by Sharon Sala
“Oh well, I’ve been hungry before,” she muttered, more to herself than to Paloma.
Paloma eyed her curiously, wondering how this woman came to be traveling so far and alone.
“You come to my casa. I have the tortillas and beans.”
Cat was surprised by the unexpected courtesy. “That would be great,” she said, then added, “I would pay you.”
“Yes…okay,” Paloma said, then pointed to the door. “I wait for you.”
Cat nodded.
The owner of the store came hurrying back inside, grabbed another can of gas and headed back out the door.
Cat followed him out, took her extra fuel cans out of the SUV and set them down beside the car to be filled, as well.
The owner just kept grinning at her, obviously mentally counting the American dollars he was about to receive.
A short while later, her fuel situation had been rectified and she was twenty-four bottles of water to the good. Now all she needed was some fuel for her body. She paid, then came outside to find Paloma waiting patiently beside the car.
“Get in,” Cat said. “I’ll drive you to your house.”
Paloma hesitated only briefly, then got in Cat’s SUV, but not without a bit of effort. The SUV was a four-wheel drive, high off the ground and difficult for a short person to get in. Before Paloma managed to get seated, she’d tried pulling herself up, only to slip and grunt, which had turned her face red with embarrassment. Finally, she was forced into taking the offer of a hand up from Cat.
“Gracias,” Paloma said, then pointed to Cat’s long legs. “I think you do not have this problem.”
Cat grinned. “Where to?” she asked.
Paloma pointed. A couple of minutes later, they pulled up in front of a small adobe house. The little woman got out with no apologies for the way she lived and strode confidently inside, obviously expecting Cat to follow, which she did.
Cat watched Paloma set her small bag of purchases down on a table, then turn and motion toward a chair.
“You sit,” she said. “I fix your food.”
Cat sat, and within minutes found herself relaxing in the quiet of the simple home. The floor was adobe, just like the walls, and there was a window that had no glass, only some kind of plastic fastened over it. You couldn’t see out, but it let light in. The other window was over a small dry sink and was nothing but a hole in the wall that was covered by shutters.
She thought of all the foster houses she’d lived in, all the places she’d been, all the times she’d been hungry. None of them could add up to the poverty in which this small woman lived, yet Paloma seemed at peace with herself and her place in the world.
Cat watched Paloma build a small fire in the dirt hearth, then take cold tortillas from a covered bowl and lay them on a large stone beside the fire.
The smell of wood smoke and the quiet inside the small house were as effective as a sleeping pill. After a few minutes, Cat actually nodded off briefly. The third time it happened, she woke up just before she would have fallen out of the chair to find Paloma watching her.
“You need to rest,” she told Cat.
“I know. I’ll pull off to the side of the road after a while and get a couple hours of sleep.”
Paloma stood there for a moment, judging the wisdom of what she was about to suggest. For some reason, she trusted this woman with the husky voice and the long scar on her throat.
“You sleep here…if you want,” she said.
Cat stilled. The offer, and the woman, were unexpected. She glanced around the house, saw the small, narrow cot against the bedroom wall, and almost said no. She didn’t know this woman. Everything within Cat said not to trust her. But there was something so open about her expression—those dark brown eyes…so like the little baby she’d left behind her.
“I would pay,” Cat said.
Paloma smiled. “Americans…always thinking the money buys everything.”
Cat grinned back. “You mean it doesn’t?”
They laughed together, and then Paloma took two fresh tortillas from the warming stone, filled them with beans, rolled them up and laid them on a small plate.
“You eat. You sleep. After that, you can pay.”
Cat took the food, grateful for the hospitality, and ate quickly, washing down the last bites with a mug of coffee so black she was hesitant to taste it. To her surprise, it wasn’t bitter at all.
“Good,” she said, as she sat down the empty plate and cup.
“You sleep now,” Paloma said.
“I am grateful,” Cat said, as she began pulling off her jacket. She slipped her handgun out of the shoulder holster and was about to lay it under her pillow, when Paloma pointed to her throat.
“How did this happen?” she asked.
Cat hesitated, then ran her fingertips lightly along the crooked ridge of flesh.
“A devil did it,” she finally said.
Paloma frowned. “Truly a devil?”
Cat shrugged. “Not one with a pitchfork and horns, but a devil just the same.”
“Did your devil come to justice?” Paloma asked.
Cat hesitated, then asked herself, what did it matter? This woman would never be a part of her world. Whatever Cat told her would go no further than these walls.
“Not yet,” Cat said, knowing “maybe” wasn’t going to make any sense to Paloma.
Curious about a woman this unusual, Paloma asked, “So…he got away?”
“Not for much longer,” Cat said.
Paloma’s eyes widened. She folded her hands across her belly, accentuating the roundness of the flesh beneath her clothes, and eyed Cat cautiously. She’d already had one dangerous person in her home this month. She didn’t want to unwittingly house another.
“You are the law?”
Cat frowned. “Not exactly.” Then she turned and met Paloma’s gaze head-on. “Look. If I make you nervous, just say the word and I’m gone.”
Paloma thought about it for a moment, then shook her head.
“It is maybe okay. I think you are not like Solomon.”
Cat froze. She heard the name, and for a moment couldn’t find the good sense to speak. When she did, she didn’t even recognize the sound of her own voice.
“You said Solomon. Who is Solomon?” she asked.
Paloma shrugged. “A man I know.”
Cat heard her, and still told herself it wasn’t possible that it would be the same man.
“This Solomon…what did he look like?”
Paloma frowned. “Why do you ask?”
“The man…the devil who did this to me is named Solomon.”
Paloma gasped, then made the sign of the cross before pointing to the scar on Cat’s neck.
“He did this to you?”
“Yes.”
Paloma’s eyes widened in horror. “This man you seek…did he have strange markings on his body?”
Cat’s legs went weak. She feared she was about to get an answer to a question that had been plaguing her, and it wasn’t going to be what she wanted to hear.
“Tattoos…yes…all over his face and arms.”
“His name is Tutuola?”
“Jesus Christ,” Cat muttered, and dropped onto the cot, because her legs would no longer hold her. The tortillas and beans she’d just eaten were threatening to come up. She felt hot and cold all at the same time. “You know him?”
“Sí, Sí.”
Paloma pointed to the cot Cat was sitting on.
“He slept there.”
Cat vaulted to her feet, unconsciously brushing at the seat of her jeans as if she’d sat in something foul.
Cat grabbed Paloma by the shoulders, unaware that her fingers were digging too deeply into her soft flesh.
“When did he sleep here?”
“Many years ago. He said he would take care of me, but he left,” Paloma said, and shrugged out of Cat’s grasp, then moved out of her reach. “Then he come back a few days ago like nothing ever happened, wan
ting things from me I no longer choose to give.”
Cat shoved a shaky hand through her hair and began pacing in a small circle, muttering to herself as she moved.
“He’s not dead…oh, God…he’s not dead. Why am I so shocked? I should have known…you can’t kill the devil. No one can kill the devil…not even God.”
Paloma crossed herself again. This woman was speaking blasphemy. She wanted her gone.
“You should not speak of such things,” she said softly.
Cat stopped pacing and stared at Paloma, wondering what miserable sense of humor God had that would put her in the same room with a woman Solomon Tutuola knew personally.
She grabbed her gun and stuck it back in her shoulder holster, then put on her jacket before digging in her pocket. She pulled out a handful of bills and handed them to Paloma.
“I have to…I can’t stay…uh…thank you for the food.”
She strode toward the doorway, then paused and turned back.
“About Tutuola…”
“What about him?” Paloma asked.
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No. I put a curse on him. He was trying to outrun it when he left.”
Cat stood in the doorway, staring back at the small woman with the dark brown eyes, realizing that size had nothing to do with guts.
“Good for you,” Cat said softly, and then walked out the door, closing it quietly behind her.
Paloma stood in the silence of her tiny home, waiting for the sound of the American woman’s vehicle to disappear. Only after she could hear nothing but the squawking of her neighbor’s chickens did she begin to relax. However, she’d had her fill of visitors, and for one of the few times in her life, she locked and barred her door, glad to be rid of them all.
* * *
Cat was almost a mile away from Agua Caliente when she suddenly jammed her foot on the brake, slammed the car into Park and staggered out just before she threw up. She retched until her belly hurt and there was nothing coming up but bile. Then she moved to the back of her car, got out a bottle of water, and rinsed her mouth over and over before she dared swallow a sip.
Her belly lurched a bit when the water hit bottom, but it stayed down. She poured the rest on her face and hands, and then squatted down beside the door.
Her head was still pounding, as was her heart. Every breath she took was an ache that went all the way to her toes. She couldn’t make sense of what was happening. She’d gotten the answer she needed regarding the mystery blip she’d been following, so she had to put a different mind-set to what she did next now that she knew what she was facing. The only thing she knew so far was that she wouldn’t leave Mexico until she watched that man die, and she felt no guilt for the thought.
He’d stolen her father’s life and left her for dead. It was payback time.
It was instinct that made her take her cell phone out of her pocket and turn it on. Almost immediately, it began beeping, signaling messages she had yet to hear. She flipped through the list, recognizing that every one of them was from Art, and realized she felt somewhat disappointed that none of them were from Wilson.
She would call Art, of course. And there was no time like the present. She’d also better check her answering machine at home. She’d left in such a hurry that there was no telling what she’d forgotten to tend to.
She glanced at her watch, trying to figure out what time it would be back in Dallas, then shrugged off the thought. It didn’t matter. She still felt the need to check in—to let someone else know that, at least for the time being, she was still alive.
She dialed Art’s number, counted the rings and then, to her dismay, got the answering machine. She’d wanted a voice—a connection with someone she knew—to remind her that there was a part of her world that was still there, but it wasn’t to be.
When the message ended, she waited for the ding, then began to talk.
“Art, it’s me, Cat. Sorry I haven’t checked in before now, but you know me…always in the middle of some thing unexpected. I’ll have to tell you all about it when I get back. At least, I will if I get back. Got a bit of bad news this morning. Solomon Tutuola is still alive after all. I talked to a woman who not only knew him, but had seen him just a few days ago.” She laughed, unaware of how bitter she sounded. “Isn’t that a pile of crap? The good ones die, and the bad ones just keep on going. Anyway, just wanted you to know I’m okay. I’ll see you when I see you.”
She disconnected, then grabbed a piece of paper from inside the SUV before dialing her own number. She rolled her head from side to side, wincing when her neck suddenly popped. Then the messages began to play back, and she forgot her exhaustion.
The first one was from her dentist. She’d missed her appointment, and from the sound of Debbie the receptionist’s voice, was on the dentist’s shit list for not calling in to cancel ahead of time.
“Well, Debbie, you’ll just have to get in line,” she muttered, and waited for the next message to play.
There were two hang-ups, then a message from her landlord. She rolled her eyes. Damn, she’d missed paying her rent. Well, hell, she’d never been late before, and he knew she was good for it. He would just have to get in line behind Debbie if he wanted a piece of her ass.
Her mind was already wandering when another message began to play. The sound of Wilson McKay’s voice in her ear washed over her and aroused an unexpected wave of longing. She closed her eyes and unconsciously pressed her cell phone hard against her ear, as if it would bring him closer. It didn’t take long to realize he was pissed.
When he mentioned he’d seen her shoot-out on the interstate on the news, she could tell by the tone of his voice that he was furious. Tears began burning at the back of her throat, but she swallowed harshly. No need to cry. She already knew he was done with her. She couldn’t imagine why he’d even bothered to call.
Then she heard him take a deep breath before the tone of his voice got rougher.
“…don’t know why I care. I wish to hell I didn’t. And just for the record, woman, if it hadn’t been for that piece of film on tonight’s news, I wouldn’t have the slightest notion of where in hell to look for your bones.”
She heard him saying something else, but she’d already lost her focus. When the line suddenly went dead, the disconnect was unmistakable.
There were a couple of other messages, but she hardly heard them. She closed her flip phone, then put it back in her jacket as if nothing had happened. She looked up at the sky. It was gray. A sign that the weather might change, which wasn’t good. Even though she was a long way south of Dallas, it was still winter.
Her head began to hurt. She took a deep breath. There was grit in her mouth, and grit in her hair. She needed a bath and a change of clothes, and she needed to sleep for a week.
She strode to the back of her car, got a fresh bottle of water, then closed the hatch and slid back behind the wheel. The silence inside the cab was overwhelming. She reached for the key, intending to turn on the engine, just to hear something besides the thud of her own heavy heart. Instead, she laid her head down on the steering wheel and choked on her next breath.
She swallowed a sob that had come out of nowhere, then wrapped her arms around the steering wheel and let go of the pain.
She cried for outliving her mother and father, for Marsha leaving her behind to face life all alone. She cried for all the years she’d given her passion to hate and revenge, and she cried for herself, knowing that she’d killed whatever it was that Wilson had ever felt for her.
She cried until her chest hurt and her eyes were so swollen that her vision was blurred. Her hands were shaking as she wiped them across her face. Then she felt beneath the collar of her turtleneck sweater to the cat charm on the thin silver chain.
Besides her memories, it was all she had left from her life before Solomon Tutuola had entered their house. She fingered it slowly, then let it drop. She felt the warmth of it against her skin as she leaned back
and reached for the laptop. A few moments later, it was up and running. She stared at the map for a long, long time.
So now she knew who was behind the blip, and she knew where he was. She’d never been to Chihuahua, Mexico. As the old saying went, there was no time like the present.
She leaned forward, then reached for the key in the ignition.
CHAPTER NINE
Brothers Houston and Jimmy Franks had finally bonded out of jail, no thanks to Wilson McKay, and now Jimmy had transferred all his anger at the system to Wilson, refusing to consider that they’d gotten themselves into their own messes. They’d spent the last four hours staking out Wilson’s office, but he’d never showed. It wasn’t until Wilson’s secretary left the office with an armful of papers that they decided they’d gotten their break.
They followed LaQueen all the way downtown, watched her go in and out of the county courthouse, stop off at the cleaners, then head back uptown, ostensibly to the bond office. It wasn’t until they saw her pull over to the curb in front of a café that they realized she was meeting with McKay. They watched as Wilson got out of his car and went to meet her.
“There he is,” Houston said, and hunkered down in the car so McKay wouldn’t spot him.
Jimmy was reaching for the coffee cup sitting on the dash when Houston spoke. He looked away just long enough to knock the coffee over, then caught hell from Houston because the liquid rolled into the defroster vents by the window.
“Damn it, Jimmy! Watch what you’re doin’,” Houston yelled.
Jimmy began mopping at the spill with a T-shirt he grabbed from the floorboard.
“It was an accident,” Jimmy snapped. “And if we’re supposed to be watchin’ McKay unobserved, then you might want to shut the fuck up. They can hear you all the way across the street.”
Houston glared, then looked back. McKay was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did he go?” Houston muttered.
Jimmy took a last swipe at the dash, then shrugged, unable to do a thing about the liquid that had dripped into the vents. He tossed the T-shirt in the back, then rubbed his hands on his pant legs as he looked up. He stared around for a few moments, then pointed.
