Jim Nash wants to put his past behind him, but in order to do that, he has to remove himself from the present. His quick trip down the Baja is beginning to look like he overstayed his welcome on a vacay from hell. He’s riding around in an armor-plated van when a teenage stowaway jumps on board. He can’t get rid of her, and now he’s stuck babysitting, too.

If that isn’t enough, the go-fast panga he borrowed in Todos Santos is on the hot sheet with the cartels. He has a remedy for that tucked away on board that involves an RPG and someone who knows how to use it.

He discovers his teenage ward hanging upside-down in a Cabo San Lucas bar. She was supposed to be homeward-bound on an airplane, but her I leave with the one that brought me makes it sound like he’s at a high school prom. Not to be outdone, the teenager discovers Jim in flagrante delicto with a cartel woman intent on stealing every dollar he has amassed in Cabo banks over the years.

With the banks closed and nowhere to turn, he’s forced to rely on his own devices and those of his young ward. He’s resolved to get her home safely, even if she doesn’t want to go on her own. She is insisting on leaving with the one that brought her, and that’s Jim Nash.

A cartel gunfight on a Cabo pier has made the news back home, and now Maddie Spence, his partner, is itching to get her hands on Jim, too. She recognized him as one of the stars in the video with two other women. The only trouble is, until he made the news, she had no idea where he was.

That’s not a pressing problem for Jim, though. At least, not yet. Jim still has to make his way north by sea and by land to the border and home.