The morning had started out so well. Sonny had actually gotten out of bed feeling less afraid than she had since learning of the kidnapping. She felt safe, as if all the horrible nightmares she’d been having were just that—nightmares that would vanish as soon as the sun came up.
Boy, what a delusion that was. Nothing had changed. If anything, the nightmare had only gotten worse.
“I won’t give this baby over to Eduardo Sanchez.”
“I know.”
“Gil?” Marco moved closer and lowered his voice, although there was no way for Sonny to avoid hearing him since she was standing right there. “Gil, if they come here we won’t have a choice. They’re not the kind of people who will say ‘pretty please.’”
“Then we’d better hope they don’t come here,” Gil answered resolutely.
“Too late,” Cooper said, looking out the window.
Gil charged toward her. “Why?”
“They’re banging on doors.” Cooper turned and looked at Sonny. “I’m surprised they are even bothering to knock.”
Gil blew out an exasperated breath. “It just gets better by the minute. Sonny, do you recognize that man talking to the soldiers?”
Sonny came to the window and peered outside into the parking lot.
“Oh, no!” she said in a harsh whisper. “That’s Manuel Turgis. I’ve seen his picture. He’ll know who I am.”
“Gil, Turgis can’t find Sonny here,” Cooper said.
Gil looked around the room, at the windows, at the door to the courtyard. “Come in here,” he said, advancing toward the bedroom.
Sonny followed. “The hotel knows we have a baby here.”
“Cooper and Marco, do something to stall them,” Gil said, pushing the bedroom door open.
“Are you kidding?” Marco said. “How do you stall Colombian military?”
“Figure it out, Marco.” He pulled Sonny into the bedroom. “Come with me. They know we have a baby with us, but they don’t know we have Ellie,” Gil added. “If the hotel knew for sure Ellie was the baby the authorities were looking for, the soldiers would have been in here by now. My guess is they’re on a hunt. We don’t have much time to hide you.”
Startled, she stopped short of picking Ellie up from her crib. “What do you mean me? We need to hide Ellie.”
Gil turned to her and held her back from taking the baby. “Get in the tub.”
“What?”
Sonny heard the pounding on the door to the villa and her blood ran cold. Lord, what are we going to do?
“Trust me, Sonny. Get in the tub.”
Sonny stared at Ellie in the crib. She was still asleep, even though she was stirring. But in a matter of seconds she’d be wailing from the noise of the soldiers bursting into the room.
“You’re going to have to take a leap of faith on this, Sonny,” Gil urged, pulling her into the bathroom.
“I can’t do it,” she whispered, trying to pull out of his grip.
Gil held her tightly by the arm. “Manuel Turgis is out there, and he’s looking for you—not just Ellie. Now I can fool him with regard to Ellie, but you are a different story.”
She glanced around the room. There was nowhere to hide.
“Get in the tub, pull the curtain and be quiet. I’m going to leave the door open. It’ll look less suspicious. Whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to trust that I’ll take care of Ellie.”
“Don’t give her to them, Gil. Please.” She climbed into the tub, fighting to keep herself together as tears sprang to her eyes.
Crouching down, she felt the moisture from the tub seep through her shirt and onto her skin. She closed her eyes and prayed. I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Sonny kept praying, asking the Lord to extend a safety net on all of them.
The door to the bedroom burst open and Sonny jumped, her foot banging against the tub. The urge to bolt from her hiding place was overwhelming. Ellie was in the next room. And so were the soldiers.
She heard Marco and Gil complaining loudly to someone about the intrusion. She knew the voice talking with them belonged to Manuel Turgis. Sonny tried to stop shaking.
“Where is your wife?” he asked Gil.
“Out shopping. You know women.”
There was a short silence, as if he was weighing Gil’s answer. The sound of boots on the floor grew louder.
“This baby. Where are the papers?”
“My wife carries them with her. You can’t just come in here. What’s this all about?” Gil argued.
Sonny closed her eyes, listening to the exchange.
Turgis ignored Gil’s question. “How old is the little girl?”
Gil laughed. “I think you need glasses, bud. When was the last time you saw a baby girl wearing Ninja Turtles. My son is four months old.”
“Your son?”
“Yes. His name is Charlie.”
Sonny could hear Ellie fussing. It sounded as if she was being jiggled up and down. Sonny hated the idea of her being so close to Turgis. But if Gil had Ellie in his arms, she felt certain he’d fight to keep her there.
“The baby doesn’t look like a boy.”
“Well, at this age, it’s hard to tell. But don’t say that to my wife. She thinks he looks like me. You still haven’t told me what this is all about,” Gil said.
“A child has been taken,” Turgis said. “We believe she’s here in Cartagena.”
“Cartagena is a big place.”
Sonny heard Turgis advancing toward the bathroom. She sank lower into the tub.
“Charlie here is the only baby in this villa,” Gil said, his voice slightly raised. “I haven’t seen any other babies since we’ve been here.”
“Do you have a problem with us searching your room?” Turgis said in a deadly calm voice.
Gil’s voice turned matter-of-fact. “I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m just saying you’re wasting your time here if you’re looking for a little girl.”
There was silence for an agonizing moment. Sonny fought to keep herself still, to silence her breathing and still the trembling that kept rattling the shower curtain.
“I apologize for the disturbance,” Turgis finally said, his voice getting quieter as he walked away from the bathroom door.
Sonny felt pain in her hands. Opening her eyes, she saw that her hands were clenched into fists and her fingernails were digging into the soft flesh of her palm.
She was no longer able to hear their voices. They must have moved into the living room. Or maybe her heart was pounding so loudly she couldn’t hear anything else. She stayed still, until the shower curtain was yanked open.
A scream rose in her throat and turned to a sob of relief when she saw Gil standing there with Ellie in his arms. She scrambled to her feet, stepped out of the tub and snatched the baby from Gil, bringing her to her chest.
“That was too close,” Gil said.
“I never want Ellie near Manuel Turgis again.” She kissed Ellie on the cheek, then looked at her pajamas. “I suddenly love Ninja Turtles.”
Gil gave her a half grin. “Score one for Cooper.”
“I should be the one to go for supplies,” Cooper said.
Gil dropped the picture of Sonny from the airport on the end table. He couldn’t say that he was at ease again after the close encounter of the Colombian-Army-kind earlier. The fear he’d felt earlier when Turgis walked to the bathroom and looked inside was unlike anything he’d ever felt. He was sure Turgis would pull back the curtain to find Sonny there. They’d been lucky.
Gil turned to Cooper. “Well, Sonny certainly can’t go and forget Marco.”
Marco straightened. “Hey, why not me?”
“Because babies don’t have computer components and you wouldn’t know what to look for,” Cooper said.
With a roll of his eyes, Marco said, “You bought boy clothes for the baby.”
“Those boy clothes saved our skins, in case you have forgotten.”
“What happens when we leave the villa?” Sonny asked. “We can’t stay here forever.”
Cooper nodded. “She’s right. Forget the supplies. Let’s get on a plane now and get out of here, Gil. We’ll go looking for Cash again once things settle down. Sitting in a hot spot here in Colombia isn’t doing us any good.”
There’d be other bounties, other criminals to bring to justice. But none of that was on Gil’s mind. Right now, keeping Sonny, the baby and his team alive was what mattered.
The fact that there was a photo of Sonny with Ellie at the airport was huge. It changed everything. Gil knew they needed a new plan.
“Sonny and Ellie can’t leave by air,” Gil said. He dropped down to the sofa. “We’re going to need to think of another way.”
“Just because Sanchez has an airport photo of her and the baby doesn’t mean that every airport in Colombia will be circulating it,” Cooper said.
Sonny sighed. “Timing was critical. The only reason I dared to use the papers I have was because I was sure Sanchez wouldn’t have enough time to come after me before I boarded the plane. Once I’d left the country with Ellie, we’d be on U.S. soil and protected by the U.S. government.”
“What about the American Embassy?” Marco asked.
Sonny groaned. “The embassy in Bogotá couldn’t really help us. They said we could go there, but we’d have to remain there and it would be risky to leave.”
“Who exactly is we?”
Sonny bit her lip, recalling the image of Lucia slumped over in the backseat.
“I was working with some people here in Colombia. Ellie didn’t have a passport when I came here. Eduardo Sanchez must have been able to bypass these legalities because not having a passport or birth certificate didn’t seem to be a problem for him. He was able to get her into the country and even establish that she was ‘legally’ adopted. I doubt anyone here was really interested in challenging him, anyway.
“Serena applied for a passport in the United States using an old picture she had of Ellie and a birth certificate she had drawn up after Ellie was taken. She explained it had been a home birth, so they gave it to her after the fact. The paperwork was going to take some time. As soon as it came through, I applied for a duplicate from the embassy in Bogotá and asked them for help. They supplied the duplicate and were good enough to push it through quickly.”
“Did they know about Ellie being taken?” Gil asked.
“No. I asked around at the embassy when I applied for the duplicate passport about safe places for American citizens, but I didn’t say why. They said the only safe place for us was inside the embassy, but that anything I did I’d be doing on my own, without official American help.
“I was afraid to be discovered. I could walk the streets, but I couldn’t go near Sanchez’s estate. If Sanchez’s people knew I was here, I would have disappeared.”
Sonny didn’t have to elaborate on that further. Gil had a pretty good idea of what men like Manuel Turgis and Eduardo Sanchez could do.
Sonny turned to Marco. “Did the file contain my name?”
Marco shook his head. “Just the picture.”
“It won’t take them long to figure out who I am. And if Sanchez realizes I’m Cash’s sister, I won’t be able to get on a plane using my passport.”
Gil thought a minute. “What about Ellie?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Cooper asked. “Why can’t I take her back to the U.S.? We could split you two up.”
Sonny turned to Cooper. “I appreciate your trying to help. But it’s not possible.”
“You think I’ll hand her over?”
Sonny shook her head. “No, Cooper, I don’t. But you can’t travel with her unless you have permission from her mother. And that permission needs to be verified and notarized. It’s required in America because there are too many child kidnappings by parents who are natural citizens of other countries. Once the child is physically in the other country, that country’s custody laws take precedence, making it difficult for the United States to intercede.”
“How did you plan on getting her back to the U.S.?” Marco asked.
“I have her birth certificate, her passport and notarized permission from her mother. Without all three, she can’t board a plane. And now that Eduardo Sanchez has made his quest public, every airport in Colombia will be on the lookout for a baby traveling without their parents.” She looked at all of them. “If I can get into the United States, we’ll be safe. It’s leaving Colombia that’s the problem.”
Gil nodded.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news but we’re a long way from the United States,” Marco said, tapping a pencil on his hand in a staccato motion.
Gil stood up and walked to the French doors leading to the courtyard. “Not so far that we can’t make it.”
“You’ve got a plan, boss?” Marco said with a gleam in his eye.
He turned to Sonny. “Possibly. Any way we can get in touch with your brother Dylan?”
Sonny felt disappointment wash over her. For a brief moment, she thought perhaps Gil had come up with a way to get them safely out of Colombia. But any plan involving Dylan wouldn’t work.
“Truthfully, any other time, Dylan would be the first person I’d call. But I don’t know where he is.”
Gil eyed her skeptically.
“I’m telling you the truth, Gil. They purposely didn’t tell me what they were doing to protect me and Cash.”
“He knows where Cash is, though.”
“Seems we might have been tailing the wrong sibling,” Marco said.
Sonny glared at Marco. “When I cracked the private file in the Aztec Corporation’s computer system, I found information about Cash being held in a prison here in Colombia. It didn’t say where. But I’m hoping Dylan was able to find it.” She looked directly at Gil. “If Cash has any chance of getting out of that prison alive, you can’t interfere with what Dylan’s doing. They could all be killed if you get in the way.”
And then she would have lost both of her brothers. Lord, losing Dylan and Cash is unthinkable to me.
“We’ve got bigger problems to deal with right now,” he said with regret. “Besides, I won’t make that same mistake of getting in your way twice.”
The relief Sonny felt was overwhelming. “Okay, how are we going to get out of Colombia?”
He stared out at the courtyard for a minute. “Let’s backtrack. How did you know where to find Ellie?”
“I didn’t. I only knew Eduardo Sanchez had an adopted baby from America. Lucia was the one who found her.”
“Lucia? Is that the person you were working with?” Marco asked. “How many people are involved with this?”
“She’s part of a child rescue organization. Dylan knew her briefly during his years in the military.” She paused a moment, overwhelmed by the memory of seeing Lucia in the backseat. “She retired from the military a few years before Dylan did and used her training to help rescue kidnapped children.”
“Was she the one who actually took Ellie from Sanchez’s estate?”
“Yes.”
“It seems odd she didn’t accompany you to the airport to make sure you got on the plane.” Gil paced in front of her. “If she worked in any kind of Special Forces capacity with your brother she would’ve known how to stop me from interfering with you.”
Sonny’s eyes filled with tears. “At least she got Ellie out of Sanchez’s house.”
“How’d she do it?”
“She got a job as a housekeeper at the estate. She got to know the routine of all the guards and Ellie’s nanny. I didn’t know until the night before exactly what the plan was and when I was going to be leaving. I don’t even know the details of how Lucia actually got Ellie out of the estate. And truthfully, I’m not sure I want to know—they were both in serious danger.”
“So you just hung around the hotel room and waited for someone to call you?” Cooper asked.
Sonny shook her head. “No phones. Torres—he was another member of the organization—had a contact in the marketplace. I would go down there to buy food and if there was news, he would give it to me. I spent a lot of days in that hotel room wondering what was going on.”
Marco blew out a quick breath. “Must have been torture.”
“Lucia would come to the marketplace and meet me, too. She didn’t relay much information. It was mostly to update me on Ellie’s condition at the estate.”
“And then she left you holding the bag at the airport,”
Cooper said, with a disapproving shake of her head. “That’s no way to work as a team.”
“Lucia was killed the morning she took Ellie. She was already dead by the time Torres brought Ellie to me.”
Her father, Sonny thought. She closed her eyes and said a prayer for Torres, for the hard journey he had to make in telling Lucia’s husband and young son that she had been killed. The man who’d helped bring Cash and Serena’s baby back to her family was now grieving for his own child.
“What happened? Who killed her? Eduardo? One of his guards?”
“I don’t know. Her…” She was about to say “her father,” but it was too awful to say out loud. “Torres was very vague. I was supposed to meet them in the marketplace very early that morning. They didn’t want to risk going back to the hotel to get me.”
“I lost you that morning,” Gil said. “It was only after Marco checked the airport records that I discovered you’d confirmed a flight to leave that day. That was hours later.”
“I didn’t want to leave from Bogotá. And Lucia thought it was best that I leave from a popular airport where there was room for me to get lost among the tourists.”
Gil smiled weakly. “She was right. I had a hard time finding you. I finally gave up and waited for you at airport security.”
“Lucia was supposed to come back with me to Miami. But when I got in the car, she was dead. Torres told me it had nothing to do with taking Ellie from the Sanchez estate. He said that an old debt had been repaid. I’m not sure I believe him, though. The last thing he said to me was to make sure that I got Ellie out of Colombia. Once I got out of the car, I knew he couldn’t help me anymore.”
Gil looked at her for a long time. Sonny wasn’t sure what he was thinking. His expression was unreadable.
“Marco doesn’t have to waste any more time looking for the e-mail I sent,” Sonny said.
Gil smirked. “No, he doesn’t. Because he already found it.”
A slight smile of admiration played on her lips. “And here I thought I was being good.”
“You were,” Marco said, waggling his eyebrows. “It took a while, but I’m relentless.”
“The e-mail didn’t say much,” Gil said. “Care to elaborate?”
“I needed to tell my father that I wasn’t on the plane, but that I had Ellie and we were alive.”
Cooper stood up. “How did you expect to get into the United States with a baby that didn’t have an entry stamp on her passport? Wouldn’t they have detained you?”
“Possibly. But being on U.S. soil at that point would have made all the difference. They could have held me in immigration as long as they wanted. I had her birth certificate, and Serena was meeting me at the gate with the original passport. Eventually it would have been straightened out.”
“Well, a quick plane ride sounds good to me.” Cooper put up her hands and let them fall down by her side. “What do you say, boss man? Do we find a different airport and get out of here?”
Sonny looked up at Cooper, and then at Gil. He was silent for a moment.
“I’d say you and Marco need to pack up your gear and get on a plane to the States as soon as possible. This hot spot doesn’t look like it’s going to cool down any time soon.”
Marco looked at him with surprise. “And split the team? No can do.”
Cooper jumped up from the chair. “No way. No one gets left behind. We’re a team, Gil.”
And they were a tight team at that, Sonny realized. Their loyalty to each other was evident. She was the one standing in the way of their safety. Cooper had made that very clear.
“I think Gil is right,” she said. “You all need to get out of Colombia quickly. Your association with me is only going to make trouble for you.” She turned to Gil. The worried look etched on his rugged features only added to his appeal. “You, too, Gil,” she said, tears stinging the back of her eyes. The thought that he’d leave her now terrified her, but being the cause of another person’s death was something she simply couldn’t live with.
His eyes flew open and then his expression turned hard. “Are you crazy? You’ll never get out of Colombia alive on your own.”
“Gil, no bounty is worth your life,” she argued. “You should go back to the States.”
“Forget the bounty. I’m not going to leave you here to fend for yourself. How far do you think you’ll get with a baby in tow and soldiers crawling the streets?”
“There’s got to be a way, Gil. Some other way,” Cooper said.
A cry from the bedroom pulled Sonny’s attention away from the conversation.
Cooper stilled her with her hand. “I’ll take care of her. You figure something out.”
She thought about it. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what to do. If Dylan were here—”
“You already said Dylan can’t help you. I can, and I’m right here. I’m not leaving you.”
Emotion clogged her throat. She couldn’t go through this alone anymore—and Gil was saying she didn’t have to. “Please. Let me use your computer to get in touch with my father.”
Marco looked at both of them. “I don’t get it. Chances are, Dylan is here, right? Why not get his help? He must have already figured out a plan to get out of Colombia. He probably has a whole team with him.”
She shook her head. “I have no way to get in touch with Dylan. I’m not even sure my father knows where he is right now.”
Gil looked at Sonny directly. “I’m going to get you out of Colombia, Sonny. I promised you at the airport that I would get you back to the United States. And I mean to do that.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Technically, you didn’t promise anything. You never answered me.”
“Well, I’m answering now. We just have to get you home without going by air.”
“We can drive north, maybe take a plane from Panama City. I could find us a route.” Marco turned to go to the kitchen, but Gil stopped him.
“Do you really think Sanchez won’t be able to track us there?” Gil asked. “We’ll still have to contend with the borders. They’re going to check passports. It’s too risky. I’ve already jeopardized your lives enough.”
Sonny looked at Gil with surprise. “You? You can’t blame yourself for what’s happening now.”
The dark eyes that had intrigued her were full of regret. “I should have let you get on that plane.”
Yes, he should have. But they couldn’t turn back the clock. “Things would be a lot easier right now if you had,” she said quietly. “But you can’t blame yourself.”
“This is my team. I not only put their lives in danger, but now I’ve put yours—and Ellie’s—in danger, as well. It was my call.”
“But not your fault. Look, I’ve spent these last few months wondering how this became my life. My family has been caught in one tangled web after another. I’ve seen how people lay blame without really knowing the truth. Don’t do that to yourself. It only ends up making matters worse.”
“I appreciate what you’re saying but—”
“You can’t stay here, Gil,” Cooper said, breaking into the conversation. She had the baby in her arms. Ellie was awake, smiling and gumming her fist, completely unaware of the turmoil around her.
With a resolute sigh, he said, “I’m not going to. None of us are. You and Marco are going to leave today. There’s nothing tying you to Sonny and the baby. There’s no reason for you not to get on the plane at the airport without any hassle.”
“And you?” Marco said. “What are you going to do?”
He thought a minute, and then stood.
“Right now, I’m going to take a walk. I need to clear my head. I don’t want to be running scared only to find out there was nothing to run from. All we have right now is speculation.”
“And that picture,” Sonny said.
He nodded. “And the picture. In the meantime, hold off on contacting your father until we have a definite plan. No sense risking an intercept when we don’t have anything concrete to report.”
“I have to contact him at some point. He’s going to worry. All he knows is that I have Ellie. But by now he’s probably frantic not knowing what’s going on.”
Gil nodded and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Sonny asked.
“Shopping.”
Without another word, Gil walked out the door.