AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The patch of grass that the tables stood on was more like a welcome mat for brush fires. Yellow and dead.
The Paynes had chosen the table farthest away, and they stood up as I approached them. Their expressions were familiar. They were in work mode, thank fuck. It was a relief. Aside from the pinch of solemn gravity in Emerson’s eyes. That one rattled the cage in the back of my head.
I swallowed hard.
“Have a seat, kid.” Emerson pulled me in for a tight side-hug, and I gnashed my teeth. “Good to see you.”
“You too.” I shook Danny’s hand across the table. “Thanks for comin’.”
“Don’t mention it. But when all this is over, we’re gonna have a talk about who you fuckin’ call in an emergency,” Danny told me.
I cracked a faint smirk and sat down. They’d bought coffee—and food I had no interest in. I could barely swallow the saliva in my mouth, much less burgers and fries.
“I have Coach and Mathis on standby, just so you know,” Emerson said. “From what little Adrien told me, I just have a feeling this is going to end in South America.”
I glanced at him. “Before we go there, are you really vouching for this guy? Adrien, I mean. We have one of ours with him right now—you met Greer, right? His nephew Crew went with Adrien to Colombia.”
Emerson inclined his head. “He’s one of the best, and you know I don’t say that lightly, particularly not about a federal agent.”
True enough.
“I don’t see anything past getting Shay back,” I replied. “I don’t even care about Carillo.”
“Unless you wanna bring us up to speed, avoid using names we haven’t heard,” Danny said, biting into his burger.
I frowned. “What exactly do you know?”
Emerson answered. “Well, Adrien’s working on taking down Luca Blanco. Danny’s exaggerating—we’ve heard of Carillo, but we don’t know the parts they’re playing. And it’s probably best we keep it that way for now. Tell us where you want us to go instead. I’m with you—top priority is to bring Shay home.”
I nodded, hit with another dose of relief, and I retrieved the note from my back pocket. “This is the address. We have another one that Ocho is gonna take a look at.”
“I thought he retired.” Emerson eyed the note and then pocketed it.
“Who’s—oh, Vásquez.” Danny nodded to himself. “He’s fun.”
He was certainly a character. Half his family had been murdered by cartels, and it’d made him…creative…in his work to bring down criminals. It worked in our favor. He’d earned his nickname, Ocho, after a shooting I wasn’t precisely sure was true, but—whatever. It’d allegedly been him against eight men.
“So, other than Shay, we’re looking for a Jorge Gomez,” I said. “Midfifties, bald, on the short side like Danny—”
“Hey, fuck you,” Danny said. “You’re just mad you have more gray hairs than me.”
I mustered a chuckle and took a swig of my coffee.
Screw that, Shay liked my grays.
“And if we find either of them?” Emerson pressed.
I sobered. “Stay on them till Riv and I get there—unless you have to intervene for whatever reason. If you see Shay—obviously, try to get to him. We’ll find a way to get down there as soon as possible. We just don’t know if this is a wild goose chase. The source is unreliable at best, and he’s at that point where he’ll say anything to stay alive.”
It hit me that Emerson wasn’t trying to lead this case, and that meant a lot to me. Most of all, it allowed me to stay focused and somewhat closed off.
“You don’t have to worry about transport,” he told me. “That’s one of the reasons you calluswhen shit goes sideways, Reese. Now you have Hillcroft behind you. I didn’t debrief Coach for the fun of it.”
Oh. Well, fuck. Okay, that actually took a weight off, ’cause fucking hell, did I miss the support of the agency sometimes. Especially when one had to sneak into other countries undetected.
“Maybe we shoulda called you sooner.” I rubbed the back of my neck.
They snorted, sounding every bit the couple who’d been attached at the hip the past twenty-five years.
