Free My Spy: Last Spy Standing by Dana Marton

desk lamp there. It barely illuminated the room. The cavernous shop stretched in darkness on the other side of the glass partition.
    Rico scratched his tattoo-covered neck. Pretty much every part of him that was visible was inked, including the backs of his hands. “Anyone follow you here?”
    Jamie shook his head.
    “You wired?”
    Jamie pulled up his shirt.
    Rico’s glance caught on the gun first, tucked into the waistband, before he raised his gaze to scan the rest. That they would both be armed had been understood from the beginning.
    Jamie dropped his clothes back into place. “What do you have?”
    Rico rubbed his fingers over his mouth. “If this checks out, I get protection? For both of us? ”
    “That’s the deal.”
    The man shifted from one foot to the other. “You said you’re looking for the Coyote. What for? He’s bad news, man.”
    “Let that be my problem.”
    Rico measured him up. A couple of seconds passed in silence.
    “Last year I was in the can,” he said at last, then drew a long breath. “Enrique led the gang then. He wanted to move some of our guys down south, take over. Wanted to control both sides. He wanted to be king.”
    “So?” Gangs looking to expand weren’t exactly big news. “Where does the Coyote come in?”
    “In prison, the man in the cell next to me worked for the Coyote.”
    Jamie leaned forward and listened.
    “He wanted revenge. The Coyote killed his brother. He said he’d pass information to Enrique, help Enrique take territory from the Coyote.”
    “Did he?”
    “He got stabbed the next day.” He banged his fist against his chest several times to demonstrate. “The guards never figured out who stabbed him, but I know. A guy called Jimenez. On the Coyote’s orders.”
    “Where is Jimenez now?”
    “Nobody knows. He went underground when he got out. Might be he was killed.”
    Another dead end. But there was something else here. Orders got delivered through visitors. All he had to do to find the Coyote’s messenger was search the visitor records at the prison, see who’d come to visit Jimenez just before the murder. Then the messenger could lead him to the Coyote himself.
    “So when do we get out?” Rico asked. “I don’t want to wait. Maria’s ready. Tonight?”
    “Give me a couple of days to finalize everything. I’ll call you to let you know how and when to come in.”
    The thought that they would soon have a direct link to the Coyote was enough to keep Jamie awake on the drive home, no coffee needed. Even if they couldn’t dig up enough evidence to charge the man with smuggling, they would have murder one if they could prove that the Coyote had ordered the execution of that man in prison. It didn’t much matter under what charge the bastard was put away, as long as he was taken out of circulation.
    And, most important, once they had him, they would do whatever it took to get enough information out of him to catch the terrorists they were hunting.
    He thought about that, and about Bree’s stalker. He didn’t like the idea of Bree in danger. She was way too nice. If some bad guy came into her house she’d be more likely to offer him coffee than shoot him between the eyes.
    Yet if anyone could talk her way out of a situation with smiles and politeness, it was her. He didn’t fully understand how she did what she did, but he had to admit it worked.
    That was a whole different approach from how he operated. He’d been trained to identify the enemy, aim, shoot and kill. She needed someone like that to back her up, just in case.
    Not that he was volunteering.
    He just wanted to make sure her stalker wasn’t connected to her recent cooperation agreement with his team. He hoped she was right. He hoped it was something else, a misguided regular Joe, like she’d said, and not some professional criminal sent to harass her.
    He had work to do and she was a distraction. He wanted to figure out what was going on so he could close the door on the whole