The Edge of Obsession

by Diana Muñoz Stewart

“Okay, Sister. Not sure I believe you.” He waved a hand to stop her protest. “Don’t take offense. Not sure I believe in God either, but if it is true, I can tell you that your people are better off issuing proclamations from Rome. Being on the ground here, getting involved in this, is dangerous. Way above your pay grade.”

  Did they pay nuns?

  Unperturbed and unruffled by his comments, Sister Dee looked around the room. She scanned his paintings. Her eyes rested on the easel. A painting he’d started the day he’d met her. A dark-skinned woman stood naked on the beach. Her arms thrown to the sky. Streaks of sunlight danced over her, falling as if from heaven. He thought she’d ask about it, prayed she didn’t, and nearly sighed aloud when her eyes drifted over to the boxes.

  “Where do you get these passports? They’re from all over the world. Some don’t even have stamps from Mexico, so you’re not stealing them from here.”

  She was back on the offensive. A clever lady. He retrieved the passport she’d dropped. The one for Carlos. He brushed it off. “I think you should leave.”

  Her gaze dropped to the passport. She nodded at it. “You’re worried about Rosa. But she is safe at a hotel, and there are many others like her. Women your boss takes advantage of. Won’t you help me?”

  Bugger. Couldn’t afford to get tangled with amateurs. Or liars. And, yet, he did have a lot of information. Information he’d intended to turn over to the proper authorities after he’d found Sophia. “What do you want from me?”

  For a moment, she seemed taken aback. “Insights into Walid’s business, his personal habits, and routes you might be aware of, ways of secreting people through the country.”

  Information he had. “All right, luv, give me a few days to research you, your explanation, and make a decision.”

  “But do you have the routes? Telling me now could save lives.”

  Pushy. “I’m asking for time.”

  “For what? To go back and tell Walid about me?”

  Anger flared. He’d given her enough to show that wasn’t true. She was trying to draw him in, maneuver him so that he would tell her something, exposing himself, and aligning with her no matter what. “I don’t like where this is going.”

  “You? And I’m supposed to just accept that you’ll keep my secret?”

  He took her by the arm, spinning her around, then led her to the front door, opened it, and pushed her through. “Bloody hell. You kept my secret, so trust me to keep yours.”

  He slammed the door in her stunned face.

  Chapter 9

  As the lunch crowd at the soup kitchen dwindled, Dada wiped splatters around the food well. A week. It had started with Sion’s abrupt dismissal of her and had gotten worse from there.

  A new group of refugees had come through in the last few days, flooding the town with new mouths to feed, new stories to hear. But even with all the activity, it hadn’t escaped her notice that Rosa hadn’t shown with Carlos today.

  Could Sion have sent her off sooner than the date on her ticket? Doubtful. Sion might not be speaking to her, but Rosa was. Dada had registered her in a hotel. She’d have known if the woman had checked out.

  Alarm built in her chest. She turned to the sister beside her. “Have you seen Rosa today?”

  Lifting a tray from the food well with a set of tongs, the sister looked around. “No.” She shrugged. “That is typical behavior. She has continued her journey north.”

  “No, she hasn’t. She wouldn’t skip lunch. She has a small child to feed.”

  “Perhaps the child is sick.”

  Maybe. Dada put away the washcloth she’d been using. “I’m going to check where she’s staying, just to make sure. Do you think anyone will mind?”

  The sister dropped the tray with a clang. “I mind. You have been shirking your duties, and though Sister Angelica gives you leave to do so, I am not her. You will stay and do your job.”

  Praying for patience, recognizing the difficulty in putting together a new undercover identity, Dada picked up her pace.

  #

  After finishing her job, Dada went down the street to Rosa’s hotel. Passing through archways lined with yellow painted pillars, she walked across the muted, multicolor tiles to the front desk. The manager recognized her and smiled. In no time at all, she was able to get him to give her an extra room key.

  With the key in hand, Dada repeatedly knocked on Rosa’s door. No answer.

  Removing her small berretta Tomcat from a hidden pouch, she flicked off the safety and used the key to enter. The door beeped.

  The room appeared clean, though the bed was unmade. There were no signs of a struggle. Slipping inside, she cleared the room, the bathroom, then went back for the closet.

  Something rustled inside. Calm and focused, she slid the door open, then dropped to her knees before the sobbing little boy who had a shirt stuffed in his mouth to keep from making a sound.

  She flicked on her weapon’s safety, stowed it, and spoke to the boy in soothing tones. He calmed as she spoke. She put her arms out. After long coaxing moments, he rushed at her, threw his arms around her neck, and clung to her

  Tears weren’t weakness. Not his. Not hers. They were the cleansing before rebirth.

  As Dada carried the shaking child out of the room, through the lobby, down the sidewalk and back toward the convent, she managed to get the boy to answer questions.

  Kissing the child on his warm head, aware of the tears soaking her tunic, she prayed that Rosa was safe. Prayed she’d be returned. Prayed, although the only prayers she knew were the ones she’d learned for this mission.

  The other sisters were returning from the soup kitchen when she neared the abbey. One rushed over. “Sister Dee? What has happened?”

  “The mother,” Dada explained. “She was taken, and I need to go back and speak with the police. Can you take the boy?”

  The sister nodded.

  “I need you to go with this kind woman,” Dada gently explained to Carlos.

  It took a few moments, but he agreed to go with the sisters.

  One of them gently lifted him away and the other sisters gathered around the child, cooing to him, blessing him, soothing him with a loving kindness that was one of the dearest things she’d ever witnessed.

  But now she had a mother to find.

  #

  Inside the traditionally decorated Mexican hotel lobby overrun with policia and a fussy hotel manager, Dada decided she thoroughly disliked Comandante Javier Lopez. And not just because he wore sunglasses inside, but because he spoke down to her.

  A half-foot shorter than her six feet, his tone still seemed to want to pat her on the head. “You see, my dear,” Javier explained, “many women leave their children, so you are wasting your time. Go back and pray, Sister, and leave the investigations to us.”

  “Rosa didn’t leave. She was taken.”

  “Her room was undisturbed,” he said waving away another officer who approached. “You are jumping to conclusions.”

  Straightening her spine, willing herself not to seek the comfort of the bracelet on her wrist, she employed a tone as brisk as it was frustrated. “You are the one jumping to conclusions. This woman didn’t abandon her child.”

  The Comandante shrugged. “My experience tells me otherwise, but you have a too-kind heart. I know the cold realities of this journey, of traveling to El Norte, because I’ve seen it before. You think she is the first woman to leave her child?”

  Dada’s fear and anxiety was morphing into stomach-turning rage. This man wasn’t going to even try to find Rosa. Hadn’t tried to find the women who’d gone missing in the past. Wouldn’t try to find any that went missing in the future.

  Of course, she knew the statistics. Due to the horrible drug wars, ninety-three percent of crimes in Mexico went unsolved. And those were just the reported crimes. Many crimes went unreported.

  Logic told her not to push. Her “too-kind heart” said not pushing him didn’t bring lost women home. “If you never
search for them how can you know they have left their children? How can you know they weren’t taken?”

  His disturbed frown etched puppet lines around his round chin. “You live an entirely different life from these people, from us. You are sheltered. Taken care of. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The rules here aren’t made by God, Sister. They’re made by men.”

  Javier lifted his sunglasses and stared at her with brown foggy eyes. “Men like me.”

  For a moment, his statement stood between them, as solid and immovable as the bars on a prison. She could continue to challenge him, but to what end? It would only serve to draw her more surely under his scrutiny. An examination she could ill afford assuming, as she did now, that he knew more about these disappearances than he was saying.

  Adopting the same confident calm Sister Angelica wore, she turned with a, “God sees all, Comandante.”

  “Then he must be blind.”

  Chapter 10

  Seated at his workstation, eyes tired and sore from the long day, Sion examined every last detail, down to the minute edges of the photo on the passport. It was perfect.

  His cell buzzed. Reaching into his pocket, he answered. “Oye.”

  “She’s gone,” Dee said.

  How’d she get his number? Leaning back in his chair, he gripped the phone. “Who?”

  “Rosa. I think she’s been disappeared. Can you help me find her?”

  A knot formed in his throat. He dropped Rosa’s passport, got to his feet, and began to pace. “What did the police say?”

  A sigh more fury than frustration rolled through the line. “I spoke with a Comandante Javier. He believes she abandoned her child. I believe he makes broad assumptions.”

  He paused on a floorboard that cracked under him. “I know of him. A few years ago, the fiancée of the bloke whose mum owns this building went missing.”

  “Do you mean Geraldo? He had a fiancée who went missing?”

  His eyes traveled to his front door, remembering the first time Geraldo had brought him here. “Aye. That’s what he told me. Instead of trying to find her, the comandante blamed him, tried to pin Geraldo for her disappearance. Determined to clear his name and find her, Geraldo did his own investigation. No one knows exactly what happened, but he was found half-dead with his skull smashed in. He’s never been the same.”

  “That’s awful. I spoke with him. I assumed…” She paused, and if it was possible to hear a woman thinking, he heard her. “I feel badly. I treated him as if he might not understand.”

  “Most people do. It’s partly why he lost his phone service job and had to move back in with his mom and become the super. But he’s as sharp as a knife. A mechanical wizard and a good man.”

  “Do you think he could have information for us? That maybe whoever took his fiancée could be the same person who has taken Rosa?”

  Sion’s eyes sought out his most recent painting. Dee and Rosa walking across the zocola, with Carlos following behind. Bugger. Even if it was the same guy, it was doubtful Geraldo would remember. “I’ll ask him. But I don’t want to give you false hope, Sister—

  “Dee.”

  “Dee. He forgets much of what happened that night. Hate to trigger bad memories asking things he’ll have no recollection of.”

  “I understand. But he is our only lead right now. He and the mysterious man who offered Rosa the job. And I’ve already begun asking around after him. I’m in the square now, speaking with refugees.”

  “Alone at night? When a woman has gone missing?”

  “I can take care of myself. Jiu jitsu, remember?”

  He rubbed a hand around his tensing neck. “I’ll go talk to Geraldo now. Let’s meet after. I can help you interview people. They might respond better to Juan the Forger than Dee the Nun.”

  Another pause. Longer. “I should have thought of that. Perhaps I should change.”

  “Change into what?”

  “Call me after. We can decide where to meet.”

  She hung up before he could respond.

  Bugger.

  #

  Sion’s bum leg decided tonight was the night it was going to remind him how pathetic it was. His usually light tread sounded clunky, like Captain Hook working his way across the bow of the Sea Devil. He hung onto the stair rail, trying to lessen the echoing sound.

  Hitting the last step, he noticed someone in the shadows. Instinct took over. He shifted feet and raised his hands.

  Geraldo came out from the dark corner. Sion let out a relieved breath. “Mate, I’ve told you to meet me here, not lurk.”

  Geraldo frowned, clomped his feet up and down.

  True. Sion probably wouldn’t have heard him anyway. “Fine. I’ll give you a pass on the heart attack. Appreciate you meeting me out here. I know your mum is watching her telenovela. I didn’t want to bother her.”

  Geraldo’s blue eyes lit. His mouth twitched. “It’s not wise.”

  “Exactly my thinking.” And that he didn’t want to upset Yolanda with talk of her son’s missing fiancée. Yolanda had been there that night Geraldo had first spoken to Sion of his fiancée. She’d helped her son fill in a lot of the details but had cried repeatedly. It had been a heartbreaking evening. “I’m on my way out. Can you walk with me to my car?”

  Surprise on his face, Geraldo put his hands into the pockets of his coveralls. “Yes.”

  Outside, they walked the darkening streets toward the lot where Sion had his car. Geraldo kept pace with Sion’s troubled steps. Which meant, to Sion’s mind anyway, that he was slowing down.

  “Mate, I’m sorry to bring this up.”

  Geraldo’s head swung his way.

  Sion couldn’t help another flash of guilt. He’d met Geraldo on the day he’d arrived in Oaxaca. Sion had been wandering about looking like a homeless person. Which, in fact, he had been. Geraldo had started talking to him. First in Spanish and then in English. Finding a room to rent and a friend had been that easy.

  “I was talking to Sister Dee today.”

  Geraldo’s brown skin turned russet. He jerked his head away as they crossed the street. “Doesn’t look like a nun.”

  Sion laughed. “Glad I’m not the only one who thinks so, but trust me, don’t say it out loud. Hugely offensive.”

  Geraldo’s head swung back, eyes wide. “You didn’t.”

  “Bach, she was so lush I couldn’t help it. The words slipped past my lips before I could retrieve them.”

  Not the only thing to slip past his lips when it came to Dee.

  Geraldo grinned and nodded. Felt good to be understood. And Geraldo did understand.

  Although his hesitant way of talking and the fact that he sometimes skipped words led some to believe Geraldo wasn’t all there, the truth was, he was sharp as a skinner’s knife. Still, communication wasn’t in his Strengths column.

  That’s why it was best to be direct with him. Cut down the back and forth. “A refugee woman has gone missing.”

  Geraldo hissed through his teeth, a sound a man recently punched in the gut might make. Sion’s stomach tightened.

  “Sorry, mate. I know this can’t be easy on you, and I know you don’t remember much about your own investigation into your fiancée…”

  Geraldo’s ham-fist came up to knock on his own head. “Not in there.”

  Poor guy. He’d spent months in the hospital recovering. “Anything you can remember? Even something before the”—accident wasn’t the right word—“incident?”

  Sion took out his keys as they approached his car. They stopped.

  Squeezing his eyes closed, Geraldo’s whole body seemed to tense. A single tear trailed down his cheek.

  Sion put a palm against his shoulder and told him not to worry about it, but Geraldo’s eyes popped open, immobilizing him.

  With uncooperative fingers, Geraldo groped at the pocket on his coveralls. He took out his wallet and pulled out a piece of soiled folded notebook paper. He handed it to Sion.

  Si
on tried to decipher the faded numbers. “GPS coordinates?”

  Geraldo pointed one dirt-encrusted finger at the paper. “Had it on me. Kept it.” He tossed his head to the night sky and groaned in deep frustration. “Nothing there. Looked dozen times.”

  “So you had this on you when they found you with your head bashed in?”

  He nodded.

  “Is this where you were found?”

  Geraldo shook his head.

  Not where he’d been found, but he’d had it on him. Maybe he’d been checking a few spots? Or maybe it was nothing. “And you’ve checked this area at least a dozen times before?”

  “Aye.”

  “Oh, aye, is it?” Sion grinned. “We’ll make a Welshman of you yet.”

  “Bugger, not likely.”

  Sion full-out laughed. The man was clever. And if Geraldo, who knew the area, couldn’t find anything, what were his chances? Still, he memorized the coordinates. He handed the paper back, then slapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, mate. Take it easy.”

  As he turned to go, Geraldo grabbed him. The warmth in his blue eyes went cold. “Careful. Dangerous.”

  A flush of cold energy worked its way down his spine, setting the hair at his neck flying. “I promise to be careful.”

  Chapter 11

  It was full dark when Sion pulled up to the corner where he and Dee had planned to meet. A long-legged woman in black jeans, black boots, black jacket, and knit hat stood on the corner, hot enough to make him do a double and triple take.

  She walked forward. Oh. Good. Lord. It couldn’t be. The richness of her skin, the sway of those hips, the length of those legs, long enough to wrap…

  It was. Sister Dee.

  Fine then, the Devil won this round.

  Hell.

  It would have to be Hell.

  She knocked on the window. Swallowing his very inappropriate declaration and his tongue, he lowered it. She leaned in, bringing all that lush and the scent of rose water.

  Honey-brown eyes twinkled with her smile. Those eyes. A man could get lost in them.