by Susan Slater
Dan passed the picture of the girl to Eric and instantly saw that he recognized her.
“You know, she was Enrico Garcia’s granddaughter. She ran away to the States. I felt responsible; I had known her for some time.”
Dan vaguely wondered if that was in the Biblical sense but guessed that it was.
“Before that last trip she begged me to take her back home…she hated it at the judge’s. But I never really knew why or didn’t pay attention. I could have saved her life.”
Dan thought he heard real remorse in Eric’s voice.
“Grandpa wouldn’t have been too pleased, might have caused some problems. Do you think he ever found out?” Elaine asked.
“Probably not. It was hushed up pretty fast. In fact, that’s what gave it away,” Dan said. “Three days of coverage and then Eric. It dawned on me that it would take something big to cover something big—especially if the authorities were getting a little too close to the truth.”
“So what happens now?” Elaine turned to Eric.
“I’ll be reinstated, Eric Linden, attorney at law…probably have a little chat with Judge Aspen…of course, I’ll sue the estate of Judge Cyrus.”
“I don’t suppose a round figure like two million has crossed your mind?” Dan asked.
“I think seven years of my life is worth more than that, now.”
Dan knew he wasn’t kidding and would probably get it.
“But how do you think he did it? Got the drugs on board without you knowing it?” Elaine asked.
“It could have been done after they brought me down. A few connections with border patrol, someone borrows from the cache from other busts, stuff that’s supposed to be locked up. It’s difficult to keep an accurate inventory. It would have been easy to repackage, plant it, and get it back without much notice. I have a feeling that J.J. Rodriguez could have shed some light on that.”
“Guess we’ll never know if Sheriff Ray was warning you or trying to take you out,” Dan mused.
“Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt,” Eric grinned.
There didn’t seem to be a lot more to say. They finished their drinks in silence, and Dan stood to go. “You going to be all right out here? We can give you a ride back to Roswell.” He looked down at Eric, still pale and obviously shaken by his brush with death, but oddly complacent.
“You two go on. I’ll stay up here at the house for tonight. I’ll be all right…haven’t made a dent in the bottle, yet.” Elaine walked toward the door, looked back as if to say something, then didn’t. Dan caught her eye and she smiled. In relief? There was a glint of something….
“Leave the Benz and ride back with me.” Dan had his arm around her as they walked out the front door, and he realized that nothing had felt quite that good in a long time. “I need your advice about something.”
He handed her the packet of airline tickets that he’d picked up in Albuquerque and watched as she hurriedly scanned them under the Jeep’s interior light.
“Ireland?”
“For two.” And he turned her toward him and realized that they wouldn’t make it much farther than a motel room in Tatum that night.
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