Nick hadn't been in Daniel's house since his death. Neither he nor Laura had been able to face it, so they'd just closed it up. He would not dwell on that now. Instead, he would concentrate on what he had to do.
He waited until Mary Beth closed the bathroom door before picking up the phone. Mario Gomez was too scared to speak freely, but Nick had other contacts, friends who'd take a chance.
A woman answered on the third ring.
"Colonel Vidal, por favor?" he asked, and waited while the woman called Roberto Vidal to the phone. In the background, he heard the sounds of computer keyboards clicking and people talking. The Ministry of Defense was not a quiet place.
"Sí," he heard Roberto say.
"Roberto, Nicholas Romero. ¿Qué tal?"
"Un momento. Let me take this call in my office," Roberto said without any undue inflection. But once he was on the other phone, Nick could hear the tension in the man's voice. "What are you doing calling here?"
"What's going on, Roberto?"
"A disaster" was his quick reply. "You need to get out of the city. Fast."
Nick saw no point in telling Roberto he'd already left.
"You have stumbled into a joint operation between the Americans and our Rangers. The woman you have been seen with is wanted. The Rangers are after her."
He'd been right about the men in the hotel. "What do they want with her?"
"Her brother is running guns across the border. I saw the report. I hear that the Americans tried to get her to leave the country. They do not want a woman on trial here."
"Why didn't the Americans make her leave?"
"I do not know, but the gunrunning is an old case." Roberto paused. "One of Daniel's."
So that was the connection between Mark Williams and Daniel. But why would Williams give Daniel's name and number to his sister? That made no sense.
"Who is our liaison with the Americans?"
"Francisco Arenales. You remember him. He is a colonel now, in Daniel's old outfit."
"What about on the American side?"
"A man named Elliot Smith. They have him listed as the military attaché, but I think he's CIA. Who else would take on such a common name?"
Nick smiled. "So what do you know about the woman?"
"Nothing. I have been kept out of it," Roberto replied.
"Did the brother sell guns to Primero de Mayo?"
"That is what the report said. I do not think the man is alive, personally," Roberto continued. "The last time anyone saw him, he was up along the northern frontera about two or three weeks ago—then he vanished."
That sort of timeline coincided with the kidnapping. Could Mark Williams be so unlucky as to have been kidnapped by the terrorists he did business with while San Matean Rangers and the American CIA looked for him?
"If there's been nothing for so long, why all the sudden interest in him?"
"I do not know. The report I read is more than a month old. A friend told me that Williams was seen, but I cannot verify that." Roberto paused. "According to what I read, Williams worked the area for years. I think the Rangers found some proof against him and he ran. Maybe they killed him and now they are left with no one to arrest. You know the political climate."
"Vargas has to have a public victory," Nick filled in.
"If he is to make a run for the presidency."
The general had lived his whole life, even allowed his own son to be killed, for the sake of his dream of the power of the presidency.
"Did Daniel ever report on the original operation?"
"I am not sure. I think so, but it would have been at the very beginning. He died before he made more than cursory contact with his American counterpart."
"Do you know who that was?"
"No. Those records were removed, so I cannot check. I thought the investigation died with Daniel."
"Gracias, Roberto."
"Nicholas, be careful. Vargas knows this is his last chance for a public victory. He will go after Williams and the sister with everything." The phone clicked off.
Nick knew that meant shoot first, ask questions later. Whether a terrorist hostage or gun merchant or both, Mark Williams, if he wasn't already dead, soon would be.
And his sister was likely to meet the same fate. They hadn't taken her, as Roberto thought they would, as made sense. They'd followed her, searched her hotel room. For what? To frighten her? To what end?
To get her to contact her brother.
That meant that the Rangers didn't know about the ransom demand.
Or the ransom demand was a ruse. One designed to get at Williams through his sister.
If that was true, Vargas was behind it, he had to be. There was something he was hiding. Something that could end his political aspirations. Something Nick knew he'd be able to use. He just had to figure out what it was.
The sound of Mary Beth coming out of the bathroom interrupted his thoughts.
"Were you talking about me or Mark?" She delivered the line with no more inflection than if she'd asked a stranger about the weather. She stood in front of the awful abstract, her chin high, her body language screaming displeasure.
Even in jeans, sweatshirt and tennis shoes, she had whatever it was that made her appear to be in complete control at all times. He knew her better now than he had on the evening she'd worn that devastating little black dress. The beautiful Mary Beth of the sweet name and the high fashion hid a vulnerability that packed an emotional wallop he had not expected. One he couldn't afford.
"I had to make a phone call."
"So you told me," she replied, barely inclining her head in his direction.
"It was private."
She nodded. Absently.
That was enough. Getting up from the hard sofa, he stepped around the glass coffee table and came to stand only a few feet from her and the stark abstract, forcing her attention onto him. "There are some things I can't discuss with anyone."
"I understand perfectly." Her tone said the exact opposite.
He thought about telling her what he knew about her brother, but only for a second. He needed her trust. He had to know how she figured in the big picture. How Vargas did. Without her trust, he'd never get the truth. And the truth would help him ruin the general.
"I was talking about Romero family business." He soothed his conscience by reminding himself there was truth in that.
The general had always been his business, and would be until one of them was dead.
She'd been put in her place, Mary Beth acknowledged later. Hopelessly caught up in her concern for Mark, in the pull she felt toward Nick, she'd ignored who he was—the head of a wealthy and powerful family, a world-renowned diplomat. There would be dozens of things he couldn't discuss in front of others.
Just as her father had been unable to discuss the details of his diplomatic posts and his banking business, secrets that could be innocently spoken and used by others, so, too, would Nick be unable to discuss the details of his. It made her wonder how different his home life was from the way hers had been.
Yes, she'd been raised by her parents, or at least one of them, while Nick's real parents were dead. But there was an undeniable closeness between him and Doña Elena. With Daniel Vargas, they had been a family. She wasn't sure how Laura fit into that picture, but a marriage between her and Nick seemed oddly off-kilter, despite the existence of Alex.
Except for her relationship with Mark, there had been no sense of family in her life. From the best she could tell, her parents married because it would advance them individually and as a couple. When her mother decided she'd done her duty, the year Mary Beth was twelve, she'd calmly announced she was getting a divorce. Her father, even more of a stranger to Mary Beth and Mark than their mother, had been thrust into the role of single parent. But the relationship between father and children had been nothing like the relationship between Doña Elena and her two sons, nor Nick's with young Alex. Spencer Williams had used his role as father to his own advantage, pushing his
children into the limelight while pretending it was the last thing he wanted.
Mary Beth's gullibility in the face of a man who promised her the love and family she so craved proved to be her, and her father's, undoing.
Mark had saved her, kept her sane. She could not help but wonder if Nick and Daniel had been thrown together because of family problems.
But when she and Nick joined his mother's family, less than an hour's drive from the modern house, it didn't appear that the Romeros, Doña Elena's sisters and their families, had any problems. They welcomed her with open arms into a huge, rambling Spanish-style house. The family made it difficult to keep her distance and easy to momentarily forget why she was here, what she had to do in the coming days. It didn't make any difference to them that she and Nick had arrived unannounced; they were simply absorbed into the moment.
"Pero, Tia," Nick was saying to the elderly lady sitting on the couch. The hum of several conversations didn't cover the fast beat of a San Matean band pouring from a high-tech CD system. "Manuel is doing fine at the university."
"Nicholas," replied the lady, whom Mary Beth knew to be his aunt Rosa. "He needs your influence. Please, talk with him." Tia Rosa squeezed his hand as another aunt pulled him away.
This family was so different from the cool, polished exterior of her own. They doted on Nick. She laughed quietly to herself. Of course, aunts could dote on a saint or a sinner. She had a feeling there was a lot of both in him.
"What's so funny?" he said, his voice deep and amused as he approached her.
"You, your aunts, your family." She couldn't help sounding wistful.
"We're funny?" There was a teasing tone about his statement, indicating he knew she wasn't laughing at them.
"No, not at all. It's just that your family is so … normal."
He stepped closer, a half-grin on his lips, a twinkle in his eye. "Did you expect us to be abnormal?"
She laughed. "I think I can almost picture you eating meat loaf and potatoes, with all your aunts encouraging you to eat your spinach."
"They encouraged me to eat everything." He smiled, then added, "But it was anticuchos I balked at, not spinach."
The difference between barbecued beef hearts and spinach illustrated their differences so well and so humorously that she reflexively reached out and put one hand on his forearm as she laughed. His flesh felt warm, the silky hair of his arm smooth against her palm. She jerked back.
He grabbed her hand and held it. The deep blue of his eyes revealed something that made her want to move away from him.
Heat.
That was the only word for it. She suddenly wanted him to be more aloof, less the man who attracted her despite herself. Not the son, the father, the nephew. Not a fascinating man.
"I'm not going to bite you," Nick said with a smile, releasing her hand. But she'd seen the truth again, if only fleetingly.
She wasn't ready.
The attraction was reciprocal. And, for her, dangerous because she wasn't able to take that sort of risk. She'd promised herself never to fall into anything like that again. And certainly never with a man as complex as this one.
"Your taste in women has improved," a man's deep voice interrupted.
Nick released her hand and turned so quickly that Mary Beth nearly missed his surprise at recognizing who spoke.
"Introduce us," the older man commanded, as if daring Nick to refuse. Slightly shorter, with jet-black hair, he wore a shirt, tie and expensive sports jacket.
"This is Mary Beth Williams," Nick said, his tone so fiercely cold that it seemed to bring a hush to the room. "Mary Beth, this is General Antonio Vargas, my mother's husband."
The general extended his hand to her, his eyes hard. "Another beautiful American," he said, looking her over before turning his gaze toward Nick.
He ignored whatever implication his uncle's statement seemed to have. Around them, the Romeros began talking again.
"I must speak with you. Privately."
"In the library," Nick replied.
"It is always a pleasure to meet such a lovely woman, Miss
Williams." The general shook her hand again and walked toward a hallway.
"He's Dona Elena's husband?" Mary Beth asked quietly, when General Vargas was out of hearing range.
"Yes," Nick replied, his attention on the man.
"They seem so ill-suited."
"That's probably why they haven't lived together since before Daniel was born."
"Why didn't they just get a divorce?" The question burst from Mary Beth before she could recall it. "I'm sorry," she hastened to add. "It's really none of my business."
"But an astute observation, just the same." Then Nick excused himself, an unreadable mask firmly in place.
She could have kicked herself for asking such a thing. She had always found explaining her parents' relationship difficult, almost impossible. The only one who ever understood was Mark, because he lived the experiences with her.
And Nick had lost his confidant when Daniel Vargas was killed.
"The perfect Romero," Antonio Vargas said when Nick joined him, "in the Romero inner sanctum." The general glanced around the library.
"Who let you in?" Nick leaned back against the heavy Spanish desk. Dim lamplight threw their shadows across one wall of books that stretched from floor to ceiling. The portrait of the Romero patriarch stared down at them.
"Elena's sisters dare not stop me." The general took a book from a shelf and flipped it open. "I hear you are going to the Rio Hermoso."
Nick placed his palms flat on the desktop behind him and waited for the general to continue.
"Burn the house." Vargas closed the book and looked up.
Nick had to struggle not to show surprise. "Burning the house won't cleanse you of the sin of Daniel's death."
The old man didn't flinch. "Daniel is dead. The house holds secrets."
At Nick's silence, the general continued. "I believe you would want him to be remembered as a hero. Daniel was, after all, half Romero. The family must be protected. That is your role. If you hope to do that, you must be certain nothing will come out to destroy his military record."
"His military record is spotless."
"How sure are you, Nicholas?" He opened another book, his attention seemingly on the pages. "If anything exists that could ruin his name, it would be in the Rio Hermoso hacienda. Much easier for you to burn the house and its secrets than to have the dilemma of another lie."
"Why don't you burn it?"
"There should be no accidental fires, no reason for anyone to question such a thing. You could do it openly as an act of … cleansing." He closed the book and looked up. "Burn the house."
Nick forced himself to remain focused, to concentrate on this conversation, not on the implication that Daniel could have done something wrong. "Did you mourn him at all?"
"You know I am not a sentimentalist."
"The Vargas pragmatism."
"It is in the blood—"
The old man's answer shouldn't have surprised Nick.
"Do not make me wait for you to do what you know must be done."
"Wait forever." Nick's reply took him back years to a time when he'd heard the exact words from this man's mouth, the one and only time he'd demanded anything from him.
Vargas put the book back carefully. "Boys do not wait patiently. Men—ah, Nicholas—what can I say? Boys who learn patience are men of rare character. You should know that."
Character. But good or bad? That was the question. He looked into the face of the man responsible for Daniel's death and said, "Character is not a subject you and I should discuss."
The general straightened, his black eyes fixed on him. "Deny it all you will, Nicholas. You are a Vargas. My son, my blood. Only Elena's desperation gave you the Romero name. Protect your brother." With that, he turned and walked out of the library.
The acknowledgment came twenty years too late.
As a thirteen-year-old boy, Nick
had wanted this recognition from the general, whom he knew to be his biological father, but the general had refused. Nick had never again asked, never regretted not getting it.
As if waking from a surreal dream, Nick remembered the boy he'd been, devastated by a lie, loved by a mother not his, by a brother he could not claim publicly. Denied by the man who'd begotten him.
Until now. When the last thing in the world he wanted was to concede that Antonio Vargas was his real father.
He opened the door that led to the tiled patio with its soothing water fountain. This small piece of southern Spain served as a reminder of the origins of the Romero family. The family that had taken him in based on Elena Vargas's lie—a lie designed to give her another child to love. One that trapped her in marriage to a man who refused her a divorce with threats of exposing that lie.
Nick looked up at the sky, remembering nights when he'd looked up and wondered how the woman who bore him had been so foolish as to give herself to a man like that. But he'd never known Angela Crosby. All he knew were the few things Doña Elena had been able to tell him. He carried a picture of her, one Doña Elena insisted he carry.
And he kept the secret of his paternity, just as Daniel had.
It wasn't something Nick dwelled on. As a matter of fact, after over thirty years of living with the name, he considered himself a Romero. He'd done well with the family fortune.
All of his "aunts" and assorted relatives lived very well. It was only when he had to deal with the general that Nick wondered what it meant to have the blood of Antonio Vargas flowing through his veins. As it had through Daniel's, who had lived life heroically but always under the shadow of the corrupting influence of a man unwilling to bend even for the life of his son. A man who implied Daniel had something to hide.
Nick was the son of that same man. Not a good gene pool.
"Your aunt said you'd come outside. Are you okay?" Mary Beth's voice floated over the musical sounds of the fountain.
Turning, he saw her, silhouetted against the inside lights, holding his jacket over her arm. A woman of impeccable pedigree, facing a man with a claim to nothing but secrets. Why had he brought her here, to the Romeros? He'd never wanted to introduce any woman to his aunts.
To the Limit Page 5
