Erin forced herself to smile. This is just the same old Zander, pulling your chain. Play this cool, play this right. “Well, I appreciate you giving me a few minutes. I know—well, I suspect this has to be hard for you.”
She didn’t miss his sharp glance, even as he gestured toward her glass with his own. “Looks like we’re both empty. How about a refill?” He moved in closer to her body as they turned, and Erin almost swallowed her tongue. How many times had he done that when they were dating, with an unconscious need to touch her every time they were close? He must have noticed it as well, because he instantly shifted back, giving her space as they walked across the lawn. She felt everyone’s eyes on them both, and she straightened her shoulders. She had every right to be here. The family had asked—
“So, you going to get to the point?”
At Zander’s words, Erin glanced up, startled, as they reached the long table with its carafes of water and lemonade. “The point?” she asked, busying herself with cups and napkins.
“Why you’re here,” Zander said, with exaggerated patience. “You had something to ask.”
“Oh. Of course.” Erin pulled it back together. By now they were standing off to the edge of the gathering, in the shade of the fringe of trees. No one was paying attention to them now, she didn’t think, at least not overtly. She took a nervous sip of her lemonade, hoping the sugar would carry her through. Everything she’d wanted to say to Zander about her mother sounded stupid now, in her head. Hell, this wasn’t even just about her mother, but her mother and her mom’s latest random boyfriend, whom Erin had never even met—both of them stuck in some hotel room in Mexico, depending on her. But she wasn’t going to get into all of that, no way. Zander didn’t know the truth about her parents. She’d always shut him down when he’d tried to pry, and, guy that he was, he’d never pried all that hard. They’d always had…other things to distract them.
Another flush crawled up her cheeks, and Erin lifted her chin. Just get this over with.
“Um, okay. I do have a few questions,” she said, pleased with how firm her voice sounded. “The first is this: If someone with no experience with a gun suddenly, you know, found themselves in a bad situation, would it be better to have a gun even though they don’t possess a ton of experience firing it, or to not have one, knowing that it’ll probably just get taken away and all of that.” She just felt so naked, thinking about taking all that money into some strange and creepy-sounding border town. Why couldn’t they just meet her on the Texas side? Why did it have to actually be in Mexico?
But the silence between them was lengthening, and she glanced up at Zander. His eyes had gone flat, his face impassive. “What?”
“What happened, Erin?” he asked. “Who’s threatening you?”
She blinked at him. Huh? “Oh!” she said, her brain scrambling for an intelligent response. “It’s not that, not really. I just—um, I was walking home from my studio space the other day, alone, and it occurred to me that it wasn’t the safest neighborhood and—”
“Bullshit.” Zander’s word was sharp, percussive, and it stunned her into silence. “But to answer your question, if you don’t know how to use a gun, and you don’t have time to learn—and learn well—before you carry it into, as you say, a ‘bad situation,’ then no. You’re better off without one. Pepper spray, a whistle around your neck, and a good attack dog would be a better bet. Though none of them will help you a hell of a lot if whoever you’re with in that situation does have a gun. So I’m going to ask you again. Who’s threatening you?”
“No one is threatening me, Zander,” Erin said, letting her irritation show. And, technically, this was true enough. It was her mother in trouble, not her. “But thank you. That’s helpful.” She hadn’t thought about a dog. But the other stuff—pepper spray, a whistle. That could be good. A phone set to dial the police might not be a bad idea either, except of course she wasn’t supposed to involve them. “Okay, next question.” She paused, trying to figure out how to word this one. “So, say you have to move something hidden in a vehicle. You can’t run the risk of anyone figuring out what you have, but you look pretty innocent, if that helps.”
Zander cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t really have a lot of experience with looking innocent.”
“Well, this isn’t about you,” she said. “Do you have a suggestion or not?”
“Sure,” Zander said, blowing out a breath. “If you’re evading the cops but you look innocent, then all of the usual hiding places are possible. Compartments built into the car, behind the license plate. You can put whatever you’re trying to conceal anywhere.”
“Hmm. And if it’s just your standard rental vehicle? Could you just tuck the item into the cushions or bury it in the glove compartment and drive right through a police checkpoint or whatever?”
“If you’re a pretty, young, upper-middle-class girl who doesn’t look like she’s carrying contraband? Sure. They might not even slow you down. Stupid, but it’s true. What’s this about?”
“It’s not about anything, and that’s super helpful. Just one more?” Erin asked. She knew she was pushing it, but she already felt so much better, having a plan—any sort of plan, actually. Even the idea that there could be a plan.
Zander’s lips thinned, but he nodded at her.
She smiled brightly. “So, when you—I mean, since you’ve been in the army, have you ever had to, you know…negotiate with bad people?”
“Erin…,” Zander growled.
“I’m serious!” Erin gripped her lemonade cup and forced herself to meet Zander’s gaze. His eyes were openly hostile now, but also curious. He wanted to tell her, she realized. He wanted to share the knowledge that was so hard-won, even though he didn’t trust her, even though she was pushing some sort of “protector” button for him. A button that simply hadn’t been on the old Zander model. “I really need to know, and I just thought that maybe you’d had an opportunity to go in and talk with the enemy at some point.”
“In my unit, we don’t generally make a habit of talking with the enemy,” Zander said, and she could hear the pride ringing in his voice, pride and defiance. He clearly loved what he did—being in the middle of danger, on the front lines. He was suited for it, every muscle in his body primed to deliver explosive power whenever needed. “But, no. In my experience, ‘bad people’ don’t negotiate. They’ve already set up in their minds what they’re going to do. If they’re going to screw you, you’re screwed, unless you’ve got something they want and they can’t get it from you except on your terms.”
“Ohhhh,” Erin said, nodding. “But what kind of ‘something’ would they want in that scenario?”
“Generally speaking, either a lot more of what you were originally offering—or something completely different and better,” Zander said. His eyes were still on her, intent and focused. “I’m going to ask you again, Erin—”
“No, no, this is really good.” Erin’s mind was racing now, and she half-turned from Zander, focusing on her lemonade. She could totally do that. She could bring more ransom money than she’d promised, but then hide it somewhere close by, and give the men (Man? Family of twelve?) the location of her hidden stash, but only after they’d let her mother and Mike, the boyfriend, go. She could call them with the location, maybe, or shout it from the car window as she was driving off. Of course, they could just torture the information out of her, too. So maybe that wouldn’t work so well…
“Erin.” Zander’s voice was right at her ear, his breath barely fanning her hair. A chill snaked down her neck and she shivered despite herself, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Zander didn’t wait for her to compose herself. His mouth shifted closer to her earlobe, his lips brushing against the delicate skin as his words continued, pitched low so only she could hear. “Erin, you’re lying to me. You’re not even lying well. And everything you’ve said is leading me to making my own call to the police this afternoon, the moment you get out of here.”
“The police!” Erin would have jerked away, except Zander reached out his hand and anchored her arm down tightly, forcing her to stay pressed up against him, unable to move, with nowhere to run. Her breathing went instantly shallow, her entire body on fire.
“The police,” Zander said again. “I won’t even have to give them much information. Just that I suspect a young woman to be carrying contraband, maybe an unlicensed gun, and quite definitely expressing the intent to engage in some illegal transaction, so could they possibly just question her, investigate her, just to make sure she’s no immediate threat to herself or anyone else? Maybe keep her on ice for oh, say, the next five days or so?”
“You can’t do that! I have to go!” Erin wrenched herself so violently that Zander had to shift hard to keep a hold on her, but he didn’t relax his grip. She stared up into his implacable eyes and a slow, hard smile spread across his lean face.
He nodded at her, once. “Then maybe you should tell me what the fuck is going on, Erin. Because I can assure you, you’re not going anywhere until you do.”
Zander eased his grip off of Erin’s wrist, knowing she wouldn’t try to bolt. She was sweating, even in the shade, her skin pale, her lips trembling. Her eyes were huge and she had that haunted look again, even as her glance darted to the crowd behind him, to the trees, and finally back to him. He’d give her that, at least: she wasn’t trying to avoid his gaze as she struggled with how much to tell him, and how to say it. He felt energized, on point. He didn’t think he was going to like what Erin spilled, but he could handle whatever it was. Shut her down cold and tell her to call the cops, most likely.
Finally she drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Held it. And started talking. The words that came out of her mouth were absolutely the last thing he expected, though.
“It’s, um, my parents,” she said. “They—they’ve been abducted. In Mexico.”
“Your parents.” God bless army training, enabling him to keep the surprise from showing on his face. “I didn’t think you had parents.”
“Of course I have parents,” Erin snapped. “Everyone has parents.”
“I mean living parents,” Zander said, keeping his voice steady. “I asked you about your family and you fumbled around the question, then said it was just your gran. I asked my mom about it, too, and she said your grandmother never spoke of your parents, gave the impression that they’d died in some car crash or something.”
“Car crash.” Erin said the words with bemusement, her mouth softening into a weary smile. “Car crash was a good one. Missionaries—we used missionaries, too. Even academics who were off on some sort of sabbatical. That was my personal favorite.” She sighed. “It doesn’t matter, Zander. My mom—they weren’t around. They traveled. All the time.” She was holding something else back but rushed on before he could focus on it. “But they called me the other day, absolutely scared out of their minds. They’ve been abducted, Zander. I have to go get them.”
“You have to—no, no, no,” he said, the reality of what she was saying shaking him hard. Was she insane? “Erin, that’s not going to happen.”
He could see the mutinous line to her lips and his own anger flared, but he forced himself to tamp it down. To get the information first. “So your parents have been abducted. By whom? And where? And why?” And for how much? He didn’t ask that last question, but he could tell from Erin’s demeanor that the money wasn’t really the issue. She’d pulled it out of somewhere—how, he didn’t know. She was also still waging a quiet war with herself, and he eased his stance, forced himself to take a drink of lemonade. She followed suit, then seemed to come to some kind of decision.
“It’s like this,” she said, setting her cup down on the short stone wall beside them. “My parents are in Mexico, just over the border, really. They don’t have a lot of money, typical tourists, no big deal. Well, they went to the wrong place, said the wrong thing—somehow gave people the impression that they came from money.” She smiled grimly. “That would be me, I guess. But more likely they’d just been drinking too much, being stupid. And they must have said it too loud or too long, because the next thing they knew they were ambushed and tied up and a phone was shoved at them. So they called me.”
“Uh-huh,” Zander said. Something still wasn’t right here, but he also set his cup down to give himself another precious second to tighten his control. “And explain to me why you didn’t immediately call the police?”
“Because it’s my mother!” Erin said, which made no sense at all. “My parents, I mean. Both of them. Their abductors said not to involve the police under any circumstances. And I’ve gotten the money together—it’s going to be ready in two days, tops. They—they said they’d wait. But not for long. So I’m getting the money transferred down to a Bank of America in Laredo, and—”
“Laredo?” Zander sharpened his gaze on her. “Laredo, Texas? So they’re in Nuevo Laredo?”
“You’ve heard of it?” The hope in her voice was almost too much for him. And yeah, he’d heard of Nuevo Laredo, from guys who’d been based in Fort Bliss, about two hours north of the border town. The place was an armpit. There was no way Erin was going there. But he just nodded and she went on. “Anyway, we’re going to meet over there once I arrive. I give them money, they give me my…parents. That’s it.”
She sagged a little, and Zander didn’t say anything for a moment. When he did speak, he drew on every ounce of training to keep his voice incredibly calm. “When are you leaving?” he asked.
She sagged a little more. Clearly it was just the expectation of his rebuttal that was keeping her upright at this point. How had she been carrying this around all of these days, not telling anyone? “Wednesday morning. According to my bank rep, the money will be waiting for me in the Laredo branch by noon.”
He eyed her. “You have a passport?”
“Yes, I do,” she said, biting off the words, irritated despite her being overwhelmed. He didn’t doubt that she had one, actually, but he was pretty sure she’d never used it. That thought struck him oddly—safety-girl Erin Connelly, with her shiny blue passport, wondering when she’d finally go off and see the world. His lips twisted. She’d picked a damn fine way to get started.
“All right, fine,” he said. “Let me make some calls, talk to some people. You say you have no idea who took your parents?”
“What?” Erin was already shaking her head. “No, Zander. You can’t call anyone. I have to come alone, with the money—they’ll give me all the instructions I need when I get there. It’s all supposed to be very simple and very straightforward. I just wanted to get a little information from you, that’s all. I don’t need your help.”
“My help is my information,” Zander said. “So how are they going to contact you—your cell phone? Or is there some sort of burner phone you’re supposed to call?”
She blinked at him. “A what?”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Zander tightened his jaw. “Erin, you have no business going anywhere and doing anything with these people. You should call the—”
“Fine!” She exploded in front of him, but the little mini kind of explosion that was her stock-in-trade. Her voice was a hiss, not intended to draw attention. Her hands were clenched, but down at her sides. “I appreciate you talking to me, Zander. I appreciate you giving me the information you have. Even this little bit is more than I had coming in here, and I feel better. So thank you. Now you can forget we ever had this conversation and I will go on about my business and you can go on about yours. Please give my regards to your mother, and…” And here she faltered, looking away from Zander and then looking back at him, her eyes shining with tears she refused to shed but which were there, dammit, barely banked. “Take care of yourself, Zander. I know I didn’t say this when it mattered, and I don’t deserve to say it even now. But please take care of yourself. Do everything you feel you need to do, but just…” She ended the words almost on a sob. “Stay safe.”
Aw, for the love of—
“Erin,” Zander said, and she stopped, already half-turned away from him, though he knew it was more her steeling herself against the long walk through the yard, than for any hold his words really had. “Erin, wait a minute. I’ll walk you to your car.”
She shook her head furiously, still not meeting his gaze, and he smiled, though she couldn’t see it. He held out his hand, and she slipped her small, white fingers into his. And despite all of the insanity she’d just dumped on him, he felt the jolt again. Just as much as he had the very first time he’d ever laid eyes on her.
He was so screwed.