Free Just Deserts (Hetta Coffey Series, Book 4) by Jinx Schwartz Page B

another, I’d rack up some billable time. I compiled a master equipment and operating spares list. Maria brought me a boxed lunch a little after noon. I thought this was great service until I realized the delivery meant we still couldn’t leave the premises. She did, however, assure me that by quitting time everything would be under control, and we could go home. I was not assured.
    On the bright side, my lunch included the best carne asada burrito I’d had in a long time, served with—and this was totally foreign to any office I’d ever worked in—two ice cold beers. How could anyone be expected to quit a job with those perks?
    I was happily munching away, proving once again that good food and booze can temporarily take my mind off anything, when a harried, but still handsome Señor Orozco strode in and caught me in mid-bite. He was flanked by two burly uniformed men, both sporting flattop haircuts and swarthy scowls. Arm patches indicated they were something federal. Now what?
    “Miss Café, I must ask you to leave at once.”
    “Gee, Señor Orozco, I’ve been bounced off better sites, but you haven’t even given me a chance to screw things up yet.”
    His frown softened, then he grinned. “Ah, a joke. I am not dismissing you, it is that we simply cannot have you crossing the strike line again.”
    I pointed to the files and drawings I was working on. “So, then, how do you expect me to do the job you hired me for?”
    “You may take what you need home with you. Maria will help pack as many records as you can carry today, then these officers will escort you to the border. When you need more files, fax a list and we will bring them to you. And please, call me Juan.”
    “As in Don Juan?” My flirt made them all smile, so I added, “In that case, Juan, you can drop the Miss and just call me Café. Can I get more of these burritos thrown in with those files you’ll send?”
    “Café, I will deliver them personally, if that is what you wish.”
    ¡Carumba! Burritos and Don Juan?
    A deal like that could turn a girl’s head.

Chapter 11
     
    By three in the afternoon the day I was dropkicked out of the mine’s offices, my car resembled a college prank scenario from the sixties, as in, how many people can you get into a Volkswagen? Except this time it was how much paperwork.
    My escort, the two federales driving an unmarked, slightly battered, Crown Victoria, instructed me to stay close on their tail as they led the way off the mine premises. Even knowing the Crown Vic’s propensity for bursting into flames when rear-ended, I hugged my bodyguards’ bumper as they threaded us through a vociferous mob on the other side of the gate. We bogged down occasionally, coming to a halt until men in combat gear pushed back the throng. A couple of times I heard something bounce off my roof, but once through the line of scrimmage, a black and white with flashing lights fell in behind me and my convoy picked up speed.
    The entourage made me feel downright presidential until an innate paranoia set in.
    What if this was all a ruse, and I was on my way to the Cananea jail? Had the authorities somehow linked me to at least one of those drug cartel types involved in a shootout in their fair city only weeks before? Nacho’s cryptic message to mind my own beeswax and to stay away still rankled. If he meant I was to stay away from the mine, I was golden.
    Jan and I were never certain just who Nacho worked for, but we suspected he was either a drug lord, DEA, or both. I was fairly certain he was somehow a part of a showdown between the cops in Cananea and unruly gang members just weeks before. Many gang members died, but accounts were sketchy on the who, what, where, when, and why details. I’d pored over online articles, looking for clues to someone who might be Nacho, but found nothing.
    Other than kidnapping Jan and me, threatening to shoot me, then actually aiming in my direction and pulling the trigger, Nacho was an okay guy