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Chapter One
Vic Quinn turned upthe volume on her radio. Had dispatch just said possible cartel involvement?
“Repeat last, please?” She listened for a moment. Yep. She’d heard right. There were at least two fatalities, and she was only a few blocks away. Gunning the engine, she headed for the crime scene.
She normally worked as an agent out of the DEA division office in El Paso, but she was on her way to the Fort Stockton police department. It looked like she’d be late for that meeting.
When she pulled up on scene, she realized that she’d arrived before the ambulance. The patrolman who’d called it in must be inside the old house in the seedy Fort Stockton neighborhood. The front door stood open, and she entered cautiously, gun drawn at her side. “DEA, I’m coming in.”
The first thing she saw was a man on the living room floor with a bullet wound to the head. She looked closer. He was unconscious but still breathing. This was the guy with the cartel tattoos. The skull between his eyes was a dead giveaway, as if the big Santa Muerta down his arm hadn’t made it clear enough. Despite him being unconscious, she cuffed the guy. There was no telling when he might wake up.
“Over here,” the patrolman called from farther inside the house.
She followed the sound of his voice and found him in the kitchen, where the bodies of a young woman and a slightly older man lay. She strode over and knelt beside the officer, who was furiously working on an approximately four-year-old girl with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. She was bleeding profusely, and the desperate look in the officer’s eyes told Vic that he knew the child’s chances were slim.
Vic ran for a towel and placed it over the wound, then took over first aid, pressing with both hands to stem the blood. “Where the hell is that ambulance, dammit!” she yelled, trying and failing to keep the panic from her voice.
The officer stood and headed for the door. “I’ll check.”
The little girl’s eyes fluttered open. “Mamá...”
“Shh, hush, tranquila, mija.” Vic smiled encouragingly as the girl’s eyelids closed again. Her little hand moved, then clung to Vic’s.
Her heart panged hard. This poor baby.Please God, let this little one make it. Get that ambulance here fast.
Suddenly the girl coughed, splattering blood all over Vic’s dark-blue DEA T-shirt. The girl’s eyes widened in panic.
“No, no, no!” Vic refused to believe what was happening.
The little one coughed again, choking on the fountain of blood that spewed from her mouth. Instinctively, Vic took her into her arms, clasping her against her chest. In the distance, a faint wail sounded. The ambulance was finally coming. Too late. Too damned late.
In the sudden quiet, Vic’s eyes filled with tears, her head swiveling toward the living room. The man who still lived, the man with the tats, the man who was obviously the shooter—he wouldpayfor this. She’d make damn sure of that if it was the last thing she did.
***
Sergeant Cal Morgan, a Texas Ranger out of the El Paso District Office, heard the call go out for a homicide with a possible cartel connection. Even though he was only passing through Fort Stockton headed to Houston on a different case, he asked for the address. Texas Rangers considered going after the cartels operating in Texas one of their priorities.
He was less than ten miles from the incident and turned around, stepping on the gas. When he arrived, an ambulance was parked in front of the dilapidated house, and the paramedics were entering the front door. A DEA agent was speaking to a plainclothes detective. She turned her head, and he recognized Vic Quinn, a beautiful, dark-haired, highly competent agent out of the El Paso office. He nodded in greeting, and she acknowledged him with a tilt of her head before returning to her conversation.
Cal walked toward the house, past a patrolman who was being interviewed by a senior officer. The guy must have been first on scene. At the door, Cal introduced himself. “Cal Morgan, Texas Rangers. I’d like to see the crime scene.”
The woman nodded and stepped aside, writing his name down in her notebook.
The first thing he saw were the paramedics working on a man lying on the floor in the living room. Cal could tell by his tattoos that he was probably a member of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the largest cartels operating in North America, and one which was very active in Texas and in El Paso particularly.
The man had a deep bullet graze on his head. How serious it was would be determined at the hospital. For now, he was unconscious. Cal looked closer. From a concussion maybe? One thing was for sure: the guy was riding to the hospital with handcuffs and a police escort.
Before he moved on, Cal rummaged in the man’s jeans for his car keys.
He walked farther into the house and found the guy’s handiwork. He spotted the little girl first. “Well, shit.” He hated it when it was kids. He’d seen enough of that during his three tours in Afghanistan. He walked closer, then knelt and examined first the woman and then the man. They hadn’t had a chance. The bodies were riddled with bullets, probably from an automatic. It was no wonder the little girl had caught one.
With a sigh, he went back outside. Spotting Vic, he headed her way. "Hey, how did you end up on this one?” He reached out his hand and she shook it, her handshake firm but not too hard. He disliked the way some women squeezed the life out of you to prove that they weren’t wimps.
Then he noticed Vic’s shirt and hands. Hell, she’d probably been involved with that little girl inside. He’d noticed the bloody towel over the belly wound. He met Vic’s gaze, and this time he could see the tiny stress wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and the way her jaw clenched and unclenched. He knew just how she felt.
“I’m here for a meeting. Caught the call before I got to the station.” She swallowed, the movement of her throat visible. “You went inside?”
He nodded. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Vic. I’ve been there, and it’s something you don’t just get over.” He briefly touched her shoulder, and her eyes reddened.
