Chapter Nine
Alex hoped Danes had sent them on the right path when he’d told him Saldana’s cousin, the one who laundered his money in Florida, the one whose security guard Bella had tried to seduce, also owned a place in the strip-club district.
Alex offered Isabella a donut as they sat in her little rental car in front of PT’s Club. He’d picked up a half dozen on the way. He loved donuts and could easily eat a dozen, but Isabella hadn’t eaten anything since—well, he couldn’t remember. She hadn’t even eaten the chocolate bar he’d brought her last night. He could see the strain on her face, the lost weight. A far cry from the starving woman in the jungle.
“You need to eat something.”
She made a face at the donuts. “No thanks.”
“You want me to go get breakfast tacos? Sausage biscuits?”
“We might miss something,” she said softly, her eyes trained on the building.
“You’re not going to be any good to me if you get sick.”
“If I eat that, I’ll get sick.” She nodded toward the sticky box.
“Suit yourself.” He sat back, plucked a donut from the box and shoved the whole thing in his mouth, then washed it down with lukewarm coffee. “Could be a long day. I don’t think these guys exactly keep bankers’ hours.”
“I don’t want to take any chances.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but she shot him a look.
“Do not say anything nice to me. I never know who you are when you say something nice to me.”
He lifted his hands in surrender, then licked the glaze off his fingers. “You got it. Kid’s gone, you’re never going to see him again, all your fault.”
“Alex.”
“That’s what you wanted me to say, right? Feed your guilt?” He leveled a hard glare at her. “Show you what kind of rotten person you are, confirm what you already know.”
She shook her head and turned back to the building, her shoulders slumped.
“You’re just a stripper, you’re not smart enough to do this, no man will ever see past your body, no man will ever know how strong you are. Should I keep going?” he asked when she glanced at him warily, her eyes huge, her face pale.
“I’m not strong.”
“I said you weren’t. Because no one as weak as you could have made it out of that jungle. Oh, right, I brought you out. You needed me. You need me now. If Santiago finds you before you find him, you would be dead. He won’t appreciate you being smart enough to figure out where he is and what he’s doing.”
“I’m not smart enough,” she murmured, turning away again.
“He’s hiding, Bella. However he’s getting his drugs into this country, he doesn’t want to be found.”
“How did things come to us? The supplies he ordered?” she asked.
“Near as we can figure, air drops.”
“Less likely to happen here,” she mused.
“We’re looking at ships, which seems most probable, so we have people watching docks.”
“Just in Miami?”
He looked at her sharply. “All over Florida.”
“Just Florida?”
“What do you know?”
“Nothing. I mean, whatever Eric—Agent Cortez was investigating, do you think it was limited to here? It seems to me it would be easier to get into Texas, across the border, than to come off a ship, unless they were being smuggled. But I’d think ships were more closely watched. The Texas border is long and for the most part unmanned. That’s how I would do it,” she continued when he just stared. “But I’m just a dumb stripper.”
Isabella reached over without looking and took a donut. She started humming something that sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
“What’s that song? Something you heard last night?”
She smiled, that damn mysterious smile. “A song I used to sing with Hector.”
She sang some more, something about colors, in English and Spanish, but the tune still niggled. God knew his mother hadn’t sung to him.
“Pretty catchy for a kid’s song.”
She laughed. “I didn’t know a lot of kid songs, you know, I never thought I’d have a baby this young. I couldn’t exactly order Disney DVDs. So I made up songs from ones I knew. That one’s from the Black Eyed Peas.”
Damn, he wanted to see her with that kid, wanted to see what kind of mother she was. Before he could give it more thought, a car pulled up alongside of the building, long and shiny. Three men got out. Two scanned the area as the third straightened his suit jacket and shades.
“That’s got to be him,” Alex said. “Now what?”
She cinched her top and brushed donut glaze from her lap. “I have an idea.”
“No.” His tone was sharp, and for the first time, he took his eyes off the sedan. “You’re not going in there on off hours. I can’t keep an eye on you.”
“I’m just going to apply for a job.”
He shook his head, jaw set. “I say we wait.”
“Trust me, Alex.” She shoved open the door. Straightening, she hitched her jeans down just a little and rolled her hips as she approached the men standing at the door.
Her heart thudded against her ribs as she went over what she would say in her mind. She considered and discarded half a dozen scenarios in the time it took to walk from the car to where the men now stood waiting for her.
“Jorge Medellin?” she asked the man in the middle, the smallest, flanked by two muscular men. Santiago had always kept the company of big men so he could step between them if the going got rough.
“Who’s asking?” one of the bodyguards demanded.
“I’m Isabella.” She didn’t take her eyes from Jorge, but he betrayed no reaction. “I’m looking for Santiago.”
Jorge stepped back and gestured toward the door, for her to precede him. She resisted the urge to look back over her shoulder, to get Alex’s approval, before she nodded, ducked her head and walked into the darkness.
The scent of stale alcohol, sex and sickness assaulted her the minute she walked in the door. Though the bar and the three stages, all with poles, were familiar. There was something about this place that made her feel filthy, beyond the three silent men watching her.
She put her hands on her hips, though she wanted to wrap them around herself to hide herself from these men. She tossed her hair and looked up at Jorge.
“Where is he?”
“What makes you think I know?”
“He told me to come here, told me you’d help me hook up with him,” she said, thinking on the fly. “I need to find him. I’m running out of money.”
“What did you say your name was again?” Jorge leaned against a barstool and looked her over.
She swallowed. She’d told them her real name. What if Santiago had spoken to Jorge about her, for real? What if he dragged her back to Honduras without her son?
“Isabella,” she said, not as confidently this time. She hoped using her own name wasn’t a mistake. But she was getting desperate now, and perhaps if Santiago knew she was looking for him, he’d show himself.
He reached out to curl her hair around his finger. “What would you want with an old man like Santiago?”
She stumbled mentally. She didn’t think of Santiago as old—late forties, maybe. Jorge was definitely not younger, or as well groomed. “I told you, I’m running out of money.”
Jorge inclined his head toward the pole on the center stage. “I think I know how a girl like you can earn some cash. You can show us what you have. It’s a much easier way to make a living than by answering Santiago’s beck and call. I pay very well.”
What she wanted, but she needed barriers. She was alone in here with these strangers who made their living off women’s bodies. She scrambled for an excuse. “I’m not dressed for it, and I’d really much prefer finding Santiago.”
Jorge studied her critically. “Come back tonight.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Come back tonight and dance for me. If I like it, I’ll tell you what I know about Santiago.”
She gritted her teeth, wanting to demand that he tell her now, that every moment counted. But if Jorge was like his cousin, he would never respond to the threats of a woman. Maybe Alex could force him, but could she risk Jorge clamming up because she sicced a Ranger on him?
Could she risk that he was telling her the truth now? That he would tell her something if she stripped for him?
That he even knew anything to tell?
She had to take the chance. “What time do you want me?”
She’d been in there a long time, too long. Alex shoved open the car door and reached for the clutch piece at his ankle. Hell, the minute she’d disappeared behind that door, his skin had started crawling. He didn’t want her out of his sight. He definitely didn’t want her with that scumbag. What had she been thinking, going behind the door with that man? She would end up back in her Honduran prison.
He checked the area—almost dead this time of day—checked his ammo and got out of the car, edging around the building that fronted the street, moving toward the one set back, the one Isabella had entered.
When he protested this might be to risky, that Santiago might haul her back to Honduras, she’d said she didn’t care if Santiago caught her and sent her back, as long as she was with her son. But what kind of life was it for the kid? How long before Santiago started turning the boy against his mother?
She was taking a risk he didn’t want her to pay.
Gun at the ready, he headed toward the door, mentally taking in possible places for cover out here—trash can, sign, car, if he could get back to it—trying to picture the place inside. Bar, tables, three guys—maybe more. Who knew what these men were doing here at this hour? It sure as hell looked like they were coming for a meeting.
He reached the door just as it opened and Isabella stepped out. He managed to carry through—instead of aiming the gun at her head, he kept moving and tucked the weapon at the small of his back, flipping his shirt over it to hide it.
She startled, but he motioned her to be quiet and stepped behind the door, out of sight.
Damn, she was a good actress, because if the men behind her hadn’t seen her start, they would never know he was here. She looked back at them with a toss of her head.
“I’ll see you at ten.” She closed the door.
Keeping half his attention on the door and the other on the sashaying form of Isabella making her way to the car—okay, maybe seventy-thirty, and not weighted in the right way—Alex followed her.
Only when he sat beside her did he see her shaking.
“What happens at ten?” He turned the key in the ignition.
“I come back, dance for him, and he tells me what he knows about Santiago.” She covered her mouth with a shaking hand, her attention outside the car as they pulled away from the curb.
“Dance? You mean strip?”
She turned dark eyes to him—darker than usual, anyway. “That’s what kind of place it is. That’s what kind of girl I am.”
He wanted to tell her that she wasn’t that kind of girl, but he was too pissed. “You didn’t think it could be some kind of trap? He tells you to come at ten, he tells Santiago to come at ten, and there you go.”
“Of course I thought of that. I’m not as stupid as you think.”
Okay, she was defensive.
“How do you know he knows anything?” he asked, swallowing back all the comments he wanted to throw at her for being an idiot.
“I don’t. But we don’t have anything else, do we?”
“No.” Unless O’Malley had turned up something with the credit cards. “I’ll call, see if they’ve found anything from talking to the waitress.”
She relaxed a little and nodded as he dialed. O’Malley picked up on the fourth ring.
“Anything on Guillermo Morales?” Alex asked with no preamble.
“The waitress couldn’t ID him from pictures, but the credit cards have only been in use for a couple of weeks, which is enough to make us think it’s Saldana.”
“Still, would he be that arrogant?” Alex asked. “Does he not know we’re after him?”
“He’s been more cautious in the past,” O’Malley admitted. “But we’re not taking the chance. We have his spending patterns. Should be able to track him down from this in a matter of hours.”
Unease prickled along the back of Alex’s neck. Damn, he wanted this to be over but, “He wouldn’t be dumb enough to have a spending pattern.” He glanced at Isabella for confirmation.
She lifted a shoulder, uncertain.
“We’ll know in a few hours,” O’Malley said stubbornly.
“Call us,” Alex ordered. “As soon as you know one way or another.”
O’Malley muttered something that might be agreement, and disconnected. Alex scowled and tossed the phone to the bench seat between them.
“You don’t think it’s him,” she murmured.
“I think you were pretty scared that night. You wanted to see him, wanted to find your son,” he amended quickly when she opened her mouth to protest. “I think it’s the wrong guy.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, and he braced himself for what she might say, but she remained silent. He glanced over to see her staring out the window through her tears.
“You don’t have to dance tonight.”
“I screwed up with this thing, I need to make it up.”
“This is not your job.”
She whipped her head around. “Finding my son is my job. No one else will keep looking for him the way I will. If I have to dance to find him, then I will.”
It was his turn to suck in a breath. “I’m coming with you.”
She shook her head. “How would that look?”
“They won’t know I’m with you. They don’t know who I am.” He hoped. “I’ll be in the audience.”
She sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“What are you talking about? I’ll be there to make sure they don’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to dance in front of you.” Her voice was muffled behind her hand.
He snorted. “That’s what you’re worried about? Your stripping ability?”
“You have weird ideas about my body—”
“What, that it should stay covered?”
She glared. “I don’t think I can act naturally with you there. I have to be able to convince them to confide in me.”
“I’m going to be there,” he insisted.
She squeezed her eyes closed. “If Santiago is there, and you catch him, you’ll ask him where Hector is first, right? Will you promise me you’ll do that?”
He stared straight ahead and resisted the urge to reach for her, to reassure her. All he could do was blow out his breath. “I promise.”