Patience was not his friend. Ridge drummed his fingertips against the edge of the steering wheel, and bit back the urge to scream. Yell at the top of his lungs, just to relieve the built up stress in the pit of his stomach. Felt like Mount Vesuvius about to erupt any second.
Somewhere deep in the woods, the two trucks wended their way from south to north, cutting across Maggie’s land. Unless they stopped, unloaded their contraband and scattered it or tossed it away, the DEA had them. So, what was taking so bloody long?
Rolling down the window a small amount, he listened intently, hoping to hear the whine of a pickup engine. Something, anything. The phone remained eerily silent, except for the breathing of the two men on the other end, who hadn’t remarked on anything for the last few interminable minutes.
“Rivera’s car just turned into Ms. White’s property, following the same path as the trucks.” Abernathy’s tone sounded almost gleeful. “We’re going to take him down with the shipment, and cut off Escondido’s right arm with Rivera’s arrest. Next best thing to catching Escondido himself red-handed.”
Ridge studied the woods intently, as well as watching the roadway, glancing both left and right, in case the trucks came out further away from his stakeout position. He knew his other teammates watched various spots along the road too. They weren’t getting away this time.
“It shouldn’t be taking this long to drive across the woods. Something’s wrong.” The churning in his gut intensified, and he prayed he wouldn’t end up with an ulcer before the takedown took place.
“Ridge, I’m sending the other two teams on the south side to meet up with you. Simmons is hanging back, but called in and reported they’re almost to the end of Ms. White’s property. You should spot them in the next couple of minutes. Roland and I are behind the sedan. Hopefully they’re far enough behind Simmons they don’t spot him or double back. I want Rivera caught.”
“Team one, got it.”
“Team two, we’re ready.”
“Team three, I’m in place,” Ridge answered.
A tense minute pass, then another. Finally, Ridge spotted two lights about fifty feet away, moving closer. A spark of adrenaline raced through him, and he flexed his hands on the wheel. A dark-colored pickup pulled past the tree line and onto the roadway, heading east. Exactly as he’d anticipated, because east meant getting onto the interstate so the truck could head north. These little side trips through Shiloh Springs County and Burnet County had started when the Highway Patrol and local police had cracked down heavily on monitoring the interstate and I-45 through the Hill Country. Even though it was out of the way, and not a straight shot through the state, taking these circuitous backroads and small-town detours kept them off the official radar, literally and figuratively.
Ridge let the truck drive past, his intent focus on the second truck which was only a minute behind the first, headlights illuminating the night. About thirty seconds later, a car emerged from the darkness, and he spotted two men seated in the front.
“Daniel, you still have eyes on Rivera?”
“Affirmative. Tell me you’ve got the trucks.” Excitement laced his boss’s words, and Ridge grinned, feeling his own level of anticipation spiking upward.
“They just pulled onto the street, with Simmons right behind. If you’ve got Rivera’s car, we’re busting these jackasses.”
“Go!”
Flicking on his headlights, Ridge watched the night sky light up with flashing lights as his team boxed in the pickups, with assistance from the south team, who’d shown up right in the nick of time. The drivers didn’t even make a run for it, surrendering without even a whimper. Seeing the drivers in handcuffs, Ridge backed his truck across the spot where they’d emerged from Maggie’s land, blocking the path.
In less than a minute, a car came barreling toward him at a high speed. Well, as high a speed as a muddy, rutted path allowed. The female driver slammed on her brakes, the car fishtailing and swerving before the front end slammed into a tree. Ridge spotted the talc rising inside as the airbags deployed, and flung his door open when he spotted the passenger door being flung wide, and Rivera struggling to get loose from his seatbelt.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Ridge opened his door, jumped from the truck, racing across the dead branches and puddles of muddy water. He grabbed Rivera around the throat in a chokehold. He heard the muffled cries of the driver, so at least she was alive. He’d deal with her once he got Rivera secured.
Loosening his hold enough to allow the other man to breathe, he frogmarched Rivera over to his car and none too gently slammed him against the hood. Reaching on his belt, he grabbed his handcuffs and cuffed Rivera’s hands behind his back. “Diego Rivera, you are under arrest.”
Rivera spat a slew of curses, both English and Spanish, at Ridge, swearing vengeance once he was free. Right, like that was gonna happen.
Daniel’s car pulled up behind the wrecked sedan, headlights bringing into focus the woman behind the wheel, and Ridge’s jaw dropped. Because he recognized her. Aw, man, this was going to break Maggie’s heart.
It was Felicia, Maggie’s housekeeper, confidant, and best friend.
Roland wrenched open the driver’s door, and pulled Felicia free from the wreckage, and she burst into tears. While Roland dealt with the sobbing woman, Daniel headed over to Ridge, who kept a hard grip around Diego Rivera’s arm. No way was he letting him get away.
“You read him his rights?”
Ridge grinned and shook his head. “Nope. Thought I give you that privilege.”
Daniel bared his teeth in a grin that reminded Ridge of a piranha, all sharp and pointy and dangerous. “Diego Rivera, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.”
Ridge half-listened as Rivera was read his rights, his mind still reeling over the fact Felicia was involved with Diego Rivera. It didn’t fit with what little he knew about her, but then almost all of his information about the pretty blonde was secondhand that he’d learned from Maggie.
“Can you deal with him?” he asked Daniel, jerking his head toward Rivera. “I’d like a word with the woman who was with him.”
“You know her?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a couple of questions, off the record.”
Daniel sighed. “Like that, is it?”
“No. I barely know her. She’s Maggie’s friend.”
“Oh. Oh! You’re thinking she’s the one who told Rivera’s people about how to cross the property, gave them access. That tracks. Make sure you or Abernathy read her Miranda rights first though, even if you speak off the record. Gotta do this by the book. I don’t want anything that might give this piece of garbage a loophole to slither through.”
“I only want to ask her a couple of questions, boss.”
“Go for it.”
Ridge glanced left, watching as local law enforcement pulled up to the scene, having been called to assist. No jurisdictional toes needed to be stepped on here. He waved to his brother, Rafe, who was climbing out of his truck. Rafe would be full of questions, and he’d fill him in later, but right now he needed to talk to Felicia before they hauled her away.
“Abernathy.”
“Boudreau. Good job back there.”
“Thanks. Have you read the young lady her rights?” He nodded toward Felicia, who sat swiveled around in the driver’s seat softly crying, cradling her left arm against her chest, her right wrist handcuffed to the steering wheel. Her long blonde hair was plastered against her head, the track of tears streaked down her powder-encrusted face. Maggie would have had a heart attack if she could see her friend looking like this, terrified and defeated. Rafe, on the other hand, couldn’t afford to be sympathetic or lenient.
“She’s been mirandized, and I’ve made her as comfortable as I can. EMTs are on the way. How’s Rivera, he hurt?”
“Doesn’t seem to be. Daniel read him his rights, but I doubt he’s gonna spill his guts. Bet he lawyers up the second he hits the station.”
Ridge glanced at Felicia again, looking so forlorn, her shoulders hunched and curled inward. Taking a couple of steps forward, he knelt in front of her.
“Felicia?”
Her gaze rose slowly and met his. Recognition sparked in her eyes. Opening and closing her mouth a couple of times, she gave a mocking laugh. “Guess I really screwed up.”
“Guess you did. Roland tells me he read you your rights. Do you understand them? I’d like to ask you a question. Off the record,” he added, because what he wanted to know didn’t really affect the case; they’d got her dead to rights.
Felicia studied him intently, her eyes blinking slowly, before she finally nodded. “Go ahead, ask away.”
“Why would you do this to Maggie? You’re her friend. She trusted you.”
“Because I’m a fool. I let myself be swept away with Diego’s charm. He treated me like a princess. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue who he was, not at first. When I figured it out, it was too late, I was in love with him. Deeply, madly, over-the-moon in love.”
“Were you the one who showed him how to cross through Maggie’s land? How to avoid the security system?”
Felicia nodded and choked back a sob. “I know you won’t understand. When he first asked, I said no. I didn’t want to hurt Maggie. She’s my best friend. But he kept asking, kept pushing. He even tried seducing me into doing it. Finally, he offered me money. A lot of money. Enough for me to pay for my classes at the college and quit working one of the part-time jobs I needed just to keep a roof over my head. You’re a Boudreau, you don’t know what it’s like to have nothing, to have to scrape and plead for every scrap.”
Ridge didn’t even attempt to argue the point. It sounded like she was trying to justify her actions, explain away why she’d betrayed years of friendship from a woman who’d have given Felicia anything she wanted if she’d known. Instead, she’d betrayed her in a heinous way, one sure to make Maggie feel as if the relationship she’d built with the other woman meant less than the dirt she ground beneath her heel. Being poor didn’t excuse what Felicia had done, probably why she was trying to justify her actions, because the guilt rode her hard.
“I never wanted to stay in this town, but I was stuck. Don’t you see—until Diego promised me enough money, I’d never have to scoop another ice cream cone or clean somebody else’s house again. All I had to do was turn off the security system for a small portion of Maggie’s land.” She gave a defiant shrug, though she stared past his shoulder, refusing to meet his eyes. “I wasn’t hurting anybody. All they did was drive through a shortcut. There’s nothing illegal about that.” The heated glare she shot him didn’t mitigate the guilt he read in her expression. Not one little bit.
“Actually, it was illegal. It’s called trespassing. What about Maggie? Did she know about your deal with Diego?”
“Ha! That’s rich! Maggie’s so clean, she squeaks. She’d never look the other way. I swear, she doesn’t know anything about what I did. Leave her out of this. Throw the book at me, I don’t care anymore, but Maggie didn’t know anything.”
“Thank you, Felicia. The EMTs are here. They’ll take a look at your arm and get you fixed up.” He turned and started to walk away, when she called out to him.
“Ridge? Tell her…tell Maggie I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt her.”
Without another word, he maneuvered his way past the approaching paramedics, and walked over to Rafe, who stood talking with Daniel while a belligerent Diego Rivera cursed a blue streak and demanded his lawyer. He chuckled softly when Rafe told Rivera to shut up, he could talk to his lawyer when they got to the sheriff’s station.
“Hey, bro. Looks like you missed all the excitement.”
Rafe gave him an assessing look. “You got to have all the fun.”
“That’s because I did all the heavy lifting. You’re welcome to the cleanup detail.”
“Tessa’s not gonna be happy. We had a date tonight.”
Ridge chuckled. “In this storm? Momma wouldn’t have let either of you leave the house. You’d have been stuck at the Big House watching movies or something with the rest of the family.”
“That was the plan anyway, bro. Didn’t you get the invite?”
“I’ve been kind of busy, tracking drug shipments and bringing down Mexican cartels. I’m sure Momma and Dad will understand.”
Rafe slapped him on the back, hard enough Ridge stumbled a step. “Lucky me. Since you technically made the bust in my county, I get to deal with all the paperwork. Not to mention the moaning and complaining from this dude. Couldn’t you have managed to bust these jerks in Burnet?”
“It is what it is, bro. I’ll meet you at your office. I need to make a couple of calls first.”
“Don’t take too long. Your boss seems anxious to wrap things up.” Rafe looked his brother up and down, his eyes glinting in the flashing strobe lights from the police cars, and Ridge knew his big brother wasn’t thrilled he’d kept things from him. “I think you and I have some talking to do, mostly about why you didn’t tell me about your side job. The one with the DEA. Might’ve been nice to have a head’s up that my brother was working with the government, instead of finding out about it like this.”
Ridge shrugged and gave him a sheepish grin. “What can I say, bro? I was undercover, my identity a secret. Do you know how hard it was, working a case in my own backyard, and not being able to tell anybody? Well, except Shiloh, because I can’t hide anything from my twin. Dude’s like a human lie detector; he had the truth out of me in under five minutes. I swore him to secrecy, which wasn’t easy, because he doesn’t like to keep anything from Momma. Oh, yeah, Antonio knows because we had a case that overlapped. Otherwise, he’d still be in the dark too.”
“Go make your calls. I’ll see you at the station.”
Ridge watched as the paramedics led Felicia out of the woods, Roland sticking to her side like glue. It was funny how the meek pencil pusher came alive under the pressure of the takedown. He’d been all business, dealing with the aftermath, and with Felicia and her injury. Guess there was more to the guy than Ridge first thought.
As the paramedics loaded Felicia in the back of their unit, Roland motioned to Ridge, who jogged over. “I’m going to the hospital with her. They want to check for other injuries, but they’re pretty sure her wrist is shattered. I suspect Daniel will have Diego Rivera checked out, since he was involved in the accident too.”
“Probably. Good job, Abernathy…Roland.”
“Thanks. It was more intense than I anticipated, being out in the field.”
“It has its moments. Gotta go. I’ll meet you at the Shiloh County Sheriff’s Office later.”
“Meet you there.” He turned to go and Ridge remembered something he needed to tell him.
“Hey, could you give Daniel a message? Tell him I heard back from Gizmo about the drone we sent him. Turns out it had nothing to do with our case. The owner of the property on the other side of Maggie got it from a friend, who’s working a project with drone technology. Apparently, the neighbor is friends with the developer, who gave him a working prototype of his design. The neighbor’s kid was fooling around with it, and flew it over Maggie’s land.”
“Huh. All that worry was over a toy?”
Ridge grinned at Abernathy’s disgruntled expression. “It’s a little more complex than a toy, but, yeah, turns out it was a dead end. Gizmo thinks the developer is on to something, has some cool technology he’s incorporated, but overall, it has nothing to do with the DEA’s case.”
“I’ll let him know.”
“Thanks.”
Roland nodded and climbed into the back of the ambulance, which sped away, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Ridge drew in a deep breath and lifted his face to the sky. The rain had devolved to a soft sprinkle, the torrential downpour dissipating and he saw the moon peeking out from behind a cloud.
Climbing into the cab of his pickup, Ridge dialed Shiloh’s number. He answered after the second ring, sounding breathless.
“Hey, man, how’d it go?’
“First, how’s Maggie? Everything okay there? Did she give you any trouble?” Ridge spat out the questions in rapid-fire succession, barely pausing for breath.
“She’s fine. We had a bit of excitement earlier, but I’ll let her tell you about it. Did you get the bad guys?”
“That and more. It’s been one heck of a night, and it’s not over yet. I’m going to have to head to the sheriff’s department, and get everybody booked and all the paperwork done. But at least we’ve got proof that Maggie wasn’t involved.”
Ridge heard his brother mutter something under his breath. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Shiloh answered. “Maggie gave me a room for the night, so I’ll keep an eye on things, so don’t worry.”
“Good. We should have everything wrapped up by morning. I do have to talk with her about something we found out, but it can wait until I get home.”
Home? How’d I let that slip out? And when did I start thinking about Maggie’s house as home?
“No worries. I’ve got it covered. Bro, I’ve gotta say, I really like your Maggie. She is one special lady.”
Ridge felt a gentle squeeze in his chest. His brother’s opinion meant everything. Knowing Shiloh liked Maggie filled a void inside he hadn’t even known was there. His fervent wish was Maggie felt the same way he did, because he loved her with everything in him.
“She’s one of a kind.” Even as he spoke, he noticed Daniel handing Diego Rivera off to Dusty, who assisted him into the back of his squad car. Time to get his head back into the job. The faster they got things wrapped up, the faster he could get back to Maggie.
“Gotta go. Tell Maggie I’ll see her in the morning.”
“You’ve got it. I’ll see you in the a.m., dude.”
Ridge hung up, and started the car. A thrill of accomplishment swept through him, knowing they’d put a big dent in the Escondido cartel. It wasn’t the end, not by a long shot. But at least for now, one of the big dogs had been taken down, and they’d taken a couple of truckloads of illegals off the streets.
It was over.