“So she tried to get away, but they forced her into their vehicle. Probably that big SUV that showed up at Jubal’s.” He looked down the road, followed the tire tracks melting into the mud, saw where the vehicle had pulled back into the right lane and continued toward Iron Springs.
“Maybe she left that piece of cloth on purpose,” Linc said. “If she did, maybe she left a trail. Let’s go.”
* * *
Blindfolded, her wrists bound behind her with a plastic tie, Carly sat in a straight-back wooden chair, her feet resting on a rough concrete floor. She had no idea where she had been taken. Her cheek still stung where one of the men who had run her off the road had slapped her.
She bit back a grim smile. It had taken four of them to wrestle her gun away from her. She’d pulled the trigger three times, had them leaping around and swearing, but they’d pinned her as they’d fought for control of the weapon, and the shots had gone wild.
Before they’d blindfolded her, she’d recognized one of them, the jerk at the roadhouse who had fondled her breast. One of them had called him Lopez. The big guy with the mustache was also there. She heard him called Cuchillo, which meant “knife” in Spanish. But he and the others were on their good behavior tonight, since their boss, El Jefe, had been waiting for them when they got to wherever the hell she’d been taken.
She heard heavy footfalls as their leader walked forward. She knew he wanted something from her or she would already be dead. It gave her the courage to put up a brave front even if she was actually scared to death.
“We meet at last,SeñoritaDrake,” the man said.
“So . . . you must be El Jefe.”
“Sí,that is correct.”
She ignored the too-rapid beat of her heart. “You had me brought here. They said you wanted to talk. What do you want?”
He reached out and caught her chin, tipped her head back. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel the calluses on his fingers.
“I only wish for us to become friends. You see, the two of us, we are about to become business partners.”
Carly shook her head. “No way. Not a chance in hell.” Beneath thebottom of the blindfold, she saw a pair of black leather sneakers with white rubber soles. The Ferragamo label on the side said they had to have cost somewhere close to a thousand dollars. They were a fairly big size. El Jefe wasn’t a small man.
“You are not listening to me.” He slapped her, not hard, not too easy. With enough force to definitely get her attention. “One way or another, we are going to be working together. You can make it hard on yourself or easy.” He gave her another stinging slap, this one harder.“Comprende, chica?Which will it be?”
Her heart was racing. She was starting to hyperventilate. She needed to calm down, get control of herself and start thinking clearly before he really hurt her.
“I don’t understand what you want me to do.”
“The same thing you do every day. You will provide trucks when they are needed, send them to a particular location. The trucks will be loaded and you will deliver the goods to whatever location you are told. In return, you will be very well rewarded. No more money problems, eh? You will make more in three months than your company could earn in a year.”
She reined in the urge to tell him to shove his demands where the sun didn’t shine. She wanted to stay alive and clearly El Jefe was a dangerous man. “That kind of money sounds intriguing. What’s the catch?”
“The catch? Thecatchis you will do what I say. You will ask no questions. You will follow instructions. You will do exactly as you are told. That is the catch,chica. And you will keep your pretty mouth shut. You will not discuss this conversation or our business arrangement with anyone.”
Carly made no reply. She thought of Linc, hated to admit that he had been right, that she should have accepted his protection.
“What is your decision?”
She bit her lip, pretended to consider the deal. “How long do I have to think it over?”
He slapped her hard enough to split her bottom lip. “Your time has already run out.”
She felt a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. “Then I guess my answer is yes.”
“A very wise choice.” He spoke to the other men, five of them in all, probably the same bunch who had attacked her at Jubal’s or been in the car, Lopez being one of them.
“Take theseñoritaback to her pickup.” El Jefe wiped the blood off her chin, his touch repulsively intimate, and a shiver ran through her. “We will be in touch very soon.” She heard the squeak of his footsteps on the concrete floor as he turned and walked away.
Two of his men grabbed her arms and jerked her out of the chair. “Time to go home,chica,” Lopez said.
Carly didn’t protest as they dragged her out of the building and loaded her back into the SUV. No way were these men going to hurt her. At the moment, she was under El Jefe’s protection. Unfortunately, once he found out she wasn’t going along with his plans, that would be coming to a very abrupt and dangerous end.
The driver started the engine and the SUV began to bump over the muddy dirt road, back in the direction they had come. At least it looked as if she would survive the night.
