He looked at Marisa. "Would your friend help us?"

She tilted her head.

"Ramón. Remember, he gave us a phone number of a guy in New York. Said the guy could help us."

"Oh. I don't know. Should we get them involved?"

"Ramón's on your side, right? He wants to help you find Ana. All we need is for someone to knock on the guy's door and see if he's there. If he's not there, maybe he could go inside, get a look around." He looked at Brady. "An investigator probably wouldn't do that for us, but I bet this friend of Ramón's knows somebody who would. They could see if Ana's there, or if there's any trace of her."

Rae slid back into her seat, and Nate looked at her. "Just hung up with the assistant manager, who said Rick took a week of vacation." She lifted her eyebrows. "Who are we talking about?"

Brady cleared his throat. "Someone Marisa knows." His gaze flicked from Marisa's to Nate's.

"He's a man from my village," Marisa said. "We saw him the night..."

The night Ana was kidnapped, but Nate didn't supply the words.

"Before we came here," Marisa said. "He runs the local drug cartel. He gave us the name of a man he works with in New York"

Brady grimaced. "Doesn't seem like the kind of guy we want to be involved with."

Rae said, "Exactly. Which makes him a perfect candidate." She looked at Marisa. "Would you be willing to call him?"

Marisa sat a little straighter. "I'll do whatever I have to do to find my daughter."

"I have his number." Nate stood and headed for his room. "Be right back."

When they'd been in line for security back at the airport in Acapulco, he'd found the note in his pocket and shoved it in his wallet. He pulled out the paper and read it. Both names and numbers had been printed in neat, block letters.

Was this a good idea? What if this Julio or one of his men actually discovered Rick at the apartment. What should they do? Maybe Julio could tail him or put a tracker on the silver sedan or something. Or just call the police. Marisa wouldn't like that idea, but it was the best choice. They'd take it seriously—the guy was a murderer.

He carried the paper back to the table, where he picked up on his friends' conversation.

"Whatever you do," Brady was saying, "don't let on that you know who he is."

Marisa nodded as Nate slid into his seat. "We talking about when Rick calls?"

"Yeah." Brady met Nate's eyes. "Why do you think he gave you this much time?"

"I've been thinking about that. I think the first few days, like you said, they were trying to get back. And then, they didn't really have a plan."

"And Leslie was probably urging him to be patient with me," Marisa said.