Classified by Debra Webb Page B

assume the discussion inside was winding down.
    “Why not?” Stark directed his attention back to the scene inside the house.
    Would it have been so difficult to respond with a simple yes? She checked the status of those inside one last time before moving away from the window. When she was clear, she pushed upright and hustled to the outbuilding they had decided was a bunkhouse. Stark followed close behind her.
    Casey had never worked with a P.I. before. If they were all this conservative she didn’t see how they ever completed a mission successfully.
    The bunkhouse was unlocked. In fact, there wasn’t a lock at all. Casey supposed Fernandez’s security or cleanup detail, whatever those two called themselves, weren’t concerned with their own personal safety. Made Casey’s job a whole lot easier. The door’s hinges creaked with age and neglect, making her cringe though she knew the noise was coming. The smell of overloaded ashtrays and sweaty socks wasn’t any more aromatic now than it had been the first time she’d entered.
    Like the landscape, the interior of the one-room structure was rustic and desolate. Light beyond that of the moon filtering in the windows was not required to survey the sparsely furnished space. Wood floors and walls that had been around several decades. Windows with no glass, just small rectangles cut out of the walls. A couple beat-up iron beds with shabby blankets covering the mattresses. The chest of drawers loaded with unwashed clothes had been searched and there was nothing on the wobbly table other than a couple empty beer bottles. A single bare bulb dangled over the table and its accompanying woven bottom chairs. A rusty fridge held more beer. The place was a real dump.
    Casey took a position at one of the windows facing the back of the main house. Stark stayed near the door. She needed a weapon. They’d checked under the scrawny mattresses already as well as every other nook and cranny in the joint. There was no place else to look.
    The beer bottles. She smiled and moved as soundlessly as possible to the table. One in each hand, she resumed her position at the window just in time to watch the two hombres swagger from the back of the main house. She drew back but there was no worry. The men were too busy arguing about who screwed up to look, even if they had been able to see her in the dark.
    She glanced toward Stark; he had faded into the shadows on the other side of the door. Doing the same, she flattened against the wall, putting the chest of drawers between her and the door.
    The hinges whined as the back door opened. Their booted footsteps echoed loudly as the two men stamped into the room, still growling at each other.
    Casey held her breath.
    The man in the gray sweatshirt dragged out a chair, the legs scraping across the wood floor, and collapsed into it. She braced for him to yank at the chain, turning on the overhead light but he didn’t. Anger lit beneath her breastbone. This was the idiot who’d chased them through a literal mine field.
    Guy Two ranted in Spanish, basically reenacting the scene with their boss, as he slammed the door. He blamed his partner for not putting a bullet in Casey’s and Stark’s heads sooner. He opened the fridge door. A dim burst of light pooled around him. Casey held absolutely still, the blood roaring in her ears. The faint glow didn’t reach her or Stark’s position.
    The big-mouthed goon slammed the fridge door, still blustering as if he were the jefe around here. According to him, now there was no way to say for sure until daylight if Casey and Stark had fallen into a mine shaft or one of the de basura holes.
    She had thought as much. The hole hadn’t been a mine shaft. It had been a hole for illegally disposing of garbage.
    In her peripheral vision she saw Stark make his move. The smug guy standing crumpled to the floor when hit with the tire iron. His sweatshirt-sporting friend shot up, his chair toppling over. Casey bolted forward