Torched: A Thriller (2 page)

FOUR

He had opened up
to her quickly. She considered everything he had told her while she worked in
the yard, hacking at the thick vegetation with the sharp shovel blade.

His name was
Michael Hill, and he had changed almost everything about himself. Known in the
village simply as Miguel, he had explained to her how he had simply walked away
from the life he had built for himself in New York City.

He’d been one of
the few that had fled New York under his own steam, ditching the trading desk
just as the liar loans were piling up and the market lurched into its downward
spiral. He’d cashed in his 401k, sold his possessions and investments and
slipped into Mexico with just over a million dollars in a bank account that he
rarely touched.

He’d paid cash
for the two-bedroom bungalow and the little plot of jungle surrounding it. His
job at El Principe provided just enough money to live on with such frugal
tastes, and he relished the simplicity of what his life had become.

It was almost
enough to make him forget about all of the destruction he’d caused as a
mortgage trader. The lives he’d dashed to pieces in the interests of profit and
notoriety at the firm.

He spent his
days working the plot of farmland he’d slowly carved from the jungle. At night,
he cooked in the back of the little cantina. He’d leaned out, swapping the
doughy flesh he’d accumulated over eight years in a cubicle for deeply tanned
muscle.

His days were
pretty much all the same, and it suited him just fine. He avoided American
newspapers, and he rarely used the internet. No news of the states, as far as
he was concerned, was good news.

And nobody came
looking for him, despite the trades he’d made—despite the lives he’d
demolished. His first year had been a wreck, waiting minute after minute and
hour after hour for the knock at the door.

Vivian knew the
feeling well.

But nobody came,
and he was happy just
to be
—just to exist in the comfort of his simple
routines.

Wake and work.
Cook and sleep.

And then one
day,
she
had stumbled into his life. She remembered every detail of
their meeting; it was as clear in her memory as the day she’d put Terri and
Sheldon James through hell in the Colorado Rockies.

She had pulled
up a stool a few seats down from his at the bar. He was sipping a Modelo
Especial; she ordered a glass of white wine.

He smiled at
her. She looked away.

He still smelled
of the fryer—still wore his spotted chef’s smock—but it didn’t matter to her.
She hadn’t come to socialize.

“Chilean,” he
had said, nodding at the glass the bartender put in front of the woman. “One of
the first things I did when I took the job in the kitchen was switch the order
from that California swill we were serving to the good stuff. Go ahead—tell me
what you think.”

She flashed a
strained smile before taking a sip. “It’s good,” she flatly agreed.

His grin
widened. “You don’t have much of an accent.”

She didn’t react
to that, keeping her eyes trained forward. “How about me?” he pushed. “Where do
you suppose I’m from?”

“New York City,”
she replied, “although it’s pretty faint. You’ve been here long?”

“Almost four
years. How about you? Where are you from?”

Vivian had
turned away completely then, feigning interest in a Mexican game show playing
on the little television in the corner of the bar. Contestants jumped up and
down while bright Spanish words flashed on the screen.

“Sorry,” Miguel
said, laughing. “Look, I won’t push it. We all come down here for our own
reasons, and I don’t mean to pry.”

She smiled her
thanks and removed her sunglasses. “You—you work here?”

“I cook. Are you
hungry?”

El Principe was
almost empty. It was late and, aside from a young couple in the corner booth
and a few regulars nursing drafts at the other end of the bar, they had the
place to themselves.

Vivian nodded.

Miguel slapped
the bar. He stood and drained his beer, put the bottle in the return and walked
around the bar to the kitchen. “Give me ten minutes.”

He disappeared
and the bartender—his name was Felipe—sauntered over. “Nice guy for a gringo,”
he said. His English was good.

Vivian nodded,
unable to shake the uneasy feeling that had followed her into town.

Cerritos made
her nervous. She had walked into town, feeling for the first time since leaving
Cancun that she was utterly on her own. Finding a place to stay in this new
place was different than accepting a bed from the families she had encountered
on the road. It was strange, but true. She just didn’t feel safe in Cerritos.

She sipped her
drink and, just after Felipe had refilled her glass, Miguel brought a tray with
three steaming plates from the kitchen. “Join us, hermano?” he said.

“Sí.”

Miguel placed a
plate in front of Vivian, set the bartender up on her right, and he slid onto
the stool to her left. “Just leftovers, but it’s nice and hot.”

Her mouth
watered. It had been most of a day since she’d had anything to eat. “It smells
wonderful.”

The tacos were
filled with a mixture of chorizo, peppers, onions and mushrooms; Miguel had
drizzled crema fresca over them. The beans and rice were covered with crumbled
white cheese, coarse ground pepper and chopped cilantro. Felipe pulled three
pints of Victoria and they sat at the bar and ate mostly in silence, drenching
the tacos with fresh lime juice. Vivian finished first, draining her glass of
beer with a dainty burp.

“That was
amazing
,”
she said. “My God, it’s been a long time since I had a meal like that.”

Miguel winked at
her. “Not bad for a New Yaaawka, eh?”

She laughed, and
Felipe refilled Miguel’s glass before disappearing into the kitchen with their
empty dishes.

“You got a place
to stay?” he asked her, after they had made small talk for a few minutes.

Vivian frowned.
She shook her head. “Can you recommend a place? Somewhere safe?”

“You can stay
with me,” he had replied.

Vivian grinned
as she stabbed at the earth with her shovel, remembering his sheepish
expression. “Look, I’m not a weirdo,” he insisted. “I don’t want to creep you
out, or anything. I’m just…just trying to help out another American is all.

“The couch is
comfortable, and I promise that I’ll be a gentleman. Cerritos is a pretty nice
place, but you might want to break into town slowly.” He leaned forward and
lowered his voice. “Especially if you have resources. Mexico can be dangerous
for people with means, and probably more so for women.”

She nodded. “I
appreciate the offer, but I can’t accept it. Thank you for the food, Mr. …?”

He offered her
his hand. “Miguel. And you are?”

Vivian grinned.
“That’s it? Just ‘Miguel’?”

“For now. C’mon,
it’s your turn.”

“Vivian,” she
replied. Why she told him the truth that night was beyond her, but she’d
trusted him almost from the start. It wasn’t until they were sleeping together,
about two weeks later, that she’d furnished her surname as well.

He could have
learned everything about her in a ten-second search if he’d gone to one of the
internet cafes.

But he hadn’t.
At least as far as she could tell, he hadn’t looked into her past.

He was waiting
for her to tell him herself, to volunteer the information, and she respected
him for letting her cling to her privacy.

It was sweet,
just like the man himself.

Vivian worked
hard all morning, expanding the plot of soil they hoped would support a little
citrus grove until she was covered with a sheen of sweat. Miguel had already
gone into Cerritos to prep for dinner and, when she paused for a lunch of cold
iced tea and a salad of strawberries, mangoes, blood oranges and kiwi fruit,
she ate at the window of the little home they now shared.

She stared out
at the jungle. Birds flitted from bough to bough; iguanas scampered nimbly
among the branches.

She touched the
tea to her forehead, ice cubes clicking together in the still, hot day, and
sighed with happiness.

This was
it
.

This was it—of
that she felt sure—and after all of the sadness and sorrow and the terrible thing
that had happened to Katie, she felt something like contentment for the first
time since her daughter’s accident.

“Smooth sailing
from here, Vivian,” she whispered to herself. “Nothing but smooth sailing from
here on out.”

She went back
outside and worked in the field until her muscles ached and her fingers tingled
inside the leather gloves. The sun was far out over the Pacific when she
knocked off for the day, and she grabbed a cold shower and biked the six miles
into Cerritos to have dinner at El Principe.

She felt
good—clean and refreshed after her shower—and she smiled in the cooling evening
air as she thought about the man that waited for her in town.

“Smooth
sailing,” she whispered.

FIVE

Terri rose with
the sun, feeling refreshed after her night beneath the stars. The morning was
cool, her sleeping back damp with dew.

She cleaned up
in the restroom before driving into Abilene for gas and breakfast. She stopped
momentarily to plug a few quarters into a pay telephone behind a Shell station.

“This is Terri
James. Benny said that I should call you when I was getting closer.”

“Hi, Terri,” the
woman replied. She had an easy Texas drawl. “Ben mentioned that you’d already
left Colorado. Whereabouts are you?”

“Abilene. Is it
much farther?”

“Seven hours, if
you put your foot down a little. Probably more like eight, though. Call me back
when you get into Brownsville. Same routine.”

“Sounds good.
Thanks.”

She hung up and
nosed the Subaru onto U.S. 83 and settled in for another tedious day behind the
wheel.

***

The Pinkertons
had a beautiful home. It looked like something out of a postcard—a sprawling
Texas ranch with creamy sandstone walls and a gorgeous pine porch.

Terri had
followed Penny Pinkerton from the parking lot of the H.E.B. Grocery until they
cleared the city boundary and found themselves jouncing down a gravel road cut
through the Texas countryside. They passed over a series of muddy canals until
rattling across a cattle guard and down a long driveway.

Terri had
noticed the border fence just a few miles outside of town. It was unlike
anything she’d seen before. The brown, twenty-foot steel bars sprang from the
dusty ground like the spine of some enormous fossil. As she passed it, she imagined
the shadowy forms of men, women and children attempting to scale the imposing
structure. The indignity of it made her sad, and she muttered a brief prayer of
thanks for her good fortune to have been born in America.

The fence cut
abruptly to the south long before they reached the Pinkertons’ ranch, though,
and she put it out of her mind as they reached the driveway.

She pulled the
Outback adjacent to a series of huge cattle trucks and stepped out into a world
made beautiful by a south Texas sunset.

“This way,”
Penny said. “I’ll send our boy out after your bag.”

A rail-thin man
with a gray buzz cut and a bushy moustache sipped a beer in a rocking chair on
the porch. A tall man in his early twenties sat with him, idly plucking a
six-string acoustic. An elderly chocolate Labrador slept at the young man’s
feet, his tail swishing occasionally as he stalked jackrabbits through canine
dreams.

It was idyllic.

The young man
removed his baseball cap and grinned at her, standing and offering his hand.
“Bo Pinkerton,” he said. “Bags in the trunk?”

“I’m Terri. They
are,” she said, taking his hand. She handed him the keys to the Outback. “Thank
you, Bo. Nice meeting you.”

“Don’t mention
it.” His boots crunched across the gravel, and then the older man stood and shook
her hand.

“Welcome, Ms.
James. I’m Blaine Pinkerton. You’ve come a long way.”

She smiled,
nodding. “Got a long way yet to go, Mr. Pinkerton. Please, just call me Terri.”

“Then I’m
Blaine. Cold ‘un?” He jerked his head at a tin bucket filled with bottled beer
on ice.

“Please. I can’t
say a beer’s ever sounded so good, to be honest. Been a long couple of days
cooped up in that car.”

His grin widened
and he pulled two bottles of Coors from the pail and twisted the caps off. He
handed a bottle to Terri and took the other to his wife. He kissed her and gave
her the beer and she thanked him.

Terri was
flummoxed.
These
were Benny’s contacts?

He’d mentioned
something about Blaine once working for the government, but she had a hard time
reconciling that with these jovial ranchers. She sipped her beer and silently
chastised herself for conjuring such stereotypes. She’d pictured G-men in
pinstripes, not this kind little family of Texas ranchers.

If Vivian Bowles
had taught her anything, it was that appearances couldn’t be trusted.

She sat in the
chair next to Penny, a pretty, fit woman with lively blue eyes and long white
hair that she wore in a braid down her back, and for about the hundredth time
she cautioned herself to stay sharp.

Bo brought her
duffle inside and rejoined them a moment later. The porch faced the southwest,
and they were content to sip their drinks and watch the setting sun stretch the
shadows of saguaro cacti and prairie juniper.

“Leaving in the
morning then, are you?” Blaine finally said.

“Yes…I mean, if
that works for you,” Terri replied. “Sooner begun, sooner done.” It had been
one of Sheldon’s favorite sayings, and it still found its way into her speech
from time to time.

Blaine nodded.
“Benny mentioned that you were a serious woman. ‘Dedicated,’ I think is the
exact word he used. Said this was a business trip. Of course, anyone taking the
ol’ Whisper Trail into Mexico isn’t exactly on the hunt for margaritas and
mariachis.”

“Whisper Trail?”
Terri said.

“That’s just
Blaine’s name for it,” Penny said, eyes twinkling. “This old coot’s a romantic.
He’s got a name for every cactus between here and Valle Hermoso, don’t you
honey?” She squeezed his hand.

“It’s a plenty
fine name for it,” Blaine said, grinning at his wife’s teasing. “Bo here can
ride out with you before sunrise. You’ll be in Mexico quieter than a church
mouse, Terri. We can get you across the river no problem. But then…”

“Then what?”
Terri said.

“Why, then
you’re on your own, darling. Mexico’s a big damned place, and we don’t want to
know where you’re headed. In fact, that Subaru is going to disappear, so to
speak, while you’re asleep tonight. If you don’t make it back here in due time,
that wagon’s going to disappear for good.”

Terri nodded. “I
understand, and I can assure you that I have every intention of making it home
to my children. I just need to have a word with someone.”

Blaine offered a
sage little nod. “God speed, darling. God speed. We…well, Benny told us about
what happened. We’ll get you in, but you stay true to your word and get back to
those kids. Children need their mother.” He reached out and squeezed Penny’s
hand.

They endured an
awkward moment; Penny tried to cut the tension with a forced smile.

“May I?” Terri
finally said, pointing at the bucket of beer and wiggling her empty bottle.
There was an edge to her tone, and Blaine understood that they were finished
discussing her trip to Mexico.

“Sure thing,” he
said. “Our place is your place, Terri.”

They drank beer
until dark and then retreated inside for grilled steaks, baked potatoes and
salad. Terri thanked them graciously and turned in almost immediately after the
table had been cleared. She went through her duffle, double checking the
inventory before climbing into bed.

Fully committed
to her course of action, she fell asleep quickly, not worried in the least
about the dangerous road ahead or the unpleasant things she still had to do.