Deadly Games - Cate Noble [59]
“Are you going to tell me where we’re headed?”
Rocco stood. “Toward the east coast, near Acapulco. The man I’m working with has connections there.”
He motioned her toward a crowded corridor. The sky beyond the windows looked gray, as if a storm approached. Was this the same system that had delayed Rocco’s contact? She prayed the weather wouldn’t interfere with their flight.
They were still posing as a couple, a ruse Rocco insisted they continue. The man they were meeting, Clay, believed he was providing security for an oil company executive and his wife, who’d been targeted by rebels. “The fewer people who know the truth, the better,” Rocco had said.
That he planned to take off as soon as she was settled in the safe house made it easier to go along with the ruse. No chance of waking up in an awkward position again.
After a twenty-minute wait at the restaurant, Gena and Rocco were seated at a corner table that was relatively quiet.
“Is your arm hurting?” Rocco asked. “You’re favoring it again.”
“Am I?” She rubbed her wrist. It was still sore, but she’d left off the compression bandage to avoid calling attention to her injuries. “I’ll take ibuprofen with dinner.”
“Gena, I need your word that you won’t try to leave the safe house while I’m gone.”
She lowered her menu. “And go where? My apartment? That’s the last place I’d feel safe right now.”
“You talked before about finding Lupe’s grandmother . It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that others would deduce the same.”
“I hate that Lupe’s grandmother is being left in the dark,” Gena said. “But, at the same time, I know my presence can endanger others.”
“I’m glad you understand.”
“It’s not so much understanding as it is my desire for vengeance.”
“Don’t even think about taking matters into your own hands.” Rocco had dropped his voice lower.
“Do you think I’m that stupid? I realize the people behind this are ruthless. My hope is that they’ll follow you right into a trap. I want them arrested and tried for Lupe’s murder.”
The waitress returned and took their order, conversing in Spanish with Gena.
“I forgot you were so fluent,” Rocco said. “Look, I’m sorry if I sounded harsh a minute ago. You said you hadn’t known Lupe long, yet it seemed you were close.”
“Everyone at the shelter grew close, even if they were only there a short time.”
“You volunteered there, right? And you also worked for the construction company building the new shelter?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’m curious how you ended up in construction.” Rocco linked his hands in front of him on the table. “I mean, of all the things I might have imagined you doing, construction wasn’t one of them.”
Of all the things I might have imagined.
That didn’t mean he’d been thinking of her. It was a figure of speech. Every time she’d thought of Rocco, she’d known exactly what he’d been doing. Being a field operative was in his blood.
Gena started to give him the same standard no-big-deal reply that she gave anyone who expressed surprise that a woman did what many still considered “a man’s job.” Except Rocco’s question was based on the Gena Armstrong he’d known a long time ago.
“It was no secret that I was in pretty bad shape when I left Harry,” Gena began. By that time, her battle with alcohol had been common knowledge. “On top of that, my father had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, so returning to Texas seemed like my only option. Unfortunately, he died before I got there, in a pauper’s hospital. I didn’t know he’d lost everything.”
“That had to be hard.”
She shrugged. “A childhood friend of mine came to his funeral. Vianca and I had been like sisters from kindergarten through high school. We’d planned to go to college together, except she married and stayed behind. We lost touch for several years. Her marriage failed and she decided to take over her husband’s construction business after he ran off with his secretary. Vianca pushed me into rehab, and then she took me under her wing and put me through a very physical crash course in construction.