Under the Wire (11 page)

He'd left everything because of her betrayal. Left his family. Left a fight he believed in with the promise that he could return and make a difference. Only he never had.

He'd left to become a soldier as Cougar had suggested, had advanced quickly to the Rangers and then on to Special Forces, where he'd worn the Green Beret.

A year came and went. It was finally time for him to return home. And then the unthinkable happened. Congress pulled the funds on Reagan's Contra effort. And just like that, the war was over. The Sandinistas ruled.

Manny's fight was lost. So was his country.

It was ten years before he'd dare sneak back again. To a father who was broken financially and emotionally. A mother who struggled to hold things together. A sister who had been raped by Poveda's men in retaliation for Manny's allegiance to the freedom fighters. She, too, was broken. No longer knew how to trust or smile.

Just as he no longer trusted. Not in women. Not in an emotion he'd fallen prey to because of one woman.

He tipped up the Corona again just as someone knocked on his door and shattered the silence that roared with memories and truths that haunted him every day of his life.

Mrs. Feinstein,
he thought with a weary sigh. The old woman had a sixth sense when it came to knowing when he was home.
Or high-powered binoculars,
he thought grimly.

He put up with her daily neighborhood reports because he understood that she was lonely. And because she was a crazy, sweet old bird who sometimes brought him rock-hard cookies that he thanked her for graciously, then promptly tossed in the trash. The woman could not cook.

He wasn't in a mood, however, to deal with her today. Didn't think he could take a twenty-minute dissertation on every squealing tire, every suspicious-looking "thug," and the ever popular state of her bursitis.

He took another pull. Ignored the knock. And felt his heart rate rev and his blood run hot as his thoughts strayed back to Lily.

Not a day went by—
not one day in seventeen years
— that he hadn't thought of her.

And he didn't know who he hated more for that weakness. Himself for giving in to it or her for what she'd done to him and ultimately to his family.

When the pounding finally stopped, he heaved a breath of relief.

Then his cell phone rang.

Annoyed, he slipped it off his belt and checked the incoming number. He'd been prepared to ignore it, too, until he recognized his precinct prefix.

Frowning, he flipped open the phone. "Ortega."

"It's Mullnix. Answer your damn door; I know you're in there."

The line went dead. Manny flipped his phone closed and set it on the counter. Then he stared at the door. Next to Mrs. Feinstein, Mullnix was about the last person he wanted to deal with right now.

He couldn't hit Mrs. Feinstein. He couldn't hit Mullnix, either, but thinking about it gave him a helluva lot of pleasure. The rookie had pissed him off at the hospital with Juan Diego today.

On a resigned breath, Manny walked to the door, wishing he could shake the image of Lily and how she'd looked. As beautiful as he remembered. More so. The years had been good to her. She'd matured with elegance. With incredible beauty.

And she betrayed you,
he reminded himself as he felt a slow slide toward sentiment.

He checked the peephole, saw Mullnix's ugly mug on the other side, and swung open the door. "Can't this wait until tomorrow?"

He'd barely gotten the words out when he realized the young officer wasn't alone.

Lily Campora stood beside him. Her eyes were swollen and red, as if she'd been crying; her expression was grief stricken and shocky.

Like the very first time Manny had seen her.

He'd been a fool then. He was no man's or woman's fool now.

Manny shifted his gaze to Mullnix. Glared. "Why the fuck did you bring her here?" Manny snapped, telling himself he wasn't moved by Lily's tears. He'd fallen into that trap once before.

"Don't be angry with him. I made him bring me." Lily shouldered past Mullnix and into Manny's townhouse.

Manny watched her walk inside, then directed a glare at Mullnix. "What? Her gun was bigger than yours?"

The rookie held up his hands. "Always was a sucker for a woman's tears." He gave Manny a mock salute and walked away.

Manny stood at the open door for a long moment. Considered walking the same way Mullnix had and leaving her there. Not coming back until he was certain she was gone.

But she'd just come back. And he would have solved exactly nothing.

He shut the door, drew a bracing breath, and turned to her.

"I... I'm sorry to ... intrude. But I don't... I don't have a choice. And I don't have time to do anything but just spit it out. Manny ... I need your help."

Of all the things he'd expected her to say, that wasn't one of them.

I'm sorry, Manny. Forgive me, Manny. Why are you alive, Manny?

Instead, it's
I
need your help?

But then, she'd used him before. Why not expect that she'd want to use him again?

"And you used to be so subtle," he said, refusing to be swayed by the misery on her face. "If I recall, it's more your style to play things out until I ask if
I
can help you."

Confusion played across her beautiful face. "What are you talk—"

He held up a hand, cutting her off, wise enough now not to let her emotional plea get to him. "Save it. I'm not the baby-faced boy you used in Managua. And I'm not as easily fooled. Whatever it is you think you want from me, I don't have it to give."

"My son is missing." Tears spilled down her cheeks as she blurted out the words. Agony wrestled with the desperation in her eyes. "Please. Manny. Please. I don't know who else to turn to. I don't know what to do."

Lily had a son. Why that cut, why that surprised, he didn't know. Just like he didn't know why he had to brace himself against a renegade urge to wrap her in his arms when a sob wrenched her slight body.

Hate her or not, a child was in trouble. The cop in him took over. Stone cold. Concerned with just the facts. Sworn to do his duty.

"Where and when was he last seen? I'll notify the precinct."

She shook her head, pulled herself together. "No. No, he's not in the States. Three weeks ago he... he left with a student exchange program to go to Sri Lanka. But today ... I got a call today .. . right after . . . well, right after I saw you. He and his host family ... Oh God, Manny ... it looks like they might have been abducted."

Because it looked like she might collapse right there, he took her arm, steered her toward a chair. "Sit."

She wrenched her arm away. "I can't sit. I have to do something!" Fire as bright as her tears spilled from those amazing eyes. "I have to find him ... but I don't know how."

"Have you called the State Department?"

"And the Sri Lanka prime minister's office. Their local police. Everyone I could think of. For all the good any of it did. They'll look into it." She lifted a hand in frustration. "You know as well as I do what that means. Days ... weeks ... maybe months of diplomatic red tape and tap dancing. He doesn't have months. He ... he may not even have days."

Okay, Manny thought. So he wasn't completely immune. He wasn't as dead inside as he wanted to be, because her misery was getting to him. And the fact that he let it pissed him off.

"Look. I'm sorry about this. But why me? Why the
hell
did you come to me? For Christ's sake, why isn't his father looking for him?"

She closed her eyes. Swallowed. When she met his gaze again, it was with a tortured, searching look. "I'm hoping that his father will."

Silence rolled into the room like a live grenade, hushed and deadly, before the meaning of her words detonated with the force of a bomb.

Manny stared at her tearstained face, refusing to believe what he thought she had just told him.
I'm hoping that his father will.
Jesus. Sweet Jesus Christ.

Lily watched a range of emotions play across Manny's face. He didn't want to believe her. And yet she could see the struggle in his eyes.

"Are you telling me the child that's missing is mine?"

Tears stung again. "He's amazing, Manny," she said, then gasped when he gripped her upper arms and jerked her up against him.

"Why are you doing this? Why do you lie?"

Seventeen years of feelings and fears and regret spilled out like floodwater. "I'm not lying! We have a son! A beautiful, intelligent, caring young man who doesn't have time for me to convince you that I'm telling the truth."

"The truth? Why should I believe you know the truth? Everything you ever told me was a lie." The conviction in his tone was bitter and unyielding.

"What... what are you talking about? I never lied to you."

He made a sound of disgust, then, as if just now realizing he was touching her and finding it repugnant, pushed her away. She staggered, then righted herself as he sank down on the arm of an overstuffed sofa, glaring at her as if she'd just told him the sky was falling.

"Manny ... whatever happened ... whatever you think I've done ..."

She stopped when he jerked his gaze away from hers, but she wasn't about to give up. Not now. Not after she'd spent the last two hours since she'd received the call from Adam's sponsor finding Mullnix and convincing him to bring her here.

"Manny ..." Desperate now, she groped for anything that made sense. "You disappeared. I... couldn't find you."