Would he be able to discern Adam and April’s direction once they left the car? And if Adam saw his car roaring up? He didn’t have a choice. He could leave the car farther back, but he had to get close enough so that he could reach them before they went too far into Mexico.
As he rumbled along the access road, he noted just enough undulation in the landscape that he could keep the car out of sight.
He caught his breath when he saw April’s car abandoned by a large rock. He pulled to the side of the road, and then made his call to Border Patrol. By the time the agents showed up, April wouldn’t be under Adam’s threat anymore.
He’d make sure of it.
He left his own car and made the trek to April’s. When he got to the car, he gulped back some water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Nobody on the horizon. They must’ve already entered the tunnel. He estimated the location of the border, but the tunnel could be anywhere along there.
Trying to track footprints wouldn’t do much good. He dropped his head and scanned the ground, an unrelenting sea of beige tones.
A darker pebble caught his attention and he strode forward and crouched down. He reached for the object and sucked in a breath when he cupped the blue-and-yellow painted wooden bead in his hand. April had been wearing this necklace—and now she was using it to show him the way.
APRIL DRAGGED IN lungfuls of fresh air as she staggered from the tunnel, blinking in the waning daylight. When Adam had pushed her through the entrance to the tunnel on the other side of the border, she’d expected crawling the half mile on her belly, warding off scorpions and desert rodents. Instead, she’d walked upright through a large space fortified with wood and swept clean of debris.
She had two seconds to herself before Adam joined her outside, the gun still clutched in his hand as it had been through their entire journey.
“What now?” She rubbed her arms with hands now empty of all the beads she’d deposited at the mouth of the tunnel on the US side of the border.
“We walk to a meeting place about a mile ahead. I arranged transportation for us to Rocky Point. We went there with Mom and Dad when we were kids. Remember?”
She nodded, blinking back tears. She remembered Mom trying to create some family memories that didn’t include trying to manage Adam.
Once they walked away from this tunnel and got into a car, Clay wouldn’t be able to find them. He wouldn’t be able to save her.
She scuffed through the sand, away from the tunnel, and perched on the edge of a rock, wrapping her arms around her legs. “I need to rest before we undertake a mile hike through the desert.”
“It’s almost night.” Adam spread his arms wide. “The sun will set shortly. We’ll be fine.”
“I want to wait until it goes down a little more. I’m kind of claustrophobic. Walking through that tunnel drained me.”
He leaned against the outcropping that masked the tunnel’s entrance, taking refuge in the shade of the scrubby bush that protruded from the rock—just where she wanted him. “Don’t try anything stupid, April. There’s nowhere for you to run, and once my associates get here there’s not going to be anyplace for you to hide, either. Let’s just find Dad, and then we’ll figure things out.”
Figure out how to kill her and get rid of her body.
“What if Dad isn’t El Gringo Viejo? What then?”
“If he isn’t, which I highly doubt, I still have the flash drive with the tunnels. With that information, I’m sure I can gather a team to help me take over business from Las Moscas.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“They haven’t yet.” He rubbed a hand across the dark blond stubble on his chin. “They’ve been easy to play.”
“Play?” She rolled her eyes. “You’ve played Las Moscas? Like that big man who came to Paradiso to threaten my life—and yours?”
“Yes, play, as in directing their attention to Gilbert and the others in Jimmy’s crew, while I took care of Jimmy.”
“Gilbert and Jimmy’s entourage are all dead?”
“Do you think I’m an amateur, April? Is that what you think? I’ve been playing these games for years—you just never wanted to see it. Your obtuseness came in handy, or—” he tapped his boot against the rock “—maybe it was a survival mechanism. Maybe you knew on some level you had a dangerous sibling, and you stayed on my good side to protect yourself.”
A slight movement in her peripheral vision caught April’s attention, but she kept her gaze focused on her brother, pretending to be fascinated by his words when in reality she’d grown tired of him and his confessions.
Maybe he was right. Maybe she’d always known what he was on some level. Now that his mask had completely slipped, he no longer bore any resemblance to the brother she’d tried to build up in her mind.
He’d murdered her mother. Set up her father. Tricked her into staying away from the man she loved.
While Adam opened his mouth to continue his bragging, his jaw dropped and his eyes bugged out of his skull.
The weapon in his hand wavered, and April dropped to the sand.
Clay had emerged from the tunnel like some avenging desert creature of the night, tackling Adam to the ground. Adam squeezed off a shot that pinged off the rock where she’d just been sitting.
The gun must’ve recoiled in his hand when he pulled the trigger because as Clay took him down, it flew from his grasp. The two men grappled on the ground, Clay clawing the sand to reach his own weapon that he’d placed just outside the cave to wrap his arms around Adam’s legs
