Hell Bent (22 page)

They rode up to the sixth floor and as soon as she swiped her card into the card reader at the unit door, he thanked her and quickly went inside leaving her there.  He scanned the doors and saw a Spanish surname scribbled in marker on the paper inside the holder, then looked at the others and knew that was the room. 

He took one step, and two uniformed cops in paper robes and masks preceded a man in a sports coat with similar paper protection out of the room.  Cade pivoted and walked back toward the elevator his heart beating in his ears, but a fixed plate on a door that named it the surgery suite locker room caught his attention.  He quickly put a shoulder into it and ducked inside. 

The officers talked loudly outside the door for a minute, before the detective told them to make sure the
perp
, Cade bit back a laugh, was under 24-hour guard and had no visitors when he was moved to his regular room.  But he didn’t laugh when the door nearly bumped him as the detective pushed it to walk inside. 

Moving quickly, Cade darted behind a metal rack that held neatly stacked scrubs and watched the man yank off the thin, yellow paper suit and throw it into a receptacle before he walked out again.  Cade came out and knew the only way he was going to get inside that room was to resort to desperate measures. 

He scanned the sizes on the scrub rack, found his size but got one size larger and quickly pulled them on over his clothes.  Since those cops had on masks, which worked as the perfect disguise for him, he grabbed one and a set of shoe covers as well.

Knowing he couldn’t go in there without a reason, or empty-handed, Cade scanned the other supplies for something he could use as a prop.  His eyes fell on a bedpan, and he grinned under the mask as he walked over to pick it up, along with a pair of rubber gloves. 

The
perp
was probably going to need this prop before Cade finished with him, he thought, as he strode to the door.

He walked down the hall confidently, past the nurses station which was manned by a tired looking nurse who didn’t even look up.  He nodded at the single guard who stood at the door, then strolled right into the room and found the perp handcuffed to the bed, which worked right into his impromptu plan. 

Walking to the bed he saw the guy was groggy but awake, so he set the bedpan on the nightstand and reached behind him to draw his pistol.  When he pushed his left hand down on the breathing mask that covered the thug’s mouth and nose, the thug’s eyes widened with fear.  They got comically wide when he put the pistol at his temple and leaned in closer. 

“Scream, and I promise you won’t make it out of recovery, muchacho,” Cade hissed in Spanish.  “We’re going to have a little talk and if you give me the right answers, I’ll let you live.  Comprende?”  The man’s oxygen mask fogged with his quick breaths, and he nodded. 

Cade eased up on the pressure on the mask and began his interrogation.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Cade took the exit on the interstate that would take him back to the shelter with worry clawing at his gut.  That thug, even though he was a low level player in the game, a street gang member, knew the plan for the abducted women and it wasn’t good.  Tenancingo was just about the nastiest place on earth, the mecca for the sex-trafficking and prostitution trade in Mexico and that was their final destination once the sale went through to another cartel. 

He could intercept that sale, set up a buy for them at a higher price and a takedown through Jolly, in fact he’d offered to assign agents he had in Mexico to help and involve the Federales, but that would take too long. 

Cade wasn’t concerned about the cartel activities right now, he was terrified for those women—especially Amelia who was still weak and recovering from birth, so he called Logan who he knew could set up something fast.

“The El Hermano cartel has them and I have a location for their compound in Texicali but we need to move quickly or they’ll move them to the brothels in Tenancingo.  We’ll never find them if that happens, so we need to go tonight,” Cade informed, and Logan groaned. 

Jolly had given him that location and he owed him, but not enough to take the new mission he offered him in Brazil.

“You sure do ask for a lot for a man who had no problem taking a hundred thousand dollars from me while I was gone,” Logan said with a sigh.  “Do you have any idea of the fuel costs involved in flying that damned helicopter?”

“I do—and I told you I’d pay for that on top of giving back your hundred grand,” Cade replied calmly.  He crossed his fingers on the steering wheel, because his offshore account had taken a huge hit and he needed to slow down on spending.  “But I have a better idea.  I’ll transfer your hundred grand right now and even offer you a tax break on it.  I’m sure Veronica would give you a receipt for donation of services for the fuel and men tonight.”

Cade wouldn’t mention again that Slade had
offered
that money to him, he hadn’t
taken
anything.  That would just create an argument he didn’t need.  He also wasn’t sure what Veronica could and couldn’t do with that size donation—or even if they were actually a legal non-profit, so he’d have to call and ask.

“I’d need to earn money to need a tax write-off,” Logan growled, but Cade heard the softening in his tone.  “Let me get with Hawk to find out the fuel costs, and I’ll get back to you.”

The line went dead, and Cade dialed Veronica’s number when he stopped at a red light.

“Can you write Logan a receipt for fuel costs and manpower that can be used as a tax write-off?  Is the shelter a legit non-profit?” he fired off as soon as she answered.

“Yes, and yes,” she replied tiredly, but something else in her voice made his tension rise.  Was she in labor?  “I know you’re tired, but what else is wrong?”

“They delivered another threat this morning—on my cell phone, and I have no idea how they got my number.  The caller said if that bill passes on Tuesday, the Sovereign Soldiers will dump Allison’s body on the statehouse lawn.  I know I’d be dead too if Cecelia hadn’t done what she did.”  She took a long shuddering breath, and he wanted to as well, because he knew she was right.  “I called Carlos and told him, but I’m so damned scared for her.  Have you heard anything?”

Sickness curled in his gut—Cade hadn’t even
thought
about Allison Rooks since this morning when he got the call about the abduction at the shelter.  There was too damned much going on right now for him to focus on both.  He was only one man.  A very tired one, whose brain could only focus on one crisis at a time right now. 

It was Sunday evening, almost dark now, and that meant Allison had less than forty-eight hours to live.  The women at that compound in Mexico had less, so they were his priority right now.  But he couldn’t tell her that.

“I haven’t heard anything, but Dexter is working on it.  I’ll give him a call to see what he’s found and call you back.”

“
Wait
!” she shouted, before he could hang up.

Not another problem please
. 

“What?” he asked.

“Return that tux, so I don’t get charged for it,” she said, then hung up the phone.

That was another thing Cade hadn’t given a thought—the champagne glass in the breast pocket of that tux.  He did a u-turn when the light turned green, to go drop the glass off at the DNA clinic. 
That
was definitely something he would make time for.

***

Cee Cee sat in the desk chair at the front of the shelter and rocked Domingo, who was fretting something awful.  She’d fed him, changed his diaper with the few left in the diaper bag that Amelia left on the bus, and was out of ideas.  He wasn’t feverish, didn’t have a runny nose, and it didn’t sound like a pained cry to her, but what did she know? 

Babies and their needs weren’t familiar to her—she’d been a tomboy growing up, had never played with dolls or babysat in high school like most girls she knew.  She finally came to the conclusion Domingo had to be missing his mother, so every one of his tiny whimpers and wails ripped another piece of her heart away.

They had to find Amelia and fast. 

Only five women of the twenty-one on the bus were taken—why did it have to be her? 

She hoped Cade got the information they needed from the gangster at the hospital to find her, but he’d been gone three hours and she hadn’t heard a word.  The hospital wasn’t far from there, maybe five miles, so she wondered what the hell was taking him so long.  But she refused to add another call to the long list of callers he’d been dealing with since yesterday.

She stroked the boy’s light brown hair, and held him tighter as he wailed louder.  Suddenly, one of the women appeared at the desk with a blue, very soft looking blanket in her hands.  She laid it on the desk, spread it out then held her hands out for the baby. 

Cecelia gladly passed Domingo to her, and watched while she laid him in the middle and held his flailing legs and arms to pull the left side of the blanket over him.  She tucked the edge under his tiny body then folded up the end over his feet before pulling the left side tightly across his body. 

He looked like a baby burrito when she scooped him up in her arms but he sniffled twice, whimpered and then went quiet before she put him back in Cecelia’s arms.  With a smile, she stepped back and Cecelia could only stare at his peaceful—
sleeping
—face in amazement.

“Gracias,” she said with wonder and the woman smiled.

“De nada,” she replied, before she turned and walked back to the door that led to the dormitory at the back of the building.

As soon as Cecelia got there, Lou Ellen wanted to leave to go find Allison—to find those rednecks and kick their ass, as she put it.  But they talked a few minutes, she assured Lou Ellen that Carlos, Cade and Dexter were working diligently to find her, that she’d just get in the way of that effort which is why
she
wasn’t with them, and she finally calmed down.

Cecelia surmised what pissed her off the most was that she had to find out that her best friend had been abducted at the party on the ten o’clock news.  Not a one of them had thought to call and tell her.  Cecelia apologized profusely, made excuses, but Lou Ellen blew her off. 

She didn’t blame her for not listening, it was inexcusable.  And then there was the firefight and abduction of the women here this morning to compound things. 

Lou Ellen was a trooper, though. She decided she wasn’t going to dwell on any of those things, or let the girls at this shelter dwell, so she rounded them up and called them to the back for an English lesson to keep them occupied.

That woman was a dynamo—the kind her brother needed manning the front desk at his office.  She would be much better suited to corralling a bunch of rough and ready operators than Cecelia was, for sure.  Those days were numbered for her, she’d made that decision.  And she didn’t really want to be an agent there anymore either—she’d had enough gunfights and drama in the last week to last her a lifetime. 

Rocket City had nothing on Dallas, Texas these days.

She just needed to figure out what she was going to do, and that kind of depended on what Cade decided to do.  If he went back to whatever he was doing before in whatever country, she’d most likely rejoin the Army to become a lifer. 

Two more contracts and she could retire at forty.

But she’d rather stay here with him so they could see where things were going.  Cecelia freaking
loved
where they were going and loved him.  But she didn’t know how he felt, and wasn’t going to push what seemed to be their tenuous reconciliation.

The new buzzer on the door rudely announced someone was there and woke Domingo, who screamed louder than the buzzer.  Cecelia got up to walk to the video monitor installed at the desk, but Levi woke up and was there first.  He glanced and saw it was Cade, then jogged to the door and flipped the multitude of new locks on the door. 

Cecelia held Domingo tighter, rocked him from side to side cooing as she tried to soothe him again.   When Cade walked in, his eyes fixed on the baby, his face softened and he smiled. 

“You could’ve called first, and we’d have opened the door without that damned buzzer,” she grated, as she walked over to him to hand him the baby. “It’s time for your shift while you tell me where the hell you’ve been for
four
hours and why you didn’t call.”

“After I got the information I needed, I sat in the parking lot making calls so I didn’t have an accident in the clown car,” he replied shortly, as he looked down at Domingo like he’d grown another head.  In Cade’s very muscular arms, the baby looked even tinier.

“Well, you didn’t call
me
,” she shot back.  “I’ve been sitting here worrying.”

God, she sounded like a
wife
, she thought, biting her lower lip to stop.  “What did you find out? Who have you called?”

“I spoke with a contact and found out where they’re being held.”

At that moment, the door release to the back clanked and Lou Ellen burst out.

“School’s out, ladies!” she yelled in Spanish, or at least that’s what Cecelia
thought
she said as she stormed over to Cade and stopped to put her hands on her hips and glare at him.

“You know where Allison is being held?” she demanded, her eyebrows crashing together as she took a threatening step closer to him. “You better start talking, mister, or I’m going to introduce you to Bruno, and I won’t be aiming for your ass like I did with that thug.”

“You shot him in the
ass
?” Cade asked, his lips twitching.  “That explains why I didn’t see the wound.”

“You’re gonna see one of your own if you don’t tell me where my best friend is right damned now,” Lou Ellen growled, holding up her fist.  “My patience has just expired with having to watch the news to find out what’s going on.”

Cade looked down at the baby who was quiet now, which made Cecelia frown and wonder why in the hell she was the only one who couldn’t seem to make him calm down. 

Maybe because you’re not suited to ever having one.  Maybe Cade’s right and you are too hard now. 

Cee Cee’s stomach clenched, because she’d been trying to soften up—find that in herself again—but she’d obviously failed.  She’d never even thought about having kids before, but the thought of not being a good mother if she ever became one, or not knowing what to do, upset her.  But she had other things to think about right now.

In Cade’s eyes, she saw that he knew something he didn’t want to tell Lou Ellen and her heart lurched as she ran over to take the baby from him.  Domingo didn’t need to be in the middle of this, she thought, walking back over to put her hip on the edge of the desk.

“Tell me boy—I can take it,” Lou Ellen demanded and Cade sighed.

“Veronica said there’s been another threat if that bill passes on Tuesday,” he said, and Cee Cee could tell he was hedging.

“What kind of threat?” Lou Ellen asked sharply, then folded her arms over her breasts.  “Are you going to make me drag the answers out of you with a tractor?  If so, I have faster means of getting them.”

“They threatened to deliver Allison’s body to the statehouse if it passes,” Cade said, his lips tight.

“So what are you doing to find her before that happens?” Lou Ellen asked, and Cecelia thought she’d missed her calling as a detective or interrogator.

Cade’s face flushed.  “I’ve been working on finding the kidnapped women,” he admitted, and when her fist rose higher, he grabbed her wrist. “I have Dexter working on getting information on Allison’s whereabouts and I was just about to call him.”

“Well, get to calling,” she said, her voice choked with fear. “I need to know something.”

Cee Cee’s heart seized when Cade lowered her wrist and pulled her into his chest for a hug and she heard Lou Ellen sob.  He pushed her back to look down at her. 

“I will do everything in my power to save both the women and Senator Rooks, but I’m only one man and have so much help.”