Most Eligible Spy (16 page)

But as soon as he hung up with Ryder, he dialed Molly. He should have called her sooner, but didn’t want to crowed her if she needed a little time to process what had happened between them last night. He didn’t want her to think he was pushing her into anything.

The call rang out, but she didn’t pick up. Which didn’t necessarily mean trouble. Could be she was just ignoring him. He was almost hoping that was the case.

He sure didn’t like the alternative.

* * *

S
HE
DIDN
’
T
TAKE
Mo’s call. She didn’t want to lie to him again. It was almost over.

She kept her eyes on the approaching black van in the distance and the dust cloud that followed it. She slid off the rock she used to sit on as a kid and left the shade of the mesquite grove, hurried over to the pickup, reached in through the open window and beeped her horn to guide Kenny in the right direction.

Endless, agonizing seconds passed before he reached close enough so she could see Logan in the passenger seat. Then she could fully fill her lungs for the first time since he hadn’t stepped off the school bus yesterday.

Logan was here. He looked okay. Everything would be fine now.

She ran to the van as soon as Kenny stopped, got her son out and grabbed him up into her arms, kissing him silly. “Are you okay?”

He held on to her neck for all he was worth, didn’t protest about being a big boy or any of that.

She never wanted to let him out of her arms again. “Did anyone hurt you?”

He shook his head, keeping a brave face, but there were smudged tear tracks on his little cheeks. “Can we go home, Mom?”

“Yes, we can.” She set him down, took his hand and walked toward her pickup with him when Kenny said, “I’d like to see what you have here first.”

“It’s down there.” She pointed at the open metal doors.

“I’d rather that you came with me.” Then he added, “The kid, too.”

He might not have brought his police cruiser, but he did bring his service revolver. He glanced at the gun in the holster at his side, then at her, without saying anything.

Her pickup waited a few steps away. If they ran... But they’d be sitting ducks while they got in and she started the engine. She didn’t want to give Kenny a reason to do something stupid. She would do whatever it took to stop the situation from escalating into violence.

So she held her son’s hand and walked to the dark hole. “It’s fine. Almost done.” She did her best to reassure him, holding on to him as they went down together.

Kenny followed right behind them, picking up the extra flashlight.

She skirted around the snake, keeping herself between it and Logan, trying not to make a big deal of the move, hoping Kenny would step right on the rattler. But he was paying attention, pulled his gun and blew the snake’s head clear off.

The sound was deafening in the tunnel. Logan held on to her tightly. “Mom?”

“It’s okay. Just a snake, honey.” She led Kenny to the two crates, panned them with the flashlight, ready to turn and leave.

But Kenny said, “Where is the rest?”

Her stomach sank. This couldn’t be happening. “What rest?”

“I’m looking for a lot more than this. I need the full shipment.”

The shaft stretched in front of them, breaking off into several corridors up ahead. Would Dylan leave these two crates here as a decoy? Maybe for the authorities, in case they found his hiding place? Then he would hide the bulk of his hoard in a place more difficult to reach. Possibly.

“Maybe the rest are farther in,” she suggested, just as Kenny’s light went out.

He banged it against the heel of his hand, but nothing happened. He tossed it aside and grabbed hers then strode forward. “Let’s find the damned things.”

“You don’t need us for this. Please let us go. It’s all yours now, Kenny.”

But he gestured for her to walk ahead of him. “Just to make sure you delivered what you promised.”

For a second the beam of the flashlight hit his face and she saw his expression, regret mixed with determination.

“Go ahead. And make sure the kid sticks close to you.”

The kid.
He hadn’t called Logan by name once. He hadn’t called her by name, either, not on the phone, not since he’d gotten here.

Because he is distancing himself.
A chill ran down her spine.

“Just let us go. All I want is Logan. I won’t ever say a word about this to anyone. I swear.”

His gaze fell on her son. “We’ll find the crates together.”

Fear sliced through her when she understood at last. Kenny didn’t plan on letting Logan and her leave.

“Go,” he snapped, getting impatient.

Panic filled her as she stumbled forward, her fingertips going numb. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Of course he wouldn’t let them go. She was a witness. She knew that the Pebble Creek sheriff was involved in smuggling. He couldn’t risk that she would tell someone about it. And even if he thought she could keep her mouth shut, there was Logan. He wouldn’t trust a kid to keep his secret.

God, she’d been an idiot.

She’d been so focused on getting Logan back. And Kenny had been her brother’s friend. She’d known the man all her life. She simply hadn’t thought he would cross that line. Harming anyone, let alone a kid, was so unimaginable to her, she had trouble believing someone she knew would do something like that.

A naive and dangerous way to be.

Dylan had been ready to shoot Grace. She no longer doubted that Grace was telling the truth about that. Bitterness rose in her throat. This was what money and greed did to people—turned them into something you no longer recognized.

“Kenny, you can’t—”

“Keep going.”

She should have trusted Mo. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. She should have told him what was going on. Mo would have helped her.

She shoved her free hand into her pocket. If she could get off a text message to Mo without Kenny noticing... She glanced at the display. She had zero reception down here.

No calls going out, no calls coming in.

It was too late.

* * *

M
O
LOOKED
AT
the finger-challenged gangbanger in the interrogation room then shoved the table aside. The man had been questioned by both Shep and CBP but had refused to talk. Gang code or whatever.

Jose Caballo. He was the one who’d stabbed Garcia Cruz to death, as it turned out. He’d been using his victim’s ID as a joke.

“I’m only going to ask one more time. Why did you slash Molly Rogers’s tires? What were you doing there?”

The man flashed him a dispassionate look.

Mo slammed the bastard against the wall, shoving his thumb into just the right spot between the man’s vertebrae.

Jose gave a shout of pain.

“How is the bottom half of your body feeling?” Mo whispered into the man’s ear. “Feel anything?” He waited as the man moaned. “I didn’t think so.” He pushed harder. “I can make it so you’ll never have feeling down there again.”

Sweat rolled down the man’s face.

“Kiss the chicas goodbye, amigo,” Mo went on. “Then again, women aren’t going to be a big problem for you anyway, not when you’re going to federal prison for murder. Plenty of gangs there. And you in a wheelchair. Hell, I sure wouldn’t want to be defenseless like that.”

Jose’s lips were turning white.

“What were you looking for at the Rogers ranch?” Mo asked.

And for the first time, the man spoke. “Drugs.”

“Who sent you? Who told you to scare her?”

“Nobody. I got my fingers chopped for that. I was just supposed to find the drugs. She wasn’t supposed to know. I got angry when I didn’t find anything.”

She wasn’t supposed to know.
Just like the other men in the barn, using a Taser instead of a gun. As if whoever sent them made sure to tell them Molly shouldn’t get hurt.

In the back of his mind, puzzle pieces shuffled and revealed a picture he didn’t like. He needed to know for sure if he was right. “Who do you work for? Is it Sheriff Davis?”

The man squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips together. The pain had to be close to unbearable.

Molly was missing.

Mo pushed harder.

“Yes.” The man bit out the words then dropped at Mo’s feet.

He left him, strode past a couple of cops in the hallway. “He passed out. Probably low blood pressure. Might want to give him a cup of water.”

Then he drove to the office for extra guns and ammo and a quick powwow with his team.

“Something kept pricking my instincts about him, but I thought it was just because the man was putting moves on Molly.” He’d called already, but Kenny was off duty and couldn’t be reached. Same as Molly. He swore, frustration and worry filling him.

“She could be at the hairdresser or whatever, with her phone turned off,” Jamie suggested.

Mo shook his head. Molly was in trouble. He could feel it in his bones, and it drove him crazy.

Ryder’s face darkened. “Hey, we’ve all been working in this field long enough to respect instinct. If you say something’s wrong, something’s wrong. What do you want to do?”

“Track her cell phone.” It was the best idea he could come up with during the ride back from Hullett. “I’d like to know where she is. If her car is parked in front of some hair salon...” But he knew it wouldn’t be.

“What’s her number?” Shep asked, bringing up the satellite log-in.

Mo rattled it off.

Shep entered it. “It’s going to take a couple of minutes.”

“We can track Kenny Davis’s car, too. All the police cruisers have trackers,” Jamie said. “That might go faster.”

Shep worked his keyboard for a few interminably long minutes. “Okay, got the tracking code for the car.” He typed something into the keyboard. Waited, then looked up, his face grim. “The sheriff’s cruiser is parked in front of the police station. He’s using another vehicle.”

“Want me to call in Keith and Ray?” Ryder offered.

Mo shook his head. “Let’s see first if we have anything.” But he knew they did. He checked the pistol he normally carried, then grabbed his two backup weapons from his desk drawer and holstered up.

“Last known location is her ranch, right?” Jamie asked. “Any sign of struggle there?”

“No.”

“All right. Satellite response. Here’s Molly.” Shep turned his screen around, and Mo leaned closer. The image showed the borderlands with a red dot in the middle of nowhere.

“That’s on the Rogers ranch.” Mo recognized the section of the map immediately. He’d studied it enough in the past few weeks. “Can you tell how long she’s been there?”

“Actually, that’s not a current reading. It’s from about an hour ago.”

“What about now?”

“Nothing. The signal disappeared.”

“Pretty close to the border,” Shep observed. “If she is involved in something...”

The Rio Grande, a dark line snaking through the landscape, rolled just a little to the south.

“No.” Mo entered the coordinates into his phone’s GPS then strode for the door. “She’s in trouble. I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s something wrong about this.”

Ryder kicked his chair back, reaching for his weapon on his desk. “Don’t think you’re going to have all the fun.”

They all followed after him, each going to his own SUV. His team, Mo thought. It was the darndest thing. They’d only been a team for a few months. He barely knew them. Other than a security detail once or twice here in the U.S. under special circumstances, he’d done lone-wolf operations, mostly overseas, for most of his career.

He didn’t figure himself for a team guy. He’d never even played team sports. In high school, he’d done weight lifting. The funny feeling that caught him now, as the others all lined up to follow him on a hunch, caught him unexpectedly.

“I appreciate this,” he called out as they all jumped into their SUVs.

They didn’t dillydally on the road, either. They were on the Rogers ranch in record time, then off-roading it to the GPS coordinates. A storm gathered, dark clouds rolling across the sky.

Dammit, Molly.
He’d sensed that something wasn’t quite right last night, but had let lust carry him away instead of pushing her for answers. And that note this morning... He should have called her sooner. He wished she could have trusted him enough to ask for his help.

He’d thought they were closer.

But obviously she didn’t share the feeling. Which bothered him for a number of reasons.

He spotted her pickup and headed straight for it, worried about the van parked just a few feet away. No windows in the back, license plate smeared with dirt, nondescript dark color. The type of car used by people who didn’t want to be noticed. Because they were up to no good.
Hell.

He pulled up hard, jumped out, then the others were there, too, half a minute later. That he didn’t know what was going on just about killed him.

“What’s this?” Jamie hurried forward, toward the hole in the ground, catching up with Mo.

Mo’s muscles tightened. “Old mine shaft.” The county was riddled with them. Most of them were completely unsafe, nothing but death traps. Which was why they were kept blocked off, usually.

“You knew about this?” Ryder wanted to know.

He shook his head. “Whatever is going on here, Molly is not a willing participant.”

Jamie looked at the sky. “It’s going to rain soon,” he observed casually. “Getting trapped underground in torrential rains wouldn’t be the smartest thing.”

Ryder called in Keith and Ray for backup, but nobody was about to wait for them.

“Better get her up and out of here fast.” Mo drew his gun and went down the ramp first, pulled the standard military-issue flashlight off his belt. He saw a dead snake that had recently met with a bullet. He kicked it aside. A little farther in, two wooden crates stood in the middle of the path. Beyond that, the shaft went on for a few hundred feet before branching off in several directions.

“Looks like we found our drugs,” Ryder said.

Mo passed by the crates without looking at them twice. “Now let’s find Molly. And keep an eye out for her son, too,” he added on instinct. He could only think of one reason why Molly would be down here, with crates of drugs.