“Okay, sure. Let’s open it.”
I pointed to the crowbar at her feet and she kicked it over to me. It felt good between my hands, made me feel as though I was in control again. My body was exhausted and my head felt wired but just the sensation of the steel between my fingers revived me. I swung the bar at the crate and the door splintered off its hinges.
Norma staggered backward to escape the rain of splinters and let out a girlish scream as I smashed the door one last time. It fell to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust as it landed.
At last, Norma could see inside but her look of curiosity was only deepening.
“What in the name of fuck is that?”
I stood by her side and regarded the beautiful display of machinery. I’d designed it myself and to date, it was the most perfect piece of technology I’d created. It was almost a child to me, more than a child perhaps. The original designs for it were drawn in my bedroom when I was fifteen and I’d refined them over the years, spending nights at college scrawling them in the back of textbooks when my friends were partying.
“What do you think it is?” I asked Norma.
She was sucking on her cigarette and frowning deeply until her eyes were nothing but shriveled up slits of blackness.
“Looks like a sun bed,” she said at last. “But like the freakin’ weirdest sun bed I’ve ever seen.”
I gave her a sideways glance. It certainly didn’t look like a goddamn sunbed.
“What do you think it does?”
Her frown hardened even further until I couldn’t see her eyes at all.
“Ain’t got a clue,” she said.
The ash at the end of her cigarette began to droop like a flaccid penis.
“Do you really wanna know?”
She nodded and the ash fell to the floor.
“Tell me.”
I stepped into the box and pulled the packaging down as though I was undressing a goddess. At last, every curve could be seen with each inch of metal catching the light. It was magnificent, beautiful beyond beautiful. Almost as desirable as Etta.
“It makes people,” I said.
“Makes people?”
“From other people.”
“What?”
She dropped her cigarette butt to the ground and stepped on it. I wanted to slap her. No one treated my lab like that but she was Etta’s mother. She had created the most gorgeous creature on Earth and so I smiled and knelt down beside it.
“See this?”
I picked it up and closely regarded the pink lipstick stain around the tip.
“This.”
I pointed the butt toward the box.
“This is all I would need to make a brand new Norma.”
Her mouth opened slightly and she gasped.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there’s enough DNA on this to make a whole new you. You like the sound of that?”
She rubbed at her face as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about cloning, Norma. I can clone any human being I want.”
Chapter Five
ETTA
It was still early but the sun was beginning to dip behind the mountains casting an amber glow across the desert.
I stepped on the gas and gripped the steering wheel tighter but the car wouldn’t speed up. If anything, it was slowing down. The piece of shit had barely got me a mile from the tree where I left Lolita’s body and it was failing me already.
“Piece of shit!” I screamed and smacked the dashboard.
The engine rumbled and shuddered as smoke drifted up from under the hood. It caught the back of my throat and burned my eyes.
“Fuck…”
With one last shudder, the engine died and fell silent. I was still once again. There wasn’t a sound in the air apart from the hiss of the overheated engine. Even the vultures were quiet, not doubt gorging themselves on the body I left them.
I ripped the keys from the ignition and threw them in frustration out the window. They bounced along the dirt before coming to a halt at a rock.
Now what? Now I was stranded again. Now the heat would kill me out here before that bastard old man did.
I watched as the sun crouched even further behind the line of mountains until it was nothing more than a sliver of orange. Looking in the rearview mirror, I wondered how far it was back to the farm or just where exactly San Lucrezia was.
I couldn’t even guess where I was anymore and it was falling dark fast. My eyes were itching and burning from the heat and the sand and my lips were cracked and bleeding. I needed to be back home where it was safe and cool. Closing my eyes, I leant back against the headrest and imagined sinking my aching body into the pool.
Mom would be on the lounger sipping a cocktail and Lincoln would ne tinkering with something indoors, just out of sight but always nearby. Even Berger was there, singing along to the radio in his terrible Spanish before telling us for the hundredth time about how perfect and beautiful his girlfriend was back home.
He said her name was Miranda and the name fell from his lips like a kiss as his eyes glossed over. I’d never seen anyone so in love, apart from Lincoln when he lay on top of me and looked into my eyes.
I longed to see that look now, was desperate to know that somehow I could survive all this and see it again. Whatever he had done, I could forgive him. Nothing mattered anymore. Life wasn’t perfect and neither were we. I could live with that.
Although all the water had been sucked from my body, a single tear managed to escape and run down into my mouth. I licked it, eager to feel just the smallest hint of moisture. Then it was gone and my tongue was dry and swollen, my lips bleeding more than ever.
I opened my eyes and saw the last of the sun dissolve into the horizon, its color dropping along with the temperature. Where I was sweating only moments ago was now covered in gooseflesh.
I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself before sliding into the back seat and pushing myself up against the leather upholstery, pretending the hardness was the touch of someone else.
Burying my face in my hands, I imagined the back of the seat was Lincoln’s body and we were side by side like any other night. In the morning, I would wake up and he’d be there to kiss me and tell me he loved me. In the morning, everything would be okay.
Chapter Six
LINCOLN
"Etta!"
Norma was running around the edge of the pool with a flashlight in her hand.
"She's not here!" I called over to her. "I've checked every room in the house."
"Are you sure?"
"I've checked them all twice!"
Over the last half an hour, when the sun set and the temperature fell, we knew for certain that something was wrong. She'd been gone for hours now without a single item on her, no phone, money, keys, water...
That was the thing that worried me the most. It had been the most scorching day since we arrived. I wouldn't let a dog walk the streets thirsty in this weather let alone her.
My only hope was that she'd struck up a friendship somewhere and was safe and indoors. The house and the surrounding gardens may have been a paradise but the town of San Lucrezia was dangerous at night. I'd heard the gun shots and felt the distant rumbling of cars speeding through the night. I’d heard the rumors.
Now, standing in the darkness at the edge of the house with the pool shimmering beneath the moonlight, it finally hit me. She wasn't here and that seemed so horribly wrong that my chest felt as though it was being held in a vice grip.
A lump formed in my throat and I tried to swallow it down but it wouldn't budge.
"Have you checked the attic?" shouted Norma.
"I've checked everywhere!"
She circled the pool once more than stood beside me, shining her flashlight into the bushes as though somehow, Etta would be standing amongst them.
"What's going on?" she asked. "I can't lose
her... Not after.. I just... can't."
She burst into tears and held her head in her hands. I wrapped an arm around her and stifled the urge to cry.
"We'll find her," I said. "I promise. She'll be nearby. Probably turn up soon and wonder what all the fuss was about.”
But that sounded so hollow and my words hung limply in the air, empty and useless.
"Where could she be?" sobbed Norma.
I rubbed her back and looked out toward the lights of San Lucrezia. I didn't know what could be worse for her, the town or the desert.
"I'll go look," I said.
"Where?"
I didn't know but for some reason, something was pulling me back toward the town, to the bar that had caused me so much trouble the night before.
"Stay here," I said.
"No way, I'm coming with you."
"Please, Norma. I won't be long."
She pursed her lips and nodded.
"You'll find her won't you?"
"I did that last time, didn't I?"
~
I stood outside the bar and listened to the music. It was annoying me already, reminding me of last night. How could so much have changed in so little time? How could things go so wrong?
For a second, I stood at the front door and peered in. Unlike last night, the bar was crowded with people. The smell of sex, sweat and liquor was thick in the air.
As I walked in, I was aware of a flurry of whispers. People were looking, I could feel each of their stares on me but I didn't care. I was used to being conspicuous. There were even times when I enjoyed it.
"Bosworth..." I heard someone say behind my back.
I kept walking, my eyes on the bar straight ahead.
"Billionaire American," someone hissed.
As I approached the bar, I waited to see those rosebud lips again and see that devil tattoo. My stomach was flipping with the thought of seeing her again. She had the ring, and I wasn't leaving without it.
But as I pressed myself up against the bar, pushing disgruntled customers out the way as I leaned right over, I soon realized that Lolita wasn't there. But her cousin was.
He recognized me right away and gave me a pretend salute.
"Yo, homie. You were here last night. You left with Lol."
He was laughing as though this was something he'd said plenty of times before.
"Yeah, she's not here?"
He shrugged and raised his palms up toward the ceiling.
"You came back for her?" he asked.
"Actually I came back to look for my girlfriend."
He shook his head and began cleaning a nearby glass.
"Some guys, eh?"
He slid a beer across the counter toward me and shouted over to an older guy at the end of the bar.
"Yo, Marcus! I'm taking a smoke break."
The older guy grumbled something back in Spanish and the boy rolled his eyes.
Outside, he offered me a cigarette and I took it, rolling it in my fingers for a long while as I listened to him take in a deep breath of smoke.
"So you're looking for your girlfriend. There are no women in this bar, not ones you're looking for anyway."
"Maybe someone's seen her around. This place is the center of the town, right? Everyone knows everyone."
He smiled and leaned back against the wall. Behind him, some of the plaster crumbled and fell over the back of his black shirt.
"Yeah everyone knows everyone and everyone knows you went home with Lol."
"That bitch is trouble," I said and he laughed.
"Yup!"
He breathed smoke out through his nostrils and looked up at the stars.
"So your girlfriend left you?"
"I don't think so," I said.
"But here you are, looking for her."
"It's complicated."
"Aren't all relationships?"
He handed me a lighter and I pressed the flint into the palm of my hand, eager to feel some sort of pain to distract myself from my racing thoughts.
"Look, I'll cut to the chase," I said. "Something's not right. She's gone and I think something's happened."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Like what?"
"Like... I don't know."
"Like someone kidnapped her?" he asked.
There was a strange quality to his voice, like he'd been waiting to say those words and they were finally tumbling out to his relief.
"Why would you say that?"
"Oh, I dunno."
The color in his cheeks deepened.
“Why did you say that? Tell me.”
He rubbed at the bridge of his nose and kicked the ground.
“Just happens round here a lot. That’s all.”
“But why her?”
His gaze remained on the ground but his eyes were glazed over as though he was remembering something. He looked haunted, his eyes darkening the longer he stared.
“Because you have money,” he said at last.
His words jolted through me.
“Someone kidnapped her for money?”
“I didn’t say that!”
I grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him up against the wall.
“Bastard! You know what’s happened to her!”
“I don’t know a thing. I swear!”
His legs were dangling, his youthful, bony body feeling so light and fragile beneath my hands. I was so angry I could have crushed him to dust but I needed him. He knew things.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not!”
“But you think she was taken for money.”
He closed his eyes and began to cry childish tears that fell from his chubby cheeks in great blobs.
“Okay, okay. Put me down. I don’t know much but I’ll tell you what I do know.”
I released my grip and he stumbled as his feet landed on the floor.
“You’ve got one minute,” I said.
He rubbed his eyes and looked up at me. Last night he was just another young lover in search of romance. Now, I could see just how young he was.
“There are bad people in this town Mr. Bosworth and when you showed up… Well, that was like a dream to some people.”
"What people?"
His eyes widened.
"What people!"
He gulped and ran a hand through his greasy hair.
"The people who run this town but..."
I was losing what little patience I had left and pressed him back up against the wall. His shoulder was so frail beneath my hand, like he was made of birds' bones.
"There are people in this town, Mr. Bosworth and they're dangerous. You don't want to get involved with them. You don't!"
"But I am involved with them. They have Etta."
He began to shake. I could feel his sweat sinking through his shirt. I took a step back and let him breathe. He was just a child.
"I need to know everything," I said. "Now.Right now."
He poked his head through the door and signaled oved to the old man at the bar. They yelled at each other for a moment, the old man obviously angry at the boy.
"Come with me," he said. "But hurry. I don't have long."
~
We walked down the main street, the sounds of partying ricocheting off the ancient buildings. If it was any other night, it would have been perfect. Just to wander the streets in the warm air being serenaded by the sounds of laughter and love and music. But it was no perfect night.
Once again, I felt as though my nerves were being shredded. For the third time, I was certain I was never going to see her again. But at the same time, I was energized by the need to find her. It was as though everytime we were pulled apart, it was my destiny to return her to safety. The powers that be were testing us somehow. If only they would stop.
"Okay, just up here," said the boy.
He led me up an alleyway where the dim light faded completely until there was nothing to guide us but the sound of our own footsteps. They echoed off the tiles
until they gave way and I was suddenly aware I was walking on earth.
At the end of the alley, something caught my eye; a flickering light, a beacon of safety. As we approached, I saw it was a solitary candle stuffed into a wine bottle on a doorstep. Now I could see we were outside a house, a small house that was little more than a hut with a corrugated iron roof. The door had no hinges. It was barely even a door at all.
Still, there was something endearing about it. As I looked in the window, I could see a table littered with coffee cups and cigarette ends. More candles and no electricity. There was the smell of something sweet in the air and the feeling that to this boy, this was home.
He knocked on the door once then pushed it open as he waved me inside.
"Pap!"
There was a grunt from somewhere inside.
"Pap!"
Another grunt, this time angrier.
Once inside, I realized the house was smaller than it looked and with three of us inside, it was cramped. An old man lay sideways across an armchair. Beside him was a mattress with a thin, red sheet and girly magazines piled at the end. It must have been the boy's bed.
"Pap. I brought someone to see you."
The old man opened one eye, saw the two of us standing in front of him and woke up in an instant. He pulled himself up straight and smoothed his hand down the front of his shirt.
"Lincoln Bosworth!"
Jesus, did everyone know who I was?
"What have I done to deserve such an honor?"
He grabbed my hand and shook it violently. I could feel callouses on the insides of his fingers. His face was heavily lined and deeply bronzed but there was still a hint of youth in his eyes.
"Pap, this man is in trouble," said the boy.
"Ah, nonsense, Carlos. Men like this don't get in trouble."
"No, listen. Please..."
He stared up at his dad with pleading eyes.
I could sense the old man wanted to burst into a tirade of Spanish but kept up his English for my benefit.
"Pap, his girl is missing."
The old man froze, his hand still clamped around mine.
"Missing?"
"Missing," said Carlos. "He thinks something has happened."
Jewels And Panties: (Book 1-15) Billionaire Romance Series Page 58
