Free Echoes at Dawn by Maya Banks Page A

coffin. She had no recourse in a foreign country. No passport. No proof of citizenship. What could she possibly do if these men did turn out to be her enemies?
    No, she couldn’t dwell on that because her panic was rising with every minute that passed. These were the good guys. She had to believe that. Because if they turned out to be of the same caliber as those who’d kept her prisoner for so many days, it was over for her.
    Rio shook her awake sometime later. She rubbed her hand over her eyes, not having realized that she’d fallen back under. The vehicle was cloaked in darkness. It was also slowing to a stop.
    “Just stay down, Grace,” Rio murmured. “Stay low untilI tell you to get up, okay? I just want to check things out here first.”
    Rio got out of the back of the SUV then motioned for Terrence and Diego to keep watch over Grace while Alton and Browning took up posts on either side of the truck.
    Then he walked toward the rickety storage shed that doubled as the “office” for Lazaro’s transport business. As soon as he neared, he heard the betraying click of a gun being put off safety.
    He drew his own weapon and then called out, “It’s me, you stupid paranoid bastard. Put your damn gun up before you get yourself killed.”
    There was a moment of silence followed by a scuffling sound. Then the door creaked open and a tall, lanky man stuck a shotgun through the crack.
    “Rio? That you?”
    Rio sighed. “Who the fuck else would it be? I called you an hour ago and told you we were close.”
    Lazaro slipped out, still clutching the shotgun, but he pointed it upward instead of at Rio, a fact Rio was grateful for. Lazaro was as jumpy as a frog. It wouldn’t take much for him to accidentally discharge his weapon.
    “The plane ready?” Rio asked.
    Lazaro nodded and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s around back. Pilot will be here in five minutes. You’ll make an unscheduled, off-the-books stopover in Belize and then the plane will continue on to Peru on a delivery route. I’ve already done the paperwork and made it all official like. As long as you don’t make a splash when you get to Belize, no one should ever know. Buddy of mine there is willing to keep it all hush-hush. No record of any plane landing there, if you know what I mean.”
    Rio clapped Lazaro on the back. “Good man. I knew I could count on you.”
    “Get loaded,” Lazaro returned. “You don’t have a whole lot of time.”

CHAPTER 10
     
    “WHAT the fuck do you mean, they escaped the mountains?” Gordon Farnsworth bellowed. “I called you in because you’re the best. This isn’t acceptable. Not on any level.”
    “Keep your underwear on,” Hancock said in a cool voice Farnsworth didn’t like. It was too collected. It was too “I don’t give a fuck what you think or say.” On some level, Farnsworth knew he needed to tread lightly. Titan wasn’t a force to be fucked around with. But desperation made a man do and say stupid things.
    “The idiots who were hired to bring her in the first time made a clusterfuck of the entire situation. The mountains are littered with their dumbasses. We’re stuck cleaning up their damn messes. Grace Peterson escaped because she’s not acting alone. She has help. Good help.”
    Farnsworth swore. “Who? Tell me who. I’ll take care of it.”
    “Doesn’t matter who,” Hancock said calmly. “I’ll find Grace Peterson and I’ll bring her in. You’d be best served to stay out of it and let us handle the situation.”
    It was the closest that anyone had ever come to telling Gordon Farnsworth what to do. No one else dared. But there was something in this man’s voice that gave him pause. Farnsworth tasted fear for the first time in his life and he didn’t like it a bit.
    “See that you do,” he clipped out. “I don’t have any time to waste. I don’t have weeks or days. I may only have hours, and each hour that rolls by and she’s not here is one hour I can’t afford to