Seventy-Nine

Cofre del Tesoro, Colombia
October 2012

Lydia was right. He needed to get out of here.

It’d been nearly three weeks since his altercation with Estefan, and he still couldn’t stop thinking about it. What he’d said. What he’d done.

His only regret is that he hadn’t sliced that little bastard ear to ear and dropped him into the ocean. Estefan hadn’t given him the chance; he’d left that night—taking one of the boats docked on the beach—and hadn’t returned.

As soon as he’d heard the boat pull away from the dock, Michael made his way to the room where he’d last seen Lydia to find her gone. He’d searched the house from top to bottom—every room behind every locked door—with the same results.

Wherever Estefan had gone, he’d taken Lydia with him.

Michael dropped the book he’d taken from the library onto the floor and stood, making his way to his little window, looking out across the walled compound to the sea beyond it. It was late—in the small hours just before sunrise—and he couldn’t sleep. He found the satellite phone he kept hidden and dialed the only number he knew by heart, not caring that it was too late to call her. He needed to hear her voice. To tell her he was finally coming home.

He stared out the window, listening to the long distance hiss between rings. He wasn’t really worried that Frankie wasn’t answering—it was barely three a.m. her time, and a Monday, so that meant she’d worked a dinner shift at the diner the night before. She’d probably gotten home late and stayed up until God knew when, studying or doing homework. He hung up without leaving a voicemail, tossing the phone on the bed.

Lydia was gone, but Christina was still here.

He’d made her a promise, one that until now, had been easy enough to keep. He’d promised to stay. To take care of her. She wouldn’t understand and she’d be hurt, but there was nothing he could do, was there? He wasn’t her father. He wasn’t anyone. Just some merc her father hired to watch over her.

The phone rang quietly, its volume turned down, and he snatched it up, instantly recognizing the number on the display screen.

“Hey, kiddo. I didn’t mean to wake you up—”

“Who is this?”

The voice on the other end didn’t belong to Frankie, but he recognized it. His Aunt Gina. He almost hung up, silently cursing his sister’s carelessness at leaving the phone where their aunt could find it.

“Please … who is this? Do you know where she is?” his aunt sobbed into the phone, not so much desperate as hysterical. “I’ll give you anything you want, just—please let her come home.”

The level ground beneath his feet shifted, tilting him forward, banging his forehead against the glass he stared through. “Gina. What are you saying? Where’s Frankie? What’s happening?”

His aunt’s sobbing quietly into something that sounded like humming, the line between them crackling. “Mikey.” The moment she said it, he knew. She never called him that—not ever.

“Oh no. No, Gina. Don’t say it. Don’t you fucking—”

“Mikey, you’ve got to come home. Frankie is missing,” she said.

Frankie is missing.

“How long?” She was crying again so he yelled, determined to be heard over the keening sobs that vibrated against his ear. “Damn it, Gina, how long?”

“A week. She didn’t come home from work last Friday night and I thought maybe …” Her words dissolved into another round of sobs. “I thought—”

“I’m coming. Do you hear me? I’m coming.”

A soft breath, like a relieved sigh. “Hurry.”

And then she was gone.

He held the phone, staring at it for what felt like hours. It took him a few minutes to figure out what he hadn’t been able to place before. His aunt hadn’t sounded surprised to hear the voice of her supposedly dead nephew. She knew he was alive. For a moment he allowed himself to believe that it was a trap. That DHS or the CIA or whoever the fuck was looking for him these days had figured out that he’d been in contact with Frankie, and they were using her to lure him home.

It was possible. His Aunt Gina had never been his biggest fan. She’d do just about anything if she thought it meant keeping Frankie safe. He allowed himself to believe it. Let relief wash over him … but only for a moment.

She’d been frantic, teetering on the edge of hysteria. There was no faking that kind of emotion.

Questions like how and how long didn’t matter. Not now.

Michael dropped the phone in his pocket and reached under the bed to pull out his duffle. Yanking drawers open, he threw his clothes inside, wadding and stuffing as fast as he could. Rifling through the books he kept on his shelf, he pulled out a small fortune in cash and a clean passport, tucking both into his boot. Buying his way onto a container ship or smuggling outfit would take time he didn’t have. He’d have to fly direct. That meant international airports. Customs. Almost certain capture. But it didn’t matter; he still had to try.

Home. He needed to get home. To Frankie. He needed—

The little window he’d been staring out of only minutes before started to rattle softly in its frame. He didn’t have to look to understand what it meant. He imagined the modified Black Hawk lowering itself onto the pad, signaling the last thing he needed right now.

Alberto Reyes had returned.