“I’ve got you girl. You’re safe.” The world shifted, and he was carrying her down the hall.
He put his knee on the bed to lay her down and she shook her head.
“No. I want to get undressed.”
****
He slid her down his body. Clint had no idea what triggered her upset, but he planned to find out. When he was sure she was securely on her feet, he went over to her suitcase and found her Tasmanian devil sleepshirt. He came back and she was still standing exactly as he had left her—looking lost. He swiftly pulled her dress over her head and divested her of her bra.
“Here Baby, let’s get you ready for bed.” He helped her into the cartoon shirt and then pulled back the covers. God, she was killing him. He stripped and got in beside her and tucked her close. She was shivering.
He had never seen someone cry without shedding a tear, but she was doing it now. “Tell me about what it was like living in Tepito.” Beth told him what happened, but now he needed Lydia to tell him. He needed to hear it from her as much as she needed to tell it.
“People died.”
“Who?”
“My babysitter. Our babysitter. Angela. Her baby, Anicia died.”
“Tell me.”
“I was nine. I saw it all. Mama and Papa wouldn’t let her babysit Beth and me anymore. They said it was too dangerous. I didn’t know it at the time, but her husband Herman had been a witness to a crime and went to the police. One of the gangs was threatening reprisals, so Mama said Angela couldn’t babysit us anymore.”
“She had a baby?” That didn’t jive with what Beth told him.
“She was six months pregnant. I got to feel her tummy. Her baby’s name was Anicia.”
“I was playing hopscotch when I saw Angela with her husband walking across the street. I had to go to the crosswalk to get to them. I saw a car drive by, and then I saw two guns pointing at them. There were so many shots fired. Angela and Herman never made any sounds, their bodies just kept bouncing and twitching with blood spattering everywhere.” Lydia ground her forehead into his chest, her fist shoved against her mouth making it difficult to understand some of her words, but the anguish was clear.
“The light changed and I ran across the street. Nobody could stop me from getting to them, because I was little and I ran under their arms. I hugged Angela and begged her to wake up.” Finally Lydia started to cry. Thank God. His woman felt so delicate in his arms. She’d been so sick, and still wasn’t eating much. She’d gone through so many horrors in her life. Clint loved that she came to him for solace.
“I have you.”
“Please don’t leave me.”
“I won’t.” He rocked her, his hands gently stroking up and down on her back. Finally her sobs turned to hiccups, and then he felt the soft breath of her sleep.
He waited until he was sure she was deeply asleep, and then he snuck out of bed. He went into the den and shut down her computer and cleaned up. He stretched out on the couch and booted up his laptop and found the articles on the killing in Tepito. He wondered if that might have been the impetus for Lydia’s father to start working for the Guzman’s. Clint would never agree with Hidalgo’s choices, but he could begin to see his motives.
Clint set some online search parameters for potential activity between the Mexico and Texas border since it was the Guzman’s preferred method of drug transport. He considered hacking into Lydia’s computer so he could get some of her information and have more searches run through the night.
“But that would be cheating, wouldn’t it Archer?” He laughed to himself. God, it had been funny to see Lydia get so bent out of shape when he had asked her if she had cheated in school. She would be the last person who would have cheated. She was such a straight shooter, it scared him. Her moral code was above reproach, and they might have to significantly bend some rules in order to get Guzman.
He picked up her laptop and spent a couple of minutes trying to remember her password. His extremely smart woman used a random alpha numeric code. He had watched her enter it. He knew he missed the last two numbers, that’s why it took him a little bit of time to get into her system. When he did he smiled.
“Every time I find out more about you Lydia Hidalgo I fall a little more in love.” The way she organized her system was a thing of beauty. It almost exactly mirrored his own.
“Shit!”
She was further into the dark web than he was. He couldn’t believe the network of contacts she had. It took him an hour to find all of her e-mail accounts. When he did he no longer worried about her ability to bend the rules, she apparently shredded the rule book. She had multiple aliases, and she was gathering information like a hungry squirrel before winter.