead the way.”

The Maglite, even when pointed forward,
provided enough light for me to see the jagged rocks around us and avoid banging my head again.  As we continued up this new tunnel, it looked like this one wasn’t naturally formed. The walls appeared to have been chiseled out.  This seemed odd because I thought this cave system was the result of water erosion or rock formations.

The going was rough
.  We had to pay attention to every step, so our focus was on the floor when Jenny screamed and stopped abruptly.  Angie must not have noticed until she crashed into Jenny which started a chain reaction as we rammed into each other and the jagged rock walls.  She dropped the light which went out, casting us into pitch darkness.

Behind me, Nick
groaned and muttered a curse.  Jenny had backed up, somehow slipping past Angie and Orlando, and was now pressed against me.  I gladly wrapped my arms around her.  This was the woman who had been through so much in the last few days from seeing a bloody man on her porch to sitting across from the most dangerous drug lord in North America…all without blinking.  And now, here she was, clinging to me.  “What happened?” I asked her gently.

She shivered and muttered
, her voice muffled against my chest.  “De…dead people.”

That didn’t sound good.

“Well, shit,” Nick grumbled and put his night vision goggles back on,
then pushed his way past the rest of us.  I couldn’t see, but I could hear him pick up the flashlight and shake it, then pound it against his other palm.  The light flickered back on, and I leaned around Orlando and Angie to see what had terrified Jenny.

At least three people lay in a scrambled pile on the floor.  Tattered clothes still hung from their bodies, but all the flesh
and muscle had been stripped from the bones.  Nick moved the beam of light around the skeletons, pausing on two round bullet holes in the side of one of the skulls.

“They didn’t die of old age,” he commented wryly.

“Any idea how long they’ve been here?” I asked.

“I’m not a coroner,” Nick answered.  “Even as a DEA agent, I don’t hang around dead people, so I have no idea.”

“Do you suppose they have any ID on them?” Angie asked hesitantly.

“I’m not digging through that mess to find their pockets,” Nick snorted.  “They could be cartel murders or drug smugglers fighting over product or territory. 
Either way, this looks like a dead end…no pun intended.”  He let the light beam circle the walls in front of us.  All we saw was solid rock.  “They might have been dumped here or caught by surprise.  But I don’t want to be trapped here, so we need to backtrack and check out the other tunnel.”

Jenny stepped away, and my arms fell limply to my sides.  It had been a pleasant surprise that she had sought protection with me, and I tried not
to read too much in it.  But I had to admit that it had been nice.

“What happened to your magic finger?” Angie
asked with a touch of sarcasm.

I repeated my wet-the-finger-then-hold-it-up routine.  I could clearly feel a breeze coming from the dead end, but it was from above.

“Shine the light toward the ceiling,” I told Nick.

Nick hesitated for a few seconds,
then aimed the beam upward.  There, about eight feet above us was a dark hole that appeared to be a continuation of the cave. 

“Anyone claustrophobic?” Nick’s question was more of a rhetorical comment as he surveyed the possible path up the wall.

“We’re not going to go up there, are we?” Angie asked.

“If we go back, we run the risk of bumping into the Veracruz guys,” he told her.  “And I think I’ve seen enough of them for one day.  How about you?”

“I’ll go first,” Jenny volunteered.

I looked at her with surprise…and respect.  She had just discovered a pile of skeletons, and who knew what she would find in that tunnel.  And yet, she was brave enough to keep going.

“Why don’t you let me?”  I looked around.  Had I said that out loud?  Not only did I hate small spaces, but I wasn’t too excited about crawling into a dark space that could hold God knows what kind of creature.  I also wasn’t the bravest dude in the world, but I figured it was time I manned up.  “Hold the light so I can see the wall,” I told her, then found handholds as high as I could reach.  This couldn’t be any more difficult
than the rock wall in my gym, I kept telling myself…except, of course, there were no rattlesnakes or men with guns waiting for me at the top.

My boots kept sliding off the
walls, but I finally found enough rocks that didn’t break under pressure until I hoisted myself up on the small ledge.  I leaned down and Orlando lifted Jenny up until I could reach the flashlight and take it from her.