Stranger Danger (15 page)

“
Que pasa?
Why are you out here?”

She stared into his face, hoping to read his
emotions, but he wore a blank mask. “I couldn’t find you. I worked myself up
until I thought I couldn’t breathe, so I came outside for some air.
 
I saw you so I waited.”

Santiago’s nostrils flared with displeasure and his
lips compressed.
 
She braced for harsh
words, but then he sighed. “You shouldn’t have, Sara.
 
It’s safer inside. Out here, who knows?”

“You should’ve told me you were calling.”

“The less you know is better for you.” He still held
her arm in a python-like grip. “Let’s go back inside.”

Inside the casino, the crowds had thinned a
little.
 
Sara headed for the hotel lobby,
but he shook his head in a quick motion. “Not yet,” he said. “Wait awhile,
por favor.”

“Why?”

“Just do what I ask,
querida.
I’ll explain later.”

His dark eyes met hers, open and brimming with
emotion.
 

Sara lost any need to hammer an answer from
him.
 
“Okay, so now what?”

“I think I’ll play 21.”

Surprised, she asked, “You’re gonna gamble?”

A flash of humor lightened his expression for a
brief moment. “I already am,” he said. “I thought if my luck’s holding out,
maybe I’ll win some money.”

At the tables, he did, more than four hundred
dollars in short order.
 
After cashing
in, he seemed content to head upstairs, and as they walked down the corridor to
their room, Sara’s curiosity surged.
 
“So, tell me what the deal is,” she said as soon as they were inside.
“What happened with the call?”

He sat down and sighed, the exuberance from his win
fading.
 
“With a little persuasion, he
listened.
 
Ay, dio mio!
 
He was pretty
pissed off, though.
 
I thought I’d made a
major mistake for the first few minutes, but I reminded him of some things.”

“Like?”

Santiago grimaced. “The times I saved his ass, the
dirty work I did on his orders, that kind of thing.
 
He calmed down a little after that, but it’s
not perfect.
 
The good thing, he’s
willing to help – for a price.
 
On the
down side, he knows I’m Santiago Ruiz and a cop. He probably has a good idea
I’m the one who snitched on some of the gang activities.
 
But he hasn’t put the word out to all of the
organization yet.
 
He wanted to handle it
himself, the
cabron.”

Sara failed to understand. “What does that mean?”

His expression darkened. “He wanted his people to
find me and bring me to him so he could kill me himself.
 
He seldom gets his hands dirty, so you can
see how fuckin’ pissed off he was.”

Her imagination conjured gory images, ones she’d
rather not envision. “What about me? And what happens now?”

“You don’t want to know what he would’ve done with
you,
chica,”
Santiago said, eyes
narrowed into deadly slits.
 
“It wouldn’t
have been anything good. Then he’d have killed you anyway.
 
But, don’t worry. It won’t happen now - we
made a deal.”

Her stomach tightened at the idea and she didn’t
like it. “Tell me what you have to do.”

His lips curved into an odd smile but to her, it
appeared like more of a snarl. “Die,” he told her in a low tone without any
emotion. “All I have to do is
die
, in front of
witnesses.”

“No!” Sara’s response burst out of her mouth,
straight from the heart. “No, Santiago!”

He stretched out his hand to her and smiled, a
little. “Don’t
worry,
querida.
 
Javier Morales is
the one who’ll die, not me.
 
I promised
to keep quiet about most of what I know about Mara Salvatrucha, and Enrique
will put out the word the FBI agent was mistaken, that Javier was Javier,
nothing more.
 
He’ll deal with the agent
in his way and the people I’ll finger are gang members Enrique wants gone.
 
I do his dirty business one more time and I
can live, as myself.”

Sara struggled to wrap her head around the facts and
saw he’d have to compromise his principles.
 
If he didn’t, he would die, and she would too.
 
“Oh, Santiago, I’m sorry it’s so complicated.”

“
De nada.
 
I’ve done much worse and I’ll do this.
 
I may not have a job when it’s done, not if I
don’t come up with enough information, but I’ll be alive and if I’m lucky, with
you.”

Since their unexpected reunion, he’d said little
about the future and his reference was the first she had noted.
 
“We’ll be together, Santiago, no matter what
happens,” Sara said.
 
Tears burned in her
throat, but she held them back, uncertain if he’d understand why she cried.

His old grin, the one with the power to send joy
through her veins and almost burst her heart, emerged. “
Si, la muñequita,
it’s what I want, and if it all goes well, we
will.”

With his hand wrapped around hers, she nodded. “So
what happens now?”

“What is today, is it Wednesday, Thursday, what?”

Sara counted the days. “In the morning, it’s
Friday.”

“We’re going to Tulsa and Saturday evening,
somewhere west of downtown on the river, Javier will die.
 
After a day or two, when it’s all clear, then
we go home.”

She thought of her apartment but somehow, she
doubted that’s what he meant.
“To Los Angeles?”

“
Si.
 
I want to see my family, Sara, and I’ll have
to report to the task force.
 
Then I’ll
see what the future may hold for me, and we can decide what we’ll do.
 
Will you come with me?”

“Yes, of course. But, how does Javier die?”

He laughed without mirth. “Enrique will shoot him in
front of some top gang members.
 
They’ll
leave him, dead on the scene, and some trusted people will come pick me
up.
 
Anyone watching will think they
threw me in the river but they’ll get me out and to a safe place.”

Fear prickled down her spine and spread. “He’s going
to shoot you? I don’t like that idea at all. Please tell me he’s not really
going to do it.”

His expression sobered. “He is, Sarita, but I’ll be
wearing a bullet proof vest.
 
It won’t do
any more than leave a bruise.
 
I’ll be
fine, I promise.
 
I’ll be using some kind
of fake blood packet so it will look genuine.”

“I can’t go.
 
I can’t stand to watch you get shot, even if it’s not for real.”

“
Bueno.
 
You won’t be there.
 
I wouldn’t permit it.”

Relief conflicted against outrage.
 
Sara didn’t want to be there, but she
did.
 
“Then where in the hell am I going
to be, Santiago?”

In a tone dry as an August evening, he said, “Safe.”

“Safe where?”

Santiago twined his fingers around hers, tight
enough to hurt. “We’ll get a hotel when we go down tomorrow. You’ll stay there
until it’s all over. I’ll come back when it’s done. Then we’ll be able to
breathe,
la muñequita,
and rest.”

Sara considered it.
 
She saw no other option, nothing else that might work.
 
Every other way led to almost certain death
or permanent separation.
 
But if it
failed, they lost everything.

“All right,” she told him with a sigh. “Tomorrow we
go to Tulsa. Why not go now?”

“It’s late and I’m still a little tired.” He yawned
as if to prove his statement. “Let’s go to bed.”

“I don’t know if I can.” Sara brushed her free hand
across his crotch. “Maybe I need to relax first.”

His grin flickered into life. “Did you have
something in mind?” he asked, with a wicked quirk of one eyebrow. “Like maybe a
nice bath or some milk from room service?”

“
Te quiero, mi
corazon.”
Sara used the words that meant both ‘I love you’ and “I want you’
with design.
 
Just in case he didn’t get
it, she added, “
Estoy exitada
.”

“Si?
Venir aqui, la muñequita.”

He asked; she came into his arms without
restraint.
 
Santiago pulled her onto his
lap, held her as he kissed her with slow sweetness.
 
He wasn’t hurried and she savored each subtle
movement of his mouth on hers.
 
He
delivered a steady heat, not the wildness of a burning wildfire but the
delightful comfort of a hearth in winter.
 
Her body reacted to his overtures by coming alive as each cell and every
nerve ending yearned for more.
 
Sara’s
spirit, though, responded with an overwhelming rush of love, deep and
grounded.
 

He took his time in delivering pleasure and by the
time they’d shed their clothing to lie together naked on the bed, Sara ached
for him to fill her emptiness.
 
He
didn’t, though, not until he’d stroked every inch of her body with gentle
caresses, tasted and tickled, licked and laved.
 
Her desire hit a fever pitch as he tantalized her.
 
When she came, in tandem with Santiago,
Sara’s senses engulfed her and wiped everything else away.
 
Her body contorted with the sheer, extreme
pleasure. She cried out,
then
bit his chest to shed
some of the intense energy.
 
Until she
lay beside him, sated and content, she didn’t realize he’d been deliberate on
purpose to give her a gift.

Himself.

Chapter
Eleven

On the horizon the Tulsa skyline loomed above the
flat Oklahoma prairie reminiscent of the Emerald City in Frank L. Baum’s
Oz.
 
Sara had never visited the city
before, but Santiago had as Javier.
 
L.A.
raised, it seemed small by their standards, but compared to Bentonville, it was
a booming metropolis.
 
Santiago headed
off the multi-lane highways and headed downtown on what, judging by the route
signs, had once been part of the fabled Route 66.

The expected fast food franchises, bars and
restaurants, stores and shops lined both sides of the road.
 
A few seedy ancient motels prompted Sara to
ask, “Where are we staying?”

“Owasso.”

“But this is Tulsa.”

“Owasso’s just north a little bit, near the zoo and
airport.
 
It’s out of the way and
probably the last place anyone would look if they did.”

Sara craned her neck to look at the sun. “We’re
heading basically west, Santiago.”

“Si,
I want to check out
the Arkansas River and the place where it all goes down tomorrow night.
 
Once I do, I’ll take you to one of the best
Mexican restaurants outside California and the Southwest,
then
we’ll get a hotel. And, there’s a little piece of business to take care of,
first.”

She nodded, weary.
 
He’d slept after they made love, but she hadn’t.
 
Instead, Sara pulled a chair to the window
and watched as the sky shifted from black to gray to daylight.
 
A headache throbbed at the edges of her
consciousness.
 
Whatever he wanted or
needed to do, she’d be okay with it.

When he pulled into a used car lot, she figured out
what he meant to do.
 
Sara remained in
the truck until he waved her toward the small office.
 
She sat on a hard plastic chair in the dingy
space and watched through the window as the salesman showed Santiago several
vehicles.
 
To pass the time, Sara tried
to guess which ones would catch his eye.
 
She considered the likely options, a late 1990’s Mercury Grand Marquis,
a 2007 Lincoln, an older Buick Skylark, a Chevy Silverado pickup, and a Nissan
sedan.
 
He’ll pick the Mercury or the Lincoln.
 

As Sara sipped a soft drink, hoping the caffeine would
boost her energy and maybe ease her headache, Santiago took the Lincoln for a
test drive.
 
This time, she didn’t panic,
aware what he was doing and when he returned, he bought it, trading the truck
and paying cash.
 
They moved their gear
into the roomy trunk and set off.