Tina Donahue - Deep Within Me

“How can you not know that?” Zeke growled. “You’ve been around her since she was a kid.”

Jacob stared at him, then glanced back at the computer screen. Liz rested her hand on Zeke’s chest. “What is it?” she asked him. “What have you seen?”

“Oh shit,” Jacob said.

Zeke released Liz and went around the table to his brother. “What?”

Jacob’s complexion had turned pasty. “She found the office where the transmission took place.”

“How?” Liz blurted.

“She used the calendar on the wall.”

Zeke’s belly clenched. The images in his vision all made sense now. “She’s heading there.”

“Why?” Liz cried.

“Because she brought Carreon’s men here,” Zeke said, feeling ill. “She put the stronghold and our people at risk.” He could barely breathe. “She wants to make up for it.”

Jacob stood. “We have to stop her.”

How? Too much time had passed for them to catch up. Exactly what Kele had wanted.

“You take the next exit,” Diaz said. He gestured to the highway sign illuminated by the Jeep’s headlights. Using the faint glow coming from the dash, he checked the map. “Then we go two miles to the intersection of Carmelita and Rio Rosa. There, we turn—hey, what are you doing?” He looked behind himself. “You missed the exit.”

“I remembered a better way,” Kele lied. She wiped her left palm on her jeans, then her right. The last time her hands had been this sweaty was the night she’d gone to Carreon’s stronghold in the hopes of making Jacob her own.

Fool.

How could she have believed he’d love her after what she’d done? How could she have been so stupid?

“What better way?” Diaz finally said. “My aunt’s house isn’t far from that last exit. We’ll have to double back now.”

“It’s okay.”

He remained turned to her, watching, no doubt frowning. Kele ignored him.

“What’s this about?” he asked, his question laced with suspicion.

“I have to make a stop first.”

“Where?”

She took the next off ramp. At this hour, the streets were deserted. Carreon’s man would soon be exiting the back of the strip club to throw out the trash and have a smoke.

Please, let him do that tonight.

“We’ll get Pedro as soon as I’m through,” Kele promised.

Diaz snapped, “Doing what?”

She slowed half a block down from the club and parked the Jeep in front of a home that had seen better days. Tall weeds and grass had taken over the front yard. Paint peeled from the wooden siding. A child’s bike, its back wheel missing, lay on the sagging steps that led to the porch. The houses surrounding it were as decrepit. This street, like the others, was also empty. No one nearby.

“Kele, stop.”

She couldn’t. Once and for all, she had to make things right. Jacob still wouldn’t love her. However, maybe—just maybe—he’d like her a little more. He’d respect the woman she’d finally become. They’d be friends again, just as he always wanted. She blinked away her tears, angry at her lingering hurt. She had no right to it.

With her weapon’s stock folded, she hid it at her side beneath the lightweight blanket coat she wore. Once the sun had set, the blistering summer air had cooled to the mid-sixties. Downright chilly for this part of the world.

“Stay here,” she said to Diaz and left the keys in the ignition. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Fuck that,” he said, “I’m coming with—”

She interrupted him, her tone unnaturally calm, “If you get killed, what will happen to Pedro?” Before Diaz could answer, she murmured, “Stay here.”

She closed the door as gently as she could to avoid making any unnecessary noise, then ran down the street and stopped short of the club’s back entrance. Noting the security cameras, Kele remained in the equipment’s blind spots and inched closer, then closer through the shadows.

Carreon’s Escalade was still here. Good. The dark blue Lincoln must have belonged to the other man.

Come out, come out, come out, her thoughts urged him as she crouched down in her vantage point.

She counted the passing seconds. A strange calm settled over her. On the drive here, she’d worried about panic, that she might be so afraid she’d rethink this. Now that the time had come, all the suspense and anguish had been foolish. She’d never felt as peaceful, because she knew she’d done the right thing by—

The back door swung open, halting her thoughts. The man she’d seen on the computer monitor wasn’t holding the expected trash bag. However, he did have a pack of cigarettes in his hand. After propping the door open with a brick, he lit the smoke and pulled deeply on it.

Kele’s heart, so calm a moment before, began to hammer. Discounting it, she pulled her weapon from her coat and lowered the stock, locking it in place.

At the faint click, the man stopped blowing out his smoke. He turned and glanced up the street, then down, his back now to her.

She bolted from her hiding place, her steps muffled by her moccasins. She rested the muzzle of her assault rifle in the center of his back.

“Make one sound or move and you’re dead,” she murmured, then took the weapon from his waistband and slipped it into her own. She found another holstered on his ankle. She threw it into the bushes that separated this property from the next and nudged him with her rifle. “Inside.”

He walked like a man going to his execution, his steps halting and far too slow. Kele’s pulse drummed against her throat and temples. She fought a wave of dizziness as they left the brief hall and entered the office.

With hours left before his self-appointed deadline, Carreon dozed on one end of the sofa. The woman he’d threatened to kill was on the other end, also asleep. As though she’d sensed something, she stirred, then blinked and stared.

Kele rammed her shoulder into the man’s back. Caught off guard, he stumbled to the side and grabbed the desk to break his fall. A paperweight tumbled from it, smacking into the carpeting.

The noise awakened Carreon. He was halfway to his feet, reaching for his weapon when Kele shot him.

Within minutes, Jacob had restored the data Kele had deleted—the Google map, a blueprint of the building, the location of all the security cameras, their transmissions.

“The club’s on Vincencia Street,” he said, then snapped, “Why didn’t she tell us? What the fuck does she think she’s doing?”

She wants your forgiveness and love, Liz thought, sorrow gripping her. Despite what had already happened, and Kele’s seeming acceptance that she’d never be the woman Jacob desired, she still longed for the impossible.

Zeke went to his brother. “Jacob, there’s nothing you can do.”

“Quit blocking me.”

Zeke didn’t move. “Kele’s too far away. You can’t catch up with her now.”

“We can’t let her fight him alone. What about your fucking vision? What’s going to happen to her?”

“Zeke’s visions don’t always come true,” Liz said, going to them. “They’re a warning of what might happen, not necessarily how things will turn out. You survived and so did Zeke. Even I came back.” She glanced at Zeke and added, “I’m all right.”

He looked as though he’d never believe that again. Not fully.

Holding back a sigh, Liz spoke to Jacob. “Diaz is with Kele. He hates Carreon as much as we all do. He’ll protect her.”

Jacob backed away. “Sure. If she told him what she was doing.”

“Even if she didn’t,” Zeke said, “he’ll know soon enough, and he’ll help her.”

Jacob stopped shifting from foot to foot. “You really believe that, or is it something you’re only saying to keep me here?”

“Oh God, don’t leave,” Liz said. She wrapped her arms around Jacob’s torso. His heart beat as wildly as hers. “Diaz will keep her safe,” Liz murmured. “He’ll prove Zeke’s vision was wrong. Diaz will change the future, just as Zeke did when he saw you dying during the battle here.”

Jacob made a noise that sounded resigned or tired, then caressed Liz as Zeke had when they’d first returned to the stronghold and he’d begged her to stop asking so many questions…to simply hold him. “You really believe Kele will be all right?”

It was a moment before Liz could answer. Right now, all she had was hope. “Even if she’s not, I can bring her back.”

“No,” Zeke said, going to them. “I won’t allow it.”

“That goes double for me,” Jacob said. “Your father won’t go for it either. He’ll help her, should it come to that.”

Liz didn’t argue. Now wasn’t the time. She refused to believe that she could no longer heal. That one day, she’d have to let Zeke, her father or Jacob slip away in order to protect herself.

Uh-uh. No freaking way. She’d never allow that. Nor would she consider that Kele and Diaz wouldn’t come back. “Is it possible for you to start a transmission, or whatever you call it, to the club?” she asked. “For us to see what’s going on?”

Zeke and Jacob exchanged a glance.

Liz spoke before they could. “If you can’t do it with the computer Carreon used before, what about a security camera? Maybe there’s one in the office like those outside the building. Can you hack into it, intercept the image, whatever needs to be done?”

“It’s worth a try,” Jacob said.

Zeke ran his fingers over his mouth, looking uncertain. Liz noticed how he kept glancing behind himself as though he expected someone to barge into the room. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Jacob stopped short of the computer, waiting for his brother’s answer.