Caballo Security Box Set

by Camilla Blake

  “Promise me you’re never alone,” my father said, the concern burning over the miles between us. “Promise me you’re being careful.”

  “I’m okay, Daddy. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “But I do worry about you. You’re my whole world.”

  I leaned over my knees, watching my toes as I dug them deep into the wet sand. “Not the whole thing. You have Leesa and the company and Scott. You wouldn’t be alone if something happened to me.”

  “Let’s just not find out, okay?”

  “Is something going on, Daddy? Is there something wrong with you and Leesa?”

  He cleared his throat in this way that I knew better than the sound of his voice. It was a nervous sort of tick, a sound that always preceded bad news. He’d made that sound before telling me I had to have surgery on my tonsils; he’d made it before telling me my favorite pet hamster had died. And he’d made it the night he’d told me he’d decided to ask Leesa to marry him, though that was a good sort of nervousness.

  “There’s been a bit of an issue that we’ve had a disagreement over.”

  “An issue?”

  “It’s complicated, Valerie. A marriage thing. I’m hoping we can work through it, but you can never predict how these things will go.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked, my throat constricting a little. “Has there been a discussion about divorce?”

  “No. Definitely not. We’re just… It’s a rough patch, that’s all.”

  “Does it have something to do with Scott?”

  He hesitated again, making that same sound. I knew I was right even as he said, “I’d rather not go into details right now.”

  “Daddy, I—”

  “Just promise me you’ll come back in one piece, darlin’.”

  “I promise.”

  I held the phone between my hands for a long time after he disconnected the call, thinking about all he’d said. I was beginning to wonder if things were more serious than I’d taken them to be when he’d first mentioned there might be something wrong at GME. Scott had passed it off like it was nothing, like it had nothing to do with him. But if our parents were disagreeing over it—I mean, come on, Scott’s confession about the money problems the nonprofit was having, and my dad’s mentioning of problems had to be one in the same thing—right? It must be serious.

  How did my dad and Leesa even know about it? Had Scott gone to them for help?

  “You’ve been down here a long time,” TJ said, dropping a sweater over my shoulders as he fell to his knees beside me. “You must be cold.”

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “You think too much. And thinking is the number one cause of stress, you know.”

  I smiled, but it was a superficial sort of smile.

  “What’s going on? Is everything okay back home?”

  TJ has worked for me since I opened my practice. We know each other pretty well, and he’s met every member of my family. If there was anyone I felt safe confiding in, it was TJ. But this felt like something I needed to process before I told anyone else about it.

  I was forming the words to express that when I spotted movement near the rocky cliff that encapsulated this small beach. I tilted my head as if that would give me better vision, staring at the spot until the movement came again.

  “I think someone’s standing over there.”

  TJ immediately turned. “Hey!” he called, climbing to his feet. He moved forward a few feet, headed toward the spot, toward the dark shadow. But then a man moved around the same outcropping of rocks, a dog on a leash dragging him forward.

  “Just a dog walker.”

  TJ held out a hand to me, prepared to walk me back up to the rental that was parked on the street above the beach, back to the condo where Taylor and Scott were making dinner together. But my eyes traveled back to that shadow, convinced there’d been someone there, and that he was still there.

  The hairs on the back of my neck rose again. This feeling of being watched seemed to be following me, like a nightmare I couldn’t quite shake. No matter how often I told myself it was just my imagination, that it was just my father’s strange paranoia, I couldn’t stop thinking that someone had been in the trees last night and someone was standing in the shadows of the rocks; someone was watching me.

  ***

  It rained over the next few days, drenching the patients who had to wait outside the clinic before coming in, and stranding us at the condo when we weren’t caring for the people of Pochutla. I’d been uncomfortable with the heat, but the wet was twice as bad, raising the humidity and making everything reek of mildew like we were all just a group of wet dogs.

  I’d taken to sneaking out the side door of the clinic, standing under the narrow eave of the small porch to listen to the rainfall. Scott found me out right away, coming to stand with me whenever he was free.

  “How bad is it?” I finally asked him two days after my conversation with my dad.

  “How bad is what?”

  “Your troubles.”

  He glanced at me, a charming smile slipping across his pretty face. “I don’t have trouble, babe. You know me. I have a way of getting out of everything.”

  “Scott, I know—”

  He pulled me into his arms and rocked me lightly in the rain-cooled air. “Remember when we first met? Remember how you let me dominate you on that stupid PlayStation game?”

  “I knew you were nervous. I wanted to make you feel more comfortable.”

  “I wasn’t nervous. I was damn intimidated! My mother brings me to her boyfriend’s house and it turns out to be a freaking mansion? And this daughter of his, with every game system, every game any normal teenage boy could possibly want? I wanted to hate you, wanted to be so jealous of everything you had and didn’t seem to have earned in any way, yet you were so nice to me that I couldn’t help but see what my mom saw in you and your dad.”

  “I was an only child whose only desire was to have a sibling. You were like a walking, talking Christmas wish come true.”

  “Yeah. So were you, in a way.” He dropped a kiss on the side of my neck. “I couldn’t have asked for a better sister or a better life than the one your dad gave me and my mom. I will always be incredibly grateful for the way the two of you welcomed me into your life.”

  “It’s a two-way street, Scott.”

  He kissed me again, tugging me closer against his chest. “No matter what happens, Valerie, don’t ever doubt that I love you.”

  “I know that. And I’m here for you, no matter what.”

  He was quiet for a moment, holding me hard against him for a long moment. If Taylor could see us, she would be as jealous as all hell. But then he leaned close, his lips next to my ear.

  “The replacement doctor fell through and we can’t get another down here for at least ten days, so I’m going to need you to fill—”

  “Asshole!”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry, kid.”

  I slapped his arms, trying to get him to let me go. But then I stopped, sagging back against him, because he was Scott and because I could never say no to him no matter what. There was no point in getting upset.

  “I love you,” I said instead of the dark, dirty words that originally jumped to the tip of my tongue. “If I didn’t, you’d be a very unhappy man right about now.”

  “I know.” He kissed me one last time, then pushed me away. “Get back to work, doctor!”

  “Go to hell!”

  He laughed as he went back inside, the door quietly swishing to a close behind him. I moved closer to the edge of the small porch, reaching a hand out to feel the cold rain beat against my sweaty palm. The truth was, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I wasn’t chasing down a dozen patients, if I wasn’t worried about someone’s ear infection or someone else’s cough. I was a doctor. This was what I was meant to do.

  I was about to turn, to go back inside, when an arm suddenly came around my shoulders, jerking me back against a hard, male chest
.

  “I’ve got patients, Scott. Let me go inside!”

  Wetness touched my face. I thought for a second it was mist from the rainfall, but then I got a small taste of it and I knew that wasn’t what it was. We’d used chloroform in medical school. I knew the scent of it, the taste of it.

  I jabbed my elbow backward, hard, connecting with this guy right in the celiac plexus, making him grunt as he tried to keep hold of me. I went for a second shot, but the chloroform was beginning to do its job. The edges of my vision began to darken. Just before I lost consciousness completely, I thought I saw… but it couldn’t be…

  Chapter 8

  Oliver

  “It’s going down.”

  Rain made the garage even more unbearable than just the heat had done before. Now there was the moisture, the humidity, and the burning smells of oil and fuel and solvents, making it almost impossible to breathe inside the confines of the garage bay. I stood at the doorway, watching the clinic across the street, again taking note of the vulnerabilities, the faces of the people still waiting in line outside, the faces of the people coming and going in front of the windows.

  I knew today was different. I’d been watching the clinic for days, but I knew today was the day. I watched more intently, took better care to note each of the faces milling around the place. Today was the day everything was either going to sail toward a huge payoff or the day we all got fucked and headed back to jail.

  Today was the day and I was probably more nervous now than I’d been the day I was released from prison.

  I didn’t see it go down, but I saw the signal. I dropped the wrench I’d been unconsciously twisting between my hands, jerking my keys from my pocket. The motorcycle was drenched after sitting out in the gently falling rain all day, but it started up like a clock, the sound of the engine roaring lost in the patter of the rain against the metal roof of the garage. I waited for just a heartbeat, tearing out of the small yard as Miguel came outside, yelling something in Spanish that I didn’t quite catch.

  I caught up with the van just outside of town. Together, we made our way through back roads and over more mud puddles than I ever wanted to see again, threading through the countryside until we reached an abandoned adobe building in the middle of a muddy field that was once a farmhouse and was now just a sad memory of a time gone by.

  They pulled up under an overhang beside the house, a sort of carport designed to shield vehicles from the weather. I drove up behind them and watched as a man jumped out of the van, a gun held low at his side as he approached me. I got off my bike and charged up to him like I owned the whole damn place.

  “Where is she?” I demanded, shaking the rain from my soaked hair. “We need to get this thing going.”

  “¿Quiéncoñoeres?”

  “Yo soy el queva a decirleal jefe quetenegaste a cooperaryjodiste con lalínea de tiempo. ¿nadietedijo lo importantequeesestacronología?”

  I walked up to the asshole asking all the questions and pushed a finger into the center of his chest. “You fuck this up, there won’t be any forgiveness!”

  The two men who’d exited the van behind their buddy touched the weapons strapped to their sides, hesitating as they listened to the exchange. They weren’t sure if I was a good guy or a bad guy. But, hey, I knew about the operation so I must be a good guy—right?

  “El jefe wants this done now! Get the damn girl!”

  Mr. Questions hesitated a second longer, then made a gesture to the men behind him, his eyes never leaving mine.

  “We were told the pickup wouldn’t be for a few hours.”

  “Do you realize how dangerous it is to hold a white woman for that long in a place like this? If anyone saw you drive out here…”

  The guy nodded. “That’s what I told Alejandro.”

  I ran my hands over the top of my head, dragging more wetness from my short cut. “Who do you think called me and demanded I come sooner?”

  The guy nodded, clearly a little relieved to have this whole thing dealt with sooner rather than later. One of his buddies had gone to the back of the van. He returned then with Dr. Valerie Cole in his arms, her body limp, her skin moist from the sweat of the humid day. I watched him, my eyes moving quickly over the length of her, checking for any signs of trauma. There was no blood, no obvious damage. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t hurt.

  “What’d you use on her?”

  “Chloroform.”

  I nodded, wondering if they’d given her too much or too little. Either one wouldn’t be good for me. I strode over and grabbed her out of the man’s arms, tossing her over my shoulder like she didn’t weigh more than a sack of horse feed.

  “¿La llevas a lamoto?”

  “You see anything else?”

  I sat her carefully on the front of the motorcycle, maneuvering her body so that she was sitting up, her body close to the handlebars. I sat behind her, pulling her body back against mine so that her weight was fully on my chest and shoulder. It was going to be tricky, keeping her limp body balanced on the bike, but this was the way it had to be.

  I kicked the bike into life and roared straight through the carport, swerving a little on the wet ground as I took a wide turn back in the right direction. The rain brought Dr. Cole around just enough to put a little strength into her bones. It was more difficult to find the proper road than I’d anticipated, but we found it eventually, the road behind us empty. They hadn’t thought to follow. Alejandro had been correct about the kind of men they were.

  We came upon the airport fifteen minutes after leaving the farmhouse, a full five minutes longer than I’d anticipated. The plane was waiting, sitting at the end of the empty runway, the steps lowered as they waited for us. I cut the engine on the bike and slipped off carefully, holding her upright with my forearm as I did. I lifted her as my friend from the diner came rushing down the steps, running out to meet us.

  “You’re late.”

  “I’m right on time.”

  He stepped out of the way and allowed me access to the plane. I carried her inside, the flight attendant immediately providing a towel to wrap her in. Dr. Cole mumbled as I set her down on the low seat on the far side of the cabin. I rubbed the towel against her chilled skin, watching a little color come into her cheeks as I wiped away the air-conditioning-cooled water.

  “Is she injured?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “We need to get her into some dry clothes.”

  “We need to get into the air first. It’s possible someone at the clinic has already sounded the alarm.”

  My companion hesitated just a split second, then nodded, gesturing to the flight attendant. He immediately went to the front of the cabin and alerted the pilot that we were ready to get underway. The steps were pulled up and my companion got into a seat, fastening his belt as I did the same for Dr. Cole before climbing into a seat of my own. I barely had the seatbelt fastened when the engines raced and the plane bumped over the abandoned runway to gain the speed it needed for takeoff.

  I closed my eyes and held on. There was once a time when I could fly without a single thought to my mortality, but prison had a way of making one realize just how delicate life can be, how easy it is for a life to simply end. I no longer had that thought that I was young, that I had the rest of my life to do the things I wanted to do. I no longer thought I was immortal simply because I was young.

  Life was precious. I wasn’t ready to give it up just yet.

  Dr. Cole moaned again as we gained cruising altitude. I released myself from the seatbelt and moved around to where she lounged, her body slumped in the luxury seat. I checked her pulse, happy to find it strong and steady, before wiping at the moisture still dripping from her hair.

  “We have clothes. Do you want to, or should I?”

  I backed up, glancing at my companion. “Go for it, Akker. You probably know your way around a woman’s clothing better than I do, anyway.” I snatched up the towel that had fallen from Dr. Cole’s lap. “I’
m going to go change my own clothes.”

  The flight attendant held open the pocket door to the small bathroom that took up most of the tail of the plane. I didn’t acknowledge him, wasn’t sure I had the control to acknowledge anyone at that moment. My hands were shaking, my knees knocking. I stood and stared at myself in the small mirror the moment I was alone, wondering what the hell I was thinking when I agreed to get involved in this thing. I was happy, living quietly outside of my prison cell. I didn’t need this, didn’t need the danger or the potential of going back to jail—a Mexican jail at that!

  I turned on the water and ran some over my hands, then splashed it on my face. I needed to get a grip.

  “We’ll be landing in less than twenty minutes,” Akker said when I finally let myself out of the bathroom, clean, dry clothing already raising my temperature back to something almost normal. My hair was still damp, but it was short enough that it would dry in no time now that the humidity had been cut by the air conditioning.

  “How is she?”

  “Unmarked. I think they just used the chloroform like they were told.”

  “Good.”

  I dropped into a chair and settled back, gratefully accepting the hot coffee the flight attendant offered me.

  “This next part is important, Oliver. If someone catches up with you, or if she does something as simple as making a phone call—”

  “You have her phone—right?”

  “I do. But she could get to a landline and undo this whole thing in an instant.”

  “I know that.”

  “You have to convince her of the cover story.”

  “Do you think I’ve never done this sort of thing before, Akker? I know what I’m doing.”

  “I know you think you do, but things have changed in the past two years.”

  “Thank you for that reminder. I hadn’t realized in the last five seconds.”

  I glared at him, this tall, dark-haired fellow with his marines’ stance and his commanding demeanor. We’d been what someone might consider friends a while back, but that was a while back.