Friendly Fire (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 3) (23 page)

Manolo's mother?
Juliet stopped walking. "Let's talk to her."

"Hell no." Tristan hustled her past the yellow house toward a tailor shop. "Look, I know what you're thinking," he added in a quiet voice. "You want to grab Manolo, drive him out of town, and make him tell us everything he knows. Am I right?"

"Something like that," she admitted.

"Bad idea. If César catches wind of some
gringos
looking for his hostages, he'll relocate. And then how will we find them?"

"You have a better plan?" she demanded.

"Yes, we wait for Manolo to show up and we follow him. Eventually, he'll take us to César."

"Eventually?" she repeated on a shrill note.

"Honey, this can't be rushed. Failure is not an option."

A feeling similar to claustrophobia welled up in her, making it hard to breathe. But she got his message loud and clear. After all, she'd been on stakeouts before, but never when the stakes were so high.

"Wait where?" she asked, raking the opposite side of the street for a vantage point. They'd gotten several curious looks already. American tourists apparently never visited this side of town, and with good reason. But what if Manolo didn't show up for days? She'd have to get through another night like the last.

"I don't know yet. We need to walk around and get a feel for the area."

"How about you walk around, and I'll keep an eye out for Manolo," she offered. Teasing her phone from her pocket, she looked at the time. "I'll give you fifteen minutes, and I'll stand like a patient woman right here." Suddenly, right there in her hand, her phone vibrated. "Check it out," she exclaimed, staring at the screen. She'd gone without coverage since she'd left New Orleans and now had three bars. "I've got reception!"

As Tristan walked away, she checked her recent messages, hoping for news of Emma. Nothing there. She opened her email application next and frowned at the message from an unfamiliar alias.

That's got to be spam, she thought. But on a whim, she opened and scanned the message—once quickly then again more slowly. Her heartbeat accelerated until it rocked her on her feet.

"Tristan," she yelled, calling him back to her, wishing she wasn't shaking when he approached.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She held the phone out so he could see. "Look," she said, "I just got a ransom note."

Chapter 15

With concern, Emma studied the lone figure meditating at the far end of the room. The interviews were over. Their captors had sealed the steel door and turned off the halogen lights in deference to the heat. Beyond the boarded windows, a rumble of thunder suggested an approaching rainstorm. Just enough daylight slipped around the edges of the clapboard that she could make out Jeremiah's silhouette.

He sat in a lotus position with his eyes closed, his shoulders relaxed, forearms resting loosely on his knees. If he could hear the conversations taking place in other parts of the room, he didn't give any indication. To everyone else, he appeared relaxed and removed from the present situation.

But she knew better. Something troubled him.

"They let Bert and Joan go because he paid them off," Noah's mother was saying to her sisters. "The leader wants fifty thousand dollars a person. I have just enough money from Jeff's life insurance to free all of us."

"Don't do it." The Newark cop, who was eavesdropping from his hammock, spoke up suddenly. "They didn't let the Sauers go. Are you serious?" Joe swung his feet to the floor to argue his point. "They took Bert's money, drove him and Joan to some abandoned building, and blew their brains out. Trust me. They're dead."

Emma winced at his ugly assertion, grateful that Sammy was snoozing next to her and hadn't overheard it. She wished Jeremiah would speak up as he'd done before to temper Joe's prediction of doom. Either he chose to ignore the man or he was too deep in his meditation to hear him. Or perhaps, he agreed with what Joe was saying.

"You know what? Shut up," Noah's mother—her name was Ann—scrambled to her knees as if about to stalk over to Joe and box his ears. "Don't you dare talk like that with children in the room."

"She's right, Joe," said his girlfriend, Cheryl.

"Your son is not a child," Joe retorted, ignoring Cheryl's input. His eyes glinted in the dark as he fixed them on Noah's slumped shoulders. "He knows I'm right. Hey kid, you were smart to try and make a run for it when you got off the bus," he added addressing Noah directly.

Noah turned his head three quarters but refused to meet Joe's eyes.

"Don't talk to him. You do not have my permission to speak to him directly."

Emma surprised herself by speaking up. "Listen to us," she demanded, using her best professor's voice when addressing her class in the midst of a heated discussion. "You're talking as though we're not all in the same predicament. But we are. And we all want the same thing—to survive and get home safely. The best way to do that is to stall our captors while we wait for rescue. It
is
coming," she assured them. "The Navy knows where to look for us."

In the quiet that followed, she realized Jeremiah had opened his eyes and was regarding her across the space between them. His shadowed gaze drove a shaft of fear through her.

Help
was
coming, wasn't it?

Rolling carefully out of the hammock, she left Sammy sleeping in order to discover what was troubling him. Sitting cross-legged on the floor directly in front of him, she laced her hands in his and held him tightly.

"What is it?" she whispered.

He sent her a faint smile. "What do you mean?"

"Something is bothering you."

That elicited an ironic chuckle. "How could that be? I'm in paradise with you."

The word
paradise
brought to mind the morning they had stood at the prow of the ship and he'd recited Wordsworth. A wave of regret rolled through her.

"We were in paradise," she recalled hardly able to credit their change in fortunes. How had they gone from enjoying their carefree vacation to being locked up in an old factory building, at the mercy of vile and ruthless killers?

The realization that she'd failed to embrace life completely even when it had been offered on a platter hit her suddenly. She had promised Juliet she would let her hair down and actually live a little, but she hadn't. Even when Jeremiah had bestowed all the romance, all the assurances a woman could possibly desire, she had still kept him at a distance.

What if—God forbid—she'd been wrong about love and the man sitting in front of her was truly her last chance? What if they all died here, murdered by the men who'd killed half of them already? Should she voice what was in her heart?

Their captors clearly had no compunction about killing. Joe was right. They would take whatever they could get using the bank and credit card information she and the others had provided. They would extort fifty thousand dollars from those loved ones who had the money. But what about those who didn't? And after getting what they wanted, they would probably round up their hostages and kill them anyway. They had no reason to release any of them.

The truth wrapped itself around her chest and squeezed until she could scarcely draw air. She thought of Sammy taking a bullet to the head, and her heart nearly stopped beating.

"I'm so sorry," she cried, covering her face with her hands to hide her grief.

"Shhh," Jeremiah soothed. Scooting closer, he drew her against his chest, putting his arms around her. She buried her face in his T-shirt, stifling the sobs that tore from her throat. Regret more acrid than any she had ever known—more bitter even than when she'd learned about Eddie's affair, seared her heart.

All the while, Jeremiah stroked her hair and gently rocked her. Bit by bit, the tightness in her chest subsided enough to allow her to talk. She swallowed the tears pouring down the back of her throat, wiped her eyes, and said, "I wish we'd had more time."

He pressed a kiss onto the top of her head. "We will," he predicted softly.

His words dropped a seed of hope onto the ashes of her despair. She sniffed and looked up at him. "You promise?" It was a ridiculous vow to ask of him, yet she did.

In the shadows, his eyes looked more green than brown. "Absolutely," he said with a reassuring smile that she almost believed.

Why on earth had she pushed this man away? Even if the first blush of love was a product of biochemistry, he would always command her admiration and affection. Unlike Eddie, he would never betray her. She knew that in her gut. If the chance ever arose again to claim him as hers, she swore to herself that she would seize it for the gift that it was.

"Okay then," she agreed, sealing her resolution with a kiss.

* * *

From the tiny balcony of a third-story apartment ideally situated across the street and a block down from Manolo's house, Juliet kept watch, confident that nightfall kept her hidden from curious eyes.

In his reconnaissance earlier, Tristan had located the ideal vantage point from which to keep tabs on Manolo. He'd later stuck a bargain with an elderly couple living on the third floor, agreeing to pay them one month's rent in exchange for exclusive use of their apartment for the next few days. Delighted by the offer, the couple had packed their bags and taken off to visit relatives.

Thus, within five hours of arriving in Mérida, Juliet and Tristan were ensconced within four walls, with one objective: to locate Manolo.

They were a good team, she had to admit. And even the knowledge that there was a single bedroom with a soft bed in it didn't bother her. They weren't going to sleep together because they were taking turns watching for Manolo. She shook her head. They weren't going to sleep together regardless.

Night had fallen, and the busy street below had gone dead quiet with only an occasional vehicle whizzing past. Then, eerily, salsa music floated out of an adjacent building, the lone sound in the quietness. Every now and then a couple of scruffy-looking men cruised the sidewalk looking for trouble, which was probably why the inhabitants of this neighborhood had locked themselves indoors.

Juliet felt for her phone again for the hundredth time, making sure it was still in her back pocket. It now seemed like a lifeline to her family. Somewhere, at the other end of that email, Emma and Sammy waited. Or so she hoped. While Juliet had made frantic phone calls to the consulate and learned that the families of other victims had received identical emails, Tristan had talked to his master chief. Then he'd slipped out to reclaim their car and bags, and to buy them food. He'd come back and, incredibly, cooked a passingly good fajita dinner with the cookware that had been left behind.

Not only could the Golden Boy drive fast, interrogate effectively, and sing like Garth Brooks, he could also cook. If he did one more thing well, Juliet was going to pull her hair out.

Speak of the devil—the cracked glass slider grated open and out stepped Tristan wearing nothing but his boxer briefs.

Good grief
. Juliet tore her gaze back to Manolo's house. Her two-hour watch was apparently over already.

"Still no sign of him?" Tristan asked though it wasn't really a question. He stood alongside her, smelling of soap and clean man. His arm brushed her shoulder, and she had to brace herself against the lurching of her senses.

"Nope." A light shone outside the front door as if Manolo's mother was expecting him. But the windows had gone dark at about ten o'clock, and it was already after midnight.

"I'll take it from here," Tristan offered.

Exhaustion tugged at Juliet. She'd done about all she could do in one day's work, putting the consulate in touch with Detective Canché, who'd shared what he'd learned from his end of the investigation in Playa del Carmen. The military attaché at the consulate had promised to look for César Salvador, believed to be in Mérida, and he'd assured Juliet that the CIA was going to pin down the IP address from which the ransom notes had been sent. But they hadn't managed to do it yet.

Everything seemed to hinge on following Manolo to find César Salvador, and he hadn't shown up yet. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, then raised her head and looked at her "partner."

"Are you seriously going to stand out here in your underwear?" she asked him irritably.