When I spoke again, it was quieter. “Tell us something you heard. Something you saw.”
He blinked, a hint of confusion on his face. It was believable, that was for sure. But then, he was a liar and a murderer. I’d learned long ago not to trust men like him.
I’d learned not to trust anyone. I still didn’t want him to die.
“Please,” I murmured.
He continued to stare at me, but I felt his voice directed at Hennessey. “Fifteen minutes with her. You step outside.”
The chill in my body turned into a deep freeze. He was asking for fifteen minutes alone…with me. I stared at Fuentes, unable to comprehend what he’d asked. So seriously, too, as if he really thought it might happen. Even though it wouldn’t. I glanced at Hennessey to be sure.
My new partner met my gaze, and I felt a cold stab of fear. Real fear, the kind I had always been reaching for. His eyes held scales, weighing the information we could get against leaving me with Fuentes for fifteen minutes. Weighing precious information against a rookie agent. The perverted scales of justice, and they tilted against me.
“Five,” Hennessey said.
My heart turned into a thunderstorm, heavy and untamed. Oh God. This couldn’t be happening. It was a dream, the horrible trance. Wake up, wake up.
Fuentes snorted. “What could I do in five minutes? Barely stand up. Nothing. Nada.”
Feeling off balance, I stood up. My chair scraped against the floor, filling the room with an awful screech, like the scream I was incapable of making.
“Ten minutes,” Fuentes countered.
Hennessey stood up too, and I walked backward until the cold wall stopped me, imprinting its cracks on my body. How far would he go to get the information he needed? How far would he go to bring down a criminal? Was this how he’d managed to catch so many of them? But Hennessey wasn’t walking toward me. He circled the table, going for Fuentes.
Fuentes backed up too, knocking over his chair. We shared a kinship in that moment, both of us terrified of Hennessey but tied to him. Like planets orbiting the sun, we needed him for survival, but we would keep our distance as long as we could. Fuentes huddled against the wall, looking pathetic even though he was larger, slightly taller and definitely wider, than Hennessey. Still, Hennessey managed to put his palms on either side of the other man’s head. He leaned over him, threatening him without a single touch.
“I’ll leave you alone with her, but it will take less than five minutes. You’re old and handcuffed, and I’m not talking about a quick fuck anyway. I’m talking about how long it’ll take for her to kill you once I give her a knife and tell her what you did to those three little girls in Tijuana. Or was it four? You’d know better than me.”
Fuentes was shaking. I was shaking. The world felt unsteady, an earthquake in our heads. Three little girls in Tijuana.
What do you remember?
I remembered rage. The impotent rage of a child. Fuentes disgusted me, but the worst part of all was that I connected with him. He looked past Hennessey’s shoulder and stared into my eyes because he felt it too. I believed he was blind in that moment, because this wasn’t a man who would want to be weaker than he already was. He heard my breathing, he felt my pain, and he homed in on it. I wanted that knife. I wanted to use it. Did Hennessey know that about me? Could he tell?
Five minutes. Ten. What could happen in fifteen minutes?
“Two weeks from now,” Fuentes said, wheezing. “In two weeks. There’s a building shaped like an M. An old warehouse nobody uses owned by Laguardia under a shell corporation. That’s where the drugs are going. A lot of them.” Fuentes slumped against the wall, defeated. “That’s all I can tell you.”
Hennessey stepped back and straightened his suit. “Thank you.”
Fuentes slid down to the floor, the orange fabric stretching grotesquely across his legs and belly. “The call?” he asked, sounding like a lost child. “You’ll make the call.”
Hennessey nodded shortly. “I will.”
Fuentes nodded, looking miserable. Guilt over ratting out Laguardia? Or fear for himself?
When my legs would support me again, I pushed off the wall and followed Hennessey out of the room. We walked in silence, with only the accompaniment of metal bars clanging to mark the steps. Even when the sunlight blinded my eyes and the exhaust of the city burned my lungs, I stayed silent. Mute. Like he’d told me to be inside. Why hadn’t I listened?
This will be our little secret, okay?