Flirting with Disaster

by Jane Graves

  Gabrio approached, his eyes widening when he saw Adam. “What the hell is he doing here? I thought—”

  “Slight miscalculation,” Enrique said. “Seems he wasn’t on the plane.”

  “But since everybody already thinks he’s dead,” Ivan added, “we’re going to make sure that happens.”

  Every word they spoke sent waves of sickening disbelief through Adam. Was Gabrio a possible ally, or was he as ruthless as his brother?

  “This is murder, Gabrio,” Adam said. “You’re crossing a line here, and you can’t go back. Just by being here, you’re guilty, too. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Shut up,” Ivan said.

  “How can you drag him into this?” Adam shouted. “He’s just a kid!”

  “Yeah, and all kids got to grow up, don’t they?” Ivan turned to Gabrio. “You got any problem with this?”

  “Course not,” Gabrio said.

  Ivan looked back at Adam. “Turn around and start walking.”

  “What are you doing?” Gabrio said.

  Ivan grabbed Adam by the arm, spun him around, and gave him a shove. “Blood spatters.”

  Adam walked about ten feet to the edge of the road, stopping at the point where the shoulder took a steep dive down a hillside. He turned back to face the garish glow of the headlights.

  “Turn around!” Ivan shouted.

  Of all the ways Adam thought he might die, this was beyond his comprehension. Tremors of fear raced through him, the cold, dark terror that came from looking straight into death. He refused to give in to it. Instead, he met Ivan’s gaze.

  “No. If you’re going to pull that trigger, you’re going to have to look me in the eye when you do it.”

  “You think that’s a problem for me or something?”

  “Shit, man,” Enrique said. “Shoot him, or I’m going to.” Adam glanced at Gabrio. The kid stood stock-still, his eyes wide, not moving a muscle.

  “You’re not like them, Gabrio,” Adam called out to him.

  “You don’t have to be like them. Don’t ruin your life. Do you hear me?”

  “Shut up!” Ivan said.

  “Go to Sera. She’ll help you. Just go to Sera—”

  Ivan raised his rifle to his shoulder, and a shot exploded. Adam flinched at the last moment, but the bullet struck him in the chest and spun him around. The momentum sent him tumbling down the steep hillside, his head whacking hard on a protruding rock. It felt as if he fell forever before finally coming to rest at the bottom of the hill, his body twisted, his hands still bound tightly behind his back.

  Oddly, he felt nothing. No pain. Nothing. Instead, he had the strangest feeling of floating, as if he were evaporating from the earth. A light appeared, a bright, stunning light that seemed to fill his mind. And in it, hovering like an apparition, was Sera’s face, that sweet, beautiful face he wished to God he could see just one more time.

  Even in these last moments of life, she was all he could think about, the only woman since Ellen who had stirred something inside him, the one woman who’d made him think about finding again what he’d lost that terrible night three years ago.

  It was his last thought before he plunged into darkness.

  Gabrio stared down the hillside, feeling the reverberation of the gunshot slice its way right through his heart, echoing forever through the stillness of the night. His breath came in short spurts, and he held it for a moment, trying to get it under control, even as the anguish he felt nearly knocked him to his knees.

  “Gabrio,” Ivan said.

  Gabrio whipped around and met his brother’s challenging stare. Ivan tossed him a flashlight.

  “Go down there and make sure he’s dead.”

  Gabrio fought desperately not to let his horror show on his face. No emotion. That was the goal. In his brother’s world, if you felt anything you were weak. You couldn’t even pause. Delay equals fear, and you never show fear.

  “What’s the matter, kid?” Enrique said with a mocking grin. “Afraid to touch a dead body? Huh? Afraid his ghost will come back to haunt you or something?”

  “He’s not afraid,” Ivan said sharply, then turned to Gabrio. “Are you?”

  “Course not,” Gabrio said.

  “Go,” Ivan said.

  In a daze, Gabrio eased down the hillside, sidestepping protruding rocks, fighting the nausea that welled up in his stomach. He only hoped he could keep from falling to his knees and throwing up.

  He came to a halt beside the body, shining his flashlight on the man’s face. Blood. Jesus Christ, there was so much blood, pouring from a wound in his upper chest. And his head. He’d hit his head, and blood was spilling out there, too.

  Tears burned in Gabrio’s eyes, and he swiped his eyes with his sleeve, hoping it would just look like he was wiping sweat off his face. The man was still as death.

  Crouching down, Gabrio reached out his hand, paused, then rested two fingers beneath Adam’s jawline along the big artery there. He told himself he had to hold them there for only a few seconds, only until he was sure, but the shock of what he felt made his heart lurch.

  A pulse.

  Mary, Mother of God. He’s still alive.

  “Gabrio!” Ivan called out.

  His brother’s voice jangled his nerves. His brain grew foggy, and he couldn’t think. He just couldn’t think. All he could do was feel—the terrible burning sensation in the back of his throat, that feeling of horror that slid along every nerve.

  If he was going to be loyal to Ivan, he had to go back up that hill and tell him the job wasn’t finished yet. But he knew what would happen then. One more gunshot. Close range. And then it really would be over.

  You’re not like them, Gabrio. You don’t have to be like them. Don’t ruin your life.

  Gabrio stood up and walked back up the hill. He stopped in front of Ivan, slipped a cigarette from his pocket, and lit it.

  “Dead?” Ivan asked.

  Gabrio dragged on the cigarette, then blew out the smoke. “Dead.”

  Ivan clapped him on the shoulder. His brother’s touch revolted him, almost as much as the pride he saw on his face. Pride.

  “Let’s get rid of the body,” Enrique said, starting down the hillside.

  Gabrio stepped in front of him. “I’ll do it.”

  Enrique laughed. “You? No way, kid. We have to make sure this one isn’t found.”

  “He can handle it,” Ivan said sharply. “Can’t you, Gabrio?”

  Gabrio’s mouth went dry as dust. “Handle it?” He took a nonchalant drag on his cigarette, hoping they couldn’t see his hands shaking. “Get rid of a body out here in the middle of nowhere? You think I can’t handle a chickenshit job like that?”

  “Sure you can,” Ivan said, then turned to glare at Enrique.

  Gabrio continued to stare at Enrique with a disdainful expression, forcing himself to not so much as blink.

  Finally Enrique turned away. “Fine. Do it. Just don’t fuck it up.”

  Ivan glared at Enrique. “He’s not going to fuck up anything.”

  “Yeah. Well, maybe we’d better stick around just to make sure.”

  “We don’t need to stick around. If my brother says he’ll handle it, he’ll handle it.”

  “I’m just not sure about the kid. That’s all.”

  “Hey!” Ivan said. “Who do you think fingered the two of them in the first place? Huh? Without Gabrio, they’d be across the border by now.”

  And Lisa would be alive. And Adam wouldn’t be bleeding to death. Jesus Christ—what had he done?

  Finally Enrique went to the trunk of his car, grabbed a shovel, and stabbed it into the ground in front of Gabrio. “On second thought, it won’t be a problem. I mean, you know the penalty for fucking this up, don’t you, kid?”

  He did. No mercy. If anyone found out Adam was alive, he was dead. And nothing Ivan could say would stop that. Hell, right now he wasn’t completely sure his own brother wouldn’t be the one to pull the trigger.

&nbs
p; Ivan turned to Gabrio. “Come back to the house when you’re through. We’ll have a couple of beers, huh?”

  He clapped Gabrio on the shoulder one more time, and then he and Enrique turned and walked toward the car. Gabrio forced himself to wait until the car disappeared down the road, then turned and raced back down the hillside. He knelt beside Adam.

  “Dr. Decker. Hey, man. Can you hear me?”

  The man stirred slightly but didn’t respond. Gabrio yanked off his shirt, jerking it hard until it tore. He wadded up part of the shirt and pressed it hard against the wound, then ripped a couple of strips from it and tied it around the man’s chest to hold the pack in place. But it wasn’t working. By the faint light of the rising sun Gabrio saw blood still coming out. And the doctor’s head was still bleeding, too. What the hell was he going to do now?

  “I’m sorry,” he said, tears clouding his eyes. “I’m so sorry. . . .”

  The man needed a doctor. Unfortunately, the only one in Santa Rios wanted him dead. And the second Gabrio’s brother found out what he’d done . . .

  Then he remembered Adam’s last words: Go to Sera. She’ll help you. Just go to Sera—

  Right now, she was the only person on this earth that he thought he just might be able to trust.

  For the past two days, Serafina Cordero had sat in the upstairs bedroom of her rambling farmhouse, sleeping only when she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. She didn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She felt like crying, but she didn’t have a tear inside her left to shed.

  Adam was dead.

  She leaned back in the rocking chair where she sat, dropping her head against it and closing her eyes. She’d always thought of herself as a strong, resilient person who could take whatever life threw at her. But not this. Not this.

  During the two years Adam had come to Santa Rios to volunteer at the clinic, their interaction—long conversations, shared moments of laughter, eyes meeting in prolonged glances—had slowly become as intimate as if they were lovers. But whenever it looked as if their relationship might move toward a physical acknowledgment, he’d kept her at arm’s length. Yes, she’d been younger than him. At twenty-seven, much younger. And the death of his wife only three years before had surely affected the way he felt about other women. But the connection between them had been so strong and so real that she knew he had to feel it, too. He had to feel how much she loved him.

  But still he’d left her.

  It had crushed her when Adam told her he was moving to Chicago and wouldn’t be back. But even though he would have been hundreds of miles away, she could have had hope. She could have hoped that somewhere down the road their lives would intersect again and she’d have the future with him she’d always dreamed of.

  But now he was gone forever.

  She looked out the window to see the sun coming up—a stunning orange and red display that would have put a smile on her face under any other circumstances. But now she merely stared at it blankly, wondering how many more sun-rises she’d have to see before a moment of her life would pass that wasn’t consumed by grief.

  Suddenly she heard a knock at her front door, three times in quick succession. She sat up suddenly, startled at the noise, even as heartache dulled her senses.

  No. Go away. Please just go away.

  The knocking persisted.

  It had to be a woman in labor. Nobody came to her house at the crack of dawn for anything else. As a nurse-midwife, she was used to getting dragged away at all hours, because babies never came on schedule.

  Somebody needs you. They’re counting on you.

  That thought was what finally drove her to stand up, her head pounding, and walk out of her bedroom. She trudged down the hall to the stairs, every step feeling as if she were moving through quicksand.

  The knocking continued, loud and harsh.

  She descended the stairs and stopped at the bottom, clutching the banister. In the past five years since she’d gotten her degree and returned from the U.S. to live in Santa Rios, she’d seen scores of babies born. But suddenly it felt so hopeless. How was she going to face bringing another life into this world when the man she loved had so recently left it?

  Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to go to the door, throw the lock, and swing it open. And what she saw shocked her.

  Gabrio Ramirez stood on her front porch. He wore no shirt. Blood streaked his chest and right arm, and an unmistakable look of panic filled his eyes.

  “Gabrio? My God! What happened?”

  “I-it’s not me,” he said.

  “You’re bleeding! Come inside!”

  “No! Just come with me! You have to come with me!”

  He turned and trotted down the porch steps.

  “Is there a woman in labor?”

  “No!”

  “Gabrio!”

  He turned around, walking backward as he talked. “Please! Just come to my car! Now!”

  Her heart beating apprehensively, she slipped out the door and followed Gabrio to his rusted-out Chevy Impala. He opened the back door. She came around it, peered into the backseat, and let out a gasp of pure agony.

  Adam’s body.

  He lay on the seat, broken and bleeding, one arm dragging on the floorboard, his hair matted with blood.

  “Oh, God.” She turned away instantly, bowing her head, sobs immediately choking her voice. “Oh, God, no.”

  She stumbled away from the car, her stomach grinding with nausea, feeling so light-headed that she was afraid she was going to pass out.

  The plane crash. Somehow Gabrio had recovered Adam’s body from the plane crash and brought him to her. It was the only explanation.

  Gabrio grabbed her by the arm and spun her back around. “Please do something!” he implored, his eyes filling with tears. “Please!”

  “Do something? But I can’t. I—”

  “Yes, you can! You’re a nurse! Do something!”

  Sera recoiled at the boy’s outburst. She didn’t know what to say. What to do. He’s dead. I can’t raise the dead. Is that what you expect me to do?

  Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to step back toward the car and peer into the backseat again. Her gaze traveled hesitantly up Adam’s legs to his waist, and then to his chest. It was covered in blood, but . . .

  She blinked. It couldn’t be. For the first time she realized . . .

  Fresh blood?

  Then she saw something else, and she was so shocked that she had to grab hold of the car door to keep from collapsing. In the faint morning light she could just make out Adam’s chest rising and falling with short, shallow respirations.

  He was alive.

  chapter five

  Eerie shafts of late morning sunlight streaked through the grime-crusted windows of the bunkhouse, weakly illuminating Lisa’s pale, bruised face. Dave had dozed on and off for the past several hours, but she’d slept like the dead. He watched as she stirred now, turned over, lifted her head, and, after wearing a confused expression for several seconds, closed her eyes and dropped her head back down to the mattress.

  She moved her legs over the side of the bed and sat up with a muffled groan. “What time is it?”

  “Ten after eleven.”

  Dave hoped that the next words out of her mouth would be something like Boy, I must have been out of my mind before, or I bet you thought I was a little nuts, huh? or maybe just Gee, Dave, false alarm. Sorry for dragging you all the way down here for nothing.

  Instead, she looked toward the door, then craned her neck to peer out the window. “Nobody came looking for me, did they?”

  Dave sighed. Yeah, he still had a problem here. It remained to be seen whether that problem had to do with injury-induced paranoia or something straight out of an action-adventure movie.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Like I got hit by a truck.”

  “Do you think you could eat something?”

  “Maybe in a minute.”

  D
ave dug through the bag he’d brought and pulled out a bottle of water. Sliding off the bed, he came over to sit beside her. She took the bottle, drank, then bowed her head, expelling a long, weary breath.

  “You need water. Drink more.”

  She did.

  “You were a little out of it when I got here.”

  She glanced at him, then looked away. “If you’d been through what I’d been through, you’d have been a little loopy yourself.”

  “Does your head feel better now?”

  She looked at him warily. “Yeah.”

  “Are you thinking a little clearer?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you asking me if I’ve gotten over the silly notion that somebody is trying to kill me?”

  “Take it easy, Lisa. I just need to know what’s going on here. That’s all.”

  “I told you what’s going on here. Drugs. Sabotage. Plane crash. Men with machine guns. How much clearer do I have to make it?”

  “Are you sure that’s what happened?”

  “Stop patronizing me.”

  “I only want to know—”

  “Damn it, will you listen to me? I’m not crazy! Somebody is trying to kill me! I found the drugs. My plane went down. They came after me—” She let out a breath of disgust. “Forget it. You’re not going to believe it until you see it.”

  She stood up, wobbling a little. She righted herself, then strode toward the door of the bunkhouse.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  She ignored him and walked outside.

  “Lisa!”

  He went to the door and watched as she stepped toward the edge of the woods, looking left and right the whole time as if she expected somebody to leap out of the bushes and grab her. She reached the place where he’d found her sitting last night and picked something up off the ground. As she walked back, he realized it was her backpack.

  She came back through the door, slapping the backpack against his chest. He grabbed it in a reflex action, and she stalked on past him and sat back down on the bunk with a weary sigh.

  “Open it,” she said.

  He walked back over to the bunk where he’d been sitting, tossed the backpack down, and unzipped it. Inside was a thick plastic bag. He pulled it out.