Three Cowboys

Chapter Six

Elena hadn’t counted on Raul Santiago being at Avalina’s Cantina when she and Wyatt arrived. While Wyatt settled in a corner booth, Elena found Mariana, Santiago’s woman, cleaning up in the back to finish her shift. “Back so soon, chica?” Mariana asked in rapid-fire Spanish.

“Remember the gringo who tipped me so big?” Elena replied, feigning naive excitement. “He wants to meet your boyfriend, Raul.”

Mariana looked immediately wary. “Is he the police?”

“God, no,” Elena said quickly. “Unless cops go around offering you blow. And lots of it.”

Mariana’s eyebrows arched. “Did you take it?”

“No. I don’t do the stuff myself. Certainly didn’t need it to have fun this afternoon,” she added with a laugh. “He may look like a professor, but he’s all stallion in bed.”

Mariana looked across the room at Wyatt with a salacious smile. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

“He’s a—what do you call it? Distributor. He’s a distributor for the drug gangs up North.” Elena lowered her voice. “When I told him I’d met one of the infamous Jaguares, he wanted to meet him. Maybe he wants to make some sort of deal with El Jefe.”

Mariana’s voice lowered to a whisper. “Good luck with that. Señor Calderón meets with few. I have never seen him on this side of the border, myself.” For all her bravado, she clearly feared Calderón. Elena couldn’t blame her. “El Jefe,” as she’d called him, was the chief indeed, but he was no benevolent dictator. If he thought Mariana was in his way, he’d cut her down with no remorse. Probably even enjoy it.

If Elena had been able to think of a way to arrange an introduction between Wyatt and Calderón’s henchman without using Mariana, she’d have done it. But Wyatt would need a personal voucher to get anywhere close to Raul Santiago, much less Calderón. “So there’s nothing you could do to help him?” she asked Mariana.

“You like him that much?”

“I do,” Elena answered, surprising even herself by the fervor in her tone. She looked across the room at Wyatt, who was nursing a Corona and people-watching from his corner booth. His gaze shifting to lock with hers, he lifted his bottle in salute. Elena almost forgot to smile, overwhelmed by a powerful tug of attraction. It wouldn’t be hard to convince anyone she’d fallen hard for the sexy gringo, she realized, because she had.

Mariana’s eyebrows twitched again, but she just patted Elena’s arm. “Are you sure you know what you’ll be getting into?”

No, Elena thought. I don’t. And that scares the hell out of me. “I may never have a chance like this again, Mariana. He’s handsome and rich and he wants me.”

“Are you sure he wants you? Or just what you do in bed?”

“Does it matter?” she asked, a hint of pragmatism in her tone. “If I help him get this deal, he’ll be very grateful, yes?”

“Perhaps,” Mariana said. “I’ll do this. I’ll tell Raul about your gringo and what he does for the Americans. If Raul thinks Señor Calderón might wish to know more, he will approach your lover himself. What is his name?”

“Roger,” Elena answered. “Roger Hines. He’s from Illinois.”

Mariana patted her hair into place. “I will do what I can.”

“Wait.” Elena grabbed Mariana’s arm. “Be sure Raul tells Roger that this was my idea. So he will be grateful to me.”

“I will.” Mariana’s smile held a hint of sadness. Perhaps her love affair with one of Los Jaguares hadn’t lived up to her expectations, either.

As the other woman crossed to speak to Raul, Elena made eye contact with Wyatt again. His eyebrow quirked and she gave a quick nod. He smiled at her so warmly, she thought she might melt into a puddle right there in the middle of the cantina. She’d been attracted to him since the day they met, but she had been fresh off the Tonio Calderón disaster, wary of men in general.

When had she dropped her guard and let Wyatt become so important to her?

* * *

“SEÑOR HINES?”

Wyatt had seen Raul Santiago coming, but he feigned surprise and just a hint of wariness. “I’m Roger Hines.”

Raul’s accented English was quite good, suggesting an American education at some point in his life. “You are a brave man, coming here to seek out Señor Calderón.”

“Who told you that?”

“Your whore.”

Wyatt felt a surge of rage run through him at Santiago’s cold words, but he kept it hidden. “Then she was worth every penny I paid,” he said with an equally cold smile. “I can be of great service to your boss.”

“I will pass along the message.”

“No, I believe it would better if I spoke to Mr. Calderón face-to-face.” He deliberately used the English title rather than the Spanish, a show of power rather than deference.

Santiago didn’t miss the shift. “Señor Calderón meets with only a chosen few. I don’t expect you will be among them.”

“Isn’t that a decision Mr. Calderón should make for himself?”

Santiago was silent for a long moment. Wyatt could tell he didn’t want to lose this particular battle of wills. But finally, he nodded and stepped back. “I will pass your message to Señor Calderón and give you his answer.”

Wyatt breathed a little easier as he watched Santiago walk toward the back of the cantina and pull out a cell phone. Calling Calderón, he hoped.

He let his gaze wander around the bar, looking for Elena. But she was nowhere in sight. Had she gone to the bathroom? Outside for some fresh air?

Or had she run into trouble while he was distracted by Santiago?

He spotted the other waitress—Mariana, Elena had told him. He crossed to the table where she sat drinking a glass of wine. “You’re Carlita’s friend, aren’t you?”

Mariana looked surprised to be approached. “I know her,” she said cautiously.

“Do you know where she went?”

Mariana looked around the bar. “She was still in the back the last time I saw her. Maybe she’s in the bathroom?”

“Perhaps,” he agreed. It was the most likely answer.

But his gut crawled with alarm.

* * *

THE VOICES DRIFTING TOWARD her through the night air were hard and mean. The voices of men used to doing what they wanted when they wanted, and to hell with who got hurt. Elena had known too many men like that in her thirty years of life, mostly professionally but sometimes personally.

Had she not heard the words, “la gringita,” she might have gone back inside the cantina, back to the noise and liquor and the unmistakable odor of desperate people living desperate lives. Places like Avalina’s weren’t often frequented by happy tourists. No, these small, seedy cantinas catered to downtrodden locals and the occasional weary traveler looking for something raw and authentic to break up the monotony of his life on the road.

They were also magnets for the predators, as potent a draw as carrion to a hungry coyote. From the next words she heard from the voices drifting down the narrow alley, she knew these men were predators of the worst kind.

“El Jefe is coming here to meet someone. It’s our chance. He’ll be away, and the others’ll keep our secret if we let them in on it.” She recognized the voice, she realized. El Pavón himself, Tomás Sanchez.

Elena pressed her back flat against the exterior wall of the cantina. Despite the cold wind, the adobe was surprisingly warm, having retained some of the sun’s heat from earlier in the day.

“If Javi finds out—”

“Who will tell? The girl? She’s already lied to try to get away. We’ll be careful. Leave no marks. She’s no virgin at her age, anyway. The gringas never are. She might even like it.”

Elena covered her mouth, feeling sick. They were talking about Brittany Means. She knew it, gut deep.

“He is already on his way here. If we go now, we can get what we want and be gone again before he returns.”

“And if José doesn’t go along?” The second man’s protests were halfhearted. Elena could tell he would do what Sanchez suggested. He was just looking for assurances that he wouldn’t get caught.

“He will disappear,” Sanchez said flatly. “Let’s go now, while we can.”

Elena slipped silently down the alley and searched the street on the other side of the building for the two men she’d overheard.

There. They were heading for a large truck with a canvas covering over the truck bed. Old Mexican army surplus, she guessed from the desert-camouflage pattern of the paint job. She edged closer to the truck, keeping out of the line of sight. Once Sanchez and the other man climbed into the cab of the truck, she made a snap decision.

Grabbing the tailgate, she stepped onto the bumper and climbed into the truck bed, staying low to keep herself hidden from view. The canvas covering blocked the view from the truck’s back window, which meant that while the men inside couldn’t see her, she couldn’t see them, either.

For however long it took the truck to reach Calderón’s compound, she had to stay quiet and stay put. She reached into her pocket and put her cell phone on vibrate, for she knew without a doubt Wyatt would be calling her the second he realized she had disappeared.

And boy, was he going to be pissed.

* * *

“SEÑOR CALDERÓN HAS AGREED to meet with you.” Raul Santiago merely stopped by Wyatt’s table, speaking with cool formality, as if he couldn’t be deigned to treat Wyatt as an equal.

Putting me in my place, Wyatt thought. “When?”

“He’s on his way now.”

Wyatt looked up at the man, surprised. “Now?”

Santiago slanted a disdainful look at him. “Is that a problem?”

“No. Of course not.”

“I will introduce you when Señor Calderón arrives. You may wish to be less...American when you meet him. He has little affection for gringo arrogance.”

What a coincidence, Wyatt thought. I have no affection for psychopaths who terrorize and murder innocent people. Whatever their race or nationality.

Santiago left the table, giving Wyatt a chance to compose his scattered thoughts. Calderón was coming here? Everyone had seemed so sure he’d never agree to the meeting, which meant one of two things. Either the head honcho of Los Jaguares was in desperate need of distribution for his goods in America, or he already suspected Wyatt was a plant and he was coming to Los Soldados to handle things personally.

Wyatt hoped it was the former, not the latter. But the light weight of the Kel Tec P32 strapped to his ankle offered a little comfort.

He was more worried about Elena. She clearly hadn’t gone to the bathroom, or she’d have been back by now.

Keeping an eye on Santiago, who was at a table with Mariana, Wyatt pulled his cell phone from his pocket and checked for any missed messages. Nothing. He dialed the number for Elena’s cell phone and got no answer.

Damn it. Where the hell was she?

* * *

THE BUZZ OF HER CELL PHONE was muted by the flap of her purse but it still sounded unnaturally loud in the empty bed of the cargo truck. Elena curled herself around the phone to muffle the noise. It was the second time her phone had vibrated in the last five minutes. It had to be Wyatt, looking for her. When the phone hummed a third time, it was two short buzzes, signaling she had a text message.

She risked a look at the screen. It was from Wyatt. Where are you?

Typing slower than she’d like, since she could barely see the keypad of her phone, she typed in a terse explanation and hit Send. Before he could respond, she added a second message. Calderón’s on his way there. Keep him occupied and I’ll get Brittany out.

She could only imagine his reaction to that message but hoped he’d see the wisdom of letting her do her part to save his sister. She wasn’t some civilian who didn’t know how to handle herself in a sticky situation, after all. She was a field agent for ICE. This wasn’t her first rodeo.

The sound of the tires on the road changed, and she dared a quick peek under the canopy. They were on a bridge crossing the Rio Grande. No checkpoint that she could see. This bridge must have been built by one of the cartels as a border crossing.

She had a GPS tracker on her phone that could give her the exact coordinates of her position. Huddling with her back to the truck cab, blocking any light the phone display might cast, she checked the program and got her coordinates. Now she knew where she had to head once she got Brittany out of that compound.

As she was about to close the phone again, she stopped and texted the coordinates to Wyatt. It wasn’t backup, exactly, but it was better than going in completely alone.

The truck began to slow, and Elena closed her phone, sliding backward into the corner of the truck bed, where some smelly old horse blankets lay in a wad. She made herself as small as possible, covering up with the blankets. The smell of horses made her need to sneeze, but she fought to keep it inside.

She heard Sanchez and the other man talking as they got out of the truck and started walking away. The tickle in her nose increased until she could barely keep her eyes open.

A little farther, she thought. Let them get just a little farther from the truck....

She couldn’t stop the sneeze. Or the next two. But she pressed her hands over her nose, doing her best to muffle the sound.

The sneezes subsided and she froze in place, listening for any sign that the men walking away from the truck had heard her. She heard only the sound of cattle lowing in the distance and, somewhere nearer, the plaintive howl of a coyote.

She let a minute pass in silence before she ventured toward the back of the truck. A peek outside reassuring her that she was alone, she climbed out of the truck bed and dropped to the hard-packed ground below.

Some sort of outbuilding sprawled about a hundred yards away. Perhaps housing stables at one time, it had weathered in the desert sun and harsh north wind until the wood siding was a pale, bleached gray. But it was not entirely abandoned. She saw lamplight shining through the window.

Two dark figures, silhouetted against an open doorway, caught her eye. Sanchez and the other man, perhaps? They seemed to be talking to another man who was blocking the doorway.

Suddenly, one of the two men outside made a quick movement and the scene lit up with a soft flare of light. Almost simultaneously, a crack of gunfire carried through the cold night air. Elena ducked behind the truck, peeking around the corner to see what had happened.

The man in the doorway crumpled to the ground.

They hadn’t been able to talk the guard into joining them, Elena thought. Once the other two men entered the building, she started running as quietly as possible toward the outbuilding.

There was enough light inside the building, and so little outside, that she dared to peek through the high-set windows to get a better look at what was going on inside. She had guessed right about the building’s former use. Definitely stables of some sort, with concrete and wood stalls to house a large number of animals at once. Might be part of the alpaca ranch. Or maybe the alpaca ranch had formerly been a horse ranch.

She edged her way down the outside wall, keeping an eye out for anyone approaching from nearby buildings or the hard-packed dirt road leading from the bridge. As she neared the end of the stable, she found what she was looking for.

Brittany Means, locked in one of the stalls. And the two men from the truck approaching her with clear intent.

It was now or never.

She reached the edge of the building and looked around the corner. There. A large set of double doors leading into the building. No padlock to impede her entry. But opening the large pair of doors would draw the attention of the men long before she could make her move.

She had to lure them outside instead.

Slipping back around the corner of the building, she reached into her purse and brought out the Smith &Wesson tucked in the built-in holster inside. Aiming for the rusty metal barrel standing about ten yards away, she squeezed off a round. The gunshot made her ears ring, but the round hit its mark, drilling a hole into the barrel.

Exclamations and curses in excited Spanish immediately followed the gunshot. Elena hurried back around the corner and set up for their reaction.

What she didn’t expect was to see them both burst from the stable, guns blazing. The one she didn’t recognize ran around the corner and skidded to a stop at the sight of her, his expression almost comical. But when he brought his gun up and took a shot at her, she had no choice but to shoot back.

His bullet fired well wide, slamming into the wall above her head. Hers hit him center mass. He fired another shot as he went down, the bullet pinging against the rusty metal overhang of the stable roof. It ricocheted into the ground fifteen yards away.

Elena set herself for Sanchez to come running. But all she heard was a loud cry of pain and then footsteps pounding away at a sprint.

She grabbed the gun from the fallen man’s hand and peered around the corner. Tomás Sanchez lay facedown on the ground, a pitchfork sticking out of his back.

About thirty yards away, she saw a slim figure racing into the desert, silhouetted by moonlight.

Brittany, she thought.

She took off after her.