by Jane Graves
Then she’d thought about Dave.
Just call me if you need me.
His words had stayed in the back of her mind for years, like a promissory note in a dusty file just waiting to be uncovered. They were what had moved her to stand up on the bank of that river, exhausted, her head throbbing, and begin the long walk back toward Santa Rios, driven to put one foot in front of the other because she knew that if only she could talk to him somehow everything would be all right. Now that she felt more lucid, she realized what a slender thread that had been to hold on to. How could she have thought that he’d come seven hundred miles into the middle of nowhere to help her?
And yet he had.
Still, she knew why. Dave DeMarco was the kind of man who would sooner lose a limb than go back on a promise, no matter how ill-advised that promise might have been. And as he stood here with her now, dead tired and undoubtedly counting the miles they were going to have to travel before he could get back home again, she had to believe he had a few regrets about that.
“Maybe now you wish you hadn’t made that promise to me back then,” she said. “It was a pretty unfortunate thing to say at the last moment, wasn’t it?”
“Unfortunate?”
“Look, I know you’re here only because you felt obligated. You made me a promise, and you feel as if you have to fulfill it. It’s just the way you are.” She paused. “The way you’ve always been.”
“Yes. Which is why I’m careful about the promises I make.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Did I mention anything about an expiration date?”
“No. But we were kids, Dave. Kids don’t always do smart things.”
“I knew exactly what I was doing then.” He slung her backpack over his shoulder, his gaze never leaving hers. “And I know exactly what I’m doing now.”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and guided her toward the door, and she resisted the urge to slip her arm around his waist and lean into him. No matter how much Dave was helping her now, she’d discovered that at the end of the day there was only one person she could depend on, and she had only to go to the nearest mirror to find her. He was here now because of a promise he’d made, and soon he’d be out of her life again just as quickly as he’d arrived.
The sooner she could rely on herself again, the safer and more secure she was going to feel.
As Dave drove into the outskirts of Santa Rios, he was struck once again by just what a crappy little town it was. Aged storefronts lined the main drag, and the windows of every one of them could have benefited from an economy-sized bottle of Windex and a supersize roll of paper towels. A couple of kids raced down the sidewalk on skateboards, while shiftless men hovered around the street corners, smoking, scratching, and spitting. Hell, no wonder nobody wanted to set up an actual medical practice here. There wasn’t a country club, a golf course, or a five-star restaurant in sight.
He saw the gas station in the distance, a tired cinder-block building that might have last been painted sometime around the turn of the century. The nineteenth century.
“Lisa, we’re getting close to the gas station. Get under that blanket.”
“I will.”
“And don’t move an eyelash.”
“I hear you.”
“I still say the trunk would be better than the backseat.”
“Yeah, and all the screaming just might tip somebody off that I was in there.”
“Just how claustrophobic are you?”
“You mean, how closed in do I have to be before I start sobbing uncontrollably?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not doing too great with this blanket over my face. Does that tell you anything?”
“And you fly private planes? Aren’t the cockpits a little small?”
“Yeah, but there’s all that sky out there beyond it. Not a problem.”
Dave swung the car into the gas station lot, then pulled up next to one of two pumps.
“We’re there. I’ll have us out of here in a couple of minutes.”
He reached under the dash, flicked open the gas tank cover. He stepped out of the car and had just pulled the nozzle off the pump when he was greeted by a stubby little Mexican man wearing a greasy denim shirt. The name Fernando was embroidered just above the pocket.
“Buenos días,” he said with a gregarious smile, taking the gas nozzle from Dave’s hand. “No es necesario hacer nada. Esta es una gasolinera de servicio completo.”
While Dave’s command of Spanish was somewhat conversational, most of the time it was limited to Yes, you were speeding and Drop the weapon and put your hands behind your head, so he wasn’t exactly making out what the guy was saying.
“No hablo espa’nol,” he told Fernando.
“Ah, you are American,” he said, smiling even more broadly and talking a little louder, as if Dave had a hearing problem to go with his language barrier. Fernando eased the gas nozzle out of Dave’s hand. “What I say is that I am happy to do. I will put gasoline in the car.”
Customer service? Dave hadn’t counted on that. Then again, Fernando’s enthusiasm probably stemmed from the fact that Dave was driving a sporty late-model car. Such vehicles seemed to be a rarity in Santa Rios. Fernando probably assumed Dave had a few more pesos than his average customer and a tip might be on the horizon, a tip that would grow in proportion to how much he engaged in chatty conversation.
“The car, she is very good,” Fernando said, parking the nozzle in the gas tank with a soft clatter. “A Mustang, yes?”
“Yes,” Dave said. “It’s a Mustang.”
Fernando left the nozzle in the tank, then ran his fingertip back and forth over the side panel of the car. “She is red. That is very hot. A red car is like a sexy woman. She moves so good, and the eyes—they fall on her and you cannot remove them.”
Or he couldn’t take his eyes off it. Something like that. Unfortunately, Fernando was loaded with bad English and wasn’t afraid to use it.
His gaze lingered over the side panels, then slid along the downward curve of the hood. Then he lowered his head to glance through the driver’s side window. “The seats? Leather?”
“Yeah,” Dave said, moving in front of the window. “Leather.” Just be still, Lisa. Be very, very still.
“Ah,” Fernando said, breathing deeply to make his point, “leather smells like perfume. The perfume of a sexy woman.”
Right. Eau de Cowhide. Sexiest scent south of the Rio Grande.
Fernando circled to the back of the car, teasing his fingertips over the rear spoiler, wearing an expression of sheer bliss. He compared cars to women. Dave wondered if he told women that they reminded him of cars. He glanced at the man’s left hand. No wedding ring.
Probably.
Fernando walked around to the opposite side of the car, then bent over a rear fender, spending an inordinate amount of time admiring one of the tires. Apparently Firestones were as sexy to this guy as high arches in stiletto heels.
The gas pump clicked off. Fernando came back around the car to extract the nozzle from the tank, moving slowly, regretfully. A drop of gasoline fell onto the car and slithered downward. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped the gasoline away, then flipped the hankie over and buffed the paint with a slow, circular polish. Now, if only he could refrain from lighting two cigarettes and handing one of them to the car, maybe they could get the hell out of here.
“Much fortunate man you are to have this car,” Fernando said, his smile positively orgasmic. “Much, much fortunate.”
Dave noted the outrageous price of the gasoline and pulled enough money from his wallet to cover it. Fernando went into the station, and after a few minutes he returned with Dave’s change. Dave gave him a few extra pesos for his trouble. Fernando thanked him profusely for his generosity and started back toward the building. But just as Dave was getting back into the car, the man stopped by the right rear tire, a look of horror on his face.
“Señor!” he called out. “Come! A problem!”
Shit. What now?
Dave circled around to the right rear fender. Fernando pointed at the tire, and Dave stared in disbelief.
A flat tire? How in the hell had that happened?
“A beautiful tire,” Fernando said with a sorrowful sigh.
“And now she is dead.” Then a smile popped back onto his face. “No problem. I will fix.”
God, no. If he let the Metaphor Man jack up this gorgeous red vehicle and fondle her tires, they’d be here all day.
“No, that’s okay,” Dave said. “I can change it myself.”
“But, señor, I can—”
“No,” Dave said. “I can handle it.”
Fernando looked longingly at the car for a moment more, with the dejected expression of a dorky guy who’d been turned down for a date with a gorgeous woman. Finally he turned and walked back toward the station.
Dave slid into the driver’s seat, putting his wallet into the glove compartment so he could clue Lisa in on what had happened.
“We’ll be here a minute more,” he said quietly. “We’ve got a flat tire.”
“A flat? How did that happen?”
“Given the road we drove down here on, I guess I’m surprised the other three aren’t in the same condition.”
“I’m suffocating under this blanket.”
“I know. I’ll get the tire changed as fast as I can and we’ll be out of here.”
Aside from a man who had parked near the building and gone inside for a Coke or a pack of cigarettes, the station wasn’t busy, so Dave popped the trunk and removed the jack and the spare with the car still sitting at the pump. He changed the tire in record time.
Then, a few minutes later, as he was tossing the flat tire into the trunk, he spotted the problem. He hadn’t picked up a nail or run over a sharp rock that had penetrated the tread.
The tire had been slashed.
Dave was in the process of putting two and two together, but he hadn’t quite reached four when he felt something cold and hard just beneath his left ear.
A gun.
chapter six
Dave’s attacker slammed him down on the trunk of the car, the spoiler jamming him in the ribs and knocking the wind out of him. The guy reached into Dave’s pocket, grabbed the car keys, then gave him a hard shove sideways. He stumbled a yard or two and went down hard, whacking his shoulder on the pavement.
What the hell was going on?
Dave instantly leapt to his feet, but not before his attacker slid into the driver’s seat of the Mustang and slammed the door.
Carjacking?
Shit. Lisa was in the backseat.
Dave raced around the car just as the guy flicked the door locks and started the engine. Dave grabbed the nozzle off the gas pump, spun around, and smacked it through the driver’s window. The glass shattered and sprayed. Dave had just flipped the door lock when Lisa flew up out of the backseat and wrapped the blanket around the guy’s head, pulled him back hard, and pinned him against the headrest. Dave flung the door open and yanked the gun out of the guy’s hand. Grabbing him by the wrist, Dave hauled him out of the car and threw him onto the ground.
The guy swatted the blanket away and started to rise, but Dave gave him a smack across the face that sent him tumbling backward onto the pavement. Dave leapt into the car, tossed the gun into the passenger seat beside him, jammed the Mustang into gear, and took off.
“Lisa?” he said, breathing hard, searching for her face in the rearview mirror. “You okay?”
She looked up from her sprawled-out position in the backseat. “Yeah. Sure. Plane crash, carjacking—I’m doing just great.”
“Nice move with the blanket.”
“It was all I had. I had to improvise. Problem, though.”
“What?”
“I know our carjacker. Ivan Ramirez.”
“The guy you talked about earlier? The one who’s part of a local gang?”
“Yeah. That’s the one.”
“Does he know who you are?”
“Yeah. He knows.”
“Did he get a good look at you?”
“Eye to eye as we were pulling away.”
Shit. “Do his criminal skills go beyond carjacking? Say, to drug counterfeiting?”
“This isn’t a very big town. I’m betting he’s into everything illegal he can get his hands on. But even if he’s not involved with the counterfeiting, all he’s got to do is tell somebody that I’m alive and it’ll eventually get back to Robert.”
“Then we need to hotfoot it to Monterrey. And I still want you to stay down. No need to push what little luck we have left.”
Lisa slid onto the floor of the backseat. “Speaking of lack of luck, what are the odds of Ivan coming into that station and grabbing the car we’re trying to get out of town in?”
“Pretty good, since the flat was no accident.”
“What?”
“The tire was slashed.”
“What?”
“Nice system they’ve got going. Fernando spots a nice late-model car. He flattens the tire, then phones his partner. During the time it takes to change it, the other guy gets there. He grabs the car, and Fernando gets a cut of the profit.”
“And since Ivan is into all things criminal—”
“Guess who showed up.” Dave shook his head. “Unfortunately, I didn’t spot the scam until I saw the tire. By then it was too late.”
Dave braked at a stoplight, an antsy feeling crawling up the back of his neck. Pedestrians crossed the street in front of them. He found himself searching every face for anyone who looked a little shady, which was pointless. Hell, right about now, everybody in this town looked like a criminal.
He hit the gas again. Before long they approached the northern edge of town. One more stop sign, and nothing but open road lay ahead. As Dave brought his car to a halt, another car pulled up to the stop sign on the cross street.
A patrol car.
“Lisa, we may have a problem.”
“What?”
“Just stay down. No matter what happens, just stay down.”
Dave began to pull away from the stop sign, only to have the cop on the cross street hit the gas hard, wheeling his car in their direction.
“Damn it!”
“What?” Lisa said.
“Just stay down!”
The patrol car cut in front of Dave, screeching to a halt only inches from his front bumper. A cop leapt out, his weapon drawn.
“¡Salga del carro!” he shouted. “¡Manos arriba!”
Dave understood that loud and clear, but he had no intention of getting out of his car and putting his hands up, now or anytime in the near future.
He threw the car into reverse, swung it around 180 degrees, then hit the gas, tires shrieking against asphalt. In his rearview mirror he saw the cop get back into his car. He took off after them, lights flashing and siren wailing.
“What the hell is happening?” Lisa shouted.
“We’ve got a cop after us.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Tell me this is how they treat traffic offenders in this town. Tell me he’s not chasing us because Ivan made a phone call.”
“I think Ivan made a phone call.”
Shit.
Dave sped down the street, heading back into town, but traffic thickened, slowing them down. When he came to a stop sign, he wheeled around the car in front of him, barely missing another car coming across the intersection from his right. Tightening his grip on the steering wheel, he stomped the gas pedal to the floor. A shot exploded, blasting the rear window of the car, showering glass on both of them.
“Stay down!” Dave shouted.
The moment the traffic cleared on the opposite side of the road, Dave hit the brake and wheeled hard to the left, spinning the Mustang around in a one-eighty to head back north. When he passed the police car still traveling south, the cop took another shot. The bullet narrowly mi
ssed them, taking out a storefront window instead in an explosion of glass. In his rearview mirror Dave saw the cop pull the same one-eighty he had, and within seconds he was half a dozen car lengths behind them again.
“Damn it!” Dave said. “I can’t shake him!”
“Any cars between us and him?”
“Nope. He’s coming right up behind us.”
“Is that gun up there loaded?”
“I have no idea.”
“Let’s find out.”
Suddenly Lisa rose from the backseat, leaned over into the front seat, and grabbed the gun. Before Dave knew what was happening, she’d spun around and pointed the gun out the back window. Three shots exploded in quick succession.
“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted. “Get down!” A second later, Dave heard a crash behind them. Looking into his side mirror, he saw that the police car had crossed traffic, jumped the curb, and smashed into a lamppost.
“Bingo,” Lisa said, turning back around and slumping wearily in the seat. “Got his tire. And his radiator for good measure.” She was breathing hard, still clinging to the gun. “Adrenaline. Amazing stuff.”
“Give me that!” Dave reached over the seat and yanked the gun out of her hand. “You could have gotten your head blown off!”
“It was that or have him chase us all the way to Monterrey. I prefer a leisurely drive, thank you.”
Unbelievable.
Dave floated the next stop sign, wheeling the car hard to the left to avoid hitting vehicles crossing the intersection, then stomped the gas again.
“Well, since my cover’s blown,” Lisa said, climbing into the front passenger seat and plopping down with a weary sigh, “I might as well ride shotgun.”
“From now on, you’d better mean that figuratively.”
“I took out the bad guy and you’re complaining?”
Dave couldn’t believe this. On a normal day, he’d be back in Tolosa, stopping speeders and breaking up domestic disputes. Instead, he was playing car chase with crooked Mexican lawmen who were just dying to blow his head off, partnered with a woman who made Bonnie Parker look like a kid with a water pistol.
