estate, covering trees, boulders, agave plants, and yuccas. And she listened to the sounds of the night, the forlorn hoot of an owl in the trees and the baleful cries of a pack of coyotes.
Most people might have been tense, hiding in the dark, but Alexa got off on the isolation, a complete departure from New York City. Yet despite the serene setting, she couldn’t forget why they were there. Jackson Kinkaid had crossed her path once again. And she hoped, given the situation, that it wouldn’t be for the last time.
Rapt in her thoughts of Kinkaid, she hardly noticed that Garrett had joined her. He hadn’t said a word, and neither of them felt uncomfortable with the silence between them. He’d only slipped next to her and didn’t feel the need to say anything at all. The reason for his secrecy had vanished, so he joined Hank and his men, and Alexa had become part of the team. Having Garrett with her felt comfortable, and it reminded her how close she’d come to losing him. But swapping her fears from Garrett Wheeler to Jackson Kinkaid wasn’t exactly making progress.
It wasn’t until she heard a steady thump in the distance that she’d realized the intruding noise was man- made and mechanical, and stood out from the sounds of nature.
“What’s that?” she whispered, only loud enough for Garrett to hear.
“Helicopter.”
As if on cue, lights in the distance cut through the darkness. She lowered her night-vision binoculars—not wanting to be blinded by the onset of the bright lights on the horizon—and watched as a helicopter rose over the mountains. The aircraft circled the estate below and hovered behind the hacienda, kicking up dust as it landed.
“Perez,” she said under her breath and edged closer to Garrett, feeling the warmth of his arm against hers.
Without responding to her, Garrett spoke into his com unit to Hank and his men.
“Anyone with confirmation, speak up. If the big man is there, I want to know it.”
“Copy that.”
Alexa watched as Hank’s team shifted positions to utilize long-range surveillance gear. Even with her night- vision binoculars, she couldn’t see well enough to ID a face. Not even the full moon helped. All she could do was sit back and let Hank’s men do their jobs.
“What now?” she asked Garrett. “How do we know when to move in?”
“If we can’t make an ID, then Jackson has to confirm that Perez is on-site. He said he’d give us a signal.”
“What kind of signal?” she asked.
“He said we’d know it when we saw it, but until then, we’re to stay put on the ridge outside the estate.” Garrett gave her a sideways glance and didn’t say anything more.
Even in the murky shadows, she saw Garrett tighten his jaw as he watched the estate below. He didn’t like this either.
No one on Hank’s team had confirmed that Manolo Quintanilla Perez had been one of the people who’d flown via helicopter to the estate outside Guadalajara. Too many men had rushed to the helicopter to usher the new arrivals inside. And so far they hadn’t seen any sign from Jackson Kinkaid, if he was even still alive, that is.
“I can’t believe you went along with Kinkaid’s self-destructive idea of a plan.” The words were out of her mouth before she could rein them back in. The instant she’d said them, she knew she’d done the wrong thing. It wasn’t Garrett’s fault that Kinkaid had a vendetta against a drug kingpin in Mexico and that he was being held by Perez and his vicious pack of dogs. Jackson had done that on his own.
“It’s not like he gave me a choice, Alexa,” Garrett said, unable to hide his annoyance. “If we don’t see anything soon, I’ll make the call to go in. Understood?”
“Yeah, understood.” Alexa took a deep breath. She only had to understand, she didn’t have to like it. “So what now? We wait?”
“Yeah,” he whispered back. “We wait.”
She knew that waiting was a big part of surveillance, but she didn’t have to like that either. While the team watched the activity below—with some of Hank’s men closer to the action, so they could confirm any sighting of Perez—Alexa took advantage of having Garrett next to her.
And she wanted to get her mind off Kinkaid’s suicide mission.
“Was it you who followed me from the Guadalajara airport? At first, I thought it was Hank, but later he told me it hadn’t been him.”
She hated admitting she didn’t know who had tailed her, but if it had been Garrett, that would explain why she only felt him and never saw him. Garrett was an experienced agent who could make himself a ghost if he wanted to.
“No, wasn’t me.” He shook his head and furrowed his brow. “Someone followed you? Did you see ’em?”
“No, only felt them. If it wasn’t you, I have a pretty good idea who ordered it.”
“Who? What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Donovan Cross.” She fixed her gaze on him, waiting to see if the name meant anything. “So what’s up with that guy? What’s his part in all this?”
“Donovan Cross? I know who he is, but what’s he got to do with it?”
She stared at him for a long minute, trying to read if he was lying again. Since he’d clued her in and made her part of his team, now he had no motive for keeping her in the dark when it came to the mission with Kinkaid, but she had no idea if that extended to his past with Donovan Cross.
“He took over your job and told me you were dead, killed in a classified mission. He made up a story about how you got caught in an explosion, and your body would never be recovered. Ring any bells?” When he didn’t say anything, she stared at him in disbelief. “You mean he wasn’t part of your disappearing act?”
“No, he wasn’t.” Garrett narrowed his eyes and got strangely quiet.
When he finally glanced at her, he must have seen the worried look on her face, because he said, “I’ll put out some feelers, figure out what’s going on. It’s probably nothing.”
He tried for nonchalance, but she wasn’t buying it.
“Yeah, right. It’s probably just a coincidence. And you know how I feel about those.” She sighed. “You better watch your back with Cross. He’s got to have support within the Sentinels if he stepped into your job so quickly. Who would do that?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
The way Garrett said it—as if he had made a promise to himself—it left her cold inside. In a covert agency like the Sentinels, it paid to have solid support within the organization, from the top down. But if Donovan Cross had slipped easily into Garrett’s job, she had to wonder. Who had undermined Garrett’s authority? Doing something like that wasn’t a one-man show. Who was backing Cross as the new head of the Sentinels?
And how far would they go to keep him there?
“Cross doesn’t strike me as someone’s puppet.” She couldn’t let it go. “And he’s got to be working with people who have the balls to seize an opportunity when they see it, with you missing. I’m just . . . worried, Garrett.”
“I know you are,” he began as he stared into her eyes, “but I’ve got to handle this my way. I don’t want you getting stuck in any cross fire. That would . . . kill me.”
For the first time in a long while, Garrett looked into her eyes like he used to. She’d ended their relationship and moved on after she’d caught him with someone else, but the intimacy between them had never truly been severed. And that had never been more apparent. Alexa blinked and cleared her throat, breaking his connection with her.
“Just remember that you’ve got friends, too. Don’t go it alone, tough guy.”
Garrett smiled, a quick fleeting curve of his lips.
“Good to know. Thanks.”
“What was that? That sound, did you hear it?” Estella’s voice cracked.
She turned her head toward the only window in the cell and squinted into a piercing light that vanished as quickly as it had come. A powerful engine roared across the night sky as the sudden brightness stabbed the dark and left its phantom image in her mind.
Something was happening outside.
