Texas Hold 'Em (15 page)

He turned serious. “You don’t look okay.”

“I’ll be fine. I just need a hot bath and something to eat, then I’m going to crash.”

She opened the truck’s door, climbed out, and patted the fender as she went by. As King’s taillights rounded the corner, she walked toward her porch, every step an effort. She wasn’t sure which was worse—her state of mind or her physical exhaustion.

Her throat began to sting, and she cursed the chaos that had entered her life. Santos’s kisses had brought back all the good memories, and in spite of her very best intentions, they’d made torturous new one as well. In the days to come, she’d have to deal with that.

In the years to come, she’d have to deal with that.

The charges Santos would level against her mother would be stiff ones. Accessory to murder was bad enough, but she was a convicted felon, so if she was found guilty, her sentence would be even worse. Her status as his C.I. would help, of course, but not enough. Rose told herself that with a good attorney, maybe things wouldn’t end up as they had the last time Gloria had protected her. Maybe it’d be different this time.

The phone was ringing as she entered her front door. When she picked it up and heard the voice of her mother’s doctor, her heart skipped a beat. Her mother had seemed fine when Rose left her bedside. Had she taken a turn for the worse? “Is everything okay, Dr. Donaldson?”

“You tell me,” he said. “Your mother has left the hospital. One of our nurses saw her in the parking lot, and she didn’t check out. Do you know anything about this?”

Panic washed over her. “Was she alone? Was there anyone with her?”

“If you’re asking me whether or not someone took her by force, the answer is no. She was moving carefully, but other than that, she was quite all right, considering she’s been shot. I was told she was walking away as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Actually I think the nurse’s exact words were, ‘She looked as happy as someone who just escaped prison.’”

Oh, God
. Rose exhaled, her initial fear replaced with the realization that, in all likelihood, that was exactly what her mother had just done.

“But there was a guard posted in her room,” she said. “Where was she?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did you check the cafeteria? Or maybe the lounge?”

His voice turned weary. He obviously had enough on his plate without tracking down runaway patients. “Yes, Sheriff. We checked the entire facility before phoning you. This is only a courtesy call. People are allowed to leave hospitals without a doctor’s permission. There may be consequences for them down the road, but we can’t control that. I just wanted to let you know.”

Rose hung up the phone and wondered what to do about this new development, her speculation growing. Obviously her mother had been telling the truth when she’d told Rose she was fine. And clearly she hadn’t been forced to leave.

She knew she should phone someone, put out an APB, call in the cavalry, but she was so exhausted, so thrown by her realization, that she couldn’t think straight. And thinking straight was what she needed right now. She decided to clean up, and then get something to eat. She’d know how to best proceed after that.

She took a quick shower and changed into a worn pair of jeans and a sweater, her wet hair hanging around her face as she made her way to the kitchen. Scrounging up a salad, she sank down onto the couch and began to eat mechanically.

The next thing she knew, she was waking up, the television blaring. The hands on the clock on the wall above the flat screen pointed to two. Was it a.m. or p.m.? She drew a complete blank until she pushed away her sleepiness and turned toward the window. A ribbon of black parted the drapes, and she had her answer. Two a.m.

She stumbled to her bedroom in a panic, intending to change into her uniform and deal with her mother’s disappearance. Then the phone rang again.

“This is Jake McBolton with the crime lab in Austin,” a deep voice said to her tentative hello. “Is this Sheriff Renwick?”

“Yes, it is.” She’d expected her mother to be at the other end of the line. Again with the confusion versus relief. Would she feel this way forever if Gloria wasn’t found? “What can I help you with, Officer?”

“I hope I’m going to help you,” he said. “We have a report ready on something that was submitted by Agent Timothy Santos. I was told if his name was attached to any request that came to the lab, I was supposed to get it done yesterday, so as soon as I received the…um…specimen by courier, I went to work. He put your name on the form and said to get hold of you if I couldn’t get through to him, which I can’t. I know it’s late. Or maybe I should say early, but—”

“What’s the problem?” she asked impatiently. “Spit it out.”

She heard the rustle of papers. “Could you please tell Agent Santos I don’t know whose body parts he sent up here, but I do know for sure they don’t belong to anyone named Juan Enrique—”

McBolton’s words entered her brain at the exact moment she heard the sound of breaking glass. Exhausted and fuzzy, she still had the phone in her hand when two masked men ran into her bedroom, their guns thrust before them.

Dropping the phone, she screamed and launched herself for the nightstand and the pistol lying on top of it. One of the men tackled her just as her fingers brushed over the metal grip, and they went down in a heap, the table crashing into the wall, the lamp falling over and hitting the man with a glancing blow that did nothing except shatter the lamp and send a shard of glass slicing across her forehead. In the second it took for her to blink away the blood, he grabbed her, pinning her arms behind her. She moved to break his hold, but he anticipated the maneuver and blocked it. He did the same with her second attempt, wrestling her to the floor and holding her down with his hips.

“I’m the sheriff,” she cried. “Let me go, dammit.” She bucked him off and got one arm free, but he grabbed it again and wrenched it up behind her back. Pain exploded down her shoulder as he used the leverage to jerk her to her feet. “Turn me loose,” she screamed. You’re assaulting a law enforcement officer—”

The second man leapt over the bed to slap a rag around her face. She coughed, then gagged. Her last thought was of Santos before everything went dark and silent.

Chapter Sixteen

The Ice House was quieter than normal, Santos realized as he walked inside. Behind the bar, Keeper mimicked the standard pose of every bartender in every movie he had ever watched—polishing a glass and looking out over the customers. Last call had come an hour ago, and his expression made it clear he was anxious for the bikers who remained to leave. His gaze flicked to Santos’s face before it bounced away, and he found himself wondering if the bartender knew what had gone down in Mexico. News traveled fast in this part of the country, especially when it was associated with the cartel. People wanted to know what was happening, and they wanted to know sooner rather than later. They might need to get out of the way.

Santos took one of the barstools and lifted two fingers. Keeper hesitated, weighing his liquor license against Santos’s unhappiness if he didn’t get his drink. Deciding he’d rather risk his business than a black eye, he brought over a shot glass and a beer, then retreated to his spot midpoint down the bar.

Santos made short work of his drinks and nodded in Keeper’s direction. The bartender sighed and repeated his actions, Santos’s voice stopping him in mid-flight. “Where is everybody?” Usually the party was still going strong this late, at least in the parking lot, if not inside.

Keeper pursed his lips as if considering how not to answer the question. Giving up after some consideration, he said, “Making runs, I guess. Or sleeping off last night. We had a bikini contest. It got a little wild.”

He could only imagine what Keeper would think of as “a little wild,” then he decided the bartender’s explanation was probably a lie. He’d definitely heard the news about the raid on Ortega’s villa. Like roaches when the lights come on, everyone had scurried back to wherever they hid when things got uncomfortable.

He downed the second shot, and then sipped his beer and assessed his thoughts. Gloria had been his last, best hope at finding Ortega, and he had failed. He’d failed both her and Rose. If the state of Texas found him as lacking as he found himself, he might be searching for a job pretty soon. Maybe he should just become the biker he pretended to be. Or maybe he could buy The Ice House. Being the owner of a run-down bar made as much sense as anything else.

A distant roar rumbled through the open-air bar. He swiveled toward the sound and watched the ACES team pull into the parking lot, along with a dozen other riders. He recognized their patches. They were Dos Y Tres men. Trying to ward them off, Keeper flapped his arms uselessly as the riders came inside laughing and slapping each other on the back like old friends.

Austin caught Santos’s eye, then claimed the table nearest to the bar. The rest of the team joined him, Keeper reluctantly heading their direction. The ACES members were as angry as he that Ortega had escaped, but they hid it better, saying they’d find him eventually. Santos stayed where he was. He didn’t feel like trying to match their optimism. Jessie broke off from the men and came to his side.

“It’s not your fault.” Reading his expression, Jessie turned around and leaned against the bar facing out, her elbows propped up on either side of the scuffed wood at her back. “If Ortega had still been there, you would have gotten him.”

“Probably so, but he wasn’t, and I didn’t.” He drained his beer and set the bottle on the bar with an angry thud.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I happen to be fresh out of ideas on how to proceed.”

“So you’re just going to sit there, feel sorry for yourself, and get pissed?”

He threw her a cold look. “You’re pushing it, Jessie. Back off. I’m still your boss.”

She gave him a stare that told him exactly what she thought of his warning. “What about Gl—”

“Don’t go there, Jessie. Not now.”

She lifted her hands and held them up, returning to the table where the others sat, brushing off their questions with a shake of her head.

He turned back to glare at the margarita machine whirling away behind the bar. He hated it when he let his anger get the best of him. Especially when it was only masking frustration. He looked down into his empty beer glass, thought about Rose, and everything else he had done, then slid off the stool to walk toward his team. He’d taken two steps when his cell phone rang. The caller ID gave him a 512 area code. That covered central Texas, including the capital, Austin.

“Is this Timothy Santos?” a stranger said.

“Who’s asking?”

“This is Jake McBolton. Thank God I’ve finally found you. I’m with the—”

“I know who you are,” he broke in. “What do you want?”

The man began to stutter, and his nervousness finally registered with him. He sounded as if he were about to hyperventilate. Santos went on full alert. “What’s wrong?”

“I just called Sheriff Renwick to give her a report I did for you, and something happened while we were talking.”

“What do you mean ‘something happened’?”

Santos had reached the picnic table, and everyone looked up as he spoke, the tension in his voice alerting them.

“I…I think someone grabbed her. We were talking, and I was telling her about this report, you know, the one about Juan Enrique you wanted? The tests were negative. That wasn’t his body you sent me.”

Santos gripped the cell phone, his knuckles going white. “Tell me exactly what happened while you were speaking to her.”

“We were talking, and then she cried out and dropped the phone. I heard her tell someone she was the sheriff and he should turn her loose. I heard something—maybe a table or chair—turn over and hit the wall. I might have heard someone mutter something in Spanish, but it was hard to tell. I tried to call back but the line was busy.”

“When did this happen?”

“Ten—fifteen minutes ago. I called you earlier, but you didn’t answer. Then I called the locals. I got some kind of dispatch service. They said they’d try to track you down.”

He’d been out of range, Santos realized. Somewhere between the hospital and the bar. “Did you phone her at home or on her cell?”

“At home. I called the Rio County station immediately, but all I could do was leave a message with an answering service, so I thought I’d try you again. I hope I did the right thing. I’m not a field agent, but I thought you should know.”

Santos pressed the end button on the phone. He had to get to Rose!

…

The dirty bag over her head smelled of musk and marijuana, and Rose struggled not to gag as the vehicle she was in bounced over the rough terrain. With every bump they hit, a miniature shower of dust drifted out of the hood to settle on her face and in her hair. Her skin was sticky with sweat. She strained to see past the wrinkled black fabric but failed. She had no idea where she was or who had her. She hadn’t even regained total consciousness until they’d turned off the highway. A jumble of Spanish and English had drifted her way as she’d come to the realization she was moving. Probably in an SUV, she’d decided—carpet instead of upholstery rough beneath her fingers, her legs pressed against what felt like the sides of a cargo hold. The vehicle dipped into a deep rut just as she rolled over to her back, her tied hands jabbing painfully into her spine. She lifted her feet to try and stabilize herself. Her tennis shoes hit the roof, then she was slammed down again.

The men had come into her home fast and without any warning. Believing Ortega had gone underground, and thinking Juan Enrique was dead, she had stupidly let down her guard.

Where had her head been?

As she asked herself the question, the SUV slipped into another rut. This one sent her pitching to one side and then the other. The jarring motion cleared out the final bit of her drug-induced bewilderment, and she suddenly recalled the phone conversation she’d had right before they snatched her.

Ortega probably was gone, but Juan Enrique was definitely not dead. The headless body they’d found in his home had belonged to someone else.

The pieces slowly fell into place. Ortega’s men had been telling the truth when they’d denied sending the boy that night with the knife and leaving the candle in her bedroom. The cartel members had been behind the attack at the Stanleys’ house, but they’d claimed no responsibility for anything else, including the horrendous death of the woman in Mexico. Clearly someone else was involved in this situation.

The SUV bumped over what felt like a cattle guard, gravel pinging under the fenders. Five minutes, later they pulled to a stop. Her body, especially her head, felt as if she was still moving when the cargo door was flung open and she was jerked out of the SUV by a pair of rough hands. She fell to the ground as footsteps crunched her way, and she curled instinctively into a protective ball. From beneath the sack, she caught a glimpse of two pointed cowboy boots with wicked-looking silver tips. The man wearing them shuffled to a stop beside her, deliberately raising a cloud of dust that invaded the bag and settled over her face. She coughed and spit, and her captors laughed.

It went downhill from there.

…

Santos was worried but in control—until he saw the blood in Rose’s bedroom. There wasn’t a lot of it, he told himself, not enough to be fatal by any means. Fear, like icy water, rippled down his back, regardless.

King was right beside him. “Steady there,
amigo
,” he said so softly no one else could hear. “She’s a professional. She knows how to take care of herself. We’ll find her.”

The deputy’s unexpected words of encouragement should have helped him. Instead they elicited the same kind of apprehension, anxiety, and downright terror he’d experienced for months over Gloria’s situation, only multiplied by a hundred. He felt sick hearing them applied to Rose. If he had as much success finding her as he’d had so far finding Ortega, he would lose his mind.

Silas stood beside them, Dan Strickland nearby. Despite the broken window in the kitchen, Santos had called Rose’s grandfather, hoping against hope a mistake had been made and she was somehow with him. Dan had been visiting with him, and they’d both rushed over. Silas’s face paled at the sight of the blood, his weathered features crumbling. Dan took his elbow with obvious concern, but the old man pulled away and immediately cleared his expression, replacing it with his ex-sheriff’s hard glare.

“Don’t just stand there, dammit,” he told Santos. “Get yourself in gear and start working this scene.”

His gruff words broke Santos’s thoughts. He turned to the team surrounding him. “Jessie, check around and see if you can find her cell phone or her purse, then call highway patrol and tell them to get some men down here.”

The Department of Public Safety troopers were as tough as they came. Everyone in Texas was familiar with the black and white cars and the hard-faced officers. They ruled the state, and took care of everything from terrorism to speeding. If he needed help, Santos could depend on them.

“Austin, you go look outside around the house, there might be something near the broken window. And make sure her car’s still in the garage. Joaquim, you and Bentley start searching the house. They came in here and got her. Hopefully they left prints, at the very least.”

The ACES spread out, and he and King knelt beside the bloody smears painted across the bedroom wall. In the struggle, the bedspread had been pulled halfway off the bed, and the nightstand had been tipped over on top of it. The broken lamp was off to one side. King reached over and lifted up the quilted cover using a pen he pulled from his pocket. That’s when they saw Rose’s service revolver. It’d been kicked under the bed, just out of reach.

“Damn.” Santos pointed toward the weapon, and King nodded with a grim expression. “She’d never leave that behind if she could help it,” Santos said.

“She’s got a .45 in the kitchen,” Silas said. “I’ll check and see if it’s there.”

He hurried out of the room and down the hall as Santos picked up the pillow that had fallen to the floor along with the spread. He tossed it to the bed, and the sweet scent of Rose’s soap drifted up. He held back a worried groan as Silas hurried back into the room.

“The .45’s still there,” he said.

Just then, heavy footsteps pounded down the corridor toward the bedroom. Austin stuck his head around the doorframe. “A neighbor came over while I was checking the perimeter,” he said breathlessly. “His wife heard glass shatter. He said there’d been some break-ins lately, so she kept pestering him, and he finally got up to see what was going on. He spotted a black Escalade leaving, heading north up the side street. He got a partial on the plate.”

“Run it,” Santos ordered.

“I’ve already got the state guys looking, said they’ll call back ASAP.”

Austin’s phone rang ten minutes later. He listened, ended the call, and looked up. “The plates belong to a guy named Marcos Enrique. He’s Juan Enrique’s—”

“—brother,” Santos supplied with a curse. “Is there an address with the info?”

“No.” Austin shook his head. “But someone checked the tax records. They found a ranch off Highway 76 they think might be his. It’s called Las Lomas.”

“I know exactly where that is,” Dan said with sudden excitement. “It borders a place I’ve got leased for the season.”

“Lead the way,” Santos ordered. “We’re right behind you.”

…

The cloth hood was ripped from Rose’s head, and she blinked, looking blindly into a circle of light. She was lying down in the dirt, and someone was shining a flashlight directly into her eyes. She couldn’t see past it. Turning her head to the side, she tried to avoid the beam. Three sets of boots surrounded her. The two men who’d grabbed her, she guessed, and one other. She might have had half a chance getting away from two guys but not three. Closing her eyes, she sent a mental SOS. She and Santos had never had that kind of connection, but it didn’t hurt to try.

“Sheriff Renwick… Welcome to my home. I’m so happy that you dropped in.” The speaker’s deep voice was polite, soft even. And somehow vaguely familiar.

Caught in the blinding light, she tried to wring out every detail she could. Whoever he was, he had the barest hint of a Spanish accent. From the size of his boot, she guessed he was not a small man. The leather was hand-tooled, and the silver tips couldn’t have been cheap. Was it Ortega? Or some stranger she’d never even seen? Her mouth felt as if she’d suddenly stuffed it with cotton balls.