Against the Law (19 page)

“Home sweet home,” he said, casting her a glance. “If you were expecting five-star accommodations, you'll be sorely disappointed.”

Lark looked at the rusted metal windows and the sagging front porch steps leading up to an old wooden door. “At least we'll have a roof over our heads.”

Cantrell made no comment. Clearly, he wished she weren't there and yet he seemed to understand why she'd had to come.

“Ladies first,” he said, holding the door open until she walked inside. At first guess, it appeared to have been some kind of quarters for the men who had run the mine, with a kitchen counter along one wall and an old gas-powered refrigerator that Cantrell must have gotten running.

“There's a makeshift shower around back next to the outhouse,” he said, cocking his head in that direction.

She looked up at him as Dev and the others walked into the building. “I need to change. I wore this for customs.”

“Line of rooms down that hall. Used to be sleeping quarters for the mine operators. You'll find some cots in there. Take your pick.”

“Thank you.” She flicked a glance at Dev, saw Montez watching her, saw the moment Dev realized it.

“Forget about it,” she heard him say. “That goes for all of you.”

She turned a little, caught Montez's glittering white smile. “So that is the way it is.”

“Lark's my client,” Dev explained, a note of warning in his voice. “She doesn't need anymore problems. This is hard enough on her already.”

“Oh,
sí.
A woman who looks like that…she will make it hard on all of us.”

Dev's jaw clenched at the innuendo, but he let the remark slide. He had to work with these men. He needed their help.

Lark rolled her overnight bag into one of the narrow, dusty sleeping rooms and firmly closed the door.

D
ev didn't like Montez. The handsome Hispanic was arrogant and far too charming. And he was looking at Lark the way Dev tried his damnedest not to. Montez wanted her.

And Dev couldn't blame him.

Even tired and worried, the ruby streaks in her shiny dark hair beginning to fade, she was one of the sexiest women he had ever known. Her tilted green cat eyes never failed to draw him in, and her long legs and perfect ass sent desire slicing through him every time she walked past.

And she was so damned pretty, with those plump lips he couldn't get enough of and a sweetly feminine scent that was purely her own.

Only his exhaustion and fierce determination had kept him out of her bed last night. But she needed her sleep as much as he needed his and he couldn't afford to let his desire for her become a distraction.

Instead, he guarded her like a wolf guarding its mate and told himself he was only doing his job.

The good news was, late in the afternoon, Trace Rawlins rolled a dark green Land Rover into camp.

“Hey, Dev, good to see you, buddy.” Trace's soft Texas drawl washed over him as his friend jumped down from the vehicle and strode toward the men who waited to greet him. “Jake. Madman. Hambone. Montez.”

“You know everyone, then?” Dev asked.

“We've met somewhere at one time or another.”

Dev turned. “Trace, this is Lark Delaney. Her little girl is the reason we're here.”

Trace turned a slow smile in Lark's direction. “You said you were bringing a lady. You didn't say how pretty she was. Pleasure to meet you, ma'am.”

The tall, lean Texan lived in Houston these days. Dev had worked for Trace's father in the security business before Trace had taken over and Dev had gone on to Arizona to open Raines Security. The Texan had been a big help when Dev's brother, Gabe, had gone head-to-head with an arsonist in Dallas who was trying to kill him.

Dressed in an olive drab T-shirt and jeans, today Trace wore heavy military issue footwear instead of his usual western boots. A battered straw cowboy hat kept the bright Sonoran sun out of his face.

“Nice to meet you,” Lark said.

Once the niceties were over, they went back inside out of the sun and moved on to the business that had brought them all there. Making their way over to a beat-up
wooden table in the corner that Lark had dusted the best she could, each of them pulled up a rickety chair.

“Montez and I did a little preliminary recon,” Cantrell began. “But we need to go back to the compound, take a closer look.”

“Did you confirm the girl was there?” Clive asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing but rumors so far. But we'll know more tonight.” Cantrell shoved back his chair and walked over to one of the boxes sitting on a long, linoleum-topped counter with the edges beginning to curl. He reached in, picked up something, and tossed it to Dev.

“Satellite phone. Got us a couple of them. Won't be able to trace them back to us.”

“Great,” Dev said.

Cantrell dug out a black, boxy-looking camera. “This is an infrared, thermal night imaging camera. We can locate the whereabouts of any warm body in the house. We should be able to tell by the size of the heat source if the person is a child.”

“Could be someone else's kid,” Clive said.

“He's right,” Dev said. “Alvarez has a five-year-old son.”

Jake dug into another box, pulled out another piece of equipment. “Parabolic microphone. Twenty-inch diameter disk. Crystal-clear at three hundred yards. It'll pick up conversation through walls three feet thick.”

“That ought to help us find her,” Dev said.

“I brought a little somethin' to the party,” Trace drawled, lifting a leather satchel up on the table and pulling out a laptop computer. “Alvarez is bound to have
top-of-the-line security. If his system is wireless, which it probably is, this little beauty can tap in, pick up whatever the cameras are showin' inside the house.”

“Now, that's impressive,” Johnnie said.

“I saw something like that on TV,” Lark added. “I didn't know it was for real.”

“It's not somethin' the average guy can get his hands on,” Trace said, “but yeah, it's for real.”

“All right, we'll have the intel we need,” Johnnie said. “What about weapons?”

Cantrell leaned down and grabbed hold of a canvas tarp. He jerked it back, revealing a stack of boxes on the floor.

“Handguns of your choice.” He opened one of the boxes then turned and tossed a Browning 9 mm to Dev. “Figured you'd like this one.”

It was his preferred weapon. His own was in the trunk of his rental car at the Burbank airport.

“A couple of Berettas. A Glock and a Ruger.” Jake lifted out an automatic weapon. “Heckler-Koch UMPs. Short folding stock, easy to handle. Six hundred rounds a minute. One for each of us.” He looked into another box. “Kevlar vests, a couple of M-4 stun grenades.” He balanced one in his hand. “Thought they might come in handy.”

“Sweet,” Johnnie said. The stun grenade was a non-lethal, non-shrapnel, flash-and-bang device that could be used to create a diversion.

“Let's get one thing clear,” Dev put in. “We aren't here to wage war against Alvarez and his men. All we want is to get the child out safely.”

“Dev's right,” Trace agreed. “We need to go in quietly. Get out the same way.”

“If we can,” Jake muttered darkly.

“What about the chopper?” Clive asked. “Dev said he talked to you about it.”

“All taken care of. There's a ranch north of here. Friend of Montez's owns it, caters to bird-hunting parties. He brings them in by chopper. It's on hold for as long as we need it.”

“Montez gonna fly it?” Trace asked, catching Dev a little off guard.

“You know anybody better for the job?” Jake asked.

Trace tipped his head toward the handsome Latino. “Night stalker,” he said to Dev, meaning he was a chopper pilot for Special Forces. Apparently there was more to the man than his smooth Latino charm.

Dev returned his attention to the others. “So tonight we do some recon, make sure the girl is in there, check out the security inside and out. If she's there and we have the information we need, we go in tomorrow night.”

“The sooner we get that little girl out of there, the better I'll feel,” Clive said, expressing all of their thoughts.

Dev ignored the shiver that slipped down his spine. He refused to consider what Alvarez might intend for the child and prayed the man had at least some shred of decency. He flicked a glance at Lark, saw the worry lines digging into her forehead and the fear for Chrissy she tried to hide.

“All right, let's go over the plan,” he said, focusing on the task ahead. “Soon as it's dark, we go in.”

 

They decided on a strategy. They would drive the Jeep to a point Jake had scouted that allowed them to slip into a dense row of mesquite and look down on the compound without being spotted. The best way to get close was to make their way down a ravine that ended near the back of the compound. A watch tower was the only problem, that and a guard Jake had spotted who made rounds along the wall.

According to Cantrell, the security was lax. Alvarez was prepared for trouble, but not really expecting it.

Not when people knew the consequences of going against him. As he had just proved by taking Chrissy. Anxious to get underway, Dev wandered around outside the metal building while the men settled in for a brief late-afternoon nap, since they wouldn't be getting much sleep that night. Lark had disappeared into the small room she had commandeered. Dev tried not to wish he could join her.

He was standing next to a saguaro cactus watching a scorpion picking its way through the sand when he heard heavy footfalls and turned to see Jake Cantrell approaching.

“I'm glad it's November and not July,” Jake said, his sharp blue gaze finding the stinging insect with unerring accuracy. “Even a scorpion can't live out here in the middle of the summer.”

Dev scanned the dry, desert landscape. Nothing but dirt and rock and cactus. A few jagged mountains rose in the distance between the mine and Alvarez's compound. “It's bad enough in Phoenix and I've got a pool.”

Jake pinned him with the same stare he'd used on the bug. “I hate to bring up an unpleasant subject, but what do you plan to do with the kid and the woman after you get them back to L.A.? You know as well as I do, Alvarez isn't going to take this lying down. He'll go after them. If he finds out we're involved, he'll go after us, too. The only way any of us will be safe is if Alvarez is dead.”

Dev's gaze moved over Cantrell's features, the powerful neck and hard, square jaw, a set of shoulders even wider and more muscular than his brother Gabe's. Jake was right and both of them knew it.

“The man is a murderer,” Dev said. “God knows how many deaths he's responsible for.”

“Hundreds, they say. Maybe even thousands over the years.”

“I didn't want to talk about it in front of Lark, but if I can get to him, I'm taking him out.”

Cantrell nodded, mollified a little by his answer. “Whoever steps into Alvarez's shoes isn't going to give a shit about the kid. He'll be too busy trying to hold on to the reins of the organization and keep things under control.”

“Taking the little girl was personal for Alvarez. Once he's out of the picture, Lark and Chrissy will be safe.”

Jake looked back at the run-down metal building that housed the men. “I think we're all on the same page about this, but I'll pass the word.”

Unfortunately even with good surveillance, finding the man in a forty-thousand-square-foot compound wouldn't be that easy. And getting to him would be even harder.

Jake leaned down and picked up a broken mesquite branch, drew the point through the sand. “You gonna tell me your backup plan in case you don't make him dead? Knowing you as I do, I figure you've got one.”

Dev almost smiled. “I've got one. It's still in the planning stages.” And the idea was looking crazier all the time. “For now, let's just act on the assumption we eliminate Alvarez, get Chrissy, and get the hell out of Dodge.”

Jake's face said he hoped it would be that easy.

 

Antonio Alvarez leaned back in the red leather chair behind his gilt and marble-topped desk. He took a puff on his fat Cuban cigar and blew a thick gray smoke ring into the air.

Across from him, Santos and Zepeda stood on each side of the little girl. She was pretty, he thought, with her dark curls and big green eyes. A little taller than his son, Alberto, who was close to her same age.

She hung back a little from the men, yet her eyes remained steady on his instead of darting away. The men Santos had paid to abduct her had done an efficient job. All but the fool who had gotten himself killed.

He almost smiled. The American woman had courage. He would give her that. Still, his men had succeeded. Using a chloroformed rag, they had kept the child drugged until they were well across the border and had her loaded onto a plane. Even after the plane had landed at his private air strip and she had been brought into the house, she had been quiet and subdued.

He liked a child who was well behaved.

“Girl, come over here,” he said to her in English.

She didn't answer, just stood there staring at him with her chin tilted up at a belligerent angle. Just like her troublemaking father, he thought.

“Do as I say,
niña.
You do not wish to make me angry.”

She paused another moment, then started walking toward him, still dressed in the pajamas she'd been wearing when his men had taken her, pink with little circus ponies in feather headdresses.

“What is your name?”

“I want my aunt Lark. Where…where is she?”

“I told you to tell me your name.”

“Who are you?”

“I am the man who decides what will happen to you. Now do as I say.”

She didn't want to. He could tell by the way her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. But like everyone else, she could see he wouldn't put up with her disobedience for long.

“Chrissy. My name is Chrissy…Delaney.”

“
Sí,
all right, then.”

“I wanna go home.”

“You will go where I say.” He turned at the sound of a knock at his door, then the door opened and his mother walked into the study, a short, round woman with the same black hair as his own, though he was losing his while hers remained thick and long.

“What is it?” he said to her in Spanish. “You know better than to interrupt.”

“I heard you brought a child into the house. Now I
see that it is true. Since when, my son, do you wage war on children?”

“That is not your concern. Leave us.”

His mother ignored him and walked farther into the study, the one person in the world who wasn't afraid of him. “I know why you took her. There are few secrets in this house. What will you do with her, Antonio, now that you have brought her here?”

“I haven't decided.”

“Always I have wanted a daughter. You and Elena…I hoped you would give me a granddaughter. I love Alberto, but still, a woman needs the company of another woman. I want her, Antonio. Give her to me.”

“What happens to her is not for you to decide.” He turned to the older of his lieutenants. “Zepeda, take my mother back to her quarters.”

The slender man made her a slight bow. “It would be my pleasure, Señora Alvarez.”

Always the gentleman,
Antonio thought with a sneer. Thank God for Santos, a man with the kind of backbone it took to help him run the cartel.

Zepeda and his mother disappeared and the door closed quietly behind them.

The little girl looked up at him.
“Es la señora su madre?”
Is the woman your mother? Her Spanish surprised him.