time he’d met her. But he refused to let it get in the way of his investigation. As far as he could tell, her looks had not earned her special attention in the force. It just made the overall package of Agent Walker easy to take.
As soon as his suspicions began to take form, he knew he was going to have a hard time convincing her supervisor—or any of her coworkers—that she might be involved with the gang he’d been sent to Tucson to investigate.
Holmquist stopped at the coffee machine and punched in his order. A cup slid down and black coffee poured into it. The swishing, pouring sound echoed through the taut, conspicuous silence in the waiting room. When it finished, the captain removed his coffee and, without a word to Dylan, stalked through the hall, past the nurses station, to the elevators.
Dylan followed silently, suspecting the man needed time to gain control of his temper. They reached the bottom floor and walked outside. Even at 2:00 a.m., the emergency room was crowded. Holmquist crossed to the opposite curb of the parking lot, where it was quiet and the lights not so bright. He stepped over the curb, to the rock-filled interior of the divider, where he stopped and took a sip of his coffee.
Dylan waited and stared at the lightning crackling across the distant night sky.
August. Monsoon season in Southern Arizona, when storms from the Gulf of California sweep up from Baja to bathe the desert in torrential downpours. One minute everything was dry, and the next a deluge soaked the parched earth. The desert turned green and cacti blossomed with bright blooms. Everything turned brilliant and bright. Dylan hated to admit it, but it was beautiful. And the skies... Light or dark, the skies were always spectacular. Lightning would rip the clouds open, and thunder would rock the earth. This season, and all that came with it, was one of the things he’d missed about home. Probably the only thing.
He shook his head with an abrupt gesture, stopping the memories before they could flood in. “Look, I don’t want to think that one of our own could be guilty.”
Holmquist shook his head. The olive green of his uniform almost disappeared in the night, but the bright yellow lettering of his name and border-patrol patches stood out in the light from the entrance across the way. “Joss is not one of yours. She’s my officer and I don’t believe I could be that wrong about her. After fifteen years in the US Border Patrol, I know people.” He turned to Dylan, his features set. “I know my people.”
Dylan shrugged. “You said she hasn’t been her normal self. We’ve all noticed that she’s been off track, different for the past week—distracted and lost in her own thoughts. Now she shows up in the middle of a drug shipment, beneath a cave-in.”
“Yeah. One that looks like the perfect setup to me. You’re the expert on tunnels. You tell me how one of those new systems that, according to you, has been so ‘expertly designed by the Serpientes,’ would collapse like that.” The sarcasm in his tone wasn’t hard to miss.
Serpientes—Spanish for snakes—was the name of the new gang Dylan had been sent to Tucson to investigate. The appearance across the country of bags of heroin stamped with a distinctive red snake had sent the DEA scrambling for more info on the group based in Arizona.
The discovery of a sophisticated tunnel beneath the border at Nogales brought up a red flag. Usually tunnels dug under that border were hasty, ramshackle crawl spaces—scratched-out hollows a man could barely shimmy through. But these new tunnels were clean-cut and bolstered with supports that were strong enough for a mine. They made the transportation of drugs easy.
The violent kidnappings of two known Tucson gang members had ended in murder. All signs suggested that the Serpientes were transporting massive amounts of drugs across the border and were trying to take over the distribution of those drugs throughout the entire Southwest territory. A gang war was imminent unless the DEA could identify the leaders of the Serpientes and stop them.
The strongest link Dylan had to the Serpientes was the professionally designed tunnels, including the one where they’d found Walker. He had hoped to trace the tunnels to a qualified engineer.
Surprisingly there weren’t too many of those around. He had already asked for information from mining companies, engineering organizations and schools. Hopefully they’d find a connection and maybe, just maybe, that info would lead to an explanation as to why Joss had been there.
He shook his head. “That tunnel was too well designed. It wouldn’t have collapsed on its own. That’s why I called in a team of experts to examine it and take some samples. It’ll be a while before tests tell us if they purposely destroyed that tunnel and how. In the meantime the disappearance of Walker’s brother looks suspicious.”
Holmquist nodded. “Joss is close to him...really close. He’s her only living relative. It doesn’t make sense that he hasn’t shown up after several calls and messages. We even sent a man to his apartment.”
“The collapsed tunnel was discovered this morning. If Jason Walker could be here, he would.”
Holmquist looked up. “What are you saying?”
Dylan focused his gaze. “You and I both know how dangerous the Serpientes are. The Mexican police chief who discovered the first tunnel had death threats sent to him. Do you think the Serpientes would be above using a family member to get what they want from a border-patrol officer?”
“You’re suggesting Jason Walker could be in danger...that maybe the Serpientes have him?”
Dylan’s nod was slow. “That’s one possibility.”
The captain gave him a sideways glance. “Another possibility is that Jason Walker is involved with the gang and dragged his sister into the middle of it. That’s what you really believe, isn’t it?”
Dylan didn’t answer and the older man shook his head. “You’ve been gunning for Joss for weeks now. Why are you so sure she’s involved?”
Dylan thought about the abrupt change in the woman’s outgoing demeanor lately. The downward tilt of her head when they discussed the gang. The sideways glances when he tried to meet her gaze. The tense poses when she thought no one was looking. And especially her nervous habit of fingering her gun holster when she was worried. She’d been doing that a lot over the past few days.
“Let’s say I recognize a person with something to hide. Joss Walker is that person. I’d stake my career on it.”
Holmquist ran a hand around his neck and looked away. After a few minutes he agreed. “It’s a substantial career to throw away. They don’t call you the ‘gang buster’ for nothing.”
Dylan sensed a victory and pushed home his point. “Look, I’m not saying she’s guilty. I’m saying something is not right. We owe it to her to check it out. If we don’t do it, someone else will. The press...other agencies...everyone is hungry for answers. They’ll look at her quick advancement, at everything she’s accomplished, and question her integrity. More important, they’ll question your group. We owe it to her and to the rest of your officers to find the truth.”
After a long while, the older man released a heavy sigh. “You’re right. I don’t like it, but you’re right.”
With that, he tossed the last of his coffee onto the ground, crushed the cup in his fingers and stalked toward the entrance, where he threw the mangled container into the trash.
Upstairs, in the waiting room, he called his employees together. “Agent Murphy has made a valid point.”
