Chapter Ninety
Bree
“You do understand why you are being detained, don’t you, Miss?” The border agent leaned both hands on the table and frowned down at me. “You are a suspected drug runner.”
“Then where are the drugs? Why would I cross the border without drugs if I was, as you say, a drug runner?” I tipped my head and waited for the agent to respond.
He scowled and slapped the table before he paced around the small room. Then he mopped his forehead with his damp sleeve and tried again.
“If he talked you into this, if he coerced you in any way, then now is the time to say something,” the border agent told me.
I looked at Nathan, and he gave me a wide grin.
We had been packed into the small room together for hours, but it was the border agent who was sweating. After all, we had gone through, his interrogation felt like a trip to the spa.
“I don’t think you can hold me. You have no evidence that I was running drugs,” I said.
The border agent grabbed a manila envelope and dumped our driver’s licenses and passports on the table. “Here’s the evidence. Fake IDs. The cartel has been known to furnish their drug runners with entirely new identities.”
“Would I purposely pick the name Mildred?” I asked the border agent.
Nathan chuckled. “You almost have her, man. She sounds like she’s about to crack.”
The border agent scowled at Nathan. “Wait your turn. We’ll get to you soon enough.”
He turned back to me but had lost his train of thought. The border agent scratched his head and had to pace another lap before he pulled himself back together. Just as he raised one hand and opened his mouth to try another line of questioning, the door popped open.
“A word, Agent?” The FBI agent was tall and stiff, his lips a thin, disapproving line.
The border agent grumbled about all the interruptions but went over to the door. He paled at the first thing the FBI agent whispered in his ear and then his face flushed red all the way to his ears.
“We’ll see about that,” the border agent snapped. They both left the room and shut the door hard behind them.
“What was that about?” I asked.
Nathan shrugged. “I just hope they don’t take too long. I’m having fun watching this guy try to question you.”
A few minutes later, the door opened and an impossibly young-looking FBI agent came in. He cleared his throat, sat down at the table, and organized three folders in front of him. When he was satisfied that everything was in place, he folded his hands and looked up at us.
“Geez, how old are you?” Nathan asked.
“Don’t be mean,” I told Nathan.
The FBI agent frowned and straightened the last folder again. “When was the last time you folks were in El Paso, Texas?”
Nathan shook his head. “Who knows? The desert sun can do funny things to your head, you know. That’s why we got so turned around and drove the wrong way.”
The FBI agent unfolded and refolded his hands. “There’s a ranch not far down the border. You ever meet any of those cowboys while you were ‘turned around?’”
My skin prickled. I knew exactly the men he was talking about, and I hoped I hadn’t gotten any of them in trouble.
“Nah, I gotta keep her away from cowboys. You know women and their fantasies,” Nathan said.
The young FBI agent’s eyes flickered over me. “Miss? You need to answer the question. Have you ever met any of the ranchers along the border?”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Wasn’t I just being accused of acting as a drug mule for some cartel?”
The FBI agent unfolded his hands and opened the first folder. Nathan stiffened when he saw the recent photograph of Maggie. The agent made sure not to look at Nathan but when he met my eyes, he was pleased. That one involuntary reaction had turned the tides of his interrogation.
“Aww, she looks like your niece,” I told Nathan. “Who is she?”
My lie was brushed aside as the FBI agent opened his second folder. There was a list of names, and I recognized a few as the children I had helped across the border.
“See, I’m confused,” the FBI agent said. “I have a list here of children who all agree one hundred percent with their description of the couple who saved their lives. You two just so happen to match those descriptions perfectly.”
“Did we have a bunch of kids in the back of the pick-up truck and I didn’t notice?” I asked Nathan.
He chuckled. “What’s with the kids?”
The FBI agent sighed. His fingers played along the edge of the third and final folder but he left it closed. “These children have one thing in common. They were each kidnapped within the last six months. Taken from cities in the southern US and smuggled across the border into Mexico.”
I shifted, not wanting to have to hear the horrors those poor children had had to face again.
The FBI agent noticed and pressed on. “They were kept like animals, locked up in a windowless room, until they looked forward to their drug-running missions. For all our efforts, we couldn’t get close enough without endangering their lives further.”
He opened the third folder and turned the document around so Nathan and I could read it.
“A plea agreement?” Nathan asked.
The legal jargon swam in front of my eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“It took a pair of vigilante Americans to infiltrate the cartel, posing as greedy people out to make an easy buck. Once they’d been accepted as drug-runners, they were able to find and free the children. They brought the children across the border on foot and left them with the ranchers I mentioned before.”
“Are they all home safe?” The question popped out before I could stop myself.
“The children?” The FBI agent met my eyes again, and I saw a look of begrudging respect. “The children have all been reunited with their families.”
“And what about the so-called vigilantes?” Nathan asked.
The FBI agent sighed. “If you were to sign this plea agreement, two things would happen: one, you’d be recognized as heroes for risking your personal safety to save the lives of a dozen children; and two, you would be extradited north to answer for the crimes committed during your vigilante mission.”
Nathan looked at me, giving me the choice, but I didn’t know what to say.
“Take the deal, Bree. Sign it and get your life back,” the FBI agent said.
They knew our names. Not the fake names on the IDs the cartel had given us, but the names we had ditched long ago.
I took one more long look at Nathan, and he nodded. Then, with one quick swipe of a pen, we were resurrected.