Page 2 of Deadly Vendetta

That’s a good girl. We’ve got to get along here, or the County is going to give us trouble. Already, the Department of Social Services, alerted by the police, had left a message on his machine, questioning Janet’s arrangements for her daughter.

Given the child’s unkempt appearance when she’d been dropped off, they should have been on Janet’s case a lot sooner.

His tug on the refrigerator door handle met unexpected resistance. Intent on finding the chocolate syrup, he tugged harder and the door opened.

His breath caught in his throat as he stared at the unfamiliar brown paper sack wedged between the leftover pizza and an outdated carton of eggs. A slender copper wire snaked through a hole in the bag toward the door.

A deafening explosion of light and noise and debris threw him across the narrow galley kitchen and slammed his head against the bottom cupboards.

He fought the darkness just long enough to look toward the front door of the condo. It was open. A bright green envelope had been tossed inside.

And Katie was gone.

CHAPTER TWO

“You aren’t going to like what that note said.” Paul Soderberg, a fellow Special Agent with the Dallas Field Division of the DEA, settled back in the hospital room chair and gave Zach a faint smile. “It’s from a guy who calls himself ‘El Cazador’—the Hunter—and he made the bombing sound real personal.”

Zach concentrated on breathing slow. Steady. A throbbing headache threatened to detonate his skull. The hospital bed was hard as granite and with every movement, searing pain radiated down his spine. But at least he wasn’t dead.

I could have been, he reminded himself grimly.

From what Paul said, his condo had been nearly destroyed, but there’d been only moderate damage to the other units in the building. No one had been killed, thank God. The heavy refrigerator door had flown forward and knocked him to the floor, shielding him from flying debris.

The entire day was a blank—he couldn’t remember anything since putting Katie to bed the night before. “Is my niece okay?”

“Scared. Won’t talk to anyone—just keeps crying for her mom. Pete and Alice will keep her until you’re out of here.”

“If that jerk hurt her...”

Zach closed his eyes and fought the mist spinning through his brain. Fought to stay awake and alert. Had he been in the hospital a day? Two days? The passing hours had bled together, marked only by ghostly voices floating toward him on a sea of darkness and endless pain.

“There weren’t any signs of physical abuse, Zach. She was frightened and dirty, but physically unharmed when she was recovered.”

Maybe she’d been physically unharmed, but what about the emotional trauma she’d endured—right after her mom left her with an uncle she’d never met? “Tell me the details. I need to know.”

Paul shook his head slowly. “She sure was lucky. Some customers at a truck stop outside of St. Cloud heard Katie crying in the back seat of an old Ford sedan. They said the driver seemed real agitated. When a woman approached the car and bent down to peer inside, Katie screamed.”

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