Catch Her If You Can (15 page)

Who owned this high desert dwelling? I ran through all the possibilities, from Charlie’s nemesis Richie to some greedy bastard wanting in on the reward to the slime who’d hired Duarte and now wanted revenge.

None of those possibilities, however, came anywhere close to the bone-chilling reality.

THE Hummer passed through a wooden gate and pulled up under a low portico. When Aviator Glasses hustled me out of the vehicle, I picked up the steady hum off to the side of the main building. Generators, I guessed. Anyone who lived on the top of an isolated mesa like this had to supply his own water and power.

“Inside.”

Sunglasses gave me an impatient shove. I stumbled over a raised threshold into a two-story foyer dominated by a larger-than-life-sized metal sculpture of an eagle dancer. If my wrists hadn’t been handcuffed and my stomach twisted in knots, I might have appreciated the scupltor’s incredible artistry. I didn’t give the piece a second glance, however. My entire being was focused on the woman who emerged from the cool, dim interior.

The slender brunette clicked toward us on red stilettos with four-inch heels and a black powder puff on each ankle strap. My first, completely irrelevant thought was that the slut shoes didn’t go with her slim skirt, belted white blouse, and the half glasses perched on the end of her nose. Those gave her an almost professional look . . . and made me feel like a total grunge by comparison. I resisted the ridiculous urge to raise my cuffed hands and brush back the hair hanging in rattails around my face. I straightened my shoulders, though, and lifted my chin.

It shot up another notch when the brunette treated me to a look of utter disdain before firing a stream of Spanish at my escort. I’ve picked up a basic working vocabulary during my assignment to El Paso but her dialogue came too fast. All I caught were “this one” and “
el patron
” and “tonight.”

Whatever she said put Aviator Glasses on the defensive. He fired back but Slut Shoes cut him off with a rapier look and terse order.

That I got. She wanted us to wait there in the foyer. Whoever this bitch was, she wielded considerable power. The knowledge didn’t give me a warm fuzzy.

But when the woman returned some moments later, her attitude had done a one-eighty. Subdued and almost obsequious, she trailed a half step behind a tall, dark-haired male in pleated white slacks and a blue and gold Versace shirt. I recognized the designer—I should, given the variety of glamour mags I subscribe to—but not the wearer. Deciding offense was the best defense, I looked him square in the eye.

“You’re aware kidnapping a United States Air Force officer is a federal offense, aren’t you?”

“Kidnapping is a federal offense regardless of race, creed, religion, or military affiliation,” he replied in perfect and clearly amused English. “In your country, that is. In mine, it’s more of a political necessity.”

I don’t like being laughed at any more than I like being injected, cuffed, and manhandled.

“You think this is funny? You’d better enjoy it while you can.”

“I will. I most certainly will.”

His reply conveyed such silky menace that even Slut Shoes blinked. It made an impression on me, too, but I refused to let him see it. Chin angled, I telegraphed an unmistakable up-yours.

The message missed its mark since Versace had already turned to my escort. “You may remove the lieutenant’s cuffs.”

“Are you sure,
patron
?”

“I’m sure. Even if she manages to get past security and escape, she has nowhere to go but into the desert. She would not get far in this heat.”

Aviator Glasses complied but kept a wary eye on me as his boss addressed the brunette.

“Teresa, please show Lieutenant Spade to the room we’re prepared for her. I’m sure she would like to refresh herself and change into something more comfortable before lunch.”

I already knew this was no ordinary snatch-and-grab. Still, the idea these characters had anticipated my arrival made my stomach cramp.

“What the lieutenant would like,” I said, rubbing my bruised and lacerated wrists, “is to know what the hell is going on.”

“I’ll explain at lunch.”

Obviously used to being obeyed, he turned to leave. That pissed me off almost as much as his amusement.

“Hey! You!”

Aviator Glasses let out a hiss. Slut Shoes sucked one in. Versace turned slowly. Very slowly. His eyes showed dead black above the blue and gold of his shirt.

“I’ll allow you that one, Lieutenant. But only that one. For the rest of our association, you will address me with respect.”

Okay, now I was officially intimidated. This guy was scary. Don’t ask me where I got the guts—or the stupidity—to force my lips into a sugary smile.

“Kind of hard to address you at all when I don’t know your name.”

“Mendoza. Rafael Mendoza.”

Shock knocked the smart-mouthiness out of me. I stood there, my breath stuck like a broken glass in my throat, and stared at the bastard who’d forced Mitch to distance himself from his wife and daughter for their own protection.

“Ah, I see you recognize my name. Good. Then you know I’m not a man to be crossed. I’ll speak with you at lunch, Lieutenant.”

I didn’t try to stop him this time. I watched him disappear in to the cool, dim interior while Aviator Glasses let himself out the front door. That left me face-to-face with the brunette. She and I measured each other for several long seconds.

I could take her, I decided. She had several inches on me but those were all heel. And odds were she’d never done a push-up in her life.

Not that I’ve done all that many. The recently implemented Air Force aerobics program requires a minimum of a mile-and-a-half run, eighteen push-ups, and thirty-eight sit-ups for women in my age group. I’m still working my way up to the minimum. But I
could
put a heavy-soled combat boot to her gut and knock her flat on her behind.

Then what?

I still didn’t know where I was, although I was pretty certain now it wasn’t Arizona or New Mexico. My guess was that I was well south of the border.

Nor did I know what Mendoza wanted with me, but I guessed with sick certainty that it involved Mitch. I needed to find out what the rat bastard was up to before deciding on a plan of action.

“All right, Teresa. You heard the man.” I flicked a careless hand. “Lead the way.”

Despite the powder puff shoes, she was no dummy. She wasn’t about to let me walk behind her, get her in a stranglehold, and snap her neck. With an abrupt gesture, she indicated I should precede her.

“Go through the salons.”

Her English wasn’t as polished as Mendoza’s but still light years ahead of my Spanish.

“What do you do here?” I asked as I took the lead.

“I am the
patron
’s executive assistant.”

Suuure she was.

“I noticed he wears a wedding ring.”
And you don’t.
“Is his wife here, too?”

“No.”

The single syllable cracked like a whip. Obviously, I’d struck a nerve.

“So this place is, what?” I said, digging the spur in deeper. “Mendoza’s hideaway when he wants to get away from the missus?”

“Take the hall to your right,” she said, ignoring my question.

I tried to memorize the function and layout of the rooms we passed. The two salons, one with a sunken conversation pit; a high-tech office bristling with electronics; a home theater; a dining room with sliding glass doors that looked out over the mesa; an inner atrium that appeared to have no other purpose than to show off another bronze sculpture. This one had to be at least fifteen or twenty feet tall. I’m not as familiar with kachinas as I should be after so many months in the southwest, but I thought it was the lizard god.

“Take the stairs to your left,” Teresa instructed.

The flagstone steps led down to a short corridor that ended in a carved wooden door. I stopped and waited while she punched a wall keypad. When the electronic lock clicked open, she gestured me into a self-contained suite.

If not for that keypad, I might have mistaken this for an elegant guest suite. A flat-screen TV hung on one wall. On the other was an antique mirror flanked by exquisite pierced-tin lanterns. No phone anywhere in sight, though.

My initial impression had been right, I saw as I glanced around. The house
was
carved out of the mesa. This suite was obviously below ground level. The only natural light came from a single row of glass blocks set high in the wall. Too high to reach without something tall and heavy to stand on. And way too narrow to wiggle through.

The hum I’d heard earlier sounded closer, as though it emanated from just outside the glass blocks. “There are clothes in the closet, fresh towels in the bath,” Teresa informed me. “I’ll come for you when it’s time for lunch.”

The door thudded shut. The lock clicked into place a second later.

I stood where I was, trying to decide my next move. Gut instinct told me the room was bugged. Probably with both audio and video. No way I was giving Mendoza’s boys a peep show by stripping down to shower and/or change clothes. Nor was I the least inclined to shed my ABUs and boots. I’ve complained about both often enough but at that moment I derived considerable consolation from the fact that my uniform represented the full might of the United States’ military establishment.

Too bad I didn’t have some means of signaling that establishment to call in an air strike or artillery barrage. But my purse was nowhere in sight and a check of my various pockets confirmed they’d been emptied. Even the twenty I routinely tucked in a leg pocket for emergencies was gone.

With nothing else to do, I went into the bathroom to soap my bloody wrist, wash my face, and rake a hand through my hair. Then I sat down on the edge of the bed to wait.

 

I waited for several hours. Mendoza obviously keeps Continental hours. The kind I used to keep when I hustled drinks at the casino. Breakfast at nine or ten. A light lunch before heading to work at four. Dinner either snatched during a midnight break or with friends after I got off.

Considerably different from my present regimen. Meal hours at officer training school were such a shock to my system I barely ate for the first three days. Now I’ve become so conditioned to the dawn/noon/early evening routine that my stomach starts making nasty noises if I miss any of the designated times.

It started talking to me as I sat there on the bed, reminding me it had missed its dawn feeding. Which made me think of the French crullers and lemon-filled I’d tossed aside in my frantic attempt to hit the right panic button. Which in turn made me wonder if anyone had seen the scuffle in the parking lot.

And what happened to my key ring with the FBI’s handy-dandy little tracking device? Had I dropped it beside my car? Or had Pipe Guy picked it up and pocketed it? If so, Paul Donati and company might’ve tracked him down and beat my present location out of him. Maybe they were already winging their way to the high mesa.

Hope leaped so hard and fast into my throat I almost choked on it. Just as quickly, I gulped it back down. For all I knew, the key ring had flown out of my hand with the donuts and got left behind in the parking lot. In that case Paul—and Mitch and my team—would know I’d gone missing but wouldn’t know why or where. I couldn’t base my plan of attack on unknowns.

That, of course, begged the question of what I
could
base it on. At this point I was clueless. All I could do was ignore the increasingly obnoxious noises emanating from my midsection and wait.

Since I don’t wear a watch and rely on my cell phone to check the time, I estimated it was a good two hours before Slut Shoes returned.

Teresa. Her name was Teresa. I’d better remember that if I was going to worm information out of her.

“So, Teresa,” I let drop as we went up the stairs, “it doesn’t scare you to climb into a small plane and zoom in for a landing on top of a big rock?”

No response.

“It sure caught my attention. Taking off over those sheer cliffs has to be even scarier.”

Still no reply. So much for my unsubtle attempt to verify how ordinary mortals got off this rock. But I was sure there had to be a road cut into the mesa. No plane small enough to land atop it could airlift in that three-ton Hummer. And what came up, I thought grimly as Teresa gestured me through an archway, could go down.

I received visual confirmation of that when we stepped through the sliding glass doors to a flagstone patio. The sun still beat down, but a soft wind stirred the leaves of the twisted mesquite shading the patio and kept the afternoon heat at bay.

The temperature didn’t interest me as much as the view from the patio. It was set high enough for a clear view beyond the encircling wall. The road that trailed toward the edge of the mesa was hardly more than a dirt track, but it had to lead somewhere! And there, parked beside an adobe garage about fifty yards from the main house, was the Hummer.

My mind clicked like a camera shutter, fixing every detail in my mind before I switched my attention to the buffet set out on the patio. Dome-topped serving dishes displayed raw oysters on the half shell, bright pink shrimp nested on ice, and some greenish, slug-like things I wanted no part of. The heavyset female adding a bowl of ceviche to the table eyed me curiously before disappearing through the door to what I assumed was the kitchen.

Took me a moment to locate Mendoza. He was seated in the shade of the mesquite at a table set with colorful linen, perusing some kind of legal document. In his open-necked silk shirt and pleated pants he looked as relaxed and comfortable as I was tight and wary.

He glanced up at our approach and hiked a brow. “I see you decided not to change into something cooler.”