Page 96 of South of Justice

“Miss me?” Gates rasped.

Ryan didn’t answer. He just stared at him.

The marshal limped toward the truck, sweat-streaked and unshaven. His shirt was torn down one side, caked with dust and what looked like dried blood.

“Where the hell have you been?” Ryan said finally.

Gates exhaled and rubbed at his jaw. “Cupboard.”

“What?”

“Reyes clocked me after I stepped out of the shower,” he said dryly. “Woke up zip-tied and stuffed inside a goddamn armoire. By the time I got free, you were gone. So was the boy. Took me a whole day to catch up.”

Ryan’s grip on the gun finally loosened. He holstered it, jaw tightening.

Gates shrugged and looked toward the pickup. His eyes landed on the boy in the window, and something shifted in his expression. “You have the kid.”

Ryan nodded. “You sure you’re not here to take him away again?”

“I didn’t take him last time.”

“No,” Ryan said flatly, “but we thought you did.”

Gates scrubbed a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “Can’t blame you. Kid okay?”

“He’s shaken. And hungry. But he’s alive.”

“What about your girlfriend?”

Ryan bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard. “They took her. Phalanx. A private security outfit. They wanted her alive.”

The expression on Gates’s face told him that he knew all about Phalanx. “For the ledger.”

Ryan nodded.

Gates said nothing for a long beat. Just looked at the horizon like he was weighing something in his mind. Finally, he looked back at Ryan. “Then we go get her.”

Ryan squinted at him. “Just like that?”

“Yep. Just like that.” He took a step forward, limping. “I know all about those yahoos. I know how they operate and where, too. There’s a place about half an hour from here, up north past the bad roads and into the real forgotten country. Name’s Santa Loma. Not even on half the maps.”

“And?”

“And it’s where Phalanx likes to move people when they don’t want them found. Old crop-duster runway turned covert ops zone. Secure perimeter, flat terrain, no local police to worry about. Last time we clocked it, they were running personnel drops and cold storage from there.”

Ryan’s jaw clenched. “You think that’s where they took her?”

“I’d bet my badge on it. While I still have it.”

“This is the part where you tell me you’ve got a plan?” Ryan asked.

Gates squinted into the light. “Something like that.”

Ryan gestured at the Beetle. “Was that all Avis had?”

Gates shrugged. “I, uh, borrowed it from anabuelaon her way to Salina Cruz. It drives like a pissed-off goat, but it’ll get us there.”

“You stole it from an old lady?”