Fields' Guide to Abduction, - [famous ebook reader TXT] 📗

“It’s not the lipstick. It’s the bag. Would you please bring it to me?”

Jake handed me the little bag.

I pushed and prodded and turned until the hidden compartment opened. The scrap of paper fell into my hand. “Here.” I held it out to him.

“What’s that?”

“A list of Ignacio Quintero’s bank accounts with passwords.”

“What!” He snatched the bit of paper from my fingers. “How did you get this?”

“It’s a long story.” And I was so, so tired. “Can I tell you later?”

“Of course.”

“Can Consuela be in here with me? Please?”

My eyelids weighed too much. They fluttered closed before he answered

When I opened my eyes again, the light had changed.

“Miss Fields.”

I shifted my head and looked at the man sitting in the visitor’s chair. Middle-aged, non-descript, thinning hair—totally forgettable except for the intelligence gleaming in his eyes. “Who are you?”

“My name is John Brown.”

“Wow.”

“Not as colorful a name as Poppy Fields.”

“Few are.”

He nodded, ceding my point. “You’ve had quite an adventure.”

An adventure? The faces of the men I’d killed swam through my brain.

“Tell me about it.”

Ugh. I didn’t want to talk about any of it. Least of all the dead men. “Who are you, Mr. Brown?”

“Jake works for me.”

“You had him fake his death?”

He crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. “That is a complicated question.”

“No, it’s not. There are only two possible answers.”

“Then the answer is yes.”

I turned my head away.

“We had reason to believe that the Jalisco Cartel was closing in on him. He was safer dead.”

I had no answer for that.

“You spent time at Ignacio Quintero’s hacienda.”

“Yes.” My throat was dry. “I need water.”

John Brown handed me a blue plastic cup with a bendy straw.

I drank deeply.

“What did you observe?”

I returned the empty cup to him. “I need some more.”

The skin around his eyes tightened but he picked up a pitcher, refilled the cup, and returned it to me.

“Thank you.”

“About the hacienda—”

“I spent more time with Javier Diaz than I did with Ignacio.”

John Brown resumed his seat, leaning forward in the chair and resting his elbows on his knees.

“As far as I can tell Diaz acted like a CFO. I don’t think he approved of Ignacio’s plan to go into business with the Afghanis.”

“Which Afghanis?”

“The only one there was Abdul Kabir.”

A light flamed in John Brown’s eyes.

“You talked to these men?”

“Yes.”

“What did they say?”

“Not much that I could understand. I don’t speak much Spanish.” I glanced around the hospital room. “Can you bring me the dog?”

Something like annoyance flashed across John Brown’s face. The fate of a little dog wasn’t terribly important to him. “Yeah.”

“Now?”

Definitely annoyance.

“Maybe when we’re done talking.”

When I’d told him everything and had no leverage.

“Now would be better.”

We stared at each other. We could stare till next Thursday. I wasn’t saying another word until Consuela was in my arms.

The moment stretched.

And stretched.

John Brown stood, crossed the room to the door, and stuck his head into the hallway. “Miss Fields wants the dog.”

Someone said something—too low for me to hear.

“I don’t care. Get her the dog.”

John Brown resumed his seat. “The dog will be here in a minute.”

“I’ll just wait till she arrives.”

“Miss Fields, it seems as if you don’t trust me.”

“You work with Merida.”

He simply looked at me. Not confirming. Not denying.

“You had the power to return my passport, to get me out of Mexico, and you didn’t.”

“The situation was complicated.”

“I think it’s pretty simple. You deliberately put a U.S. citizen at risk.”

“I’m sorry you see it that way.”

“Is there another way to see it?”

The door pushed open and a pale-faced man in a tan suit carried a small crate into my room. Inside an animal snarled. He put the crate down on the edge of my bed and backed away.

“Consuela.” I opened the crate’s gate and the little dog burst out, spinning and baring her teeth at the men in the room. “Consuela.” I held open my arms.

She looked back at me, obviously torn between coming to me or ripping out the men’s throats.

I pursed my lips and made a kissing sound.

With a curl of her lip that promised eternal pain to those who crossed her, Consuela leapt into my arms and licked my chin.

I dropped a kiss on her little head. “Hello, brave girl.”

John Brown cleared his throat.

“Abdul Kabir was there to negotiate moving Afghani heroin through Mexico. The Sinaloans planned on taking over Nuevo Laredo. My sense was that Javier was against the deal.”

“Why?”

“I think he’s responsible for the attack on the hacienda. I know he killed Ignacio.”

The man in the chair rubbed his chin. “How do you know?”

“I was around the corner when he pulled the trigger.” I stroked Consuela’s fur.

John Brown rubbed his chin. “You’re sure about that?”

“I saw it with my own eyes.”

“So Javier Diaz has taken over the Sinaloan Cartel.” He leaned back. “What else?”

“What else do you want to know?”

“You tell me.”

“I think Venti was Javier’s pet project. I’m guessing he saw the Sinaloans with an exclusive distributorship for the hottest club drug around and thought there was more money there than in diluting the production stream for heroin with Afghani product.”

“Oh?” John Brown’s left eyebrow lifted and he tilted his chin. An indulgent smile played across his mouth. Clearly the man didn’t agree with my assessment. “That’s not what our intelligence suggests. Any proof of that?”

“No. None.” But I knew it was true. I looked down at Consuela, who was snuggled in my arms.

“How did you get those account numbers?”

I looked up. “I found them in Ignacio’s private office and copied them down.”

“We’ve seized more than two hundred million dollars. Your country owes you a great debt, Miss Fields. What can we do to thank you?”

“I’d like to go home.”