Samantha watched as terror filled Diego’s eyes when he swung around and saw them. Agent Brown let go of her waist, pulled out a gun and pressed it into Samantha’s side. The pressure made it hard to take in a breath.
Diego didn’t have a gun anymore. He must have left it at the office.
“Both of you had better come with me or she gets it here, right now.”
Diego nodded.
“Walk in front of me. Keep your hands where I can see them. If you run, I’ll shoot you and then shoot her.”
She knew Diego wouldn’t run. He wouldn’t leave her to die. She only hoped he was coming up with a plan.
She could hear noises from the people in the park in the distance. Agent Brown must be taking them to a more secluded spot to kill them.
Her mind raced as she stared at Diego’s back. There were two of them and only one of him, but he had the gun. They walked across a bridge. The sounds of the people in the park faded.
Agent Brown took his hand off her mouth and poked the gun in her back. “Keep going.”
She caught a slight quick hand movement from Diego, an open palm. He was signaling for her to stop.
She planted her feet.
“Move,” Agent Brown said.
The seconds stretched on for an eternity.
Come on, Diego. What do you have in mind?
Diego swung around and leaped through the air. Agent Brown aimed the gun at Diego. This was her chance. Head down, she crashed into their assailant like a battering ram. The shot went wild. Agent Brown fell backward into the stream, and she fell on top of him. The gun had a silencer on it. No one would be alerted by the sound.
Hands wrapped around her neck, and her vision filled with the angry red face of Agent Brown. Water soaked through her clothes as she twisted in an effort to get away. She struggled for breath, clawing at the agent’s hands. Diego’s face loomed behind Agent Brown’s before striking the man on the back of his head. He let go of Samantha and dived after Diego. The two men landed blows on each other’s faces and then Diego punched the other man hard in the stomach. Agent Brown doubled over.
“Run,” Diego yelled.
She took off across the bridge, feet echoing on the wooden planks. She sprinted down the path, glancing over her shoulder. No Diego.
She ran faster. The scattered sounds of people enjoying the park grew louder. She scanned the faces as she headed toward the parking lot, hoping to spot the agents who were supposed to pick them up, but she couldn’t find anyone who looked the part. She headed toward the car.
Diego had had the foresight to leave the keys in the ignition or maybe it was habit. In any case, she started the car up and pulled out of the space, waiting for Diego to emerge from the trees.
A few minutes passed. Tension knotted through her chest when she did not see him or Agent Brown.
She couldn’t leave, not without Diego. A man honked his horn and she pulled forward. When she looked up, Agent Brown emerged from the trees.
Her breath caught as the agony seemed to coil around her stomach at the thought that he’d managed to kill her protector. Not Diego. Please no. The agent headed straight toward her car.
She pushed away the weight of sorrow that threatened to paralyze her and shifted into Drive. The passenger’s-side door swung open. Diego jumped in beside her. Sweat dripped off his forehead and his clothes were wet.
Her face must have registered shock.
“What?” he said, offering her his sideways grin.
She opened her mouth to speak.
He pointed through the windshield at Agent Brown closing in on them. “Better hit it.”
She pressed the gas and sped through the parking lot. Agent Brown arrived at his car just as she pulled out onto the street.
She stared straight ahead. “What happened? I thought for sure—”
“What? That he took me out? Come on. I’m like a cat,” Diego said.
She was suddenly very angry with him. “Well, you’re on your tenth life.”
“Are you saying you would have missed me?” His tone was teasing despite the tension of the moment.
She shook her head. How could he be so cavalier? He must have nearly lost his life. “How did you get away?”
“I was sneaky in how I got back to the car.”
She checked her rearview mirror. “He’ll follow us, won’t he?” She sped through the city street, taking an on-ramp.
His tone became serious as he looked over his shoulder. “The best thing to do is get into some heavy traffic. He won’t be able to keep track of us.” She checked the exit number coming up. Emerson Street should be busy this time of day.
Tension invaded her arms as she gripped the wheel and slipped into the long lines of vehicles. She wished Diego were doing the driving. He was so much better at this. Diego had bruises on his neck. “So did he almost kill you?”
“You don’t need to know.”
Up ahead the traffic light turned red. The cars were bumper to bumper.
“Talk to me about something so I won’t be so nervous,” she said.
He pulled out his phone. “I need to get rid of this, and we need to ditch the car as soon as possible.”
This kind of talk was only going to make her more nervous. The light turned green. “Talk to me about something happy.”
He thought for a moment. “I’ll sing you the song my mother used to sing to me for bedtime when I was a boy. She sang to me and then we said prayers together every night until I was ten.”
She tried to picture Diego as a little boy. “I’d like to hear it.”
“It’s in Spanish,” he said.
“Sing it anyway.”
She pressed the gas, moving with the flow of traffic. Diego sang in a warm tenor voice. Her father had been a tenor. She had fond memories of him singing in church. The song was light and bouncy.
She relaxed a little.
Diego stopped singing. Even though she didn’t speak Spanish, she knew the song had cut off rather than come to an end.
“He’s behind us, isn’t he?” She couldn’t purge her voice of the terror that invaded every cell of her body. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You’re doing fine.” His voice was so calm. “Just keep moving. Stay in heavy traffic. He won’t try anything with witnesses around, and he has to focus on his driving.”
She checked the rearview mirror, but didn’t see the dark sedan. “Where is he?”
“About three cars behind us in the same lane,” Diego said.
The row of cars jerked forward. She pressed the gas. Her heart beat against her rib cage and sweat trickled down the back of her neck.
Diego’s voice remained monotone, which helped her stay focused. “There’s an exit coming up. You should take it, but you need to switch lanes very quickly and right before the exit, so he doesn’t see it coming.”
She saw the exit sign. She had a quarter mile to get through three lanes of traffic. “There’s a hole in the lane next to me.”
“Don’t take it. He’ll figure out what your plan is if you move over too soon. If you miss this exit, we’ll catch the next one. The important thing is you need to surprise him.”
She took in a breath, studied the gaps in the stream of cars and calculated the fastest way to the exit. She waited until they were within seconds of the off-ramp before slipping into the next lane of traffic and then the second.
“Did he follow us?”
Diego craned his neck and checked the rearview mirror. “Looks like we’re clear.”
Joy surged through her for what she’d been able to accomplish. “Well, how about that.”
“Yeah, how about that, chica.” Diego grinned and shook his head.
“So, what do we do now?” She hoped he had some kind of plan. They seemed safe at the moment—but the past few days had taught her that safety didn’t tend to last very long.
* * *
That was a question that had plagued him ever since he realized Agent Brown was involved. “We can’t go back to the agency. Not until I know who else is working with Agent Brown.”
He checked his mirrors and studied the street in front of him. If this was about Diego’s work to undermine the gang’s drug network, then Agent Brown had a whole army at his disposal, in addition to whatever agents he’d been able to turn. “There is only one agent I would trust with my life.”
She sat back in the seat. “Who’s that?”
“Gabriel Tovar came up on the street with me. He’s the one who talked me into being a CI after he joined the Bureau.”
“The Bureau. You mean the FBI? That’s who you work for? We should call him,” she said.
He didn’t mind letting it slip that his work was with the FBI. She’d probably figured most of it out anyway. “Gabriel’s out of the country dealing with an international situation.”
She took a moment to respond. “Can’t we just go to the local cops?”
“Our story wouldn’t sound believable. There’d be too many holes. I can’t tell them everything—a lot of my work is still classified. I’m not allowed to tell anyone without special clearance until criminal proceedings are complete.” He knew he could trust her with the whole story, but it wasn’t his call to make.
“So we wait until your friend Gabriel gets back?” she asked, her words weighted with frustration.
“We can’t wait that long. It’s not just Agent Brown we have to worry about. Word has probably gone out to look for a dark-haired man and blonde woman.” At least he knew the neighborhoods where the Piru gang had most of their activity. He could at least avoid that pitfall.
“We should change how we look, then,” she said.
“For someone who grew up in the burbs, you have pretty good survival skills.”
“You’d be surprised. It’s not all mansions and tea parties,” she said, offering him a coy smile.
She drove around until she located a neighborhood drugstore.
As always, when they got out of the car, he studied each person on the street. The kids loitering outside the coffee shop, the older couple buying a newspaper and the twenty-something man standing off by himself.
The gang members, drug dealers and rogue agents couldn’t be everywhere at once. If anything, he should watch the cars that parked and who got out of them.
“We need to ditch this car, too,” he said. “Even if it doesn’t have some sort of tracking device, it’s so obviously an agency car.” He threw his phone in the garbage can.
They walked the aisle of the drugstore together, grabbing two hats and two new hoodies and a T-shirt for Samantha. After they made their purchases, they walked to a park that was ten minutes from the drugstore.
“If you want, you can change in there.” He pointed toward the restroom. “I don’t think anyone will bother you. I’ll keep watch outside.”
She nodded, her eyes filled with trust. “Thanks for sticking with me.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” He touched her cheek lightly.
Her expression softened. He wanted to kiss her. He leaned a little closer. She cast her gaze downward and he knew he’d been out of line.
“Diego, what are we going to do next until your friend gets back? How does this play out?”
Upset with himself for trying to kiss her, he took a step back. He knew they needed help, but it had to be a source he could trust. “We need to borrow a car. Is there anyone from your old neighborhood who could loan us one?”
“No. Maybe somebody from Evergreen Catering could.” The question seemed to upset her. She turned and disappeared into the bathroom.
Diego stood by the door, watching the activity in the park. A mom with a little girl eyed him suspiciously before entering the bathroom.
If he wasn’t concerned about keeping Samantha safe, he’d go back to the neighborhoods he’d been working and see if he could find out the connection back to the Bureau from that angle. Diego took off the hoodie he’d bought on the boat, tossed it in the trash can and put on the new lime green one he’d grabbed at the drugstore. Now he wished he’d thought to get a disposable phone, as well.
As he waited for Samantha and watched the sun slowly setting, he was uncertain of what their next move was. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had to keep Samantha safe. They might come from different worlds, but she’d become important to him, all the same.
With nowhere else to turn, all he could think to do was pray.
God, please don’t let me let her down.