Beyond the Breaking Point - Lori Sjoberg Page 0,89

down a man twice her size. Last he’d heard, Vonda was on the fast track to running the duty station in Miami.

“You didn’t know where you were going ahead of time?” Hope asked.

“No, that’s part of the fun.” Truth be told, he’d been hoping for Atlanta so he could be close to where his family had been living at the time, but those were the breaks. You took what you got, made the most of the opportunity, and if things went well, you were rewarded with a plum assignment in the station of your choice.

“Where were you sent?”

“El Paso, Texas.” It was where he’d been paired with Hector. “I was twenty-four, idealistic, and chomping at the bit to make a name for myself. To blend in with the local drug scene, I went for the strung-out, greasy, white trash look: grew my hair long, stopped shaving, dropped a few pounds, and made myself a fixture in every crack house in town. Whenever possible, I brought a hooker along to boost my street cred. What?” he asked when he noticed her amused expression.

She shook her head, a note of humor glinting in her eyes, and she looked so goddamn sexy it was all he could do not to lean across the table and maul her.

“Nothing. I’m just having a hard time picturing you dressed like Joe Dirt.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t a good look.” Thankfully, to the best of his knowledge, there was no photographic evidence of that time in his life. He forced his gaze away from her mouth before he went and did something stupid, like toss her over his shoulder, carry her to the bed and— “Anyway, almost every crack house in El Paso followed the same basic routine: as soon as you walked through the door, somebody greeted you with a smoldering crack pipe and demanded you take a hit off it to prove you weren’t a cop. The challenge was coming up with an excuse that wouldn’t get you killed.”

Eyes bright with curiosity, Hope leaned toward him, and the shift in posture gave him a tantalizing glimpse of cleavage. “What kinds of excuses did you use?”

“The usual.” He focused on cutting a piece of steak so he wouldn’t stare at her chest like some kind of creep. “I got a drug test in the morning; I’m on my way to see my probation officer; I’m picking up my kid in an hour.”

“Those worked?” She sounded incredulous.

He shrugged. “It was a crack house. Most of the folks in there weren’t what you’d describe as the best and brightest. They weren’t that hard to bullshit.”

She laughed. “So how did you end up working in Mexico?”

“That didn’t happen until after I’d been in the field for a couple of years. My undercover work in El Paso eventually resulted in a bust that netted more than eight million worth of meth. Thirty-six people were arrested, and over three million in cash, a house, four cars, a dozen or so exotic animals, and a boat were seized. After that, my boss didn’t want me on the street, just in case my cover had been blown. They also wanted to make sure I stayed alive long enough to testify.” He leaned back in his chair at the memory of all those months of desk duty. Pushing papers and writing reports had come close to driving him insane. “By the time everything was said and done, I was itching to get back in the field. Hector had transferred to the task force, working in conjunction with Mexico’s Federal Police. He put in a good word for me. Next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Mexico City.”

“You two worked together a long time?”

“Eight years, give or take.” And there it was; the sour feeling in his pit of his stomach that came whenever he thought of Hector. He downed another mouthful of beer in the hopes of washing it away. “He taught me everything I know.”

“Even the crack house excuses?”

Wade nodded. “For a guy who liked to go by the book, he was one of the best bullshitters in the business. I should have known better than to trust him.”

Even now, he couldn’t help but wonder how much of their friendship had been real. He supposed it all depended on how long Hector had been under Aranza’s thumb. Four years? Five? How many cases had been compromised? When they returned to the States, he’d have to alert his former bosses at the