Renegade with a Badge (20 page)

Olivia turned her head to stare at his back. “When will I see you again?” she repeated dumbly. She had no idea why he would answer in such an odd way.

“Olivia, I don’t really have time for this discussion right now.”

Her heart went cold even as her mind refused to register his impatient tone, his reluctance to look at her. “What discussion? I just want to know when you’ll be back in San Diego. When I will see you.” She had to know, because if he left here without a promise, there was a chance he would die out there. If he promised her he’d see her in San Diego, she knew he’d be all right today. He’d never break a promise to her.

He rested his elbows on his knees. “We hardly hang out in the same places, Olivia,” he said, the short laugh he gave sounding like the hissing of a snake in his own ears. “If we’ve gone this many years not running into each other, I can’t imagine we would now.”

“Run into each other?” Her voice was so soft that he could barely hear her. His hands were in fists now, and his stomach was in knots. “What do you mean, ‘run into each other’?”

He leaned back, kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I mean,
princesa,
that you’re done slumming and I’m done taking care of you. Where the hell would we ever see each other again? We don’t exactly socialize in the same circles.”

She stared at him. “You’re a liar.”

Rafe sucked in his cheeks. He was botching this completely. Her eyes were huge, liquid, disbelieving. If she didn’t start crying soon, he might.

“You’re a liar,” she repeated. “You’re in love with me.”

Rafe shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” Olivia frowned, her breath coming in short, panicky bursts. “All the data points to it.”

“Olivia, before you came walking down that hallway, I’d barely
seen
a woman in months, much less had sex with one. Maybe you didn’t input that with the rest of your data.”

Her head snapped back as if she’d taken a blow to the face. Rafe dug his hands into the rough fabric of the bunk to keep from reaching for her.

“You came to me tonight. You made love to me.”

Rafe sighed heavily for dramatic effect, while his guts twisted up into a hangman’s knot. “What man wouldn’t have come to you, Olivia? I may not make it through today, and you’re—well, to put it bluntly, you’re here. Not that I’m not very sexually attracted to you.”

“My God,” she whispered. “You’re trying to hurt me. This is the old Rafael, the drug smuggler person you only pretend to be.”

“There’s only one Rafael,” he said flatly. “And I have to go.”

She didn’t say anything, didn’t try to stop him. He was both grateful and sorry. If she’d said another word, he might have lost his nerve.

He so wanted to lose his nerve in this.

He paused at the doorway to the steps. Without turning around, he spoke. “Remember what I said about the radio, and Manny.”

She didn’t sound like Olivia when she whispered, in English, “Go to hell,” but he understood the sentiment.

He wanted to tell her he was already well on his way.

Rafe watched the boat zip toward the shore. It was a sleek, powerful vessel, one he knew was designed for just this kind of transport. His eyes searched the beach again. No one there. Not one man.

“Where the hell are they all?” he muttered. The seething in his belly that he’d been living with for months and months was about to drive him insane. Something huge was happening, and damn if he knew what it was. “Where the hell is Cervantes?”

His partner kept a hawk’s eye on the boat. It bobbed just offshore, its motor idling, its driver and passenger studying the beach.

Rafe glanced at his watch. It was nearly eight in the morning. Olivia was long gone by now, on a boat or in a car headed back to La Paz. She’d soon be on a plane home, or to somewhere closer to home, at least, than this godforsaken stretch of coastline. He wanted to drop his head in the sand and moan.

“What do we do now?” Bobby asked after several minutes.

Rafe had no idea. He’d had no contact with the moles in Cervantes’s organization and he had no way of contacting his people in La Paz or Loreto to make sure the deal was still going down. “We wait,” he said. “We’ve got nothing better to do.”

Olivia heard the low growl of a boat engine and scrambled off the bunk and up the steps. Manny was lying on his belly on the cushions of the stern, his gun aimed toward the little boat.

“Get down,” he yelled at Olivia.

She hit the deck, her heart thumping wildly. She’d been sitting below, numbly counting off the minutes until she could use the radio and get the hell off this boat. She had been sure then that her heart had stopped in her chest, that nothing could make it beat again.

Rafe didn’t love her.
What an idiot she’d been to think he did. He’d never said any such thing, never intimated anything of the kind. He’d lied to her from the beginning about who he really was, but he’d never lied to her about love.

She was a brilliant woman. She was accomplished and well-respected and terribly, terribly smart. Yet Rafael Camayo had been able to take out her heart and stomp it into the sand, and she’d never even seen it coming.

But when the distinctive noise of an incoming boat caught her ear, her heart had started beating again, surprising her, frankly. And now her brain had kicked in, as well, as she considered and discarded a dozen options for evading this unknown threat.

So, Rafael was not the only one with an exaggerated survival instinct, she thought, her face pressed to the rough surface of the deck.

“Rafael,
cabrón,
show yourself, you thieving coward!” The voice was distorted by a megaphone, but Olivia recognized it instantly. It had become very familiar during all those long, chatty strolls down the beach.

Olivia slithered forward on her stomach until she reached the helm. With one hand she reached up, turned the key and pressed the ignition button. The boat, dear old thing, sputtered to life. Manuel turned and stared at her, goggle-eyed.

“What are you doing?” he yelled.

“I’m getting us the heck out of here,” she yelled back, and, still in a crouch, pulled the throttle back until the boat began to move. She stood up then. “Hold on,” she warned Manuel, and shot the throttle to the limit.

The boat leapt forward, impressing Olivia once again with its power. But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly.

The other boat was upon them before Olivia had a chance to maneuver her boat out of the cove and onto open water. It had been a futile attempt, and she knew it, but she wasn’t about to allow Ernesto Cervantes to shoot her down like a dog.

“Shut it down,” the megaphone voice called to her over the water.

She didn’t bother to look over, just kept her eyes on the open water ahead.

“Shut it down, Olivia. We just want Rafael and his partner. You are free to go back to your country.”

She could brazen this out. She knew she could. He’d only hit her on that dock because she’d been standing there like a lump. Now she was a fast-moving target. Not only was her boat roaring through the water, but her knees were knocking together so hard she didn’t think anyone in the world could get a clean bead on her.

Manny came up behind her. “Stop this damn boat,” he screamed at her.

“No. Shoot at them!”

“Are you crazy? They have three men with guns pointed right at you.”

“Shoot at them.”

“Dammit, Dr. Galpas, if you get yourself killed, Rafe is going to have my
huevos.
”

“I’m warning you, Olivia,” the megaphone voice said. “You are interfering with Mexican law.”

She snapped her head around to glare at him. “You’re not the law! You
shot
me,” she screamed.

“I was aiming at the drug smuggler, Olivia. I was rescuing you.”

“I have had enough of being lied to,” she yelled, and turned the wheel just enough to bump the speedboat. She caught a glimpse of the skipper’s face as he swung his boat to avoid her. He looked genuinely horrified. Olivia laughed tersely.

“Stop the boat,” Manny ordered. “You’ll never outrun them.”

Olivia worked her jaw. No, she couldn’t stop. She knew Cervantes wasn’t going to get her off this boat just to let her go. She’d rather take her chances with the Sea of Cortéz. It had always been her friend.

“This is your last warning, Dr. Galpas,” Cervantes cautioned her.

She raised her hand and gave him a distinctly American indication that she was unwilling to cooperate.

Cervantes shot the proverbial cannon across the bow. Only it wasn’t proverbial, it was real, and Manny hit the deck behind her.

“You crazy woman,” he screamed at her. “Kill the engine!”

She did. Shut it right down and stopped dead in the water. Then, while Cervantes’s boat zipped past her going full speed, Olivia gunned the boat into reverse.

Manuel was right. She’d never outrun them in this tug, gutsy as it was. She’d have to outrun them on dry land.

Manny got to his knees, stared first out the back of the boat at the approaching shoreline, then back at Olivia.

Cervantes was shouting hysterically at his driver, and when Olivia looked back at them she could see they were turning. They’d be on top of her and Manny again in an instant.

Olivia set her jaw. Fine. She’d be
beached
in an instant.

“Hold on,” she shouted to Manny.

The boat hit the beach with a thunderous, shaking crash. Olivia, tossed back on her butt, heard gravel suck into the manifold of the engine and said a quick prayer for the brave little boat. It had done itself proud.

She shot to her feet as soon as she stopped skidding backward, and with the skirt of her orange dress hiked to her hips, ran for the stern, Manny hot on her heels. She jumped on top of the cushions of the bench seat and, without a moment’s hesitation, leaped into the shallow surf. She fell to her knees but struggled up again at once. She didn’t bother to look for Manuel. If he wasn’t with her, then she’d have to go it alone.

But he was with her, muttering about lunatic asylums and straight jackets as they plowed up the beach. Behind them, Cervantes was screaming at his driver to beach the expensive craft. Olivia knew he’d never do it. Once a man had piloted a boat as gorgeous and responsive as that one, he’d never hurt her. Men were much more careful with boats than they were with women, Olivia mused.

“Why aren’t they firing at us?” Olivia yelled over her shoulder at Manuel.

“I don’t know. Just run,
maniaca,
” Manuel shouted back.

I’m not a maniac,
Olivia thought desperately.
I only want to stay alive so I can make that Rafael Camayo pay for breaking my heart.

They reached the dunes just as Olivia heard splashing behind her. So Cervantes wanted her enough to swim for her, did he? Maybe the sharks would get him before he reached the beach.

No such luck. She could hear him shouting for someone to search the fishing boat for Rafe and Bobby, then shrieking at her to stop. She took another dune at a dead run. She’d never stop running. She’d never let the bastard get her. He’d have to shoot her first.

A single shot rang out. Olivia braced for the impact in the back of her head, but it never came. And she took another ten strides before she realized Manuel was no longer running at her side.

Oh, no.
No.
She glanced back over her shoulder in time to see Cervantes emerge from the surf a hundred yards back, lowering his weapon to his side. Manuel lay facedown in the dune, the sand beneath him soaking up his blood.

Ay Dios. Ay Dios.

She’d never in any nightmare expected to see something like this. She’d known there were people in the world who would so casually take the lives of others, but she’d never imagined she would see it firsthand.

She stumbled, wild-eyed and terrorized, but righted herself. She was going to die, she was going to die, just like Manuel.
Oh, Manuel. I’m so sorry, Manuel.

Another shot was fired, another warning given, but Olivia kept running. The voices were fainter. She didn’t know if it was because of the drone like a million bees in her head, or because she was outrunning them.

It didn’t matter. She only knew that she had to keep running. Olivia never knew where the resolve came from. She was strong and agile, had been all her life. She just hadn’t known she was so damn tough. Funny how a terrified woman with a broken heart could run so hard.

She fled into the dunes.

Chapter 13

T
he sun was almost directly overhead by the time Rafe saw the two matching, safari-green Land Cruisers traverse the winding road that led to the beach.

“Finally,” he breathed.

“Let the games begin,” Bobby murmured at his side.

Rafe scrutinized the dunes behind them. “Wonder where our backup is?”

“You don’t think they’ll be in position?”

“We don’t even know if they all made it back from La Paz. I wish we had the damn phone, or a radio or something.”

“So do we follow the plan, or wait to see if we have backup?”

“We follow the plan. If they don’t show…” His voice trailed off.

“We’re up against Cervantes and his goons on our own,” Bobby finished. “Not to mention the boys in the boat, there.”

“We’ll wait as long as we can. Maybe they’ll pull out before Cervantes leaves. If not, I’m sure they’ll take off at the first sign of trouble. They’re just the delivery boys.”

Bobby watched the incoming vehicles. “So long as we land the big fish, the guppies can swim all the way back to the mainland.”

Rafe scowled at his partner. “You have a way with words.”

“I know.”

“A bad way.”

Bobby chuckled. “Olivia thinks I’m a riot.”

Rafe grunted noncommittally and allowed his gaze to wander back to the beach. Casually. No sense letting Bobby know he was only half in the game. That his other half, the best part of who he was, was still in that little bunk with Olivia, holding her for the last time.

He rolled his lips over his teeth, disgusted with himself. That the mere mention of her name would make him hurt was unacceptable. He had another sixty years on this earth to live without Olivia; he couldn’t let his stomach drop to his feet and his chest swell painfully every time he heard her name. Or thought of her. Or came within a hundred miles of the scent of the ocean.

And now, particularly, was not a good time to be wondering where she was, praying fervently that if nothing else right happened today, she was safely away. That she’d remember him, just a little, after she married some brilliant and rich and educated son of a bitch who didn’t deserve her and couldn’t possibly love her until he was sick with it.

“They’re coming in,” Bobby muttered. “You want to pay some attention, here,
vato?
”

Rafe rolled to his side, yanked his gun out of his waistband and checked the load. “I’m paying attention,” he muttered.

Bobby followed Rafe’s lead and palmed his gun. “Good. Because I don’t want to go down there like Zorro and find out you’re still back on that boat with Olivia.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Rafe said testily. “I don’t see Cervantes yet. I wish I had the binoculars. Dammit. The bastard better show up.”

“He’s there. He’s just getting out of the second cruiser.”

Rafe’s mouth went dry. “Oh,
hell.
”

“What?”

“Look at his pants.”

“Oh, hell,” Bobby echoed. “He’s been in the water.”

“She better have gotten off the boat before he found it,” Rafe said fiercely.

“I’m sure she did,” Bobby said. “But if she didn’t, Rafe, you can’t do a damn thing about it.”

Rafe’s teeth were clenched so hard he thought he might pop a molar. “I can shoot him where he stands,” he hissed, his lips barely moving.

“Yeah, you can do that. And then, if he’s got her, if he’s holding her somewhere, you’ll never know, will you,” Bobby asked quietly. “Jeez, Rafe, pull yourself together. She got off the boat. It’s past eleven o’clock, and he’s just now showing up with his pants wet. If she radioed out at eight o’clock like you told her to, she’d have been long gone by the time he found the boat.
If
he found it.” Bobby narrowed his eyes, followed Cervantes’s approach to the beach. “Maybe he’s just so scared of us,
primo,
that he’s pissed himself.”

Rafe didn’t answer. He was working desperately at keeping himself together, at not finding out for himself how many plugs he could put in Cervantes before he killed him. He had to focus on the matter at hand. If he killed Cervantes now, and Cervantes had gotten to Olivia this morning, Rafe might never find her. Dead or alive.

He felt a strange buzzing in his head at that terrible thought, and his tongue thickened against his clenched teeth. Funny, he’d never noticed before how many physical manifestations there were to a man’s fear. Maybe he’d never really been afraid before.

Olivia couldn’t be dead. He’d been willing, just barely, to give her up to her old life. But he’d be damned if he’d give her up to death.

Olivia was alive, but only by the narrowest margin of luck and the superior speed and stamina of youth.

She took in another shuddering breath. Every few minutes the scene would replay in her mind, of Cervantes standing in the surf, of Manuel’s blood saturating the sand, of the moment when she realized she was alone and running from a madman.

Thank heaven the madman had finally given up an hour or so ago and gone back—to his zippy little boat, Olivia presumed. Apparently there were things more pressing than following one woman through the desert. Like a drug shipment to protect.

Cervantes probably thought she’d die out here, anyway. But he underestimated her, she knew. Dr. Olivia Galpas had overcome every obstacle ever set in front of her. She’d broken through the race and gender barriers in her profession and had been published and promoted and applauded. There was no way in hell she was going to let Ernesto Cervantes mow someone down in cold blood and get away with it. She’d be screaming his name from the rooftops until he was put behind bars.

First, she had to get out of this desert.

The sun was becoming unforgivably hot on the back of her neck and the arroyos and creek beds she crossed gave up not a drop of water. She’d sucked on a stem of barrel cactus carefully snapped from a large specimen, but it was a poor substitute for a nice glass of iced tea, which, since about an hour earlier, had become the focus of all her desires.

Meanwhile, her anger at Rafe grew, as his words ran in circles through her head.

So, he doesn’t love me,
she thought, the frustration giving her renewed energy to trudge over another hill.
Not that he’s not sexually attracted to me. I was just there. To put it bluntly. Not that we’d ever run into each other.

As she pushed on through the hot sand, anger wrestled with the ache in her heart. How could she fall for a drug agent? Maybe he was no better for her than a common thief. He probably would be gone all the time, making friends with criminals, and would most likely end up getting killed in the line of duty.

She thought of her family, how they expected her to marry a white-collar professional. A Latino doctor or lawyer or something, but not a drug agent.

So, fine. Let Rafe walk out, she told herself. Who needs him? She could feel tears welling up from her chest, then spilling down her cheeks.

“Not me!” she shouted as loudly as her dry throat would allow.

She slogged doggedly on toward Aldea Viejo, keeping well clear of the coastline. Olivia had no idea on which beach the drug exchange was to take place, and she was taking no chances.

It didn’t matter, anyway, Olivia decided, as long as it wasn’t in the middle of town. She intended to make her way to Aldea Viejo and slip into the village unnoticed. That would be much easier to do if the two men she’d been involved with during the past month weren’t shooting at each other in the streets.

Olivia squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, pursed her lips resolutely. She’d learned a lot from Rafael in the past few days. She was now an expert in covert activity. She’d be just fine.

Her lips trembled just a little. Oh, Lord, it was an idiotic plan. Even sunstruck and frightened and miserable with heartache as she was, she could see how impossible it would be to get in and out of Aldea Viejo without someone who worked for Cervantes seeing her and alerting the ever-present, khaki-uniformed thugs.

But she had no choice.

Aldea Viejo was the only town around for miles. She knew she had to take her chances there. Because the only other option was to take her chances here, in this arid wasteland. She would do just fine if someone would plop an ocean down in front of her, but the desert baffled her.

Aldea Viejo was also where she’d left all her money, her identification and her plane ticket home. The little motel where she’d dressed for Ernesto’s party—was it just last Friday?—would surely have held her belongings for her. Once she had money, a decent pair of shoes on her feet, and at least one clean pair of underwear, nothing could stop her from finding a way to make Cervantes pay for Manuel’s death.

She skidded down another wash, wondering crossly where all the water was that had formed the thousands of gullies she’d forded since escaping Cervantes. She was concentrating on keeping at least some of the dirt out of her shoe, so she didn’t see the man until she was almost on top of him.

She shrieked abruptly in surprise. He loomed in front of her like a mirage in the shimmering glare of the noon sun. One moment he wasn’t there, the next he was. In his khaki uniform and with his big, shiny gun.

Olivia almost dropped to her knees and wept.

“Dr. Galpas. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Cervantes must have radioed his people to be on the lookout for her. She should have known: she’d seen him shoot Manuel; he’d never leave her alone.

Olivia stood stock-still, weighing her options, realizing she didn’t actually have any. The man hadn’t raised his weapon to her, but Olivia knew he wouldn’t hesitate to do so if she gave him any trouble.

“I’m sorry to have been so long,” she said calmly. She pointed to her feet. “The wrong shoes, you understand.”

He apparently did not, the big dummy. He stared at her feet a moment, then grunted. “Come along.
Señor
Cervantes wants to talk to you.”

“Okay, that’s it. Let’s go.”

Rafe and Bobby had been lying on their bellies for nearly an hour, watching Cervantes’s men off-load the cargo from the boat. Cervantes surveyed the whole process from the beach, arms crossed, the arrogant overlord. Rafe would have arrested him for the smug expression on his face alone, if he could have. Cervantes was so certain his presence and the display of muscle and the midday exchange would keep away the little maggots that had been stealing from him that he didn’t even bother to swivel his head every once in a while to see who might be coming out of the dunes.

Well, Rafe and Bobby were coming out of the dunes. And Cervantes’s twenty-year reign as drug king of Aldea Viejo was over.

So focused was Rafe that he missed the flash of sun reflecting off the windshield of the third Land Cruiser as it made its way down the beach road. Bobby saw it, however, and hooked an arm around Rafe’s ankles as he rose, dragging him back to the sand.

“What?”

Bobby pointed. “More company.”

Rafe swore viciously. “We have no choice but to go in, anyway,” he said, impatient and frustrated. “They’re nearly finished unloading. This is too good to pass up.”

“I don’t think so,” Bobby said grimly. “Look—”

The cruiser stopped next to Cervantes. The driver got out and opened the back door and dragged something—someone?—from the back seat.

Rafe’s insides froze solid despite the rising heat of the day.

Olivia.

Bobby began a low, foul litany against Manny first, then against the man who yanked Olivia from the vehicle, then changed focus and swore steadily under his breath at Cervantes, who was admiring the restraints that held Olivia’s wrists together.

Rafe didn’t even hear him.

He watched, stupefied, as Cervantes said something to her. Olivia said something back, and was backhanded for her trouble. Rafe’s vision blurred. He didn’t notice that the delivery boat roared off toward the open sea, just as he’d supposed it would, at the first sign of trouble.

He did not panic or weaken, as he had back in that little bunk, telling Olivia goodbye. He rose from the sand like a giant, feeling as strong as ten men.

No drug-dealing son of a bitch was going to hurt Olivia Galpas and live to tell the tale.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bobby asked.

“I’m going to get her.”

Bobby tackled Rafe again, sitting on his chest when his cousin began to struggle mightily. “Calm down, you idiot. You’re going to get her killed.
Calm down.
”

Rafe flipped Bobby off him as though his partner weighed no more than a pup, and started back down the dune. Bobby hit him behind the knees this time and took him down. Rafe hung on, cursing at his partner.

“Do you have a plan? Any way to get to her without getting shot, then get her off the beach alive? Rafe!”

In the distance, Rafe saw Cervantes slap Olivia again, saw her teeter on her feet.

“I’m going to break every bone in his hand,” Rafe said ominously. “And then I’m going to break every other bone in his body. That’s my plan,
primo.
”

“Well, it’s not much of a plan,” Bobby said. “Why don’t you spend a minute or two thinking up a better one.”

On the beach, Olivia stood her ground before Cervantes, after having been hauled roughly out of the back of the Land Cruiser. The mirage man had strapped her hands behind her back before he’d shoved her in there, and then had set the child safety locks so that even if she wriggled free, she wouldn’t be able to get out of the car. He was, apparently, not as dumb as he looked.

Ah, and there was Ernesto. The pig. She stumbled when her captor pushed her lightly between the shoulder blades and she ended up toe-to-toe with the man who had chased her across half of Baja California.

“Olivia,” he said cordially.

She set her mutinous jaw and glared at him. He looked hideous. All the handsome veneer was obliterated by a lumpy jaw, two black eyes and a veiny brick in the center of his face that passed for a broken nose.
Good work, Rafael,
Olivia thought.

Cervantes raised his remaining perfect feature, one shapely eyebrow. Olivia wondered nastily if he plucked it.