by Ann Major
Gonzales hated Terence Collins. The man had written numerous stories about the murdered girls of Ciudad Juarez. Always the pendejo reported that the Mexican police were incompetent, corrupt, cowardly thugs. He’d even named Gonzales by name more than once. There had been hits out on the reporter in the past even before he’d gone after Morales.
What kind of fool launched vicious attacks on Morales in the newspapers? Sooner or later Collins would turn up dead, just another corpse in the Chihuahua Desert. Guillermo, for one, wouldn’t shed a tear.
On the other hand, Octavio Morales’s payments were prompt and enormous. Guillermo liked drinking and shooting and whoring with Morales, too. Tavio shared the same taste for the occasional bout of rough sex. Fondly Guillermo remembered a night when they’d savaged two pretty whores who’d tried to overcharge them. After hours of rough sex, they’d handcuffed them naked to a fence post in the desert, and told their men where they were in case they wanted a free ride.
Morales had given him his favorite Arabian when he’d admired it, not to mention numerous automobiles and gold watches. Gonzales felt big and tough when he was with Morales, almost as tough as a movie star gangster.
In short, Morales was almost a friend of his. He turned over the independientes, the independent drug runners, who did not pay as they should, too. In his way Morales was a good man.
Guillermo got up and went to his private bathroom. When he shut the door and unzipped his pants, he caught a glimpse of his oval, olive face framed by his thick, wavy black hair. He smiled at his reflection and admired his straight, white teeth. His new whitener was working rather well. Rubbing his teeth with a fingertip, he smiled and glanced at himself from several angles. Then he tweaked his inky mustache until it was perfectly balanced. Only then did he take a leak.
Should he call Morales and tip him off? Or organize a squad to attack him by surprise tonight?
Morales would never surrender the hostages. Guillermo’s only chance lay in a swift surprise attack.
Damn Morales! Idiota! He should have stuck to pretty young whores like Marisol. Why the hell had Morales gone and kidnapped two famous Americans with powerful friends?
Sí, Morales paid him big money.
But an open border paid more.
The comandante knew how long he’d last if the border was closed, and he was blamed for an international incident of that magnitude. He would be called worse than incompetent and corrupt. A wavy black head with very straight, white teeth would roll.
What if there was a trumped-up investigation and he was found guilty? He, not Ancera, would go to prison.
When he got back to his desk, Guillermo picked up his phone and reluctantly made the necessary call.
Seven
The door shut softly behind Delia. Staring at her supper tray, which was a plate of beans and tamales, Mia listened for the click of the key turning in the lock. When there was only the sound of Delia’s soft, receding footsteps on the stairs, Mia ran to the door and touched the doorknob. When it turned easily, her heart beat faster.
Cracking the door a mere inch, she stared out into the hallway. All was quiet, so she tiptoed outside.
On Tavio’s orders she had been locked in her room all day. Why?
Something was wrong. Something that concerned her.
Even now the house was as still as a tomb. It had been unusually silent during the morning and afternoon and even tonight when the men had dined. She’d caught glimpses of Tavio in the courtyard. He’d dressed carefully in a black silk shirt, black jeans and his ostrich cowboy boots, but he hadn’t come to her once.
He was trying to impress someone. That was odd, frightening even. His infatuation was all that had kept her alive.
Trembling as she made her way through the hall downstairs, Mia sensed some new danger to herself.
Tavio had a new prisoner. Never before had he avoided her like this because of a prisoner. Was it a woman? She’d seen a truck pull up to the buildings last night. Then Chito had thrown a tall person, whose head had been concealed beneath a black hood to the ground. Two men had dragged this individual inside by the feet, careless of his or her head being bumped along the ground. All day from her window, Mia had watched Tavio looking grim and fierce as he came from and went to that forbidden building.
What was going on? Who was in there? With vivid horror she remembered the handcuffs and electric cattle prods in that awful cell. She never wanted to go near that building again. Still, she was sure this new development had something to do with her recent escape attempt.
The desert air was warm and dry as Mia sprang out a back door and crouched behind a low bush. A guard on the wall struck a match. His cigarette flared, illuminating his hard jawline. Clumps of guards near the house were laughing and talking and smoking. Their voices carried as they spoke of women they’d had and drug runs that had gone bad.
Then Negra meowed at her, and Mia jumped, stifling a scream. How could she have forgotten about Negra when she’d slipped out? If anybody saw her cat, he might go check on her to make sure she was securely locked up.
Her hand covering her mouth, Mia stayed where she was and waited for a long time to see if any of them had noticed her or the cat. Finally, keeping to the shadows, she snuck around the corner of the house and froze. Breathing hard, she stared at the lighted window of the forbidden building and fought for the courage not to run back to her room.
When the men turned their backs, Mia stole from the main house and dashed across the courtyard. After that it was easy enough to creep along the adobe wall until she reached the torture chamber. Once there, she huddled beneath the barred window and was still when she heard threatening voices from within.
Struggling to comprehend the soft, rapidly spoken Spanish, she stood up a little. Her heart raced wildly, but the guards took no notice of her and continued with their crude, sexist jokes as they smoked.
She wore dark jeans and a black shirt, and she’d covered her hair with a black shawl.
“Who’s your source?” Chito demanded, his voice louder than before.
Mia climbed onto a tree stump and raised her head above the windowsill. The same single, low-wattage, bare bulb hanging from a cord lit the adobe room. Cigarette butts, rumpled newspapers, handcuffs, cattle prods and broken beer bottles littered the floor. Five of Tavio’s meanest men with guns leaned against a back wall, watching Chito hold a tall, skinny man’s head in a bucket of foul, dark liquid. The prisoner was stripped to the waist and wore only his boxer shorts. His long legs thrashed violently, raising little puffs of dust as he fought to free himself.
When Chito pushed his head deeper, the men laughed. She nearly cried out when the prisoner’s thin body went limp and his long legs stopped moving.
She had to do something fast, before they drowned him the way they had Negra’s kittens last winter.
Just when she was about to scream and run inside and beg for his life, Chito yanked the man’s head up.
When the prisoner hung limply, Chito ripped the wet black hood off. The man’s eyes were closed, his narrow face gray and lifeless.
Chito threw him on the ground and rolled him over with his boot. Then he pounded him on the back until he gagged and puked dank water all over the newspapers and broken glass. Mia was moaning and hugging herself as if she herself were being tortured. When Chito finally stopped hitting him, he kicked him in the ribs for good measure. The prisoner grunted and grabbed his stomach, choking and struggling for every breath. The men against the wall laughed.
“Eh, Chito, why don’t you burn his balls with the cattle prod again?”
At that the prisoner sat up, and when he did, his agonized gaze locked on hers.
It was Terence Collins. Not that the thin, gray face looked much like the smiling photograph she’d seen above his byline.
“Who’s been talking to you?” Chito yelled again. “If you tell us, you can go home. Who gave you that photograph?”
Terence’s gaze left the window.
When he looked straight at Chito, he puked more water.
“Who are your sources? How did you find out about this Kemble woman?”
Oh, my God. Tavio knew who she really was. Chito would torture Terence until he talked. Then he’d kill him.
She sank to her knees and gripped them to her chin. Her heart beat frantically even as her mind raced.
What could she do? What could she possibly do? She had no plan, no weapon, nothing. Tavio’s gang had AK-47 assault rifles, grenade launchers and bazookas. Once Tavio had shown her a warehouse full of such stuff.
She stared wildly at the big house, the spring beneath the cottonwood tree, the trucks, the trees and bushes. The lethargy that had enveloped her since she’d tried to escape the last time was gone. She had to save this man and save herself.
Suddenly dust tickled her nostrils. Before she could clamp her hand over her nose, she sneezed.
Chito shouted. The men against the wall stormed out the door.
Negra jumped down from a ledge and ran past them.
“It was only the woman’s cat,” the men cried. One of them picked up a rock and threw it after Negra.
Chito came to the door and stared out into the darkness, frowning at the cat, which sat preening out of range.
Everybody knew the cat followed her everywhere. Sure he’d think about that and find her, Mia held her breath, waiting.
Then one of the men broke the silence and suggested they get back to torturing the prisoner.
Chito laughed.
One minute the Kemble woman was there. Then she was gone. Terence was in so much pain, he soon wondered if he’d only imagined her.
“I’m going to break every bone in your body—slowly. You will beg me to burn you then,” Chito said softly.
Terence lay on the ground, struggling for every breath. Morales’s two-bit thugs were going to kill him—after they got him to reveal his sources. Because of him, they’d probably kill the girl, too.
All through the night, the bastards had jabbed him with a cattle prod, sending searing jolts of electricity through him while they’d laughed until he’d gone so mad he’d laughed, too, in between tears of agony.
Octavio himself had appeared this morning dressed like a rich hacendado of old, carrying an ornate silver breakfast tray. The villain had told him he had huevos and that even though he was a gringo, who’d written lies about him, he deserved a good meal before he died.
Terence had hated the slick, handsome, smiling bastard way more than his cheap thugs. Still, he’d eaten breakfast with the man and had dragged it out, a brief respite from torture.
Morales had wanted to talk about Mia Kemble. Mostly he’d wanted to know about her family and the ranch and how much money they had. But he’d also wanted to know about the men in her life.
When Terence had refused to answer any of his questions, Tavio had stomped away in a fury.
“Why don’t you let her go?” Terence had yelled after him.
Tavio had turned. “Because she is mine, gringo. Because nobody tell me, Octavio Morales, what to do ever again.”
Since then Terence had suffered ceaseless torture and had felt utterly bleak and without hope until he’d seen Mia’s pale face framed in the bars of the window. Curiously, this sighting, the idea that she was out there, that a friend was near, filled him with new strength.
Holding the cattle prod, Chito grabbed his wet hair. “What did you see? At the window?”
“Nada.” Terence spat the word.
“You lie!” Chito kicked him in the abdomen and Terence doubled over again, grabbed his waist and lay writhing. “When we’re done, I’m going to gut you with my hunting knife and feed you to my dogs.”
Five men sprang toward him. Chito waved the cattle prod and yelled, “Strap him to the bench again!”
“Smoke!” one of the men yelled, dropping the rope he held.
Wild shouts were heard from outside the doorway. “Fire! Near the trucks!”
Outside, against a black velvet sky, tongues of flame raced up the canvas covering of a truck bed. Suddenly the truck exploded.
Except for Chito, the men grabbed their guns and ran. Chito turned around, raised his pistol and took aim right between Terence’s eyes. “For this you die.”
Just as Chito began to laugh, a slim shadow danced into the cell, leaping and twisting across the wall behind him.
Chito’s trigger finger inched the trigger backward. Mia, a hooded figure in black, scooped up a slop bucket and slammed it down hard on the back of Chito’s skull, causing him to topple lifelessly into the filthy sewage.
“Hit him again!” she said, her voice steady. “Make sure he’s out cold! Get his gun and follow me!”
Terence grabbed the gun and bashed Chito. Then he picked up his slacks and shoes. Limping after her, he found himself outside in a courtyard that burned brighter and hotter than hell itself.
She ran ahead of him, darting back and forth, and he fought to keep up, but in his weakened state, he lagged behind. By some miracle they made it to a truck. She jumped behind the wheel, and he threw himself in beside her. Out of nowhere a slim, dark woman appeared.
“Don’t leave me!”
“Get in then, Delia!” Mia screamed. “Rápido!”
Starting the engine, Mia shifted, grinding the gears. Her seat was too far back, and she could barely reach the pedals. As she fastened her seat belt, they careened toward the big gates in fits and starts. When she shifted again, into third instead of second, the truck jerked.
Then a tall, dark man sprinted toward them at an angle.
Tavio shouted at her before jumping in front of the truck and yelling at his men to hold their fire.
“Angelita!” Morales yelled. “Don’t leave me!”
The brazen bastard held up both his hands.
“Flatten him,” Terence growled.
Tavio spread his legs wide, crossed his arms over his chest, and raised his chin higher, his white grin daring her to murder him. When Mia stomped harder on the accelerator, the girl in the back seat leaned over and tried to grab the wheel.
But it was Mia, who swerved so hard to the left at the last second, the two right tires flew off the ground. Skidding in the dirt on their side, they nearly rolled.
“Damn. You should have killed him,” Terence hissed.
Mia pressed her lips together. “Get down or fasten your seat belt. Cover your eyes, too!”
The heavy locked gates of the compound loomed in front of them like a solid wall. She stomped harder on the gas pedal, causing the truck to ram the gates full speed.
The impact jarred the truck, but thick beams splintered. Wooden boards flew toward them like fence palings, battering the hood. A two-by-four pierced the windshield, showering glass into Terence’s lap.
Then they were outside—free, the gaping hole in the adobe walls growing smaller in their rearview mirror. The warm air blasting through the windshield smelled of sage and dust.
Mia gripped the steering wheel as they bounced over rocks. “You don’t know how I’ve dreamed of this moment,” she said.
“Are you suicidal, or what?” Terence said as he used the gun to shove bits of glass off his bare legs onto the floor.
“Typical,” she whispered.
“What?”
“A girl risks her ass for a man, and he complains.”
The girl in the back seat had turned around and was staring at Tavio’s rapidly receding compound.
“You’re crazy,” Terence said as they bumped over the deep ruts in the rocky road.
“Living with Tavio Morales doesn’t make for sanity.”
“I’ve never heard of Morales not killing a hostage. You probably have quite a story.”
“You wouldn’t believe me.” She stared straight ahead at the meandering dirt road.
“A reliable source told me Morales had you here. I wrote my last story about you.”
“So my family knows?”
“I’m sure they must. I trie
d to call them, but Chito got me before I could get through to them.”
“What did you write?”
“That you were his prisoner.”
“Oh, my God.”
“So, why didn’t he kill you?”
“How should I know? Lucky, I guess.”
“Why’d you swerve for the bastard then?”
“You want to know why? I don’t know why.” She flashed Terence a wan smile. “I’ll kill him next time, okay?”
Terence laughed so hard his rawly burned shins ached. Then he saw the headlights in the rearview mirror.
He whirled around.
“Step on it. We’ve picked up a tail. Probably your friend, Morales.”
The girl in the back began to sob.
The road curved around a hill. Except for the lights, darkness blanketed the desert as Mia sped along the bumpy road. When Terence turned around again to see if Morales was catching up, she suddenly slammed on the brakes.
“We’re surrounded!” she cried. “Look! Ahead!”
A dozen jeeps and armored trucks that had been heading around the curve toward Tavio’s compound without their headlights flashed their high beams at them. When Mia didn’t come to a full stop, an explosion of bullets bit the dirt on all sides of her.
“We’re done for!” Mia hit the brakes again, this time skidding to a stop in the deep sand just as Tavio roared up from behind in his armored SUV.
The bastard jumped out and ran straight at her with his pistol held high. When Terence raised his gun, Mia was in the way.
Yanking her door open, Tavio grabbed her and hauled her into his arms. His gun at the ready, Terence watched their exchange.
She hit Morales as hard as she could.
“Let me go!” she screamed. “I want to go home!”
The trafficker winced, grabbed her wrists and pinioned them behind her back. While she yelled at him, he simply stared down at her, waiting for her to give up.
