Page 40 of Dust and Ashes

Sunday evening

Cielo Ardiente, Mexico

“Cargo pants,” Kenna said. “That’s it?”

Ramon leaned against the wall next to her, half his attention on the man in the chair. “I guess it tells us whoever he saw dumping the body was probably one of the Americans. Everyone around here wears jeans.”

“It’s pretty thin.”

She was still grasping for control of the situation. Whether that meant refusing to cooperate, or allowing herself to slip into that comfortable spot where she was investigating a murder, didn’t much matter. Though, complying did seem to be better for her health.

Kenna lifted two fingers and touched her cheek bone where Kart had slammed his fist into her face. She pushed out a long breath, not just because taking as long as she could to do this might play in her favor with whatever happened next.

Ramon shrugged one shoulder. “Light hair could be blond, or it could be a light brown. That rules out any of the locals, or you and I.”

“I don’t think I was ever on the suspect list.”

Ramon seemed as interested in solving this case as she should be. Maybe for old time’s sake he wanted to feel like an investigator again, and not the man he had chosen to become.

A guy on the run from the feds and the law who worked for a dangerous cartel.

“Why did you do it?” Kenna had to ask, and maybe at some point he’d tell her. If she asked enough times.

The same reason she found herself naturally slipping back into the mode of investigator herself—whether or not she wore a badge.

“You were undercover.” She studied him. “Did you take the money they offered you? Turn on your oath and because you decided it was more lucrative to be one of the bad guys?”

“There’s good and bad in all of us.” Ramon glanced aside. “The Bureau teaches us to view ourselves as the good ones, and everyone who breaks the law is a bad guy. So that we see it all in black-and-white, like those blind scales of justice.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” she said. “We should be impartial when we investigate.”

“Is that what you do? Taking the law into your own hands, working cases as a private investigator so you can do what you want and go wherever you want, and you don’t have to answer to the federal government?”

And yet, she had been on her way to testify. “None of us is ever in a place where we don’t answer to the federal government. That’s the choice we make as citizens, to come under the power of the authority over us.”

“So you be a good little girl, and they take care of you?” He shook his head. “You and I both know you’re kidding yourself if you think that.” Ramon must’ve told them to come get Jax, and either neglected to tell them about her or told them to show up when he knew she wouldn’t be here.

“Honestly?” Kenna paused. “Yeah, when you get kidnapped and taken to a foreign country, you kind of expect your government to come and rescue you. But you screwed that up for me, didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “They could have made sure you would be here as well. But it seems like all they did was rescue their golden boy.”

She hoped they considered Jax to be that. She didn’t want her association with him to lead to him being blackballed as a special agent. She knew he’d already turned down a promotion—or been denied it. She might have already cost him far too much in terms of advancement in the Bureau. But all that office politics stuff was for a time when she wasn’t a captive in a foreign country.

“Do you want me to blame you for the fact that I’m still here, or do you want to figure out a way we can both get out of this?” She had no idea what Ramon’s endgame might be. Maybe he had zero problems with what he did and who he was now.

“Navarro sent me here to help you guys figure out who is undermining his and Kart’s operations. He wants Camila back.”

She studied his blank expression. “And that’s it? You just do what you’re told?”

“What do you want from me? I made my choices, and there’s nothing I can do to change what happened.” He seemed sincere. “It is what it is.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened, and I’ll see if I can’t help you change things?” She had to at least offer.

He shook his head. “You know there’s something about me. Some kind of edge. It’s always been there. So I become a cop, and every time I turn around, the finger is getting pointed at me for being the most likely to be dirty. Even at Quantico I fit this type, the profile.”

“But it never amounted to anything,” she said. “And then it became an asset.”

“Because I went undercover?” He shot her a look. “You think that’s what I wanted to do?”

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