Page 43 of Her Reluctant Hero
“Do you have any leads at all? Where Saldana might be?”
Agent O’Malley led the way out of the media room. Not that it mattered. Isabella’s screams still echoed in his ears.
“A team went back to the compound, but it was burned to the ground,” O’Malley said. “They salvaged what they could, but we haven’t been able to get any information. Now the list of people Isabella gave us in Honduras was more helpful. We were able to track two of the people on that list into the US. We might have been able to track more if she’d known their full names.”
“I don’t think they were people she really wanted to know,” Alex said, wondering how many times Mack Truck had been her punishment.
And wondering if she’d been thinking about that when he’d come to her room in Honduras. Christ.
“So where are these people? Here?”
“One, the woman, Carmen Ferdin, came through Florida. I don’t know if she’s still here. We’re looking. But we’re more interested in the man, Pablo Massiatte. We tracked him to Texas.”
“Why are you more interested in him?”
O’Malley hooked a thumb back at the media room. “That was the guy who cut out Cortez’s eyes.”
Alex swore. “Isabella swore she saw Santiago at The O last night.”
“So you said. We got the surveillance tapes. We weren’t able to see him.”
“It was crowded as hell.”
“We saw the two of you.”
“Nothing around us? What about in those little corners? The private tables?”
“The O has cameras at all the entrances. We didn’t see him. She must have been imagining it.”
“Maybe.” She’d been scared and thinking about running into him. She could have imagined it. “What about me? What can I do to help find Saldana and the kid?”
“Nothing yet,” Winters said, slapping him on the back. “Keep a close rein on her. We’re still not sure she’s trustworthy.”
After what Alex had just seen, he was certain she was. If the army wouldn’t help him help her, he’d find someone else who would.
Retired Sergeant Major Lionel Danes was a big man, broad, tall and heavy. He rose from the tiny table at the coffee house. His added weight didn’t decrease his threatening presence, though, because all the tables surrounding him were empty. Lionel embraced Alex enthusiastically, swallowing him in those beefy arms. Hell, for all the weight the guy had put on since the last Ranger reunion Alex had attended with his father, Danes wasn’t soft. He hammered Alex on the back a couple of times with the flat of his palm before releasing him to sit down again and offer Alex a seat.
“How’s your old man? Haven’t heard from him in a while.”
“Yeah, he didn’t make the reunion this year. Doctors are worried about his heart. The diabetes doesn’t help.”
Lionel’s high forehead creased in concern. “We’re getting old.”
Alex smiled. “No, sir, Sergeant Major.”
“Why don’t you go get yourself a cup of coffee and come back here and tell me what you need from me.”
“Yes, sir, Sergeant Major.”
Alex returned to the table with his coffee in the tall paper cup and worked through how to broach the subject. He figured the old man was like himself and would appreciate the direct approach.
“Coin check,” Danes said abruptly. Alex set down his coffee on the tiny table and dug his Ranger coin out of his hip pocket, slapped it down on the table in time with the old man.
The old guy grinned and tucked his back in his breast pocket. “Good man, Shepard.”
Alex sat across from him. “I need to find a bad guy.”
The sergeant major snorted. “Why would you want to do that?”
