Thanksgiving Protector, page 5
He combed his fingers through his dark blond hair. “We need to get Garcia, and we need to get whoever shot at you. Chances are, they’re connected.”
“We?” Her jaw tightened. It was clear he was uncomfortable with her new status as a single mother. He just wanted her to be Kylie, unattached, trusted border patrol agent, focused on nothing more than the job. But that wasn’t her anymore. She was a mother now. Didn’t he understand that? This was hard enough. Why couldn’t he support her?
Still agitated, Kylie rose to her feet to get Mercedes’s bottle. She settled into her overstuffed recliner and stared down at Mercedes’s rich brown eyes. Little fingers wrapped around the bottle. The steady rhythm of the baby’s sucking soothed her rankled spirit.
“Putting her somewhere safe until this is over would be the best thing for her.” Austin’s voice was a little softer.
Kylie fumed. The best thing for Mercedes, or the best thing for Austin and his work?
There was a knock on the door and Colt stuck his head in. “The locals caught him. He’s an American. They will turn him over to us for questioning by tomorrow morning.”
Through the open door, Kylie could see Mercedes’s stroller out in the courtyard knocked over on its side. She shuddered at what could have happened...if Austin hadn’t been here. She didn’t appreciate the pressure Austin was putting on her, but he had a point about the danger, and she wanted to do the right thing for Mercedes.
Colt left. Austin closed the door. He turned to face her. “You want to be there for the interrogation, don’t you?”
Kylie felt like Austin was asking her a much bigger question.
Which are you going to be, a mom or a border control agent?
FIVE
Austin turned to look at the uniformed officer as he stood facing the one-way glass where the sniper suspect was being questioned. “What do we know about this guy?”
The officer looked at his clipboard. “Mark Smith. Veteran. Sniper training. PTSD. Minor scuffles with the law.”
“What did he say was his reason for taking shots at the off-duty border patrol agent?” Austin stared at the distraught man combing his fingers through his disheveled hair. He didn’t look like a hardened criminal. More like a desperate man trying to get by. “Let me guess. Someone paid him.”
“Yes, though we haven’t been able to nail down who,” said the officer. “We showed him a picture of Garcia. He said that wasn’t the guy.”
Austin leaned a little closer to the glass. “That doesn’t mean anything. Garcia rarely does his own dirty work.”
“Mark was pretty broken up about there being a child out there. I think he might talk. I suppose that is where you come in. Do you want to take a crack at him?”
Austin checked his watch. Kylie was late. She was never late. “I guess this can’t wait forever.”
“It doesn’t hurt to let a suspect sweat for a while alone in an interrogation room,” said the officer.
The door burst open and Kylie stepped inside. “I’m here. I had to wait for the sitter to show up.” She wasn’t walking with the usual bounce in her step, and she had dark circles under her eyes.
“You look tired,” said Austin.
“Mercedes had a tough night. She’s still getting used to her new surroundings...and to me.” She crossed her arms. “I’m sure she misses her mother.”
How much help was she going to be in the interrogation if she was worn out?
“Glad you made it.” A little note of irritation slipped into his voice. He hadn’t intended that. Her personal life was her personal life. Why couldn’t he let this go?
She flicked him a quick look before squaring her shoulders and staring through the one-way glass. “So tell me what we know so far.”
Austin repeated what the officer had told him. “We can maybe find out if this guy links back to the Garcia investigation.”
“Okay, let’s do this.” Kylie seemed to be perking up.
The officer turned and picked a binder up off a table. He handed it to Kylie. “Garcia’s known associates.”
The binder had to be four inches thick. “Garcia knows a lot of people. Talk about being a social butterfly.”
“He is the belle of the ball,” Kylie said.
Austin laughed. The joke seemed to break the tension between them and remind him of why he liked working with her so much.
He opened the door to the interrogation room. He entered first with Kylie behind him.
Mark Smith rested his elbows on the table and stared down. His long brown hair fell over his face. Kylie took a seat, but Austin remained standing. The positioning wasn’t an accident. Standing gave him superiority over the suspect. By sitting, Kylie came across as the approachable one.
Mark Smith looked up. His expression turned a little guilty when he saw Kylie.
Recognition spread across his face. “You’re the lady.” His voice tinged with shame.
“Yes, I’m the one.” Her voice was soft and filled with compassion. Anyone else who was sitting three feet away from the man who had taken a shot at her might have shown fear, but not Kylie.
Mark began to shake his head as his eyes glazed. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I got bills and...a habit. I wasn’t told there would be a kid involved.”
At first, Austin wasn’t sure if bringing Kylie in for this questioning would be smart, but it seemed to have the effect he was hoping for. Mark Smith had not given much up under police questioning, but facing the woman who had been his target revealed that he had a conscience. Maybe now they could get some useful information out of him.
“Mark, we can get you a much lighter sentence if you help us identify the man who hired you,” Kylie said.
Mark sat back in his chair and gripped the edge of the table. “I don’t know if I can. It was dark in the bar, and I had already had a couple of drinks.”
Kylie pushed the binder toward him.
“I’ve looked at those already,” Mark said.
Austin stopped pacing and crossed his arms over his chest. “We’d like you to try again.” If Kylie was the voice of caring, he was the one who represented strength. It was their personal version of good cop, bad cop.
Mark closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath. “Like I said, it was dark and my memory doesn’t work right.” He shifted in his seat, opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “The guy had a tattoo on his neck and one on his hand.”
Austin stepped a little closer to the table. That was more information than the police had been able to get.
“Do you remember what the tattoo was of?” Kylie kept her voice even to give the message that there was no pressure in remembering. In fact, countless lives might depend on them finding the connection back to Garcia.
Mark turned in his chair as though he was going to get up. Austin braced in case the suspect was about to erupt. Austin’s first instinct was to move toward Kylie.
“Mark?” Kylie remained still, her voice like a soothing stream.
Mark turned back around. “I hate myself for what I did.” He buried his face in his hands. “It’s the drugs... I’m so sorry.”
Kylie leaned forward and scooted her hand across the table close to but not touching Mark’s hand. “I forgive you.”
Mark raised his head and stared at her for a long moment. The only noise in the room was the whir of a fan in the wall. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
Kylie nodded. She kept her gaze on Mark as tears pooled in her own eyes.
“This is not the man I ever wanted to be.” Mark’s whole demeanor seemed to soften.
“I know that,” said Kylie.
A silence enveloped the three of them. The quiet felt almost sacred. Austin remembered stepping into a church as a troubled teenager demanding that if God was real, He better show Himself. This moment felt just as heavy.
Mark rocked back and forth. “I’ll help you as much as I can. I don’t care if I go to jail or not.”
“We’ll do the best to make sure you get the help you need, Mark,” Austin said.
“The police have a computer program that has all the known gang tattoos. You can look at that to see if it jars your memory,” Kylie said.
The program would also match the type of tattoo to a specific cartel member if he was in the system. Identifying the tattoos was a huge step in the right direction.
Mark nodded. He sat up a little straighter and made eye contact with both Kylie and Austin. The change in him was night and day.
“Did the man who hired you say anything that would help us figure out who he was? Did he use any names?”
Mark rested his palms on the table. “The guy’s English wasn’t that good. He knew what you looked like and where you lived and when you would get off shift. It was all typed out on a piece of paper.”
A chill snaked up and down Austin’s back. How would a gang member have that kind of info unless he had contact with someone on the inside? All border patrol and rangers were playing a game of who-can-you-trust. The pay really didn’t compensate for the level of danger they encountered every day. Sometimes, when faced with mounting debts or sudden emergencies, agents or even rangers would justify selling bits of information to the money-laden cartels. “Do you have that piece of paper?” It might have fingerprints on it.
“I threw it away,” Mark said.
Kylie shifted in her seat and brushed her hand over her auburn hair. The information must have alarmed her too.
“Were you the one taking shots at us while we were in the desert last night?” Austin leaned on the table and looked right at Mark, watching his body language.
“I don’t know anything about that.” Mark was still maintaining eye contact when he spoke, a sign he was telling the truth. “All I know is I got the call to take up my position and that you would be coming home shortly.”
Mark must have been the back-up plan when the guy in the desert didn’t succeed at his mission.
“Is there anything else you remember about the man who hired you?”
Mark’s gaze rested on Kylie. “When he talked about you, I could tell he was really angry.”
“Angry about her being a border patrol agent?”
“No, it seemed more personal than that.”
Kylie jerked slightly in her seat. “But you didn’t know there was a child involved. He didn’t say anything about her.”
“I wouldn’t have taken the job if I had known there would be...that a child might be in the line of fire.” Mark puckered his lips as though something had occurred to him, and then he shook his head.
Austin leaned on the table. “What did you just think of, Mark? Don’t dismiss it. It might be important.”
“My mind is so fuzzy.” He cupped his hands on his head and squeezed, showing his teeth in frustration. “I just want my brain to work right again.”
“Tell us what you remember even if you are not sure about it,” Kylie said.
Mark let out a heavy breath. “Like I said, the guy’s English wasn’t very good. I thought he said something about getting revenge on his Valentine.” Mark shook his head. “Like I said. It didn’t make a lot of sense.”
Kylie was visibly upset. All the color drained from her face.
“Mark, you’ve done really good here. We’ll have the officer set you up with that program, and we’ll figure out who this man was.” Austin patted Mark’s shoulder.
Kylie scooted her chair back, then burst to her feet. “Please excuse me.”
She pushed past Austin and ran down the hallway. Austin hurried after her.
* * *
Sure she was going to be sick to her stomach, Kylie leaned over the first trash can she could find. The attempt on her life was personal, and it was because of her connection to Valentina. That scared her far more than knowing someone would take shots at her because she wore a border patrol uniform.
She felt a warm hand on her back. “You gonna be okay?” Just having Austin close calmed her.
She straightened up. Her stomach was still doing somersaults.
“I guess I’m just in shock that this really does have something to do with Valentina. Do you think it is more revenge for her being an informant? How did they find out Valentina and I were connected?”
Austin shook his head. “Inside information.”
Ice froze in her veins. The ranger company “E” and border patrol shared intel connected to the cartel cases. It could be a ranger or it could be an agent leaking the information. “I didn’t want to consider that possibility.” Kylie collapsed into a chair. Her head was still spinning. “My schedule would have been easy enough to find out, but only my supervisor knew the identity of my informant. And he wouldn’t have been involved in something like this.”
“Somehow someone found out.” Austin pulled a chair up beside her and laid a hand on her forearm. “I’m sure El Paso PD will give us a call if Mark comes up with an ID on the guy who hired him. Do you need to head back home?”
Kylie rose to her feet. “I have to be back out on patrol tonight. I can catch a nap while the sitter is with Mercedes.” She walked briskly toward the exit doors. Austin kept pace with her.
Kylie found herself checking rooftops as she and Austin stepped out into the El Paso heat and headed toward the parking garage. It always felt strange to have Thanksgiving be just around the corner while the daytime temperatures hovered around seventy.
Austin was checking the rooftops, as well.
Her job involved a high degree of danger. She’d known that when she signed up for it. She’d seen firsthand how ruthless the drug cartels could be. But she’d never expected to be personally targeted. She felt vulnerable and exposed.
Austin stayed close to her, walking her to her car.
He lingered while she fumbled in her small purse for her keys.
“That was impressive in that interrogation room. The way you forgave Mark.”
She stared into his blue eyes. “I meant it. I know interrogation is a lot of game playing to get a suspect to talk, but that wasn’t what I was doing. I could see Mark wasn’t a bad man. He showed remorse. He wants to change.”
He stepped closer to her. His hand cupped her arm just below her shoulder. The warmth of his touch seeped through her skin. “I know. I just hope that if the time ever comes for me to forgive like that, I will be able to do the same.”
The warm admiration in his gaze made her knees weak. The sudden rush of attraction caught her by surprise. She turned back toward her car and hit the key fob to unlock the door. She didn’t want Austin to see her flushed cheeks. She just wasn’t used to the Lone Wolf being so connecting. Once the heat in her face faded, she turned back to face him. She wanted to get to know him better...outside of work. “Maybe some Sunday you can scoot on up and sit by me in church.”
“I’d like that.” His voice smoldered. “Kylie, considering the threat against you, maybe I should follow you home.”
“Okay.” Feeling a charge of electricity over her skin, she swung the door open and got inside. She tried to remind herself that there could never be anything more than a friendship between her and Austin. Every time she opened the door to that hope, it got slammed in her face.
She pulled out and waited for him to get to his car. Her last glimpse of him was in the rearview mirror as he opened his car door.
Kylie left the parking garage and pulled out onto a busy street. Once she was away from downtown, traffic evened out. She clicked the blinker to turn into her neighborhood. She couldn’t see Austin’s car anywhere, but a dark blue car hung close to her bumper. Hadn’t that car been pulling out of the parking garage the same time she had?
Her heart skipped a beat. If she was being followed, she wasn’t about to lead them to her home and to Mercedes. If this was about her connection to Valentina, would they be so ruthless as to kill Valentina’s child as well, all for revenge? She wasn’t about to chance it.
Kylie took a sharp turn away from her neighborhood, but then started second-guessing the decision. The man who had paid for her hit already knew where she lived. Panic surged through her. What if they had already gotten to Mercedes? Kylie felt like she couldn’t breathe. She checked the rearview mirror. No blue car and no Austin.
Maybe news that the hit was personal was just making her paranoid. She took another turn to redirect herself back to her apartment. The desire to be with Mercedes, to make sure she was safe, overwhelmed her.
The blue car appeared again, filling up her mirror and edging very close to her bumper. Heart racing, she accelerated. She didn’t recognize the street she was on. Mentally, she tried to reroute herself. The street merged with a much busier one. Noonday traffic was in full force. The blue car tailed her closely.
She sped up, watching the needle tip to a dangerous speed as she wove in and out of traffic. She lost the blue car for a moment and then caught a glimpse of it two cars behind her.
She studied the signs up ahead. All she had to do was get to a safe, public place. The exit ramps were for dangerous neighborhoods. If she could get closer to the shopping district, she’d pull off.
The blue car was right behind her. She clicked her blinker to change lanes. The car tapped her bumper. She jolted forward in the seat but held on to the steering wheel.
Other cars seemed to be clearing away from them, switching lanes to not get in an accident. The car rammed her again. The steering wheel jerked in her hand. The back end of the car fishtailed. She saw the guardrail looming toward her as her car spun out of control.
The crush of metal grated on her ears. She felt her body being jerked around. Her head hit a hard surface before her world went black.
