She’d been on the MUV, trying to get to the cabin to get out of the rain. The tires had skidded and the vehicle had gone into a one-eighty. The next thing she knew, she was reliving her near-death hallucination, complete with strange apparitions, only weirder. The tunnel was the same, but the “angel” was a pillar of flames with a booming, ear-pounding voice.
Unlike the first angel, who was mute, this one had talked up a storm, literally. Yet she had no recollection of what he said. The next thing she knew, she was awake, bursting with energy, euphoric, and horny as a cat in heat. After a night of passion that would make a sex addict run for rehab, she had passed out from exhaustion. Now here she was, naked, reeking of sex, in bed with a drug lord.
She eyed Alejandro as he slept. Not again. The last time she’d hooked up with a drug dealer, he’d shown her the joys of coke. Yeah, that had been a great decision, right? What she needed to do was get the hell away from this man. Fast.
Unsafe at any speed, this guy revved her engines in all the old ways. If he hadn’t been key to getting her son back, she’d be out that door and running away screaming right now. A tendril of black hair curled over his eyes, making him look childlike. How could a cartel thug look so innocent, not to mention desirable? A thin wool blanket covered him from the waist down, exposing a sprinkling of chest hair, cut pecs, hard abs, and that intriguing scar. She wanted him again. Bad. She flopped her head back on the pillow and whispered, “I am so screwed.”
Alejandro rumbled beside her. “Any time, babe. Any time.”
The hand hewn ceiling beams bore the marks of years of cooking fires and wood smoke. If she squinted, she could make out animal shapes in the swirls. She sighed. “Was it good for you, too?”
He popped up next to her and stared down at her, bewilderment on his face. “Good? No, it wasn’t ‘good,’ it was supernatural. You were the goddess of love, and I was your supreme worshipper.”
“I think I lost my mind last night.” Guilt ripped at her heart with its talons, and a tear trickled down the side of her face. She pounded the bed with her fist. “After everything I went through with Jake, I swore I would never sleep with another man until I was in a stable relationship.”
He flopped back on the pillow beside her.
“Oh. Shit.”
“Yeah.”
His hand reached for hers, and she pulled away. Angie tried not to think of the touch of his lips on her breasts and the feel of him buried deep inside her, thrusting his way into her heart. Stop thinking about that part of him. This was the definition of insanity.
“Now what?”
“I don’t know. I was kinda hoping for a repeat of last night. You, me, we were awesome. You inspired me to new heights of imagination. You were incredible.”
“Thanks for the five-star review.” She suppressed a sob, but it came out like a laugh.
He cleared his throat. “You don’t think we should have an encore performance? See if you change your mind?”
“We can’t do this ever again. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about anything or anyone except me and what I wanted last night. I was out of my mind.”
And you’re a narcoterrorista lord, she thought. But if I say that, you might not be happy. You might decide I’m better off headless, like Raul.
Alejandro sat up and locked gazes with her. “When I found you, you were almost dead. Hypothermic, thready pulse, lots of bruises, abrasions, and blood.” He shrugged and held up his palms. “I started a fire, got in bed with you because you were still corpse cold. I dozed off and woke up to you screaming.”
“What was I saying?”
“Meta-something, don’t go, I need you.”
She chewed her lip. “I don’t remember that at all.”
“Do you remember asking me to make love to you?”
Heat flashed over her entire body, and her traitorous nipples pebbled. Her voice came out low and husky. “Yes.”
“Your cuts and bruises disappeared, like magic.” Alejandro nuzzled her neck and brushed her belly with a soft caress. “You remember this?”
Her thighs quivered and heat pooled in her core. “We shouldn’t.” She tried to push his hand away, but he thrust it between her legs and flicked her nub until she arched her back and moaned.
“You were radiant. You looked like your name. My angel, my Angela.” He whispered, “I want to make love to you until you can’t walk straight.” His fingers stroked her slick lips and pinched her tingling nub. “Tell me you don’t want that, too.”
His erection poked at her thigh, begging for her fingers to grasp it. She dug her nails into the palm of her hand. “I. Don’t. Want. You.”
“Liar.” He kissed her neck, her throat, her collarbone. “Lovely, lovely liar.” He raised his head, looked her straight in the eye and said, “Tell me not to make love to you, and I’ll never touch you again.”
Just as Angie opened her mouth, someone pounded at the door and shouted, “Ayuda, ayuda, por favor. For the love of God, help us!”
****
Alejandro leaped to his feet, pulled on his pants and grabbed his Glock. He put his fingers to his lips and motioned to Angie to get away from the door. She gathered up her dry clothes and hopped on one foot then the other to pull on her pants and boots.
He cracked the door open and choked back a laugh. What was a nun doing here?
“I know you’re not the owner of this cabin,” the nun spouted in Spanish. “And the Raramuri,” she turned and pointed to the cluster of six native men standing in a silent semi-circle behind her “are horrified that I knocked on the door, think I’ll raise ghosts, but we’ve been sitting out here since sunrise, hoping you’d come out and invite us in.” She took a breath. “We don’t have time to stand on formalities. There are lives at stake.”
“Sister—”
“Teresa. I run the boarding school and orphanage over the ridge.”
“How did you find us?”
Sister Teresa frowned. “The Tarahumara have eyes and ears all over this countryside. Besides, you left your expensive toys lying around outside.”
He glanced over his shoulder. Angie was dressed. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged, perplexed as he was. “Please come in, Sister Teresa.”
“This is all my fault. I made a terrible mistake, and God help me, I have to make things right.” The short woman stomped into the cabin, nodded at Angie, and fired her next barrage at Alejandro. “I let the girls go with those women, they said they had good jobs for them, they’d send money to me for safekeeping, and the girls would come home to visit every month. It’s been three months, we haven’t seen a peso, and more importantly, we haven’t seen the girls. Now Mina’s father is missing, too. Something is terribly wrong.”
“Let’s back this up a bit.” He put his hand on his chest. “I’m Alejandro Espinosa Santoyo Torres.” He pointed at his lovely liar. “This is Angie Edmonds.”
The nun’s face turned beet red and whirled on Angie. “Edmonds? That crazy preacher and his wife? Are you in on this with them?”
Alejandro jumped between the nun and Angie. “Not on your life. Take a deep breath. Start from the beginning and speak slowly so I can translate for Angie.” Visibly shaking, Sister Teresa eyed Angie with suspicion, but started over again, beginning with the day Miriam and Sister Anne arrived at the little village and ending with the disappearance of Mina’s father, Juan. “He wanted to see his daughter, so he went there two weeks ago. It’s twenty miles away from our village, over rugged terrain, but not a problem for a runner like Juan. He could have made the journey there and back in a few days. He never returned. It’s not like him. He wouldn’t go that long without letting his family know something.”
“And who are these other people?” Alejandro pointed out the door at the group of dark-skinned men wearing white loincloths, colorful shirts, and denim jackets. Three of the little men sat on the porch in silence and stared at him, while two inspected the overturned MUV. The youngest one in the group bounced on t
he seat of the ATV and made vroom-vroom noises.
“Those are representatives of the ejiditarios. The girls who went to work in Edmondsville weren’t all orphans. The Tarahumara take care of their own. They’re here with me to ask for your help.”
“Did you go to the federales?”
The nun gave a mirthless laugh. “Pah. The government is no friend of these people. It’s been robbing the Tarahumara for centuries, stealing their land, lumber and minerals. The federales wish these natives would give up their old ways of life and disappear.”
Alejandro shook his head. “What makes you think I can do anything for you?”
Sister Teresa tapped her foot, put her fists on her hip, and addressed him as if he were a slow student. “You’re a narcotraficante, si?”
“Why do you say that?”
The nun held up three fingers and counted off. “Uno, you are not from around here. Dos, you are not federales. Tres, with those expensive ATVs, that leaves a capo from a cartel.”
He bit his lower lip. “I work for Isabel Ramirez.”
“Senora Ramirez is in charge of Chihuahua, not the government, not the police. Your boss has men, guns, power. If her gang can’t get our girls back, no one can.”
Angie grabbed his arm. “Ask her what the girls were hired to do.”
Alejandro translated, and the nun looked surprised. “Why nannies, of course, they said they had a lot of little children to care for.”
Angie shook her head. “There aren’t any children. The followers all take a vow of celibacy. The only one allowed to—” her eyes grew wide, and her face became so pale her freckles stood out in three dimension. “My mother took the girls to have sex with my father and get them pregnant.” She turned her back to the little nun and whispered to Alejandro. “They’re the Mothers of the Twenty-Four.”
****
Angie reeled in shock as she processed Sister Teresa’s story. Her mother did this, not her father. Sister Anne was a puppet, a mindless drone for her parents. A mousy woman with no spine and an overwhelming need to please her preacher. She would have moved heaven and earth to find just the right group of girls for the Mothers of the Twenty-Four. She could just imagine Anne’s simpering expression as she told Angie’s mother about the “perfect candidates.” But the lackey wouldn’t have had the ability to con this nun into willingly handing the girls over. That required finesse and cunning. That task needed someone who could tell a convincing story using pious words and demeanor. Her mother could play any role her father chose for her. The woman had called the daycare center and pretended to be Angie, hadn’t she?
There was no doubt in Angie’s mind that her mother had lied to the nun about jobs, promised her money and recruited those girls. Why not play recruiter? Her stomach turned. No, her mother hadn’t recruited those innocent teenagers. Her mother had enslaved them. What else had her mother done for Angie’s father? How deep would her depravity reach so she could please her husband? Or was she in it for her own motives now? And what did that mean for the “Chosen One?” Stop. He was her grandchild. She loved Jake. She would never harm him. Or would she?
“Angie?” Alejandro grabbed her shoulders and looked into her face. “You okay? Talk to me.”
The nun stepped outside to speak to the waiting Tarahumara.
“I feel sick to my stomach.”
“You haven’t eaten. I have some food in my pack.”
She accepted the food bar and chugged the bottle of protein liquid. “Ack. This is vile.”
“Sorry. It was the best I could find on short notice.” He gave her a meaningful stare.
She ignored his pointed reference to her ill-timed rescue attempt. “They’re moving faster than I thought they would.”
“Meaning?”
“When I was pregnant and held captive on the farm, he and Brother Aaron spent hours after dinner each night planning every detail of their new fortress. My bedroom was right over the dining room. My father built the place himself, so there was no insulation between the first and second story. I found a knot in the floorboard, pried it out, and eavesdropped on their plans.”
“And?”
“Aaron and a thousand followers were to sell all of their belongings and convert everything to gold. In their apocalyptic reasoning, they figured that even if all the governments fell and currency was toilet paper, gold would still have value.”
Alejandro’ eyebrows shot up. “So your question to that follower wasn’t a red herring to gain Isabel’s cooperation?”
She shook her head. “Instead of gold bullion, they had a jewelry maker, one of their congregation, manufacture thin sheets of gold for people to wear out of the country. It was the easiest way to get it across the border.”
“The gold could be hidden on anyone in the compound.”
“No way would my father allow people to keep their gold. He would have collected it as soon as they entered the compound.”
“And buried it?”
“No. My father’s thinks he’s so clever, it would amuse him to hide it in the open where he could keep an eye on it. He’d snicker to himself about how no one else knew it was right under their noses.”
“What’s this have to do with the missing girls?”
“Aaron was supposed to build Edmondsville, bring the followers, and prepare for the arrival of the Chosen One. My father said it would take two years of isolation and lack of contacts from the external world for the community to be ‘cohesive’. Then they’d find the Mothers of the Twenty-Four and bring them into the fold. With a thousand brainwashed cult followers making certain they didn’t escape, the women would have no choice but to surrender themselves and their babies. ”
“He really is as bad as Jim Jones.”
“Worse.” She threw the empty bottle into her duffle. “Did you find my weapons and bring them in?”
“Yes. Why?”
“We’re going to need those and lots more. Now that he has the Mothers of the Twenty-Four, the stakes are even higher. An ex-sheriff has trained a group of followers to be my father’s bodyguards. My guess is they have orders to kill if anyone tries to escape from Edmondsville.”
“This is getting way too complicated. I’m calling Isabel.” He plucked the satellite phone out of its carrying case. “Wonder how your father’s goons would hold out against a group of former Mexican Army elite forces?”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Tio and Pepe. They may look big and dumb, but they were in the military. Taught all of Isabel’s guys. They’re disciplined, tough, good in urban or desert warfare—but not familiar with caves and cliffs. This terrain isn’t part of their training.”
Angie chewed on her lower lip and glanced out the open door. With her stiff bearing and grim expression, Sister Teresa looked like a general addressing her troops.
The short, sinewy Tarahumara stared at her with frowns creasing their dark faces. From everything she’d read and heard, they were a peaceful people who just wanted to be left alone and keep their ancient ways of life.
Nevertheless, with Sister Teresa and God on their side, this group was riled up enough to try to get the Crime Queen of Chihuahua involved. An idea began to coalesce in the back of her brain. Would Alejandro go along with it?
“When you call your boss, ask her if she’d like to have God on her side.”
Finger poised to hit the send button, Alejandro stared at Angie. “She’s the least religious person I know.”
“Let me rephrase the question. How would she like to have some cave dwelling allies who know the nooks and crannies better than anyone else?”
He followed her gaze out the door. “Holy shit.”
“That nun came to you because she knew you had clout. She called you a capo. It’s not as if she’s harboring any illusions about who you are or what you do for a living. She knows you’re one of the bosses in Isabel’s organization. Sister Teresa may be working for God’s agenda, but she’s nobody’s fool. She wanted help from the mo
st powerful person in Chihuahua. ”
Alejandro nodded. “Queen Isabel.”
“For her, like me, the ends justified the means. Sister Teresa is willing to make a deal with the devil to get those girls back. What would you say if we asked those men to join forces with us and become our scouts? They know the terrain better than anyone else and can move around without stirring up too much interest, unlike us with our ‘expensive toys.’”
Alejandro grinned and hit the send button. “I’d say we’re about to help them serve up a nice cold dish of Tarahumara revenge.”
Chapter Sixteen
Miriam walked toward the Crèche, glanced up and down the hallway, and peeked into the cleft where she’d hidden the stupid native. Once she’d taken care of him with the Disciplinarian, she hadn’t had much time to dispose of his body. Riddled with crevices and fissures, the wall of the cave solved that problem for her. Wedged behind a huge boulder, his small body had fit nicely into the tiny space. With the change of seasons and this sudden humidity and heat wave, the man was getting ripe. She had to move him, before Father found out.
He’d never really forgiven her for beating Janice to death with a shovel. He’d been most emphatic that she was not to kill anyone ever again, unless Zeke’s life was at stake. Little did Father know, but the very existence of the community had been in danger, and she’d done the right thing. But, just in case he didn’t see it that way, she had to get rid of their stinking guest. Where was that dumb cow, Sister Anne, when she needed her?
As if on cue, the very person Miriam was thinking about appeared in the hallway, walking toward her.
“Mother, how are you doing?”
She pulled a sad face. “I made a bit of a mess and now I need help cleaning it up.”
The mousy woman stopped and sniffed the air. “Good Lord, what is that foul smell?”
“It’s what needs attending to.” She took Sister Anne by the arm and pointed to the opening in the wall. “In there.”
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