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ChapterTwenty
“Can you still hear me?” The phone line crackled. Ramon’s voice sounded far away. In that tunnel, underground.
Nope. Not me. No, thank you.
From the back seat of the car, Maizie said, “I have him close.”
Kenna stared out the car window. They were crawling along with Stairns keeping the speed low so they wouldn’t get too far ahead of Ramon.
For the first time in her life, she found herself torn between what she wanted to do, and what she’d always done. Everything in her strove to save the life of a child. This time was no exception.
But with everything she’d experienced—more likesuffered—the past few days, part of her wanted to leave more than anything. Even with Jax in the hospital. Maybe she should go see him again, but until he woke up, he wouldn’t even know she was there.
The residual fear and need to escape was still inside her. Making her antsy, and there had been no way at all she would’ve gone in that tunnel. She’d have had a full-blown panic attack. Right now she was battling some serious anxiety—the need to flee.
“Just think,” Ramon said over the open phone line. “You could have been down here with me, crawling through this concrete tunnel all the way to the end.”
At least she’d managed to keep him from seeing the panic. “I have zero desire to reenact a movie-style prison break.”
He chuckled, but the sound had an edge to it. Whatever was in him that caused him to go the way the FBI thought he had, and make deals with bad guys rather than double down on proving his own innocence, bled through everything he was like a kind of darkness—in his manner, his tone of voice, and what he believed about himself and the world.
Kenna had lived with the need to not fall into a bitterness against the FBI that could characterize her if she let it. But then she wouldn’t have Stairns in her life, here to watch out for Maizie. If she hadn’t opted to forgive him for the wrong he had done to her, then she’d have missed out on the friendships she now had.
She glanced over at Stairns in the driver’s seat. “Any updates from our friends with badges about Jax and his condition?”
“I have a buddy in the loop who is supposed to text me if anything changes.”
From the back seat, Maizie said, “And as soon as I get back to my laptop at the hotel, I’ll be able to see what the latest is. Assuming they do things electronically and they update their computer records regularly.”
Ramon said, “I have a friend who is on staff at the hospital. I can make a call if you want.”
“Thanks, guys.” Kenna rubbed her hands to her knees. “I appreciate it.”
Still, she couldn’t quite get rid of the snag her thoughts had encountered before she and Ramon agreed he would be the one to crawl through the tunnel. Because she’d had zero intention of doing so. She understood he was focused on not disappointing Navarro. But his statement about failure leading to their deaths? She couldn’t let it go. If Navarro wanted to go scorched earth, that was fine.
Would he hunt her all the way back to Stairns’ house, putting Maizie and everyone else at risk?
She didn’t want that.
Kenna had to focus on the fact there was a scared child out there.
A lot like Maizie, and the well of deep empathy the girl had for anyone who might be in her situation, but without it being overwhelming fear for little Javier. If Maizie could channel that empathy into positive action, she would be a strong advocate for victims trying to heal and regain their sense of self and freedom. One day, anyway.
Ramon was the one who had let Luca and Camila go, all so they could have a chance at a better life. She could hardly believe he was the one who sent them on their way. Something that could almost be construed as being out of the goodness of his heart. If that were even believable. As it was, this was a dangerous game that Ramon played. And he was worried about Navarro killing him? The guy was working both sides, and intermittently rescuing people as he felt like it.
How did he choose who deserved freedom and the shot at a good life, and who didn’t?
She lifted the phone. “Are you going to let Javier go to a new life somewhere safe when you find him?”
If the boy was “never found” as far as Navarro was concerned, Ramon thought he and Kenna would pay the price. Maybe that kept him from rescuing the child until now.
“I have a friend in Mexico City who will take the boy to a home in Manzanillo where he’ll be safe. America is too much of a risk right now.” Ramon grunted, and she pictured him in her mind dragging himself along that concrete pipe. “We’ve been talking about doing it for a while, but now that Kart took Javi, I might not be able to risk trying to rescue him.”
Kenna shook her head. “What am I supposed to think other than thatyou’vebeen behind the random disappearances this whole time?” The guy’s entire life was a gray area.
Ramon grunted again. “I might be a lot of things, but I’m not a killer.”
“But you do rescue some of them?”
