Keys jiggled and the lock mechanism clicked. Corazon tensed.
In Mexico or in almost any other place in the world they would have made her put her arms between the bars to be handcuffed before unlocking the door. Maybe her luck was changing.
“I said you need to get up,” the woman said.
There was no sound for a moment, then Corazon noticed a moving shadow as the door slid open. Feet sounds. Thighs rubbing cloth. The women were in her cell.
Still lying on her side on the concrete bench, Corazon rolled her eyes until she saw four legs: two in blue trousers and two in pantyhose. The woman in panty hose carried a briefcase.
Corazon trembled. With both hands and feet on the wall, she would launch backward, stretch straight as a missile and swipe a pistol from a holster in midair.
The moment was now! Corazon exhaled. She swallowed. Every sense tingled.
Who carried a briefcase?
Corazon twisted her neck and lifted from the concrete slab. The woman wore a blue blazer and skirt. Her hair was long but piled on the top of her head. It looked hideous. She had leathery skin about the neck and wore reading glasses like from the five dollar bin at Wal-Mart.
Her necklace was pearls.
Pearls?
“You wanted a lawyer,” the female cop said.
They wouldn’t let a lawyer observe torture, would they? But why should Corazon assume the first person to show up with a briefcase was an attorney? It could be yet another ruse.
“Hi, I’m Margaret Duke but you can call me Daisy like everybody else. I’m your public defender. Sit up, we need to talk.”
The woman police officer said, “How’d you get nicknamed that? You’re… blonde.”
“Oh you’re bright spot aren’t you? Been a long time since this ass fit a pair of Daisy Dukes, that’s for sure. But I’m not a Daisy because I married a Duke and I’m damn sure not a Daisy because I know how to stop a car when I want to hitch a ride.”
“Oh?” the woman cop said.
“I’m a Daisy because my real name is Marguerite, which is also the French name of the oxeye daisy.”
“I did not know that.”
“I get that a lot.”
Corazon sat up on the concrete bench. Daisy Duke would not be her problem.
They sat in the same questioning room as the night before. No handcuffs on Corazon. The giant agent and the woman agent were not there, nor was the white man who seemed their senior.
Instead, Corazon and Daisy Duke sat opposite an unhappy man in a charcoal suit and red tie. His briefcase stood on the floor at his side and his hands were crossed on the table. He stared a lot.
Daisy and Corazon had spent time alone in her cell before being led to the questioning room. Daisy asked Corazon’s name, why she thought she was being held, her age and where she came from. Daisy placed her hand on Corazon’s shoulder briefly, with a firm and friendly clasp, and described reading Corazon’s file and learning about her experience in Salt Lake City.
Daisy spoke about being abused by her cousin on the farm growing up, in the milking house and again in the orchard, right out in the bright sunshine. It was strange, she said, because she’d never thought it could happen in the daylight. She hadn’t understood. She described her warpath through college and then law school. She recounted her history as a prosecuting attorney for the US Justice Department for fifteen years, her last assignment in New York City. She mentioned, but provided no details, about her years of internal struggle culminating in forgiveness toward her cousin, who died in a bar fight while they were both still young and long before she’d ever processed anything. That led to her examining her role as a prosecutor and wondering if she’d run up her flag up the wrong flagpole.
“When you’re in a hole the first rule of escape is to stop digging. So, I quit the Justice Department and moved to the mountains and hung up a shingle, as the saying goes. So? What do you think of all that, Sugarplum? Do you trust me enough to shake hands and tell me your story?”
Corazon said nothing.
“That’s okay. I got enough to tear these guys a new asshole if they’re dumb enough to charge you with what they have. You watch.”
Now they sat in the questioning room. The prosecutor had thin lips and a sickly complexion. His suit color brought out the blueness of the veins on the backs of his hands.
The silence between Mr. Charcoal and Daisy Duke seemed a sort of war, with body posture changing on opposite sides of the table like soldiers moving in formations on a soon-to-be-bloodied battlefield. He tilted his head. She crossed her legs. He exhaled long. She smirked. He cleared his throat. She crossed her arms at her chest. He looked at the table and then the wall and as if addressing the concrete said:
“We aren’t prosecuting.”
“You’re damn right, Mitch. Juries don’t like folks being arrested for crimes that wouldn’t exist without the police setting people up to begin with. And did you read her file? What the hell, Mitch?”
“Please don’t call me that. Not here.”
“Mr. Ford? Really? You can still call me Daisy. Are we done?”
“We’re done.”
“Okay, what happened?”
“We’re done.”
“What brought you to your senses?”
“No DNA means no murder charges for the bodies in Utah and Colorado. And the arrest was so screwed up…. Prostitution? Really? Fleeing arrest? Not this time. Not without an actual crime to flee.”
“So why’d you keep her overnight? And bring me into it? You just wanted to see me again?”
“We were waiting on the DNA. I see you enough as it is.”
“Thank you, Mister Ford.”
“Ms. Duke.”
Chapter Six
Corazon stepped out of the front door of the police complex with Daisy Duke’s card in her hand. She hadn’t seen the building earlier because the FBI had escorted her inside at night from the western entrance which was off to the back near the parking area. The Glenwood Springs Police Department occupied the building to her front right. The building she departed held both the county sheriff and the county jail.
Her skin tingled with the crisp late morning air; the sun had only been above the mountains an hour or two. Her stomach tightened as she stood looking but she barely noticed. Since fleeing the cartel with Tat, she’d several times gone many days without eating. The tightness in her belly was no more uncomfortable than a fuel light going yellow on a car’s dash. It was information.
Corazon’s only experience in Glenwood Springs had been in the motel resort and at Chester DeChurch’s house, neither located in the original town that lay south of Interstate 70 with Main Street almost perpendicular to the freeway. The motel where Baer had paid for a few days for Tat and Corazon was on the access road that paralleled north of the highway, which along with the Colorado River and the railroad tracks split the valley. Without the FBI having chauffeured Corazon across the interstate last night she never would have known that Glenwood Springs was anything more than a few gas stations and motels along the freeway.
But what a town! The grass seemed more vibrant than grass had a right to be. She looked up and the colors everywhere were delicious. The sky was so blue it threatened to haunt her if she dared close her eyes. The buildings looked clean and happy with the mountains behind them.
She walked almost dreamily and recalled her memorization of the FBI car’s turns and the second-counts between them, but reconstructing her path from memory in reverse, and orienting from her present, unknown position… as Baer would say, was fuckin’ stupid.
Plus, Tat at some point would reveal herself.
Corazon walked from the Sheriff’s department and in the middle of the courtyard stopped and turned a circle.
She was free — but she didn’t rotate slowly with her palms out and her lungs full to express her overwhelming gratitude to the heavens. As she rotated she searched buildings, cars, pedestrians. Maybe the overcome-with-joy look would make i
t less obvious she was on to them.
Her release had to be a trick.
Seeing nothing but modern buildings and trees, she crossed the remainder of the courtyard and turned left onto the sidewalk. Ahead were the main drag and all the businesses.
Corazon stopped. A car she hadn’t been aware of rumbled past sounding as if the muffler had fallen off. A memory flashed — she and Tat and their mother had been on a Mexican dirt road when the muffler dropped off their Nissan Tsuru and her mother stomped the gas and cried out in glee.
A year before the cartel killed her.
Corazon blinked herself to the present.
Ahead was town. She turned around and walked the other direction, continuing straight where 7th grafted onto 8th and a hundred feet later read the sign: Roaring Fork River. She stopped in the middle of the bridge and looked over the edge at the roiled runoff from the storm that forced her to stay in Jubal White’s garage.
Through the corner of her eye Corazon searched behind her from the direction she had come. The road was empty all the way back to the law enforcement campus.
Beyond, up in the town area she’d seen from the police campus, Corazon noticed a figure walking across the street toward the Colorado River and Interstate 70. The person wore tan clothing and appeared average in size.
Girl?
The figure stopped and turned square toward Corazon.
Tat owned tan clothes, but she was not blonde.
Had Corazon just spotted an FBI agent who didn’t expect her to look back?
After a moment the figure walked behind a building on the corner of 8th and whatever.
The FBI letting her go didn’t make sense. They’d taken her Scarab. She was there to kill DeChurch — they knew that. They’d seen a pattern in the bodies she’d left behind and used that pattern to predict he’d be her next target. They returned her knife before releasing her. Even without the needed DNA evidence to arrest her, why return the blade if they knew how she intended to use it?
Only one conclusion made sense: They didn’t get her this time but were sure they would the next. That could only happen if they followed her.
She needed to find Tat.
Eighth Avenue departed Glenwood Springs roughly parallel to Interstate 70. Every time Corazon turned, she spotted her tan follower, as if the person hoped a mere zig-zag path might disguise her gradually nearing proximity.
Passing around a bend, Corazon spotted a wildlife trail through the dense grass and brush. She shot behind a creosote bush and hid on her knees, Scarab in hand. With the grip reversed so the blade pointed down with the sharp edge forward, she was ready for slash work.
The figure approached so quickly around the bend Corazon considered allowing her to pass and then following at a distance. The efficiency of the woman’s stride was a signature, however, and though her follower was blonde Corazon recognized her and leaped from behind the bush.
The woman squawked, leaped aside and instantly manifested a Sig Sauer five inches from Corazon’s face.
Corazon smiled. “Miss me?”
Tat lowered her weapon arm and stooped with heaving lungs. “Didn’t you recognize me?”
“I wasn’t sure.” Corazon tugged a lock of blonde wig. “This from a dumpster?”
“I took it right off the rack.” Tat stood erect and shook her head. “You shouldn’t have made us meet like this. Now if they’re watching they know we’re together.”
“Unless we fight and run away from each other.”
“You should have gone back to the motel.”
“No. They’re watching. They have to be. But going to the motel would have only shown them where we are staying.”
Tat stepped away and her face changed. “Why did they let you go?”
“What, you think I’m wearing a wire or something?”
“Why did they release you? It doesn’t make sense unless it’s a trap.”
“I know.”
“A trap for me.”
“And me,” Corazon said. “They didn’t find DNA on my knife and I didn’t do anything with DeChurch. One of them sneezed and I knew it was a trap. I tried to get away.”
Tat nodded but her eyes seemed unconvinced.
“I can’t believe you would think I would try to trap you for the police,” Corazon said.
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“They’re probably watching us right now,” Tat said.
“You want to search me while they watch? Then everyone can be satisfied.”
"I just don't understand. This isn't what police do." Tat looked ahead down the road and let out her breath. She glanced at Corazon's chest.
“I hate the law,” Corazon said.
"They pit us against each other."
Tat stepped to Corazon and hugged her but brought her right hand between them and patted down her chest and sides.
“Satisfied?”
“Yes. You should check me.”
“I trust my sister.” Corazon yanked Tat’s wig off her head and tossed it.
“You should trust the fact that you don’t trust, instead.”
They walked arm in arm.
“I was afraid I would never see you again.” Tat nestled next to Corazon’s ear and whispered, “We need a Jeep and we need to leave."
“Okay,” Corazon said.
The sun radiated warmth on her face and her lower back was damp with sweat. Her bones felt like steel and her muscles like giant rubber bands. Corazon closed her eyes while they walked and felt a drifting stupor from the night’s lack of sleep combined with giddiness at her unexpected freedom. She giggled and pressed her forehead to her sister’s temple.
“But I still want to kill Chester DeChurch,” Corazon said.
“We need to get away from here. We need to lose whoever is following us.”
“Have you seen anyone yet?”
“No.”
“Maybe there isn’t — ”
“There is. There’s no other way it makes sense. We need to find a car.”
“How much gold did Baer leave with you?”
“A few coins.”
“Pfff.”
“He said each is worth eight hundred dollars, if you don’t let the dealer cheat you on the price. So, we are going to find a car and get away from here?” Tat said.
“That’s not enough money for a car. But I’ll get one.”
“How?”
“YouTube. I learned in the cave,” Corazon said. “Pretty sure I can hotwire one if we find an old car.”
“Like how old?”
“From the sixties?”
“Do cars that old still run?”
“Probably like people that old,” Corazon said.
“We need another Jeep.”
“No, we need a Mustang. Cherry red, so we can go fast.”
“We don’t want to get pulled over.”
“They won’t catch us and by the time you get the Jeep two miles into the woods you could be two states away in the Mustang. Then dump it and get your Jeep.”
Tat walked.
Corazon matched her stride. Looked at her and smiled.
“Okay. That’s a good idea.”
“We should split up in case anyone is following us,” Corazon said, “then meet up and find a car tonight.”
“I don’t want to split up.”
“Me either.”
“We should wait until dark.”
“What do we do until then?”
“Look.” Tat pointed to parking lot.
Corazon stood on her tippy toes and looked at the sloped parking lot of a health food grocery store.
“Is that one?”
“One what? It’s a salon. We should get our hair colored. You didn’t recognize me as a blonde.”
“I knew it was you.” Corazon pointed at a Mustang. “And I thought you were pointing at that.”
“The car?”
“Uh? The cherry red Mustang?” Corazon said.
“It�
��s old, right?”
“Let’s steal it now! Get on the road and find someplace to — ”
“Hide.”
“Hunt pedos.”
“You just got out of jail and listen to you. We’ll take the car tonight.”
“It won’t be there. The owner’s buying soy milk.”
“There’s a sun deflector in the windshield. And look at all the dirt and garbage around the wheels. That means the car was sitting there through the last snow when they plowed. And we can’t leave without Baer.”
Corazon stopped and turned. “You dumped him.”
“We have his dog. And he said he’s coming back.”
“So you can say goodbye again. We should just go. He’ll understand. He’s Baer.”
Chapter Seven
Move the Jeep to the back of the lot, aim at the yard ’tween this parking area and the next. Someone come with flashing lights, I got a shot at freedom. Though I don’t mostly care.
Ain’t slept but a few hours in two day. Pull the seat lever and ease back. Let the brain settle in the head and the neck go long on the cushion. Close my eyes and wonder how I done it agin. How I let Stinky Joe get lost or stole.
Eyes shut, sun come through the window and I got to shift this way and that, get some shade. At last the bright’s off my lids. Thought I’d mope later but I guess I’ll get on with it.
Ain’t fit to keep a dog.
Ain’t fit to have a woman.
Hell, ain’t fit to father a child neither.
But I can live in the woods and make shine. Go back to what I’m good at.
Time works like waves in the head. Come and go, dreamy, hear myself snore and don’t care nor rouse. After long bit the back hurt and the neck’s jammed and I twist in the seat sideways. Don’t muster ’til water drip on my hand and after checking the ceiling I see it’s drool. Was dreaming on them cheeseburgers. Keep sleeping… wipe the hand on my leg and twist the other way. Sun’s behind the mountain so I maybe got seven hours under my belt. Feet’s cold.
Think on days long gone. How I come to the path I’m on.
The Men I Sent Forward (Baer Creighton Book 6) Page 4
