“I figured it out after we got here, at the safe house. I knew the guy with the motorcycle helmet seemed familiar, even thought of Esteban when I first saw him. But I discarded that idea as wishful thinking because I knew he was dead. But when I saw how he moved, how he ran, and heard him yelling at the men in that second SUV not to shoot, all the puzzle pieces started coming together in my mind. It wasn’t until we got here andhad a moment of peace to really think it through that I realized it had to be him, that the man in the motorcycle helmet is my brother. So I’ll ask you again. What’s the point of investigating anymore when we both know that he’s alive? Why the pretense this morning?”
He blew out a long breath, then sat in the chair across from her. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I probably should have and—”
“Probably?”
“Definitely should have. I’m sorry.”
She crossed her arms defiantly but seemed a little less aggravated at him.
“Can we chalk it up to it being a really, really bad day for both of us and move on?”
She rolled her eyes and uncrossed her arms. “Move on how? Where? I don’t even see the point of an investigation now. I might as well find my brother and talk it out. That would be the quickest and easiest way to get the answers I want.”
“And the most dangerous. Neither of us knows his involvement in the shootings yesterday. But he’s definitely involved in some way, no question. He was one of the men picking up the gunmen from my cabin. And don’t forget that he didn’t exactly run out of the woods to call a halt to the shooting when his men in that SUV tried to kill us. The last guy, the one you transfused, was his friend. Randy. Remember? They were his friends, his men. Explain that.”
She looked away. “I can’t. But if I talk to Esteban—”
“And discover that Esteban is actually trying to kill you, you’re dead.”
Her eyes widened incredulously. “Why would you think he’s trying to kill me?”
“I can’t believe you even said that. He faked his death. You came here to look into it and suddenly people are shooting atyou, the same people he knows well enough to transfuse in the middle of the road. Why would you think heisn’ttrying to kill you, or have you killed?”
“I don’t have the facts to explain whatever is going on. But I know my brother. He’s taken care of Rafael and me all our lives. He would never, ever hurt either one of us.”
“And yet he always seems to be around when the bullets start flying.”
Her eyes narrowed ominously. Before she could let loose with a tirade of words he probably wouldn’t understand, he held up his hands. “Let’s start over, all right? Obviously instead of investigating your brother’s death, we now need to investigate why he faked it, who died in his place, and why someone’s trying to kill us.”
She crossed her arms again. “Fair enough. I guess.”
“We need to compare notes. Decide our next steps. How long do you think it will take you to type up what you’ve investigated so far?”
“You’re kidding, right? I’ve been here several months. There’s no way I’ll remember every place I’ve been, every person I’ve spoken to or eavesdropped on and what they said. It would be much easier, and faster, to sneak into my rental and download the files from my server. Or hook up to the internet somewhere to access my data in the cloud. It’s a shame you don’t have a satellite dish at the cabin or we could download my files right now.”
“We can’t risk leaving an electronic trail of any kind. No internet. Period. Someone could have already broken into your rental by now and is watching your cloud storage to trace any attempts at retrieval.”
“It would take a computer genius to do that, don’t you think?”
“I’ve done it before. Do you consider me to be a genius?”
The corner of her mouth lifted in a half smile.
“Don’t answer that,” he said. “I don’t think my ego could handle whatever you’re about to say. My point is that if I can do it, I imagine the men after us could as well. All it takes is a little digging on the internet to find out how. It’s not that difficult.”
“Then, it’s going to be a long, tedious day of me having to rely solely on my memory to create a list of everything I’ve looked into.”
“We’ve got the time. One of my former officers is going to bring us supplies today. They’re coming up the mountain from the opposite direction that we did and will leave everything at a prearranged spot for me to retrieve later. Which reminds me, I need to tell them to include some soda for you. I didn’t anticipate having a non-coffee-drinker in the safe house.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Coffee is highly overrated. I don’t understand the appeal.”
He smiled and took a phone out of his jeans pocket.
She blinked. “I, uh, thought you threw your phone out when you tossed mine.”
“I did. This is a cheap phone without a registered owner or contract, the type law enforcement calls aburner phone. I put some in my backpack at my old office yesterday. As long as we don’t call someone whom the bad guys might try to trace back to us, it’s safe to use.”
He frowned at the screen. “That’s odd. No cell service. I had service last night when I called Collier. I suppose a tower could be down. Then again, these phones are no frills, not always reliable. I’ll try another one.” He crossed to his backpack that he’d set on the table earlier and unzipped it.
