by Karina Halle
“Well, if you do think of anything else, please let me know, I’ve got my cell,” Gus said. “About Ellie that is. Everything about Bernal, we’d like to know now.”
She nodded. “I can tell you he’s got several bodyguards around him at all times.”
“Raul,” I said.
“And that he’s very careful, almost to a point. He never slips up, at least not enough for me to act on. The man has patience and is ruthless and that’s a mighty terrible combination.”
“Tell us something we don’t know,” I said under my breath.
It was loud enough for her to shoot me a sharp look. “Tell me what your plan is when you find her?”
I looked at Gus but he was staring at the wall now, eyes drifting over a pastoral landscape, too green field, bright red barn.
“I’m not sure,” I said slowly when Gus didn’t respond. “We haven’t really worked out the kinks yet.”
She smiled before growing serious. “Well let me tell you this, there are some things in life that you can do by the seat of your pants and there are others you need to plan. What I said about Bernal being careful, it’s no lie. He’ll smell you a mile away if you’re on his territory. If he has his ex-girlfriend, and they’re in the place they used to share together, I would bet he wouldn’t give her up easily. You’re obviously after her for a reason. He was too.”
I swallowed hard and tried to bury the seeds of doubt that were popping up in my head, the fact that I was green, new to this, didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I was a tattoo artist for crying out loud, not a vigilante. Hell, I wasn’t even a bounty hunter like this middle-aged lady was. I had absolutely no skills to my credit except that I knew how to fire a gun and could kick the shit out of any unarmed man. And I doubted I’d be able to throw a couch and get away with it a second time.
“Well, thank you for your time Lydia,” Gus suddenly said, getting to his feet. “I’m sorry we couldn’t stay for pie, but the kid is right. We need to get going so we could start planning.”
I quickly took my piece of pie and wrapped it in a mound of napkins from the dispenser. “For energy,” I said, trying to give her an easy smile. I think I failed. Her own smile faltered in return.
As we were leaving the shop, I saw Lydia pull Gus aside and whisper to him, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come. For company? Just for old times?”
He grunted. “I’ll be alright, Lyd.”
“I worry about you. You’ve been through so much, and this man, Bernal …”
“I’ll be seeing you.” He patted her on the shoulder and I quickly turned and headed to the car so they wouldn’t know I’d been eavesdropping.
She waved goodbye for us, standing on the stoop of her shop, as we got into the car and roared off down the sunny, dusted, desert streets, sand it seemed I could never escape.
I shot Gus a look. “I guess we need a plan.”
“We need a plan and a prayer,” he said. He eyed me over his glasses. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
I did. Yet knowing it didn’t make it easier.
I started nibbling on the pie – absolutely messy but delicious – and got to thinking. We would descend upon Ocean Springs soon.
Tomorrow I might be able to hold Ellie in my arms again.
Tomorrow I might also lose everything.
Ocean Springs definitely wasn’t what I pictured when I thought of Mississippi. Granted, we had driven through Biloxi and Gulfport, still a mix of new casinos and post-Katrina destruction. But Ocean Springs was fresh and charming. A little too quaint for someone like Javier, though what did I know?
We pulled into the small town in the late afternoon, the humidity swept away by the incoming breeze of evening. We didn’t even spend a night in a hotel, instead Gus had me take over during the idle of the night, somewhere in Texas. He figured it was safe enough to not draw any suspicion, our car anonymous amongst the others on the dark stretch of highway.
While he snored from the backseat, utterly out in a matter of seconds, I had more time to think and go over the plan.
Gus had known where Ellie shacked up with Javier, in case of emergencies. We were able to locate it using his cell phone’s GPS, as close into the street view as we could go. Looked like a nice place, a fact that kind of picked at my heart a bit. It was ridiculous to be jealous over this, over something that happened a long time ago, but I couldn’t help it. I always was a jealous guy. I guess it came from insecurities and all that nonsense. Well, that’s what the shrink had told me all those years ago when my father would shuttle me off to him once a week. Even though I knew that Ellie despised Javier, that she was in a terrible place and needed my help – our help – I thought about what must have attracted her to him in the first place. What caused her to give up on her revenge and live with this man? The beauty of their house and the location disguised the truth.
Gus had decided we’d first need to do to a bit of a stakeout – which totally went against what I wanted to do, which was to pretty much barge in there and take out everyone in our path. That method would probably get me killed but every second that we spent staking out the joint was a second that I felt we were losing her. Still, Gus was right. Of course. I’d started wanting to second-guess him out of spite but the fact was he knew what he was doing.
After the stakeout, when we got an impression of how many people were there and how they were armed (that’s, assuming, they were inside – this was just our hunch after all), we’d formulate our plan of attack. One person to act as a diversion, the other to rescue Ellie. Obviously the trick would be the diversion so we didn’t get caught. It also depended on how many men were there and if Ellie was heavily protected or not. Gus seemed to think that she wouldn’t be. Javier probably had his bodyguard or Raul. Javier, like everyone in the world by now, had to know I was on the run from the police and would want to stay low, so coming for Ellie would be the last thing I’d do.
Javier would have totally underestimated me.
Once we followed the GPS’s chirpy voice down a few seaside streets we eased up several blocks away. Javier’s car was still Javier’s car and our cover would be blow in a second if we were to come any closer.
Gus brought the duffel bag into the back seat and began sorting through the weapons. Yeah, that word pretty much encompassed what he’d packed. An assault rifle, a few handguns of various calibers, plus a sniper rifle. Then there were two knives, a small axe, a small plastic bottle, hornet spray, various gas lighters and a container of Coffee Mate.
I picked up the Coffee Mate and shook it. “Now what’s really in here?”
“Coffee Mate,” he said, face serious. “You get a cloud of that in the air, there’s nothing more flammable. Not to mention how easy fireballs are to make.”
“Okaaay,” I said. My nerves were starting to twitch a bit. I wasn’t counting on doing anything that involved igniting a puff of non-dairy creamer. Also made me wonder if people knew what they were putting in their coffee every morning.
I nodded at the unmarked bottle, afraid to touch it. “What’s that, breast milk?”
His eyes twinkled at that though his mouth remained flat. “A bleach bomb.”
“Perhaps we should stick to guns,” I said. I didn’t want this to turn into Gus’s science experiment.
He nodded. “You just use your own, you’re more comfortable with it.”
I was. I also had a secret weapon. I wasn’t planning on using it but if I ever got the chance – if I happened to come across Javier alone – well it paid off to plan ahead. Guns didn’t always have a way of making people talk.
Gus slipped one gun into his boot, a knife went into a sheath under his pant leg, and he tucked another gun into the waistband of his jeans. He seemed to consider the bleach bomb for a bit before he grabbed the can of hornet spray and stuffed that in the front of his pants.
“So I’m going to assume here that I’m the diversion,” I said, grabbing a small backpack I had stowed in th
e back.
“We’ll have to watch them for a bit, but yes, that’s the plan.”
As childish as it seemed, I’d wanted to be the one who came breaking into the house in a blaze of glory and rescuing my woman. But things didn’t work out the way they did in the movies. Instead I’d have to fake and run and leave the rest up to Gus.
At first I assumed we’d be waiting until nightfall but Gus assured me that daytime was the safest. This was an affluent neighborhood and Javier was the leader of a Mexican drug cartel. They couldn’t get away with a lot during the day, so the risk of a shootout was kept to a minimum. That said, we’d be in a lot of shit if we were spotted though sadly, that was the risk we were going to have to take. I was a wanted man now, what the hell was the difference? Might as well get nabbed for something I actually did.
We left the car and started walking toward the house, taking the street that dipped along by the ocean. It was stunningly beautiful, the glimpses of crashing waves that you could spot between the properties, the way the sun was setting in golden shimmers. Still, the scenery did nothing to abate the anxiety that was starting to eat at me. I’d never experienced panic attacks, not the way that Ellie had anyway, but this was as close to one as I’d ever felt. I thought my lungs were shrinking with each and every step we took. The gun tucked into my jeans felt like a bomb about to go off, my backpack felt weighted and heavy.
Luckily, Gus and I didn’t look out of place. He was wearing a yellow and pink Hawaiian shirt that I joked made him look like a combination of Jimmy Buffet and Nick Nolte when he got arrested for drunk driving; I had on a baseball cap and a long-sleeved grey Henley shirt that covered up all my tats. We both had sneakers and sunglasses. We could have been a father and son going out for their sunset walk. No one would suspect that Gus was a walking weapon.
Soon we were upon Javier’s house, looking the same as it did on Google maps. Only this wasn’t a concept, an idea, an image on a phone. This was the house, all white with its raised porch overlooking the beach. Idyllic and deadly. And Ellie could have been inside, maybe in one of the windows that had bars on it. The thought caused a jolt of anger to run through me.
As usual, Gus picked up on it. “Take it easy,” he whispered out of the side of his mouth. We were just walking past, two guys on a walk. No one should suspect anything, not if we kept going on our easy going way.
Once we were a few yards from the house, Gus stopped and pretended to look at his watch. “What time is sunset, do you know?”
I swallowed hard. Was that code for something? I could barely even think.
I could tell his eyes were on me underneath the glasses. He lowered his voice, pretending to adjust his watch. “Just the one car. Recognize it?”
I nodded, unable to find my vocal chords.
“Come on, let’s go see how Dana’s garden is doing,” he said more loudly and began walking again. I followed, wondering if we were being watched or followed but knew I couldn’t even look around to check. The skin at the back of my neck prickled.
We turned down the next street and once we were out of sight, he pulled me to the side into the flowering bushes of someone’s yard.
“We might be lucky,” he whispered gruffly. “One car means less people. Maybe. Either way, I’m going to go around and up through the beach. Enter from there, probably from the main floor. I didn’t like the looks of those windows but I’m going to assume that’s where she’s being kept. Unless Javier is that paranoid. Which the bastard probably is. Still. You wait here.”
He brought out his cell from his pocket and checked the time. He took off his watch and handed it to me. “In five minutes from now, you knock on the door or ring the doorbell and ask if Dana Prescott is home. They’ll tell you, you have the wrong house and give directions. Maybe. And hopefully you’ll be on your way.”
“Hopefully,” I said with a grimace. “Who is Dana?”
He shrugged. “She lives around the corner. I Googled home businesses in Ocean Springs and her location came up the closest. Home computer services. You’ll be more believable if you’re asking about someone who lives here. Maybe Javier and his pals are the good neighborly types.”
“Like a neighborhood watch,” I said. The shakiness had come up into my voice. I needed to hold it together if I was going to be any help.
He gave my shoulder a hearty slap. “You’ll do fine. You’ll know when it’s time to go. Then you run, you get back to the car and you bring the car three houses down. Ellie and I will be running along the beach and will come in between that red house I pointed out. You got it?”
I nodded. He watched me for a few moments to make sure, then suddenly he was off and running in the opposite direction, moving a lot quicker than I gave him credit far. He disappeared down the next street, heading for the beach.
I slid the watch around my wrist, my hands shaking, the leather slipping. Five minutes. Five minutes. Five minutes.
Oh shit, Camden, I told myself and suddenly my head was between my legs, nausea sweeping through me like a bat out of hell. I hadn’t been this nervous in a long time. Not even when Ellie and I were going to get Sophia and Ben. The last time I’d felt this nervous was when I was planning to catch Ellie in the act of robbing me.
I had to admit that still stung from time to time. How the whole time I knew she was scoping me out, wanting my money, not giving a shit about leaving me high and dry. Not caring about her old friend Camden, the doormat, the lovesick puppy, the goth queen. She looked me in the face and lied time and time again. And then she broke into my house and robbed me.
But that was the old Ellie. When she traded herself in for me, the sacrifice she made for my freedom, for Sophia and Ben’s freedom, I knew that old Ellie was dead. Still, being here now in Mississippi, in the very place where she gladly lived a lie for over a year, a part of me had to wonder if the old Ellie would be resurrected. It was something I tried not to think about, because it only added an unnecessary fear. The fear that when Gus and I came to get her, that she would not go.
I looked down at my watch. It was time.
I breathed in deeply through my nose, adjusted the cap on my head and came out of the Gardenia hedges, striding down the road and turning onto Javier’s street. There was the house, just as before, and for once I could gaze at it through the cover of sunglasses and take it all in. After all, I was just looking for someone now, Dana Prescott, and heard she lived here at 425 East Beach Road. I heard she had a lovely garden and fixed computers.
Fuck, what was I doing?
It was too late. Gus was probably somewhere on the beach, heading to the house like a lost beachcomber and without a diversion, Ellie’s chances of getting out of there would get a lot more difficult. I had to keep going. One foot in front of another. A gun tucked in my jeans. A new weapon in my backpack.
I walked down the bend of his driveway, past moody, weeping trees and went straight for the front door. Half of the house at the back was on stilts, leaving a spot big enough to park two cars – the black SUV being the only one there – and to the side a stone walkway led to the front door, trimmed by flowering pots. It was surprisingly well-maintained.
I stopped on the low stoop and fought the urge to hesitate. If they were gang members worth their salt, they’d already have spotted me and were watching my every move. If I looked to the window to the side of the door, I’m sure I’d see the venetian blinds move. But I was there to see Dana and no reason to cast a suspicious eye upon the house.
Seeing there was a doorbell, I rang it, a loud chime that nearly made me jump out of my shoes. I had to, had to, had to watch myself. I needed to do this for her sake, my sake, Gus’s sake.
Be cool.
The door opened and a short Hispanic man appeared, dressed casually in a white polo shirt and khaki shorts. Did we even have the right house? He didn’t look to be much older than me and his posture was relaxed. The only thing that gave me a hint right away was the fact that he had a bandage across his templ
e, the area red and raised.
“Can I help you?” he asked. He was polite too, though I detected a hint of suspicion in his tone.
I smiled. “Hi, is Dana home?”
He frowned. “Dana? No.”
“She does live here though, right? 425 East Beach?”
The man crossed his arms and I got a glimpse of some pretty bad-ass tribal tattoos on his biceps. I could take him, easily, but he’d put up a good fight. He leveled his stare at me. “This is 425 but there is no Dana here. Sorry.”
He was about to close the door when I raised my hand to stop him. A ballsy move but I wanted to make sure Gus had enough time.
The man eyed my hand, then fixed his eyes on me. He didn’t look relaxed anymore. He looked annoyed. I was pressing my luck.
I kept grinning like an idiot, like I wasn’t picking up on the obvious signals he was giving me. “Do you know if there’s a Dana in the neighborhood? She’s supposed to offer computer services.” I patted my backpack. “Got my laptop right here.”
“All I do know is that if you don’t get the fuck out of here right now, I’m going to break your balls with my foot.”
I let my smile fall because that’s what anyone would have done. I was half-tempted to break his balls. Instead, I raised both hands as a peace offering and gave a meek, “Sorry man, sorry,” while backing away.
The man didn’t move. He kept staring at me. I started thinking, maybe, just maybe he already deduced something about me, maybe something was given away.
Then I heard a gunshot.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ELLIE
“So, how would you like to kill Travis, Ellie? A bullet to the head or something more subtle?”
I turned and glared at Raul. It was day two at sea and the massive yacht was already starting to feel too small. I was alone only in my cabin. Everywhere else I went it was either Raul, or the other guy, or one of the crew boys. Unlike the other two, the crew boys were nice enough and kept their distance lest they incur the wrath of Javier, but I could tell they were watching me. Little matching spies all in black.
