Ribs aching, he slowed to a walk. There was no point in running himself to death. He wasn’t going to get her out of his mind any time soon.
He’d read her first-person account of her ordeal this morning, catching it online just before he’d left home. He couldn’t imagine that it had been easy to write, her compassion for the Mexican journalists and the terror she’d felt evident in every word. He’d gotten a chuckle out of her alias for him, as, no doubt, she’d intended. But what had struck him as he’d read the article was her writing. She wasn’t just a good reporter. She was a talented writer, her words describing her experience in a way that put the reader there beside her.
Of course, Zachhadbeen beside her for most of it, and reading the article had brought him to the rather amazing realization that their trek through the desert had been the most fun he’d had in a very long time.
You are sick in the head, frogman.
He was about a block from his apartment when his cell buzzed. He drew it out and saw that the number was restricted. “McBride.”
“It’s Farrell calling from EPIC.”
Farrell was a DUSM who spent his time tracking down fugitives from the United States who’d crossed into Mexico. What would make him call?
“Go ahead.”
“Word on the street is that men working for Cárdenas have crossed the line and are on their way to Denver to take out that pretty reporter of yours. I thought you’d want to know.”
Cárdenas had never sent his men more than a few miles across the border, and he’d never killed anyone who wasn’t involved with the narco trade. For him to kill a U.S. national deep inside the United States . . .
“Are you sure about this?”
“Heard it myself from a Juarense cop today. Watch your back.”
The line went dead.
“Son of a bitch!” Zach didn’t have Natalie’s cell phone number programmed into his phone or tucked away in his jock. He dialed information. “I need the cell number for Natalie Benoit in Denver, Colorado. It’s an emergency.”
He headed back toward his apartment at a jog.
NATALIE ORGANIZED THE stacks of paper she’d printed out, put them in paper clips, and tucked them into a file folder. Inspired, she’d decided to download everything she could about the Whitcomb Academy that had to do with money—its major donors, its major corporate sponsors, its board of directors, its board of trustees. Then she’d printed a list of everyone who’d contributed to the sheriff’s and DA’s last reelection campaigns.
She would spend tonight reading through what she had. If she found nothing suspicious and if the forensic accountant found nothing amiss, she would drop the story tomorrow and pick up something else.
Natalie made her way down to the front entrance. Gil Cormack, the paper’s security guard, had gone for the day. She’d thought about asking him to walk her to her car, but she’d stayed a bit too late. She stopped and scanned the parking lot, but didn’t see anyone. Then she opened the door and stepped outside.
The wind nearly blew the files she was carrying out of her grasp. Overhead the sky was gray, thunder coming from the west. From the looks of it, they were about to get a downpour.
She had almost reached her car when she heard the faint ring of her cell phone. She fished it out of her purse, struggling to hold on to her files. “Natalie Benoit.”
“Natalie, it’s Zach. I need . . . call . . . Hunter and wait . . .”
“Zach?” She hadn’t been expecting a call from him, and all at once hopes that she’d hidden away came rushing back. “Can you speak a bit louder? I’m in the parking lot on the way to my car, and it’s really windy here.”
“I said . . . back . . . them there. Listen . . . it now.”
“Hold on a minute. I’m at my car now. Let me just get inside. Then I’ll be able to hear you.” She stuck her key in the lock, just as a gust came and tossed the manila folder with its carefully organized pages into the wind. “Oh, damn it. Hang on, Zach.”
She bent down, picked up paper as fast as she could, gusts and eddies swirling some pages under the car next to hers, tossing others across the row. She ran, bending down, purse in one hand, cell phone tucked between her jaw and ear, Zach still shouting something to her.
“Marc and . . . wait inside!”
Wait inside?
“Wait inside? Inside my car?” She’d just gone around to the other side of the car next to hers, when a big gust of wind blew the door of her car shut.
Her car exploded.
She saw the fireball, felt the heat, felt herself falling backward.