Undercover Protector

“Did you talk to the reporters? Did you ask them where they think Gomez went?”

“Of course…I…”

“Did you ask them like I am asking you right now?” Benny cocked his gun and Ramon lifted him again and the screams echoed through the empty warehouse.

“No,” he finally gasped. “No, I didn’t, jefe. Give me a chance and I will. I will find out. I swear.”

The little bitch was crying in earnest and Benny thought about shooting him just on principle. Instead he uncocked the gun and put it back in the waistband of his pants.

He could be benevolent.

“Do it,” he said. “You have ten hours.”

Ramon dropped him and Hernando landed in a heap on the cold cement, sobbing.

Five hours later the sound of Benny’s cell phone cut through the canned music being piped through the speakers behind his head.

“He’s on the West Coast,” Hernando said. “North of Los Angeles, no one is sure where. That’s the truth, jefe. I swear to God.”

Benny flipped his cell phone shut and put the biography of Mussolini on the floor for some minimum-wage bookstore employee to pick up. He kicked Ramon’s foot to wake him up. He’d been dozing in the chair in the empty non-fiction section of the bookstore since they’d arrived after dinner.

“Wha—?” Ramon sat up, blinking and huffing like a man coming up from under water. “What’s going on?”

“He’s on the West Coast.” Benny stood and picked up his leather jacket from the back of his chair. “North of L.A.”

“You want me to go find him?” Ramon stood, too, his giant six-foot, three-hundred-pound frame uncurling like black smoke against the bookshelves behind him.

“No,” Benny said. “You take care of Hernando. I know who to call to take care of Gomez.”

CHAPTER THREE

MAGGIE MANAGED to slide open the lock and get through the front door of her new temporary apartment without dropping her overnight bag, her dinner bag, her laptop bag, her purse or, most importantly, her jumbo root beer.

Once inside she put as much of her load as she could onto the floor and surveyed her new home.

Just once she wished for an assignment that required fancy digs. Some place furnished with real furniture that didn’t smell like cat pee. Some place that might actually have a view of something other than a Dumpster.

“Used to wish,” she muttered. She hoped this was her last job. It had to be. She had to get out of the Bureau while she still had something left of herself to get out with. And if Gomez had the stuff to bring down Delgado, she could solve her brother’s murder, clear his name and move on.

It was time—probably past time if her mindset today had been any indication. She wasn’t as focused as she usually was. Something about Gomez kept her off balance, a little too aware of the fact that she played a part.

She’d regroup tomorrow. Stay on task.

Tonight, however, I can enjoy my luxurious surroundings, she thought.

Her apartment, located in an old building off what appeared to be the only nonresidential street in Summerland, was small. Very, very small. She turned right and saw the blue tiled bathroom with the naked lightbulb hanging from the middle of ceiling. She turned left and saw the kitchen-dining room-living room area, complete with Formica kitchen table and chair. She hoped it wasn’t her bedroom, too.

She could have stayed in her own apartment, but she and Curtis had hopes that with proximity she might be able to run into Gomez around town—should he actually leave his house.

She needed to increase her possible points of contact in whatever way she could considering the time frame. One week. It was practically a joke.

She held on to her drink and the brown bag that contained her dinner in one hand and dug from her overnight bag one of the few things—besides her clothing, computer and gun—that came with her from the outside world.

The cruise brochure.

She took the single step required to move her from the hallway to the center of her kitchen. Her heart sank to see the mattress in the middle of the main room. The tiny space was indeed her bedroom, too.

She tried to look on the bright side but couldn’t find one.

Maggie hiked herself up onto the counter, dug out her burrito, and spread the cruise brochure with its gorgeous, shirtless, brown-skinned man out on the counter faceup.

“Hola, señor,” she cooed to the man who could be considered her dinner date most evenings.

At some point Maggie had stopped fighting the sad state of her life and embraced it. She was a workaholic who dreamed of taking a cruise but probably never would because she was too busy working. She also dreamed of having a sex life with a real man, instead of fantasies originating from a New Holiday Cruise brochure. But that was about as likely as Margaret Warren sprouting wings and flying around to dust Gomez’s house.

After Patrick’s murder was solved. Then. Then Maggie would actually take a vacation. Maybe she’d take a vacation and not come back. She’d settle down on some Mexican beach with a beautiful, shirtless man and a lifetime of umbrella drinks. She’d throw out her clothes and wear only bikinis. All day. Regardless of who she blinded with her Irish white skin.

Maggie bit into her bean and cheese burrito with gusto. It’d been ages since her last meal. That coffee at the briefing had been about it all day.

Man, the morning seems like years ago, she thought and took a slurp of her root beer. Odd how meeting Gomez today had messed up her perception of time. Anything before looking into those startling blue eyes set in that even more startling face seemed like a long time ago. She’d gathered from reading his file that he was a pretty dynamic guy, but meeting him was a whole different story.

Caleb Gomez was one of a kind.

Now, he was bait.

She cringed just thinking about it. Gomez didn’t deserve this treatment from the Bureau and she hated being the person to set him up. Not after what he’d already been through for his country. But she and her family were carrying the emotional scars as proof that sometimes life was not fair.

“Patrick.” She said his name out loud and listened to it echo around this empty place that his death had led her to.

Her voice bounced back from the window with its view of the Dumpster to the tiles in the bathroom, reaffirming all her reasons for being in this shabby apartment in this shabby town, ready to betray a good guy who clearly only wanted to be left alone.

Saying her brother’s name kept the driving edge of her pain and commitment sharp. She would not be swayed by Gomez, by fear, by anything.

Delgado would pay for killing her brother.

She only had to prove that Delgado had been behind it.

She took another bite of her burrito, licked the salsa off the corner of her mouth and forced herself to consider brighter subjects for a while.

“¿Cómo está usted?” she asked the guy on the brochure. “Usted es muy hermoso. Puede usted traerme una bebida con sabor a…” She couldn’t remember the words for a fruity umbrella drink. Her poor Spanish echoed around the empty apartment and she cringed.

“I am crazy,” she told the brochure and jumped off the counter to grab her laptop. A little conversation with the outside world was what she needed, even if it was in cyberspace.

She unzipped the case and opened the thin computer, locating the available phone jacks and outlets. She ate a little more while listening to the soft hum and whir of the booting computer.

She opened her e-mail program, thinking she could get a little work done but was immediately sidetracked by an e-mail from Liz Meisner with the word Emergency in the subject.

Maggie rolled her eyes. Of course. Her sister could be counted on for at least two emergencies during every case.