Page 45 of Renegade

“No, I’m not really an art lover. Mrs. Flores—one of the artist’s patrons invited Raven and I to the art installation…and also, thought it might be good to meet some people for my business.”

“Ah…so…but you, Miguel…you are all business, no?”

I smiled at her as we continued on our stroll down the steps. “Not all business, no.”

She laughed and again I was struck by how flirtatious her laugh was. “Men. I will never understand it,” she said. “A beautiful woman walks with a beautiful man in a garden, and all you want to do is to talk business? Okay,” she said, before I could reply. “We talk business. What is your business, Mr. Huerta?”

I glanced around, looking up the steps since we’d almost come to the bottom. There were fewer people milling about this far down. I didn’t see Raven, so I looked back at her and smiled.

“He will come, Miguel. Now, tell me…what can be so important with your business that you bring your Raven out here tonight and walk in a garden with a strange woman?”

As we reached the fountain on the rock formation, I got a pang of unease. “Like I said, I thought maybe we could meet someone to help with our business.”

“Ah, I see. So, you no answer,” she said sweetly as we stopped and turned to look at the fountain which bubbled over the stacked granite. Moss grew over it in places and the water fell into the pool at its base. The plantings around it were beautiful. The sound of the classical music at the top of the stairs was very muted. We’d walked a lot farther than I’d planned and no other people had come down this far. “So, you’ve come here to find someone to help you get the ruby?” she said.

I opened my mouth even as I felt mild panic beginning to rise. I was armed but I didn’t like the path we’d taken. I frowned at her. “Who are you?”

She laughed, although now, I could hear an almost sinister tone underlying it. The lilting tinkle of it was long gone. “I told you…Rosina Cassanova.” She abruptly dropped her hand from my elbow, though, we stayed close. “And I thought as long as you wanted to talk business, Trigg, we should talk business.” She lifted a perfectly painted nail and trailed it down the center of my chest as alarm at my Recon nickname sent dread coursing through me.

“How do you know that name?”

She smiled again, waving a hand as she shrugged a delicate shoulder. “But it is Trigg, no?”

I curled my gun hand into a fist at my side, sliding it into my jacket between us as she looked up at me. She stopped me with a tsking sound and the shake of her head. “Tsk tsk tsk. No no no. We are such good friends, Trigg. I don’t want to hurt you.” I felt something sharp suddenly poke right at the inside seam of my pants, hovering way too close to my femoral artery. My first instinct was to step back and as I did, I pulled my weapon, pointing it directly at her chest.

“Oh,tesoro…” She sounded so wounded as I noticed the glint of a thin knife in a delicate hand, the same one she’d been holding against my thigh only a moment before. “You make me so sad. I only want to speak about business just like you, no?”

“No.” I gestured at the knife in her hand, knowing that I could easily squeeze off a shot before she could lunge at me with the knife. “Throw it aside, now.”

“Oh, what is it, Trigg, darling? You’re going to shoot me for asking a question?”

“Who are you?” I asked again, wanting to know what agency had sent her. She very well could be CIA, but I doubted it. More than likely, she was an asset, an experienced CIA operative developed over time.

“No one, tesoro. Just Rosina, as I said. Now, tell me about the ruby.”

“What ruby?”

She laughed again. “Oh, you play games. So funny. John never tell me his Trigg is so funny.”

I felt my heart stop beating. “I don’t know any John.”

She laughed once more. “Ah, but you do, tesoro, and John knows you.” She glanced at my crotch. “So well, no?”

I waved the gun at her. “Tell me where he is, Rosina…right now!” I demanded.

“Right there.” She gestured to something over her shoulder, and I turned to look past her. My heart squeezed as I realized what it was. A red dot danced over the middle of my chest. The laser was done to make a point, and it was. Usually, you wouldn’t let a target know they were in your sights. I slowly straightened my head, looking back at the thick growth of trees in the far distance. I could see no one in the dark.

“John would never hurt me, you lying bitch!” My heart was racing.

“Tsk tsk tsk.Ah,it’s so sad. You loved John once too. He tell me.”

“What the fuck did he tell you?”

“He told me you loved him before you left him out in the desert. Now, you give us the ruby, and we’ll leave you and your new love—Raven—alone.”

The very idea that this Cassanova woman would threaten Raven along with John, and the stranger from the stairwell scared the crap out of me. I didn’t even know where Raven was. I prayed to God that he’d stayed inside the Getty where at least he’d be protected from someone out here with a possible sniper rifle. I had no idea how John was involved with the other two, but it didn’t mean whoever had a laser sight pointed on my chest, wouldn’t use it. It wouldn’t…couldn’t be John. She’d only said that to freak me out.

“John would never hurt me.”

---