The Protected

“I just had a few questions.”

Vaughnne leaned back in her chair and laced her hands over her belly. Maybe that would keep them from shaking so much. “Well, I’m not sure how much help I can be, senor. Reyes was a bastard, but we focus more on missing persons and crimes against children in this unit.” She paused then added, “It wouldn’t hurt my feelings, though, if I heard he’d died in the fire.”

A faint smile came and went on Moran’s face. “I imagine a great many feel the same way, Agent . . .”

“MacMeans. Vaughnne MacMeans.” All the bureaucratic games she had to play. What the hell was going on? “So were there fatalities? Reyes or anybody else?”

Moran studied her face for a long, long moment, and she had a feeling the question hadn’t been quite as subtle as she’d hoped. Hard to be subtle, though, when her heart felt like it was bleeding inside her chest. Gus . . . damn it, Gus. What did you do?

“We’re still in the process of investigating, Agent MacMeans,” he said, inclining his head. “I’m actually not here for information on Reyes, though. I’m looking for information on somebody else. A man, about your age, perhaps a few years older.”

“This would be your . . . person of interest?” She made herself smile.

Gus.

As he placed his briefcase on the conference table, Vaughnne tried to breathe around the ache in her chest. Tried, but it was so damn hard. Her heart felt like it was broken and she wanted to demand answers but she had already messed things up so bad and she knew it.

Then Moran pulled out a slim file from the briefcase and opened it. A second later, she saw a picture. Her heart jumped into her throat and she was so very glad she’d had years to learn how to hide her reaction. When she saw Gus’s averted profile, everything inside her felt frozen. Ready to shatter at just one blow.

Unblinking, she stared at the grainy image. Oh, it was him. There was no denying it, even though it was a lousy picture. All she could see was his profile, the carved line of his jaw, the ball cap turned backward.

“Does he look at all familiar to you?”

She made herself sigh and lean forward, studying the picture under a pretense of trying to see it better. Gus . . . “Hell, that could be anybody, Senor Moran. Well. Not anybody.” She jerked her chin toward Jones. “It’s probably not him. It’s not Crawford.” She flicked a glance at the quiet, brooding agent by the wall. “Not too many people have a mug like his. I don’t think it’s you or me. But it could be a million men.”

No. Just one. One who’d proven to be rather good at blending in.

She wanted to reach out and snag the picture from Moran, clutch it close, and ask if he had more. Ask if he had news about Gus.

But she didn’t.

Something big was going on, and although fear curdled inside her heart, she wasn’t going to say a damn thing until she knew more. Not a damn thing. Too many things could make a bad situation even worse. For her . . . and worse, for Gus.

Moran held her gaze for a long moment. “Does that mean you do not know him?”

“It means I don’t know if I know him.” She hoped the ache in her heart wouldn’t show on her face. Why . . . those had been her last words to him.

Had he set the fire?

That was a stupid question, she realized. Of course he had. The real question was, had he gotten out?

Her heart lurched, just thinking about it. Gus had always acted like he wouldn’t be surprised if the trip to Mexico turned out to be a one-way thing. But Alex, what about Alex?

What about me . . .

If Gus was dead . . . no! She shoved the thought aside before it could even settle. No.

She’d get answers. Somehow. Once she had them, then she’d deal . . . somehow.

She peered at the image, head cocked. Tears burned inside her throat, in her chest. Gus . . .

“It could be almost anybody, sir,” she said softly.

“Yes.” He stared at her, his gaze unreadable. “I suppose it could.”

* * *

JONES returned nearly thirty minutes after he’d escorted Moran out.

He spoke to Nalini, and although Vaughnne was right there, she couldn’t recall much of anything he said. It was like he was speaking another language.

But then Nalini left, Grady following along behind her. Joss lingered a few more minutes and then he left as well.

The door shut and the tension in the room almost shattered her, and she was hovering on the brink as it was, about to come out of her skin. She’d spent every second of the past half hour on her iPhone, trying to unearth details about the fire, but she hadn’t learned anything. The boys down in Mexico were keeping that little mess locked down tight. There wasn’t even any information about Reyes’s death, and that should be front-page news.

Feeling the weight of Jones’s stare, she made herself look away from the phone and focus on her boss.

His steely blue eyes should have made her nervous.

But she was already sick with fear, pain. What the hell did it matter if her job was in jeopardy just then?

“The man you lied to is one of the higher-ranking diplomats,” Jones said, his voice a cold slice in the room.

She lifted a brow, refusing to let herself react. “Hey, did you see that picture? Shit, I can find you five men in this damn building now who could probably pass for that guy in the picture.”

“You could,” he agreed. “Give me twenty minutes and some hair dye, and I could pass for the guy in the picture. But you knew who it was. I saw it in your eyes, Vaughnne, and if that man knew you at all, he would have seen it, too.”

Spinning away, she paced over to the window and stared outside. “What do you want me to say, Jones?” she asked softly. “I can’t help him. I don’t know where Gus is. Where he was going. What he is planning.”

“Did you know he was going to blow the house up?”

She closed her eyes. “No.”

But maybe she should have thought that through. Gus wouldn’t have risked leaving any sign that might lead to Alex. If Reyes had left anything behind that could point the way to the kid, then Gus would have razed an entire country to the ground to protect his nephew.

Blowing up a house? He wouldn’t even think twice.

“Was there any word about him?” she asked.

A heavy, taut silence weighed between them, and finally, a soft sigh drifted from Taylor. “That’s why he was here, Vaughnne—looking for information. He didn’t say it in as many words, but that was my take on it.”

“He could have been in the house,” she said, and a lance of pain went through her, so deep, so crippling, it almost drove her to her knees. Not Gus. No. It hurt even to think about it. But the thought was there, settling in her mind and growing roots. She couldn’t knock it.

“If . . .” She had to stop and clear her throat before she could continue. “If he was, then that means Alex has nobody, Taylor. Nobody. He’s a gifted kid who has had a life of hell. If he’s lost his uncle . . .”

“Maybe his uncle should have thought of that,” Taylor bit off. Then he swore.

She turned around to look at him, watched as he reached up to tug at his tie. She had to focus, see this through, even if her heart was bleeding inside. “But that’s not Alex’s fault.”

He gave her a dark look. “I know that.”

“So what happens to him?” She’d promised. And no matter what, no matter how much she hurt, she’d see that promise through. “You can’t just send him back to Mexico. He has nobody. Has nothing. And—”

He lifted a hand, staring at the wall. “You know I’m not going to do that, Vaughnne, so just stop.” He tugged his askew tie off, glanced at it, and then sighed, draping it around his neck so that the ends hung free. “Even if it