Slater laughed shortly. "He'll get over it."
"Still, he's in charge of the case."
"All the more reason for him to plug the security leak he's got. Pass the message on," Slater ordered before hanging up on her.
So much for her being able to handle Ben Slater. She settled into the passenger seat and waited for Rafe to buckle up and start the engine before passing on the directions to the safe house.
Rafe glanced over at her. "What took so long?" When she remained silent, he mumbled, "Slater was giving you grief about the leak, wasn't he?"
"He's got a point. Vargas' people found out about the girls too fast. They couldn't have used their usual sources."
He rapped the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. "I know, but I don't see where they could've gotten the information from. Every damn member of my team has been security cleared dozens of times – background searches, known affiliates, tax returns, family members – very deep checks."
"You should probably have them all investigated again, just to be sure," she suggested.
Rafe took his eyes off the road to gaze at her, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Maybe you're right. There's a breach somewhere, but it looks deeply buried."
After a thirty-minute, silent drive northeast, they arrived at the safe house location, an unoccupied summer home at a higher elevation in Bigler County. Rafe pulled the car onto a gravel driveway behind Slater's truck and a squad car.
By the way he clicked off the ignition and turned to face her, Bella knew he'd been planning what to say the whole trip up into the foothills. He blew heavily through his mouth and scraped his hands over his heavy beard. Then he reached for her, placing his forefinger over her lips, his eyes dark with an emotion she couldn't read.
"We should talk about last night." He brushed a strand of hair off her cheek, trailing his fingers along her jaw line.
She nodded.
"We can't… we shouldn't let this… thing between us get in the way of the case," he murmured.
She leaned her cheek against his hand and closed her eyes. "Maybe last night was a bad idea."
He dropped his hand, gripped the wheel, and stared straight ahead as the front door to the house swung open and Slater's large body filled the frame.
"Hell, yes, it was a bad idea," he finally said, sounding impatient, his jaw working furiously. "But we can't take it back."
"Are you sorry?" she asked.
Rafe opened his mouth to answer, but by that time Slater was tapping on the passenger's window and the moment had passed. God, Bella thought bitterly, was last night just a fling for him? Having a one-night stand – how pathetic was that?
She swung out of the car and joined Slater. "Where's the girl?"
Slater looked from her to Rafe and back again, as if he were sizing up the situation, aware that something was amiss. "She's inside. Fell asleep on the way down here and I didn't have the heart to wake her up."
He peered into Bella's face again, and she wondered what he could see written on it. Slater was too astute not to miss the emotions playing there, and she was too unschooled to hide them.
"Are you okay?" he asked, placing a large hand on her shoulder.
She shrugged him off and hurried up the small flight of wooden steps into the house. Snow would cover the grounds this high up in the winter so the houses were built up off the ground on wooden frames. From the entry Bella moved into a single, spacious room which contained a kitchen at one end and a living area at the other.
Waylon Harris and Deputies McKidd and Ruiz from the Bigler County Sheriff's Office sat at the kitchen end of the room, surrounding a table where they sipped coffee from mugs. Harris, a tree trunk of a man with skin like polished ebony, jumped up from his chair to greet her. Bella suspected that he had a bit of a crush on her because he seemed to fall all over himself whenever she was around.
Deputy Ruiz was a new recruit, a hefty Hispanic man with a brush of moustache above his lip and eyes that danced with humor. Slater would've assigned Ruiz to this case because of his Spanish background even though Bella herself spoke the language fluently. Slater liked covering all his bases.
McKidd, a tall, bony redhead with large freckles in a ridiculously young face, seemed all arms and legs as he sprawled on the tiny kitchen chair. He'd just popped a powdered doughnut in his mouth and white dust sprinkled across his sparse, reddish soul patch.
Rafe and Slater trailed in from the car. After Slater made introductions all around, everyone poured a first or second cup of coffee. Rafe, Bella, and Slater took the chairs at the kitchen table, while Ruiz, Harris, and McKidd returned to their posts guarding the two entrances to the house.
Rafe checked out the front of the house, noting the wide window that opened onto the gravel drive. The back door led to a deck from which a long stretch of stairs wound downward to a dirt embankment and a copse of slender pines. The entire back wall consisted of floor to ceiling glass windows and the view through the glassed wall was spectacular, but he wasn't interested in that.
"What's the girl's name and how old is she?" Isabella asked as she added sugar and cream to her coffee.
"Esperanza. Says she's thirteen, speaks English very well," Slater answered. "She's exhausted."
"Was she injured in the fracas?" Rafe asked from his position by the window.
"Took a bullet to the upper shoulder and she's sore, but it's not serious," Slater replied.
"What's going to happen to her?" Isabella asked. "When this is all over, I mean."
"After we get the information, she'll go back to Mexico," Rafe answered, not meeting her eyes, knowing the girl would go back where she came from, but there'd be no happy ending for her. "Hopefully, she has a family still waiting for her."
"Hopefully, she wasn't sold into slavery and prostitution by that same family," Isabella snapped.
Rafe ignored the anger in her eyes and directed his question to Slater. "Has she said anything yet?"
Slater nodded towards the behemoth Deputy Harris and tapped his own chest. "The four of us – you can see we're not dainty men. I was waiting for Bella. I think a woman will work better with the girl."
Rafe wondered how Slater had managed to find a good safe house on such short notice. Good location, isolated, gravel to alert vehicle approach, and only a few trees to hide someone coming up on foot. "Whose place is this?"
"Friend of a friend of a friend, who's vacationing in Italy. This is their second home, completely untraceable."
"Good," Rafe grunted. "The girl's in there?" He gestured towards the hall to his left where he could see several closed doors.
"Second door on the right," Slater answered, glancing at his watch. "She should be awake soon."
As if on cue, the door swung open and a young girl, looking scarcely twelve, barefoot and sleepy-eyed, wandered to the end of the hall. She was skinny and dirty, but Rafe could tell she'd be a beauty when she was older, wide round eyes surrounded by long, sooty ashes, skin the color of sun-kissed copper, and a look of sadness on her face that would break a man's heart.
Isabella approached Esperanza, introduced herself, and asked if she'd mind talking to her. The girl glanced at the two men first, and drawing her brows together, finally nodded before turning back to the bedroom. Isabella followed.
An uncomfortable silence descended as Rafe joined Slater at the table. Rafe could see Harris positioned by the patio door and assumed the other two deputies were posted at the front.
"I guess it could be Nevada County," Slater said, apropos of nothing, after a few minutes of silence.
Rafe looked over in surprise. "The leak? You think?"
Slater shrugged. "Not really.
"But part of it could be," Rafe speculated. "The Nevada hit was awfully fast."
"That's what I was thinking."