Wild Orchids (19 page)

The men—she thought there were two of them—stopped outside her cell. The flashlight swung around so that it shone directly on her. One man said something to the other in Spanish. The reply was, even to Lora, clearly an affirmative. A key slid into the lock on her door. Lora got shakily to her feet as the door swung open.

"What do you want?" Visions of rape and murder danced in her brain. Secretly, she had feared it all along. No one knew where she was—they could do as they liked with her—this was why they had kept her. She had been crazy to go to the police in a country like Mexico. It was very likely that she would never see the light of day again… She had brought this on herself, idiot that she was. No, Max had brought it on her…

"I am from the Federal Judicial Police, Senorita Harding. I would like to ask you a few questions, please."

He spoke excellent English. That alone was enough to make Lora feel a little better. But just a little. Why did he want to ask her a few questions in the middle of the night? Lora hung back. Visions of glaring lights and police brutality swam through her mind. Was she to be interrogated TV movie style?

"Come, Senorita Harding, I do not have all night."

Lora could see nothing of the two men except for dark outlines. The glare of the flashlight in her face prevented her from determining if the taller man was one of the policemen who had interviewed her earlier. He was not Jorge… The man who was from the Federal Judicial Police was short even for a Mexican. Maybe two inches shorter than she, which would make him about five-feet-four. He was brusque, clearly in a hurry, and that made her uneasy. If she did not answer his questions to his satisfaction, she did not like to consider what his reaction might be…

The policeman—the taller man was one of the policemen, the third one—reached in and grasped her arm, pulling her out of the cell and pushing her before him, through the door and into the lighted police station. Lora blinked at the brightness, turning to look apprehensively at the men who followed her through the door.

The shorter man, Mexican like the beefier policeman, was thin and wiry and dressed in a conservative blue business suit that would not have been out of place on an American businessman. He frowned as he looked around the room, then shook his head and asked a question in Spanish. The young policeman, who appeared to be the only one on duty at this time of the night, nodded and led the way to the door from which the captain had emerged earlier that day.

"I have asked him if there is a place we can go to be private," the other man said to Lora, and motioned for her to precede him through the door. She did, reluctantly, visions of cattle prods dancing in her brain. Turning to face the self-possessed man who followed her into what appeared to be the captain's office, she clutched her hands together nervously. The young policeman closed the door behind them, and she was alone with this officer from the Federal Judicial Police.

"Stay where you are." The order was crisp. Lora watched, bewildered, as the man pushed by her and crossed to the single small window set high in the wall. It was shuttered, and as the man dragged a chair beneath it and climbed up on it, opening the shutters to look out, Lora saw that the window was fortified with more steel bars set deep into the cinderblock walls. He pressed his face against the bars, then thrust a hand through them to wave at someone who was presumably outside. Lora stared, feeling more and more nervous. What was he doing? After a moment he stepped down from the chair, holding up a hand when she would have said something.

"One moment."

"Blammm!" the sound of an explosion nearby nearly deafened her. She whirled, jumping a foot in the air, to stare at the closed door, behind which she heard a yell and the sound of running feet. From somewhere near at hand came the sound of crashing walls, and then the scream of a siren.

"What…" She turned back nervously to glance at the officer, who was looking pleased.

"Good, it is on time," he said. Lora stared at him, then took a small step backwards. What on earth was going on? There was a rattling noise at the window, and Lora looked up to see a heavy iron chain being passed around the bars.

"What…" she started once more, but again he held up that silencing hand.

"In a moment."

Beyond the window, Lora heard the sound of a car engine. The chain tightened—and then the window, bars, frame and all, popped out of the wall, falling to the ground outside with a crash and the rattle of dislodged mortar. Lora was left gaping at the jagged hole.

"Out the window. Hurry!"

At once all of Lora's suspicions crystallized into rampant paranoia, and she started slowly backing away. An officer of the Federal Judicial Police should not be telling her to climb out the window… Was it possible that she was being set up? But for what? So that she could be killed while supposedly trying to escape? But how would that benefit anyone?

"Por Dios, Senorita Harding, I have been sent by Max! To rescue you! He is waiting for us outside! We must go instantly, or we are discovered!"

"I don't believe you." She was right, it was a set-up. There was no way Max could know where she was. And the idea of him rescuing her—a wanted criminal rescuing her from the police—was laughable. This was an elaborate charade devised by someone, she felt sure, to get her to admit that she knew far more about Max than she had told. Perhaps they suspected she was his girfriend…

"Madre de Dios!" From the sound of his voice, it was a curse, and the expression in his chocolate brown eyes as they met hers was distinctly unfriendly. He moved toward her, his hands reaching for her, the expression in his eyes determined— and Lora backed away just as determinedly.

"Don't make me use force, Senorita Harding! Max might not like it."

"I don't know anything about Max. And I don't want to know anything about Max. Just go away and leave me alone. Please."

"Cristos!" He stopped, glared at her, and swung on his heel, stepping up to the window in a single movement and leaning out, whistling softly. Lora watched, interested despite her wariness. What was he up to now?

The man said something, apparently to someone outside the window. Then he jumped down from the chair with the air of a conjurer and gave her a smug look. Outside the window there was a thump and a scraping sound—and then a rough black head and a pair of broad shoulders appeared, followed in short order by the rest of him. Max!

"What are you doing here?" Lora gasped the words, casting a scared glance over her shoulder at the closed door. Sirens wailed madly outside, accompanied by shouts and screams and the sound of squealing tires and running feet. The police would probably come bursting in here at any instant…

"I just happened to be in the neighborhood," Max said with withering sarcasm, glaring at her from his perch in the ruined window. He was dressed in the same ordinary whitet-shirt and blue jeans that he had worn since Ortega's—and nothing had ever looked so good to her in her life. The smaller man said something to him in Spanish, and Max grunted.

"Come on, Lora, we don't have all night. We have to get out of here."

"I can't go with you. I'm under arrest—sort of."

"And you'll stay under arrest—sort of—for the next twenty years if you don't come with me now. For God's sake, Lora, I told you not to go to the police! It'll take 'em a year just to make up their minds what to do with you, and then I'll bet a thousand dollars they'll decide you're an accomplice of mine and lock you up for the rest of your life."

"I can't just—escape!"

"Why not? People do it all the time. Believe me, I know." His eyes narrowed at her. He took a deep breath. "This is a hell of a time to be having this conversation. Clemente and I are leaving. You can come with us or not, it's up to you. But if I were you, I wouldn't want to still be here in the morning."

"Why not?"

"Look around you. Do you want to try to explain that you had nothing to do with any of this—or the explosion?"

"You did that!" she gasped, listening to the commotion that seemed to be coming from the far end of the jail. Max was no longer listening. He had jumped down into the room, jerking his thumb at Clemente to indicate that the man could leave. Clemente needed no second urging. He leaped to the chair and wriggled out of the window with the agility of a snake. Max turned to look at Lora.

"Well?"

She stared at him, thoughts tripping over each other as they rioted through her mind. She couldn't just escape—but, as he said, did she want to be here tomorrow to explain tonight's happenings to the sour-faced captain on top of everything else? She shuddered.

"All right, I'm coming!"

He already had a foot on the chair, but he turned back to offer her a hand. She let him pull her up beside him, and then she was scrambling headfirst through the jagged-edged window with his hand on her behind giving her a helpful boost. The feel of his hand against that part of her anatomy made her jerk away. She lost her balance and would have crashed to the ground on the other side if he had not grabbed her ankle, stopping her headlong descent. Dangling head down, she had just a second to notice that the opposite end of the jail seemed to have been reduced to rubble. People she assumed were fellow prisoners were fleeing every which way into the darkness while policemen armed with flashlights and pistols ran after them, weapons firing with sharp pops. The siren wailed from directly overhead, and Lora assumed that it must be set into the top of the building. Three police cars were parked near the site of the explosion, their headlights trained on what just moments earlier had been the rear wall while their sirens wailed in unison with the one on the roof. No one paid the least attention to them as Max lowered her to the ground. Lora stood up just as Max jumped down beside her. The brown sedan was parked nearby, a chain still dangling beneath it. Max caught her hand and sprinted toward it, dragging her with him. Clemente was ahead of them. Two men, prisoners from their clothing, darted past them to vanish in the darkness. Then Clemente was opening the sedan's door and flinging himself into the driver's seat. The engine turned over.

They reached the car. Max jerked open the rear door and thrust her into the backseat, then jumped in beside her, slamming the door shut. As soon as they were inside, Clemente gunned the car, the shriek of tires joined the infernal din of the shrieking sirens. As they sped down the hill away from the riotous confusion of the police station, Lora saw another police car screech to a halt beside the pile of mortar that had once been the rear wall. A heavyset man climbed slowly out, staring at the destruction as if he couldn't believe his eyes. With a shudder Lora recognized the captain…

"I don't believe this! What have you done?" Lora turned to fix accusing eyes on Max as Clemente sent the car careening through the night. The rattle of the chain beneath them grated on her ears.

"Gotten you out of jail. Don't bother to say thank you.Step on it, Clemente, we've been gone too long already. Tunafish'll be getting antsy."

"Sorry I took so long. Max, but that idiot cop wanted to call Mexico City to confirm my identity. Good thing we cut the telephone wires. Everything went well after that—until the lady here decided to give me a problem." This last was accompanied by a reproachful glance at Lora, thrown over Clemente's narrow shoulder.

"I—" Lora started to defend herself, but was silenced by a warning shake of Max's head.

"You know women, amigo, always arguing," he said to Clemente with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "Not an ounce of proper gratitude."

Clemente nodded once in reply, his attention focused once more on the dark road as they left the lights of the town behind.

"You think I should be grateful to you?" Lora's voice rose incredulously. "I would never have been in jail in the first place if it hadn't been for you!"

"You wouldn't have been in jail if you'd listened to me," he retorted coolly, turning those eyes that gleamed like twin hunks of jet in the darkness on her. "I told you not to go to the police."

"Criminals always say that. Victims rarely listen. Of course I went to the police. You kidnapped me! Besides, you took all my money! What was I supposed to do for gas?" Her earlier grievance rose to the fore, and she gazed at him indignantly.

"I forgot about that," he admitted, not sounding particularly regretful. "But you still shouldn't have gone to the police. That was really stupid."

Lora stared up at him, totally at a loss for words. That was not to say that she couldn't think of anything she wanted to say to him. The problem was, she could think of too much.

And all of it was insulting. She bit back the words. Arguing would serve no purpose now. For better or worse, she had let him "rescue" her from the clutches of the police. There could be no going back. She didn't like to contemplate what the captain's reaction would be to her escape. Certainly she didn't want to experience it firsthand.

"How did you know where I was, anyway?" That question had been teasing at the corners of her mind.

He turned his head to look down at her again. The faint moonlight filtering through the tinted window formed a triangular wedge on his cheekbone. The rest of his face was deep in shadow; she could barely make out the villainous mustache and square, unshaven jaw—but she had no trouble at all seeing the glitter of the darker-than-the-night eyes.

"One of Ortega's hangers-on spotted the car in front of the police station, and after it stayed there for several hours reported the information back to Ortega, who is always very interested when one of his recent guests decides to visit the police. Ortega conveyed his interest to me. I assured him that your sudden chumminess with the authorities could have no connection with him, but I'm not sure that he believed me. I decided to check it out, as I was still in the area, though I couldn't believe that you were actually stupid enough to go to the Mexican police. But there couldn't be two orange Volkswagens with their front ends smashed in in this part of Chiapas. I had Clemente make some inquiries, and it wasn't hard to find out what happened. In a town the size of Comitan, everyone knows everyone else's business. I thought about leaving you to the wolves, but since I had to assume some responsibility for the predicament you were in, I decided to get you out. Although not without some misgivings. You are a real pain in the ass, you know."