An Ill Wind

by Christine Pope

  “Right,” Cassandra said. “I think we saw the signs when we were driving in on the 10.”

  It was a perfectly normal response, the sort of thing someone who’d just traveled here would say, and Tony knew he wouldn’t have to worry about her giving anything away to the civilian couple — or to anyone else they might encounter. Some of his Castillo relatives lived lives so cloistered, he always wondered how they managed to act like regular people when they did have to go out in public. Clearly, Cassandra didn’t have that problem. But then, her mother was a civilian, and he assumed she must have a lot of civilian relatives. Or maybe not; he remembered belatedly that her uncle was married to a McAllister witch, so all her immediate cousins would be witches and warlocks as well. There could be other relations, though, people she hadn’t mentioned yet. That actually made a lot of sense; he didn’t know Cassandra super-well, but he got the feeling that there were a lot of things she tended to keep to herself.

  After a bit of back and forth about Redlands and then Santa Fe — with him doing most of the talking because Cassandra wasn’t what you could call an expert on the subject — the conversation petered out, and they all finished their meals in relative quiet. Just as she was finishing the last rib on her plate, Cassandra’s phone beeped, and she quickly wiped her fingers on a napkin, pulled out the phone and read the text it displayed, then stuffed it back in her purse.

  Judging by the significant glance she gave him, Tony guessed the message had probably been about the fake passport. Why they’d contacted her and not him, when he was the one who needed it and had paid for it, he didn’t know, but he figured she would tell him once they got back to the hotel.

  They paid the bill and left. He wanted to talk, but Cassandra walked quickly, clearly intent on getting back to their hotel room. Under other circumstances, he might have been flattered, except he knew her haste had nothing to do with wanting to be alone with him.

  Sure enough, as soon as he closed the door to the modest double-queen room they were sharing, Cassandra said, “That was Olivia. The passport guy has a place he wants to meet us tomorrow morning.”

  “He couldn’t text me himself?”

  She shrugged, then slipped out of her jacket and hung it up in the closet. “Guess not. Sounds like he didn’t want to leave any kind of an electronic trail with us, just in case we turn out to be cops or something. He got in touch with Olivia through her husband. I think he trusts him more because they’ve already done business together.”

  That made sense, although Tony was still a little put off by the whole cloak-and-dagger nature of the transaction. It was just a phony passport, after all — they weren’t smuggling drugs here or something.

  But because it had been a long day and he didn’t feel like getting into an argument, he decided to go with the flow. Following Cassandra’s lead, he also took off his jacket and hung it next to hers, then turned back toward her.

  “What now?”

  For the first time, she looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. It’s kind of early to go to sleep. Some TV, I guess.”

  There had to be something better they could do with their time…but Tony kind of doubted she would be open to those sorts of overtures. Problem was, there was only so much you could do in a hotel room, and he knew at least half of that kind of activity was off limits right now.

  “Sure,” he said.

  They sat down on their respective beds, and Cassandra turned on the TV and changed channels until she found a local newscast. “Do you mind?” she asked. “I figured it couldn’t hurt to get an idea of what the weather’s going to be like. We can switch to something more interesting later.”

  “It’s fine,” he told her. He honestly wasn’t sure why she was worried about the weather, since so far Southern California seemed to be a mild seventy-two degrees all the time, but it also couldn’t hurt to know if a big rainstorm or something was coming in.

  While she settled back against the pillows and watched a piece about a local house fire, Tony got out his phone and checked his messages. Nothing from his father, but he’d gotten a text from his sister Ava sometime during dinner and hadn’t heard the notice beep.

  Mom woke up, Ava’s message read. She’s a little disoriented, but she seems like she’s going to be okay. Let me know you got this.

  He looked up from his phone and glanced over at Cassandra. “My mother’s awake.”

  At once she hit the mute button on the remote. “That’s great news. Did she say anything?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I was just about to text my sister back.”

  “Well, ask if your mother said anything about the thief.”

  “I will.”

  Tony bent over his phone once again. That’s great, he typed. Did she say anything when she woke up?

  He hit “send,” hoping that his sister was sort of hovering over her phone, waiting to hear back from him. It was still early enough in Santa Fe — a little past nine-thirty — that he hoped she was awake, nowhere close to going to bed.

  His phone beeped. Dad asked her about that, Ava responded, but she couldn’t remember anything. She says she remembers being in the kitchen & making some snacks, and then the next thing she knew, she was waking up in bed w/Dad sitting next to her.

  Damn. It would have been very convenient to have his mother sit up in bed and rattle off a complete description of her assailant, but real life was rarely that convenient.

  Another ping from his phone. Clearly, his sister wasn’t patient enough to wait for a reply.

  Down on the screen were the words he’d been hoping no one would ask.

  Where are you, anyway?

  He set his phone down on the bed next to him and looked over at Cassandra again. “My sister is asking where I am.”

  A flash of something passed over her features — worry? annoyance? — but then she let out a breath and said, “I figured that would happen eventually. What are you going to tell her?”

  Good question. “I don’t know,” he said frankly. “Any lie is going to have to be plausible enough that she won’t pry too much. I can’t just tell her I’m at home, because she wouldn’t be asking if she hadn’t already checked to see if I was there.”

  “Don’t lie,” Cassandra responded. “Tell her the truth.”

  Tony could feel his eyebrows go shooting up. “Excuse me?”

  “Well, really, what can she do? She can tell Miranda, who’s sort of down for the count right now. Anyway, about all Miranda can do is get in touch with Zoe. Now, Zoe still thinks I’m in Santa Fe, so she’ll know I’ve gone AWOL, too, but the most Zoe can do is reach out to Marisol Valdez. Since Marisol already knows we’re here and knows what we’re doing, it’s not like she’s going to try to stop us or send us home. Right?”

  The slight buzz he’d had from the wine he’d drunk a few hours earlier had completely disappeared by now, and yet Tony’s head still wanted to spin at all these rationalizations. Even so, he realized that Cassandra had made a very good point. Yes, their respective primas were probably going to be pissed as hell at them for disappearing like this, but since they had Marisol’s blessing, Miranda and Zoe couldn’t really do much except be angry and read them the riot act whenever they got home.

  Until then…well, until then, they could pretty much do whatever they needed to do.

  He picked up his phone. I’m in SoCal. Cassandra Sandoval and I are following a lead on the books. Marisol Valdez — the Santiago prima — is cool with it. Don’t know when I’ll be home, but hopefully soon.

  The reply came back so fast, he guessed Ava must be using speech-to-text this time, rather than typing everything out.

  Are you crazy? Do you know what’s going to happen when Dad finds out — when Miranda finds out?

  What can they do? he typed in response. Like I said, the prima here gave us permission to be in her territory. We need to get those books back, so that’s what we’re doing.

  Who’re you getting them back from?

&
nbsp; Obviously, Ava hadn’t been filled in on all the details, maybe because their father hadn’t wanted to alarm her with the possibility that the dreaded Escobars were on the prowl again. If he gave even a hint of what they had planned, his sister would probably freak out — and so would his father when he found out…and Sophia as well, if she was lucid enough now to understand what was going on.

  Not sure yet, he responded. We’re still working on it. Gotta go. Glad to hear about Mom.

  Then he muted his phone, figuring that turning it off altogether probably wasn’t a good idea. This way, though, he could more easily ignore any future texts from his sister.

  Cassandra remarked, “You’re frowning, so I have a feeling your sister wasn’t too thrilled with your answer.”

  “Nope, not thrilled at all.” He grinned, feeling about ten pounds lighter now that the truth was out and he didn’t have to keep worrying about when his family would discover that he’d skipped town. “I guess she thinks our primas are going to rain down fire and brimstone on us or something.”

  “Well, they’d probably like to, but I know Zoe isn’t really capable of that sort of thing.”

  And Miranda might be — honestly, Tony still hadn’t figured out whether she had any true limits to her power — but right now she was probably focused on making sure she didn’t do anything that might interfere with her pregnancy. As far as he could tell, he and Cassandra pretty much had free rein to do what they needed.

  “I’m sure all will be forgiven once we return with the books,” he said, and Cassandra nodded.

  “I hope so.”

  “It’ll be fine,” he told her.

  For a moment, she looked as though she might reply. Then, with the faintest lift of her shoulders, she picked up the TV remote and unmuted the television.

  It has to be fine, he thought as he watched a female weathercaster with improbably blonde hair and a form-fitting bright blue dress talk about building high pressure and warmer temperatures.

  Because he really didn’t want to think about the alternative.

  The sun beat down, bright and warmer than the day before, just as the newscast they’d watched the night before had warned them. Cassandra took off her jacket and pushed up the sleeves of her shirt, thinking she might have to buy some summer clothes while she was here. If it was this warm in Temecula, what would it be like in Tijuana…in El Salvador?

  They were waiting in the parking lot of an empty office park so they could get Tony’s fake passport. The guy was supposed to be here ten minutes ago, but so far there was no sign of him.

  “What if he doesn’t show up?” Tony asked. He, too, had pushed up his sleeves, showing off a pair of nicely browned, muscular forearms.

  Cassandra tore her gaze away from his arms and pretended to be scanning the parking lot. Not that there was much to see; it seemed obvious to her that someone had over-speculated and built an office complex that wasn’t needed, which was why it appeared to be completely empty. A few people had parked cars for sale in the spaces that faced out on the street, thus making her and Tony and his Fiat a bit less conspicuous. All the same, she wished they could have met in a nice dark alley somewhere, even though she guessed dark alleys were in somewhat short supply in Temecula, California.

  But there was a new-looking white pickup truck coming down the street that bordered the office park on the west side, and the truck was turning in, coming toward them. She felt her heartbeat speed up a little and told herself there was no need to be so nervous. This was a simple business transaction, nothing more. If the man selling them the passport tried anything, Tony’s power over the wind could blow him into the next county if necessary. Anyway, no one in their right mind would stir up that kind of trouble over a thousand dollars.

  Or at least, she hoped they wouldn’t. Sometimes, being part of a witch clan whose investments ensured that every person in it would at least get enough of a stipend to allow them to live comfortably, if not lavishly, tended to skew your view of the value of money.

  The white pickup truck approached them, then slowed and came to a stop a few yards from where they stood. A minute later, the door opened and an innocuous-looking man in his late thirties with mid-brown hair and wearing a blue polo shirt got out of the truck.

  He took off his Ray-Bans, shot Cassandra a quick glance, then turned toward Tony. “You Tony Castillo?”

  “Yes,” Tony replied. “Do you have it?”

  “Do you have the money?”

  In response, Tony got out his wallet and showed him the ten hundred-dollar bills they’d picked up at the bank on their way over here.

  The guy didn’t exactly crack a smile, but some of the tension went out of his lean frame. “Okay.”

  He approached them, then reached into his back pocket and pulled out a blue-covered passport booklet. “Check it out, make sure it’s okay.”

  Tony nodded at her, and she took the passport and opened it. There was the photo he’d had taken yesterday — his expression was a little silly, but it was obviously him and taken recently, so there shouldn’t be any problem with border agents trying to say it was a picture of someone else. As far as the passport itself went, Cassandra got her own passport out of her purse and held them up side by side, making sure everything was in the right place and that the paper and the ink used looked correct. After a long moment, she nodded.

  “It looks great.”

  “Awesome.” Tony handed the wad of hundred-dollar bills over to the guy, who counted them before he shoved them into his back pocket. “You do good work, man.”

  The guy just shrugged. “It’s a living. Have a good one.”

  He got back in his truck and started up the engine, then drove off toward the exit onto the street.

  “Not very social, was he?”

  Cassandra couldn’t help smiling. “I don’t think being friendly is included in the service. Anyway, you’ve got your passport, so that means you’re legal. Let’s get going — if we head out now, we can be in Tijuana for a late lunch.”

  Tony’s expression brightened. “That sounds good. All this illegal activity has really worked up an appetite.”

  “It wasn’t that illegal.”

  “Still.”

  There wasn’t much point in arguing. She lifted her shoulders, acknowledging defeat, and walked over to the passenger side of the car. Passport still in hand, Tony opened his own door and got in, then stowed the precious document in the center console. After adjusting his sunglasses, he looked over at her. “Can you check the temperature in Tijuana?”

  “It’s supposed to be sunny and mild,” she said, wondering why he needed that particular bit of information.

  “Here, yeah. But that weather report you were watching last night didn’t mention anything about Baja.”

  Whatever. Cassandra got out her phone, went to one of the weather apps she had installed, and added Tijuana to the list of locations. The forecast popped up immediately. “Sunny and seventy-nine degrees,” she told him.

  “Perfect.” He reached over and pushed the button to pop the convertible top. Obligingly, it retracted, letting the bright sun cascade down on them.

  She blinked and hurriedly put on her own sunglasses, then reached back into her purse to retrieve one of the elastic bands she always carried with her…just in case. After she had her hair pulled back into a ponytail, she nodded.

  “Okay. Mexico, here we come.”

  10

  Tony didn’t know whether it was the convertible or the burnished copper of Cassandra’s hair, but they attracted plenty of attention as they traversed Tijuana’s crowded streets, heading to the restaurant that Yelp said had the best tacos in town. Or at least, it was the best restaurant for Americans like them; he guessed that they could have found something even more amazing from one of the vendors on the street. But Cassandra had said it was better to go someplace that catered to tourists, that they’d be safer there. Since she’d apparently spent a good chunk of time going back and forth between
her family home in Tubac and Nogales in northern Mexico, he figured she knew what she was talking about.

  The restaurant had its own private lot with its own attendant, which was something of a relief. He’d noticed the stares they’d received on their way over here, and he realized that the Fiat might not have been the best choice for this particular excursion. At least it was black and not the bright red he’d first considered before deciding that was too flashy even for him, but even so, it would still probably make a tempting target for local car thieves.

  They went into the restaurant, which probably had at least sixty percent U.S. tourists as its clientele. The hostess who guided them to their booth spoke perfect English, as did the waiter who came to take their drink order. Tony thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to get along here after all, despite his lack of Spanish skills, although he reminded himself that they were in the touristy part of town, not the slum where the convent that was their goal was located.

  Although he’d wanted to order margaritas, Cassandra had overruled him, saying it was safer to stick to iced tea, especially when it was entirely possible that they might be speaking to a nun in an hour or so. Tony couldn’t really argue with that, not when he remembered all too well how the nuns at the private grade school he’d attended had been quick to rap his knuckles with a ruler for the slightest transgression. Showing up even a little bit tipsy for that sort of interview probably wasn’t a very good idea.

  The tea was good, though, garnished with a slice of some of the freshest lemon he’d ever tasted. Sipping tea through a straw, he looked over the menu. Everything had descriptions in both Spanish and English, so he didn’t have to worry about getting Cassandra to translate for him. He decided on a plate of tacos al carbon, since that was one of his favorites and he figured he might as well see how they made the dish south of the border.

  Good thing he’d made a decision, because their waiter came by then and took their orders. Although Tony had been wondering whether Cassandra would place her order in Spanish, apparently she didn’t see the need, and asked for her molé enchiladas in English.