Page 59 of Dust and Ashes

Navarro’s body language exuded tension, as though waiting for a bomb to drop.

Kenna wasn’t going to toss it to him. Would Stairns really give her up?

“She was one of a group of migrant workers being held by Brian Preston, the brother of Sheriff Elliot Preston, who I happen to know is on his way here. He thinks Kart is holding Kenna for him.” Stairns paused. “Elliot and Kart are cousins.”

Navarro frowned.

Maizie didn’t look up from her phone. “Primos.”

“Ah. And this”— Navarro waved a manicured hand toward Kenna—“is supposed to be compensation for my retrieving your friend here? That my bride was in Colorado months ago?”

“Perhaps you could ask Preston what happened to her.” Stairns sipped his drink.

Navarro wasn’t going to let this go without them giving him more.

Kenna said, “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

They all turned to her.

Maizie’s hand hovered over a tiny taco. She pulled it back.

Kenna shrugged. “I can’t help you find her, but I can tell you I set her free from that place. We had to go inside in the middle of the night—”

“We?”

“I got help from one of the other migrants. He wanted to make sure the rest of them got free, and that someone in authority found out what was happening to them.” Hadn’t done much good, though. “They killed Elliot’s brother, and they all escaped. Sorry to say, I don’t know where Camila is. Not since I saw her last.”

In Vegas…when she and Jax had witnessed Luca and Camila getting married.

“You’re a private investigator, aren’t you?” Navarro wiped his hands on a cloth napkin. “I’ll pay you to find her.”

“I don’t have time for any new cases right now.”

Even if she did, she wasn’t going to disturb a young woman’s freedom for the sake of a cartel leader with an obsessive need to reclaim a person he believed to be his property.

No, this wasn’t a case she would be taking.

Luca and Camila deserved to have a life withtheirbaby.

“Perhaps I…misspoke.” Navarro cleared his throat. “Out of an abundance of gratitude for what I did, rescuing you from those Americans, you will find her for me and return her to this ranch.”

“So you can…what? Kill her for leaving you?” Kenna shook her head. “You don’t think it was Kart that’s to blame, since she ended up in his cousin’s operation? Trafficked in the hope of a better life, then put to work against her will.”

Maizie stiffened very slightly.

Kenna said, “She’s free now,” having decided honesty would serve her better right now than anything else. “Camila gets to decide her life, not you. She’s free to make her own choices. And if that means coming back, then it’s up to her.”

She wondered if telling him about Luca, and how the kid seemed to care about her, would make a difference. Navarro might be willing to let her go if he understood she had made her choice. Then again, he was just as likely to hunt them both down and end their lives for choosing to be free.

No telling what the cartel leader would decide to do. This whole thing was a gamble, and Stairns might have chosen a path that destroyed a young couple—and the happy life Camila’s baby might be able to have as a free person.

Nothing was worth taking that from an innocent baby.

Navarro said, “I’ll be sure to have a word with Elliot Preston on his arrival.”

If they destroyed each other, Kenna would have two less things to worry about. And she might also be giving Navarro’s young nephew the chance for a new or better life.

The glass door opened, and Ramon stepped out with his arm in a sling. His face was slightly pale but looking a whole lot healthier than when she saw him last. “Kenna.” He rounded the back of her chair slowly and sat opposite Maizie, a chair down from Stairns.

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