Page 38 of Justice for Aleta

“I’m good. Thanks for calling. Dax said you’d be getting in touch.”

“Dax and I are tight. I helped find his girl when she was… That’s another story. You should let him tell you sometime. Anyway, we have information that the Menendez cartel has knowledge of the hit man who killed their runner, FrankieMcIntosh, and snatched their chemist, a teenage girl named KennedieStone.”

“Yes, sir. That’s all true.”

“No sir. Just Cruz. I understand that’s because a cartel member paid you a visit last night.”

“Uh, yes.”

“Good answer. I’ve got people watching DonHernan, most of his men, and the two who are in Kentucky, the ones who rattled your cage last night. If anyone moves, I’ll know it.”

“Good.”

“Our biggest question right now is, where is Moss? Nobody’s seen him for a while now. We’re in the process of putting eyes on Ortiz. I think that’ll give us some idea where Moss is, but we’re worried about that girl. Nobody’s laid eyes on her. I’m afraid he’s killed her, although that would accomplish nothing. That is unless she was blowing smoke up their asses about being able to cook, and if that’s the case, they killed her as soon as they found out she didn’t have the abilities they needed.”

“I’d thought about that,” Jack said in agreement. “I have to admit, that’s worrying me too.”

“So far, Menendez and Ortiz haven’t had any contact with each other, nor have their men. Idoknow Menendez is pissed. He needed another cook. Ortiz didn’thavea cook. Even without her, Menendez is still in business. Ortiz is out of business until he finds someone. That’s why he snatched the girl.”

Jack had a question that had been burning in his brain. “What I want to know is, how did Ortiz find out about the girl? The car? The runner?”

“Ah, that’s a good question, and the only possible answer is a rat in Menendez’s organization that’s feeding info to Ortiz. If DonHernan ever finds the guy, that poor fella is dead. They won’t kill him?they’ll torture him for days and then execute him in the most painful way they can come up with.”

“And what’s that?”

A snort came from the other end of the phone. “Trust me, you do not want to know.”

Jack could only imagine. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Also, I had to do something that’s going to make you very unhappy.”

That made Jack sit up straight. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. KDCI is now involved in this investigation.”

Jack could feel the hair on the back of his neck bristling. “Why?”

“Because we need all the manpower we can get. And because they had the missing persons report on the Stone girl passed on to them. We could no longer leave them out of the loop.”

“And who made that decision?”

“We did. And the Kentucky Department of Criminal Investigations field office. And,” Cruz said, hesitation in his voice, “the Kentucky State Police commissioner, ColonelWallace.”

Well, that was that. There was nothing Jack could do. His own commander in chief had ordered the sharing of information, and he no longer had a say. There was no point in arguing, and no way around it. “So I’m effectively out of the investigation.”

“You nowarethe investigation. You now have an identity with the cartel. They know who you are and what you’re doing. You can’t be effective because there’s a target on your back now too. Do you understand that?”

Jack dropped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose with a finger and thumb. He had no control. He had no say. He and Aleta were at the mercy of every other law enforcement organization, including the FBI?except his own. “I do. And I guess that’s that.”

“It is. But you have to trust us to keep you safe. Do you?”

“I do.”

“Good. We’re going to end this as soon as possible. We can let Menendez do that for us, but we still won’t have the Stone girl back, so we have to find Moss. Dax or I will let you know what’s going on as it unfolds.”

Jack thought it was grossly unfair that a TexasRanger knew more about what was going on than he did. “What’s Dax’s role in this now?”

“None now, except to be an extra set of eyes and ears for us and a contact for you. If you need somebody and can’t seem to reach anybody, call him. And if you need moral support and somebody to tell you things are gonna be okay, there’s nobody better for that than Dax. He told me your nickname is Kentucky. If TexasRanger DaxtonChambers has given you a nickname, he’d go to the mat for you. It’s a huge point of honor for him.”

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