Читать книгу The Stronghold - Lisa Carter - Страница 13
ОглавлениеChapter 5
5
Disconcerted, Pilar started for the Jeep.
Alex moved to intercept her. “Where’re you going?”
“I’m going to make sure Reyna gets home.” She glanced beyond him to the shadow-draped mountains. “Too many dangers out there for a girl her age. I should know.”
A fleeting expression too quick for her to decipher crossed Alex’s face. “Let me drive. I’ll update you on the case.”
“I’ll drive myself. I don’t need—”
“Please, Pilar.” He reached for her arm, checked himself, and dropped his hand. “That way you’ll get rid of me quicker.” He opened the passenger door of the SUV for her.
She edged past him. “The quicker the better.”
A muscle leaped in his jaw. “If that’s what you want.”
That was what she wanted? Wasn’t it? But the scent of him filled her nostrils as he leaned over to shuffle papers out of her way. Her fingers fumbled with the seat belt. He helped her click the belt in place.
His cologne sent her pulse into overdrive. Sandalwood and Alex—a combination she’d never been able to banish from her heart. Her mouth went dry.
She trembled from the effort not to touch his hand. Because what she’d wanted was a life with him. To keep him close. Always.
He stepped back a pace. “I’m so sorry for everything, Pilar.”
Everything?
Proving he’d never wanted her the way she’d wanted him. The skin on her arms underneath her sleeves itched, aching with an insatiable need to release the pain. She bit her lip.
“If I could change what—”
“Are we going to check on Reyna or not?” She yanked the car door shut.
Rounding the hood, he slid into the driver’s seat. “Still collecting strays, Pilar?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Like Calico. And me.”
She curled her lip. “You’ve never been anyone’s stray.”
“We need to talk about why I—”
“Doesn’t matter what happened.” She couldn’t bear for him to know how he’d hurt her then or now. “Ancient history. Some things can’t be fixed.”
She pointed her lips at the keychain dangling in his hand. “Wouldn’t want to keep God’s Gift to Women from a date with the blonde. Or,” she threw him a nasty look. “Are you into both of the blondes these days?”
He cranked the engine and revved the motor. “Pushing buttons must run in the family, eh, Pia? I could help you with Manny. Offer my take on the folly of getting involved with gangs. I’m here for you and him.”
“Like you were here for me then?” She laughed. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Jerking, he faced forward and navigated the rough stretch of road per her directions.
She allowed herself a longer look at the boy—become man—she’d once loved so impossibly. The white Oxford shirt he wore contrasted nicely with his Latino skin tone. The shirt cuffs rolled to his elbows, his forearms were rock-hard muscle. But Alex had always looked good in clothes.
And without them, too.
She blushed at the memory.
The SUV jolted over a pothole, and she lurched into Alex. He caught her. His hand electrified the skin on her arm.
She inched away and steadied herself against the armrest. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
He removed his hand, and as if unsure what to do with it, he raked his hand over his short-cropped hair.
She tracked the movement of his hand as he gripped the steering wheel. His hands large enough to palm a basketball, the fingers were lean and well-formed. His face was more serious than she recalled. Not the same happy-go-lucky boy she’d so lov—
“I’ve called a team meeting for tomorrow morning to pool our notes on the case.”
She shrugged. “I’ll be on patrol. Haven’t made detective yet. Not my case.”
“I’ve requested you be temporarily reassigned. There’s enough work for my team, the tribal detective, and you.”
She frowned. “I don’t think you and me on the same team is a good idea.” She sniffed. “’Cause that worked out so well with us before.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Based on what we already know about this perp, he targets Apache girls and he’s not done killing by a long shot.” He didn’t bother looking at her. “You saying you won’t be a team player for the good of the tribe?”
“You’d be the expert on being a player, wouldn’t you, Alex?”
Tight-lipped, he pulled to a stop on the road beside Reyna’s home. Pilar watched a silhouette of Reyna move from room to room switching on table lamps.
“You want to go inside?”
Pilar shook her head. “She’ll want to lick her wounds in private. I’ll touch base with her tomorrow.”
“Kind of what you do when someone hurts you, Pilar.”
She stared at his hands, where he white-knuckled the wheel. “Is that a question?”
“More like a memory.”
His voice was deeper than she remembered. And he topped six feet now. His shoulders were broad.
“We found two more bodies.”
This time, her gaze found his. He’d been a boy the last time he looked into her eyes. No—he’d been unable to look her in the eyes that last, terrible day—
He switched off the engine. “Thought you’d be up for the challenge, Cater-Pilar.”
She bristled. “Don’t call me that. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m no longer thirteen.”
He cut his eyes at her. “I noticed. A long time ago. I married you, didn’t I?”
Pilar’s chest constricted. She fought for a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “And divorced me, too.”
He shuffled his feet on the floorboards. “About that, Pia—”
She growled. “If we’re going to catch this killer before he strikes again, then I suggest you stick to the case. What do you already know about the killer?”
“We know he operates on both sides of the border. At first, we suspected a sex trafficking ring. But when bodies emerged in New Mexico’s bootheel, close to the border, we realized we were dealing with a serial killer. Maybe affiliated with Franco Salazar’s cartel because once on the other side, he seems to disappear out of law enforcement’s reach.”
“Franco Salazar, the drug lord?”
Alex’s lips thinned. “It’s been a war zone since the Flores patriarch was captured by Mexican Special Forces. Rival gangs and cartels are locked in a bloodbath to see who will emerge as the new king of the hill. Intel says Salazar appears to be the winner.”
He made a face. “At least until someone stronger knocks him off the heap.”
“And this serial killer is Mexican?”
“We think so. Although the girl kept repeating ‘Oos dah.’ ”
Pilar leaned forward. “The Enemy. What the other tribes called the Apache.”
“Exactly.”
“What girl?”
He shifted. “There’s been a flood of illegals this year. From as far away as Guatemala. Mostly children. Border Patrol picked up a bunch of them last month. Took them into temporary custody at the Nogales Detention Center.”
“But this girl?”
“Got a file.” He jutted his chin toward the backseat. “To get you up to speed.” Engaging the ignition, Alex did a three-point turn and headed back to Pilar’s house.
She reached over the seat and retrieved the file. She extracted the photo of a dark-skinned girl in her mid-teens. “What’s her name?”
“Don’t know. Seemed to understand Spanish and English. Refused to speak either.” His mouth tightened. “And you note how she’s dressed?”
Pilar studied the overblouse and traditional three-tiered skirt. The dirty, matted hair was chopped off shoulder-length. Resembling photos she’d seen of nineteenth-century Apache women. Except this photo was in color.
“You think the girl’s Apache? News flash, Torres. I promise you every girl in San Carlos speaks better English than Apache. And nobody wears this getup anymore unless they’re one of the Old Ones or for a ceremonial purpose.”
She lay the photograph between them. “How’d the FBI get involved in a border issue? This have something to do with your undercover work in Mexico?” She reddened at what she’d let slip.
He grinned. “Glad to hear you were keeping track of me.”
She scowled. “Keeping track so I’d be sure to steer clear.”
He veered into her driveway and parked. “I’d already been compromised when—”
She inhaled. “Your cover was blown?”
Before she could stop herself, her finger brushed the small scar at the edge of his brow. “Is that how you got this? Did they hurt you?”
He caught her hand and ran her palm across the five o’clock stubble of his jawline and across his mouth. His breath warmed her skin.
She snatched her hand away. What on earth possessed her to touch him? Except for Manny, she didn’t touch people.
Pilar buried her hands in her lap. Just because they’d loved each other once—correction, hindsight always 20/20—she’d loved him. A long time ago. A lifetime ago.
But her fingertips tingled.
Alex swallowed. “Though I never met him, I guess I’m the Salazar expert after I managed to infiltrate the cartel. Only just escaped, too.”
He shrugged. “Lots of scars, most not so visible.” He put a finger to the scar on his brow. “Afghanistan, not Mexico.”
She’d spent a half-dozen years not watching the news when she learned Alex was over there. “What makes you think this girl is connected to the bodies here on the rez?”
“Emily says—”
“Your Emily seems to be an authority on everything.”
He settled against the seat. “First off, she’s not my Emily.”
Pilar grabbed the door handle. “Why don’t the both of you take a long walk across the desert and interview this girl?”
He shook his head. “She was like a caged animal. Pacing, the guards said. Howling. Frightened the other children. Wouldn’t eat. Starving herself. She was scared out of her mind. By us. By everything.”
Pilar placed the folder on the seat. “Take her back to wherever she came from. She sounds mental. This isn’t some story about a feral child raised by Mexican wolves in the desert, is it?”
“Look, I’m as patriotic as the next. Maybe more than most. But I’ve more than a little sympathy for those desperate enough to sell their soul to the coyotes promising them the American dream across a river. I’ve seen the poverty. The violence. The fear that keeps them heading north toward hope.”
She pursed her lips. “Where they end up, often as not, on our land. Rez land. No love has ever been lost between a Mexican and an Apache.”
“Don’t know as I’d agree with that last statement.” The look he gave her scorched Pilar. “Would you?”
Pilar’s heart hammered. “We were talking about the girl.”
His eyebrow quirked. “Were we?”
She fidgeted under his scrutiny.
He blew out a breath. “Before we could interview her, the girl escaped and climbed onto the roof of the detention center. When one of the agents followed, she jumped.”
Pilar released the catch on the seatbelt. “She must’ve been Apache then. Death before captivity. Never surrender is kind of our thing.”
Alex flicked her a glance. “Tell me about it.”
He shoved the folder at her. “She’d been marked. Like another dead Jane Doe we found on the New Mexico side. Not far from the Mescalero rez. Marked like the body Dr. Chestuan found on San Carlos land.”
Marked . . . nausea churned Pilar’s stomach.
“We think maybe she got away and the others weren’t so fortunate. I’m here to do a job and then I promise to be out of your—” He flushed, biting off his words as a palpable memory surged between them.
Of his fingers entwined in her hair. Those five glorious days when she loved him so completely. Reckless of her heart. In total disregard for the future.
With an abandon perhaps only possible when one is as young as she’d been then.
She blinked back tears. Apaches didn’t cry. Her eyes strayed to the panic and hopelessness etched on the young girl’s face in the photograph. What had been her story? Where had she come from? Was it fear that drove her north?
Or something else?
Perhaps you only learned self-preservation as you grew older. When you no longer believed in immortality, much less invincibility.
The silence lengthened.
He moistened his lips. “Another disturbing fact has come out of the autopsies. Each can be traced to the perigee.”
At her upraised brow, he continued. “The supermoon. When the moon’s larger on the horizon due to its closest orbital proximity to earth. Including according to Em the latest vic, dead only a month sometime during August’s perigee.”
“The killer stalks his victims by the light of the moon?”
“And I back-checked the night you disappeared, Pilar. All those years ago, when a supermoon filled the night sky.”
She sucked in a breath.
He gestured toward the darkening horizon. “He targets Apache girls. We’ve got two days to stop him before the second of this year’s tetrad, another Apache Moon, comes round again.”
Could the serial be the monster who destroyed her life? Pilar fought to steady herself. Was this a chance to, once and for all, end the nightmare she’d been living? To make sure he never hurt anyone else the way he’d hurt her?
She schooled her features. “Okay. I’m in.”
“Good.” His brow creased, Alex examined her a moment before glancing away. “Team meeting at the tribal station at eight a.m. sharp. Then I need to interview the canyonland neighbor.”
He leaned across her and threw open the door. “Tell Manny we’ll finish the game we started soon as I get a chance.”
The door dinging, she inched past him. His overwhelming physical presence as usual weakened whatever resolve she ever drummed up concerning him.
“And Pilar?”
One foot on the running board, she paused, clutching the folder to her chest.
“I’ve always believed you and I make a great team.”
***
Alex drove a further twenty-odd miles southeast toward his grandmother’s ranch. Passing under the crossbars of the bull and the T for Torres, he reckoned his abuela counted him first and foremost among the bullheaded.
The headlights swept the sprawling adobe ranch.
He’d spent time in a multitude of countries, yet here’s where he considered home.
Because here he first met Pilar.
Parking in the circle drive, Alex laid his forehead on the steering wheel.
God, how he loved her. How he’d always loved her. And seeing her again after all these years?
She reduced him to feeling like the same gawky teenager he’d been when he dared to reach for barely understood dreams and failed so miserably. His stomach knotted—when he’d failed her so miserably.
He’d lived the last decade and a half in a sort of sensory deprivation. Only today had the colors of the sky and desert sprung to life once more for him. And with his nerve endings no longer numb, he felt a raw, searing hurt every time he looked at her.
Every time she glared at him with such icy hatred, his gut clenched at what his irreparable mistakes cost them. Cost her.
The front door opened, spilling light onto the wooden planks of the veranda. And the diminutive form of his grandmother stepped into the night air.
She motioned. “Come, mi nieto. Tell me about this long-awaited reunion between you and your Pilar.”
If only she were still his . . .in every way that mattered.
His grandmother sat down in a rocker at the corner of the porch. She patted the rocker’s twin and he sank down.
“Knowing Pilar, I’m going to hazard a guess she’s livid with me for not warning her you were taking this case.”
He scrubbed his face. “Livid’s not the half of it. Although, most of her rage is rightly aimed at me.”
Isabel Torres sighed. “Despite my best efforts over the years, I’m afraid our Pilar doesn’t do forgiveness. Only revenge.”
“Don’t know why we’d expect anything different.” He dropped his chin. “Vengeance, after all, is the Apache Way, isn’t it?”
“It is the human way.” Abuela wrapped the fringed shawl closer around her shoulders. “It will be good for Pilar to have you here. But her anger’s far better than the state she was in when she first returned. After . . .”
He gripped the rocker. “I pursued this case because it’s a chance to put things right, Abuela.” He grimaced. “As right as they can ever be between Pilar and me.”
She rested her blue-veined hand on his. “It is good this thing you do. You will bring justice and healing to Pilar. It is long past time for the both of you to move forward with your lives.”
And what if moving forward involved someone with Pilar other than him?
His heart squeezed.
Alex had blown his chance with her. Pilar deserved closure and so much more. A chance at happiness.
His grandmother stilled. “I was so worried about Pilar then. She’d gone inside herself somewhere, and no one could reach her. Not Byron, nor I. We were so afraid . . .” Abuela’s voice trembled. “I’m fairly certain she was hurting herself. To release the inner pain.”
Shrinking inside himself, he closed his eyes.
“Having Manny in her life has been her salvation. He kept her from the brink of the abyss. And I don’t think she’s . . .” Again, his grandmother faltered. “I don’t think she’s done those things to herself in a long while. Manny gave her a reason to live, to get up in the morning. A purpose greater than herself.”
Alex set the rocker in motion. “When Byron called me, he said Manny was in trouble.”
“She and Manny need your help. Manny may be the only way to get through to Pilar. Though our rather-take-a-fist-in-the-mouth Pilar is never going to admit to that.”
“I think fist-in-my-face is the way Pilar’s leaning right now, Abuela.”
Isabel laughed and sounded younger than her years. “That’s the Pilar we know and love, isn’t it, Nieto.”
“She’s determined to keep me at arm’s length for the duration of this investigation.”
“After losing both parents early, she’s spent a lifetime erecting barricades.” Abuela rose, her joints creaking. “You’ll find a way to breach her defenses. You always do.”
She smiled. Her teeth flashed white in the darkness of the night. “You’ve always been the chink in her armor.”
“Her downfall, too.”
“You must stop punishing yourself. Not everything was your fault.”
She planted a quick kiss on his forehead. “Your parents and I were equally afraid we’d lost you, too, back then. Afraid your self-flagellating penance would bring you home in a body bag.”
Alex would never tell Abuela or his parents how close he’d come to dying on a dusty battlefield in the Helmand Province. Later after his Quantico training, he’d poured himself into his undercover work in Mexico, battling not only the insidious evil of the cartels but also his own despair and self-loathing.
But he’d not understood why he’d survived when so many good men hadn’t, until Byron called him a month ago with an opportunity for absolution.
Absolution was all Alex dared to imagine.
“God has a plan for you and Pilar, Alex.” His grandmother placed her cool, dry hand against his cheek. “Plans for a future and a hope. He’s not done with either of you yet. Hang on to your faith. Don’t let go of it or her.”
Faith—hard won and wrested from the brink of his personal abyss.
An owl hooted.
His grandmother straightened. Venturing to the edge of the porch, she gazed into the inky blackness of the desert night. She lifted her face and sniffed the air. A strange look crossed her lined, broad-planed face.
“What is it, Abuela? Can you smell the rain coming?”
Isabel was legendary for reading the natural signs of her desert homeland. Drought or thunderstorm. Tornado or blue skies. She had married the only son of the powerful Don Torres and, after her husband’s early death, had been the driving force behind the success of the Torres family brand.
“Not rain. But something is a-coming.” She tucked her hands into her elbows. “Something not good.”
He darted a glance at the foreboding tone of her voice.
She shooed him toward the door. “Get some rest. You’ve got a busy day ahead of you tomorrow.”
“Aren’t you coming, Abuela?”
“Not right this minute. Going to commune with nature a bit longer. But I’ll be in soon, I promise.”
Over the years, he’d seen her do her “communing” countless times. As if she put out her antennae to things only she could see.
She stood where he’d left her, poised and alert on the top step. Her stance guarded. Her head with its elegant silver chignon tilted as if she listened.
Listened to what? Alex wondered as he closed the door softly.
To sounds only she could hear.
