by H. L. Wegley
The dark cloud that came with her dream had fled. It dumped its rain and evaporated into the atmosphere.
She leaned close to Drew and kissed his cheek. “Thanks.”
Beth had expected to see that winning smile on his face, but she got the intense look that said Drew West was serious about something.
His eyes softened. “Marry me, Beth. I have a contract for what will be my breakout novel. There are speaking engagements, writing conferences, courses to teach. I need a business manager, someone who can take all the opportunities and turn them into profit. I can't do all that and write.”
“Not even forty-eight hours and you’re proposing to me? You really do storm the castle. Hunter warned me about you.”
“Hunter is Mr. hyperbole. Nothing is as bad or as good as he says. Just like his Big Bend excursions business. It didn’t fold. There was a downturn for maybe a day, and now it’s booming again. Hunter even has stories to tell about catching cartel mules. He's benefited from all that, just like I have. No. Nothing like what I found in you, Beth.”
She tried to interrupt him, but Drew continued. “My life was on a long detour to places I didn't want to go until this beautiful señorita tried to give me the cold shoulder and ended up giving me her sprained ankle. Do you want me to tell you what I was thinking as I held your ankle and checked it out?”
“You don't really admit to thinking stuff like that, do you?”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. On what basis are you accusing me of inappropriate thoughts? Your own experience?”
“Okay. What were you thinking about when you were holding my sexy, swollen ankle?”
“That I wanted to take care of you for the rest of my life.”
“Drew, real life isn't like a Charles Martin or Nicholas Sparks romance. You don't love someone a few hours after meeting them.”
“Maybe not. But it’s easy to imagine it, after you meet the right person.”
“Okay. Imagine it. But give us some time. After my INTJ personality grates on you for a while, you’ll probably have some reservations about me. People like me aren’t affectionate. We can be quite annoying, and we aren’t very lovable.”
“Your words might say that. But your eyes make up for it. They betray the real Beth Sanchez.”
“And what are those eyes saying right now?”
“That you wanted to say yes but didn’t want anyone thinking you were a fool. So you will say yes, but only after you give us a little more time.”
She sensed a major frown wrinkling her forehead.
“It’s okay. I can wait until tomorrow.” Drew grinned.
She punched him in the shoulder, but there was no strength in her arm. Her strength had drained away with the realization that she had no place to hide anything from Drew West, not even in the frontal lobes of her brain.
That was disconcerting. But it was more than disconcerting to realize that Drew could read Beth better than she could read herself.
Tonight’s proposal had been an attempt to feel her out before the real thing. But when Drew read her heart and then pushed the issue, could he, as he said, just snatch her up?
I don’t have to answer that … yet.
Chapter 9
Hector Suarez ended his call to Luis Santana, head of the revived Tijuana Cartel, and he revisited each point of the agreement he had just made with his peer on the West Coast.
The agreement would be a mutually beneficial one, a treaty of sorts. And it opened new vistas for forward-thinking cartel leaders. And for taking advantage of those who were mentally inferior to Hector Suarez.
If he had to chase Drew West and Elizabeth Sanchez to a West Coast location, such as Oregon, Hector would be intruding on the sales area of the Tijuana Cartel. And he did not need a confrontation with them when the Del Rio organization already had to fend off attacks and intrusions by Los Zetas, a common enemy of the Del Rio and Tijuana cartels.
Hector had promised to aid the Tijuana organization by distracting the Zetas, using a variety of threats whenever the Zetas encroached on Tijuana territory either in Mexico or on their sales regions in the US. In return, Luis Santana would assist Hector when he made his move against the arrogant little—he swore each time the thought of Mr. West. And that happened every time Hector’s knee throbbed. About once a minute.
A stabbing pain shot through his sore knee. He tried to adjust the knee brace through his Armani slacks. Hector swore again when the brace refused to yield to his fingers through the fabric.
As he struggled with the brace, his cell rang. The theme from Hawaii Five-0, Ramon’s ringtone.
Throbbing knee or not, Hector needed to talk to him.
“Ramon, here. I think I have some good news.”
“You think so? Then I think I will wait until I hear what you have before I get excited.”
“Hector, you are too much a pessimist.”
“You mean a realist?”
“Let me make you an optimist. I have found where Drew West’s family lives in Oregon.”
“And why should he return there? I hear it rains all the time in Oregon.”
“Not where Drew’s family has their horse ranch. It is on the east side of the Cascade Mountains.”
“That is what—fifteen-hundred miles from Texas?”
“Maybe a little more. But it is a remote area near Redmond, along the Deschutes River. It is an area of many rivers, mountains, canyons—badlands for a bad boy to hide with his señorita.”
“Maybe Mr. West goes to Oregon and maybe not. But he will go, as his name says, west. People choose places they know well when they want to hide.”
“Si, El Capitan. So I should go west too.”
El Capitan? Ramon is buttering me up to ask a favor.
“Yes, you should go west.”
“Good. Then I will go to Las Vegas to wait for word that the rental car is returned. From there, I can quickly reach any of the western states. Many flights each day come into Las Vegas. And, perhaps, I can have a little fun while I am waiting.”
“On your own time, Ramon. Not on mine. Very well. Go to Las Vegas.”
“Once we find them, do you need me to—”
“No. Your job is only to find them. It is not your concern how I take them or how I dispense with them. If I need you for anything else related to West and Sanchez, I will tell you.”
He ended the call.
“And if you botch this job, Ramon, I will dispense with you as painfully as I will with Mr. West and the Señorita.
Chapter 10
Drew handed the rental contract to the attendant at the McCarran Rent-A-Car Center just south of the airport in Las Vegas.
The thirty-something Hispanic man scanned the papers then jerked as if he’d been slapped. “One moment, sir. I’ve got to take this call.”
Drew watched the man’s fingers key in a number before he turned away and muffled his voice.
“Beth, he said take a call not make a call.”
“Drew, let’s get out of here as fast as we can. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“Yeah. I’ve never liked those zingers running up the back of my neck either.”
After a short phone conversation, the attendant turned back toward them. “May I ask you to wait a moment, sir, while we check the car for—”
“There are no damages and you’ve got my credit card. Just tell me how to get to the Terminal One parking garage. We’re running late.”
“But it will only take a moment, and it will speed things up if you—”
“I don’t have a moment and you need to speed things up.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Yes, sir. You can wait in the lobby for the shuttle. I can tell you when it arrives.”
“When it arrives? Isn’t that the shuttle stopping out front?”
“Oh. It’s already here. This shuttle will take you to Terminal One. It stops at the front of the terminal. Just walk through the terminal building to the other side and you’ll see the parki
ng garage straight ahead.”
“Come on, Beth. Let’s go.”
As they strode to the shuttle, Beth took his arm. “He just called Suarez.”
“He wanted us to miss the next shuttle. He probably called one of Suarez’s thugs, or someone Suarez paid off, to let them know when we arrived. But they don’t know what we plan to do here. So when we get off that shuttle, Beth, we need to get lost in the crowd as fast as we can. We can’t afford for anyone to recognize us getting into that vehicle Mom’s rancher friend left for us.”
* * *
Ramon’s cell buzzed his leg from where he’d put it in his pants pocket. He glanced at the display. Roundabout Car Rentals. He didn’t know whether to curse or celebrate. If this was about Señor West and Señorita Sanchez, he had done his job, but it also meant his Vegas vacation was over.
“This is Ramon Vazquez.”
“Sir, you asked me to call if they showed up. They just turned in their car.”
Ramon strode toward the entrance to Harrah’s Hotel and Casino. “Can you stall them. I’m on my way to the airport.”
“I will try, sir.”
Ramon ended the call. At the street, he flagged down a taxi. “One-hundred bucks if you can get me to the airport car rental center in five minutes.”
After he slid in, a college-age man with a short beard turned to get a better look at Ramon. “It’s five and a half miles to the rental car center. How much is it worth if I simply try my best?”
It was not going to get any better than that. “Okay. A hundred bucks if you will do anything short of wrecking us to get me there.”
“You got it.”
Ramon hit Suarez’s speed dial number.
“What’s happening, Ramon?”
“Puedes creerlo? Señor West and the Señorita are turning in their rental car at the Las Vegas Airport, and I am only four minutes away in a cab.”
“We are most fortunate to have picked Las Vegas. If they have left the rental center, pay the man to tell you where they went. If you find them now, Ramon, they are ours. Do not fail me.” Suarez ended the call.
Ramon grabbed the handle above the door and hung on as the cab driver picked his way through traffic at an incredible rate.
The quick maneuvers slammed Ramon against the window and then slid his rear half-way across the seat. He held onto the handle in what seemed like a fight for his life.
He covered his eyes with his free hand as they blasted through a large intersection. The light had been red when they entered but must have turned green as they sailed by the crosswalk. The driver’s uncanny sense of the timing of the light changes had bought Ramon some time.
Six minutes later, the cab screeched to a stop in front of the rental center.
Ramon tossed the cabbie a hundred-dollar bill and then scanned the windows until he saw the logo for Roundabout Rentals.
Before he could reach the counter, a man wearing a Roundabout shirt walked toward him. “Mr. Vazquez?”
“Yes.” Ramon handed the man a hundred-dollar bill. “Which way did they go?”
“The man and the hot chick?”
“Yes. Them.”
“If I tell you, will something bad happen to them?”
“No. I am only a private investigator who needs to find them and ask them some questions … for my client.”
The young man looked at the bill, then back at Ramon. “They caught the shuttle to Terminal One. That’s it making the turn onto the street.”
“Did they say where they were going? Anything might help me?”
“They asked for directions to the parking garage for that terminal.”
Ramon turned to tell the cab driver to wait.
The cab sped away to the street.
He turned back to the agent. “When does the next shuttle come?”
The agent pointed out the window toward the freeway. “See it turning onto Gillespie?”
“And where do I find the man and the, as you say it, hot chick at the terminal?”
“They will go through the terminal to the other side. You’ll see the signs to the parking garage. It’s straight ahead.”
So someone had provided them a car. They would pick up a privately owned car and disappear into the Vegas traffic.
Ramon would be about five minutes behind them.
How long would it take someone to find a car, put their things in, check out the controls, and drive away?
About five minutes.
He strode out to meet the incoming shuttle.
It poked along the semi-circle driveway at an infuriating pace.
Darse prisa, tonto!
* * *
Drew and Beth had lost a couple of minutes getting lost in the crowd inside the terminal. It was now 9:00 p.m. The sun had been down for almost an hour, and it would soon be dark. That might help hide them as they left.
Drew spotted the vehicle in the space Hunter had mentioned. It was an older model Dodge pickup with a king cab.
Drew took Beth’s bag from her and tossed both of their bags in the back seat.
Beth laid her hand on his shoulder. “Uh, Drew … “
“What, Beth? We need to go.”
“My clothes … the stuff Sophia packed for me. It’s all in the back of the—”
“Sorry. But we can’t go back. I’ll take you shopping in Redmond and buy you a whole new wardrobe if you’ll just get in this truck so we can get out of Dodge.”
“Don’t you mean get into the Dodge?”
“We don’t have time for English lessons.”
“Was that an insult?”
Rapid footsteps echoed through the garage.
“Doesn’t matter. Just get in. There’s someone running through the parking garage, and I don’t want to wait to see who it is.”
Beth pulled Drew down between the truck and an SUV parked beside it.
The dim parking-garage lights revealed an Hispanic man sprinting toward them with a cell phone held to his ear.
The runner stopped a couple of vehicles away and scanned the area around him.
The tingling running up the back of Drew’s neck turned to a higher voltage, maybe two-twenty. He placed his mouth beside Beth’s ear. “We need to get out of here, now.”
The truck had been backed in. Beth circled behind it, near the wall, and now stood at the passenger-side door.
They opened their doors in synch. The interior lights lit them up like mid-day as they climbed in.
Drew grabbed the truck keys under the dash, where Hunter said they would be, and stuck them in the ignition. “He’s bound to have seen us.”
“You got that right. He’s walking our way.”
“We need to make a run for it. Unless … Beth, I could beat the tar out of the guy, tie him up, and force him to go with us, then dump him out in the desert.”
“What if he has a gun?”
“Right.” Drew pulled out of the parking space, with the rear wheels burning rubber, and he headed straight at the man.
He dove out of the way, landing on the concrete in front of a sports car.
In the rear-view mirror, before the man disappeared from sight, he held his cell with both hands and pointed it at them.
* * *
“It was them, Suarez.”
“Did you get the vehicle description and license plate number?”
“It was an old pickup. Maybe a Dodge. It had Oregon plates. I shot a picture with my cell, but I cannot read the license number. It was too dark.”
“No importa. It is obvious where they are going, Ramon. They go to Mr. West’s family’s home. I need you to go there and watch them until I arrive.”
“So you are coming, Hector?”
“I have been waiting for this for almost eight years. Yes, I am coming, and I will bring a force so powerful it will wipe all traces of Señor West and Señorita Sanchez off the face of the earth. It will be like they never lived.”
And soon they won’t.
Chapter 11
Drew had always created a course of action with each change in their precarious situation. But only one thing came to mind. It was the curse of being a writer.
Use a dodge to get out of Dodge in the Dodge.
He started to share his clever pun, but the scowl on Beth’s face said it wouldn’t be a good idea. Instead, he studied the traffic ahead and then accelerated down the expressway to the left-turn lane.
The light was green, so Drew didn’t slow much as he took the sharp turn from 593 to 515 North.
The tires on the big Dodge pickup squealed their complaint.
He merged into the light traffic on 515. “I didn’t see anyone following us. But we need to make sure we’ve lost Suarez’s stooge. He’s probably figured out we’re going to Oregon. These plates are a dead giveaway.”
“Drew … you could have made a better word choice.” Her almond-shaped, brown eyes studied him, though it was too dark to read them.
“Even if he does know we’re headed for Oregon, we don’t want him ambushing us on the way, especially when we stop tonight.”
“Is it safe for us to stop? Maybe we should keep driving.”
“Beth, after two long days and a short night, it’s probably not safe for me to keep driving.” Drew paused. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’re gonna go west on US 95. See if you can find an out-of-the-way place to stop for the night, some place about three hours down the road.”
He glanced at the clock on the dash. “It’s a little after nine o’clock. If we can stop by midnight, the offices of most motels should be open.”
“What if we’re followed?”
“Out in the desert at night, we’ll be able to spot anyone following us. If we see a suspicious vehicle, I’ll lose it.”
Beth played with Drew’s cell for about five minutes, then looked up at him. If you can keep up this pace, there’s a Best Western at Tonopah, about three hours away. It says they have suites but, like last night, the pictures show one bedroom and a living room with a couch.”
