Page 26 of Casey's Hero

“Where to?” Casey asked as Jacob made his call.

Jacob raised his hand. “Hold steady. I need to talk to Hank.”

She waited with her hand on the shift, her foot on the brake.

Ray had gone into the Big Wave, leaving them alone in the back parking lot.

“Fowler, here,” Jacob answered. “Yeah, Hank. I just talked to Ray at the Big Wave.”

Casey leaned close to Jacob, straining to hear what Hank had to say.

Jacob took the cell phone away from his ear and put it on speaker so they both could hear. “You’re on speaker,” Jacob said.

“Good. I have a little information.”

“We do, too. Not much, but anything could be better than nothing,” Jacob said. “Ray didn’t know Camila’s last name, but two guys appeared in the bar about the same time as she did. They had tattoos of black hands and the letters E.M.E on their arms.”

“Gang members,” Hank said, his tone flat. “Hang on. Texting the information to Swede.” A moment later, he said, “That’s perfect.”

“What do you mean, perfect?” Casey asked. She could think of lots of adjectives to describe the situation; perfect wasn’t one of them. “I can’t imagine gang members being a good thing.”

“No, but it might narrow down the search by connecting that info with what I heard from my data guy. Did you know there are over a thousand Camilas in the Honolulu area? Fortunately, Swede hacked into the airline flight manifest databases and came up with only three Camilas who flew into Honolulu over the past couple of days. One of those Camilas’ flights originated in San Diego two days ago.”

Casey held her breath.

“Camila Torres,” Hank said. “She’s a U.S. citizen with ties to theCartel Tijuana Nueva Generaciónout of Mexico.”

Casey released the air from her lungs. They had a name, and it wasn’t good.

Jacob whistled. “Hawk picked a winner when he slept with her.”

“Swede also managed to track down the license plate of the van that left the hotel,” Hank said. “It’s registered to a linen laundering service that picks up and delivers to a number of major hotel chains around Honolulu. The service is thought to have connections with theJalisco Nueva Generación. The Honolulu PD has yet to catch them laundering money or transporting drugs. They think the cartel has an insider in the police department feeding them information about raids. Hold on, I’m getting a text from Swede.” Hank paused. “He says the tattoos you mentioned indicate a connection to the Tijuana cartel. E.M.E. is the letter M in the Mexican alphabet and represents the Mexican Mafia, as does the black hand.”

“Great,” Casey moaned. “Hawk’s been kidnapped by the Mexican Mafia?” Getting him back before the wedding seemed less and less likely. How was she going to break it to Kalea?

“Swede has the address of the head of the laundry service, who just happens to be Camila’s uncle,” Hank said. “He’s forwarding it to you now.”

A pinging bell sounded on Jacob’s cell phone. He brought up the text and the address of Oscar Jimenez. He entered it in his GPS map application.

Casey glanced at the directions, shifted into drive and headed for Jimenez’s residence.

“Anything else?” Jacob asked.

“If Camila is who the web says she is, her closest relatives are her brothers, and they’re some nasty hombres,” Hank said. “I’ve got calls out to a number of Navy SEALs I’ve worked with in the past. I hope to hear back within the hour. I take it you’re headed to Jimenez’s?”

“We are,” Jacob confirmed.

“You might want to wait until I can send backup,” Hank warned. “If those bruisers brought Hawk to Jimenez’s place, they might still be there.”

“We’ll recon the place and report back without moving in,” Jacob promised. “I doubt they would’ve taken him there, but if Jimenez is home, he might shed some light. For all we know, we could be way off on our assessment of the situation.”

“I doubt it,” Hank said. “It’s too much of a coincidence that the delivery van is connected to a Mexican cartel in Hawaii and Camila is also connected to one in California.”

“And I don’t believe in coincidences,” Jacob said.

“Neither do I,” Casey agreed. “This has to be the right wild goose to chase.”

“We’ll let you know what we find.” Jacob ended the call and looked at the road ahead.

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