Page 38 of Cartel Rose (Jorge)

She shakes her head as her face drains of color. I take her hand and guide her toward the sofa. Heidi follows us. I move my tray of half-eaten food out of the way, so I can perch on the edge of the coffee table with my elbows on my knees to look at my mom and sister.

“He’s Colombian, isn’t he?”

I jerk back at my mother’s question. I understand the implications. Heidi’s eyes widen, so she gets it too.

“He is.”

“This must be his fault. This only happened because he became a client.”

“Mutti, we don’t know that. He’s not even a client yet. Even if it were true—and I admit it could be—he’s still the only person we have who has the resources and connections to help us.”

“What do you mean by resources? Is he going to kill people?”

“Heidi.” I hiss her name, fighting the temptation to look over my shoulder in fear that Jorge heard her.

“I told you he comes from an extremely wealthy family that?—”

“Sells drugs and murders people.”

“Mutti, does that matter right this moment if he’s willing to pay people to find Papa or pay a ransom for him? We’re wealthy, but nothing like he is. We couldn’t pay a sizable ransom without liquidating assets. That takes time. We don’t keep that much money in bank accounts. If these people demand a ransom, it might be impossible to get that much money in a hurry. Not without setting off alarms. We could wind up with our accounts frozen during fraud investigations. We don’t need more attention brought to this.”

“No. You don’t know what you’re talking about.Mutti,tell her she’s wrong. We should call the police and call the news. Call whoever can help get attention on this. Someone was bound to have seen Papa or might know who took him. They won’t know to come forward if they don’t see it on the news.”

“Heidi—”

“Enough! Stop, Heidi.Mutti, she’s wrong. Alerting the people who did this that half of Germany’s looking for them is a sure way to get Papa killed before they flee.”

“Maybe he’s already?—”

“Heidi, don’t say it. Not until we know for sure. We wait for Jorge. If he says call the police or alert the media, then we do. You may not trust him, but I do. Right now, that’s all that matters.”

Chapter Ten

Jorge

“Hola.”

I hope Joaquin has good news because I know things are about to get contentious for Liesel. I hate leaving her alone because all three women will find their shock wearing off soon. Then it’ll be fear and anger along with uncertainty and grief. I don’t want it to devolve into an argument or any of them acting impulsively.

“Hola, manito.” Hello, little brother.

He’s been usinghermanitoand its diminutive,manito, since Javier and I were old enough to be insulted when he called us babies.Mamáscolded him enough that he switched to little brother, and it’s stuck for the past thirty years.

“What did you find?”

“Clyde’s in Munich. I hacked the airport and the train lines to see if he had any reservations or any last-minute ticket purchases to come to Frankfurt. There are none. He might drive, but it looks like there was no pre-planned trip to Frankfurt, and he hasn’t set off on an emergency one either. His car was last picked up on CCTV in Munich.”

“Do you think he hasn’t heard yet?”

“It looks like it.”

“Can you get into his email or his phone records?”

“The email I can hack easily. The phone records would be faster if I called in a couple favors.”

“No. Not yet. We keep this among ourselves as long as we can.”

“You could call Sean.”