“Sorry, don’t have it.” Leanna shrugged. “Scabby took it. They wanted to leave me stranded, and when El Bardo showed up, they let him take me.”
“They could have been working together,” Axe said. “Look, we don’t know who’s after you or what they want, so the best thing to do is to disable all the phones here and not turn them on again.”
“W-why?”
“This town is the last stop before the border. The coyotes force everyone to throw away their phones. They don’t want Google tracking the route they take.”
“How will I call my mother?” Leanna asked. “Can’t I borrow your phone to call her?”
“I have an extra burner phone.” He reached into the glove compartment and gave it to her.
While she called, he meandered to the plaza near the area where the ambulance and police cars had been and put the truck in neutral. He stopped in front of a money exchange store and a pawn shop where he turned off his phone and removed the SIM card. This way, if his father tracked him, he’d think his last stop was the border.
Leanna’s conversation with her mother was as brief and vague as his was. No doubt, her mother told her that her father was coming to rescue her.
Axe couldn’t let her father meet up with them, because his father saw this as an opportunity to take out Tomas. If Axe had been in the family business, he would have been ordered to take him out—but Axe had never shot a man before, and his father had miraculously acceded to his mother’s dying wishes that none of his children were forced into criminal activities.
His father would send someone lethal—that much Axe knew, and there wasn’t a thing he could do to stop it.
“You can let me out here,” Leanna said. “And I get to keep the burner.”
“It’s not safe. Not here,” Axe said. “The cartels come out shooting after the sun sets.”
“Then you’re letting me go as soon as it’s safe,” Leanna said.
“Look, I know you don’t trust me, but I fucked up last night. Someone got the jump on me, and I lost you.” It was like pulling all his hair out to admit he’d screwed up. “I was supposed to protect you, and I failed.”
“You’re not a professional,” Leanna said. “I’m glad you came and got me, but don’t assume we’re sticking together.”
“We have to,” Axe said. “Someone killed your cousins, and they could be after you.”
“How do I know it’s not you?” She flung her hair back and glared at him with red-rimmed eyes. “You hired El Bardo, and look what happened. He kidnapped me. Do you know what he said to me?”
“You can’t believe a word out of his mouth,” Axe said. “He was an informant, but somehow, he decided to play his own game.”
“He said I was the target. That you didn’t need Carmelita when you had me.”
“What do you mean, I don’t need Carmelita?” Axe jerked the wheel to keep from hitting a dog. “We need to go back to Monterrey and keep looking for her. With Ana and Eduardo dead, she’s in grave danger.”
“I’ll let my father handle it,” Leanna said. “We might get in the way and screw this up worse. Do you have my passport and ID card? Because I want you to drop me off at a port of entry.”
“Whoever jumped me took your passport and ID. They took mine, too.”
“Then we still go. The Americans can detain us until they contact our family and we get new passports and driver’s licenses. My mother says for me to go home. She can’t take more of the worry.”
The easy way would be for both of them to go home. But Axe couldn’t leave as long as Carmelita was in danger. If his father found out Pablo was dead and Leanna had escaped, what would stop him from going after Carmelita and running into Leanna’s father?
All rules and agreements were void in Mexico. It would be a free-for-all, and with cartel allies involved, it would be a bloody war. Besides finding Carmelita, he needed to know what Pablo knew about Soledad. Too bad he hadn’t gotten it out of him before he died.
“We can’t go home,” Axe said. “They’re watching for us at the border.”
“Who?”
“El Bardo’s men. The watchers are everywhere. We need to go south, ditch this truck, and lay low until the heat is off.”
“Guess you’re right.” Leanna hugged herself and sighed. Her bright-yellow ruffled sundress was streaked with dirt and torn in places, and she had scratches and bruises all over her exposed arms and legs. What she needed was a hot shower, food, and a good night’s sleep.
“I promise, I’ll let you go as soon as it’s safe.” Axe went the opposite direction of the border. “See those cargo vans? I bet there are people piled in there like logs.”
