Page 40 of Fast Justice

All because they’d found the damn phone in her room where her mother had haphazardly hidden it. Why the hell had she even taken it out of its hiding place?

Oceane had been so careful to use it sparingly since entering the States—and only to stay in contact with Arturo—then disassemble and hide it in its secret spot. Another thing she’d been taught long ago, along with keeping a packed “go bag” hidden and ready to go at a moment’s notice. For security reasons, because they had a lot of money from the legitimate companies her father ran and Oceane handled the finances for the ones belonging to her and her mother. Security reasons such as when those gunmen had tried to storm the gated home where she and her mother had lived.

So many things her mother had taught her over the years, things she hadn’t thought much of at the time, were so clear to her now. Her whole life, her mother had secretly been preparing her for this in case it became necessary.

But why take out the phone and risk the DEA agents finding it? Her mother must have wanted to contact Arturo, maybe to let him know where they were being kept. It was the only thing Oceane could think of, and a disastrous mistake. Until now the U.S. government had kept its word about protecting them in exchange for information on her father and the cartel.

Now that they thought she and her mother might have been talking to people within the cartel and telling them God only knew what, the deal might be off the table. They could be locked up and charged if they found evidence. Or they might be shipped back to Mexico, to certain death at the hands of her father’s rivals. Ruiz’s men would love to capture them.

Oceane stared out the tinted back window of the SUV she had no doubt was armor plated, the traffic and landmarks of America’s capital a blur even though she tried to memorize them for later. She knew too well the risks of what she was doing when she had fled to the U.S., but she’d been willing to accept them in order to protect her and her mother. Life as they’d known it had ended that night of the attack, and she couldn’t seem to adjust to this new reality.

Except fleeing to the U.S. had been their only option.

Already she missed her mother. Her home, her work. Dammit, herlife, which she had been blissfully living until a short while ago. She wanted things to go back to the way they had been, before she’d had the blindfold so painfully and suddenly ripped from her eyes.

She would gladly have lived in the bliss of ignorance for the rest of her life instead of knowing the things she did now. What was going to happen to her? Her mother?

The ring of a cell phone filled the brittle silence and Lockhart answered. “Yeah, I’m bringing her in right now. We’ll meet you there,” he told whoever he was talking to, then hung up.

“Meet who?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.

“One of your lawyers wants a word with you.”

Surprised that he’d responded at all, much less answered her question, she asked another. “Which one?”

“Rowan Stewart.”

Her anxiety eased slightly. Good. She wanted to talk to Rowan and plead her case against these accusations, explain her side of the story to one of the only people here who seemed to give a damn about her.

Lockhart drove her into the underground of a fortress-like building. As soon as he stopped, stern-faced agents were there to rip the door open and haul her toward the elevator.

“Where’s my mother?” she demanded, digging in her heels. Little good it did her, because the men merely carried her along as though she weighed no more than a doll.

“You’ll see her when we’re done,” the older of the two dragging her said, not slowing his pace.

Her brave front faltered as they neared the elevator doors. From the location and biometric scanners outside it, this wasn’t an ordinary elevator. They were taking her to somewhere ultra secure, maybe a holding cell, and once they put her in it she might never get out again.

The ability to mask her fear crumbled. “No,” she shouted, twisting in their grip. She started babbling, didn’t even realize she’d slipped into frantic Spanish until Lockhart stepped in front of her and halted the other agents.

Piercing, pale blue eyes locked on hers. “Calm down.”

Normally anyone saying that to her would make her bristle, but his tone was so calm it snapped her out of her momentary panic. And, if she was honest, he wasn’t hard to look at with those angular features and sculpted muscles stretching his T-shirt.

Not that she intended for him ever to know that she found him attractive. The man had been as cold as ice to her so far. She stared back at him now, still wary but willing to listen to him, because he had been tasked with her safety, and he didn’t strike her as a man who would take his job lightly.

“We’re taking you upstairs for questioning. Your mother is being questioned as well. When you’re both finished, you’ll see her. So the sooner you settle down and cooperate, the sooner you’ll see her.”

He could be lying. But she considered herself to be a good judge of people’s character—except when it came to her father, who she now realized she’d never actually known—and Lockhart seemed sincere. Her gut said she could trust him, at least in this.

Relaxing slightly, she nodded once. “All right.”

Rowan was coming. She would be able to fix this whole mess.

The agents took her into an isolated room at the end of a guarded hallway. The windows were frosted so she couldn’t see out.

Her heart thudded erratically and her palms were clammy as she sat in the chair indicated. They left her alone except for Lockhart, who stood guard next to the door to her left, his arms folded across his chest, feet braced apart. Even though he didn’t say anything, she took comfort in his presence. If he stayed with her, they wouldn’t hurt her. Instinctively she knew he would protect her from harm, no matter what his personal feelings toward her were.

A few minutes later two people came in, a man and a woman, both wearing business suits. They sat opposite her, opened a folder and began the questions. Or rather, the interrogation. That’s what it felt like. Back and forth they went, firing question after question at her, trying to trip her up, get her to falter on her story. Where she’d gotten the phone. Who she’d been in contact with. What she’d told her former bodyguard. Where Arturo might be now.

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