of the handsome man. “The tape of his captors holding a knife to his neck demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq circulated the world last spring—”
The picture of the prison was replaced by a far more grainy shot of a soldier holding a long knife to the throat of a bearded, blindfolded man.
Benny had seen the picture a million times, just like the rest of the world. But now, even without seeing the man’s eyes, the prisoner seemed familiar. The way he sat, so proud, his lips twisted in what Benny knew was anger. It was so like the man he had befriended a little more than three years ago. The man who, shortly thereafter, had disappeared off the face of the earth.
“Gomez was kidnapped by Iraqi soldiers while covering the war for the Los Angeles Times—”
“Benny? That’s him…that’s Ruben, isn’t it?” Miguel asked. “He’s been in Iraq? What’s this mean?”
Journalist? Benny’s brain screamed. He’s a freaking journalist? All of those conversations. The things Benny had told Ruben, believing he had finally found a thinking man amongst all of the thugs and butchers of his world. The man Benny had trusted with secrets was a journalist?
When Ruben had disappeared, Benny had thought for a while that Ruben had been an undercover cop. Or a Fed. But when no harassment or raids had followed he figured him for one of those nameless dead spics found in the mountains.
He’d been wrong.
His hands spasmed into fists, the edges of the remote cut into his palm.
“Gomez won a Pulitzer four years ago for his exposé of the meat-packing industry,” the blonde continued. “Many experts say his work from Iraq would have garnered him another award. Gomez was released from the naval hospital in San Diego today. He plans to recover in privacy in New York City.”
Benny’s brain went cold then hot.
Everything was at stake. All he’d done. It could all be taken away from him if that journalist opened his mouth.
“That’s Ruben, isn’t it?” Miguel asked. “That journalist. Did you know he was a reporter?”
Benny shook his head. Rage caught fire in his gut—blind and hot and merciless. His chest heaved and he fisted his hands in his hair. He paced between the couch and his desk. He’d been fooled. Him. Benny Delgado.
Benny knew this journalist—this Caleb Gomez—as Ruben Villalobos. Three years ago his sister, Lita, had started bringing her latest boyfriend, Ruben, around the house. Benny had liked Ruben. Respected him. He’d tried to recruit him, but Ruben had resisted and Benny kind of respected that. They’d smoked joints in the backyard and talked about their dead mothers.
“Damn it!” he screamed and shoved over one of the folding chairs in front of his desk. He picked up the other one and hurled it across the room at the TV screen.
Sparks crackled in the dead air.
Gomez knew things about him. Things he had been keeping secret. Things that kept him safe. If that hibrido were to write a story about him now…
“The news said he’d be in New York City.” Miguel stepped forward and Benny started shaking his head, knowing by the wild hot look in his brother’s eyes what he wanted.
“No, Miguel.” Benny put up his hand, stopping Miguel’s advance.
“Why not?” Miguel asked. “You need to send someone, why can’t I go?”
“You want to go do what has to be done?” Benny asked, anger churning hard through his body. “You want to be the man to slit that reporter’s throat?”
Miguel’s chin went up. “Yes, jefe.”
Benny looked at his brother and saw only the mistakes. The drug use. The gambling. The soft heart and softer head.
“No way.”
“Benny, this guy could screw up the meeting with that ambassador. That Reyes guy. I know—”
Benny worked hard to control his expression, to smother the surprise and outrage. Everyone in his organization knew they were not supposed to tell Miguel these things. Miguel ran some drugs. Kept track of some books. He was not supposed to know about Reyes or the meeting.
“You don’t know anything.” Benny shook his head.
“I’m your brother, but you don’t trust me.” Miguel’s dark eyes turned liquid, a trick that used to work on Benny the way it worked on their mother.
Not with this. Not ever with this.
“You’re my brother,” he said instead, clapping a hand on Miguel’s neck and squeezing. “I can’t risk you. The cops. The Feds. You get caught and it’s me who goes to jail.”
“Sooner or later, brother, you are going to have to treat me like a man,” Miguel said, shrugging away from Benny’s hand, like a sullen teenager rather than the man he wanted to be.
Not until you act like one.
“You are a man,” he pacified his brother. “But you are my brother first.”
“What are you going to do?” Miguel asked. “What if this guy talks? What if—”
“I can fix this,” Benny said. The way he fixed that female witness and the cop six months ago.
He had to deal with Ruben—He shook his head. There was no Ruben, never had been. There was only a reporter named Caleb Gomez who had to die, fast, before he had a chance to open his mouth. Before the meeting with Reyes in a month.
First Benny would have a little talk with his sister and then he would send some men to New York.
CHAPTER ONE
“THANKS, GORDON.” Maggie Fitzgerald took the cup of coffee from her favorite techie’s hand and weighed the pleasure against the pain of taking a sip.
Her doctor said she should cut back on the caffeine if she ever wanted to get rid of her ulcers. But the smell of coffee—even the crappy stuff from the bakery on the corner—was too much to resist. She tore open the small square on the plastic lid and took a sip.
She was so used to her ulcers at this stage, what would be the point of getting rid of them?
Gordon collapsed into the stiff reception chair beside hers and stared at Deputy Walters’ closed office door.
“So.” Gordon yawned but talked through it. “Why do you suppose we got the royal summons at 6 a.m. on a Saturday?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Maggie said, watching the steam escape from the coffee cup.
“You’re lying.” Gordon gestured with his cup and coffee sloshed over onto his brown corduroy pants. “You are totally lying.”
Gordon was the best surveillance tech she’d ever worked with and he was—in certain lighting and on special occasions—vaguely loveable. But not so much this
