Flirting with Disaster

by Jane Graves

  He took a single deep breath and let it out slowly, focusing on the lights in the distance, telling himself again, as he had repeatedly for the past hour, that he needed to get a grip. Sunrise would be coming soon, and that always worked wonders for him, clearing away the tension that fogged his mind at times like this.

  He couldn’t believe that he’d been within ten minutes of flying out of Santa Rios with Lisa when the woman’s husband came to the clinic. Adam had wanted so badly just to turn his back and leave, particularly since he needed to be with Lisa to hand over those pills to U.S. Customs agents and tell them what they’d discovered.

  Instead, he’d traveled an hour to a farm where he helped the woman through nearly two days of grueling on again, off again labor, followed by a delivery that had been one for the record books. At age forty-three, pulling all-nighters was starting to become a real chore for him. It would be a relief when he left his practice in San Antonio in two weeks and moved to Chicago to take over as head of Greenbriar Medical Center. Not many chiefs of staff were called out to deliver babies in the middle of the night, and from now on that was just the way he wanted it. In Chicago he could begin again. Leave bad memories behind. Start a new life.

  Even if it meant he’d never see Sera again.

  No. He couldn’t think about that now. He couldn’t think about how beautiful she was, or how every moment he spent with her was singular and special, or how he’d lain awake nights sometimes wishing their friendship could evolve into something more intimate. But he knew that any relationship between them would only end up breaking her heart as well as his, so leaving now was the best thing for both of them.

  No matter how much he was going to miss her.

  A few minutes later he passed the clinic, a simple modular building that was more functional than attractive. It contained a waiting room, three exam rooms, a small kitchen, an administrative office, and a storage room. Next door, a cramped, aging, four-unit apartment building had been renovated for volunteers to stay in when they were in Santa Rios. Right now all he wanted was to go back to one of those apartments and sleep for about twenty-four hours straight.

  After that, he’d have to deal with Robert.

  By now Lisa had put the physical evidence into the hands of U.S. Customs officials and told the story of how they’d found the counterfeit drugs Robert had tried to smuggle aboard Lisa’s plane. Adam had no doubt that the moment the man crossed the border back to the U.S. he’d be put in jail.

  Since Adam had been gone for a few days now, he had no way of knowing what had happened since Friday. But if Robert was still down here, he would have no idea that Lisa had tipped off the U.S. officials. Adam could simply pretend nothing at all had happened until he could get Lisa to swing down here again and fly him back to Texas.

  A minute later, Adam opened the front door of the apartment building and went inside, heading for the first door on the right. He dropped his keys as he was pulling them out of his pocket, and they clattered against the floor. As he was picking them up, a door across the hall opened. Robert appeared in the doorway.

  Robert Douglas was a tall, imposing man who wore a permanent frown intended to intimidate anyone in his presence— friends, patients, and colleagues alike. On first glance he was a handsome man, but a second look easily picked up the arrogance and insensitivity he exuded with every breath. But right now there was another dimension to his expression Adam hadn’t anticipated: complete and utter shock.

  “Decker? What in the hell are you doing here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The plane. You were on that plane with Lisa.”

  “No, I wasn’t. Something came up at the last minute.”

  Robert’s eyes shifted with suspicion. “Where have you been for the past few days?”

  “A patient went into labor before I could leave,” Adam said. “Selina Victoro. I had to go there.”

  “Did you come straight back here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “See anybody along the way?”

  Adam paused. “No. It’s five in the morning.”

  “Come in here.”

  Robert’s voice had escalated, with a commanding tone that went beyond his usual authoritative manner, and Adam felt a shot of apprehension. “I’m pretty tired, Robert. I need to get some sleep.”

  “Come in here now.”

  Something’s wrong. Something’s very, very wrong.

  Adam followed Robert into the living room of his apartment. Robert closed the door, then turned to face Adam. “Looks like I’ve got a little problem here, doesn’t it?”

  Adam stood stock-still. “Problem?”

  “You’re certainly acting ignorant for a man who discovered a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of counterfeit drugs.”

  Adam was so startled by Robert’s out-and-out admission that for a moment he was speechless.

  “That’s right, Decker. It’s just as you suspected. I’m the guilty party. But then, you’re not really surprised by that, are you?”

  Robert nonchalantly opened a box on the top of the desk and extracted a cigar, dragging it under his nose and inhaling with pleasure. “Did you know it’s a crime to import Cuban cigars into the U.S.? A crime. Most asinine thing I’ve ever heard of.” He put the cigar to his lips and lit it. He puffed on it, then blew out the smoke. “That’s what I like about Mexico: no rules. You’d be shocked at how simple it is to manufacture counterfeit pills that look like the real thing. Why more people aren’t taking advantage of the opportunity I’ll never know.”

  Adam couldn’t believe this. It was as if Robert were talking about a legitimate enterprise he’d had the foresight to invest in.

  “It’s a lucrative business, Decker. I’m talking millions. Not hard to amass that kind of money when a single phony Lasotrex is worth up to ten bucks on the U.S. retail market.” He gave Adam a sly smile. “I might even consider giving you a piece of the action if you’re interested.”

  Adam felt a surge of pure disgust. “I work for a living, Robert. That’s something you know nothing about.”

  “Oh, yeah? I know nothing about work? As if I haven’t spent hours at a time elbow-deep inside the body cavity of some seventy-year-old man who’s one foot in the grave already? Put up with whining, lawsuit-happy relatives? Dealt with all that insurance company bullshit?” He dragged on the cigar. “I know all about that kind of work. I prefer something a little more . . . entrepreneurial.”

  “Entrepreneurial?” Adam said, his voice escalating. “How about illegal? Unethical? Immoral?”

  “Easy, Decker. You’re starting to hurt my feelings.”

  “How did you know we found the drugs?”

  “Lisa was being watched.”

  “Watched?”

  “I don’t leave anything to chance. I wanted to make sure the defibrillator got onto that plane. Lisa transports medical equipment all the time, so there was no reason for her to suspect anything. I told her to fly the device to San Antonio because it needed service, and my contact was going to pick it up from her. Should have gone like clockwork.” He shook his head with disgust. “But clumsiness? She dropped the damned thing. How the hell was I supposed to prepare for something like that?”

  Adam remembered how they’d been hurrying to beat the storm and get off the ground, only to have lightning explode a short distance away. Startled at the sudden noise, Lisa had dropped the defibrillator onto the runway. The plastic casing had cracked wide open, and a huge bag of tiny blue pills had spilled out. They’d both been stunned at the sight and even more stunned when Adam scratched the surface of one of the pills to discover that they were counterfeit. But neither one of them had been surprised in the least when they realized who must be at the heart of the operation.

  “You should have known Lisa would eventually find out,” Adam said. “Why did you have to involve her?”

  “I didn’t intend to. Not for the long haul, anyway. It was a short-term fix. My usual supply line broke down, and
my distributors were crawling up my ass for me to get the product to them. I’ve got customers to satisfy.”

  “Customers to satisfy? Customers?” Adam took a threatening step forward. “Shut it down, Robert. Shut the whole operation down. Now!”

  “Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? I don’t think so.”

  “How can you do this to your father?”

  Robert’s eyes narrowed. “My father has nothing to do with this.”

  “The hell he doesn’t,” Adam said hotly. “He started this clinic. You’re running it only because he’s in bad health and he’s got this idea that maybe someday you’ll care about it as much as he does. When he finds out you’re using it as a front for a counterfeit drug operation, it’s going to kill him.”

  “What my old man doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

  “Oh, he’s going to know, all right. It’s only a matter of time. Lisa’s in the States right now with the drugs in hand, telling the authorities everything. You haven’t got a prayer of getting out of this!”

  “I’m afraid Lisa can’t tell anyone much of anything right about now.”

  “What?”

  “Lisa is dead.”

  Adam froze. “What did you say?”

  Robert flicked his cigar into a nearby ashtray. “Her plane went down shortly after takeoff, nose-first into the river. She didn’t survive.”

  Adam’s knees buckled. He stumbled away, one step, two, placing his palm on the back of the sofa to steady himself, his head swimming with horrified disbelief. It couldn’t be. Not Lisa. No.

  “But how? What happened?”

  “Seems she had water in her fuel tanks.”

  “What?”

  “The fuel is pale blue,” Robert said. “If water is tinted blue and mixed with the fuel, a pilot just might miss that on a preflight. Especially if she’s in a hurry to leave.”

  It took a moment for Adam to absorb what Robert was telling him, for one wicked word to form in his mind.

  Sabotage.

  A surge of pure hatred ripped through him. “You son of a bitch! You goddamned son of a bitch! You killed her!”

  Adam started back across the room, intending to wrap his hands around Robert’s neck and squeeze until there wasn’t a breath left in the man’s body. At the same time, Robert yanked open a nearby desk drawer and hauled out a gun. Adam stopped short as Robert leveled the weapon at him.

  “Don’t take another step, Decker. Right now, everyone thinks you were on that plane. You’re presumed dead. If I made it a reality, no one would ever know the difference.”

  Adam stared at the gun incredulously. “You won’t shoot me. You might be able to sabotage a plane, but killing a man in cold blood—”

  “Do you really want to take that chance? I don’t have to account for a damned thing down here. Up to and including murder.”

  “Why? Because you have the entire Santa Rios sheriff’s department in your hip pocket?”

  Robert smiled. “Good call.”

  Adam had been fishing with that accusation, and it disgusted him to find out how right he was.

  “So what are you going to do?” Adam said. “Are you going to shoot me?”

  “Not unless I have to.”

  Still holding the gun on Adam, Robert stepped over to an end table, picked up the phone, and dialed. After a moment, he spoke in Spanish in a hushed but commanding tone, telling the person on the other end of the phone that Adam was standing in front of him right now. And telling him to come and fix what he’d screwed up so badly.

  He hung up the phone. “Sit down.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Just shut up and sit.”

  It wasn’t long before Adam heard a car engine and, after a moment, the sound of the outside door of the building opening. A few seconds later, two men came into the apartment whom Adam recognized immediately as frequent patrons of Esmerelda’s, a local bar. Enrique Rojos and Ivan Ramirez were men who’d always seemed to be just one foot inside the law, and now Adam knew why.

  They stood with their backs to the wall, their faces impassive, like soldiers awaiting orders. And, like soldiers, both men were armed. The precise moment Adam realized why, he felt as if a cold wind blew through him right to the bone.

  He turned to Robert, swallowing hard, an indescribable sensation of dread nearly paralyzing his voice. “The woman whose baby I delivered. She and her husband know I wasn’t on that plane.”

  “They’re ignorant farm people with no communications. They’re lucky if they even know they’re in the twenty-first century. And even if they start thinking that maybe the time line isn’t right, I’ll simply tell them they must be mistaken. Do you really expect them to argue with me?”

  Adam stared at the men’s weapons, the desperation of a condemned man washing over him like a cold river. He turned back to Robert, searching his face for some kind of humanity.

  Nothing. He saw nothing. Robert just stared at him evenly, as if the magnitude of his actions had failed to touch any part of his brain that might relay a little remorse.

  “You’re actually going to do this, aren’t you?” Adam said, his voice hushed and disbelieving.

  “Believe it or not, Decker, I always liked you. But I’m not a man who lets his personal feelings get in the way of business.” He strode to the window and stared out into the night. “Do it quickly. One shot. And make sure the body’s not found.”

  Gabrio Ramirez lay with his head propped up on a pillow, the lit end of his cigarette glowing red in the darkness of his bedroom. The radio was on low, but it sounded like nothing but noise to him. The stale, hot air in his room choked him, making it hard to breathe. He just lay there, staring at the cracked ceiling, wishing to God he could go to sleep, but there was no way. No way was he ever going to sleep worth a damn again as long as he lived.

  What the hell had he done?

  Watch her, Gabrio. That’s your job. Make sure she puts those drugs on the plane.

  That was what his brother, Ivan, had told him to do, and that was what he’d done. When Lisa dropped the heart machine thing and the drugs had spilled out, he knew they’d found out.

  He’d actually felt excited. Excited that he had important information to pass along to Ivan, who’d then pass it on to Dr. Douglas. He figured they’d shut things down for a while, then reopen once the heat was off. That had to be worth a few points in his favor, he thought, him being smart enough to see that something was up and report back. And pretty soon if he was smart like that, he’d be somebody important in the scheme of things, somebody other than just Ivan’s kid brother. Then he found out that this was more than shoplifting or burglary or stealing car stereos.

  This was murder.

  They’d killed Lisa and Adam. Both of them were dead because of the information he’d passed on. He should have known. He should have known what was going to happen. How could he have been so stupid?

  Once, when he was hanging around the airfield, just playing it cool like he always did, Lisa had asked him if he wanted to go up in her plane with her. He couldn’t believe it. He’d acted like it was no big deal, but when that plane took off, inside he’d felt so excited he almost couldn’t stand it. She’d been nice to him like that. Taking him flying.

  And now she was dead.

  Gabrio ground out his cigarette, then swung his legs around the edge of the bed and sat up. Sweat trickled down his temples, and his stomach churned. He felt so hungry, but the only time he’d tried to eat, he’d thrown up, and he wondered if he might eventually just starve to death.

  Maybe that would be for the best.

  He fingered the silver crucifix that hung just beneath his collarbone, the one his mother had given him six years ago right before she died. If he closed his eyes and thought really hard, her face came back to him—so warm and pretty and smiling. To his ten-year-old eyes she’d looked like the Blessed Mother herself.

  Then the phone rang.

  Gabrio jumped at the sudden
noise. He let it ring once, twice. Finally he walked to the kitchen, picked it up, and heard his brother’s voice.

  “Gabrio?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Meet us out on the humpback road north of town. We’ve got work to do.”

  Gabrio’s heart jolted hard. Then the line clicked, and a dial tone droned in his ear.

  As he slid the phone back to its cradle, his hands were already shaking. Nothing good happened under the cover of darkness, away from town, where nobody could be a witness. Nothing.

  He bowed his head and took a deep breath, trying to think of any way he could say no. He wanted to stay right here and pretend that Ivan hadn’t called him. But then he thought about how his brother had always looked back at him, waiting for him to follow in his footsteps, clapping him on the shoulder when he did as he was told and smacking the hell out of him when he didn’t. Disobedience was something his brother didn’t put up with, and the people he associated with didn’t, either.

  Gabrio fingered the crucifix again and mumbled bits and pieces of a Bible verse his mother had taught him, something about the valley of the shadow of death and fearing no evil. It didn’t help, though, because the truth was that Gabrio feared evil. He feared it a lot. Because now, when he looked into his brother’s eyes, that was exactly what he saw.

  Adam lay in the backseat of Enrique’s car, pulling against the rope that bound his hands behind his back, a subdued but frantic resistance to what he knew was coming. The rope ground into his wrists, but still he fought it, reaching for a miracle, praying for deliverance, even as he was filled with the sickening knowledge that these were his last few minutes on earth.

  The car slowed. Stopped. Enrique killed the engine. In the sudden quiet, Adam could hear the pulse of blood racing through his veins and echoing in his ears.

  Ivan got out and yanked the back door open. Enrique came around, and together they grabbed Adam’s arms and pulled him from the car. Enrique opened the trunk, extracted a rifle, and lobbed it to Ivan.

  Another car approached, headlights ripping through the night. For a moment, Adam was filled with hope. Then he saw who got out of the car.