“Change of plans. We meet now.”
“What?” Erin’s gaze flew to Zander’s as she sat bolt upright in the bed. “Now? What do you mean, now? I thought we were supposed to meet you at six!” Her gaze flew to the alarm clock on the bedside table, but her eyes weren’t deceiving her. It read 2:30 P.M.
“No. You bring the money now to Playa Del Sol. Enter through the back door—it’s easy to find. Your parents will be there, unharmed. Leave the money and you will be allowed to go.”
“But—” Zander was in front of her, giving her the thumbs up and nodding his head. Just that quickly, he was ready to go. He touched his watch, then flashed ten fingers at her twice, and Erin nodded, dread coiling in her stomach. “Twenty minutes,” she said quickly. “Give us twenty minutes. We’ll be there. We just have to get everything together.” She stood up, rushing through the room as she talked, though in fact, she had nothing to do. They’d thought they’d be gone by now; there’d been no reason to unpack their bags again.
“You must come now,” the voice insisted. “Or do not bother coming at all.”
“We’ll be there in twenty minutes!” Erin promised, then turned the phone off before the man could say anything else. Zander was already on his own phone, talking with someone—it had to be Rey—while he quickly and methodically went through both bags. He set the blue one aside and tossed the pink one to her. The money was in the blue bag, of course, and once again, Erin felt a surge of fear as she grabbed her pack and shoved the last remaining items into it, including her purse. The exchange was now. It was finally happening, and she wasn’t sure how to react. She wasn’t just endangering herself, after all. She was also putting Zander in the line of fire, and he’d willingly come along. He’d traveled down here to help her for the thrill of it, the excitement. The adrenaline rush of yet another risk taken, yet another challenge overcome.
He’d also done it just because she’d asked him to. As simple as that. What that meant for their relationship beyond today, she had no idea.
Either way, he was risking his life just being here, though he certainly wasn’t acting like it. Numbly, she watched him bark orders to Rey, then stride into the bathroom, double-checking that they’d left nothing behind, checking the bedding, checking her. He frowned when he saw her face, his expression a question until she waved him off. He turned back to his phone call then, letting Rey know of the new time, the new situation, the new logistical challenge. From the sound of the response coming over the phone, Rey was not surprised at the change of plans. Which was good, because they had to move.
Zander ducked into the bathroom one last time, crashing around for barely two minutes, then they were out of the hotel, leaving through the pool area instead of through the lobby, scurrying down the side street beside the hotel. They crossed the street and race-walked the next block, then turned into the alley behind Playa Del Sol. As they walked, Zander briefed Erin, his words quick and tight.
“So it’s going to go like this,” he said. “I’m going to walk in first, you on my heels. Stay behind me, as close to me as possible. Then just follow my lead. I’m going to agree with whatever they say, and do whatever they ask, as long as it doesn’t put you in danger. And I don’t want you putting yourself in danger either, okay? You have to promise me that. No matter what we see in that room, even if your mom is hurt, even if she’s crying, you have to let me handle this. This is what I do.”
“But what if they shoot at you?” The fear that had begun in Erin’s stomach was now consuming her entire body, unwilling to be ignored. And it wasn’t fear for her, but for him. The same kind of fear that she’d felt whenever she’d thought too much about him putting himself in danger for any reason—but now he was doing it for her, and that somehow made it a hundred times worse. “I can’t let you get hurt because of—”
“You have to follow my lead, Erin,” Zander said urgently. “I’m not going to get hurt. I’ve got too much to live for. But we have to do this smart. These people are trying to steal three hundred thousand dollars from you. That’s a lot of money no matter where you are, but it’s especially a lot of money in this cesspool, so they may be pretty motivated to keep it. You got me? If they ask you a question, you make sure I’m good with the answer before you give it. If they say go, you make sure I give you the sign to move. Deal?”
“Deal,” Erin said, clutching the straps of her pack, slung tight over her shoulders. And she did feel better. The danger was there, now more so than ever, but so was the understanding that she could do this. They could do this. It was like that long-ago promise of walking into a thousand sunsets, she realized. It was going to be okay, as long as they were together. She nodded again as sudden emotion flooded her. “That’s just fine,” she said. “You go in first. I follow you.”
Zander gave her an odd look. “Right. Follow my lead.”
He turned and moved ahead of her down the narrow alley, past a few cars and even an official-looking white government van. Her nerves tightened again as the small parking lot that marked the rear of the Playa Del Sol bar came into view. They paused a second in the alley, regarding the back of the building. The place still looked deserted, but the door was propped open with a small brick.
This is it, she thought. The meeting was happening, and it was all coming down to this.
At the last second, Zander turned back to her. “Kiss for good luck?” he asked, grinning down at her.
“Yes!” She stood on her tiptoes and reached up, and Zander leaned down, pressing his lips against hers with an urgency that made her heart kick into a higher gear. He was nervous, too—nervous or amped or, she wasn’t sure how or what he was—but unlike her dark and cloying fear, his energy was high, intense, ready for action. Maybe that’s all this was, Erin thought. A matter of looking at the same kind of challenge a different way. That no matter what life handed you, it didn’t have to be scary, so much as…exciting. Like jumping off a cliff was exciting, or racing a fast car.
If only she didn’t have to test that theory out in a situation where people could get killed if she did the wrong thing.
Without saying another word, Zander strode out of the alley and into parking lot, both of his hands on the straps of his own pack, like any camper heading out on a long hike. Erin, hurrying behind him, didn’t have any more time to think, as Zander pushed his way into the back of the restaurant without stopping.
Right on his heels, Erin found herself in a cramped kitchen, ringed with steel fixtures and cabinets. The place was clean, cleaner than she would have expected, honestly, but that wasn’t what arrested her attention. Instead, her eyes locked onto a woman standing in front of a heavy butcher-block island, right in the center of the room. A woman she hadn’t laid eyes on in so long that her brain couldn’t fully process what she was seeing. And who. And how.
“Erin!” her mother cried out, promptly bursting into tears. “You’re here!”
Erin stood frozen on the linoleum floor, staring as she always did when she first saw her mother, and freshly taken aback by the inevitable emotional outburst that followed. Her mother’s long, jet-black hair hung loose over her shoulders, her skin darkened by the sun, but still youthful, still fresh, her guileless blue eyes the kind that made people want to hand over whatever they could to help her. She was beautiful even when she cried, her wide eyes staring at Erin as if she was the one who was some sort of ghost returned from the dead, as if she was the one in danger.
“Did you bring the money?” The boyfriend’s voice was tight, and more than a little panicked, but how could she blame him? Erin shifted her gaze to him. Mike something or other looked pretty good, all things considered. It was just the two of them in the kitchen, though, no guards. Surely it wasn’t that easy, right?
Erin’s mind was spinning out of control, trying to process it all. How long had her mother been held, two weeks? While she looked whole and healthy, there was no way of knowing what sort of damage had been done to her. Erin hadn’t even been the one kidnapped, and she’d been damaged by this process. How much worse had it been for her mom?
Still, at least both her mother and Mike looked…stable. Unharmed, just like the man had said on the phone. Mike’s khakis were only slightly wrinkled, his pale-blue polo shirt setting off a head of thinning blond hair. He had tired, stressed-out blue eyes that darted around, and Erin watched as his gaze fixed on the doorway that led deeper into the restaurant.
That’s where the kidnappers were, she realized. Watching them, waiting.
“Erin!” her mother chimed in, her voice shrill, bringing Erin’s attention back to her. “Did you bring the money?”
Erin’s gaze darted to Zander, who nodded, his eyes also now fixed on the far doorway.
“Yes,” she said, pitching her voice to be heard in the next room. “Yes, I brought all of it. It’s in the blue backpack.”
There still was no movement, but a familiar voice rang out from the next room. “Put it on the table. Now.” Erin’s gaze snapped back to Zander’s. This was the man on the phone, she knew it was. As they both hesitated, a man strode into the room, his face covered with a nylon mask, completely obscuring his features. Erin’s mother and Mike the boyfriend cringed away from him, and Erin’s stomach tightened. “I said, put it on the table,” the man said. “If you insist on trying my patience, I can just as easily kill all of you.” He lifted a gun, aiming at Erin’s mother. “In fact, it would give me great pleasure to kill her, in particular.”
“No!” Erin’s mother gasped, crumpling into her boyfriend’s arms as the tears flowed anew, and Zander strode forward.
“That’s not necessary,” he said very loudly, to be heard over the sobbing. “I have the money in this pack. All of it.”
“Then put it down!” The man gestured angrily with the pistol. “Put it down or she dies.”
The man was interrupted by a loud knocking at the front of the restaurant, and everyone shut up, even Erin’s mother, who sniffled and clung more closely to Mike.
A voice rang out in the stillness. “Hey, anybody in there? It’s Rio!”
Erin almost swallowed her tongue, too scared to even look at Zander. The voice outside sounded exactly like Rey’s, but that would make no sense. Whoever it was kept pounding on the door, however, his deeply accented voice growing more urgent. “C’mon, man, I know you’re in there. It’s Rio! Open the door!”
“Mateo!” the man in the mask growled, never moving his gun. There was some shuffling in the next room, then a second man, also shrouded in a nylon mask, looked in. The two spoke in rapid-fire Spanish, then Mateo disappeared again. The first man took his gun off of Erin’s mother long enough to gesture toward Zander.
“You, now, with the money, put it down.”
“Okay, okay.” Zander unslung the bag and set it on the counter, reaching for the zipper.
“Step away from it!” The man’s voice was sharp, and Zander held up his hands, looking as guileless as she’d ever seen him.
“Sorry, man, I just wanted to show you the money. It’s all there, I swear it, we just hid it under those clothes—”
“Get back!”
As Zander stepped away, the big man stepped forward, yanking open the pack. He stuck his hand into the bag, shoving aside a T-shirt as he scowled at Zander. Then he glanced down, his fingers clearly having connected with the stacks of cash. His face broke into a grin, and for a split second, he let the gun he was holding in his right hand angle off to the side, his left hand pawing through the money. “Ah! It is here, that is—”
“Get down!” Erin jolted as Zander’s shout tore through the kitchen, louder and more forceful than anything she’d ever heard from him—from anyone in her life. “Now!”
Whether through terror, instinct, or just blind trust at the authority in Zander’s voice, Erin didn’t pause, didn’t think, just hit the floor as her gaze whipped around to him, to see Zander wrenching something out of the back of his collar, high in the center of his back—the area that had been covered by the heavy weight of the backpack until now. Zander brought Rey’s gun around in a flash of metal, and didn’t waste time with any more words. With a quick blast of gunfire, he shot the kidnapper, whose right hand seemed to explode backward, blood arcing as the gun went flying in one direction, the bag in the other. In the next second, Zander bounded toward the man he’d just shot.
From her crouching position on the floor, Erin’s vision was filled with nothing but Zander. Her onetime high school boyfriend looked like a totally different person now—a grown-up, hard-bodied man. A machine, almost. He raced forward, his intense efficiency completely at odds with his T-shirt, shorts, and sandals. As fast as a blink while she watched, he punched the kidnapper in the neck with his hand held in a sharp, chopping position. The guy went down like a sack, and Zander hit him twice more, sending him sprawling across the floor.
“Everybody out!” Zander roared, stepping over the man to grab his gun. When he whirled back around to them, Erin was already up and across the kitchen, shoving her mother and Mike forward as the three of them fled out the door, running for their lives.