Tall, Hard and Trouble

by Cerise DeLand

  Or so she’d convinced him.

  And now, he had to learn if there were reasons for that, beyond her reluctance to date a man who was known for his preference for plenty of women, no commitments and no emotions.

  He gathered Anna closer to him and she smiled, tracing the outline of his lips with one fingertip.

  He sat up and rose. Opening a small closet, he dug out two robes and tossed one to her. “Get comfy. I’ll be right back.”

  “Hurry.” She got out of bed and slipped into the robe. “I’m still hungry and I bet your are too.”

  He grinned but his gaze was serious. “I’m more interested in a few answers.”

  “I want to be totally open with you.”

  “No barriers. No secrets.”

  “You deserve that,” she said. “And then you’ll know I am not—”

  He tipped his head. “Not what?”

  “A felon. A liar.”

  “I don’t think you are either of those things. Never did.”

  She gave him a watery smile.

  Leaning over, he cupped her jaw. “Stop this. I never thought you were anything but smart, tempting and private. Very private.”

  He disappeared and gave her space.

  When he returned, she sat up against the headboard, her robe tightly around her. She was examining her fingernails so he caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. “We can stay here in this cove for as long as we want. It’s secluded and the weather is calm. Then we can go southward again tomorrow morning.”

  She took a breath and squinted out the porthole toward the shore.

  He sat down in a chair to face her. “When you’re ready, start.”

  “I was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, but at the age of three, I moved with my mother and my older sister to Albuquerque, New Mexico. That was twenty-six years ago. My father did not come with us.” She twisted fingers. “He was sent to prison.”

  Tate did not blink.

  “My father was convicted for murder and eleven counts of trafficking of illegal immigrants into the United States from the Ukraine and Georgia.”

  Tate frowned. “That doesn’t happen in a vacuum. He was connected to some organization.”

  She nodded. “He was a member of an international syndicate that imported women from all parts of the world to the U.S., Mexico, South America, you name it.”

  Tate frowned. “As prostitutes?”

  “Yes. My mother, my sister and I moved to Albuquerque before my father’s trial, though my mother went back to testify. The three of us were put in federal witness protection.”

  Anna checked his expression, but he remained unmoving and silent.

  “My mother had helped federal investigators by giving evidence against my father and two of his accomplices. She said it was the only way for her to make herself feel clean after living with him and finding out what he did. And it was a way out for her from what had become an intolerable marriage and a frightening life. But I remember very little of my early years. My sister, Christine, was five years older than I and said she remembered quite a lot. She told me of the calls in the middle of the night that our father would get. How he’d leave and return days, sometimes weeks later. She was so happy that she never had to see him again. He was often angry, physically abused our mother, and drank often and to excess. Maybe he did drugs, too. Who knows.

  “We stayed in New Mexico for twelve years. We had a good life. Mom had a job as a bookkeeper at a construction company and earned a good salary. Each year, she checked in with the Marshalls Service, just like she was supposed to. We had a house we rented and a dog we loved. My sister went to the University of New Mexico to study art. I was a freshman in high school when I came home late one day, opened the kitchen door and saw our Labrador dead on the floor, his neck twisted at an odd angle. I heard my mother crying inside the house. My sister was there too, and I heard her sobbing. I was about to walk in when I heard a man yelling at them and hitting them.”

  “What did they want?”

  “A list my father told the feds he had made. He said he’d given it to my mother to hide the last time he saw her before he had been arrested.”

  “A list of—?”

  “Names. Members of his organization. The structure.” Anna’s gaze met Tate’s. “As many names as he could remember.”

  “I’m puzzled. Why suddenly did your father talk about a list twelve years after his conviction?”

  “To buy him a shorter prison term. He recently had learned he had cancer of the stomach and he wanted to use it to bargain so that he could be released before he died.”

  Tate frowned. “Why didn’t he turn as a government witness and hand over the list when he was first arrested?”

  “He said back then he’d still been loyal and he assumed he’d be killed while he was in jail. He had no idea he’d be held under close surveillance in prison where few others could ever get near him.”

  Tate shook his head. “And what happened that afternoon when you came home? What did you do?”

  She bit her lower lip and gazed out at the horizon. “I ran to a neighbor’s and called the police and told them what was happening. They sent a SWAT team to the house but by the time they arrived…it was too late. My mother and sister were dead. The men had shot them. Executed them.” She shivered, clutching her arms. “They got away. I couldn’t remember the make of the car. Only the color. Black.”

  Tate rose and pulled her up into his embrace. Wrapping her to him, he turned and sat in the captain’s chair with her in his lap. His hands around her shoulders, he held her tightly and waited for her to continue. The horror of what she revealed was more than he had predicted might be wrong. In his blood, anger stirred, dark and thick.

  She inhaled. “No one was ever arrested. I was put in child protective services. I was under age, but I was also much older than most in foster care. Few wanted me, figuring I would be a nuisance or worse, criminal myself. I. just went from family to family and each one got worse than the last. I was nothing more than a meal-ticket for the people who took me in.”

  “Where were the feds? Why didn’t they come back in and put you in a decent home?”

  “My mother had never told me much about the witness program and I had no idea what her obligations were or who her contact was. My sister knew more but wouldn’t share with me. She said what I didn’t know kept me safer. I trusted both of them. Why wouldn’t I? We seemed fine in our new life. Never had a problem. Never had anyone ever threaten us. So when I told the local police I needed to talk to the U.S. Marshalls Service, they thought I was nuts. But I kept insisting and finally they sent an agent in to me. She was kind, asked me a lot about the men who had killed my mother and sister. I told her what I knew. What they said. What they were looking for. The agent asked me if I knew whether my mother had such a list and I told her I had never heard her talk about one. She asked me who my mother’s friends were, what she did outside of work. The agent investigated and came back to me months later to say that she’d found nothing unusual. No notes or letters. Nothing suspicious on my mother’s home computer or the one she used at work.”

  “What about phone records?”

  “I think they looked at those, too. We had a house phone. And this was nineteen-ninety-nine, so my mother and sister and I didn’t have cell phones then.”

  He stroked his fingers through her hair. “What happened after you went into child services?”

  “Even with all the changes from one family to another, I managed to graduate high school and got a partial scholarship to college. A small one in Austin. So I moved there, got a job as a receptionist at a yoga and fitness center and worked my way through school.” She stopped, overwhelmed with fresh fear at the memory of what had happened next. “One day I went to work and a man came in. A big ugly guy. Acting erratic, talking ragtime. At first I thought he was just high on meth or coke. He demanded an appointment, but we catered only to women. I told him he could go down the street to another
facility, but he refused. He stormed out but the next day, he showed up at my apartment and tried to barge his way in. He said he knew who I was and he wanted the list.

  “I told him I had no list and didn’t think one even existed. He just laughed at me.”

  “And?” Tate pressed.

  “He hit me.”

  Tate put his lips to her forehead.

  “But by that time, I was an expert at krav maga.”

  He stroked her hair. “I see.”

  “I knocked him out, called the police and got the U.S. Marshalls Service involved again. Only now I didn’t trust them. So I—” She broke off and gazed up at Tate, “left town.”

  “Without their help?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Mexico City.” She curled into Tate’s embrace, her lips to his throat. “I was so scared and I thought if I went to another country, far away from all this, I could disappear. Maybe find some peace. And some courage.”

  “I know you have courage. Not many could have survived what you have, sweetheart.”

  She hugged him and went on with her story. “When I left Austin it was August two thousand and three. I took my clothes, my cat and my car, and just got out.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. I had a Texas driver’s license and I knew at some smaller border crossings into Mexico, I could get across with no more than a license. I had no passport. Had never had one. That didn’t create a problem for me because I always asked to be paid in cash and I had a few thousand dollars. So I paid the border patrol to do me a favor and let me cross. First big town I came to, I stayed.”

  “What was it?”

  “Monterrey. I got a job in a resort that was popular with Americans.” She sighed. “The next year, one of those Americans who was a resort owner herself, approached me, said she was impressed by me. She offered me a job in San Antonio.”

  “Mona?”

  “Yes. She promised me a promotion, too. The pay was certainly an incentive plus I was tired of hiding. Tired of Mexico and being a gringo. I wanted to go home. The thought of going back to the States appealed to me so much I think I even believed I’d be free. Whatever the motivation, I decided I’d leave. But I had a problem.”

  He gazed at her with concern. “I bet you had a few.”

  “I did. Since the attacks on New York and Washington, the American government had increased security at the borders. They tightened things up so that new fences were built, even across places where the Rio Grande was nothing more than a trickle of water. Now, everyone had to go through extensive checks at border stations. Even their cars were examined by border patrol and bomb and drug sniffing dogs. I knew I couldn’t get through because still, the only thing I had was a Texas driver’s license. Plus, I had— no passport. And I had only about eight hundred dollars. Not the three thousand I’d bribed the border patrolman with years before. But even at that, I had problems. I certainly wasn’t going to return to the States under my old driver’s license name. That would have been suicide if some other creep decided to find me and threaten me.”

  “What about your birth certificate? Couldn’t you go to an American consulate and get them to issue you a passport on your birth certificate?”

  “No.”

  “Your mother hadn’t kept it for you?”

  “No, Tate. I am not sure if Witness Protection ever made a new false birth certificate for me or if they ever gave one to my mother. After my mom and sister died, child protective services issued me a new name and Social Security Number. I kept that until I was in college and that thug threatened me in San Antonio. In Monterrey, I used another name, not the one on my Texas driver’s license. One I’d made up. The Mexican authorities never checked. So when I went to San Antonio, I took another name.” She bit her lip. “All of which means, I have had my name changed or done it myself for a total of four times.”

  “So now you are Anna Stephens.”

  “Yes. That’s my newest name that I made up to work in San Antonio.”

  “And how did you do that?”

  “I found a good forger in Nuevo Laredo whom I paid to create a new driver’s license and a new American passport for me. There went my eight hundred dollars. But it was a good job. I got through security.”

  “And Mona accepted this name change?” He frowned. “Easily?”

  “She said she wouldn’t care if my name was Minnie Mouse.”

  His eyes widened. “Why?”

  “I told her some of my history.”

  His jaw dropped. “Did you give her names and dates? Things she could look up?”

  “No. Nothing definite. Some people you know instinctively will never hurt you. Mona was one of them.” Anna explained how serene and balanced her former employer was, how cool and objective. “She hooked me up with an apartment, helped me buy a car. Became my friend, really. I’ve had so few.”

  Tate cupped her face. “You have another one now.”

  She smiled briefly. “I only know that every time I get a handle on a normal life, it all goes to hell in at a moment’s notice. And this time, now with you, here like this—“ Her gaze swept over his face. “I can’t bear that it’s going to be over before it’s begun.”

  “That’s not true. We won’t let it be true.”

  “Don’t,” she pleaded softly as she sank her fingers into the hair at his nape and kissed him. “I have wanted you for so long. Stayed away from you because I didn’t want you involved. I’ll leave, I promise. Disappear as soon as we go back to the States. I shouldn’t have come here with you, but I couldn’t resist you and the possibility of being with you for a short time. No one must ever hurt you, Tate. No one.”

  “Do not forget what I am about to say.” He cupped her chin, fierce with determination. “I am not as afraid of keeping you as I am terrified of losing you. We are going to find out who is hunting you and we are going to put them behind big, solid bars and throw away the key. No more running. No more talk of disappearing. You belong with me.”

  “Oh, Tate,” she cried and circled her arms around his neck, “you can’t do what police and the Marshalls Service weren’t able to do.”

  “No?”

  “No. The men who worked with my father are ruthless. They can buy and sell people at the drop of a hat! They’ll ruin you, the business, hurt Cord and his family. Tate, they’ll kill you.”

  “Anna, listen to me. There is big difference between them and me, honey. They were just doing their jobs. I’m here because I love you.”

  Chapter Five

  “Tate,” she insisted, tears trailing from the corners of her eyes, “you shouldn’t say that.”

  With one hand at her nape, he kissed her tenderly.

  She turned away, guilty that she rejoiced he’d declared he cared for her. “Don’t, Tate.”

  “Anna, I’m saying things I should have said long ago.” His hands coursed down her throat to her arms. He stood with her in his arms and placed her on the bed. “I wasted time. No more. Let me show you that from now on, you’re not going anywhere without me. No man could love you better.”

  “I know that,” she said, aching, wishing she could tell him how much she cared for him. But years of running had kept her safe. The habit died hard. “But I want to be fair to you.”

  “You are.” He brushed his lips over hers. “You’re letting me help you.”

  She pushed away and got to her feet. He had to realize he was talking ragtime. “That’s work, Tate. Work. And the odds are not good.”

  “I’m aware of the problems.”

  “No, you’re not thinking straight.” She ran both hands through her hair and faced him. “Of all the screw ups in my life, the initial fault lay with the Federal Witness Protection Services in Albuquerque. They were supposed to protect us from my father and his past. But that was just the beginning. Child protective services screwed up, too. You cannot think you can fight them all. I tried to escape the results. And looked what happened
.”

  “There are records, Anna. Records someone went through to find you.”

  “You think so? Oh Tate. No. Those two bureaucracies have thousands of layers and intricacies. Think of the warrens of people and paperwork. And be honest, would there be any record after so many years? Would anyone remember? Would anyone own up to it if they did recall the case?”

  “We have to start somewhere, Anna.” He paced the floor. “There’s the forger in Nuevo Laredo. Would he have remembered your name? Would he have leaked your name?”

  “What if he did? He could be connected to other criminals. In a Rio Grande border town, that is very likely. We can’t go back to him to ask who he’d spoken to.”

  Tate frowned at her. “I’m not letting this go.”

  “You must.”

  “How did you find him? Who sent you to him?” Tate persisted.

  “Oh, hell, Tate!” She wanted to scream, cry, shake him. “Have you been to Nuevo Laredo?”

  “Yes.”

  She scoffed, hands on her hips. “I bet you haven’t been to the part of town where I had to go to find my forger.”

  “I don’t care. It can be done.”

  “You are a stubborn man.”

  “Thank you.”

  She swept out a hand. “Listen to me! The city is ruled by Mexican gangs into drugs, gun running and anything else that Americans want to buy cheap and fast. In the past few years, the city has virtually closed down. Its economy is so corrupted by the gangs’ bribery, that everyone carries a gun. The town is an armed arsenal! Its citizens are murdered in street raids. Some are executed for their failures to accept the gangs’ authority. The townspeople used to thrive on gringo tourist trade. Now Americans stay home and the people survive on cash transactions of illegal traffickers. I don’t want to go back to Nuevo Laredo. Why would you?”

  “If we can find him, we should try. I’ll go by myself.”