by Anne Stuart
It mattered little whether the refugees were legal or illegal aliens. The network was a private agency, not directly answerable to the federal government, and Maddy and the social workers made very sure not to ask too many questions.
The parking lot was almost empty when she stopped, and the attendant yawned extravagantly as he took the keys. The streets were deserted. Hollywood street people and bag ladies were nocturnal creatures. Maddy paused at the corner, staring around her, her feet resting on Norma Shearer’s gold star. She could feel the eyes on her, watching her, and a little shiver ran down her spine.
She wouldn’t turn and look, she told herself. She wouldn’t. There wouldn’t be anyone there, and she’d feel like a fool. She wouldn’t look.
But it was a losing battle. Slowly she pivoted on her high heels and there, five yards away on a deserted stretch of Hollywood Boulevard, stood Jake Murphy.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He was dressed differently, and Maddy didn’t know whether to be relieved or more disturbed. He no longer wore the starched gray uniform that stood for everything she hated, or the khaki fatigues that reminded her of that jungle war, or the dark, three-piece suits of his days as a Secret Service man. He was wearing faded denims that hugged his narrow hips and swept the length of his long legs, an equally faded denim shirt, and boots that even from this distance looked like they were Frye’s best. Fancy stuff for a simple soldier, Maddy told herself grimly. She could see a glint of silver around his neck in the early-morning sunlight, and a pair of dark glasses hid those merciless hazel eyes from her. She was just as glad.
The building was deserted as she headed swiftly into her office. For a moment she’d considered retrieving her car and driving away, as far and as fast as she could. But she couldn’t spend the rest of her life in hiding from Jake Murphy. She’d faced him once, she’d face him again and prove to him just how unimportant he was.
She made the huge urn of coffee with practiced skill, having chosen that menial but undeniably crucial task for her own, then leaned back against Sally’s desk to watch it perk. Sally Floody and her sister-in-law, Chris Morey, were the two best social workers on the staff, and every day Maddy thanked heaven for their sure, delicate touch and deep, human concern. Their only drawback was that they made lousy coffee.
It took forever to perk that morning, and Maddy badly needed that coffee. The sight of Jake had unnerved her, the silence that followed only made it worse. Any moment she expected him to pop out from behind a desk, to grab her and start demanding heaven knew what. If only she knew what he was talking about. She’d gladly give him anything Sam had passed on to her, just to get him out of her hair. But Sam had given her nothing but the gold medallion as a final, belated token of love, and she wouldn’t part with that for the world.
The coffee urn finished its business with a whoosh and sigh, and Maddy poured herself a huge cup in the mug Soledad had given her. It read “I survived San Pablo,” and suddenly Maddy was having her doubts.
Her office was in the corner on the cool northwest side of the building, and the narrow Roman blinds were still drawn from the previous weekend. The darkness was soothing. Setting the mug on her littered desk, she sank into her chair, a nervous hand playing with the medallion beneath her crisp cotton shirt.
This time she didn’t jump. How he’d managed to slip past her in the dark, deserted building, how he’d managed to find her own private office was beyond her comprehension. But he was there, leaning back in the chair usually reserved for the social workers or San Pablan refugees. He might almost qualify as the latter, she thought with a trace of misplaced humor.
“Would you like some coffee?” Her voice was perfectly modulated. Damn, she was cool, she thought with a shaft of real pleasure.
His small, careful smile acknowledged her control. “Not right now. Have you thought about what I asked you?”
“About some mysterious final mission from Sam? Yes, I’ve thought about it, and you’re out of your mind.”
“I’ve been told that before.”
“I’m sure you have.” She took a sip of her dark, scalding coffee, refusing to grimace as she burned her tongue.
“Carlos was seen crossing the Mexican border two days ago, Maddy. He should be in L.A. right now.”
“Maybe he enjoys the climate,” she snapped back.
“He won’t take no for an answer.”
“Neither, apparently, do you,” she replied. “Listen, if you’re here for some assistance I’ll be glad to take your application. We do our best to aid all San Pablan refugees, no matter which side of the conflict they were on. If you don’t need any aid, then why don’t you kindly get the hell out of here?” She maintained her sweetest tone of voice.
Murphy only smiled. “I’ll be back at the end of the day.” He rose, and the silver at his neck glinted again in the morning sunlight.
“You don’t even know when we close. We’ve got flexible hours. …”
“I’ll know,” he said, and she believed him. She rose, instinctive politeness momentarily overcoming her hostility, eyeing the silver with a curiosity she couldn’t restrain. Jake had never struck her as the type to wear jewelry. But then, he had never struck her as the type to turn traitor. Then he moved, heading toward the door, and she recognized what he was wearing.
It was the silver ring she’d sent back with Carlos, sent back to be buried with him. The ring Stephen had given her. Jake wore it on a silver chain around his neck, and suddenly Maddy went half crazy with rage.
Clearly he’d seen her reaction and guessed what caused it. “Don’t even try it,” he warned dryly.
She was past hearing him. Moving around the desk with the speed of a snake, she leaped at him, reaching to yank the ring from his neck.
His hands shot out and caught her wrists before she made it halfway there, and a moment later she was shoved up against the open office door, her arms held over her head by his manaclelike wrists, and the solid length of his body was pressed up against hers, holding her captive with only the solid wood supporting her.
The threat was there, physical, overwhelming, implicitly sexual. She could feel his belt buckle digging into her stomach, his hips hard against her, his chest pressing her breasts flat. She was terrified, furious, and for the first time in six months completely, gloriously alive.
“Give me that ring,” she said, her voice low and dangerous.
Jake just looked down at her without saying a word. His face was only inches from hers, and she could feel the soft warmth of his uneven breath on her upturned, enraged face. Why would his breathing be uneven? It surely hadn’t taken much physical effort on his part to subdue her. Or was it just possible that the proximity of their bodies had the same effect on him as it had on her?
There was a distant expression in his eyes, and slowly his head dipped down, his mouth reaching blindly for hers as his hands still held her captive against the office door. A distant part of her watched in horror as she tilted her head up for his kiss.
But before their mouths could touch the sound of voices penetrated to the far reaches of her office, the noisy little tap of high-heeled shoes echoing through the building. She was released, Jake had withdrawn, just as Sally and Chris appeared in the outer office.
“There you are, Maddy,” Sally greeted her with a cheerful wave. “Did you have a good time in Washington?”
Jake moved past her. “I’ll be back,” he said, his gravelly voice a threat and a promise. He walked out past the two curious women without a backward glance.
There was complete, absolute stillness in the room as the women watched him depart.
“Was that …?” Sally whispered in a disbelieving voice.
Maddy nodded. “It was.”
“But I thought he was dead.”
“So did I.”
Sally was doing her best to keep the confusion from her narrow, pretty face, and not doing a very good job of it. “But why aren’t you happier?”
“Sally
,” Chris warned.
Maddy grimaced. “Sometimes I think it’s a little better for people to die than for dreams to die,” she said bitterly and vanished back into her office, closing the door behind her.
It was a blessedly busy day, too busy to allow Maddy time to brood. The fighting had gotten much much worse in San Pablo, spreading from the southern Mosquito coast up through the jungle highlands that held Puente del Norte. La Mensa was in a state of siege, and rumor had it that there wouldn’t be much left for the victors to enjoy. The influx of refugees had increased tenfold, all needing assistance, in finding housing, in finding jobs, in simply getting enough to keep from starving on the mean streets of L.A.
Maddy was in and out of the main office all day. People had taken to seeking her out, as some sort of talisman or good luck charm. Any kin of Samuel Lambert appeared to be blessed, and La Patronita, El Patrón’s daughter, was doubly so.
“You’re going to be the patron saint of San Pablo at this rate,” Sally muttered under her breath when one tearful old lady was particularly vocal, all in the heavily accented San Pablan Spanish that only Chris was adept in.
“If there’s any San Pablo left,” Maddy said. “Sally, I’m leaving early.”
Sally had shrieked in protest. “We’re jammed with people, Maddy. You can’t do this to me, on one of our busiest days!”
“I have to.”
“But Maddy …” Her voice trailed off, as she suddenly remembered Maddy’s earlier visitor. “Do you think Jake will come back?”
“Jake assured me that he would come back. I want to make sure I’m gone. You can handle this, Sally. I have complete faith in the two of you.”
“You can’t run away from him forever, Maddy.” Sally’s voice was hesitant.
Maddy smiled wryly. “No, I can’t. But I can run like hell right now.”
But she couldn’t run very far. It was only three thirty when she headed for the door, hours before she usually drove back to Hermosa Beach. It took her an additional fifteen minutes to get past the homesick San Pablans crowding the office, all eager to meet the daughter of El Patrón. She was at the door, gently disentangling herself from a loquacious butcher whose English was as small as his girth was large, when she felt his presence behind her. The eyes again, boring into her back. Different from the eyes that had been watching her last week, less vindictive.
“Are you ready?” Jake inquired politely, standing just outside the door.
She could have screamed in frustration. Instead she smiled sweetly, an instant, wicked idea sparking into her brain. He was proving to be more difficult to lose than she had imagined so this called for drastic measures.
She turned around, giving him a big smile that managed to startle him out of his dour determination. “Jake Murphy,” she cried in a loud, carrying voice. “Friend of Sam Lambert! How good to see you.” She stood there smirking as a wave of refugees swamped over him, chattering excitedly and with great joy.
She waved to him over the hordes of people surrounding him, entrapping him, and the expression on his face was one of acute frustration as she slipped past him, down the stairs, and out onto the street.
It would take him quite a while to escape from his admirers, Maddy thought, quite pleased with herself. Mrs. Mendoza was particularly long-winded, and the butcher from La Mensa had an admirable tenacity. She would be long gone before Jake made it out to the street.
Not that he couldn’t be counted on to know where she lived. But she had locks on her doors, a responsive police force nearby, and even a haphazard neighborhood crime watch going. She could keep him at a distance once she got to Hermosa Beach. But that meant no walks on the beach for the next few days, until he finally gave up and went back to Ortega.
It was a strange thing, she mused, turning off Hollywood Boulevard and heading for the parking lot. She hadn’t even had to clarify Jake’s position in her father’s life. The mere mention of his name had sent them hurtling toward Jake’s tall figure, with nothing but excitement and pleasure on their faces. Surely they would know about his turncoat activities, know that he’d turned his back on everything her father had stood for. Yet they were furious and terrified at the name of Carlos the Jackal, and for Jake Murphy there was nothing but devotion.
Of course, they might all have been Morosa loyalists, Maddy mused doubtfully. But in that case why would they have left? And why would they be so fond of La Patronita? It simply didn’t make sense. Jake Murphy should have been reviled as the lowest of the lows and instead he was treated like a conquering hero. She really ought to set a few people straight about …
The arm snaked out in front of her, the large dirty hand clamping down over her mouth, and before she had time to react she found herself being dragged into a narrow, cool alleyway. She could feel the sharp prick of a knife beneath her ribs as panic rushed through her, and it took all her strength of mind to force herself to be calm. In all her years of working in downtown Hollywood she had never been mugged. There was a first time for everything; if she was just calm and obedient she would make it through safely. Whoever had grabbed her was undoubtedly some frightened kid, just as scared as she was.
But she could feel the heartbeat of the figure behind her, and it was slow and steady. Ominously so. “I would suggest, gringa,” came the San Pablan voice, “that you think carefully before you struggle. This knife is very sharp, and I know how to use it. I promise you Jake wouldn’t find you until you were very dead.”
Carlos’s high-pitched, almost girlish voice was unforgettable. Slowly he removed his grubby hand from her mouth, and she forced herself to take slow, steady breaths. The knife was still pointed sharply against her ribs, and she couldn’t turn around to look at him. She didn’t know whether seeing him would make her more or less frightened. The disembodied voice and the knife were enough to send a stronger woman into a gibbering panic.
“What do you want, Carlos?” Her voice was a little dry, rusty, but even enough.
“You know perfectly well what I want, puta. I want what Sam gave you.”
“I don’t know what you and Jake are talking about,” she said wearily, and the knife pricked closer. “Sam didn’t give me anything but what I gave Senator O’Malley. I swear—”
“I do not believe you. We know for a fact the old man sent something else back with you, and it’s not something we can afford to be made public.”
“What do you think I have, for God’s sake? Jake wouldn’t even tell me.”
Carlos snorted. “What a fool the man is. I’ll tell you what it is. It is a tiny map of the northwestern section of San Pablo.”
“A map?”
“It shows the location of a small Indian village. There used to be three hundred Indians living up there, away from the strife of San Pablo.”
“And now.”
She could feel him shrug behind her. “And now they are all dead. An unfortunate mistake.”
“On whose part?”
Carlos laughed. “I am no traitor like your lover. The Patronistas are not perfect saints, unlike your father and now yourself. They thought they were hiding some Gray Shirt informants and …”
“And?”
“And they burned the town. With everyone in it, I’m afraid. Men, women, and children.” His voice was cool and unconcerned.
“And where were you when all this happened?”
She didn’t want to hear the answer she knew was coming. “Why, right there, gringa. I gave the order.”
Maddy broke out in a cold sweat, her battle against panic lost. “I don’t have the map.”
“But you know where it is.”
“No, I swear—”
“I don’t believe you, gringa,” Carlos said. “I will give you twenty-four hours exactly to come up with the map. Do not think to hide. I will know where to find you. And don’t expect anyone to help you. If you give the map to Jake I will cut your liver out. It will be very easy,” he said in a dreamy voice. “Just a little slice”—Maddy felt a
cool, stinging against her side—“and it will be gone. And that will be for a beginning. Think about it, gringa.”
Then she was released, sent spinning against the brick wall. She heard his feet running down the alleyway, and she looked up in time to see his dark figure disappear around a corner and into the L.A. traffic.
She looked down. He’d sliced neatly through the cotton shirt, and the stinging in her side warned her that he’d connected with more than cotton. She should go to a hospital, she thought dazedly. She should go to the police, but the only place she wanted to be was home. Clamping an arm against her side to hide the rip, she moved back out of the alleyway, into the innocuous afternoon sunlight.
She was halfway to Hermosa Beach when she noticed the car behind her. A Toyota, like all the rental cars in San Pablo. With Jake Murphy at the wheel.
She should have been frightened, she told herself. She should have been furious. Instead she was relieved, deeply, almost blindly grateful. The stinging in her side reassured her that she wasn’t about to bleed to death before she made it back to her tiny house, but despite Carlos’s assertion that she had twenty-four hours, she had no guarantee that he’d stick to it, particularly when he knew Jake was close by.
Her house was cool and dark and empty when she let herself in the front door. She didn’t bother to close it behind her. Jake had parked the rented Toyota a few cars away from the Alfa and would doubtless be there in a moment. At that point she had no energy to run any more.
Moving in to the kitchen, she undid her shirt and gingerly pulled it from her jeans, away from her side. It clung for a moment, and Maddy bit her lip as it pulled away with a deeper shaft of pain. She tossed it to the counter, pulled the medallion over her head and dumped it on top, and then surveyed the damage.
There was a long, thin line directly below her bottom rib, razor thin, just barely breaking the skin, with beads of blood dotting the surface. It stung, feeling more like a bad scrape than anything else. She moved to the sink to splash cold water on it, not even lifting her head when Jake walked into the kitchen.
