Page 39 of Maddox

“Honduras. We’ll need to spend a night or two before we head back to the States. I’ve got a friend who has a place where we can crash.”

“What about my friends?”

“They’re dead, Charmaine. There was nothing you could do to save them.” While it was good she was finally coming down from the initial shock, her behavior could turn unpredictable, just another complication neither one of us needed.

She’d told me about their murders herself. Everything was starting to settle in with her. After her eyes clouded over, she turned away from me, pressing her hand to her mouth.

I wasn’t the kind of man you wanted to try to comfort anyone. I’d never developed that skill. Plus, I had a feeling women used their feminine wiles to get what they wanted.

I knew from firsthand experience. That had been a hell of a long time before, something I honestly wasn’t interested in thinking about any longer. My life was entirely different.

Or it had been until this gig.

A few more days. I continued to remind myself of that.

Last night had been an anomaly. Nothing more.

I’d never touch her again.

“They deserve to be brought back to the United States for a proper burial.” She turned back toward me, all fire and brimstone once again.

“That can’t happen.”

“Why? Tell me why?” She tossed a hate-filled look over her shoulder.

“You’ve been a reporter for how long?”

“I’m a journalist, but years. Why?”

“I’ve read some of your stuff. You know exactly how it goes with men like Alfaro.”

“No, maybe I don’t.”

“Their bodies were burned by the time you were tossed into that prison you were in. The man might be a savage, but he’s not stupid enough to leave evidence of murdering foreigners. His own people he couldn’t care less about.”

“How generous of him.”

Why did it feel like we were in the middle of a standoff? “Have a bite to eat. Then we’ll leave.”

She kept her hard glare on me.

“So this trip was about orphanages, huh?”

“Why does that seem so odd to you? There are millions of children across the world who are suffering. Not just because they’re waiting for a family, but also because men like Alfaro are leaving children without their parents. They control sixty percent of the food chain, almost eighty percent of the government in El Salvador, and God knows how many police they have in their back pockets. Those kids have no chance of obtaining a normal life since people who used to give frequently are either afraid of continuing to do so or their money is extorted or stolen the moment it comes into this country. So yes, this was about highlighting the plight of the forgotten children.”

“Impressive.” There was conviction in her voice, but I also heard a slight glitch. My instincts were right. She was keeping secrets, perhaps from her own crew. Her sadness was likely laced with guilt.

“Why do I feel like there’s a but with everything you ask?”

I chuckled. “Pretty dangerous country to be in even with all your humanitarian desires. If I were to venture a guess, I’d suggest this article you wrote on Alfaro last year is the reason he decided to take you out of the blue. You also knew about the women.”

She furrowed her brow. “Okay, a source told me he’d gotten into human trafficking. They provided photographs of several women who’d been kidnapped.”

At least she was admitting certain truths, although nothing about the chemical compound. Right now, I wasn’t going to push her.

“It seems ridiculous to think Alfaro would bother worrying about me. The man is as powerful as he is psychotic.”

At least she had a slight grasp on what we were dealing with.

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