Torched: A Thriller (4 page)

EIGHT

Terri pushed
forward, sensing the river growing nearer with each step. The morning bloomed
in full—hot and humid—and she stripped down to a tank top, pausing from time to
time to mop the sweat from her forehead and drink from her canteen.

The further she
pushed, the more the landscape shifted. The vegetation thinned, the larch and
pine trees yielding to yucca and scotch broom. The soil grew sandy.

The trail cut a
steep angle up an enormous dune, a few hundred feet or more in altitude, and
she plodded up it, her duffle growing heavy on her shoulders for the first time
since leaving the ranch. When she crested it, her breath caught in her chest.

There it was—the
Rio Grande.

It spread
beneath her like a length of muddy ribbon, the banks surprisingly close in
places where the river narrowed. No wonder so many hopeful immigrants swam for
it.

It stood before
her—that final barrier to Mexico—just a few hundred yards away! Her heart raced.
It was her last chance to turn back, her last chance to turn around and return
to a life that was consistent and solid and safe back in Colorado.

It was a good
life, being at home with her children. In time, Erin and Mike would get better.
In time, they would put the things that Vivian had done to them in the past.

She turned and
started back toward the Pinkertons’ ranch. Christ…what had she been
thinking
?
She was halfway down the dune when she stopped. A large part of her wanted to
keep going, to walk all the way back to the Subaru and the embrace of her
children, but she simply couldn’t summon the will.

Her eyes flooded
and she clamped them shut against the tears, gulping the moist air deep into
her lungs to quell the sobs rising in her chest. She pictured Sheldon’s remains
(what little the searchers had been able to find), collected there in that
pitiful pile at the morgue.

She thought
again about Erin and Mike, and all the troubles they’d had in the last few
months.

“Shit,” she
whispered. She opened her eyes, her mouth set in a grimace.

“
Shit
!”
she screamed.

She turned and
charged back to the top of the dune, where she paused for an instant before
catching a glint of sunlight on glass. A man, just a speck on the banks from
her vantage point, stepped out from behind a bush and waved a red bandana.

“You have to do
this, Terri,” she muttered. “No backing out now.”

She plunged
forward, making a steep descent to the floor of the sandy basin created by the
mighty river. A man, dark-skinned and grinning, wiped his hands on the bandana
as he walked over to meet her. “Ms. James?”

“That’s right.
You must be Chaco?”

He offered his
hand and she shook it. “One and the same,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet
you.”

“You too. Thanks
for being here.”

“No problem. You
ready?”

She nodded and
he took her duffle and began to head west, up the river. She followed and,
after about a quarter mile, she saw the little aluminum johnboat tied up on the
banks of the river.

“It’s a fine day
to cross. Go ahead—grab a seat.”

She climbed in.
The boat was empty—no life jackets. Nothing else at all, it seemed.

Chaco smiled at
her. “Payment?”

“Oh. Yes, of
course.” Terri replied. She began to unzip the duffle, and that’s when she
noticed the pistol balanced on the man’s knee. His grin was hard, his eyes
flat—the brown irises the same color as the water in the river.

“Don’t
do
that, Ms. James. You’re going to Mexico, my dear. Payment is always due
after
services are rendered. Not until then.”

Her mouth fell
open, her heart hammering in her chest.

He put the gun
away, the lesson delivered.

“But you could
just…you could have just
taken it
. Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it’s
clear to me that you’re out of your element, Ms. James.” He splashed a boot in
the water, pushing the johnboat away from the bank. He pulled the cord on the
outboard, and it sputtered to life in a cloud of blue exhaust. “I’m trying to
give you an outside chance to make it back here
alive
,” he shouted. “You
know you’re a target, right?”

She sighed,
shoulders slumped. “I suppose. I mean, yes, of course I know it. But I can’t…I
can’t
not
do what I came here to do.”

Chaco nodded as
he throttled down and the little engine settled into a quiet purr. “You’re on a
mission, aren’t you?”

“You could call
it that.”

He swung the
outboard and the boat squirted out into the current. The water pushed them
rapidly toward the Gulf of Mexico, and Chaco was content to let it carry them
in that direction. “Lesson one, then. Pay
after
—not before.”

He throttled up,
the noise effectively ending their discussion, and fixed his gaze on the far
banks. True to his word, the passage was smooth. Fifteen minutes later, he was
tying the boat to a gnarled clutch of juniper root. Terry watched him
expectantly, her pulse pounding.

He was handsome.
He wore cargo shorts and scuffed work boots and a threadbare Texas Rangers
tee-shirt. He had thick black hair and a boyish grin; she thought he was
probably in his thirties—maybe a few years her junior.

When the boat
was secured, he motioned for her to follow him. They disappeared beneath a
tropical canopy. On the Mexican side, the brush was much thicker. It pushed
right to the edge of the riverbank.

“So,” he said,
“tell me—were we observed just now?”

Terri shook her
head. “I don’t think so. I…I didn’t see anybody.”

He chuckled.
“Don’t believe that for a second, Ms. James. There are eyes all around us. I
can assure you, our presence was noted. Are you prepared now to go out on your
own?”

Terri bit her
lip. “I have a taser. Pepper spray. I…” She shrugged. “I’m as ready as I can
be, I guess.”

“Wow!” he
smirked. “Look out! Got a lady with a taser over here!”

His eyes
narrowed and the smirk vanished. “Be careful, Ms. James. Keep your eyes open
and your head on a swivel. Slide through. That’s your goal—just
slide
through
.”

They stared at
each other, a host of unsaid things suspended in the space between them.

“Okay, then. Our
business is finished. Good luck to you.” He held out his hand, and she went to
shake it. He laughed. “No, Ms. James. You can pay me now. Then, we shake.”

She smiled and
gave him the envelope, and they did indeed shake. He held her hand for a long
moment, eyes fixed on hers, and then let it go.

“Goodbye. I hope
you find the person you’re looking for.”

He turned and
started back toward the boat.

“Thank you!” she
called after him. Without turning, he put a hand in the air. A minute later, he
was gone, standing tall in the boat as it angled back toward Texas.

Terri studied
the woods. It was similar to the trail she’d followed on the Texas side.

She started as
an iguana scrambled through the branches overhead. A few leaves fluttered to
the ground at her feet. “Jesus, Terri! It’s just a lizard. Get a grip, girl.”

She walked into
the jungle, but it wasn’t long before she’d gone into the duffle for the taser.
She held it loosely in her right hand, thumb on the trigger, feeling just
fractionally better.

NINE

Vivian finished
up in the field before showering and riding into Cerritos. Miguel’s contact was
meeting with her at 1:00, and she didn’t want to be late.

Cerritos, like
many Mexican towns, had a large and well-kept park at its core. This one was
filled with statues and tidy, shaded walking paths. There was a little cemetery
in one corner—home to perhaps forty or fifty plots.

Old men played
cards and checkers on shaded tables. Street vendors peddled everything from
cheap plastic sunglasses to steaming empanadas. Vivian purchased two of the
latter and washed them down with an ice-cold bottle of orange Fanta. When her
lunch was finished, she opened the book she’d brought with her, thankful that
she’d thought ahead, and lost herself for forty-five minutes in a Paulo Coelho
novel. Her Spanish was improving quickly, and she understood most of what she
was reading—at least enough to follow the plot.

Miguel’s contact
finally arrived just a few minutes after 2:00. Vivian smiled when she saw her.
Five years ago, when life at her South Florida art gallery had been much more
cluttered, the tardiness would have been irritating. But she was growing
accustomed to the pace of life in Mexico, and she was happy for the company.

She was an old
woman, with very dark skin. She wore a traditional Mexican dress, her gray hair
swept up in a tight bun, and sunglasses with yellow tint. There were a few gaps
in her warm smile. She took Vivian’s hand in hers, swallowing it, and the
younger woman was surprised by how soft and cool her palms were.

She was quite
pretty.

“Hola, señora.
Habla usted Inglés?” Vivian said.

“I do,” the
woman replied. Her voice was deeper than Vivian had expected, and there was a
calm command in her tone. “My name is Alma. I’m pleased to meet you. Miguel is
a good young man. He’s been very kind to me over the years.”

“I’ll tell him
you said that, Alma. It’ll make him very happy.”

Alma went into a
pocket inside the front of her dress and withdrew a worn envelope. She handed
it to Vivian.

“Welcome to
Mexico, Ms. Diaz.”

Vivian grinned.
A spark coursed through her.

Ms. Diaz!

She opened the
envelope and found a driver’s license and a national identification card.
Carmen Hidalgo Diaz—resident of Cerritos.

She stared at
it. It was a new name, and a new beginning.

“This is…I can’t
thank you enough, Alma. This means so much to me.”

Alma nodded. Her
smile was a little troubled as she reached over and patted Vivian’s hand.

“You are
welcome, my dear. Miguel has done me many kindnesses in these last few years.
It’s a small thing for me to help you. But…”

Vivian waited
for her to finish. “But what, Alma? Go ahead.”

“You are still
young. Why do you want this change? Are you unhappy with who you are?”

Vivian pursed
her lips. She thought of Katie, of the terrible things she’d done in Colorado.
It seemed like so long ago, and she had a hard time reconciling that person
with the one she was becoming in Mexico. “I just need a change. That’s all. I
lost someone very dear to me, and it made me so angry that I became somebody
else. Somebody I didn’t like. Somebody that…that scared me.”

“I understand.”

“I can’t undo
the things I’ve done, Alma. And I can’t bring back the ones that I love.
There’s nothing left for me in the place that I used to call home. So now I’m
here, and I found Miguel. I want to be with him, and this goes a long way
toward making that a reality.” She tucked the envelope into her pocket. “Thank
you. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,
Carmen. I hope,” she patted Vivian’s hand, “that life is easier in your new
home.”

“Me too, Alma.
Me too.”

TEN

Terri was
completely unnerved. The further she pushed into the jungle, the more tenuous
the terrain became. The trail meandered almost exclusively over long, slick
portions of limestone, and she had to take careful, deliberate steps to keep
from stumbling. The damp seeped through the porous ground, and pockets of
sulfur-tinged water pooled every couple of feet.

The Rio Grande
was hours behind her, and now she was alone with the symphony of jungle life
reverberating all around her. Iguanas and squirrels skittered from branch to
branch overhead, the limbs casting uncertain shadows on the jungle floor.

She walked a
little quicker when something large—something barking an odd, primal
grunt—began to pace her from the brush; it was a few hundred feet behind her,
moving through the foliage like a miniature bulldozer.

She started to
jog, and then there was a sudden, high-pitched squeal and she shrieked and ran.

The creature
followed, and she sensed its pursuit; she watched in horror as palmetto fronds
shook in the wake of its passage.

Terri dug deep
and found another gear, her boots skidding over shale and limestone as she put
her head down and pumped her arms.

The razorback,
easily the biggest animal she’d ever seen in the wild, burst from the greenery
and onto the trail. She stopped for an instant, terrified as the behemoth
struggled to keep its footing on the slippery limestone. Its hooves clattered
over the surface, and it loosed another banshee squeal as it crashed down onto
its side and slid hard into the brush on the opposite side of the path.

Then, its
powerful haunches pumping cartoonishly in place, it regained its footing and
surged after her. The thing stood taller than her, its tusks easily ten or
twelve inches in length.

She sprinted
down the path, flying over rocks and roots, grunting as the trail angled
downward into a gradual depression. She thought about peeling off into the
brush, but she couldn’t convince herself to abandon the trail’s familiarity.

And still the
beast charged. It was gaining, squealing and grunting all the while.

The trail fell
into a wide thicket of cypress trees. They were covered in vines and brambles,
and she could hear something else.

Rushing water.

She ran toward
the raucous burble, flying through the trees, pumping her legs so hard she
almost couldn’t stop in time. There was an enormous sinkhole at the far end of
the cypress grove. Instinctively, she fell hard to the ground, stripping the
top layer of skin from the palms of her hands and knees as she skidded to a
stop on the wet stone, her legs dangling over the precipice. She scrambled for
purchase, even as her momentum carried her closer to the lip of the enormous
cenote. She snatched at a length of vine and arrested her fall, her chest
digging into the ledge as her entire lower body dangled out there in space.

She spun her
head. Water from at least a dozen freshwater springs trickled over the edge and
into the dark blue pool beneath her.

She looked down,
and the drop made her scream. It had to be fifty feet—maybe more than that.

She peered back
up; the hog was closing hard. It bullied into the cypress grove, head bent,
legs churning.

Terri shrugged
the duffle from her shoulder. With her left hand she swung it once, twice,
three times—gauging its weight for the long fall. On the fourth try, she let it
go and watched it sail on a gentle arc toward the sandy beach.

It landed (dry,
thank goodness!) with a satisfying
WUPF
!

She looked up,
just as the razorback realized the folly of its haste. It lowered its enormous
head, tusks bared, and tried to brake. It slid toward her, and she shrieked in
fear and let go.

She fell
backward, just as the animal swung its thick skull into the space she had
vacated, trying to bury those deadly tusks in the side of her face.

She was
perfectly supine for a fraction of a moment before her body, understanding that
something wasn’t quite right, reacted on instinct; she rotated in the air,
pulling her knees up into her chest.

She hit the
cenote on her side, the frigid water punching the breath from her lungs. Down,
down she went, plunging deep into the inky cold. The world shimmered above her,
a perfect circle of blue sky through what looked like ten feet of cloudy
Lucite, and then her brain took over and she stroked toward the surface.

She broke
through with a gasp, sucking oxygen in great choking mouthfuls, then swam
frantically for the beach. She pulled herself from the water and collapsed on
the beach. Blood seeped through the wounds on her knees and palms, trickling
across her skin in tiny channels.

Other than the
abrasions, which stung like a hundred paper cuts, she thought she was unhurt.

“It’s…a…freaking…
miracle
,”
she panted.

She heard that familiar
grunting and looked skyward. The hog was still there, studying her from the
ledge.

“Leave me
alone!” she screamed. “Go on! Get!”

The razorback
watched her for another minute, then turned and disappeared. Terri grinned.
“Yeah! Yeah, fuck you!” she shouted, this time a little less emphatically.

She went to her
duffle and took inventory.

The iPad had
survived the toss.

She pulled out a
crumbled granola bar and ate it, then finished the last of her water before
filling her canteen in the sinkhole. She put everything back except for the
map, which she studied for a few minutes before deciding on a direction.

She was just
starting to scale the hill that she hoped would reunite her with the trail when
three gunshots—
BAP…BAP…BAP
—echoed through the jungle. She ducked behind
a bush, peering up at the lip of the cenote. There was a fourth gunshot, then
she heard a voice.

“Ms. James!”
Chaco called. He whistled from the ledge, waving down at her. “Hello! Ms.
James! Come on out!”

She did, and he
grinned down at her.

“Big fella, eh?
He, uh…he won’t be giving you any more trouble.”

“Chaco! What are
you doing here? Did you follow me?”

He shrugged.
“Maybe a little. You coming? For somebody with places to be, I’m surprised to
see you down there, just cooling off with a swim.”

Terri laughed.
“Yeah, yeah…I’m coming. Is this the best way back up?”

He nodded. “But
watch your step. It gets tricky near the top.”

And it was, but
there was a narrow path back up the sheer limestone bank. With Chaco talking
her through it, she made it up in one piece.

“I’m surprised
to see you,” Terri said. “Surprised and thankful, Chaco. Do I…do I owe you more
money?”

Chaco waved the
suggestion away. “Nah. I’m working pro bono until we get you into Cerritos. I
could use some good karma. Come on. I’ll show you the way.”

They hiked
through the remainder of the afternoon, pausing for a quick dinner of protein
bars and spring water. They passed but one tiny village on the trail—maybe two
dozen buildings circling a well and a church with chipped, fading walls. Other
than a few pygmy deer and the usual assortment of birds and reptiles, they
didn’t stumble across much wildlife to speak of.

The sun was far
out over the western skyline when Terri heard the first automobile. “Is
that...?”

Chaco nodded.
“Come on, Ms. James. Won’t take long to find a ride.”

“I told you,
Chaco. Please—call me Terri.”

“Okay, Terri.
Come on.”

They passed
through a few more clearings. These had been cleared to make way for cellular
telephone towers. Then, after a full day of tramping through wilderness, she
spotted the road.

Cars and trucks
zipped east and west over the dark asphalt. Chaco told her to stand far off to
the side. He went to the shoulder and waved his arms.

The fourth truck
slowed and pulled over.

“See? I told
you,” he said. “Grab your things. C’mon.”

Chaco spoke in
muted Spanish with the driver. When he was finished, he climbed into the bed of
the truck and helped Terri up.

“Salt of the
earth, the Mexican people. You don’t ever really need to worry much about a
ride down here.”

Terri flashed a
nervous grin. “It’s such a relief, having you with me. I was…I’ll admit I was
worried about making my way on the roads. Thank you, Chaco.”

He reached over
and gave her hand a squeeze. “Don’t thank me yet, Terri. The hardest parts for
you are still ahead, if I’m not mistaken.”