Running Wild Read Free Page B

brought him up-to-date on the noise her mother had been making about the Munoz cartel’s recruitment of teens and the abrupt silence following Nancy’s letters.
    When she fell silent, Finn said, “People still write letters? It’s the twenty-first century—I thought everyone and their brother emailed.”
    “
That’s
your big takeaway from what I just told you? That my mother doesn’t email?” You would’ve thought she’d said Nancy sent telegraphs, and she gave her shoulder an infinitesimal hitch. “My folks have spent their entire adult lives ministering to the poor. And while there likely are computers and internet available even in the most poverty-stricken barrios, my mother would consider the time it took to learn to use them a frivolous waste when she can just as easily grab a sheet of paper and slap a stamp on an envelope.” Then she waved the interruption away and explained how, when she’d arrived at her parents’ apartment this afternoon, she’d been told they’d returned to the States.
    “But when Joaquin had me against the wall, he said Victor Munoz wanted to talk to me. He’s the cartel leader.” Was that right? Suddenly it seemed supremely important that she have the correct terminology. “Or don or whatever you call the head guy who runs a cartel.”
    Unlike her, he stuck to the point. “Try to stay on track here. Why did he want to talk to you?”
    Another stray thought popped into her head and she blurted, “I don’t know your name.”
    “What?” But he blinked dense, inky lashes over those dark eyes and shook his head as if to negate the question. “It’s Finn. Finn Kavanagh.”
    Good name. But this time she knew better than to get sidetracked. “Unfortunately, Finn Kavanagh, he refused to answer that very question. He just kept saying I’d find out from Senor Munoz himself. But Joaquin’s clearly not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed because even as he was detailing all the dire things that could happen to me if I
didn’t come quietly
, he let slip that my parents are being held on the Munoz grow farm.”
    “And your first reaction was to let him know you’d caught that?” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe anyone could have such a blonde moment.
    “Hey!” Indignant, she shoved away from the gondola wall. “Excuse the heck out of me if I was rattled. I was already reeling from learning my parents had gone back to the States without saying word one to me about it. And then he tells me they’re being held prisoner by a drug lord? Hah!” She pointed at him. “
That’s
the job description I was looking for.” She promptly shook her head, however, because that was hardly the point and, in truth letting on that she’d caught Joaquin’s slipup
hadn’t
been her smartest move. “
An-n-nd
that’s so not important.” Looking Finn up and down, she had to admit that, unlike her, he practically oozed competency. “I’m sure you could have handled it much better.”
    To her surprise, he flashed her a wry smile and said, “Probably not. I would’ve been rattled, too, if it involved my family. So what’s the plan? You want me to go with you when you take it to the cops?”
    “I can’t go to the police.”
    He jerked upright. “Are you shitting me? You have to report this!”
    “It’s not that I don’t want to, Finn—I literally can’t. My mother devoted an entire letter to the way Munoz bragged about his favorite cousin, who’s in the Policía Nacional de El Tigre.” She could have added that 99 percent of her mother’s correspondence had to do with her and Brian’s ministry and their impatience and frustration with anything that interfered with it. But she didn’t, of course, because, truly, why should Finn Kavanagh care about her dysfunctional family relationships?
    Still, it cheered her up to a surprising degree when he strung an impressive number of truly obscene words together, even though she knew it was in response to her comment, not