afternoon, after a change in carriers to Mexicana Airlines, she’d be in Guadalajara after layovers in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Mexico City.
Seeing herself in the reflection of the small window over the wing, she hardly recognized her face. She’d changed her hair color and used contact lenses to alter her distinctive blue eyes to hazel.
She had used fake ID to get past TSA security. And if someone came looking for her image on security cameras, she’d be impossible to recognize. On her neck and arms, she had fake tattoos applied with ballpoint pen, and she walked with a pronounced limp. And her secondhand clothes made her look like a homeless bag lady. Alexa had picked a disguise with layers of clothes in case she had to change on the run, literally.
In her line of work, being a chameleon came with the territory. And it was a skill that would come in handy where she was going. After a fitful sleep last night, she’d had plenty of time to think about her encounter with the two men on the streets of Manhattan. She knew they’d been sent to track her. And she also knew exactly who had sent them.
Donovan Cross.
She didn’t have to know the man, only the type. He had pretended to be sincere when he’d told her how Garrett had died. That had been the mark of a real player with a streak of mean. She’d seen the act before. Hell, she’d played the part herself a time or three.
All she had to do was stay one step ahead of that bastard. And with the coordinates and location in Mexico that Tanya had given her, maybe she’d have an edge before Cross knew she was out of the country.
But one other thing was perfectly clear, and it was strangely comforting. If Garrett were dead, Cross wouldn’t have sent a team to track her. More than ever, she felt certain her instincts were dead-on.
Garrett was in trouble. And Donovan Cross had no intention of letting her throw him a lifeline.
With Miguel Rosas watching, Ramon Guerrero had to make it look good, even though he hated cutting into the tender flesh of Estella Calderone. She’d been a virgin when he first came to her bed. Her skin had been untouched and perfect.
But now, as he tightened his grip on the knife, he knew she would bear his marks forever. When the tip of the blade cut into her skin, the girl cried out.
“Please . . . don’t do this. I beg of you, Ramon.”
Under the flickering flame of a torch, he watched a stream of her dark red blood trail down her arm and leach into her blouse. And when she pleaded for him to stop, Guerrero saw the American flinch.
“Using that g-girl, you’re a c-coward, Raymond.”
“My name is Ramon. And you are the coward, not me. You are the one who is allowing this to happen to her.”
“Turn your blade on me. I’m the one you want.”
“And still, you do not talk. Why is that?” Guerrero turned toward his hostage and pointed the knife at his eye. “This girl does not have to suffer because of you. All you need to do is answer our questions. Is that so difficult? This could all be over if you would only cooperate.”
“You mean we could all be friends? Well, why didn’t you just say so?”
Guerrero clenched his jaw and glared at the man. He was tired of his insults.
“Always with the smart mouth. You think this is a game?” He shook his head, but when Guerrero turned his back on the American and stepped closer to Estella, the man spoke up again.
“You work for Perez.” He said it with certainty, as if he knew that for a fact.
“Who?”
“Now who’s playing games?”
Guerrero took a risk and glanced at Miguel Rosas, Perez’s watchdog. The man’s dark eyes glared back, yet he remained in the shadows, content to let him hang himself.
“Go on,” Guerrero said. “What were you going to say?” He turned back toward the American and kept his face a blank slate.
“Before you go past the point of no return, you should contact your boss. Tell him about me.”
“What makes you think you are worth his time . . . or mine?”
“You do, or you wouldn’t have brought me here.”
Without warning, Guerrero slashed his knife across the chest of the American. Caught off guard, the man cried out and gritted his teeth. Although his sudden show of violence seemed to redeem him in the cruel eyes of Miguel Rosas, Guerrero wasn’t pleased with the fact that his hostage knew where he was. It made him all the more determined to push the man to talk. Everything he hoped for would depend on it.
“Perez knows me. If you get him here, he’ll tell you that.” The American winced in pain as his chest bloomed with fresh blood. “I’ll talk to Perez, no one else.”
Guerrero gripped the knife tighter in his hand, ready to cut the man again, but Rosas stopped him. He didn’t say a word. He only tilted his head, ordering Guerrero to come with him. He resented being called like a dog, but he followed anyway.
When they got outside the cell, out of earshot of the prisoner, Guerrero spoke first.
“Do you believe him? You think he knows Perez?”
“No. He’s only stalling for time,” Rosas said.
“But shouldn’t we let Perez decide?”
Rosas was an arrogant man who presumed too much. And Guerrero resented him for it.
“We don’t need to waste his time.” Rosas put his hand on Guerrero’s shoulder and softened his tone. “You showed good instincts to bring the girl into this. The American reacted to her pain, I saw it.”
“So what are you saying?”
“We let him think he has won, for now.” Rosas smiled. “But I will return later, to pick up where you didn’t have the stomach to continue.”
Guerrero started to speak, but Rosas held up his hand.
“This is what I do, Ramon. Let me do my job, and we shall both get results.”
Rosas didn’t wait for his reply. He turned his back and headed down the corridor, back to the main residence. Rosas had dismissed him, like a servant who was beneath him.
Guerrero had no doubt that Rosas would kill Estella, just to make the point that he was in charge. And Guerrero would be no closer to getting recognized for his efforts than he was before. Letting Rosas take over wasn’t an option.
Guerrero knew he had to do something, but did he have the balls to contact Perez himself and go around the cartel boss’s number two man?
“Hell, yes.”
Dressed in a Chicago Bulls T-shirt, jeans, and a hooded navy sweatshirt, Jessie hunched over her first cup of coffee, barely looking up at the waitress who poured it. She hadn’t paid attention to the name of the hole-in-the- wall diner either, but she’d seen that kind of place many times on stakeouts. The clank of plates and the incessant chatter of the patrons were background noise to the thoughts roiling around in her head, thoughts that hadn’t stopped all night long.
After spending the night staring at the ceiling of her motel room and catching the blur of red digital numbers on the nightstand alarm clock count down her boredom, Jessie was glad when dawn came. It gave her an excuse to be upright. And her motel was next door to the diner. All she wanted was coffee, but the waitress was hoping for a better tip.
“You know what you want, honey?” A woman with overpermed gray hair leaned across a Formica counter, popping gum. From the look in the woman’s eyes, she’d seen it all and had lent a hand to invent the best parts.
“Not yet, but I’m sure it’ll come to me.”
“It’ll come to you if I bring it. You see, that’s how it works here. You tell me what you want. Joe back there cooks it like he knows how. Then you eat it, pay, and give me a big tip so I can retire to the Bahamas.”
