Page 25 of Evening Shadows

Ken knew that already, but he had an idea, which he didn’t like. If what he suspected was true, she was heading where they were to either get her son back or try to reconcile with the man who jilted her. Hell, she might even give them away if she got there first. He had no idea how deep her stupidity went. If this turned out to be the case, they’d just have to intercept her. A thought occurred to him. “Did you drop a tracker in her purse?”

“Yeah,” Stone said. “It’s not moving though.”

“Bev does change purses to match her outfits,” Sam informed them.

Great. He’d have loved to know that before. Actually, it wouldn’t have mattered since they didn’t have that many trackers with them.

“Is she heading in the direction of the airport?” Ken asked.

“Yep, it looks that way,” Stone responded.

“Devon—” Ken started but hadn’t needed to finish.

“I’m on it,” Devon said. A few moments later, his low voice requested Emily pull up something to set an alert if Beverly booked a flight out of any airport within sixty miles of her home. Emily may be the financial genius of the Hamilton family, but she’d taken to Devon’s tricks for supporting the team with ease.

They arrived at the airport and left the SUVs where someone would collect them. After grabbing their gear, they took the short steps two at a time, an urgency in the boots hitting the metal.

In almost no time, the team strapped themselves in, and the plane lifted off the ground. Once allowed, the team, who should’ve been sleeping, pulled out something to keep their minds occupied until op planning. Cowboy held out a small iPad and, Ken knew from experience, played one of any number of games he had loaded on the device. Stone put on headphones and reclined in his seat. Doc opened a book, although Ken couldn’t see the title. And Sam, dear Sam, she brought out a Rubik’s Cube.

Ken called Franks over before he could deal a game of Solitaire.

As Ken kept an eye on the team, Jesse set up the laptop and connected to the Wi-Fi offered in the air. While not as reliable as a home connection, it allowed them to speak with home base. He turned his head away from the team as Devon appeared on the screen. His picture came in and out, but Ken didn’t worry about that. He already knew what the man looked like.

“First, Beverly did purchase a ticket to Mexico. Because she appeared to be in a hurry, it’s not direct so you’ll have time to stop her from getting in the way.”

Ken ground his teeth. He hated when parents tried to get involved. She wasn’t the first and surely wouldn’t be the last. Generally though, the parents were more stable. “We’ll leave someone at the airport to grab her as soon as she gets off the plane. Shoot us the info.”

“Done,” Devon responded. Sure enough, he had the info. Thank God for Wi-Fi and whatever Devon had done to boost it.

“You said two things,” Jesse hedged.

Ken had a bad feeling about what information Devon had for them. A real bad feeling.

“It wasn’t easy, but I got satellite images of Alejandro’s house. Plus, a guard who works there is big with Facebook, and he posted a pic and made a few comments that can help us.”

Ken and Jesse looked at each other, and based on their experience of working together, surmised his boss thought the same thing. Having guards said a lot.

Devon hesitated, verifying Ken’s thoughts. “It’s a veritable fortress with towers and armed guards.”

“Fuck.” All went quiet in the cabin. The realization that this rescue had just become more dangerous than expected hushed the team.

10

With the team engaged, each had their eyes on their handhelds reviewing the pictures and information Devon sent.

“Stone, how’s your Spanish?”

As with each op where English wasn’t the primary language, they’d spend part of the flight learning a few basic phrases to get them through. However, Ken needed someone a bit more fluent in handling the airport employees.

Stone shrugged. “Passable.”

“Good, I want you to get over to commercial flight arrivals and keep Beverly out of our hair. I don’t care what you have to do but get her on a return flight and see her to the airplane door. If you have to go and cuff her to the seat, do it.”

Ken knew that like any other agent, Stone would rather be in the thick of things, but he didn’t complain about this assignment. “Cowboy, how’re you feeling about clearing a path for us?”

With a quick nod, Cowboy answered, “I’m always good for blowing shit up.”

“Doc, while I hope we don’t need it, is the field kit ready?”

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