Chasing Marisol (Blueprint to Love Book 3) (27 page)

"No." Her excitement deflated in the space of a single syllable. "But— we had an idea about Luz and where she might be holed up. Sharon was able to research visitors to the DSS. The parking lot is protected by cameras. Sharon's contact reviewed the film on the dates we knew Luz had appointments with her social worker. He was able to track a vehicle that was used on two of Luz's visits to DSS headquarters."

"Was it blue?"

"One time, yes. One time, no," Mari confirmed. "Did Charlie help you with the license plate idea? Because we have a few names and addresses."

"Uh-" Sensing Luis' gaze on him as he shifted in the passenger seat, Jeff glanced up. Luis gave a slight shake of his head— translating loosely to 'if you give away my secrets, you're a dead man'. "Yeah— uh, Charlie helped us out. Tell me the names you have so we can compare."

His heart already in overdrive, it nearly stuttered with joy when she relayed the names to him. Carefully exhaling a shuddering breath, Jeff kept his tone neutral. "Okay, Mari. I'll call you the second we know anything more-" He was patient while she reminded him to be careful. Despite knowing that every guy in the truck was listening in, Jeff didn't care. "I love you, too. Remember— don't leave the shelter."

The silence in the truck was deafening as Jeff ended the call. "Mari has a list-"

"Jesus, Jeff. We heard all that." Hank's irritable voice broke the silence. "Did you get anything?"

For the first time in the last five hours, Jeff experienced a powerful sense of hope. "Hell, yeah. We got something. One of the names matches exactly to the address we're heading to."

Resolve seemed to charge the atmosphere inside the vehicle. But it was Luis' determined expression that sent a twist of warning down Jeff's spine. He would not want to be on the receiving end of that expression. "Manuel . . .
vamonos
."  

***

Underbelly. Seamy. Forgotten. Without hope. Any of those words would describe their location perfectly. Perched on the edge of the weedy, abandoned lot behind a structure that some might have called a house, Jeff inhaled another breath of decaying trash as the smell carried on the summer breeze. There was no 'downwind' from this neighborhood. The stench of rotting garbage and a decaying infrastructure permeated the air they were forced to breathe.

"Blue car in the driveway," Jake acknowledged. "Does it match the plate number?"

Big Pete, binoculars to his eyes, strained to confirm the number, the only light a dim glow from the street lamp. "First three digits are right. Damn it, Manny— slow down."

Lights out, Manuel crept slowly past the condemned structure before circling back around the block to view it from the rear. Sliding from the rear seat, Pete and Hank left the vehicle. As the night slowly came alive with people forced by the stifling heat onto their stoops, Luis wanted them on sentry duty so no one could sneak up behind the truck.

"How we gonna do this?" Big Pete squatted next to the driver's window. "There's people roaming around everywhere."

Using a pen light, Luis was busy digging through his duffel. "You, my giant friend, are going to watch our six when we go in the front. Someone needs to guard my truck or it will be on blocks by the time we come out." Pausing in his search, he pointed a stubby finger at the back door, hanging drunkenly from its frame. "Hank will be stationed by the back door." Glancing at the house again, he pointed to Jake. "You will stand at the corner of the house- I want you to watch the windows on the side. No one in or out."

Hefting his duffel onto the seat between him and Manuel, he withdrew a gadget. "But before we do anything, I want to take a reading on the house." Flicking it on, he waited for the red light to turn green.

Hank was mesmerized. "What is that?"

Big Pete's grin was slow with recognition. "That's a damn homing device." Admiration in his eyes, his gaze locked on Luis. "Infrared?"

Luis nodded. "We're going to see if anyone is actually in this place before we hit it."

Sensing Jake's eyes on him, Jeff returned his stare, shrugging. How the hell did Luis Ortega
coincidentally
have a heat-seeking sensor in his possession?

Springing from the truck, Luis held the device in one hand as he slowly ran it over the exterior of the house. Without a word, everyone gathered around him. On the tiny screen, they witnessed two splotches of heat in the front corner of the house. "Okay- we have two on the left front of the house. None in the back." Raising the tool, he scanned back and forth across the second floor. Frowning, Luis focused again on the meter. "Right there. Upstairs . . . far right corner— in the back, I think. It's smaller than the two downstairs."

Jeff's heart leapt all the way to his throat. "Hector," he whispered, not wanting to jinx the hope charging through him. "Please, let it be him."    

Luis took his time, scanning the house again. Jeff was jacked up— to go . . . to bust in— to race up those damn stairs and search for Hector. Yet, he knew they had to be cautious. Controlled. Disciplined. And tonight, he sorely lacked those qualities. The part of him that was forced to remain rational acknowledged real admiration for the degree of patience Luis Ortega was displaying. And the rest of him just wanted to shake the older man.

"Hold up— look at this," Luis' quiet voice commanded. Watching over his shoulder, they  observed a blob of heat enter the house. Tracing their movement, one of the two heat sources left the corner, moving to the back of the house, to the spot where a kitchen would likely be located in a normal house. The red dots huddled together in the kitchen for two to three minutes, before the heat source moved again to the front door and the other returned to the front corner. Five minutes later, the same transaction occurred.

Unlike the rest of them huddled around Luis' infrared, Big Pete stared at the back of the house. "This is a hit house. That's where the drugs are. The transactions are taking place right there." He pointed to the darkened window. "But this isn't a big time dealer. This feels more like a user— who's only selling so he can keep using."

Turning to stare at him, Hank's scratchy voice asked the question they were all thinking. "Now— how the hell do you know that?"

"He doesn't have any heat. No guards. If this was a distributor, he'd have protection— and we wouldn't be standing thirty feet from his stash without getting shot." His gaze still locked on the house, Pete deflected the unspoken question. "Trust me. I know a little about this sort of place." 

After twenty minutes observing the drug house's activity, Luis turned off the display. As he carefully tucked it back into the cushioned case, Manuel waited to retrieve his duffel. "We're going inside in ten minutes." Pausing, Luis scanned each face. "And not a damn one of you saw that equipment tonight."

***

"Remember, there might be a gun," Big Pete cautioned. "Jake— as soon as we go in, you call Charlie."

"Why don't I call Charlie now? Before any of us gets shot?" Always the voice of reason, Jake voiced the question they all had.

"And tell them what? That we're breaking into a drug house because we think there might be a kid in there? We have no proof— just suspicion. Do we really want to waste time explaining ourselves to the cops?" Annoyance threading his words, Pete sighed. "Look— one of them is Luz. She's what? Eighty pounds? And she's high. The heat in the corner hasn't moved since we got here. The other one is also high. He's dealin' a little, but he's shooting up with her. He goes back to the corner after each transaction."

Hank nodded. "I'm okay with those odds. And I don't want to get tangled up in a cluster with the cops if this is the wrong house. If this one ain't it, then we need to move on to the next."

"Let's go, already." Adrenaline careening through him, Jeff was at the end of his patience. Acknowledging he was on the losing side of the argument, Jake nodded.

Giving him a quick hug, Jake muttered a 'be careful', before Jeff crept into position at the side of the house. Hank was already in motion toward the back door as Manny ran for the far side of the house.

Nodding to Pete and Luis, Jeff offered up a silent prayer the next ten minutes would prove both fruitful and uneventful. That they'd leave this dreary place without anyone getting hurt and with Hector clutched in his arms. As they moved for the steps, Jeff stopped thinking at all.

Since the door was already open, there was no battering required. The acrid stench that greeted them was nearly overwhelming. Choking over the smell, Luis and Big Pete broke quickly to the right— moving toward the heat sources in the corner. His eyes adjusting to the murky darkness, Jeff launched himself up the stairs. Behind him, he heard Luis shout a confirmation of a female. A moment later, Pete's voice confirmed he'd neutralized the male.

His heart in his throat, Jeff reached the top of the stairs. Disoriented, he moved into the first room he found. The heat source had been in this vicinity. Tiny, cluttered with trash and disposed needles, Jeff repressed a shudder as his flashlight panned over the grungy mattress in the corner. Walking cautiously to the closet, he opened the door slowly. Flicking his light over the empty space, his heart stopped when the light passed over a backpack. A kid's backpack. And a thin cording of twine.

"Hector!" His voice suddenly hoarse, Jeff tried again. Turning on his heel, he moved to the next room. "Hector— buddy— are you here?" Hearing steps on the stairs, he met Luis and Jake as they entered the upstairs hallway.

"Anything?" Jake stuck his head into the trashed space that had once been a small bathroom. "Pete's holding the two downstairs. He recognized the woman from the video. Said it's Luz. But she's too high to tell him anything. She said something about selling a kid-"

Jeff's heart clutched with fear. "His— his backpack is in the closet. But he's not here."

Easing past them, Luis moved into the bedroom. Scooping up the backpack, he checked the contents. "It looks like he may have been tied up." Cursing violently, Luis finally revealed some of the tension he'd been suppressing. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted. "
Es Papi. ¿Dónde estás, pequeña?"

"We saw the heat spot," Jeff insisted. "Where the hell is he?"

"No one has come out. Hank would've seen him," Jake reminded, his voice grim. "We keep looking. The cops are on the way."

More afraid now than ever, Jeff nodded. "Is there an attic?"

Aiming his flashlight down the hallway, Jake acknowledged the possibility. "I'll check that." 

Where the hell was he? Bolting for the stairs, Jeff headed back down, taking them two at a time. Luz was slouched in a chair in the corner.

"Luz! Where is he?" Not caring that he was shouting at her, Jeff wanted to shake her, but was acutely aware he was hanging by a thread. If he touched her, he might actually hurt her. Her glazed eyes told him she'd barely heard him. One eye blackened, she stared at him, unseeing. Two long scratches covered one malnourished cheek. This was Hector's mother? This starving, pathetic creature was the woman who'd borne the kid who'd taken ownership of his heart?

"Don't waste your time," Pete advised, tugging him away from her. "Just keep looking." He was standing guard over the guy he'd knocked out, in the unlikely event he came to. "She ain't going anywhere."

"Hector?" Shouting as he moved from room to room, Jeff finally approached the kitchen— or what would have been a kitchen if the space had been inhabited by humans instead of animals. Scuffed, discolored linoleum lead to blank spaces where appliances had once sat. Gaping holes in the wall where plumbing had been ripped out. Cabinet doors hanging or missing. The strong musty scent of mildew. Like an automaton, Jeff moved into the small pantry. A single light bulb fixture hung by a forlorn string.

"Hector— where are you, buddy? Please, God— where are you?" Running agitated fingers through his hair, Jeff felt the plunging sense of despair start to overtake him. Where would they search next? Had he left the house? Was he wandering in this god awful neighborhood? In the dark? Hiding somewhere they wouldn't be able to find him? Or worse— where someone else would?

The scratching sound from one of the cabinets made him think of a mouse. But the sudden realization that it was large enough to be a hiding place had Jeff dropping to his knees to throw them open.
 

"Hector? Are you in here?" Finding nothing in the pantry, he quickly retraced his steps to the kitchen. Jerking open the cupboard under the sink, Jeff froze when he discovered the little boy. A groan of relief was torn from his throat as he pulled Hector into his arms.

"Are you hurt? Did they hurt you, Hec?"

As Jeff's eyes adjusted in the murky room, he groped for his flashlight. With a spurt of fury, he discovered Hector's mouth was bound. As gently as he could, Jeff removed the tape. But his hands shook so badly, he did it with little finesse.

"Ow— that hurts, Jeff."

His eyes blurring, he apologized. "I'm sorry, buddy. I don't want to hurt you."

"It's okay." When his curly head flopped onto his shoulder, Jeff experienced the most powerful sense of relief he'd ever known. Uncertain whether his legs would support him, he sank to the floor with Hector locked in his arms.

"Can you untie me? I got's my feet undone and I ran downstairs to hide. But I couldn't undo the knots."