“For?”
“He wants to see Kennedy.”
“What the hell, Murdock? I’m sure Sam doesn’t want any part of that deal.”
“He’ll be locked in a cell. She’ll be safe. He wants a brief chat with her, that’s all. Then they’ll transport him back to Santa Fe.”
“They know how dangerous he is, right? How are they handling the transport?”
“Federal marshals. They’ve thanked us for our assistance, but it’s their deal now. From Santa Fe to Taos and nearly all the way to Eagle Nest, Angel’s left carnage behind. I fear that if he even looks at one of them wrong they’ll put a bullet in his head,” Murdock said bluntly. “They’re going to send in a couple of our agents from the Albuquerque office to deal with the three million,” he said. “Talk with Kennedy. They want to do it first thing in the morning.”
“Okay, I’ll tell her. But if it was me, I’d tell him to go fuck himself.”
Murdock laughed. “I’m sure you would. But three million is three million. Recovering that is a priority.”
“So she talks to him, they take him to Santa Fe, then our job here is done? We can head out?”
“Your job is done. And I’m sure Agent Hunter and Kennedy are more than ready to head back to Dallas.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said. “Andrea and I will head back to Colorado then. Unless you’ve got something else lined up?” She sat on the edge of the bed and let Lola climb into her lap.
“No. You guys did a great job on this. You deserve a break. I’ll hold off on an assignment for at least a couple of weeks.”
“Thanks, Murdock. I don’t mind saying, I’m getting too damn old for chasing lunatics through the mountains on foot.”
“Well, if you wanted to chat with that lunatic tomorrow too, feel free. Angel might as well know who it was chasing him.”
Cameron smiled. “That I might do.”
He disconnected without another word, and she slipped her phone back into her pocket. Lola was curled in her lap, her loud purring vibrating against her leg. Cameron took a few seconds to rub her chin, then nudged her off. She didn’t know what Sam’s feelings would be about the proposition, but Cameron was ready to get it over with. As soon as Angel was on his way to Santa Fe, she planned to hit the road back to Colorado.
She went out into the living room and found them chatting about Patrick Doe, of all things. She arched an eyebrow and Andrea smiled.
“I was telling them how we caught Patrick,” she explained.
“I especially liked the part where you jumped off a cliff and nearly landed on a cactus,” Tori said with a laugh.
“Very funny,” Cameron said. “I damn near broke my ankle.” She sat back down in her recliner and took a swallow of her now warm beer. “Got some news,” she said. “They found Angel.”
Sam leaned forward. “They caught him?”
“Yeah. At a checkpoint near Angel Fire Resort. They’re going to take him back to Santa Fe in the morning. But before he’ll give up the location of the money, he wanted to…to see you,” she said to Sam.
“See me?”
“Murdock said Angel’s proposition was that in exchange for the money, he wanted a chat with you.”
“No way,” Tori said. “She’s been through enough, Cameron. There’s no reason she—”
“There’s a three million dollar reason,” Cameron said bluntly.
“What…what does he want?” Sam asked.
Cameron shrugged. “Don’t know. They’re holding him in Taos. He’ll be in a cell. It’s not like you’d talk to him in an interrogation room or anything.”
“I don’t like it,” Tori said.
Sam glanced at her and nodded. “I know you don’t.” She turned to Cameron. “But I’ll do it.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sam stared down the long corridor, trying to make sense of her feelings. Angel had violently hit Leslie, to the point of knocking her unconscious. He had killed that innocent family. He had killed so many that day. And he had abducted her at gunpoint. Tied her hands with a rope, threatened to kill her. She had been frightened, yes. But from the very beginning, from the moment she’d looked into his eyes, she’d seen something…something she couldn’t put her finger on. She thought, maybe, subconsciously, she’d known all along that he wouldn’t kill her.
“Ma’am?”
Sam turned to the young guard who stood beside her. She offered him a quick smile. “I’m fine.”
“I’ll take you down there.”
“No need,” she said. “I can manage.”
“No offense, ma’am, but he’s one mean son of a bitch,” he said.
Sam squared her shoulders. “And no offense to you, but I do this for a living.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Dallas Police Department,” she said.
“You’re a cop?”
“Yes.”
He looked past her, down the row of empty cells. “I should still go with you. They—”
“You can wait here if you want,” she said, taking a step away from him. “He wanted to see me, not you.”
She left the guard standing where he was as she headed down to the last cell. To say she’d been shocked that Angel had been caught so quickly was an understatement. He’d gone to such lengths to escape, to stay hidden. They’d walked for days across the mountains to avoid the highway. Why had he gotten caught? Cameron questioned it as well. Tori and Andrea didn’t know Angel. Not that Sam could say she knew him well, not like Cameron. But from what she did know, he was smarter than to drive right up to a checkpoint.
“Sam? Is that you?”
She smiled when she heard his voice. “Yes.”
She walked closer, stopping at his cell. It was dark and he was sitting in the shadows. When he stood, she heard the rustle of chains. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit and his legs were shackled—leg irons. He came into the light and she gasped. His lip was split open, one of his eyes was discolored and badly swollen.
“Yeah, they had a little fun with me,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He shrugged, and she noticed that his hands were cuffed as well. “At least they didn’t shoot me.”
She met his gaze through the bars. “Why did you get caught, Angel?”
“Why? It wasn’t like it was intentional.”
“Wasn’t it?”
He stared at her for a long moment, then his good eye wrinkled up in a smile. “So you made it out okay? No mountain lions?”
She smiled too. “No mountain lions. Actually, they were only about two hours behind us.”
“Oh yeah? Your Tori?”
Sam nodded.
“I guess your faith in her paid off.” He looked past her. “Am I going to meet her?”
Sam shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. She wants to shoot you.”
Angel laughed, then winced and brought his hand up to his busted lip. “Damn,” he murmured. Then, “She wants to shoot me, huh? She’ll have to get in line.”
“I imagine.” She took a step closer to the bars. “Is this what…what this is about? What if I hadn’t made it out okay?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I guess I would have led them to where I left you.” He looked away. “I had to make sure you were okay, Sam.”
“So you’re trading a visit with me for three million dollars?”
“Yeah. What? You don’t think you’re worth that much?”
“When there were no helicopters searching for us, you didn’t think I was,” she reminded him.
“Well, I know they wanted the money. And I wanted to…to make sure you were back in civilization,” he said. “It seemed like a fair exchange.”
“Thank you for being worried about me,” she said quietly. She looked down, then back to him. “I’m having a hard time with all of this, Angel,” she admitted.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I know who you are, what you did. Yet I’m having a hard time separating all that from the man I came to know.”