Torched: A Thriller (3 page)

SIX

El Principe had
been packed all night. A band played Tejano music on a little stage in the
corner of the bar, reminding Vivian of just how close she remained to the
United States.

Miguel and
Florentino, his sous chef, pushed out over a hundred plates of food and, when
the rush finally dwindled and the crowd was content to sip their drinks and
sway to the music, he emerged from the kitchen looking tired and happy.

Felipe gave him
a bottle of cold Modelo Especial and he went to Vivian’s table in the corner
and kissed her full on the mouth.

“Whew! Busy
night,” he said, collapsing into his chair. “I wasn’t quite sure we were going
to get that service worked out, but we always seem to make it happen. I swear,
Tino must have another set of arms somewhere. That boy can really cook.”

Vivian grinned
at him. “Speaking of cooking, mister, you want to help me burn up that dance
floor?”

“Oy, Vi! These
dogs are barking,” he said with a wink. He swigged down half his beer and
helped her stand, his hands sliding easily to her hips as they merged onto the
congested dance floor. “You know, I haven’t had much energy since you blew into
my life, girl. What are you, some kind of succubus?”

She laughed and
they launched into a western swing before the band backed the tempo down for a
ballad. Miguel grasped her waist and pulled her close, his forehead against
hers as they moved to the music.

She wore a thin
linen skirt, and beneath it he could feel the heat of her skin in the tips of
his fingers.

“Damn, this is
nice,” he said. He kissed her and cocked his head, looking into her eyes. “I’m
very happy right now, Vivian. This feels…it feels really good to be here with
you.”

Her smile was
weak. “I know,” she replied. “It’s scary—I feel the same way, and it’s just
been a few weeks.”

“Don’t be
scared. I’m not…at least not anymore. We’re
here
, Vivian, and we’re
together. If people come for us, then they come for us. Like I said, I stopped
looking over my shoulder a long time ago. You’ll get used to it.”

“I hope so.
Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we go
home?”

His grin
widened. “What’s up?”

“I just…I just
thought it might be nice to have someone looking over my shoulder. Just for a
little while, of course.” She winked at him and he couldn’t keep from barking a
laugh.

“Wow! That’s
pretty corny, Vi. That’s your line? But hey, you’ll get no complaints from me.
Meet you out front?”

She nodded and
returned to the table to collect her handbag before heading for the door. He
finished his beer, made a few farewells and disappeared into the kitchen.
Vivian went outside to the palm tree she’d propped her bike against, the music
faint on the still Mexican air. After a few minutes, Miguel met her there and
they pushed their bikes out into the street.

It was a clear
night. The air had cooled considerably, but the humidity and the dancing had
made them both hot. They pushed their bikes until they were on the outskirts of
Cerritos, and then they rode for a few miles before Miguel whistled for her to
stop. They pulled off to the side of the moonlit road, stowing the bikes in the
tall grass, and she took his hand as he guided her into the brush.

She’d ridden
past the place at least a dozen times without noticing it but, sure enough,
there was a path carved into the tangle of scrub, complete with a boardwalk
that creaked and groaned beneath their feet.  They had to stoop beneath the
encroaching canopy of mangrove and saw palmetto, but the boardwalk was in good
shape. A channel of brackish water meandered occasionally beneath it, and she could
hear frogs splashing about in the darkness.

After about a
quarter of a mile, the canopy lifted and they were able to stand. A couple more
turns and the boardwalk terminated in a tidy little clearing. There was an old
stone well in the center and, high above their heads, a thousand stars shone
like diamonds in the inky cosmos. The moon was close to full, and it turned the
waxy leaves of the nearby banana trees silver.

“Oh,
my
,”
Vivian said. “It’s…wow, it’s so beautiful, Mike!”

He pulled her
close and kissed her hard in the moonlight, tasting the sweetness of her
breath. His hands slid underneath her blouse and up her ribs. He cupped her
breasts, felt her heart racing in her chest.

In a flurry of
flashing hands, she stripped him out of his tee-shirt. He reached out for her,
but she pushed him away.

There was a
simple stone bench near the well, and she pushed him down on it.

She stepped away
from him and slowly, methodically, she removed her blouse. She hooked her
thumbs into the waistband of her skirt and hitched it down over her panties,
then kicked out of her sandals. She stood there, barefoot in the sandy
clearing, and rendered the former mortgage trader motionless with her beauty.
She undid her bra and shrugged it off, then stepped out of her panties.

She strode to
where he sat, placed her hands on his thighs and spread his legs wide.

“Hey, Vivian,
I…”

“Shhh,” she
said, unzipping his blue jeans. She took him in her hands and then her mouth,
staring up at him in the darkness as waves of pleasure wracked through him.

She eased him
down onto his back on the bench, then stood and straddled him—brushing herself
against him until he had to close his eyes to maintain his composure.

She worked
herself down on him, moaning as they fell into a rhythm. They panted together
in the dark, sliding into a furious pace—slamming together until they were both
covered in sweat.

Miguel pulled
her to his chest and stood. He pushed her back up against the well. Standing,
their hearts straining, they climaxed together in a frantic crescendo that felt
like finally scratching a persistent itch that was always out of reach. When
they were finished, he returned her gently to the bench, kissing the salty
moisture that beaded there on her flat belly. He kissed the inside of her thigh,
her hip bones, her nipples.

He kissed her
neck and her lips and her eyelids and her earlobes.

“Listen,” she
said, after catching her breath. “Do you hear that?”

He paused, then
shook his head. “What?”

“That’s just it.
There’s nothing. All the creatures, I mean. They just…
stopped
. Mike,
they were listening to us!”

Sure enough, the
jungle around them had grown perfectly silent. There were no cicadas chirping,
no frogs barking, no mourning doves cooing on the night air.

He grinned at
her, and Vivian stood and went to the well. She was beautiful, her skin
luminous against the silver granite.

“Is it safe to
drink?” she said.

“It is. Lots of
locals still come here every day.”

She retrieved
the bucket and dipped a small amount in her hand. It was cold and tasted good,
and they drank their fill.

When they were
satiated, they put their clothes back on. Gradually, the jungle purred back
into life. Cicadas buzzed in the trees and bats chased mosquitoes; an owl’s cry
carried, low and haunting, from some nearby perch.

“It’s paradise,
isn’t it?” Miguel said. He took her hand and brushed a clutch of hair behind
her ear. “We’ve got everything we need, Vi. We’ve got it all right here.”

She frowned.
“That’s what makes me worried, Mike. I’ve…I’ve been comfortable before, only to
have everything taken away from me. I,” she shrugged, looking away. “I
just…every time I feel good, like I’ve got some room to take a breath—something
bad seems to happen.”

He cupped her
jaw, turning her cheek up in the moonlight. “Hey, now. Hey, Vivian? It’s going
to be okay, honey. Just trust me. Okay?”

She smiled and
pushed up onto her toes to kiss him. “Thanks.” Her hand found the front of his
jeans. “You, uh…you still got a little gas in the tank, partner?”

“You know it.”

“Good, because
I’ve still got plans for you.”

“Oh yeah? What
are we talking about here?”

“I told you—I
wanted to see you looking over my shoulder. Let’s get home, okay? I’ll show you
just what I’m talking about.”

Grinning, he
took her hand and led her back into the jungle. “Sheesh, Vivian. I was just
joking, but you really are a succubus, aren’t you? Good God, girl…”

SEVEN

Terri opened her
eyes one minute before the alarm on her watch began to chime. She lay there in
bed, thinking about the day ahead of her, until it dinged on the nightstand.
She switched it off, said a quick prayer for her family, and ducked into the
bathroom for a cold shower. She relished the icy blast—the pain and the focus
that it brought to her morning routine. She’d started the cold showers on the
morning of Sheldon’s funeral, not only as a means of gaining clarity, but also
as a way to turn the page.

She hadn’t
started a day without one since.

It was 4:55
a.m., but the Pinkertons were waiting for her in the kitchen. Blaine poured her
a cup of coffee and Bo fixed a plate of eggs and wheat toast for her.

“Thanks,” she
said. The coffee was strong, and she drained it quickly. Blaine refilled her
mug and Bo grinned while she wolfed her food down.

“Got some place
to be, don’t you Ms. James?” he said.

Terri flashed an
embarrassed smile, then dabbed a bit of egg from the corner of her mouth.
“Sorry. Yes, Bo—I’m anxious to get going. Sooner begun, sooner done.”

“Fair enough,”
he replied. “I’ll go get the horses saddled. Just come on out to the barn when
you’re all set.”

Terri nodded and
went to the sink to rinse her dish. Blaine eased his lanky frame down into a
chair at the kitchen table, and Penny followed suit.

“You got that
look about you, Terri,” he said. He wore a wry smile—not an ounce of humor in
it. His eyes never blinked.

“What look is
that?”

Blaine just
shook his head, grinning. It was an unpleasant expression, and she felt the
skin on the back of her neck dimple. She raised her eyebrows.

Penny sighed.
“He means you look like a killer, Terri.”

Terri scoffed.
She looked away. “Oh yeah? With all due respect, Penny, just how do you know
that?”

“Because I’ve
seen that look before. Used to see it quite often, as a matter of fact. Right
there on my husband’s face.”

Terri studied
them. Blaine’s grin had vanished, but he held her eyes with his own. There was
a warning there, but she ignored it and looked right through him—right through
him and into a time when her little girl’s hand had been whole and her son
could sleep through the night without wetting the bed or shrieking in his
sleep.

“Look, I
appreciate your hospitality, Mr. and Mrs. Pinkerton. I sincerely do. I would be
honored to repay it if you’re ever in Colorado.

“But I’m going
to collect my things now. I’ll leave the money on the nightstand, and I’ll be
back for my car in six days—eight at the outside. If I’m not back by sunset on
the eighth day, you have every right to dispose of it. I understand.”

She left them
there. The Pinkertons exchanged a glance, then Blaine stood and took his wife’s
coffee cup to the sink, where he ditched the dregs from both and rinsed them.

He peered out
the window to the eastern horizon, where a thin band of orange was just
beginning to light the morning.

***

Terri had
forgotten how comfortable she was in the saddle. Before they’d had children,
she and Sheldon had spent many weekends at the Westgate River Ranch in Lake
Wales. They’d spent their mornings exploring the area’s horse trails, and their
nights exploring each other.

She banished the
memory, turning her gaze to the sky. Texas was made for the edges of the day;
the sunrises and sunsets were breathtaking. Pinks and blues and yellows brought
the sage to life, and their horses clopped steadily toward a dense thicket of
trees in the distance.

The border fence
pulled back into view, looming a few miles off to the west.

“You guys get
much immigrant traffic on your property?” she asked. Bo had been content to
ride in silence, occasionally spitting tobacco juice on the dusty ground.

He shrugged.
“Some. This way I’m taking you—it’s definitely a two-way street.”

“What do you do?
I mean…how do you respond if you run into somebody on your property?”

“Well, we
usually let well enough alone. No cause to do anything otherwise. We’re so far
south that they’re all just passing through. Nobody takes up much around here.”

Terri nodded.
“It’s got to be a strange dynamic, the way everyone lives so close to the edges
down here. Does it ever bother you?”

Bo laughed.
“Naw. We spend our fair share of time down in Mexico as well.” He squinted at
Terri. “Benny didn’t tell you much about my dad, did he?”

Terri shook her
head. “Why?”

Bo’s lip curled
in a wry grin. “Let’s just say, people find their way to America in all sorts
of ways. I’ll leave it at that. I was born here, but my old man surely wasn’t.

“Come on now,
Terri. Let’s let these fellows open it up some. I can feel ol’ Curtis here just
itching to run. You up for it?”

“Absolutely!”

They slapped
reins and the horses shot forward, and it wasn’t long until they were in the
woods. They backed the animals back down to an amble, the trail thin and
bisected by gnarled tree roots and slippery shale. A few miles in, Bo pulled
Curtis to a stop in a tiny, nondescript meadow.

He swung out of
his saddle and took the duffle bag from Terri’s shoulders before helping her
dismount.

“This is it?”
she said, incredulous.

“What, you
thought you had to climb a fence?”

Her cheeks
flushed. “Sort of.”

He laughed.
“Sorry. Nothing that dramatic. But you know what? I saved a life here once.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded.
“Little girl. She collapsed. When we found her, she was unconscious. Poor girl
was out here all by herself, sick half to death with dehydration.  Her folks
had either left her behind, or they were captured and deported; maybe they went
for help and they just never quite made it back.”

“You saved her?”

Bo spat a
streamer of tobacco. “I did. Brought her home at a full gallop. We got some
fluids into her, and my old man called in a doctor.”

“What happened
to her?”

Bo smiled.
“She’s fine. Healthy as a horse, actually. She’s my little sister—name’s
Esmeralda. You didn’t meet her because she attends a private school back in
Brownsville. Spends her weekends and summers with us at the ranch.”

Terri mulled it
over for a moment. “Why are you telling me this, Bo?”

He sighed,
looking away. “Dad told me where you’re headed. I, uh…I don’t much like putting
my oar in, but I just wanted to say it. Mercy and forgiveness, Terri—those’re
Godly qualities. Just,” he shrugged, “I just wanted to say it. And I did, and
now I’m done.”

She scowled.
First Benny, then these people! Jesus, what were they trying to do? “Thanks,
Bo. I’ll keep it in mind. This path, then?”

“Yes, Ma’am.
It’ll take you straight through to the Rio Grande. Chaco will help you out from
there. Good luck.”

He swung into
the saddle, took the reins of her horse, turned the animals on the trail and,
without sparing so much as a glance over his shoulder, headed back toward the
ranch.

Terri breathed
deeply. She turned, studying the narrow, meandering path cutting through the
woods.

Mexico.

Right there,
that
was the way to Mexico.

She swallowed
thickly and started down the path.