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Ramon turned on the car engine. He backed out of the space they were in with no headlights, then turned and drove half a mile. He pulled in behind a warehouse with its own jetty. No boat.
“What is this?”
Ramon sighed. “See for yourself.” He hit a button on his phone, and a garage door on the side of the warehouse rolled up. He pulled in and parked alongside a pickup with a camper shell that looked to be packed tight with…
“The money.” In bags or bundles, wrapped up. Kenna climbed out, went over, and peered in the window. “The delivery was already here? The whole thing was a ruse.”
“Now we know.”
She turned to him. “You could’ve told me.”
Ramon shrugged. “Too many people know, and it pollutes the results. That’s why I’ll never clear my name. I can’t sort out who knows what, and who has too much to hide. Those feds out there? They’re worse than you and I because theypretendto fight for justice. In the end they’re as dirty as Navarro, but at least he’s honest.”
“The rest of the FBI isn’t like a few agents here…ones who might not even have been agents.”
“Pretty good ruse if they’re not. Maybe the feds that grabbed your friend from the compound weren’t feds either.” Ramon made ahuhsound in his throat. “I hadn’t considered that, but now that I think it certainly could be. Maybe the ones at the hospital were just hired guys posing as agents.”
“It’s not a conspiracy.” She’d had enough of those. And it wasn’t that easy to pretend to be an agent with any accuracy—especially not when they’d encountered Stairns. Both Kenna and her former boss would’ve seen through it.
“Everything is a conspiracy. You wanna see with clarity? Buy a pair of binoculars.” Ramon chuckled at his own joke. “Because you won’t get the truth from people—especially if they have power.”
“So you’re lying, too.”
“Guess you have to figure out about what.” He sighed. “Just get in.”
Kenna settled in the passenger seat of the truck. The whole unloading of that boat had been a ruse to draw out a mole, but it hadn’t worked. Whichever one of Navarro’s men had betrayed him was evidently working with Kart, and perhaps a whole group of dirty FBI agents. Or they’d passed on information in exchange for a kickback.
She doubted any of them had any loyalty to anyone else in this.
Just the money they’d get paid.
All she wanted was to get her friends and get out of this situation. They needed safety and a way home. Or at least away from the people here and their ill intentions, sucking the life out of Kenna every second because she couldn’t see a way through. Or out.
Ramon pulled the truck onto the street and headed away from whoever those men had been, quickly making his way to the highway that led inland back to Cielo Ardiente.
“So how are you going to figure out which of Navarro’s men betrayed him?”
“You let me worry about that.” He glanced aside at her.
“No.” Kenna flinched. “No way is Navarro going to drag me into a witch hunt. I’m not doing anything else for him.”
“How do you know your friends didn’t escape already?” Ramon chuckled. “Maybe they left you behind again.”
“I hope they did. For their sakes.” Kenna clenched down on her back teeth, wanting to scream. She’d need a phone or computer to track the necklace and find Maizie. Exactly why she’d given it to the girl.
Everything will be all right.
But neither her heart nor her mind wanted to believe it. She sat with her fists clenched, sitting completely straight trying to get a handle on this. Trying to pray didn’t work. There was no peace. No answers. Nothing but frustration that had gotten worse and worse since she got here.
All her trying.
All her working.
None of it did any good when everyone around her dragged her into their schemes. Forced her to do their will as though she had no say. Everyone here had an angle, and she couldn’t get herself out of it to even start untangling the mess without seeing how she wasn’t that far removed from these people.
There are none good, no not one.
That was what the priest had said.
