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Still alive? Panic and a heavy dose of rage combined into a vicious cocktail that had Baker closing the distance between them. “You better pray she’s alive.”
Something vibrated against his chest.
He froze, grabbing for whatever was lodged against his rib cage.
“That’s close enough, Chief.” The figure ahead took his own step forward. An LED light lit up the man’s hand, and another vibration went through Baker. “You know what this is?”
Son of a bitch.
“I’m going to guess it’s not a box of chocolates.” Baker was forced to back off. He was still wearing the vest Jocelyn had lent him, but it’d been altered. Turned into a weapon rather than a protection, and he was instantly reminded of the woman Marc De Leon had tortured and killed. With a vest just like this. Packed with explosives. A touch of a button—that was all it would take for the bomber to finish what he’d started.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You set the bomb in my station.”
The man raised his hands in surrender, all the while pinching that little detonator between his thumb and palm. “To be fair, I didn’t expect you to make it out of there. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had to go to all these lengths.”
“You’re the Ghost. Sangre por Sangre’s go-to bomber. Sixteen—well, now seventeen—incidents over the span of two years. All this time, we’ve been thinking a man named Benito Ramon was responsible, but that was just another alias, wasn’t it? Marc De Leon.” The bomber he’d been looking for. Who’d set the device that’d brought down his future and killed his sister. Undeniable grief and rage flashed through every fiber of his being. He dared another step forward. The vibrating intensified in warning. “You took everything from me.”
“I never liked that name. The Ghost. Always gave too much credit where none had been earned.” De Leon straightened, matching Baker in height. The lack of accent was telling. Baker had always found it out of place during their interrogations. Not born and bred from within Sangre por Sangre, but an outsider. A hired gun. A true mercenary who killed on orders and walked away with his pockets all the heavier. “But since we’re getting to know each other, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get in the truck, and when I push this button, you’re going to be blown to pieces and lefts for Albuquerque’s bomb squad to put back together, and we can all live happily ever after.”
Not a chance. “If this was your pitch to Ponderosa’s chief of police, I gotta tell you, it needs some work.”
“Let me ask you something, Chief.” De Leon inched closer, within reach, though the headlights made it impossible to decipher the bomber’s features out here in the pitch black. “When you found your sister’s body, what was the first thing you did? Scream? Cry? Or did you just stand there staring at her, trying to find some semblance of the woman she’d been beneath all that burnt skin?”
A tightness in his throat threatened to wrench away his control. Baker pressed his wrists against the zip ties until the edges cut into his skin. “Shut your damn mouth.”
“You think you’re the only one who’s lost someone to Sangre por Sangre?” De Leon lost a bit of aggression in his voice. “My friend, you don’t know what pain is. They might’ve taken your sister, but you didn’t have to watch her suffer. You didn’t have to hear her screams while they held you down and made you watch as she begged for you to help her. You got off lucky.”
“Lucky. Right. You know what? I do feel lucky.” The fire that’d been driving him since finding Linley bound with a flaming tire around her neck threatened to extinguish itself. No. The man in front of him was not an ally, and Baker sure as hell didn’t trust a single word out of his mouth. “You’ve obviously been keeping tabs on me. Knew I’d be here, looking for the man who could give up the Ghost. You might have even connected the dots. My sister was killed by the cartel with a device just like the one the bomb squad recovered. Stood to reason this incident might be connected to hers. Hell, you even called me by my first name. Like we’re friends.”
De Leon didn’t answer, as though sensing the rising flood churning inside of Baker.
Baker took a step forward, ignoring the vibration from the device pressed against his midsection. “You probably think you know me pretty well. My habits, my motives. Who I’ve talked to, how I spend my free time. But do you know why I took the job as Alpine Valley’s chief of police?”
“Wasn’t hard to fill in the blanks,” Deo Leon said. “Anyone with half a brain can see you’d want to use your authority to get to the cartel.”
“See, now that’s where you’re wrong.” Baker strained against the zip ties. “I took the job because I was afraid of what I’d do to the man who killed my sister and burned down my barn with her horses inside when I found him.”
He took another step forward. “So you’re right. I am lucky. I didn’t have to wait my entire life hunting for you.” Baker pressed his knuckles together and snapped the zip ties in one clean break. “You were stupid enough to come after me yourself.”
De Leon’s laugh penetrated through the low ringing in Baker’s ears. “That’s quite the speech, Chief. I like the theater with snapping the zip ties, too, but you’re forgetting one thing.” He raised the detonator between them.
“You think that little black box scares me?” Adrenaline dumped into Baker’s veins. Out here in cartel territory there were no rules, but time didn’t bow down to anyone. Jocelyn was injured, possibly bleeding out, and the longer he faced off with the ghosts of his past, the higher the chance she didn’t make it out of this alive. He grabbed on to the bastard’s collar and dragged him close. “As long as you and I are together, you won’t pull that trigger. You’ll just end up killing yourself in the process.”
Baker cocked his arm back and rocketed his fist forward.
De Leon dodged the attempt, then again as he threw a left. “You don’t want to do this, Chief. It’s not going to end the way you think.”
The momentum thrust Baker into the hood of the truck.
“You know what? I think I really do.” He spun back, ready for an attack, but it never came. Frustration and an overwhelming sense of desperation to make this right burned through him faster than the flames had singed his skin at the station. Shoving off the truck, he aimed his shoulder into De Leon’s midsection and hauled the son of a bitch off his feet.
They hit the dirt as one.
And an explosion lit up the desert.
The compound was engulfed in a dome of bright flames, black smoke and hurling debris less than a quarter mile away.
“No.” De Leon pried himself out from Baker’s grip and shot to his feet. “I was talking about your partner.”
