Chapter 19

SAWYER DREW JANIEagainst him, his arm circling her waist. “What kind of internal injuries?”

“The kind that requires surgery to repair.” He turned to Janie. “Is he married?”

“Yes, sir. His wife is in Chile.”

He blew out a breath. “Do you know his medical history?”

She nodded.

“Good.” He pointed at the nurse hovering nearby. “Answer her questions while the others prep your brother for surgery. We don’t know what we’ll find when we get in there, so the operation could take a while.”

“Of course. Whatever information you need.”

The doctor headed for the exam room door. “Candy, get what we need while I talk to the surgeon and reserve an operating room.” He didn’t wait for a response.

“Sorry about that,” Candy said with a sympathetic smile at Janie. “Dr. Fentress can be abrupt, but he’s a skilled physician.”

“As long as he can help my brother, I’ll put up with a terrible bedside manner.”

“Come out into the hall. We’ll give the medical team more room to work on your brother.” Candy took them to a row of chairs and motioned for Janie to sit beside her. “Now, let’s go through Mr. Moran’s medical history first.”

The next few minutes were filled with question after question. Thankfully, Janie knew most of the answers. Candy finished the last question as the medical team rolled Moran out of the exam room and headed toward an operating room. She stood. “Go to the family waiting room down the hall and to your right. The surgeon will find you when the operation is complete.”

“Thank you, Candy.”

“Of course. If you need anything, let me know. I’m working until 7:00 tonight. When I leave, I’ll introduce you to my replacement.”

Sawyer escorted Janie to the family waiting room, grateful they were the only occupants. He seated her on the couch, then crouched in front of her, his hands cradling her trembling ones. “Can I get you anything? A soft drink, water, tea?”

Janie shook her head. “I don’t think I could swallow anything and keep it down.”

“I’ll let you get by with that for now. Soon, though, you need to hydrate. If the surgery takes a long time, you need to eat as well.” Sawyer held up a hand. “You won’t want anything, but you must keep up your strength. David needs you, and you can’t help him if you’re weak and woozy from neglecting yourself.”

She breathed deep, then nodded. “You’re right. I have to take care of myself so I can help with his care if Maria will let me.”

“You worried she’ll blame you for David’s condition?”

“Who else is to blame?”

“The people who beat him, Janie. Not you. You aren’t responsible for what David got involved in. If this is a burglary, you had nothing to do with it. If the attack is connected to Vatos Locos, you were a victim yourself. You certainly didn’t bring them to your brother’s hotel room. No matter what your heart might tell you, you aren’t responsible for David’s condition. Lay the blame at the feet of the ones who beat your brother.”

“My brain knows you’re right. My heart insists I could have prevented this. I know it makes little sense because I couldn’t have prevented what I didn’t know was going to happen.”

“You care about your brother. I would feel guilty if my enemy attacked my family, despite taking every precaution to prevent them from being targets.”

Tears trickled down her cheeks, breaking Sawyer’s heart. He sat beside her on the couch. “Come here.” Gathering her against his side, Sawyer held her while she cried.

After a long time, she fell into a fitful sleep against his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head and sent a message to Zane. If his friend could get the inn’s security cam footage from the time they left David in the coffee shop parking lot, they might see who attacked Janie’s brother.

He received a response seconds later. Excellent. Perhaps they could find something to give them a direction. The sooner they located the perps, the better. He wanted Janie free from threats as soon as possible.

While Janie slept, Sawyer multitasked by digging deeper into the backgrounds of the two men who had been arguing with Moran in the coffee shop parking lot. The more he read, the less he liked what he was seeing. Those men were straight-up killers. If they were the ones who worked over Janie’s brother, David was lucky to be alive.

If they didn’t want him dead, what did they want? He frowned. The logical answer was Janie. But why? What made her such an attractive target? Was it the money or something else? If he could figure out the motive for the hijacking and kidnapping of the hostages, the puzzle pieces would fall into place.

Janie sighed and snuggled closer. “What’s wrong?” she murmured.

“Thinking.”

She opened her eyes. “And that makes you unhappy?”

“In this case, yes. I can’t figure out the motive for the hijacking. If we nail that down, we’ll know who gave the order to take over the plane.”

“Whoever gave the order planned in advance.”

“Yes, they did. No one has claimed responsibility for the hijacking.”

“We already know Vatos Locos were the hijackers.”

“Appears that way.”

“But you’re not convinced?”

“Nope. Makes little sense for them to pull off the hijacking without a hitch and leave with hostages yet still not claim credit for it. Why didn’t they send ransom demands? They could have made a bundle of money on each hostage. Instead, they killed all the hostages except you.”

“Texas Team arrived before they could make ransom demands.”

“Maybe.” He still didn’t buy it, though. “Why not send ransom demands, wait until the money was paid, then kill the hostages?”

“Perhaps they never planned to demand ransom. It’s risky. Wouldn’t it make more sense to sell the hostages into sex slavery?”

Sawyer stiffened. “Did they threaten to sell you?”

“Not directly.” Her face flushed. “The few hours I stayed in that cell made it obvious the women across the hall were being trafficked to local men and gang members. Scar Face visited the women from the plane when he accidentally killed one of my fellow passengers. Then you and your team arrived, and the gang killed hostages as fast as possible.” She shuddered in his arms. “I thought I was going to die, Sawyer. My cell was the last one.”

“Shh. You’re safe now,” he murmured. “I won’t let anyone hurt you again, sweetheart.”

“I wish you had arrived ten minutes sooner,” she whispered. “Maybe the other men and women would still be alive.”

He circled back to something she’d said a minute earlier. “The hijackers killed the trafficked women first?”

She nodded. “I don’t know why.”

They were likely in rough shape and would have been eliminated soon, anyway. None of the trafficking victims last long in the trade. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Janie. But I’m so grateful Scar Face and his buddies hadn’t visited you.”

“So am I.”

His phone signaled an incoming text. Sawyer glanced at the screen, satisfaction filling him. “Zane sent the security footage from the inn for us to watch. He says he doesn’t have time to dig through it himself.”

“I didn’t think about security footage. That’s great, Sawyer. Perhaps we’ll see who hurt David.”

“Let’s find out.” He didn’t have a problem showing her hours of recordings. Janie wouldn’t see anything except people coming and going from the inn. No chance of seeing her brother with the two people who worked him over. The boring video feed would also keep her mind occupied and give her something to do to help her brother.

He logged into his email and pulled up the message from Z. His friend had sent the footage in one- hour increments.

Sawyer glanced at Janie. “This will probably be as boring as watching grass grow.”

She laughed. “Bring it on. At least I’ll be helping. If we find anything, will we send it to the police?”

“Anything to help the boys in blue.”

“Ha. Somehow, I don’t believe that statement was sincere.”

He chuckled. “Caught me.”

Sawyer tapped the screen and started the footage from the first hour Zane had sent. Since it was likely the footage wouldn’t show anything, he sped it up.

Fifteen minutes in, Janie glanced at him. “You’re right. This is boring.”

“Told you. A lot of police work is like this. You trace leads that often go nowhere. You kick over rocks to see what crawls out. Boring police work leads to clues, which leads to the solution to your puzzle.”

“And you enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

“I did. I didn’t enjoy the red tape and rules I had to follow. All the work we did could be for nothing if he or she pleaded down to a lesser charge or turned state’s evidence against a bigger fish. When the law worked for you, it felt great. When it didn’t, we felt as though we had wasted many hours of work.”

When the hour of security footage ended, he queued up the next hour.

“Wait,” Janie said. “Although Zane sent five hours of footage, it looks like we have ten hours of videos to watch. Why so many?”

“He sent camera footage from the front of the inn in one set of videos and footage from the back of the inn with the other set.”

“Do you think we should watch the first hour of footage from the back of the inn before we move on to the second hour?”

“Good idea. Let’s see if our thugs came in the back door during the first hour.”

“Do you think they arrived that early?”

“Nope. They were still at the coffee shop with David during this hour. They might have accomplices who kept watch on the inn to report in when your brother arrived.”

“Will we be able to spot them?”

“Maybe. Let’s get through the video feed first. We’ll make note of anyone who seems suspicious and investigate later.”

Sawyer found a blank sheet of paper and a pen and handed both to Janie. “Each video is time stamped. Write the time and if the footage is from the back or front door.”

Ten minutes into watching the back door footage, he noticed a white panel van backing into a slot at the rear of the parking lot. The occupants remained inside.

Frowning, he paused the video and pointed at the van. “Write the time stamp. The two men stayed inside the van for a long time.” When she’d made a note of the time, Sawyer backed up the feed to see if he could spot the license plate.

No such luck. The back of the van never faced the camera. He set the video in motion again, keeping watch on the suspicious van and its occupants. The footage ended with no movement from the occupants. Weird. “Time for hour two,” he murmured.

“You sure know how to show a woman a good time on a date,” she teased.

“It’s my superpower.”

Janie laughed. “Good to know. Front door first, then we’ll go back and watch the van in the back.”

Sawyer tapped the video clip. Halfway through the footage, an SUV parked near the front door of the inn and David Moran got out. He made his way quickly into the inn’s lobby, where they lost sight of him. “Write the time David arrived.”

He scowled, frustrated that Kingsbridge Inn didn’t have security cameras inside the establishment.

They continued to watch to the end, then switched to the security footage from the back of the inn. Ten minutes after David arrived, the two men in the white van climbed out and headed for the back door. One of them pulled out a gadget and pointed it at the keypad. Seconds later, they opened the door and walked inside.

Sawyer paused the feed, backed it up until he focused on the faces of both men, and sent a copy to himself, his teammates, and to Zane.

“What are you doing with the photo?”

“I sent copies to my teammates and to Zane. Z will run the photo through our databases to see if we get a hit on them.” He already suspected the group they were dealing with, but confirmation would be good. “If they’re in the database, we’ll have names to go with the faces.” And if they were lucky, an address, too. He’d love a chance to get more information from these guys.

They continued to watch the security footage and saw the two men return to the van an hour after entering the establishment. They laughed as they climbed into the vehicle and drove away, their expressions ones of satisfaction.

Although they watched the rest of the footage Zane sent, nothing else happened out of the ordinary until the four of them arrived and found David Moran beaten and unconscious on the floor of his hotel room.

“The two men hurt David,” Janie said.

“That’s how it appears.”

“The men aren’t the same ones who argued with David in the coffee shop parking lot. How could he make four men angry with him in a brief space of time?” Janie scowled. “David doesn’t live here, and he’s only been in town a few days. This isn’t about David. It’s about me, isn’t it?”

“Not necessarily. We’ll figure it out, Janie. Give us time.”

“How much time do we have? Who else has to fall victim before we stop these men?” She stopped and her eyes widened. “What if they go after Maria? She’s pregnant. We can’t let them hurt her. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to her or the baby. David would never forgive me, either.”

“Hold up, sweetheart.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “The Hartman police should have contacted Maria by now. She knows her husband is in the hospital. Will Maria travel to Hartman?”

“Absolutely. She adores my brother. There’s no way she’d stay in Talca when David is injured. She’ll be here by tomorrow at the latest.”

“She’ll be with David as much as possible. I’ll ask Brent to assign someone from Fortress to monitor her while she’s here.”

“I don’t think she’ll enjoy having a bodyguard. Maria likes her privacy. I’m afraid she’ll be even more paranoid while she’s here because of what happened to her husband.”

“Our people are good at what they do. They’ll watch her and switch out every few hours so she doesn’t see the same people all the time.”

Janie leaned her head against his shoulder. “You already planned for this contingency, didn’t you?”

He shrugged. Being prepared for every situation was how his team survived in the field.

“Thanks, Sawyer. I should have known you’d take care of things without me asking.”

“We’re still learning each other.”

His phone signaled an incoming message. He glanced at the screen, then pulled up his email to see the information Zane sent.

His blood ran cold as his hand tightened around the phone.

“What’s wrong?” Janie asked.

“Zane ran the faces of the men in the van through our databases.”

“And?”

“He got a hit.” He wrapped his hand around hers. “Both men are known members of Vatos Locos.”