by Elle James
The answer didn’t seem to please him, but he said nothing more on the subject. “Come.” He motioned for her to move ahead of him, then took hold of Mariposa’s arm and dragged her after them. She held one hand over the cut on her neck and stared at the ground. Abby thought of dogs who cringed at their master’s abuse, yet continued to follow after them. Did Mariposa seriously care about Meredes, or did she simply think she had no other choice but to try to stay in his good graces?
Inside the cabin once more, she followed Mariposa to the sink. “Let me,” she said, and took a cloth and wet it under the faucet, then pressed it to the cut. Mariposa winced, then tried a wavering smile. “Gracias,” she whispered.
“Leave her,” Meredes ordered.
Abby ignored him. He still needed to be able to show her to the Rangers when they arrived if he had any hope of retrieving the baby. As long as he thought that, he wasn’t going to do her any serious harm.
“Do you want me to cut her again?” he asked. “I said, leave her.”
Mariposa understood his harsh tone of voice, if not his words. She pushed Abby away from her. Reluctantly, Abby returned to the chair across from Meredes. “As a former soldier, you should understand the importance of obeying orders,” he said.
“I pledged to obey my commanders in the army,” she said. “I never made that kind of promise to you.”
“I am more powerful than you,” he said. “That is all the authority I need.”
She couldn’t argue with his assertion that he had power over her for the moment, but she held on to the hope that that would change. Michael and the others would come to rescue her. But she had a long night ahead of her first.
Night came early to the little cabin. The canyon walls blocked the sun and cast the dwelling in twilight in early afternoon. The shadows continued to lengthen until full darkness shrouded the hiding place. Mariposa moved to the kitchen and began taking cans and packages from the cabinet. “Can I help?” Abby asked.
Mariposa glanced at her, then at Meredes, who sat by the woodstove, cleaning his nails with the blade of the knife. He looked up when Abby stood and moved into the kitchen, but made no objection. Mariposa handed her a can of beans and an opener, and pantomimed that she should dump the contents of the can into the large pot she’d set on the stove.
While Abby opened cans, she stared out the window over the sink. She could no longer see much of the landscape, but she already knew that the window looked out into the canyon itself. If she tried to climb out it, she’d only fall to her death, hundreds of feet below. The two guards watched the front of the little house; occasionally she heard them talking in Spanish, or smelled the smoke from their cigarettes. The back of the house rested against rock. El Jefe had chosen his hideout well for its protected position.
She glanced up at the low ceiling, then quickly away. The gunshots she’d heard earlier must have been the guards firing at the Rangers. They’d retreated for the moment, but she didn’t believe they’d give up so easily. They’d wait until dark, and come in with reinforcements.
With canned vegetables and some spices, Mariposa made a soup that was more delicious than Abby would have thought possible. Though nerves stole her appetite, she forced herself to eat a little. She needed to remain strong for whatever ordeal lay ahead.
After the women washed the dishes and put them away, Mariposa went to the bed in the corner and lay down, her back to them.
“Is she all right?” Abby asked. The other woman’s sudden retreat alarmed her.
“Leave her,” Meredes said. “She misses the little one.”
“She must have thought the baby would be safer with me than staying here with you,” Abby said.
“It wasn’t me she was worried about, it was Denver. She’s afraid of cities.”
“Denver?”
“I told her I was taking her and the baby to Denver. She should have been happy to leave this desolate place.”
“What was she going to do in Denver?”
He shrugged. “Nothing difficult. I would set her up in a house there. Occasionally, she’d entertain some friends I would send to her. Nothing difficult.”
Abby watched Mariposa as he spoke. Her back stiffened, then she smothered a sob. Understanding washed over her in a sickening wave as she remembered what Michael had told her. She forced herself to look at Meredes again. “You wanted her to be a prostitute.”
“It’s easier work than any she’d have found if she’d stayed in Tampico. And she could have kept the baby with her.”
Except Mariposa wanted more for her daughter than a life of slavery. So she’d given her away. Abby swallowed the emotions that threatened to overtake her.
“She wants the baby back now, so I told her I’d get her for her,” he said.
“How thoughtful of you.”
He must not have missed the sarcasm in her voice. “She’ll work better if she’s happy,” he said.
But how could anyone kept a prisoner be happy? She had to do something to help her new friend, and to help herself in the process. But what? She returned to her seat on the sofa and tried to think, but her thoughts spun in circles. After a while, lulled by the silence and weary from the stressful day, she dozed.
* * *
“THE WATER TANK where Meredes wants to meet is here.” Graham indicated the dot on the map labeled Historic Structure.
“And the Jeep was parked about here.” Randall pointed to a second dot, several hundred yards from the first.
“And we were fired on from here.” Marco indicated a spot on the edge of the canyon. “So the hideout is probably very near there. The shorter distance he has to travel to make the exchange, the less chance of our intercepting him or Abby making a run for it.”
“Would she do that?” Carmen asked. “Make a run for it, I mean?”
Michael realized she’d addressed the question to him. “How should I know?” he said. He’d make a run for it, but Abby was a woman, and he was clearly no expert on the female sex.
“You know,” Carmen said. “You’ve spent more time with her than anyone. Is she the type to be paralyzed by fear, or would she save herself?”
He thought back to how Abby had handled herself that first day, when they’d been trapped by the sniper. Even fighting flashbacks to the war, she’d held herself together. She’d faced her fears. And when they’d been lost in the backcountry, she hadn’t panicked or blamed him, or any of the things other people might have done under similar circumstances. She’d looked after the baby, found food for them to eat and settled in to wait. “She wouldn’t panic,” he said. “She’s the type who assesses a problem and tries to find solutions. And she’d fall back on her military training. In the army, they train you to focus on escape if you’re captured, so she’ll be looking for opportunities to get away from Meredes. And she’ll fight back with everything she’s got if she’s in danger.”
“That’s good,” Graham said. “We can count on her to help us when we get to them.”
“How are we going to get to her?” Randall asked. “From what Lotte told us, they’re down in the canyon.”
“That’s why we’re going in at night,” Graham said. “I’m counting on catching them unawares. And I want to take Meredes alive. We need him to tell us what he knows about the operation.”
The others nodded, but Michael kept silent. He understood the importance of Meredes to the investigation, but when it came to protecting Abby, all bets were off. He hadn’t saved her life once to lose her now.
* * *
ABBY WOKE WITH a start, unsure at first what had roused her, then the noise reached her ears again: a low thump, like something—or someone—landing on the roof. She stood, heart pounding. Meredes looked up from the book he’d been reading. “What is it?” he asked.
Was it possible he hadn’t heard?
She clutched her stomach. “I have to use the bathroom,” she said. “Something in the soup didn’t agree with me.” Earlier in the afternoon, she’d made a trip to the outhouse perched on the edge of the canyon. A guard had waited outside the door, then escorted her back to El Jefe, who had waited for her in front of the cabin.
He frowned at her now. She bent double and moaned, loud enough to cover what she was sure was the sound of footsteps on the roof.
He went to the door and opened it, and called something in Spanish. Gunfire from in front of the cabin cut off his words as plaster rained down from the ceiling overhead. Abby looked up in time to see the blade of an ax pierce the ceiling. The ax struck again and again, then Michael dropped down through the resulting hole, landing a few feet from her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine. I knew you’d come.”
Meredes whirled to face him, one hand on the gun at his side. “Give it up, Meredes.” Michael leveled his pistol at the Mexican. “You’re surrounded. We already took care of your guards outside.”
“You won’t take me.” Before she or Michael could react, Meredes lunged for Abby. He wrenched her to him and pressed the barrel of the pistol against her temple. “One move and I’ll blow her head off,” he growled.
He was as rigid as a statue, the hand clamped around her arm digging in like an iron restraint. He smelled of sweat and fear—of desperation. He pressed the gun to her head as if trying to bore a hole. She gritted her teeth against the pain and, trying to rein in her own panic, looked to Michael. His gaze burned into hers, equal parts anger, determination and caring. “Let her go, Meredes,” he said. “You’ll never get away from here alive if you don’t.”
“She’ll be the one who dies if you come any closer.” He moved toward the door, dragging her with him. “Call your bosses. Tell them I want a helicopter here in half an hour.”
“There’s no way—”
“Tell them!”
Gaze still locked to her, Michael pulled the radio from his belt. “He’s got Abby,” he said. “He wants a helicopter and safe passage out of here or he’ll kill her.”
And when he got those things, he’d kill her anyway, Abby thought. Would he push her body out of the helicopter in the United States, or wait until he was safely over the border? She had to do whatever she could to avoid getting onto that helicopter with him.
“Tell them to stand back and give me room,” Meredes said.
Michael repeated the instructions. “He’s coming out,” he added.
Would they have had time to position a sniper in the rocks along the canyon? Abby wondered. Did they have night-vision goggles to make the shot possible?
Maybe Meredes wondered the same thing. He hugged Abby to him, his arm pressed tightly beneath her breasts, his head positioned behind hers. Even an expert would have trouble getting off a safe shot now.
Outside, the moon was a silver sliver of light amid a glittering array of stars. Dark shapes stood at a distance—other agents of the task force. “I’ve radioed for the helicopter.” Graham’s voice spoke from the darkness. “They’ll be here in forty-five minutes.”
Three-quarters of an hour to stand in this man’s cruel embrace. Would either of them be able to endure it?
“Don’t come any closer.” Meredes backed away from the agents. Where was the drop-off into the canyon? She tried to remember how much room they might have, but the darkness made it difficult to orient herself. With no electric lights in the cabin and no light pollution from a nearby town, not to mention the canyon walls closing in on either side, the darkness was like a physical shroud, thick and unyielding.
“Let her go,” Michael said from somewhere to their left. “Take me instead.”
Meredes’s laughter abraded her raw nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. “How chivalrous of you. But you are worthless to me.”
He took another step back and Abby cried out in protest. “Careful,” she said. “We must be close to the canyon.”
He stiffened and stretched one foot carefully behind him. Abby wondered if she could trip him, then throw herself forward, to the ground. But his grip on her was too strong. If he fell over the edge, he’d be sure to drag her with him.
“Over to the cabin,” he said. “We’ll wait on those rocks.”
He dragged her toward the boulders piled against one corner of the cabin, then leaned against the rocks, keeping her tight against him, cradled between his legs. Her head and heart pounded in unison, a drumbeat of fear and adrenaline.
Light blinded them, a white glare that hit them full-on. “Cut it out!” Meredes shouted, enraged.
“Shut it off!” Graham ordered, and they were plunged into darkness again, blinded now, spots dancing before her eyes.
“We’ll have to turn on lights to guide the helicopter in,” Graham said.
“Then, wait until it arrives,” Meredes said. “I still have the gun to her head, even if you can’t see it.” As if to emphasize his point, he dug the barrel in harder. She felt a trickle of blood run down the side of her face and flinched. He moved his free hand to cup her breast, his fingers digging in. “Just holding on tight,” he murmured.
She forced herself not to react, to remain rigid in his arms. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how afraid she was. She wouldn’t let him see any weakness. He was used to people being afraid of him, of using weaker women like Mariposa. She wouldn’t be another victim for him to gloat over.
Mariposa. For the first time in minutes, she thought of the other woman. Was she still asleep on the bed in the cabin? Surely she hadn’t slept through this chaos. Maybe she’d followed them out and was safe with one of the Rangers, invisible in the dark. Abby hoped so. She hoped Mariposa could be reunited with her baby, and safely returned to her home, wherever that was.
Something scraped on the rock behind them, along the side of the cabin. El Jefe jerked upright. “If anyone tries anything—” he shouted. But the words died in his throat. Mariposa landed on top of them. Meredes fell to his knees and Abby kicked out against him, scrabbling away from him even as a gun exploded, deafening her. She screamed and rolled away, then Michael was pulling her up, into his arms. Light blared around them, blinding her.
“Are you okay?” Michael smoothed the hair back from her face.
“I’m fine.” Her head still throbbed, and she’d have a few bruises tomorrow, but she was alive and safe. “What happened?”
“Mariposa crept up from behind and tried to stab Meredes with a kitchen knife.”
She twisted around. “Is he—?”
“He’s dead.” Michael pulled her closer and together they watched Carmen help Mariposa from the ground and gently pry the knife from her hand. The Mexican woman was sobbing and staring at the man on the ground in front of her, blood pooling around him.
“She didn’t kill him,” Michael said.
Abby stared at the body of the man on the ground. “I don’t understand.”
“A sniper shot him.” Randall joined them. “As soon as you moved out of the way, they fired. They must have been watching, waiting for a chance.”
“I wondered if you’d position a sniper,” she said.
“It wasn’t one of ours,” Randall said.
She frowned. “Then, who?”
“Someone else wanted him dead,” Michael said. “Before we could question him.”
Mariposa’s sobbing broke the silence. The pitiful sound tore at Abby’s heart. “What will happen to her?” she asked.
“We’ll question her, but I doubt there will be any charges filed,” Michael said. “We’ll want to know whatever she can tell us about Meredes’s operation. Then we’ll try to find her relatives in Mexico and arrange for her and the baby to return there.”
“I hope she can find a place wher
e she can be happy and safe,” she said. Wasn’t that what they all wanted? She studied the man on the ground again; he looked so small and harmless in death. Yet he’d destroyed so many lives. He’d almost destroyed hers.
“I’m not sorry he’s dead,” Michael said. “But I’m just sorry we didn’t get the chance to question him.”
“You want to know who’s backing him?” she asked.
“He’s only one small part of the operations in the area,” Michael said. “Our guess is, he was in charge of the labor force. Other people must be overseeing production and distribution.”
“What about the people you found in the canyon earlier today—the workers from the camp?” she asked.
He smoothed his hand along her shoulder. “Three of them died, and some of them are seriously injured, but will probably live. We’ll question them, but it’s unlikely they know much. They probably never saw anyone other than Meredes and the guards. They’ll be processed through ICE offices in Grand Junction and sent back home.”
She looked at El Jefe’s still body once more. “He got off too easy,” she said.
“Forget about him.” Michael gently turned her away from the dead man. “I have something that belongs to you,” he said. He opened his hand to reveal the little ceramic rabbit.
Seeing the familiar token was like being reunited with an old friend; she felt a surge of relief. “I wondered what happened to it.” She took it from him. “Thanks for saving it for me. I’m not sure I really believe in luck, but I like having it around.”
“I thought maybe you’d left it for me to find.”
“I didn’t think of that.” She glanced up at him. He radiated caring and concern, two emotions she’d spent a lot of time warding off, as if letting people worry about her made her somehow weaker. Michael had helped her to see things differently. Other people’s compassion could make her stronger. “Besides, I knew you’d come for me.”
“You did?”
“You haven’t let me down yet.”
