Shattered Lullaby

by Rebecca York

  She stole a glance at Miguel’s face. It held so much love, so much hope, so much commitment that she could barely catch her breath. If she had ever doubted that he wanted this marriage—heart and soul—she had no doubts now.

  She didn’t realize that she had whispered his name until his fingers tightened on hers and he gave her a heart-melting smile. And when he slipped the ring on her finger, she felt to the marrow of her bones that she was bonding herself to this man for all time.

  The service was over quickly, and it was followed by a kiss so tender and sweet, Jessie felt her vision blur.

  “I love you,” she and Miguel both said as their lips parted.

  They stood looking at each other for several moments, forgetting their surroundings, until Cam cleared his throat.

  “We’d better stay on schedule.”

  Miguel nodded tightly. “Thank you,” he said, shaking hands with all of the men.

  Then the wedding party climbed back into the Blazer and returned to the Baltimore area—to the modest furnished house that Laura Roswell had hastily rented for Jessie on a quiet street in Pikesville. Half a dozen more friends had come and set out deli trays and a small cake from a local bakery. It wasn’t the wedding day or the reception Jessie had dreamed of, but she was following Miguel’s rules now. They could do nothing that would call attention to themselves—including hiring a caterer or filling the street with cars.

  “We’ll have a big party at our house in your honor when things calm down,” Jo told them as the wedding guests sat rather awkwardly around the living and dining rooms eating corned-beef sandwiches and potato salad.

  “You could combine it with a baby shower,” added Hunter, whose background didn’t include schooling in the social graces.

  Despite herself, Jessie laughed. “Not a bad idea!”

  Before anyone else could comment, Cam stood to toast the bride and groom. The guests raised their glasses of champagne, Jesse, her sparkling cider.

  “To Jessie and Miguel,” Cam offered. “Every happiness. Every good thing in life.”

  Jessie felt Miguel’s hand tighten on hers. He was trying to look as if he believed in miracles. She clasped his hand with all her strength, trying to let him know that she would be beside him, whatever happened. But she had turned into a realist. She knew they would have to wait for their day in the sun until after Carlos Jurado was apprehended. She prayed it would be soon—or at least, before the baby was born.

  IT WAS LATE, BUT Eduardo Sombra sat at his desk studying the report he had received from the States two weeks ago. It was a profile of Jessie Douglas, starting with her childhood in Chicago and covering her college days, her marriage, her return to graduate school, and her life in Baltimore. It was all there, in great detail. Her sex life. Spending habits. Favorite foods. Vacation preferences. Personality profile. Comments from friends and teachers who thought she was being investigated for a sensitive government job.

  His boss had paid a great deal for the report. Now he was demanding results. Unfortunately, the chronicle ended abruptly in August, when Valero and Douglas had gone underground after he’d miraculously saved her. For a moment, Eduardo couldn’t hold back the panic that always seized him every time he remembered that fiasco. Then he got a grip on himself. Jurado didn’t know about that screwup, and there was no way for him to find out.

  Eduardo made a low sound of mixed anger and frustration. The escape in Baltimore hadn’t been his fault! Valero was like a cat with nine lives. At first he had been lucky; now the life of a fugitive was second nature to him. But the doctor would stick close to his pregnant woman. That was his fatal flaw.

  His spirits rising, Eduardo skimmed back through the dossier, focusing on Jessie Douglas’s character traits and the report on her call to the OAN. She had been reckless when she was desperate to help the man she loved. She would be reckless again—if she were pushed in the right direction.

  Reaching for the phone, he called his chief informant in Baltimore and issued terse instructions.

  JESSIE SIGHED AS SHE washed her face and got ready for another night without Miguel. She never knew when she was going to see him, and tonight, hope had faded as a December ice storm had started to beat against the windowpanes.

  He had known their life together was going to be difficult. She’d been more optimistic. Their hopes for a quick resolution to their problems had dimmed, however, as the weeks wore on. Jed was trying his best to dig up something useful on Jurado in San Marcos. So far, all he had learned was that the man was in deep cover. And the body count was higher than they’d originally thought. It seemed he’d also executed the hit squad who had carried out the raid on the clinic. The news was chilling—and confirmed Miguel’s assumption that the man wasn’t going to give up his quest for Dr. Valero.

  The tension put their marriage under a good deal of strain. Jessie wanted Miguel to hole up with her in a small town out of state until it was safe to come out of hiding. He told her that he’d go crazy with nothing to occupy his time. In addition, he was unwilling to leave the community that had come to depend on him and that had shown him such loyalty.

  But he wouldn’t allow his wife to participate in the nomadic existence that had been forced upon him by Jurado’s s relentless pursuit. So Jessie stayed in her furnished rented house, where Cam Randolph installed a state-of-the-art security system and a special secure phone line to connect her computer to the system at work.

  From the hook on the closet wall, she took her nightgown and paused for a moment to stroke the fabric with her fingertips. Before they’d gotten married she’d slept in plainlooking, utilitarian gowns. Now she always wore the silk and lace Miguel liked, because she loved to see his eyes light up when he saw her in them—even now, when she was eight months pregnant

  Just as she had slipped her latest purchase over her head, she heard Miguel’s special knock. Quickly she crossed to the dresser and ran a brush through her hair as his footsteps approached from the ground floor.

  There was a charged moment as he entered the bedroom. Other wives might take their husband’s homecoming for granted. To Jessie, it was always an occasion for giving thanks.

  “How are you?” they both asked at the same time.

  “Fine—now.”

  The question and answer had turned into a little ritual between them. Although Miguel looked tired as he stood in the doorway of her bedroom, his face took on a warm glow when she came toward him.

  All the lonely days that he’d been away and out of communication evaporated as he took her into his arms and bent to cover her lips with his.

  The kiss was long and hungry, growing more urgent as his hands moved over the ripe contours of her body, caressing her through the silky fabric. They had only each other, and their time together was always much too short.

  He was breathing raggedly as he lifted his mouth from hers.

  “You must have a thing for fat women,” she said with a breathy laugh.

  “The only woman I have a thing for is you.” He caressed her tummy, then slipped his hands upward to cradle the weight of her breasts.

  She marveled that he still wanted her. Then she stopped worrying about how she looked as he eased her onto the bed. Gently, with great care for her condition, he transported her to a place where only love and pleasure existed.

  Afterward they lay naked together, his palm flattened against her abdomen as they savored the afterglow of lovemaking.

  “I miss you so when I have to be away,” he whispered.

  “Yes. So much.” She snuggled closer. “I want to hear what you’ve been doing.”

  He told her about a family where the mother could hardly care for her children because she had mononucleosis. Miguel had sent her to a hospital clinic, and now she was recovering. As he talked about the woman and the other people he’d helped over the past few days, his voice took on an enthusiasm that made her chest tighten with mixed emotions. She knew he was putting himself in danger by seeing patients. Yet he nee
ded to help people—as much as he needed her.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  She made a clucking sound. “Well, Jim Alvarez is still trying to speak to me in person,” she reported. “He’s desperate to apologize for being so mean to me.”

  “I don’t trust him!”

  “Neither does anybody else. He’s not going to get near either one of us.”

  Miguel nodded.

  They talked long into the dark winter night, neither of them willing to surrender to sleep.

  Jessie burrowed her fingers through the hair on Miguel’s chest as she asked about one of his favorite subjects—the clinic he was going to build when he came out of hiding. She knew he had a location all picked out—an old warehouse only a few streets off Broadway.

  He had told her many times about his plans, but she let him tell it all again because she knew he needed to focus on that dream for the future.

  Then they switched topics to something a bit more controversial—baby names.

  “You still don’t like Esteban?” she asked.

  “It is not American,” he repeated his earlier objection. “If you like Esteban, we can call him Steven.”

  “What about naming him after you? Michael.”

  “I want him to have his own name.”

  Shaking her head, Jessie reached for the stack of babyname books on the bedside table. She knew that Miguel was keeping the argument going partly to take their minds off more sinister problems, and she was willing to go along with him.

  The peaceful interlude was shattered by the ringing of the phone. Both their gazes shot to the clock beside the bed. It was after 1:00 a.m.—hardly the time for a friendly intrusion.

  “Who is it?” Miguel asked, his voice taut, and again she realized how fragile their hold on happiness was.

  With a shaky hand she reached for the small caller-ID box, then breathed in a little sigh as she saw “Randolph Security” on the display.

  It was Hunter, who wanted to know if she could contact Miguel. When she started to hand him the phone, she found he was already striding naked to the office where he snatched up the extension.

  “What is it?” he demanded without preliminary. “Good news or bad?”

  “We had a message from Jed.”

  When Jed had initially gone down to San Marcos, they’d all been confident that he could get the information they needed on Jurado. As the weeks had worn on, they’d only discovered how well Jurado had used money, intimidation tactics and murder to cover his tracks.

  Even more chilling, Jed had found that Miguel’s past was just as inaccessible. His birth certificate had disappeared from the Santa Isabella bureau of records. His medical license was no longer on file and his tax records were missing.

  Frustrated, Jed had vowed to unearth some information-on either Miguel or Jurado.

  “What do you have for us?” Miguel asked.

  “Jed got a tip that set him working on another angle. What do you know about a general named Juan Escobar?”

  “He’s called the Che Guevara of San Marcos,” Miguel answered promptly. “Ten years ago he was sent by the president to aid the rebels to the north. But it was a trap to get rid of a political rival. He led his ‘freedom brigade’ into an ambush in the jungle. They were all killed—or died in prison.”

  “Jed’s sent pictures of the men in the brigade. They’ve just arrived by courier, and you need to take a look at them.”

  “Why?”

  “He thinks it’s possible you might recognize somebody. Can I bring them over now?”

  Jessie glanced again at the clock on the bedside table. It was the middle of the night, yet there was an urgency in Hunter’s voice. “Yes,” she told him.

  She and Miguel got dressed quickly and silently, both of them keyed up. To give herself something to do, she made a pot of hot chocolate—the old-fashioned kind, the way Hunter liked it She’d discovered he had a real sweet tooth, and she enjoyed feeding it.

  While she measured cocoa and sugar, her husband paced to the window and looked out for the fifth time.

  Hunter arrived twenty minutes later, with copies of old military records from San Marcos.

  While she and Hunter sipped mugs of chocolate, Miguel flipped through the material. He stopped short when he came to a man named Andrés Cuento.

  “That is him!” he exclaimed. “That is the face I gave Jurado.”

  “Are you sure?” Hunter asked.

  “Positive.”

  They all read Cuento’s dossier. He had an excellent education and a good military record. According to the official account, he had been killed in the jungle ambush.

  “Jurado had me turn him into Cuento. That is why nobody can find him,” Miguel muttered. “But what is he up to?”

  “Now that we have a name to put with the face, we should be able to figure it out,” Hunter said.

  They talked about several possibilities, and when Hunter left, Miguel was in a very positive mood. He rarely allowed himself to be hopeful. For Jessie, it was a pleasure to see him so optimistic.

  In the morning, she awoke to hear him talking on the phone. Then he came back to the bedroom with a broad grin on his face.

  “Pack an overnight bag,” he said as he began to get his own clothing out of the bureau.

  “Where are we going?” she inquired.

  “You need to get out of the house, so we’re going on a short trip.”

  “Did you clear it with Randolph Security?”

  “Of course.”

  After breakfast, he led her toward a luxury sedan that one of his friends had rented for them at an agency outside the beltway.

  When Jessie tried to get him to reveal their destination, he only smiled mysteriously as he headed south, past D.C. and into the rolling Virginia countryside. He’d done some very specific research, she realized, as he pulled up in front of a warm and cozy bed-and-breakfast in Charlottesville, far enough away from Baltimore that the chance of being spotted was tiny. Still, he registered using a driver’s license and a spare ID he’d acquired since they’d met.

  They ate dinner at a small restaurant, made delicious love in a soft Victorian bed, and enjoyed breakfast propped against a nest of pillows. Then Miguel surprised her with a trip to a giant shopping mall where they filled a cart to overflowing with all the baby clothes and accessories she’d been longing to buy—including a small crib that folded flat and went easily into the enormous trunk of their car.

  He even gave her half an hour alone in a men’s specialty shop where she bought him some Christmas presents—a soft wool sweater and a warm terry-cloth robe.

  It was almost possible to forget that they were a couple of fugitives—except that she knew Miguel was constantly alert to the people around them. And when he left the mall, he took a route that led through several residential neighborhoods to make sure they weren’t being followed.

  Still, it was a memorable outing, and it gave Jessie a taste of what life might be like if her husband were a free man.

  On the way home, she fell asleep in the sedan’s comfortable leather seat and didn’t awaken until they came to a stop in the driveway. As her eyes came open, she gazed at Miguel’s profile, seeing a vulnerability that made her heart squeeze. When he caught her watching him, he quickly adjusted his features.

  “Did you have a good time?” he asked.

  “You know I did. Thanks for the nice surprise.”

  His fingers closed over hers. “I wish we could do things like that more often.”

  “We will,” she promised. She was reaching for the door handle when Miguel hissed, “Get down!”

  “What?”

  “Get down,” he repeated, a pistol suddenly in his hand. “There’s a car behind us blocking the driveway.”

  Jessie felt the blood in her veins turn to ice as she tried to force her bulky body below the dashboard. God, no! Jurado’s men had finally found them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Miguel slipped his doo
r open, and she heard heavy footsteps coming rapidly up the drive. Trapped. They were trapped because they had let themselves enjoy a few hours of normal life.

  And now her husband would defend her with his life. When he made a strangled exclamation, her heart leaped into her throat. She wanted to hide, to bury her face in her hands, but that would only postpone the inevitable. Lifting her chin, she followed the direction of his fierce gaze.

  Seconds later, a large male shape loomed beside his window. Confused, she watched Miguel lower his weapon.

  When the man bent down, she saw that it was Hunter.

  The breath whooshed out of her lungs in a great sigh.

  “Where were you?” he demanded. “You left the bed-and-breakfast before lunch. We thought something had happened. I’ve been here all afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jessie managed. She and Miguel had been so blissfully wrapped up in each other that they hadn’t checked in during their shopping trip, and Hunter had been waiting in the cold for hours.

  His gaze went to her as she tried to hoist herself from her undignified position on the floor. “We were worried,” he said in an apologetic voice. “I didn’t intend to frighten you.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she answered quickly.

  “You need to talk to us?” Miguel asked as he helped Jessie out of the car.

  Hunter nodded. “Inside.”

  From the sound of his voice, it seemed that he didn’t have good news.

  Silently, they trooped into the house. “What has happened?” Miguel demanded as Hunter closed the door.

  “Aflter you identified the picture of Andres Cuento, Jed was able to start making inquiries about him. It seems Jurado—as Cuento—has told a few influential people about his ‘miraculous escape’ from captivity. He’s allied himself with the most powerful political party in San Marcos. And he’s let it be known that he’d humbly accept their nomination as a presidential candidate. According to Jed’s sources, he has a good chance of going the distance.”

  Miguel snorted. “So now we know why he wanted to assume the identity of a dead war hero.”