“I didn’t know about Jimmy’s involvement with Las Moscas until today. I didn’t even know about Las Moscas until you told me about the cartel.” She hugged herself and sniffed.
“Jimmy what? What’s his last name?”
“Verdugo, Jimmy Verdugo.”
“You met him in Albuquerque?”
“Yes, when I went to visit Adam.”
“Visit from where?”
She lodged the tip of her tongue in the corner of her mouth. It seemed as if Clay planned to use his interrogation to get to the bottom of a few other truths. “I was living in LA.”
“That’s where you went after...you left me?”
“I got a job in accounting. Lots of accounting jobs there.”
“You hate accounting.”
“Had to work.”
He ran a hand across his face as if to readjust his questioning. “Let me guess. Adam knew what Jimmy was. He probably introduced you.”
“I just found that out today, too. Adam knew Jimmy was a drug dealer, and he did introduce us.” Her nose stung at the betrayal from her brother and she rubbed the tip.
“That son of a...” Clay slammed his hand against the counter and the disc skittered across the tile. “How did you find out?”
“Jimmy was busy this morning, before the wedding. Trying to close out some business for his—” she curled her fingers for air quotes “—import/export business. I took the opportunity to sneak into his office.”
“You had to sneak into your fiancé’s office?” He rubbed his palm on the thigh of his shorts.
“I know, right?” She pushed her hair from her face. “I had my suspicions about his business before today, but I thought maybe he was engaging in some shady practices. He never wanted me looking at his accounts, even though I’d offered my services for free.”
“You’re telling me you snuck into his office, saw his books and figured out he was running drugs?”
“You of all people know how these guys operate. Obviously not. While I was snooping in his office, I heard him coming down the hallway with his best man and business associate.” She lifted her shoulders. “I hid.”
“In that wedding dress?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the spare room.
“The sliding door to his balcony was open. I stepped outside. If he had pulled those blinds open, I would’ve been finished.” She clenched her teeth against the chill snaking up her spine as she relived that moment of terror.
“You overheard his conversation with his associate?”
She dipped her chin to her chest once. “I did, and I got an earful. Did your mother ever tell you not to eavesdrop because you’d never hear anything good about yourself? Yeah, I’m sure your mother told you that.”
“What did you hear?” Clay’s hazel eyes darkened to deep green, making her pulse flutter.
“It—it’s kind of unbelievable.” She sank to the couch. “I still have a hard time believing I heard it.”
“I’m all ears.” He pulled the stool beneath him and straddled it.
“They talked about a drug deal, a shipment from Mexico, but it sounded like they were going to intercept it or something. From their conversation, there was no doubt in my mind that they planned to hijack this shipment for their own. Is that something Las Moscas would do?”
Clay scratched his chin. “No. That’s something another organization would do to Las Moscas.”
“He definitely had the calling card of Las Moscas in his desk. I stole that before I left.”
“Maybe Jimmy’s a member of the cartel, and he and his best man are planning a big double-cross.”
She put a hand to her throat. “That doesn’t sound like it’s going to end well for Jimmy and Gilbert.”
“Do you care?” He wedged his hands on his knees and hunched forward.
“About Jimmy? No.” She drew her knees up to her chest, digging her heels into the cushion of the couch—and Clay didn’t even object. “He was using me, Clay. The courtship, the engagement, the wedding—all a big farce. Jimmy never cared about me. He set me up, or Adam set me up.”
“Set you up for what?” Clay cocked his head to one side. “What do you have to offer Jimmy Verdugo, a drug dealer? You didn’t win the lottery after you left me, did you?”
She swallowed. Every time he said that she left him, the knife twisted deeper into her gut.
“Not money. Connections.”
His eyebrows shot up to a lock of dark hair curling on his forehead. “What connections? Your drug-addled brother? Did he think Adam could provide him with a steady stream of clients?”
“Not my brother. My father.”
“Your father?” The crease between his eyes deepened. “What the hell does your father have to do with any of this? He disappeared ten years ago after he murdered your mother.”
She wrapped her arms around her legs and touched her forehead to her knees. “The authorities never proved he killed her.”
“I’m not going down that road with you again, April. What did Jimmy Verdugo want with your father?”
“You know how everyone said my father went to Mexico when he vanished?”
“Yeah, which is why most people around here believe he’s guilty.”
She balanced her chin on her knees. “Well, Jimmy and Gilbert believe he’s some big-time drug lord down there.”
“What?” Clay hopped from the stool and sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of her. “That’s crazy.”
“They mentioned a name, a nickname. You must know it. El Gringo Viejo.”
The color ebbed from Clay’s tawny complexion. “Jimmy thinks your father, C. J. Hart, is El Gringo Viejo?”
“So, you do know him.”
“Every Border Patrol and every DEA agent knows of El Gringo Viejo.”
“Given what you know about him, could he be my father?”
Clay raised his eyes to the ceiling as if running through facts and dates. “As far as we know, El Gringo Viejo started operating about eight years ago.”
“That fits my father’s timeline. He’d have been down there eight years ago.”
“He moves around a lot. His people are loyal.”
“Is he part of Las Moscas? From what Jimmy and Gilbert said, it didn’t sound like it.”
“He’s not part of a cartel. He
