Tres Leches Cupcakes

by Josi S. Kilpack

  She tried to pull her wrists apart as much as possible to allow some space, but her captor tightened the knots until Sadie worried the bones would break if she resisted anymore. Her ankles were quickly tied together as well, sending her panic levels to the moon. Pieces of sand from the floor stuck to her cheek. She tried to catch her breath and maintain rational thought.

  The van engine roared to life, and the second man hastily patted her down. Her pockets were empty except for her car key. She always kept her key on her person per Pete’s advice; it had saved her life before. The man removed it and threw it onto the passenger seat of the van. Was her purse there too? She continued fighting.

  “You’ll only make this worse,” he said while pushing her head down again, causing more sand to press into her skin.

  She stopped fighting, and a few seconds later, he moved away from her completely. She could hear him shifting around as though trying to make himself comfortable. The van turned, then turned again, and then began picking up speed.

  It was hard to breathe with the gag in her mouth, and she could feel the tightness building in her chest as she thought about Pete, Caro, Shawn, and Breanna—they wouldn’t know what happened to her. They wouldn’t know where to start looking. Was this what had happened to Margo?

  As her breathing increased, it became more difficult to get air. The gag was choking her, and though she tried to calm herself, it wasn’t working. She tried to lift her head, only to have it shoved against the floor. She tried to roll onto her back, but her arms were tied, and each time she lifted a shoulder, she was shoved down again. She needed to tell them she wasn’t going to fight them, she just needed air. Panic set in, and soon she was kicking again and screaming behind her gag. She was dying, right here, right now. Her shoulders and wrists burned, but she almost couldn’t feel it as the panic rose higher and higher.

  “Stop,” the man said, hitting her in the back of the head.

  That only increased her panic. Logic had no play now; pure survival instinct took over. The man said something, but she couldn’t register the words. Did he realize she couldn’t breathe? Did he know he was killing her? She heard the other man’s voice—the Cowboy—but his words didn’t make sense either. She threw her right shoulder up and managed to get on her side. She kicked her bound legs like a dolphin until she flipped onto her back.

  Things seemed better when she was staring at the ceiling of the van. She felt like she could expand her lungs at least, but she was still choking on the gag. The man who’d tied her up was sitting against the side of the van, staring at her while she thrashed around, kicking from side to side. The Cowboy was yelling. Sadie felt bile rising in her throat and looked at her captor pleadingly. She was going to die either by suffocation or by drowning in her own vomit if he didn’t do something. Her attempts at screaming were little more than guttural sounds coming from her heaving chest. Light began to pop in her peripheral vision, and she continued to stare at him. Is this really what he wanted to have happen? Her dying in the back of this van?

  Suddenly he leaned forward. She feared he was going to hit her, but an instant later the gag was removed from her mouth. It was like pulling out a drain in the bathtub. She stopped kicking. She coughed and sputtered and dry heaved as she turned her head to the side in case she threw up anyway.

  The panic still swirled around her, its long, gnarled fingers squeezing her lungs and its dry voice whispering in her ear that she was as good as dead anyway. She should never have cooperated with them at the Fiesta. Amid the scratchy voice of the demon of her own worst fears, however, was the faint voice of logic: she could breathe now. She would not die. Not yet anyway. But it was hard to believe they had any other motive in mind than to kill her. She wanted to tell them she didn’t know anything, that she’d told everything she’d learned to the police, but she had to get herself together first.

  She turned away from the man and forced a little more air into her lungs with each breath she took. A little more. And a little more. She held each breath a little longer, not letting herself hyperventilate. Her thoughts began to slow. Her muscles started to relax, but then came the intense pain in her shoulders. Lying on her trussed-up arms like she was made her shoulders feel as though they were going to pop out of their sockets.

  “Please,” she said in a strangled voice. “Can I sit up? My . . . my shoulders.”

  “What’s going on?” the Cowboy said from the front.

  “I’ve got it,” her captor said, and although she didn’t dare expect much, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to a sitting position. The interior of the van spun for a few seconds, and her shoulders continued to throb. But at least they no longer felt like twigs ready to snap. She continued to take deep, gulping breaths. She tried to roll her shoulders, though it was nearly impossible to do so with her wrists tied together.

  “Thank you,” she managed to say once she’d overcome the vertigo.

  He didn’t say anything, but when she looked toward him, there was a look of uncertainty on his face. Maybe her thanks had thrown off his game plan. She could only hope.

  The man had a long face, thin, no facial hair, and a gold chain around his neck mostly hidden by the top of his black T-shirt. He was younger than she’d expected, mid-twenties she guessed, Hispanic, with dark hair and eyes, brown skin and . . . was she imagining that he looked familiar too? An instant later she remembered the man she’d seen standing on the corner that morning when she’d come out of the café. She’d determined that it was the sky full of balloons that had his attention. But she felt sure this was the same man. She was being watched. But why?

  “I saw you this morning,” she said, realizing she had nothing to lose. He didn’t deny it, just stared at her. “How long have you been following me?” She glanced at the Cowboy sitting in the front seat. They wouldn’t have been following her all day if they simply wanted to kill her, right? “Why are you following me? Why am I here?”

  At the Fiesta, the Cowboy had said she had something he wanted—what could it possibly be? Information? She thought of the ugly world of antiquities she’d learned about from Marcus. Black market thugs may have been responsible for the death of Margo’s daughter. Were these two men part of that same dangerous group? Had Sadie drawn their attention? Her mouth went dry and her heart, so recently recovered from her anxiety attack, began to speed up again. It was all she could do to force herself to calm down, though her whole body was hot and her arms were shaking.

  “Why were you talking to Ethan Standage?” the Cowboy asked from the front seat.

  The sound of sirens caused all of them to pause as the second man moved to the back of the van and looked out one of the windows.

  “They’re not coming for us,” he said when the sirens didn’t get any closer. “Another car was weaving between lanes.”

  Sadie’s fragile hope was quickly extinguished as her captor moved back to his position at the left side of the van. No one knew she’d left the Fiesta. No one was coming for her. That her captors weren’t protecting their identities implied their expectation that she wouldn’t have the chance to identify them later. She had to force herself to breathe again after that realization. In, out, in, out, until she didn’t feel on the verge of another panic attack.

  “I asked why you were talking to Ethan Standage,” the Cowboy said again.

  Oh, right, she’d forgotten his question. Her thoughts were still scrambled, and she needed time to think about the best answer. Why would her talking to Ethan be a concern for these men?

  “Can I move to the side of the van to brace my back, please?” she asked the Hispanic man sitting a few feet away from her.

  He stared at her for a moment, then nodded but made no move to help her.

  “Thank you,” Sadie said again, scooting backwards to the side of the van. It took several seconds to adjust her body so she was more comfortable, but she used the time to survey the inside of the van; unfortunately, it was pretty stark. There was a box against the oppo
site wall, and some rope behind the driver’s seat, but the rest was just empty space. She did note that one of the two square windows on the back doors of the van was cracked in the lower corner. The details were paltry. Once she’d used as much time as she felt she could justify, she looked across the van at the younger of her two attackers.

  “I was talking to Ethan Standage because he was buying some cupcakes. Then he invited me to take a ride in his balloon.” It was the truth.

  “Right,” the Cowboy said. “’Cause he invites middle-aged women to check out his balloon all the time. What did you talk about?”

  “The Albuquerque box and his photography. Why am I here? Where are you taking me? Where’s Margo?”

  “Tell us what you talked to Standage about, and then we’ll move on to talking about Miss Margo.”

  “Can we get on with this?” the Hispanic man shouted in the Cowboy’s direction. “Who cares what she talked to Ethan about?” He turned to look at her. “How long have you known Margo?”

  “A week,” Sadie said calmly, deciding this was a question she could answer honestly. She noted that he’d said “Ethan” not “Ethan Standage” or just “Standage,” like the Cowboy had.

  “Did you ever go to her apartment?”

  “Once,” Sadie said before remembering that she’d also broken in on Wednesday, but she didn’t feel inclined to amend her answer. Besides, the only thing she’d determined from that walk-through was that Margo hadn’t come home. “Monday afternoon. Where is she?”

  “Did she show you anything . . . valuable when you were there?”

  “No,” Sadie said, doing an instant mental tour of Margo’s apartment. There was nothing there that couldn’t be purchased at a secondhand store for cheap. “She didn’t show me anything at all. We talked.”

  “About Crossbones?” the Cowboy said from the front seat.

  “No.” It was the truth; they hadn’t talked about Crossbones. Sadie had only put together the possibility of Langley being Crossbones since talking to Marcus.

  “Then what did you talk about?”

  “We’d worked a dig site where fresh bodies were uncovered. We talked about that.”

  “And then you went to the bar looking for Crossbones.”

  “Margo might have been looking for Crossbones, but I’d never heard the name until that night. Right before . . .” Suddenly his profile sparked a flash of memory.

  After the fight had broken out at the bar, and before the police had put an end to it, Sadie had seen Margo arguing with a man she didn’t know. She’d thought it strange that in the middle of the frenzy, Margo was arguing with someone, but so much was going on that she hadn’t dwelled on it for more than the moment she saw it. Looking at the Cowboy’s profile now—the same perspective she’d had at the bar—confirmed that he was that man. Then Margo disappeared. Was this man Crossbones? He was involved before Margo disappeared—but why? How?

  How many players were there in this game?

  Chapter 29

  I’ve answered your questions, now tell me where Margo is. You said you would take me to her.”

  He glanced at her in the rearview mirror, confirming that he’d heard the question, but he didn’t answer and turned his eyes back to the road. The absence of stoplights and the rate at which they were driving made it clear to Sadie that they were on the freeway, going away from Albuquerque; they’d have been in the city by now if they’d gone south. Headlights illuminated the Cowboy’s face every few seconds as traffic came toward them, and the sound of cars passing them on the left told her they were in the slow lane.

  “I said she’d die if you kept fightin’ me,” the Cowboy clarified from the driver’s seat. “Two different things.”

  “Are you taking me to her?” Sadie asked.

  The Cowboy shrugged. “Maybe.”

  That meant no. Sadie swallowed and took a deep breath, trying to gather her courage. She had to throw them off their game somehow. “You were at the bar on Monday.”

  He glanced at her in the rearview mirror again. Blue eyes. Over-tanned skin. Mid-fifties.

  She pushed further. “You were arguing with Margo that night. Why?”

  “Because she had something I needed.”

  Had? “What?” Sadie thought back to Margo’s apartment again. Clutter. Old furniture. Discarded newspapers. What could Margo possibly have had that this man needed?

  “I’m hoping that you—as the closest thing she had to a friend—would be able to tell me that. We searched her apartment and her car real careful-like so as not to tip anyone off, and we ain’t found it. Until we do, anyone who had anything to do with that woman ain’t gonna be safe. You, though, have been a hard woman to find. You gave the wrong address on your employment application, and you use a couple different names.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “What for?”

  “That has nothing to do with Margo,” Sadie said—another truth, though only part of it.

  “You can’t expect me to believe that,” the Cowboy said with a chuckle. “Any more than you expect me to believe you don’t know where the property is.”

  “Property?”

  “The item Margo stole, the item she’s been hidin’ from us. I’m thinking maybe all your coverin’ up is ’cause you’re one of her little friends who are out to save the world from people trying to make a livin’ off a little history.”

  So these men weren’t part of Margo’s preservation group. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I met Margo at the dig site. We worked together for one day, then met up on Monday, compared some notes, and went to the bar. If she had an agenda other than talking to some of the members of our crew, I don’t know what it was.”

  “You did more than talk to members of yer crew. You were asking why Mr. Carlisle kept diggin’. Like you said, I was there. I heard the whole thing.”

  Was he connected to Shel somehow? Sadie wished she had more answers. “Then you know that’s all we talked about before people started throwing punches.”

  “You have a fake name and a fake address, and you bested a man half yer age when he came at you. I want to know who you is, and what yer doin’ here. I ’spect you know more than yer saying. Margo said she’d moved the item, and yer the only person she spent time with that we can figure out. So I think she handed it off to you. I think yer one of her freaky do-gooder ’ssociates.”

  “You’re wrong,” Sadie said bluntly. She could not give him what he wanted, but her fear was rising quickly as to what might happen to her if she couldn’t produce whatever it was he was looking for. “The police are investigating Margo’s disappearance. They’re on to you.”

  He laughed. “Nice try, sweetheart. You just recognized me, and with all the festival hubbub, no one saw you leave.”

  “But you’re connected to Langley,” Sadie said, feeling her own need for this to be true. “And he’ll lead them to you. Or Shel will.”

  He laughed again. “Langley ain’t leading no one nowhere. Guy like that knows better than most that he’s only valuable so long as he’s useful. He stops being useful . . . and well, the body count rises.”

  Sadie felt her stomach drop. “Langley’s dead?”

  “Puts a whole new spin on the nickname Crossbones, don’t it?” He laughed, deep and hearty enough that it dissolved into a cough.

  Sadie turned away and stared across the van. These men were killers. She caught the second man looking at her with an expression she couldn’t read, and she looked away, unable to meet his eyes and see the victory in them like she heard in the Cowboy’s voice. Did she dare ask where Margo was again? The possible answer scared her.

  “So Langley was Crossbones,” Sadie said. She’d wondered as much, but then she’d also wondered if the Cowboy was Crossbones. “Was he a black market dealer?”

  “Not a very good one,” the Cowboy said. “Seein’ as how Margo was on to him, and him drivin’ that big, flashy truck around.”

  “You worked with him,” Sadie said. �
�You’re a dealer too.”

  The Cowboy grunted. “I’m whatever I need to be whenever I need to be it, ain’t that right, son?”

  Sadie glanced at the younger man, but he wasn’t watching her. He was staring at the floor, his jaw tight and his hands clenched into fists on his knees. The Cowboy laughed and glanced at her in the mirror again.

  “How do you know Sheldon Carslisle?” she asked.

  “Can’t say that I do—other than knowing who he is. Why? Was he friendly with Miss Margo? I didn’t get that impression.”

  So he wasn’t connected with Shel—assuming she could believe what he told her. She was tempted to test their knowledge of Shel’s connection to Ethan, but the familiarity the Hispanic man had used when he said Ethan’s name held her back. She couldn’t be too free with handing over information; she might need to bargain with it later.

  “And that brings us back to you. See, if you ain’t the receiver of the property, then we have to really think about what your value is. If you’re no use to us, then yer just a liability, ’specially seein’ as how you’re all sweet with Standage. Liabilities get buried here in New Mexico.”

  “Buried like Ethan’s assistants?”

  Both sets of eyes snapped to her in surprise, and her breath caught in her throat. Apparently they hadn’t expected her to know this.

  “Who told you that?” the Hispanic man asked, watching her intently.

  She looked between him and the Cowboy, searching for direction on how to answer this. “The police did,” Sadie said. “I told you, they’re on to you. They know everything.”

  “Oh, no, they don’t,” the Cowboy whispered, but he was obviously bothered by this new information. The other man was still watching Sadie, but when she looked at him, he quickly looked away. Guilty? Scared? Who was he? At moments, she felt as though he were a hundred percent into this, and other times she had the feeling that he was being victimized somehow too. Yet he was the one who’d helped throw her into the van, tied her up, and knelt on her head.