Chapter 4
I rode back down through the hills in a daze, going over the basics―again and again―trying to absorb them, trying to make them fit a pattern that would give me an easy out. I wasn't going to do it. I knew that. I had no desire to break my most basic rule, especially not if the target was Bella.
Shit, I'd never met a target before the job, certainly never spent the night in the same room with one, definitely never had one fix my bike. If she hadn't been female, it might, might, have been a different story, but she was, so that was the end of it.
And I had no desire to join Mala's payroll, to become his personal assassin. That wasn't me. This was a part-time job, a freelance thing I did to help make ends meet. I had no desire to go pro. In fact, it was high time I got out of the business altogether. But it was too late to just walk away, I realized with a sinking feeling in my gut. The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that there was only one possible course of action.
Before I knew it, I was back in Medina and on the road up to Juanita's.
"Juanita!" I turned off my bike and took the stairs to the front door in one jump. "Juanita!"
"Eduardo! What are you doing?" Juanita pushed through the curtain into the lobby.
"Where's Bella?"
"Bella?"
"Bella! Where's Bella?"
"In her room."
"Where?" I pushed through the curtain and turned right. I knew the customers' rooms were on the left and assumed the girls' were on the right, but I'd never been in this wing of the house and had no idea how to find a specific room.
"At the end, the one of the left." Juanita pointed down the hallway, her expression worried. "What's wrong, Eduardo?"
I didn't answer her, just headed down the hall. When I got to the last door on the left, I tried the knob, but it was locked. "Bella"―I pounded on the door―"it's me, Edward. Let me in."
"Edward?" I heard her surprised voice on the other side of the door. I heard the lock flick and she peeked out at me. "You said you weren't coming back."
"I wasn't, but I did. Let me in. I have to talk to you."
She hesitated, but finally opened the door wide enough to let me enter. I looked briefly around her room. It was small and undecorated, just a narrow bed and a table. When I turned to her, she was in her flight position, her hands on the knob behind her, her face a question mark.
Where to begin? I ran my hands through my hair, again frustrated by my inability to gather my thoughts. Finally, I just said what had been at the forefront of my mind since leaving Dos Pinos. "We have to leave."
"What?"
"You have to leave here, with me. Now or tonight―or maybe tomorrow, but we have to go."
"I can't."
"You have to."
Something gave a little in her posture. "Mala will find me. There's no point in running."
The last thing I expected was this indifference, this lack of hope. Where was the girl who'd thrown whiskey in my face last night, who'd tried to get in the first blow?
"You should be afraid of me right now." I took a step toward her.
"Why?"
"Because this time Mala sent me." It came out more threatening than I'd intended, but damn it, I hated the way she was wilting into herself.
Her eyes narrowed and she let go of the doorknob, pulling herself straighter and making fists with her hands. Ah, this was more like it.
"You son of a bitch. You goddamn son of a bitch. I fixed your fucking bike! And for what? So you could get your marching orders and come back here to torture me? I'm not going anywhere with you―you … you can go to hell!" Her eyes were scanning the room, most likely looking for a weapon, but there was nothing but a pile of paperback books on the table. She eyed them, no doubt wondering how much damage they could inflict.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Bella. I got my marching orders, yes, but I had no idea until today my boss was Mala. None, I swear. And I didn't come back to do the job but to get you out of here. He called you a loose end. He wants you dead."
She froze at that, then put her hands up, palms out. "Hold on. Your job is to kill me?"
"I'm not going to do it." I stepped back and watched her face as the reality of her situation swept over her.
"But if you're not going to ..." she thought out loud, still working it out in her head. "If you don't do it, you're just as dead to Mala as I am."
"Yeah, I suppose so." It was true, but why was she talking about me?
I watched her eyes widen. "So I wouldn't have to worry about you. He'll want you dead, too."
"What do I have to do with it?"
"Mala told me if I ever tried to escape he'd kill not just me, but every single person who helped me, even people he wasn't sure about. That's what's been keeping me here. I didn't want anyone else to get hurt. But you, if you're not going to kill me, he'll want you dead, too."
"Yeah."
"But that still leaves Juanita and the other girls. When he finds out I'm gone, he'll take it out on them."
"Not if he thinks I did the job."
She didn't answer me for at least a minute, just stood there looking at me while she absorbed what I'd said.
"So you're going to pretend to kill me?"
"It's the only way. If he thinks you're dead, he won't send another hit on you, and he won't have any reason to retaliate against Juanita."
She nodded, getting her head around the obvious. "And he won't come after you, either."
I shook my head in exasperation. "Will you stop thinking about me? I can take care of myself. It's you we have to focus on." I took a step toward her, and watched her tense up again. "Look, I can't force you to come with me, but you'd be stupid not to. I don't understand why you're hesitating."
"I'm hesitating because I'm not stupid. How do I know you're telling me the truth?"
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe you did take the job. Maybe this is the first part, to get me to leave with you."
Was she serious? I moved until I was standing right in front of her, and looked down into her eyes. She was still tense, but her fear had been replaced with defiance. "Bella," I said through gritted teeth, "if I'd taken the job, you wouldn't be standing here right now. I don't work that way. I don't talk to my targets first, I don't tell them what I do, and I don't try to convince them to go anywhere with me."
She kept her eyes on mine, reading my sincerity. "Okay, then tell me why you didn't take the job."
"I don't do women."
"Why didn't you just leave, why did you come back here for me?"
I let out a breath and stepped back, rubbing the back of my neck. "Can I sit down?" I gestured toward the bed and she nodded.
"I came back because you surprised me last night."
"Last night?"
"And this morning, when you fixed my chain."
She crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one leg. "That doesn't answer my question."
"It's not often someone surprises me, and you've managed to do it twice." I couldn't help but smile when she arched a brow. I felt like I was being interrogated by the world's youngest, prettiest D.A. "And if I leave without doing the job, Mala will just send someone else."
She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, her tension visibly dissipating. "Okay. I believe you. So now what?"
"Mala wants you dead, tonight, and he wants me to bring him proof tomorrow."
"Proof? What kind of proof?" She sat on the other end of the bed, bringing one of her legs underneath her so that she was facing me. "How are you supposed to bring him proof if you're not really going to do it?"
I leaned back against the wall. "He said a photo would do. If we stage it well enough, hopefully he'll fall for it. I'll take you somewhere safe when we're done."
"Somewhere safe?"
"Yeah, is there somewhere safe you want to go? Family, friends?"
She shook her head. "The police, I guess." She sounded unsure.
"The police?" My eyebrows shot up.
"They've got to be looking for me."
"Why?"
"Mala kidnapped me."
"He kidnapped you?"
"I don't know what else you'd call it." She looked at me carefully, her brows furrowed. "And …"
"And what?" I prompted, her voice having given out.
"And he killed my mother." She said it quietly, her eyes still on mine.
"What? He killed your mother?"
"Well, it was either him or one of the two other men. I didn't actually see it happen." Her voice dropped again and she looked down at the bedspread. "I was in the living room."
"When did this happen?"
"I guess I've been here almost a month now."
"Here?"
"I've been here at Juanita's ever since that night."
"Why did Mala kidnap you?"
"I don't know. Well, at first I didn't know."
I rubbed my face. This wasn't making any sense. If Bella had witnessed her mother's murder, why hadn't Mala killed her as well? Why would he bring her here, keep her here for a month, and then call me to do it?
"Bella, I think before we start planning to get you out of here, I'd better know exactly what happened."
She hesitated, her fingers picking at the bedspread. "Okay."
When she didn't continue, I realized maybe that was asking too much. "Never mind. You don't have to tell me."
"No, it's not that I don't want to, or that I don't trust you." She looked at me apologetically. "I haven't told anyone what happened that night, and it's just hard to find the words to start."
"Take your time," I gave her a small smile of encouragement. She nodded and smiled back.
"Okay. I was living with my mom in Phoenix. I'd moved in just a couple weeks before to go to vet school at ASU this fall. The night it happened, we were going to watch a movie together, have margaritas―a girls' night―Mom wanted to celebrate something that had happened at her work. So we were just getting started when the doorbell rang. Mom went to get it." She paused and squeezed her eyes shut. "I heard a man's voice and then what sounded like a shot." She opened her eyes and looked at me. "I ran into the hall, and there were three men in the doorway, and my mom was on the floor. There was blood ..." She dug her hands into the bedspread. "The men looked surprised to see me there. I didn't even think about what I did next." She looked stricken. "I just ran."
"That's what anyone would do."
"Still, I just left her there."
"You couldn't do anything but save yourself. It's instinct. Trust me. I know."
She weighed my words carefully and actually seemed reassured.
"So I ran back through the living room, out the patio, through the yard … I got to the street, looking for help, anybody, but no one was there. I could hear someone chasing me, so I kept going until I got to the store―the convenience store on the corner. I'd just gotten under its lights, when whoever was chasing me caught up to me. He grabbed me and stuck a gun here." She put a hand on her ribcage. "I was sure he was going to kill me. I was sure of it. But instead, a second later a car pulled up to the curb and he pushed me in the back seat. He hit me on the head with the gun, really hard, like he was trying to knock me out. I curled up in the corner and pretended he had so that he wouldn't hit me again."
"Good thinking." Damn, she was smart.
"We drove all night. The other two men were in the front seats, all of them arguing in Spanish. The driver was on the phone a lot, but I couldn't tell what they were talking about. When it started getting light, I tried to peek out the window, look for road signs, trying to figure out where we were, but the guy next to me noticed and hit me with the gun again. Asshole."
I couldn't help but smirk.
"I curled up again, and the next thing I knew, we were here."
"Juanita's?"
She nodded. "The driver went in, then came back out and dragged me into this room. I've been here ever since."
"So you had no idea who these guys were, why they shot your mother?"
"No idea at all. Why would anyone kill her? She was a nurse, a good person." She looked sad but also determined not to cry. I supposed after a month, she'd done her grieving.
"So where does Mala come in?"
"He was the driver, the one in charge. When he threw me in here, he said he'd kill me if I tried to escape, kill everyone in the house, burn it down. He spoke in perfect English, and I believed him. Juanita was the only person I saw for the first few days. She brought me meals. She felt so bad for me, I could tell, and I realized I couldn't do anything to escape or he'd kill her. I was trapped."
"And this was a month ago?"
"Yeah, roughly. I don't know what today is."
"September 18th."
"Almost a month, then."
"So what happened next?"
"Well, I had no idea what was going on, and Juanita didn't know anything either. I figured it was a good thing that they hadn't decided to kill me, but I couldn't think of a reason why they hadn't."
"Yeah, I don't get that either."
"Right? There wasn't any reason to keep me alive, none that I could figure out anyway. It wasn't until Mala came back that I knew."
"He came back?"
"Four or five days later, I'm not sure. He came in the room and sat there, right where you are, just staring at me. I stayed as far away from him as I could, but you can see how small this room is. And the way he was looking at me ... I think those five minutes were the most scared I'd ever been in my life, more than when they'd first kidnapped me." She shuddered and crossed her arms. "Then he smiled at me, said he hoped I was comfortable here because I was going to stay a little longer. I said something like people would be looking for me, the police would find me, and he laughed, really hard, like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard."
"He laughed?"
"Yeah, he said something about enemies becoming friends and friends enemies, but I didn't understand what he was talking about, and I didn't want to ask him."
Friends and enemies, he'd said something to me about that, too.
"The next week was terrible. Mala came every day. He'd sit on my bed and look me over, tell me how pretty I was. Tell me how if I cooperated, there was a way out for me. It was beyond creepy. He started using endearments, like we were friends, no, more than friends. The man who'd killed my mother. I couldn't tell if he was being serious or trying to fuck with my head. One second he'd be calling me his pretty niña, and in the next he'd tell me he'd kill me, Juanita, and all the other girls if I tried to escape. I decided he was some kind of psychopath."
I remembered the way he'd clapped my shoulder moments after threatening my life and knew exactly what she was talking about. I nodded for her to go on.
"It seemed best to just let him talk. I almost never answered him except to repeat what he'd said. He thought that was funny. He said I was his pajarita, his little bird. That's what he called me most often, pajarita." She shuddered in disgust. "I hate birds."
"I thought you said you were going to be vet."
"Cats, Edward. Dogs. Nothing with feathers. They're just … stupid."
"Stupid, got it."
She took a breath and continued. "So, after about a week, I guess he decided he'd worked his charm, or maybe he'd taken my relative silence as agreement. I don't know. Maybe he'd just gotten impatient." She was clutching at the bedspread again.
"You don't have to tell me anything that's too difficult." I wasn't sure I wanted to hear this part.
"No, it's not too difficult. He used to walk around me, touching my arms, my hair, nothing too personal but―ugh―it took every inch of my self-control to stand still when he did. Finally one day, he tried to hug me, kiss me … and I kind of went ballistic. I don't know where I found the energy, frankly, since I hadn't been able to eat much since I'd been here, but something inside of me just snapped. The man who killed my mother, thinking he could touch me like that. I attacked him with everything I had."
I couldn't help but smile a little. I bet he never saw that coming.
"He managed to throw me on the floor and just stood there over me, like he was stunned that I'd rejected him. But then he turned into a completely different person. He got angry. He said if he was going to keep his pajarita at a whorehouse, I could start earning my keep. He kicked me, called me a puta, said I'd soon learn what that word meant. He left and I heard him arguing with Juanita. She came in a while later to make sure I was okay and to tell me she was supposed to start sending me customers. I started crying. I said I'd rather Mala just kill me. Juanita told me not worry, that she'd do her best to protect me. That turned out to be the last time I saw him."
"So by this time you'd been here about two weeks?"
"I think so. There isn't that much left to tell you about. The week after that was better because Mala didn't come anymore, and Juanita never sent me to a customer. I didn't know how long that was going to continue, though. Every night I'd lay in bed and try to think of ways to escape, but I could never come up with anything that didn't involve someone helping me. I had nothing―no money, no clothes but the ones I was wearing. Juanita'd told me we were in New Mexico, but I had no idea where. There just didn't seem to be a way out."
I watched her fist the blanket again. "I knew my luck couldn't hold forever and it didn't. One night Juanita tapped on my door and said I had a customer, someone who'd been sent by Mala, asking specifically for me. I knew there wasn't anything she could do. She was as upset as I was, but I told her I'd be okay. Still, it was like being led to the gallows, walking down that hall." She shook her head and laughed at little.
"What's so funny?"
"It was the man who'd ridden in the back seat with me all the way from Phoenix, the one who seemed to like hitting me with his gun. As soon as I recognized him, I punched him in the face. Then I got him with my knee. A lot harder than I got you."
I winced involuntarily.
"He was out of there in less than a minute. But I knew he'd go back to Mala and tell him I still wasn't cooperating and that I'd probably be in worse trouble. I was afraid Mala would send someone tougher, someone who'd be warned that I fought. You were the next customer I had, so I thought that someone was you."
Now I understood why Juanita had sent Bella to my room last night. She was trying to protect her, sending her to someone she trusted. "Why wouldn't you leave last night when I said you could go?"
"I figured if you really weren't from Mala, he could still send someone―but if I was with you, then Mala's man couldn't see me, and it would look like I was cooperating."
I smiled a little, impressed with her thinking. I rubbed my face and rested my head against the wall, suddenly tired again and no nearer to figuring out how to get her out of here.
"You look tired."
"I didn't sleep well last night. Someone kept waking me up." I smiled again, so she would know I wasn't upset but kept my eyes closed.
"I didn't mean to. I really didn't."
"I know. Don't worry. I'm tired but I can function."
We were silent for a couple of minutes, both of us thinking.
"I can't sit here any more."
"What?" I opened my eyes. Bella was off the bed and slipping on her flip-flops.
"I can't sit still when I'm thinking. I'm going to go check your chain. See if it needs cleaning again."
I closed my eyes again, listening to her footsteps clip down the hallway. She needed a pair of real shoes, something she could run in if she had to. I pictured her in some Converse, but she looked too young. Maybe boots. Yeah, that was what she needed - good sturdy hiking boots. No, something with a heel. Better. Much better.
"Edward, wake up."
I opened my eyes, completely sure I hadn't been asleep. Bella was frowning over me, her hand on my shoulder.
"Boots," I answered.
"What?"
"You need some real shoes or boots or something." I rubbed my face, hoping that had sounded passably intelligent.
"Okay." She sounded like she was talking to an idiot, so I guessed not. "But first you need to see something."
"What is it?"
"Something on your bike. Come on."
I followed her down the hall and out to the courtyard. She had the sprocket cover off my bike and my tool kit out.
"It is my chain again?"
"No, something else. Look."
She pointed under the chassis. "This wasn't here this morning."
I squatted down next to her. She was pointing to a tiny rectangle fixed to the bottom of the bike. Shit.
"What is it?"
"A tracking device. Mala must have had it put on when I was at his house."
"Should I take it off?" Her fingers circled it, looking like they were itching to rip it to shreds.
"No, not yet. Let me think." I stood up and looked around the courtyard. "So he knows I'm already here, that I didn't wait until tonight to come. He must be wondering what I'm doing."
"Getting the lay of the land?"
"What land, Bella? There's nothing here but a house full of women. Plus, I told him I knew the place, so there's no reason for me to scope it out."
"Okay, sorry."
"No, it's okay. I'm just trying to get in his head, figure out what he's thinking right now." I kicked some dust. "What would I be doing here other than warning you off or doing the job?"
"You wouldn't be warning me off. You'd be doing the job."
"Yeah. I'd be doing the job."
"In broad daylight?"
"Sometimes. A place as secluded as this, why not?"
"But you're on the books, aren't you? I heard Juanita make the entry this morning when you paid."
I turned and looked at her. "That's it. That's what I'm doing here."
"What? I don't get it."
"I'm cleaning the books or getting Juanita to do it. Erasing my visits, clearing my trail."
"So it will look like you've never been here?"
"Exactly. Mala knows how I am about leaving a paper trail. If he asks, that's what I'll tell him."
Bella started wiping at the chain with a rag, being careful not to touch the tracker. "So what would you do next? After coming here and cleaning the books?"
"I'd leave, go to a motel for the rest of the day. Come back tonight."
"You should do that, then, so Mala doesn't get suspicious."
I watched her keep wiping. We still had a lot of shit to figure out, and I wanted to figure it out together, wanted us to be a hundred percent on the same page when we made our move. I couldn't risk taking her to a motel with me, but she was right, I couldn't leave my bike here all afternoon.
"Do you trust Juanita?"
"Yes, I do." She stopped wiping and looked up at me. "Why?"
"We're going to need another vehicle."
She stood up. "I don't want her to get hurt."
"Don't worry about me, Bella!" We turned and Juanita emerged from the front door. She came down the steps, her pace determined. "I was listening, forgive me. I have a truck you can use."
"Juanita, this could be really dangerous. I can't promise either of you that you won't get hurt."
"Si, Eduardo, I know." She waved aside my warning. "But I was hoping for something like this to happen. Why do you think I sent Bella to you last night? I knew when you pulled up here yesterday, you were the best chance she had at getting out."
Bella and I exchanged glances, both of us confused.
"I knew Bella would put up a fight but also that you wouldn't force her."
"But you still let me pay the full price this morning?"
She shrugged. "Well, I am running a business, Eduardo. A customer tells me he wants to pay the full amount, who am I to argue?"
I couldn't help but smile at her. Bella crossed her arms and looked down, trying harder to hide her own smile.
"I was just hoping that she'd get under your skin, that you'd want to help her. As for Mala, the sooner we get Bella out of here, the sooner he's off my back. So"―she smiled up at me―"what's the plan?"
