My Spy: Last Spy Standing (8 page)

“Because you don’t want to be my boyfriend? I think I’ll live.”

“I meant if we end up sleeping together.”

She was just taking a sip of her juice, which she coughed up, some of it through her nose. She grabbed for a napkin and dabbed her face, then wiped the droplets of juice off the table. “You think we’re going to sleep together?” She looked at him, bewildered.

She’d never looked sexier.

“I’m pretty sure,” he said miserably, with all the resentment he felt. She was the one who’d barged into his life at that bookstore. He hadn’t asked for any of this.

“No.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “That’s good.” He didn’t need that kind of grief.

* * *

B
RIANNA
T
RIDLE
,
THE
most beautiful woman in the world, had a guy in her house.

The man watching her from the outside didn’t like that. His hands tightened on his camera as he observed through the kitchen window, hidden in the darkness. Clouds covered the moon, and he’d picked a good spot, wedged between two tall bushes. He was good at hiding. He was good at a lot of things. He didn’t care if people called him stupid.

Brianna was inside in the light. She was pretty. He wanted more pictures of her. He liked looking at her. He always had. But he didn’t want pictures of her with the other man.

She belonged to him. She was supposed to be waiting for him. He’d come back to forgive her. But she was betraying him.

Rage washed over him so hard it had him grinding his teeth.

The doctor said he had to control his rage. The doctor said a lot of things. He didn’t like the doctor. He wanted to do what he wanted to do, and not what other people told him.

Chapter Seven

Tracking down Jimenez—Jamie’s one lead to the Coyote—proved to be a difficult task. He’d been released from prison two months before, unfortunately, current location unknown. Jamie was running down leads all day, calling Jimenez’s family and dropping in on his known associates, trying to get a bead on him.

Nobody knew where he was or, if they did, they weren’t telling. He drove back to the office in a bad mood, which didn’t improve when the first thing he heard was, “Why the long face? Deputy Hot Chick slapped the cuffs on you again?”

Shep grinned at him from behind his computer. “She can do a full-body search on me anytime she wants,” he finished.

“Beauty Queen Babe?” Keith joined in, coming from the back with his coffee. “Oh, man. She’s a walking fantasy.

“Watch it before you get lovebug fever,” Shep shot at Keith. “It’s going around in the office.”

He wasn’t lying. Ryder and Mo, two guys as tough as they came, had recently been bitten.

“You look at a woman too long, next thing you know you’re shopping for a ring,” Shep warned Keith, the youngest man on the team.

“Not me, old man,” Keith vowed as he plopped into his chair. “Spending your life with one person is like...medieval. Who does that anymore?”

Keith had a playboy side. He was young and full of energy, and had the looks to pull it off. Jamie had seen women walk up to him and hand over their phone numbers on more than one occasion when they’d been in town together, running down leads.

Not that Jamie’d had any trouble in that department, either, before. He’d meant to get married. Coming from a big Irish family, marriage and kids had always been the assumption, the expectation, even. He’d been in love, or he’d thought he’d been. He’d been on the verge of getting engaged.

Then he’d come home without his legs and given Lauren her freedom back. She hadn’t protested. And her leaving hadn’t destroyed him.

He hadn’t been seriously interested in anyone else until now. Good thing he and Bree had been able to clear the air between them. There was some attraction, fine, but neither of them wanted to see where it might lead.

They both had other things to do. They were both content with the way things were. Big relief.

He booted up his laptop and let Shep and Keith argue over the merits of serial dating. He tuned them out when he saw that he’d been emailed the prison visitors’ log for the day he’d requested. Since he couldn’t find Jimenez, he had to figure out who carried the hit order to him from the Coyote.

But as he opened and scrolled through the file, he soon realized that the logs weren’t overly helpful. Jimenez had had two visitors on the morning of the day when he’d killed the inmate who’d been about to betray the Coyote.

Neither of the visitors were fellow gang members, but a priest with a prison reach-out program, and Jimenez’s girlfriend, Suzanna Sanchez. Jamie checked the address given in the log—San Antonio—looked up the phone number online and made the call.

“I’d like to talk to Suzanna,” he said when the line was picked up on the other end.

“Wrong number.” The male voice sounded elderly.

He confirmed the address and was assured he’d gotten that right. And after a few moments of conversation, it became apparent that he was calling an apartment building where tenants rotated in and out on a regular basis.

He thanked the man and hung up, entered Suzanna’s full name and last known address as well as approximate age into the most comprehensive law enforcement database he had access to. He had a new address and new phone number within seconds. As luck would have it, she was living farther south now, less than twenty miles from Pebble Creek.

This time he hit the jackpot.

“I need to talk to you about your boyfriend, Jimenez, ma’am.”

“You found the bastard, ay? You gonna make him pay child support now?” She misunderstood him.

He didn’t correct her assumption. “Could I stop by so we could talk in person?”

“
Sí.
I’m at home. Where else would I be? He left me with three
niños.
I can’t afford no daycare to go work no more.” She went on cursing Jimenez both in English and Spanish.

Keith was still trying to convince Shep of the beauty of open relationships. Jamie tracked down information about Jimenez’s other visitor, the priest, via the internet, grabbed his address, too, then took off to see Suzanna.

She lived in an immigrant neighborhood where people ran into their houses when they saw Jamie’s truck roll down the street. They were afraid of immigration. He slapped his fake CBP badge on. Better if they think he was here checking on her immigration status than if they thought she was snitching on her old boyfriend to law enforcement. Jimenez was a hard-core gang member. His buddies wouldn’t take well to traitors.

He checked his gun before he got out, then walked to the patched-up trailer that looked like it was on its last legs; the roof was repaired with corrugated steel, the siding was missing in patches. One good storm and the thing would collapse. He didn’t like the idea of little kids living in a place like that.

When he knocked, a young woman in her early twenties came to the door with a baby on her hip and two toddlers clinging to her legs. She wore thrift-store clothes, nothing but suspicion on her face.

Her gaze slid to his badge.

“I’m green-card citizen,” she said. “My children all born here.”

“May I come in, ma’am?”

She stepped aside to let him in and closed the door behind them. She didn’t ask him to sit. “You said you wanted to talk about loco bastard Jimenez.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“In the spring. I went to visit him in prison. Told him I needed money for the
niños.
”

“Was that all you discussed?”

“He said he give me money when he free. But he never came here when he got out, not even a once.” Frustration tightened her voice, tears flooding her eyes. “He’s no good
hombre.
You see him, you tell him I want to put knife in his heart.”

The anger seemed sincere. “Did anyone ask you to take him a message?”

“No,
nada.
He no family here. His mother lives in Mexico. His brothers all shot dead.” She crossed herself.

“How about his friends?”

She rolled her eyes. “He no let me meet no friends. He’s jealous man. He hit me if mailman brings package to door. He wants me to him only. Much love before.” She shook her head. “Now he want me no more.”

He stayed for another twenty minutes, asking what she knew about Jimenez’s job, his friends, the people the man hung out with. He asked about messages in prison again, but she knew nothing and he believed her. She didn’t seem like a seasoned criminal, just a woman on the edge after making too many bad choices.

Jamie ran the information he had so far through his head as he walked to his car. Jimenez executed one of the Coyote’s men in prison, one who’d been on the brink of betraying the Coyote. Jimenez was one of the Coyote’s men, but couldn’t be found. If Jamie caught the messenger who took him the hit order, that guy could lead him to the Coyote instead.

Jimenez’s girlfriend didn’t pan out. Jamie drove up to see the priest at the mission next, which was nothing but an abandoned pizza store in a strip mall.

The front windows were busted, possibly shot out, now patched up with cardboard. Father Gonzales, an older man sitting inside, sported a blue sling, but his face immediately stretched into a smile as Jamie walked in.

Jamie introduced himself then gestured at the windows with his head. “Rough neighborhood?”

“We do gang rescue,” the sixty-something priest said. “The gangs don’t like it. The Lord’s work is not always all puppies and rainbows, I’m afraid.”

The priest seemed to have a good sense of humor about it, even if sitting in a storefront unarmed while ticking off some of the most ruthless criminals in the state didn’t seem like a smart plan to Jamie. He kept his opinion to himself. He asked about Jimenez instead.

The priest remembered him. “A troubled young man. Yet so much to live for. All things can be forgiven.”

“Did you try to convince him to leave his gang? Is that what you were talking about when you went to visit him in prison?”

“That and Jesus. You’d be surprised how many of these young men wear the cross. I try to convince them to live by its principles. We talked about that and his children’s future.”

“Do you keep in touch? Have you talked to him since his release?”

“No.” He sounded genuinely saddened. “I’m afraid I wasn’t good enough. We might have lost him. But the Lord doesn’t give up on anyone. And neither will I.”

“You might be fighting a losing battle, padre.”

But the old man smiled with full conviction. “That cannot be. It’s too important a battle to lose. There are thirty thousand gangs in this country, did you know that? Eight hundred thousand gang members. Do you know what the life expectancy is for these young men?” He paused for a second before he went on. “Twenty years. Just enough to leave some orphans behind.”

The sad truth. “Jimenez has three small kids.”

The priest shook his head. “I lost contact with the mother. I would have liked to help her. She moved at one point. I think paying the rent is difficult for her.”

Jamie considered him. He seemed like a good guy. “I can give you their new address. They looked like they could use a little help.”

He talked to the priest some more to get a better feeling for him. He definitely seemed to be the genuine article, believing in what he was doing, even willing to give up his life for the men he was trying to save. Jamie couldn’t see him passing a kill order.

But then, who?

Could be the order hadn’t gone straight to Jimenez. It could have gone to one of his buddies inside, then passed on to him. Who did Jimenez hang with in prison?

Rico Marquez might have the answer. And he wanted that new chance through witness protection enough to cooperate.

Jamie called him on the drive back to Pebble Creek but Rico didn’t pick up his phone. He’d have to try again later.

He returned to the office just in time to go out on patrol with Shep.

“I’ll meet you by the river,” he told his teammate as they got into their cars. “I need to check on something first.”

He wanted to drive by Bree’s place to make sure everything was okay there. He tried to make a habit of doing a drive-by check every time he was passing within a few miles of her house.

Not because he liked her. She was annoyingly cheerful. She fought crime by being nice. What was that? Utter nonsense. She was a disaster waiting to happen. That was the only reason he was checking on her.
Not
because he cared or had more than a passing interest in her.

Yet his blood ran cold as he turned the corner and saw the police cruisers lining her street.

Her front yard was destroyed. Tire marks crisscrossed her rock garden, her collection of garden statues scattered around in pieces. Violence and destruction hung in the air.

He noted her car in the driveway as he came to a screeching halt and jumped out, Officer Delancy running to block his path. He was about to shove the woman out of the way when Bree appeared in the doorway.

She had a tight look on her face, her beautiful smile missing. “It’s okay. You can let him pass.”

He hurried to her, assessing the damage, trying to figure out what he’d missed. “What the hell happened here? Why didn’t you call me?”

“Just got home. I have to get back inside. Katie is upset.” She turned back in.

When he followed her, she didn’t protest.

“We need to talk.” They needed to have a serious discussion. Her stalker was progressing from bad to worse pretty fast. He’d gone from watcher to invader to violent attacker in the space of a few days.

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was in serious trouble.

* * *

B
REE
WATCHED
AS
Katie rocked herself in the living room, tears rolling down her sweet face.

“The unicorns are broken,” she repeated.

The mess outside was a major disruption in her life, and she didn’t deal well with disruption.

Bree wanted to give her a hug, and she could have used a hug herself, but Katie didn’t like when people touched her in general, and she didn’t allow anyone to touch her at all when she was upset like this.

“What can I do to help?” Jamie asked quietly behind her.

“She’s—” Bree folded her arms around herself, her throat burning. “Those statues are pretty much the only thing we have left of Mom. She made her own molds. It was her hobby. She made all those unicorns because they’re Katie’s favorite.”

She drew a slow breath and let her arms down. She needed to be strong and to take charge. They couldn’t get stuck in this terrible moment. They had to keep moving forward, get past it.

“How about we get ready for dinner?” she called to Katie, trying to sound as cheerful as she possibly could. “Let’s start cooking.” They needed to get back to their regular schedule. The familiar chores would offer comfort.

“You need to go someplace safe,” Jamie said in a low voice that only she would hear.

She’d thought about that already. “I don’t know if Katie could handle that right now. She’s not good with change under the best of circumstances. I asked for police protection. We should be okay here as long as we have that.”

“You need something 24/7.”

She shook her head. “That might be overkill, I think. Jason has done what he set out to do—he scared us. I really don’t think he’ll come back.”

He frowned at that assessment. “And if he does?”

“I can handle things when I’m home. If I have to go in and leave Katie with Eleanor, there’ll be a cruiser sitting by the curb with an officer.” Bree had responsibilities at the station. Her job didn’t always conform to a nine-to-five schedule.

Jamie was watching her with worry in his eyes. “What can I do?”

She searched his face. He seemed to genuinely care. She didn’t want to be touched by that, but she was, anyway. “I don’t know.”