Anointed
Book Three of the Vanished Series
By Michael Arches
Copyright by Pyrenees Publishing 2021
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
2
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Chapter 1
Monday
Broadway and Thirteenth Avenue, Denver, Colorado
On a cool July morning, Viola Hawkins rode her bike to work. A couple of months before, she’d been hired as a baby accountant at a large accounting firm in downtown Denver.
She pedaled past the central Denver Library building on Thirteenth Avenue, but her thoughts were far away—at the top of Mount Bierstadt. She climbed the Fourteener the day before, and the views were to die for. But the exertion had almost given her a heart attack.
Suddenly, her mind lurched back to reality when a white van cut in front of her. Its tires squealed as it slowed to make a right turn. She braked hard, practically flipping over her handlebars. Her front tire bumped the vehicle, leaving a black mark.
She uttered a torrent of swearwords until the van’s side door slid open. Two burly Hispanic guys wearing jeans and dirty T-shirts jumped out.
Instead of apologizing, they grabbed her. One of them kicked her bike to the curb.
Viola pulled back and screamed. “What are you doing?”
They hauled her toward the open door.
She tried to free herself, but they were way too strong. “Leave me alone!” she screamed while she kicked at them and howled. “No! Please!”
Still wordless, they yanked her into the van. The cargo area was empty, except for a third middle-aged Hispanic man who sat cross-legged on the filthy carpet. He was slim and muscular. As soon as Viola and the two guys were inside, the third shouted, “¡Arriba, arriba!” and slid the door closed.
The van jolted into motion. She couldn’t see the driver because a black curtain hung behind the front seats.
Viola cowered against the far side wall, surrounded by her kidnappers. The two rougher-looking guys grabbed her backpack and tossed it to the slim man. Then they zip-tied her hands behind her back.
“Help!” she screamed, hoping someone outside the van would hear.
Slim backhanded her across the mouth. “Shut up,” he said in a calm voice with a Spanish accent, “or I will cut out your tongue. Then, how would you be able to thank me as I fuck you blind. And of course, the others will want their turns. That’s only fair.”
Too slowly, Viola realized she needed to be damned careful around these assholes.
Slim rifled through her backpack and removed her purse. He found her wallet and took out her driver’s license. He stared at it in the dim light for a moment. The van had no windows in the back, and only a little light leaked around the curtain in front of them.
In Spanish, Slim said, “Raul, time to return.”
She knew the language because she’d spent an undergraduate semester in Madrid. The driver made a right turn, then another. Were they on Broadway? More importantly, where the hell were they taking her?
And why had he checked her identity? They had been stalking her. For ransom?
Not possible. Her mother didn’t have any money, and her father had abandoned both of them twenty years ago. As for Viola, she only had a few hundred bucks in the bank.
Slim continued to pull things out of her backpack, including her phone and an iPad she’d just bought.
“Raul, pull over for a second,” he said, again in Spanish.
Before the driver did, Slim grabbed a two-foot-long billy club he’d stashed under the front passenger seat. It had lots of nicks, as though it’d seen plenty of use. In English, he said, “Stay quiet, or else.”
She nodded.
He opened the side door partway and tossed the phone and tablet onto the sidewalk in front of a bar she recognized. They were on South Broadway.
The driver took off again, and he kept turning in various directions, seemingly at random. Maybe he thought they were being chased. I should be so lucky.
Viola tried to keep track of where they were going until Slim grabbed her chin. “My lovely, you look so tense. How about we both relax? I know just the thing to make you forget about this unpleasantness.”
“Please, sir, let me go. I don’t have any money, and I swear I won’t tell the police.”
He laughed like those things were the least of his worries. “I’ll be gentle, my dove. You’re going to need a friend where you are going, and if you’re extra-nice to me, I might keep you for myself. Otherwise, my amigos will insist I share.”
This was getting worse. Begging for mercy wasn’t helping. “Listen, I’ve got my ATM card in there. I’ll give you all my money if you let me go.”
Slim translated what she just said into Spanish. The other two thugs cackled. She couldn’t understand everything he said in his slangy Mexican dialect because, in Madrid, she’d learned proper Castilian Spanish.
“Pound her hard, Diego,” one of them said. “I’m next.”
She wanted more than anything to tell him to shut his filthy mouth.
Diego ignored the other two. Instead, he stared into Viola’s eyes and whispered, “You are chica. You’ll need a strong friend like me.”
Chica was slang for incredibly hot, but he was just saying whatever he thought would convince her to stop resisting. Viola knew full well that she was too skinny to appeal to guys. She looked more like a teenage boy than a woman. And her face was boring. Guys rarely gave her a second glance.
But Diego pretended to be entranced. He twirled her long, dark brown hair around a finger and stared into her eyes. His free hand moved to the zipper on her riding jersey.
Viola got a sick feeling in her stomach. She turned her head, trembling. Leaned away and shut her eyes.
He let her hair unwind from his finger. “My chica has a headache? Well, you will get other chances later.”
Viola froze in place, afraid the least gesture would encourage him or the others. After a moment, she could hear Diego sorting through her backpack’s contents again.
She dared to glance. He’d pulled out the work clothes she’d planned to wear that day and a small spray can of mace. Then, Diego told Raul to find a trashcan.
When the van stopped, Diego popped out for a moment and stuffed everything except her purse and wallet into the trashcan at a gas station. All he had kept was her wallet.
Raul kept driving and continued with his twists and turns. God only knew where they were going.
Diego tried to talk to her, but she did her best to ignore him. But when she didn’t answer direct questions, he slapped her.
Then, he asked her, “Do you think I’m handsome?”
The
son of a bitch was never going to leave her alone. She couldn’t control her feelings anymore and burst into tears.
-o-o-o-
Athena Kazan’s mountain ranch, near Ward, Colorado
Athena Kazan was tired of carrying a wrecking ball around. She’d gained forty pounds with Leo, and she couldn’t wait for him to decide to enter the world. Even before her pregnancy, her balance had been terrible. These days she walked everywhere using two hiking poles to keep her upright.
God willing, the baby wouldn’t wait much longer. Actually, he was a cloned über-baby who’d been created by a brilliant Chinese scientist. May he rest in peace.
According to her OB-GYN, Leo appeared to be perfectly normal. Just like the dozens of other über-babies who had already made their way into the world.
All she had to worry about was raising her little genius, mostly on her own. But hopefully not entirely. Her boyfriend, Beauregard Boudreau, loved kids, and he’d been a huge help so far. Beau was even going to take three weeks off, as soon as Leo came home from the hospital.
Because Athena was anal-compulsive, she’d already anticipated most things she’d need after her labor pains began. She’d even lined up a dog sitter for her two furry buddies.
She hadn’t expected a call from Roger Conway at the US Marshal’s Office. That usually meant trouble. He knew how close she was to delivering, and he wouldn’t disturb her unless it was important.
After a moment of catching up, he said, “The warden from the federal women’s prison in Oklahoma City just called. Our favorite crazy bitch, Dominique Santiago, managed to get herself shivved by a Crip last night. Something about Santiago selling bad oxy inside. A guard saw the attack and responded immediately, but the attacker had severed both of Santiago’s femoral arteries. She bled out in seconds.”
Roger had called because Dominique’s dad, Fernando, was a hothead, and he’d blame Athena for getting Dominique sent to prison in the first place. Also, DOJ had been informally using Santiago as a hostage to discourage the cartel from attacking Athena. Now that Dominique was gone, Fernando would put a price back on Athena’s head.
“No worries,” she said. “I hid from them for years, and I can do it again. And you’ve already agreed to put my family in witness protection. We’re doing most things right. Also, I have a more secure way for you to communicate with me, and I’ll let you know soon about how to sign up.”
“Fine, secure is great,” he said, “but I’m still worried. If you don’t mind, I’m going to start looking for a backup place for you to hunker down. I won’t talk to anybody about the new place. I have my doubts about whether we’ve found everyone within DOJ who works for the cartel.”
Chapter 2
Somewhere near Denver, Colorado
Raul kept driving, and Viola kept wondering where they were going. All she knew for sure was that the van now flew along at highway speeds. They had to have left downtown behind.
Thanks to being scared shitless, her internal clock was totally messed up, but it seemed they’d been driving for hours. Finally, Raul turned onto a slower, curvy road and continued for a few minutes.
Diego looked at Viola and grinned. “Too long a trip, si? Now we can relax, except maybe for you because you have no friends here. But I like white chicks. If you’re nice to me, I can keep the powers that be from passing you around to every punk here.”
Something about the way he said that persuaded her that she probably did need a protector. But not Diego. He’d been on the verge of raping her. To deflect his comment, she asked, “Would you mind telling me where we are?”
“Home.”
Raul stopped and made a joke in Spanish to someone outside his window about fresh pussy for Pablo’s boys. The more she heard their slang, the better she understood.
The other guy snickered. “You are as dumb as a toad, Raul. Pablo sent you to grab the woman for the jefa, not for himself. Take her to the great room. I will let Her Majesty know you’ve arrived.”
Raul drove forward slowly, and nobody said a word. Instead, the men in the back kept glancing at each other. Something about the news was setting them on edge.
Raul parked. Diego grabbed Viola’s arm, but she leaned back. He shrugged, opened the van’s door, and hopped out. The two thugs nudged her forward. Her hands were still tied, so she did her best to crawl on her knees and exit. Diego kept her from tumbling forward onto her face.
The van had stopped on a wide circular brick driveway in front of a massive ranch house built with stone and cedar logs. It looked like a mountain lodge, but they remained on the plains. At least a dozen tall trees surrounded the mansion and shaded the compound from the bright morning sun.
Several men carrying rifles patrolled outside the house, and one of them waved at Diego. The long driveway ran through a broad grassy lawn. Farther away, horses grazed knee-high grass in a pasture. Off in the distance, a highway skirted a series of low hills dotted with houses.
Viola had grown up in Colorado Springs, an hour south of Denver, and she recognized this area. The highway was US 85, somewhere between Castle Rock and Highlands Ranch. She’d traveled that road dozens of times over the years.
Diego took a firm grip on Viola’s right arm and whispered, “For your sake, I warn you. Show great respect to the woman you are about to meet. She is much less tolerant of fools than I am.”
He seemed to be trying to help, so she nodded. Whoever owned this place had to be filthy rich. Thanks to the Front Range’s hot real estate market, a ranch this large had to be worth ten million bucks. “Who do you work for?”
Diego put his index finger to his lips and led her to a wide, arched entryway. The house’s oak double-door was ten feet tall and almost as wide. He used a large knocker shaped like a swan to announce their presence. A man holding an assault rifle opened the door and stood aside to let them enter. The two mostly silent goons followed.
Inside, the building reminded Athena of an old church with its white stucco walls, soaring ceilings, and stained glass. The foyer had been paved with white marble that led to a matching fountain decorated with full-sized, obsidian porpoises. Diego led them to the right towards a grand space suitable for entertaining a hundred guests. In the room’s center, a massive stone fireplace rose to the high ceiling. He cut the zip-tie on her hands.
A middle-aged Hispanic woman sat alone on a black leather sofa near the fireplace. The room seemed to dwarf her. She was dressed in a plaid men’s shirt, blue jeans, and shiny black cowboy boots. Despite her casual clothing, she sat erect, like a queen on her throne.
As they approached, her face stayed somber. She was lean and muscular. A short, black whip rested on the cushion beside her.
Diego tensed up as he approached, and his right hand clamped down on Viola’s elbow. The other two thugs hung back and stood ramrod straight.
Diego stopped in front of the woman with Viola and bowed at the waist. Speaking more carefully than before, he said, “We have brought you Viola Hawkins, Señora, as Pablo ordered. We encountered no difficulties.”
The woman stood. “So, I see, Diego. Gracias.”
She patted him on the cheek.
He smiled back and his shoulders relaxed.
“We will celebrate with a round of tequila.” She motioned to the two goons. “Pour six glasses, chicos. You must be thirsty.”
Viola wasn’t about to toast her kidnapping, but the way the thugs acted around the woman told Viola she needed to be damned careful.
The woman openly gawked at Viola’s riding outfit and continued in Spanish, “I understand you speak our language, Señorita. Welcome to Casa Santiago. I am your new jefa, Carlotta.”
Jefa meant boss lady in Spanish, but she was acting more like a hostess. Carlotta stuck out her right hand, and Viola stared at it. Did the bitch really expect her to pretend she was a willing guest instead of a prisoner?
Before Viola could decide on the right response, Carlotta slapped Viola hard
on one cheek, leaving a stinging welt.
Viola gasped, covered her face with her hands, and spun away to protect herself. How could I have been so stupid? Diego even warned me.
When the pain eased, she slowly turned back. The men pretended that nothing unusual had happened.
Carlotta looked at her quizzically. “Do you expect me to tolerate your insolence inside my own home?”
She held out her hand again, defiantly this time. Viola immediately shook it. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. In Spanish, she said, “Pleased to meet you, Señora Santiago.”
“The pleasure is all mine. I have several important business projects that I need help with. You will review them as soon as possible.”
The two goons brought the large tumblers filled with tequila and passed them around. The men remained silent and drank deep.
Carlotta proposed a toast. “Congratulations, muchachos, on successfully persuading Señorita Hawkins to join us.”
The men smiled, clinked glasses, and praised their jefa.
Viola had no choice but to paste a fake smile on her face and join in.
As soon as the men downed their drinks, they excused themselves. Carlotta joked with the guys and punched their arms playfully as she said goodbye. They kept bowing their heads before hurrying away.
Once they were gone, the older woman turned somber again. She stood silent and finished her tequila. Viola noticed she had a faint mustache, but she was an attractive woman nonetheless. Definitely not feminine, but no matter. Neither was Viola’s boss at the accounting firm. Viola would probably admire Carlotta under different circumstances.
Viola took several sips from her tumbler, but she wasn’t used to drinking tequila straight. Her nerves made her shiver. What might happen to her next? She stood as inoffensively as possible and waited for Carlotta’s next move.
“Finish your drink,” Carlotta said. “We have much work to do.”
Viola was sure she couldn’t get the whole tumbler down. “Thank you, but—”
Anointed (Vanished Book 3) Page 1
