She put her hand on his chest. She could feel the rise and fall of his breath. His good hand went to hers, and she could feel his touch. “Thank you,” he said, taking her hand and drawing her knuckles to his lips, kissing them. “I thought I was a goner there for a while.”
“I will always come for you.”
Chapter 24
She slipped away just as quickly as she’d appeared. He found himself alone in recovery. He was hallucinating, he was sure of it. He’d seen a jaguar fly over him into the cenote. He’d seen Lauren at his bedside. He must have lost a lot more blood than he’d thought.
“Hey, cutie,” a nurse with a thick Spanish accent appeared at his bedside. “You speak English, right?”
“Yeah.” His voice cut out. His throat was sore and dry. “I’m Rowan.”
“I’m Claudia. I’ve been taking care of you since you came in. How’s your pain?”
“Eh.” He winced. “Could I have some water?”
“Sure,” she said. “One second.”
She fetched a cup and raised the head of the bed, helping him move his injured arm onto a pillow in his lap. One of the leads attached to his chest pulled against the blue hospital gown and tugged on his chest hair. He grasped at the gown, and she helped him get comfortable. “Better?” She asked, holding the cup.
“Yeah,” Rowan said. “Where am I? Is this Mérida?” He took the cup and drained it in one swallow.
“It is,” she said. “What are you doing in Mexico?”
“Research,” he said. “For a television show.”
“I bet you’re sorry the world didn’t end last month.” She leaned on the bed rail, watching the monitor over his shoulder.
“Not really.” He sighed. “Kind of happy to be back in the land of the living.”
“Tell me that again in an hour when the medication starts wearing off,” she retorted. “We’ll have you moved to a room by then.”
“I have to stay?”
“Just for the night. The doctor wants to monitor you. You have a head injury, and they did surgery on your arm.”
“Fair enough.” He handed back the empty cup and leaned his head back on the pillow. “Do I get a phone call?”
“International?”
He grinned sheepishly. “Yeah. My wife?” He smiled his best and most charming grin, hoping the dimples would sell it. But she crossed her arms and shook her head. “Fair enough,” he sighed. “I’ll ask my friend when he comes back.”
“Who? Andrew?”
“Oh, you know him?”
“He waited in the post-op waiting room until you got out of surgery. He had to go. He said he’d be back. He said something about filing a police report.”
“I could live my whole life and never fill out a police report again.” Rowan groaned.
The nurse had his chart and was tapping something into her tablet. “Rowan are you right or left-handed?”
“Right,” he said, glancing at his bandaged left arm. “Lucky me.”
“Lucky you indeed.” She lay the tablet in his lap. “Police report for you to fill out... when you’re feeling up to it.”
“Suddenly my pain level just went up,” he said, picking up the tablet and groaning as he used his thumb to scroll up... and up... and up.
“Nauseated?”
“Suddenly, yeah. Now that you mention it.”
“I can fix that,” she said, taking the tablet out of his hand. She brought over a plastic cup with a pill in it. He asked no questions, but tossed it back, taking the cup of water she held to go with it. “That’s for your nausea,” she said. Going back over to the cabinet, coming back with a vial and a syringe, adding the medication to his IV. “This is for your pain.”
“Thanks,” he said, feeling a dull ache in his arm, as if on cue.
“It’ll probably make you sleepy,” she said.
It hit him just as quick.
* * *
Bahati moped around the house all day. Jean-René sat on the sofa watching hockey. It was the only flaw she found in his character. He seemed oblivious to other sports, but hockey seemed to be his one obsession.
They were still banned from work, and short of the usual distractions there was little else to do. They’d been distracted plenty last night.
“Why don’t you call Lauren?” Jean-René suggested. “Maybe you two can go shopping.”
“I left a message for her,” she said. “I’m waiting for her to call me back. She’s probably taking a nap.”
“When did you talk to her last?”
Bahati sat down on the edge of the sofa, thinking. “I saw her yesterday.”
His brow twitched. “You were with me all day yesterday.”
Bahati made a face. “You’re right.” she said. “I would have sworn I talked to her... that I saw her...” Bahati stood and paced a moment. “What about Rowan? Have you talked to him since he went to Mexico?”
“No,” Jean-René said. “I wasn’t expecting him to call though.”
Bahati shook her head. “I... she... she told me Rowan had some... trouble.”
“What? Did he get arrested and end up in a Mexican jail again?” Jean-René said it before he could stop himself. He clamped a hand over his mouth as Bahati’s jaw dropped. “That was supposed to stay a secret.”
“What? He got arrested in Mexico?” Bahati gasped.
“He said he’d kill me if Lauren found out,” he said. “You can’t say anything.”
“I won’t but I can’t believe he got arrested. What happened?”
Jean-René told her everything. “He didn’t do anything, except be his usual goofy self.”
Bahati sat down beside him and he put his arm around her, thinking she might sit and watch the game with him, but she got up just as he was about to get comfortable. “Get your shoes.”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve got a bad feeling. I want to go talk to Lauren. If she won’t call me back, I’ll go let myself in.”
“You have a key?”
“No, but I know where to find one.”
* * *
Bahati didn’t need it. The front door wasn’t locked, but Lauren wasn’t home. Bahati walked out on to the balcony, over-looking the beach, thinking she might be able to see Lauren in her usual spot, stretched out in the sun in her bikini. She was nothing, if not predictable.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t there. When she came back in the living room, Jean-René was holding her purse and her cell phone. “I never met a woman who went anywhere without her purse and her cell phone.”
“I don’t carry a purse,” Bahati said.
“Oh,” Jean-René closed his mouth quickly. “I meant ones who carry one...”
“Uh huh.” She took Lauren’s phone out of his hand and inspected it. She didn’t have a security code on it, so Bahati pulled up her call log. No calls in the last twenty-four hours. The last number that had called was a Mexican number, so Bahati hit the recall button and waited.
“Hola?” A voice finally came from the other side.
“Buenos días,” Jean-René said as his brow narrowed. “¿Quién es este?”
“Esta es la policía,” the man answered. Jean-René looked sharply at Bahati. Her hand went to her mouth, and her eyes went wide. “Mi nombre es Detective Pérez. ¿Puedo ayudarte?”
“Estoy buscando a mi amigo, Rowan Pierce. “Este es su teléfono.”
“Sí, el Sr. Pierce estuvo involucrado en un incidente. Lo han llevado al hospital.”
“Hospital?” Bahati was listening over Jean-René’s shoulder. She didn’t speak Spanish, but that word was readily apparent.
“¿Puedes decirme su condición? Su esposa está preocupada por él y me pidió que llame.” Jean-René explained that he was calling because his wife was worried about him, and that she didn’t speak Spanish. He covered the speaker and whispered to Bahati. “Tell him you’re Lauren. Otherwise, he can’t release any information.”
“I can’t lie to
the police.”
“He probably doesn’t even speak English,” Jean-René said.
“My English is actually pretty good,” the police officer said. “I’m sorry, but you are right, I can’t release any information. I can give you the number of the hospital. You and his wife will have better luck there.”
Bahati glowered at him and Jean-René just shook his head. “Gracias,” Jean-René said, taking the information before he hung up.
“How did Rowan end up in the hospital?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s see if we can talk to him.”
* * *
Jean-René had to jump through more than a few hoops before someone came on the line who could actually help him. “Mr. Pierce was released into custody this morning,” the man, who said he was the hospital’s head administrator, said. “The file doesn’t say what he was charged with. It only says that he was remanded into custody.”
“What was his condition? What happened to him?” Jean-René asked in Spanish.
“I’m sorry, sir, but you have similar regulations in the States. We cannot release information without consent, which Mr. Pierce did not give.”
“Can you at least give me the name of the officer that signed him out, so I can have his attorney contact the police?”
There was a pause. “One moment.”
“Any luck?” Bahati was sitting across the table, impatiently waiting.
Jean-René shook his head no. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“Officer Matt Iago,” the administrator said. “I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”
“Thanks,” Jean-René tapped the phone. “Matt Iago... ring any bells?”
“Matt? Is that who you talked to?” she asked.
“No, that’s the officer who took Rowan into custody,” Jean-René leaned on his elbows.
“Custody? Why didn’t the police tell us he’d been arrested the first time we called?”
“No idea. The hospital couldn’t tell me the charges. Nor would he tell me the extent of his injuries.” Jean-René anticipated her questions.
“Well, he must not have been hurt very bad, if they discharged him from the hospital, right?”
Jean-René made a face. “Have you ever been to Mexico?”
“A couple of times,” she said.
“Do you remember having to bribe the police because the rental car didn’t have papers? Remember how much trouble we had just trying to get across the border back to San Diego? Even with our American passports?”
“Just because you had a French accent, and I—” She stopped short, suddenly remembering being groped by the Mexican border patrol agent under the guise of being frisked. “How do we know it was a police officer...” Bahati thought aloud. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped as she drew in a breath and lifted her hand to cover her mouth. “Matt Iago...Santiago Matteo...Jean-René, we need to get Rowan some help. What about the FBI agent?”
“You mean Agent Miller?”
“Yeah, I never could remember his name.” She shook her head. “Is there a way we can call him?”
Jean-René scrolled through contacts on Lauren’s phone. “Nothing here.”
“Dammit. Maybe Lauren will be home soon,” Bahati said optimistically.
Jean-René sat back, looking around, shaking his head. “Something’s not right here,” he said, standing.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to take a walk and see if Lauren’s down on the beach.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said, standing too.
“No.” He shook his head. “I need you to stay here in case she comes back. Call me if she does.”
“There has to be something I can do,” she said.
“Call the hospital and see if she came in, maybe she started having contractions again,” he said, unable to think of any other reason she might have left home without her purse and phone.
* * *
Lauren was aware of her extremely full bladder and her throbbing head at the same moment. She sat up, and looked around, aware that she was still being held in her old apartment. She got to her feet and made her way to the adjacent bathroom. She couldn’t do anything about her head, but her bladder was another thing.
The door opened as she finished washing her hands. Stephanie stood there. “Welcome back, sleeping beauty.”
“What time is it?” Lauren grumbled.
“Almost seven,” she said. “I ordered pizza.”
Lauren’s stomach grumbled and churned at the same time. She felt like crap, and she decided quickly she didn’t need anything to eat, certainly not pizza. “I just need water.”
Stephanie stepped aside and let her pass into the living room. She followed her into the kitchen. The pizza box was setting on the counter and there was a six pack of Coke; one can was missing. She opened the cupboard where she’d kept the glasses. She quickly realized the pantry was bare. No cups, no bowls, no snacks. She turned on the water in the sink and used her hand to make a cup. She drank greedily. Loose locks of her hair got wet in the process.
“How long are we going to be here?” Lauren leaned on the counter top, stretching out her sore back and neck. She was miserable, but she didn’t want to let on.
“As long as we need to be,” she said.
Lauren noticed the woman’s eyes going to the phone on the edge of the pizza box. Lauren knew she was waiting for a phone call, presumably from Santiago. It was a call that wouldn’t come. She had pushed Mateo into the cenote. It was a fall no one could survive. Even her link with Rowan had been broken when she went over the edge.
* * *
Lauren knew if her situation were going to improve any time soon, she would have to make it happen. She also knew she was vulnerable. In her present condition, she’d have to work smarter, not harder.
“I’ve never killed a pregnant woman,” Stephanie said, with a mouth full of pizza, her hand resting-on the gun tucked into her belt. “But I really don’t have a problem with it. I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but if you think you can take me, you might think again.”
“I’m just thinking about how stupid all this is.”
“Yeah, well, I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me.”
“And do you?”
“I loved what he could do for me,” she said.
“Any man can do that,” Lauren scoffed. Getting her to talk was going to help her get away. She’d let go of something she didn’t want Lauren to know if she just made her comfortable enough. If she let her guard down, Lauren might get a lucky break.
“Yeah, well, not every man could get me away from my father while still getting me some of the money.”
“When your father died, he was worth nearly ten times the amount you two got out with. Most of it went to charity. You know that, right?”
Stephanie froze. “My father died?”
“You didn’t know?”
“Uh, no. When?” She didn’t cry, but Lauren could see she was moved.
“Not very long ago,” Lauren said. “After your mother left him, he committed suicide.”
A gasp caught in her throat, but still she didn’t cry. “How?”
“Jumped off the top of an offshore oil rig,” she said. “They never found his body.”
Stephanie tossed the pizza back onto the box, her face contorting as she processed the information. She picked up her phone, tucking it in her hip pocket as she walked away turning her back. She leaned on the wall, her hair shading her face from Lauren’s view.
Lauren glanced at the door, working on her exit plan. If she could get out the door, there were three steps to the sloping sidewalk. The path lead to the parking lot and down to the street. She could take a hard left and get around the building and out of view. Conceal and cover—that’s what she would need to do. She had no improvised weapons in the apartment. The landscaper’s shed was adjacent to her building. If it weren’t locked, she could find all kinds of lawn tools and
equipment that could be used for a weapon, if she had too.
Lauren wondered if her car was still parked out in the lot. She didn’t have the keys though. Stephanie’s jacket lay on the floor by the door. Maybe they were in her pocket?
“To say I didn’t have a good relationship with my father would be an understatement,” Stephanie said coldly. “He was a jealous man. He didn’t even want me to be close to my mother. He was afraid... I would tell her.”
Lauren immediately forgot her escape plans. “Tell her what?”
Stephanie kept her back to the room, hanging her head. “How he liked to touch me... liked me to touch him...”
“Your father... molested you?” Lauren took two steps towards her but stopped short.
“He was always trying to make it up to me.” She sniffed. “He’d stop for a while. Try to pretend he hadn’t done it. But when he was drinking or when he had a bad day... I had a bad day too.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“No,” she said. “Not until I met Santiago.” She glanced up. Her face was red, but her eyes were dry.
“He promised to save me,” she said. “He said he’d make my father pay for what he’d done to me. He told my father if he didn’t pay the ransom money, he’d tell everyone what he had done to his little girl.”
“That’s why he went against the advice of the State Department,” Lauren thought out loud. That part had always bothered her. “And why you didn’t go home after you escaped...”
“I couldn’t go home,” she said. “He had to think I was dead.”
“How did you survive in the jungle?”
Stephanie turned her back on Lauren. “I did what I had to,” she said, but offered nothing else.
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” Lauren said, wondering now if her visions might have been false. It hadn’t occurred to her until then that Tsul’Kalu might allow her to see an untrue vision. Had he been testing her? She had seen Stephanie on the other side of the tear in time, had gone to her there, and spoken to her. But then again, she’d also been burning with fever. Had her own mind been playing tricks on her? “I can’t imagine being all alone... for so long.” Lauren tried to coax her into telling more, but Stephanie turned quickly. She glared at her but regained control of her face. “I wasn’t alone... but I was... lost.”
The Jaguar Queen Page 20
