Page 12 of Rami

Rami stretched out his arms in front of him. He’d already undone several buttons on his shirt and pushed up his sleeves, but the material was annoying. Normally this time of day he was in sweats and a T-shirt. “I did. Told her about the info we got from the police and that we’d at least taken a step. She’s a bit too hopeful, though.”

August shifted in his seat. “I hope we get somewhere with this.”

“Gigi was right about one thing,” Rami said. “The local cops are done with this case. There’s a direct link to human traffickers. It’ll be passed off to the FBI.”

Toth nodded. “Which is great and all, but they’ve already got enough cases. Ivy’s won’t be priority.”

“Not when they’ve got missing kids to deal with,” August conceded.

“There’s something you guys gotta be prepared for,” Rami said, clearing his throat. August lifted his gaze from the screen and Toth’s turned hard. “If we find Ivy’s location, she could be among dozens, maybe hundreds of victims. We won’t be able to get them all out. And the more people we try to rescue, the less chance we’ll save Ivy.”

August’s green eyes filled with foreboding. “I don’t see how we can leave a bunch of victims behind.”

“Agreed.” Rami gave a single nod. “But we’re in no position to orchestrate a mass rescue mission. Finding Ivy will be hard enough. You both need to prepare yourselves for what we could stumble into.”

“I don’t like this,” Toth declared.

“Once we get Ivy, we can tip off police—”

“The Mexican police are owned by the cartels, for fuck’s sake.” August’s voice dripped with disgust.

“So we’ll call in the FBI.” Rami shrugged. “Look. I get it. I’m with you. I can’t stand the idea of leaving people behind, but we’re only three people. Even if we had ten on the team, we couldn’t save them all. Not in one swoop.”

Toth folded his arms across his chest and glanced away. Rami had rocked the boat, but he didn’t regret it. The conversation needed to be had now and not when—if—they found Ivy.

Several quiet minutes slipped by.

“I’ve got something,” August said, breaking the silence. “There’s a cartel compound in the desert outside Tijuana. I’m gonna bet they’ve got their hands in this.”

Toth’s computer dinged. “I’ve got coordinates.” He read them aloud and August let out a hoot.

“What?” Rami asked.

“I’ll show you.” August took over the projection screen, and a blue dot popped up on a barren map. “Here’s the coordinates for Marty’s phone. And here,” he drawled, “is the cartel compound. Five miles away.”

Rami surged forward in his seat. “Holy shit. I think we’ve got her.”

“Great,” Toth said. “Now how the fuck are we going to get her out? All of our equipment is here—our fitted trucks, our gear. It’s more than twenty fucking hours away by vehicle.”

“I think you answered your own question, dude,” Rami said, deadpan. Yeah, the situation was brutal. They’d been well aware from the get-go that if human traffickers had their hands on Ivy, it was unlikely she’d still be in the country.

“It’s inconvenient as fuck,” August agreed. “But we can’t just hop on a flight. We gotta drive, and we’d better leave now. If we take shifts, we can be there this time tomorrow.”

Toth’s expression turned grave, and he massaged his temples.

“What is it?” August asked, looking from Rami to Toth. “What’d I miss?”

“It’s not a good time for Toth to leave the country, or for an extended period.”

August drew back his head. “This ain’t gonna work as a two-man mission. We need another guy.”

Annoyance flared inside Rami. He bit his tongue to stop himself from making a smart-assed remark that wouldn’t make the situation better. August was right, but Toth couldn’t be blamed for staying behind. Savannah needed him.

“You stay here,” he said to Toth. “We’ll take Taschen.”

Toth’s eyebrows rose. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Get him on the phone, tell him we’re leaving in an hour.”

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