To make matters worse, he had nothing to do but think on his way up, and knew that this would not have happened if he’d just been man enough to admit what he was feeling five years ago. Both of their lives would have taken a different track. But instead he had turned coward and had run. A change of scenery, that’s what he thought he needed. Just like when he was a kid—as soon as he’d start to get close to someone, he’d always be moved to the next foster home. He always got a change of scenery.
How remarkable that a man could be thirty-eight years old and understand for the first time what a sick existence that was. How remarkable that he hadn’t understood until now how much a person needed attachments. Back then, he hadn’t understood it at all. He’d thought commitment meant he’d have to stay in one place, could not move to the next foster parent, or the next school, or the next life. Commitment meant he would die off in one place.
Now he understood that commitment meant freedom. It meant peace and a sense of belonging to someone at last.
He climbed up, stepping over logs and rocks, stoic and grim, the magnitude of the sea change in him weighing his steps. It took him more than two hours to climb through the debris of the forest before he caught a glimpse of the faded red paint of the cabin. He crouched down, tried to see through the brush. Nothing had changed since he had driven by earlier. The car was still parked out front, an old tattered wind sock still hanging from a flagpole. It actually looked as if nothing had moved. Not even the wind.
He moved quietly forward, to the edge of the tree line surrounding the house. There was a rickety old porch with three plastic chairs stacked in one corner. In the opposite corner was a pile of boards covered by a faded blue plastic tarp. One side of the cabin had nothing but the small square of a bathroom window. He moved to his right, saw that the other side of the cabin had a window looking out from the kitchen, through which he could see a cluttered table and countertop.
A rusted propane tank in the yard allowed him to get a little closer, and he used the cover of it to move to the back of the cabin, where an old chimney had been converted into a barbeque pit. There was a freestanding hammock, more chipped plastic chairs, and a couple of discarded beer bottles. Corona, Michael noticed. Juan Carlo used to have crates of the stuff trucked into Costa del Sol.
Moving from behind the propane tank to the cover of the forest again, Michael checked out the back of the cabin. There was a covered entry, but the door was boarded up with new lumber. There were two big windows overlooking what there was of a backyard, and in that window, sitting cross-legged on a bed was Leah.
Michael caught his breath, felt a rush of relief to see her alive, and squinted to see her better. It was difficult—there was nothing but natural light, and she was mostly in shadows. But when she looked up, he saw her face and thought she looked . . . perturbed?
Perturbed.
Not scared. Not furious. But irritated and tired, like she was babysitting a petulant child. Was it possible that she didn’t know she was in danger? Was it possible that she thought she was involved in nothing more than a tryst with Juan Carlo? He swallowed down a lump of revulsion at that idea, and crept closer, straining to see through the dingy window into the shadowed room, until he saw her lift her hands.
They were bound together with rope.
His throat constricted; he felt the fury rise up in him again, hot and thick. He clenched his jaw, gripped the lug wrench and tried to control the anger. It was the first thing they taught you in the agency—never let your emotions take control.
They had a reason for teaching him that—because of his anger, he didn’t hear Juan Carlo creep up on him until he said, “Welcome, amigo. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Michael tried to rise up and swing out, but he was hit with such force on the back of his head that everything went very black and very still.
Chapter Twenty-Six
IF Leah ever got out of this mess, she was going to happily find a way to make Adolfo suffer before she killed him. The more she thought about it, the more she was really very incensed—first there’d been the drugs, then the gun he didn’t know how to handle but insisted on waving at her anyway, then tying her up, her hands to her feet, and finally, dragging Michael inside and kicking him a couple of times before he gave in to her shouts to stop.
He was really turning out to be royal bastard.
With his arms folded across his chest, Adolfo glared down at Michael’s still body. “Perhaps you are right,” he said to her, panting heavily. “What is the point of hurting him? After all, I intend to kill him.”
Leah shuddered at the calm, smooth way he said it. “Stop saying such ridiculous things, will you?” she insisted as he decided to drag Michael across the floor and lay him face down beside the bed. “You’re not going to kill anyone, Adolfo. You and Michael are going to sort out whatever is between you, like two calm, rational adults.”
That made Adolfo laugh. “This cannot be, my sweet. Do you think I risk so much only to talk?”