The Lion's Den: The 'impossible to put down' must-read gripping thriller of 2020

by Katherine St. John

  Up ahead a sign flashed ENTERING MEXICO, BE PREPARED TO STOP. I saw the weigh station and a number of booths with border agents, police SUVs with dogs searching cars, lights flashing.

  We rolled up to the green-uniformed officer guarding our lane, his hand on the butt of his gun. He motioned for me to roll down the window, and I did, smiling. I handed him our passports and he stooped and looked me up and down, then glanced around me at Eric, who waved.

  “Any fruits or vegetables?” the officer asked.

  I did my best impression of nonchalance. “No.”

  He returned our passports without so much as glancing at them, and waved us on. “Welcome to Mexico.”

  I rolled up the window and pulled away, exhaling a sigh of relief.

  Eric took a crumpled piece of notebook paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “Can I see your phone?”

  I handed him the phone and he punched in an address scribbled on the paper. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Rosarito. It’s a beach town just south of Tijuana.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “It’s fine,” he replied.

  “That’s where the doctor is?”

  “Yes. I’ll see him tomorrow. I’m feeling better, though. You did a good job patching me up.”

  I glanced at him. “That’s the painkillers talking,” I said. “You’re still going to the doctor.”

  He consulted the phone. “Go left here.”

  I followed his directions into the setting sun as he scrolled through the channels on the radio, landing on a traditional mariachi station. My phone dinged in his hand. He raised his eyebrows. “You got a text from Summer.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “ ‘Hey, girl.’ ” He put on his best Summer voice. “ ‘John’s leaving Sunday if you wanna come out for the week. LMK.’ ” He dropped the valley-girl accent. “Smiley winky face with heart.”

  “Text her back, ‘Go to hell, bitch. You tried to murder Eric and pin it on me.’ ”

  His fingers moved across the screen. “No!” I cried. “I was joking!”

  “Oops. Already sent.” He saw the petrified look on my face and laughed. “I’m kidding. I didn’t send anything. What do you want me to say?”

  I thought for a minute. “ ‘Headed out to Lake Havasu to visit Grannie in her new condo, hit you up when I’m back.’ Winky smiley face with heart.”

  “You two are all about that winky smiley face with heart,” he said, typing the message into the phone. “Take a right up there at the gate.”

  I turned onto a wide cobblestone drive with a guardhouse in the center, flanked by two big white arches. A fat guard in a white uniform opened the window of the guardhouse as we approached. Eric leaned across me. “Vamos 78 Calle Costa Azul, invitados Eduardo Garcia.”

  “Nombre?” the guard asked.

  “Raphael Sanzio,” Eric said.

  The guard checked his list, then opened the gate. “Izquierda en la fuente.”

  The road gently sloped down toward where the orange-and-pink sky met the tranquil sea, leveling out at a big fountain, lit blue. I turned left and bumped along between the pristine white hacienda bungalows that lined both sides of the road.

  “That’s it.” Eric indicated a bungalow on the ocean side.

  I parked the car in the carport and got out and stretched, then unloaded my overnight bag from the back and lugged it up the steps while he unlocked the blue door.

  Inside, light from the sunset spilled through double sliding glass doors into the open living room. A colorful rug was strewn across the terra-cotta floor, and traditional Mexican blankets in deep hues of turquoise and red hung on the walls over white couches. I dropped my bag and beelined for the sliding glass doors.

  Eric and I stood side by side at the terrace railing, looking out at the ocean. The air was thick with salty sea mist. A set of stairs led down to a sandy beach that stretched fifty feet to where the waves crashed.

  “Raphael Sanzio?” I asked. “At the gate.”

  “My new name, thanks to George.” He laughed. “The Renaissance—”

  “Painter, yeah, I know.” I laughed.

  “You know your art history,” he said, impressed. “You don’t have to know history to know who Raphael is. He’s a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, for chrissakes.”

  “Summer didn’t.”

  “And here I thought you liked her for her brain.” I turned and walked inside.

  He followed me into the kitchen, where I opened cabinets, hunting for the liquor. “You were fooled by her, too,” he pointed out.

  I found a nearly full bottle of silver tequila and held it up triumphantly. “True.” I set it on the blue tiled counter with a clink. “And I wasn’t even getting blowies from her.”

  When I looked up, he’d disappeared. I took out two margarita glasses and filled them with ice from a bag in the freezer, then poured hefty shots over the ice.

  Eric entered to find me rummaging through the cabinets in search of mixers. He dumped a pile of limes on the counter, laughing when he saw my expression. “There’s a tree out front.”

  I sliced up limes and squeezed the juice over the ice. “To your new life as a Renaissance man,” I said, handing him a glass.

  He smiled and held my gaze. “Thank you again.”

  I ripped my eyes away and stared into my drink, pushing away the memory of his lips on mine. “You don’t have to keep thanking me.”

  I studied the smashed lime floating in my tequila, struck by the thought that if Summer had tried to murder him and pin it on me, I probably didn’t need to worry anymore about ruining our friendship by dating him.

  The possibility lit in my chest a desire so strong, I had to walk away. I headed to the bathroom, where I stared at my face in the mirror and promised myself I wouldn’t make any rash decisions. I felt sure he’d sleep with me right now if I gave him the chance, but I’d actually come to value Eric’s friendship, and I certainly didn’t want to ruin it over sex. Because, no matter that he’d come to me for help, no matter that I meant that much to him at least—the rest was still true: Eric had never been the type of guy who was looking for a serious relationship, and I had no interest in having my heart broken by him.

  Once I’d gotten ahold of myself, I joined him on the balcony, where we sipped our cocktails, watching the light bleed from the sky. The tequila burned down my throat all the way to my belly. Emboldened by the alcohol, I ventured another of the questions that had been gnawing at me.

  “What happened with John and your mom?” I knew I was prying, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  “My mom grew up poor in Paris. John swept her off her feet, knocked her up with me, moved her to New York. Then, when she was six months’ pregnant, she found out he was married.”

  “To Dylan’s mom?”

  He nodded. “My mom couldn’t work in the US without the green card he never delivered, and he wouldn’t let her leave the country with me, so she was completely dependent on him. He liked it that way. She lived in one of his apartments; he gave her just enough money to scrape by. He controlled her and abused her, mentally and physically. She had to be a certain weight; she wasn’t allowed to see other men. She became depressed. She drank, started popping pills. When I was eleven, I came home from school one day to find her in the bathtub with her wrists slit.”

  My hand went to my heart. “God, Eric, I’m so sorry.”

  “It was his fault. He made her miserable.”

  No wonder he hated his father so much. “Where did you live after that?” I asked.

  “John sent me to live with his mother in France,” he said. “Ironic because all my mother had ever wanted was to return to France. He was never around, but my grandmother was wonderful, and Dylan would come visit during the summer. Dyl hated John almost as much as I did.”

  “Does he hate him still?”

  “I guess not,” Eric said. “For enough money, anyone can be bought.”

  “Not you, appare
ntly.”

  “Not by his money. Because it comes with strings. He’s a puppeteer, and I don’t want to be his puppet.” He drained his drink and leaned his forearms on the railing, his head hanging between them. “I would like to take it away from him, though,” he muttered.

  “Is your grandmother still alive? Could she help you?”

  He nodded. “She’s in her nineties, still sharp. She owns a lot of stock in the company, but she hasn’t been involved for years. She knows John’s not the most honest businessman, but she doesn’t know the extent of it, and I haven’t told her because there was nothing she could do. I was planning to share what John was guilty of once I had the evidence in hand, but I never got the chance.”

  “And now?”

  “I’d never risk putting her in danger.” He rubbed his temples, clearly spent.

  “You’re exhausted,” I said. “And I’m not helping, asking you so many questions. You should get some sleep. Take the bed. You’re in far worse shape than I am.”

  He looked up, mischief in his eyes. “You can sleep in it, too. I don’t bite—unless asked.”

  The heat in my chest flared; my resolution wavered. I looked out at the crashing waves, knowing that all I had to do was turn my face toward him . . . and this time we wouldn’t have to stop. But it had been a long twenty-four hours, we were in an extreme situation, and neither of us was thinking clearly right now. So as much as I wanted him, I gathered my resolve and laughed it off, never meeting his eye. “Thanks, but I’ve got enough hand-me-downs from Summer.”

  “Yeah, I guess I don’t need any more from my brother, either,” he returned with a smile.

  “Touché,” I said.

  In the morning, we drove thirty minutes north to the doctor George had recommended. I’d assumed, because we were paying cash for off-the-books treatment in Tijuana, that his office would be as sketchy as the transaction, but it wasn’t. Far from it. The lobby boasted polished tile floors and marble counters topped with fresh flowers, the leather couches were comfortable, and racks displayed every tabloid under the sun, in both Spanish and English.

  After a torturous two hours of failing to distract myself with magazines, finally the office door opened and I looked up to see a smiling Eric. His arm was in a sling and he was sporting fresh bandages. “Broken collarbone, three ribs, stress fracture in my thumb, and a sprained ankle.” He beamed. “And they dressed all the cuts. The arm was a little infected, but they cleaned it out and gave me antibiotics.”

  “The nose?”

  “Broken, but will probably heal fine, so they don’t need to rebreak it. And my cheekbone is broken, but it’s sitting in place, so as long as I don’t cage-fight for a while, I’ll be okay.”

  I must have looked at him funny, because he clarified. “I don’t cage-fight. That was a joke. Doctor was shocked I was in such good shape, given the fall. Wanna grab a margarita and lunch?”

  “How’s the pain?”

  “Not great, but better than it was. He gave me a prescription for painkillers, but I don’t want them. I’m my mother’s son—I like them too much. I’d rather hit the tequila.”

  We ordered lunch from a taco truck and carried it back to the house, where we sat at the table on the terrace in the shade of a big umbrella. Eric mixed margaritas for us while whistling “Margaritaville,” buoyant with the knowledge that he had no internal bleeding, no badly infected wounds, and fewer than expected broken bones.

  Gazing out at the ocean, I could almost forget the circumstances of our bizarre little vacation. But I was going to have to go home and face the music tomorrow, and he wasn’t going to be able to live off a hundred thousand dollars for the rest of his life. Not even in Mexico.

  He raised his glass. “To heaven.”

  “More like purgatory,” I returned. “It can’t last forever.”

  “We can pretend,” he countered.

  “You need a plan.”

  “Who says I don’t already have one?”

  I raised my brows.

  “I’m going to stake my claim on Lionshare Holdings.”

  “How? I thought you didn’t want it. And he’s not about to give it to you, not anymore.”

  “I don’t want it; I just want to watch him lose it.”

  “But you need leverage,” I said. “Right now you have none.”

  He nodded. “That’s why it does me more good for Summer to think she got away with it, and for her to stay with my father. She’s my in.”

  “I don’t follow. You no longer have access to her,” I pointed out. He looked at me purposefully. Right. “But . . . I do.” Now I understood. My heart sank. “I’m your plan.”

  So this was why he’d come to me; this was why he’d been flirting with me. Of course. How could I have been so stupid?

  “Summer told me she was taking you and some other girls on a trip aboard his yacht in a couple of weeks, right? It would be the perfect opportunity. . . .”

  “Fuck you.” I pushed away from the table. “I can’t believe I trusted you.”

  “Belle, I promise you can trust—”

  “Why don’t you go ask your brother? He knows much more about your dad and his corruption, I’m sure, than Summer does.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “Just because he’s at your dad’s company doesn’t mean he’s become your dad,” I challenged. “The way Dylan put it to me, he wanted to grow up, take responsibility, take advantage of the opportunities available to him. That’s not evil; that’s smart. Maybe it would do you some good to take a page from his book and grow up yourself.”

  “Belle,” he said quietly.

  I recognized that I was hurt and lashing out, but he was using me. “You’re jealous of him because he’s actually making something of himself, and you’ve just come to me because you thought I’d be an easier mark. But guess what? You were wrong.”

  He drew back, looking out at the sea, silent. I was so angry, I felt physically ill.

  Finally he spoke. “I’m sorry I’m not my brother,” he muttered.

  “And I’m sorry I’m not Summer,” I snapped. I pushed back from the table. “I need to be getting back to LA. Good luck with your scheme.”

  I stormed inside without a backward glance. He didn’t follow me, didn’t try to stop me as I gathered my things and chucked them into my car, didn’t chase after the Prius as I pulled away, glancing furtively in the rearview mirror.

  Day 7

  Friday evening—Ligurian coast, Italy

  After the twenty-four hours I’ve had, the lazy pace of a seaside village in the late afternoon feels like a dream. Remnants of the adrenaline that has kept me in motion all day still surge through my veins, making me jumpy, and I’m so exhausted that my whole body is buzzing, my thoughts a jumbled mess. Your sister is on her way to your grandmother’s. What did Vinny mean by that? Remember why you’re here. What does he know?

  I can’t be sure I can trust him, but there’s no time to worry about it now. I have to keep moving. I need to get to the train station.

  It can’t be that difficult to find, right? This place isn’t exactly a sprawling metropolis. I survey the old-world buildings that line the sundrenched seaport and head toward what I’m guessing is the center of town, scanning the passing faces for hostility.

  There’s a group of teenage girls huddled together on a bench giggling over a cell phone, a couple making out with abandon in the midst of a crowded restaurant patio, a grown man eating gelato from a cone with gusto. None of them remotely hostile.

  A young woman standing under the red awning of a restaurant offers a menu as I approach. “Treno stazione?” I ask.

  Her face shows concern as she registers my appearance, and she begins to speak in rapid Italian. I stop her apologetically. “No Italiano.”

  Unfazed, she calls back into the restaurant behind her, drops her menus on a table without waiting for an answer, and starts off down the bustling sidewalk, waving for me to follow. When we reach a narro
w alleyway that cuts between two salmon-colored buildings, she gestures that I should go up the alley and make a left at the top.

  “Grazie,” I say, but she’s already jogging back toward her restaurant.

  The brick passageway is shaded and cool. I hurry up the path between the endless rows of vine-covered buildings to a set of stairs that lead up to the left. I follow the steps as my guide suggested, until they empty into a small square arranged around a fountain depicting a man wrestling with a lion.

  On the far side of the square is an archway with a painted green sign above that shows a picture of a train.

  I hasten across the square into the tunnel beyond the arch. The walls are rough-cut stone, the domed ceiling up-lit with blue lights. My beaten sandals slap the flagstone, echoing down the corridor as I push on for what must be a hundred yards or more, until it opens into a light-filled chamber with vaulted ceilings and brushed-concrete floors.

  The station isn’t crowded: a few people mill about reading their cell phones; a backpacker is asleep on a bench, his head resting on his pack in the unguarded way only a man can doze in public. To my right under a board announcing train schedules is the ticket booth, facing three sets of double doors flung open to the track beyond.

  I’m nearly certain passport checks aren’t mandatory between Italy and France, but I’m obviously going to have a problem if a spot check is conducted at any point. There’s no way around it, though. I guess I’ll just have to somehow elude the passport inspectors if that happens.

  I study the board, unable to find La Quessine or Saint-Tropez. From the map, it looks like the closest station is a place called Saint-Raphaël Valescure, which I’m guessing is still a good hour from La Quessine by car, but it’ll have to do.

  The uniformed man in the booth looks up as I approach. “Ciao,” I say, smiling. “Uno ticket por treno a Saint-Raphaël Valescure.”

  Thankfully, he seems to understand my pigeon Italian. “A che ora?” He points to the board.

  The next train is at 14:59, arriving at Saint-Raphaël after one change at 20:07. I’ll just have to pray I have enough money left for a cab and that I find a driver willing to floor it to La Quessine to get me there by nine.