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“Yeah. Ditto.” Baker pinched the radio to his waist and took the corridor to their right. The voices were growing louder, clearer. Slowing his approach, he angled his head around one corner. But there was no one there. He took the turn and followed the hall to the end. Dead end. He pivoted back the way he came. “Shit.”
Then he heard her.
Low. The words mixed together and muted as though coming through a wall. But he knew that voice, had relied on it to keep the past in its place. Baker raised his attention to the ceiling, then brushed his palm over the wall. There. An air-conditioning vent. “Gotcha.”
He felt his way around the corner and slid his hand over a door. Pressing his ear to the metal, he made a response on the other side. Baker tested the handle. Locked. Of course—couldn’t make it too easy. He backed up a step. Then hauled his foot into the space beside the lock.
The door slammed into the wall behind it, and he charged inside. Weapon raised, he made out two figures in the light of an electric lantern on the floor.
“Baker!” Jocelyn tried to pull away from the wall but couldn’t stand. Blood crusted around her mouth and beneath her nose. The son of a bitch had hit her.
“You are a hard one to get rid of, aren’t you?” The bomber centered himself between Baker and Jocelyn. All too familiar.
“Trevino.” The puzzle fit together now. The lack of a body. The motive to frame and kill Marc De Leon. Ponderosa’s chief hadn’t died in that car bomb as everyone believed. He’d been exacting his own revenge against the cartel. “It was you.”
“Surprise.” Trevino raised something in his hand. A small black box, just wide enough for a single button. A detonator. “I’d stick around for the party, but it sounds like my guests are here.”
A quick assessment of Jocelyn’s Kevlar vest, pulled down over her arms, told Baker exactly what that detonator triggered. She’d been strapped with an explosive—the impact of which could bring down the entire building on top of them. Not to mention kill the woman he loved. “Put it down.”
“I don’t think you understand, Halsey.” Trevino couldn’t contain the smile plastered all over his face. “I put it down, and your partner here has a much bigger hole in her chest. You see, if I take my thumb off this button, we all die. So you might want to put down the gun instead.”
“You son of a bitch.” Baker took a step forward. “I could’ve helped you.”
“Helped me?” The bomber raised the detonator. “No, Chief Halsey. I’m the one who’s going to help you. This is what you want, isn’t it? To see Sangre por Sangre pay for what they’ve done? Well, this is how we get it.”
“Not like this.” Holstering his weapon, Baker charged forward. His shoulder connected with the Trevino’s gut and slammed the bastard into the wall behind him. He grabbed for the device.
The chief threw the fist clutching the detonator. Bone, plastic and flesh knocked Baker back, but it wasn’t enough to knock him down. Jocelyn struggled to get free of the Kevlar vest in his peripheral vision. One slip of that detonator and he’d lose everything all over again.
Not an option.
Baker elbowed the chief in the face. A sickening crunch filled his ears. The bomber moved to catch the blood spraying from his nose. This was his chance. Baker hooked his arm around the chief’s middle and hauled the bastard off his feet. They hit the ground as one. And Baker wrenched the detonator out of the man’s grip.
Air eased into his chest as he got control of the explosive, but the adrenaline had yet to fade. Baker rocketed his fist in Trevino’s face. The impact knocked the man’s head back against the cement. Throwing him into unconsciousness. “That’s for breaking her nose.”
Staggering to his feet, he faced off with Jocelyn. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay.” She stared up at him, a million things written on her face, but she must’ve known they didn’t have time to hash it now. The cartel was in the building. Their time was up. “I could use some help getting this vest off, though.”
Keeping his finger over the detonator’s trigger, he crouched in front of her. The vest was heavier than he’d expected. Packed to the brim. But he managed to pull it over her head and make quick work of the zip ties around her wrists.
“I guess I was the one who needed help this time.” Jocelyn rubbed at the broken skin on her hands.
“Anytime, Carville.” Baker offered her his hand, and for a moment, he didn’t think she was going to take it, but she did. Her palm pressed against his as she got to her feet, and that instant contact took the edge off.
Footsteps and flashlights broke through the door. Unfamiliar shouts ricocheted around the room as Baker and Jocelyn raised their hands in surrender. Sangre por Sangre. He blinked against the onslaught of light, fully aware of the device in his hand.
“I think this is the part we get on our knees and hope they don’t shoot us,” he said.
They both lowered themselves to the floor.
Chapter Fifteen
One of the best things in life was a warm chocolate chip cookie.
And Baker’s hand in hers as they faced off with a half dozen armed cartel gunmen.
Trevino lay unconscious behind them. Water soaked into Jocelyn’s pants as they waited for Sangre por Sangre to decide what to do next. What were they waiting for? One wrong move. That was all it would take to put her and Baker out of their misery. Seconds pressed in on her lungs. Everything that’d happened over the past few days had led to this. To this one moment. Was this really how it was going to end between them?
