Caught in the Act (28 page)

He held tight, placing the smoking barrel against her temple once again. It burned, sizzling her hair and skin. Her ears were ringing from the shot, her eyes watering. Armando lay on the ground, motionless. A pool of blood began to form underneath him.

Agent Foster appeared at the edge of the courtyard, about twenty feet past Armando. His face was taut and alert, the muscles in his arms flexing. He looked taller than she remembered, stronger and more formidable. “Let her go,” he said, pointing his gun at Chuy.

“Stay back or I’ll blow her fucking brains out,” Chuy replied. “You know I will.”

Foster kept moving forward, like a man-machine.

Chuy pulled her toward the lobby, shouting obscenities, promising to kill her. Maria knew he wouldn’t—not yet. If he shot her right now, there would be no bargaining chip, nothing to prevent Foster from opening fire.

“Let her go!” Foster repeated.

They arrived at the lobby entrance and Chuy’s body
tensed for action. Maria knew he was about to make a move. The instant he took the gun away from her temple, shoving her inside, she reached for the pepper spray at the waistband of her jeans. Heart pounding, she gripped the canister in her sweaty fist.

Using the lobby entrance as cover, Chuy aimed down the walkway, shooting at Foster. As the agent returned fire, Maria lifted the canister, blasting Chuy in the face. She hoped she wasn’t too late.

“Pinche puta!”
Chuy yelled, swiping at his eyes. With his left arm, he swung at her, striking her across the cheek. Crying out in pain, she fell backward, sprawling across the floor. The caution sign she’d placed in the lobby less than an hour ago clattered beneath her body, digging into her hip.

Chuy stumbled away from the entrance, coughing like a sick dog. His eyes were squeezed shut, tears streaming from them.

Maria lifted a hand to her stinging cheek, shuddering in fear.

In an awful twist of fate, Sonia crept out from behind the counter where she’d been hiding and rushed to Chuy’s aid.

He fired the gun again, shooting Sonia in the stomach.

She crumpled like a puppet, landing in a pitiful heap on the just-mopped floor. Her head lolled to the side and her eyes glazed over. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth and blossomed across her midsection.

Maria stared at the horrific scene, afraid to move. Afraid to breathe.

Although Chuy’s vision was obstructed, his instincts were still good. He seemed to realize the mistake he’d made. Choking out Sonia’s name, he made a sign of the
cross. Then, with a strangled sob, he fled the scene, crashing out the back door.

Foster appeared at the entrance a moment later. When he saw Maria, terrified but unharmed, his eyes darkened with an indefinable emotion. “Where is he?”

She pointed the direction Chuy went, her mouth trembling.

Foster limped inside the lobby, his hairline dark with sweat. His jeans were torn at the thigh, his pant leg bloody. Glancing at Sonia’s crumpled form, he advanced toward the exit. Chuy must not have been visible, because Foster didn’t pursue. He came back inside and took out his cell phone, requesting an ambulance.

Maria was so relieved to see him alive that tears sprang to her eyes. She wanted to run to him, to wrap her arms around him and never let go. But Sonia was bleeding, perhaps dying. “Will she live?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his mouth tense.

“Are you okay?”

His brows rose. “I’m fine.”

“Your leg …”

“It’s just a fragment.”

Maria didn’t know what that meant, but he didn’t seem worried about the injury. “I will get some towels.”

He crouched down beside Sonia. “Be careful.”

She rose to her feet, walking through the lobby doors. To her surprise, Armando wasn’t lying facedown in a pool of his own blood. Maria followed a series of crimson splashes to the laundry room.

He was inside, pressing a towel to the wound. “What happened?”

“Chuy shot Sonia on accident. Then he got away.”

“Where’s the cop?”

“In the lobby. His leg is shot.”

Armando winced. “Tie this around me.”

Maria secured an apron around his taut midsection, holding the towels in place. She didn’t think the improvised bandage would last long … and neither would he. His breathing was labored and he’d lost a lot of blood. Unlike Foster, Armando appeared to be in serious trouble.

“Wait here,” she said, grabbing a short stack of towels. She raced back to the lobby, leaving red shoeprints on the concrete. When she handed the towels to Ian, he pressed them to Sonia’s ruined stomach. She glanced at his thigh, noting that the puncture was seeping rather than gushing. “I have to help Armando.”

His focus was on Sonia, who appeared critical. Nodding, he spoke into his phone, giving the emergency operator details on her condition.

Maria returned to the laundry room, her heart pounding.

Armando’s face was ashen, his black eyes unnaturally dull. He took an envelope from his pocket, smearing the surface with red fingerprints. “Get this to my daughter. Please. There’s an address.”

Maria shook her head, holding the envelope in his hand. “Don’t try to run, Armando. You can barely walk.”

“Promise me,” he demanded, shoving the envelope at her.

“You have to get to a hospital.”

“No.”

She put the paper in her pocket and glanced past him, through the open back door. “Where will you go?”

“Somewhere safe.”

After a second’s deliberation, she slipped her arm around his waist, letting him lean on her for support. The sound of approaching sirens spurred them into motion. Maria didn’t want to leave Foster, but she was terrified to talk to the police.

Armando wasn’t in any position to argue. He let her guide him down the back alley, lurching forward with awkward motions. As they rounded the corner, a rash of squad cars descended on the scene, tires squealing.

“That way,” Armando gasped, picking up the pace.

Maria knew he wouldn’t get far, even with her assistance. She stumbled across the street, holding him upright, praying she wasn’t signing his death certificate.

“There,” he said, indicating a small business with a white stucco exterior. La Canada Veterinary Clinic, the sign read. The office was closed for lunch, the waiting room empty. “Go around the back.”

Arms trembling from exertion, she took him down a narrow alleyway. Behind the building there was an open field and an aqueduct. She stopped short, knowing she couldn’t drag him across the space.

“Leave me here,” he ordered, gesturing at the back door of the veterinary clinic.

Maria gaped at him. “You’ll die.”

He pushed away from her, using the building for support. Resting his shoulders against the wall, he slid down to a sitting position, collapsing in an ungainly heap. The apron and towels she’d tied around him were soaked red.

Maria bit at the edge of her fist, horrified.

“I’ll be okay,” Armando insisted, his lips pale.

She followed his gaze to a woman walking a dog in the field. Her auburn hair was tied in a ponytail, her
white jacket flapping in the breeze. There was a shiny name tag on her lapel. “Will she stitch you up?” Maria asked.

Armando didn’t answer.

“You’re not a dog,” she pointed out.

He rested his head against the building. “True. Dogs are loyal.”

“What if she refuses?”

“I won’t give her a choice,” he said, pulling a gun from his waistband.

“No,” Maria whispered, crouching next to him. “You might hurt her on accident.”

Armando gave her a dark look, but his gaze wasn’t steady, as if he was seeing more than one disapproving face. With a flick of his thumb, he ejected the clip and removed the bullets, fumbling to put them in his pants pocket. Then he returned the empty clip to the chamber, shoving it back into place. “Better?”

Maria hesitated, tears filling her eyes. She shouldn’t have helped him.

“I can’t go to jail,
mariposa
. I’ll never survive there.”

She knew he wasn’t exaggerating. His rift with Chuy would have grave consequences, and Maria felt partly responsible for them.

“Go on,” he said, gripping her hand. “Don’t forget the letter.”

“Vaya con Dios,”
she replied, kissing his rough cheek.

He didn’t bother to say that he wasn’t on a path to heaven. She’d just assisted him in the opposite direction, in fact. Smothering a sob, she stood, running down the alleyway before she could change her mind.

Returning to the Hotel del Oro wasn’t an option. Removing her bloody apron, she tossed it aside and
smoothed her hair, walking along the street. Tears coursed down her face as she headed south, toward the border. Away from God.

Although Ian had wanted to stay on the scene at the Hotel del Oro and help mobilize the manhunt, he was required to seek emergency treatment for his gunshot wound.

The injury was minor, caused by a bullet fragment, but it had made all the difference in the chase. He’d stumbled sideways when hit, slowing down for the extra few seconds that Chuy Pena needed to get away.

Motherfucker.

Sonia’s body had been the second obstacle to his pursuit. Ian couldn’t let a woman bleed to death while he limped after a fugitive. The hell of it was that he probably could have caught Chuy. Ian’s hurt leg wasn’t as much of a handicap as Chuy’s temporary blindness. And Ian hadn’t been able to do a damned thing to help Sonia.

By the time backup arrived, Armando had disappeared with Maria.

Ian couldn’t believe he’d let both suspects flee the scene. Armando was half dead, and Chuy’s vision had been seriously impaired. It was a fucking embarrassment, like two senior citizens outrunning a beat cop.

He suffered in silence while his thigh was X-rayed, explored, and irrigated. Hollow-point bullets created an expanding path of destruction, ruining a shocking amount of tissue. Ian was lucky to have been hit by a ricochet. At full speed, the hollow-point might have destroyed his leg, even taken his life.

This wound was nothing. When the numbness wore off, he’d probably be able to walk out of the hospital.

While he was in the recovery room, wondering if Chuy or Armando had been apprehended, and hoping Adam’s side of things had gone better than his, Special Agent in Charge Michelson appeared at the doorway. Judging by his grave expression, this conversation wouldn’t end well.

“Sonia Barreras died in surgery,” Michelson said, taking a seat in the only chair.

Ian let his head fall back against the pillow, closing his eyes. “Fuck,” he whispered, wishing it had been him. If he’d just waited for backup, or proceeded with a little more caution, she probably wouldn’t have been shot. Instead, he’d chosen an aggressive approach. After he watched Chuy drag Maria to his office, a gun to her head, he’d completely lost his mind. He hadn’t been able to focus on anything but saving her.

“I want to apologize to the Barreras family,” Ian said, wracked by guilt. Before this, he’d only thought of Sonia in an insulting sexual context.

“I’ll let you know if we locate anyone.”

“The suspects …?”

“Not in custody.” He gave Ian a quick rundown of the situation, explaining that Moreno’s crew had been shaken up by the bust. Several of his top guys had been arrested, and many others had scattered. This kind of discord created a very dangerous situation, in which upstart crews and ambitious drug dealers scrambled for positioning.

“I’ve spoken to Officer Pettigrew of the CBP,” Michelson continued, “but I’d like to hear your side of the story.”

Ian stared at his superior, feeling pressure behind his eyes. Michelson was usually a hard-ass, tough to the point of unkindness. Ian had anticipated scalding words and a hot temper, not this quiet calm.

Ian started at the beginning, explaining his past with Maria and detailing every mistake he’d made over the course of the undercover investigation. It was a slow, awkward confession. Maybe he was digging his own grave, but he didn’t care. His reckless bumbling had led to a civilian’s death. The least he could do now was take full responsibility.

Michelson accepted Ian’s disclosure with few questions and almost no visible reaction. “Do you have any idea where Ms. Santos went?”

Ian shook his head. “She said she was going to help Armando. Maybe she’s afraid to speak to the police. I hope she didn’t get taken hostage.”

“She’s a primary witness, so her cooperation would be helpful. Even if Pena didn’t mean to shoot Sonia Barreras, as you suspect, we want him prosecuted to the fullest. A statement from her could make a difference in the case against him.”

“Assuming he’s caught.”

“He’ll be caught,” Michelson promised, his eyes narrow.

“I can find Maria. I’ll talk to her.”

Michelson’s mouth turned down, as if he was about to say something distasteful. “Tomorrow I’ll need you to write up everything you just told me and sign a sworn statement. And, although it kills me to do this, because you’re a damned good cop, I have to ask for your resignation.”

The request was nothing less than Ian expected, but it stung. It stung hard.

“I’m sorry, Foster. You disobeyed a direct order by not waiting for backup. Failing to communicate integral details and lying to your fellow officers about your undercover activities are also grounds for dismissal. Although I believe your intentions were good, I just can’t excuse the behavior.”

Ian’s throat tightened. He could only nod, resigned to his fate.

Officer Li walked Kari back to the detainment area and left her there, alone.

She was offered a meal, which she declined. She didn’t know if she was under arrest or under suspicion. She was in limbo. Over and over again, she pictured Sasha’s face. Her hazy blue eyes and birdlike limbs, distorted in death.

Kari’s heart twisted with grief. She pushed aside her misery and concentrated on loathing Adam. Hate was an easier emotion to deal with. He’d used her. Every kind word he’d spoken was a lie, every touch a manipulation. If she hadn’t gone to him for help, Sasha might still be alive.

After what seemed like days, Officer Li returned for her.

“Am I under arrest?”