"Sí, seňorita ."
Alex turned back to Teresa's limp form and took her hand. She began to talk to the still, quiet face, muttering repeatedly in both Spanish and English, "Everything's going to be all right, Teresa. Help is on its way."
Then, and Alex didn't know what took her so long to think of it, she swung her head around frantically and demanded of a woman who stood helplessly nearby, "La nina? Donde esta la nina? Where is she?"
The woman gazed over each shoulder and shrugged back at Alex. "Yo no se."
"What do you mean you don't know? Get her for me! She's just a toddler!" Alex was filled with a sudden vexation. How could they stand around so ineptly when she needed assistance right now? She couldn't be everywhere at once. Here lay Teresa, unconscious, and Jenni was probably scared and—"Bring me the child, por favor. This is her mother." She patted Teresa's hand and felt as utterly helpless as she ever had in her life.
A siren pierced the air, and Alex shuttered with relief. The wail of a siren had always been an ominous, frightening sound. But now it was welcome. It heralded the reassuring arrival of assistance. The siren would bring clearheaded people who would help her. And take care of Teresa.
Alex rocked back on her knees and watched as a police car screeched to a stop, dividing the crowd. Immediately, another official car pulled up behind the first one and the place swarmed with uniformed men. Most of them descended on the green car, but one approached Alex and the prone form of Teresa.
He instructed the crowd to move back and knelt to feel Teresa's pulse. "Weak," he muttered, turning to Alex. "Do you know her?"
"Yes, she's my housekeeper," Alex responded frantically. "She needs an ambulance. Can you get help for her?"
"It will be here soon," he assured her, drawing out a pen and paper. "What is the name of the victim?"
Victim? Alex wrenched inside at the term. She answered numbly, "Teresa Marie Portillo."
"Address?"
"She lives with me. She's my housekeeper. On Linda Vista."
The policeman's eyes quickly assessed the slender, blond woman on her knees. "And your name, seňorita ?"
"Alexis Julian. I'm a professor at Sonoran University."
"The victim's age."
Alex swallowed. "Twenty."
"Can you tell me what happened here?"
Taking a deep breath, Alex explained, pointing in the direction of the horrible green Chevy. "A car, that car, came around the corner, skidded into all these fruit wagons, and crashed into that pole. It knocked us—oh, my God, Jenni! Can you stay here with Teresa? I've got to get her baby!"
Alex sprang nimbly to her feet and began a frenzied search. Jenni was nowhere in sight! Alex shoved past vendors who stood helplessly beside their overturned wagons and stumbled over the scattered mess of fruit, flowers, and bread. Soon she was frantically throwing aside embroidered dresses and decorative shirts and rushing headlong from one side of the narrow street to the other, all the while calling "Jenni, Jenni!"
Finally, she turned to the crowd, her large indigo eyes brimming with tears. "Oh, please help me find the child. She's a little girl, eighteen months old. She belongs to the woman who is injured! She must be hurt too! Maybe under one of these wagons! Please look for her!"
A rumble of sympathy waved through the crowd and they began to scatter and do Alex's frantic biding. Two men helped her set one of the wagons upright and watched sadly as she dropped to her knees on the pebbled street. There was no child beneath it.
Undaunted, she scrambled to her feet and led them to another overturned wagon. "This one! Help me lift it. Maybe she's here!" With an inexhaustible energy, Alex searched, spurring the curious crowd to help her. "She's here! She has to be here! We had her with us before the crash!"
The sound of another siren reminded Alex of Teresa. She rushed back in time to murmur comforting words to the unconscious young woman before the medics lifted her onto the white sheeted gurney. They closed the ambulance doors, and Alex turned frantically to a policeman.
"You must help me find her child. The three of us were right here. She's just a little girl, not quite two, with curly brown hair, wearing a pink sundress. And now I can't find her. Maybe she's hurt!" From the way the policeman looked at her, Alex wondered if she was making any sense.
He gave her a gentle smile. "We will find her, seňorita. But, please—" He looked down and Alex followed his gaze. She was clutching his arm with white-knuckled fingers which dug into his forearm.
"Sorry." She released him and whimpered apologetically. "I'm just so scared. First, Teresa. Now, Jenni. Things are happening so fast. ..."
"I understand, seňorita. Don't worry. We will find her. Now, tell me more about this child that is missing." The siren from the ambulance taking Teresa away blotted out all possible conversation for a few minutes.
Nick Diamond heard the distant sirens and knew by the increasing swell, they were approaching his vicinity. Maybe there had been an incident at the neighborhood bar, a spot of constant turmoil, he thought. Then again, maybe not. What if there was some problem with their contact for the pickup tonight? What if someone had squealed? He always considered what might go wrong when the time grew close. It was his business to be a little paranoid.
Nick lurched instantly to his feet, moving rapidly for a man so large. Though lean, his legs were powerful, his body muscular, his chest broad. His deep umber eyes gleamed as he scanned his surroundings. There wasn't a speck of warmth in those eyes, though. They were cagey, almost vicious, and dark. Those eyes had looked despair squarely in the face, and stared unflinchingly at all kinds of atrocities.
He had overcome the fear most men felt in dangerous situations, and anticipated his next risk with shrewd determination, almost eagerness. It was the way he lived, on the edge of disaster and excitement. It was this edge that brought his lean body to a slightly crouched position, his taut muscles flexed like a coiled spring.
Although he was an American, Nick Diamond blended in with the dark-haired Mexican people around him. Purposely, he dressed in casual peasant-style clothing— loose white britches and a camisa, a shirt that hung outside his waistband. Beneath the loose clothes and behind the dark, bushy mustache was a man of tempered steel, a dangerous man. Norteamericano, some Mexicans called him. Those who knew him referred to the tall, commanding man as El Cápitan. He definitely fit the title. His coarse, unfettered camisa sometimes concealed a small gun, which was almost completely hidden in his large hand when he held it. He wasn't reluctant to use the weapon; indeed, the cold steel had saved his life more than once. To those who'd seen him in action, he engendered fear. And respect. In a time and place desperate for heroes, Nick Diamond was a reluctant proxy.
Before Nick could take another step, a short, stocky Mexican man in similar peasant attire appeared in the doorway. His muscular arms braced the arched portal, effectively blocking the exit.
"What the hell is that all about, Jose?"
"It is nothing, Cápitan. Listen." The burly man with the elaborate handlebar mustache held up a finger. It was almost a comical gesture coming from such a rough-looking man.
Nick paused as the siren's whine was cut short.
"They stop a couple of blocks away. Maybe two stubborn cars wouldn't give up their right of way. Did you hear the crash?"
"Oh yeah. More than two cars, I’d say. You have some careless, crazy drivers in this city. Or might be trouble at Pancho's Bar again."
The first siren was followed closely by a second.
"Sí." Jose relaxed in the entry way and turned to look out into the street, still listening. "Or the marketplace."
"Maybe we should check it out."
"Not we, Cápitan. Maybe I will go." Jose shook his head and the carefully curled ends of his mustache jiggled.
"We need to make sure it's a wreck and not some terrorist act."
"No, Cápitan. No more heroics, please. We're supposed to keep a low profile, remember? If you keep on saving lives, word about you will
spread fast and everyone will be talking. We do not want that."
Nick relaxed his shoulders and leaned trim hips against the edge of an old wooden desk. "If you're referring to that incident last week, I merely performed basic CPR. Nothing fancy. The man was having a heart attack. I couldn't let him die in the street.”
"And now everyone thinks you work miracles. It makes you some kind of hero." Jose gestured with an expressive hand.
"Some hero," Nick grunted with a low laugh. "If they knew the truth about me, they'd swing me from the nearest mesquite tree."
Jose grinned, his white teeth flashing beneath his handlebar mustache. "Sí, Cápitan. But they don't know the truth. They only know what they see. So you must lay low. Especially today. We cannot take a chance on messing up tonight's haul. Too much at stake."
"Ah, you're right, Jose. But I need to know everything that's going on around me." Nick folded his muscular arms across his broad chest. "Anyway, the policía are there by now, and they can handle it. Probably."
His eyes flickered with sarcasm and Jose sighed and looked away. He had worked with Nick Diamond long enough to know what he was thinking, how his shrewdly calculating mind worked. Nick's years of experience had left him wary and unyielding. No one or nothing could be trusted.
A third siren pierced the dead quiet.
Nick shifted uncomfortably and looked up, his unswerving umber eyes meeting his partner's in a mutual understanding.
Jose nodded and began to move before the demand could even be made. "Sí, seňor, I'll go check it out."
"Good idea." Nick turned back to the shabby space he and Jose called an office and picked up a paper from the desk.
Fifteen minutes later, Jose returned with an account to relay. "A drunk driver crashed into a light pole and knocked over many wagons in the public marketplace. With the Saturday crowd in the market, they were damn lucky. Only a few people were injured."
"Badly?"
Jose shrugged. "One woman. They took her away in an ambulance."
Nick's eyes narrowed. "You're sure it was an accident?"
Jose nodded. "There was another young woman involved. A norteamericana, with blond hair. She was looking for a Mexican baby. Claimed the child was there before the accident."
"Injured?"
"They don't know. Couldn't find her."
"Hmmm." Nick looked back down at the sheet of paper in his hands. As soon as he'd memorized this information, the paper would be destroyed, leaving no evidence.
"The woman, she was very pretty, Capitan. Blond hair and blue eyes. Muy bonita. From the States—" Jose halted.
Nick had already turned his back. He hadn't heard, nor did he care about any pretty, blond woman. But it wasn't surprising to Jose. In the year they'd worked together in Mexico, Nick had never shown anything more than lusty interest in any woman. Although his women were beautiful, Nick never bothered with anything more than a brief encounter.
The man was remarkable. Jose knew his partner had blocked everything else out and now concentrated completely on the information before him, and the wrap-up of tonight's operation. It was just as well. He didn't need the complication of a woman in his line of business.
Purchase this book @ Rogue Diamond - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004R9QW52
Mary Tate Engels, author of more than 30 romance novels, soon to be on eBooks at Amazon.com, also has two non-fiction southwest history books with Texas Tech University Press: Tales from Wide Ruins, Jean and Bill Cousins, Traders; and Corazon Contento – Sonoran Recipes and Stories from the Heart, co-authored with Madeline Gallego Thorpe. She has three sons, two granddaughters, has raised a wolf in her back yard, and has adopted two black cats for good luck
Discover other Amazon titles by Mary Tate Engels at – http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_9?url=search-alias=digital-text&field-keywords=mary+tate+engels&sprefix=mary+tate
Loves Dawning- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004DCB8W0
A Lasting Love - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004D4ZX10
A Rare Breed - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HZXT9S
Rogue Diamond - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004R9QW52
Speak to the Wind - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004R9Q8YC
Under the Desert Moon - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006IXPR7Y
Under the Desert Sky - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006JEE1C4
Connect online at: www.marytateengels.com
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Callahan's Gold (Southwest Desert Series Book 3) Page 21
