Edge of Surrender (7 page)

NINE

A
lexa strode into the doughnut shop, and Jake's pulse picked up. He leaned back in his chair, trying to look bored as she approached the table.

“Doughnuts for dinner?” she asked.

“Sure, why not?”

She pulled out a chair and sank into it. He slid a napkin over, offering her a chocolate-iced doughnut with chocolate sprinkles. She didn't even look at it. “No, thank you.”

“What kind of cop doesn't like doughnuts?”

“I'm not a cop. I'm an FBI agent.”

“That gun on your hip says you're a cop, babe. Same with that scowl you get when you're annoyed. At least have some coffee.” He pushed the cup toward her. “You probably plan to be up late.”

She ignored the coffee, too. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

“You've got it wrong, Alexa. I'm here to help
you
.”

“What makes you think I need your help?”

“The Ricky Avedo case is one of the most important investigations your office is running right now. And your most important witness rejected your offer of protection. She'd rather have a SEAL.” He smiled. “Can you blame her?”

“We don't need your help. She's under surveillance.”

“You mean Rosewood and Taggart? Sorry to break it to you, but Ryan shook them loose an hour ago.”

She tried not to react, but he could see no one had told her about this development.

“Don't worry,” he said. “Emma's been transferred safely to an undisclosed location. I'll be happy to put her in touch with you, but I'm going to need you to answer a simple question first.”

Alexa waited, not talking or scowling or giving anything away. But just the fact that she hadn't gotten up and left yet told him how important Emma was and that the FBI needed his help communicating with her.

“What's your question?” she asked casually.

“Who called Emma and set up that fake meeting? And don't tell me you don't know. You ran her phone records as soon as you found out about it.”

She tipped her head to the side. “If Emma's so safe with your friend, then why does it matter?”

“Threat assessment. We like to know the direction a threat's coming from to better defend against it.”

She looked at him for a long moment. Then something changed. Her shoulders sagged, and she leaned back in her chair, sighing. For the first time since he'd met her, he got a glimpse of the real woman beneath all the armor. Jake could see she was under a lot of strain.

She pinched off a bite of his doughnut and popped it into her mouth. She chewed for a moment and then took another bite.

“That's good.”

“I know.” He watched her, waiting patiently. When she glanced up again, he felt like she was ready to talk.

“I can't tell you who exactly. In fact, I really shouldn't tell you anything.”

“We're on the same team here, Alexa. Five weeks ago, I dropped into the jungle to help rescue this girl. I want to help her stay alive, same as you.”

Alexa looked around the little restaurant. It was almost empty, and the employees were wiping down counters and wrapping up for the day. “Like I said, I can't tell you who. But I can tell you what.” She took a deep breath. “ICE.”

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement?”

She nodded. “Their LA office. The call originated from there.” She took a sip of coffee. “It's been said—and I'm not confirming this—that Ricky Avedo has a contact on the inside somewhere. Someone who helps him with his trafficking operation. He's had way too much luck dodging raids in the past, and investigators believe he's getting tips. Good ones. Whoever provides them also helps him troubleshoot problems.”

“Problems such as Emma Wright.”

“We're looking into that, yes. We believe someone may have planned to ambush her at her hotel, possibly grabbing her on her way to her room or inside it. The room is on the first floor, so they could have slipped out through the patio door. When she didn't enter the hotel, they changed the plan and went after her on the street.”

Well, shit.

Emma was dead on when she'd told Ryan she couldn't trust the feds. Someone within their ranks was gunning for her. Or helping Avedo gun for her, which was the same thing.

Avedo was dangerous and highly motivated, a very bad combination for Emma. Jake had been doing some digging, and Ricky and his dad had an extremely lucrative business. There was a lot on the line, a lot to protect.

A lot to lose if some nosy congressman's daughter blew the lid off everything.

“Sounds like you have your hands full,” he said.

“I gave you something. Now it's your turn.” She leaned forward. “How can I reach Emma? I'm sure you can see how dangerous this situation is for her.”

Jake nodded. “I can.” He stood, and she looked up at him, startled. “When she's ready, I'll have her get in touch.”

———

The place wasn't what Ryan had pictured. When Emma said Manhattan Beach he'd expected a fancy setup, maybe with a view overlooking the Pacific. But it was your basic walk-up apartment, a couple dozen units centered around a sparsely landscaped courtyard. She was in a second-floor apartment, but that was about the only good thing he could see about the place.

She led him down an open-air walkway.

“Your super needs to change out these bulbs,” Ryan told her.

“What's that?”

“These light bulbs. I see two out on the other side. Where is he? I'll talk to him.”

“I have no idea, actually. The management doesn't know I'm staying here.” She stopped at a door and knocked. “I hope this woman's home. I've only met her once. I don't even know what she does for a living.”

The answer became apparent when Emma's neighbor answered the door in orange short-shorts and a Hooters T-shirt.

She smiled. “Emma, hey. What's up?” Her gaze landed on Ryan, and her smile brightened.

“Sorry to bother you, but I'm locked out again.”

“What's that?” She shifted her attention back to Emma.

“I misplaced my key. You mind lending me the spare?”

“Sure, no problem.”

The neighbor went and got the key and then rushed off to work, giving Ryan a little wink when Emma wasn't looking.

“Good thing we caught her,” Emma said, unlocking her door. “I don't know how we would've gotten in otherwise.”

“I do.” Ryan followed her into a dark apartment. The front hallway was lined with large brown moving boxes sealed with tape.

“It's a mess.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I haven't unpacked yet. I've only spent one night here.”

The living room had almost no furniture, just a faded blue futon and an armchair that had to have come from the Salvation Army. The place was immaculate, though, and the kitchen smelled like Pine-Sol.

“My friend left it clean, but she sold off some of the furniture before she left, so . . .” Emma's words trailed off as she made a beeline straight for the refrigerator and opened it. “Aha!” She beamed a smile at him. “Can I offer you a beer?”

“Definitely.”

Ryan crossed the living room to check out the windows. Between them was a door to a narrow balcony, barely room for one person to stand on. “You need some new locks on these windows.”

“Huh?” She looked up from the fridge.

“These old latches are crap. You can pick up some burglar latches at any hardware store. Or I can.”

She popped the top off a Corona and handed him the bottle. “I'm on the second level. You really think that's necessary?”

“Yeah, I do.”

She shook her head and went back into the kitchen. “I don't have much food, unfortunately. I've only picked up a few staples. Oh—I have Grape-Nuts. Damn, but no milk. You want some dry cereal?”

“I'll pass.”

A box near the window was open and partially unpacked. Ryan looked inside. She had a stack of review books for the GRE, an anatomy textbook, a Tagalog-English dictionary.

She also had a couple of yearbooks and several pictures in frames. Ryan picked up the top photo. Emma was standing on a snowy hilltop with her arms wrapped around some guy. They both wore ski jackets and scarves, and the backdrop was a snow-covered mountain range.

“This him?”

“What?”

Ryan looked to the kitchen, where she was rummaging through the pantry.

“Hunter Bevins, your ex.”

She glanced up. “Oh. Yeah.” She frowned. “Where'd you get that?”

“In your box.” The box packed with stuff she wanted in her new place.

Ryan's gut tightened with jealousy. He couldn't help it. The fucker had taken her skiing and probably to expensive restaurants all the time. He probably had some six-figure job and drove a fucking BMW.

And he'd hurt her and embarrassed her in front of everyone she knew, and still she wanted his picture in her new apartment.

She walked over and took the frame out of his hand, then tossed it back into the box. “That's old,” she said.

“Is it?”

“Yes.” She stared up at him, and he tried to read her expression.

A sharp rap sounded at the door, and Ryan was across the room in a few strides to peer through the peephole. No one there, which was exactly what he'd expected.

He opened the door and found an olive-green duffel on the ground.

“Who was that?” she asked from behind him as he closed the door.

“Lucas Ortiz.”

“Who?”

“Lucas. You met him.” He unzipped the duffel and took out a black notebook computer.

“That's my laptop! How'd he get this?”

“He dropped by your hotel room in San Diego.” Ryan pulled out a clear zipper bag of makeup. “I told him to grab everything in the bathroom, in case you needed anything.” Lucas had remembered to get her prescriptions, Ryan was glad to see. He handed her the zipper bag and continued going through the duffel. He found a change of clothes, a new burner phone, an envelope containing a hundred dollars in cash, and a jumbo box of condoms. Lucas definitely had his back.

“Dropped by?”

Ryan looked up.

“How do you ‘drop by' a locked hotel room?”

“He let himself in.”

“How? He could have been arrested!”

“Not likely.”

Ryan zipped the duffel before she could catch a glimpse of his provisions and get offended. On the ride over here, Ryan had realized he might have been taking some things for granted with Emma. He couldn't just assume she wanted to be with him. She hadn't told him about nursing school, so maybe she saw this whole thing as a one-off. If so, Ryan had plans to convince her otherwise.

But she wasn't paying attention to his provisions. She was already booting up her computer on the kitchen counter.

“What are you searching for exactly?” Ryan asked, looking over her shoulder.

“I need to check something. The date of this argument I overheard at the Conners'.” Her hands flew over the keys as she entered search words. “I stopped by the ambassador's residence to drop off an itinerary for one of our mission trips. The maid let me in. They were arguing in the living room. . . . Damn it, where is that itinerary? It was the trip to Leyte. Richard's assistant e-mailed me the schedule. Here.” She clicked open an e-mail. “I knew it! March twentieth.”

“I'm not following.”

“The argument. It was
after
the passport incident. I told you about the missing passports? That whole thing blew up on March fifteenth. Oh my God, Ryan. Do you
see
?” She looked up at him eagerly.

“Not at all.”

“Sorry. Backtrack. Renee and Richard were arguing when I showed up. I remember she said something like, ‘You think I don't know your little secret?' It was so much like an argument my parents once had, and I jumped right to the conclusion that she'd found out about one of his affairs.”

“He had affairs?”

“All the time. And she said, ‘I'm not trapped, you know. I have resources,' or something along those lines.”

“You're saying the ‘secret' she was referring to was the passport thing?”

“Yes! What if he was involved? What if he's working as an inside man for the Avedo family, getting them things they need and giving them tips to help them run their operation? As the ambassador, he's privy to all kinds of sensitive information.”

It wasn't a bad theory.

It was damn good, in fact. Better than anything Ryan had come up with, and he had plenty of information Emma didn't.

She was exiting her e-mail account now and logging into someone else's.

“No way. I still have access to Renee's.” She smiled up at him, her eyes glittering with excitement. “Okay, let me just search a few things here. If you were talking to a divorce lawyer, what are some things you'd discuss? Money! Of course.” She entered the word
retainer
in the search field and came up with an e-mail trail. Ryan skimmed the messages over her shoulder and whistled.

“Damn, you're good at this. You sure you want to be a nurse?”

“Here's an invoice right here. She retained a divorce lawyer in Los Angeles, Ryan. She was planning to leave him.”

“Which makes me think Conner helped orchestrate the attack,” Ryan said.

“You mean . . . the attack on the plane? I thought some sort of missile brought it down. I thought it was militants.”

“The Avedo family's connected throughout the region,” he said. “They spend millions a year running their operation, and despite all their political rhetoric, these militant groups are happy to sell their services to the highest bidder. Kidnapping for ransom, murder, extortion, whatever—they do it all.”

“So you think Avedo arranged with one of these militant groups to have her targeted?”

“Yes, but with help. Whoever carried out the attack on her plane, and even her car before that, would have needed details about her schedule, her security, details the ambassador definitely had about his wife.”