Reckless (17 page)

“So why are you here? I’m going back to the States. Leave me alone.”

Carlos laughs. “No, you’re not. Do you actually think we’re going to let you go back to your CIA buddies so you can tell them all about what Ivan and I look like and where we live? I’ve undergone ten operations to change what I look like. The doctors say my bone structure can’t take another.”

“I don’t know where you live.”

“How do I know what Diego told you? We can’t risk letting you go. You know that.”

Nick is taking forever. He must have heard something. He’s planning a way to rescue me. Maybe he’s going to come crashing through the door from the next room like he did with those Russians. That would be perfect. Carlos is standing right in front of it.

“So, you decided to care of me yourself?” I say. “I have to admire you for that. I would have expected you to send your crew to take care of me.”

“They’re busy still hunting down Peña’s men. Besides, I wanted to have the pleasure of handling you myself. I do love fucking a pretty blonde.”

I squeeze my fists.

The front door opens. I wait for bullets to fly.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Ivan says, shoving Nick into the room with a gun to his back. Nick’s hands are clasped behind his head. When he looks at me, his eyes move toward the drawer beside me.
 

I wink at him.

“You think he’s the only other one?” Carlos asks Ivan.
 

“Yeah,” Ivan says. “The girl at the front desk told me there was a pair who checked in. Only had to pay her a hundred dollars for the information.”

“Good. Let’s finish this and get out of here.”

Nick moves so fast I only see his elbow connecting with Ivan’s face. Ivan shoots, but the bullet flies into the wall. Nick slams Ivan against the dresser.
 

Carlos turns.
 

Seeing an opening, I rip open the drawer. There’s a Gideon Bible and two SIG P226s. As I go for one of the pistols, Carlos shoots. Nick cries out. He’s been hit. I raise the handgun and fire twice at Carlos. His body collapses onto the bed. Nick is still struggling with Ivan for the gun.
 

I look for a clean shot.
 

Ivan unloads his gun with the barrel pointed at the floor. The gun makes dry clicking sounds.

He’s out.

“Nick, get out of the way!”

Nick sees I have the gun. He shoves Ivan away and dives onto the ground. Now it’s my turn to save Nick.
 

I empty the clip.

16

“—And that’s about it,” Nick says, his arm still in a sling.

Bailey’s fingers drum on the desk. He stares at us both. “Well, I must say, that is quite a story. And that’s the way you remember it as well, Ms. Hill?”

I straighten my back. “Yes, sir. I was getting good intel before Diego was murdered.”

Bailey shakes his head. “I just can’t figure out why Ivan would team up with Carlos to take down Peña and Diego. And we still don’t know who murdered Ivan and Carlos. Considering the information we have on them, it seems so strange that they would go after Diego. But I guess drug lords do strange things.”

“That they do,” Nick says.

“And all of what you just told me is in this report?” Bailey asks, tapping on the large file in front of him.

“Yes, sir,” Nick says.

“And explain it to me again, Miranda. How exactly did you lose all of the recordings?”

“Um, well, after Diego was killed, I had to flee for my life. Nick had a boat nearby that I was able to escape in, but on the way back I fell out and the devices were lost.”

It’s the worst story I’ve ever come up with. I offer Bailey a tiny smile.

“Went overboard, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how did you fall out?”

“The waters were choppy, sir.”

“Choppy?”

“Very choppy.”

“Is there anything else?”

“This will be my last mission, sir,” Nick says.

“Mine too,” I say.

“You’re both quitting?”

“Ending on good note, sir,” Nick says.

“I see. Well, you’ll be missed, but I can’t blame you. This is no place for a couple to be.”

“Sir?” Nick asks.

“Oh, please. It’s obvious. And so is your bullshit story.”

My eyes go wide. I look at Nick. We’re both going to be sent off to some place like ADX Florence for the rest of our lives.

“I’ll get some creative people to work on this file,” Bailey says. “We need a better official story. Whatever you guys actually did, congratulations! You wiped four of the biggest drug lords off the planet. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Bailey stands up and sticks out his hand. “Any ideas of what you two are going to do now?”

We’re both too shocked to speak.

“We’ve got a few,” Nick finally says.

Epilogue

I bring in the last of the boxes and close the front door, shutting out the clamor of the nearby Interstate. The office is small and quaint. The sunlight streams through the window unobstructed.

“We’ll have to put up some blinds,” I say.

Nick wraps his arm around me and kisses me. “Yeah, that and a million other things. But isn’t it nice to have our own office? The signage looks cool, too. Hill & Price Private Investigators. Has a nice ring to it.”

“Do you think we’re actually going to get any traffic from the Interstate? It’s kind of a grimy area that we’re in.”

The roar of a diesel engine answers my question. Nick nods toward the window.
 

I turn around and watch an eighteen-wheeler pulling through the parking lot. The semi stops along the edge of the barren lot. The sunlight reflecting off the chrome grill is so bright that I can’t see the person getting out.

“Looks like we might have our first customer,” Nick says.

He opens the front door. The driver is frantic and barely able to form words. In his denim jacket, he points to the truck and starts telling us about a roving biker gang that has already picked off three of his buddies on the road. The police aren’t helping, and he’s afraid for his life.

“How many bikers?” Nick asks.

“I don’t know,” the trucker says, clenching a hat in his hands. “I just saw them in a pack. Forty or fifty, at least, but there might be more. A lot more. I barely got away from them. And they don’t just rob your truck. These bikers are disappearing truckers.”

“Then how do you know the bikers are the ones responsible?” I ask. “If the bikers disappear, how do you know the cause?”

“Because of the CB radio calls. Truckers will be calling for help, saying that a bunch of bikers have surrounded their semi. It’s terrible. You hear a buddy screaming for your help and he’s sixty miles away from you. Sometimes truckers go missing after making a pit stop where a bunch of these same bikers were spotted. They wear an octopus as their patch. I guess it’s supposed to mean that they’re everywhere and all around like tentacles. If so, it’s a pretty good description.”

The overpass fills with the glitter of handlebars and the throaty roar of precisely tuned exhausts.
 

The man ducks into the office.

I turn to Nick and raise an eyebrow. “Should I start the coffee?”

“Yeah. And be sure to load our guns.”

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SAMANTHA LOVE’S CATALOG

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