by Leon, Judith
The moment she was safe inside the room, she text-messaged the room’s number to Joe, who was waiting outside in his Land Rover. She wedged a piece of notepaper taken from the bedside stand in between the door latch and the jam just enough to be sure the door could open without a key and closed it.
She shoved the woven bag under the bed, then sat her backpack on top of the bedspread. She laid out the white silk top and pants, picked not only because they could breathe well in this topical heat and looked elegant enough for a party, but because they folded down into virtually nothing. She would finish the outfit off with wedge sandals, pearl-drop earrings and the gold locket with mother-of-pearl front that held a tiny GPS transponder.
The bathroom, with brass-plated fixtures and black marble, exuded the same air of money as the rest of the hotel. She could not get out of the green pants and shirt fast enough. She dropped them, along with her pants and bra, onto the floor and started the shower, temperature on the cool side. She used the jasmine-scented shampoo.
She’d just rinsed her hair a last time when the shower door opened. Joe grinned as his eyes exaggeratedly explored her from her forehead to her toes.
She splashed a spray of water at him. His grin just broadened.
“You are rude, impolite, uninvited and should be whipped,” she said, meeting the challenge of his grin with a defiant smile of her own.
“Whipped! Sounds good. And you are still gawdawful beautiful.”
“Get out of here!” she demanded, thinking what it would be like for him to strip and get in with her. They had once made love with memorable results in the shower on Capri.
He shrugged. “Okay. Whatever you say. Then make it snappy.”
After she finished, while he showered she slipped into a black, hotel-supplied bathrobe and dried her hair. She’d wear it straight and loose, pulled back behind one ear. When it was dry she stretched out with a sigh on the queen-size bedspread which, like the bathroom, was also done in black and white.
Joe came out with no towel around his waist—was he taunting her again, or reminding her of what she had given up? He’d put a gauze patch over his grazed shoulder at the Blue Parrot and had managed to keep it dry. “Do they supply two robes?”
She pointed to the closet.
“Your friend Bebe is pretty ballsy to do this.”
“He says it will give him a chance to grow. Something about not liking to be in the same old rut all the time.”
“Pretty nice rut.”
“The hotel is beautiful and the people who come here must be interesting. But Bebe is quite sad. I don’t know, maybe he’s even subconsciously reckless. We’re asking him to mess with the most powerful man in a thousand square miles. Bebe lost the wife he loved two years ago. Now he has only his daughter, Solange.”
Joe stretched out on the other side of the bed, his hands clasped together behind his head. Nova could barely keep her thoughts on their conversation. He had to be taunting her. He could have sat in a chair, couldn’t he? It might not be so comfortable, but surely he must know that every inch of her body longed for him to cross the line between them and peel back their robes.
“So he has a daughter?”
“I talked with her yesterday for a short time. She’s grown very beautiful.”
“You know, my brother got married.”
“Really!”
“I like the woman. And I bet they get right down to having kids.”
Nova had wondered how Joe felt about kids. Now would be the perfect moment to ask. The question formed, but for some reason she held it back.
He continued to stare at the ceiling and then said, “I still want you so much it sometimes hurts, Nova.”
She felt her throat tightening. She kept her gaze fixed on the ceiling. “Sometimes I think it was stupid for us to split up. I can’t even imagine wanting anyone else.”
Joe sat up, closed the space between them and kissed her, a gentle, short kiss. Then touching her chin he said, “Me neither.”
“We could be adults,” she said, grinning. “We could kiss some more and make up.”
He kissed her again, this one long and lingering but still tender. He tousled her bangs for a moment, then gave her his very best killer smile. “Why don’t we take the big leap, like my brother.”
She shook her head and returned the smile. “I read somewhere that married people take each other for granted. Why not stay single and keep things fresh and exciting?”
“I saw the way you cried when Ramone died. Would you ever care for me that much?”
She touched his lips, and tracing one eyebrow said, “Don’t be silly.”
“What was it between him and you?”
“We—I—don’t want to go there, Joe. It was a long, long time ago.”
“Then he must have made one hell of an impression a long time ago.”
“Let’s talk about now and let the past be the past.”
“Okay, babe.” He opened her robe and kissed one breast, teasing the nipple. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, savored the tingling. He kissed the other breast. “Marry me. Now or as soon as we can arrange it.”
Her eyes snapped open, the mood immediately broken yet again. “Why won’t you lay off the marriage thing?”
He sat back. “Because I love you. I want to spend my life with you, however long that life may be. With no one else but you.”
She felt suddenly short of breath. She wasn’t winning him over. She hadn’t even made a little dent. “I can’t marry you, Joe. Why can’t you understand that?”
“Would you have married Ramone?”
Alarm mixed with anger, warming her cheeks. She sat up. “Ramone is one of the very reasons I don’t want to marry. He loved me and he left me, and I had no say in the matter. I spent time in prison, another place where I had no say in what I was allowed to do. Marriage is a major way to get yourself all tied down, can’t you see that?”
The light in Joe’s eyes flared like someone had breathed on glowing coals, all tenderness in them burnt up. “I can see that I could die without ever having been married or having kids. And I don’t want that.”
She stood—on her side of the bed—and stared at him.
He stared back.
Something needed to fill the silence.
She clenched her jaw. “I am never going to give up my independence.”
“Fine.” Joe rolled off the other side of the bed. “So, let’s get dressed.”
Chapter 37
Joe had tried to convince Nova that he should be positioned somewhere on the Escurra property near the house so he could be closer to her if something went wrong. She’d insisted that there were no good places to hide near the house on the north side and that on the south side, he risked being seen because that’s where all the party action would be. He finally conceded that it was better that he wait on the road just north of the property, where she had done her scouting. “If you have to,” she’d said, “you can reach the house from there in a quick thirty-second dash.”
Bebe drove his year-old black Mercedes sedan carefully, such a contrast to Joe who drove a car like he was still flying jets off a carrier. Nova sat in the front passenger seat clutching her cell phone. Escurra’s Casa Grande lay not more than half a mile ahead when the text from Joe came in.
I’m in place.
Bebe gave the Mercedes a bit more gas and they arrived within moments at the front of the imposing home. An attendant took the car. No host or hostess greeted them. They walked inside and were immediately offered a selection of canapés on a tray. “There are drinks in the bar, directly ahead of you,” the pretty young waitress said in Spanish.
Music always set any party’s mood and “Joy to the World” played by Mannheim Steamroller flooded the large entry hall. They passed a few chatting duos and trios as they strolled deeper into the house. They found the bar in a room with two pool tables, four video game booths, and a mechanical bucking bronco, which no one in this crowd was using—yet
. The night, she thought, was still young.
She’d accepted a gin and tonic, her favorite drink in hot climates, and Bebe took his first sip of a Campari on ice when Escurra himself entered the bar/game room.
“My friends,” he said in Spanish, loud enough to capture everyone’s attention and cause all chatting to subside. “I must leave to attend the festivities for my hired hands, but I will be away from you only briefly. Enjoy. I shall return.”
Several guests called out “Feliz Navidad, Tomas,” as Escurra made his departure.
Nova handed her drink to Bebe. “I have to see where he goes. I’m inside now. You should leave. Go to your car and get out of here.”
“I will not leave you here alone.”
“You can’t help me, Bebe. I will worry if you are here. Please don’t ask questions or argue. Just leave.”
She hurried after Escurra, hoping Bebe would comply. Escurra’s leaving the house called for a substantial shift in plan. She had not expected Escurra to leave the party, a mistake. Of course he would attend both parties, the one here and the one for his men. Making mistakes like that could be costly if not disastrous.
Catching up to him was easy because he stopped in each room to deliver the same message that he would return. She followed, well back, and finally watched him walk out the open front door. From a tall window beside the door, she watched him climb into a golf car and head south. He was heading for the fighting pit.
She nibbled her lip, her mind calculating. Should she follow, or use this opportunity to search the house, the original plan, and then follow if she didn’t find the boy?
Her instinct was to follow Escurra. But everything Carlito had said indicated that Alex was being kept in a nice place, which probably meant the house. Certainly not those sheds by the fighting pit. She’d already checked most of them out. She pushed instinct aside. “First things first,” she said softly.
She couldn’t just stand here looking out. She moved away from the door slowly. Earlier in the afternoon, the CIA had faxed the Casa Grande’s building plans to the Blue Parrot. She and Joe had figured that if she started from the kitchen on the extreme east side and worked her way through the whole place, both floors, she could cover it in ten minutes, provided she encountered no hindrances.
Someone had abandoned a nearly empty champagne glass on an end table. She picked it up and headed toward the kitchen. On the way, she stopped to look in every room, even those close to the party.
There were men who appeared to be guards every now and then, but they simply smiled at her. This was way too easy. They did not have the demeanor of men hiding anything. They behaved like they were there to make sure that none of Escurra’s valuable possessions got lifted. The house seemed to be entirely open to the guests, who could apparently explore wherever they wanted to.
She wandered into the kitchen, taking the cooks by surprise. But even most of them just smiled at her. She helped herself to a bit of roast beef and strolled back out, heading for the stairs to the second, top floor. Escurra’s office occupied the middle room.
A guard stood at the foot of the stairs, and while Nova was wracking her brain for a means to distract him, a woman approached him and said that she could not find her purse. He escorted the woman toward another guard, and Nova raced up the stairwell, her heart pounding, unable to resist a tiny smile.
Still, this was much too easy.
As she stepped into the second floor hallway, the hair raised on the back of her neck. No guests here. The music and bright lights were all down below. The recessed doors along the hall were cast into deep shadows. If she encountered guards here and if Alex was being held up here, she would not likely receive smiles.
She heard the sound of flushing water before the second door down opened. She shrank back into the shadow of the first doorway. Felipe Martinez strode out of the bathroom, passed her and ambled down the stairs.
Peeking out from the shadow and seeing no other guards, she turned around and opened the door to the first room. From her bag she took out the high-beam flashlight, did a scan and found an empty bedroom.
She checked every room on the floor, including Escurra’s big office with its overstuffed brown leather furniture and massive rosewood desk. Like the Casa Grande itself, his decorating taste ran to American Southwest. He’d probably watched too many Western movies.
Alex Haley Hill wasn’t in the house. No basement had been indicated on the building plans. She needed to get out of here, change clothes and go after Escurra. Pushing aside crushing disappointment—perhaps the boy had died—she decided to follow the feeling in her gut this time.
A second stairwell lay at the other end of the hallway, and clutching her champagne glass she marched down it and past the guard assigned to keep guests from going upstairs. She smiled, and though he looked both puzzled and pissed he also managed a stiff smile. They had probably all been told to act nice.
Outside she told the only car boy present that she was waiting for someone, and when he drove the next car away to park it, she strode briskly toward the pool cabana.
Guests surrounded the pool, and tango music set an entirely different mood. She walked to the generator house. Oleander, in fragrant bloom, had been planted around it to hide it. To the steady thrum of the generator’s electric pulse, she undid the lining of the woven bag and quickly changed into the lightweight, green-and-tan camouflage outfit and the folded boots. She took off the gold locket and replaced that GPS device with one that fit into her navel, then put the GPS locket into the hiding place in the lining.
The silk outfit she folded and stuffed into the bag, along with the wedge heels. She checked the Glock to be sure it was loaded and ready, and decided to keep it concealed but ready for action in the bag’s hidden compartment.
Crossing the bag’s strap over one shoulder and under the other arm, she bolted toward the first of the lighted rancheritas. To her right, a few lights beamed into the night from the bunkhouse, but it looked mostly deserted.
Halfway to the first rancherita, she heard the sounds of shouting men.
Chapter 38
All three rancheritas were lit up. but Nova could not see or hear signs of life in any of them. Surely by now all the guests were at the party, but these folks were not likely to be big into energy conservation so she wouldn’t expect them to turn off the lights.
Recalling that she had been unable to look into the tiny windows of the cells in the shed because she couldn’t find anything to stand on, she scanned the yards. She filed away for future reference the memory of two motorbikes in one yard—in her experience, motorbikes often came in handy. But not now, when she needed stealth. Instead she stole one of three bicycles from the yard of another rancherita.
Silently, she pushed the bike behind the houses and past the pool, and then hopped on and peddled toward the animal shed. The moon still hung low in the sky and was only half full so she probably wouldn’t be seen, the black bike and her camouflage blending into the background. But if her peddling movement or the subtle sounds of her wheels or the bikes’ chain caught someone’s attention, she would be a sitting duck.
Ancient trucks and Jeeps lined the road, but everyone seemed to be inside the arena. She zipped behind the end of the shed farthest from the fighting pit. The shouting sounded like a riot in progress. She pushed the bike to the first window, leaned the bike against the wall and climbed up to stand on the seat. Inside, a wild boar ran in what looked like a crazed circle.
She found the same in the next two pens. At the fourth window she looked inside and saw nothing. She started to climb down when a hushed voice said, in English, “Is someone there?”
Nova was so startled she nearly fell off the bicycle. She peered harder into the gloom. “Who’s there?” came the same hushed voice of an American boy again.
“Are you Alex?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
An enormous wave of elation swept through her. Only then did she realize that no matter wh
at she had kept insisting with her conscious mind, she had believed that Alex Haley Hill was already dead. Sometimes fate is kinder than we expect.
He stood, emerged from shadow and moved closer to the window. He was fully clothed in jeans and an extremely filthy white shirt. He not only wasn’t dead, he didn’t look ill. They must have let him use the insulin.
“I’m getting you out of here.”
“There is another boy,” he said. “In the cell next to mine. Did you see him?”
“No. My job is not to get anyone else away.” The question flashed through her mind, Why would they have another boy?
“You can’t leave him.” The words spilled out of Alex, like he’d been dying to say them to someone. “They’re going to make us fight to kill each other. If you leave him, I think they’ll kill him.”
“Alex, just sit tight. Please, don’t make any fuss. I have to leave, to call in Special Forces to get you out. Do you understand?”
“Okay.”
She was impressed with the kid’s smarts. He didn’t beg her to stay or beg her to get him out right this minute. He seemed to comprehend his situation and hers. And he cared about the other boy. She decided then that she liked Alex Haley Hill very much.
The clamoring voice of at least two barking dogs broke their contact. She swung her head in the direction of the sound and saw two Doberman pinschers galloping down the back side of the shed toward her.
“Shit!”
She dropped down onto the bicycle seat, turned the bicycle away from the dogs and pedaled like crazy. Near the other end of the shed she looked back. Two men dressed like ranch hands with guns in their hands sprinted toward her behind the Dobermans. She pedaled harder and started to turn the shed’s corner, nearly running over a man dressed like a gaucho. He grabbed the handlebars. The bike stopped dead in place and Nova tumbled to the ground.
