Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
“Riley doesn’t know him very well.” She glanced up and Shane was standing on the balcony.
Shane cupped his hands and shouted down. “You’ve only got about fifteen minutes. Dec says they’re on their way back now and Josh wants to talk to you.”
She gave him a thumbs-up to let him know she’d heard him and then started down the beach toward the rocks in the distance.
Ezra strode along beside her. “All right. Tell me what happened from your point of view.”
A lot had happened. “Josh tried to go rogue. Riley and I followed him. Lucky for us Levi told Riley when and where the thing was going down or Josh would have lost us. He wasn’t playing around. He knew how to ensure we couldn’t follow him. Not that he knows his plan worked.”
And that fact started the guilt building up in her gut.
He’d told her his truth and she was lying. She was lying for a good reason, but she was still lying.
“Yes, but from what Levi told me we’re no closer than we were before to figuring out if that drop was to Hector Morales. All Riley could tell us was they were well armed and ready for the two of you when you went in after the target. He said the three of you got separated.”
“Josh twisted his ankle.”
“He’s moving around fine today,” Ezra pointed out.
“No, he just looks that way. Josh is good at hiding the pain. He’s sore, but he’s able to walk because he got off of it pretty fast. And like I said, Riley can’t read him the way I can.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” Ezra insisted.
“Yes and no. Yes, I did find myself in a cozy situation with his blackmailer last night. No, she didn’t nearly kill me.”
He stopped. “Blackmail?”
Shit. She’d known she was going to have to give the Agency something. There was no way anyone believed she hadn’t discovered at least some of the facts. “Yes, he’s being blackmailed.”
“Over?”
She was silent for a moment. “I don’t know.”
He gently gripped her elbow, pulling her around so he could look at her. “You’re lying. He told you. I need to know.”
She shook her head. “You don’t. It has nothing to do with Hector Morales. It’s not the Agency’s business.”
“And if I told you I thought you were wrong?”
“I would want an explanation.”
He let go of her and started to pace, his bare feet moving over the sand. “When did the blackmail start?”
“About five years ago.”
He pointed her way as though she’d made some point. “Yes, about five years ago, and that’s also when the Jalisco Cartel started to come into its own. Up until five years ago, they were a subsidiary of a Colombian cartel, think of it as the Mexican arm of a company. And they specialized in something other than drugs. After that cartel’s head was literally cut off, Morales rose up and took over their drug distribution. He filled the void, but he also took over a lot of the old head’s men. Five years was also the first time Hector Morales sent a contribution to Hunt’s charity.”
She was getting this history lesson why? They were going in to see what happened to their operative. How did Joshua’s problems fit in? “What does any of this have to do with the blackmail?”
“Everything started happening at roughly the same time. I don’t like it.”
“You can not like it and it can still be coincidence. Things happened and they’re not always some grand conspiracy.” She wasn’t seeing how the facts lined up. “Josh was already a big star then.”
“Yes, that’s my point. Why had this blackmailer waited? Unless you tell me this is about something he’s done recently and this is not about those lost years of his youth.”
“I can’t tell you that.” She wouldn’t break Josh’s trust, but she also wasn’t going to blatantly lie to Ezra. He would know if she was lying. But there was something about the way he was talking that made her wonder if he hadn’t already figured it out.
“All right, if this is some secret that’s been out there for a long time, why not come forward five years ago?”
“There could be any number of reasons,” she replied. “She could have been in prison and unable to reach him. She could have waited until he had the money to give her a big payday. Now that I think about it, it makes more sense that they waited until Josh had something to lose. She wouldn’t have wanted the information to come out before he had the assets to give her what she wanted.”
“You keep calling her a she. Are you sure?” Ezra asked.
“I can’t possibly be sure that the woman who met with me last night is the mastermind behind the blackmail scheme. She could be working for someone else, but Josh thinks it’s been the same woman all along. She hides her voice, but I do think whoever was around me last night was female.”