Chapter 13
"Bye, Alex..."
Alex opened his eyes and lifted his head when the door clicked. The morning sun had already peeked over the horizon. Corkie was gone. He pretended to sleep for the last hour, wondering when she'd make her move...because she would. He never doubted that. Then, about five minutes ago, he felt her roll off the bed, heard her tiptoe around the room...and leave.
With a heavy sigh, he dropped his head and eyed the belt knotted around his wrists, his mouth twitching in remembrance of her tying him to the bedframe that last round of sex. He couldn't recall how she managed to persuade his permission for that, but during the time, he gave it freely. Tackling the loose knot, Alex's mind drifted backward. The second he kissed her in the shower, they forgot just about everything but each other. Seventeen hours, they explored the boundaries of their bodies.
God, had it really been that long? It seemed just minutes ago he heard her say she wanted him. Alex smiled. His nińa had been a very naughty girl throughout the night. There were scratches on his back, bite marks on his shoulder and thighs. And he swore there was even a hickey or two where his Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. She wasn't shy, that's for damn sure. He took her over and over on the bed. She brought him to his knees in front of the window. He hiked her up on the small table. And she demonstrated just how flexible she could be when clinging to the curtains. She didn't seem to care about taste, texture or decency. When provoked, she was a woman guided by her lust, and Alex admired her adventurous nature. She was a woman he could love—
"Don't even go there," he told himself. None of last night had anything to do with...that word. It had been pure, triple-x-rated sex...plain and simple.
Well...not simple. Nothing that lasted seventeen hours could be described as simple. Sure, they took breaks...bathroom, water, even ordered some food from a place down the street. But they were rarely not on top of one another throughout the afternoon and night. At times, he passed out, his body unable to move, but his little snoozes never lasted long. She would start with that tongue of hers, and he was right back to full-blown glory and readiness. After the third time she did that, he figured out what she was doing, why she wanted him to stay awake and active, but he had that fake camera card and was only too happy to follow along.
And looking back, he knew that the one thing he enjoyed most from the night...was her laugh. She told him stories about her childhood while he struggled to catch his breath, and she laughed. She teased him relentlessly with her wicked tongue, and she laughed. He tickled her ribs and inner thighs with his whiskers, and she laughed. God, when she wasn't breathless or screaming his name, she was laughing, a joyous, sexy sound that kept him from succumbing to exhaustion, just to hear it one more time...and then again... and again...
And now, he'd never hear that laugh again. They were done. With a weary, exhausted breath, he pushed himself from the bed, looked out the window to see Corkie climb into Ivan's truck with a triumphant grin, and thought, She's finally going home, she'll be safe, and I have a job to finish.
Alex quickly got dressed, retrieved her camera card from under the bathroom sink where he wedged it into a crack, and left the hotel room to trot the two miles to the border and make absolutely sure Corkie got back into America. A couple hours later, he met his covert extraction team on the outskirts of town and caught a little sleep as they transported him back to base.
That night, he sat across a table from Colonel Davenport, the legend himself, as he relayed the events of his three-day scouting assignment, disclosed everything relevant to his mission, and showed the pictures that Corkie had taken. Afterward, Alex sat back to watch the man's face twitch.
The colonel leaned forward and said, "That's it! That girl is grounded for life!"
*****
Getting into the States was probably the easiest part of Corkie's entire week. Apparently, the rumor that Ivan spread about her being in Cuidad Juarez worked, because the border guards only glanced at her passport and asked the normal questions before letting her pass. She traveled with an elderly American Hispanic couple, returning from vacation, saying that she went to Mexico for a friend's funeral and her boyfriend abandoned her when they had a big fight. The nice gentleman and his wife took pity on Corkie and offered to take her as far as they were going, which happened to be in Odessa, Texas. And that was fine with her. Get her as far away from Mexico as possible before Alex came looking for her and the photos she stole back from him.
So, she was back on American soil, just like Juan and Alex wanted. She had her pictures back, and she was thoroughly exhausted and invigorated from her night with Alex. A permanent smile graced her face. And really, it was a big shame that they wouldn't see each other again. She could go another couple of rounds with Lieutenant Alex Spears...forever. It had been the best sex of her life, and it had lasted for hours. And hours. If he wasn't so freaking narrow-minded, she might even have the temperament to fall in love with him, but that would never happen. She didn't like soldiers.
But she sure liked him.
Upon reaching Odessa, she said goodbye to her new friends, walked into a bank, withdrew some money from one of her savings accounts and went in search of a convenience store to buy a prepaid phone. Then she called her brother, Doug.
"Hello?" Doug answered on the fourth ring. She was actually surprised he picked up. Doug didn't answer numbers he didn't recognize.
"Hey, Duggie," she said cheerily.
"Who is this?"
"It's Corkie! Don't you recognize your own sister's voice?"
There was a pause, and then Doug said, "Whose phone are you using?"
She sighed. "My satellite phone was smashed. I had to get a throwaway—"
"Smashed, how?" he asked suspiciously. "Where are you?"
Well, so much for brotherly love. "I'm in Texas, on a job. And never mind about my phone. Is Henry around?"
Doug paused again...and then he groaned. "Hell, Corkie...what are you up to now?"
"What makes you think I'm up to anything?" she asked innocently. Doug knew her too well. It wasn't even funny anymore.
"Because the only time you want to speak to Henry is when you want information," he answered.
"Not true! I call to say 'Hi' all the time."
"No, you don't."
"Okay, fine...yes, I need information," she said, sticking her tongue out at the phone and her brother. She walked along the street, headed to a motel she saw earlier, and hoped to get a room for the night before buying a bus ticket back to D.C. She needed to take a look at her pictures on her SD card, but her camera's battery was dead, and she needed a room with a plug. Which happened to be in motel rooms.
"The last time you talked to Henry, you left for a whole week. Just up and disappeared," Doug said, his voice getting that protective tone. "You know we hate it when you do that. Sometimes, it's nice to know where you're going. We worry about you—"
"Doug?"
"What?"
"I'm fine. I'm better than fine. But I do need to speak to Henry. Is he around?"
"Of course, he's around," Doug grumbled. "He's always around. He never leaves that computer screen."
"Uh, oh," Corkie said. "Trouble in paradise, big brother?"
"None of your damn business. I don't ask about your lovers. Don't ask about mine," he said. "Hang on...here he is." Doug's voice drifted away. "It's Corkie."
"Corkscrew!" Henry cheered. "Having fun in Mexico?"
Corkie grimaced, and Doug yelled, "Mexico?!" from the background, and she closed her eyes and groaned. "You weren't supposed to tell," she told Henry.
"Oh...sorry," Henry said. "You know I forget these things."
"Yeah, I know," she said, and turned up the sidewalk toward the shabby motel near the interstate. The phone went staticky, and Doug came back on.
"Mexico! What the hell are you doing in Mexico?!"
"You sound just like Daddy," she groused. "I was on a job."
"You said you're in Texas!"
"Well, I am now," she said. "I just got back into the country. Now...can I talk to Henry again?"
"Don't even think about going back into Mexico, Corkie," Doug dictated. "It's not safe. One of the drug factions down there has been kidnapping Americans right off the street. Three women went missing in Cuidad Juarez since yesterday."
Corkie's blood froze over, and she stopped walking. "What?"
"It's been all over the news!" he roared at her.
"Just women?" she asked, fearing the worst. "What about men?" Alex, are you okay?
"No, just women," Doug said, and she breathed again. She needed to get to the motel quickly and watch the news. Cuidad Juarez? Espinoza was supposed to be looking for her there. Alex had been right. She caused trouble. Trouble for other women now. The guilt washed over her like a ice-cold rain. What the hell did I photograph at that airstrip?
"I need to speak to Henry," she repeated breathlessly. "Please, Doug. It's important."
"Corkie..."
"Doug, please."
Henry came back. "You know, when I heard about those women, I immediately thought you were involved, because you know, they were all blue-eyed blondes," he said, his voice teasing her.
"Listen, Henry," she said impatiently. "You know when you told me about Niro Sultanovich being in Mexico?"
"Yeah."
"Do you know what he was doing there?"
"Not a clue," he answered.
"How did you know he was still alive?"
"Got a tip on one of my spy networks," he said. "That's it. Just said that Niro was heading to Mexico and going to that location. I knew you'd want to know, so I told you about it."
Corkie frowned, thinking that was weird. She had known Henry longer than he'd been with her brother, Doug. She introduced them, never thinking at the time that Doug was gay and the two men would fall in love with each other.
The thing was...Henry was a computer geek. Not in the sense of what movies and television portray, but a real-life world wide web information nerd. He knew backdoors to most government and private agencies, was an active participant to secret societies that only conversed through technology, and he could spot a cryptic message embedded in layers of code. It was what he did. He was a spy, just like Alex, but he used the internet to get his information. And normally, he used it wisely, briefing the CIA and FBI on events in the world that hadn't happened yet.
And sometimes, he relayed some of that information to his favorite sort-of-sister-in-law. But to only get a name and a location was odd for Henry. Usually, he could gather enough intelligence to say what color underwear the Queen of England would be wearing to the next royal ball.
"And you've found nothing else about Niro in the last week?" she asked. She got to the motel and entered the lobby.
"Not a thing...not even his name popped up again. I thought it was just a fluke, but I know you like flukes, so I told you anyway."
"What about the location?" she inquired, moving over to a corner of the motel lobby to finish her conversation in private. "Do you know anything about what happened there? Or what was supposed to happen?"
"Um...let me look...hmmm...nothing there...okay...no, nothing there either...that's weird...let's try...okay, yeah, pulling up satellite images from the past few days...nope, nothing. Sorry, Corkie. There's nothing about it anywhere. The satellite images are just an old airstrip. Doesn't look like anybody has been there recently. Did Niro show up?"
"Nothing there? Are you sure you're looking at the last three days?"
"Corkie," Henry said patiently. "Come on...give me some respect. Of course, I'm sure."
"Then it's wrong," she told him. "That whole place blew up right before my eyes. I saw a war down there, Henry. I have photos to prove it. Somebody is covering it up. Dig deeper, because I need to know what was going on."
There was some mumbling over the phone as Henry focused on his computer. "Well, shit...I see it now. Yeah, someone's been screwing around with the images. I'll try to get the real ones, but it may take some time. This looks like an inside job."
Corkie said, "Okay. Just call me back on this number. I'm staying at a motel in Odessa until I can get a bus ticket back home. Oh! One more thing. Can you get me the location of an American military base in the area of that airstrip?"
"There are no American military bases in Mexico," Henry said evenly. "America assists Mexico when invited, but they don't set up shop."
"Yeah...but trust me...it's there," Corkie said.
"Well, there's this one place...it supposedly housing some American personnel working with the Mexican government. It's just a cooperative arrangement, but they're not to engage in any operations or carry weapons."
"Do what you can to get me that information, okay?"
"Sure thing, Corkscrew," Henry replied. "Is there anything specific I should be looking for? It would make the search easier."
She chewed on her lip. "A man...a lieutenant by the name of Alex Spears. I just want to know if he's okay."
The conversation lapsed for a second, and then Henry said, "I thought you didn't like jarheads."
She laughed. "That's a dumb thing to say, Henry. Not all military is a jarhead."
"Your brother is."
"Doug is a Marine, so yes, he's a jarhead—in more than one way, but you can't call them all jarheads. It's bad manners."
He chuckled, and then laughed outright at something Doug said to him. "I gotta go," he said into the phone. "My jarhead is being a butthead. I think I need to teach him some manners, too."
"Eww," Corkie said and grimaced. "I didn't need to hear that."
"I'll call you...later...stop that! It tickles!"
Corkie ended the call before she could hear anymore of her brother and Henry "tickling" each other. "Gross," she said to herself. She loved Doug, and she loved Henry, and she loved that they loved each other, but she didn't want to think about what they did together. Suppressing a shudder, she walked up to the motel's counter, paid for a room, eager to charge her camera's battery and view her pictures.
Ten minutes later, the camera had enough juice to power on, and she slipped in the memory disk, grinning to herself. The first photo was a wrinkled, sun-darkened woman in a strapless dress, standing in front of some bronze statue and waving.
"What the hell?"
The next picture was the same woman, with a man and two grown children, standing in some park's fountain...again, smiling and waving.
"Alex!" she screamed as she flicked through the images stored on the SD card. The same family came across her camera's screen over and over. And Corkie nearly threw her precious camera across the room.
He switched the cards!
The rat bastard!
Corkie stood up and paced her small room, fuming with such resentment and outrage, the veins in her temples might explode at any second. He knew! He let her go this morning because he knew she wouldn't look at her photos until she was well away from him.
"Oh, Alex," she muttered angrily, shaking her head. "When I catch up with you..."
And catch up with him, she was damn well going to do. No one screwed her over. That sexy, stubborn jerk! But that meant going back into Mexico. Crap. She sat down, flipped on the television to see the news, and scanned channels.
The count was up to five now. Five women abducted in Mexico, and the officials were calling for a mass exodus of all visiting Americans until the issue was resolved. Pictures of the women flashed on the screen, and all of them looked eerily like Corkie. Except one. A young girl with the same blonde hair, but obviously not built the same as she. He's getting desperate, she thought. Just picking blonde girls at random now. And that was going to make it difficult to go after Alex.
The shame and guilt of what she caused made her sick. All those women. How many would never see their families again? What was Espinoza doing to them once he realized they weren't the woman he sought? And why did he want her so bad? Because of the photos? Or something else? Alex hinted that the meeting at the airstrip was important and top secret. She prayed Henry could find out something...something to make sense of it all.
An hour later, it was reported that four of the women were found, hooded and tied up next to the Rio Grande, a scant five miles from where she crossed the border. Their hair had been shaved, and tied together in a bundle, with a note that the press wasn't releasing to the public yet. But Corkie knew. It was a message to her.
Her cell phone rang, causing her to jump and her skin to prickle. It was Henry. "Did you see the news yet?"
"Yeah," she said. "It's awful, what they did to those women."
"Well, that note that they found? I know what it says."
Corkie didn't want to hear this. "Tell me."
"It says, 'Te estoy esperando.'"
She laid back on the bed, the phone pressed to her ear. "'I'm waiting for you.'"
"Yeah...Corkie, what's going on? There's stuff all over the place that Hibram Espinoza is responsible for this. Does this have something to do with that tip I gave you?"
Tears leaked out of her eyes. "Yes," she whispered and told him what happened in Mexico. When she finished, Henry whistled.
"What should I do, Henry? How do I stop this?"
"Well, you can't go back," he said. "Your brother is in a fit as it is, and he doesn't know everything. You have to tell your father—"
"No," Corkie said, sitting up. "He'll be so mad!"
"You're not five years old," Henry said. "He'll understand. Hey, he understood about me and Doug, right?"
"I think this is a little more serious than finding out your youngest son likes to drive on the same side of the street," she replied. Henry chuckled.
"Nicely put," he said. "I'll have to use that one. But seriously, you need to tell your father—oh, no..."
Corkie didn't like the sound of that. She gulped and asked, "What?"
"Your father left for Mexico already," Henry said mutely.
"Well...shit."
"Whoa. Was that a real cuss word out your angelic little mouth?"
"Hey, I cuss," she argued.
"No, you don't...not like that. You psuedo-cuss, stuff like dang and crap. It's cute," he said, with a smile in his voice. "Oh, and I found your lieutenant. Guess where he is."
"I don't have to guess," she said, groaning. "The same place my father flew off to?"
"Yup, outside of Durango. It's horse ranch of some sort that the Mexican government is using for this purpose. I'd give you the coordinates, but you'd just do something stupid, like go back into Mexico."
"I'm not stupid," she said tersely.
"No, but you are crazy and can be very childish about things," Henry countered.
"Alex said the same thing," she said, regret working through her tear ducts.
"This Alex...is he good-looking?"
"Yes," she sighed. "Very good-looking."
"I want to meet him, Corkie...I'll need to approve."
She smiled. "You'd like him."
"If you're worried about him," he said, "then I know I'll like him." He breathed out a long breath. "You be careful in Mexico, Corkie. I'll never hear the end of it if something happens to you. I love you."
"I love you, too, Henry," she said, and he rattled off the coordinates of Alex's base and hung up, his voice choking as he said his goodbye. That night, her hair went from a sun-streaked blonde to a dull, mousy brown, thanks to Cheap-Disguise-In-A-Box, and she made plans to sneak quietly into Mexico again. She stared up at the water-stained ceiling of her motel room for a long time, listening to the economy update on the news. If her father and Alex were at the same place, then she was going to have to face them both...at the same time. And then figure out why Espinoza wanted her.
Henry called her back at ten o'clock. "Corkie...they know," he said quickly.
"Who knows what?"
"Your father. He put you on a protection list, and he's alerted the FBI, Homeland Security, Federal Marshals, all of them," he said. "They know that Hibram Espinoza is looking for you, and where you are. They're coming after you. If you still want to get back into Mexico, you have about twenty minutes to get a move on before you end up in a safe house in Indiana."
"Crap," she muttered, jumping up to get all her stuff together. Alex. He blabbed to her father, she just knew it!
"This will be the last time I can help you," Henry said. "They're on to me, too."
"Thanks, Henry," she said.
"Be careful, stay alive." Then the call went dead, and Corkie had no choice but to leave her phone behind. Prepaid phones were not untraceable, after all. She exited the motel and dashed toward the nearest alley and as far away as possible. She had to get back across the border. Corkie wasn't ignorant. If the officials caught up with her before, she won't be going anywhere for a long time. They would question her, hide her, and who knows what Espinoza might do next if she was captured by her own country. Kidnap more women and torture them? Start a war? Over some freaking pictures?
No, she couldn't let that happen. If it took sacrificing herself, then she would do it. Nobody else needed to suffer because of her.