by Sharon Sala
The pendulum had stopped when the clock had run down, which, according to the time, was either two minutes after three last night or two minutes after three this afternoon. Either way, it mirrored Wilson’s life. He’d lost all sense of time, along with his sense of wellbeing. Ever since his last night with Cat when they’d parted on such angry terms, he’d just gone through the motions of living.
After resetting the clock and rewinding the movements, he shoved his hands through his hair in mute frustration, then headed for his bedroom. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but he didn’t want food. He didn’t want to do anything but crawl into bed and pray for a night without dreams. He needed to sleep without being haunted by memories of a woman who didn’t want him.
“Damn woman,” he muttered, as he sat down on the side of the bed to pull off his boots. “Damn…hardheaded…single-minded…ball-bustin’…female.”
He got up from the bed and began taking off his clothes, tossing them one by one onto a nearby chair until he was completely naked. After a quick trip to the bathroom, he pulled the covers back on his bed and crawled in. The familiarity of the mattress’s indentations fit his body perfectly as he let himself relax. He could still hear a faucet dripping as he closed his eyes.
It was the last thing he heard.
Cat was shaking. Wilson could feel her muscles trembling as he slid inside her body. The quick intake of her breath against his ear was a trigger point for his own excitement. When she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, he thought he’d died and gone to heaven.
God, but he loved this woman. Loved making love to her. Loved watching the way her left eyebrow arched when she was trying not to laugh. Loved the constant surprise of seeing that pink butterfly tattoo on her backside. Loved the way she smelled. Even loved to watch that muscle tic near her right eye when she was pissed.
Their bodies fit together like dancers in perfect unison as Wilson began to move, stroke after stroke, rocking back and forth, with only the contours of each other’s body visible in the dark.
The digital clock on the nightstand clicked over on the hour. It was one o’clock.
The next time Wilson looked, Cat was beginning to moan. He knew what it meant—knew that she was beginning to come undone. He could do no less than go with her. All the way up—right to the peak of—
Then she screamed.
Wilson sat up with a jerk. Despite the chill in his apartment, he was drenched with sweat.
“Jesus,” he muttered, and hit the floor with both feet.
The bathroom tiles were cold, as was the water he splashed on his face, but no matter how long he stood there and how much water went down the drain, it wouldn’t take away the memory of that scream. He didn’t believe in omens and premonitions, but he didn’t like the way that dream had ended.
Moments later, he headed for the kitchen, hoping that a cold beer would take away the bad taste of what had started out as a damned good dream and ended up a nightmare.
It was the last cold beer in the refrigerator. He popped the top on the can and took his first sip before moving into the living room. He stood at the windows overlooking the parking lot and the street beyond while his beer went warm and his feet got colder. Cat was out there—somewhere. He just wished to God she would call. All he wanted was to hear her voice. Even if she was telling him to go to hell for butting into her business, it would be enough. At least he would know she was alive.
Finally he took the nearly full can of beer back to the kitchen and poured it down the drain.
As he started back to his bedroom, he heard the old clock that he’d wound earlier beginning to strike the hour. He paused in the hallway, listening as it struck once, then twice, then the third time, before once again silence ruled.
Three o’clock in the morning.
He’d been in bed less than three hours, and as far as he was concerned, his rest was over. It was too damned early to get up, but he wasn’t about to take a chance on reliving that dream.
Instead, he crawled into bed, reached for the remote on his TV and aimed it at the screen. A few moments later, John Wayne’s face filled the screen. The irony was not lost on Wilson. John Wayne always saved the day. Tonight he was going to save Wilson’s sanity. He leaned back against the headboard and turned up the volume, willing to do whatever it took to get the sound of Cat’s scream out of his head.
* * *
It was eleven minutes after eight in the evening when Cat woke up. For a few moments she couldn’t remember where she was or why she was behind bars. Then the baby she was holding squirmed, and she remembered everything. She groaned beneath her breath as she eased up from the cot, careful not to wake the still sleeping baby.
“Buenos noches, Señorita Dupree. I trust your rest was a good one?”
Cat nodded, then glanced back at the baby on the cot, and took off her jacket, rolled it up and tucked it against the baby’s back as a buffer to keep her from rolling off, before moving out of the cell.
She glanced at her watch, then frowned before moving to the other side of Dominguez’s desk.
“The priest and Pilar’s family have not yet arrived?” she asked.
Dominguez shrugged. “No.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he eyed her long legs and slim hips. His gaze was slowly moving upward when Cat toed the desk with her boot.
“I’m up here,” she said shortly.
Dominguez smiled slyly.
“You are a beautiful woman. It does not hurt to look.”
Cat’s jaw tensed as she curled her fingers into fists. “It’ll hurt more than you think.”
Dominguez didn’t miss the warning.
“I meant no harm. As for the priest, you weren’t telling me he was coming just to keep the baby here, were you?”
Cat flinched, too tired to mince words and too pissed at the challenge to her veracity.
“I don’t lie,” she said shortly, then strode to the door and yanked it open.
It was dark—so dark—just as it had been last night when she’d found mother and child. Then she sighed. Had it really been less than twenty-four hours since she’d come upon the body? It seemed much longer.
Come on, Padre Francisco…where the hell are you?
It did occur to her as the thought came and went that mentioning hell and a Catholic priest in the same sentence wasn’t exactly proper. She stepped outside, grateful for the cool air on her face, then she stilled, tilted her head a bit to the left and listened. It didn’t take her long to realize she was hearing an engine. She stepped off the stoop and walked a couple of steps away from the building.
“Someone’s coming,” she called out.
Dominguez got up from his chair and followed her out. No sooner had he stopped beside her than they both saw an appearing headlight.
“It’s them,” Cat said.
“A headlight is missing,” Dominguez muttered.
“Is that against the law here?”
“I just—”
“Don’t give them grief over a headlight, okay? Not unless you’re going to help them fix it. They’ve got a whole lot more to deal with than a burned-out light.”
Dominguez frowned, but he kept his silence. He didn’t much like this American woman, but he supposed she would be the last one to care. Still, she was a good woman to do what she’d done.
Moments later, the silhouette of the car began to take shape. When it pulled to a stop in front of the open doorway where Cat and Dominguez were standing, the car backfired twice as the priest turned off the engine.
Cat moved forward.
Padre Francisco got out, groaning slightly from the stiffness of old joints as he stretched. Pilar’s mother and father emerged from the other side of the car.
“I was getting worried,” Cat said, as the priest moved toward her.
“We had a bit of car trouble, but the Lord provided…and here we are.”
“Padre, this is Officer Dominguez. He’s been taking care of Mari
a Elena.”
“Is she all right?” the priest asked.
“Yes. Come see.”
The priest said something to the older couple, who looked toward the officer.
Cat sighed. This was all so damned sad and awkward. She knew they were going to have to identify Pilar’s body, which was in a small back room, but she figured they should see the baby first.
She stepped forward, took the elderly woman by the hand and tugged gently. “Maria Elena,” she said.
The little woman’s face was crumpled with grief, yet when Cat spoke the baby’s name, there was a glint of hope in her eyes.
Cat led her into the building, then to the back cell where the baby lay asleep on the cot. She reached down, moved her jacket, then picked up the baby.
The little girl’s mouth pursed, then made slight sucking motions as she slept. Cat stifled a sob, kissed the dark, tangled curls, then turned and handed her to her grandmother.
The old woman took the baby like a starving man reaching for water, then lowered her head and began rocking and crooning to the baby in a soft, gentle tone.
Cat wouldn’t let herself think about how empty her arms felt or the sharp pain in her chest. This had nothing to do with her. She’d done a good deed, and it was time to move on.
“Gracias, gracias, muchas gracias, señorita.”
Cat’s vision blurred. She started to reach out—to touch for one last time those dark, baby curls—then she stopped. No need prolonging the inevitable.
“Take good care of her,” Cat said, and strode out of the cell, pausing at the desk where the others had gathered.
“I’ll be leaving now,” she said.
Padre Francisco laid a hand on her arm.
“I will pray for you,” he said.
It was the last thing she’d expected to hear.
“It will be wasted prayer,” she said shortly. “God quit on me a long time ago.”
The priest sighed. His voice was soft, but he did not mince words.
“God doesn’t quit on people. People quit on God.”
Cat shivered slightly at the portent in the words, then walked out of the little building without looking back. She poured the last of her fuel from the extra cans she carried into the tank, then got in her car. She picked up her laptop and plugged it into the charger, then booted up her program. The blip that she’d been trailing was in Chihuahua, Mexico, and it was motionless.
“I’m coming,” she said. “Whoever you are.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cat drove through the entire night with a lighter heart than when she’d started this trip. It was strange how fate put people together. She’d been alone in the world, and then she’d met Marsha. They’d bonded so fast, it was as if they’d known each other forever. Just having Marsha in her life had made everything bearable. They’d thumbed their noses at people who sat in judgment of them and managed not to fall into the dark side of life on the streets.
Even now, living with the pain of knowing she would never see Marsha again, she’d learned a big lesson. It was better to have special people in your life, if only for a short time, than to never have had them at all.
For Pilar’s family, having baby Maria Elena back with them would go a long way toward healing their pain. And if she hadn’t been looking for a ghost, she would never have found Pilar and her baby. She didn’t want to think that a higher power might have kept Solomon Tutuola alive so that she would have to come back for him again, but she wondered what the odds were of accidentally being in the right place at the right time to find a baby just before the wild animals could get to her?
She didn’t know whether to call it fate or the hand of God or just coincidence, but she had to say, she wasn’t sorry. Whoever it was with Mark Presley’s belongings, they’d done Pilar Mendoza a great big favor.
Sunrise finally came, along with a sign indicating that she was ten kilometers from some place called Agua Caliente. She was already exhausted by this search, but not quite ready to admit her obsessive need to confirm Tutuola’s death might be ruining her life. Nobody could say this trip hadn’t already been worthwhile, but Cat wasn’t the kind of woman to quit on anything, including herself.
However, her boss, Art, had quit. Calling, that was. She didn’t know whether he was pissed or just figured she was dead, in which case there was every likelihood that she would go home to no job—if she got home at all. She’d meant to return his calls. She’d promised she would let him know she was okay. But she hadn’t counted on getting caught up in a shoot-out on the interstate, or finding a dead body and a lost baby in the Mexican desert.
She reached for her water bottle, downed the last few drops, then tossed it on the back floorboard, along with the rest of her accumulating trash. When she got to this Agua Caliente, she was going to have to find a place to rest—at least for a while.
Even Wonder Woman ate and slept.
A short while later, she drove into the small, dusty town and, as soon as she did, she began revising her earlier plans. Not only were there no obvious public businesses, she was just praying there was someone here who sold gas.
She braked for a little boy and a dog who ran across the street in front of her, then sat for a moment, letting the heat of the morning sun coming through the windshield warm her body. She shuddered, wishing it could also warm away the permanent chill inside her heart. She was sick and tired of being angry, of distrusting the world in general, even though life hadn’t given her much incentive to change.
Then she thought of Wilson. He hadn’t given her any reason to distrust him. He’d come through for her time and time again, even when she hadn’t asked. Yet she kept pushing him away. What the hell was that all about? If Marsha was still alive, she would be all over her for driving away the only good man she’d come across in years.
Suddenly there was a knock on her window. She jerked, then turned to see a man standing by her car, and rolled down the window.
“Habla inglés?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Un poquito, señorita.”
A little was better than nothing at all. Cat tossed out a question.
“Does anyone here sell gas?”
He frowned. “Como?”
Cat pointed to the fuel gauge.
“Gasoline…fuel.”
He leaned closer to see where she was pointing. “Ah. Sí! Sí! You come. I show.”
He crossed in front of her, then motioned for her to follow, which she did, driving through one winding narrow alley after another until he finally came to a stop in front of a small adobe house with a wide-roofed overhang that ran the length of the building. A spindly post at each end of the makeshift porch provided the roof’s sole support. Cat resisted the urge to give one a shake as she passed and followed her guide inside the open doorway.
She jumped as a cat hissed at her feet, then darted past her. Once inside, she had to stand for a few moments to let her eyesight adjust to the lack of artificial light. The little man who’d guided her here was watching her.
She reached in her jacket pocket, pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to him.
“Gracias,” she told her guide.
Beaming with surprise, he stuffed the money in his hat, then put the hat back on his head.
“De nada,” he whispered softly, and slipped away.
She stood for a moment, absorbing the odors and ambiance of what was obviously a small store.
Long strands of red chiles hung from the rafters, while a couple of open crates of onions sat on the floor near a counter. The north wall of the building was stacked eye-high with cartons of Mexican beer, while the opposite wall was the brace for several oversized sacks of dry beans. The shelves behind the counter in front of her held a colorful assortment of cans, the contents of which she could only guess from the pictures on the labels, since her grasp of the language was sparse. She did, however, recognize cartons of bottled water and moved toward them.
The man behind the counter was s
taring at her. She took no offense. It was probably rare that a stranger ever made it this far, especially a lone woman.
“Habla inglés?” she asked.
He shook his head.
She sighed, but before she fell back on makeshift sign language, a small, stocky woman holding a bag of groceries stepped into Cat’s line of vision and spoke up.
“I speak the English,” she said.
Cat smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “Could you please tell the man I need to buy water for me and gas for my car?”
The little woman nodded, then rattled off a quick sentence to the man behind the counter. He waved in understanding and disappeared into a back room, returning quickly carrying a large five-gallon can and a funnel.
Cat pointed outside.
He sped past her, anxious to make the sale.
Cat glanced around the room, looking for something she could buy that she could eat on the road, but the racks of candy bars and chips that were always available in quick stops in the States were visibly absent.
Once again she turned to the little woman.
“Excuse me, miss.”
“Paloma. My name is Paloma,” the woman said.
Cat nodded. “Pretty name,” she said.
“It means ‘dove’ in your language.”
“They call me Cat.”
Paloma’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “El gato.”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Cat said. “Look…I’ve got quite a way to go. What can I buy that I can eat without having to cook it first?”
Paloma frowned. There was nothing in this store like that.
“I am sorry, señorita, but this is a small place. We do not have the hurry foods of which you speak.”
Cat stifled a smile, knowing that Paloma meant to say fast foods. It was a charming mistake.
“So, how far to the next town?” Cat asked.
Paloma frowned. “A long, long way, and nothing as large as Agua Caliente.”
Cat gave herself a mental kick in the butt for not preparing herself better. As usual, she’d gone off half-cocked and was paying for it now. At least she was going to have fuel and water. She would have to go hungry for the time being, but it wouldn’t be the first time.
