Page 97 of Everything We Found

Just the whisper of her name made it hard to breathe. It was too easy to remember how she had felt in his arms the other night, as if she was still there with him. Warm and solid and real. The only real thing in his world of manipulation and lies aside from the regrets.

Would this final sacrifice be worth the cost of his life?

Yes.

James’s sons would grow up knowing their father.

His mother would see another sunrise.

And Nadia. His eyes drifted closed to the image of her. He heard the bell above the door jingle, and for a moment he was seventeen again, sitting in this same type of vinyl booth at Joe’s Diner. Nadia sat across from him, all knobby knees and fierce pride, counting coins from her pocket while he tried to focus on his physics homework.

“Your stomach’s growling loud enough to scare the other customers,” he’d said.

She glared at him. “I’m not that hungry.”

“Right.” He flagged down Angela. “Two burgers and shakes.”

“I don’t need your charity.”

“It’s not charity. Think of it as an investment.” He leaned back, studying her with eyes that had seen too much at her age. “Someday you’ll be somebody important, and when you are, you can buy me dinner.”

She rolled her eyes, but when the food arrived, she ate with a desperation that had twisted something inside him. That day he’d understood that caring about someone meant knowing when to step in and when to step away. A lesson he’d failed at repeatedly.

Until now.

Nadia would build a life free from the shadows he’d cast over her.

The burner phone he’d activated after leaving the ranch remained silent and dark on the table. He loathed everything about that phone. Why he needed it. Who had access to him through it. He resisted the urge to hurl the phone across the diner.

Instead, he stared out at the shimmering heat rising from the asphalt. He thought of the moment Nadia had told him her mom wouldn’t lose the house, that his dad had given Lisa a job. Her smile, her relief. He thought of Julian surfing and Marcus playing on the beach. Their innocence of youth, being raised by parents who loved them beyond what Claire and Edgar had ever bestowed on him.

Tiny moments of happiness existed because of the choices he’d made. Perhaps that was enough.

His phone vibrated. He looked down, bracing himself, and read the text.

Coordinates. A time. Another photo. And a message:

Come alone or she dies.

Thomas tapped the coordinates, which brought up a map. He studied the location and the route and calculated the timing. This had to be the final destination.

A frantic drumming filled his throat. He willed it would be the end of everything.

He dropped cash on the table and left the diner.

32

NADIA

Coordinates dropped just after noon and the feds hustled Nadia and James to the Phoenix field office. They sat around a conference table, a mix of agents with the FBI, DEA, and Border Patrol, satellite images and maps displayed on a row of monitors. She and James were the only civilians. James, though, had a bigger role in what was about to go down.

“So I arrive precisely at eighteen-hundred hours,” James confirmed, studying the route on the map that would take him to an old airstrip on a playa that had once been used as a bombing range by the U.S. military. Fitting, Nadia thought. Ruiz was giving the U.S. a big middle finger by using abandoned government property. But the playa was remote, unmanaged, and flat. It was also less than sixty miles from the border. Ideal for a quick departure by air after the exchange. Intelligence gathered pinpointed this was Ruiz’s escape plan.

Special Agent in Charge Marquez, who hadn’t sat once during the briefing, nodded, her attention focused on the satellite imagery of the coordinates the Hidalgos had texted James less than an hour ago. “Correct. The playa is long and narrow with only one viable approach. Most recent surveillance showed no activity, but that was two hours ago. We’re expectingRuiz will arrive by car and whoever is picking him up will be taking off from here.” She pointed at a town just over the border. “DEA has been monitoring the airfield.”

“And my mother?” James asked.

DEA Agent Nelson tapped a series of keys on his laptop. A closeup image of an old airstrip appeared on screen. “According to latest reports, Ruiz has her. We’re anticipating a simultaneous arrival, you, your brother, Ruiz with your mother, and whoever is on the plane flying in to pick up Ruiz.”