Dangerous Desires (29 page)

“But the good news,” Hannah said, “is that there’s just one master key. And although each of the guards carries his own, the keys are checked in before the men leave the premises and they’re kept at the guards’ station.”

“Okay, so let’s say we’ve managed to make it to Tucker’s cell and free him.” Drake walked over to the window, crossing his arms as he leaned back against the sill. “How do you propose we get out of there?”

“Same way you got in,” Hannah said. “If we’ve done everything right, you should be able to get Tucker out of the building and into the van while I restore the power. Then you simply drive through the gate and we’re home free.”

“In my experience,” Nash frowned, his tone dry, “operations never go quite that smoothly.”

“He’s got a point.” Annie nodded. “But I should be able to handle the tower guards if necessary. Assuming you can do without me on the inside.”

“I was already thinking that might be a good idea,” Nash said. “So Annie will handle external complications, and Hannah, you’ll coordinate and deal with the technical
aspects of the mission. I’ll hold the fort at the utility hub, maintaining the façade of our repairman gig. And in the meantime Drake will break into the prison to find and liberate Tucker. ”

“What about me?” Madeline asked. “What do I do?”

“You stay here and help Hannah,” Drake said.

She nodded, her expression inscrutable.

“So when do we go?” Nash asked.

“There’s no time like the present,” Hannah said. “And the faster we move, the less chance we’ll run into interference. So assuming we can get everything put together, I’m thinking we should be ready to go just after midnight.”

M
oonlight spilled across the front porch of the hacienda, the trees swaying in the silvery light.
Hunter’s moon
. Madeline wrapped her arms around her knees as she sat on the steps, looking out at the lights of Magdalena. So many things had happened in so little time. It was hard to deal with it all. Most especially the way she felt about Drake.

It was confusing at best, depressing at worst. In some bizarre way, the whole thing reminded her of summer camp. Relationships intensified, normal social barriers gone, the magnification making everything seem exaggerated. More important somehow. But when it was over, and reality returned, the intensity faded, and the feelings passed. A moment’s enchantment—gone.

She sighed, staring out at the moonlit night. Palm trees swayed in the gentle breeze, the sweet fragrance of mango and coconut filling the air. Stars dotted the velvet sky, their twinkling light dimming against the brightness
of the moon. The soft sound of bleating drifted across the road from the field on the other side, a herd of goats settling in for the night.

Behind her, the screen door squeaked as it opened, but she didn’t turn to see who it was. She already knew.

“I wondered where you’d gotten to,” Drake said, dropping down beside her on the steps.

“Where’s everyone else?” she asked.

“Nash and Annie are trying to get a few hours’ sleep and Hannah is holed up in her bedroom with her computer.”

Madeline nodded, standing up to lean against the railing, her eyes still on the moonlit sky.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Just thinking,” she said. “About everything that’s happened.”

“Well, for the moment at least, things seem to be going our way. That’s something.”

“Yeah, you guys have everything under control?” she asked.

“We have a plan, if that’s what you mean.” He shrugged. “And for what it’s worth, while we’re gone, you’ll be safe here with Hannah. We’ve taken every precaution. There’s no way di Silva’s people are going to find you here. It’s the last place they’d expect you to come. And no one at the CIA knows about any of this. So you don’t have to worry.”

“I’m not worried,” she said, swinging around to face him. “I just don’t want to stay here.” She stopped, the idea surprising, the truth hitting her full-on.

“I thought we’d been through this already.” He frowned, coming to his feet. “You can’t afford to go off on your own right now.”

“You’re not understanding me,” she said. “I don’t want to leave. More specifically, I don’t want to leave
you
. I want to come with you. To San Mateo. I want to help you free Andrés.”

“That’s out of the question,” he responded, his tone brooking no argument. But she wasn’t in the habit of letting other people tell her what to do.

“It most certainly is not,” she said, hands on her hips. “I’m the only one you’ve got who’s been inside. I know the guards’ routines as well as the prisoners’ schedules. I know the building. And I know the layout.”

“Hannah’s got blueprints.”

“Old ones. I had a closer look at them. They’re not accurate. Four years ago they did some remodeling. Things aren’t exactly the same. But I’ve been there. And I know the changes they made.”

“So you can show me.”

“Yes, but what if I don’t remember everything? You need me on site. Timing is crucial. Which means things will go better with an inside man—
or woman
.”

“I can’t let you go. It’s too dangerous.”

“But this is something I have to do. Can’t you understand that? Look, Drake, you need me. And I want to help. Please let me.” They stood for a moment, toe to toe, their gazes dueling.

And then Drake shook his head with a soft laugh. “You’re a stubborn woman. You know that, don’t you?”

“I can be a little single-minded,” she admitted. “But I’m right this time. You need me. And after everything you’ve done for me, it’s the least I can do.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“Neither was jumping over the waterfall. Or killing
that man on the river. But I did it. And I can do this, too. Please, Drake,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm. “Let me go with you.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded, lifting her gaze to his. “Look, I know I’ve said it before, but for what it’s worth, I’m really sorry about this morning. I could have handled it better. I guess I just panicked.”

“In all honesty, if I’d been in your position, I can’t say that I wouldn’t have done the same,” he said, the ghost of a smile chasing across his face. “But you know at some point you have to stop running, Madeline. You have to stay and fight.”

“Maybe that’s what I’m trying to do,” she whispered.

He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and she trembled as his fingers brushed her skin. A truck rumbled down the gravel road in front of them, blaring its horn at a wayward goat, and she stepped back, the moment broken.

She wanted there to be an underlying meaning to his words, for him to be talking about something beyond Ortiz and the CIA and plastic-coated playing cards. But she knew that there wasn’t. At least nothing that would change the situation at hand.

“So where were you going to go?” he asked, the question cutting into her tumbling thoughts as they settled back onto the front porch steps. “When you left this morning, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “Somewhere new, I guess. Someplace I could start over.”

“But you’d still always be looking over your shoulder.”

“Maybe. But it’s got to be better than all of this, right?”

“I don’t know; this hasn’t been so bad,” he said.

“So says the adrenaline junkie.”

“There’s truth to that, certainly. I’m not exactly the poster boy for settling down. My job doesn’t lend itself to minivans and picket fences.”

“But you wouldn’t really want it to, would you?” she asked, already certain of his answer.

“No.” He shook his head, the moonlight highlighting his profile. “I guess I wouldn’t. I’ve never been a nine-to-five kind of guy.”

“It obviously runs in the family.” The minute the words were out she regretted them, the specter of his brother rising up between them.

But he smiled, the breeze dispelling any negative feelings. “My mom certainly had the wanderlust. Although I’d never thought about my craving for adventure coming from her. I guess maybe it did. Funny to think that as much time as I’ve spent hating her, I actually turn out to be just like her.”

“You’d never desert your family,” Madeline said.

“No,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t.”

“Do you ever wonder what might have happened if things had turned out differently? I mean, like, if your mother hadn’t run off?”

“When I was a kid, all the time. But as I grew older I guess I accepted the situation for what it was. I realized that there was nothing I could do to change it. What about you? Would your life have been different if your mother had lived?”

“It’s hard to say. She wasn’t a strong woman. But she did try to protect us from my dad.”

“Did she ever try to leave? Get you away from him?”

“Once,” she said. “She woke us up in the middle of the night, and we snuck out of the house. I thought we were going on an adventure. We made our way to town, and I think we were at the bus stop. I don’t know; it was a long time ago, and I was little. But I remember my father finding us. It was the first time I was really conscious of being afraid of him. He hit my mom, and I tried to hit him back, but she grabbed me and told me to take Jenny and run home. I can still see her face.” She paused, the memory heavy as it settled around her. “Anyway, I ran. And I guess in some ways I’ve been running ever since.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be. It is what it is. And with Jenny gone, the worst of it’s over.”

“But it still haunts you.”

“Yeah, some nightmares are hard to get rid of.” She stopped, staring out into the night. “What about your mom? Is she still alive?”

“I don’t know. I tried to find her once. When I was in college. But I kept hitting dead-ends, and Tucker told me that maybe there was a reason.”

“Like you weren’t supposed to find her.”

“Something like that.” He nodded. “Anyway, I never tried again.” Silence stretched for a moment, but it was comfortable, the palms gyrating in the breeze, casting eerie shadows against the house. “Tell me about my brother,” Drake said finally, his voice soft against the whisper of the wind.

Madeline paused, knowing that this was the reason he’d come out to talk with her, and wanting to get it right. “He was sick. That’s the only way I would ever have had the chance to meet him. The sick and the infirm took the yard with the women.”

“What was wrong with him?” he turned to face her, his eyes turning silver in the moonlight.

“They thought it was malaria. But he was already getting better when I met him. It was my first time outside. I’d been in solitary, and I wasn’t exactly the best of company. But your brother can be quite persistent when he’s of a mind.”

She could see Drake smile. “Yes, he can.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “he was a little scary looking. His beard was matted and he was filthy. I was actually a little afraid of him. But then he offered me a square of chocolate. I’ve no idea where he got it, but I hadn’t eaten in days and it was amazingly good. And he just sat with me. Waiting until I calmed down. Until I wasn’t afraid anymore.”

“Sounds like my brother.” Drake nodded. “I remember when I was a kid, I used to believe there were monsters under the bed. I’d make my dad let me keep the bathroom light on to keep them from coming out. Anyway, one night in the middle of the night, the lightbulb burned out. I was too scared to get out of bed. So I just lay there freaking out, certain that I was about to get eaten. Tucker heard me, and he came in and sat with me all night. Even after I fell asleep.”

“He was that way with me, too. A guardian angel. At first he only talked in Spanish, but my command of the language was basically limited to curse words and totally useless sentences like ‘
Te gusta invierno
?’ ”

“Do you like winter?” he repeated.

“Yeah, for some reason my fifth-grade teacher thought the question would be useful for a kid growing up in the Louisiana heat. We learned the appropriate responses,
too, but that’s about as far as it went. So finally, Andrés tried his English. Which was surprisingly good, although occasionally flawed. I can see now that it was part of the act. But his friendship wasn’t a lie. It was a lifeline. I don’t think I’d have made it in there without him.”

“You’re stronger than you think you are.”

“Yes, but San Mateo isn’t the kind of place that’s easy to survive. The prisoners are people the Colombian government wants to pretend don’t exist. It makes places like Abu Ghraib look like Disneyland. Most people who go into San Mateo never come out. It’s easy to lose hope. I think that’s what happened with your brother,” she said, thinking about that last day.

“I think he decided to give me the card because he knew no one was coming for him. And he thought maybe I still had a chance. I begged him to keep it. But he refused. He said it was too late, that he was on borrowed time.” She sucked in a breath, tears threatening. “Then the guard called for him. He’d recovered from the malaria, so he was being transferred back to his original cell. I stood there, watching him go, feeling like my whole world was leaving with him. I never saw him again.”

“Did you ever try to go back? To check on him?”

“No. I guess I was too busy with my own problems.” She sighed. “Not very commendable, is it?”

“It’s what he wanted you to do. Get the hell out of San Mateo. Get on with your life.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think he meant signing on with Hector Ortiz.”

Madeline held her breath, wondering if she’d gone too far, said too much. She had no experience with real relationships. Her only friend in the last three years had
been a fellow prisoner she’d talked to once a day for fifteen minutes, and most of that had turned out to be lies. So what the hell did she know?

“Probably not,” he answered, his eyes filled with tenderness. “But considering the circumstances, I think he’d have understood.”

She nodded, tears welling again. She’d never met anyone who made her feel so vulnerable and so safe all at the same time.

“Madeline,” he said, his eyes searching hers, “I don’t know what’s happening here. And I can’t make any promises. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or the day after that. I only know that right here, right now, I want you.”