Hidden Prey (Lawmen) (32 page)

Her throat ached and she thought she would cry despite her resolution not to. Was she in Mexico now? She must be. She vaguely remembered someone sliding a needle into her vein and then nothing in the world had seemed to matter anymore. They’d drugged her.

Faint memories came back to her of men standing over her and talking, but she couldn’t remember what they’d said. Had she even heard them?

The concrete floor seemed to grow harder and colder as she lay there. She needed to get up and figure out what to do next. If there was anything she
could do.

One thing she did know was that she wasn’t going to just give up without trying.

She clenched her teeth as she tried to push herself to a sitting position. Immediately, she cried out and her eyes watered from the sharp pain that shot through her chest. Her arms went weak but she managed not to collapse back onto the floor.

Tears trickled down her cheeks after all, only these tears were from pain and not hopelessness. She pushed through the pain to struggle to sit up.

She finally made it to a sitting position, although her head spun for a moment. She held her head in her palms, trying to slow the spinning. She remembered how she’d torn her shirt to use the cloth to help Agent Aguilar. How was the agent? Tori remembered all the blood and prayed someone had found Aguilar in time.

The spinning subsided and Tori slowly raised her head to look around the cell. A toilet was in one corner and that was it. No cot or sink that one would expect to see behind bars.

It wasn’t a cell. It was a cage.

Gradually, sensations returned to her mostly numb body. She felt filthy and sticky with sweat, and she realized her bladder was full. She looked at the toilet. It seemed so far away from where she sat, huddled on the floor. Somehow she managed to get to her feet and stagger to the far corner. Her legs almost gave out on her, but she made it to the old commode with its wide streak of rust along the back of the bowl.

When Tori had finished and was back on her feet, she stumbled toward the cell door. She grabbed onto the bars and leaned against them, trying to regain strength and keep from falling. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the metal, and clenched the bars until her fingers ached.

She blew out her breath and opened her eyes, which had become well accustomed to the dimness. She looked through the bars at the large room. To her left was a bank of small monitors that glowed in the dim interior, but she couldn’t see what was on them. Her cell was along one of the walls of the room and other cells were to her right and across the room. As far as she could tell, the other cells were all empty.

If the others had only a toilet like this one did, these cells were not meant for long term. Anyone who was put into them probably wasn’t expected to be there for any length of time.

A sense of despair overcame her and her legs weakened. She barely kept herself standing by the grip she had on the bars.

The bastards.
The horrible, horrible bastards.

Anger replaced the despair in a hard, fiery rush. Her cold cheeks flushed with heat and if a person could truly see red, she did.

What the cartel did to people…the lives that were destroyed…all of the deaths…the pain. Every bit of anger she had washed through her in a hot wave.

With a burst of fury, she jerked against the door to rattle her cage.

The door opened.

She stumbled forward, almost falling as the door swung open a couple of feet. For a moment she stood there, stunned.

Just like that? The door was open?

She blew out her breath as she released the bars and walked out into the room that was surrounded by cells on three walls. A door was to her right and another was across the room. The monitors on the left flickered and she turned and headed toward them.

When she reached the station, she braced her hands on the back of one of three swivel chairs in front of the bank of nine monitors. Below the monitors was a desk with enough room for three large men to sit behind.

The monitors flashed, slowly changing from views inside hallways and rooms, including a dining room, an enormous kitchen, and living areas. More cameras displayed pathways, courtyards, gardens, and more than one swimming pool. It was late afternoon, the shadows long.

She narrowed her gaze when she saw grass-covered grounds with tents, balloons, tables, and bouquet after bouquet of flowers. There was lots of pink. Lots and lots of pink. It looked as though there was going to be a party. A huge party.

A man’s voice spoke at the edge of her consciousness, and she remembered hearing him say,
“…her
Quinceañera
, her big party tonight.”
She also remembered hearing a girl’s name.
Angelina.

Tori swallowed. What if she managed to get out of here and crash Angelina’s party? Would someone help her, or would they be too afraid of the Jimenez family?

Hands trembling, Tori wiped her dirty palms on her jeans then rubbed her temples with her fingers. She’d stayed long enough. If she could get out, she needed to do it before someone came to check on her.

She looked from one door to the other. Would one of them lead her in a direction that would allow her to escape?

If she did escape, then what next? She wondered if she was in a town or in the desert. Likely a drug lord’s home would be in the desert, away from the Mexican police and military. From what she’d seen on the monitors, it looked like this place was an oasis. An oasis built with blood money.

Tori took a deep breath then grimaced at the pain in her side. She gritted her teeth and picked the door to the right of the monitors. When she reached the door, she grasped the handle and tried to pull it open.

Locked.

Her heart stuttered. She looked over her shoulder at the other door. If it was locked, she didn’t know what she’d do. She didn’t know how to pick a lock and she didn’t know if there was anything around that she could use to try.

She walked to the other door and paused. She winced as she took another deep breath then gripped the handle and pulled.

Locked.

She squeezed her eyes shut and felt hot tears behind her lids. She wasn’t going to cry, damn it.

Maybe there was a set of keys near the monitors or in the desk drawers. She bit the inside of her cheek as she walked and tried not to think of the pain in her head and chest. She searched the drawers and found nothing. Not even paper or pens.

She looked at the keyboards in front of the monitors and wondered if one of them could serve as a computer monitor. It would be incredible if she could send an email, not that it would do a lot of good. She didn’t even know who to send one to. Not to mention she was in Mexico now—how was anyone supposed to help her?

Still she tried. No matter what she did, all she could get to were the cameras. She saw men and women going through rooms and walking around outside. Hired help, apparently. Then she saw people arriving at the front entrance, a young woman in what looked like a prom dress, and a young man in a suit. An older woman with a stern expression followed the couple and Tori wondered if the woman was a chaperone.

After searching the cells and around the desk and monitors for some kind of weapon, and coming up with nothing, she looked desperately around her one last time. The only movable things were the office chairs. Her mind ran through her options, which amounted to one. She knelt beside one of the chairs. Maybe if she could disassemble one, she could use part of it as a weapon.

With determination, she clenched her teeth and tried to find some way to take apart the chair. It took her a while, but finally she managed to remove the five-armed swivel base. When she held it in her hands, she wondered if she’d have the strength to swing it with enough power to hit a grown man hard enough to knock him out and make an escape.

God, she was tired of being afraid. She wiped away sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and got to her feet. She looked down at the swivel base she was gripping. She’d removed the rollers, and the metal they’d been inserted into had hard, sharp edges.

She looked at the five rollers on the floor and an idea came to her. She hurried to remove the rollers from the other two chairs then divided them up, putting seven in front of one door and eight in front of the other.

Just as she finished, the door on her left rattled.

Ignoring the pain in her chest, she hurried to the door and hid behind it, holding the swivel base in both hands. She found herself holding her breath then forced herself to breathe.

The mechanism clicked, and the door swung open. A man stepped into the room and paused, probably baffled by the wheels on the floor and the chairs lying on their sides.

Heart pounding, Tori stepped behind the man as he walked in. He had his hand on the butt of a gun sticking out of its holster, and he started to draw the weapon.

With everything she had, she swung the swivel base at the man’s head.

He swung around in time to put his arm up to protect his face. The base hit his arm hard enough that he dropped the handgun and it landed on her foot.

The man gave an angry shout as he stumbled to the side.

He tripped over the wheels she’d left on the floor and he fell, landing hard.

Her heart pounded faster.

Doing the best she could to ignore the pain in her chest, she fell to her knees and grabbed the gun he’d dropped on her foot.

The man scrambled to his knees and faced her. His eyes were like blue flame as he looked at her with fury.

He lunged for her. “Bitch!” he shouted in Spanish.

She raised the gun with both hands and squeezed the trigger.

He slammed her to the floor just as the gun jerked in her hands, the sound reverberating off the walls and echoing in her ears.

She screamed. It felt as if pain ripped her apart as she hit the floor, his big body on top of hers.

Tears flooded her eyes from the agony.

He raised his head and his fist at the same time. He swung his fist and it connected with the side of her head.

Stars sparked in her head and her mind spun.

He rose up, getting to his knees, and she saw his shirt was drenched in blood. He opened his mouth and blood rolled over his lips.

For a moment he looked confused. Then he looked at his belly and the blood soaking his shirt, the stain spreading.

He looked as dazed as she felt. He started to collapse on her but she held up her arms. His weight was too much. He was too big, too muscular. His weight landed on her again.

Black swirled on the edges of her vision. An involuntary scream rose up inside her, but she could make no sound as blackness started to close in on her.

The man faced her as his head landed next to hers. She almost managed a scream this time as she saw his eyes were wide and sightless. Dead. He was dead.

She took rapid breaths, trying to fend off the darkness. It was almost impossible to breathe with the man’s dead weight on her.

Tears of pain rolled down her cheeks as her vision started to clear. She felt weak and exhausted, but the thought of being found by the cartel’s men gave her renewed strength. That and the adrenaline pumping in her veins.

She used her knee against the man’s belly and her hands on his shoulders. She counted to three and shoved with all the power she could muster.

The body rolled off of hers. The dead man landed on his back, his body blocking open the door. A loud clanking sound echoed in the room as the gun hit the floor.

Bile rose in her throat and she thought she was going to vomit. She’d just killed a man.

She told herself that he would have killed her, but it was still hard to comprehend that she’d taken a life.

Now was not the time to think about that. It was time to get out of here and find someplace to run or hide or…she didn’t know, but she’d figure it out.

Her stomach ached and she put her hand to her belly and felt slick flesh. She looked down. She’d torn her shirt to help the agent and now her bare stomach was covered with the dead man’s blood. On her shirt, his blood mingled with Agent Aguilar’s.

She swallowed and picked up the gun she’d dropped when she’d pushed him off of her. She staggered to her feet and headed out the door.

Angelina walked through the family wing, her belly quivering with excitement. It wouldn’t be long now until she was presented as a woman to friends, family, and acquaintances. It had seemed like the day would never come.

Carlos would be here tonight. Her skin tingled and she felt giddy, eager to see the handsome young man. He was sixteen, over a year older than she. But now that she was a young woman, she hoped he would notice her and that her grandfather would not object.

She had seen Carlos watching her many times, but he had never been more than polite and respectful. As intimidating as her grandfather could be, she had no wonder that Carlos had barely spoken to her. But his dark, beautiful eyes framed by long dark lashes made him so very handsome. He captivated her and watched her whenever he was near.