“Watch this, Warren.”
The physician frowned.
A skeptic, was he? Well, Zeke would show him. “Wake up, little one.” He jiggled Jake and tapped him on his feet. Damn kid. “Come on, now. I need you.”
Jake jerked awake, took one look at his grandfather’s face, and screamed.
“Jake, it’s Grandpa, you know me.”
The baby shrieked like a banshee, his voice echoing off the hard stone walls. Zeke’s head throbbed and pounded.
“There, there, Grandpa didn’t mean to startle you.” He stood with the infant on his hip and rocked back and forth on his feet the way he’d seen Miriam do it. What was wrong with the kid?
Warren cleared his throat. “Father, let me take the child, put him back to bed.”
“No, I have it under control. He’s going to cure this headache, this altitude sickness, whatever it is and he’s going to do it right now.”
The sobbing child arched his back and clawed at the air.
Zeke could not believe the lungs on the brat. “Calm down, kid. You’re fine. Knock it off.”
Warm liquid trickled down Zeke’s arm at the same time the unmistakable odor of feces filled his nostrils. The insolent brat had purposely pooped and peed on him. Pain stabbed his eyes, and his vision blurred. The child was just like Angie. He began to shake the brat. “Why you little—”
Warren snatched the child out of Zeke’s hands. “Father, please, calm down, you’re only making things worse. It’s the altitude sickness making you unbalanced. Let me give you a shot, please. You’ll sleep and feel better. I swear.”
What was wrong with the kid? He’d cure everyone except his grandfather? The little ingrate. Zeke rubbed his temples.
“The Chosen One may be suffering from altitude sickness, too,” the doctor suggested.
The Chosen One was a healer. He’d cured Rose. Miriam had told him he’d healed her broken leg on the plane. When he’d abducted the child, the idiot day care worker had told him the child had never been out sick, not even one day. Why would he be now? Was the altitude messing up the child’s abilities, too? Zeke needed the baby’s gift to maintain his powerbase.
“Give me the shot and call for Sister Rose.” The prick of the needle was nothing compared to the sting of the boy’s rejection.
Had Angie, the child’s Jezebel of a mother, planted the seed of the serpent’s tooth in Jake while in her belly? Zeke needed the child—but there were limits, after all, on how much a man of his importance would take. Limits.
Chapter Seven
Alejandro pulled Angie upwind from the grisly find, away from the irate vultures. Still screaming and sobbing, the woman trembled in his arms and repeated, “No, no, no.” He clutched her to his chest and tried to get through her hysteria with soothing words. “It’s okay, they can’t hurt you. See the vultures are leaving now, they’re afraid of you.” Truth be told, he was afraid of her, too. What the hell happened to her? One minute she was sassy, taunting him to go faster, making him crazy with desire and thinking about taking her to bed. The next minute she blew past him, straight to the shed and the flock of feeding buzzards. He found a spot of shade and set her down on a boulder.
He wished he had water to offer her. A horse trough sat by the shed, empty and coated with red dust. He spoke in a low voice, the one he used to interview skittish confidential informants. “Wanna talk?”
“Wh-what?” Tears still streamed down her stricken face. Sure, the gruesome scene had looked like something out of a Hitchcock movie, but her reaction was way out of proportion. Buzzards ate dead things. What was the big deal? She seemed to be looking over his shoulder, as if she was looking at someone behind him.
He placed his palms on her cheeks and forced her gaze to his. “I need you here with me. Tell me what’s going on.” If she didn’t snap out of it soon, she was off the mission. No way could he take an unstable person, male or female, out into that godforsaken wilderness. Lives depended on good planning and calm ops. “Angie, can you hear me?”
Her green eyes focused on his, and she took a deep shuddering breath. “Is th-that the body of the cult member?”
Startled, he dropped his hands. Isabel wasn’t stupid. She didn’t crap where she ate.
“No, the guys took his body far away from here and buried him, God only knows where.”
“Raul?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s a dead pig. Struck by lightning. Then the coyotes got to it. Looks like the ranch hands did a lousy job of disposing of its remains.”
“A pig? You’re sure?”
“Yeah, it happened last week. Tio and Pepe told me there were guts everywhere.” He stopped when he saw her face blanch. “A mess.”
“Not human?”
He put three fingers up in the air. “Scout’s honor.”
She shook her head, and her ponytail flicked at her cheeks. “You must think I’m an idiot.”
What could he say? That he was worried about her compromising their attempts to find the cult compound and save her son? He offered an olive branch, a fib. “Hey, if I had thought that was a person, I would have had the same reaction.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”
Perceptive, wasn’t she? He shrugged. “If it was someone I knew, I’d be upset, too.”
She cocked her head. “Upset, but not hysterical.” She sighed and covered her face. “Now you’re convinced I’m a hazard to the rescue mission. You’re going to go back to Isabel and get me locked down in Casa Ramirez.”
“What are you, a mind reader?”
Her voice came out muffled from behind her hands. “A litigator. I read people’s faces, body language, the little tells. You don’t want me at your poker game.”
Alejandro squatted down to eye level and touched her shoulder. She looked into his eyes, and his chest felt tight, as if someone had reached inside and squeezed his heart. Why did she have to be so beautiful and vulnerable? Pity and the desire to protect this driven woman pierced his macho armor. Didn’t he have his own agenda, his own need for justice and revenge? “I won’t pull you off the mission—if you’ll tell me something.”
Her brow furrowed. “What?”
He really needed to know if she’d flip out again. The only way to predict that was based on previous behavior. Today’s meltdown was not an auspicious indicator. “Isabel didn’t give me much information. She likes to keep things close to the vest. I need to know who you are, and what happened just now.”
Angie passed a shaking hand over her face and took a deep breath. The words tumbled out, as if they had needed someone to unplug the emotional stopper that held them back. “I’ll give you the short version. Born on a chicken farm to two died-in-the-wool religious fanatics. My father is a self-ordained minister on a mission from God. He thinks. I think he’s Satan in human form. Over the years, however, not only has he buffaloed my mother—poor woman—but also a couple of thousand followers.”
Angie’s shoulders stiffened, and she drew herself up a little taller with each sentence, her resilience and strength returning to her bit by bit.
“My mother was raised Amish. Believes women are the weaker vessel. She does whatever he tells her to do. I was home-schooled. And I was a real farm girl. Lots of physical labor. No brothers or sisters to share the work with me. Not much fun, I can tell you that. The chickens were my classmates. I was only allowed to play with the children of other cult members. Brain-washing one-oh-one. Isolate and brainwash. Repeat the same crap day after day until everyone chants in unison. Until—” She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “Oh. God. This is so hard.”
He took her small cold hand in his larger warm one. “Tell me. Please.”
“I was ten. My mother found a teenager, a runaway.” At first Angie’s tale about her good times with the lovely Janice cheered Alejandro. At least the poor child had had some glimmer of what the outside world was like, a role model of someone who wasn’t totally programmed by the cult. But when she
reached the part about Janice’s disappearance, Alejandro knew the ending of the story would be bad. Angie had been eleven, Esteban’s age, when she found her friend’s body. He stood, stretched his legs, and paced. “Did you go to the authorities?”
She shot him a look filled with disbelief. “You’re kidding, right? I’m positive my father killed Janice. If I ever tried to tell anyone, I knew I’d be next. Being the daughter of the cult leader didn’t protect me from his wrath. In fact, I was the focus of his public paddling sessions, to prove his family wasn’t exempt from the rules.”
He stopped and faced her. This woman had been beaten in front of the cult by her father to prove he was in charge. How had she made it out, become the incredible woman who sat in front of him today? “How’d you get away, become a lawyer?”
“Ha. All part of my father’s great and glorious plan to infiltrate the US government, get rid of non-believers, and rule the country. He failed to factor in a few things, like me having a real brain and graduating at the top of my class in law school—then getting a plum clerkship.” She gave him a wry smile and shook her finger at him. “I failed to factor in a few things we won’t go into right now.”
She was holding back. Something important. For some strange reason, he had a sense that it related to him. But how could that be? He’d only known the woman a week—barely. His logical brain wanted to push her, but his gut told him she’d only clam up if he did. “And the baby?”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she gave him a crooked smile. “Best thing that ever happened to me was getting pregnant with Jake. Worst thing that ever happened was I went home to the farm for a ‘quiet dinner’ late in my third trimester and wound up being held captive by my father and mother until I delivered the baby. I almost died.” She shivered and rubbed her arms. “I came to with my father and mother shouting Jake was the ‘Chosen One’ as prophesized by a book that never made it into the Bible, the Book of Enoch.”
That explained the dead cult follower’s obsession with the child—and its mother. “As in the Messiah?” He put quotes around the word in the air.
“You got it. I’m his mother. I’m assure you, Jake is just a normal, healthy little boy. He plays with his toys and friends and loves animals. When we used to go to the park, he had to pet every dog we saw. They ran to greet him.” She shook her head. “One man told me he planned to put his arthritic eight-year-old Labrador down. Couldn’t bear to see him in so much pain. He claimed that after Jake petted his dog, the Labrador was cured of his arthritis. Told everyone in the park my son had healed his dog. I had to stop taking Jake to the park. People were lining up to bring their sick dogs and cats to him.” She shook her head. “People want to believe. They crave miracles.”
She flicked a tear off her cheek.
“Unlike my father, I’m not delusional. He has some serious auditory hallucinations, along with some nasty seizures. Direct pipeline to God, he says. Untreated temporal lobe seizures, my medical friends say. Anyhow, crazy man decided I was Jezebel, undeserving of the honor of being Jake’s mother. His plan was to take my newborn away from me and prepare Jake to rule the world.” She paused and looked around as if seeing the tree and boulder for the first time.
Hands and teeth clenched, Alejandro struggled to keep his own suppressed emotions in check. Everything she said touched on his still raw nerves of grief and loss. Angie’s father had been driven by religious delusions. Isabel’s father had been driven by the need for power and control. Was there any difference between the cult leader and the cartel boss when it came down to what they did to the people around them? Alejandro decided the hypocrisy of the cult leader was worse than that of the cartel boss. At least the thug was upfront about his criminal intents and didn’t suck people in using God as his front man. Part of him wanted her to stop telling the story, to stop scraping at his raw wounds. But the logical side of his brain knew he had to press her for more. “And?”
“I escaped, left Jake on his married father’s doorstep—and got caught by one of my father’s corrupt cops. My father tied me up, beat and tortured me to try to get Jake’s whereabouts. I never broke. Still have the scars.”
She turned her arms over, exposing a myriad of criss-crossed paper-thin white lines. Razor cuts. How had he not noticed them before?
“Anyhow, my father did some exciting things, finally got arrested and jailed. I was hired by a great lawyer, had a good relationship with Jake’s father and his wife’s family, took up martial arts and rock-wall climbing. Life was good. And you know the rest of the story. Went to the daycare to pick Jake up. He was gone. My lunatic father and mother struck again. I want my happily ever after. I want my kid back. Or I’m gonna die trying. So, why should I trust you to help me get my kid back? What’s your story?”
****
Angie stared at the man in front of her and for a split second, Alejandro looked like a deer caught in headlights. A shadow passed over his face, and he reverted to the swaggering asshole he was when they began their run. What was he hiding?
He glanced up at the sky. “If we don’t get going, we’ll be caught in a deluge. Besides, we should get back before Isabel sends out a search party.”
Hmm. A double ‘Let’s get going’ message. He really didn’t want to tell her anything. She shivered as the clouds darkened the sky and the wind shifted, dragging the smell of the dead pig to her nostrils. “Yuck. You’re right. Time to go.”
His shoulders relaxed. Good. She’d cross-examine him on the way back. She picked her way across the rocky terrain, careful not to move too fast. “What brought you to Mexico?”
Alejandro averted his head, scanned the sky, and avoided her gaze. At last, he recited what sounded like a well rehearsed story about a dishonorable discharge from the Green Berets, multiple arrests for embezzlement, fraud and money-laundering. Plus being a poster child for Interpol.
Angie had heard much worse from her Baltimore clients. Why would Isabel trust this guy enough to bring him into her inner circle? What did the badass boss see in him, aside from his ridiculous good looks and other attributes. She shook off those dangerous memories of him in that tiny bathing suit. “How’d you meet Isabel?”
“Hanging around El Hombre Loco. I met Tio and Pepe and asked them if there might be any work for an accountant in the area.”
“An accountant? You really asked if they needed an accountant? Not a bookkeeper, embezzler, or money launderer?”
He laughed. “Well, maybe I mentioned I was good with shell corporations and cooking the books.”
That was more like it. “So just like that,” she snapped her fingers, “Isabel hired you and gave you the keys to the cartel kingdom.”
His fingers twitched and his face flushed. Ahh. Now she was getting somewhere. “Well? I told you my story.” Minus a few details. “I’m waiting. I need to know if I can trust you to help me save my son. Quid pro quo.”
They came to the top of a little ridge. Below them, Isabel’s sprawling home and turquoise pool beckoned. Just a few more minutes, that’s all she needed.
“Raul had similar questions. His interviewing technique, as you know, lacks finesse. He broke my eardrum in the process. He was about to kill me when Isabel stormed into that same room you were in. If it hadn’t been for her impeccable timing, I’m pretty certain I would have been one of those headless corpses in the desert.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. “Tio told me I ‘passed the test,’ that the federales had been trying to infiltrate her cartel for years.”
She stared at his face, looking for any inconsistencies between his verbal and body language. This part of the story was true. His emotions came to the surface when he talked about the rat-faced cop, Raul. She shuddered, recalling the creep’s vile breath and filthy hands.
“So now you’re part of the tribe.” And what a clan to be part of. A tight network of arms dealers, drug traffickers, and murderers bound by greed and gang loyalty.
He threw her a sharp look and a grim smile came t
o his lips. “You might say that. But, being a member of this family doesn’t mean you’re any more protected than you were in yours. I’m always watching my back, worried that my usefulness will expire when I least expect it.”
The truth, at last. The other bullshit had been window-dressing.
Alejandro turned toward the path back to the house, away from this private moment. She had to extract a pledge from him now. She couldn’t go back without it.
“Stop.” She grabbed his hard-muscled upper arm and his head whipped around. “If we’re going to be partners in this rescue, we have to be able to trust each other, despite our differences.”
He furrowed his brow, pondered the question for a moment. “Yeah.”
“Our goals have to be the same, or we won’t save Jake. Do you agree?”
The rising wind ruffled his thick, dark hair. She wanted to run her fingers through that hair, tousle it herself while straddling the huge python in his pants. Stop thinking about—sex. With him.
He nodded assent.
“I need you to promise me one thing.” He raised an eyebrow, and her heart fluttered. Nerves. That was all. Putting her on edge. Making her think crazy, lust-filled thoughts. She was about to ask for something totally out of bounds, something that she craved, but would never have requested under normal circumstances.
“What’s that?”
She took a deep breath. “After we rescue Jake, I want you to kill my father. Kill them all.”
****
Alejandro stared at the redheaded woman as if he’d never seen her before. Did she have a multiple personality disorder? One minute she’s sobbing over her dead friend, the next she’s asking the unthinkable. “What did you just say?”
She put her fists on her hips and lifted her chin. “You heard me. I want you to kill my father. Kill them all.”
“What makes you think I could kill someone?” Think man. Don’t let this spiral out of control. “I’m an accountant, remember?”
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