Maybe then she could have the life she wanted. Nope, the government would never allow it. Clint would never stop serving his country. Her head was in the clouds. There had to be a way. Life would never be this unfair!
“Sell it somewhere else, Hidalgo.” Great, now she was talking to herself.
She more than anyone on Earth knew life wasn’t fair and she had the scars to prove it. She picked up her e-reader. Dammit. But she was going to figure a way out of this mess.
She looked over at the nightstand and considered getting out her computer. Maybe she could do a little more hacking, a little more probing into the life of one Alfonso Guzman. Her father might be reconsidering testifying, but there was no way in hell she was going to let those bastards win. But she knew her brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders and she couldn’t afford to be caught. There were too many firewalls that she needed to breach. She’d need to stick with studying right now. Tomorrow would be a better day for hacking.
She settled in to read more about the Trends in Computer Networks and Security, if nothing else it would help her get the rest that the doctor was always saying she needed.
Chapter Five
She barely heard him as Nelson came to her bedside. But she saw the syringe he was pocketing. Every sense in her body went on high alert.
Oh God!
She looked at her IV and realized she probably had only a few moments. If she screamed he might kill her outright. She needed him to leave the room. Lydia turned her hand and pinched the tube so it stopped the flow of liquid. She watched him leave through her lashes. Maybe she was wrong, but she knew she wasn’t.
Reaching for the call button for the nurse, she found it cut. Dammit, this was real! Yanking the IV out of the back of her hand, Lydia screamed at the top of her lungs.
****
This time Clint wasn’t alone when he arrived in Dallas. He was surrounded by his team.
“You have point on this mission, Clint. You know the situation,” Mason whispered to him.
Clint looked over at Mason and gave him a tight smile. They had commandeered one of the conference rooms at the hospital. Peter Grogan, the man who ran the Dallas office of the US Marshall Service, was in the room with them. He had a file in front of him.
“I’m not happy about this. This is something that we should take care of, you should not be involved.” Grogan was sitting at the head of the table, it was clear that he was used to being in charge.
Mason didn’t say anything, he just stared at the man. It was a good tactic, he shifted in his seat and finally continued to talk.
“I haven’t been given a choice. Lieutenant, you and your team have now been given total control of the Hidalgos’ safety. ” He sighed.
“The first thing we need is to better understand what happened. How were your people compromised?” Mason was relaxed and spoke quietly, while Clint wanted to take the man outside and beat the hell out of him for his incompetence.
“Nelson Barber has worked for us for over three years. When he applied everything checked out. He went through a rocky divorce a year ago and we found out he became a financial risk.”
“Don’t you monitor for that type of thing?” Mason asked calmly.
“We do.”
Again, Mason didn’t say anything.
“Obviously, it slipped through the cracks. Barber hasn’t been found.” Grogan pushed one of the files over to Mason. “Here is everything we have on Barber. Apparently we missed a lot. His brother was in on this too. He owns a janitorial company and has ex-cons and drug dealers on his payroll, which we’re sure Barber was using to do some of his dirty work. They’re actually paying these people and taking out taxes!”
He slapped his hand against the table.
This was going downhill fast. They still needed more information and cooperation, and having Grogan all upset wasn’t going to help matters.
“How’s Ed doing?” Clint asked, trying to help calm the man down.
“He’s going to be fine. Barber was using one of his old snitches to keep Ed locked up so he could take the call from Beth. The snitch, who was on his brother’s payroll by the way, got nervous and left Ed in the motel room. We found him from his phone’s GPS. He’s going to make a full recovery. If Lydia hadn’t foiled this bastard’s murder attempt, she and Ed would both be dead.”
Clint’s gut clenched. Yeah, it was great Ed was okay, but he didn’t want to even think about Lydia not waking up when she did.
“So at this point you haven’t told the parents anything, correct?” Clint asked.
“That’s correct. Unfortunately the sisters talked before we could stop them, so Beth knows what happened. But we asked them to keep it from their parents.”