One Wrong Step (17 page)

S
ilence fell over the car as he absorbed this. For nearly a minute, the swishing of the wiper blades was the only sound.

“You’re not going,” he said firmly. “Tell those assholes to wait.”

“I can’t do that. They want to meet right now.”

“Where the fuck is the agent?”

Celie blew out a breath. “San Antonio. They’ve got a couple of female agents here in town, but one is black and the other is five-ten. It would never work.”

“So tell them to
wait.
You can’t just go out there—”

“They’ve got Enrique.” Celie sucked in a breath. A sob burst out, and she clamped a hand over her mouth.

He looked at her, eyes wide. “Enrique Ramos? The kid from the shelter?”

She nodded.

“How the hell did that happen?”

“They must have picked him up somewhere after school.” Her voice quivered. “Or maybe he ran off. He does that sometimes.”

“Fuck,” McAllister muttered and looked out the window. They were doing sixty in a thirty-five on wet streets. “Want me to drive?”

She shook her head. At least driving gave her something to do besides get hysterical. She had to keep a level head. She took a deep breath.

A red light loomed ahead, and she would have raced through it had it not been for a Lincoln Town Car crossing the intersection. She jammed her foot on the brake, and the car rabbitted as the antilock mechanism kicked in.

“So, the FBI’s bringing a bag for you?” he asked.

“Yeah. I think they’ve got some way to track the bills or maybe the duffel or something.”

“And what’s the strategy?”

She cursed mentally as another sedan rolled cautiously through the intersection. “They’re going to try to apprehend these two guys right after the exchange. If they can’t, they’re going to follow the money.”

She didn’t say what they were both surely thinking. Something terrible could happen before the FBI got control of the situation.

Celie’s cell phone chirped, and she jumped in her seat. The light turned green as she flipped open the phone.

“Hello?”

“New plan, bitch.”

“How’d you get this number?”

“Be at the Quick Stop on I-35 and Riverside. Ten minutes.”

“
What?
But you said—Hello?
Hello?
” She jerked the phone away from her ear and looked at the screen. Disconnected.

She tossed it in McAllister’s lap. “Call Rowe! Tell him to get to the Quick Stop on Riverside and Interstate 35.” She’d never get her hands on the money in time. And what about the sharpshooters? No one had time to get in place.

“What’s his number?” McAllister asked.

“I don’t know.” In her rush, she’d left his business card on the kitchen counter. “Can you call the police? Maybe they have it.”

“I have a better idea,” he said, punching some numbers into the phone.

“What?”

But he wasn’t paying attention. He turned away from her and looked out the window as the hills of west Austin flew past them. “Kate? Hey, it’s me. Where are you, exactly?”

Kate shook her head to make sure she’d heard right. “Where
am
I?” She glanced at the clock. “I’m in bed.”

“You got the number for that FBI guy? Agent Rowe?”

Kate kicked off the covers. “Yeah.” She rolled out of bed and grabbed some jeans off the floor. “What’s going on? Where are you?”

“I need you to call him. Tell him South Lamar’s off. Tell him the meeting’s been changed to the Speedy Stop—What?” Kate heard a woman’s voice in the background. “Scratch that. The
Quick
Stop at Riverside and I-35.”

Kate fumbled in the dark for a pen. Screw it. She could remember everything he’d said. “I got it. What’s happening there and when?”

“He’ll know,” McAllister said. “And tell him to haul ass.”

She stubbed her toe on the doorjamb just as the call went dead. “Damn it!”

Slumping against the door frame, she stared at the phone. “McAllister?
McAllister?
” That was
it
?

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, scrolling through her speed dial list. She found Rowe’s number and pushed Connect.

Rowe was already in position at the Whole Foods parking lot on Sixth and Lamar when Kate’s call came in on his phone.

Crap. That was all he needed. He decided to ignore it.

“Shouldn’t you get that?” Stevenski asked from the passenger seat of the Buick.

“Nah.”

But she called again, and he reconsidered. What if she’d picked up something on the scanner? The local police didn’t have wind of this, as far as Rowe knew, but it was always possible someone had slipped up. If so, he needed to know that.

“Rowe,” he growled into the phone.

“South Lamar is off. The new meeting place is the Quick Stop at Riverside and I-35.”

“How the hell—”

“Cecelia Wells is trying to reach you. She’s with John McAllister, and they just got a phone call changing the plan.”

He was speechless. That damn reporter had pulled Kate into this mess.

“You’re sure it was her?”

“It was McAllister. And yes, I’m sure. They said to come fast.”

Christ, this was turning into a circus. And now he and his team would have to pull this thing off without getting tripped up by the goddamn media. Or the rain. Or the utter lack of planning.

“Listen up, Kate. You stay away from this.”

No response.

“I mean it. You’re endangering yourself and other innocent people if you get involved. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

Rowe put his hand over the phone and turned to Stevenski. “Call Cecelia Wells on her mobile. Tell her to meet us four blocks east of the Quick Stop. Tell her
not
to make contact until she’s received our package.”

Kate was babbling in his ear.

“Did you hear what I said, Kate? This is getting more dangerous by the minute. Stay out of it.”

“I
said,
I hear you.”

“But you’re not listening.”

“It’s my job to report the news. Federal agents busting prominent members of the Saledo cartel is news.”

Goddamn it. “I’ll give you an exclusive interview. Tonight. Just stay away from the scene and let me call you.”

“Sorry, Rowe. Gotta run.”

John watched Celie’s face in the intermittent streetlights as they sped across town. She was sitting right beside him, but her thoughts looked to be a million miles away.

“So,” he asked her, “what’d the fertility clinic charge you? Thirty? Forty thousand?”

She glanced over, obviously surprised. He was an asshole for bringing it up right now, but if she didn’t know he was an asshole by this point, it was high time she learned.

“I figure you’ve been here almost eight months,” he said. “That’s what? Two rounds of in vitro? Plus meds and office visits?”

She looked away and mumbled something.

“What?”

“Three,” she said. “Three rounds. It came to about sixty-eight thousand.”

Sixty-eight thousand dollars to get pregnant. That was some fucking determination. She must really,
really
want to be a mom. Enough to rip off a drug kingpin. Enough to risk getting in trouble with the FBI.

Enough to lie to him.

“Are you pregnant now?” It was possibly the
most
inappropriate question he could ask her at this moment, but he had to know.

She looked at him apprehensively. “I’m not sure. It isn’t likely, though. I’ve tried everything, and my body doesn’t seem to want to cooperate.”

He gazed out the window and shook his head.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d understand.”

He sure as hell
didn’t
understand. He understood even less how she could lie to him repeatedly. For an entire weekend. How she could twine herself around him
naked
and tell him—

“I wouldn’t expect anything. You know, from you.”

Resentment bubbled up in his throat, and he tried to swallow it down. “You try to manipulate me into conceiving a
child
with you, and you don’t expect anything?”

She brought the car to a halt at a red light. They were less than a mile from the interstate. It was crazy to be having this conversation right now.

“It was something I wanted for myself. I mean, I still want it. If it ever happens.” She looked at him with those big green eyes—the eyes he’d once thought were so sweet and sincere. A little knife turned in his chest.

“I know this thing we have isn’t something serious for you,” she continued. “I would never ask you for anything, even if by some miracle I
am
pregnant.”

He stared at her. “Un-fucking-believable. You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

He wouldn’t look at her now.

“Shit. It’s over. It’s done,” he said. “Just drop it, okay?”

What
was over? Their relationship? She’d kind of caught on to that already after the way he’d treated her at his office. Not to mention the past three days.

The light turned green, and she stomped on the accelerator. They had less than two minutes to get there. She suddenly had a terrifying thought.

“Oh, no! Which side of the interstate is it on? I have no idea where we’re going!”

“Northwest side,” McAllister grumbled. “I used to stop there for smokes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. It’s half a mile from police headquarters, which means these guys are extremely stupid or they’ve got some kind of plan we don’t know about.”

“What kind of plan?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Who knows what they’re thinking?”

Celie chewed her lip and considered this complication. She didn’t like the possibility of some cop—uniformed or otherwise—stopping in for coffee and jumping into the middle of things.

Her phone chirped, and McAllister grabbed it from the console. He checked the number and flipped it open.

“Yo.” He looked at Celie. “That’s going to make us late.” Pause. “Yeah, I got it. We’re almost there now.”

He closed the phone and pointed up ahead. “See that apartment complex? Pull into the lot right there.”

“But—”

“Do it,” he ordered. “That was Stevenski. They’re waiting with the money.”

John watched from inside the Volvo as Celie took a black duffel from Special Agent Rowe. He spoke to her a few moments, gesturing emphatically to underscore whatever point he was making. The man looked pissed off and disheveled, and John didn’t know whether it was because of the late hour or the fact that he was wearing jeans and an FBI windbreaker instead of his usual suit. Judging from Rowe’s bedhead, Celie’s call had probably dragged him out of a sound sleep and torpedoed his plan to get undercover agents and a team of sharpshooters in place before the money drop. Now it was up to Rowe, his partner, and John to keep Celie safe and make sure Enrique came back unharmed. Two measly feds and a reporter who hadn’t fired a pistol in well over a year. What a joke. John held Celie’s .38 against his thigh, wishing he’d taken the time to visit his grandfather’s ranch and shoot up beer cans sometime in the past twelve months.

He watched Celie shoulder the duffel and go up on her toes to give Rowe a hug. What the hell? She was
hugging
the guy at a time like this? Rowe said something to her, and she nodded. Evidently they’d forged some kind of connection this past week. Or maybe she was just scared out of her mind and looking for some reassurance. John sure as shit hadn’t given her any.

Celie turned and walked back to the Volvo with a determined look on her face. She seemed unbelievably calm for a woman who was about to walk into a meeting with gun-toting killers. He looked down at Celie’s pistol and hoped he’d be able to help her if everything went to shit.

Which he was fairly sure it would.

Celie’s phone chirped from the console. John was about to answer it when she yanked open the door and leaned over his lap to get it herself.

“Hello?”

As she listened to the caller, she turned and looked at him. The determination was gone from her eyes, replaced by panic.

“Why there?” she asked. “Why do you keep changing things? I don’t understand.”

Were they moving the meeting spot again? These guys must be schizo.

Or else really smart.

“Fine, I’ll be there,” Celie said, “but I want to talk to Enrique first. I need to know he’s okay.”

Her body stiffened, and for a second John thought they’d actually put the kid on the line.

“Hello?
Hello?
”

She snapped shut the phone and hurled it to the floor.

Celie’s palms were sweating. Same for her back and her neck. Perspiration trickled down between her breasts, soaking into her bra.

“It’s time,” she said, glancing at the clock and cutting the engine.

She’d parked the SUV at a metered space not far from the Lamar Street Bridge, the latest meeting site. Celie had a feeling this quiet little pedestrian bridge was the place they’d had in mind all along, not the heavily traveled bridge she and McAllister had scoped out earlier.

She gazed over her shoulder at the concrete structure, which stretched over Town Lake. The narrow bridge offered scenic views of downtown Austin. On a typical evening, it was a favorite destination for joggers and couples out for a stroll. Tonight, however, it was nearly deserted, due to the soggy weather and the fact that it was 1:15 in the morning. If Saledo’s guys wanted a meeting without witnesses, they probably couldn’t have picked a better time.

The bridge itself was landscaped and lined with lampposts. Up and down the sidewalk leading to it, Celie saw pink crape myrtles and giant stone planters filled with rosemary. When they’d first driven by, McAllister had said one of the planters would make a good vantage point from which to watch the exchange.

“Not a bad meeting spot,” he said now, surveying the area from the backseat. Celie was counting on the tinted windows to conceal his presence from Saledo’s men. “Pretty smart, actually. Your car’s stuck on this side, and I bet they’re on the other. If you wanted to tail them out of here, you’d have to drive way the hell over there before you could cross the lake. And since they’ve been running you all over town tonight, they’re probably banking on the fact you haven’t had time to get a police backup in place.” He paused and looked at her. “The lighting’s not bad though. It’s pretty good, actually.”