Page 17 of South of Justice

But it was a risk he had to take. So he pressed the phone to his ear and waited.

One ring.

Two.

Three.

Click.

Silence.

Then a voice, low and threaded with distrust.

“¿Quién es?”

Ryan swallowed. “It’s Ryan Inglis.”

A pause, long enough for regret to creep in. Ryan was on the verge of ending the call and tossing the phone, when the voice spoke again.

“You should have let that number die.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Everyone has choices. You just ran out of good ones.”

Ryan sat forward on the chair, elbow resting on his knee. “I need to find someone.”

“And you’re calling me? Fuck,cabrón. You know how many people are looking for you right now?”

“Yeah.” He ran his free hand over his face. “That’s why I picked up the phone.”

A sigh crackled through the phone. “Give me the name.”

“Lucía Duarte.”

Another pause. Then the faint clatter of a keyboard. “Context?”

Ryan exhaled slowly. “Someone’s looking for her. People with resources. The kind that don’t post missing person flyers.”

“Cartel?”

“I don’t know.” Another beat. “But it feels like it. Organized. Quiet. And they’re willing to burn a lot to get to her. They used a kid to get to me.”

A muttered curse on the other end.

“She’s not a civilian,” Ryan added. “At least, not anymore. If she ever was.”

“So you think she stole something.”

“I think she knows something,” Ryan said. “Or maybe she has something. But I’m blind out here, and I’ve got five days to find her. Four now, actually.”

Another curse. “Why you?”

Ryan shook his head, even though Lázaro couldn’t see him. “No idea.”

It wasn’t strictly true. He’d given a lot of thought to why he’d been targeted for this job over the last twenty-four hours, and the realization he’d come to sat in his gut like a ball of lead. It was because he’d done it before. He’d tracked down a woman who’d been hiding from the cartel and delivered her up to them like a DoorDash driver. Perhaps, through dark web back channels and shady meetings between sicarios, word had gotten out. Perhaps they were passing his details around like a goddamn business card.

What a sickening thought. Hero to zero didn’t begin to cover it.