Saving Tess Read online

  “I will follow your lead,” he whispered, putting his lips close to my ear. “We are in this together.”

  “We should be safe here,” Brianne said, stopping a few feet from the gate at the opposite end of the alley from where we’d come in. “For a few minutes, anyway.”

  “Time for explanations,” Clay said.

  I stiffened. Who was he to be deciding what we discussed?

  “What happened?” he asked, looking at me as if Luis and Brianne weren’t even here. “You just left without saying anything. I was worried.”

  I stared at him, unable to believe the arrogance of him, thinking that this was the time and place to insist on answers he had no right to demand. “Don’t you think there are more important things to talk about?”

  To my surprise, he actually looked sheepish as he rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re right. The first thing I should’ve asked is if you were okay.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned toward my sister. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” she said, frowning at me. “Did you think we were just going to up and leave you?”

  “You must not have looked hard for her,” Luis interjected. “Or you would have been at my door much sooner.”

  “Stay out of this.” Clay pointed a finger at Luis. “We’re going to come back to your lying, but right now, this isn’t any of your business.”

  I wanted to ask what made it his business, but I was doing my best to ignore him and focus on Brianne. We weren’t close, but she was still my sister. Clay was just an asshole from my past who had no place in my present.

  “It is not safe,” Luis said. He put his hand on my shoulder. “We should return to the hotel.”

  “You’re going to want to take your hand off her.” Clay’s voice held a dangerous tone I’d never heard before. Something that sounded almost…possessive.

  The antagonistic part of me wanted to tell Luis to leave his hand there just to irk Clay, but I didn’t want to give Clay the satisfaction of knowing how much his presence here bothered me. I’d heard once that the opposite of love isn’t hate but rather indifference, and that was what I wanted him to get from me. Not that what’d happened years ago had hurt me enough to want to make him jealous, but that I didn’t actually care what he thought.

  Except I was now in a conundrum. I couldn’t shake off Luis’s hand without Clay thinking he’d gotten to me, but if I left it, I’d be sending signals to Luis that I was interested in him for something beyond friendship. Even if I never saw Luis again, he didn’t deserve to be strung along even for a few hours.

  Thinking quickly, I crossed the space between Brianne and me, ignoring both of the men completely. Aside from this solving the problem of who they’d each think I was supporting, it also eliminated the need for both of them in the first place.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked her. “In San Jose, I mean.”

  Brianne’s gaze flicked above my head, then back down to my face. “A bit longer than you.”

  That helped me about as much as a pile of horseshit.

  “Tess, we should return to the hotel before…they find us.”

  “Who’s they?” Clay asked.

  “The Colombian drug cartel that runs this part of the city,” I answered, not looking at him.

  “Shit,” Brianne said, her eyes darting to Clay. “Were they the ones who did this to you?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. I can’t identify them.”

  That was true, though not for the reasons I was sure Brianne thought.

  “Can’t this wait until we get out of here?” Clay asked.

  “You go right ahead,” I said, crossing my arms. “But I’m working on a story and hiding isn’t going to help anyone.”

  “They are of no help, Tess,” Luis said. “Let us go back to the hotel and make another plan of action.”

  “You found a story.” Brianne made it a statement rather than a question. “Of course, you did. You can find something to write about no matter where you go. All right, tell us what you’re looking for so we can look too.”

  Found a story. The way she said it made me think that a story wasn’t the main reason I’d come here.

  Before I could question it further, I heard a loud crack, and chips of brick from the wall behind me peppered my skin.

  Twelve

  Clay

  I wrapped my arm around Tess’s shoulders and pulled her to the ground, using my body as a shield between her and the gunman. My mind raced, running through possibilities and escape routes. There was a chance that the shot had simply been a stray, but I hadn’t heard any gunfire prior to it, and I wasn’t going to take any chances, not with Tess’s life.

  I looked around, noting that Luis was on the ground to my right, his hands over the back of his head, his face down. To my left, on Tess’s other side, was Brianne. She’d taken up a position that was a mirror to my own, her body hovering over Tess’s, ready to put herself in harm’s way for her sister.

  Brianne’s eyes met mine, and she nodded. We didn’t need to say a word to know that we were on the same pace. Tess came first. Everyone and everything else was secondary.

  Another shot came our way, thudding into the wall on the other side of the alley. The pause between shots made me wonder if the shooter couldn’t actually see us but was rather going by sound. He was using the time to listen for our responses. Cries, screams, sounds of pain, the shuffle of feet, labored breathing as we ran.

  That meant we not only had to move quickly but quietly.

  “When I say, you take Tess.” Brianne’s voice was barely audible. “Go through this gate and get as far away as possible. I’ll cover you.”

  “No!” Tess started to roll over, but Brianne and I shoved her back down.

  “Shh!” I hissed in her ear.

  Another loud bang. This time it was concrete from the ground only inches from my head.

  “He’s trying to use sound to figure out where we are rather than come into the alley,” I explained, my lips brushing against Tess’s hair as I spoke.

  “We all go together or not at all,” she said, keeping her voice down. Her body shook under mine, and I wondered if it was from fear or because of how closely our bodies were pressed together.

  After all, despite the situation, my body was reacting to her proximity.

  “Just do what we tell you,” Brianne said.

  I could’ve told her that was the absolute wrong thing to say.

  Tess glared at her sister, a mutinous expression on her face. “Fuck you.”

  Brianne wasn’t fazed. “Go with Clay, and I’ll catch up.”

  “What about Luis?”

  Brianne gave Tess a shake. “If he’s smart, he’ll follow. No more arguing.”

  Tess opened her mouth, but as Brianne pulled a gun out of her waistband, the ability to speak seemed to flee. I seized the opportunity, and so did Brianne. She rolled up into a crouch and squeezed off two quick shots. I grabbed Tess’s arm and pulled her up with me. I didn’t bother looking to see if Luis followed as I dragged Tess toward the gate.

  A bullet slammed into the wall next to my head, and behind me, Bri fired again. The sound of her gun in the alley was deafening, making it nearly impossible to hear Tess shouting behind me. It didn’t, however, keep me from understanding that she wanted me to take her back toward her sister. The tugging on my arm made that clear.

  In the dim light, I couldn’t make out whether or not the gate was locked, so I hit it at full speed, hoping it’d give without me stopping. For once, luck was on my side. The gate popped open as my hand collided with it, and I was able to pull Tess through despite her protests. I took her around the corner a few feet before stopping.

  “Fucking bastard!” She punched my arm and yanked her hand out of mine. “You just left them there!”

  I grabbed her, hauling her up against my body as I put my hand over her mouth. “You keep yelling like that, and we’ll really leave them. I shoul
d be getting you as far away as possible, but instead, I’m waiting for your sister. The least you could do is stop behaving like a child.”

  She recoiled as if I’d slapped her, and I immediately regretted my word choice. I took my hand off her mouth and eased my grip on her arm. I didn’t quite trust her not to go running back, but I hadn’t needed to be an ass about it.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “Brianne and I just want to keep you safe.”

  Tess’s expression morphed from anger to relief, but before I could determine the reason for the change, it made itself known.

  Luis staggered around the corner, his eyes narrowing as he saw how close Tess and I were. Some primal caveman part of me wanted to kiss Tess on the spot to let the little punk know that she was taken, but I knew this wasn’t the time or place. Two more gunshots reminded me of that, and I prepared to move again.

  “Let’s go!” Brianne called out as she ran around the corner. “Head to the hospital.”

  “I’m not hurt,” Tess protested.

  “We’re going there to hide,” I explained, understanding Brianne’s reasoning. It would give us a chance to get our bearings and decide what to do next. Things had gotten a lot more dangerous.

  We slowed to a jog after only a few blocks. Tess’s breathing was coming in harsh gasps, and her face was pale. I kicked myself as I realized I hadn’t noticed the splint on her left hand or the cut on her arm. Hell, I’d barely noticed the cut on her head. How could I have not considered any of the injuries she might’ve had from the accident? When I reached out to help her, though, she jerked away. I didn’t know what was going on, but as soon as we had a couple minutes to ourselves, I intended to ask.

  By the time we reached the hospital, Brianne had her arm around Tess and was half-carrying her sister to the entrance. Shit. We had to be careful. If we wanted to stay under the radar, we had to pose as visitors or at least patients with minor enough injuries that we wouldn’t be seen right away. The way Tess looked right now, we were lucky no one was running out with a gurney.

  “Can you walk?” Bri asked softly. “We don’t want to draw attention.”

  Tess nodded, a determined expression on her face. I wasn’t sure if Brianne knew it, but Tess would’ve answered yes no matter how she felt. After finding out how much her sister had protected her – even to the point of lying – Tess wasn’t going to do anything that made her appear weak.

  I didn’t argue though. It wouldn’t do anything but make her even more annoyed at me, and since I didn’t understand what I’d done to piss her off in the first place, I wasn’t going to add fuel to the fire.

  “Let me do the talking,” Brianne said as she moved in front of us. She didn’t give us the chance to argue as she went straight through the doors and up to the front desk. Tess, Luis, and I moved a little slower, arriving as Brianne finished whatever she’d told the nurse on duty.

  “Sígame, por favor,” she said as she came around the desk. She led us to an empty room and said something softly to Brianne who nodded and gave a quiet reply. The nurse then offered the rest of us a small smile as she left the room.

  “What’d you tell her?” I asked after the door closed.

  “That we’re not on the best of terms with the family of a friend of ours who’s in surgery upstairs, but we can’t bear to sit at home and hope someone will tell us what happened.” Brianne looked out the small window, then turned back to us, seemingly satisfied with what she’d seen.

  “How long do you think we have?” I asked. “Because when she figures out that we don’t actually know anyone in surgery, she’ll be back, and we’ll be lucky not to get arrested.”

  “I didn’t give her a name,” Bri said. “Look, we’ve got enough to talk about without bringing all that up too.”

  She leaned against the door and stuck her hands in her pockets. For all intents and purposes, she looked at ease, as if the last few hours hadn’t happened. I understood that a few tours overseas could’ve made her more used to this sort of thing than the average person, but I didn’t get how she could have done all of that in the alley and not look at least a little rattled.

  “We need to get somewhere safe,” I said. “For the night at least, maybe a couple days. We can’t go back to the hotel, probably not even to get our things.”

  Luis took a step closer. “Tess and I can go back to our hotel.”

  A flash of jealousy went through me at the thought of Tess and Luis sharing a room even though I knew she wouldn’t have had sex with him. Not if she’d only known him for two weeks. It’d taken her three decades to lose her virginity, and she’d done it with me, someone she’d known since childhood. All reasons that I kept going over in my head to reassure myself that I hadn’t lost her.

  “That motel won’t be safe either,” Tess said. “I think that’s probably how they found us. Someone there sold us out.”

  “Sold you out to who?” Brianne asked, a hard edge to her voice. “The cartel?”

  To my consternation, she looked at Luis, as if he’d have the answers to Bri’s questions. Once we got to whatever safe place we found, Tess and I were going to talk about what exactly had happened between her and her new ‘friend.’

  “There was a car accident,” she said. “Right where you found us. Luis said he saw the car that hit the cab I was in, and it was one that belonged to a local drug cartel. I think they think I can identify them, even though I can’t.”

  Something about the way she said the last bit didn’t sit right with me, especially since she knew the cartel had a much better reason to come after all of us than her just being able to identify them for a hit and run. I glanced at Luis, finding another reason to dislike his intrusion. We should have been able to speak freely, but if even Tess was censoring what she said around him, then we couldn’t talk about the real reason we’d come here or where we’d found Brianne.

  The look Brianne sent my way told me she was thinking along the same lines.

  “If it’s the Colombians,” she said, “we really need to find somewhere safe to hunker down. Somewhere they won’t be able to connect to any of us.”

  “Do you know anywhere?” I reluctantly asked Luis.

  He shook his head. “If it is the Colombians, then they know Tess has been staying with me, and it would not be difficult for them to learn about any place connected to me.”

  Shit. He made a good point.

  “Dammit,” Brianne muttered. She sighed and pushed herself off the door. “I think I know somewhere we can go.”

  Thirteen

  Tess

  If my sister and Clay didn’t knock off the not-so-covert looks they kept giving each other, I was going to go off, no matter who was coming after me. They were hiding things again, and I didn’t give a damn if that made me hypocritical to be pissed at them when I wasn’t telling them about my amnesia. It wasn’t like I was missing anything that had to do with them, only bits of my own life, and it was my right to decide what I wanted to do about those missing weeks.

  Brianne hung up the phone and came back over to where the rest of us were standing on the opposite end of the room. I think Clay and I both had been surprised when she’d asked for some privacy to make her call, and now I was more curious than ever to see the person my sister would trust in a situation like this.

  “Let’s go.” She didn’t look at any of us as she practically stalked out into the hallway.

  “So much for not drawing attention,” I muttered as I followed. Since none of our group had light hair or overly fair skin, we could’ve made it out of the hospital without anyone really noticing, but our appearances weren’t worth anything when she was marching through the place like she was going to hit something.

  “Any idea who she called?” Clay asked as he fell in step next to me.

  I shook my head and pressed my lips together to keep from snapping at him. I’d barely spoken to Brianne in sixteen years, and certainly not about anything remotely personal. He’d obviously ‘reconne
cted’ with her at some point, which meant he was more likely to know the people in her life than I was.

  “If you do not wish to go with them, I will find us somewhere safe,” Luis said from my other side.

  I didn’t speak to him either. I understood he was trying to help, but considering the place he’d taken us before to be ‘safe,’ I wasn’t too confident in his ability to protect me. Even if I didn’t understand what Brianne and Clay were doing here, I didn’t doubt that they’d be able to get me back to New York in one piece.

  The moon was almost directly overhead by the time we reached a pleasant-looking white house surrounded by trees. The closest neighbors were at least an acre on either side, and the house was a single story, so the trees kept visibility to a minimum. I might not have been in the military like Bri, but I was smart enough to know that this was a good place to hide for a bit, especially if the neighbors here were the kind who minded their own business.

  Brianne paused a few feet from the front door and seemed to steel herself before taking those last steps. Whoever was in that house was someone she hadn’t planned on seeing again, I’d bet on it.

  The short, athletic woman who answered, however, wasn’t who I’d expected. Her dark curls were cropped short, and I could make out a few silvery hairs from where I stood. She looked at Brianne for a long moment, then moved her gaze past Bri to the rest of us and smiled.

  “Hola.” She stepped to the side and motioned for us to come into the house.

  As I passed her, I noticed that her eyes were dark blue, rather than the brown the shadows had made them appear. If she was a native of this country, someone not too far back had to have been an immigrant. Once Luis shut the door behind him, Brianne made introductions.

  “Everyone, this is Sylvia Nuez. Sylvia, this is Clay Kurth, Luis Orozco, and my sister, Tess Gardener.”

  I put out my hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Though, I suppose, the circumstances could be better.”

  Sylvia smiled. “I learned years ago, when your sister is involved, circumstances are rarely simple.”